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Jul. 27th, 2006 05:30 pmLast night we were official guests at a charity concert by the Royal Army Medical Corps Band. While most of it wasn't my sort of music, they were superb performers and I did enjoy the Beatles medley and Frank Sinatra medley. During the interval a couple of old ladies came up to me and remarked that I was having a good time - they'd seen my head bobbing up and down in time with the music... The compere gave us a comic moment towards the end of the second half when he introduced one of the band as a member of the Grenadier Guards. The band all made 'wooo' sounds or hissed, and the man in question pretended to get up and walk off, as the compere quickly corrected himself - the man was in the Scots Guards. At the end a 90-year-old lady, who my mother knew, said goodbye to her then grabbed hold of me and kissed me full on the lips. Then she turned to her friend, said "You can get away with anything at my age" and filed out laughing.
The concert started at 7 and had been billed to end at 10 pm, so John had been briefed to pick us up at that time. When the first half finished just before 8, I thought to myself that there was no way we'd be carrying on till 10. Sure enough, we were done and dusted at 9.10. So we phoned John to let him know. He was at home and, naturally, hadn't expected to be called into action for a while, but said he'd come straight away. As we waited we talked to Ken, one of the charity organisers, who showed us his handsome green 1966 model car. He said it was originally from the Isle of Wight; I looked at the number plate and, sure enough, it had the Island's DL registration. Ken and I talked about how the Islanders had been sorry to have to give up their DL mark when the new system came in, but at least they got HW all to themselves. As we all complimented Ken on the great condition his motor's in, he told us he'd love to enter it in the town's annual Vintage Car Rally but can't, as his organisation stages the rally so if he won it'd look like a fix.
John arrived, and apologised for keeping us waiting but we made it clear it wasn't his fault. He said he'd have words with the charity organisation for billing the show to end at 10. Home in time for BB :)
Today wasn't the best of shifts. One man near the start of the morning said he'd do the survey, but it immediately became clear that he didn't want to do it at all and he kept interrupting me in a most irritable manner and saying 'your time's running out' - when we'd only just started. When he added "I get irritated with these calls, so does my wife," I gave up on him, hung up and headed out of the unit for a breath of fresh air. On my way out, when I passed Lesley she whispered "Just tell me quick, who's going tonight?"
"Michael and Spiral."
"Sure?"
"They're way ahead."
Lesley tutted, but Sarah #3 was well pleased about that.
I got a couple more people in bad moods, then on my last call the lady I spoke to was fine until I asked how much her daughter earned. She said she didn't know, which I wholly accepted, but from that moment she got a complex about answering for the other members of her family, saying it was intrusive, wouldn't answer for either of her sons, and got rather uppity about it. She did agree to us appointing times to try and call to talk to the young men in person, but there was really no need for the sudden attitude change. Plus if she'd carried on doing the others as planned, the interview would have taken me through to 3 pm when I was getting a lift with Sarah. With her declining to do her sons' surveys, I now had to log off, so I get paid only to 2.30 pm but still had to hang around the office till Sarah was ready to go at three.
I need a holiday.
The concert started at 7 and had been billed to end at 10 pm, so John had been briefed to pick us up at that time. When the first half finished just before 8, I thought to myself that there was no way we'd be carrying on till 10. Sure enough, we were done and dusted at 9.10. So we phoned John to let him know. He was at home and, naturally, hadn't expected to be called into action for a while, but said he'd come straight away. As we waited we talked to Ken, one of the charity organisers, who showed us his handsome green 1966 model car. He said it was originally from the Isle of Wight; I looked at the number plate and, sure enough, it had the Island's DL registration. Ken and I talked about how the Islanders had been sorry to have to give up their DL mark when the new system came in, but at least they got HW all to themselves. As we all complimented Ken on the great condition his motor's in, he told us he'd love to enter it in the town's annual Vintage Car Rally but can't, as his organisation stages the rally so if he won it'd look like a fix.
John arrived, and apologised for keeping us waiting but we made it clear it wasn't his fault. He said he'd have words with the charity organisation for billing the show to end at 10. Home in time for BB :)
Today wasn't the best of shifts. One man near the start of the morning said he'd do the survey, but it immediately became clear that he didn't want to do it at all and he kept interrupting me in a most irritable manner and saying 'your time's running out' - when we'd only just started. When he added "I get irritated with these calls, so does my wife," I gave up on him, hung up and headed out of the unit for a breath of fresh air. On my way out, when I passed Lesley she whispered "Just tell me quick, who's going tonight?"
"Michael and Spiral."
"Sure?"
"They're way ahead."
Lesley tutted, but Sarah #3 was well pleased about that.
I got a couple more people in bad moods, then on my last call the lady I spoke to was fine until I asked how much her daughter earned. She said she didn't know, which I wholly accepted, but from that moment she got a complex about answering for the other members of her family, saying it was intrusive, wouldn't answer for either of her sons, and got rather uppity about it. She did agree to us appointing times to try and call to talk to the young men in person, but there was really no need for the sudden attitude change. Plus if she'd carried on doing the others as planned, the interview would have taken me through to 3 pm when I was getting a lift with Sarah. With her declining to do her sons' surveys, I now had to log off, so I get paid only to 2.30 pm but still had to hang around the office till Sarah was ready to go at three.
I need a holiday.
