also

i think i may try another one of these:

starting tomorrow obviously. can't be too rule-based you know.

happy new year

wow again. like clockwork! ha ha.

it was a very quiet new years here. i had a stomach bug so i was in bed by 930 hoping if i fell asleep i wouldn't feel so sick. luckily it was just a 24 hour one so it worked and i woke up 11 hours later feeling much better. nothing like a bout of stomach flu to make you appreciate your health.

it's been a good year in many ways - but mostly i just think about losing humph this year. i really missed him this christmas. when we put the tree up, when we cooked the turkey, and my lack of snuggle buddy for the in-between days of snacking and reading and binge-watching boxsets. on christmas day we got up and walked around the park anyways because it just seemed like the only thing to do.

but it was a good year - and next year will be too. to all our friends and family (if one can make such a distinction) happy new year. may it bring health and happiness, friendship and warmth, good food and laughter, wine and beauty.

love to you all x

and out the other side (hopefully!)

i passed my exam.

n's job has finished.

physio is kicking in and my foot is slowly getting better.

four more days of work then two weeks of christmas holiday.

my sense of humour is speaking to me again.

ditto sense of ridiculousness, beauty, and some degree of patience.

i think it's going to be ok.

phhhhhthpt*

*in honour of bloom county. welcome back bill!!!!!

my project management exam is tomorrow.

that is all.

actually no - that is not all.

**warning - superfluous unwarranted moaning ahead**

my foray into housekeeping is disastrous. the dishes never end - i can't seem to get them properly clean no matter what i do and how hard can it be??? i have two degrees for fucks sake and i can't clean a wine glass????? i'm starting to take it personally. the chicken curry i am making for supper has the ominous first line ending "and marinade for 2 hours" which i knew but somehow conveniently forgot until an hour before we are supposed to eat it. the uk is debating bombing syria like it is some sort of game of risk and not at all like they wanted to do the same thing but on the other side a few months ago and no one seems to be batting an eyelid. how is this even a debate? these are educated men? in what weird post-empire hallucination could this ever be considered a good or even rational idea? between n and i we are working over 100 hundred hour weeks (mostly him to be fair) and not only do i miss him but the wheels are coming off of this whole "civilised lifestyle" thing we've been attempting. turns out it is shockingly reliant on someone actually being in the house cooking stuff or cleaning stuff (or in the shop buying stuff). and my heel hurts. for no reason it really really really really hurts. it started last week - just started aching, and it has got steadily worse. i can't run. i can barely walk. it really hurts. i didn't fall or pull anything (that i noticed - i'm not THAT old) it just started hurting and now it's trying to kill me. and my project management exam is tomorrow.

i can't even be bothered to be cranky. i just want it all to go away.

productivity! hear me ..... *yawn*

today i locked up my inner sloth and got things done. oh yes. i made a list and everything. and most of that list is ticked off. except the 'iron shirts' but that was just hopeless optimistic naivety and is never going to happen unless i have a job interview or something. i cleaned the bathroom (even the floor! no mom - that does not mean i don't usually clean the floor - ok i don't usually clean the floor. sorry.) i did laundry and made chicken stock. i did the dishes (oh god they never end do they? never ever end. it'a good thing they're associated with something i love so much or i would never do them either and we'd eat off of paper plates). i studied for my project management exam (it's in 2 weeks. imagine how much i'll accomplish avoiding that baby?) and i answered a shit ton (technical project management term) of emails. i bought groceries (from a list! even loo roll! i am so grown up today) and i have even practised my trombone. oh yeah, and a 8.2 km run.

the run was amazing - the weather is due to change this weekend so this was probably the last run in shorts and a tshirt. the sun shone, the trees waved in the wind, and i loved every minute of it. except the bit where my socks wore out and i landed up with a big bloody (literally - very gross) blister on my left heel. the universe will not abide perfection. but the feeling of pounding down the lanes in the wind - just fantastic.

there's a lot to be said for slothfulness you know. i'm knackered. i can't believe it's only 6pm. i still have to make dinner and there's more dishes (surprise!) and i still haven't put the hoover away (it has a cord that is not only a trip hazard, but seems to possess agency and lies in wait. it does not go quietly.)

but first a well earned beer and a graceful collapse onto the sofa. i may even try this again sometime next year...

more of a graceful collapse

it's friday night and i have to admit i am not charging into the weekend in any way - i feel more like i am slumping over the finish line. except there is no finish line - why do we even use this as a metaphor? it never bloody ends and it never will end until you do. happy friday everyone!

so yes its been a rather sloggy old week and i have been fighting the existentialisms. for some reason they are always accompanied by a feeling of failure for not being more ambitious. the cognitive dissonance in these two complaints should be a clear signal that these feelings probably have more to do with not having enough vitamin d or sleep or coming down with a cold or something than any life critique but it all seem so plausible at the time.

young f made me laugh this week though - "we have a new blanket" he said, showing me a beautiful grey plush throw. "my daddy said it was made of old cats sewn together but my mummy said he was only joking." i love how he felt compelled to give me both sides of the story. he cares a lot about fairness and i really like that about him. when we watch telly together he brings me one of his teddies so i have one too. of course then he looks over and cackles and says "let's smell their bottoms!" he is only 4 after all. in case you are wondering,  teddy bottoms smell much like the rest of them.

that's probably a better metaphor than finishing lines, come to think of it.

i've had better days

it didn't seem like it was going to be one of those days. it's been a long week, sure. on tuesday, my team and i hosted a seminar/workshop for an external networking group that made me want to gouge my own eyes out with a toothpick but that is only to be expected. ("how do we measure productivity and how do we relate this back to flexible working initiatives?" see? here - have a toothpick).

and although i have a move this weekend at work - small, but complicated and very political, involving multiple agencies including the police with all of their various networks and bureaucracies, i felt like i was more or less on top of things.

which is why i was very surprised to get in the lift this morning and see one of the team i am moving standing there with a printer in his arms. maybe it was one of those 'sliding doors' moments because before that lift ride everything was fine and after - nothing was fine.

the lift ride was too short to get any sense out of this chap so i dumped my bag at a table and went off to try to figure out what was going on. it is too boring to relate further detail but suffice to say this was the moment when i twigged something was wrong - very wrong with the technical side of this move.

when i got back to my table i had figured out enough to have a low sinking feeling and an intense desire to make about 50 phone calls simultaneously. i dialled with one hand and reached down into my bag for my breakfast smoothy only to encounter - breakfast smoothy. everywhere. i hung up and rushed my bag to the kitchen.

so it turns out it's really quite messy extracting 600 mls of escaped smoothy out of a backpack.

and it went on like that for pretty much the whole day. by late afternoon i was looking carefully when i crossed the road because frankly, it seemed like bike-courier hit-and-run was the next logical step.

i think i resolved the technical issue, which seemed to be one part "oh when you said computer equipment and listed pcs and printers i didn't realise you meant printers - we only do pcs - you need another company and another set of engineers for that" (this, less than 24 hours before the move - after 6 months and multiple meetings and minutes stating things like "blah blah blah engineers to disconnect/reconnect all computer equipment as listed...") and one part "i thought so and so was doing it so i didn't think it was worth mentioning". that second one is guaranteed to send any project manager worth their salt into the stratosphere through pure incandescent rage, followed closely by the first one.

hopefully that's all the misunderstanding and bad luck out of the way and the move tomorrow will be a breeze. we'll see. i had a plan b before today, but i've added a plan c and d now as well.

i'm home now, and dry (it was raining. of course it was raining. i pretty much expected it at that point. i had remembered an umbrella this morning only it was covered in strawberry smoothy...). i have a large glass of wine, and i've more or less recovered my equilibrium.

after all, it could have been much worse. i might have not seen the guy in the lift and i wouldn't have realised anything was wrong for ages. i could have sat in spilled smoothy. and i didn't get hit by a car or a bike or anything else except for a wave of stupidity, and that, at times, is simply unavoidable.

free sunday

it's sunday and we have no plans. i woke up this morning, thought - we don't HAVE to do anything today - grinned, and went back to sleep for another 45 minutes. these days are getting rarer and must be protected as the endangered creatures they are. when i got up i made coffee and spent a chunk of the morning working out a design for some knitting based on a cushion cover i saw in yesterday's guardian magazine. you need space for that sort of thing - hard to think creatively when half your brain is thinking about grocery lists and what time you have to be somewhere. 

n is busy in the kitchen - probably getting ready to bottle wine (about 20 litres - from a kit) and cleaning the kettle from yesterday's beer brewing (porter - not from a kit!). i should be helping him, but i'm being deliberately obtuse.

yesterday's guardian magazine also had a column which made me sit straight up and go huh. the whole thing is well worth a read but this bit especially - 

"We view certain items – in another McCracken phrase – as “bridging goods” that connect our lives now to our hoped-for futures. You want that Smeg fridge because it expresses something about who you want to be (such as: sufficiently well-off to care about nice fridges). So you buy it, but then the Diderot effect kicks in. And soon you find you’ve accumulated many of the signifiers of the life you dreamed of, without the thing – in this case economic security – they were supposed to signify."

the sun is shining and i am beginning to feel guilty not only about ignoring n beavering away in the kitchen, but also by being inside at all on this lovely day. guess i better get a move on. this is an afternoon for a bonfire and new season cider i think. hello autumn!

why are you asking that?

 brilliant. just brilliant. the whole article.

from "the mother of all questions" by rebecca solnit

"We talk about open questions, but there are closed questions, too, questions to which there is only one right answer, at least as far as the interrogator is concerned. These are questions that push you into the herd or nip at you for diverging from it, questions that contain their own answers and whose aim is enforcement and punishment. One of my goals in life is to become truly rabbinical, to be able to answer closed questions with open questions, to have the internal authority to be a good gatekeeper when intruders approach, and to at least remember to ask, “Why are you asking that?” This, I’ve found, is always a good answer to an unfriendly question, and closed questions tend to be unfriendly."

more running

another beautiful run this afternoon through the kentish countryside. these runs through the lanes can only happen in the daytime now - it's too dark in the morning before work or when i get home. the dark days are coming.

vicarage lane, kent. not so much fun in the dark.

which is why yesterday saw me purchasing a wind-proof, water-proof running jacket so bright that even my 11-year old self in the throes of a serious fluorescent jelly bracelet phase (not to mention the fluorescent shorts and t-shirts - hyper-colour -remember those???!) would have been appalled. i also picked up reflective armbands with flashing lights.

on the plus side, now if you hit me -  i'll know you were aiming for me.