I've got a lot of catching up to do...and not just with my favourite blogs....my week has been quite disrupted by the onset of a cold last weekend.
Colds are just an irritation really - they knock you for six with real purpose. At least with 'proper diseases', the aim is to kill you off. No, a cold is there just to irritate you and make you glum.
I've had a busy week for meetings, etc so I've been diving into town for those, and then running home, wrapping myself in a blanket with a mug of hot lemsip whilst trying to tap away at the computer. Truth be told, productivity isn't at the level it should have been; especially when the home computer decided that it wasn't going to talk to the work computer. Grrrr.
I suggested to The Cat's Mother that she go and see The Light Princess at The National with a friend rather than drag me and my sniffles along but she was insistent that I accompanied her as there was a reception and talk by Sir Nicholas Hytner to be grappled with. We were up on the roof terrace, which was lovely. We were cornered by the exceptionally well bred and fearsome Christine which was terrifying. Sir Nicholas was gripping, but listening between the lines suggested we were not going to have a great evening. Indeed we didn't - but we seemed to be the only ones in the audience who didn't. Whilst we tried to slink out before the after show party and be forced to make polite conversation with the actors, the rest of the audience was cheering and clapping. The Light Princess is a musical fairy tale about two warring kingdoms, a prince and a princess (who floats like a balloon - no she's not shaped like a balloon) who fall in love and ultimately live happily ever after. The music is by Tori Amos, and the set by your local amateur dramatic group. there were few if any songs that you walked out singing, and generally the whole thing felt like everything had just been thrown in for the sake of being thrown in. Worst prop was either the two plastic flamingoes stolen from your garden, or Roland Rat. Cleverest stuff were the puppeteers who made our princess fly....very clever and impressive.
Friday, 4 October 2013
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
Magic moments
Well it was bound to happen sooner or later, but it always comes as a shock when it does. As I was cycling along between a row of fast moving cars on my right and parked vehicles on my left, someone opened their car door, catching my pedal and sending me flying. One of the things I'm very good at is recovery, and I managed to stay off the floor. One of the things I'm not so good at is keeping my cool, so I exploded. The guy got out of his car, shrugged his shoulders and said it was an accident. The police were summoned, and we'll see where it goes from there. I got away with a scrape on my shin and a scratch on my thigh. My back and leg were quite stiff, so we hopped up to the local A&E...fortunately early enough before it got too busy, sadly too early to witness some of the characters who inhabit these places late on a Friday night...The rear wheel of the bike was ripped out of the frame, is buckled and there's a bad notch on the frame...as it's carbon fibre I'm not sure whether its just aesthetic or if it's irreparably damaged...at least I want to know how his insurance company will restore it to the condition it was in before the accident.
The top of the red line marks where it all went horribly wrong
On another subject, I read last week about the glass ceiling (again). Further evidence for this was thrown up by some statistics that showed men and women being equally paced up the corporate ladder in their twenties and thirties, but after that, women get left behind. The article did acknowledge this was the age when many women have babies, and it even acknowledged that many of those then decided either not to work, or took less 'pressurised' jobs and chose not to continue their thrust to the top....but still decided that this was categoric evidence of the glass ceiling. I don't deny that in some places there is a glass ceiling and equally I'm the first to acknowledge that I'm not best placed to make a judgement as I've always worked in an industry where women reach the top, but it does strike me that 'glass ceiling' is entirely the wrong descriptor, if women decide to put family ahead of work. That seems to me to be a lifestyle choice...and a very good one at that....it's just as challenging bringing up children and making a household work as it is working in the corporate environment. But infinitely more emotionally rewarding. They do say nobody goes to their grave wishing they spent more time in the office, but I bet they do go to their grave wishing they'd spent more time with their family.
The Office Mother brought Baby Boy in yesterday. My word he has grown and grown and grown. And he's very attentive and smiley too. Lovely lad indeed. He was off to his first swimming lesson at the tender age of just five months. I'd like to show you a photograph. But cameras are banned. Yes, in the current climate where everyone is suspected of being a latent paedophile, photography of babies is a big no no. Of course, it doesn't matter so much to you or me, but for the parents, this is one of those magic moments they would like to treasure and remember...it's a first...and they cannot. I do feel that somewhere something has gone terribly, terribly wrong with our society.
The top of the red line marks where it all went horribly wrong
On another subject, I read last week about the glass ceiling (again). Further evidence for this was thrown up by some statistics that showed men and women being equally paced up the corporate ladder in their twenties and thirties, but after that, women get left behind. The article did acknowledge this was the age when many women have babies, and it even acknowledged that many of those then decided either not to work, or took less 'pressurised' jobs and chose not to continue their thrust to the top....but still decided that this was categoric evidence of the glass ceiling. I don't deny that in some places there is a glass ceiling and equally I'm the first to acknowledge that I'm not best placed to make a judgement as I've always worked in an industry where women reach the top, but it does strike me that 'glass ceiling' is entirely the wrong descriptor, if women decide to put family ahead of work. That seems to me to be a lifestyle choice...and a very good one at that....it's just as challenging bringing up children and making a household work as it is working in the corporate environment. But infinitely more emotionally rewarding. They do say nobody goes to their grave wishing they spent more time in the office, but I bet they do go to their grave wishing they'd spent more time with their family.
The Office Mother brought Baby Boy in yesterday. My word he has grown and grown and grown. And he's very attentive and smiley too. Lovely lad indeed. He was off to his first swimming lesson at the tender age of just five months. I'd like to show you a photograph. But cameras are banned. Yes, in the current climate where everyone is suspected of being a latent paedophile, photography of babies is a big no no. Of course, it doesn't matter so much to you or me, but for the parents, this is one of those magic moments they would like to treasure and remember...it's a first...and they cannot. I do feel that somewhere something has gone terribly, terribly wrong with our society.
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