h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's always nice to get to Friday with the weekend to look forward to but this week it feels better than ever.

Not only have I had to work the full 5 days for the first time in ages but have worked very long hours mostly running around after the internal audit team. It's not that I have any objection to an audit visit. In fact I would quite welcome it if they came along with the intention of spreading the best practice they must see as they visit offices around the country but they don't. It seems to me that the prime "competence" for any Auditor is having a glass that's half empty. In other words their mission in life is to find things to criticise and if there isn't anything important to find fault with then any number of minor matters will do. In all of the 30 years I've been experiencing these visits the very best thing that's ever been said in the Audit report is " we found nothing to criticise".

Anyway this time the only thing that was criticised was that not all of the papers they requested were immediately available. The fact that we archive all papers in a repository 10 miles away and are charged £25 per retrieval ( whether that is 1 piece of paper or a van load so to keep the cost down the standing order is 1 retrieval per month - as recommended by previous Auditors )didn't seem to be the answer they wanted. Only another 12 months before we have to go through the process again.

Although I'm happy to have got to the end of the week I am feeling down today as it is my wedding anniversary. The first one since Eric passed. I visited him earlier and had a good talk to him - some very irrational and angry at words at first but I forgave him for leaving me in the end. Now I am not really sure what to do with myself. I feel very much in need of a drink but am worried that if I start it could turn into a binge. Perhaps I'll just have a cup of tea for now. Then again a binge every now and again isn't necessarily a bad thing so perhaps I will go for alcohol after all.. Really I just want to go to sleep and not wake up until tomorrow but that's a bit unlikely.

NOMS + 3 weeks ( apart from 1 little failure for which I have forgiven myself)

So sorry you're feeling down Polly - anniversaries are always hard. I don't think having a drink (or three) would do you any harm, but have you got a good mate you could drag out to the pub ... or descend on, bottle in hand? I usually find that company helps when I'm feeling a bit low.

How right you were to forgive that little failure...
It is hard not to feel angry but I suppose your visits to the churchyard (is it?) are a comfort. I know they used to be for me and my son (irrational though that is) : the flowers, the little plants, the look around his new environment. I remember those visits as very soothing. I go less often these days (twelve years ago now) but if I am overtired or stressed, the bouts of weeping are not far away (twice a year roughly) . To tell the truth it's also self-pity which is not nice, but a good cry doesn't hurt.

One thing though, I don't know if it is the same for you. I am easily in floods at funerals now.

Oh have that drink, one binge a week is allowed.

annie, martine thanks for your kind thoughts.

I know the advice about sharing this time with good friends is sound but there are times when I just find that impossible. Not because of them but because I find it difficult. It's a strange thing that there are so many people ( and I am one of them ) who seem to be able to share their innermost thoughts and fears in Mustardland ( of which fo me this is an extension ) and get so much comfort from doing so. Perhaps one of our bright young members should make this the subject of a thesis.

No Martine it's not a churchyard but a lovely silver birch in a memorial garden. It is a special place though and somewhere where I can go to be close to Eric and share my thoughts with him. Music is the real tear jerker for me. Eric was a very good singer and for many years member of a Barbershop Quartet and the minute I hear anything they used to sing I just fill up. It's a very big part of him that keeps us close and despite the tears is a great comfort.

Binge under control or I wouldn't be writing this.

You've hit the nail on the head Polly: the relative anonymity means it's just like psychoanalysis. Lying down and letting it all go. No one really close is going to judge you and total strangers will bend over backwards to help.