Please Mr Scrooge

Sometimes at work, we have mad little moments.

Stewarty, for example starts singing Hi Ho today and before we know it the entire team is giving it Hi , Ho, it's off the work we go, with a shovel and a pick and a pay freeze, Hi Ho, Hi Ho.

On the subject of pay freezes, its not surprising in today's economic climate that their is redundacies, pay freezes, lack of bonus's etc and I feel happy in the knowledge that I have a job. Every where you read people are being laid off, having to make cut backs and are struggling to survive.

Except, their is only one particular stumbling block on this for me and thats the age old problem that the rich get richer and the working classes (like me) just get poorer. Then of course there is the dole biters, which as you will appreciate by now are not my favourite demographic area.

It's all very honourable when upper management of whichever company announces that It will take a pay freeze, however they can afford to absorb this into the rest of their portfolio. Once they take into account their share options, bonus's or fringe benefits, whether or not that earn a million, or a shade over a million makes no real difference.

Regrettably, us lot at the bottom of the food chain, a cost of living rise, or lack off a cost of living rise, is just really another word for a pay cut and another step on the spiral towards debt and destitution. I worked out last year that If I claimed benefits and stayed at home without the added expenses of a second car that I worked an entire year for a grand total of £44. That just isn't right.

Please Mr Scrooge, can we have another lump of coal for the fire this Christmas.

I throw things at Stewarty to lighten my mood, in this particular case a small sachet of sugar, it bounces off his bald spot and I catch him unawares. He returns this sachet moments later as he catapults it back across the desk, except he has made a tear in the upper part of the sachet so I am now wearing granules. One small sachet goes a surprisingly long way you know.

When I get home I build a little model with Holly, that she will give to Papa for Christmas, that is of course if he is out of his cream puff by then. I hope he is as its a particular good attempt on Holly's part at building something out of wood. I know he reads this journal, so I'm dangling the wood carrot, hmmm, wood, you love wood, hmm Holly makes a wooden model, hmmmm, Christmas, wood, your feeling sleepy, you cant remember why your in a huff, hmmm wood, your feeling sleepy, your going to have some soup and a custard cream, hmmm wood.

I am engrossed in the model building and making sure that she doesn't stick my fingers to the kitchen table again when Abbie comes home.

She walks across the new carpet with her welly boots on, which annoys me incredibly. She doesn't do it just the once though, she is back and forward half a dozen times. I have that instant angry moment that I really want to reach down, pull off the Hunter's and launch them three quarters down the garden.

I refrain from doing so, but it was a close run thing.

We finish the night by watching This Is England 88, which I have to say was very entertaining. Our new sofa is very homely and comforting in this weather.