Happy St Georges Day & Make Me A Lady

Happy St George's Day... though if you are anything like my work mates you won't even have been aware of it. I mean we all manage to celebrate being Irish (St Patricks day) yet NO ONE bothers to celebrate being English in case it offends the foreigners in this country - except this one house I pass on the way to work. He had Cross of St George flags covering all 3 of his street facing windows - well done mate.

Not much to report really except our Filipino lesson continued & we learned the words (please ignore the spelling as I've wrote them the way you literally pronounce them otherwise I'll forget!), "corrie oss" meaning post, "ma hal kita" meaning I love you, "sue mad ree a key" meaning your mother is here & "bal lay"meaning ok. I use the later quite a lot!

Oh almost forgot. Last Wednesday, P one of our drivers bumped into a car but he didn't mention it to us although according to P there was no damage to the car or the bus. The first thing we knew about the incident was when the bloke whose car it was had left a message on our answer machine saying that if we didn't phone him back within 24 hours he was coming to knock on our door with the police. So E phoned him back (never once did he haul this P in to tell him off, which quite frankly I find bad management) & the guy agreed to bring his car down to the office for us to inspect the damage.

When the guy arrived he gave verbal abuse to AT who he wrongly assumed was the driver that crashed into his car purely because he was in our companies' uniform.... as were six other drivers at the time. Honestly, some people. E went out to have a look at the car & apparently the front bumper was badly damaged while this guy was giving verbal & acting aggressive all the time, so E told him to leave & kicked him off the site. E believes the damage wasn't done by a bus & we've had enough scrapes with cars to know what typical damage looks like & as I pointed out if that damage had been done on Wednesday afternoon, why would you wait until Monday morning to phone the company about it??!! It doesn't add up. We think he's had a bump over the weekend & is trying to blame us for his insurance claim. Well he can join the queue - we still have an outstanding claim with a woman from last year.

And finally, I feel like Im starring in My Fair Lady coz T is trying to make me more cultured. It'll be how to talk & walk properly next! I stayed over at his on Saturday & we listened to the Nabucco & Carmen cds he gave me (he's also giving me some more once he finds them!) & they were ok. Having said that, I've always wanted to see Carmen anyway so he's not claiming the credit for that one. I don't mind when its in English, just when its in Italian / French coz I can't be arsed to read the translation. If I were fluent in French / Italian it probably would be ok but Im not - although at this rate I'll be word perfect in Filipino in no time. Im not sure how useful that will be except for when I go on my swanky cruises & the majority of staff are Filipino.

Ciao for now!

TJ