tadorna: (Default)
sheldrake ([personal profile] tadorna) wrote2014-09-01 05:14 pm

September update

Hello. I thought I'd post an update, for the benefit of the mice and ghosts who now inhabit the dusty, cobwebbed corridors of journal land.

What to say, what to say... time passes. The boiler continues to die slowly. Every day one or two more people on the train appear to suffer from terrible respiratory complaints. Today I kicked my freezer, which I feel is fair enough.

Every now and then I have to work a Sunday, which is never very much fun, for dull reasons. It's boring, I'm on my own and there's always a mountain of work to get through. To distract myself, I like to listen to the reporters doing phone interviews and try to work out what the story is. This can be quite entertaining, for instance, one day we were treated to the long-running saga of 'trying to track down Lobster Man'. (Turned out he was at sea.) Yesterday started off, fairly typically, with vegetables:

"So yeah, it turns out there are potatoes all over the road..."

"Hello, I was wondering if you'd have a time for a quick chat about your giant pumpkin? Yes, it's really... very large isn't it, looking at the picture? Mm... Even bigger than last year, you say? Wow." [AFTER PUTTING PHONE DOWN] "I didn't think it looked that big."

Then, after a chat with the local MP about the Multicultural Festival, and another about a vintage car show, came a rather dramatic change of tone.

"Hello, I was hoping I'd be able to have a few words with the Sheriff. I'm calling from a newspaper in England. Thank you... [LATER] Right, so as well as father- and son-in-law, they were also lovers? [...] Sorry, you're saying he shipped the children over to be his own personal butlers? [...] So it is looking like a murder-suicide pact then... [AFTER PUTTING PHONE DOWN] That was the weirdest interview I've ever done."

Blimey.

Yes, local news... Soon enough, another tree stump will be found that looks almost like a dog.

***

In other news, writing. Why. Mostly a rhetorical question, but seriously... *howls forever like a wolf, not that a wolf would howl forever, unless it was a really unusual wolf and also immortal, then it might I suppose*

[identity profile] justwolf.livejournal.com 2014-09-01 08:11 pm (UTC)(link)
That last phonecall was certainly a dramatic change in tone. I liked the pumpkin that wasn't really that big.

I'm going to join you in the endless, endless wolf howl...

[identity profile] sheldrake.livejournal.com 2014-09-01 09:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Sometimes, there's really nothing one can do except howl like a wolf forever and ever and ever.

[identity profile] elocinoco.livejournal.com 2014-09-02 01:55 am (UTC)(link)
This post has somehow restored my faith in humanity and reinforces the dimly burning, but ever-present flame of love that I harbor for you. A non-stalking, perfectly harmless flame, of course.

[identity profile] sheldrake.livejournal.com 2014-09-02 07:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh hey, glad to be of service, and I'll take whatever love I can get, cheers! ;) How the hell are you these days?

[identity profile] elocinoco.livejournal.com 2014-09-02 08:13 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm great! Happily married to my Dutchboy-- ten years in May! Working, and dreaming of the days when I had time to do fun stuff like write and carouse on livejournal. Yah, know, the usual stuff. Hence your sordid kinky tales of interviews and off-kilter stories are vastly appealing to me. Much better than the normal things I hear, which usually start with the phrase, "This may be a stupid question..."

[identity profile] sheldrake.livejournal.com 2014-09-02 08:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Ugh, work eh? Stupid work. Ten years though - unbelievable! Early congrats - tell your Dutchboy I said hi. :)

[identity profile] elocinoco.livejournal.com 2014-09-02 08:52 pm (UTC)(link)
He was just as excited as I was to see a post from you. You were always one of his favorites. :- )

[identity profile] sheldrake.livejournal.com 2014-09-02 09:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah, that's so nice! :D Really good to hear from you both.
qwentoozla: (Eddie Izzard)

[personal profile] qwentoozla 2014-09-02 06:37 am (UTC)(link)
Everything was so normal and local at first (the pumpkin wasn't even that big!) and then it got all salacious and dramatic with the last story!

[identity profile] sheldrake.livejournal.com 2014-09-02 07:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, I was a bit taken aback. The story seems pretty weird and grim actually (Google 'Scott Rogers murder' if you're curious).

[identity profile] ruthi.livejournal.com 2014-09-03 09:59 pm (UTC)(link)
You have posted!
This comment is to say I have read and enjoyed your post.

Is a dormouse in that enjoys sleeping. Is definitely not a ghost.

[identity profile] lebannen.livejournal.com 2014-09-05 06:38 am (UTC)(link)
Two days ago I kicked the door of one of our lifts, possibly slightly harder than I meant to but those lifts are Highly Annoying, and it made it work again. Possibly I shouldn't have kicked it quite so hard in front of customers, but oh well....

(we have a not-terriby-senior member of the royal family and 50 other people visiting today, and I'm working somewhere with dodgy lifts and not really much time to do any cleaning of anything. Joy.)

[identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com 2014-09-06 09:29 pm (UTC)(link)
I remember the memorable news item on BBC Look East (television): 'Dog stung by bees.' He wasn't even stung to death or anything. Just stung. The footage included, as I recall with disturbing vividness, a shot of a country path with the ominous voice-over 'Bees stung dog here.'

A few days later, there was 'kitchen infested by ants.'