One more Jan entry

The title of today's blog could be misconstrued as some kind of weird sexual diary appointment (but I assure you it isn't...)
I'm feeling very positive today, which is a welcome change after a couple of weeks feeling rather SADdy. I have a long list of 'things I am happy about' fluttering around in the forefront of my conscience and that is helping me step lightly through the trials of life and maintain a skip and a smile. For a start, it has got noticeably warmer in the past few days. For another thing, it is still (fairly) light at 5pm, and when we had a clear sky and a nice sunset on Sunday evening, the pretty colours were still visible near the horizon approaching 6! I am buoyant with the realisation that it will be into October before we are needing lights turned on as early in the day as we are now.
Thirdly, the price of fuel continues to fall steadily, which means everyone around me can stop complaining about EVERYTHING being too expensive and the economy being crippled and worrying that they're going to die of starvation or freeze to death in their unheated living rooms.
Fourthly (although, if ranking in order of importance, this one should be much higher) Philippa and Rian have both recovered well from the traumas of childbirth and are now both fighting fit and bouncing beautifully. We have a nice routine now in our home life, which Rian is happily playing along with so far, and Mathew has taken to the change with minimal fuss or disruption.
And finally, tomorrow is Feb. We have seen off another one of the Winter months and taken ourselves another step closer to Springtime.
Rejoice!

RC 31-1-23

Monday 30th January

In 48 hours, we'll be in February!
Just thought I'd mention that at the start of this blog posting, to put me in a good frame of mind.
Today could be a bit challenging. I didn't stay up all night, but it was about 2am before I finally put my head on the pillow, having given up on my attempt to watch the second NFL Championship Game of the evening. After the 49ers (my team) got torched to the ground in the earlier game, I wanted to sit through the Bengals-Chiefs match-up and enjoy it as a fan of the sport, rather than an invested supporter of one of the participants. But tiredness overtook enthusiasm and I started to fall asleep on the sofa. Four hours later, I was up with Mathew, playing Lego.
So, today could be a struggle. I'm 39 now, after all, and us old folks don't handle late nights as well as you youngsters do....

RC 30-1-23

Could be a long night

I've spent all day looking forward to the NFL Championship Games, and now the team I support are getting battered, so I thought I might as well distract myself by writing a blog:

Been a strange week. Probably a bit of the old post-birthday blues, mixed in with tiredness. I constantly felt too exhausted to blog, and also felt like I didn't have anything worth reporting anyway. I don't suppose I'm helping that by sitting up to watch American sports, but at least I'm feeling happier while doing it. 

 

The good news is that we only have a few days left in January, which to me, psychologically, is a huge thing. I know February can see a down-turn in the weather and can drag along like a net full of fish dragging along behind a low-powered trawler, but let me enjoy this little ray of light at the end of a darkness-heavy week.

RC 28-1-23

39, then...

Just a quick update on the birthday weekend... Well - one aspect of it, to be fair. Well - just one present really (and then I'll tell you the rest when I've had more sleep...)
Philippa got me a San Francisco 49ers shirt! A proper one, an official one, with my name on the back and everything! So I got to sit down last night and watch my favourite team play in the Divisional Round of the play-offs while wearing their current jersey!
(And then I woke up still wearing it, because I had indulged in too much wine and fell asleep early in the second half).
I was dressed like a real fan, but then didn't see the whole game, so I'm not sure how much of a real fan I am, really. Although, to be fair to myself, it did start at 11.30pm British time. And I bet I'm not the only 49ers fan in the world who got a bit drinkified and missed the end of the match. So there.

RC 23-1-23

little birthday randomlets

In answer to the question "Will There Be A Second Annual Rory Chesworth Birthday Plunge Into The Sea?" the answer is a resounding NO! My testicles still haven't recovered from last year's swim, I'm not putting them through that horror again.  

Mathew gave me a birthday card last night that he had made at playgroup. He was supposed to give it to me on Friday, but was too excited to wait. It has a lovely drawing on it that is apparently a picture of a barn owl but looks remarkably similar to our fridge. I love my son to bits, but he ain't a 4-year-old Manet, by any stretch of the imagination. But, as any parent worth their salt will tell you, it doesn't matter a jot what the card looks like, the sheer fact that they made it for you is worth a thousand priceless paintings and fills your heart with joy.

 

A sobering thought - next year, on my birthday, Mathew will be at Primary School!

RC 19-1-23

Birthday Eve Eve

Two days left as a 38-year-old and I can't say I'm excited, or anything really. I am just a strange ball of numbness, masquerading as a man-shaped being that drags itself into work and gets on with it.
Philippa keeps getting messages on her phone that make her giggle and smile, and when I ask what they are, she says 'Birthday business. Keep your nose out.' So I have no idea what is being planned for this weekend, but it looks like the answer isn't 'nothing'.
I suppose I'm looking forward to it in a way, whatever it ends up being. I'm not massively enthusiastic, but then I felt that way about Christmas and that all ended up going swimmingly. I don't feel like I want to make an effort myself, but if my wife and sisters (and assorted others) are conspiring to come up with some way of celebrating, then I fully intend to throw myself into it and enjoy it as much as I can.

RC 18-1-23

Balls

It suddenly struck me today that the Australian Open tennis started at the weekend, and I have not even paid it a solitary thought, much less settled down to watch any of it. Funny how a baby in the house throws all your routines out of the window and leads you to forget what bloody day of the week it is, let alone giving you a chance to remember regular events that you normally follow on an annual basis.
I have no idea if that last sentence makes sense, because something else that happens when you have a baby in the house is that you often have nights with so little sleep that English stops being your native language and becomes more like a collection of random words that you throw together and hope someone else can decipher.
The night just passed being a case in point. Rian, bless him, for some reason, decided that the hours of 2.35 - 4.47am should be designated "I am going to test my little voicebox to the absolute limits of its abilities, and test the patience and love of both my parents at the same time" time. He didn't want feeding, he didn't need to burp, he didn't want to lay down, he didn't want to be cuddled, he didn't want to be left alone; he just wanted to cry and scream and generally abuse the eardrums of any adults in the immediate vicinity. We started to get quite worried at one point, but when I left the house this morning, he was fast asleep, and looking about as healthy and content as a small, pink, two-month-old blob of flesh can possibly look. So, we're guessing it's just one of those things. We may never know what was going on, or what caused it, or how to stop it happening again, because obviously we don't know what - if anything - was hurting or causing him distress. (He's an absolute darling, but he doesn't make much of an effort by way of communicating with us.) Philippa is keeping a close eye on him today, which I take to mean 'sleeping beside him' rather than watching him constantly, because she was so knackered this morning that her eyelids looked heavier than a Dallas Cowboys Offensive Lineman. I mean, I'm knackered too, but we can't both be off work or we'll soon run out of money to buy nappies and baby wipes, and the oceans aren't going to clog themselves up with unbiodegradable products, we need to give them a bit of a helping hand, so here I am, sat in the office and wishing I could be hooked up intravenously to a caffeine drip.

RC 17-1-23

Unnecessarily abrasive

Gavin sent me one of his 'Boss Not Happy' e-mails today and nearly drove me to pencilling a resignation later.  There was something he had wanted me to do, that I had not done, and then it transpired that he had not asked me to do it at all, and he should have been moaning at someone in Dorset. But then it turned out that he hadn't asked them to do it either, so actually it's his own fault.
He eventually admitted his mistake but wasn't quite as ready with an apology as he had been with an early-morning bollocking. Funny how that's true of managers. I'm sure that's a phenomenon you've encountered yourself - the negative stuff you do gets thrown at you instantly, but when they're in the wrong you're more likely to find yourself shitting gold than to find yourself hearing 'I'm sorry'.

RC 16-1-23

Birthday build-up

And suddenly, just like that, I am almost 39!
Age has never bothered me, numbers have never bothered me, and yet I do find it weird to think that I am edging very, very close to being 40. I hadn't even thought about it until someone in HR at work spoke to me this week and said, 'Oooh, it's a big one next year then!' and now I can't stop thinking about it. 

I remember looking up at people in their 40s and thinking how old they were, and now I am one orbit around the sun away from joining them.  I also think, deep down, in my darkest moments, I never really believed I would survive this long. Mind you, I never really believed I would be a Dad either, and now I have two sons, so what do I know?

 

Hannah and Nathan are coming over later today because it's our only chance to see each other this week. Weird to think that it's only a few years ago we used to have a right-old drink-up on my birthday. Now I can't handle more than a small glass of wine on a work night, and Hannah doesn't want to be hungover while teaching, so it'll be mugs of tea and probably a takeaway of some kind this evening.  

 

The conversation with HR, by the way, was to do with me booking next Friday and the following Monday off, so Philippa and I and the boys could make a weekend of it. Philippa says she 'has plans' but I'm not allowed to know what they are. I can't imagine it'll be a rowdy one with a two-month-old baby in tow, but we'll see.

RC 15-1-23

As comfortable as a camel on ice skates...

Don't ask me why I'm ending every blog title this year with one of these "..." but I am, so deal with it.
Gavin has started getting me to do some weird, extra duties that aren't really any part of my job, and were certainly never mentioned as things that I should have to do when I first started here. I'm guessing this all dates back to our little meeting in Peterborough before Christmas, when he had quietly suggested that I might take on some of his usual tasks in Suffolk while he was playing with his White Elephant down in Devon. (Or Dorset, I can't remember now. Apologies to those of you in the South-West...) That meeting ended with me saying I would think about it, which he seems to have taken to mean, 'Yeah, sure boss, please add to my workload while you're spunking loads of money on a venture that will ultimately go nowhere and end up being sold at a loss.'  I'm having to write reports about things I have no clue about, to send to government departments I've never heard of, while talking to local organisations that sound fictional. I'm filling in forms that make no sense to me and I'm being forwarded e-mails that may as well be written in Flemish and relating to a land treaty from 1700, such is my lack of knowledge pertaining to their contents. I am spending huge amounts of time feeling lost. More lost than a Latvian train driver who took too many left turns and ended up in Somalia.

I like a challenge, and I like learning new things, and I don't mind taking on some extras, but when I'm being bombarded with questions about topics I have no understanding of, or being expected to fulfil promises that were made in meetings I did not attend, then it gets a bit much. I'm doing my best, but I have not the faintest jot whether I'm getting anything right, because there's no-one else here who knows what is supposed to be done, and Gavin is noticeably uncontactable. My fear is that I'll make a huge boo-boo (technical term, there) and bring an entire empire crashing down through a mistake that wasn't intentionally made. It's a bit like a commander-in-chief at the head of a huge invading force, getting distracted by another campaign in another country, and leaving his current campaign in the hands of a cook that hasn't had the strategy explained to him.
Shut up - it IS sort of like that!

Anyway, I am feeling stressed, and drinking too much coffee. And this time last week, I was saying how quite things were at work... I should keep my bloody mouth shut.

RC 12-1-23

RORY AWARDS FOR 2022

Maybe a bit late for an end-of-year, fave-revealing look-back?
Maybe, but I didn't do it in December, and I'm bored at work today, so here we go:

BEST FILM OF 2022:  The Banshees of Inisherin
PROUDEST MOMENT: Mathew's reaction when he met his little brother.
MOST ANNOYING EVENT: A tie between catching Covid and spraining my knee.
BIGGEST SURPRISE:  How pleased and proud I felt when England Women won football's European Championships.
SONG I LISTENED TO MOST: According to my music streaming service of choice, this was "No Woman, No Cry" by Bob Marley. And yes, I'm as surprised as you are. I do remember playing it a lot during the hot days of Summer, but I don't remember playing it THAT much.

RC 9-1-23

A man so old, a mouth so foul...

Ted called me some names today that were so horrendous I would not dare to write them out in this blogsphere, even if I asterisked half the letters. He really went to town on me, drawing on all his experience of a youth spent in the military, and using phrases that would not have been out of place in a banned movie.
What did I do that so horribly turned his speech blue?
I telephoned him for a chat in the middle of an FA Cup game between Cardiff and Leeds United.
That was it.
I did not threaten his family, or break his windows, or accuse him of war crimes, I just happened to pick a time to contact him that interrupted him watching a football game.
Now, it's not my favourite sport, as you know, but I do know a little bit about when the fixtures are played and when they're scheduled on TV, and I thought I'd be safe at 2.30pm on a Sunday. But no...
After cheerily taking his first onslaught of abuse, I did try and diffuse the situation a bit by chipping in with "Bloody Hell, didn't you have enough of soccer with the World Cup on telly before Christmas?" And then after being compared to various ocean-dwelling parasites and having my parentage questioned profusely, I said "It's only a minor cup game. I'm sure you can miss a few minutes for a chat," and that's when his blood really seemed to boil. I was called insensitive, stupid, thick, twisted, fascist, bilious, unfit, unfit for classification as a human, and a word beginning with 'C' that I assure you I would never use myself.
To be fair, I had deliberately stoked the fire a bit by calling it 'soccer' and by belittling the importance of the FA Cup, because I had remembered this time last year when Ted and his son Alan had enjoyed a heated back-and-forth about just that subject, but still... It's good to keep things in perspective, and I can't help thinking he overreacted.
I hung up the phone with a smile, and now I am expecting a message from Beryl admonishing me for spiking his blood pressure.

RC 8-1-23

Nothing much to report...

Well, the year has started and then stalled. Suddenly, nature has put the brakes on and time seems to have slowed down considerably. December flew by like a bat at a Chinese market, but January is already crawling along like a dog with a sofa tied to its tail. Philippa is hassling me to consign the Christmas decorations back into storage, as if the North Pole Police will kick the door in if we dare to leave the tree up past twelfth night. Personally, I'm tempted to keep the fairy lights twinkling right through until Valentine's Day at least, but I don't suppose I'll have much of a say in the matter.
Mathew doesn't understand why Father Christmas can't come again later this month. He wants more Lego and isn't keen on waiting another year to get some. I said I might ask for a set or two for my birthday, if he thinks he can stretch himself to last until the 20th. 

 

Work is very quiet now. It is our quietest time of year, but that is most welcome after the craziness towards the end of 2022. Hard to believe that it's only a couple of months until we hit the Easter holidays and we're back to full capacity again, but when I can see clearly across the park at 4.30pm now, it's difficult not to think about it. I need to enjoy this little spell of downliness while we have it, I guess, although I think I'm definitely someone whose brain works much better when I'm busier. 

The evenings seem to be getting lighter a lot earlier than I remember it happening before, but the mornings are still ridiculously dark when I'm driving to work.
And that's all I have for you for now...

RC 5-1-23

First weird rant of the year...

I did consider revamping and redesigning this whole blogsite yesterday. New Year, new look, and all that. But I also considering stopping completely. The end of my 15th year of posting seemed like an appropriate point at which to call it all quits and just get on with my life. In the end, I did neither of those things, so it looks like we'll carry on as we were.
I'm quite proud of myself for NOT going through a pointless relaunch, if I'm honest. I hate the way modern businesses feel the need to constantly change their logos and their looks, thinking it's somehow essential to continuing success to be incessantly evolving. I'm guessing there are a few designers who are making a fortune by convincing them of that, and charging them huge sums to change their branding ever-so-slightly, so good luck to them I suppose.
Me, I'll just go on being me, thanks.

RC 2-1-23

2023, then...

Happy New Year, and all that old traditional bollocks that people say to each other before they return to being shitty to each other later in the week...
I don't have much to say this morning. I just wanted to post something so that I could proudly declare that I am now in my 16th (SIXTEENTH!) calendar year of regular blogging.
That is all.

RC 1-1-23