Just had to rewrite this as I read it back and it was one enormous rant!
It was quite funny - though to be honest they must have spent ages setting the shot up as it always looks like this when I see it. We did have a faintly amusing moment with it about 2 weeks ago, when dog was pratting around with its ball dropping and chasing it down the slope. It suddenly turned and found it had stepped off the edge.
It was a bit like a cartoon, for a moment she hung suspended in the air with her little legs going, then down she went. Before you judge me, it's only amusing because the drop was only about 2 feet and she was absolutely fine. It may also teach her an important lesson in a safe environment.
At high tide when we're walking along the promenade I always get hot sweats and put her on the lead. She's so instinct driven there is every chance that she'd get over excited and jump over the wall where there would be a 20 foot drop on the other side - or swirling sea. Husband thinks I'm over reacting, but every year dog owners die jumping in to save their dogs - and to be fair, I probably would too.
I'm on my knees at the moment - utterly shattered. Had an amazing night's sleep last night (about 21:30pm to 05:30am) yet I've woken up still feeling shattered.
At work we continue to be insanely busy. In fact so much so I'm recruiting 3 people to my team. Once they arrive it will be a blessing, but I'm a long way from that and the recruitment activity is using up lots of time I do not have. Even worse because it's all signed off everybody is behaving as if the roles have already been filled and have unrealistic expectations.
Add to that one of my team is off with stress (not actually all work related as it turns out), this is also creating a huge amount of activity. I'm keen to get them well again and back in, but they've been gone for 3 months now and I'm having to do as much of their job as I can alongside my day job. Plus manage the long-term absence process.
Then those left in my team are utterly stressed out and so I'm having to manage that, make sure they are ok and coach them to build their knowledge and skills so they hopefully feel less stressed.
So I have all of this going on alongside what I'm supposed to be doing for my day job. As a result of this I'm pretty much ready to take time off with stress myself. Nobody seems to actually consider the enormous pressure on the person that's managing so many sticky situations.
Saturday was all about chores - as usual. Walked down to butchers - the weather was grim so I didn't do my usual stroll along the sea front - in fact I avoided it like the plague. On return home I didn't have to do washing as son is on half-term. That was a relief. But we were holding a birthday party (work meeting) for my friends 9 year old in the evening.
I used to be able to knock out a birthday party in about an hour (I have a cupboard full of party bits), then I'd just whop out basic party food (kids party I hasten to add - nothing posh). I can't do that any more it took me 3.5 hours!!!!
I have to say I've lost loads of skills during COVID. I now no longer like leaving home to go and do things socially. I was never a social butterfly - always found social events clunky and tiring - I'm good one-on-one, but suck in a group. Since COVID and lockdown I'm now utterly hopeless and meeting people and supposedly having 'fun' is more exhausting and unpleasant than a days work.
To be fair I have some amazing friends and I love them to bits, but I've always been a bit of a recluse and socialising has always been one of those things I do because it's what you do. Rather than being something I love to do. I suspect part of that is because my husband is also my best friend so I don't really need to go out to get that. Also I don't often find people I can really relax with.
The only friend I found effortless moved back to Scotland years ago. I'm off to see her soon. But we only see each other once every 2 years. It's nice when we meet because we just carry on as if we'd never been apart. Though it would be nice to have somebody similar that's closer so I could catch up. Most other friends are at least 45 mins drive away. I obviously do have friends locally, but most of them only spend part of the year in the UK (lucky them). This is the issue with having friends all of whom tend to have more money than us.
Husband and I made money decisions early on. We wanted to aim to be home by 18:30 each evening to have supper together and not to over extend with our houses so we never found ourselves in a difficult financial situation. We've been proved wrong for not taking risks in many areas, but it is our comfort zone and we're not totally nuts as we've now paid off our mortgage and once son finishes school this does mean we have options.
Mum's got a big birthday coming up and I said I'd do her invitation. This should have been a small thing, but it turned into quite a task. Every time I thought it was finished there would be a tweak to wording or punctuation. Not as small a thing as it seems because with each amend I'd resize and resave the image to a specific size so it could be uploaded to the printers site for printing.
We had a bit of a tense moment when just as we finished she suddenly said she wanted a bizarre size to match some cheap envelopes she'd found. This would have meant I'd need to completely re-format the invitation. I effed and jeffed a bit and she agreed to keep it the same size simply to shut me up!
So we had a family meal yesterday - just to clarify nobody but my husband and I still work in my blood family (ie discounting husband's famiily). My parents have retired and husband and his wife made megabucks and retired very early . I'm shattered (see earlier part of mail). I bought along laptop because mum wanted help uploading the invitation to the printer site.
Next thing you know I'm sitting at the dining table with everybody having opinions about what should be written in the invitation. I'm shattered so tight lipped because I just want the activity to finish and for mum to be happy with the output.
And if you think I'm being horrible - I just wanted to point out that I've spent a lot of time working on this over the past month. All on my precious Sunday. The only day of the week I actually get a chance to sit down and relax. I literally hate being on my computer at the weekends.
It was different when I was on Furlough, I really relished getting my brain into something that was challenging, but I have more than enough challenges in my life now and so all I want to do when I'm not working is relax. Though life seems to do whatever it can to stop that.
Anyway, I've booked 3 days off later this week. I propose to sleep for a day, then spade out sons room for a day (something I used to do on Monday's when I worked a 4 day week), then do something nice with son on Friday as he's off on half term. I'm thinking something based around AR or VR - to leave the world I'm actually living.
Today is valentines day - I have given husband a free pass because he got me some super duper earrings. He gets to be rubbish until Christmas, no valentines or birthday or anniversary. I however went to loads of effort, but wanted to get him something he'd appreciate. As a result of which he has a huge bag of spicy Doritos and a whole range of different chocolate hobnobs as a gift. Thing's I'd never usually let him have.
I think he may appreciate this better than anything else I could have given him. He's downstairs now, hopefully having a hobnob for breakfast :-)
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