Friends

In this age of digital technology you can keep in contact with lots of people that you probably wouldn’t have chosen to, and you can follow their lives at a distance without actually having to talk to them. And yet, you still manage to lose touch with people who you’d quite like to talk to.

So it was a pleasant surprise to get a text on Monday from an old friend asking if this was still my number and reminding me that, as ever, I’m now as old as him. There’s one week a year when he’s numerically a year older than me and for some reason it’s always been an issue.

He actually phoned last night and we chatted for a good hour in the knowledge that we’ve not spoken in three years and probably won’t again for another three. But then he does live in the back of beyond (Felixstowe). I went to visit once and got sidetracked by a second hand bookshop. I’m not sure how these things happen, although maybe I should go back if only to find that bookshop now that I’m earning.

At the moment I don’t have any committees or groups that I’m involved in so I’m making the most of the time and catching up with old friends, both by meeting up with them and electronically by actually talking to people. It’s quite fun.

So we’ve arranged to chat again around about our birthdays in 2010, and wished each other a Merry Christmas, a happy Easter, a peaceful Summer and hung up.

Genetics

There seems to be a gene on my Father’s side that has unfortunate effects on some members of the family. It seems that certain relations are more likely to come up with stupid ideas for adventures that involve far too much exercise and effort. Generally for charity, but sometimes just for the feeling of jubilation when you realise that you’ve survived the thing.

My uncle runs marathons. I walked a marathon overnight.

And now my brother has decided to cycle from London to Cape Town. And just because that wasn’t tough enough he’s planning to stop off to climb Kilimanjaro. He’s been talking about it for a while now, but he’s starting to sound a bit organised and apparently his employer has ok’d it, so I figure that I should support it a bit. Particularly given that he’s not decided not to cycle through any war zones.

He’s looking for education based charities working in Africa to do it for, so if you have any suggestions you can email him through the website.

http://www.eyeonafrica.co.uk/
There’s also a facebook group where you can tell him exactly how mad you think he is.

It should be pointed out that the particular gene seems to be recessive in Dad... :-)

At what point does clumsiness count as sickness and allow you to be sent home?

So far today I’ve trodden on the base of my chair and flown into my desk and split coffee because I tipped the mug before it was close enough to my mouth.

Surely it’s got to be safer for everyone else if I wasn’t here, but there doesn’t seem to be anything in the HR manual to cover it.

Surely an oversight.

This weekend I have faced a lot of fears. I'm sure it was good for me.

On Saturday I went to 'Go Ape'. I got there looked up at the platforms and thought to myself 'oh, that's not so bad, it's not as high as I thought it would be'. That's not precisely what I thought when I got up to the top of the rope ladder. Looking down at that point may have been a mistake.

But I made it round, I jumped off platforms, and walked along wires and wooden logs at some stupid height above the ground. After the first half hour I began to enjoy it, when I realised that there was a fair chance that I might not die. Problem is now that when I think back to it and remember what things looked like from half way up a tree I'm inclined to get more scared of the memory than I was of the experience at the time.

Ho hum, I never said I was normal.

I also have some beautifully coloured bruises (I didn't have to be rescued, but I was definitely the most obviously injured member of the group).

So then on Sunday I was going to have a nice quiet day..? No. Red Cross duty in the morning and Red Cross Assembly in the evening. The Assembly started with a wonderful conversation in setup.

J - Are you sure the mic is on?
me - Yes, it's definitely coming out this speaker
J - Are you sure?
me - Yes, it's definitely coming out this speaker
J - So is it on now?
me - Yes, it's definitely coming out this speaker
J - Is it loud enough?
me - Yes
J - Can they hear it over there?
me - Yes, it's definitely coming out this speaker

At this point I apprently became the expert on the sound system. This is amusing on two levels: 1) I really hate microphones. 2) I tend to look at electronics and cause them to die. It's a miracle it all worked out.

Then it got worse when the President started asking me for advice on public speaking in from of the expected 150 people, as apparently I looked calm, collected and like I knew what I was doing. I'm glad I looked like that. I was also presenting, but presenting someone elses words. This meant a lot of rewriting an hour before hand to turn it into something that I could say without tripping over myself, and without offending the author. Given that I hate presenting from scripts, or with anything in my hands this was never going to be much fun, and talking to about 200 (as it turned out) from a script, with a microphone in one hand, does roughly come under my heading of 'things to avoid at all costs'. And there wasn't even any chocolate to be had.

Still, I survived. Apparently it came across well, and lots of people now know me as 'The one who's deserting us'.

So I've spent a lot of this weekend scared, a fair amount high on adrenaline. Like I said, I'm sure it was good for me, but maybe a quiet few weeks would be nice now.

New Office

So I now live in Birmingham and work in Solihull. The new office will be very smart when they’ve finished building it. They’ve just put in some fancy glass doors. Wonder how long it will be before I walk into those? Answers on a postcard please…

I’ve also chosen my favourite toilet and managed not to spill any coffee at all on the new carpets. Again, I suspect that that last one is only a matter of time. Making tea at the moment is quite a good diversion anyway.

• Wander around office trying to guess where the workmen have put the kettle.
  Locate kettle.
• Try not to walk into anything or anyone while manoeuvring the kettle to the sink to fill with water
• Try not to spill water in kettle while walking back to where the kettle was.
• Flirt with workmen whilst refusing to make any of them a cuppa.
• Collect everyone’s mugs
• Label everyone’s mugs
• Carry everyone’s mugs to sink and wash.
• Re-label everyone’s mugs
• Carry mugs through to our tea and coffee stash, which is in a different room to both the sink and the kettle.
• Go and find kettle again and carry through to mugs. More flirting with workmen as you still refuse to make them drinks, and walk off with their kettle.
• Place tea bag in R’s cup and add hot water.
• Take tea bag out of R’s cup and place in M’s cup. Leave to stew.
• Make normal cuppa for D.
• Make own instant decaf coffee, which believe it or not is the drink that tastes the least like dishwater.
• Return kettle to workmen
• Ask workmen to move tools from fridge door so that I can get the milk out.
• Put milk in mugs.
• Take milk back to fridge.
• Look at all mugs. Labels have fallen off again.
• Take mugs to R, M and D. Hope they’re right.
• Collect own mug.
• Drink cold decaf coffee.
• Repeat as drawings still haven’t downloaded through the dial up internet connection.