Tesco Charity of the Year - The British Red Cross

This year Tesco is supporting the British Red Cross and as part of that they've produced a short video that they'll be playing in their stores. It sums up a little of the Red Cross activity in this country, and more to the point goes a long way to explain why I'm still involved after ten and a half years.

The Red Cross cares for people in crisis. Somedays that crisis is a scraped knee. Somedays it's a burnt down house. People like me will be there, because we all believe that people deserve to be loved and cared for, and that it's worth spending our spare time to do so.

So now you know.

Watch the video here

I saw a Blue Tit in the garden

And no, like the Thrush, it's not a medical problem.

You know who you are. :-)

I'm ill, I'm bored and I have nothing interesting to blog right now so here's a survey.

The Everything Test

There are many different types of tests on the internet today. Personality tests, purity tests, stereotype tests, political tests. But now, there is one test to rule them all.

Traditionally, online tests would ask certain questions about your musical tastes or clothing for a stereotype, your experiences for a purity test, or deep questions for a personality test.We're turning that upside down - all the questions affect all the results, and we've got some innovative results too! Enjoy :-)

Personality You are more logical than emotional, more concerned about others than concerned about self, more religious than atheist, more loner than dependent, more lazy than workaholic, more rebel than traditional, more artistic mind than engineering mind, more idealist than cynical, more leader than follower, and more introverted than extroverted. As for specific personality traits, you are religious (90%).

Stereotypes Young Professional 71% Hippie 57% Prep 46%

Life Experience Sex 8% Substances 8% Travel 25%

Politics Your political views would best be described as Liberal, whom you agree with around 50% of the time.

Socioeconomic Your attitude toward life best associates you with Upper Class. You make more than 0% of those who have taken this test, and 13% more than the U.S. average.

If your life was a movie, it would be rated G. By the way, your hottness rank is 57%, hotter than 82% of other test takers.

TAKE THE TEST
brought to you by thatsurveysite

I'm a little concerned about being more artistic than engineer - given my whole career choice and the fact that, even if I do say so myself, I'm actually a pretty good engineer. I guess that means I would make an awesome artist!

Persistance - I like that in a man

The Thrush is back.

I've tried sneezing at it, but that doesn't seem to have helped. However, it's fairly effective at getting everyone else to leave me alone so it was worth a try.

It’s 0850 and already I’ve had a random day

Whilst forwarding on an email from a friend who is asking people to collect tumble dryer fluff for Scouts (if you can help let me know…) a Thrush started head butting the window. Not once, but constantly – it’s been going for 50 minutes now. It’ll have to stop soon due to concussion. The window has a reflective film so it presumably thinks it’s attacking another male bird – it being the season and all.

I’ve never seen (or actually looked at) a thrush this close before – I’m reliably told that it’s a thrush by my staff manager. It’s a beautiful bird, but it’s not having the best day.

A colleague has suggested that it hasn’t stopped yet because it’s blonde. I suspect it’s more to do with the fact that it’s male.

Hats

I spent this weekend at SoulNet. It's a retreat for youth leaders/workers/ministers.

It's not designed to be a training thing - it's an opportunity to meet with God in a bit of time without worrying about whether the kids are 'getting it' this time or, as is more likely, actually throwing things at each other.
It's a time to praise God and let other people worry about whether there are enough donuts. As always it was a refreshing reminder that God actually is there in the midst of it all.

It was also fun to get away with some of the other leaders. However, when you put a group of leaders together in one chalet you realise quite quickly that the craziness that you thought was actually down to the kids is actually more to do with the leaders...

But then everyone looks for Elves in forests don't they? Particularly ones that ride two headed lions? Surrounded by pheasants in hats that look like ducks?

Quote of the day

Alice: You have to look at the right side of things
Mary: I normally find that I look at the bottom side and then it all falls on top of me

This sums up my diary/life/wardrobe at the moment. There are lots of things that I desperately want to do, and somehow they all clash. They don't clash in a way that makes it easy to choose between events; They clash when I really want to be at both things. Somehow, things never clash with boring meetings...

There's so much in the world to see/change - how to prioritise? And more to the point how do you stop doing something once you've started without feeling like you've missed something? I'm lucky to be involved in lots of great things, with lots of great people.

Next step is getting them to all work to my timetable. Yes, that's a sensible plan. According to an email we had today parts of the US have altered the day when they change their clocks - so how hard can it be to get the town of Reading to live by my diary? Although then I'd have to keep up with it too - foiled again.


I have a suspicion that I've blogged about this issue before. Nothing like consistency!

What I did on my weekend

I feel like I should blog about this weekend but I’m not sure what to say. So, to summarise my activities:

I went to see Hot Fuzz. It's very funny – go see it, it defies classification and I’m just guessing but I think it’s one of those great films that American’s just won’t get. Watch out for those decaffeinated corpses.

I had dinner at the London Street Brasserie with Alice. It's sooooo nice – definitely recommended. If you go before 7pm there’s a set menu that is a bit cheaper but still delicious. We had rather a lot of food by accident and sticky toffee pudding to die for, or at least to go back for again sometime.

I also went to a Tim Minchin gig. Again, very funny, although why, oh why, do comedians seem to think that they have to be crude to be funny? He was funny and tended to spoil it by needing to be crudely controversial, I just don’t get it. Are things really funnier when they’re crude? Or am I just getting/continuing to be prudish?

I had lunch with the Bishop, along with the rest of the newly renamed parish pastoral council. Again, fantastic food and the revelation that for lent the Bishop has given up checking his emails before Breakfast!

I helped run a confirmation session on the gift of wisdom, which left me feeing very unwise, but my group finally started to actually talk - Woohoo!


How did I fit that into a weekend? Hmmm… Must be time for more coffee so that I can start planning the next one... :-)

Work.

I really like being an engineer. I'm currently really enjoying it. Sometimes I even know what I’m doing. However, not as often as other people think I do.

And why am I enjoying my work at the moment? – I can’t help but think that it might just have something to do with the fact that I prayed about it. This happens every time, and yet I still somehow manage to completely forget to pray.

The sign that I’ve uploaded is one that always amuses me. It can be found on the edge of all deep water tanks. I’d love to know how it ended up with such random terminology – that must have been a brilliant meeting. I’m glad I wasn’t there.

I've just spilt a satsuma down my front.

What?

Just thought you might be interested.

Bottoms up, chests out, best foot forward.

Anyone would think that car manufacturers didn’t design their cars to allow for people getting all the doors iced shut. What an oversight. Essentially what this meant was that yesterday I had to access my car through the boot. Very glamerous - Bum through the sunroof, arms flailing, nosefirst into the steering column and finally upside down in the drivers seat (by which I mean feet still in the back of the car while I half lay on the seat).

In hindsight washing the windows the night before was a mistake, but then there’s also the argument about actually being able to see out once in a while. Thankfully the doors would open by the time I got to work in High Wycombe.

Speaking of High Wycombe... anyone been there? Anyone been there in the snow? It’s a nightmare. I’ve travelled 25 miles and got here. Half the office who live within 5 miles of here are stuck because of sheet ice on the hills. I think I’m leaving early today as the snow is getting heavier and heavier and I really don’t want to sleep under my desk tonight! And it's only 0845 - pretty early to make that kind of decision!

On the plus side it is very pretty out there.

Binge Drinking

Have decided doing things on the spur of the moment is a good thing. I’d also like to point out here and now that if I catch a cold it’s Alice’s fault.

The cause of this accusation started yesterday morning with an email titled ‘fancy a pint?’ in a sort of ‘we should catch up’ sort of a way.
Alice responded with ‘now?’
I said ‘tonight?’
And the rest is history.

We didn’t drink much, only about 4 units each, in 3 drinks, but that apparently counts as binge drinking in some researchers eyes. Probably not something that is recommended on a school night. Oh, apparently I’m a grown up and should refer to such things as a work night. Although that implies that I’m working (and not, for example, blogging).

I’m not normally very good at doing random things and actually seeing the world, I should do random stuff more often. Not today though. Today I must actually do some work.

And on the cold issue, part of the reason for drinking was to kill off the bugs causing Alice’s cold. That’s how it works isn’t it? Just as well neither of us is writing up a PhD on immune system type stuff...Oh, well I've not understood any of Alice's work for years.

So that still makes it Alice’s fault for misleading me.

Networks

Whether I like it or not I am part of a generation of people who communicate electronically. The online network is another way of creating a social network and learning more about friends through seeing what they say about each other.

I’ve never really worked out why I blog – I think it’s mostly down to the fact that I find it fascinating to people watch on the net by reading other people’s blogs. It’s a fun way of gauging what other people’s opinions are and using that as a jumping off point to research and inform my own.

However, reading and writing blogs is one thing but being part of a social networking site is another. Until about 2 weeks ago.

I’d been holding out against it – After all I don’t need to be a member of these things to see friends’ sites. But turns out that that wasn’t enough, if I wanted to comment I needed to be registered. So I’m now on myspace and facebook.

In the process I’ve discovered a new idea of what heaven is like – all my friends, from across the world, networking in the same place. One log on. One name. One God.

Let it snow Let it snow Let it snow.

Oh look the country has shut down. It must have been snowing.

The English are really rather bad at snow. There was about 2" on the car this morning, but at work there's barely 0.5". However at work we have no heating. And the caretaker is in Australia. I can't see him coming back to sort the boiler out.

Ho hum. That's enough moaning. (Although, lets make it clear - I really don't like snow. It's cold. I don't like being cold).

Not been up to a lot else recently. Had a meeting for the confirmation program at Church last night which was better than expected, although I'm still a little concerned. Unfortunately as a member of the Parish management group I suddenly developed a list of financial requirements for the program. And as ever, I'm concerned that so many Catholic Programs seem to happen without half the leaders even considering prayer. It's no wonder we end up with a weird reputation amoungst our neighbours. Ah well, I guess I'll jsut have to pray for them all... Anyone who feels like helping.... :-)

Government Petitions.

Sometimes you come across one that is simply brilliant. Like this. Mainly brilliant because they actually replied to it.

Free Monkeys on the NHS.


What do you mean you don't surf the government petitions website? I blame the BBC magazine monitor.

Catholic bishops have prettier dresses than Anglican ones.

I can’t help but think that there might have been more that I should have got out of the service last night ;-)

It was the Commissioning service for Regenerate which is a mission into Reading, where all churches, all denominations, are involved. We’re going to run a summer barbeque for our neighbours as a thank you for the way they put up with us parking in front of all their houses and causing parking chaos once a week.

What amused me about the service was spotting the stereotypes that churches, particularly ministers slot into. The Catholic priests all looked smart in their still black suits. They all gave the impression of having washed behind their ears especially for the occasion and were hunting in packs. The Anglicans and Baptists however – I don’t think I’ve ever seen beards like them in the Catholic Church, and on the most part a black suit really meant a dodgy grey, and they were to be found wandering about by themselves looking a little lost and chatting to anyone they found. All a bit bizaare.

People from various churches were harder to identify. Apart from the Salvation Army. The Uniform really does give them away…

Motivation

Motivation seems to be sadly lacking at the moment. Instead of doing what I'm meant to do I end up with all sorts of other things done. None of which are that exciting.

Like posting meaningless blog entries instead of writing up my CPD (Continuous professional development). Why is it so hard to write up stuff that I know like the back of my hand?

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Dreams

I don’t normally remember my dreams. This makes last night all the more random.

I had a nightmare. About an RC drawing.

An RC drawing is a engineering drawing showing the metal bars that are placed within concrete structures to give them tensile strength - on it’s own concrete isn’t very good, but with reinforcement it rocks.

So it’s a weird thing to dream about. Not least, because producing those drawings isn’t my job.

I’ve been trying to remember the details. It seemed to be something to do with people dying because they couldn’t find the drawing. And for some reason, I knew where it was but I couldn’t find the words or communicate with anyone.

And no, work isn’t stressing me out at all at the moment, why do you ask? ;-)

Virus

There is a virus on the network somewhere in the global company. It hasn’t caused any problems in the UK at all. However, IT’s attempts to upgrade the software have so far cost thousands in terms of lost manhours within the UK. Apparently it’s harder than I thought to upgrade virus protection.

Grrrrrrrr.

Currently I’d rather have the virus. At least I'd know where I stood and could officially not do any work.

Bags.

Sometimes I think I work for a global American business. Occasionally I am reminded that actually it’s a British engineering company. Today is one of those days.

Working in the environment sector we’re always keen to look like we actually are sustainable and environmentally friendly. Putting our money where out mouth is.

So today we all got given our very own shopping bag.

It’s not bad actually – blue canvas with the company logo on the side. The idea is that we can stop using plastic bags so much. It’s already been determined that the bags will make pretty good wine bottle carriers.

But somehow personal shopping bags seems more British than American. Is that stereotyping?


*I’ve just realised that I have referred to the business using the words ‘us’, ‘our’ and ‘we’ – It’s official, I’m a company girl. But I still have no intention of learning to play golf.