Small tasks to a big result

Nearly another month gone! I know it’s the shortest one, but still….. makes me feel great knowing we can turn another page on the calendar.

March will be Mathew’s fourth month of existence, which is incredible. I can’t believe he’s nearly three months old, and yet I simultaneously find it hard to believe that we’ve ever been without him. I don’t know if it’s the same for other parents, but I feel as if my life flipped and got re-started the second he popped out of his mum’s birthtube. Everything before was just wasted time and a little bit of practice; a collection of experiences that I might be able to draw on as I guide him through his existence, but otherwise a pretty meaningless 35 years or so. Now I have a goal, a purpose and a definite end to reach for – keeping him alive and well and getting him to adulthood with enough knowledge and wisdom to survive on his own.

In other news, I have realised I am WAY behind with some of my work planning. Those Above are screaming at me for projected Easter sales figures and plans to maximise chocolate sales, and I’ve barely even thought about this coming weekend. That’s the thing about having a child you’re obsessed with – you get tunnel vision and everything else falls away. The time I’ve been spending at work has mostly been spent thinking about Mathew, looking at texts from Philippa and counting down the seconds til I can get home to them both.

I really need to start getting a grip.

I’ve only been in this current position of employment for six months. I’m very pleased with how it’s all gone, but I have to remember that I have yet to face a full year as a multi-site manager and so I don’t yet know all the problems that might arise. I was proud of myself before Christmas for the way I had been able to keep ahead of all the tasks in my portfolio of responsibility, but now I feel like I’m three months or so behind and chasing to catch up with what’s needed, while fighting fires along the way. I need to spend a day or so locked into what is coming up, what needs to be done in what order, and how best to achieve them all, then get on with getting on with it. I liked that feeling of preparation that I had up until December and I really want to get it back.

RC 28-2-19

Delightful distraction

This blog has never been sponsored and I’ve never officially endorsed any products or services (not through any moral or ethical reasoning – I’ve simply never been asked) so when I praise something, you know I mean it. I’m not doing it for personal gain, I’m doing it from a place of personal enjoyment.

So let me tell you about PLAGUE, INC.

It’s a game that you can download to your smartphone or tablet, and is basically designed to tickle your God complex and give you a chance to take out your anger on some unexisting members of society.

Think Grand Theft Auto on a global scale.

The purpose of the game is to harvest, develop and nurture a deadly disease that will hopefully (in the context of the game) spread exponentially and wipe out humanity. Yes, my friends - the ultimate aim is to destroy Mankind. I found it last weekend and I can’t

stop playing it. I am getting up early now to squeeze in a game before work, I am indulging in it during my lunch break, and I am playing it overnight any time Mathew is disturbed and restless. It is my latest obsession. Because it’s brilliantly simple and simply brilliant. It’s part tactics, part strategizing, part science, part megalomania, part insanity. It draws on my love of gaming and my training in chemistry and it relies in equal measure on intellect, luck and experience.

You have to evolve this thing to become fatal without producing any symptoms, otherwise the medical community will spot it and find ways to combat it and stop it spreading.

My best result so far is a virus that lasted 766 days and killed 2.6 billion people! Unfortunately some bastards in Australia found a cure at that point and my creation was eradicated, but still. I took out more people than World War 2, smallpox and AIDS combined and that made me feel pretty good about myself.

In a disturbing, horrible way, obviously.

RC 27-2-19

Pointed, and a paradox

Two different views that I’ve recently heard expressed. (I’m not yet sure which one I think is the wisest):

FROM AN ELDERLY WOMAN: “The quickest way to a man’s heart is through his dick.”

FROM AN ELDERLY MAN: “I’ve been alive for 85 years now, and this is what I’ve learnt – every woman wants to find a bad boy that can also be her knight in shining armour; every man wants to find a blushing virgin who can also be a tiger in the bedroom. They’re both searching for something impossible. That’s why every relationship is doomed from the start.”

RC 26-2-19

Unusual snack

I’ve got back into eating toast at night-time. Around about ten-thirty I get a little rush of hunger and take myself off to the kitchen. Online dieticians tell me that an intake of bread close to bedtime is bad for digestion, but it does taste damn good and satisfies my snack needs sufficiently.

I’ve been experimenting (as I am wont to do) and so far, these are my favourite, and least favourite, toppings of choice:

GOOD IDEAS

Marmite and honey

Grated cheese

Ham

BAD IDEAS

Crunchy peanut butter

Chocolate spread

Sardines

RC 25-2-19

Unusual dream

I woke up at 4am after the weirdest dream I’ve had in a decade. I was on a train, with Mathew, but he was a bit older – old enough to sit upright on my lap. I was doing that ‘ride the horsey’ thing that people do with youngsters – bouncing them on their knees while pretending they’re in the Grand National or something. I gave him an extra special bounce, only to see him bounce all the way up to the ceiling. It was only then I remembered that we were colonists on the Moon, and that I hadn’t made allowances for the lesser gravity. The weird bit was the detail – we were on a train because there had been a breach in the protective hull surrounding our town, and we were being evacuated to our nearest spaceport for transportation to another part of the lunar landscape. The ship we were heading for would be piloted by my own Philippa, who had retrained in astral engineering (I think) and become a pilot so she could earn enough for me to stay at home as a full-time parent. Everyone else on the train was ‘tutting’ at me and moaning that we’d have to slow down and risk missing our evacuation slot because I was a terrible father, but then someone fished Mathew out of the air using a butterfly net, and the guy that did it looked a lot like John Hurt.

Weird.

RC 24-2-19

Unusual week

Forgive me for taking a half-term holiday.

We had a bit of a scare with Mathew. Nothing to worry about now, and nothing too serious, but our GP was involved and we had a little trip to the hospital, just to be sure.

My hat goes off to anyone involved in the medical care of infants. How the Hell do you begin to work out what’s wrong with them? Their bodies are so tiny and everything is so close together. Where do you start?

We knew something was wrong but we didn’t have a clue what it might be. He was very hot and very wriggly, and he wasn’t feeding, but beyond that we were lost. Turned out to be a little virus, so he was given some antibiotics and ‘observed’ for 24 hours and that was it. “Be on your way and forget it ever happened” and they move on to their next case.

This all happened last weekend and I must confess I’ve not slept well since. The relief of having him home and happier gave way to a worry that maybe it would all come roaring back again once the drugs wore off. I know nothing about medicine and illness, but that didn’t stop me expecting the worse. I kept checking on him, putting my hand on his head to check his temperature and trying to monitor his breathing. Any time he snored a little, or rolled over, I would leap to attention in case he was about to have a cardiac arrest or something.

But, of course, nothing happened. He’s fine.

I’m really hoping that parenthood gets less stressful as they get older……….

RC 23-2-19

Airy thoughts on a sunny Thursday

I am tired, and looking forward to the weekend. I am also looking forward to getting my bicycle out again sometime in the near future, and the first time I can take Mathew to the beach to play with the sand and jump over waves. That may be a couple of years away yet, but it’s good to have these things to work towards in the future. Let’s be honest here – babies, at first, are just little gurgling poop machines that seem to be on a constant conveyor belt of feeding, changing, puking, crying and wriggling. All your interactions with them are based on keeping them alive and trying not to get overwhelmed or panic. The payback for that comes a bit later, when they start reacting to you and smiling at you and giggling and being wonderful. For now, it’s just about knowing where they are, making sure they are safe and trying to interpret what their noises signify. Having said that – the rare moments of calm and quiet, when he is asleep on my chest or contently snoozing in Philippa’s arms – are indescribably joyous.

RC 14-2-19

MMDI

Good Lord, Good Gracious, and Good Heavens Above – I have now posted blogs 2500 times!!!!!!

Actually – by the time you read this I’ll have posted 2501 times, as the fact that you are able to read these words means that I must have sent them into the blogsphere. For me, at this moment, there are 2500 parts to ‘The Chesworth Chronicles’ online, but for you, at this moment, there are 2501, as this one will also be part of the collection. Wow – explain that one, Einstein! it’s like being a time traveller, and it’s the sort of thing that would mess my head up when I was younger. ‘I am aware of this moment, but by the time I realise I am aware of it, it has gone. So where am I, actually, in time? With the moment? Or with the thought that acknowledges the moment?’ Explain that one, Wittgenstein.

Before I get bogged down in that mire any further, I shall share with you the first thing that popped up when I typed ‘2501’ in my chosen search engine:

It’s a website for a Milan-based artist that calls himself 2501.

He works in a wide variety of mediums and likes to use large blank spaces, in which he experiments with lines, shapes and motions. Part of his biography states that “the symbiotic relationship between positive and negative space is always at play, as each element swaps real estate back and forth.”

Writing today’s blog has given me a headache.

RC 13-2-19

Missing Memories

I realised today that I’m doing a pretty poor job of recording and documenting Mathew. I’m determined not to be one of those parents that bores people to death with baby photos or clogs up the internet with ‘look what he did today’ videos, but I think I’ve gone a bit far to the other extreme. I checked my phone and I’ve taken a grand total of 14 photographs since the day he was born. It’s good, in a way, as it means I am very much enjoying each moment and being present in it rather than stepping away from reality to record it, but it would be nice to have the odd snap here and there to look back on in future times. Trouble is that I just get lost in what I’m doing when I’m with him and I don’t think about things like cameras. I don’t want that to change, either, but I do want to get better at recording things. It’s all about finding the happy middle ground. I just need to get into the habit of grabbing the odd image where appropriate and then the portfolio will grow bit-by-bit.

I was watching ‘Countryfile’ on BBC1 at the weekend and they had a report from a Primary School where a company have set up some motion-triggered cameras so the kids can see what different kinds of wildlife wander around the school grounds when no-one’s looking. Maybe I should set up some of those around the house, then we could just go about our everyday lives, knowing Mathew’s growth was being captured without us having to actively pick up technology and click a button.

I think I may have accidentally and accurately predicted exactly what every house will be like in about 5 years’ time.

RC 12-2-19

Struggling for Motivation

In times past I have seriously considered blogging every day in February. This year, I seem determined to set a new record for the lowest number of postings in a month.

I guess that’s how the first part of this year will be. I’m not going to set myself any silly challenges because having a tiny little Baby-Person in the house (did I mention that before?) tends to throw life into chaos and scupper plans quicker than lightning.

I have loads of work on my ‘to do’ list today and am finding it hard to start any of them. I think it’s the after effects of having a quiet, calm, lovely family weekend. I simply can’t be bothered to drag myself back into Work Mode. But I have to, so once I finish and post this little collection of words which I am typing now, I shall crack on with something official and garage-related.

RC 11-2-19

Spring soon, right?

Being a parent is tiring. It’s wonderful, but it’s tiring. And when you’re an insomniac parent, well…..

I’m just trying to tell you I’m a bit tired, and looking forward to a calm, relaxed, sleep-filled weekend. Should be quite bright tomorrow, as well, so that should cheer me up even more. We have no plans, beyond the usual routine of feeding Mathew, changing Mathew, watching Mathew sleep, seeing which one of us is awake enough to cook a meal, and then dealing with whichever members of either side of the family see fit to drop in on us for a visit. I swear I’ve seen more of Tom in the past month than I did when I used to work for him. I guess that’s what happens when you love children but you’re not having any more of your own (they stopped at six, I think, but I’m not sure. With that many it’s easy to lose count after a while) – you start to latch on to other members of the family who are still churning them out and get your baby fix that way.

We don’t mind really. It’s nice to share the love and see the effect it’s all having on all and sundry, and most of the people who pop round insist on bringing food, or tidying up, or making us drinks (or all three, in Beryl’s case) so it’s win-win all round.

I haven’t done this for a while, but todays blog is exactly 250 words!

RC 8-2-19

Early night for me, methinks

Staying up on Sunday seems to have kick-started my insomnia back into life. I’ve had about five and a half hours sleep in the past three nights so I feel spaced out and have a bad headache. On the plus side – I’ve spent lots more time with Mathew than I normally do (as he has been awake too) and I’ve got lots of reading done. Philippa bought me ‘The Martian’ by Andy Weir for Christmas and I’ve blasted through it in less than 48 hours. My God, it’s good. Like a strange cross between “The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole” and a Technical Manual from the Space Shuttle. My inner geeky Science nerd was virtually wet with delight at all the botany/chemistry/astrophysics/etc. The research alone must have taken him a decade. Mind you – Wikipedia tells me his father is an accelerator physicist and his mother an electrical engineer, so that probably helped.

Elsewhere… It was Chinese New Year yesterday. We are now in the Year of the Pig, which is the animal sign I was born under. It’s my year baby!! I intend to celebrate by having a Chinese takeaway tonight (assuming they’re back at work after their New Year parties) and then having bacon sandwiches for breakfast in the morning. What’s the point of being a pig if you can’t eat like your namesake and be cannibalistic at the same time? Those born as Pigs are said to be caring, obliging and chivalrous, and often when first met they will come across as ‘too good to be true.’ Not sure any of that applies to me, but hey ho. My lucky flower is the lily, apparently, and I should avoid the number 4. Hmmm.

I seem to have dipped into Wikipedia a lot during the writing of today’s blog, but it’s not getting a co-credit as a writer. That’s how obliging I am.

RC 6-2-19

A bit worn, a bit weary

Well, I picked the winning team in my prediction, even if I was WAY off with what the scoreline might be. The main thing to mention about the Super Bowl is that, against my better judgement and against all my planning, I ended up staying awake and watching the bloody thing.

You would think that someone who suffers from occasional debilitating insomnia might think twice about pulling a deliberate all-nighter and actually enjoy some regular sleep while he’s getting it. But no….

Bit of a dull game, too. Yes, I enjoyed the tension and it made a change to watch some masterful defensive tactics, but it’s The Biggest Game Of The Year: Give me a good old-fashioned 45-35 any day, and save the 13-3s for November.

I’ve been a bit ‘off’ all day at work as a result and I must confess that, for the first time since becoming a parent, I have used my infant son as an excuse. Someone told me I seemed tired and asked if I’d had a long, rough night with Mathew and before I even processed the thought I had said ‘Yes.’ So now I’m feeling guilty as well as exhausted.

Maybe I need to own up and apologise. I’m not sure. What sets a worse example for my employees? Inadvertently blaming my family for something that is down to a sporting event, and getting away with it? Or owning up to both the actual reason and the fact that I lied about it?

Yes – you’re probably right. Keep my gob shut and move on.

RC 4-2-19

Annual Super Bowl Prediction Blog

I don’t have the faintest idea really, as I haven’t been following the season too closely, but I can’t see the Patriots losing like last year.

So:

New England Patriots 41 Los Angeles Rams 28

RC 3-2-19

Optimistic haiku

For the next five months

Days will be getting longer

That makes me feel great!

RC 1-2-19