Chris was a real fan of Apple products, and a veritable early adopter of their stuff. Not in fact as early an adopter as my family though – when I was a teenager we had one of the first Apple][+ computers in the country, which I blame firmly for my subsequent career as an engineer […]
I’ve spent most of the last three weeks based down at our Hampshire HQ working on another equipment trial. It’s been very interesting – as an engineer, I always find it highly valuable to work with end-users of our technology in a controlled setting and see whether/how much our innovations actually add value to them. […]
If you are house-proud and fastidious, look away now! On the other hand, if you are interested in the psychology of bereavement, read on….. One of the hardest things I have had to do when widowed is to somehow turn “our house” into “my house”. It’s not healthy to live in a house preserved in […]
A few weekends ago, Christopher’s step-father, Peter, phoned for a chat. Apropos of nothing much, he asked me “What was Christopher’s favourite tree?” Well, that stumped me! Christopher and I talked about many things in the twenty years we had together, but I don’t think we ever discussed favourite trees….. After frantically thinking for a […]
I’ve been getting a series of emails from Christopher over the past week, which has rather shaken me. Ok, they’re clearly not actually from him, but rather from a Google Calendar that he set up when he was first made redundant three years ago. “Empty septic tank”, “Sort out car insurance”, “Get boiler and central […]
I’ve been faced with a very difficult decision which has been looming over me for a while now. I’ve had an agreement with my boss and HR to work on a temporary part-time basis ever since Chris was diagnosed. I get tired far too easily, and that’s been the only way I’ve been able to […]
I think I am burying myself perhaps too deeply in this dratted bid. I had a teleconference with the customer today, at which I explained that the consortium were providing me with some critical information by the end of Friday, so I would be in a position to collate it and send it through to […]
I wandered over to the work’s canteen mid-morning, looking for a sugar-hit to get me through the morning. I swear the canteen manager has got the measure of me, because there were some delicious-looking slices of freshly-baked chocolate cake on display which I simply couldn’t walk past! For medicinal purposes only of course! And it […]
I got through last week ok and have been back at work since Thursday, dealing with the major bid which has very compressed timescales. It would be pretty stressful anyway, quite apart from the added complication of the time of the year. I’m really tired and am keeping going with the unholy trinity of coffee, […]
My main customer works to an annual budgeting cycle, which means that the same activities seem to happen at roughly the same time every year. Two years ago I was working on a major bid, at the same time as Christopher was dying in the hospice. I would go into work in the morning, sort […]
