I creaked into action this morning as I had an 8.30 appointment in town after an intense four hour heavy sleep. My mind blurred by a heady alcohol free hangover feeling, I made a bee line for the nearest independent coffee place after I dropped my car off and ordered the above. It’s a vegan chocolate fudge cake which looked enticing enough but left a strange sensation in my mouth. After the week I’ve had, I felt I’d deserved a slightly naughty treat. I’ve tried a vegan chocolate brownie before which was ok but orangey and dense. My curiosity undeterred, in I went for another go. I don’t think vegan is for me, despite the global benefits. When the barista asked how everything was, I was honest in my feedback and thought afterwards I should have kept my mouth shut. There was nothing wrong with it. It just wasn’t right. I’m not vegan and I’m afraid I like cow. The coffee on the other hand was great.

Yesterday was my induction into my new part time job. It wasn’t without its complications due to technology and in all honesty it was quite painful and arduous. That’s why it’s called work I guess but for someone so accustomed to deriving pleasure from the workplace, it was full on. My shifts are four hours long so I wasn’t expecting a shift after my 3.5 hours spent in front of a tablet watching the induction videos which were a bit useless as there’s no way I can focus for that length of time without a break, and by now, I can’t remember much of the information, some of it life saving. Ideally I’d like to maintain this work for the foreseeable and not start off by killing someone in my first month. There are better ways to become memorable.

If the information could be delivered in bite size chunks rather than seven hefty modules all in one go, it would be beneficial to all parties. I failed quite a few of the tests just because I couldn’t focus above the electrical whirr emanating from some machinery in a tiny office in which you could just barely squeeze four upstanding citizens. Today my hands, arms and shoulders are sore having been hunched over a screen in the small windowless office. My just reward was a few enjoyable shop floor activities. I got quite excited when a customer asked if I could clarify whether or not the prunes in the tin she wanted to purchase had been pitted. Better still was being able to advise her they weren’t stoned and steer her in the direction of pitted cherries as an alternative. The customer is queen.

I think this job will suit me down to the ground with my OCD tendencies. I’m optimistic the positive aspects of this endearing and sometimes frustrating trait will garner our little shop some sort of award. Goals and targets are important and I’m convinced I’ll make a positive contribution with time. I don’t think one of my male colleagues took it too personally that I went round arranging the shelves he’d just tidied up. I hadn’t realised. Men! His revenge was all the sweeter when it came to barcode scanning during the bakery stocktake.

I had a couple of tearful moments, one with just the tablet as my audience. The other was also in private, when I was shown how to take a delivery from the warehouse, which I will never ever manage single handed. I was given a king size high vis jacket to negotiate the perilous venture outdoors to the truck, making me look like I was wearing one of those comedic deflated sumo wrestler suits. There was a mirror in the lift, and I saw myself with my own eyes. Correlating the barcodes to the boxes and crates was mumbo jumbo, even with my specs. Doing it efficiently at speed will take quite some guidance and practice. Up and down I went in the tiny lift while my lovely manager waited patiently upstairs. I cursed as I remembered I wasn’t supposed to block the fire exit with the trolleys and cages. Turns out there’s no other option due to the layout of the store. I wish she’d told me! It’s all learning I guess but how steep is steep! I thought I was going to pull my back as I huffed and I puffed trying to budge a particularly badly loaded cage full of valuable produce. The videos made it look so easy!

Of course, thinking I’d be done and dusted by 7pm, I hadn’t taken any proper food. A trusted sausage roll filled a gap until I got back to the home made soup I’d defrosted. At 11pm I tried not to beat myself up for parking a 10 minute walk away to get 2 brisk stomps in and avoid parking charges. It was closer to a 20 minute walk back uphill, and I started to regret the 5 heavily discounted parsnip packs which would have gone to waste had I not bagged them just before closing time. Raw tubers aren’t much use to the homeless at this time of year I guess.

I stumbled in at 11.20 feeling dead from the crown down, my mind, body and spirit fractured and fragmented into tiny smithereens. Struggling to unwind after my long day, I hit the hay at 1.30am and have been out of order until I addressed my insomnia later this afternoon. I’d booked my 2pm pool class and I’ll feel the benefit tomorrow and for my next short shift on Saturday, but I admitted defeat with 5 minutes to go, my body screaming for it to stop. This is unheard of and I’m astounded I was able to listen to it. I just can’t get enough. Once an addict…

Look what I got in town:

I’ve called it my Wowee phone in the hope that will help. Can you please muster up some enthusiasm on my behalf? 48 hours later and I’m still using my old iPhone. I’m busy! It keeps making incongruous noises at me, possibly because I’m so unenamoured with it. In all fairness it’s for work purposes at this stage until I get the hang of it. It will allow me to record audio and video clips for my music business as well as take photos. I can’t promise this will improve the quality of my photos but I’ll try. I had a thought. Would any of you lovely faithful readers like to listen to my blogs as audio blogs? With my foray into blogging and writing, one of my final proofreading methods is done by reading my writings out loud as if I was telling you them. That’s how that idea came about.

Please bear with me during these first few weeks while I play about with this new blogging platform. I’ll conclude tonight’s blog with another question – what do you think of my new blogging name?

A few more images I’d like to share from my week