Fed up with Brick!

Ok, I've had it. Now that the snow's finally melting, I'm officially bored of this weather.

I'm sick of walking around like one of those clockwork dolls to avoid falling on my arse. No I don't have a key in my back. But I can put my foot up the backside of the next person who pisses me off.

I'm sick of slush being sprayed at me by passing cars whose drivers are irritated that I haven't fallen on my arse and given them a cheap laugh just because I didn't fall over like that bloke on the news the other night.

I'm sick of driving at 15 miles per hour and arriving into work late.

I'm sick of the fucking teenage c***s who decide that 1.30 in the morning is a perfect time for a drunken snowball fight in Ballyfuck Main Street.

I'm sick of not having any running water (but at least I got plenty of bottled stuff without a fight).

When it was white it was lovely. How fickle am I?

When icicles hang by the wall, and Dick the shepherd blows his nail

Or, more colloquially, this weather would freeze the balls off a brass monkey. (Mind you, I have never seen a brass monkey, with or without balls.)

Anyway, I love this weather. There is nothing quite like a gentle stroll in a wooded area on days like these, with the white ground crunching underfoot, returning home to a warm house and a steaming mug of coffee.

It's not all fun and games though. It's taking about twenty minutes to de-ice the car every morning to render it safe for purpose. My commute this morning was almost twice its normal duration due to the state of the roads. At certain points, a speed greater than 5mph would result in movements that could be considered the automotive equivalent of Torvill and Dean. And still the knobjockeys in the Transit vans continued to overtake.

Given the road conditions, I've decided to take the rest of the week off with some annual leave I'd reserved specially for this purpose.

Add my traditional New Year grouchiness into the mix and there you have it, a happy ending for both EO and the poor misfortunate COs who must put up with the irascibility and general sweariness of the said EO.

I'm also between projects at the moment and therefore things are quiet. I do not ask the HEOs for more work lest they jump at the opportunity to dump everything on me and go back to playing Spider Solitaire or updating Facebook while the EO on 20-grand-a-year-less does all the hard work. Seriously. It has happened. It is happening. Just to prove a point, I wrote a report recently that had a HEO's name on it. I sent the report as a read-only file to the HEO for approval, without granting the HEO editorial privileges. I doubt the HEO even read the report, they merely nodded and said "that's grand". Really? Even though I "accidentally" misspelt your name on it? Isn't it great, being a HEO and having a report written for you with your name at the bottom, a report whose sole authorship and editorial privileges are assigned to a lowly EO? That, gentle reader, is the life.

So, to just return to having to deal with the quiet period, I've been dreaming up things for myself to do, like give the desk a clean to remove the Olympic symbols I've been making with coffee cups. Or draft a "how-to" for my successor should I run away screaming. I have internet access, but there's a restriction on most of the good stuff, like some blogs and b3ta.com.

Time off is a very good idea right now.

Winter walks a-plenty for Govstooge. Happy days.

Where's Noah when you need him?

They came from all over the county, even in spite of the inclement weather. They braved floods, fallen trees, plagues of locusts, frogs, airborne germs, even car stereos stuck on local radio stations.

They overcame all these obstacles.

For the forms.

There was a tremendous sense of camaraderie in the Department this morning as each staff member arrived with a tale of woe about their journey to work. Each of us regaled the others with the gory details, like war veterans comparing scars. The dripping rain gear on the coat stands and the sodden umbrellas bore grim testimony to the battles fought and won this morning.

The outdoor smoking area attracted only the diehard adherents of the weed today, and those experts who could manage to keep their fags lit.

Occasionally, when the howling gales outside made it seem as if the Department roof was going to be swept away, there was much shuddering and invoking the Almighty: "God, will it ever stop?"

Departing colleagues were wished a safe journey home. Even the normally horrible ones who make me want to mount a rifle on my computer monitor.

The sense of "we're all in this together" was, I think, a foretaste of what we will experience on the picket lines next Tuesday. COs, EOs, HEOs and even APs picketing the gates of the Department and hopefully being choreographed well enough to not poke each other in the eyes with the sharp placard corners.

Striking paper pushers will elicit no sympathy from the passing public in this climate, and we will come in for abuse, I've no doubt. We'll be an easy target. But like today, we will cope by sharing war stories, this time over pints in a nice pub around the corner.

Mind you, the warm fuzzy feeling I had for most of the day disappeared rapidly when some sadist in the bowels of the building decided to inflict a Fire Drill on us. Bastard.

Rabble! Rabble! Rabble!

You know the summer's over when all the folk who've been on Term Time Leave during the summer arrive back to work. (Edit: If the summer ever started in the first place. It is Ireland, after all.)

For anyone who's had their head buried in piles of forms all summer, here are the tell-tale signs.

The multitudinous, echoing cries of "Welcome back" and occasional hugging. Have you ever seen civil servants hugging? Fat ones, I mean? 'Tis a fearsome sight.

Being cornered in the ladies' toilet as you dry your hands by someone you don't particularly like saying "So what did YOU do this summer, Govstooge?"

Endless, long winded descriptions of holidays. To be repeated ad nauseam as people continue to arrive in the office. The story about your husband being stung on the willie by a jellyfish in Mallorca was funny, the first, the second and even the fifth time. But now I've heard it twenty times I'm starting to lose my patience.

Having people ring your extension asking "Is Hermione there? Her line's engaged." and you answer "Yes, she's on the phone to her friend downstairs, and there are two other calls holding for her. Would you like to remain in the queue?" Goddamn it!

Having the number of staff you supervise nearly double overnight. Excellent from a workflow point of view, but not so excellent if you have to spend an hour reminding each one what their job was.

Finding a car parking space becomes almost impossible if you're a late starter. Similarly the availability of croissants and tables in the canteen is curtailed significantly.

The "Term time" scheme is no longer open only to parents of school-age children during the summer. It's now been opened up to the rest of us by having been renamed "Shorter Working Year Scheme". Unpaid, of course.

I must say, I'm tempted to join their ranks. Maybe during the winter, when the weather's less harsh.

In the Shite Garden

Back home, and I opened my front door and battled my way into the hall through the usual profusion of fake charity collection leaflets (Go away.) and Sky TV promotions (just feck off!), and I decided that then was as good a time as any to make good the damage wrought by the recent inclement weather on my back garden.

First of all, a haircut for the lawn which, if a lawn could be compared to a person, would be Brian May. Or Slash.

Throwing on my old tracksuit bottoms and baggy t-shirt, I bounded gleefully out the back door and begin the slaying of the grass. When that's done, I decided to tidy up the edges and pulled on a pair of sturdy gloves, in order to pull up nettles, thistles, atropha belladonna, hemlock, stinking bindweed and all the other nasties that seemed to have congregated for a weed convention among my gladioli.

I filled a whole sack with the stuff. And as I picked up all the waste vegetation, I felt a draught on my back. "Oh bollocks, stupid tracksuit bottoms, the old builder's bum is showing again" I thought. I stood up, hitching up the offending leisurewear. At the precise moment the next door neighbour stuck her head out of her upstairs window and went "Jesus Govstooge, the place is looking lovely! It's like the Botanical Gardens".

"Er, no it's not." I responded, pointing in the direction of the Asiatic lilies, stripped of their vermilion petals by the recent high winds, "But thanks anyway. I try." More pleasantries were exchanged. And my ego was massaged for a little bit, even if some of the praise was tongue in cheek. But all I could think of was "did she see my bum cleft?"

Anyway, it's all looking slightly neater out there now.

The triffids are thriving.

Brrr...!

This cold weather is great. I'm a big fan of proper winter weather like snow and frost. (Though, not, obviously, of dangerous roads and old folk dying of hypothermia.)

Looking out the window first thing in the morning, everything is dusted with lovely glittery frost. The water I pour on the car to remove the ice doesn't do a very good job, preferring instead to freeze instantly into some fantastic reticulate patterns around the edges of the windscreen. Then, as the day goes on, there's some sun to enjoy during a lunchbreak walk.

In the Department, colds and sniffles are abounding. I have recovered from my illness, and am deriving some small amusement from those of others. The window war is in full throttle. One colleague wants it open, just a tiny crack, as the sun is turning the place into a greenhouse, even in these temperatures. Another colleague jumps up, races to it and slams it shut, complaining of a sore throat, which, in all probability, is caused by the stuffy germ-breeding atmosphere in the first place.

The work's not too bad either, if I don't mention PMDS.

Still, glad to have a job. Getting my P45, defaulting on the mortgage and having to move back in with my folks would be a fate worse than having to do PMDS for the entire Department while hanging upside down over a cauldron full of Brussels sprouts with Daniel O'Donnell's greatest hits playing in the background.