"Get me away from here..."

"...I'm dying."

Dear Reader. Do you remember how much I hate moving? If not, please revisit this post and familiarise yourself with not only my hatred in general of moving house, but the specific issues we had in moving into our current flat.

Well now we’re moving out of that flat, so we have all those issues in reverse.

You start with the box in the flat. You take it to the lift and lock the front door. You go down in lift to ground floor and go through two doors, one of which is locked.

Luckily we then had the van outside rather than having to go down a flight of stairs and through another locked door and then across the garage.

I just keep reminding myself that the pain of moving will be worth it. I’m leaving Sheffield. I have not enjoyed living here for the past year or so. I’m sure it’s a great City for a lot of people, but I am not one of those people.

This time we had more furniture than before (Hello outdoor table and chairs! Hello BBQ!) but we had already taken most of the fragile things over in the weeks preceding so I didn’t have any ‘smashed glass’ worries. We got a massive van (as you can see) and only half-filled it, but I'm glad we had the extra space just in case we had needed it.

I think next time we get professional movers as by then we’ll have a bed and mattress to move not to mention all the other pieces of furniture that seem to accumulate. As an aside – why is it that whenever you have a bigger house it gets filled? Why can’t my possessions stay at a stable level rather than rise to fill any space I’m living in?

I can only imagine what would happen if I lived in a mansion. Rooms of miscellaneous tchotchkes. Hallways of tables. Omg it’s kibble! I will be smothered by doodads and whatsits.

(For the people with lives, Kibble is the useless objects which multiply over time as noted by J.R. Isadore in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I think it also covers the emotional baggage of the characters that is ever increasing and threatening to overwhelm them, but let’s not open that can of worms.)

*Quote from Belle & Sebastian

“We are all in the gutter…”

“…but some of us are looking at the stars.”

Leaving work to one side, what do I think about Sheffield as a place to live?

Things I like

• Proximity to the Pennines.
• Markets at Christmas.
• Good choice of ales at most pubs.
• Cheap cinema
• Shops being on m.y doorstep

Things I will miss:

• Piccolo’s restaurant
• My 5 minute walk commute to work

Things I don’t like:

• The amount of rough sleepers/beggars – how are there so many in such a small city?
• The people – it sounds harsh, but I have found people mostly to be parochial and narrow minded who don’t like  ‘outsiders’ or anyone different and are resistant to any sort of change
• Lack of nice, non-chain restaurants 
• Old man pubs – but not in a good way, in a urine-soaked-sixties-dive kinda way
• The Town Hall bells every 15 minutes  (drives me mad)
• Promotion of anything local, even when it’s significantly worse than non-local versions

Things I won’t miss:

• The loud cathedral bells all Sunday
• Being scared of ‘Spice Zombies’
• THE NOISE - why does everyone feel the need to shout all the time?

*Quote from Oscar Wilde

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure…”

“…and the intelligent are full of doubt." 

I’m not sure if I’ve talked about this before, but I hate change. Hate it. Even change for the better makes me super anxious and panicky.

My palms sweat, my heart rate increases, I obsess over tiny details and ruminate over decisions for long after I’ve made them.

I still debate whether leaving London was the right decision, and I’m constantly going back and forth over my current change. My logical brain says one thing, but the wiggly neurotic bits of my brain keep making me doubt myself.

“Sure you don’t like your current situation, but what if this change makes things worse?”

Advice tells you to write down what you’re anxious about, worst case scenario, and then assess whether it would really be so bad if that happened. You’re supposed to go: “The worst thing that can happen is I dislike my new job and have to get another!” and, because your worst case scenario isn’t so bad, your anxiety lessens.

But it isn’t so simple for me. Even if I come to a conclusion that the worst case scenario isn’t so bad, it still doesn’t stop my panic as the wiggly part of my brain doesn’t respond to logic. He just wants to tear me down, piece by piece.

I feel pressured. I feel as if I have too many things to do and decide and to finish and not enough time to do them. None of this is true – I have no things to do or finish, very few things to decide, and plenty of time in which to make those decisions.

I wish there was a magical solution to calm my brain, or silence the wiggly part of it.

Therapy, I guess.

*Quote from Bertrand Russell

“The sun, -the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but new life, and hope, and freshness to man-”

“…burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory.”

Oh my god, it’s been sunny lately. I had kissed goodbye to any hopes of warm weather ever arriving, thinking perhaps this was the price to be paid when living Oop North, but I was wrong – it is here!
So what do you do to celebrate? BBQ, obvs.

But also, you sit in the sunshine knitting a jumper.

Yeah, I got pretty sweaty. But you’ll notice the strong progress on Peloponnese – and I’m further along than that photo shows too! Squee!

I’ve also set myself a challenge of baking my way through Mary Berry’s Baking Bible. It’s not a new idea, it’s been done successfully by others, but that doesn’t make it a less worthwhile ambition. It doesn’t make it any easier though either…

I’ve already made a few things, so I went through and ticked off previous bakes (shout out to the old faithful Fork Biscuits!) and have tried a couple of new things.

Gingerbread (which was lovely and only improved throughout the week!)

Eccles cakes (which were lovely but I had too much pastry on the bottom so it didn’t cook through properly. Good laminations though.)

Uncooked

Cooked!

I’ve also made some chocolate chip cookies and some cheesy biscuits, but for whatever reason I didn’t photograph them.

Next up I really want to make jam. It’s not in the Baking Bible, but I just have this craving to make it…

So will next week be a FO or pictures of jam?
Watch this space…


*Quote from Charles Dickens

“There is a crack, a crack in everything.”

“…That’s how the light gets in.”

So recently I had a bit of a wobble.

I felt overwhelmed with the amount of things I had to sort out or have responsibility for, and I struggled (and continue to struggle) with navigating the systems in place to address those things. I know that’s a very fuzzy description, but I’m sure you can appreciate why I can’t be more specific!

Advice tells us to write it all down, make a list. And sometimes that helps, I’ll admit. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes seeing all the things you have to somehow achieve – not to mention the barriers that you are up against – just serves to justify the panic.

When I feel overwhelmed and anxious, I need to find a way to regain control. So I had a sit down and reviewed my lifestyle to try to assess how I got myself into this position.

Is it how I work? Is it the work itself? Is it the culture of where I work? Is it how I deal with stress? Is it related to how I spend my time outside of work?

It’s likely to be a combination of factors to be honest, but that doesn’t matter. I need to know what is making me feel upset and then see if these are things I can change, I can accept, or if I have to avoid them.

I fear that it’s this job. Not necessarily this career, but this job at this organisation. That I just don’t fit in here and I have to find myself a new job. Now there aren’t many jobs in my chosen career path, and there are close to none in the area of the UK I’d like to live in, and none at a pay grade I’d like. Plus CB is in a worse job than I am and so is fishing in the exact same pool. Which creates further stress and anxiety...

So what do you do? You hate your day-to-day existence, but you have no choice but to keep doing it. If I didn’t love my home life so much I’m not sure I would cope!

But there is beauty in that. I am broken, I know that, but I am still here and I continue to be here. And that is beautiful. I am beautiful. And can you really be unhappy when you know you are so beautiful?

*Quote from Leonard Cohen

"I may not have gone where I intended to go…”

“…but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."

I’ve just realised I have been successfully blogging on a weekly basis for a year now!

Huzzah!

This makes me very proud of my dedication, but also makes me sad as this time last year I was still in the rosy, post-New Zealand glow.

Quite a lot has happened in this past year. I have changed jobs, moved across the country, and got married. In that order. Friends have got married, got engaged, bought puppies and kittens, bought houses, had babies and become pregnant. Phew.

My knitting has had ups and downs, my reading has had downs and ups. My exercise levels have remained fairly non-existent, with a couple of blips here and there, and my film-watching has remained consistent.

I think this next year I will expand my blog from 99% about knitting to about 75% knitting. I’m thinking book and film reviews, I’m thinking… Well that’s what I’m thinking, book and film reviews. Maybe the odd gig or show I go to.

Oh that’s what else I was thinking – baking! I could tell you a bit more about my baking! Did I ever mention my Simnel Cake?

It was slightly over baked and the marzipan wasn't that flavourful. But still. At least it looks pretty!

Anyway, I wanted to mark the occasion of our anniversary, dear reader. Thank you for listening to me wittering on about double pointed needles and pattern choices.

I can’t promise things will change, but I can promise…Err….No, that’s it.

*Quote from Douglas Adams

" ’Do you ever read any of the books you burn?’ "

“He laughed. ‘That's against the law!’

‘Oh. Of course.’ "

I am ashamed to say that once again I have prioritised reading over knitting. I am so close to finishing my second sock, but the lure of The Wheel of Time is too strong!

Why is it so difficult to balance things?

I have now ordered the needle set I need to finish the Peloponnese cardigan, so as long as I finish these darn socks by the time it arrives I am happy. Although I also would like to knit some things for Easter. And I’d like to knit a jumper for my friend’s baby which is due in June. And I like the thought of knitting a cardi for my friend’s birthday, also in June.

That is too much knitting. Probably too much when I was a knitting machine, but definitely too much now I have returned to my bookish ways.

It all started when I challenged myself to read at least a chapter a day. Making myself make time for reading made me realise how much I enjoy it, and now I need to make sure I spend time doing things other than reading!

Maybe I should try a similar thing with knitting – at least 10 lines a day. At the time I thought I wouldn’t need any encouragement to keep knitting regularly, but I underestimated the fickleness of my brain.

But then I worry I’m trying to check off too many things a day – no snacks, no alcohol, going to the gym, reading, knitting, cleaning, taking over the world, etc., etc. – it has to end somewhere!


*Quote from Ray Bradbury

“Each day I live in a glass room…”

“…unless I break it with the thrusting of my senses and pass through the splintered walls to the great landscape.”

Recently my parents came Oop North for a visit. Despite officially being Autumn now, miraculously the weather was surprisingly balmy and we had a great day out in Castleton, in Derbyshire.

The parental units are members of both English Heritage and the National Trust and seem to be on a mission to visit every property they can (oh to be retired!). As such, we first went to Peveril Castle:

It’s a very very steep walk up, but well worth it. The castle is a ruined 11th-century castle which wasn’t really ever a ‘proper’ castle. The closest it came to seeing battle was in 1216, when King John gave the castle to William de Ferrers, but the castellan refused despite them both being the King’s supporters. De Ferrers was authorised to ‘use force’ but there’s no evidence that the castle was actually assaulted.

It was rebuilt a bit after King Henry III visited, but he never came back to see the result. It was used for local courts in the 1600s, but essentially just fell into disrepair and ruin. Which is a shame, but it looks very romantic and gothic now.

After the castle we stopped by one of the many pubs for a well-received drink and bite to eat. We only meant to get something small, but portions were HUGE! I still ate practically all of it. Think CB only got one chip.

After lunch we pootled round the shops. Everything is Blue John themed after one of the caverns nearby. Lots of pretty jewellery and trinkets, though we were most impressed by these fantastic encyclopaedic mugs (ever wanted to learn all the bones in the human body while drinking your morning cup of tea?) though £20 for one mug was too much of a stretch. Plus how could you pick only one?

We then wanted to visit a cavern and, it getting on for 4pm by that point, there was only one closest we could get to before closing time. Peak Cavern, also known as:

Surprisingly, despite the name, the cavern was fantastic.

There are large flow stone (beautiful swirling white calcium carbonite deposits) formations in the entrance, and teeny tiny stalactites further inside the cavern, both of which would have taken hundreds and hundreds of years to form.

Cave exploration is still ongoing in the Peak Cavern system, but there’s a good 13 miles of caving that links with Speedwell cavern nearby. It is the longest cave system (so far discovered) in Derbyshire.

The tour started with a rope-making demonstration, which we thought would be rubbish but was really interesting! The entrance of the cavern was used from the 1600s to the late 1800s by rope makers, with the rope being used for the lead mining industry around Castleton.

Early visitors to the cave were taken round by the rope makers using only smelly tallow candles for light. So creepy! After the entrance, you have to bend double for a bit in order to enter the ‘Great Cave’, but originally visitors would have had to enter by climbing into a coffin-like boat and floating through a low archway. We don’t have to do that anymore as Queen Victoria flatly refused to travel like that, so they blasted her out a passageway (she was annoyingly short, old Queen Vic) as we walked through that.

The Great Cave is pretty impressive. Obviously when we were there it was lit with electric lights, but back in t'day they would have lit a firework to show visitors how big it was! The lights were turned out at one point (there was another group after us who were doing a soundscape - which we crashed and it was weird) and to be in the pitch darkness was quite unnerving. I can't imagine what it was like for someone to ride into the darkness in a coffin-boat to explore somewhere associated with the Devil!

The cavern floods and so the ‘Arsehole’ is actually a small hole where the water drains back. Quite a lot of pressure builds up and, unsurprisingly, when that pressure releases it makes the noise that you might associate with the Devil’s Arsehole…

*Quote from Mervyn Peake

“Arthur blinked at the screens and felt he was missing something important. Suddenly he realized what it was.”

“"Is there any tea on this spaceship?" he asked.”

There’s a lot to be said about Sheffield. About how pretty it is, about how friendly the people are, and about how much goes on here considering it’s so small. But that is not what I’m going to talk about today. No, today I’m feeling the need to pay tribute to one of my greatest loves. No, not knitting this time.

Tea.

Despite it being August and there being a literal beach outside my window at work (seriously) Sheffield has decided to piss it down with rain. Cats, dogs, pigs, goats, whatever – you name it, it’s raining it. It’s also not particularly warm – at least, not to a soft southerner like myself.

And you know what it being cold and wet means to me? Yup, you guessed it –

Tea.

Here is a classic example of my tea consumption:

This is my first cup of tea of the day. CB gets up before I do and he makes himself a cup of coffee and makes me a cup of tea. He doesn’t put it on the bedside table as it gives me a reason to drag myself from the duvet-cocoon and ultimately into the office.

This is cup number two, when I get in to the office. Yes, it’s a big cup (pen for scale). I need a big cup. This one is my proper first cup – the previous one doesn’t really count as I’m too sleepy. Plus by the time I actually get out of bed and drink it, it’s lukewarm at best. This one is hot and yummy (my mouth just filled up with saliva thinking about it).

These get me through the day. On wet days like this I can average one an hour. I then need to pee quite a lot though.

This is my post-lunch cuppa. This helps digestion. Probably. Maybe.

This is a ‘welcome home from work’ cuppa I sometimes make myself. Not every day - some days I don’t drink tea after I get home. They tend to be days where I’ve had too many cups at the office and I am more tea than woman.

This is faux-tea, also known as hot-of-choc, also known as hot chocolate. It satisfies the need for pudding without scoffing sweeties, and makes me feel warm and sleepy ready to start another day of tea-drinking.


*Quote from Douglas Adams

“It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think with blunt frankness…”

 “…and old Ben Weatherstaff was a Yorkshire moor man.”

As we all know, the 1st August is Yorkshire Day.

What’s that? You didn’t know? Are you kidding me? How could you not know that? It’s a national event! That’s outrageous that you didn’t – huh? Oh, you ARE kidding! Of course you knew. Well don’t I feel silly! I did think it was odd you hadn’t heard of such a big and famous event.

I mean, I suppose there’s little point me talking about Yorkshire Day now, considering you know all about it, but I do have a bloglet to get out so please indulge me.

The Yorkshire Society was founded in 1980 to raise the profile of Yorkshire and regain pride that had been somewhat lost owing to the demise of the wool and coal industries. A Yorkshire Society Civic Procession was held in 1985 by the Mayor of Wakefield and since then there has been a Yorkshire Day event every year on 1 August.

The date alludes to the Battle of Minden, and also the anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834, for which a Yorkshire MP, William Wilberforce, had campaigned.

Wikipedia tells us that Yorkshire day “… was celebrated in 1975, by the Yorkshire Ridings Society, initially in Beverley, as "a protest movement against the Local Government re-organisation of 1974".

The day was already celebrated by the Light Infantry, successors to the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, as Minden Day.”

This year Sheffield hosted it and I attended.

Here I am with my white rose in solidarity:

“I, being a resident of the West Riding of Yorkshire declare:

‘That Yorkshire is three Ridings and the City of York, with these Boundaries of 1142 years standing; That the address of all places in these Ridings is Yorkshire; That all persons born therein or resident therein and loyal to the Ridings are Yorkshiremen and women; That any person or corporate body which deliberately ignores or denies the aforementioned shall forfeit all claim to Yorkshire status.

‘These declarations made this Yorkshire Day 2017. God Save the Queen.”

I’ve only been in Yorkshire for a month or so, but I’m loving it so far and I have no plans to leave. The people are friendly, the lifestyle is laid back, food and drink is fantastic and not overpriced, and the landscape is beautiful.

My friend advised me to dine on roast whippet tonight in celebration. I think instead I will indulge in a few too many cups of the brown stuff…

*Quote from Frances Hodgson Burnett

“Solitude is fine..."

"...but you need someone to tell that solitude is fine.”

As you know I have recently taken up a new job and I’m still finding my feet. Now, there are some things you always remember about being a new person somewhere. Whether it’s a new social club, a new job, a new school or a new home, you never forget certain things...

You never forget feeling lost. Not knowing your way round the building. Being taken somewhere once and thinking it was a really simple route, but being completely unable to replicate the journey when left to your own devices.

You never forget the feeling of being slightly useless. Not knowing precisely your role, or where things are supposed to go, or where you’re supposed to be at any given moment, or if you’re supposed to be participating in a conversation (or whether that will be eavesdropping).

You never forget your first impressions of people. Who was friendly or seemed very knowledgeable, who seemed scary and imposing (even if you later realise your impressions were hilariously wrong).

One thing I had forgotten about being the new person was how incredibly lonely it can feel.

I’m used to knowing everyone I work with, I’m used to having lunch with people, having ongoing conversations via email or messenger. Suddenly I feel very isolated. There’s no one to have lunch with, very few anecdotes I can appreciate and refer to. Most conversations are someone asking me questions or telling me answers.

I know this is par for the course. I know it’s a matter of time. But as I sit at my desk, unsure of how busy everyone is, debating which area of work to try and research, I feel detached from the rest of my team. I feel odd. I have rough edges - that will be smoothed with time I know, but right now they are jarring with my surrounds.

That’s not to say my new colleagues are to blame. To say the least they are incredibly friendly, chatty, and inclusive. There’s just no escaping my "Newbie" status.

I think it’s a testament to just how unhappy I was in my old role that despite feeling lonely, I don’t miss my old job. I miss some of the people, sure, but I do not have a single shred of doubt that I made the right decision in leaving when I did. I guess the only regret I have is that the role became untenable at all, but that was something over which I had very little control...

It's odd feeling lonely. You know objectively that most people feel like this from time to time and some poor people feel like this often. But it never feels like that in the moment. It feels like you are the only person in a world of automatons, that everyone knows what they're doing and why they're doing it and you are the only one who doesn't. I've used a different quote to bookend this bloglet, but I am reminded of Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami: “Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?”



*Quote from Honoré de Balzac

“When we don't know who to hate…”

“… we hate ourselves.” 

Urgh I hate packing. I fully, utterly and completely hate packing. 100%. Hate doing for a holiday (how am I supposed to know if I’ll actually wear that slinky dress when we go out for a meal or if I’ll just continue to wear the same pair of shorts I’ve been wearing all day?) and most definitely hate packing up to move to a new house. 

In previous moves it hasn’t been so bad. I’ve still hated it, don’t get me wrong, but as I’ve been in shared houses it’s only been one room to pack up, along with a box or two of kitchen and bathroom things. One room is not fun, but it’s manageable. For my recent move up north, however, CB and I faced the task of packing up our entire flat. I say again – urgh. 

What’s worse is we only had a one bedroom flat. What will it be like in future moves? What will it be like when we own actual furniture, not just a bookcase and table? We spent some time before the move sorting through and rationalising our stuff, and we still managed to fill a medium sized van to the brim. I’m not exaggerating:

What you can’t see there is my carefully wrapped boxes of glasses, labelled “fragile” and “very fragile” which CB decided to stack sideways and pile things on. Luckily only one glass was broken from his cavalier attitude to crockery – his nice beer glass we bought in Brugge. I did feel bad for him, but that is karma my friend. 

Apart from the actual packing (which is bad enough) I hate the laborious task of packing up the car/van, and even more than that do I hate the inevitable task of unloading said car/van. At least leaving London we could park right outside the flat, but upon arrival we had to unload the van underground, bring it across the car park, up a set of stairs, through three doors (two of which were auto-locking and two of which opened the ‘wrong’ way) into the lift then into the locked flat. It took about an hour to pack the van, and a good two hours to unpack. Honestly, I couldn’t sleep that first night as my biceps hurt so much. 

Luckily, I quite enjoy unpacking and I’m very good at organisation. CB had to go to work the next morning, but by the time he had come home at lunch I had pretty much unpacked and sorted everything. At the time of writing this we still have a few things to finesse (for instance the spare bedroom is a bit of a dumping ground, and the bookcase took a bit of a beating so the books are still packed up) but it is a perfectly livable flat, no worse than the average messy home. 

I know it was worth it. I know it was. But it was horrific. And as much as I want to own my own home and get off the renting-roundabout, I can’t bear the thought of moving everything back downstairs again let alone into another house! 


*Quote from Chuck Palahniuk

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart…”

“…I am, I am, I am.”

England experienced somewhat of a heat wave the other week and, lucky me, I was off work and on holiday with my family in Wiltshire, staying in Longleat Centre Parcs.

It was lovely.

It was so very hot that it was actually rather difficult to do much – which I personally regarded as an added benefit! CB and I don’t own bikes so we rented a couple, and went on a cycle ride all around the park most days. The ride took less than an hour (unless we parked up and explored some of the sites) but we would come back to the lodge absolutely dripping in sweat. Yum.

There were nine of us in the group in total, seven adults and two toddlers – my mother, my father, my sister and her daughter, my brother and my sister in law and their son. Oh, plus CB and yours truly. So, as you can imagine, there were few quiet moments, multiple ‘smelly nappy’ moments, and lots of silly family jokes.

It was particularly nice for me to spend some time with the niblings now they’re walking and chattering away. I don’t attract or keep their attention much when competing with their parents but, seeing how exhausted my brother and sisters were, I think I got the best of both worlds!

We enjoyed the ‘sub-tropical swimming paradise’ and all the flumes, had a couple of games of bowling - one of which I won! (What was that? Did I have the barriers up? Err…I don’t remember…….) and, after some baby handprints gave my sister the bug, we did some pottery painting which is a personal favourite activity of mine. My sister painted a fantastic mug for her partner (and, just between you and me, I was green with envy at how good she was and how nicely it turned out, as it was her first time pottery painting) CB painted a plate with a sort of aerial view of Tekapo in New Zealand which is our combined happy-place (blog entry here), and I painted a series of cartoon monsters on a bowl I intend to use for yarn.

This is CB’s plate:

And this is my yarn bowl:

 

 

It was the perfect way to unwind after my last week at work and to prepare for the big move up North before starting the new job. And it was the perfect way to spend some quality time with the fam. 

Soppy Philly.



*Quote from Sylvia Plath

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you…”

“…And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”

As I write this, I am embarking on my last week at work. Well, at this work, not last working week ever, but still!

It’s always bittersweet leaving a job. You’re keen to start the next challenge, meet new people, take on new responsibilities, but you’re sad to leave the familiar.

Personally, I hate change. I hate the unknown. It’s one of my biggest weaknesses – I even hate surprises! No surprise parties for me, no mystery gift, no ‘pack your bag darling, we’re going away this weekend’, I would hate it with a passion.

So despite having some extreme frustrations with my current job, there’s something comforting about knowing what will happen (even if it frustrates me). Over the past four years I’ve grown enough to be a big fish in a little pond, knowing every rock and plant, every eddy and flow.

A result of my hatred of the unknown is that I tend to over-prepare for things. I’m trying to not do that in this case. I’m preparing, but not over-preparing. For instance I’ve prepared my list of committee deadlines, but I haven’t populated it. I’ve arranged to meet my new manager for a cuppa before I start, but I haven’t planned a list of questions. I’ve gathered some key documents on being an effective manager, but I haven’t planned to do or say anything specific for my new team. This may not sound like a lot, but it’s good for me.

I am thinking ahead to my first week at the new job:

• I want to be friendly and enthusiastic, but not in a cheesy or overwhelming way.
• I want to be a human sponge to take in all the information I can.
• I don’t want to be too reliant on people showing me how to do things; I want to be shown once and be able to do it with only a few specific follow-up questions.
• I want to take notes when people show me how to do things.
• I want to remember people’s names and what they do.
• I want to get a feel for the culture and the team dynamics so I can fit in.

Essentially I want to get along with the people I work with and be good at the job I was hired to do. And only I can ensure that happens.


*Quote from Neil Gaiman

"I am not afraid of storms…”

“...for I am learning how to sail my ship."

There’s a much-discussed analogy about life being a piece of music. Something we’re supposed to enjoy while it’s happening rather than focus only on the ending.

Well, Philly-Fans, I feel I’m making the decision to dance along rather than trying to skip the track.

I’ve been living and working in London for about 6 years now. At first it was exciting and fun but over the past 18 months or so it’s dawned on me that I don’t actually like my day-to-day existence very much.

My job is very stressful, my commute is very stressful, and once I get home I just want to sit in my pyjamas and knit. I’m not taking advantage of living in London but I’m getting all the disadvantages. 

So why am I doing this? Wishing away my weeks but being so tired on the weekends I don’t do anything? Never seeing my friends? Always worrying?

Well these are questions CB and I have been asking ourselves for a little while now, and we’ve slowly come to the decision that it makes no sense. This is not how life has to be. This is not a situation we are stuck in. This is our life and we have control over how we spend it.
To that end, we are moving. Moving jobs, moving house, moving lives. Moving, in fact, about 200 miles from where we currently are to live in the north of England. Better jobs with more income, more autonomy, and shorter commutes, in an area known for friendly people, good quality of life, and being more affordable.

And it’s terrifying, my god it’s terrifying, but it’s also really exciting. I’m taking stock of what I have and comparing it to what I want, and I’m turning one into the other.


*Quote from Louisa May Alcott