Just another manic Monday...

Monday 24th February 2014. 23:14.

Third, or is it forth, week started with the 'new' team. Not so really new anymore I guess.

I am working harder, and up and down a lot more. But I am loving it. Anything is so much easier when the people I help are a lot easier to help. Something about the eagerness, and willingness to learn.

It's just nice knowing that I can really make a difference to their day, just be being there, and by imparting knowledge and showing them how many things ARE possible, when initially they might think they aren't.

I had Chloe to stay overnight at the weekend, and she brought one of her friends, Ella for a sleepover. Having worked till 2pm on Saturday, and them arriving at 5pm, and leaving around the same time Sunday, I didn't really get that much of a weekend. Although I'm trying hard to make that not sound like I'm complaining.

I consider it a nice thing, that Chloe wants to invite friends to stay over here. The mess and chaos however isn't really from Chloe's friends though. It's normally from Chloe. Perhaps her Mother has either stronger levels of tolerance or thinly veiled insanity to be able to cope with that. Being a teenager, I guess it's pretty much Chloe's job to bring chaos, disorder and destruction to wherever she goes. At least I don't really have to deal with the moody sulking stamping of feet and slamming of doors that punctuated my teenage years.

Tomorrow is the last filming day of 'Prime Directive'. I can't quite believe it. Seems to have dragged on for so long, and just well, become part of my life that I think once it's gone I will actually miss it. Just the pain of making sure that I leave work on time in order to get a train home, eat, change, feed the cats, and to catch another train up to Steve's. I find that quite stressful in itself.

The bemoaning whilst it's in progress, and then missing once it's all over is vaguely similar to how it used to feel producing a play.

My friend Kat is leaving the place we both work at. She's got another job somewhere else. This is rather sad, as I don't really want to see her leave, but I do also understand and believe that maybe she will feel better if working in a different place. She'll get a chance to do something different. Not everyone is cut out to do the same thing, or work in the same place. It would be a terribly boring world if that were the case. She's also going on holiday in a couple of weeks time, which means she effectively leaves in two weeks.

In a week's time, I'm having a second go at meeting up with Helen for lunch, and to do some filming with my friends. Hopefully this will go ahead. Bearing in mind that last week's attempt at this failed because Helen ended up needing to stay at home doing some work, and the only people that could turn up were Andy and Paul. We abandoned the filming, and just ordered pizza.

Just for the sake of saying it, I haven't done any writing lately. Too much working, too much gazing at the telly. Words may lead to actions, but they are not actions in themselves.

I'm (day) off

Day off. Screw the cleaning. Get out and spend some time in the sunshine.

Oh. Okay then. 

I finally submitted the registration form for the new Doctors. Having not moved the doctor practice I belong to since when I lived in the centre of town, I needed recently to go to the doctor, when I felt ill (why else would I go to the Doctor?) and it was a pain having to go into town to go see them. 

Having been reminded by my Mother (for reminded, see moaned at) to get the form completed and sent in last week, I took the chance on my day off to put the bloody thing in. 

I have made an appointment to go see the nurse at the new doctors' surgery. I don't know if this is just a way of setting a baseline in the health of potential and future patients, or is it a way to weed out the unhealthy (and therefore resource absorbing) future patients. 

Having managed to pry myself away from the flat I headed to Southsea to go and see my Nan. I had originally planned to go see a film tonight with some of the guys from work, but spent longer at Nan's than I figured. There are other times to go see films with my friends. Family are important. 

Talking to my Nan is like reading out the letters to editor page from the Daily Mail. Her views are somewhat expectedly old fashioned, but also decidedly bigoted, shallow and right wing. She is a shining example of those that vote UKIP because they're fed up with all those pesky immigrants being let into the country, and don't even get her started on the gays. 

Aww bless her. 

Share your germs with me will you ?

I'm all for this caring and sharing lark, but not so enamoured with the sharing of germs and not caring who you infect. Being not completely well is not a state I take to lightly. I don't enjoy finding it hard to breathe, or having to blow my nose repeatedly, or feel groggy, lethargic and weighed down by my own body's efforts to win a bacterial war with whatever dastardly virus has deigned to infect me. My very bones aching, giving me unwanted appreciation of my deteriorating years.

No. Don't like it one bit.

I suppose however, that all the things I have mentioned above are the result of my body fighting the infection. The symptoms present, as it were, from my immune system waging war. The alternative, when you put it like that is pretty clear.

Let your body, your immune system do its thing. Help it if you can. But don't bitch when it's literally trying to save your life that you feel a tad uncomfortable.

I've felt progressively shit since about Sunday. Today I rounded the corner. Having woken up in a similar state of dread and lethargy as the previous day, I am actually surprised to find that I am as well as I am this evening. This simple, and silly things that our mothers tell us, we ignore at our peril. Get some rest. Drink lots of fluids. Eat fruit. Have soup.

I have done all of these, though not probably in that order (eating soup whilst asleep is not to be recommended, and most Doctors, in fact would strongly advise against it). Monday night I went to bed at 8:30pm. I haven't been to bed that early since I was nine years old. Okay, I haven't been to bed that early, alone, since I was nine years old.

Hot blackcurrant drink, cold / flu paracetamol, hot chicken soup, marmite toast... and fruit. Yes fruit. Ah the daily banana. All these things, and despite that part of me each of the last two mornings saying 'go back to bed, ring in sick... nice warm bed...' I haven't done so. I have to be honest the thought of getting into trouble at work was not the motivation for deciding not to wimp out.

I just hate, hate, hate, hate, daytime television. I can be miserable and ill at work, I don't need to limit that state to the flat. It's hardly fair on the cats now is it.

My daughter asked yesterday if her friend could stay over at the weekend. I am glad that I am recovered(ing). I never had sleepovers when I was a kid. No one other than someone I was related to stayed over at my house. My childhood was much the poorer for it, I think.

The recovery also means that I was probably right to cancel the JFDI filming slot I had planned for tonight, but that I am healthy enough to go to Beacon for start of filming of 'Prime Directive'. Not that I have learned any of my lines.

I have however taken great pains to highlight some of them on the kindle app on my ipad. Surprisingly useful for line learning.

I've found the week a mix bag of elation, excitement, tedium and excrement so far. Monday being the high point, where I purposely did not turn on my computer until the afternoon, asking one of the other managers to get all the morning stats n shit off for me. I find it all too easy to get caught up with the minutia of endless shite that is my email inbox at work. There really never is an end to it, and it gets me frustrated. Frustrated because what I really, really, love doing is spending time out with my team. Quality time helping and praising my team. They really are a lovely bunch, and I absolutely love them for what they do, and who they are. I just hate all the bullshit stuff that stops me spending more time with them.

Strangely all the stuff that comes with being a manager, stops you being a manager.

There's always someone worse off.....

Working, as I do in a busy office, surrounded by people all day, speaking to other people that aren't geographically near them and imparting such obvious gems as 'The way to get better availability is to not select unavailable' I have come to several conclusions.

Opinions are like arseholes. Everyone has one, but some of them stink
Some people are miserable. Some people are happy. Some people are only happy when they are miserable.
Some people think so much of themselves, and how perfect that they are that they actually can't see the person they really are.

Today being a late start, I was up after a short battle with the alarm clock and a surprisingly good sleep, alert, energised and ready to start the day. The gorgeous sunny day that greeted me outside the window meant I walked to the bus stop with more than a chirp in my step. The fact that I missed by mere seconds (well, maybe about 120 of them) the bus that would have gotten me to work comfortably on time, didn't phase me. Nor did catching another that meant I had to frog march a mile at the other end, arriving as I did with seconds to spare before the start of the day.

Some days it takes more of an effort than others to actually travel that far and make it into the building. There are times too when I will nearly skip through the security pods.

In these perilous times I count myself glad that I have a reasonably well paid job, and security. In addition it's worth remembering that difficult as our day to day existences and jobs can be, we're not trying desperately to find the rest of our family, or rebuild our shattered lives under the looming threat of radiation exposure. In short, we got it bloody easy compared to others. There is always someone worse off than you. The pictures on the TV, and the information online is frightening, appalling, emotion invoking. How humbling it is to see the people in Japan trying to deal with the massive and unprecedented disaster that nature has visited upon them. An 8.9 magnitude earthquake, thousands dead, missing, injured and homeless. Yet they still manage to carry on quietly with dignity. The trains working the next day. Makes you wonder. If such things happened in the UK, I dread to think how long it would take us to get the trains working again (that relies on the presumption that the current level of service can be defined as working).

British people in general seem to be a nation of moaners. If you don't like it, bugger off and do something else with your day, and stop making everyone else pay for your bad decision. If you want to be something else, go be that.

Physician. Heal thyself.