Skip to main content

Time for reflection

Blink and it's Sunday evening again. Where did the week go, and more to the point where has this year gone? I was reflecting on 2014 yesterday. It's been a year of so much change. Starting with all that uncertainty of what might happen work wise, the stress of finding a new job, selecting the right job, balanced by the amazing opportunity to have 4 months of freedom from commuting, being in an office and being governed by a working week. I have so many highlights from that time - spending time in our new house, Glenn and I spending lots of time together, and in particular riding Mount Ventoux, being able to cycle and swim everyday, walking twice a day with Scoobs and of course being able to spend more time with Abi and Izzy. Also the creative challenge of planning our house, the satisfaction of making decisions and getting it all sorted, seeing it all completed within a year of moving in. Being able to do it in one go has resulted in a much better, more cohesive finish than we could ever have achieved doing it in stages. I guess the moral of that one is that often it is worth waiting until you can do the whole rather than just part....but we are not patient people so how lovely to have not had to wait! Then the craziness of a new job, new people and new ways of working. I'm happy to say that 4 months in I'm making a very positive impact and it's going really well. I've let go of the angst of 'is this the right job forever??' I'm just satisfied that it's the right job for now. There's so much I can contribute, as well as so much to learn, a good balance. I'm also managing to set pretty good boundaries around how I work and I make it home in time to see the girls 4 nights out of 5 most weeks - not bad all considering the job and the commute. Time will tell but if I think about how much uncertainty we had this time last year, we couldn't really have asked to have made so much progress,
to be so settled, so happy, in such a short time.

One of my big learnings out of the front end of this year was that downtime is not just nice, it's needed. Once upon a time I struggled to just mooch around at the weekends, getting wound up if I'd not got out on my bike or to the gym. Now that's still good but it's not the defining factor of my weekend. Today Izzy trooped into our room at 7.30am (second day in a row she's been first up - very unusual), then trooped out again to go downstairs to watch something on her ipad (very Izzy!). I got up and walked Scooby and then we hung out in the house doing a bit of drawing and painting, chatting on the phone to mum, all very low key but perfect to recharge. I've learnt to be kinder to myself. If you fill every moment time goes even faster, so allowing things to slow down at the weekend has multiple benefits. Time wasted is not always wasted time. Glad it's only taken me 41 years to understand this...

The big excitement this week is Abi's birthday. We went to bed on Thursday to find she'd written out daily post it notes and stuck them onto her bed so she can take one off each day until we get to the magic moment. Back to each person's personal perception of time. When you're nearly eight a week feels like a lifetime. 30+ years later and it passes in a flash. As Roald Dhal (currently the girls favourite author) wrote in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: "We have so much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's beginning to feel a bit like Christmas...

I was sure I write the blog last week.... but, it seems another 2 weeks have flown by and now we are staring down the barrel of the Christmas holidays and the end of the year! Currently it's all about Doug and what a star he has proved to be so far. He has now been with us for 3 weeks and he is (so far, I keep thinking at some point it will change) a pretty chilled out puppy. As a second dog he has been thrown in at the deep end and has been to Sunday lunch with Alan & Sarah (which he loved), socialised at home with friends and their dogs, met babies (he loved Elsie) and started to go for walks. The walking has been a bit different to our previous approaches with new dogs. In the past we have ventured out carefully, making sure that our new baby only walks a short distance so they can experience all the new sights and sounds. Doug's first walk was after Sunday lunch last week, just him and 8 other dogs for bout 45 mins - he loved it! In our defence we didn't let him wal...
Post a Comment
Read more

Welcome Albert James!

So this week has been full of new things - Jess and Chris have welcomed Albert James Wilkinson Rayner to the family, a tad early but all doing well apparently (and so cute!!), I started my new job, Abi has her new shed and Dad got sorted on a phone that wasn't invented before the kids were born!! I always knew this week was going to be full on and it certainly has been. The first thing I had to do was try and sort out my diary which had been filled from dawn to dusk by my predecessor with meetings. I decided to set out as I mean to go on and immediately took out those that started before 9am. While I can get into  the office for 8am , it's a pain and requires me to be on the 6:30am train which is just a bit much every day (stating the obvious). I then made it clear that we don't need to be joined at the hip for the next 4 weeks which is a sensitive process - even though he is retiring it's hard to let go and he is understandably keen that the team are looked after. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Diary management!

This part of the summer is definitely typified by me trying to remember who is supposed to be where and when. Abi likes to be off doing something with someone while Izzy is happier to know she's close to home and so for the last week they've gone their separate ways. Abi has been down in Somerset making the most of Ben and Laurie being about. From what I can tell she's having a lovely time. Apart from the covert phone call one evening to tell me she was 'starving'  (Mum was cooking for the hordes and so it had been delayed), I've barely heard from her. The few calls I have had have very quickly ended in "can I go now" like I'm making her speak to me! Today she switches from Mum and Dads to a night or two with Kerrie - not sure who is more excited! Izzy didn't want to be away for that long so she opted not to go. She's very conscious that Abi and Laurie are joined at the hip when together and Ben has his own things he wants to do so she ...
Post a Comment
Read more