My Monday

I have done my duty and read the pages of those more competent than I and have duly posted comment where applicable.

I would like to recount to you now some of the events of my Monday morning activities.

As usual I was out of the house before 7am and on my way to my first client.
His call "over ran" due to an "accident" (unpreventable) which made me late for my next client.
He also "over ran" due to the fact he could not be arsed to move any quicker (the bugger!) and I finished with him at 9am then scooted off towards my next client for his ... wait for it ... 9am appointment ... there's more ... 16 miles away!!!

I was lucky and traffic was light, so I made good time, finally rolling in to his drive at 9.35am.  As I was driving I had time to build up a head of pent-up frustration (with the office) due to the ridiculous amount of time they (office again) allow for me to travel between clients.

So I walked in only to fine the client (who should have already had his breakfast) still in his bedroom bopping to a Monkees CD on the CD player I had fixed for him at the weekend.  I was greeted by my client, still  in most of his PJ's (top anyway) dancing to "Take The Last Train To Clarkesville" with his wing-wang winging and wanging all over the place!

Frustration began to bubble over at this point but I kept control and coaxed him through his morning rituals and got him ready for breakfast.  We broke the record getting ready.  The usual time to wash, dress, eat breakfast and brush his choppers is approximately 1.5 hours ... we did it in 35 minutes.

As I settled to my clients routine the frustration subsided somewhat ... until 30 minutes before I was due to leave he demanded to go into the village for a coffee.   We did!

The woman serving us in the cafe was 70 if she was a day!  she wore black hipster trousers, a pale pink stringy pair of knickers which seemed to be more or less invisible between the stretch marks and a T-shirt with the logo "Born to Rock".  She was sooooooooooooooooooooooo slow at serving us that people started setting up a tented-village on the patio, undertakers came in to measure us up and displays in the shops opposite changed again and again!

And when we did get served ... the coffee was lukewarm.

Anyway, we have now reached the point of my tale ... I'm just going to make a coffee.  I'll  be right back.

Here we go again (with a two minute, made in a make-hot-in-a-ping-machine coffee).

It was as we were enjoying (?) our lukewarm coffee's that I noticed a woman with a dog at the next table.
We started chatting in German as she didn't speak much English.  Nothing special,  just about her dog and her holiday, stuff like that.  When we said goodbye and left the cafe I suddenly realised that I had "Heimveh" and felt terribly depressed.

After 5 years living in Wales, I was homesick!  Not for the place I was born and grew up in,but for Germany where I lived for nearly 30 years.  I missed the clean streets (cleaner than here), the lack of graffiti, the more laid-back attitude and the people.

For the rest of the day I was so homesick that I felt like just going home and telling the office to get stuffed!
I'm over it now, although I still long to up-roots and go back there someday ... when I have the money.

I know this is a long winded piece and it's not particularly of interest to anyone ('cept me), but I had to let it all dribble out ... just to keep myself balanced, if you know what I mean.

The combination of frustration (work) and homesickness (for Germany) knocked me a little off kilter yesterday  and it's something I'm not used to.