Some Good News, Some Bad News

The good news is that I’ve got my first website commission.

It’s for the place where Amanda is now working, and although it won’t be a big money-spinner it’s good to have the opportunity to add something to my CV.

The bad news is that we lost our “Little Big Girl” this weekend.

She hadn’t been quite right lately and she passed away on Saturday.

I’ll miss my little friend who kept me company while Amanda was at work.

Times are hard

Right, that’s it. Either that hamster starts paying rent or she goes !

Short break

We’re off in the morning with our local Headway group for a few days “Activity Break” in the Lake District. Nothing too strenuous, I hope.
It looks like the weather is going to be fairly horrible, so the orienteering will probably be a slow, muddy trek.
This is where we’ll be.
Back Friday.
Stay safe.

It’s not the words, it what you do with them

Once again I’m grateful to Cheri for the inspiration for a post, and for some deep thought.
While catching up on some blog reading today I followed some suggested links from one of her posts and came across this short, inspiring video.
I’ll let you watch it before commenting further.

While the wife’s away….

Amanda in KLM Business Class

Amanda has had to go back to Nanning for a month to see the family. Her Dad’s not well and has been asking her to go back so now is the best time as she has found a part-time job in a care home which she should start about a month from now once the disclosure paperwork has gone through.
When we were online checking her in for her flights we were picking her seats and I spotted an available seat where I wouldn’t have expected one to be offered for her.
Not giving her the chance to say that she would prefer her “normal seat” (window, just by the middle exit) I said to her “Oh, there’s a good one, grab that !”. As it was late at night and she’d had a long day she was in no mood to put up much of a struggle so the deed was done.
She was more than pleasantly surprised when she boarded the flight at Schiphol, and had to check with the cabin crew two or three times that a mistake hadn’t been made.
I just got a call from her in Chengdu and she says she slept all the way. That’s the first time ever! Given how busy she has been over the past week and how tired she was when I left her at the airport in Edinburgh I’m so glad it worked out that way for her.
It’s also the first time I’ve ever been able to get an upgrade for anybody, despite years of trying, so I’m pretty happy about that too.
Now, while the wife’s away, I’m hoping to be able to get around to a few blog posts that I’ve been meaning to do for a while. They’ll be somewhat varied so there should be something for everyone.

There is a Chocolate God, and its name is Aero Caramel

Aero Caramel !!!!!

I like chocolate in general.

I really like Aero.

I love caramel.

Now this ——————————————->

Down boy !!…..

The lessons we learn without realising it

For the second time in only a few days I find myself inspired to put fingers to keyboard by Cheri’s blog.
Today’s post (Planting Seeds) relates to the sowing of wisdom into the minds of the young.
In Cheri’s case she is talking about making a difference to children’s lives by showing them ways that they can think about starting their own businesses, but the same could be said about everything that we try to instill into the young; good manners, a sense of respect, the difference between right and wrong. We may not see the fruits immediately but we have laid the seeds and can do no more than that, except perhaps the occasional watering.
I always remember an old school master from my senior school who I just did not get while I was at school. The two of us seemed to have an unspoken understanding about this which actually helped us to have a rather humourous, and sometimes comical, master/pupil relationship.
Over the years things happened in my life and situations occurred where I found that I already had some unseen, inside knowledge of how to react to events, how to behave, or what was expected of me. From somewhere in my early twenties onwards I began to realise where this knowledge had come from and grew to have a deep and lasting respect for him and all that he had taught me (except for the Latin, which never stuck).
I knew where he lived and at one point, long after he had retired and when my career was at it’s peak, I even felt that I would like to visit him and relay my gratitude but, alas, never got around to it before I heard that he had passed away.
S. G. Timms, I may not remember much Latin but you taught me a lot. Thank you.

Carry on searching

I didn’t get the job.
Hey-ho !
Updated C.V. can be found here.

A week of mixed fortunes

It’s been a strange week; a mix of good and bad.

The bad…

My niece’s ex-husband (the father of her kids) decided, for some reason, that tying a rope to a beam in the attic, wrapping it around his neck, and dropping through the hatchway was preferable to whatever else it was that life had in store for him. I have no idea why he would do that.

As that section of the family live quite a way from wherever I seem to be living at any given point in time it’s been some years since I met him, but I always remember him as being a great laugh and somebody with a quick and devilish wit. Apparently he had been having problems of late, and from what I’ve been able to make out the solitude within his own mind finally got to him.

A great shame.

The good…

I’ve got an interview for a job !

And it’s not just any job… it’s the one that I really had hoped I might be able to get.

Reading through the original ad on the Jobcentre website I had thought, “Yes,… yes,… yes,… tick that,… good,… like it,…” and so on. Everything that the ad had said was what I wanted to read, and nothing in it had put me off in any way.

It’s the first job in 7 months where I really felt “This would suit me; I want this”, and lo and behold it’s the first one I get an interview for.

It’s with a smallish local company, a family business I think, that seems to be on the up and looking for someone to take over the accounts side of things. Part time to start with, which would really suit me, and then see how the job spec can be filled out to accommodate full-time in the future. Perfect.

After I had sent my application in I had thought that perhaps I has been a little too gushing in my covering letter. They wanted somebody enthusiastic, but maybe I’d gone a bit over the top, and there was always the possibility that they would think I was too over-qualified for a smaller business like theirs. But apparently not.

I nearly missed out though ! I got an email from them today saying that they had emailed me last week offering me an interview but hadn’t heard back, and that if I didn’t get in touch by 3pm they would assume I wasn’t still interested. I’ve double-checked, and I never recived that original email.

I’ve been having internet problems again today and I only just managed to spot today’s email as I was going out the door to my regular Jobcentre appointment. If I hadn’t spotted it then the chance would have gone.

Anyway, next Wednesday I’ll be brushing off the old “tidy Tom” and taking him along to their new offices to see how best we can work together to develop both our interests.

I can’t wait !

We go together

It’s been my pleasure to “bump into” another Farmerama player this past week whose life, let’s say, could be a lot easier than it is. No names, no pack drill, but you know who you are.

This person (L) and their spouse (K) are both wheelchair users but, after a comment L made in an email about what they were doing last night (dancing together, even through the pain) I wondered what they might have been dancing to ?

Given that L had referred to them as “soul mates” and detailed how well they work together and help each other, just one tune came into my mind, along with the image of them dancing to it in their wheelchairs out in the back yard.

In case you can’t remember exactly how it goes, L & K, here’s a little reminder…

Oh, and Happy Birthday, L.