Frydmania

Making up for it

September 16th, 2008

I’m sure you don’t need me to apologise to you - and indeed, why am I apologising to an audience I think I may have?  Or am I apologising to the laptop, which is perhaps a little over familiar with hitting other people on Facebook (Heroes application) and wants to do something a little higher minded?

But in the last flurry of writing, I did discover I had a small readership at least, so I thought I’d give an idea of what Dan and I have been up to since early April, which is when the blog fizzled.

April: time of work trips to Germany and London, combined with cold/flu.  I’d not had to do work trips while feeling ill before, and I do not want to repeat the experience.  Laptop came up trumps in occupying me while lying in my hotel room in Bonn feeling sorry for myself, but it’s not fun being unable to go home until not one but two trips are complete.  Hurrah for a bit of rest time at Dan’s mum’s between the two sets of meetings.

April also brought a halt to my knocking back the coffee quite so much.  I still love strong coffee, but sadly it doesn’t love me back any more.  I know that caffeine lovers never want to hear that life is possible without quite so much of it…and it is.  And I feel better for it.  (But I still miss it.)

May: An opportunity to change my working hours.  It took a while to kick in, but I now have a Friday off every second week, and work slightly longer hours for the remaining time, to keep the pay level the same.  I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner - makes a difference, having a long weekend every second week.

Weather improves - and I start a bit more gardening, which includes lots of planting lettuce seeds and the like.  I think there’ll be a separate post on this.

New arrivals for friends’ kids - and another colleague at work.  A great day seminar on God and money, and a little course in our regular church group, exploring money management - timely, given the growing gloom in financial circles. 

May also brings an opportunity to experience the bright lights of Dunfermline on a Friday night, for a birthday party of a friend in the same group.  If you want to add razzmatazz to a cake, I can highly recommend wrapping a pink feather boa around it!

And back to another set of departures at work.  One team had to wait until late summer to find out if they had won their contract - and some of them decided to look at pastures new.  A reminder that even in an office of only 60, staffing never seems to stay still for very long.  Meanwhile I notch up 8 years here…

June: a work trip to Switzerland!  I have a day or so in Zurich, just before Euro 2008 kicks off.  Another city I would like to live in - and which has a correspondingly high cost of living to match its high quality of life. 

I finish up by taking the train over to Geneva - and meet up with Dan and other friends for a week’s holiday in the Burgundy area.  Dan provides the contact for a free week’s stay, others provide the driving skills and the board games, others still take care of the chocolate rations.  I cook two roast chickens simultaneously, and spend a happy time mostly focused around planning the next meal.

Another trip shortly after, to London for a friend’s wedding - and I don’t even make it out the door, due to a combination of high heels, trouser turn ups and a short flight of stairs.  Lots of pain, lots of annoyance in being so near and yet so far.  I also get a trip to the Minor Injuries Unit at the Western General on return, which is a more positive experience, particularly when I get advice from a colleague who had a recent leg wound and knows exactly what to do to get it looked at.

July: the Friday day off begins, and our plans to get some home improvements get a bit further.  We spend much of the rest of July moving stuff out of sitting room, study and kitchen, and pulling really grungy woodchip off ceilings, in order to let two guys in to replaster and paint.  My parents help us pick some new carpet, and we get a new fridge freezer.  It’s all very domestic, but given that some bits of the flat really need replacing, nearly 4 years on from buying, it’s a good chance to have things as we want.

I also manage to work mornings only, for a week each in July and August, which includes time for charity shop visits, coffees out with mums, and a few practical things like finally finding a dentist near to home.

August: another trip to London for the weekend, this time to see Yasuko and Tatsuya, over from Japan.  Yasuko was in the same halls of residence as Dan in his first year at university, and she’s kept coming back over to the UK when she could. This trip brought her husband, who took to life here very well, including his first trip to the Proms…and a certain liking for hummus.

Mum had a significant birthday - and we managed our usual August Mackenzies reunion to coincide with this and two other family birthdays.  My brother John and his fiance Sarah were also up, with pics of their first home, in the town where John was born - a nice circularity there.

Dan’s mum Jen came up for her usual August holiday, and we managed a long weekend all together, including a wonderful walk to Cramond where the sun actually shone!

And we lost a staff member in our immediate team - again.  Back to hauling some additional workload.

September: the students I’ve been preparing for arrive in Scotland, and I spend a week and a half travelling hither and yon meeting them and doing my exciting talks about tax and the like.  This year’s group includes one from Senegal, for the first time.  Limited opportunities for West Coast scones (usually a highlight of these kind of trips), but plenty of local authority sandwiches.

The carpet is down, and we begin the slow task of moving everything back.  Despite a big clear out before all the furniture moving, we come to put things back, and I find myself wondering why we have some of it…   

That’s quite enough overview - on to some of the quirky things, in other posts.

Entry Filed under: General overviews