Journal Entries
A bit of a shock
Posted Sep 8, 2009
One of my cats was run over last night. Neighbours found her and took her to an animal medical centre (it was midnight and they weren't sure who she belonged to). But her injuries were severe and she had to be put down. The neighbours came over and told us what had happened after I'd left this morning, because they knew we had a tabby and thought she might be ours.
So this evening we had a family trip to identify the body and say goodbye.
Piecing together the story, it seems that the driver was heard stopping and getting out of her car and saying that she'd hit something, and her passenger said, no it's OK, it's a cat and it's running away. Wilder then hid under a van until the neighbours spotted her at midnight. So, can't really blame the driver for not doing anything (because Wilder didn't appear badly hurt), and we're very grateful to our neighbours for taking care of her, so she wasn't in pain for too long (an hour or so, we think).
I did notice when I fed the cats early this morning that Wilder didn’t turn up, and Ransome was a bit yowly, but that’s not unusual. Ransome is very unsettled this evening, he keeps looking for her.
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Latest reply: Sep 8, 2009
Reviewing journals
Posted Aug 15, 2009
I've just spent some time reading my old journals (back to December 2006). It's interesting to see all the ups and downs ... I should print them off really. Anyway there were a couple of ones where I clearly was in a place I didn't want to be. And I thought, hm, well that's certainly improved.
This evening DH accepted both my financial plan for the next 12 months (so for the first time ever we're going to try doing it *my* way 
) *and* my argument that camp would have cost us £150 in fees for the girls, so that's money we wouldn't otherwise have had, so therefore we should spend it on a family camping trip in the last week of the holidays, not a boring old back door. Financially things are stable at the moment, they just need to be organised and controlled, and that's what the Plan is intended to do. So, I'm pleased.
I feel healthier and better in myself than I've felt for simply ages. I mean probably since I had food poisoning last summer. I think this is because I've recently spent 3 weeks in bed ... obviously I was quite ill for one of those weeks but after that I was less and less ill, and more and more resting. And it seems to have done me good. I also travelled into work by train this week, something I've not done regularly since this time last year. Even though I worked some long days, I feel OK. I can doze on the way there and back, and walking 4 miles a day can only be a good thing. It's harder for me to travel by train during termtime but it's not impossible, there's just a risk that if the trains are delayed I will arrive at the office after core hours have begun. So I need to talk to my manager about this because I personally feel the benefit to my health outweighs the risk of being late twice a month, and that's probably the same from work's point of view (I've had a total of six weeks off sick since I started commuting by car). But equally I don't want to take the pss out of the flexitime scheme.
Especially since I am woefully underperforming at work this year - I just read last year's similar journal entry and laughed hollowly; if I thought *that* was bad ... at least this year, *everybody* is underperforming, but not quite as spectacularly as me. I had a problem earlier in the year (caused by time off sick in November and January) and had worked really, really hard to turn things around ... and then I got sick again. Now, some time in the next week HR will be flagging with my manager that I've had a lot of time off sick, and he and I will have a conversation in which we establish that this is all verified time off sick not just me bunking off to listen to Test Match Special, and he will tick a box and send the form back to HR. The next day, I will have supervision, and he will tell me I'm underperforming, and it's probably because of all the time I've had off sick. (We have been through my cases and established it's not because I'm fundamentally doing something wrong or approaching my work in the wrong way). And that's all very sympathetic and nice, but it seems that there is no allowance for this as such - I am supposed to achieve as much as everybody else, despite the fact that I haven't been here to do the work for large chunks of time. I am finding this situation quite frustrating.
And it's all going so well at home, with the family. Osh has been a tiny bit unsettled (I think because I was ill) and of course there are bickering days, but by and large everybody is ... dare I say this? ... happy. We are moving towards a more organised way of tackling the household chores and tidying (we've come a long way since 2007) and the girls are taking on more responsibility - both of them have started cooking family dinners, simple stuff like pasta bake and home-made pizza but they have to start somewhere and I'm really pleased and proud of them. The redecoration of the bathroom (which I intended to be a "quick hit" (
What was I *thinking*?)) has admittedly taken approximately 4 months longer than it should but we are getting there.
I've made the decision to stop being a school governor when my term of office ends in January (effectively at Christmas) and I've identified where I need help with guides (and also that my time as a unit leader is probably drawing to a natural close although I'm not totally decided on that yet). I'm finding (and making) time to do things I enjoy with the children like singstar and playing the recorder and baking.
So ... apart from work ... I seem to be in a happy place. DH and I are still in separate rooms (with full visiting rights 
), but we think we've worked through why we struggled to share a room before and we're planning a refitted master bedroom, finances allowing. It's a sort of light at the end of the tunnel time. And even work - I mean, I still totally love the job itself; I just feel I'm being put under unfair pressure at the moment. And even that can't last forever.
I've been so sad and unhappy at times that it's just nice to be able to report that there seem to be some green shoots of recovery here!
Mol
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Latest reply: Aug 15, 2009
Oh dear oh dear
Posted Jul 16, 2009
We go to guide camp this Saturday. So I have Friday booked off and planned to leave work today at 4.15, getting Mum over to do the morning shift so that I could go in really early.
I left the office really late last night and I felt a bit lightheaded, all the way home, all the way round the supermarket, even while I was falling asleep. It was weird. I thought perhaps when I woke up this morning feeling the same, that I'd been overdoing things - it's always quite stressy just before camp.
I was boiling hot on the way to work.
And then I couldn't get warm. I put on my spare cardy and thought about my blanket (I'm sure everybody keeps a blanket in their desk, don't they?) but no matter how much I huddled into myself, I couldn't get warm.
Until I got too hot again.
And then I started to ache.
So I came home.
I have taken paracetamol and drunk a pint of blackcurrant juice and NHS direct are ringing me back because my initial symptoms mean I need a more detailed discussion with somebody. Sis is now busy making alternative leader arrangements for camp. Just in case.
Mol
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Latest reply: Jul 16, 2009
Summer days
Posted Jul 2, 2009
It was too hot today to spend my lunchtime sitting by the bike shed, so I took myself and my ciggies through the car park, and under the hawthorn tree, along the footpath (my goodness those saplings have grown), and through the meadow to sit under the oak tree.
It was beautiful. I sat there with the butterflies, listening to the crickets, and watching the clouds in a baby blue sky. They were happy clouds and I felt very peaceful. So I thought this would be a good time and place to Rethink My Lifestyle. I've been trying to do this for about a fortnight but it won't come, I can't work out where the problems are and what I need to do to fix them.
It still didn't come, so instead I made a mental list of all the things I could see and all the things I could hear, and so let my brain unwind a bit. Only then it was time to go back to the office 
Anyway, I stayed at work until the cleaners kicked me out at 7pm, and then drove home with loud music, thoroughly enjoying the drive after the ghastly drive in I'd had this morning (M6 was closed so the A45 was nose to tail, and the last part of my journey that usually takes 15 minutes took 45).
So I arrived home at a quarter to eight. The supermarket order (which I placed online yesterday in between the kitchen chores and going to school governors) hadn't turned up yet, and Sic had been very late home from her school trip, so nobody had had any tea. So I tracked down Osh and established that he would be happy with pasta, and found that the girls would welcome fish and chips, and DH was lined up to go out (because it's Thursday and that's his night out with his mate) and said he'd get a takeaway. I got the pasta cooking and the fish and chips in the oven and emptied the dishwasher (DH helped before he went out) and loaded it up again and tidied the kitchen table. Then I served dinner to various children and the shopping arrived so I put it all away and then took Osh for a walk (by now it was 9pm) - we got back at 9.30 so then he wanted some cereal before going to bed (it's so hot there didn't seem any point in trying to get him to bed earlier), and he was so mucky and sticky that I put him through the shower and then ... finally ... I sat down.
To deal with emails relating to guide district administration, which reminded me of the things I haven't done and need to do but it's too late in the evening now to be ringing people up even if all the info I need wasn't two flights of stairs away.
I still haven't had any dinner. But Notting Hill is on so it's not all bad.
DH wants me to alter my lifestyle by chucking in school governors and guides. There are two problems with that: firstly, I don't want to, because I enjoy them and get at least as much out as I put in. And secondly, I can't pack in either until January at the earliest.
And thirdly. There's a thirdly. What will I end up replacing those activities with? Writing and drawing? Long walks through the countryside? Reading and watching films? Playing Singstar with the girls?
No. I will end up doing even more of the daily chores. Although part of me thinks that's hardly possible 
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Latest reply: Jul 2, 2009
A long day
Posted Jun 5, 2009
Up at 5.50am ... fifteen hours in a polling station ... and then verification of the ballot boxes (the counts are today and Sunday) ... back home at about 2.45am and asleep shortly after 3.
And then up for getting the kids off to school and DH's car in for its MOT. So I'm a bit torn: do I go back to bed, and risk sleeping for a huge chunk of the day and not being able to sleep tonight, or do I struggle on, not actually achieving very much, and risk missing my early-to-bed slot and exhausting myself by staying up until normal bedtime?
There's stuff I thought I might do today. But I can't even co-ordinate my brain to make a list of it.
Still, it was fun. I like elections 
Mol
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Jun 5, 2009
Mol - on the new tablet
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