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.

Aliens

Today I was woken by an alien invasion. I couldn’t see anything but I could hear them transporting people away with their machines that make funny noises. For some reason they decided not to take me.

Of course it could just have been the B&Bs hot water system coming on.

But then - why are the aliens invading the hot water system?

Leaving is good for you

I’m beginning to get paranoid. Just as I leave Reading there are lots of exciting things starting to kick off. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s all because I’m leaving…

My parish church is starting too run some Life in the Spirit seminars, and having seen what they did for the chaplaincy at University, I’m expecting great things to happen. Except I won’t be there to see it.
(Having said that, the last time I was there, a parishioner took one look at me tidying the hymn books and said ‘we will miss you when you go’, leaving me with the distinct impression that she was more worried about the hymn books than anything else. Great.)

And then last night, at my last youth group session, God was again working in power. And I’m not going to be there to see what happens next, or what the kids do next and how God moves in their lives. And that’s soooooo frustrating.

So, by that logic I need to leave places more often. It seems to be good for other people.

- So are you moving in with your boyfriend ?
- Oh no, but my current housemate is.
- Ok. He’s moving to Birmingham to?
- Yes, his girlfriend is up there.
- So his girlfriend lives with your boyfriend?
- No, she lives in a convent.

I probably should have elaborated at that point but where’s the fun in that?

The Last week

It’s my last week before the official move.

My diary looks for this week looks a bit mad. By Friday, I have to fit in 5 full days of work, 4 trips to the pub, one set of Birthday drinks (not in a pub), one youth group session and two Red Cross meetings.

And Pack.

So, much as I’ll miss people when I’ve moved, I’ll be quite glad to have some time to sleep!

Go Ape

You know sometimes you agree to do something and then realise a little later that it’s a bad idea.

www.goape.co.uk

I’m not good with heights. I’m sure it’ll be good for me. Wibble.

I have just over two weeks to work out how on earth to get over the initial ‘I’m not climbing that’ issue.

Last time I tried something like this one of the kids from the youth group pointed out that ‘It’s ok, if you fall off and die you go straight to heaven and that’s better than school’. Which is logical, but not entirely reassuring.

2 - 4- 1

Two houses. Four leaving events. One Life.

It’s official. I’m moving. I have written confirmation and everything.

Lots of people seem to be making fusses about it all. I’m not good at being fussed over. I’m even worse at coping with being complimented so if any more people try to be nice to me the chances are that I really won’t cope and may well dissolve. And I’ve taken to dissolving in the most inconvenient of places – I’m sure the people at the church I was at on Sunday thought I was a complete weirdo for crying through half of mass. It’s just not expected outside of charismatic circles.

I suppose I should be glad that lots of people feel the need to tell me that I’m wonderful and will be missed, but how on earth are you meant to react?

‘Yes, I’m wonderful – things will do downhill when I’m gone, just you wait and see?’

I want one of these

When I'm a grown up can I have one of these please?

lull flowering lamp

Pretty please?

Crash, Boom, Thud

I have a reputation for breaking things in the office. It used to be printers, these days it’s normally paper stuff and it’s usually because I’ve spilt something all over my desk. So when I haven’t broken anything in a while comments are made. A colleague just noticed my phone and was impressed that it still looked like it was in one piece, particularly given that I’ve had the same handset for over a year now. I accepted the compliment and mentioned that it was probably because I’d broken my watch clasp instead. I then showed him the defective clasp.

It’s now mended.

He went for the classic engineering approach with a twist. The twist being that instead of hitting it with a hammer he used a stapler.

Apparently it’s the most job satisfaction he’s had in days.

Carried away

Sometimes I get carried away with cleaning things. I find it quite satisfying to get things to a state where you can see an improvement. This explains why I bleached the bin last night instead of going to the gym. Well, it partly explains it anyway.

Our landlord seems to have similar issues. Since we told them we were moving out they’ve been sorting out the garden of the house. A tree fell down in the floods which they sorted out last week. Last night I got home to discover that they’d felled another three trees. I can’t help but think that they’ve got a little carried away. Particularly given that one of the trees was a rather nice one. No idea what species it was but the leaves were a pretty maroon colour that contrasted nicely against the green backdrop of the weeping willow behind it making for variety of colours. Apparently the landlord isn’t that artistic when it comes to trees.

More amusing though was the squirrel. The squirrel is the reason I was late into the office this morning as I got sidetracked watching a it wandering around the tree stump. It looked just like it was looking for something but couldn’t quite work out what was wrong. Much the same look as I’ve perfected in the mornings.

Now I just need to work out how to get carried away with presentation writing or tender analysis. Hmmm. This might need a little more effort. Maybe I’ll just go wash my mug.

Hmmmm

I just got to my desk to find a note saying 'Please Resign'.

This is a lot more obvious than normal, and I'm not sure what I've done to upset them this time.

Of course it might just mean that they want me to re-sign the updated drawings - but that's not actually what's been written...

And finally the car is all mended

The trim which fell off the resprayed doors is now restuck. They told me not to wash the car for 24 hours to ensure that it stays stuck.

It's a sacrifice but I'll try. And just when it was due it's annual wash too.

So how is it that one of my eyes looks tired and the other one doesn’t? How does that make any sense? Particularly given the amount of sleep I’ve had this weekend. Hrumph.

I’m sorry, I’m not drinking due to the police incident. Yes, they asked me to leave my car there, hopefully I can collect it later.

I can play that up nicely until you realise that I have no idea what the police incident was, the car park exit was closed hence the car still being parked in the car park, and that all things considered it wasn’t that inconvenient, I just didn’t have a chance to get changed properly for the meal as it had taken me 1.25 hours to go down two floors of the car park. I listened to a lot of the book of Genesis on my audio Bible though so it’s not lost time.

I made it to J’s meal eventually – her second hen night. There were about 10 if us, and it didn’t take long for me to realise that a lot more people knew of me than I knew them

Oh so you’re Mary… I work with your mum…

Oh, yes, Mary knows him from Church…

Oh you’re Mary – you used to play with my daughter when you were 10, you have changed…

There are times when it’s good to still live in the community you grew up in, and times when it’s not. I’ll let you decide which is which.

Still, it made conversation easier over the food. As ever, when they all wandered off towards a bar I panicked and went home. Not quite sure why I like pubs so much but can’t handle bars… Although at the moment it’s more just not handling large groups of people in noisy places. Which, conveniently, is also my current excuse for not going to the gym... :-)

Happiness Survey

Oh no! I'm in a happiness dip.

Women were also happy in their late-teens and early 20s - scoring 7.55 - although they dipped to 7.1 between the ages of 25-34.

I figure this means that I need cheering up, so please feel free to send me chocolate, flowers, hugs etc... :-D

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6947481.stm

How do you describe people?

Yesterday I was back at my old university halls in Birmingham, UH, where we scattered some of Kev’s ashes in the garden. A couple of people spoke about him and H was able to come up with a few memories of Kev in UH that reminded that rest of us who’d lived with him of some happy, albeit random, times. Which sums up UH nicely too – happy but random. She picked out things that the rest of us had forgotten. It’s strange the things that you remember about people and the different things that people remember as important, but those anecdotes only add to the memories of Kev that I have, they don’t work as a whole description of the man.

Afterwards I went for a chat with L, after we’d wandered round UH trying to remember where the bar used to be and swapping memories of UH. She then asked me to describe my other half, and I was stumped. I couldn’t find a way to describe him that even began to cover it or that would make any sense to anyone other than me.

So how do you describe someone so that it actually reflects that person and that makes them sound as interesting to other people as they are to you? Or do you just have to resort to anecdotes, and hope that they’ll make sense if they ever actually meet the person you’re describing?