Can I just stop for a few minutes...

Well that went quickly...

This week there is no good or bad news...  My GD has been quite good this last week – more from the fact that I haven’t stopped than anything else really.  Things at work have just gone haywire in the last week.

In the Netherlands you can only change your health insurance once a year – and so any company that has anything to do with that industry has two extremely busy months at this time of year.  We were expecting a bit of growth this year, but visitors to the site have sky rocketed.  To the point where the infrastructure started to groan a little under the stress; a week of organising, fire fighting and stress followed but things seem under control.  My next task is to try and see what we need to buy in the medium term in order to keep it running smoothly.

I’m just trying to figure out what else has happened in the last week…  Almost nothing – I’ve worked, come home, collapsed and slept most of last week.

I made the HR woman laugh.  I was in the kitchen microwaving milk for my coffee when she was fetching something and she asked how things were going with me.  I said fine (which got a strange look) and I made the joke that I just don’t have time to think at the moment.  The strange look seems to be a Dutch thing.  I’ve had a couple of comments from people who know that how can I say fine when all of that is going on in my life. I just remove that from the ‘how are you’ question unless I am really having a bad week – it’s not something I try to concentrate on.  It is…  Something that is constantly there, but I feel that if I make my baseline 100% happy I’m just going to get so depressed.  So I don’t.  My baseline is an average day GD wise. If I happen to have a day when it’s not that present on my brain then that’s a bonus, but I know what I have to deal with in my head on a day to day basis and so I live with it the best I can.  Sorry tangent there :)

This weekend Mrs Stace and I went shopping.  Me for Skinny Jeans and boots, her for a new top.  Wow, was it busy.  It’s coming up to Sint Klas here in Holland (5^th December) and so everybody was out last minute shopping for the kids.  I found my jeans, and got some advice from Mrs Stace – she is not comfortable shopping with me, but tries.  We got her top from Mexx and then looked for an outfit I had seen there recently – but they had sold out.

Then came traipsing around the shopping centre looking for boots.  With bots being in fashion at the moment I was not expecting a problem – I have average sized feet for a woman in Holland, but was I wrong.  Either the styles were plain weird, cheap looking or they broke the budget at 130 euros +; there was a really nice pair that I found – but at nearly 200 euros I put them back quite quickly!

We finished most of the shops and I could see that Mrs Stace was starting to struggle with it all so we gave up and went home.  Stopping on the way for something to take the chill out of the air - a bottle of Baileys and a bottle of gluhe wine.  The Baileys I put in hot chocolate instead of milk (instant hot chocolate I add, I don’t drink a cup of Baileys with some chocolate flavour) and the gluhe wine for after coming in out of the cold – tea glass of that, microwaved for a couple of minutes is just what you need to get the warmth back into you :)

Yesterday I continued the shopping trip from the warmth and comfort of my living room.  A trip to Mexx found the outfit that I was looking for, but also a great alternative making me glad the shop had ran out (and a 30% discount coupon for online use).  A trip to a Dutch online shoe shop (nothing compared to Zappos, but hey) found a pair of leather boots with 50 euros discount.  More than I wanted to spend but they should last a while.  I keep telling myself :)

Then.. Finally… A call to my parents – living in the north of Scotland they are currently experiencing a lot of snow (it’s just started today in Holland).  Mum has managed to injure her back, so I gave her a call to see how she is doing and how the weather is.  We chatted about her back, about her work etc.

At the end of the call she asked how I was doing, I told her about the shopping (I had just finished my online shopping at that point).  And finished it with ‘And you can tell dad he doesn’t have to worry – the new skirt is knee length’

She cracked up (as did dad in the background), and told me that they had been speaking about me again – actually scratch that, it sounds bad somehow – they were discussing that they had seen Stacy again.  They are both surprised at how I scrub up when changed – still not sure I see what they see, but better that than the other way around, and mum ended up apologising again that I came out a boy.  But…  Apparently…  Something that dad said made me smile.  He said he was upset that he would never get to tell me who I could or couldn’t date.  And that he could never terrify anyone that wanted to :)

I thought that was amusing.  Maybe if I had lived it I wouldn’t have done…

I am wondering whether to send them a mail with an extract of my last post.  It feels like the cowards way out, but I would like them to know what’s going one and just can’t bring myself to tell them verbally.  We’ll see…

Right, time to start making mince pies!