Tales from the qual face
Christmas is a comin’ …
Well, it’s nearly here and the atmosphere at CPCAB Towers is becoming more electrified by the minute. As well as the usual frantic round of preparations the weather has been testing our mettle somewhat (although compared to other parts of the country, of course, we’ve escaped very lightly) and the phones have helpfully become exceptionally [...]
The Lunchtime Debating Club
I spoke to W*** on the phone last week. He used to work at CPCAB Towers on a part-time basis and I haven’t seen him for several years now. The Miner Bird office is as far away from the main door as it’s possible to be but I always knew when he’d arrived because of [...]
A wee phone call
At CPCAB Towers we get a lot of phone calls from prospective counsellors who are confused about how to get started. We do our best to be as helpful as we can, even when we’re on our ninth call in a row, have a set of exam papers to type and are in desperate need [...]
So, so tired …
CPCAB Towers was unnaturally subdued at the beginning of the week. One of the team got back from two weeks in China the day before; coincidentally, another came back from two weeks in the States the same day. A third had just come back from a visit to her mother in this country, so no [...]
A death in the family
Great sadness in the Miner Bird household last night – Fiona was desperately sick and I feared the worst. True enough, when I checked her this morning she was stiff and cold. I hope the ground isn’t frozen too hard for a little ceremony this evening. Fiona is one of our flock of geriatric chickens. They’re [...]
I’d love to know what you feed your pony
One of the joys of living in the heart of Somerset is that the hold-ups on the journey to work are so delightfully varied. On Tuesdays I usually get stuck behind a large shiny white milk tanker on its way to the local dairy farms. Only on Tuesdays, for some reason; maybe the cows get [...]
Birds of a feather
Great excitement at the CPCAB offices this morning. I could hear the rumpus even before I switched off my engine. It was one of those mornings where the cloud cover somehow turns the great outdoors into a sort of invisible cathedral and the noise was echoing round. It seemed to come from the back garden [...]
Hold-ups in Qualsborough
It’s about 9 miles from my house to the CPCAB offices in Qualsborough, along roads of varying widths but almost every inch of them edged with green. All very blissful and bucolic, you’d think, except that the local powers-that-be seem to have a liking for blocking off tiny sections of it on a regular basis. [...]