I managed to see nine temples in the three days I was in Siem Reap – out of the thousand or so temples that are in the Angkor area. And, believe me, nine was enough – even I was getting all templed out by Boxing Day! They are all built on much the same plan, [...]
Yesterday was my last day at work this year, as I’m taking two full weeks off on leave over Christmas and the New Year to recharge my batteries. I’ve had an extremely busy week, with several long days traveling to and from customer sites, all topped off by a report which was due yesterday. And [...]
On the whole I think I’m doing OK. I’m finding this time of year hard, because it was just before Christmas two years ago that we discovered that Christopher had oesophageal cancer and our lives turned upside down. So Christmas brings with it some tough memories, which I’m in general facing up to. I’m working [...]
I missed my team’s Christmas lunch today, as I was at a project meeting at our Hampshire site all day so had to send my apologies. However, yesterday I had my first (and almost certainly last) Christmas lunch of the year, with a group of about 20 colleagues from work. I nearly called this post [...]
My recent relationship with Malvern Theatre is a bit like Samuel Johnson’s description of a second marriage: “A triumph of hope over experience”. I don’t think I’ve had a totally satisfactory or wholly enjoyable trip there since before Christopher died. I suspect that’s partly down to me – I’m hardly finding life a bundle of [...]
I have a day off again today. Just as well really, it’s been a manic week at work with two long days out visiting customer sites, and I’m shattered. I’m meeting a friend and ex-colleague for lunch in a few hours time, and have spent the morning doing my Christmas shopping. Having signally failed to [...]
I’ve been sleeping very badly lately, which has been at least partly due to mice returning to the loft. Just as I’m about to drop off, there is a “scrabble scrabble scrabble” sound as a mouse runs from one end of the loft above my bedroom to the other end – right above my head. [...]
I’ve got tons of annual leave to use up before Christmas, and an edict has come down from on high at work to “use it or lose it”, so I booked the day off today. The main task of the day was to get the car serviced and through its MOT test, so I couldn’t [...]
One of the unexpected side-effects now that Christopher is no longer here is that I’m having to get my hair cut more often. I absolutely hate spending time and money at the hairdressers (that’s probably obvious to anyone who has ever met me……) and Chris was always happy to trim my fringe when it got [...]
I spent most of today at Eastnor Pottery, practising my throwing. I don’t actually need any more plates/bowls/mugs at the moment – I have a house full of them already and haven’t broken any recently to necessitate making more. And it’s too close to Christmas now for me to be able to get anything thrown, [...]
