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Something well and truly weird happened this weekend. I stayed Saturday night round my Dad’s, as I do most weeks. Recently, a new man (he must be about 40 years old) has moved into the block of flats opposite my Dad’s block. This man spends hours on end (and I mean this literally!), every day, just staring out of his lounge window. When my Dad wakes up early in the morning to go to work, he is there. Often, even after midnight, he is still standing there. He just stands there, really still, and rarely ever moves, except to eat or go to the toilet. Apparently, he has been doing this for a couple of weeks or so now. And the strange thing is, it’s not even as if there is anything exciting outside that window. All he can see is the other block of flats opposite, and the grass. That’s it – the view is still and unchanging. There are no roads nearby or anything. It is a quiet area, and you hardly ever see anyone walking around. What on earth it is he is looking at, I have no clue!

When I went round my Dad’s on Saturday evening at 8pm, the man was there, just staring out his window. I kept peeping out every so often, and he was still there, even when I went to bed at about midnight. Apparently, he was still there when my Dad went to bed at about 1.30 am! And then when we had to get up early on Sunday morning to work in the shop, he was at his window again! You couldn’t make it up!

I found it really eerie, especially as my bedroom is diagonally opposite the man’s window, meaning I had to keep my curtains shut all the time, even when it was light outside, otherwise I would be scared he might see me. I can only wonder what the other neighbours must think, and it makes me glad I am only there once a week. If someone started doing that near my Mum’s house, I would really freak out. I don’t think he does it deliberately to intimidate anyone, but I bet people living nearby must feel scared.

I think this man must have an obsessive compulsive disorder. My step-mum saw him out walking his dog one day, and when he went back to his flat, he kept checking things over and over again, and performing strange rituals before he went back indoors. I do feel sorry for this man; he must have a very boring life. He must spend upwards of 15 hours a day, every day, just staring out of his window. Can you imagine that? If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it!

Nothing much else has happened this week. I’ve got my 6-monthly appraisal at work next week, where I have to discuss my progress over the last few months with my manager, and also my objectives for the future. Many people in my team say they think I am good enough to be promoted to the next rank, so over the last few days I have been busy collating evidence to support me in my bid – things like printouts of projects I have been working on, training certificates and emails from colleagues. The only criteria I might fall down on is communicating with people in other departments (this is a pre-requisite for people wanting a job at the next level) because I haven’t had that many opportunities to do that yet, but I do have some evidence of when I have contacted people in other departments to find solutions to IT/database problems etc. Even if I don’t make it this time, several of my colleagues are pretty certain I will next time. Whatever happens – even if I do stay at the same level for another few months, at least I know it must be better than staring out the window all day long!

This week really seemed to drag on forever. I think it must be because it was my first full week of work for nearly a month, whereas during the holiday season we often had 4-day weeks. Oh, and yesterday was Friday the 13th, and it was a rather horrid day. Firstly, the other 3 people who sit on my row of desks were all away (either sick or on holiday leave), so I was all on my own, apart from people from other departments who sit in the same room, whom I don’t know particularly well anyway. Also, the network was playing up really badly, and often my databases would refuse to open (an error message kept appearing saying “Disk or network error”). And of course, there is pretty much nothing I can do about that. I still got quite a bit of work done, but not as much as I would have liked. It seems like I spent much of the day sitting there getting bored and frustrated with the network problems. I did report them, but I was just told to wait and keep trying. I did try to do other work in the meantime though. I just hope things get better when I go back on Monday. At least I won’t be on my own then. By the time I arrived home last night, I had a bit of a headache.

Having said that, most days are really good, and it’s pretty rare that I have a bad day.

Tomorrow we are going out. We will probably go somewhere for a milkshake and meal, not sure where we will be going afterwards though.

Last week, we booked our holiday in Ibiza, for July the 8th! I will be going with my sisters Sarah and Suzanne, and my nieces Anya and Emily. This is the hotel we are going to. I am already really looking forward to it! I’ve been to Ibiza once before (when I was 12 years old), so it turns out that I will be going there almost exactly 10 years later. I really enjoyed my last holiday there. Like last time, we will only be going for a week, but that doesn’t matter, as I will have another holiday with Mum and Terry anyway.

And believe it or not, I’ve still got some chocolate left over from the Christmas holidays!

Can’t really think of anything else to talk about at the moment, so I’ll log off now.

Hope everyone had a great new year’s holiday! I saw in New Year’s Day round my Dad’s place – although I was the only one who managed to stay up until midnight! (My Dad was working in his shop on New Year’s Day, so that’s why he went to bed early). But it was still good – I looked out of the window at midnight and saw all the fireworks; there were loads of them.

On New Year’s Day itself, we had our annual feast at Mum’s house. This time it was even more hectic, as some of Terry’s relatives were there as well, in addition to our own side of the family. All in all, there must have been 15 people, including 5 children (2 of whom were 6-month old babies) – can you imagine it?! :~) It was a really good day though, although at one point I felt so overwhelmed that when Terry and my sister Sarah went outside to smoke, I went outside as well, just to cool down and be in the fresh air. Then later on in the evening, my other sister Suzanne and I went upstairs to go on the computer to search for holidays in July. We are planning to go to Ibiza for a week, but it isn’t booked yet.

Today I went with Suzanne and my nieces to see The Chronicles of Narnia film – it was really good. I first read the books when I was at school, and I think it was shown as a series on TV at one point years ago, as some of the scenes did seem familiar.

Tomorrow, it’s back to work for me and most of my relatives. It seems so weird to think that the holidays are all over now, after having about 10 days off. :~( But never mind, I will probably have a couple of days off for my 22nd birthday in February, and then there’s always Easter.