August 6, 2011

• Why yes, I am alive

  I've been on my holidays... Berlin, Munich, Rome and Paris. With a batch of enthusiastic, occasionally rowdy, intelligent, questioning, fun, mad teens.  No, you don't get pictures of them. I can't remember which are under 16. Also, the camera died in Paris, so no pictures from there (well, other than one random tomb).  Shame, as I spent a lovely couple of hours, in peaceful solitude (and, believe me, we were all annoying each other by seven days in each other's company on cramped trains and in various hostels) wandering round Pere Lachaise Cemetery leaving stones on tombs. And it was a lovely sunny day for that too.  The album is here.  Just before we left, I split up with P: realising that, if I cannot tell when he's making a joke (and I never can, so I just lose my temper if I am stressed), and he cannot grasp that it makes life simpler if you do the boring organisational stuff first and then have fun, then it's just not going to work in the longer term.  I must say, I am much less stressed now.  Part of the reduction in stress is not organising Guiding things - and not having someone constantly complaining about how much time is being spent organising Guiding things and, crucially, not listening when I say that this is a particularly bad period for organising Guiding things and it is not usually this busy.

   

  Holocaust Memorial, Berlin

  

  Three Girls and a Boy. M fell into the small pond that was about 3" deep just behind where I was standing while she tried to get a better shot. Squelchy.

  

  Noisy clock tower thing that has marionettes and glockenspiels playing at 11am, noon and 5pm. The music goes on and on, and, just as you think it's stopped, it starts again.

  

  Colosseum.  Had fun talking about lions, tigers, elephants and BLOOD here.

  

   

  Nuns with gelato. A high speed snap near the Vatican.

  Then I came back to chaos at work (yes, I appreciate you couldn't have fixed it. However, not mentioning it wasn't really acceptable, nor was not doing *anything about it*). The forums on the website came within a gnat's breath of going down. I had Monday off to recover from the trip, and spent the morning putting a contingency plan in place so business could continue. On the plus side, Time Off In Lieu.  Monday did not improve: I had to say good bye to the cat, Josephine. There will be a post about her later (I'm fighting the photo uploader).  Mum misses Josephine dreadfully - the little cat has been a constant for the past 19 years, so it's hardly surprising. I keep getting randomly blindsided by tears if I'm not careful.  She was a lovely little funny affectionate kitten for most of her life, then she slowed down very rapidly in the past year.

  P and I are supposed to go to Berlin next weekend, for the 50th Anniversary of the rising of the Berlin Wall. We still do not have anywhere booked - had we booked the hostel when I wanted to book it, we would have somewhere to sleep. If he doesn't get this sorted out by Sunday night, when I'm back from the prom, then I shall go and book the darn thing anyhow.  As it is, there's only space in the shared dormitories and one single room, so it won't be a restful couple of nights. However, I must sleep *somewhere*. If I am really lucky, the single room will still be available...

  Oh, and I've run 14 miles this week, and have a 10km race tomorrow.

  List

  • Laundry
  • Email Brownies accounts to Dad
  • Find graph paper, plot Sir's Fair Isle
  • Clear out Brownies Trunk in sitting room
  • Prom
  • Race
  • Collect stuff from church ready for Towersey
  • Glory box
  • Sequins
  • beads
  • scissors 
  • needles
  • Tidy sitting room
  • Tidy bedroom
  • Take cheque book to proms for K to sign
  • Having unravelled the sock to the ankle, and found some spare sock yarn, knit paternal sock
  • Collect prescriptions
  • Clean handbag

  xxx

  • 5:15 am
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