I’ve just not been in the mood to blog this past week; the build up to Mother’s Day has taken its toll. Friday evening was the worst, probably because I was tired – I stop fighting when I reach a certain point. If I want to cry, then I cry. And I cried buckets, my eyes were still sore Saturday morning.

It’s not something that I really talk about – I’ve found that most people can’t cope with someone else’s grief; it makes them uncomfortable and lost for words, so I’m inclined to keep quiet about how I’m feeling. My blog has often been my saving grace in the past. You just put on your ‘the world is fine’ face and get on with it. Trouble is, it’s not fine and the more you cover it up the worse it gets. It takes it’s out of you and eventually your feelings reach crescendo and overflow.

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It’s been a fairly busy couple of days at work leading up to my week off. And Gods do I need a break – it’s been a trying couple of months. I hope somewhere along the way I find my muse again – I appear to have misplaced it (a bit like my glasses, which I think have been abducted by aliens). I haven’t updated since last year and it’s nearly the end of March now. My apologises to all the people who have taken the time to write to me and received ‘I’m in the middle of writing something now’ replies. I can’t seem to get passed the middle bit. Let’s hope that this coming week finds an end to the problem or at least an end to a couple of the stories.

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I carried out the first of the interviews for my assistant on Friday. The poor man was so nervous his hands were shaking but once he'd settled down he was brilliant. He has set a high standard for the others interviewees. It wasn’t until a lot later that it dawned on me what the poor bugger had been faced with. It was on the wall behind us and right in his line of vision. GM was worried that he might think they were hers.


The framed memento was awarded to her by the staff after the Adult Learning Inspectorate visit. Anyone that has been through one of those inspections will tell you pulling your own teeth out whilst being spit roasted over open flames is less painful. So much hangs in the balance and if you fail you stand to lose most of your business contracts. So it’s a little worrying to say the least.

So to the story behind the thong picture.

It was the last day before judgement was passed and things weren’t looking too rosy. The inspectors didn’t appear to be very impressed with us and failure was on the horizon. We were all shattered.

Now the upstairs toilet is unisex and the door doesn’t always bolt properly. You have to make sure the catch has gone all the way across, which we all know about and it’s never been a problem. One of our trainers had decided to try out wearing a thong that day, just to see what all the fuss was about. She’s a fairly big lady and she’ll admit herself that the thong wasn’t the best fashion accessory that she had ever worn. To be blunt, it was cutting her in half and she decided to retire to the toilet to make a few technical adjustments.

Picture this. Our lady stood in front of the mirror, her trousers around her ankles, her t-shirt pulled up and tucked under her chin, her one hand reaching around behind her and the other hand reaching in front to adjust the offending item of underwear.
We had two inspectors on site, a man and a women. Unfortunately it was the male inspector that chose that moment to answer the call of nature. It was also unfortunate that the lock on the door hadn’t quite closed.

I don’t know who got the biggest fright but the poor man left the toilet a damned sight quicker than he went in. All Ness heard was him uttering – ‘I didn’t see anything’, they were both slightly traumatised from the experience. But I think Ness recovered first – she’s made from sterner stuff.

Anyway we passed the inspection with flying colours in the end and went to the pub with the money from the petty cash tin to celebrate. When we ran out of funds we sent Craig back to get the money out of the bus tin – which ended in a fair few people getting drunk.

I was not one of them – I’m always the responsible adult – which I think you’ll agree is a bit of a frightening thought. It’s a shame we couldn’t get a copy of Sainsbury’s surveillance tape because it would have made interesting viewing as the GM walked around totally pissed trying very hard to give the impression of being sober. She wouldn’t let me take her home until she’d got her shopping, although I would seriously question what she brought as food to feed her family. A bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin and a pound of cheese for the dog.

Ness was convinced that it was in fact the sacrifice she had made that had turned the whole inspection around – and to mark the occasion she had got the thong framed for posterity, after she’d washed it of course. She was damned sure she wasn’t wearing it again.