Today was a bit of a bugger for no end of reasons, so I'll just list the reasons here.

1) Went down to my garage to find that it had been forced open - luckily the car was still there, and I have nothing else to steal in the garage. The vandals/thieves had gone along the row of garages breaking into them and vandalising cars.

2) Turned up on station to find that there was no work for me - so the resource centre let me go and report my crime (bless their little cotton socks) - then sent me to another station to pair up in the Rapid Response car.

3) I was told that I would be working for the next nine days (because of a discrepancy between the resource centre and my station) I went running to the station officer which has sorted it all out nicely. Now I have some actual time off where I won't be feeling sick as a dog.

4) In a lull during work I went to my council office to tell them about the damage done to my garage - they told me it would be seven days before they could fix the door.

5) On the way home I bought a new padlock for my garage door, thinking that a garage unlocked for seven days would mean me saying bye-bye to my car (it has been stolen 6 times previously). When I reached home the council had fixed my door and put a new padlock on the door. So I had to turn around and head back to the council office so I could get the keys to allow me access to my own garage. I'm now £15 ($26) out of pocket for a padlock that I won't be using.

6) I learnt that some chemical cleaning agents will actually strip the enamel off your bath.

I am tired, I am fed up and I'm on the Rapid Response car again tomorrow; but I won't be driving as I'm "not insured" - I'm insured to drive a big white deathtrap around London, but not a normal (if speedy) car. I don't understand, and I don't think I want to.

Still this has given me the final kick in the arse to ask for a transfer to a nicer bit of London - I'm getting a bit tired of workmates saying "You live _THERE?_ Why?" when they find out where I live. It'll probably take years before they move me, but it's worth a try.

As for work, all our emergency calls were quite simple and I think I spent a total of ten minutes "face-time" during the entire shift. Which is a bit dull, but is a nice warm-up to get back into the swing of working after such an extended "sickness".

The good news about my rota change is that I can definitely go to the London Blogmeet on the 12th of May, and I only need to get one day off to go to the Blogmeet on the 8th of May.

But now I just want to go to sleep.