Holiday, Part II

Last time Steve renewed his contract he insisted on being able to take two weeks of holiday. Management were appalled at this demand, but they want to hang on to him (I wish he realised how much they need him) so they negotiated that he could have two weeks as long as they weren't two consecutive weeks. So, we had the first week at the beginning of June (when we went to the hotel), and now we're having the second week.

Steve came to pick me up at the weekend. I really didn't want to stay at home any longer than I had to. There's stuff going on that I don't especially want to blog about, the short version is that it's easier for everyone if I'm out of the way. That sounds like a really stupid emo kiddie sentence, nobody wants me, I'm going to go and eat worms... it's not like that. I'm wanted and I'm loved, there are just certain tensions that could do without me hanging around town and fanning the flames by the sheer fact of my presence.

So, here I am in Warwickshire again at Steve's house. Poor bloke, he's knackered. There's this muppet from his work who keeps ringing him for the most inane reasons. The last answerphone message I heard was left on Saturday and was asking "which brand of Leatherman do you think I should get?" Seriously, he deems this worth interrupting someone's holiday time for?

We spent much of today in bed asleep, but by mid-afternoon we decided to venture forth and look into this mobility scooter malarkey. The Active Mobility shop had a sign on the door saying they'd be back in ten minutes, so we went round the corner in search of the first little cafe or similar we could find... and we're glad we did.

I can't remember the name of it, but we Will go back and I will try to remember to make a note of it. Fantastic little cafe. Steve had coffee (a proper cafetiere of proper coffee) and I had tea (a proper china teapot of proper leaf tea) complete with sugar lumps and so on and so forth, and we each had a scone with butter and jam. Steve doesn't even like scones and jam as a rule, but he figured this place would do it properly and he wasn't disappointed. Lovely and fresh and gorgeous. The staff were amazing too. There was an old man who seemed to be the owner/manager, who was very friendly and chatty, but the twenty-something waitress was just as polite and friendly and you don't often get that.

From what we gathered, the man hires waitresses knowing full well they don't want to do waitressing forever, and he actively encourages them to apply for jobs that are more the sort of thing they've studied or trained for, or that they aspire to. We reckon this "mentoring" attitude is what makes his staff happy to work there in the meantime, and therefore leads to such exceptionally good performance.

In a very happy mood, we went back to Active Mobility, but unfortunately we didn't have much joy. Steve thinks the woman was being paid on commission as she was steering me towards whatever was more expensive that fitted in with the criteria I was after, rather than what Steve could see that was more likely to suit me and my needs.

Steve also admitted (after we had left) that he didn't think he'd be able to lift the bits of a disassembled scooter into the back of the car. I reckon there's no knowing unless you try - after all, those things are designed to make it easy - but it is something to take into account that I hadn't really thought of, I tend to just think of Steve as "stronger than me" and leave it at that. Perhaps I do have to forget it. But I don't want to - a scooter would give me so much freedom back.

However, it wasn't the time to discuss it - we were both knackered again and we had to refuel the car and get home before the major rush hour traffic started. Home, bed, sleep, wake up about 9pm, swallow a load of tablets, somehow order pizza between the two of us, hang about online and hope that we both feel better tomorrow.