A New Way to Fly

I've done it chums ... the book of the dread bird has landed and published last week on the Amazon Kindle store.  And I can't stop grinning like an idiot, mainly because I've finished something I've been bleating about for years.  Alphonse thinks I've become a bit hysterical over what to do next, but I've got a new book brewing on the back burner.  Before that, I'm gifting myself with two weeks off from writing whilst we spruce up the Nest.  If only it would stop raining long enough for the paint to dry.

Tip of the Beak:  For some ridiculous twist of fate, A New Way to Fly has been marketed alongside the E L James bodice-ripper, Fifty Shades of Grey.  Who knows why I'm still laughing ... I just can't help it.
Raven

Make Your Mind Up Time

I've had my beak down over the dreaded ebook now since January and stupidly, on the brink of publishing, I've read another 15 websites on the intricate technicalities of how not to do it.  I'm totally confused but I don't care; I'm going to give it a punt this weekend.

What booted me in the rump was a sample writing course I'd signed up for last month at the University.  Alphonse and other chums will tell you I've been banging on about saving up for and doing a Masters in television scriptwriting for far too many years - how it would enhance my chances, make my fortune (ha!) and network me into the upper strata of the writing community.  That's tosh and I know it; I just like being a student and wearing strange clothes and hanging about in bars looking interesting.  I do that anyway, so there's nothing to be gained there.

Back to the course.  Eight gals and one male tutor, who was very tall, like a goalkeeper with massive hands.  Granted, he really knew his stuff and nudged us along with the usual warm up exercises, editing practice and then we talked about writing and slagged off poetry as being 'fluffy'.  These ladies were serious writers and all very keen and it was going very well until he started talking about present participles and grammatical styles, and my brain caved in.  I hadn't done this stuff since the 1970s, when men had hair, smoked and wore mustard nylon polo-neck jumpers with flat fronted trousers.  Academia is not for me.  I love writing to you, and that's why I'm here at 8.00 am with a long day at work ahead of me filing medical records.

Other news from the Nest has all been about plumbing.  Next door's mainly.  They had developed an airlock which was vibrating the walls every time they filled a kettle.  I thought my tinnitus had got much worse so I enquired by banging on their front door.
"What's that **** noise."  This was 11.00 pm, and I wasn't happy.
"It's the pipes!" they said.  It sounded like Leicester's main sewer after a monsoon.  "We can't shut it up ..."
"Oh right."  They demonstrated again and the excruciating whining noises kept fifteen people up all night until the plumber came.

The following day, my new washing machine arrived exactly as a text message had predicted. They took away my old wreck with noisy bearings and replaced it with a shiny German model, except the chap who installed it broke the blue, cold water key saying 'Ooops!'  When we turned it on, the pipes produced arterial spurts of water all over the kitchen and thus a plumber was needed, except he couldn't come round for a week.  Happily, the shower needed replacing too so he could combine both jobs at once.  Except our ancient pipes don't conform to the norm and neither did the shower, so a twenty minute job stretched into oblivion and it took three of us with lots of swearing to bolt the damn thing into place.  Now it's permanently too hot and we've got another two week wait for him to come back and make adjustments.  At least our smalls are clean.

Tip of the Beak:  I haven't mentioned the 'situation' at work because it's grim and I don't know where to start.  People keep disappearing, or retiring, or in one case going home never to return.  It's my three year anniversary today and I'm still there, keeping under the managements' radar with my beak zipped.  It's the only way.

Raven

Epiphany

The Nest started the New Year in a state of flux with four Xmas trees being squashed into a closet only big enough for two and I had to consider the awful truth that we needed more space.  I gazed out of the rear window at the threatening sky, hanging its head having been painted the colour of tin, and mulled over a dull afternoon stretching before me.  Alphonse was downstairs having embraced a fine lunchtime pint and the benefits of an afternoon nap; the Sudafed advert was playing on every channel and I'd developed a severe case of cabin fever.  Dejunking, a force that once it grips you in its thrall, it's almost primeval.  I boxed up old DVDs, CDs and the complete works of Jeremy Clarkson.  Alphonse's Argentinian football strip had to go too, only because his arms used to be skinny; they're not now.  I kept the piano of course even though neither of us play any more; it might be handy if I ever have to accompany the saxophone at some kind of soiree or outside Marks & Spencers.  When I lobbed it all in our shed that crouches in the corner of the garden, I knocked over some old paint tins and an old tin of greasy grease which had been brewing on the workbench for decades.  They also had to go too.

I felt very virtuous having started 2015 surrounded by space, and vowed to carry on by clearing my desk on my first day back at the grindstone, although my plans were thwarted by the Rota Witch who was standing, arms folded, next to my desk.  She'd left her rolling pin at home and was playing with my letter opener as a weapon of choice.  It didn't take a genius to work out she had burning issues and the body language of my three secretary chums shouted "she's all yours!"

"Why didn't you answer your mobile?"
"I don't take it into the shower.  You rang at 11.00."
"Well I need you to work this Saturday for me." This is only Monday, January 5th. "I'm not feeling well."
"But you've had two weeks sick leave over Christmas and now you're planning to be ill again when it's your Saturday."
"Yes." There's brass neck and then there's taking the Michael.
"No." I explained in single syllables.  The hospital was closed on my Saturday and I was forced to lose annual leave because I couldn't work if we were shut. "So ... No."
Her own body crumpled suggesting she'd been dropped from a great height into a pile of cacky stuff and she shuffled off, muttering.  The other secretaries looked at each other, then at me, then at the door then back to me and the least-stunned of the group ventured forth.
"Did she really just plan to be sick this Saturday?"
"Yep."
"Disgusting!"

When I finally logged on and got to work, I checked my emails and found a re-issued rota featuring my name for the coming Saturday shift that no-one wanted, sent out at 10.30 am long before she's called me.  The grovelling email to change it once more would have been funny had it not signalled more of the same.  This will be a regular feature I feel for every second Saturday when it's her turn to work Ward2 and therefore must be shifted over to someone else; preferably Raven.  So I'd had my Epiphany early this year and have started to adopt a more 'do as you would be done by' approach favoured by The Water Babies. What she doesn't know is that I've applied for a job to be PA to the Ward Manager thus duffing her out as my line manager forever.

Tip of the Beak:  When I finally staggered back to the Nest, I found Alphonse with his screwdriver poking at the oven door.
"Have you seen my tin of grease?"  Play dumb Raven, play dumb. Silence exposed my guilt.
"Well you're going to have to live with a squeaky door and don't even consider moaning when the cold gets into the driver's door on the car because you've thrown out my tin."  It was already grating like the lid of Herman Munster's front door and I was about to ask for help.  Too late.

Raven

Getting to Grips

After a shaky start to Christmas, both of us being infected with the rampant virus of choice, and my old steam-driven PC giving up the IT ghost, I'm now back in the world of cyberspace and wondering what tales and stories to tell you from our recent exploits.  Once another bottle of port has gone down and the cranberry candle has disappeared into the ether; and when I've found the 'delete' key on my new keyboard, I'll update Raven.  Then the serious writing starts once more ...

Until then, I hope you've had the most festive and peaceful of Christmases and your New Year will be a fine and noisy cracker, filled with love of course.

Oh, and Alphonse sends his love.  It's hard to tell much of what he's saying because the hat I knitted him turned out a bit bigger than the pattern suggested and he's muffled.

Merry Everything,

Raven

I'll be back ...

Sorry, I should explain, I've not gone anywhere.  Nor have I stopped writing; quite the opposite.  I'm finishing my first novel and as all my Raven chums will tell you, I've been in that same state of flux for the last two years.  But now events have reached the point most author's dread; editing the first draft.  Honestly, I feel like I'm climbing the north face of K2 without ropes and the more I edge towards the final chapter, the bigger hole I dig for myself.

And try as I might to crack on, I have been distracted by sport.  The Tour de France mainly and World Cup football.  Surely the best 'Coleman Balls' moment belongs to the commentator of Greece vs Ivory Coast match who asked us to have some sympathy for the lads on the pitch because of the extreme heat and humidity.  The last time I went to Athens it was 50 degrees centigrade in mid-summer, and I understand that in equatorial Ivory Coast it's regularly hotter than that and doesn't rain, ever, and in comparison, Fortaleza was quite chilly. Oh and he asked if we could sympathize with one of the lads who was playing with a dose had malaria - now that deserves a bit of compassion. I also loved the Japan vs Colombia game where we all saw Honda pass the ball to Toyota, who flicked it on to Suzuki who scored on the rebound.  I've asked Alphonse for an Aygo ... the new one, in Orange.  Maybe next year.

Tip of the Beak:  Yes, there's been birthdays and weddings, reunions and fallings out, tears and tantrums [mainly mine], retirements and several new frocks. So I hope your Summer's been hot and happy despite yesterday's torrential rain, and I will keep you posted on progress.  Should be finished around mid-September but I can't promise which year.

Raven

Mrs Voldemort

At its bucolic best the month of May provides us with a welcome respite, like a bridging loan, between a nasty winter and the promise of a summer of delights to come; perchance to barbeque.  At its worst, this May has opened with maypole dancing and fertility rites and closed with a soaking over bank holiday and a massive row in Matalan over socks.  Alphonse likes order in his sock drawer whereas mine is freeform and filled with Wolford delights.  He likes days of the week on the sides, with matching colours on the heels so they can be paired up at the end of the week and strictly nothing Homer Simpson on pain of death.  Albeit I waved him off to Birmingham this morning wearing a Wednesday and a Friday as a mark of protest.  As dawn was struggling into the upright position, Alphonse was attending a course.  Just as women of a certain age are herded into a pen called peri-menopausal, some men of Alphonse's stature become peri-retiremental and it's upsetting his biorythms.  Back to the socks.

On the way to the Matalan checkouts he picked up a bumper pack which I immediately wrestled out of his hands and secured back on the rack.  He was quite affronted for a Virgo,
"I need new socks."
"Buy them from Next like last time."
"These are cheaper." Couldn't fault his penny-pinching ways but I had spotted a hitch.
"And the elastic tops will irritate your legs then it will be my fault.  Stick with what you know."
"Forget it, I'm not going in Next today."  He meant "ever" because I bought the last pack of socks, and the ones before that. He stalked off towards the car muttering.
"I'll just wash some when we get home." And rather than use the usual cool Eco wash cycle with a quick spin, he spent two unhappy hours watching his smalls disintegrate on a boil wash.
Trying to be adult, I waved a flag of truce in the form of a large Pinot Grigio and attempted to offer up a reasonable explanation for my snappiness.
"I know I'm feisty but with all the comings and goings at work I'm even more snitty than usual. But acting out in Matalan was wrong and I'm sorry."  I added a short rundown of the previous week's pain and injustices, especially the part where I'd turned down contracted hours because they offered me less per hour than a 22 year old with no previous work experience. Okay, it was only 1p but I have principles and leaving me £3,000 p.a worse off I found particularly offensive.  Anyone would think I'm rubbish at maths. 
Still, Alphonse had a point and I listened in horror as he drove it home,
"You've not been this tetchy since you left the Body Shop. It's like living with Mrs Voldemort."  He had the decency to say it with a straight face and not call me 'old girl' at any point in the conversation.

Adding insult to injury, the previous weekend I'd had my cards read by accident.  I rocked up at a 'Tea with Spirit' event to see old friends Valerian and JeanGenii; I wanted the tea and a chat, no cake and absolutely no random predictions.  When I got there, I'd been booked in with a medium who reads Native American Power Cards so powerless to resist, I thought I'd give it a go.  In my first seven cards I'd pulled the Raven [what else?] but also a skunk and a weasel.  She [Linda] looked me in the eye and said "Something stinks.  They're trying to rob you of something and no-one's telling you the truth. If I were you, I wouldn't sign it either."  Well that told me.

So I had a lot to think over yesterday and kept a low profile against the squealing backdrop of the Monaco Grim Prix. Imagine it though, the wife of the Dark Lord, "he who must not be named"; she'd be a force of nature wouldn't she?  Tall, elegant, permanently enraged.  If the Voldemorts were real, he wouldn't dare be late home or would he? Ralph Fiennes is the voice of His Lordship and is in bold:
"Where the Hell have you been?  Not out with the Lestrange creature again?"
"Messing with some muggles darling, nothing serious."
"Well your dinner's in the wolverine."
"Never mind my sweet, I had a pie and pint in The Pickled Walnut.  Have you had a lovely day?"
"I bathed the Raven then went to Tesco where they dared to overcharge me."
"Will their boils heal quickly my love or do we have to write a letter of apology?"
"Save the letter for BT who've charged us seventy two pounds for forty two pee's worth of Friends & Family calls."
"We don't have any friends or family."
"Precisely."
"Then we'll reduce their Mumbai call centre to rubble in the morning, shall we?"
"Excellent.  Oh, and clean up after that wretched snake will you?  It's had another of next door's kittens."
Fundamentally, had the same derisory job offer been made to Mrs V, I feel she would've wrenched out her wand, aimed it full in the face of management and yelled "REDUCTO!"  I so wanted to but I'm calmer now.

Tip of the Beak: Ravens everywhere should delight in the news that Richard III's remains are to reside in Leicester Cathedral. Common sense prevails at last.

Raven

The Interview

And so the time came upon us for The Interview.  A toe-curling 30 minutes last week where the very apparatchiks I've worked with over a grim two year period, have permission to ask me questions they already know the answers to, and then argue the toss about my particular strengths and weaknesses.  I'd love to call it Kafkaesque but I've never read his works, have no real idea what it means and will stick to unpretentious words such as annoying and unnecessary given the current criminal staff shortage we are enduring.  Anyway, the management have suddenly realised that temps are running the shop, that they might actually leave for better jobs and this cannot be tolerated.  So in the dead of night, they cooked up a plan to slot us all into preferred roles hoping upon hope that all would be well again.  Trouble is, some of us don't like to be 'slotted'.

Let me take you back to last Thursday at noon when I'd not had my tuna salad for fear of a grumbling digestive system interrupting my interview; only a mere banana sustained me through the allotted half hour of torture.  I'd rigorously prepared myself for a good grilling from the Andrex Puppy, so imagine my horror to find the Fruit Bat sitting at the desk and next to her, her familiar; a woman who clutches her chest whenever she encounters me, obviously sensing my true demonic nature.  Luckily, she was writing notes and keeping time or we'd still be there having a counselling session.  It started well under the circumstances,
"I see that you've been with us for exactly two years Raven?"  Don't I know it? "And you're very versatile."
"Well I have been at work for most of my adult life, it stands to reason I've picked up something."
"Quite. And here you've been working on the wards, medical secretary and now Reception."
"Reception's only an emergency cover for an hour maximum."  It's so stressful, I have to go outside afterwards and pretend to have a cigarette, a desperate act for a lifelong non-smoker.
"Have you thought of adding Bookings to your experience?"
"I have thought about it and the answer's no."  The Fruit Bat pressed me for a fuller answer.
"I can't fit anything else into my brain. I already have two analytical jobs and a third where I type clinic letters for two days a week ..."  I had the list ready:
Gynaecology, Gastroenterology, Urology, Orthopaedic, Rheumatology, Dermatology, General Surgery [hernias] and a Plastic Surgeon, although the last one's a bit fluffy and is mainly boob jobs.


The Fruit Bat dismissed this lifelong expertise and asked me straight out if I was interested in applying for the full-time secretary/administrator role they'd cobbled together?  You have to see the job description; it's more like a management dustbin with so much other stuff in there, it made my eyes revolve like a fruit machine.  There's also the knubby issue of who's going to do the actual typing?  Ancient wisdom helped me keep my beak shut.  You see, I gave up secretarial work in 1997 and I can be that specific about it because I'd got to the top of my game and was utterly brassed-off with working for people less capable or qualified than me for half the salary.  And after a long stint on the top floor of Leicester City Council, known locally as Faulty Towers, I temped for bit and found myself working for medical insurers [PPP before they were discovered by AXA] at a business park on the edge of town, while they were interviewing for a branch administrator. What an unhappy place?  Please, thank you and professional courtesy were left at the door and ignoring anyone who wasn't a total cow to their co-workers was the daily message.  I went to the pub every lunchtime just to see a smiling face. On my final jubilant morning, I looked up to find the class bully standing at my desk saying,
"Do you have to leave today?"  I so wanted to but we also had to eat.
"Erm ... I'll ask the agency."
"Don't bother, I've spoken to them and we'd like to offer you the job. You're brilliant."  I knocked the static out of my ears. Wild horses couldn't have dragged me back the following week.  In fact, I spent a well-fed six months at M&S before I ventured into another administration role.  So why should I step down that well-trodden path again in 2014?

My interview also contained other well thought out questions regarding my strengths and weaknesses, computer skills and inside leg measurement.  We'd also been provided with a grid on which we had to indicate our preferred hours of work during the week and the Fruit Bat was somewhat nonplussed to find I'd not selected a pattern of 24x7.  She looked at me sideways,
"I see you only want to work one in four Saturdays?"
"That's right."  Other ward clerks are available.
"Wouldn't you like to start earlier, at seven perhaps? And stay later.  Four'ish?"  She's up to something.
"No. Because that means I have no life."
"Oh I like the early start, you get so much done."
"Well you do it then but don't ask me to get up at five thirty every Saturday morning."  Who's being interviewed here?
"It's only one in four."  Well you say that now but experience teaches us that once you've done a job once, you get it every chuffin' week. It came to a sticky end shortly afterwards when they asked me to do a test.  There were no right or wrong answers apparently.  And when it finally dawned that I was going to lose my two favourite days a week in the typing pool, only to be relegated to filing tracers in Medical Records, I went outside to our quiet area and had a little cry.  MoBo came out with a cuppa and put her arm round my shoulder, summoning up a pearl of wise counsel.
"Don't worry Raven."  I blew my nose on the tissue she proffered. "Give it a fortnight.  That's usually how long it takes for management to realise they've got no-one to do any work.  You'll be fine."

Tip of the Beak:  I'd better apologise to the whole cannon of chiroptera species worldwide, including the vampire variety, desmodontinae, for naming my interviewer after a fruit bat.  If you only knew the truth of the situation, you'd see what I'm up against.

Raven