One is the Loneliest Number

I am now on exam leave, I've finished school forever and now have those nasty little buggers known as exams to get past. Now because my parents both work and my brother and sister are both at school I spend about 7 hours of every weekday being completely alone at home. Being in my own company for such a prolonged period each day has drastically altered my mind. How the unemployed manage, I will never know. Here are my findings:

1. I now drink between 6 and 12 cups of tea in a day, it is a reward for completing a practice paper, the solution when stuck on a question, a refocussing activity and a way to stave off boredom. I ran out of teabags the other day and went into meltdown. I had to venture to a neighbour and beg for supplies.

2. The most exciting part of the day is when the post arrives. We are near the end of a postal route so this usually takes place around 11, as soon as I hear the letterbox* clatter I dash downstairs so pick up the letters. I am overwhelmingly excited if one of the letters is for me, it rarely is though. (*Does anyone still have a box for letters or does everyone just have a flap so the letters fall onto the doormat?).

3. My mind is captivated by the smallest things. On Monday I played catch in the garden, by myself, for half an hour. I am teaching myself new juggling tricks with varied success, I now have an excellent finishing routine. I lift half of the table tennis table up and play against myself for ages, I've won every game so far.

4. I have apparently turned into a professional chef. Everyday I cook an unnecessarily complicated meal. I have so far had a beef and gravy sandwich, home made pasta puttanesca with bacon and my pride and joy - bacon wrapped faggots^ in a tomato, onion, garlic and mushroom sauce. (^Faggots are pork belly, liver, heart and lung in meatball format).

5. I now need to have a playlist for everything on my iPod. The Cheer up Joe playlist, the Chemistry Revision playlist, Biology revision playlist, Physics Revision playlist, Top Songs, Classics, Silly and Fun playlist. It is just sad. I am currently listening to Silly and Fun.

6. I have become desperate for companionship. I have given appliances and objects personalities and traits. Obviously the radio, kettle, fridge and cooker and my best friends, the desk is my boss and the dishwasher is my mortal enemy as I have to empty it every morning. Another sign that I am going completely doolally was my plan to attract a birdy friend to keep me company when revising in the garden. I tore up some bread and put it in a trail towards my chair. I was hoping for a robin but ended up with a blackbird and a sparrow, can't argue with that. The sparrow even sat on the arm of my chair until a big nasty crow scared him off.

7. Clothes and brushing my hair seem to have become unnecessary, my hair is always a mess although still frequently washed and my clothes are effortless, it's all tracksuit trousers, t-shirts and massive jumpers.

8. I have turned into an eating machine, my lunch is always massive and I constantly snack on anything and everything through the day, I got through 4 bananas, 8 cocktail sausages and 2 kitkats yesterday alone.

9. The naked run to the bathroom has become much less fun. I'm sure you've all done it, made a dash in the nude between bedroom and bathroom before showering, with noone else in the house there is no need for speed or sneakiness, removing all entertainment and thrill that it provides. I've considered doing a detour past an open window just to the the adrenaline buzz back. I have to fetch more toilet paper myself if it runs out. The naked dance has far less risk attached. I go to the toilet with the door wide open. I sing or whistle constantly.

10. I actually revise.

Family Holiday #2

Just nine days after returning from the ordeals already described my family embarked upon another. This one was a venture to the Loir Valley near Le Mans in central France with my mum's family, consisting of 3 of her brothers and their wives and children, a sister-in-law with husband and children, one of my cousin's girlfriend and a friend of my uncle. In all, 25 of us. This is a lot of people to have in one house, which is the exact reason we didn't stay in a house, we stayed in a Chateaus that used to be a monastery. This place was owned by a man called Claude, what else? He was quite possibly the Frenchest man in the world, his dog was called Fifi.

The house was a typical horror film location, caves underneath, a massive woods, dark hallways, bats and secret passageways. The house maintained by a team of zombie like people, led by the one we nicknamed Igor. We even considered making a Blair Witch Project.

I was in a room with my three oldest cousins and my brother, it was a great laugh, the lights were on a bare cable so we did tricks that made it spark. The room had the noisiest door known to man so if anyone used the door the whole room would be woken up. This however was nothing compared to the dog, it was a very clever dog but did not manage to grasp the fact that the alternate door was locked. It would throw itself up against it repeatedly in an attempt to get in, scaring the hell out of all of us, especially since it would grab the handle and we could see the handle turning. I hate dogs. The cat I preferred, it would get in through the window and pad around the room before snuggling up to one of us in bed and purring. It would switch beds quite often and was lovely (must not make a pussy joke).

My memory of the week is somewhat impaired by the fact I spent the majority of the time drinking. What I remember vividly is the cooking, it takes a lot of time and manpower to feed 25 people all at once. The system was that each individual family was responsible for one meal and anyone else could chip in. My family did meatball, hand made. In all we made 211 meatballs, made gallons of delicious sauce and served up lashing of spaghetti. The meal lasted us 3 days, meatballs for dinner, meatball subs the next day and the remaining sauce used to add taste to the youngest children's dinner the next day. Due to my skills I was put in charge of subs, I made 25 meatball subs in under an hour, who says I learn nothing at work?

We decided to take a guided tour of the caves from Claude, it was unbelievably fascinating. He showed us the burial sites for Monks who had lived there, the places where French people had taken cover from bombs in World War Two and where Jews were hidden from the Nazis. He then went on to describe the religious experiences he had had whilst down there, involving a secret room that only the enlightened could find, a massive, multiple headed moving statue and all sorts of weird stories. I'm a religious man but I didn't quite believe him, he was a massive stoner! He would quite often disappear up to his room with his girlfriend and they would both come down looking flushed and completely out of it.

After this one week I could happily never eat another croissant or baguette in my life.

Working on a food counter

I started working for a supermarket recently and had my first days in the shop this week. I am behind the food counter in my lovely apron and stylish hat. It is a lot of fun but there are so many little procedures to remember. The bakery and patisserie is the hardest place to work, some of the items sold are on the till, some are on a bar code sheet and some are on the scales and require a sticker to be printed. You can guarantee that whatever item I am trying to find will be listed in the last place I try.

What I really enjoy is the bitching. Whenever a fatty walks in we make little comments to each other: "fire up the oven, big order coming" "shit, we only have 19 muffins left!" This is always very funny especially since one of the guys I work with used to work for McDonalds so has an endless supply of fat jokes. This was not nearly as hilarious as what happened yesterday. I group of about 6 men came in to the store and were instantly drawn to the pastries and cakes, me looking all young and innocent and smiling sweetly probably helped too. They were staring at the counter for ages and saying "oooh, it would be so naughty" "They look so pretty" "Oh wow, it all looks sooooooo good" "Ooooh, yes please" I saw my opportunity for sales and I jumped in with a big smile and a "Hi there, can I help you?" They began to walk away but their leader said "Oh don't you worry, we'll be back" They went off and looked at some wine while I got on with cleaning something behind the counter. They chose some wine and went over to the tills to pay and I caught the eye of one of them, I flashed a cheeky smile and I swear to god he bit his bottom lip. I just hope it was because he wanted some cake. Would you believe it they didn't buy anything, I was so sure they would, I must work on my charm.

What I dislike is how much we have to throw away, so much that the Assistant Manager requested we slash the prices from about 7.30pm. A note to everyone: come in store at about 9.30pm and the prices will be down really low. I also hate the freezer, I had to spend two hours in there sorting it out, it was horrible, cramped, slippery and strangely, really really cold.

I love working there really.