I have to admit to not feeling my best today. It can’t be the usual Sunday malaise brought on by impending work and some shite period drama on telly, as work is not on the horizon until Tuesday, so I must be ill for realz. I can’t put my finger on what it is, other than feeling less than great, a bit tired, sluggish and under the weather. I should have been a doctor you know!
As my Mum would diagnose every illness known to man in my childhood as “being tired” it may be that, as life is hectic and busy on all fronts. Work, family, band, holiday planning and putting weight on all take up a lot of time these days, along with having to commit many minutes to writing this codswallop every week, so perhaps I just need some R&R. It is such a pity then that this bloody holiday is still 290 days away.
The real problem is probably that I have now been working for a living for 29 years. I did those maths the other day and it shocked and saddened me. Who had the crazy idea that so much of your time on the planet should be spent this way? I mean, five days a week? Really? Every week? Seems a tad harsh. I know and understand that others work much harder than I do. Some may scoff at my five-day working week, tucked up in a nice warm office, sat on my arse pushing buttons, but, as I always say, the fact that someone has it worse than me doesn’t diminish my right to piss and moan.
This is bordering on classic mid-life crisis territory I know, but if you step back from it for a second, it seems crazy, or is it just me? I don’t hate my job and the company I work for are great, but I’d just rather be doing other things.
Anyway, on a brighter note, Louise changed her car this week and she is very happy. She has been driving a bit of a heap for a while and so a change was overdue. Since picking it up on Friday I’ve seen her for about seven minutes as she is constantly finding reasons to go out and get stuff that involve driving her car. She also starts her new job after the bank holiday. I’m not 100% sure what it involves other than it’s working in an operating theatre whilst folk have unmentionable procedures done to them. The fact that she’s excited at the prospect should perhaps be a concern. That also no doubt also falls into the category of jobs that are tougher than mine!
She’s out now getting some “bits” for tea, as we have parents coming. Getting “bits” usually involves spending more than we just did on her car! I am sat writing this blog post whilst watching the Radio 1 Big Weekend thing. Currently it is featuring some young man with a cap on backwards bobbing up and down behind his laptop, whilst it plays songs he’s “written” using 90% of other people’s songs. It offends me.
With apologies for the brevity and random moaning, I’ll leave you now so that I can tend to my illness, whatever it may be so that I may be fit enough to go to work on Tuesday. There’s something fundamentally not right with that it seems.
So I’ve been droning about work woes now for about five or six weeks, and like one of those attention seeking folk on social networking sites, I’ve been doing the equivalent of posting one of those obtuse woe is me status updates hoping lots of folk will ask what is going on.
I apologise.
Last week was a biggie in lots of ways, and I can’t believe so much happened. However, it was the culmination of many, many weeks of hard slog, worry, tears and desperation.
About six weeks ago, through no fault of my own (I think) I found myself having to find myself a new job. I understand that I am no doubt one of many in this situation right now. The story behind this coming to be is complex and not routine, but not worth repeating here, but it was very scary, especially when you are just about to move house, and have an expensive holiday to go on!
It felt like I’d jumped off a tall building and I could see financial disaster rushing towards me like the ground rising to meet me. Scary stuff. So for the past few weeks I have been working very hard trying to rectify that situation. I have interviewed until I am sick of talking about myself. During that time, I cannot claim to have coped in the best way, and I have been a bit of a nob to live with. Louise deserves a medal, and the extended family have helped, worried and supported impressively.
Mood swings, depression, loss of confidence, anger, hopelessness and a bit more anger were just a few of the emotions that I swept through most days. At the risk of glossing over these weeks and not giving them the soul crushing respect they deserve here, I will cut to the chase and say that last Monday saw me receive an offer for a job with a great company that will also allow us to continue to pay the bills, move house and of course most importantly still go on holiday. It is all about priorities.
I knew last Sunday that an offer would be coming but I didn’t know the details of the package, and when that email arrived in all its acceptable glory, the relief felt was immense. All the pressures and worries of the last six weeks were released, and it is hard to describe how that felt.
So with that in the bag, we then had the small matter of moving house to contend with, as of course after months of delay and faff, it conspired that the moving date fell in the same week as the job thing getting resolved.
The stress of moving house and all the crap that always comes with that, when added to the job thing have made for what have been the most stressful few weeks of my life. I know I haven’t yet had to contend (thank God) with any real problems that affect a loved ones health or even worse, but indulge me, it’s been crap!
So as we entered the home strait of the house move, everything seemed to be sorted for last Friday, until that is, we got to last Wednesday evening. The details aren’t worth repeating but someone in the chain had a crap bank and/or solicitor, and they were very doubtful that they could process all the stuff in time for Friday. This nonsense carried on until 4.45pm on Thursday, when we finally got word from our solicitor (who was bloody marvellous throughout) that we were on for the following day after all.
To accommodate that moving date for the benefit of the whole chain, we had agreed to a day when Louise would be at University, doing something she could not miss, so I would be supervising alone. A worry to anyone sane!
One last time at *that* doorand with added Oli
Then, after what had been a full week of hard slog, packing, tipping and sorting our stuff the day of the move dawned and turned out to be the wettest day of the year. We got absolutely drenched as we began early in the morning, and stayed that way until late into the day at the new house.
We had help of course from all the parents, and we ended the day in the house, with beds to sleep in, and three very stressed and unhappy cats!! Just to add some spice to the day, our friends at Nat West decided to pull a plug out in a server room somewhere, and bring the financial system to a grinding halt. This meant that no monies could be moved on moving day, and this posed the risk of us having to leave the furniture in the van over the weekend and wait until Monday to move in.
Thankfully, our solicitor worked some actual magic and used something called a Licence (I have no idea) to enable the whole chain to move, and fingers crossed all the money stuff will happen tomorrow.
We have of course spent the weekend unpacking and sorting the new house, fixing broken stuff we didn’t know about and buying new stuff. Today, my Dad and I have also knocked down a wall in the loft, which will create a huge bedroom for Emily. Whilst we do that Emily is sleeping at my Mum and Dad’s house, but this isn’t too bad, as we have moved next door to them!
Just to cap off a quiet weekend, we went out yesterday and changed Louise’s car!! We’d been meaning to for a while, but an upcoming tax disc requirement, and the enormous running costs of her current car made us actually go out and get a more economical model, befitting her new status of student! She is getting a Peugeot 107. It is only two years old, so a lot younger than her current car, costs £20 per year to tax, and does about 60 mpg, compared to the 26mpg she is currently enjoying!
So it’s been a bit full on recently, and a period of time that I do not wish to repeat at any point in the future.
Just before all this kicked off I was just beginning to enjoy planning the holiday, having picked out some new eateries to try and deciding to take my Mum and Dad to the baseball etc. All of that has been very much on the back burner for obvious reasons, and it has only been since Monday that we knew we would be able to go on holiday after all.
I intend now to get back into full planning mode now that house and job are done. I have ESTAs to do, baseball tickets to buy, theme park tickets to research, and all the usual fun of the fair associated with the last few weeks before one of our adventures. Bring it on!
So for the downbeat nature of my recent bloggage I apologise. I have also been pretty absent from other social media outlets, but have made somewhat of a comeback this weekend when time allowed. To say I feel better is the biggest understatement since Jimmy Carr said he’s made an error of judgement.
The next few weeks sees me start my new job on Tuesday, so that will worry and occupy me a little more than just turning up for work as normal, but I am glad to have that problem believe me. Between that and the work associated with doing Emily’s bedroom and other new house stuff, I hereby dedicate all other available time to Disney planning, sarcastic tweeting and inane Facebookery. You have my word. Countdown wise we are at 55 days. Good grief I have much ground to make up!
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