A strange day, and a week too

Well, what a terrible day. It started out so promising, and declined as it went, dragging everything with it. The lovely start was that I had to collect a parcel from the Post Office that they had tried to deliver yesterday while I was at work. Hoorah! I thought! My Secret Pal stuff has arrived, and swiftly too. And it was that 😀 I opened the parcel at work (how could I wait till I got home?!), and had to try and save what I could because the wrapping was lovely. More on that later.
Then a guy came to fix something at work which is vital to the operation of a good service, and proceeded to make it more broken than it was. Then I had a meeting with the deputy big boss of the library and found out stuff about my job which totally bummed me out. No, I’m not getting the sack or anything like that, but I was told that I would be promoted quite a long time ago, but that I couldn’t be officially regraded for some time, did the extra work ex gratia for a year, managed to do myself out of it by doing some review work, and now it looks like I’m going back to my original post. Poo. It wasn’t much extra money, and it was quite a lot more work, but it did look a lot better on paper than my original post. Because of that, I felt like dropping all the extra responsibilities that I’ve had on the spot, but I still had to go back to the guy breaking and then un-breaking stuff upstairs and try and control the situation (beyond my normal role). Then, DB phoned me when I was on my way home from work (he’s away still), and I couldn’t talk to him properly cos I was at the bus stop, but he didn’t seem to offer any sympathy. Maybe he couldn’t because of who he was with, but I could have done with a big verbal hug.
Then I looked at the news, and saw London, and decided that I am a shallow young lady and that I should try and remember the bigger picture. People are dying, and I’m getting upset over a series of shabby days at work and in general. People are starving, being abused, raped, and not getting the right treatment or aid, and I’m feeling upset because my life isn’t totally in control. My mate was going home from Edgware Road only last night. She’s lucky. There are lots of people who were thinking about banal things, maybe missed the train/bus, ended up in the carriage with a drunk in it or something like that, and then realised how pathetic these things are when you put it all in perspective. And I feel really angry that half of the news broadcast is about how bad the roads are and how quickly the rail service has come back up. Who cares? The number of people who have officially died or have been injured is relatively small so far compared to other events like those in Barcelona (the nearest major terrorist attack to us), but to broadcast information on how it has effected the links out of London only serves to provide the terrorists with more publicity and demonstrate that they got what they wanted. We have to see the impact, but to dedicate half of the item on the news to the bad traffic and walking Londoners is a bit insensitive maybe to those who are related to the dead and injured.
The BBC have changed programming from Ground Force, to…. Ground Force. :/ But the one they’ve changed it to is one where they do a garden for Nelson Mandela. Talk about trying to bully up the team…
Ok, so on to nice things. When I opened my parcel, I found something like this…

Yay! Lovely wrapping. And there was rather a lovely scent coming out from somewhere.
So I opened 🙂 and found these goodies!

Double yay! A yummy White Barn candle scented in Cinnamon Cappacino (and trust me it smells so good you could eat it). Def a US brand – we can’t get that over here, especially the scent. Gorgeous! It is sitting on the mantle piece with the lid on, and I can still smell it wafting around the room! And then some fabby Bernat DenimStyle yarn in a lovely choccy brown and cream tweed. Another thing I can’t get in this side of the water. This stuff is sooooooo soft! It is 70% acrylic, 30% cotton, and blimey it is miles better than anything in that mix in the UK. If you bought that over here, you would guarantee that it would feel scratchy or plasticy, because we really don’t have the yarn thing going on that well. This stuff is lush – its the kind that you rub against your face (and I know that I’m not the only one who does that) and want to hug like a stuffed toy (I probably am the only one who wants to do that, but it reminds me of being a kid and wool shopping with my mum [sigh]). I have 3 big 100g balls, so I had a nosey on the Bernat site, and found a very cute poncho pattern to crochet up. Or I might make a little sleeveless cowl neck. I’ve only just got it and I’m looking for inspiration for it 😀 There is a nice hat and scarf pattern on the band, but I think it deserves more than that. Oooo! Maybe a boob tube type top! I’ll have to make a swatch and see what leaps out – it’s harder to see what a tweedy yarn will look like made up in the ball than other yarns, so it requires some proper attention 🙂 And the card is very cute – I wish I had a conservatory like that one – or at least a garden/house that tidy 😉
Thank you Secret Pal! You’ve made my first SP experience a fab one! I hope your pal is as good as you 🙂
The world is full of terrible people, but I am lucky, and have lots of lovely ones around me. Plus fab yarn, a roof over my head, Alan Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock doing Nelson’s garden on the telly, and a glass of wine in my hand. For the pleasures in life we take for granted, that others may not always get, I raise my glass, and hope I can do something more to help improve life for those who don’t get them. I’m one lucky girl.