By the time I was nineteen years old, I'd lost all of my grandparents. I never knew my paternal grandfather, and can barely remember my mother's father either, who died when I was just four, a year after my own father had died.

I saw my two grandmothers regularly: one lived in West London in a 1930s block of flats, the other a stone's throw from the sea, near Bognor Regis in Sussex. Both had many stories to tell, but like most youngsters, I didn't think to really listen.

I lost my mother, my only remaining parent, when I was just twenty-seven. As I moved into my thirties, a time when I began to indulge in much philosophical introspection (the fact that I started blogging at thirty-one is no coincidence) I began to ponder my own history and wonder where I'd come from, but unfortunately had no-one to ask.

In the past few months, I have been inspired by re-runs on satellite channels of this, and with the help of the wealth of resources now available on the Internet (for a nominal fee and in some cases, free), I've been delving around in censuses and putting together my own family tree. Luckily, my grandparents were all old enough to appear on the 1911 census as children, so I was able to find out their parents' names, their siblings, where they lived, and the occupation of the father.

In my family, there have been booksellers, shopkeepers, wood labourers, police constables, mercantile clerks and station masters.

They have lived in Clerkenwell, Camberwell, Bethnal Green, Hoxton (before it was trendy), Stepney, Kent, Surrey, Hampshire, Devon, and Sussex. With the wonder of the Interwebs (most notably, Google Street View for the London addresses), I have even managed to glimpse some of the houses my ancestors lived in - where they have not been replaced by 1950s blocks of flats.

There are numerous Eleanors, Claras, Ediths, Thomases and Georges. One of my great, great grandfathers had a wife called Amelia, a daughter called Amelia and a servant called, yes you've guessed it, Amelia. Another had two sons called John, both alive on the same census.

One of my great grandfathers was one of nine siblings, and grew up just a few miles from where I now live. My paternal grandfather grew up in Sidcup and went to school in Chislehurst - a stone's throw from where I lived briefly with Big, back in 2004. His mother was born in Mottingham - one stop prior to where I used to get off the train from the city during those dark (but mercifully short) days of commuting.

It is all quite, quite fascinating.

Our garden has provided us with:

Gooseberries
Blackcurrants
Redcurrants
Blueberries
Courgettes
Tomatoes
Potatoes
Lettuces
Butternut squash
Apples
Raspberries
Strawberries

The cat has attempted to provide us with:

moths
butterflies
worms
birds
slugs (which attached themselves to her fluffy haunches)
a lack of sleep, due to night time meanderings on the bed
surly, nonchalant behaviour
general ungratefulness
rare moments of utter adoration
seemingly endless amusement

Work has provided me with:

a salary
disillusionment
hatred
despair
exhaustion
cynicism
an overwhelming urge to run for the hills

My sister has provided me with:

a small, perfectly formed niece (to add to my collection)

The municipal recycling centre (or "dump" as it used to be known) has provided us with:

Two filing cabinets
A blind, which miraculously fits the bathroom window as if it were made to measure
Two chrome effect radiator drying racks
A marble lazy susan (used mostly as a Scrabble turntable)
A bird bath
Two large pieces of fabulous "retro" fabric
Some pint glasses

That about covers it, for now.

A couple of roads I pass fairly regularly seem to be having an identity crisis since the council has decided to renew the signs so that they now boast the qualifier "City of Southampton". As if we didn't know.

At one end of one of the roads in question, the sign reads "LANDGUARD ROAD" (the name by which I've always known the road). At the other end, it reads "LANGUARD ROAD". Similarly, the next road up is "HOWARD ROAD" at one end, and "HOWARDS ROAD" at the other.

Where one road has lost a "D" at one end, the other has gained a spurious "S" at the other.

The confusion offered up by the city council has unfortunately spread, like swine flu, to a nearby bus stop. One route displayed on the timetable shows the stop as "Landguard Road", another route shows "Languard Road". On the same sign. On the same piece of paper. By the same bus operator.






To top it all off, I am helpfully advised by a temporary, yellow diversion sign that I should find an alternative route to the "city center".

Where will it end, that's what I ask myself.

Wandering through town, trying to find something to wear for the wedding of the year. Something which doesn't make me want to cry should I happen to catch my reflection unawares.

Dresses are tricky on me. Waists are too high, skirts flare out just at the point where it's most unflattering, hems are too short. After many weekends of traipsing dejectedly in search of the non-existent "dress-that-looks-good-on-me", I have finally decreed that I shall wear trousers to this god-forsaken wedding. I very rarely wear anything untrouserlike, so why should I be different at a wedding? And let's face it, my legs are best just left lurking inside a trusty trouser leg rather than parading around on public display.

So, trousers it is, and of those I have many - but I'll need a nice top.

As I scour the same shops as before, this time looking for tops, not dresses, I decide to take a break for a browse around the bookshop. I very rarely buy new books, my brain quickly becoming bewildered by "l'embarras du choix" offered up by the high street bookstores. I prefer to get my books from charity shops, secure in the knowledge that I will have much less choice, a lower ticket price and the smugness of reuse. But on the odd occasion, I'll pop in to see what catches my eye.

And there, on the shelf, adjacent to the entrance, is something which immediately piques my interest.



I grasp it and read the blurb inside the cover:

... de Botton skillfully raises the big questions we all tend to ask of our work. What should I do with my life? How can I combine earning money with attaining fulfilment?...

I smirk. It is almost as if this book were written just for me. I make a mental note to buy it when it comes out in paperback.

In the meantime, I continue my quest for a wedding outfit, finally finding a blue silk tunic and miraculously matching blue shoes. I am interrupted by a text message from a friend:

Can I have your postal address? I have a present. W x

I duly provide the information, and continue on my way.

---

Three days later

I receive a jiffy bag.

I open the jiffy bag.

Inside the jiffy bag is this:



Inside the book is this:

*

I love my friends.

---

* inscription reads: "may the pleasures outweigh the sorrows"

Context: I am talking to my colleague. He is 27 years old, born and bred in the Midlands and university educated

Him: "Where's Torquay?"
Me: "Devon"

[pause]

Him: "Where's Devon?"
Me: [silent incredulity]

---

Him:"I can't believe it, they didn't pay me when I had one day off sick last month!"

Me:"Yeah, I had that too. That's because you're still in your six month probation period. It's all in your contract - the company won't pay you sick pay in your first six months. They would have told you that on your first day too. Of course, after a certain number of days, you'd get statutory sick pay"

Him: "That's not fair, I can't help being ill!"

Me: "That's not the point - you're in your probationary period - it's like having a temporary contract. It's fairly standard practice in a company like this."

Him: "Well, I've never had that before. I lost a day's pay!"

Me: "Hmmm, one day out of a month's salary - it's not exactly going to leave you on the breadline. To put your experience in a bit of perspective, a couple of years ago I was seriously ill and had 10 weeks on statutory sick pay, because I was in my probationary period. That was pretty hard financially"

[pause]

Him: "At least you got paid. I didn't get anything!"
Me: [silent incredulity]

---

Me: [noticing a packet of paracetamol on his desk] "Are you okay? You got a headache?"
Him: "Oh, I had flu earlier today. It's gone now..."
Me: [silent incredulity]

---

I've always been a pretty mild-mannered, laid-back person at work. I am lucky enough to work with bright, highly intelligent people, who mostly share my cynicism and frustration at the corporate world and the games we play within it, but who get on with it, because someone is paying them a decent salary to do so.

My newest colleague, however, is trying my patience to the extreme. Countless mind-numbingly stupid pronouncements like the ones cited above, married with fidgety behaviour, a naivety I have never experienced in someone of his age and background, mood swings hitherto unknown in the male of the species, erratic and melodramatic behaviour (he was once found sitting down in the lift), body language reminiscent of a sulky teenager, appalling standards of work (the fact that a program compiles does not mean that you have "finished" it!), an astonishing lack of numeracy (for a computer science graduate), and a constant need for reassurance (very hard to give, under the circumstances) makes him by far the most high-maintenance programmer I have ever had to work with.

And it's not just me who feels this way - most of our lunchtime conversations will involve an account of his latest demented outburst. At least he provides us with entertainment.

Whilst I usually settle for passive-aggression in the workplace, venting my frustrations once I'm away from those concerned, with this moronic excuse for a colleague, I have been driven to snap at him on a number of occasions. Big has now banned me from talking about him at home, because he is too angry on my behalf and powerless to take any action.

Perhaps the most irritating fact is that his probation period has now been and gone. An opportunity missed. And so, for the foreseeable, I must sit behind this idiot, clenching myself in silent incredulity and resisting the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake him.

I hate how he makes me feel.

Yes. Still around.

Still a little too round, actually, despite all my best efforts to whittle away the curves with a combination of running, swimming, skipping, and carrying out strange-looking manoeuvres on a so-called lateral stepper (one of my impulse buys, used three or four times in, well, a good couple of months). Nothing, it seems, will take me back to how I was "before WG". But I will not stop trying. My running pal and I, we call ourselves the "special needs" runners. Me, with my drug-induced anaemia, making it much more of a struggle than it used to be, she with her epilepsy, whose seizures can leave her out of action for weeks at a time if they lead to injury. Together, we stumble round Southampton common slowly but surely. Together, we stick our fingers up at our stupid illnesses and, albeit somewhat unathletically, just get on with it.

In work news, following on from this, I proved myself to be far too good at my job and was promoted after six months in the role. When I say promoted, I mean that my manager "strongly encouraged me" to apply for a senior role which had become vacant. Slightly bewildered, I re-did the same aptitude tests that I'd done six months previously and was interviewed by the same interviewers who had interviewed me six months previously. (Is no-one simply promoted any more?)

As a result of my new-found seniority, I have found myself being sucked into the mindset of "caring about work", which always puts me in a curious position. On one hand, I know that my job is essentially pointless in the grand scheme of things. On the other, I am a girly swot, eager to please and desperate to do a good job. And so I excel in the corporate workplace, having senior users fighting over who gets to use me on their ever-so-important projects. And I get paid a little more, which always helps. While inside, I just wonder what it's all for.

The cat continues to delight us. Not a day goes by when we don't laugh at her deranged antics. Now that she spends time outdoors, she has started to bring us the inevitable "presents". So far, a butterfly, an enormous moth and a number of worms have been presented to us, patted about a bit, generally tortured or sometimes eaten. She oscillates between utter aloofness and absolute adoration, depending on whether or not the recipient of her attention (or lack thereof) is holding in their hand one of these (or might do so in the near future).

Her latest obsession is the kitchen sink, which she will peer at, fascinated, for hours on end, listening, eyes wide, to the gurgling of the waste and lapping up any stray droplets of water. Like most cats, she refuses to drink from her dedicated bowl, preferring to take her water in virtually any other context.

My hair is shoulder-length and schizophrenic - curly at the back, barely wavy at the front, so I am back on the straighteners again in a desperate attempt to give it some uniformity. Like my body, I fear I will never have the pre-WG hair back.

And despite that background malaise, that continuing status anxiety, life is good. Big is here. My friends are here. We are healthy and happy. Thank you for asking.

The precocious boy is talking loudly (and precociously) to his father (?) in the seat behind me. I manage to zone most of it out and concentrate on my book, but am distracted when I hear him suggesting to his father that they "do some French". This should be interesting. Having two seats to myself, I shuffle forwards so that my ear is conveniently located between the two seats, maximising my eavesdropping opportunity.

Most of the French exercises they do are correct to my trained ear (bar a few dodgy pronunciations), but I notice the father fluffing the position of the negative when constructing a sentence with a reflexive verb in the perfect tense.

Later, as we approach Clapham Junction, I move towards the front of the train. Time is tight - there is a slim hope that I will make my connection at King's Cross, but only if I minimise the amount of platform I have to walk along once I get to Waterloo.

I choose my exit point, and am joined in the "vestibule" by a woman. She presses the "open" button on the toilet beside us, and the door glides across to reveal a man having a wee. We both avert our eyes and stifle a snigger. The man, now re-buttoned, emerges and checks the door. Somewhat bewildered, he directs his explanation to us: "It just came open...". My conspirator and I shrug innocently, and he makes his exit.

I smile. "He must have forgotten to press the "Lock" button," I suggest, to salve her conscience. We share our opinions of new-fangled toilet door devices, agreeing that a mechanical lock is infinitely preferable to the possibility of a door sliding open whilst one is "otherwise engaged".

I ask her if she knows what's happening with the tube at Waterloo. I had a feeling there was some restriction about which exits were usable, but couldn't remember the details. She looks at me blankly. "I haven't been up here for years, I've no idea!". I ask her which way she's going. "St Pancras. I'm visiting my grandmother in Bedfordshire. I've no idea how to get there, though..." Since I'm going to King's Cross and know exactly which way to go, I tell her to follow me.

I guide her down the escalators through the throng of the Friday evening rush hour (she stands on the left - I hastily usher her over to the right) . "Head for the Bakerloo line - it's an easy change at Oxford Circus...". Old habits die hard.

We make our way onto the platform, and I stomp purposefully to the opposite end, away from the entrance, where there are fewer people. Old habits die hard.

The Bakerloo line is fairly empty, but we're in for a treat on the Victoria line at Oxford Circus. I've barely time to go all nostalgic at the destination of our train ("Walthamstow, my Walthamstow!") before we are crammed together into an altogether less airy vestibule than that offered by South West Trains. I have just enough space to peer down at my watch, concerned.

"Do you think you'll make the train?" she asks, knowing how little time I have. "Nah..." She, on the other hand, will arrive with time to spare.

As we leave the tube and head for the mainline, it's 17:43. My train leaves King's Cross at 17:45. Once we've negotiated the barriers and gone our separate ways, I emerge onto the concourse, looking hopefully at the departure board. First train on the board: 17:50 to Peterborough.

My train has departed... but, as I discover when checking my phone and finding several missed calls from when I was deep underground, the friend I'm meeting there has not. We get some supplies from M&S Simply Food and pile onto the 18:15 instead. Our weekend has begun.

2006:


2009:




Apparently, I now have curly hair. Who knew?

I stuck a note on the printer.

I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t one of those passive-aggressive notes "politely" informing the reader to cease and desist from whatever potential minor contravention was envisaged.

It was a helpful note.

I sit opposite the printer. I see the comings and goings of the users of the printer. I hear the bleeps and see the lights of the printer when the printer is unhappy. I see the frustrated user grappling with the drawers of the printer, tutting with exasperation when their document fails to emerge from the jaws of the printer.

Having worked as a secretary on several occasions in my murky past, I have built up a good rapport with printers. I know how to touch them, how to coax them, how to load them up and press their buttons. Where others slam the doors and jab angrily at the control panel, I calmly remove the paper jams, replace the cartridges and summon the friendly whirr of a happy printer with my gentle machinations.

So, sitting as I do opposite the printer, I often step in to help when I hear the bleeps that signal frayed tempers and concertina’d documents. Even though I rarely print anything out - existing in a largely paperless world, apart from my manuscript book where I scribble my ideas in pencil. This generally involve words with arrows pointing at other words, weird doodles and half-arsed to-do lists (the other day, I wrote "Need to " but then obviously became distracted and never found out what I "needed to" do...).

I would notice the hard-copy fanatics replenishing the paper. This would involve marching off to the opposite end of the office, bringing back one lonely packet of paper, putting half the packet in the printer, and leaving the remainder on top of the cupboard opposite the printer. The cupboard which overlooks my desk. A few hours later, this scene would repeat itself, just with a different user (whoever happened to approach the printer at its moment of need).

Knowing of the director’s penchant for a tidy office (woe betide anyone who leaves a coat on the back of a chair, let alone a half empty packet of paper on a cupboard), I took it upon myself to implement a system. Being a system implementer by trade, I felt qualified to do so. I went to the other end of the office, and picked up several packets of paper – as many as I could carry without contravening Health and Safety regulations. I piled these packets of paper quite neatly, in the (mostly empty) cupboard opposite the printer.

And then I stuck a note on the printer. Large, Arial font, nice and clear, neatly stuck on with backward-looped sellotape.

There should be paper in the cupboard behind you.

If not, you’ll have to take a walk...

Helpful, informative – and a little bit cheeky. Appropriate, I thought, for an IT department.

For several days, I was able to witness the beautiful efficacy of my system. The user would approach the printer, realise it had run out of paper and then turn toward me in a neat pirouette, open the cupboard and find a ready supply of paper. The supply of paper in the cupboard was maintained. My note was working.

Then one day, inexplicably, the note was gone. My colleagues and I speculated at some length on its disappearance, wondering whether a bin audit might reveal the culprit. But then Christmas came, and all was forgotten.

I noted, with some satisfaction, that the memory of my note lived on, as I witnessed further printer users turning instinctively to the cupboard for the paper supply. Evidently, others’ memories were not so efficient, as the departmental email today confirmed:

Please note that paper is kept in the cupboard opposite the printers. Please do not leave half-empty packets of paper on the cupboard tops.

There would have been no need for the email if they'd just kept my note...

---

(hello!)

"Did I tell you about the two further occurrences?" he asks me. He tends to operate in one of two modes, enigmatic or smarmy and slightly inappropriate. Today, he has chosen enigmatic.

Once again, my manager has chosen to start a conversation in the middle, rather than at the more traditional beginning. Call me old fash.

"Um, occurrences of what?" I enquire, brows raised in anticipation.

"Of people giving me good feedback about you"

"Ah!" I become slightly embarrassed. "Really? Who was it this time?"

"I, from [other department]. And E, from [my team]. They both said how impressed they were with the work you've done with them."

"Oh... well thanks for letting me know!"

These were to add to my growing collection of plaudits: the original one from N, the large bag of Minstrels from M (I like that sort), the verbal thanks from T and the most recent thank you email from A which was sent to my manager and forwarded to me. Plus, one of my functional design documents was heralded as an example to a new member of staff of how a functional design document should be.

I may have moaned about working at [insert original company name], but it seems that they taught me my trade very well.

And so it turns out that I might be a little bit great.
(At my job, that is. Wouldn't want to get over-excited...)