This morning after parking the car at the car park in the Rugby town center, a kind of strange thing happened. As we walked toward the shops through the car park we could see a woman pushing a stroller, screaming, running really, chasing a little boy and screaming, 'Tommy, Tommy, come fucking here,' or something similar. Cathy turned to me and said something like, 'Aren't you glad you don't have one,' which I was really. As I walked past the woman, who had a cigarette in one hand and tears in her eyes, she screamed at me, 'You try it.'

Just after I sit down and turn my machine on, Sharon goes pass my desk and I say to her, 'I've emailed you about my holiday dates, hope they're okay,' 'I'll check them tomorrow if that's alright, Lovey,' I'd been hoping to take two weeks off and go to Florida with the Mrs but financially, it's just not viable. 'Yeh,' I say, turning back to my screen, 'fine,' Shortly after this I hear Alison and Sharon in conversation and I am quite surprised at what I learn. Apparently the part timers have no entitlement to staff discounts. A fucking OUTRAGE!

Louise and Caroline have been shopping and they've got something for me. You see, I've developed a liking for Weight Watcher's brand carrot cake. Someone had brought some into the office for the dieting people to eat on someone's birthday and having tried one, I ate 7. Friday I bought 2 packs and ate them by Saturday morning, so when Caroline said her and Lou were off to ASDA, where cake is cheap, I jumped at the chance. Tonight Caroline has 5 packets for me. I hand over the green tea I've bought her and she hands me the cakes.

At about half 7 Clare suddenly goes, ‘Oh, I signed up for the sexy toy testing thing. I signed online.’ Alison hadn’t been at work the night Clare was telling us about her desire for a career change. ‘That would be your perfect job,’ Alison says, because we all know of Clare’s love of sex. Then Clare tells Alison that she had to pay something, 49.50 or so, and they send her the toys, which she tests and then keeps. ‘You tell them though, like, if you hate bondage so they don’t send any tying-up stuff or anything.’ Clare explains.

Tonight while I’m taking a call, I hear Clare telling Sharon that we’ve all moved desks because I get lonely and paranoid if they don’t all sit with me. I can’t respond because I’m in the middle of a call. Next thing I know, Alison has tears in her eyes and Clare is badgering her for what’s wrong. I go and get Alison a piece of kitchen towel, the soft blue stuff, and she dabs the tears away. ‘Hey, what’s wrong mate?’ says Clare. ‘Probably you bullying her,’ I say, and Clare’s jaw drops slightly in surprise. Alison starts laughing.

I look at the clock and it reads 17:11. 'Fuck, fuck,' I say to Carrie who is at the desk next to me holding a 350g tub of toffee popcorn and shovelling it, literally, though without a shovel, into her gob. 'You've got little bits of popcorn stuck in your 'tache', I say. 'Shouldn't have,' she says, 'I just waxed it,' When she finishes it she starts telling us about the flight she had out to South Africa. 'Really nice, really nice people, really friendly,' she says, 'KLM, they were called. Of course the plane was delayed out of England.'

It’s Saturday and the sun is out and I have to go to fucking work. When I arrive, Lou is standing out the front waiting for me to unlock and let her in. ‘Fucking typical,’ I say, ‘look at the day Lou, first day of sun this century, practically,’ Inside the office I suggest to Lou that we open the door to the office and lock the gate in front. That way we can at least see some rays of hope spreading across the lobby and taste that pleasure of the outside world denied to us today. Oh, shining sun.

We were sitting in the cinema and I could hear the rain start up outside. First I could hear the soundtrack from the cinema next door, from the other screen, then I heard the rain pounding on the roof. It was weird because it could have been clapping from the screen next door and I was wondering if it was fucking Harry Potter and all the kiddies were in their clapping but it wasn't because I don' think harry has started yet. Not that I give a shit. It's not my kind of film really, I'm not ashamed to say.

While the phones are quiet, and I'm wandering around the office taking a peek at people's desks, I find a packet of cuppa soup on the desk where Jenny used to sit. I pick it up and read the ingredients. Seeing that it's has a low level of fat, I decide to have one and ask Carrie if she'd like one too. 'Yeh, crack on, I'll have one,' she says, so I go into the kitchen and boil some water for our cuppa soup. 'It's been fucking years since I've had one of these,' I yell from the kitchen area.

Both Carrie and I have come in to work in vile moods and to top it all off, women are calling up in their thousands because there's a sale on and they want their chattels at half price. I'm afraid to say that the whole process is making me sick. I've never seen any of the products in the flesh, so when the customer queries me on what the item they're ordering looks like, I have to log on to the website and trawl through pages of nasty looking overpriced shitty trinkets and bags. I'm in the wrong fucking job.

I did no work today. I intermittently fought with my wife or sat at my desk feeling sorry for myself, suffering through post period period pain. After dinner, when the worst of it struck, I googled possible causes and came up with several possibilities, each worse than the previous. In the end though, the codeine kicked in and my girly bits stopped throbbing. I would like it though, if voluntary hysterectomies became available, or even donation schemes, where I could donate my womb to someone who, perhaps has a malfunctioning one and fancies having a fully functioning second-hand one.

It's time again for my bi-monthly review. I don't give a shit about them really, I know I'm doing an okay job and if there was anything untoward, or the opposite, to be revealed, I'd probably know about it already. 'I'm going out for a fag, lovey,' says Sharon, who's reviewing me, 'Back in a tic,' 'No problems,' I say, turning back to Gilly who is teaching me some other form of data inputting, or outputting, as is the case. Gilly's laughing because I'm 2 finger typing and making mistakes. 'Fuck me,' I say, 'I'll be here all fucking night.'

'He bought her a Jessica rabbit,' says Clare after Alison tells us Chris is in a really bad mood. 'How do you know?' I ask Alison, who is smiling over at me. 'He told me last night and they arrived today.' I start laughing and Alison continues. 'He also got me crotch-less stockings, and the whole lot came with a little travel vibrator,' Then I hear a noise and say, 'What's that?' 'It's my phone,' says Clare, 'It's on vibrate,' Then Alison starts laughing, and wobbling on her chair, 'Nah, it's me,' she says, 'I've left the travel vibe in.'

After spending the whole day at home, intermittently fighting with the wife and sleeping, I was quite pleased to get out of the house and in to the office. I spend the first few minutes speaking to Zsolt, the Hungarian guy who cleans the office, about Australia. ‘In my country, for example,’ he says, ‘Every people, young and so on, having tee shirts with writing, ‘Aboriginal’,’ I am amazed and start laughing. He continues, ‘Every people love the hunter who died 2 year ago; and little child, Bindi.’ This sends me into near hysterics. It seems the Hungarians are Australophiles.

Because there aren’t any calls to take, we play games on the computer. I can’t get the hang of ‘Minesweeper’ so Carrie slides her chair over to teach me ‘Solitaire’. ‘I thought the cards had to follow suit,’ I say. ‘Nope.’ She says. I win the second hand against the machine. In the end though, the victory is clouded by remembering a story my brother told me about my mother playing Solitaire in the kitchen while my father, depressed from a stroke, sat silently in the living room with his dog on his lap. Later, he was to kill himself.

Today the sun comes out. It comes out in more ways that one. We decide to move. Not all the way out of the country, but at least it's to somewhere out of the suburbs. I don;t care what they say about the suburbs. I can;t live in them. I can't live somewhere where everything shuts at 5pm except for pubs catering to alcoholics or gelled haired boys and the girls they chase. That decision, coupled with late afternoon sun on the green, green grass, has put me at a superb level of good humour. Roll on tomorrow.

Thursday night and I get in to work to see a stack of boxes containing those fucking bracelets to unpack and re-bag. Sharon comes over from her desk to tell us what to do. 'We know,' we tell her, 'We did them all day Saturday, we're experienced, thanks,' Then everyone leaves and me, Alison and Clare get stuck into it. Clare, her OCD kicking in, starts laying down the law in terms of how the whole process will take place. 'You stick the stickers on the bags,' she says, 'and then chuck the packaging in the trolley.' No discussion, then.

Zsolt, the guy who cleans the office has asked me to bring in some photos of where I come from. Since the discussion about the Hungarians who wear the tee shirt with the word 'Aboriginal' written across the front, I've come to realise that he is fascinated by Australia, so I've brought a couple of spectacular looking ones featuring my mother's front garden and the rowing club lawns. 'Super,' he says when I show him them. 'Your garden? He says, holding up one of them. 'My Mum's garden,' I tell him. 'Super,' he says, 'Just very super.' Pronouncing it 'Soup-Airrrrrrrr.'

When I leave for work the sun is out. I am obsessed by the sun, or lack of it. A bit like I am obsessed with my bowel. Tomorrow I am going to have a colonic irrigation. It will be the first one for me. I have been talking about having one for a long time so I booked this one on Monday. I'm slightly wary of going now. I am a bit worried that the water will go up my bum too quickly and blow the sides out of the tubes that hold my shit. Hopefully it'll be fine.

There's a festive atmosphere tonight when I arrive at work. There are lot of day staff left, and they're not at their desks. They're milling around Sharon's desk, as if waiting for someone to make a decision. As I come in, they all turn and stare at me and I say, 'What?' 'How did you get in?' several of them call out. 'I took a spaceship. Why?' It seems that a lot of roads around town are closed down due the foul weather that passed over the UK today. It seems my colleagues are worried about getting home. Or not.

It rains all Friday so by Saturday evening there are floods everywhere. We walk to the town center where parts of it are under water, water right up and under the automatic glass doors of the bank there on the corner. Further down, at the traffic lights, there's a fire engine and some police standing about. They've strung their blue sticking tape between the poles that carry the traffic lights. They don't want anyone passing so we go right to the new housing development on the river. A woman is watching from her window. Wondering when the water will come?

On the news this morning a skinny news reporter interviews a man whose house is under water. 'Are you worried about losing power,?' she asks him. The man's son is standing next to him. 'We've lost it anyway,' they say. 'Oh.' she says, changing tack. 'What about water supply?' she says, and they say something about staying with the man's daughter so it doesn't matter. 'Have you called the insurance company?' They tell her yes. 'So many irreplaceable things, sentimental value,' she says. They say, 'At least no one died.' She's looking for negativity, drama. They don't give her any.

Tonight there seem to be a few people missing from the office. I sit down and turn my computer on and wonder if it's because of the floods. While my machine warms up I look over in Gilly's direction and say 'Hi Gil,' Then I notice she's cut her hair. 'Gil, have you cut your hair, matey?' 'Yes', she says. 'I like it, it looks great,' Gilly has one of those faces that would let her get away with wearing a hat made of offal. 'Did you do hack it off with a razor blade this time?' I ask her.

After Zsolt and I have a long conversation about his country, my country, other countries and general other things, I finish off my orders and then go to the toilet. 'Sometimes I don't wash my hands after I've gone to the toilet,' I say to Carrie when I get back. She looks at me. 'That's alright, sometimes I don't either,' 'I do when I pooh' I say. Then I amend that. 'Sometimes I forget though, or can't be arsed,' Carrie, who is still looking at me, says, 'That's alright, I don't either sometimes. Then we go back to our work.

Alex comes over to me and to me about ten minutes into the shift and tells me a secret. 'Shit,' I say when he's finished,' 'That's not good. Are you alright about it?' 'Yeh,' he says, 'I didn't have a good feeling about it anyway, so...' And as his voice trails off, he leans on the desk next to mine, saying, 'Tsk,' Then Clare comes in and, seeing the look on Alex's face, she gathers he's telling me something worthy, and says' 'What, what's going on?' and Alex tells her the whole story before she's even put her bag down. Gilly has gone for a promotion and looks very nice, clothing wise, today. I hadn't remembered until she went past me into the kitchen to get a drink so I turn to her, though she is hidden by the kitchen wall, and call, 'How did it go t

Gilly has gone for a promotion and looks very nice, clothing wise, today. I hadn't remembered until she went past me into the kitchen to get a drink so I turn to her, though she is hidden by the kitchen wall, and call, 'How did it go today?' She comes around the corner smiling and says, 'Fine, went fine,' 'You look calm,' I say. 'I wasn't last night,' she says, 'I was vomiting from nerves,' 'Did they give anything away?' I say. 'Nah,' she says, 'But I feel better that I've done it.' 'It's a confidence booster, innit.' I say.

'Look at my baby, oww....aint nobody that can take your spot...ooh ooh...lah lah, ew, oh,' Carrie is singing. She has a headphone in one ear while she flings postal orders around her desk. Her elbows go up at right angles to her body, and she says, 'I wish I knew this bit,' and starts laughing. 'Walkin' on the beach with our toes in the sand,' she sings, and I start laughing. 'Temporary malfunction, she says as she swings her chair around to get up and take the postal orders to Sharon's desk, and her headphone falls out of her ear.

What happened to the sun? It came out again. No, not again. For the first time all summer. It is shortly, according to the weather man, to go back in again. Though there will not be any rain, there will be some cloud. I don't trust this sun anymore, this sun here. It's too erratic, like someone on drugs that you ask to go water your plants while you are on holiday and you know they won't do it but you feel like you have to put some trust in them, because you have no one else to do it.

Everyone was joyous, but me, I couldn't have cared less. It made not one tiny iota of difference to me whether it went ahead or not. Of course later, I looked like a feel because I hadn't paid any attention and it all went off without a hitch and they were all taking some glory and I was sitting there, book at my nose, paying them no attention. 'Don't you feel a bit foolish now? One of them asked me. The only reason I felt foolish was for being anywhere near any of them, this bunch of utterly dire fuckwits.

About half an hour after she arrives, Alison suddenly swings her chair my way, and smiling, says, 'Ooh, how was your colonic?' So I launch into the tale of having my arse hosed out, and she grimaces. 'Ew,' she says several times during my recital and I try to reassure her. 'It's great for IBS,' I tell her, 'You should have a go,' After a while we go off topic, and she says, 'I did something really embarrassing,' 'What,' I say, 'did you suck Chris off in Waitrose? 'No, I turned the shower on myself at the gym, fully clothed.'

Today it was warm so we put the tent up in the back garden. I had to climb into the loft and get it. I wasn't sure if it would be in goo condition or not. For some reason I thought it was burned or something, or had shit all over it, but it was all there, even the poles and pegs. It was lovely to lay in it again, it reminded me of having it up in the house in Askew Road that year that I slept in it in my room. Those really were the days. They were.