Howdy! Gosh, been a long time since I was on here. Feels like a long time anyway. What have I been up to?
Well, busy is the word, can’t describe it any other way. Work has been madness in a mad hat. I had a facilities forum to go to. Interesting things they are. You seem to have once big room with loads and loads of little booth type things set up which are basically partitions in which each section sat a supplier. There were basically three groups of people there. The ‘Gold’ badge wearers were delegates who were there to attend appointments and discussion groups. There were ‘Silver’ badge wearers who were supplier aiming to help provide you with facilities solutions and then ‘white badge’ wearers who were staff organising the show as it were.
So if any of you have ever heard of speed dating you will know what I mean when I say it was like that. You get a room full of people who sit with one set of people (or person in the case of speed dating), who have an allotted time to ‘make their case’ and then BING! You move onto the next one.
Actually we got a small gap in between because none of our appointments took the full 30 minutes allowance, but it wasn’t enough time to get a cuppa and enjoy it because by the time the volcanic substance had cooled enough not to melt your lips, you were hovering off to the next ‘date’, so there was an array of abandoned and orphaned cups all over the place, with half eaten mini croissants and pain du chocolat everywhere.
That was the day time bit, then came the evening part. They call this ‘networking’ so the idea is under a more relaxed and social atmosphere (enhanced by copious amounts of free alcohol) you then net work with people, and potentially get more business etc. It was OK, mind reader was good, but we worked him out, people were nice, food was OK, wine was good, fall was not so good. Que black and blue elbow, but I don’t expect sympathy, the slab probably came off worse once I’d landed on it, but my poor elbow did bear the brunt of the fall!
The next day seemed a lot different. Mainly because people were far more relaxed as they had done so over the course of the day as people went through their cycle of talks over and over and we all started to get to know one another, so it was a much more pleasant day.
My poor baby had chickenpox though. He’d been to his sports day having been unwell the weekend before with what we thought was a cold as he always gets a temperature when he gets a cold. Runny nose, sneezing and a bit of a cough, seemed like a cold to me. And even more so when both Mick and I also got the same cold too!
Anyway, off he goes to sports day, so a warm day, half of which is spend rolling around on the grass in between events, and when I got home I noticed he had some spots on his back, and a couple on his neck. We initially thought it might have been bites as he is just like Mick, and insects love him!
So we left it till the morning to see for sure, but come morning there were more and blistered so we knew for sure then it was chickenpox. Just before I was going away as well. It was funny because he was like this the last time. I feel bad about going away. The only night I’ve ever left Mick and the kids was the day my dad died. It was one night and despite my own grief I still felt bad about leaving them.
Then I had this Holland trip and this forum, so three nights in maybe 5-7 years, but it could have been months to me as I always feel guilty about going. It’s like, I’m a mother, and I know I work but that pays bills, but leaving them , and especially leaving Mick to manage them makes me feel like a lesser person. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s my mind I guess.
And it’s like my son getting poorly each time before I went too, making me feel even worse for leaving someone when they are poorly. I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve been in his room with him when he’s woken up or got sick, but it’s what you do as a parent isn’t it, you just be there.
But I am ever grateful to Mick for his support. The opportunities I've had lately have been important to try and get my place in my working world, and I couldn't do that without his support. I do tell him that, but I hope he knows it even if I can't say it as often as I'd like.
Anyway, that aside (my head is feeling a little sorry for itself today), I also have the race for life this weekend. I can’t believe it’s come round so quickly, but it has. It’s tinged with sadness because this time last year when I did the last one, dad was still with us, but now he’s not here anymore and I’ve got this dedication I can put on the back of my t-shirt, as all of us doing it will, and putting his name but because he wasn’t a lucky survivor is going to be hard to do.
I am looking forward to hobbling round. Sophie is coming with me from work, and hopefully it will be a nice day and I won’t suffer for it as its one more whole week then we get to go away on holiday and I can’t wait to go. The break from just thinking will be good. It’s got so busy lately, I just seem to spend more time wondering from one task to another, going home and wondering why my head won’t stop spinning so a break is going to be very welcome for all of us.
So I’ll sign off now, but do wish me luck for Sunday and I send out my wishes to all the ladies doing the race for life over the coming months. Good luck to all of you, whoever you are running for.
