What are the chances

 Quite a bit to talk about this week.

On Tuesday I was off to the Fareham area again for work for a few days. You will recall recent traumas with car. As a result I'd hired a car, something I am able to do with work. 

I'm not going to lie, I had worked myself up into a bit of a mess awaiting the car. It's quite a jump to start driving a new car, especially when you don't know what is turning up. However, my emergency car hire a few weeks ago had me prepared to check how to get the car started and, importantly, how to get it into reverse.

The car turned up - it was a Mazda, a bit smaller than the kitchen sized car that turned up last time. I decided to drive it around my local area for a bit just to check I had a handle on things. Importantly it also had a switch rather than a lever for the handbrake (I'm not a fan). That the area I live in is extremely hilly and after leaving my house and getting onto main road about 3 minutes away is a set of traffic lights, with a very extreme hill start. An important thing to do was to make sure I could do a hill start.

I couldn't, no matter what I tried I couldn't get the handbrake to hold. I called husband out to come and sit with me and see the problem I was having. He looked at me like I was mad and told me to pull the button up, not push it down. Immediately this made sense, that's what you'd do with a normal handbrake, but in my brain if there's a button you push it, not pull it! Still with that sorted I was ready to head off.

Journey all went well until I was on the A27 to Portsmouth. Suddenly the weather turned and it was like somebody was throwing buckets of water at my windscreen. I pulled up the windscreen wiper to make it go faster and..... it turned off. I was in a panic because the weather was terrible, I was on a dual carriage way, could hardly see anything and there was nowhere to pull over. I pulled up the wiper lever and it cleared the windscreen with one wipe. In the end I had to drive with one hand with my other hand doing one single wipe after another. Terrifying.

As soon as the terrible rain stopped I was able to take stock, I played with the wiper and it turns out that on a Mazda to increase the speed of your wipers you push the lever down! I've literally never driven a car that required that one. Still now I know. Absolutely nuts and pretty scary.

I then led a 3 day meeting with my team, not much to share about that, but lovely to see them all because we all work remotely from different parts of the world. It's amazing actually that we don't work in the same building, but we've got the remote working thing so sorted now that it never feels strange when we're in the same room. There has also been a slight change to my team since the last time we got together, with one member of the team starting a new role elsewhere in the company. 

They are a very talented individual and really lovely - however, they also seem to get extremely angry. Normally whenever we have team meetings they are there in an absolute fury - I don't know why and because I'm leading for a whole room I don't have the time to stop everything to find out why and if I am able to it's usually for a reason I can't do anything about. It's a real shame actually.

The difference in the room was actually palpable, it was a really light hearted and fun session and people really threw themselves into the topics and learns. I think this might be a bit of a learn for me as well, though work is tough enough without walking into conflict situations - so I'll have to reflect on approaches.

On the subject of conflict situations - I wonder when the teenage anger stops? Son is going through a phase where he is constantly walking around the house in an absolute fury shouting to himself and getting stressed out. It has such a negative effect on me, I'll be fine and then it starts in another room and my tension levels go through the roof. It just happened now, he's getting ready for school and couldn't find his shoes, I'm three stories up and the rage managed to reach me. It's a tough one, I'm trying to treat him like an adult, but the irony is that I wouldn't tolerate this from an adult. Yesterday I even had to leave the house because he was going mad tidying his room and my stress levels reached such a peak I needed to get out.

I have spoken to him about it. It's just now he's 17 he has to learn to control himself, not have tantrums. It's a really difficult balance. I'll be honest I'm fucking sick and tired of my whole life being a difficult balance. Difficult balance at work, difficult balance at home.

Though it's important to say that son is gorgeous and sensitive and such a really lovely kid. I'm proud of him. It's just these bursts of anger (never targeting anybody else) and the hugely negative impact they have on me. I would go to an analyst to try to find out quite why it has such a huge impact on me - when it's not directly targeting me. My heart rate goes up and I go into fight or flight mode. But chances of getting mental health support in the UK these days is absolutely zero. Maybe it's normal! Who knows.

On Saturday husband and I went to Dara O'Briain at the Dome. It was husband's birthday present. A long wait. We sat down in our seats and all was good, then GUESS WHAT, in the row directly behind us sat my sister-in-law and nephew, what are the chances of that! I mean literally we were circle row B65 and B66, they were circle row C65 and C66. It's not even like the Dome is a small theatre (well it's not the O2, but it's a normal sized theatre.

Dara O'Briain was absolutely great - it was a fantastic evening. The whole evening took on a story about his hunt for his adoptive father. Husband and I both agreed we'd go to see him again, from what he was saying each show he does takes on a different story - or a different section of a story. So it means that each time it would be quite different, instead of just watching a comedian telling a lot of jokes. I really like that. Anyway, he was hilarious - it was the last night of his tour and so he was giddy (by his own admission). So we'll just need to keep an eye out for the next tour.

It's another wet and warm winter. On Sunday I had the most miserable dog walk ever, all flat areas to walk the dog were covered with footballers (grrr), so I had to go up on the hills. I had a long rain coat on, but this still meant there was about 30cm of leg showing. The wind was extreme and was blowing the rain into my face, within 5 minutes the small area of leg showing was soaked. I continued with the walk and by the time I got back to the car the wet area from my ankles had soaked up my legs. Revolting. Needless to say the first thing I did on returning home was purchase a VERY sexy (not) pair of waterproof trousers. So dry legs from now on. Hopefully the law of sod will mean that it's now bright and cold for the rest of the winter. Either way - money well spent!

So quite a few bits to cover off this week. With Christmas coming up there's lots to do so posts over the next few weeks may be a bit shorter. Let's see what happens.