Fourteen: My Manager’s House, Chelmsford.

The venue: My Manager’s House, Chelmsford.

The Sunday dinner: Beef.

The price: Having to be in Skeletor’s company for an afternoon and not getting paid for it. 

Yep. You read it right; we were invited to Sunday dinner with my boss today. I’m clearly not able to be completely honest, as I’m not yet in a position to live off the proceeds of this blog, although that’s probably only a few weeks away now. 

Imagine my horror, which I obviously had to disguise, when I learned we were supposed to have ham. You know, the stuff you put in sandwiches. I’m unsure about you (generally, not just in relation to this), but I’ve never had ham gravy. Never fucking heard of it. It doesn’t exist. Still, it’s only a four hour round trip to her house, with bridge tolls, so it’s well worth making the effort for. 

Oh dear. I’ve already started moaning, haven’t I? I hope she doesn’t read this, because I have a lot of respect for her. She is brilliant at her job, and a strong, supportive, effective leader renowned for choosing excellent people to join her team. Apart from Skeletor. Who we’ll come on to later. 

Thankfully, they decided to do beef in the end, which made more sense, and stopped me from going absolutely mental, albeit in secret. 

As always, however, let’s start with a précis of my week. 

One my greatest achievements from the past seven days was enquiring, upon seeing Mr Jus in jeans, a tight white T-shirt and a leather jacket, how long he’d been a member of the T-Birds. 

On the flip side, one of my biggest failures this week was not managing to get one of New Kids On The Block to retweet my blog. Even Danny Fucking Wood couldn’t be bothered, which I found particularly offensive. 

It annoyed me, as I invested a lot of time, money and energy into those miserable bastards as a young teenager. I saw them live, religiously taped all of their TV appearances, and wept solidly on numerous occasions because I’d never get to meet and marry any of them. I also wore a CND badge, like Donnie Wahlberg used to, which I made out of modelling clay in a CDT lesson, even though I didn’t even know what CND stood for. Or CDT, for that matter. 

And yet, even with the support of my pal Lashes, who fucked things up with Nigel Havers last week by sounding too suggestive, I heard nothing back. 

I hope you think the last message I sent him sounds sinister, because it’s meant to. I didn’t want him to have a Happy Pancake Day at all. I hope he ran out of Nutella, the ignorant shit. This week, undeterred by my lack of celebrity support, I intend to try my luck with the cast of Only Fools and Horses, because of the Peckham connection, and fellow luminaries from Grimsby/Cleethorpes. 

Not only did we have Pancake Day to contend with on Facebook this week, but also World Book Day. And, while I adore both batter mix and your kids, it was a bit full on. It felt like everyone was rubbing my face in their happy family lives, as they made pancakes and dressed up their children, often really pathetically. I know people don’t mean to be insensitive, but it’s hard to see those images when you’ve been trying for a pancake for several years now. I did like this though: 

And, I liked this pancake, which I hope will remind many of you of my Infamous Finding Nemo Cry Wank of Christmas Day 2007, which I like to mention at least once a month: 

Mr Jus’ parents visited us this week, so I had to do that thing again, where I don’t swear, and only act common enough so that it’s endearing, which takes a great deal of effort and concentration. I also had to rearrange the pin board to hide postcards containing foul language or sexual content and photos I look a bit hammered in (so all of them). Plus I had to do the housework and somehow give off the impression the pets are well cared for. 

I had a lot of chores to do later in the week too. But, being organised, I wrote a list, mostly to enable me to start an argument with Mr Jus, with a view to spoiling everyone’s Saturday night. There was nothing on TV of note that evening, so it made sense to have an alternative plan. 

I also chose this week to test the power of subliminal messaging and conditioning…

You probably think that I spend a fair portion of my spare time just twatting about. You’d be right. Yesterday, I spent twenty minutes looking at the Instagram accounts of Martine McCutcheon and her husband, despite having no vested interest in either of them. 

I also continued fruitlessly arguing with companies over social media. This week, Asda replaced Shiraz with Prosecco in my online order, which is ridiculous, and resulted in a stream of calls and tweets. 

Of course, Mr Jus can’t be allowed to have the upper hand, so let’s expose him a bit here and reveal the top three reasons I looked at him with complete incredulity this week: 

• When he called Keanu Reeves a DILF. 
• When I saw him eat a bogie and he denied it, but he knew I’d seen it happen before my horrified eyes, so had a weak legal case. Despite my background it’s something I’ve never done. Just shows you, doesn’t it? 
• When he made a hot drink one evening and didn’t offer me one and then acted like it wasn’t a cardinal sin. You can barely get away with doing that at work, to colleagues you despise, such as Skeletor, let alone the person you live with.

So just who is this Skeletor character?  Oh, he’s just some twat I work with. I’d be more eloquent and abusive if I wasn’t so pissed. Just trust me when I say he’s 99% bones and winds me up something chronic. But let’s ignore him and revel in the fact that beef was on the table and not ham. Thank fuck. Here’s the meal again. 

I couldn’t find fault. Seriously. The meat was tender and delicious. The vegetables were tasty and delightful. I was even asked to taste the gravy, to sign it off, and I did. Was it as thick as I’d like? Not quite, but it had flavour and a greatness that I don’t believe involved granules, which was an achievement. My manager’s husband did really well. She had fuck all to do with it, to be fair, so all credit goes to him. 

I also really respect him for asking me to give the gravy the seal of approval. It made me feel important and respected, and that’s all I want from life. The meal felt homely. Which is what I crave.

Mr Jus had two platefuls, because he’s a greedy shit, and seemed very happy, even though he had to remain sober to drive us home. That was never going to be my job. I commend him for taking the reins.

He also demolished 2.5 portions of pudding, which was a sticky date affair, made by Skeletor’s Australian girlfriend. He doesn’t deserve her, as she’s hot and fun, against his crushing dullness, but he’ll hopefully pull it out of the bag before she returns to her homeland. 

In short, because I feel quite drunk and don’t have the power to write much more, I really enjoyed today’s meal. We played a game, which I’m always up for, and had a Bailey’s coffee, and the baby, who napped during dinner and popped up later in the afternoon, was a happy, beautiful little soul. 

I just think I’m lucky to work with a good bunch of people. I had that in my last job and I have it now. It makes all the difference. I spend more time with those people than anyone else, so the fact that they’re fun and amuse me, makes life a lot easier.

Yes, I’d like to be more abusive to Skeletor right now, who tells me I’m boss-eyed, have kebab legs, and will be bald before Easter, but I’ll let it go, like Anna and Elsa before me. 

As for Mr Jus – the guy eats his own bogies. It’s fucking disgusting, but I love him with all my heart, regardless. 

Last night I dreamt that I had lung cancer and a brain tumour and was being flown to Manchester for surgery, which was quite distressing. I go there for work, and have to negotiate the people who gather outside of Bet Fred on my walk from the station, so it didn’t feel like the best venue for the sort of treatment I needed. But neither did Essex. And yet it all came good. 

I don’t know what my point is – other than I had shit night’s sleep and I’m now a bit twatted. So I might be a bit late in tomorrow, boss. Thanks for not doing ham. 

Final score: 27/33