Nine Feet Underground

It's not been a good week for walking so far, I seem to have too much going on, which means I've been busy each morning before starting work. Same today. Around nine in the morning son #2 returned home from the airport with his gf who's just flown in from Costa Rica (via the USA). Today we have a full house: there will be seven of us for dinner tonight!  Work is over and I've put in place a medium-term plan to solve yesterday's 'gig-envy': I've now got tickets to see The Orb and Queens Of The Stone Age, both in the same week in November. If their Glastonbury performance is anything to go by, QOTSA should be excellent, though perhaps not for everyone. In fact, specifically not for Q. She looked up QOTSA on the web as she'd not heard of them and on seeing the words 'stoner rock and metal' she knew it was not for her.  Instead I 'll be going with son #1 as the gig is in Brum. Son #2's gf has recovered a bit from her jetlag and is up abou...

It's already Thursday again!  The weeks seem to go by so fast. Work is the main topic for the day, which rather limits what I'll have to say. As it is International Men's Day, I'm attending a Teams call at lunchtime called 'What Makes a Man', part of our regular active inclusion programme of talks.  This call aside, it's a day of the usual stuff. I need to stop before six today as it's the weekly Idler drinks tonight. This evening the session focuses on Claudia Hammond, who has written a book called 'The Art of Rest' and who, amongst other things, presents BBC Radio 4's programme 'All In The Mind'. Another hour wonderfully well-spent: in a survey of 18,000 people reading was the number one restful activity (watching TV was the 9th); I'd not previously heard of 'mindless reading' (which I must now be on my guard against); and, lastly, the rather wonderful quote from Socrates, “Beware the barrenness of a busy life”! After ...

Made a more concerted effort to be awoken by the light of dawn (thank you Dawn!), but still the alarm was what woke me, even though I'd set it for 10 to 7.  A bit too cloudy perhaps? Today is all about work, again. The euphoria of passing the certification exam has all but left me. Back to the stuff that needs doing, like the year end review process. Oh, tedium, where art thou? After work son #2 and I went to pick up son #3 from uni - his next week is a reading week, so he's decided to return for a weekend of home comforts (I think I'm going to have extra washing) before getting stuck in to his reading and end of year essays next week. After returning with son #3, it was time to get stuck in to cooking - we'd decided to make chilli con carne tonight and the recipe reckoned 10 minutes prep and 1 hour to cook it so it was straight into prep after washing hands etc. Team effort until the later stages when things were just cooking, then the rest was done by son #2 and I. A ...