I am of course kidding. The kitchen is clean. As is the rest of the house. The bathroom sink could use a bit of a wipe I suppose but apart from that and the damp towel hanging over the hall banister the place is fine.
My apologies, I digress. As I was saying. My Wife and 6 month new Son are in Poland finalizing the arrangements for our wedding on the 20th of this month (though I don't suppose my Son, The Bear is getting too involved with the details. He would rather not trouble himself with the specifics. He tends to prefer telling everyone what he wants and have them take care of it for him).
We are already married as you might have gathered from me referring to her as my Wife twice already. We had our first wedding here in England on 27/10/2007. It was a relatively small affair held at The Kings Hall in Hanley followed by a wedding breakfast at a place in Smallwood. The reception in the evening was at the Presidents Suite of the community centre in Stone. The festivities were all arranged and paid for by my family for which Starbuck and I will be ever grateful. It was a great day enjoyed by all.
So why are we doing it again? Well mostly because only Starbucks immediate family were able to attend our wedding in England. Starbuck has a rather large family and they really did miss out on the wedding of their grandaughter, great grandaughter, cousin, neice or lifelong friend. Not only that but I feel that it about acceptance, bonding, and welcoming each family into the other. Sharing our different cultures (and they are different!) learning and hopefully taking something positive from the experience. So while Starbuck, my Wife is busying herself making the final preparations for what is sure to be nothing short of the event of the year! (not counting The Bears birth) I am left at home alone contemplating the journey so far and what may lie ahead.
"After Tonight" by Justin Nozuka. I first heard this song on 08/02/2007.
It was a Thursday and I had awoke to a very cold morning. I was not going into work on this day which I was quite glad of as the cold was bitter and it had begun to snow. I was staying at my fathers house at the time on a couch in the conservatory after having recently split up with my ex partner. Sitting on the couch that morning exchanging text messages with Starbuck (who was at work) drinking some coffee and watching the snow fall, this song came over the radio. It was instantly captivating, full of soul and feeling. Being on the cusp of the beginning of a new relationship with Starbuck, the song seemed to reflect what I was feeling. It has since become "our song" and it captivates now as much as it did the first time that I heard it on that snowy February morning.
It was a Thursday and I had awoke to a very cold morning. I was not going into work on this day which I was quite glad of as the cold was bitter and it had begun to snow. I was staying at my fathers house at the time on a couch in the conservatory after having recently split up with my ex partner. Sitting on the couch that morning exchanging text messages with Starbuck (who was at work) drinking some coffee and watching the snow fall, this song came over the radio. It was instantly captivating, full of soul and feeling. Being on the cusp of the beginning of a new relationship with Starbuck, the song seemed to reflect what I was feeling. It has since become "our song" and it captivates now as much as it did the first time that I heard it on that snowy February morning.
We will have to go back to when I had first met Starbuck. I had taken a new job at a company called Prima Distribution. It was a clothing warehouse and I had taken a supervisory position there. I remember the first time I saw the place. It was 27/04/2006. I had arranged to go in to meet the manager and get a feel for the place before I started full time on 08/05/2006. What an eye opener! My previous with warehouses was with Asda where I had worked 14 months previous to starting at Prima Distribution. That warehouse was a brand new, purpose built super shed. Prima was an old munitions factory that had been sold off by the Ministry of Defence and was being let to various companies bay by bay. Prima had the largest part of this complex and had further plans to expand.
I recall my first impressions of the Prima warehouse being "What a dump!" and "How can they work in this place?" I was having second thoughts about accepting the job but took it anyway as I was determined to leave the job I was working at the time as an account manager for a company called Acutest. That, and the salary was higher.
Upon starting work for Prima I set about performing various tasks within the warehouse so as to become familiar with how the warehouse operated and in doing so got to know the many staff working there. Straight away I took a dislike to the warehouse manager and so, it seemed did he to me. We were at loggerheads from the start. We didn't see eye to eye on anything and his constant rejection of new ideas along with his reluctance to involve me in most of the business operations continues to this day. It is something that is just worked around these days. It became apparent that it was not a personal issue he had. He behaved in this manner to all of the new staff who had been hired to assist him.
The first few weeks were uneventful as I went from one warehouse task to another. Working with different members of staff and learning more about how the company works. The majority of the staff working the warehouse floor at Prima were hired through an employment agency. These were considered disposable staff. The work level at Prima would fluctuate from week to week, sometimes day to day and the staff levels needed to change to accomodate it so the use of an agency was an ideal way to achieve this. Most of the agency staff working at Prima were migrant workers from Poland. The owner of the company liked the Polish workers and always requested Polish workers from the agency.
I however, had never even met a Polish person and knew nothing of Poland outside what I has seen in war films. The first Polish person I met, I met at Prima. He was an agency worker by the name of Henrik. He spoke little to no English so working with him was interesting to say the least. There were only one or two Polish guys working there when I started. Most of the agency staff consisted of Polish girls. I had little to do with the agency girls at first as I was mostly heading up teams of lads loading or offloading trailers. It was only when I got involved with the processing work that I started to get to know some of the Polish girls.
Working on the re-box station was where I became more familiar with some of them. The re-box station was situated at the rear of one of the warehouse bays. To the left of the re-box station, stretching forward to the front of the bay was what had been dubbed "the bum line" by the company's resident sex case. This was a slightly raised platform with a workbench in front and slip rails above. When viewed from the re-box station what could be seen was 20-30 Polish girls all lined up with their backs to you. I could not help but think that if it were a line of English girls lined up there working on a production line, the sight would have been somewhat less impressive. Most of the Polish staff working there were in England working whilst on a break from their studies at university in Poland so they were somewhat of a higher standard than what you would usually find on a warehouse production line. My wife, Starbuck was among them.
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