A few things...

This time next month I’ll be one day away from starting my new position.

Scary.

After weeks of pointless chats and considerations, I do at least have a job title now. Are you ready for this? From September 1^st I will officially be Rory Chesworth, District Manager (North-West Suffolk Sub-Division)

Trips off the tongue doesn’t it?

It’s been nice to have temperatures that are Normally-Good-Warmth-For-A-British-Summer, rather than Stiflingly-Baking-Hot-Like-It’s-Frigging-North-Africa. You know I love Summer, but Christ it was hard to stay sane in days of 33 Celsius. At one stage I think I’d had 11 hours sleep in 7 days. Nothing makes it harder to sleep than feeling like you’re laying in a sauna next to a woman whose pregnancy hormones are making her skin feel like a hot water bottle.

We went to see ‘The Greatest Showman’ at an outdoor screening this weekend. Philippa had been keen to see it for a while and I’ve heard so much hype about how great the songs are and how great Hugh Jackman is and how great the world is now this film exists that I thought it might be time to give it a go.

What a pile of bollocks.

RC 30-7-18

"Broken Sky"

I’ve decided that my blog title yesterday is a fantastic name for a band – so consider it mine now and don’t think about stealing it or I’ll find out where you live and leave a big steaming manturd on your doorstep.

RC 29-7-18

Broken Sky

We drove ‘up North’ last night to visit sister Sophie and have a bit of a catch-up. She came down a bit, we moved up a bit, we met in the middle and had a nice meal. We then drove back through what I can only describe as The Mother Of All Storms. At first it was beautiful, then it became biblical. An interesting dance of lights across the crowds became a quiet frightening attack of lightning and a downpour that was so torrential we had to pull the car into a layby until it passed. And it took a LONG time to pass. I guess we knew it had to happen – normally in England we only get a few days of hot weather before a storm breaks; but this year we’ve had weeks and weeks of Mediterranean temperatures without respite, and there had to be payback sometime.

I love extreme weather and I love the clearing effects of a good dose of thunder and lightning, but at times last night it got scary.

Normally I’d have sat in the car watching it happen and taken delight in the danger and uncertainty, but I just kept thinking ‘I have a pregnant wife and an unborn child with me and I have to make sure they are safe.’

So I guess impending fatherhood is changing me. I’m not sure I like it very much, but this strange sense of responsibility seems to be slowly taking over my personality. My main priority seems to be the protection of my spouse and upcoming offspring at the expense of everything else. Is this normal during pregnancy? I honestly think I would have thrown myself in front of a falling tree or taken a hit of lightning to the face if I knew it would ensure my family survived. That is not the usual Rory way of thinking – ask anyone I’ve ever dated before Philippa…..

I know there are a lot of women who change a lot when the hormones surge while they’re carrying a child. Can the same be true of men? Or am I just growing up a bit and becoming less selfish?

It’s all very confusing, and I suspect it will only get worse as we continue on this baffling journey towards ParentLand.

(4 months and counting…….)

RC 28-7-18

More stuff about more stuff

For the first time in my life, I have used a 5-blade razor to shave with.
The supermarket has a new supplier and they're promoting a special offer and they asked us to try out some freebies and then feedback what we thought of them.
It felt like someone broke a brick in half and then scraped it across my face.
More is not always better.
The sooner we go back to all using Bic Blue 2 the better life will be for all of us.
That's my feedback.

RC 26-7-18

an insomniac's thought about cycling

It’s so hot in our bedroom at the moment, and Philippa is so fidgety and hormonal and warm, that sleep and Rory have become distant cousins, rather than comfortable bedfellows. I learnt long ago that when insomnia strikes the worst reaction is to lay there hoping and praying for shuteye. The correct thing to do is change your location and do something distracting. So at 3am this morning I found myself on the sofa, watching an overnight re-run of the latest stage of the Tour de France. For a while I toyed with the idea of planning a charity version of the race that, with a bit of training, I might be able to complete myself. Then I tried to switch that bit of my brain off and just concentrate on watching the riders at work. Trouble is, like most of the people that follow cycling I suspect, I was on tenterhooks waiting for them to have a massive pile-up and lose some skin on the road, so that made me feel more active and therefore even less sleepy than before.

Then a thought popped in my head that took my attention away from both the highlights I was watching and fact that I was awake and shouldn’t be. That thought was:

‘I wonder if Lance Armstrong thinks it was all worth it?’

He is now – let’s be honest – one of the most hated people on the planet. He drove himself on to ridiculous success by using every and all available methods – legal and illegal, moral and immoral – before suffering one of the biggest falls from grace ever endured by anyone. I suppose Tiger Woods came close, but his indiscretions – admittedly repugnant and unforgivable – were in his personal life, not his professional life. He hadn’t cheated an entire generation of competitors and defrauded sponsors and permanently damaged the public perception on every single participant in his sport forever. His achievements prior to his downfall can still be viewed as incredible. But Armstrong? Officially now he has never won anything, with all his yellow jerseys and triumphs and victories having been unceremoniously wiped from the records.

So I wonder if he thinks it was all worth it?

He is now vilified and ostracised and has been subject to swathes of vitriolic abuse, but before that he had about 10 years of being worshipped, revered and adored. His plan worked. He did what it took to get to the top and enjoyed all the benefits it brought. So is the pain and derision of the present a small price to pay for the decade or so of glory?  Is he able to internally bask in the memories of those days, or do they strike him as meaningless? I suppose it depends on how contrite he really feels, but no-one can be sure except Lance himself.

By the time I’d run all that through my head a few times it was 6am and daylight.

I might start taking sleeping pills.

RC 25-7-18

Time to park in the shade?

When I got in my car after work tonight it told me it was 33 Celsius inside….

By the time I got the wheels moving my back was soaked in sweat.

No wonder I’m already exhausted, despite it only being Tuesday night.

RC 24-7-18

climate strange (a poem)

Will this Summer go on?

Weeks now of gloriousness

No hint of rain

No familiar puddles of depression

Is it really Summer at all?

Am I dreaming?

Will I shortly awake, finding myself still in April;

About to face 6 months of cloud and damp?

It feels abnormal

British Summers are traditionally disappointing

Festering coughpools of storms and dampity

Yes – I’m making words up now.

When Shakespeare did it he was called a genius

So I’m doing it too

If you don’t like it – bite me

Bite me like a rabid dog bites a passing postman’s sock.

Maybe I should plan my poems

Pouring words forth without self-edit is fun

But is it worth reading?

Or a jumbled fussment of pithy pitfilling?

Only you, dear reader, can decide.

I blame the heat.

RC 23-7-18

1638 BST

The Refreshing Power of Saline

I spent some time in the sea last night and now I feel younger, fitter and revitalised.

Amazing what falling off a bodyboard while half-pissed can do to a man.

Today I am actually able to get on with doing the job that I am currently paid for. After two weeks of looking ahead to my new post-end-of-August role it feels great to be concentrating on the day to day aspects of running just ONE garage. I won’t get to have days like this for much longer, so I’m revelling in it while I have it.

And that’s all I have to say for now….

RC 23-7-18

What????

Screw work, screw blogging, screw in-my-head obsessive plotting and planning and conversations (both real and electronic) with the various departments at my Area Head Office – I have the weekend off and I aim to enjoy it! No rotas, orders or timesheets; no meetings, appraisals or forms. Just me, my wife, our rapidly-growing-but-yet-to-be-born offspring, and 48 hours of relaxation, fun and calmness. Movies, food, cuddles, swimming, wine, food, walking and chat. Nothing really planned, but lots of possibilities. Let Saturday amble past in a lethargic Summer haze; let Sunday unfold as a glorious haven within the usual maelstrom of life.

I am losing the ability to make sense already, and I think that’s a good sign!

21-7-18

A little something about mostly nothing

A thought struck me recently, as thoughts often do:

‘Some of the schools have now broken up for Summer. This has made it harder for me to write my staff rotas as I have to compensate for people taking time off with their children. And next year I’ll be doing this for four separate garages!’

The first thing I will do on my first day in September is delegate the task of the rotas.

RC 20-7-18

How it will work (in theory)

And so, after a series of long meetings and enough e-mail exchanges to fill a tanker, I have a slightly clearer picture of how my new position at work will take shape:

I take over all four garages on Sept 1^st, so we have time to implement all the changes. I have to train one of my staff members up to be a deputy manager/senior staff member when I’m not there, and then the duty manager at the supermarket will be on call to deal with any problems (which they’re delighted about, as you can imagine….)

One of the other filling station guys has accepted a sideways-shift to run a department in his adjoined store. One of them has happily taken redundancy and already has something lined up with a rival company. The other one is happy to stay on as a member of staff and seems quite relieved that his duties are being curtailed and his hours shortened. ‘Never really wanted the promotion to manager in the first place,’ apparently. How much of that is him now finally being honest, and how much is him protecting his ego from the loss of position I don’t know, but I’m glad he’ll still be on hand for me to call on.

Everyone knows now and most people seem quite pleased that I’m the one taking over. Whether that’s because they genuinely like me or because they’re looking forward to seeing me fail, only time will tell.

I’ll have a lot more staff under me than I’ve ever had before, but I’m trying not to let that scare me or let my ego run wild. I’m trying to find a sensible bit of middle ground where I’m slightly nervous but feeling optimistic. I’m not sure I’m achieving that aim yet, but leave it with me….

RC 19-7-18

Chesworth consciousness cornucopia

Some thoughts and theories that I have recently jotted down in the ‘Notebook Of Randomness’ on my desk at work...

Why isn’t ‘Love Island’ simply called ‘Sandy Shagfest’?

Philippa has started having cravings… right now she seems to be craving sesame prawn toast and arguments.

If it was Men who had to carry children through pregnancy there’d have been an artificial womb invented centuries ago.

Donald Trump looks like a waxwork sculpture of a love-child spawned by Sylvester Stallone and Margaret Rutherford that’s been left too close to a radiator.

Yahtzee is the British Grand Prix of dice games.

How do I reach a stable moral position internally when I desperately want to combat climate change, but can’t get enough of Summer weather?

Can Viagra be categorised as a performance enhancing drug?

It’s scary to think that at the end of this year I’ll be a parent.

My earlier comment about Donald Trump is really quite confusing.

RC 18-7-18

Crazy as I've ever been

For the last few days I’ve been looking around to see if there’s a local band that might need a drummer, as I’ve got this idea in my head that I’d like to play a few gigs again. Obviously this is very sane behaviour – I am five months away from becoming a parent for the first time, and I’m about to take on a new work position that will involve lots more responsibility and lots more travelling, so it’s the ideal time to be committing to evening rehearsals and lots of practice at home and several weekends out performing….

I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m distracting myself from the stuff that’s cluttering my head by trying to clutter it even further with something else. Somewhere inside, I am thinking that obsessing about drum patterns will stop me obsessing about staff rotas and stock orders. It’s a tactic that works briefly, but doesn’t solve anything long-term and just leads to more complications further down the road.

And yet still I persist….

RC 17-7-18

Back to the boring blandness

“It was fun while it lasted”

A poem, by Rory:

And so the World Cup is over.

Flags hang limp, where once they billowed.

Merchandise tumbles from shelves; replaced by barbecues and paddling pools.

At least one tattoo is seriously regretted.

All participants return to their parent clubs.

The winners travel with a hangover.

The losers carry the extra baggage of defeat.

Kane has a Golden Boot for company.

Memories dim, moods fade into former states, smiles falter.

The cheery ‘mornings’ give way to grumbled ‘alrights?’

We return to where we were.

Grumpy Pessimist Bollocksville.

RC 16-7-18

rant about celebrity motherhood

I like following tennis, as you probably know. I like the gladiatorial nature of it – two individuals locked in combat, trying to out-do, out-trick and outplay each other. No-one else to hide behind or to call on for support. Just you and them, and a couple of weapons (sportingly speaking)

Two things have really hacked me off with the coverage of Wimbledon this year: One is the constant, unceasing BBC obsession with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. You would think the entire Championship had been set up as a procession to an exhibition match between them, and anyone else who dared to win a game or two was being an inconvenient show-off trying to steal their limelight. No wonder none of the young players are able to break through and reach the top of the game – everything seems to be tilted in favour of the two at the top.

The other annoyance comes from the coverage of Serena Williams, a player I used to hate and pass off as an over-muscled on-court bully, but have since come to appreciate as one of the best sportswomen of all time. Unless you’ve been living under a shell at the bottom of a very deep ocean, you’ll know that she had her first child last year (at the age of 35) and is now on the cusp of winning yet another Grand Slam title. All I’ve heard about in the past few days is how amazing it is that she can recover from a difficult birth and combine a sports career with being a mum and still go on and win Wimbledon and isn’t it amazing and isn’t she an inspiration to all mothers everywhere?

Well – no, not really.

We’re not talking about a 33-year-old nurse struggling to raise a daughter while being grossly underpaid by the NHS. We’re talking about an incredibly successful athlete and businesswoman who has not only had access to some of the best nutritionists and health specialists in the world for two decades but also has the wealth to pay for every little bit of help she needs.

She IS amazing. What she has done in her career is amazing, and what she’s doing right now is amazing, but to hold her up as a beacon and role model for other mums of her age is as ridiculous as calling her a champion of equal rights and equal pay….

Which I shall moan about at a later date (if I haven’t already done so previously)

Thanks for listening, and enjoy the Women’s Final.

RC 14-7-18

Update from a lazy blogger

Saturday to Friday must be the longest gap I’ve left in my blogsphere for a long, long time.

It may lead to me breaking my run of 20+ blogs posted each calendar month this year…

I feel that I have a good excuse, though. Work shenanigans have kind of taken over my life and have certainly taken over my headspace. I’m spinning, whirling, ducking-and-diving, changing, chopping and contemplating continuously, it seems.

God knows how I’ve got to the end of the week without imploding but I have, and I got rewarded by an unexpectedly long evening watching tennis and eating takeaway food. I’ve never really been sure if cravings are a genuine side effect of pregnancy or just an excuse for women to eat shit they’d normally shy away from, but Philippa has an insatiable need for sweet and sour sauce at the moment, so we had a Chinese meal-for-two. She is now asleep in bed happily growing our little one within her, while I am distracting myself with darts on ITV4 and desperately hoping I WON’T have another night of lying awake thinking about work shit.

RC 13-7-18

2340 BST

Fri-ku (just one)

Haiku about this week’s ‘Big Game’

England/Croatia

A World Cup semi-final

…so I went cycling.

RC 13-7-18

Good times, goodbye, Good Luck

Finally, we are having Summer weather that drags on a bit the way Winter weather does, rather than just having three hot days in a row followed by a storm followed by torrential rain. I am tanned, fit from cycling and better mentally than I have been in ages.

Philippa and I are heading off soon for a long day of chatting, eating and exploring. Our assumption is that 75% of the population will be stuck indoors later watching England’s overpaid footballers try to outdo their Swedish rivals, so the places we want to visit should be quiet.

I’m not someone who ‘gets’ football, as you well know, but I have to admit I am enjoying the effect that our unexpected success in Russia is having on the general population. I’m not one of those non-fans who nevertheless gets caught up in the collective euphoria, like many I see, but even as an outsider-looking-in the positivity spike is undeniable. There’s an air of optimism and pride around that I only remember seeing previously during the London Olympics. Strangers are smiling at each other and indulging in conversation rather than barging past each other to get to the till first. There’s a bounce in every step and a light in every eye and I have to admit it’s delightful. It’s very hard to resist the urge to join in, too, but I really don’t want to turn into one of ‘those people’ who have no interest, but don’t want to miss out, so throw out a few random phrases they’ve picked up from the radio in the hope of feeling part of the crowd.

I will give you a quick prediction though, because predictions are fun.

I think it will finish goalless and drag onto another penalty shootout.

Which is fine with me, because it means an even longer time for Philippa and me to enjoy ourselves undisturbed by the public!

RC 7-7-18

Too hot for a long blog

It’s amazing how much football merchandise we have shifted since Tuesday…

RC 5-7-18

Rory put in his place

Something made me pause today and seriously think about myself and where I’m going. The weather, the climate, the drought, the future… these were all topics of discussion I was waxing lyrical about at work while floating on a cloud of confidence. My ego seems to be controlling me from within saying ‘You’ve got a new position so you’re better than everyone else and you know more about everything than they do!’

Then a man named Gerry brought me crashing down to Earth by saying: “Thing is, mate, you go on and on about how humans are ruining the planet and we deserve what’s coming to us…. and your job is to fill up people’s vehicles with fuel, which I think I’m right in saying is the most horrendous contributor to climate change we have. Bit hypocritical, don’t you think?”

He’s right, and I’m ashamed. I’m a well-educated man of the generation that is supposed to know better. I have a science degree and I know more about this subject than the average Joe-on-the-street, and here I am ignoring the effect my employment has on the world because it’s easy and I get paid well to do it.

Time for some serious reflection…..

RC 3-7-18

Changing

The deed is done. The ‘yes’ has been spoken. The handshakes have been (virtually speaking) shaken (via video messaging) and I am on my way to a new level of management.

Now I’m going to talk about something else….

And it’s that age-old staple of British conversation – the weather!

I mowed the back lawn yesterday and got surrounded by a cloud of dust. I honestly cannot remember a drier, hotter, closer time than we’ve had these past few weeks. The lingering cold of Winter that hijacked our Spring this year seems long-forgotten as we bask in stifling conditions that would seem more akin to Northern Africa. I’m not the only one to notice this and find it a bit baffling am I? I love the Summer but I must confess that even I found yesterday a bit much. Even the blustery wind – which normally in East Anglia drags the temperature down about 10 degrees – felt like being blasted by an oversized hair dryer stuck on full heat. And the forecasts say this will go on for at least another two weeks!

For those of you that hate the hot, however, I bring a bit of good news…. The schools all break up in three weeks time so it’s bound to be pissing down by then.

RC 2-7-18

In decision

It looks like I’m going to go ahead and accept the new position.

Life is so weird – two weeks ago I thought I might be out of work completely, now I’m going to get promoted.

Philippa and I had a great chat about it and sat with a notepad looking at how it might affect us. With her heading for maternity leave later this year and the alteration to our income that will involve (not to mention the outlay on baby clothes, nappies, buggies and such like) it seems like a lovely turn of fate for me to be earning more money. If I’m being honest I really fancy the challenge as well. It pains me to say it for fear of an accusation of arrogance, but I’m running things pretty well at my own garage. I’ve got routines in place and a way of doing things that make my job pretty easy now, and therefore pretty repetitive. The chance to be in four different locations during every week, and to see if my ideas and systems can be made to work in all of them, has given me a bit of an enthusiasm boost at a time when I desperately needed it.

So tomorrow I shall give Head Office a call and tell them I’m happy to proceed.

I’m going to lay into them a bit and ask for more money than they’ve offered. I think I’ve proved I’m capable without ever hassling them for a pay rise. They’ll be cutting three management salaries in this change so I’m sure they could throw a bit more my way and still be making savings. My expectation is that they will say ‘let’s see how it goes and chat again in a few months’ but my experience tells me it’s easier to get some extra in advance than to have to chase them up for it later.  They might just say ‘yes’ straight away anyway – what do I know? – but I’ve prepared a few valid arguments just in case. This company is full of managers who say and do things that defy belief and encourage mystification so it could go any which way you can imagine, but my head is clear and I know that Philippa and I, together, have made the choice that is right for us, so I can approach my bosses with confidence and optimism.

There is, I must admit, lurking in the shadows of my psyche, one big negative thought hanging over all this that gives me a little pause:

“A new job and a new baby? Within a few months of each other? What the Hell am I doing? This could be worse than when we moved house three times in a year…”

RC 1-7-18