Update

Currently Reading

I’m so far behind on here it’s a joke but I’ve really missed the contact – I think about you guys and all your different situations a lot and desperately wish I could catch up with all of you but my evenings are completely taken over by an overwhelming tiredness which has robbed me of any productivity and computer time.  Basically by teatime I’m fit for nothing and after Trooper’s last walk I can do no more than sit on my bed reading until I start to nod off around 10.30-11.30 resulting in me often being asleep before midnight.  Me – who used to be at the pc for hours on end and often had to force myself to get off to bed at a half decent time on numerous occasions, seldom managing to get there before 2 or 3 in the morning!  It’s so strange – feels like someone else.

In an attempt to rectify the situation the other week I tried resurrecting my ancient laptop which I haven’t used for ages – a point confirmed by the fact that I can’t for the life of me remember the Administrator password to get into it!  I posted a message on the techie forum of the moneysavingexpert website & tried to follow the resulting replies but it’s difficult for techie folk to get down to layman’s level language and although I’ve made some inroads it’s taken forever to get as far as I’ve got and I’m still no further forward.  The problem seems to be getting the laptop (Toshiba Satellite Pro) to boot up from anything other than the hard drive – no matter what icon I clickon it insists in booting from the hard drive to Windows and the same damn screen comes up time and time again.  {Deve – if you have the time and energy to help I’d really appreciate it because I’ve noticed you’re really good at explaining things simply.}

I do have another laptop – an old one of Nikki’s – which is completely dead and I have no power charger for it but I ordered one on Amazon last night so that might be a possible alternative route when it comes.  I thought then I could use it while sitting on the bed and reclaim some computer time back that way.  Thankfully the new anti-depressants seem to be working better than the other ones although my sleep is still very disturbed but the doc gave me something to help with that if necessary.  They’ve also made me put on weight which I needed like a hole in the head – so far it’s about half a stone but I’d already put on half a stone at the start of the year so I’m not a happy bunny.  At least I’m getting through a lot of reading as a result of all this although how much is actually being retained is a different story ……

And it may all be quite timely because it looks as though I may be facing redundancy from my job in the next month or two.  I can’t remember if I mentioned in here that Sarah, my boss, was applying for a visa for Australia with a view to emigrating with her family (husband and 2 young children) at the start of the new year.  The visa came through in the summer and they began to get the house organised to put on the market thinking it would probably take ages to sell.

It sold within a fortnight.

So that speeded things up somewhat and instead of faffing about they decided they might as well just go – especially as Sarah’s mum and dad are going over in December and have rented a lovely apartment to stay in for a few weeks (her sister – by pure coincidence – emigrated over there last year).  So they now leave in mid-November.  She handed in her notice the week before last – deliberately early – because she was so worried about what would happen to my job.  Reason being the team of Development Officers (Sarah’s title) has been reduced over the last few months throughout the UK and some posts haven’t been backfilled when someone’s left so as she’s the only person I do admin for, if they did the same thing with her post I’d be scuppered basically.  She spent the whole of last Friday and most of Tuesday on the phone trying to find out what would happen, and only inadvertently discovered exactly what we feared is what’s been planned and actually there had been investigations into breaking the lease for the office months ago so obviously there were things going on behind the scenes we knew nothing about and I imagine Sarah’s notice came as a godsend and has saved loads of hassle for the powers that be.

Of course – typical Sarah – she feels dreadful about this and spent most of Wednesday telling me what she had found out, making a list of my tasks to fight my corner and suggest I do admin for someone else and also working out how much redundancy pay I would be likely to get if I had to go down that route.  Bear in mind she has to pack up the house, sort out stuff they’re going to need to buy for Australia, transfer bank accounts, sell their cars, finish an HNC course she’s doing, let everyone know they’re moving, sort out her workstuff and clear out her desk, organise somewhere to stay for 3 weeks while her husband works his notice and organise all that’s needed for a holiday on the 15th October for 2 weeks which was booked months ago!

She’s going to be such a hard act to follow.

I’m viewing the whole thing as positive – a fresh start, a crossroads of sorts, maybe a way of pushing me to do some serious writing even if just for a few months.  There is another charity who is looking for an administrator and are desperate to have me but can only offer 10-15 hours a week at most – however that might give me a bit of leeway to keep on going in a similar fashion for another year or so although will mean dipping into savings and tightening belts much more than I have been.  I DO NOT want a full-time job although I might be forced to take one eventually – it would have a major impact on the time I spend writing and also the time I spend with Lily and that’s important.  That’s very important.

Speaking of the adorable child I will finish with some up to date photos.  I’m the fun guy when we’re in the supermarket when Nikki does her shopping – Lily and I play with the trolley – me wheeching it down the aisle causing havoc or poking things through the bars.  She’s having a whale of a time banging my house keys on the handle in this one – amazing how every child in the world seems to love a set of keys to play with!

And here we are in Home Bargains being laid back although I think it was more to do with the fact she couldn’t understand why the world had suddenly gone so dark!

It’s difficult to catch her bonnie smile these days because she’s so active and the time delay on my camera means I rarely get the picture I was going for or it ends up blurred but you’ll gather from these she’s into the climbing phase.  It’s been fascinating watching her become more and more involved in play areas – this one we’ve been to several times and initially she could only sit and gaze round her.  Next time she managed to crawl round and investigated things at floor level – then it was up on her feet but needing things to hold on to for moving around, staring longingly at steps and stairs as other kids raced up them.  Last week she was at a party there and Nikki had a hard time keeping up with her, her being the one doing the racing this time!

And now she’s getting steadier by the minute – even in a matter of a few days we can see the difference when she’s bombing about with the babywalker – to begin with the legs just wouldn’t comply and she really had to concentrate hard to get them moving then that shifted to haring off at the rate of noughts once her hands were on it compared to a couple of days later when she was in control of it a lot more and could stop and start easily as well as manouevre round things and turn it when she came to a corner or something in the way.

This is my favourite so far though – you just get a sense of the perseverance and tenacity little ones have at that age where the world is such an exciting place to explore and nothing holds them back!

Don’t think it’ll be long before she’ll be off on her own – Nikki’s looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time.  Hard to imagine that’s nearly a year gone by though – when we look back at photos of her newly born we can hardly believe the size of the wee pop we took home from the hospital that day ……