Chaos theory

I am at my desk for the first time in what feels like ages (Friday last week, in reality.) I am having a frankly mental morning, as I am out of the office from this afternoon until next Monday and it seems as though the world and his dog all want to have "just five minutes" to tell me stuff, ask me stuff and try to give me more work to do.

I am dealing with this by listening to the people who want to tell me stuff, answering the people who ask me stuff and completely ignoring the poor fools who are trying to give me more work. Seems to be a sound approach so far.

The Grand Office Move continues to cause ructions for a lot of the team. Me and my colleague are all right (Jack), because we are unaffected as yet, but the rest of the guys are disgruntled. They came in this morning to find that the accommodation is very cramped, they've been put in the corner they explicitly asked NOT to be in, the lockable cupboards and desk pedestals don't, and most of the chairs are broken. Understandably, they are hacked off.

It is frustrating because there is nothing I can do about it, really. The building Facilities Manager is involved. She is the only person who can get them different furniture, all I could do would be to raise the ante by asking piercing questions in a Lady Bracknell voice. Which I don't believe would be very helpful.

This morning leaving the house was a complete nightmare. For some reason everything felt hugely complicated. In hindsight of course, it wasn't really, but at the time it seemed that way.

Jim and I said our goodbyes last night (he's not a morning person); he plans to move out on Tuesday to go and stay with our mates in Gloucestershire until he can get some work and find a house.

He's been shafted by the change of direction on this HIPS thing. He was lining up work from the beginning of this month but now it won't happen till August, and only 18% of the market will be affected so his projected income has been slashed dramatically. He's planning on finding some temporary job in the interim to keep him afloat until the Government gets its bloody act together.

The decorator should be coming in this week, but he is not sure when exactly, so I have cleared the bathroom out, left the right paint in there (a charming ochre colour, slightly paler than what is in there at the moment) with a little note with my mobile number on it, and am hoping for the best. It all depends on when he finishes his "outdoor job", which will depend on the weather. If it rains, he'll be with me earlier.

I watered all the plants and moved them off the windowledge so hopefully they won't die while I'm away.

I had to make sure all the bins were emptied, the compost bucket thingy was emptied and all the perishable food was out of the fridge, or I'll be coming home on Friday to a hideous stench-filled pit. I also had to make sure I switched everything off that needed to be off, as Jim is not good at this, and would probably leave everything on rather than risk turning off the wrong thing. Fair enough, I suppose.

I drove in to the office with that "what have I forgotten" feeling. I daresay it will become apparent in due course.

Oh, and I managed to wang Mr WithaY's Landrover into our garage door yesterday. I don't think it's very damaged, but it is definitely not quite right. The door, I mean. The Landrover is fine, I didn;t even dislodge any of the accreted crud off the bull bars.

I was shuffling the cars about on the drive, which entailed driving his onto the road, leaving it there, driving mine off the drive, putting Mr WithaY's back on the drive, then putting mine on behind it. His car has a much longer bonnet than mine, plus the bull bars and I misjudged the distance between his car and the garage. There was a resounding "thung" noise, the door got nastily skewed and I sat there thinking "bollocks".

Ah well. Maybe I can fix it before he gets home. I think we have a sledgehammer somewhere.