The Meerkat Muse: 3rd of June, 2026
How are we already in June?! That feels faintly surreal. Anyway, welcome back to The Meerkat Muse!
Sunny Skies
May brought a slight improvement to murky skies, and as May progressed, this improvement, uh, improved. The latter half saw temperatures get better, and more sunshine, and this invariably enhances the overall mood. Bright blue skies with wispy clouds are much nicer than a persistant layer of grey, and the absence of drizzle is very-much appreciated! Will this trend continue, and will it get even better? Time will tell, but this country certainly deserves a long, hot summer, especially after enduring miserable weather for what has felt like an eternity.
Mind you, the lurch from one extreme to the other wasn’t what I think most people wanted or needed. I certainly didn’t! Temperatures hit upwards of 30C last Monday and Tuesday, creating challenging conditions to do anything in, other than bake.
The Most Unlikely Offer
As you probably know by now, I am the recipient of various scam enquiries relating to my books. Of late, one of the best ‘offers’ was from someone pretending to be a BBC radio host. Now, landing an interview with the BBC in any capacity would be huge for me, but let’s be real, they’re not going to seek me out. I am far too lowly, too obscure at this point, to be on their radar. What I did in response was to string along the scammer, but also to make the BBC aware of it, and see if there was any actual chance of exposure through that route. What a coup that would be.
This is not to say that I’ve encountered nothing but barriers and scams. I have a podcast interview slated for tomorrow, and another in August. I’ll have to keep pushing to do more.
A Prelude to Great Suffering
Or, to put it another way, the World Cup will soon be upon us. Held across the USA, Canada and Mexico, there have been questions around logistics, safety and cost, none of which have truly gone away as the tournament nears. Whilst the world waits with bated breath to see how fans are treated by ICE, it also seems that a lot of people simply can’t afford the extortionate ticket and hotel prices. That’s what you get for a dynamic pricing model.
I’m not going to rant at length about the politics and organisation of the World Cup. I am however going to lament England’s performance, even before a ball is kicked. That might seem premature and defeatist, but my dear ‘kats, decades of watching England fail at one stage or another have not led me to optimistic waters. From the nearly moments of Euros 96, 20 and 24, to early World Cup exits in 98, 14 and beyond, I am yet to witness England win a major tournament, and I suspect I could live to 90 and not see it happen.
What will happen – if England perform even moderately well in the group stages – is that the nation will be carried away in a tidal wave of unreasonable expectations, only for that hope to be quenched, be it via a damp squib of a performance, or heartbreaking last-minute agony. As such, it is best not to get one’s hopes up, and I don’t plan on wasting a minute of my time watching England.
Some of you may rebuke my pessimism, but who knows, perhaps if I don’t watch them, England will do well, so there’s a sort of weird reverse psychology aspect going on. There’s also mental protection, I can’t be disappointed or heartbroken if I preemptively choose to accept England will fail.
My tip to win it? Spain. It will be them or France.
Movie Days
A couple of weeks ago, my wife, daughter and I visited the cinema to catch the latest Star Wars film, The Mandalorian and Grogu. The mark of a good film is when you don’t want it to end. The mark of an average or even mediocre film is when you’re willing it to end, and unfortunately, that was my take on this movie. I’ve written a more comprehensive set of thoughts here, but suffice to say I would be in no rush to see it again.
Afterwards, we went and got food at an all-you-can-eat buffet, which is always fun, even if the aim is quantity over quality. From there, we all waddled home, then baked in the heat. I had however spared myself one unpleasant duty, for the night before I dug out the lawnmower and cut the grass, thus avoiding having to do it in the morning. Yay me.
Stock Days
How’s this for absurd? Bank Holidays are traditionally days where retailers such as my employers focus on sales. Instead, in their infinite wisdom, someone decided that the most recent bank holiday would be stock take for our lowly showroom. By unfortunate coincidence, this also fell on one of the hottest days of the year so far. Cue us scurrying around the shop, trying to find bits and pieces.
It’s such a strange notion. In theory, bank holidays are busy with customers. Then again, the heat kept a lot of people out and about. Who is interested in visiting a showroom when the weather is glorious?
Semantics
This is certainly the word of the day, or at least the other day. Whether it was down to the heat or a general bad mood, I had my head bitten off over termilogy. I do not appreciate having my head bitten off over termilogy. Such pedantic behaviour is a sure-fire way of earning the cold shoulder from me. My tolerance for such behaviour is at an all-time low. Pause, take a breath, and think. Are harsh words and a snarky attitude ever necessary? Do they achieve anything?
And then there was One
Last month, one of my two colleagues announced they were leaving, and that they would start their new job on the 1st of June. A few days later, my manager declared they had found a new job, and originally they were going to start that in a few days, but later brought forward their final day to the 28th. What this means for me is that I am going to be on my own for an as-yet uncertain amount of time, unless of course I can find myself a new job as well (or my current employers move quickly, but I won’t hold my breath over that).
What my employers face is a dire situation. I am keen to leave, and I won’t hesitate to do so as and when the right opportunity comes along, even if that leaves the store with no one. It won’t be my concern. They’ve ramped up the pressure, dropped the support, and squeezed us from every angle, driving my manager to leave a job they generally enjoyed, whilst my other colleague gave it a year before deciding the company was not worth suffering for. It’s a shame, but the job has morphed from a broadly good one in the early years, to an overly-corporate one, where people are not seen.
Now, what is inevitable is that I am going to be doing some lone trading, and I have certainly made it clear in the past that I don’t object to this, at least on occasion. Doing so regularly, with no relief, will be a different matter. I don’t want to be staring down the barrel of entire weeks spent on my own, especially in a retail environment where customers invariably turn up at the worst possible times. Still, one of the cheeky positives is that I had some holiday approved prior to my manager resigning, and unless the company really wants a problem, that should be set in stone. The upshot of that is that I should be able to attend a family do later in the month, whereas previously that wasn’t an option.
Another Year Older
My daughter is 16! When did that happen?! It still feels like yesterday that I watched her be born into this world. I’ll never forget cradling her in my arms, overwhelmed by emotion, crying as I said hello to her for the first time. The first time she smiled at me is one of life’s most perfect moments, and watching her take tentative steps on shaky legs toward me was another such moment.
She has never failed to amaze me, with a strength of character she doesn’t know she has, and a genuine warmth in her soul. She will stop to help out a bee, such is her good nature. I am incredibly proud of the young woman she has become.
Her big day proved to be something of a mixed affair, because by an unfortunate coincidence of scheduling we had an appointment at the hospital where she’d had her thyroid surgery. There is to be another round of surgery, this time to remove the other half of her thyroid. This is a precautionary measure, as they discovered the reason her thyroid had swollen was due to cancer. I want to emphasize, she had cancer, she does not have cancer now. Removing the affected half of the thyroid removed the cancer as well. Still, hearing that word in relation to your child is traumatic, and to get such news on her birthday was not the way we had wanted to start her special day.
She is resilient and brave, and she took the news like the star she is. I am proud to call her my daughter.
We met my parents for a spell, visited the Sea Life Centre, and then came home, where we went to a local Italian restaurant for dinner. It was a soothing end to a busy day.
Staring down the Barrel
The realisation of being on my own, for an as-yet unknown duration, is looming over me at work. I have holiday booked, so the powers that be will have to do something to ensure cover. The start of June will bring point-of-sale changes, so there’s that to look forward to. There’s all sorts of unknowns hovering over me. How might head office now line me up in their sights?
What will they do if I hand in my notice any time soon?
One slight oddity with my status as the only official employee at my store is that cover has been arranged that predominately covers when I am in, which doesn’t make much sense. Cover is more important for the days I am not in, right? What’s also got to be on the agenda is working to get replacements. How much urgency will the business place on this task? We shall see.
What I do know is that early June would deliver a raft of price changes, so my first duty as the only official member of staff would be to change all the price tickets, on my own. Yay.
All of this is leaving me fundamentally tired. I lack the energy and motivation to do what I would most like to do: write. My stories and books mean so much more than work, but work is sapping my energy.
The Pollen Scourge
The end of May delivered one of my worst enemies: hay-fever. I could not stop sneezing, which is a source of great aggravation to me. I hate it. I hate the involuntary nature of it. I hate the way hay-fever generally makes me feel, and I hate how hard it is to find good relief from it. The meds tend to make me drowsy, which is not beneficial in a customer-facing environment.
Argh to it all!
I dare say this sums up how I feel. Recent events have been quite stressful. Work is driving me insane, and then there’s been the worries about my daughter. It’s all been a bit much for me. I could use a long break from all of it, but that’s not gonna happen. Instead, there is gonna be more pain to absorb as I enter into an unknown period of a lot of lone trading, mixed up with new faces.
I don’t need any of this, but it’s the hand I’ve been dealt. I can’t change it. All I can do is crack on.
A New Dawn
Well, maybe. On Tuesday, some guys from another store came along, and between them – with help from me – rearranged everything. The showroom has essentially received a renovation, and and there is more work coming on that front. I think it proved a few things, not least of all my own laziness, or blindness. When you go to work day after day for six years, you go a little blind to certain imperfections. The showroom needed fresh eyes, and it does look a lot better.
This doesn’t mean I want to stick around. I don’t. However, if a new job is not on my immediate horizon, I need to make the most of what I have. Where this all leads remains to be seen.
That’s not the only event I’m looking at. On the 27th of June my daughter has her second thyroid operation. With luck, we can arrange the accommodation and travel this time around, which will make the entire process much easier, but it will mean additional time off work, on a weekend that I can’t officially take off. Ah well, it doesn’t matter, because I’ll take that weekend off anyway. My daughter and my wife come first. We’ll see what discussions await on that score!
So ends an eventful and dramatic two weeks. I can only imagine what the next two weeks have in store! Until then…
‘Kat Comments