It was such an unusual cold

I spent most of this week in our Glastonbury office.  This was my first visit since the first week of December 2019, back in pre-Pandemic times.  Ironically, it had many echos of the first:  on both occasions, i met up with the same colleagues, but, this time, I was travelling alone, whereas on the previous trip, I’d brought “The Stray Australian” with me, a colleague from Sydney.  We stayed in the same hotel, as did the Regional Finance Business Partner, who I had dinner with on both Tuesday evenings.  Last time,  on the Wednesday afternoon, I developed a tickle in my throat so wandered over to the nearest supermarket after dinner, to buy some whisky to kill the cough.  This time, ditto.  Last time, I drove back to London on the Thursday afternoon, feeling more and more ill, dropped the Stray Australian back at the office, then went home to bed.  This time, I drove home on Friday, my tonsils making their presence felt..

Last time, by the Saturday, I had a sore throat.  It didn’t help that that was the day of my choir’s carol concert but I soldiered through, my voice cracking on some of the high notes.  I also soldiered through at work. I had a lot to learn from the Stray Australian before he went home on the Thursday, so couldn’t stay home.  Then while I was feeling like death warmed up on the Monday, I got asked to take on a role in our Huntingdon office: someone had resigned, timing it with holidays to give less than 2 weeks’ notice.  (Seriously, I was sitting in the office contemplating asking to go home to bed, when I got called into a meeting room.) 

Symptoms appeared in stages.   I developed a drippy, runny nose; watery, like a dripping tap.  The scratchy, swollen throat went on and on.  My larynx was on fire for days.   A week later, I could have drawn the cartilages within it, it was that sore.  Christmas came and went, and we spent the week of New Year in Normandy.  I was cooking dinner on the Tuesday (New Year’s Eve) when I realised that everything was tasteless.  On the Thursday, I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling crackles in my chest.  A couple of slow, deep breaths and they went, not to return. That was the last symptom, to appear.   It took a couple of weeks for my sense of taste to return - now I have to salt everything, (where I never did before) - and it took months for my vocal cords to recover.  

 I am 100% certain, now that it was Covid.  We know now that the first official variant ulcerated the vocal cords of those who were intubated, hence the damage to my own vocal cords, and all the other symptoms tally.  I know who I caught it from: a colleague in a meeting on the Friday before I went to Glastonbury.   It swept through her office and through ours, before Christmas 2019.  When Covid began getting publicity, we sat there ticking off the symptoms.   Of course, there was no testing then, so it can’t be proved now..  (By the time I did have antibody testing, I’d been vaccinated twice, and tested positive once, via a PCR test in October 2020.)

This time around, well, yesterday’s lateral flow test was negative for Covid.  The tickly cough has declined a lot and my nose is snotty, not dripping water.  I think we’re safe to say that it isn’t Covid this time, but I doubt I’ll be at rehearsal tomorrow evening.  I’ll take another test on Tuesday, before I go to the office.

 My name is Pam and I had Covid before it was famous.

Fair well Ma’am

After my last post, I gave up on the idea of going to HMQ’s Lying in State.  Instead, I moped around the house like a sulky teenager for a few days, before hatching a plan.  DH and I would go sit on the side of the A4, watch the Funeral on BBC iPlayer via my iPad and then pay our respects to the Funeral Cortège.  We knew the route for the cortège because TFL had published a list of road closures.

It all went off like clockwork.  We packed our picnic chairs, travel mugs of coffee, a hot lunch in wide mouthed thermoses, the iPad, etc, and drove to a side-street near the A4, arriving just as the Funeral was starting, and set up.  The road was lined with police officers, airmen and solders. When the officer-in-charge gave the signal for the 2 minutes silence, followed by the National Anthem, we stood to attention, too.  More and more people came to line the road and, eventually, this happened:

We even made it - fleetingly - onto the television. If you look very carefully at the next photo, you may just be able to spot my yellow chair and DH’s purple one, in the top left-hand corner, with us standing in front and our friend, Howard, standing behind my chair.

(Yes, I photographed the television.)

The following Saturday (24th), I went to Green Park to see the tributes that the general public had left.  There were thousands.  I wandered around, reading the messages and I cried.  Some were incredibly moving:

While others were just beautiful:

- Pam

The Queen is Dead. God Save the King!

How do you describe the last ten days?

We were at the cricket last Thursday, when the Queen died.  Well, I say “at the cricket”, but rain stopped play before it started that morning and as soon as the news broke late morning that the Queen was “under medical supervision”, the umpires made every excuse they could to delay their pitch inspection, despite several hours of sunshine mid-afternoon.  From the moment they announced that several members of the Royal Family were travelling to Balmoral, we all knew that she’d died.  We also knew that there would be no cricket that day.  (There was none on the Friday, either. The England vs South Africa Test Match was eventually reduced to three days.)

Poor King Charles.  On Friday, when he made his first address to the Nation as King, he looked both shattered and close to tears.  Also, oddly defiant when he announced that he’d made Camilla his Queen Consort, and William and Kate Prince and Princess of Wales.  It was almost as if he was expecting to be criticised by the Daily Wail, the Daily Excess and the $un, newspapers that only exist to make money from their coverage of his family.  I can only imagine what he and his family are going through.  It is hard enough to grieve for the loss of a parent, without the eyes of the world being turned on you 24-7.  Couple that with a new job, as Head of State… Poor man.

Yesterday, I was planning on joining the Queue for the Lying in State.  I’d booked the afternoon off work, made my sandwiches, chilled my water bottle and packed multiple phone rechargers in my handbag.  At 8am, the queue was nearly 9 hours long.  When I logged out at 12.30, this had happened:

A few minutes later, I heard that there was a queue to join the Queue(!) jokingly referred to as the “QE2”.  By 4pm, they were talking about the queue being over 24 hours long, which is when I gave up on the idea entirely.  I know I can spend 12 hours on my feet, but not 24.  I don’t have the stamina for that.

Since her last journey will be from Westminster to Windsor, my plan now is to get up on Monday morning, take chairs and go sit on the side of the A4 with DH,  and wait for her to pass by.  I’ll bring my iPad and we’ll watch the Funeral via BBC iPlayer.

- Pip

Looking for the silver lining

Something I don’t discuss often here is work.  You know I’ve had jobs that I’ve loved and made some fantastic friends in the process.  Well, I was expecting to be out of work right now.  I’m a contractor - not by choice - and I was told in July that my contract wouldn’t be  renewed when it expired at the end of September.  Looking the inevitable firmly in they eye, I polished up my CV, consulted a friend who wrote CV’s for a living, and started applying for jobs.  I even had an interview.

Then the unthinkable happened.  Over the August Bank Holiday Weekend, one of my Finance colleagues had a serious accident and spent three weeks on a ventilator in Intensive Care.  (She’s conscious now, thank God, and breathing on her own, but weak as a kitten with a long recovery ahead.).   When the news broke, I messaged our Financial Controller, “If you need another pair of hands, count me in”.  The rest is history.  I’m now responsible for the cashbook, credit control, cash flow reporting, work-in-progress reporting and trade debtor reporting, together with half-a-dozen balance sheet reconciliations.   With the help of some lovely colleagues, I’ve just survived my first month end. They’re talking about extending my contract to March.

I’m lucky.  I know that.  It doesn’t mean I haven’t faced tough times.  I’ve had to work hard to build a career and a good life.  “Hope for the best but prepare for the worst” has long been my philosophy.  It’s how you face the bad times that define you. You make your own luck.  When I was made redundant in 2016, I gave myself a week to wallow in self-pity - oh how it hurt - and then I deliberately chose to act positively. “Pick yourself up.  Dust yourself off, and start all over again.”    I choose to keep trying and keep seeking ways to do better.  

Everything life throws at you, gives you choices. You can’t control what happens to you but you can control how you react to it. You may be the victim of something horrible, an assault or long term bullying, but you can choose whether you define yourself as a victim or as a survivor.  You control the messages you feed to yourself; that’s what defines your self-worth, not something external.  Sure, people want to be liked and valued by their peers, but if they don’t like themselves then they’ll never be happy.  How many people do you know who are still beating themselves up over something that happened 10, 15, even 25 years ago?  I can name a few.  They haven’t forgiven themselves for an event that everyone else has forgotten.  It’s just another reason to hate themselves.

There are so many people who measure their self worth by Facebook or Instagram, needing the constant affirmation of “likes” to feel whole. The most self-obsessed people are usually the most insecure, too wrapped up in what is happening inside their own head to notice what is happening to the people around them.  A year ago, someone complained to me that their boss never spoke to them and how hurtful it was.  Knowing this person, I wondered how many times they’d actually initiated a conversation with their boss and asked the boss about themself.  (I occasionally give this person a lift to events.  They never ask me about myself or events in my life, and I’ve known them to sulk if they don’t get complimented on their outfit.)

You always have a choice.  You choose how you face the day.  Another thing I choose to do is to treat other people with kindness.  They may be really grumpy, but I’d rather think that they were having a bad day and treat them with civility and kindness.  No, I am not a doormat.   Anger and aggression are defence mechanisms born out of pain.  Sometimes just asking “are you ok?” can diffuse a situation and, if you are prepared to watch and listen, you’d be amazed what you can learn about someone.

- Pam

Goals for 2020

A very clever person on MSE has devised a “20 in 2020 Challenge.  I’m joining in and have set the following goals for 2020:-

1. Knit 20 balls of yarn (that's between 3 & 5 jumpers worth)
2. 20 minutes a day learning French (via Duolingo and TinyCards)
3. 20 minutes exercise a day for 20 weeks
4. Read 20 books
5. Try 20 new dinner recipes
6. 20 gardening sessions
7. Explore 20 new places
8. Attend 20 "shows" (concerts/plays/films/BBC recordings)
9. Do the 2020 Fashion On The Ration Challenge and keep within the coupon count
10. Phone family/friends to chat 20 times (I'm hopeless on the phone)
11. Lose 20lbs
12. Mend 20 items of clothing (yes, that includes sewing on buttons and taking up hems)
13. Declutter 20 items
14. Run 20 miles (but not all at once)
15. Save 20 x £20 out of my “allowance”(£400)
16. Make 20 site visits for work, earning mileage 20 times (it goes to the car fund)
17. Write 20 blog posts (in 2019, I haven't managed one yet)
18. Log 10,000 steps on my Fitbit on 20 or more days (harder to do than it sounds)
19. Have a party in the summer and invite at least 20 friends
20. Watch at least 20 programs that have been on the DVR since 2018

And a special goal, number 21:  Post on TMF 20 times in 2020.  I owe that website a hell of a lot and I’d like to keep it alive.

Care to join me?

- Pam

Starting over

Hello.  Yes, it’s been a long time.  I’ve had very little internet time since I started that job in March.  They didn’t allow access to personal emails - not even at lunchtime - so I used my “internet time” at home for any email that needed a response.  I could go online and shop until I was broke but I couldn’t access my emails..  Not any more.  I finished there on Friday.   I’d completed the role I’d been taken on to do and was beginning to have to ask around for work (which, as you know, I hate).  I resigned on my terms, not theirs.  I’m going back to the Swedes, to rejoin the project that I left in March.

What happened?  Mid-August, we had a fridge disaster - it died -  so I had to work from home while waiting for the replacement to be delivered.  Part way through the day,  I got a text message from my old project manager:  would you consider coming back?  His timing was perfect.  I was sitting there thinking “I’ve got nothing to do when I finish this....”.  My response was “Possibly” and it snowballed from there.  There were a couple of contributing factors - I watched one of my colleagues cringe in fear when dealing with one of the bosses and I do not want to work in a place where that happens - and, at several points due to the lack of work, I half expected to be told that I didn’t have a job after my current holiday (Normandy this week) or the one we’ve got booked in November (New Zealand for a wedding).   This has nothing to do with my immediate line manager.  Resigning to him felt like kicking a puppy.  He’s a nice guy and I like him a lot.

The final straw, however, was SAP.  Frankly, I don’t like it.  As finance systems go, it’s probably cheaper to implement than Oracle, but it’s far less flexible and far less user friendly.  It might be ok for factories producing widgets, but it’s quite clumsy for companies selling their labour in time based projects and using percentage complete as their basis for recognising revenue.  It’s also bloody annoying.  There are multiple system standard “reports” (layouts really) that are common to all SAP users everywhere, but not one that lists the vendors names and numbers beside their purchase invoices.  Believe me, I tried everything.  The best I could do was obtain the vendor number in SAP, download to Excel and do a v-lookup to a list of vendors.  This is basic information and you can’t extract it from the system in an easy to analyse format.  

I start back at the Swedes on Monday.  I will be a contractor again, but that’s OK.  I can deal with the administrivia now.   I’m rejoining The Project and will be spending at least half my week sitting in a portacabin in a highways depot.  My plan for Monday is to arrive laden with chocolate chip cookies, knock on the portacabin door and go “Hi Dad.  I’m home!”.  :o)

- Pam

Starting again

Hello.  Is there anyone out there?  I haven’t blogged in ages, so I can’t blame you if you were wondering whether I’d fallen off the face of the earth.  It’s not that I don’t want to blog - I do!  I still write posts in my head - they just don’t make it to the screen.  There’s being a contractor to moan about.  There’s the saga of job hunting to tell you about. Plus the MSc, I want to pursue.  Also, there are new recipes to share.  I have some yarn-related items to show off AND I have a couple of adventures to share...  

I don’t even read blogs very often anymore.   Last week was the first time I read the Yarn Harlot in years.  (Did you know Stephanie’s a grandmother?!!!). 

I got out of the habit.  I lost my voice.  I used to write blogs on Friday afternoons, in my old job when we finished work at Friday lunchtime.  Or I’d write them in my lunch break - but I’ve never had the privacy to do that in my current place of employment.   Anyway, no more excuses.  I’m going to try to get back into the habit.  I need a sounding board and you’re it.  Thank you for being there for me.

- Pip. (How are you?  What has been happening in your life?)

In which Lucky exacts his revenge

(This is a true conversation that happened yesterday afternoon.)

What????

How did that happen?  We've only gone 6 miles from the golf club and I'd swear there was 65 miles range when we started up!  I haven't a clue where we are - this is a new route home to me, but Madam Google said it was the quickest.   Google Maps, where is the nearest petrol station, please?  3/4 of a mile?  

<Start praying.>

Get to petrol station.  All the pumps are busy or out of diesel.  Hurry up, people!  Don't you know we're running on fumes here?

< grrrr >

Finally someone moves.

<. Fills up with diesel >

37.42 litres!  You lying, cheating b*st*rd, Lucky!  You have a 44 litre tank and you swore you were empty!  At your normal MPG, that's at least another 60 mile range so why were you lying?  

Why???  Are you getting revenge on me?  

Is this about the deer two weeks ago?  The deer was NOT my fault!  The damn thing leapt out of the hedge on the far side of the country lane we were driving down and ran in front of you.  I slammed on your brakes as fast as my reflexes would work.  I didn't want to hit the deer.  I didn't want to hurt it or you!  Anyway, it ran off so we can't have done it much damage.  It bounced.  You were left with a slightly buckled, black plastic grill-thingy, but that got snapped back into position by your new mechanic.  Seriously, I was left as shaken as you were.  We've done that drive to the Winchester office a couple of times since then and I'm constantly looking out for deer.

Or is it about the tyre last Friday?  Yes, that was my fault.  It's a drive we do every day on the way to work so I should have known better.  OK, I'm guilty of hurting you.  My brain misjudged the turn onto Dunham Roundabout from the A40 and hit a curb.  I'll give you that, but at least I've worked out why - someone took out the bollard on the central reservation and it looked like a flat, sandy pot-hole from the A40 slip road, not like the raised divider it really is.  So I gave you a flat tyre.  So what?  I'm sorry.  But at least there are two silver linings from that incident:  we discovered that your locking wheel-nut thingy was missing AND you've now got a nice, friendly, local garage to do your services instead of that badly organised, money-grubbing dealership we'd been forced to take you to after I stopped working in Reading.  A garage as good as MOT City.  A garage that replaced all your locking wheel-nuts,  gave you a service on Wednesday and a valet and  didn't cost the earth.  And they replaced your broken left wing mirror, which I'd accidentally caught on the electricity pole the morning before we hit the deer.

I'm sorry.  OK?

Please, can we kiss and make up now??

- Pam

The aftermath

The best thing to happen to me in the last week, is that I went to Fracture Clinic on Wednesday and they gave me a boot!

I can now stand and walk without crutches!  I am mobile again.  Yay!  Can't drive until after my next Fracture Clinic appointment on 20th July, though.

The worst thing that happened?  Well, unless you've been living under a media blackout, you can probably guess what it is: Britain voted to leave the EU.  

Brexit.  What an absolute economic disaster. My fellow residents of the U.K. voted for a recession.  They voted for the Pound to tank against other currencies.  They voted for the price of petrol to increase.  They voted for inward investment to cease.  They voted for jobs and manufacturing to transfer to other parts of Europe.  They voted for food prices to double.  

Woah there!  I can hear my Australian and American friends going "Hang on.... Food prices to double?"  It doesn't sound comprehensible, does it?  The fact of the matter is that Britain has not been self-sufficient in food since before the First World War.  And I'm not talking grain.  Prior to WW2, Britain imported 60% of its fresh produce.  It still does. The vast majority of what goes on most people's tables comes from other parts of the EU.  Another slab comes from as far afield as Kenya (strawberries) or Egypt (potatoes).  Go food shopping in a supermarket in France or Spain or the Netherlands and you'll be hard pressed to find any produce that wasn't grown "in country" - the reverse is true here. 

Well, say the Brexitiers, at least we won't be wasting money on the Common Agricultural Policy, subsidising farmers to produce butter mountains.  It's an expensive waste of money, isn't it? Throughout the years I have lived in the UK, I have heard stories/complaints about the Common Agricultural policy:  the butter mountains; the inefficiencies (keeping small farms alive instead of allowing them to go to the wall and be absorbed into agribusiness conglomerations); the abuses (Italy claiming to have more land producing tomatoes than its entire landmass); paying farmers to leave land fallow (so that biodiversity is preserved), etc...  

I have always thought that they missed the point: the reason the Common Agricultural Policy exists in the first place is food security.  It was devised when the memories of the famines and food shortages that followed WW2 were fresh in people's minds.  People remembered starving. They starved before and during the War too.  Germany remembered the great inflation of the 1920's, when the price of bread could double within an hour.  France, Belgium and the Netherlands remembered starving during the War too, when the occupying Nazis employed the policy of feeding their war machine first, Der Vaterland second and the plebs third.  With starvation fresh in your memory, wouldn't you subsidise farming to ensure food security?

I fully expect food prices to double in the next two years. Mark my words.  It won't just be due to the Pound falling in value against the Euro, either.   Britain is dependent on Europe for most of its foodstuffs.  Right now, the other nations in the EU sell food to us on the same basis as they sell it internally - no tariffs; no additional taxes.  Now, they will have a choice:  sell internally to the other 26 countries, or put a tariff on and sell to the UK, who desperately want your food and are ripe to be milked...

Britain needs the EU far more than the EU needs Britain. 

- Pam

I broke it.

I am a stubborn sod. Ten days ago, I slipped in the ground floor lift foyer at work, twisting my right ankle and wrenched my foot. I can’t walk on it. I spent a large portion of that evening sitting with my foot elevated, sporting a bag of peas while stubbornly thinking “It will be better in the morning”. It wasn’t so I went to A&E in morning. It turns out that I have a footballer’s injury – I have an avulsion fracture of the fifth tarsal (basically my foot muscles pulled a chip off the ankle end of the long bone on the outside of the foot).

The thing is: I knew that I'd broken something within about a minute but I didn't want to admit it. The Thursday  was meant to be a day working in London followed by the T20 cricket at the Oval, and I didn't want to miss that. I was on my way out to dinner with a really good friend who I don't see often enough and didn't want to waste a precious evening in the Royal Berks. (Also, where would I park?). I kept telling myself that it'd wear off; it was only when I put weight on it that it hurt. It didn't hurt to drive; it didn't hurt when I was sitting; surely it would wear off? 

Only it didn't. I knew I wouldn't get to the cricket before I left Reading. Walking from my parked car to the house nearly had me in tears - the deciding vote for A&E. I left it until the morning only because I have worked in A&E and know that mornings are quiet, so you get seen relatively quickly.

While it doesn't hurt much unless I lose my balance and stand on it, the past ten days have been exercises in frustration.  I have crutches but am about as manoeuvrable as a lump of coal with them.   I can’t use them and carry anything.  This turns everything into a production number, when I’m home alone.  Every step has to be thought out.  For example, to make a cup of coffee I have to hop with my crutches to the kitchen cupboard to get a coffee cup, propping one crutch up nearby to free up one hand;  stretch to put it down on the kitchen table; hop with crutches to the other side of the table, where I can reach the kettle without stretching and the coffee;  reach over to get the cup so that I can pour in the water, etc;  push it back to the other side of the kitchen table then hop back round to reach the fridge to get the milk, etc.  All the while, trying to balance on one foot and one crutch because I’ve had to put the other down so that I can hold whatever-it-is while in transit before I can put it on the table.

I'm lucky that a) I have a  portable office (laptop) and can work from home, and b) that I managed to break my foot just at the start of the Euro2016 football championships.  Both have helped me stay sane!  I would die of boredom if my days were just me and the television, waiting for Gerald to get home.  Beyond "Homes Under the Hammer", there is nothing worth watching on daytime TV.  (I have a few things stashed on the DVR but not enough to last me.)  

My ears shut off when i concentrate, so there's no point having anything on in the background while I'm working but when I'm not and there's no football, I'm mainly listening to podcasts from the BBC:  Moneybox; Kermode and Mayo's Film Review; Costing the Earth; Ramblings; Open Book; WS More or Less (who are doing a fascinating series on how statistics are used and abused during the Euro Referendum).  The knitting podcasts I'm listening to include:  Knitmore Girls; Knit British; Caithness Craft Collective; iMake (back-episodes only since she's stopped recording); Shineybees; Stash and Burn; CogKnitive.

I have a fracture clinic appointment on Wednesday.  Hopefully, they will give me some idea how much longer this will go on. 

Today is the first day of the rest of your life

Every day is a new start.  The past is prologue - you can't change it but you can change what happens now.  I think that is why we imbue this day, 1st January, with so much importance.  Why else do we make New Year's Resolutions?

Sometimes, I think that is part of the problem.  We give the New Year so much baggage:  "this year, I will be thin"; "this year, I will get straight A's in all my subjects"; "this year, I will get out of debt/earn a fabulous salary/save £100,000" (all while netting £2.50/hour or something similar); "this year, I will meet the man of my dreams", etc.  Frankly the expectation for virtually all New Year's Resolutions is  "this year, I will turn my life around and it will be wonderful from New Year's Day onwards...",  Of course, change can't happen that quickly but, when we get to the second or third week of January and wonderful things haven't happened, we feel like a failure.  Failure is built into the equation from the beginning.

One of my friends posted on Facebook earlier today "Best part of 2016 so far??  Reminding everyone that we have 366 days to make a difference instead of 365.  Make a difference!!!"   This is what I've been pondering all day:  how can I make a difference in 2016, both to my life and to others?  I have decided to set some very specific goals, rather than woolly resolutions, in order to make a difference.

16 Challenges for 2016

1). Run the Sports Relief Mile in Osterley on 20th March.  I've already signed up and Howard has agreed to run it with me.  We've set a modest fund raising target and hope to exceed it.  (I'll post a link closer to the time.). Since I can barely run 100m, this will involve training every workday morning - getting up at 5am - except when I'm travelling.  I will use the www.mapmyrun.com app to track my progress, as well as my Fitbit.

2).  £50 February.  Yes, I've decided to try again.  Will you join me?

3).  The weight challenge.  I want my UK size 12 clothes fit me, comfortably.  Right now, some do, some don't. I reckon ending the year weighing 9st10lb or less will do the trick. 

4).  The strength challenge.  Every workday morning I will do the 7 Minute Workout, which is a free app available for iPhone and iPad (not sure about Android).  I should be able to fit this into my routine after my new daily run.

5). The language challenge.  Resume my daily sessions on Duolingo to learn French.  (I took a break over Christmas.)  It takes about 10 minutes to work my way through the requisite 2 modules a day.

6).  Knit From Stash 2016.  This year, I will not go totally "cold sheep", instead I will limit my purchases to 10 balls of yarn for a sweater and 4 balls of yarn for socks/other presents.

7).  The other knitting challenge: to knit - and finish - four sweaters in 2016.  (This is theoretically possible.  In my most productive year, I knit six.). This will be on top of my regular production of six pairs of socks per annum.

8).  Fashion on the Ration.  Yes, once again, I will try to stick to 66 coupons as dictated by the 1941 clothing regulations.  This covers yarn purchases, too, but not items bought for household use.

9). To get my sewing machine serviced and to use it to make an outfit from my fabric stash.  (Yes, of course, I have a fabric stash.  What were you thinking?)

10).  To read 16 books in 2016.  Should be doable.

11).  The vegetable garden challenge.  I hereby commit to planting seeds in February, for planting out at the end of March.  If that doesn't happen, then I will call this challenge a failure then and be done with it.

12).  To move into the back bedroom and sort out the wardrobe issue.  

13).  To audition for a solo in the ECS 2016 carol concert.   I am a lazy musician.  This will help me be a better one.

14).  The friendship challenge.  I have lots of friends, some of whom I do not see or communicate with very often.  The challenge is to write a personal email to a different friend each month

15).  The entertaining challenge.  In conjunction with challenge 14 above, I want to have friends over for a meal 12 times in 2016.  I am not going to aim for once a month because some months this won't be possible, whereas in others it will be possible to entertain twice.

16).  To blog 16 times in 2016.

What will you do to make a difference in 2016?

- Pam

A lesson learned from a sewing machine

(As you may be aware, I am the proud owner of a Brother sewing machine.  It may be 24 years old now, but it does exactly what I always wanted; among its 21 stitches are a one-step button hole, a special stitch for sewing jersey fabric, takes a double needle, a sort of overlock stitch, etc. While it is in desperate need of a service - one of my 2016 challenges is to get it serviced and then to use it more often - this story isn't about it.  This story is about another sewing machine, not mine...)

I mentioned on Facebook yesterday, one of the few pieces of advice I ever dish out to people, when it comes to possessions, is to buy the one you really want.  If you can't afford it, then wait and keep saving up until you can buy the one that you really want, because if you don't, if you buy something cheaper that "will do", it never does.  You will replace the latter two or three times with another that "will do", because you'll always find a fault with it; and eventually it will cost you double what the original would have cost in the first place.  And you still won't be satisfied because what "will do" is never good enough.

This is a lesson I learned from my mother over a sewing machine.  My mum always wanted a super-duper machine that did amazing embroidery automatically, at the touch of a button.  Embroidery was one of her things, although she seldom did it by the time I was born.  It was too hard on the hands and the eyes.  Looking back I think that what she really wanted to do was make and embellish baby clothes - that was her great love - but it was never something that she pursued once I grew beyond 6 or 7 (I'm the youngest).  Her style for children's clothes was classic mid-20th century:  embroidered and smocked dresses, or velvet with a lace collar (she made lace, too).  It was a look that was well out of fashion by the early 1970's, by the time I was old enough to start to notice fashion.  Anyway, I digress...

The sewing machine was always part of our lives when we were little.  If we needed new clothes, they were home made.  A trip to the shops "for clothes" always ended up in the fabric department, selecting a pattern and some cloth, after we'd made a circuit of women's wear and children's wear.  Like knowing how to crochet, I do not remember learning to use the sewing machine or getting lessons on laying out a pattern on fabric, etc.  These are things I have always known, things I learned almost by osmosis.

The other place we would always visit would be the sewing machine department.  Mum would chat to the demonstrators, always checking out the latest models, occasionally giving them a test ride.  In the late 1970's, there were a couple of big home exhibitions at the Exhibition Buildings in Melbourne.  I remember wandering around them for hours with mum, always stopping at the stands run by the sewing machine manufacturers: Singer, Janome, Huskvana, Bernina, Pfaff.  (Oddly enough, I don't remember ever seeing a Brother machine.). We always looked at the high-end embroidery models:  some were confined to built in programs that were selected from a dial; others took an infinite number of cams that you dropped into a slot, which were expensive optional extras.  I remember Singer making the latter.  The machine mum lusted after, though, was the Pfaff:  it had multiple push-button programs and she was convinced that you could combine designs by pushing two-or-more buttons together at once.  

(Remember, this was before computers took over the world. Everything was mechanical or manual. (As an aside, one of the first conversations I ever had about computing was to discuss whether you could program a computer to drive a sewing machine to embroider a picture.  She'd got to me, too.))

Anyway, as I said, mum really wanted a Pfaff sewing machine.  Even if she didn't get one that did all the whizz-bang, you-beaut embroidery, she still wanted a Pfaff.  As far as she was concerned, they were the BMW of the sewing machine world:  German precision engineering, heavy duty but elegant and a dream to use.  They were also expensive, probably the most expensive sewing machines on the market at that time.  I don't remember the exact costs now, however I'd guess a top-of-the-range model was more than my dad's take-home wages for a month.

Somewhere along the line, mum convinced herself that her old, 1960-edition sewing machine just wasn't good enough.  If it wasn't the stitches, then it was too light weight for the type of sewing she wanted to do.   (Built into its own sewing table/case, it would literally bounce about if you went too fast.). That was her argument, anyway.  During my teenage years, she talked herself into replacing that machine. Twice.  Neither replacement was good enough.  Since she kept the original, I remember doing a direct comparison: beyond having a free arm (the original had a flat bed), there was virtually nothing the new machines offered that the original couldn't do; maybe a one-step button hole, but that was it.  (Frankly, though, as long as your machine can do zig-zag and change the length and width of its stitches, it can do a button hole.  I learned how to do that on the old machine.). If they had fancy embroidery stitches, I never saw them being used.  

I have absolutely no recollection of what was wrong with the second machine, that convinced her to purchase the third.  All I can tell you is that she continued to lust after a Pfaff.  Here's the heart of the matter:  mum couldn't bring herself to spend that bit extra on the Pfaff she always wanted and the substitutes never matched up.    

They weren't cheap machines, but individually each wasn't as costly as a Pfaff.  Collectively, however, she spent more on them than she would have done on the Pfaff she really wanted.  I remember discussing it with my dad, who found the whole thing as frustrating as I did.  Yes, Pfaffs were expensive.  No, they didn't have a lot of spare money to throw around.  However, if it doesn't match up to your expectations, why bother buying it?  Dad was prepared to spend the money, but mum would not.  In his mind and mine, mum already had an "it will do" machine, so if you weren't going to buy the one you really wanted, with all the bells and whistles on it, why bother?  Why not just continue to save until she could get the Pfaff?

This is when I learned an important life lesson:  if there is something you really, really want, don't try to make do with an "almost as good as but cheaper" substitute.  It will never do.  You will always find fault with the substitute.  Keep saving your cash until you can get the one you really want*.  I have no problem with you buying a cheap-as-chips "temporary" substitute/second-hand model if you absolutely need that piece of equipment**, but don't fork out two-thirds of the price of the one you really want on something that doesn't add up and then moan about it for years afterwards.  

Certainly, expensive isn't always better.  However, don't settle for something on the "it will do" basis when clearly it won't.  Just don't do it.  

- Pam

* Why do you think I waited and saved for years for a top-of-the-range-at-the-time iPhone?   It did exactly what I wanted, had a good camera and came with the most data storage.  (When it comes to computing, always buy the biggest storage.)   At that point, it's predecessor was 8 years old BUT 8 years earlier, pre-iPhone-invention, the predecessor was the exact phone I wanted so I was happy to wait.

** Of course, after using your "temporary" model for a while, you may decide that it is perfect for your needs and you don't actually want the other one after all.  At least you'll have found out without spending a fortune.

Excuses, excuses... No excuses.

The other day at work, while I was zapping my lunch, I plugged my meal into the www.myfitnesspal.com app, and  I found myself musing on the various times I'd counted calories or kept food diaries of one version or another.  While large portions of my life have been completely diet free, every so often in the last 10 years, I've gritted my teeth and tried (again) to lose the 15lb of fat that settled around my waist after my thyroid packed in.  Virtually every attempt involved some sort of tracker.

I was an overweight kid, probably carrying 2 stone more than I should have been by the time I was 11 or 12. (One stone = 14lb = 6kg.) I think the very first time I tried to diet was when I was 13 and my mum had bought a Weight Watchers' cookbook, which amazingly included details of the entire original Plan.  On that occasion, I ruled up a few pages in an exercise book, to act as my menu/meal tracker.  It was filled in on the first morning then abandoned.  Keeping track of Weight Watchers portions was too much like hard work, particularly since I had to keep referring back to the cookbook, which was too big to carry with me.

A couple of months later, I found a "model" diet in Dolly magazine and tried that.  A modelling school and agency - I forget which - gave it to the magazine; it was the diet they dished out to all their potential models. The selling point was "lose a stone in two weeks".  All I can remember is that most meals consisted of two eggs, half a grapefruit and spinach.  Not being much of a cook at the age of 14, I mainly hard boiled the eggs and boiled the spinach, which was disgusting.  Making a frittata never occurred to me. 

Then there was some terrible yoghurt and bran diet, which I devised myself.  (Don't ask.)  I must has been 15 by then and working on the theory that yoghurt was low in calories, full of calcium and protein, while the bran would fill me up. That lasted a couple of days.  Not only did it taste horrible, but I was hungry the entire time,  No wonder the word diet became associated in my mind with suffering through terrible tasting meals.

By the time I was 19, I'd given up on diets completely.  They were far too much like self-imposed torture for no reward.  The only thing that I tried to do, food wise, was to eat healthily:  more of the dreaded vegetables (I hated vegetables), high in fibre and low fat (anyway, greasy food gave me horrible irritable bowel syndrome cramps).  Gradually, I learned to like vegetables.  I did lose weight but it was almost by accident, and my weight stabilised at about 10st (140lb).  For a long time, I didn't even own a set of scales.

Fast forward to 1991, when I was working for a certain cosmetic surgery company, as a cross between office admin and operating theatre nurse. They decided that there was money to be made in diets, so sent me as a spy to a rival clinic.  The diet I was given that day was all about quantities and choices.  It was not prescriptive - as long as I didn't exceed the stated amounts, I could eat anything I chose. No menu plan. No "it's Tuesday, therefore you can only have 5 eggs and a head of lettuce". It was easy, straightforward and, after a day or so, I decided "I can stick with this".  Religiously, I tracked everything I ate, wrote it all down so that I could reproduce the diet meals later on.  While the company paid for the first visit, I paid for the rest.  I went back every week for 13 weeks and lost 2 stone in the process.  For the only time in my life, I achieved the magic goal weight of 8st 4lb.  

It didn't last, but my weight stabilised at a perfectly acceptable 9st 2lb and UK size 12 for the following 6 years.  It was only when I started living on Chinese takeaway, after we'd moved house and my first marriage was falling apart that I began putting the pounds back on.  By the turn of the millennium, I was 12 stone and the heaviest I have ever been.  

I managed to shed some pounds, once DH and I started living together but I was still over 11st when we started planning our wedding in 2003.  At the advice of some friends, I resorted to Weight Watchers.  While I counted points, based on the then Plan and pointed up most of my recipes, I basically followed the same program as I had in 1991.  The need to be accountable was the main reason I attended meetings.  I wrote everything up and pointed it all in the weekly food diary sheets we were given. I carried the program handbook in my handbag and referred to it often for points values.  I even joined the website. It worked, too.  I was slim at the wedding and became a gold member weighing 9st 2lb.

Less than a year later, I had shingles and the resultant autoimmune response wiped out my thyroid.  The inevitable result of hypothyroidism was weight gain.  I ballooned up to 10st 10lb, but this time the weight primarily went around my waist   I returned to Weight Watchers in 2007, stuck it out for the best part of 9 months and got back to 9st 10lb.  When I lapsed, the lesson I learned very quickly was that it took very little over-eating to put on weight.  Living for a week, once a month, in a hotel at site did it.  By the time the Project left site in 2011, I was back at 11st.  

When I returned to Weight Watchers, the program had changed.  Everything needed to be pointed up again.  I downloaded the app to my phone but it was frustratingly clumsy.  I tried logging into the website every day - at one point, whenever I opened Internet Explorer, it would automatically log straight into the tracker pages on the Weight Watchers website.  Again I found it very frustrating. I'd track for a week or so and then lapse.  Heaven help you if you ate out - although Weight Watchers continued to publish their Eating Out guide in paper format, it was impossible to find the same information out digitally.  For several years, I kept trying to make the new Weight Watchers program work for me and kept failing.  Eventually, in 2014, I gave up completely and resigned my membership of the website, cancelling my monthly subscription.

I don't remember when I downloaded the www.myfitnesspal.com app to my iPhone.  I do know that in September 2014, I had a play with it, thinking that so long as I counted calories, I might achieve something.  As weight loss tools go, it has been a revelation: it is a calorie counter:  not only can you plug in your recipes and count their calories, it has a database that stores details of millions of preprepared foods and thousands of restaurant dishes.  It is an exercise tracker, interacting with dozens of fitness apps and tools, like my Fitbit.  It can even be turned into a pedometer, if I forget to put the Fitbit on.  It was everything that the Weightwatchers app, etc, wasn't.  It is easy.  It is non-judgemental and every day starts with a clean slate.

You may remember that, as part of my 15-goals-in-2015, I challenged myself to lose 15lb this year.  Most days, I have tracked my food and my footsteps in www.myfitnesspal.com and it hasn't been a hassle.  I didn't make goal, but I didn't fail too badly,  On 5 January, when I weighed myself upon our return from Miami, I weighed 10st 10lb.  A month ago, I weighed 10st 3lb.  At my lowest point this year, I was 10st 2lb.  I haven't weighed myself in December so a 7lb weight loss for the year will have to do. It has had a visible effect on my body.  People have noticed and commented.  I'm back wearing most of my size 12 clothing.  Next year, I will try to lose the final 8lb.

- Pam

The myth of multitasking

I was on the phone to Our Man in the Middle East earlier in the week, discussing something in a spreadsheet, when the cheeky sod sent me a text message, conveying the sort of gossip you can't say out loud in the office then following it up with a question as to why I didn't reply.  "You know I can't multi-task!" I told him crossly.  He just laughed.  

(Our Man in the Middle East is the colleague I talk to the most from the new business I look after.  I'd already told him that when I read something, my ears shut off.  I don't think he quite believes me.  Anyway....)

As far as I'm concerned, multitasking is a myth.  I can only concentrate on one thing at a time; most people can't concentrate on two.  Oh, I can mimic multitasking with certain amount of planning, but it isn't real.  Take yesterday afternoon when I did two loads of washing, baked bread (in the bread maker), and listened to the cricket while cleaning up the kitchen.  That sounds like multitasking, but it's not.  It's just doing things in an efficient sequence.

Any project manager will tell you, the secret is in how you program the work.  I reckon that this is what women have always done, which is why the myth of multitasking came about.  For thousands of years, we watched the kids while growing the veg, feeding the chooks, tending the fire and cleaning the house, probably while figuring out how to make the end of a loaf of bread and 2oz of bacon feed a family of 6.   

It's not that we're concentrating on two (or three or four) separate things at once, rather we're working through activities from a mental list.  This is what women have always done and continue to do.  Fast-forward to the 21st Century and we are still doing it, only now we're planning dinner while waiting for the MFD to spit out our printing.  Nothing's changed really.

Multitasking?  Not me.

- Pam

Career girl? Who, me?

In the beginning, I didn't set out to have a career.  Initially I just wanted to take care of people, travel and get paid a living* wage.  Later, after I fell out of love with nursing, I added the requirement "to not get treated like a slave".  After a couple more years, I added "and not be bored" to the list.

For a while, when I first became an accountant, I did get really ambitious.  I wanted job titles, promotions, to get away from the tedious stuff, and to earn big money.  If you'd asked me then what I wanted to be doing in five years, I'd probably have responded with "I want my boss' job" or "I want to run the company".  The blazing ambition faded as the years wore on and realisation dawned that I'd never really got onto a path where my career could follow any sort of trajectory.  I'd chosen tax as my speciality and then discovered it wasn't for me; got rescued by a finance systems project but became a systems trainer, not a systems accountant (another blind-ended career path).  When I did, finally, make it out into the business as a management accountant, I got made redundant 18 months later, having still not achieved what I considered to be the necessary step on my career path: Assistant Financial Controller.  After a few interviews, it became blatantly obvious to me that the dream job wasn't going to happen - I'd have to settle for having a job, not a career.

When I interviewed for this company in 2006, I was asked what I wanted for my career.  I remember looking at Simon and Mike and considering telling them  "I want your job".  Instead, I told them that I just wanted to do something interesting - that I didn't want to be bored - and that I wanted to be part of a team.  I must have said something right - they hired me.  Since I was hired for one specific project, I half expected to be made redundant 2.5 years later, when it was due to cease.  The project eventually ran for 5 years. Occasionally, Mike and I would have a chat about what I'd do next, after "The Project" finished. (Worst case scenario was project controls.)  When things did eventually start winding down in September 2010, I was poised to become his assistant when I came back from a long weekend in France, got dragged into a meeting room and was told "I'm sorry but we're going to have to change to Plan B".  "What's Plan B?" I asked.  "Sergey's resigned.  You are going to have to take over Buildings Group"!

I took on Sergey's projects and responsibility for four project accountants.  I had a shiny, new job title "Project Accounting Manager" (later changed to Finance Manager) but it was apparent that the business didn't need me - they had never received much in the way of financial management support from Finance and had set up its own internal support systems to cope.  Anyway it was another 9 months before The Project finally left site and I had the time to consider the non-project aspects of my job and wonder why I wasn't involved in the business in the way that my peers (the other Project Accounting Managers) were involved in theirs.  

It was then that I got to know Tall and Dark.  At that time, Dark was the project controller on Sergey's two projects; Tall was the business' Commercial Director.  Since my month's work was front-end loaded, once that was done both of them would regularly receive emails from me: "I'm bored.  Do you have anything I can do?".  I lost count of the times I sat at my desk trying to figure out a way to do something which would add value to the business, something which would help me make my mark, convince the Powers That Be to involve me and use my skills.  I gate-crashed the monthly Project Accounting Review meetings ("PAR") - Mike had been invited to them, but I never was.  None of the business' senior management team were based in my office, so unless I made the effort, I'd never meet any of them.

Tall became my ally - often, the first I knew about the time and date of the PAR was when he sent me slides; sometimes, it was when his hand would appear in my field of vision, between me and my computer screen, holding a cappacino for me. Later, I would learn that he'd reference me in management meetings, saying "Pam and I investigated this..." or "Pam and I did that...", even regarding things where I thought my contribution was minimal.  (Not that I was at the meeting, you understand - I was never invited to anything - but information would drift back to me.).  Tall ensured that I got copied into internal reports/introduced to people/informed what was going on.  He mentored me; my job changed and grew.

I can date exactly when Tall and I became real friends and not just colleagues to a working lunch where he explained the arcane workings of the forecast file.   In the course of three hours, we shared a lot more than just his forecasting methodology.  We clicked.  

Work meant that Dark and I had to talk several times a day.  Early on, I went up north to meet him and we became firm friends. We'd talk about life, family and football, not just work.  Later, I discovered that he and Tall were best mates and, at some point, we became the "three amigos". A unit. A team.  We'd exchange hugs when we met, find excuses to socialise, use each other as sounding boards.  When Tall was shoehorned into Sales and Dark got promoted, our roles changed but our bond didn't.

Do you remember this lunch?  At some point during it, I told Tall that I was very contented with my lot, that I was exactly where I wanted to be, doing the job that I was made to be doing. 

It was the truth.  And it has remained true for most of the last two years.  Sure, there have been times when I have been driven almost to tears by the frustration of dealing with certain people in Glasgow - and there were other times, early on, when I drove home crying over how unfair it was that Tall was no longer Commercial Director while Dark was doing the work but not getting the recognition - however there was never a day when I wanted to work somewhere else.  For two years, my only ambition has been to be Tall's Finance Manager when he gets promoted to Vice President, with Dark as his Commercial Director.  I just want to work with my mates, my amigos.  I was really happy when Dark got promoted to Commercial Director in the summer - he deserved it.  When we were given a second business to look after - a new one, just beginning - it was fun scheming about how we'd make it work.

Since I only have the one ambition, I thought I was in my job until it either came to fruition or the three of us came up with a viable business solution and jumped ship.  I never expected the conversation I had a month ago with my new line-manager** - a conversation that froze me to the core at the time and has driven me to tears since.  His grand plan is to move me away from the business I know, away from my friends and support network, to take on a smaller business while at the same time taking over some of the corporate work that has been neglected/ended up on his desk because there was nobody else doing it.

Since when has a possible promotion felt so much like a bereavement?

It wasn't sold to me as a promotion. What I was told that day on the phone was that there might be somewhere else in the business that could better use my services while the new-to-us-came-via-a-merger-finance-manager was a better fit for my business(!) because he lives in the same city as Dark and the business' new VP.   (Somehow that logic only works when applied to Newby - it doesn't work when you consider that the business I now know i'm getting has its senior management in Glasgow and Manchester.)

Initially, I wasn't even being told what I'd get or when.  At that point, I was being asked to consent to something that was all hints without substance, without being told the details.  All I knew was that they were taking away my toys! It took another three weeks before I was told the details and longer before an announcement was made.

How on earth am I going to handover everything I know about my current business?  I can't just download my brain. This is not one of those companies with standardised processes for everything - where you can just slot in and out of a finance role - every business does things differently and I don't think we have ever completely followed the way our current region works.  (I don't like the flavour of some of their Kool Aid.)  Newby hasn't even been here long enough to grasp the few things we do have standardised.  We are too far into the Q1 forecasting for me to just do a handover and walk away.  Plus he had leave booked, right in the middle of it all.  Meanwhile the Finance Manager of my new business is handing over responsibility as quickly as he can... Which  leaves me with the lion's share of three forecasts to prepare, plus review meetings to attend, and the certain knowledge that I don't have enough hours in the day to do everything to my exacting standards.  (Oh yes, and from the kick-off of 10 days ago, when we got the timetable, the bulk of the work has to be done before the end of the coming week.)

So where the hell does this leave me?  I am exhausted, stressed out and pulled in at least four different directions right now. I've spent the last two days in forecast review meetings with Dark - a bittersweet  experience since a) it's for the last time (probably) and b) he keeps telling people to send me stuff/update me as part of the process, demonstrating how much he relies on me and how hard it will be to let go.  

I do not know what I am going to do.   I spent the week in France trying to come to terms with things, deciding whether I should stay or go find a new sandpit to play in.  In the end, I decided to stay for at least another six months to see how it all plays out - at least here I know ground rules - but I feel besieged on all fronts.  I don't want to fight again to become part of a business, nor am I certain that my boss will back me over the things that I think add value to the job (he doesn't like bespoke reports and I've always been left with the distinct impression that their way was the only way).  

Dark feels like his right arm is being cut off; frankly, so do I.  Tall is having his own work nightmare at the moment (not mine to tell).  I just hope that when the three of us go mad from stress, the PTB's put us on the same ward.

I'll let you know how this plays out.

- Pam

* A living wage by my definition includes earning enough to pay for a nice home in a reasonable neighbourhood, a car, books,  the odd meal out, one or two concerts/plays/operas a year, and not having to worry about how I am going to put food on the table or pay for my train fare to get to work.

** Yes, another one.  Long story.  Suffice to say that this one was number 2 in Glasgow and got promoted. I used to bang heads with him over stuff when we joined the region and it would annoy him that he didn't control me or my team.  I also used to regularly be surprised when I'd pop my head around his door to ask a question/say hello and find myself still there half an hour later, listening to him vent.

Life goes on

A reminder that, before it was a battlefield, Utah Beach was just a beach....

A Summer of Culture and Sport

This is my summer - a summer of culture and sport.  I’ve fulfilled one long-term ambition (seeing Rick Wakeman perform Journey to the Centre of the Earth), enjoyed the football World Cup, the Commonwealth Games, an opera (La Traviata), a rock festival in Hyde Park (watching Black Sabbath, Faith No More, Motorhead and Sound Garden), several Proms (with 7 to go plus Proms-in-the-Park), the tennis (I went to Queens for the day and watched Wimbledon on the telly), and the cricket (two series:  England vs Sri Lanka and now England vs India).

Monday of last week was my birthday.  After two weeks in which I saw Simple Minds perform at Kew-the-Music, drove from London to Scotland, went to four events at the Commonwealth Games (the opening ceremony, Rugby 7’s semi-finals, hockey and the athletics on 100m finals night), delivered the FY15 Plan (budget) to the Powers That Be in Glasgow, re-enacted the Battle of Bannockburn, attended a 60th birthday party, attended three Prom concerts (a Greek-themed one, Mozart’s Requiem and the War Horse Prom) and went to the Ballet (Swan Lake),  I took a much needed day off work on my birthday and crashed out.

It took me the best part of a week to recover from the Scotland trip plus the weekends that bookended it.  Scotland was a mixture of holiday to attend the Commonwealth Games and work, both coupled with little sleep – I trekked into the Glasgow office on 4 days including on the morning after the Opening Ceremony, when we’d got home at 2.30am and I had to be up at 6am in order to get the one-and-only direct train into Glasgow from Inverkeithing.  

 Somewhere in there, I've also managed two overnight trips to Manchester - it doesn't feel like work when you're spending the time at work with friends - plus several days working in the Tower Bridge office.   After one of those days at Tower Bridge, I even managed to extend my birthday celebrations by going for drinks/dinner with Dark.  (We were surprised at 9pm when there was a gun salute at the Tower.  I can't find out why there was a salute at that time so I've assumed it was to commemorate the start of the Siege of Lierge in WW1.)

The weather has been glorious, too – long, hot sunny days for most of the last two months.  I managed to get sunburnt at Queens and again at the Commonwealth Games (I never thought I’d ever get sunburnt in Glasgow!).  

As an August baby, I'm a child of the Sun - I was born in the week that Spring habitually returns to Melbourne.  Long, hot, sunny summer days feel like my birthright.  Bring them on Apollo.  Bring them on.

- Pam