Most of the week between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve was spent enveloped in my crispy duck-down duvet. As bedding goes it's quite noisy. It crinkles when I move and crackles the colder it gets outside, yet keeps me toastie warm even when I sleep with my talons splayed out of the bottom of the bed. And so I've been stricken with the 'buckets of snot' virus; so severe a local GP proclaimed it was the 'worst he'd seen for 40 years'. So I took the advice, stayed at home, away from the shops and tried to get better. Or is it sober? I'm not sure. When I did amble downstairs for a hot toddy and some festive cheer, I couldn't help but notice the grim state of festive tele. Particularly, if it had the gurning face of Toby Jones in it, the on switch went off, so that did it for Sherlock and The Witness for the Prosecution. Pity.
For one incredible hour, I was completely hypnotised by a new show called "the World's Most Extraordinary Homes". I'm sure you have something similar in your neck of the woods. You take two unrelated presenters, Caroline & Piers in this series, cobble them together then force them to tour the homes of the super-rich and insist they say "Ooh" and "Ahh" with false enthusiasm every 10 seconds; either that or the BBC had found a bucket of licence payers' money needing to be squandered, seriously. First pick four majestic properties in stunning locations. They don't have to be homes or houses technically, just located in awe-inspiring places that no-one poor can get to without a helicopter. Canyons, forests, earthquake zones, dark side of the moon anyone?
In my Bailey's soaked brain, I definitely heard them say that house No.1's location looked so much like a plane crash from above that it needed 18 different FAA permissions to be built at all. Well, not 'built' exactly but assembled from an old Boeing which had been languishing in an airliner graveyard deep on the border of the Mohave desert. My dormant project management skills sat up and totted up the cost - bits of a plane that had to be cut to size, an architect of international standing all dressed in black to match the owner, 55 acres of Californian hillside to be flattened, wings for the roof that you could have a barbecue on. I stopped counting at $100m, enough to finance the movie La La Land. All this from a former Mercedes saleswoman. My chum's hubby once gave her a cheque for £50K and sent her down to Evans Halsall for a new car. I caught up with her in the wine bar later and was surprised by the depth of her glum-ness.
"What did you get with it?" Something fast, girlie, white perhaps?
"A Mercedes." I knew this already. "It's grey and an old bloke's car."
"Didn't you get a choice of colour even?" She shook her head and downed another large one saying,"His cash ... his colour choice." Oops. And to think I've had my beady eye on the new A class?
There were lots of expletives and noises from our presenters as they were helicoptered in to home No.2 which had been conceived and built by two doctors in the Arizona desert. I liked the 'open on all sides' house with a fake Giant's Causeway as a front drive, but went off it when the owners admitted to Caroline & Piers, now joined at the hip, that they didn't live in it for a year because the whole project had left them traumatised. Really? A similar experience awaited us with home No.3, nestled into the landscape of New Zealand's Bay of Plenty; site of the one genuine UFO sighting on the night of Y2K. Still, the house was nice enough but the tin foil roof could be seen from space. And unable to coax the owners on camera, Caroline & Piers had to be satisfied with a FaceTime chat with the architects, one with long hair and specs who did all the talking and the other who was obviously the silent partner. And they were not leaving the North Island for a couple of Brit co-presenters. Honestly, I doubt dinner with Halle Berry would have got them on a plane either.
In Switzerland, house No.4 was a winner in that it veered away from the cuckoo-clock style recognised throughout the world and instead looked like a nuclear bunker built on the side of a mountain. The structure contradicted everything English children are taught in Primary school about traditional chalets which are built to house the family's livestock downstairs in winter conditions thus keeping them safe from avalanches, aren't they? Honestly, didn't Caroline & Piers learn this at school like the rest of us? My hero of the whole show was THE FOG. Incredibly dense, it stole the view from unfunny Caroline & petulant Piers landing them in cloud cuckoo land as they resorted to having a drawing competition to 'imagine' the view should the sun ever come out. My absolute favourite moment was when Alphonse hit the mute button just to see if it was more interesting without sound. It wasn't. Come on BBC ... The Clangers is more informed than this!
Lying around, trying not to cough, sneeze or overdose on Potter's catarrh pastilles, I mulled over our own Nest. Yes it's high, it has views although 150ft of sycamore tree sort of blots out the sun sometimes. It's south facing, has 3 up and 3 down, and a garden at each end. The mouldy patch in the corner of the bathroom is a bit of a worry but my new 'catstronauts' shower curtain is a silly diversion while I've been recovering.
Back at my desk on the first Tuesday morning of a New Year, a lonesome email contained an invitation to an interview. The role? Bed Manager. An interesting title for the person who ensures that if a patient comes a'knocking, then we have a bed for the duration of their stay; that's the theory. In the NHS it's called The Bed Bureau and please don't tell me you've been avoiding the newspaper headlines proclaiming 'panic everyone! there's no beds in England'. It's true, there aren't. Anyway, after a 30 minute grilling the next day, my manager told me with some regret that I was unsuccessful and had lost out to a 20 year old with no experience. I knew this already too but she wouldn't let it drop and asked me straight out.
"So what now for you?" Play dumb Raven.
"What do you mean. Back to work. End of."
"No. I mean what the Hell is someone like you doing filing in medical records? Are you nuts?"
Perhaps I am.
Tip of the Beak: Go and see La La Land. Please ignore the critics and have a great time, then make up your own mind.
