idle musings

Slow Starts

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It took one of my members of staff mentioning it this morning for me to realise that the clocks going forward for summer had thrown my internal bodyclock out. I’m so used to waking with daylight at a given time that the hour’s shift has been very noticeable. I’m pretty sure that’s why I’m feeling woolly-headed and out of sorts today.

Well – it could be another head cold trying to get started, admittedly, but that’s usually not something that makes me yawn and rub my eyes. As tempting as it was to stay in bed, I’ve done the adult thing and got myself to work instead. I’ve picked one of my smaller libraries with staff parking (a rarity), and ensconced myself in the back room to prepare for a meeting and pick off quick-win tasks. Out front there’s been a school visit and the sound of children being children has been a quiet backdrop to the morning.

It’s quietly productive times like this that are easy to overlook when thinking about job satisfaction. I don’t work in an office environment so don’t have the quiet bustle of being around other people. Sometimes that makes the day go quickly, and sometimes it can be unhelpful. I’m very much aware that I have a short week this week as I’ll be travelling for a family event during it, so I’m focused on setting things going that I can come back to, and on tying off loose ends.

With that said, I don’t think its particularly different to many other people’s working week where their work environment isn’t directly involved with frontline customer service. I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this – perhaps just a gentle acknowledgement that sometimes its okay to just let the day tick by, appreciating when things are generally proceeding with only the occasional nudge here and there. It makes a gentle contrast to when everything needs to happen in a hurry or change direction rapidly in response to an external factor.

Here’s to quiet days in the office

Deck of Worlds Arrived

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At long last, and mostly down to disruption to services due to strikes around the Christmas and New Year period, I have got my hands on the Deck of Worlds. Its the result of a Kickstarter I backed last year by the same team who created the The Story Deck. Both of these boxes of prompt cards are now sitting very proudly on my bookshelf and will be getting some use over the weekend.

The entire concept is that there are different cards for types of location, something significant there, an adjective or property that can be applied to either, a peculiarity of the region, and something that is happening there. These can be shuffled and interpreted in all sorts of ways – and in particular I think they’ll be useful for world building in my games.

As an experiment I ran through the cards and came up with a combination that I turned into the following description:

In a windswept forest lies the ruins of a forge and workshop that legend declares to have once been the home of unknown gods. When the wind whips round and the moon is bright, the sound of roaring flames still lingers here. Animal life that comes close to the ruins seem to become confused while near, but soon recover when they leave.

I then fired up Dungeon Alchemy and created the image in this blog post – showing a clearing in a hilly forest. Within it lies the ancient forge, bits of fallen masonry, an abandoned temple building behind it, a well and an overgrown path leading away into the forest. I’ll post the finished map when I’ve added a few more trees and bushes along with some ideas for encounters. I might even use a version of it in one of the D&D games I’m currently running as it has turned out rather well I think.

Yuckiness

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There’s a bug doing the rounds that seems to be hitting people in one of two ways. It either just gives you the sniffles and feeling a bit run down, or it knocks you sideways with an upset stomach and huge amounts of lethargy. So, guess which version I have? I thought I was going to get away with the former, but no such luck. Today started with being sick and hasn’t really settled since then. What fun.

Fortunately work has been going smoothly, so I don’t feel even remotely guilty about taking the day off – especially as I’m now on leave for a couple of days to celebrate 5 years with boy s. Under the circumstances its unlikely to be anything too strenuous, but that’s fine – as an introvert he’s not necessarily going to be wanting to gallivant around anywhere.

It’s an annoying bug. Every time I think it’s settling, my stomach has a quiet churn – very disconcerting. Oh, and I have an interview coming up on Friday for a secondment, so if nothing else but that, here’s to it easing soon.

Acting Up

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Nothing ever stays the same in any area of work or life – and an opportunity for a secondment has come up at work. On the principle of “What’s the Worst that could happen?” I’ve put my hat in the ring to be considered. This hasn’t been an instant decision – far from it. The role is another step up the seniority ladder to a level of role I’ve not handled since I was very unwell nearly twenty years ago. It’s taken a lot of introspection and work in counselling to consider the fears and shadows raised – and to recognise that I am a very different person and have grown and healed considerably since then. Even more important has been the recognition that it wasn’t the previous role that had caused the illness and that there are, in any case, very few points of similarity between that role and this.

So I’ve updated my CV and spent a couple of hours working through a personal statement to support it based on the job role and profile provided – and am now stepping away from it for a few hours before I return to review it. I’m hoping that I won’t spot something immediately problematic and can hit the send button with confidence.

I refuse to let my imposter syndrome sabotage me – and part of that is recognising that this is just an email and a foot at the door. The worst that will happen is that I won’t be what they’re looking for just now and they’ll go with someone else. You know what? That’s okay too

Testing New App

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I’ll do a longer update in a bit – the WordPress app is being replaced with the Jetpack app, so I’m just checking that it works before I delete the old one.

So far, so good, and the transition of accounts has been seamless, even better.

Yesterday was otherwise reasonably gentle, and included the news from my diabetic review that my blood pressure is “normal” for the first time in years – great news, now to keep that up.

Sleepiness and Suits

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I’ve taken some more time off work this week as a couple of celebrations bookend it and frankly I could do with a rest. So yesterday I herded both Lady M and boy s into the car to wander into Kingston – as you do. This was partly just to get out of the house and distract them as they were having low days – but also to do some clothes shopping.

Lady M doesn’t often spend money on herself, so putting her in the vicinity of clothing shops can sometimes take a bit of a run up. At the same time, we have an event at the end of March to go to, and it occurred to me that one of the rites of passage that boy s has never had until now was that of getting measured for his first suit.

I had threatened to take him to the tailors that I got my wedding suit made at, but a more low-key approach felt kinder. Both Lady M and boy s can get overwhelmed with lots of people around, so I was mindful to suggest going to Marks and Spencer, knowing their men’s section tends to be a bit quieter. We ambled around and looked at some styles and colours of things for him to take to the changing rooms – and then while he was trying a few things on, I had a chat with the attendant.

I explained that he had never had a fitting or indeed a suit, and so I thought actually knowing his measurements would help immensely. Indeed, it would not only inform getting formal clothing but would also be something to bear in mind when buying clothing from here on out. It would take the guesswork out of things as he got used to creating his own wardrobe.

Like me, boy s is not exactly the smallest person in the room, so there was a fair chance there wouldn’t be anything in store that would quite fit – but that’s only because they keep a limited size range in the actual store. The full ranges are available online – and so this was very much in mind.

So, having done that, and with Lady M’s eye firmly on items for herself too we retired to our new favourite coffee shop where I introduced boy s to what he has described as the best hot chocolate he has ever had.

And with that, collective spoons were depleted, so we went to retrieve the cub from school – and we all seem to have spent most of today cat napping…

Its obviously needed

Spinning Plates

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One of the things that simultaneously delights and drains me is the number of metaphorical plates that I spin to do my job. Staff pastoral care, strategic partnerships, outreach, projects, building maintenance, performance monitoring, leadership, staff networks, events, and many more facets all require careful prioritising and switching. The satisfaction of things spinning and landing in place in the right order (more or less) is – to me – hugely rewarding. The downside is the worry and temptation to get lost in the contingency planning.

Having been off for a few days last week I was relieved to find most of the plates still merrily spinning or landing where they were intended. My team have picked up and dealt with things as needed – though there have been some issues that I’ve leapt to the last couple of days too.

For the most part this has been to deal with external events in the local area – and especially the impact on staff. I’ve also got an event tomorrow evening where I’ve agreed to speak: an evening at the Surrey History Centre for LGBT History Month. I am both looking forward to it, and also nervous. It will go well, it will be wonderful – but its still a performance and I’ve had limited time to prepare. What’s the worst that could happen?

Quiet Day – Muffled Explosions

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I took today off in advance because I had a feeling I’d be tired from the journey back home – and I’m glad I did as it was all very draining. So, to the accompaniment of Lady M spreading terror and chaos over various voice and Teams calls as she worked from home, I pootled around. Well, almost. Without fail there was a minor hiccup with the app that the cub uses for his bus tickets so I was pressganged into an emergency school run. A clearly not impressed cub was duly dropped off and I returned home to make cuppas and ensure that Lady M had something to eat while she worked.

decorative picture of an otter sitting on a wire mesh at the end of a log over some water. It is slightly turned to look over its shoulder to the viewer's left

One of the things I did was restart playing Halo Infinite’s campaign. I fancied a gentle romp as I hadn’t played it in ages and have been pressing rather hard on Destiny’s story recently, so I started it on Easy mode. I’m glad I did as some of the skill honing I’ve been doing in the other game translated rather pleasantly into a fun side trip into a very different space opera. By far and away the most fun moment was realising just how cleverly modelled the grappling line used by the hero is.

I channelled my inner Spider-Man and found that momentum allowed me to swing around and up a tall building onto the roof of a tower. That’s where I found a hidden secret – the IWHBYD Skull which unlocks rare incidental dialogue. This made me happy for all sorts of nostalgic reasons. I used to play a lot of Halo3 with friends, and collecting the skulls became a group activity as some of them only appeared on higher difficulties. Those who were better at it helped carry the others along through the game, and then transferred that knowledge to others in turn. This was all very early days of the internet and online gaming and I have a lot of fond memories of those evenings.

It’s been a nice change to play in a slightly different way and enjoy some nostalgia – I suppose I should get ready for the rest of the week now… Oh, and just because I’ve still got some photos of the day, here’s another one of the otters – they really were incredibly cute.

Home Again

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selfie of tired tim rubbing his right eye. He wears a yellow tshirt with an abstract pattern of lines on it, his head is shaved, and his beard has grey running through it

You can tell it was the end of the half term because like everyone else we were on the road today – and a projected four hour journey ended up being six, just as it was heading up mid-week. Still, we rarely ground to an actual halt until we were just outside London.

This morning started with the usual groggy checklist of “do I have all my body parts?” and “where is the coffee jar?” before progressing to “have I packed my medications?” and “whose towel is this?” The usual quiet confusion and desperation set in as plans for leaving at a particular time ambled straight past the target and on towards lunchtime. This is, in and of itself, nothing particularly unusual, even if it does make me twitch a little.

Everyone had a good time, even if the cub protested loudly about there being no computers to play his games on. Suddenly being expected to wash things up for himself was a bit of a revelation, but he rallied well and made a good stab at it. We even had him asking for and drinking cups of tea by the end of it all.

And so now we’re all home in our respective homes and unwinding. I have a painting that I need to pick a place for – a watercolour of the old family home created by a parishioner. I always liked it, and it brings back happy memories of summers of absolute mayhem with my brothers and friends alike. I think I’ll put it near the entrance to the kitchen so I can glance over at it every now and then. It does mean I’ll need to move one of my prints to make way for it, but then I do like excuses to switch things around every now and then so its hardly a chore – more a means of expression.

This week looks to be fairly busy, but hopefully will go with relative swiftness so I can then go into another week off. I might even plan something, who knows?

On Holiday

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I’ve been looking forward to a break, and as of this evening I’m at the very least not going to work for a few days. I have the opportunity to spend time with loved ones, and not be expected to be reachable for work.

The work phone is switched off, plates metaphorically set spinning, and weight well and truly off the shoulders.

Shenanigans are planned