Variety

Lots of different activities to discuss this week. What a difference from even a year ago when life was just a repetitive 'stay away from people' lockdown (even when we weren't in lockdown). I know that it wasn't the same for everybody and many people - even my colleagues - were out and about doing business as usual.

In fact the whole COVID thing was a very good way of showing who the really important people are. The people who if they didn't continue doing business as usual the world would stop turning. Needless to say the world continued turning quite happily without me being out and about.

It really helped as I reassessed what my future world would be. Why continue to strive for the top when actually what you're striving for isn't really that important (though the money would have been nice). Instead I turned around and looked at how I could use the skills I'd developed to actually make a difference. I think I've found a happy balance. Though working as hard as I am having to for the pittance of pay is not really a happy place a lot of the time.

I'm confident that there are kazillions of people who feel the same. So this is me officially getting over myself...... ah that's better.

I like to think I've always been respectful of people, whatever their role is, but I am very aware that I hold shop workers, refuse collectors etc. in a lot more awe than I did pre-pandemic. So maybe I wasn't respectful enough.

As far as the NHS is concerned I've always been in utter awe of anybody who works for them - so I can't say I respect them any more as they've always been on a very high pedestal.

Anyway, this is talking about feelings (eurch) not events. I've got other things to talk about now so let's go for it.

On Friday one of my colleagues left work - after about 30 years of saving lives. A fantastic person. So I decided I'd make the effort to go the leaving do. Anybody that knows me will know that in my entire life I've only done about 5 leaving 'do's. You have to be somebody who has had a huge impact on my life.

That doesn't mean I don't like the people who haven't seen me attend their leaving bash. I just don't do well in large groups of humans and find it very waring. Also inevitably I say something without realising it that brings a huge silence and ruins the whole event for everybody. So best I just stay away.

Needless to say I was on my best behaviour at the event and only managed to offend one person. Which I consider to be a successful outcome (though perhaps not for them).

The 'do' was near Southampton so I needed to drive. Half way to Southampton is where my brother lives.

He's just taken in a Ukrainian family - a mother and a 5 year old and 9 year old. They've been bouncing off walls with boredom (the kids, not the mum, who I would suggest is relieved to have somebody to share the work).

My son, like any kid in the UK, has had a life of being utterly spoilt. We went through his toys and filled 3 huge shopping bags with toys for them. Many of these were birthday party gifts that were still in their original wrappings and unopened. 

So I dropped them off. The 5 year old has started school - let's call her V and the 9 year old is waiting to get into a school - let's call him M. M was amazing when he saw the toys - the utter excitement as he picked up every item. It was like Christmas. I realised this was the enthusiasm I'd waited for from son for the whole of my life, but had never come.

M was an absolute charmer and the whole family have hit the jackpot getting to stay with brother. He has a huge pile by the sea with a pool. 

It left me wondering whether once the initial relief and excitement had faded, whether actually it may make the feelings of loss more acute, I really hope not. They seem the nicest family.

By Saturday morning the kids had made their way through loads of the toys - so I went into the darkest reaches of the attic with a torch and managed to fill another 2 bags with toys. Son was having a sleepover with a friend - so the photo with this post is one I sent to him just to check he didn't particularly want to keep any of the toys. Glad to say he didn't. I also managed to find a bag of boys clothes that had missed our regular clothes bank run. These were a perfect fit for M - result!

The new toys didn't make it into the house. Brother is having a melt down because he's an eco warrior and is very stressed to suddenly have so much brightly coloured plastic in the house. I did point out to him that we were recycling - hopefully that helps and the toys can make it into the house at some point. LOL - just scrolled up to look at the toys we shared and see that I managed to flip the photo so all the words are wrong way around. Detail, detail, detail - I'm not going to change it!

Rest of weekend was slightly less exciting. I'm still on this enormous project for work so I basically worked Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday to try to get more of it done without interruption of others. I made quite a few inroads, but there's still at least a month of work ahead of me - somewhat exhausting.

Dog walks were really the only other thing. Two really nice walks with husband and dog. Husband and I tend not to walk together often as we share the doggy load. It was nice to have his company instead of a podcast. We even managed one walk with the entire family - yes I got son to leave the house - quite remarkable. It's a shame he doesn't join us more often as I can see he gets a lot from it. But he's definitely a loner.

On that subject we were talking about when he grew up and left home. I suddenly realised it's probably only 4 years away. He said he'd stay with us longer as he didn't want to have to talk to people in the big world. I thought that was sad and said 'what will you do for work then?'. He said 'Something where I'm not noticed'.

I felt very sad about this (we couldn't be more different). I asked him if something had happened that made him want to fade into background (a question I've asked many times). He said no, I asked him if I needed to worry that he wanted to fade into background. He said he was very happy being who he is.

It's tough being a mum sometimes. I need to let son be who he wants to be, but we are so hugely different I worry. Though he does seem very happy. He has lots of really lovely friends that he holds dear and seem to hold him dear too.

I'm fascinated to find out who he will be in the future.

Let's just hope with the current war that we get the opportunity to find out.

Interesting - I was just proofing this post (yes I do proof them, though the errors may not demonstrate that). I noticed what I wrote about leaving do's. Perhaps son and I are not so wholly different after all!