Of Extraordinary Employment May 23, 2008
Posted by Jen in : Journal , trackbackI don’t talk about my job much, mainly due to having had my blog rumbled before I even started there. Trying to explain to your new potential boss via mobile phone through a mouth of egg sarnie in a Waitrose car park what you meant by describing him as ‘indecipherably posh’ is not a lunchtime pursuit I recommend.
But. How can I ignore it? It consumes a huge part of my day. It will also be consuming my Saturday.
While my usual working week usually contains a mix of old boys with farms and swathes of agricultural legal head-popping typing, there is the occasional glimmer of glamour. 70s rock stars, bullion dealers and llamas have featured briefly in the past week, amongst the chickens and silage. And tomorrow will be in a class of its own: I will largely be found making cups of tea on a Calor Gas stove aboard a double decker bus to which will be attached a marquee for our clients’ drinking pleasure. If it rains today, as forecast, I’ll be performing this clever routine in wellies.
I have always wanted to be outstanding in my field. Tomorrow, I shall simply be out, standing in a field. Loitering within tent, as it were.
Fodder for the next novel? You really think so?
Comments»
I’m delighted to finally have an explanation for your twitter updates about cows and rock stars! Definitely fodder for a new novel. The double decker bus sounds cool and those colourful wellies are still the rage. I have my fingers crossed for the weather!
Ha ha ha. That sounds fun and most posh in a county country pursuits type way.
Slightly off-topic, but have you got a title for #1 yet?
Hope the event goes well tomorrow.
Where will you be?
I am easily confused.
x
I can’t helping feeling this post lack a noun or two, without which random standing in a field with wellies making tea for farmers doesn’t make a lot of sense. But perhaps I’m being optimistic, perhaps no number of nouns can drag such as experience back into the bounds of whatever passes for normality.
Your job sounds rather fab, in or out of wellies. Silage isn’t nice though. We can smell it sometimes and it makes us heave.
Fingers crossed for good weather :o)
Yvonne - I’m really hoping not to have to do the lank-haired wading through mud thing. Sunshine and vino would be so much better!
JJ - I’ve never actually been to one of those country show things. Baptism of fire tomorrow, by the sound of it…
Cap’n Black - Thanks. Um… I’m still quite keen on ‘Still Life’ as a title. Kind of ties in with the art theme. Am sure I’ll stumble upon something better though… I liked your suggestions too but not sure they quite fit the tone of The Novel.
Caroline - I will be on a non-moving double decker bus. Hopefully, the sun will be shining so people will want beer and wine and I will prance about like a little wood nymph in my sunglasses and wellies.
Bobo - This, alarmingly, is my reality. No amount of nouns could transform it. Unless you were speaking Lituanian, possibly?
Karen - I don’t have to sniff the silage, luckily, just make reference to it now and again. I might start trying to use some of Caroline’s fancy fonts to make it seem more stinky?
This is definitely novel fodder. Add a few people in jodhpurs and you’re onto a winner.
Hope it goes well tomorrow. Hopefully people will want something stronger than tea:-)
Lane - Mmmm, yes, jodhpurs. Jodhpurs and champagne. I should be so lucky. Sigh.
hehehe! Love the cartoon. Would show it to my chickens, but I think it might incite them to make more dramatic bids for freedom than they already do.
Country shows are ace - and a job where you have to go to work in wellies is pretty darn cool. Hope its fun!
There is nothing wrong with Farmers or Wellies. Hope yesterday went well anyway.
Loitering within tent! loitering within tent!
Sal - oh, all those women in hairnets! I felt sooooo inadequate. Now where can I buy a horse?
Sheepish - It was ok actually. I was a bit weak from dying of envy at all the rich men’s beautiful wives but after four hours lumbering on and off a double decker bus with an armful of warm white wine, I ceased to care.
Breeeeezy - You noticed the wit wot what I writted! Oh, I think I might love you. Are you available for marriage perchance?
Oooh, I love country shows. Did they have hundreds of vintage tractors? They make me drool (I know - weird.) It all sounds a bit Jilly Cooper, or possibly Tom Sharpe - depending on whether you ended up sh***ing on the back seat of the bus, or merely poisoning the entire crowd. Carry a notebook at all times, Miss.
Mya x
Sounds fab and definitely needs to go in the next novel!
Mya - I didn’t spot any vintage tractors nor manage to poison anyone. Next year, perhaps?
Helen- it was quite fab in a surreal timewarp sort of way. All those gorgeous groomed people on heaving horses was actually quite emotional. I blame the wine.
It sounds completely and utterly bonkers but I’m very glad you had a good time!!
Loitering within Tent - LOL!!
C x
Sounds fascinating. R would be so jealous that you’re spending a day on a double decker bus and he’s in his forties. Yes, well what can I say? Men!
I can picture the scene, great fun. I hope you have a note book secreted somewhere about your person to make copious notes etc.
Oh you terrible punster, you do make me larf.
Carol - it was all a bit surreal and, me being me, I ended up really hyper and spazzy. No change there then.
Debs - a double decker bus with a kitchen, to boot! Sadly, I was too busy being a sandwich-toting dolly to make any notes. Now that’s it’s over, it’s seems so bizarre that I can’t even begin to put it into words.
Zinnia - can I quote you on that? ;0)
As the Oxford Uni Archers Appreciation Society used to have as their rallying cry ( so I heard, I wasn’t there) “Here’s slurry to your anorak!”
Glad you had a good time, you earthy beast you…
(I am really rather eager to read your novel.)
Lucy - You know about my anorak? Oh, the shame… and as for being an earthy beast? Raaaaaaaah… bring it on! (Oh, and I can’t get on with the editing of The Novel because you keep putting posts up which just encourage me to take photos instead of editing . Grrrrr.)