befogged

We have an oven again! It was installed yesterday, so I came home from work to find it looking all sleek and silver and like it had the ability to bake things. After a couple of months of not being able to do so this is really very welcome! The kitchen has yet to be painted, tiled (both wall & floor) and have doors attached to the cupboards so we can’t really put back everything that previously lived in cupboards on that wall but we can at least use it like a proper kitchen provided we don’t mind having things in slightly odd places.

The rest of downstairs is similarly coming along - we’re still rather plaster dust-y, but everywhere that can be plastered (we also took the opportunity to skim the oh-so-charming textured ceilings) has been (including all the way up the stairs and the landing - the joys of open plan and the continuous decor resulting therefrom!), so we’re waiting for that to dry so it can be painted. We’re also taking the opportunity to replace our back boiler with a combi boiler in a more convenient place than slap-in–the-middle-of-the-living-area, so we are waiting for that to happen before we can really finish off in there. We’ve bought the flooring ready for putting down post-painting (local B&Q refurbished itself and had a 10% day to celebrate, whilst simultaneously having 15% off flooring, so we ordered it before we really needed it), though, so fingers crossed it won’t be a horrendously long time before we are back down there.

I escaped the chaos for a little while this weekend, though. Friend Sarah came up on Friday evening for dinner at The Lambley for excellent food with excellent service since entertaining in home is a bit tricky right now, and then Al very kindly dropped us off at the train station at 6.30 on Saturday morning so that we could go to the Knitting and Stitching Show. 

We got to Alexandra Palace slightly after 10 and managed to meet up with a few online friends beforeand shortly after venturing into the fray. I think Sarah and I had more or less oriented ourselves by the time we met Becky a couple of hours later, so were able to lead her astray as quickly and efficiently as possible. There is an incredible amount to take in - Ally Pally is vast, and absolutely filled to the rafters with stalls, exhibitions and thousands of people. I can see why some people go over two days, as it’s exhausting and you do feel like you’re missing bits in the course of one day. I managed to make a few purchases, though:

Yes, amongst two skeins of sock yarn, one of laceweight and a lovely shawl pin from Purlescence that’s a spindle and some fibre. I have never attempted it before, but have been tempted by some of the wonderful spinners on Ravelry to give it a try!

When our feet, and possibly our bank balances, could stand no more it was back to Becky’s, where we met her gorgeous 8 month old twins and generally spent the evening chilling out with the family. Sarah and I knitted a toy each for the babies which seemed to go down well (i.e. both were in mouths within minutes!).

Here’s a slightly blurred shot of the Elijah I made:

I would have taken a better shot avec baby, but as he was christened in pretty short order that would also have involved baby-sick so I decided against it. Good job we made them washable

And back to that spindle… Well, my first ever attempts at using it yesterday evening have resulted in a small amount of decidedly rustic looking thick-and-thin sort of yarn, but it is yarn rather than fibre nevertheless and I am assured that as with anything it pays to persist. It was fun to be learning (well, trying to learn!) a new skill, too, so we shall see how it goes.

Aand the work on our house has finally started! It’s felt like it’s taken a while to get going, but to be honest the insurance company have been good to deal with so far. The delay is mostly because the value of the insurance claim meant a few different people had to come and inspect it, which means arranging a convenient time for them to visit, them completing the visit, and then them filing a report before the next person can come out and so on.

Still, we have the go-ahead for our preferred contractor to do the work, so he’s made a start today after we spent yesterday moving various bits of downstairs upstairs and into the garage and various other bits to the tip. We haven’t done the half of it yet, though - we’ve just cleared the dining room area and one half of the kitchen cupboards and surfaces, but as the dining room/living room are open plan we’ll need to clear the whole shebang when it comes to be time to prepare to redecorate. I think we’ll be tripping over things upstairs for a while! You should see the amount of books we’ve evicted between us, too. I’ve been being ruthless with them for weeks now (there are still loads that I can’t part with, but I have finally managed to evict all my University anthologies except Shakespeare) and still found three carriers of ‘my’ books to go to the charity shop!

We’ve also moved the birds into our bedroom in order to keep them away from as much of the noise and dust as possible, which has meant an interestingly early morning on particularly sunny mornings, when they all get up at the crack of dawn and clamber down their cage for food. Sometimes it’s a pain to sleep lightly!

Everything, including plaster, is now in the process of being removed from one wall of the kitchen (That being the wall which has the oven and the hob on it - wooyay. The microwave and toaster are now in the boxroom and represent, with the kettle, our ability to heat food and drink for the time being. I’m just glad it’s summer…) and the reverse side of the same wall in the dining area, plus both floors need to come up and the corresponding bathroom wall also needs to be exposed. The start that’s already been made demonstrates that our kitchen must once have been a green-fest, as the lino under the existing lino appears to be the same sort of mildly drab shades as the tiles. I bet we’ll find that the sunshiney yellow paint was once a faintly industrial green, too.

Once the relevant bits of wall and floor are exposed, people will come in with some industrial dryers and we can’t get any of it put back together again until those have done their job. Then the leak under the shower needs sorting (it was stopped weeks ago, but we haven’t been able to arrange the repair - thank goodness we have a separate bath!) and downstairs can be redecorated, rebuilt and reorganised back into a liveable space again.

I’m glad we hadn’t got around to decorating downstairs already - that would have been rather annoying! While we’re in such chaos, though, we might see what money we can find to make a few improvements that it would be easiest to make while we’ve got someone already working on the house. Until then, at least I’ve managed to find a way (with cunning use of masking tape, a long network cable, and the fact that our stairs are open tread) to use t’internet in the bedroom so that I can keep the birds company amidst the impending chaos!

Well, they were intended to be white, but… I can forgive lilies quite a bit really. Especially when they have rewarded my patience en masse and so prettily. I wonder if they’d mind having a chat with the irises for me…

As I mentioned earlier this month, I was keen to take up yoga again after never having established a really strong routine, so last weekend I went along to a first-thing-on-Saturday class and remembered all over again just how good a class can be when the teacher is good. It was a nice balance between the physical and the more spiritual aspects of yoga. I’ll definitely go again, although I didn’t yesterday morning as we were out for dinner with friends the previous night and while I was up well before the 8am start time I’m not sure inversions would have been a brilliant idea!

I have, though, found some excellent online resources which are making the doing-it-at-home thing more interesting. There are a few free video podcasts to be found, including a good one at YOGAmazing. It makes it much easier than using a book (you don’t have to pause to read or to turn the page) and there’s less likelihood of getting bored with a set dvd (I had a video that I did every day for a while, but once you’ve memorised everything the instructor says it does start to get a bit tedious!). There’s also a full length free daily class at Yoga Today, which looks very good but isn’t downloadable (although there is an archive).

I’m still keeping up with going to the gym a reasonable amount, so between the two I am really starting to notice a difference in myself. My energy is much higher (though that could also be partly due to no longer being in a working environment which drained me), my stamina is noticeably improved, my heartrate is measurably lower, my upper body strength and balance are at least a bit less rubbish than they were previously, and, well, I’m more contented (that could be contributed to by the job as well, of course!).

As for today… well, I managed some in-home yoga, although I think it would have been rather easier in an air conditioned gym! Today was hot! We did go for a nice pub lunch with my folks and his folks, which we should really do more often, though.

This sprang from a forum discussion related to pride in one’s country, but I reckon it’s worth repeating.

Most people, I think, feel that there is a difference between loving one’s country and being proud of said country.

I love my country. I love the rolling hills, the history (by ‘history’ I mean ‘fascinating historical heritage’, incidentally. Not ‘I just love everything this country has ever done at any point in its history’!), the ancient sites, the beautiful-yet-unassuming flora and fauna, I even love the weather, gods help me (and I say this on a miserably soggy day in what’s supposed to be the middle of summer)! I love the people, by and large. It’s home, and I am very grateful that it is my home.

I don’t have such love for my government and for its actions, and nor do I have pride in same. The government is paid, by myself and my countrypeople, to do a job to the best of their ability, and I will consider their performance, and therefore the actions of ‘This Country’ on the world stage, and judge accordingly with my vote. There’s a difference between ‘my country the home’ and ‘my country the political power’.

My new job is (from my perspective at least!) going swimmingly - I am just as busy, but I am much more relaxed and happier about it all, as are all of my new (old?) colleagues. Plus my calendar is no longer half filled with meetings before I’ve even started the week - we just, well, talk to each other. The joys of a smaller company!

Since, as anticipated, it’s proved such a good fresh start I decided it would make sense if I try to consider it a new start in various other ways, too.

So, after years of not managing to get my hands on a Round Tuit I have actually joined a gym. And have so far been going sufficiently often to make that as cost-effective as it would be to go to the local leisure centre.  Well, okay, jogging outdoors would be cheaper, but since I’ve spent my entire adult life completely failing to do any such thing and any sort of at-home exercise has only ever been sporadic at best I might as well be realistic and consider the financial cost to be far offset by the health benefits.

Once I build up my fitness to a vaguely respectable degree (this may take some time! I have already lost several of the comfort-eating pounds I put on in my previous position, but my starting point on the fitness scale was probably a bit woeful for a 30 year old woman), there’s a pool and loads of classes, too, so I am hoping to pick up yoga again. What is it they say? Six weeks to make a habit, one to break it? Well, I’ll cross my fingers that I’m halfway to making a new one!

Which is just as well, as the gym contains showers, and thanks to a bit of an incident whereby the part of our kitchen ceiling that’s just below our shower decided that it would really prefer to sit on the floor ours is currently out of action. We do have a separate bath, thankfully, and we’re on the case with getting it sorted but for the time being I am considering the inconvenience of only being able to have a shower if I go to the gym an extra incentive to fitness!

Hello all… Just a quick note to let you know that I’m in the process of changing web hosts, and thought I’d take the opportunity to clean the slate a little.

Rather than just port the whole of my old blog over, I’ll be a bit selective so it might take a while for things to reappear, but they will. And I should hopefully have a bit more, er, mental freedom to blog now that I have escaped what, in retrospect, was a rather oppressive environment. We shall see.

I know that some of the not-very-many people that read my blog are horticulturally inclined, so I was wondering… can any of you tell me what the heck the below flower is?

It’s lovely, but I have never seen anything like it before and the lady who bought the flowers can’t remember what the florist said.

And yes, more cut flowers on my last day somewhere They are very pretty, though, and I must say I was very touched with how lovely most of the people in my team were on my last day yesterday (not that they’re not normally, but you know what I mean!). There were other gifts, too, including a rather lovely bamboo needle set - all very thoughtful, and unexpected too

I’ll definitely really miss a lot about that place. It was a strange company, in that it was fairly large and felt at times like there wasn’t much interaction between different departments, but my team was a decent size and composed of some really great people who are really capable of such strong things. There’s a warmth to it, you know? Even if it is perfectly clear that various people within the team are not necessarily happy about The Current Situation…

I actually had an exit interview with an HR bod before I left, which was a first for me. I’d say ‘fair but honest’ describes my contribution. I feel it’s incredibly important to be honest in these things, or else the company stands to gain bugger all from them and might as well not do them at all. There’s no point going for the jugular unnecessarily, though, and although I feel I’ve either been party to or observed some poor management and decisions I don’t get my knickers in a twist over it in the same way that I did earlier in my office career. I just mentally detatch for my own sanity and hatch escape plans instead, if I can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel

Speaking of management, it’s completely possible to be excellent at managing systems and processes and bloody awful at managing people, in my opinion. I think you have to make an effort to understand people to be a good person-manager, and for all the lip service that gets paid I think some people just don’t and so think they are better at the whole managing people malarky than their subordinates think they are. People are motivated in different ways and you’ve got to learn that and work with it.

Put it this way, if someone walks into a one to one with you nervous because they reckon they’ll get a bollocking for something not looking as good as it could do without having the faintest idea of what constitutes ‘as good as it could do’ in your eyes and how to put that into practice, you’re doing it wrong. And if they come out in tears - you’re definitely fucking doing it wrong!

So, I guess at this stage it’s a question of so long and thanks for all the fish to my now ex-colleagues. And good luck!

I must have used that post title umpteen times over several years and two blogs! Still, it seemed rude not to use it since I am once again on the move in a work-related sense.

My current contract was only ever temporary, for a year’s maternity leave cover, and it comes to an end at the end of this month. Originally, my hope was for it to become a permanent role - but the thinking was that if worst came to the worst then it was a year’s good experience on my cv. Permanent, I think, wasn’t to be - bit of a cost-freezing/cutting exercise going on at the moment, so while there was a 3 month extension on offer there was no promise of anything beyond that, so it would have been foolish of me not to keep an eye out for other opportunities.

But it’s more than that. There have been so many shifts and changes over the past year that it feels almost like a different company. An incredibly efficient machine in many ways, but perhaps a less… happy one? One into which I saw myself fitting less easily, anyway, which is a shame because I really do believe in the company and the people within the team. Just my perception, of course, but it meant that in all honesty I was progressing other opportunities with something more than just the anticipated ‘I’m not sure if or for how long my contract will be extended’ feelings. I am on my third boss, and frankly was extremely unhappy with the last change. No offence to said boss, a question of The Way It Was Handled, Role Changes and Respective Levels rather than of personalities.

Happily, however, I have managed to effect an escape. I will work to the end of my original contract, take a week off to catch my breath, and then take up an opportunity about which I’m really excited, working with people with whom I know I can work, doing what I kind of wish I’d been doing all along.

I am happy.

Lots of rain lately and now it’s warm and sunny. The tulips are clearly appreciating the weather we’ve been having lately! I’m certainly appreciating the weather this weekend (although it is threatening rain for later on today, despite the lovely morning we’ve had) - although since it’s seemed to be chucking it down every time I’ve been at home and vaguely likely to do some weeding that did mean I had rather a lot to catch up on yesterday. Two hours of it, to be precise, and that’s not even starting on the raised beds! I am now achey. Still, the raised beds won’t take long - just need to be raked over and have some compost thrown on in preparation for those seeds which are hardy enough to brave the randomness that has been April weather so far.

I started lots of veg off indoors last year, but haven’t done so this year, so they will all be taking their chances outside in the not too distant future. Possibly under fleece, depending on whether the weather is going to stay as warm and sunny as it is at the moment (ha!) or whether it’s going to hail on us again! I’m going to hang onto quite a few of the same things I did last year, but also try a couple of things I’ve not grown yet - beetroot, sweetcorn (even though we haven’t got room for a particularly high yield I’m not sure I can resist!) etc.

Strange times lately, about which I can’t really blog too much as some of it is work-related. There have been a lot of changes lately, and I’m not convinced that everyone is too delighted about them. Comes down to whether you believe more in a particular structure or in your existing workforce, who may or may not fit into that structure if that’s not what was in mind when they were employed. Interesting times, again (I should be used to this by now. Really ought to make a start on that best-selling novel, it would solve all of this rearranging that seems to happen on a regular basis when one works for other people!). I’m not too far off the end of my contract, so I’m at Considering My Options time. There are a couple of irons in the fire (well, I’d be bloody stupid not to be keeping an eye out if things are uncertain in my current place of work, wouldn’t I?), so we shall see.