Was I just propositioned?

There are times when you just don't realise what you are saying and how it can be misunderstood, but it is all about the circumstances at the time and putting it into context.

I was having a meal with my mother and aunt at a local bar and, as is my need, I paid a visit to the toilet.  There were two cubicles adjacent to each other in the toilet and the one on the left had only just been taken so I went in the one to the right.  Due to shoddy workmanship or a strange homoerotic desire on the part of the plumber, the actual toilet was sited too close to the separating panel and the adjacent cubicle.  I felt a little closer than I would like to the other gentlemen, now straining in the other cubicle.

To say that he was making a song and dance about it might lead you to the wrong picture.  He was vocal about the efforts he was making to evacuate his bowels, clearly he was not ready for it or he needed to have more fibre in his diet.  I was, discretely, trying to lay my own cable, but I rapidly came to the conclusion that I could not sit by with all the grunting and heaving from my neighbour.  That said, as I halted, mid effort and planning to return at a later stage to complete the exercise, I started to finish up.  My neighbour  had, in the meantime, completed his evolution and was out before I had finished.  I noted on the floor that his wallet had fallen out of his pocket and made the decision not to pick it up whilst I was still in my cubicle, just in case he came back in.  I finished, went into the next cubicle and retrieved the wallet.  I then washed my hands before leaving.

There were a few people in reception, including an older gentleman who was about to leave.  I thought I recognised the throaty voice as he said goodbye to the reception staff and without thinking I called out.  He did not hear me to begin with as he started to leave, so I tapped him on the shoulder, as he turned I asked if he had just been to the toilet.  I mean think about that for a second, what would you say if a bloke asked you that?  Anyway, he replied that he had.  I then held up the wallet and asked him if it belonged to him, for all I knew it could have been his 'calling card'.  I did not think of a means to identify him, I suppose I could have asked him to strain himself and grunt to see if he sounded the same.  I stress that I had not opened the wallet at any point but I could have asked him to identify the contents.  Anyway he introduced himself and asked me his name, adding that he was always dropping his wallet in the toilet...  No, nothing, no alarm bells ringing at all.  He offered to buy me a drink and I said that I had one waiting on the table so it was not necessary, the General Alarm was still silent.  He was extremely grateful to me for returning it, which I accepted in good faith and genuinely felt was sincere.  I felt good for having found the owner and reuniting him with his property.

Only when I returned to the table and explained my encounter with Paul to my mother and aunt did it hit me how it actually looked.  They both found it quite amusing and I wondered what pick up techniques they had used in the past...

Driving With Belgian Plates

There are some advantages to being an Englishman driving a left had drive car with Belgian plates.  I have recently driven from home to my native North East of England, which is quite a drive necessitating a transit through the channel tunnel and then up the Eastern side of the country.  The first thing is that people do assume you are from the same country as the car and plates indicate.  This means that you can 'get away' with making the odd mistake when you don't understand the road system, a bit like driving in London, where the road conventions don't seem to apply and those in charge of planning road systems are rolling dice to decide on the layout that would best suit their mood at the time.  Anyway, I try not to take advantage of this perceived ignorance, preferring to stick to the normal conventions.

On my long journey North, which took on the scenic delights of the M20, M25, Dartford Tunnel, M11, A14 and A1, I was witness to some interesting maneuvers.  I had to remember that my 'safe' distance behind a Belgian car was no longer a 'safe' distance behind a British car,I think I may have annoyed a few people as I made my way up North.  Unfortunately both the A1 and the top end of the M11/A14 are just two lane.  The same habits that afflict Belgian roads are equally prevalent on UK roads, people do not pull in when there is space to do so and allow the faster traffic to pass.

I had the pleasure of being almost rammed off the road by a large white coach, which happened to be full of soldiers and was driven by another soldier.  I can only imagine he thought he was driving his Subaru Impreza and that he had both the acceleration and maneuverability to make the change of lane without trashing my car.  There was nothing behind me and the speed differential between my car and his bus was just a bit too much to be regarded as anything but bloody dangerous.  He did compel me to cross the white solid line next to the central reservation but I held my position and got past, not chuffed.  I have to say I was being rather ruthless with lorries who wished to carry out the same overtaking move as they consistently delayed and slowed the flow of the traffic all the way up.  At least the majority of these lorries has the courtesy to wait until it was either safe or I had passed.

I stopped once on the journey North and was delighted to see that the drivers at the Service Station also lacked the manners to allow a fellow motorist to reverse out of a parking space, despite the fact that they were not going to get anywhere fast.  All I wanted to do was re-align my car to make sure I was parked within my own space.  Just like being in Belgium!

Throwing Ones Toys Out Of The Pram

To throw ones toys from the pram is an expression used to describe someone who has become so upset about something that they, in essence, become quite unreasonable.  Some people are more prone to hurling the toys than others and for some it is just particular instances.  In my case the toys barely leave my pram and only tend to get thrown out when I am driving or when someone is so pig headed and unreasonable that they cannot be reasoned with.  I happen to mention this phrase when I was chatting to An about something and she was quite amused, I think I was relating something about work but I forget now.  I probably said something like, such and such was not happy, he threw his toys out of his pram...  I think the thought of a tantrum and feet stamping session sprang to mind and in reality it is not far from the truth sometimes.

Of course you can apply this sarcastically to someone like myself when engaged in a debate.  It is a humorous way  wind someone up and to exaggerate their frustration to the point where they go in the huff and stomp off.  The huff is the same as sulking or feeling so annoyed that you refuse to even talk about it and you go off and stew in your grumpy mood.

In naval parlance you can say to someone who is getting a bit irate/excited ease to 5 or to exaggerate ease to 20.  These phrases come from the terminology used on the bridge of a ship at sea when making a turn.  The angle of the rudder is measured in degrees and usually ranges from 0 to 30 degrees.  At speed a 30 degree angle is quite severe so often the order would be maybe port 20 and eventually ease to 5 as the ship gets round to it's new course, this is so you don't overshoot the intended course.  The ship will heel over quite a bit when applying 20 or 30 degrees of rudder so when people are irate and you say ease to 5 or ease to 20, the former means calm down and the latter means seriously calm down.  Again, sarcasm can wind up the more placid sailors...

Today I was chatting to one of my team, who happens to come from Canada, and I used the term we are under the cosh.  I thought the term was more commonly understood across the borders but she did not know what it meant.  I was describing the whole team, including myself, and I was saying we have always been under the cosh, there has been no let up.

I must make some effort to learn some Dutch idioms...

Inappropriate Comments

It occurred to me that by including the words "pussy heaven" in my last post that I may end up attracting the wrong clientele.  The thought of naked, overweight and slightly sweating men anticipating this idyllic place, having clicked on a random Google search of the term, leaves me a little concerned to say the least.  I mean my family read this blog from time to time and it just would not be right.

So for those expecting some form of imagery I have included the one below to satisfy the expectations of the perspiring masses.

 

In fact for those seeking moving pictures check this out: Cat Herding

 

Being quite conscientious I did put the aforementioned term into Google and I  saw that the response was much as I would expect, even some had references to "weed".  Happily enough this blog was not there among the top results.  I am of course avoiding the term deliberately now as I would hate to increase the likelihood of the blog being linked to some disreputable website.

 

My idea of cat heaven (note the safer use of the word cat...) is a blazing fire, fur blanket, a personal door opener, stroker and ear masseuse.  Food and toys would be on tap, the place would be hoover free and there would be a fish tank for amusement purposes.  Maybe some plants to chew on and some expensive furniture to strop the claws.  Of course visits to the vet would not be required.

 

Having introduced Gamin to you I think I maybe ought to include a picture, it is normal he just sits like that.  The face is also typical half grumpy, I do have better but this will do for now.

 

 

 

Gamin The Cat

When I first came to Belgium I was introduced to the cat, Gamin.  I say introduced, it was more like briefly glimpsing the elusive and cautious creature, who at that time lived in the garage of my future father-in-law.  Grumpy, evil and dangerous only begin to describe the character of this cat and I, having grown up surrounded by a multitude of cats with their respective characters, thought that he would not prove to be too much of a challenge to win over.

Gamin would spend his time usually outside or in the garage.  He was always brought in at night and often slept on top of the hot water boiler, for obvious reasons really.  When he was upstairs he spent his time hiding behind curtains or chairs and sometime joining my father-in-law when he went to the toilet, he is a bit odd that way (the cat not my father-in-law).  He was regarded as being an indoor cat and had his litter tray provided.  Unfortunately he has suffered from stones in his bladder and due to them being quite painful he had a stretched bladder with a very pink and raw tummy where he had been constantly licking.  In all his life was not bad but not quite comfortable, especially when taking into account the obsessive and disturbing cleaning routine of An, distressing and disturbing for the cat and others living in the house, not for An!

In 2007 or thereabouts, Gamin moved house and came to live with us here.  I fitted a cat flap and it became apparent that in fact he is very much a night stalker and would often wander off, even at his age.  Naturally this concerned An who was not used to this behaviour from cats, but I was used to it.  He would come back with the odd scratch, having won or lost the argument over territory.  We had it on good authority that he was a bit of a terrorist with the neighbour's cats.  Initially I fitted a regular cat flap but then An noticed that we had an intruder and so I had to fit a magnetic one instead, training the cat to use this took a bit of effort but then he got the idea eventually.  In fact he is still a bit of a sod and waits for us to open the door when we happen to be around, like loyal owners we do!

The effect of the intruder was to upset the cat and cause a resurgence of his bladder issue.  In fact this got quite critical and I thought we were going to lose him.  It turns out that there were stones in his bladder and these had either not been noticed or removed on the previous occasions when he had experienced difficulty.  The Vet advised, and both An and my father-in-law had followed it, that the cat should be given very expensive and special diet food.  This was meant to help with the stones issue.  Now I have grown up around cats all my life and we had never fed them any special food nor had we noticed any problems with this.  There were plenty of others but no bladder stones that I was aware of.  After much persuasion I convinced An that we should put him onto normal wet food, which he loves, funnily enough.  This was after he had a major and rather traumatic operation to have the stones removed.  This must be around 2 years ago and now his fur has grown back and he has not had any further issues.  Scroll on to the most recent visit to the vet...

A journey to the vet, for Gamin, is no pleasure trip.  His yellow box signifies the impending unpleasant experience that awaits him.  He runs away but then does not really put up much of a fight when we get him into the box.  On this occasion and unusually, he peed in the box, which was handy as the vet did not have to obtain a sample the hard way!  Anyway, we got there and the vet took a while before seeing us, which gave the cat enough time to begin his aggressive 'keep away from me' growling.  I could not find my leather gloves, which was a bit of a shame as he lashes out when he is examined and I fully expected this to happen again.  He was given his usual injection, under protest and he even managed to put up with the stethoscope on the ribs.  Not for long though.  The vet took a swipe to the arm, which left two parallel red marks.  Ok enough.  He went back in his box and then we started to get the line about the special diet food.  Now I don't mind when people give you sound and well founded advice but the evidence presented proved beyond doubt that the food was not causing any problems with stones.  The stubbornness of the vet was beyond belief.  The, expensive, urine tests showed no abnormalities at all and we had been feeding him for some time on whiskas.  The whole bill, including worming and flea treatments was 98 euros, I can't help but feel seen off.  I do not recall having to do annual check ups for our cats, just the boosters when they were young, but then things may have changed.

I should add that now, if fact not long after he moved in with us, he became a lot more friendly.  In fact he even comes to sit with us when we get home from work and very rarely, he actually gets on your lap.  There has to be a special blanket though.  But now he purrs a lot more, he nuzzles me, most annoyingly when I am trying to read.  He also is a lot more vocal than he used to be and he often lets us know when he wants attention.  He is a lot happier than when he was living at the old house, although An still insists on putting him to bed in the garage, which he is used to.  He does not use the litter tray anymore as he has a nice garden to use...

An and I were discussing the fact that at some point he will join the other cats in the next life.  Unfortunately An made a slip of the tongue and said 'kid' instead of 'kitten' heaven, at which point I imagined kids screaming and shouting, pulling his ears, tail and chasing him about... Utter chaos, I cannot imagine he would like that somehow.  In fact kitten heaven would not be much better judging by the look of disgust he gave a visiting kitten one day.  He is a grumpy old man who barely tolerates the presence of another cat, but he would give way eventually after he has established who is boss.  To make matters worse An corrected herself and said he would like it in pussy heaven, at which point my tea sprayed across the room as my mind took a short trip to that idyllic location.

I did have a visit from a work colleague with his wife, they brought their dog too.  I did warn them that the cat usually runs off when visitors come and that when he sees the dog he will nip away as well.  How wrong was I?  Brave boy, he sat there almost daring the dog to make a move as he hissed and growled at the poor thing.  It was the equivalent to a standoff, although clearly the dog felt a lot more intimidated and scared than the cat and refused to look Gamin in the eye.  He did not back down or give up his place, only withdrawing to the garage once the dog had left the house.  I was surprised and a little proud too.

Ok, The Zip.

There is a saying where I come from, if you have forgotten to zip up your trousers you say to someone "you have egg on your chin".  It is a slightly more discrete way of saying that your flies are undone, we do try to be diplomatic.

Occasionally life throws up the odd embarrassing challenge and this happened to me one morning just after I had arrived at work.  It was around 7am and there were only a few people in at that time.  As is my want, I chose to empty my bladder, it was on completion of this that the problem arose.  I must add quickly that this was not a re-run of There's Something About Mary.  There were no bloody moments or TV cameras with appearances on national TV.  No, as I drew my zip up it failed, leaving me with a bit of a snag, although not literally a snag, thank God.  There was no chance of repair or even being partially closed, I was swaying in the wind so to speak.  The saving grace was that I prefer close fitting underwear, in fact I wear underwear, which is always a bonus!  The cargo was therefore reasonably safe and not in danger of popping out to say hi.

Now luckily enough, where I work we have a clothing store which is usually stocked with a wide range of uniform clothing, including black trousers.  I duly and rather cautiously crossed the grass to the other building that housed the clothing store and gabbed the storeman.  I had to wait until they were open, which was not too long.  It is rather handy having such a facility at the workplace.  Anyway, things started to go downhill, basically they did not have my size.  I had a choice between supermodel thin, which would have lasted about 30 seconds or mega huge, which would have made me look like Coco the clown, if only he had a red nose to give me as well.

Helpfully he said that he could order some in, it would take a couple of weeks.  Now, I appreciate the timescales but that kind of doesn't work for me.  I told him that I had a spare set in the house only 2 1/2 hours away.  His next line took me aback, he said the tailor next door could probably fix the zip in a couple of days...  I decided that given the choice between the extra ventilation and having no trousers at all would prove too much of a distraction for my team.  I declined the offer but then thought that I may be able to get a safety pin, which I did.

Now my job is very serious, I deal with quite important and life changing issues everyday and although I am quite laid back there is a degree of credibility and dignity required.  I tackled it the only way I could, each time I had a face to face chat I just came out with it, that is I stated clearly that my dignity was slightly compromised.  Naturally the first thing that people do when you say this is they look at your crotch...  Well now that the ice was broken we could get on with the business at hand.  I don't think I would get away with it if it was the other way around, the polite thing is to pretend to ignore it.

I do a lot of face to face work and I get around the organisation quite a bit, it is the best way of keeping abreast of things and doing business.  Sometimes I would forget to point out my clothing defect.  It is quite obvious when someone has noticed but does not quite feel they are able to mention it.  You can play at this stage, you know, doing a Sharon Stone or sitting like a typical male with legs spread as wide as possible.  I am a bit too considerate to torture people like this, so more often than not I confirmed their suspicion and made sure they were not traumatized.

Thinking about it now, it reminds me of the times at school when a hole would open up right under the crotch, where the seam would just split.  As we used to sit cross legged a lot as kids this could be quite embarrassing too. Now it tends to be laces snapping at the most inconvenient time, although not so much of a compromising situation.

As most people within the organisation were aware of my clothing deficiency I felt it necessary to instruct one of my team to raise it as a point at the Executive meeting in my absence the following day.

And that was how it began with the zip!

No, Really, It started With My Zip

Every morning when I go to work my alarm goes off at 05.15, this is a bid to avoid the heavy rush hour traffic.  I usually get to work around 07.00 and that is a clear 1 1/2 hours before I am supposed to start.  This has benefits, primarily it means I can have my breakfast and read my kindle in relative peace before the rest of the team turn up.  Sometimes, more often than not I will do some work, although usually I will do some personal development such as learning Dutch or reading.  It is a peaceful start to the day, which can be shattered by the odd crisis and someone being in early.  Occasionally, if I am really tired, I will have a half hour nap, which is ok whilst it is dark in Winter but in Summer it is a bit of a non-starter as my office has massive windows.

Anyway, when the Marimba alarm sounds, it is time to lean over, hug and kiss the wife and then slip out of bed.  As I rise, my body begins to stabilise as gyro control is initiated.  Every now and again I have a wobble, depending upon whether I had a decent nights sleep or not.  Now I must add that the alarm is as loud as a fire alarm and my hearing being low I make sure it stays loud.  An must love this.  Sometimes, to my annoyance, I wake up before the alarm goes off, in some cases this is just minutes before, a wasted opportunity to sleep!

Being a former watchkeeper, I value both being silent and keeping the lights out.  I am quite considerate in this respect, I go to the sock and underwear drawer and remove a set, whilst my night vision is still good.  After that I fold back the rug and close the bedroom door to prevent the flood of light waking An up.  At this point I do the usual evolutions; toilet, weigh myself, shave, brush the teeth and shower.  My night vision is now shot through and I am quite awake by now.

I pre-iron my shirts on a Sunday and thus it is quick and easy to get dressed and grab my bag, which is normally pre-packed.  Today I changed my routine, forgot my trainers and missed out on PT, shame...

Recently, due to the total ban on shoes being upstairs, my routine had to change.  Usually I would come back upstairs before departing to give An a hug and a kiss.  Now I do this before heading downstairs.  A couple of weeks ago I had finished up and switched the lights off in readiness to open the bedroom door, my night vision having gone, I then proceeded to enter the bedroom and fumble my way down An's side of the bed.  She was watching me, as her night vision was still well established.  She continued to watch as I overshot my target and gently and delicately kissed the headboard.  She was wondering what the hell I was doing and I was lucky not to hit my head on the wall.  Needless to say I re-orientated and managed to locate the target some 40 cms further back from my initial estimate!

The next most important evolution is to feed the cat, who has been sitting patiently on the other side of the kitchen door, waiting for me to come downstairs.  He clearly hears me getting ready and is well established in his routine.  Sometimes he is outside and he waits for me to unlock the door, heaven forbid he should use the cat flap!  As I put the food in his bowl he makes sure that my uniform trousers have a good few cat hairs to mark the fact that I belong to him.  The last thing I do is grab my yogurt, keys, wallet and pass and then head out of the door.

As I leave it is like doing pre-flight checks in the car, depending upon the weather the heating and demisting kicks in and I establish the music for the journey and initiate the navigation.  Usually this is a rolling task as I am departing the street.

I promise the next one will start with the zip!  You know what it is like when you get going...