I’m working this weekend, so I took advantage of a lull in planned meetings and events to claw a day back, have a lie in, and then catch up with Lady T for coffee, chips, and putting the world to rights while sat by the river.
We’ve not caught up too much this year due to several bouts of illness, so a gentle afternoon felt very overdue. As part of our respective rock and roll lifestyles we talked about kids, partners, mental health, fairy tales, and all the gossip about people the other person doesn’t know and is unlikely to ever meet.
Not a bad break to the routine. Tomorrow I’m back to the usual meetings, shenanigans, and quiet plotting of the day job…
We’re aiming at boy s and the cub moving in this weekend, albeit probably on Sunday as I’ll be working on the Saturday which puts a crimp in things. So that’s gearing up as a set of things that need to happen.
In the meantime I’ve enjoyed my last day off on a coffee date with a friend. There was much nattering and talking of friends, family, plans, and laying of plans for them to join us at Pride in Godalming in a fortnight.
Nice way to spend an afternoon, kept me out of the rain.
I’ve even been very disciplined and not looked at any notifications from work – I shall see what awaits me in the morning.
We went to Bletchley Park today, despite the best efforts of the Bank Holiday traffic. We picked it partly our of interest in its history, and partly so we could return our niece to her aunt as it was a little over halfway there.
I’m not entirely sure where the afternoon went as five hours sped by and there was still a lot we didn’t see. What we did find was fascinating and heartbreaking in turn, especially when it came to the areas devoted to Alan Turing. Going from a case containing his Teddy bear Porgy to a recreation of his office was surprisingly affecting as it brought forward the human behind the stories.
We had conversations with the kids around LGBTQIA+ history and in particular around Alan Turing’s treatment – which in turn led to conversations over lunch about our relationships and the polycule. And now Lady H is friends on Facebook with myr s, and the kids want to meet the cub.
Not really what I foresaw for the day, but a positive turn amid the strangeness all the same.
It’s been wonderful to just stop today and let the day happen. Admittedly that took a while to start as my day started before 7am with a text from one of my branch managers informing me they were waiting for an ambulance. That was a good start to get the adrenaline pumping.
They are, I hasten to add, okay now though won’t be working at least until next week. Then there were another flurry of calls and texts that had to happen to sort out cover and some other things, but after that I could enjoy the day. I consciously closed down all work-related tech, which helped.
And so we wandered into Staines, did shopping of both the window and real variety, and had brunch in a Costa before seeking books and some nice things before retiring back to the flat – where the cub and I played several games of chess and Chinese checkers and myr s and Lady M collapsed to recover their spoon levels.
All in all, it’s been lovely. Other highlights included the cub realising we’d set up the old xbox in the room he was sleeping in; the look on Lady M’s face when the cub called her ‘mum’, and acknowledging a burgeoning friendship with someone I’ve been chatting to on a Discord server.
Tomorrow? Well that depends on the weather, so who knows?
My weeks normally start with a day off, but with the new job starting in a month or so I’ll be working full time so I want to try and use the time while I still have it.
So today I finally got round to catching up with Lady G for lunch, and the first pub visit since I can’t remember. As is traditional, we both waxed lyrical in our gossip about work and people we know – and it was just nice to see her again.
We both play (I use the term loosely as it’s a mostly zero-interaction game) Godville, so I got challenged to draw her hero and their animal companion – as if I need an excuse to doodle away – so thought I’d share the results here:
Meanwhile, I’m trying to limit checking on work emails while I’m off, but there’s an awful lot happening all at once so I did respond to a couple of them. The very minor issue that it has highlighted is the continuing tightrope I’m walking where I’m still substantially working in my existing job but am being called upon in the new role, while that new role is also still occupied by someone.
I shall have to have a conversation or two about how best to manage this over the next few weeks to both manage expectations and limit any treading on toes.
At long last we’ve been able to get all together. I took advantage of the good weather and a gap in my rota to call out for us to gather. Christmas presents needed exchanging for one thing
And I’m so glad we did all get together. We met in one of the local parks and the relief and happiness all round has been just what we all needed.
It’s a shame we couldn’t stay down there, but we do at least have the game tomorrow to look forward to.
I decided to deliberately have a day of doing very very little today. I managed to break the back of preparations for the one-off yesterday so I’ve given myself the day off. Instead I’ve watched The Muppets Christmas Carole and The Muppets Treasure Island while stretched out on the sofa.
On a not unrelated note we also did a lot of Christmas supplies shopping the last couple of days for basics, fun stuff, and yes alcohol. If we have to be in lockdown we’re going to do so in comfort and ease.
My biggest problems today have been checking in on a colleague (Lady Sz) for reasons, and resisting the urge to start passing presents to Lady M to open early. There are worse problems to have.
Its been a good day today, albeit one with a lot of driving. myr s invited me down for breakfast, and this coincided with Lady B having arranged to pick up a vanity table from a friend, so we thought we’d make a day out of it, kidnap Lady J too, and bustle over to Eastleigh for the morning.
My sat available decided that with all the local roadworks on the motorways that it would try and ratrun us cross country, so we had an enjoyable bought of trying to work out where it was trying to take us and then willfully ignoring it based on my passengers’ local knowledge.
If nothing else it made for cheery conversations as people recalled past jobs, workplaces, or relatives in places we passed. We duly picked up the vanity table, tetris’d it into the car with only one seat needing displacement, and went on search of food before myr s could turn into the hangry hulk.
The last time I was there was for Pride a couple of years ago, so bits of the street layout started to come back to me, enhanced by Lady Best memories of working at a now defunct club that seems to now be an empty space. We allowed the mental stretch of imagining reworking it as a split use site with an LGBTQ+ coffee/bookshop space during the day and club/bar space for the evening. Maybe when the best sellers and/or lottery wins roll in…
Oh, and we hit Poundland, partly for sugary drinks, and partly to raid the Halloween supplies. We’re all cosplayers, it’s what we do…
I also got told that the cub had explicitly demanded I not leave until we’d picked him up from school, so we did that and treated him to McDonald’s for his supper before I headed home. The grins and hugs were well worth it.
And so home, with a bag of goodies for Lady M from myr s, for a curry, mindless nonsense on the TV, and more tinkering with scenario details for the next game.
I was stuck at work, being unable to share my bemusement on Saturday at a conversation playing out in my messages.
The Charleesi had let us know that her temporary freelancing job had just been converted to the offer of a permanent copywriting post within a week of her starting, so we are all very pleased and excited for her in this early stage of her campaign to take over the world.
Talk soon turned to needing to have a celebration, which resulted in a query about our Sunday availability – which clashed directly with the birthday celebrations previously mentioned.
I therefore had the moderately bemused expression of a man seeing his wife tell his ex-wife that we weren’t available as we were celebrating the joint birthdays of our partner and ex-partner in the company of our partner’s partner and partner’s son, and our collective emotional support human/friend – and being unable to tell anyone at work without having to explain an awful lot of history to people.
Needless to say, everyone at the Sunday gathering smirked when I could finally relay it…
We managed to get most of the DDC together this afternoon in East Brighton Park to celebrate the birthdays of Mre B and myr s – despite the best efforts of my satnav to take us along every B road between us and there rather than using the motorways.
I chose to treat lightly its choice to direct us through the village of Faygate, or to keep telling us to “stay straight” along the road.
I managed to dissuade Lady M from buying the complete stock of our local Tesco too, as she went into mother hen “feed everybody” mode. I’m not saying that her anxiety was becoming infectious, but I swear I saw people hurrying to buy what we’d left on the shelves like it was toilet paper at the beginning of lockdown.
There was a play park for the cub, a tree to partially shelter from the elements under, and cupcakes and a cupcake cake that ended up being served into cups for distribution. All par for the course really.
We’re home now, tired and glad of having had a quiet time together, enjoying each other’s company without feeling a need to perform or fuss. Nice.
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