dancing, walking and the odd memory foam pillow – first published 3 October 2012

There is something about me and rain. At times it feels as if there’s a little black rain cloud sitting high in the sky waiting for me to step outside the door. Looking back on my old Fatgirlslimblog posts from 2012, I realise this isn’t something new. It can be all blue sky and sun when I leave the house but, within minutes, that blasted black cloud has appeared and started raining on me. Something else I noticed when I looked back was the huge difference between my job then and my job now, not just in what I did but in how I was allowed to manage my workload and the freedom I had to do things my own way.

3 October 2012

There was a tiny bit of blue sky outside this morning so I was hopeful for the walk to work. Just in case, and in the spirit of my mission to do some Pump It Up every work day, I got up early and managed the twenty minute dance work out. It’s not the toughest one but it certainly gets the heart pumping with lots of lunges and jumping plus a little bit of salsa in the middle to get your breath back and the hips moving. Commando came in the door just as I was doing some rather suggestive hip thrusts. It put a smile on his face but would probably have been slightly sexier if I’d been wearing something other than my cheeky monkey pyjamas. I think he was more interested in looking at the scantily clad dancers on the screen than me to be honest. I’m sure he watches the DVD while I’m at work.

The blue sky lasted until, about five minutes from the office, I got to St Mary’s Church, the one our football team, Saints, is named after. I knew it was too good to be true. Lucky I had my trusty hat, so I got damp rather than wet. Is there a black cloud just hovering over Southampton waiting for me to go outside or what?

So today was spent mostly dancing, walking and working on spreadsheets until my eyes nearly popped out. On my to do list, I have all the new film releases to look through for when the new films go to the ship in November. That should be interesting but I have to get the spreadsheets sorted first. All the offer emails have gone out to the entertainers now so I’m pretty sure I’ll have a full inbox when I get in tomorrow. In the spirit of positive thought I’m trying to will them all to accept and not start trying to chop and change. It took me long enought to fit them all into slots as it is, changing them all around would be a nightmare. You never know, I might get lucky.

There’s an assortment of percale sheets, memory foam pillows, magazines and fabric samples under my desk at the moment, things just keep turning up to go out to the ship. Every time I turn round there seems to be more of it and I hardly have room for my feet under there at the moment. Some mornings it feels like Christmas has come early there are so many packages waiting for me.

Somehow I have to find a place to hide them all tomorrow because some more company big wigs are visiting Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week. Goodness knows why they want to keep bothering us? You’d think they had work of some kind to do but what do I know? Arabella is going to be away all week in Dry Dock supervising a refit on one of our other ships, and I’ve had to change my work days so I’ll be there to greet them and answer their questions. Let’s hope they don’t ask anything I don’t know the answer to.

When I left tonight it was raining again. Luckily it wasn’t too heavy so I got home without getting completely soaked. Work is a hectic pleasure at the moment. It’s certainly a change from The Mad House where every day was the same and you didn’t have a cat’s chance in hell of changing anything. At Silver Helm I feel much more in control of my destiny, if not my work load. Never a dull moment which Is just how I like it. It’s the getting there and back dry that seems to be a problem. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?