Three Things

Just to prove that I never really learn any lessons in life, I nearly slipped over spectacularly today, walking across a damp bit of grass. You may remember, roughly this time last year, I ended up with a knee sprain after my office brogues proved to be inappropriate footwear for a fast trot across a lawn. You would think that all that pain and discomfort, which lasted several months in the end, might have provoked my mind to put in place some future practices that would prevent me from experiencing a repeat performance, but no, as it happens. 

Philippa is talking about doing some qualifications. She is, after all, exceptionally bright, and feels that she never really pushed herself academically as far as she might have gone. Working for family was a great opportunity to start somewhere at a good age and earn some money, but it stopped her pursuing a path that could have taken her to something that she would really have loved, and felt fulfilled in. Now she is a wee bit older, she is thinking about what might have been, and getting motivated to try something different. Working at a doctors is a way of helping people, but it's also a day-to-day repetitive slog that involves dealing with self-absorbed, twatty members of the public who spend hours researching conditions that they don't have so they can mention them to the doctor but refuse to research how to look after themselves properly in the first place. Philippa is intelligent enough to be able to do something that more directly helps people, and that's what she's looking into at the moment. Being some kind of therapist, either a physical one or a counselling one, is what's exciting her, and I think she'd be amazing at it. It doesn't have to be a huge commitment to studies either, there are one-year courses she could do that involve just one day a week in a classroom, with the rest being done online with tutors, or at-home in her own time, so it's something that can fit in with motherhood and current work scenarios.

It's an ongoing discussion, but it's very exciting. 

 

And I may be faced with the prospect of doing what is probably my most hated task ever - shopping for a car. Mine continues to make an alarmingly diverse range of unpleasant noises, and the mechanic has given me a list of problems that involve parts I've never heard of, but which sound like they might be sections of the International Space Station. Either I spend three month's wages on repairs and hope the bloody thing keeps going or I bite the bullet, spend even more getting something much newer, and hope it lasts until both my sons are at uni.

RC 26-4-23