I've been so busy this past week. Out every day delivering flyers to advertise our fund-raising fair, confirming that everyone who had said that they were attending still was. I'm not sure how many miles I've covered while walking the streets posting leaflets but my legs were hurting for days afterwards. Why do people insist on having such long driveways? Ok, they limit the noise from traffic and give you some privacy but does anyone spare a thought for the poor mailman, or the unpaid charity fund-raiser? 
Don't even get me started on the selfish people who have letterboxes at the bottom of their doors so that you have to bend your tired, achy legs just to post something.
Entering into the planning of this fun day, I underestimated just how much work would be required to pull it off. The past two months have been totally devoted to this one day, trying to arrange demonstrations by local clubs/ groups, organising stalls and games, dealing with the burger van mafia and trying to find ways around ridiculous health and safety laws which mean you can't even fart without fear of someone suing you for attempted nasal poisoning.
When something takes up this much time in your life and involves this much work, it kind of becomes a personal thing more than just an event you're trying to organise. You start to take every small problem as a personal insult and begin to worry that no-one will turn up on the day or that it will all go horribly wrong.
Then, after months of trying to keep control of the situation, Saturday came and the outcome was in the hands of the Gods.
We arrived at the field early after rushing through our work on Saturday morning. We had around 20 family members and friends who had volunteered to help and we began to set up. A local photographic club I'd been speaking to set up a display and we had a used book stall, a cake stall (cakes made by my best friends wife, my Grandmother and the Devil Children), a second-hand junk stall (toys and such) and various little games. The Police attended and set up a stall where they would fingerprint the kids and give them the prints to take home and then show them the inside of the cars where they lock the criminals. We had a local Tae Kwon-Do team doing a demonstration (which turned out to be amazing with slates being broken and sparring) and a tug of war competition.
The burger van mafia arrived and set up their two food vans and brought a few rides with them, by the time we had finished setting up - it looked like a really good place to come and spend an hour or so.
The gates were opened and we waited... and waited... and waited... and no-one came. "It'll be ok" everyone kept telling me, "No-one comes along for the first hour of anything". I wasn't so sure though. By the time the event finished we'd had around 30 visitors and made about 100 profit, unfortunately, this profit came from the volunteers playing games or buying books and cakes while they were waiting for people to arrive. It was a disaster. The people who did come had a great time, there just weren't enough of them. We had fun though, I took on all the kids in a tug of war and won, then they cheated and got my brother-in-law and my nieces boyfriend on their team and nearly pulled my damn arms off.
We'd arranged to go back to my brothers pub after the fun day to hold a disco, pool contest and fund-raising auction. Now, all our hopes rested on this.
The place was packed when we arrived and we kicked it all of with a hog roast (which I'd never had before and it was delicious) and the people came running. Who knew that spit-roasted pig would go down so well in a room full of intoxicated farmers? One guy even came back for 2nd's and 3rd's.
The pig was donated to us by my brother's friend so all the money we raised from selling the roast was profit and by the time everyone had eaten, I was feeling a bit better about the amount we'd raised. We'd been promised some amazing lots for the auction and we still had some food left too, we were starting to get back on track.
Then, the guy who was supposed to be bringing the auction lots failed to show. I'd arranged for a few small things but not enough to hold an auction and this guy had some really amazing prizes for us, so we decided to re-schedule the auction for another time. Hopefully he got delayed because he'll have a lot of pissed off people after him if he let us down. We don't expect anyone's help in raising this money for charity but don't promise things if you can't deliver.
I know that I'm whining about it here but the day wasn't completely wasted. Everyone who came had a wonderful time and we managed to raise 500 but when you factor in how hard I worked to make this happens, it's really disheartening.
In more bad news, our tenants knocked the other night and gave us 30 days notice that they were moving out. We rent our old house to a US military family and they have (to my surprise) been looking for a house on one of the bases near us. I'm not annoyed that they want to move, that's their right, as is only giving us 30 days notice (something about a military clause). What pisses me off is that, after asking me to extend our initial lease from 6 months to 1 year and telling us that they were staying in England for the next 5 years and would love to live in our house for the duration, they give no indication that they are even staying on a housing list. Recently my friend and his wife asked me about that house as they had to move and, being a higher rank, would have paid us more than our current tenants. I told them I couldn't do anything though because I'd already got someone in there. They are under no obligation to mention that they are looking for somewhere else to live or to tell us that they were on a housing waiting list but I would have though that out of common fucking decency they would inform us. Obviously, I was wrong.
Now we have around 6 weeks to find a new tenant or sell the house before we face the real possibility of repossession.
I honestly didn't want to write a blog full of doom and gloom but things lately seem to be alternating between mundane and shit. I never thought I would wish for the boring times as much as I do lately.
2008 has truly been the worst year of my life and I wish it would just fuck off and let 2009 come along.
I leave you with a joke that I heard on the radio today.
A butcher says to one of his customers "I'll bet you 100 that you can't reach those cuts of beef on the top shelf over there".
The customer looks, thinks for a moment and then replies "There's no way I'm taking that bet, the steaks are too high".
Today's quote is a bit of advice for myself.
"When times get tough, at some point, people instinctively know they need to lighten up in order to get through it."
Allen Klein
Don't even get me started on the selfish people who have letterboxes at the bottom of their doors so that you have to bend your tired, achy legs just to post something.Entering into the planning of this fun day, I underestimated just how much work would be required to pull it off. The past two months have been totally devoted to this one day, trying to arrange demonstrations by local clubs/ groups, organising stalls and games, dealing with the burger van mafia and trying to find ways around ridiculous health and safety laws which mean you can't even fart without fear of someone suing you for attempted nasal poisoning.
When something takes up this much time in your life and involves this much work, it kind of becomes a personal thing more than just an event you're trying to organise. You start to take every small problem as a personal insult and begin to worry that no-one will turn up on the day or that it will all go horribly wrong.
Then, after months of trying to keep control of the situation, Saturday came and the outcome was in the hands of the Gods.
We arrived at the field early after rushing through our work on Saturday morning. We had around 20 family members and friends who had volunteered to help and we began to set up. A local photographic club I'd been speaking to set up a display and we had a used book stall, a cake stall (cakes made by my best friends wife, my Grandmother and the Devil Children), a second-hand junk stall (toys and such) and various little games. The Police attended and set up a stall where they would fingerprint the kids and give them the prints to take home and then show them the inside of the cars where they lock the criminals. We had a local Tae Kwon-Do team doing a demonstration (which turned out to be amazing with slates being broken and sparring) and a tug of war competition.
The burger van mafia arrived and set up their two food vans and brought a few rides with them, by the time we had finished setting up - it looked like a really good place to come and spend an hour or so.
The gates were opened and we waited... and waited... and waited... and no-one came. "It'll be ok" everyone kept telling me, "No-one comes along for the first hour of anything". I wasn't so sure though. By the time the event finished we'd had around 30 visitors and made about 100 profit, unfortunately, this profit came from the volunteers playing games or buying books and cakes while they were waiting for people to arrive. It was a disaster. The people who did come had a great time, there just weren't enough of them. We had fun though, I took on all the kids in a tug of war and won, then they cheated and got my brother-in-law and my nieces boyfriend on their team and nearly pulled my damn arms off.
We'd arranged to go back to my brothers pub after the fun day to hold a disco, pool contest and fund-raising auction. Now, all our hopes rested on this.
The place was packed when we arrived and we kicked it all of with a hog roast (which I'd never had before and it was delicious) and the people came running. Who knew that spit-roasted pig would go down so well in a room full of intoxicated farmers?
One guy even came back for 2nd's and 3rd's.The pig was donated to us by my brother's friend so all the money we raised from selling the roast was profit and by the time everyone had eaten, I was feeling a bit better about the amount we'd raised. We'd been promised some amazing lots for the auction and we still had some food left too, we were starting to get back on track.
Then, the guy who was supposed to be bringing the auction lots failed to show. I'd arranged for a few small things but not enough to hold an auction and this guy had some really amazing prizes for us, so we decided to re-schedule the auction for another time. Hopefully he got delayed because he'll have a lot of pissed off people after him if he let us down. We don't expect anyone's help in raising this money for charity but don't promise things if you can't deliver.
I know that I'm whining about it here but the day wasn't completely wasted. Everyone who came had a wonderful time and we managed to raise 500 but when you factor in how hard I worked to make this happens, it's really disheartening.
In more bad news, our tenants knocked the other night and gave us 30 days notice that they were moving out. We rent our old house to a US military family and they have (to my surprise) been looking for a house on one of the bases near us. I'm not annoyed that they want to move, that's their right, as is only giving us 30 days notice (something about a military clause). What pisses me off is that, after asking me to extend our initial lease from 6 months to 1 year and telling us that they were staying in England for the next 5 years and would love to live in our house for the duration, they give no indication that they are even staying on a housing list. Recently my friend and his wife asked me about that house as they had to move and, being a higher rank, would have paid us more than our current tenants. I told them I couldn't do anything though because I'd already got someone in there. They are under no obligation to mention that they are looking for somewhere else to live or to tell us that they were on a housing waiting list but I would have though that out of common fucking decency they would inform us. Obviously, I was wrong.
Now we have around 6 weeks to find a new tenant or sell the house before we face the real possibility of repossession.
I honestly didn't want to write a blog full of doom and gloom but things lately seem to be alternating between mundane and shit. I never thought I would wish for the boring times as much as I do lately.
2008 has truly been the worst year of my life and I wish it would just fuck off and let 2009 come along.
I leave you with a joke that I heard on the radio today.
A butcher says to one of his customers "I'll bet you 100 that you can't reach those cuts of beef on the top shelf over there".
The customer looks, thinks for a moment and then replies "There's no way I'm taking that bet, the steaks are too high".
Today's quote is a bit of advice for myself.
"When times get tough, at some point, people instinctively know they need to lighten up in order to get through it."
Allen Klein
VIEW 17 of 17 COMMENTS
Just a quckie hello...been missing you and thinking of you! My whole weekend was boxers, boxers, boxers and now I am horribly behind on comments and blogs again.
Loves you!!