Waiting…

So we are now into the admin twilight that is the UK house moving process. We have accepted an offer on current house, had an offer accepted on new (old, Victorian, cottage) house and I have filled in two evenings worth of paperwork, been on the phone for approx 4 hours and spent, so far £620 – which is the sales and purchase deposits to the conveyancers, and the survey cost. Now we wait…

I am currently putatively working from home, having been called by the surveying company at 6pm last night and arranged a 9-10 appointment to survey current house (BP for convenience). Of courst it’s now 9.33 and no sign; correspondence with boss to that effect is merely reflecting his own cynical experience – twice split and currently negotiating buy out of x2. I don’t really mind, I will avoid the traffic that is partly informing the move, can work/post and have plenty of tea available.

This is a sort of micro wait compared with the overall wait. At this point we are a fortnight past the sale agreement, a week past the purchase agreement, and have no real idea when – or even if – the move will occur. No-one is legally or even a little bit financially bound (beyond personal expenditure detailed above) and there are no set timescales. However, one has to believe in order to keep moving forward, thus mentally, administratively and financially going further and further into the unknown… Only when contracts are exchanged are we committed, which I think is maybe another fortnight away. In the meantime everything I do is with a fingers crossed/touch wood caveat.

Die Hard

Not about Bruce Willis or the films. I was driving through the last village before hitting the country road on the way to work, when I was aware of one of those huge chunky 4 wheel drive truck style things ahead of me – big cab for 4 people, open back that some have covers or hard tops on, or in short, an SUV as I have just been reminded… Anyway, the model was ‘Die Hard’. Now, this is leafy Warwickshire, midde England. We don’t need to rescue people from canyons, or drive thousands of miles between communities. There is the odd country track, but my one armed partially blind neighbour used to take his people carrier down those with no problems (except the time he pulled over to listen to an interesting R4 programme and ran his battery down). And usually there is an alternative route anyway. K just used to go across country as it meant he was only driving over the limit on 100 yards of road; nevermind the 8 miles of track and the cows etc - though recent news reports suggest cows may be fighting back.

So what is SUV ownership about? Height, view, control? A statement of superiority because you have a vehicle that in some cases is around 50% of the size of a standard terraced house (and the two possessions are not mutually exclusive, looking down some streets (you have to look, you can’t actually drive down them any more).  A kind of statement about how rich/hard/better than everyone else you are? It seems a very expensive way of doing this, especially as a lot of reactions are not in line with what the driver is hoping to portray. Perhaps they are actually used – but if the truck bit is visible it is empty 99.9% of the  time; plus those in genuine use are usually scruffier and smaller, bought before steroid vehicles were invented.

The best place to see a range of these in my area is in Stratford Upon Avon where they were normally pressed into service to ferry small children in strange and stiff looking uniforms around, or to wait imperiously on Bridge Steet for a parking space to appear outside M&S, impervious to queues of vehicles behind and pedestrians rolling under the bumpers. I used to work near a nursery and pitied the kid who was dropped off by an old Polo, dwarfed by the range of SUVs and other 4 wheel drives.

However, having just driven to work during the worst weather I’ve encountered during my 11 years there I have to admit I could have been persuaded – just wouldn’t have wanted to shell out for the fuel, insurance, tax etc.  And ‘Die Hard’ is a model I would have avoided – I would have wante the ‘Expediency – look, I just have to get to work, ok’ model.

Catching up

Haven’t been here for a while, and I’m not quite sure why. I think a combination of nagging health stuff, Christmas, vague Novembery depression and winter lethargy meant that I couldn’t summon up the mental resources to write stuff, or find the physical resources to do anything other than get up, domestic admin, drive to work, do some work, do some not work, drive home, bath, food, sofa, telly/book, sleep. Interspersed with drinking too much at weekends to convince myself there’s a life out there somewhere.

Anyway, after a rest post the actual Christmas bit (too bored and stressed with Xmas to relax before hand – and it’s only round your forties that you realise that it is possible to be bored and stressed at the same time, and actually quite often), and the realisation that if I was recognising everyone else in the pub, they were me, it’s time to get my arse in gear. Hence cut down everything apart from running and having a think about where things are going – don’t really want another Nov/Dec like that for me or the bloke (4am starts and idiot bosses there) and we don’t need to either. So the house is on the market and we will downsize and move to SuA for the final push of the new theatre project and to get said life… into the hands of estate agents again.

Integrated Socks

Turns out the whole sock thing is out there for a lot of people. My colleague M, who lives in a small house, with only one other adult (ie no children or animals, who could add a random element to the household) and is a pretty tidy sort of chap, mentally and physically, has had socks go missing on him – and then reappear, sometimes when his partner points to an obvious place where the sock should have been, wasn’t, and now is. I could tell in conversation that this does make him puzzled, and on occasion, downright uneasy. He is one of a tiny percentage of people where I work to wear smarter clothes (trousers and a shirt, as opposed to jeans, or dramatically artistic here I am type clothes), and having to work all day in socks that may be of different origins can be difficult and impede concentration. He also mentioned that although he has tried the logical workaround of buying socks en masse, it’s still not the same; somehow socks from different original pairs, though the same make and model, are visibly and tactiley (sp? word?) different.

He also went down the making it obvious route – socks with graphics. These can be innocuous, perhaps days of the week, or coloured toe areas, down a rapidly descending taste tunnel to cartoons and onward to communicating the idea that the wearer is a sex god (this is something experimented with by our mutual boss, I hasten to add before M sues, apparently as the bosses’ offspring find it amusing. It’s disconcerting for us, probably doesn’t do much for cred in some company areas – but may do a lot in others, where such messages may be construed as an  invitation – which the boss may not be entirely comfortable given we are a diverse organisation). Bit of a bracket digression there, but people in the UK papers are paid for that sort of stuff so I’ll take the liberty. Anyway, even experiments with socks with graphics, completely against M’s nature, have failed. Where do they go? Why? How do they get back?

Moving forward, other colleague J, who is of a practical bent, and had already come up with one brain wave earlier, that of a Pets Accident and Emergency room (built upon speculation that an absent staff member’s cat had gone wrong over the weekend, and could only be booked in for fixing on Monday), then came up with the possibility of integrated socks. Integrated to what needs working on, as do the hygiene implications, but it’s out there for consideration…

Love and Socks

My partner’s mother is lovely if sometimes a little overwhelming. If invited round she will come laden with stuff – cake, preserves, pate, the odd bottle, magazines – cycling for him, house and garden girly genre for me. All good, apart from most of her crockery and tins are now with us and we find ourselves having impromptu meals consisting of all these oddments. My Mum, on the other hand, just brings odds ands ends of booze, I think dragged out from the back of the sideboard, probably from my Step Dad’s travelling days. As he’s been on the other side now for 17 years, these pose something of an adventure, if not an outright risk. But that’s another story.

The most prolific, and oddest items Mil brings, however, are socks. Loads of them, three or four times a year, always for Rob. A decent variety - some ordinary everyday versions, some thicker walking or working options, and some sporting style ones, to go in trainers, in a variety of go faster stripes, usually in towelling. There’s also the odd pair with writing on them, sometimes even involving his name. The expression on his face when confronted with these was interesting – trying to maintain the right element of gratitude and interest, while disdain and horror are breaking through. Of course graphical and comedy socks can also be quite dangerous – many a meeting at work has been enlivened by the realisation that the serious bloke in a suit is actually wearing Bart Simpson socks…

Anyway, after the latest gift of socks (currently languishing in a drawer, still attached to the retail stuff) arrived, and during a tidying frenzy a couple of things occurred to me: that the socks are in fact an expression of love, concern and caring, a way of looking after the boy; but that following on from them, an overload, or even a surfeit of socks, can lead to them being disrespected – to use a word I never thought I would, but that seems to fit. The socks end up worn once maybe for a couple of hours, then shoved in the wash, or in a general heap of clothes that are in the interim stage of worn once but don’t yet need washing (until it’s a question of tidying them properly or just dropping them in the washing thing). A lot end up in the heap of ongoing cycling clothes – not just one pair but loads. Some end up in the garage, some I find in pockets. Of course they are quite often alone; there are half a dozen single socks plaintively awaiting their partners to emerge from the wash, and even an OCD tidy stress freak like me can’t find the other half How, why – does he eat them? I don’t ever lose socks – but then I have a quarter of the amount. Which is the key to it I realise. I respect my socks; I need them. I don’t have an infinite supply of socks. I even plan the use of my socks. Which says a lot for what screws my brain up I guess. So whilst you can have too many socks, I suppose you can also have too few… Perhaps my Mum should bring socks as well.

Moving on from the dentist

Leafy Warwickshire

So I had the final root canal appointment first thing this morning. I’ve been fortunate in one respect as I always forget, or block out, the actual pain and discomfort of the work. Quite unusual for me, given as I am to anxiety about pretty much everything in advance (and I schedule a lot of stuff); I guess the ongoing pain and hypochondria filled that part of the brain. Once you’re on the chair, however, then it all comes back. This time it was the jab. That makes your eyes water anyway, but I have to admit self pity helped with that. Anyway, as it goes, all is well. The job is complete for now, I have been polished as well, while the filling set, and the whole process, nine appointments, two x-rays, and a skip load of filler, cost £45.60.

Now this is pretty good. I work and pay my tax and National Insurance, and receive no benefits, being child free and working etc. I’ve been interested to see the recent debate in the US and aware of the threat of cuts in the UK, and have listened to various tales of woe about the NHS. I can’t say they are incorrect, I’m sure things go badly wrong and people’s suffering is vastly increased; but from this experience I personally can say it can work. It was a bit rough around the admin, and some of the what to expect stuff (but we have Google now), and the surgery is a little compromised and dilapidated – but it worked.

From there I moved swiftly on with a spring in my step and less of a hole in my credit card than predicted, thinking, again, how physically and mentally demanding the process had been and how nice it was to be free of it. This lasted approximately 20 minutes, to the point at which the optician announced there was a mark at the back of my eye… It turns out I have to be referred to the doctors, possibly pending investigation. It’s probably an innocuous freckle or mole style thing; the issue being it probably wasn’t there before. At this point no further information is offered, and I go, somewhat less springily, to the doctor’s and drop the referral letter in. Now I wait, and harass the doctor’s on, I think, Friday. And, of course, in the interim I Google. Best case, just a birthmark thing; worst case, melanoma with a range of treatments from in and out in a day to, well, let’s leave that for now.

So I am getting the opportunity to see some more NHS for myself, possibly at a level beyond primary care, hopefully not. I like to think that this is a process that is working as well, in that having regular optician’s appointments has spotted something early giving the best chance of a good outcome. Or that even an extra zealous optician or new instruments have seen something that has been there all along, but again is using a process that’s in place to help.

Other than appreciating that, so far, things kind of work, what else? Well, I’m a bit pissed off  (a bit about the timing in a black humour sort of way), and disinclined to concentrate on work; also I’m kind of going to that well what if? What would you want to do place? The only conclusions I have reached so far is that I need to give less of a fuck about the unimportant things (and an awful lot is, at the end of the day, unimportant), and suffer fools, and indeed perhaps solipsistic people less gladly. And about time to; having been by far the youngest in a family of fairly dogmatic people  I have spent a lot of time  trying to fit in, not take up any space and say the right things; so it’s time I took up my own space now, regardless of any other issues. Other than that, here in leafy Warwickshire it’s a lovely golden and mild Autumn day, and I think I’ll just make the most of that for now.

Pensioner drift

Anyone who’s done the 9-5 has experienced that frustration when the aisle and tills at M&S (other supermarkets are available) are blocked by flocking pensioners who all need to do their once a day shop between 1 and 2pm. Working in a tourist town, with an M&S and an aging population, I have been able to observe their behaviour on an ongoing basis and have come up with some theories and behaviour patterns.

They operate singly, most commonly in pairs, either married couples or ladies who secretly hate each other, openly say really bitchy things in the spirit of ‘helpfulness’ or ‘honesty’, but actually badly need the physical and emotional back up of having a special friend anyway (another post occurs- 4 widows and the maiden lady, adventures of Mother in a very brutal clique); occasionally you’ll see a foursome or even more but this is more common outdoors.

They are all able to take up disproportionate amounts of time and space. If they are by themselves, their best friend or spouse being dead, indisposed, or temporarily alienated by badly losing a verbal sparring match, they can make themselves bigger by use of special wide clothing, mobility aids, small dogs, or shopping trolleys (supermarket metal frame model, or push/drag along personal jobs). When in pairs or small groups, they can juxtapose themselves in such a way that entire supermarket aisles can be blocked, and town centres become no go zones.

Having all the time in the world, of course they are then also at leisure to draw out the simplest decisions and transactions into aeons of time (a subjective office worker on lunch aeon anyway). With their oppos, the debate about what to eat, how and when can assume the timescales and indecisive monotony of a entire project meeting contributed to by people from finance, and IT, with different agendas.

Confront them with a new concept, like a meal deal, and this debate can get dangerous. It can unite or divide them, depending on whether one, or both, is/are unable to grasp the concept of a main, a side dish, a dessert and a bottle. What is a main? Is this a main? Can potatoes possibly be regarded as a side dish? Could we, possibly, get two, and mix and match? Steam erupts at this point from under a perfectly coiffed blonded do as the selection process goes boolean. Behind them a frustrated tax payer dodges from side to side, trying to reach in – perhaps between them, or at one side, but a judiciously placed basket and a large anorak stops any incursions.

Once the food is selected, the right check out has to be found, by wandering up and down, interweaving between queuing people, and finally, it has to be wilfully, standing in the baskets only, with the trolley, and taking the queue down the arm of the T that no rational people would use, then looking half patronisingly, half pathetically at those in the rational arm of the T until they have to be waved through to stop the entire shop gridlocking and the recalcitrant rational T occupier looking like a psychopath. At this point it’s best to try and assume some kind of catatonic state – or mindfulness, as Buddhists prefer – as it’s getting no better. The need for the purse doesn’t occur to them till after the final item is packed, then the right change, vouchers, glasses have to be found. An epic variation on this was observed recently where the change was put on the slope that sends the goods to the end of the till counter, for ease of packing. The change vanished, was found. Attempts were made to pick it up, finally succeeding; where upon the change was again placed on the slope. Amazing.

However it is on a standard sized pavement where the concepts of Pensioner Drift, and Pensioner Zoom, can be best observed. And you might as well observe, because you won’t get anywhere in a hurry. For Drift at least two are required for max inconvenience. You’re rapidly approaching a slow moving group but can see a way around – even jinking into the road before that big lorry gets too close. But no – one of them will spot some knitwear, a bird, Bill, a car – they’ll split gently off whilst talking in the wrong direction. You think you can get through the gap until the group psychology kicks in and they will all drift sideways, or sometimes backwards, even though the majority won’t know why and will be bitching about that. Meanwhile you’re trapped on the carriageway, or wedged between them and the knitwear. Should you escape the Drift however, and aim for the developing gap, at least one of them will jink sideways, normally just defiant of the new status quo, or possibly due to an imminent collapse – this is the Zoom. The danger here is that you’re already committed to your manoeuvre and there will be a collision, for which you will be entirely to blame. At least, however, this isn’t on the road, where the concepts of Drift and Zoom can be seen a lot. I recently saw one elderly person actually create an additional lane of traffic between the original two on a dual carriage way approaching a roundabout. But the markings weren’t terribly clear…

The Twitter thing

Ok, so stage 2 of the get out there (virtually) more, and check stuff out involves twitter – plus the bit where you refer to that here and vice versa. Forgive the slightly kids today way this may be coming across but although I work in IT and in an arts organisation, I’ve avoided getting into all this, for a few reasons; partly a kind of misplaced snobbery; partly data paranoia; and partly I have to admit an age/era/generation thing.  Two elements to that – thinking it was a phenomonen aimed at and used by people younger than me; and not quite either getting it or understanding it. But the tipping point has been reached with work things and the realisation that it is out there to be done, and a lot of people are doing it. Also to keep not doing it, once you get to this point, is not good – the sort of attitude that can end with being eaten by your own cats as everyone else has moved on.

So the twitter account is set up and I’m following my workplace and a couple of other organisations and information portals at the moment. I was briefly followed by two people with a slightly more intimate agenda it appeared, but they get everywhere and are easily blocked. I have to admit, though, I still don’t quite get it… It’s fun and quite solipsistic to update the world but I cringe at the idea of following/being followed by individuals, and wonder ultimately why. Maybe just because and it makes the time go by at work. Indeed why not, which is why the toe is in the water.

The other thing is, and will be a separate post (on the list of vague and not terribly useful thoughts when sleep escapes) is that what’s out there now is very much learning by doing, pick it up as you go along. There is no preparation, no carefully set out numbered instructions, no bits to read first. I think it’s great in many ways, but also that it’s kind of winging it – maybe that’s because of the nature of my (really quite bad, but terribly up itself) secondary education or again my age. I think it’s great but I’m glad I know how not to wing it. So I can manage all this at work (and at home) but know what’s going on, what the priorities are, how to kick in old style if I need to.

The Dentist

I officially have weak teeth; my dentist said this a couple of years back when a bit dropped off a filling he had redone. I thought that was distressing at the time, both in its wholesale condemnation of of a fairly fundamental and critical bit of me and also in the longer term implications. I’m 44 – am I going to end a being a crone of the toothless variety, with the comedy glass with dentures on the bedside table, or do I defer paying the mortgage in favour of major surgery (implants?) I don’t quite understand or believe in (ideologically as well as in how can it work and for how long…).

However that theoretical angst has paled into insignificance over the last six months of intermittent agony, ongoing feeling ‘under the weather’ and recurrent calendar appointments that has comprised the hell of root canal surgery.

I knew when the major pain kicked in for the second time I was in trouble. That was at a Bicycle Speedway event, where we were supporting my partner’s nephew going hell for leather round a small oval track on a bike with no gears or brakes. Subtle it ain’t but more detail on that particular circle of hell is a separate post – but the windswept rainy field was no doubt a factor. Anyway the pain; both specifically in and around the relevant tooth throbbing and stinging and shocking, as well as affecting the lower jaw teeth that side and giving a sinusitis like ache in every facial bone, plus a wierd sensation of there not being enough room for my teeth generally. Add in some hypochondria, pessimistic googling, and you have a physical and psychological mess. Plus, naturally,  at the weekend so the UK offers no relief whatsover.

Emergency dentist 1 drilled, probed, and gave up after the third pain relief injection made no difference - sent me off with a prescription for antibiotics plus the advice to piggyback pain relief as it was going to hurt a lot more when ‘it hit bottom’. Still don’t know what that really meant – but, man, it certainly hurt. I went to work in a responsible but ultimately stupid manner, and realised at 2.30 (ha ha) I was in big trouble. The entire right side of my face was pounding, a bright red flush had developed down it, my neck, shoulder and chest, and I was feeling distinctly dodgy all over. Turned out apart from anything else the paracetomal in my bag expired in Dec 05 – school girl error. I took a walk around the gardens near work in the freezing drizzle in an attempt to stave off death  then tottered (not good interpreted into driving) home wimpering till I downed alka seltzer and took the edge off. Miraculously it then just stopped at 9.30pm.

Regular dentist then advised that rct is a process not an event, and no way would it be complete for my holiday. He then started an ongoing process of drilling the three roots till it hurt too much, grunting over evidence of infection, temp filling and repeat in a fortnight or so.

Emergency dentist 2 kicked in after a particularly vigorous drilling session was followed by sinusitus. I nearly collapsed in B&Q (an unromantic place to die) and had to engage my weary and paranoid self in a series of phone calls between dentist and doctor to try and get antibiotics and attention. One of the worst parts of this is that, in particular when it’s critical, you start falling between professions and they both back off and refer you to the other. Joined up medical care anyone? No, because of a historical division between blacksmith, vets, physicians. I got past that and am on the final leg I think and hope – it was the third penultimate appointment I’ve had. I had the cleared out roots underpinned with metal rods on Wed am and filled, with a temp filling on top of that. It hurt, but I was told this was different pain, mainly due to having said rods thrust up 22mm of root, ending, in my opinion, dangerously close to what brain I have. And, more objectively, near the sinus lining. Naturally, then I end up spending Saturday afternoon, and the early hours of Sunday in not quite as much agony as other times (Saturday evening was offset with lemsip followed by a judicious amount of white wine, consumed in a sod it, it’s not fair, I will have a Saturday, plus a slight dear god I’ll take anything to reduce the pain, and angst, for a while. Because for a while there I stopped believing we knew what we were doing… and how I address that, while in pain, and trying to work for a living, is a tricky one).

Fortunately today it seems better. Just as well on a Sunday. So I can put off any potential assertiveness till Monday, and cross my fingers it will settle. Otherwise, the toothless crone option seems good at the moment.

Where am I going with this apart from a ranty whinge or a whingy rant? I guess really it’s about several things; the pain and anxiety when bits go wrong, and the fear of it being really bad (I have form for this as early experience was all about dying and dead relatives – nurture and nature there); the insecurity of not knowing whether the professional you’re depending on is as competent as you’d like, and may have decided to go in the wrong direction with this; whether you’re actually in the right branch of this arsed up organisation of primary care – so maybe all the agony may not resolve the issue anyway (don’t bother trying to get them to talk to each other); and the sheer soul destroying tedium of feeling slightly rough, all the time, through hols and work, critical events etc; and the realisation on the one weekend you wake up feeling rested and well how bloody depressing it has been, how it brings you down in any other area. I stopped enjoying the simple things a lot – you can’t eat without thinking twice. And I’m lucky – not seriously ill (I’ve almost convinced myself of that), solvent, reasonably articulate (except when about to faint from pain with a dodgy mobile signal), with a flexible and understanding workplace. Like many things in life this could be made easier with a bit of joined up thinking and a bit less jobsworthy protection of the professionals. And I don’t even know how much it will cost yet -  a mixture of the pain overshadowing everything plus a bit of sand/head interface, and the knowledge that as the process creaks onward, yet another Visa month is around the corner. At least I’ve seen a sort of lengethened Grand Designs meets Sarah Beeney redevelopment of the dental surgery; the skirting boards are finally in – maybe it will be painted in time for Christmas when this might be over.

Random acts of creativity

I work for a theatre company in the IT Department – a role which is an interesting dichotomy of concepts such as structure, organisation, absolutes and those of serendipity, creativity, organic development. It does a lot for whole brain thinking; one minute there’s an accountant wondering how to speed up access to the finance system; next there’s a musician wanting to magically (wirelessly) print from one auditorium to another. Some of the time I see myself as a translator between the worlds of creativity and technology – requirements of the former can actively offend some of my technical colleagues whilst the structure and restrictions of IT and the communication styles of the techs can upset the creative people. Actually though, there isn’t that much difference – everyone is trying to achieve ends, everyone has their passions; maybe the key is communication.

Yesterday the Artistic Director spoke to us about where the company is and where it’s headed at a moment in time. In the meeting were accountants, armourers, builders, carpenters (I was going for an alphabetic thing here, but think I’ll stop), marketing people, press people, teachers, caterers, painters, actors, techies (count 1 – me – and I’m not quite a fully signed up tech), musicians, lighting experts, etc etc. An impressive group of professions and people, taken on a journey, mainly, by an individual.

He talked us through what was going on, what will happen, what might happen. Probably a lot of directors do this, but with different end products than theatre – so interesting in itself to hear something of the unfolding of creative vision. More than that though is how a softly spoken unassuming person can, on a average Tuesday, engage and inspire people. He is, as the guys behind me said, ‘the dude’.

In the schedule, vague and not so vague, for the next three years, are many things. But still he says, there will be room for ‘random acts of creativeness’. Good, we need as many random acts of creativeness as possible. I’m trying to avoid the slightly saccharine idea that maybe that forum in itself was such an act. But can’t so I won’t.

nb the caveat – my views are my views, not my employers.