2 posts tagged “life”

 
Baking research
Originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good

Since returning from holiday, I've set my sights on one very important goal.

It may seem to early to be thinkign about it, but as much as people want to deny it Christmas is coming.

With such an important celebration coming up, some individuals find shameless self-gratification in the creation of a whole variety of foodstuffs we wouldn't otherwise eat ourselves or offer up as gifts to friends of family.

Those same people suddenly start pouring over recipe books in a bid to find the formula for the perfect Christmas. If we can only find the perfect recipe we could, potentially, give the perfect gift.

According to Delia Smith, I should technically be starting the prep for the stalwart Christmas cake on Thursday night. Brilliant. I rub my hands together with glee. I get to start the cooking process on Thursday night. I can't wait.

Then there's the preserves (apparently, again according to Delia, these have to be left in a cupboard for three months before consumption) and sundry sweet titbits.

All of this adds up hours of baking joy to be had in the run up to the main event.

Normally I'm foaming at the mouth when I clap eyes on wrapping paper or gift catalogues or big expensive gifts showcased in high street stores and internet websites. But where food is concerned, forward planning is not only fun and acceptable but advisable to.

Such a shame that work is getting in the way.

Leaving card

Just how much does your work life bleed into your home life?

I seem to recall thinking at some point during my big-haired, emaciated early twenties that proper people with proper jobs managed to get to their desks early at the beginning of every day. After they'd powered through their considerable to-do lists, it was these very same ordered people who made a point of leaving bang on five o'clock, making haste to get home for a relaxing evening.

This is not something I subscribe to at all. I just don't think it's possible. I've always known I don't keep work and home life separate. I'm an ideas man. Ideas don't come to mind between the hours of nine and five. They can come at any time without warning. That's why ideas people rely on their notebooks or on their laptops. That's just the way it is for me.

That said, this week, I've come around to thinking that its not that I have an affliction thinking about work the whole time. It's more like quite a lot of other people do too. Maybe I'm not quite as an unusual as I think I am. Maybe I'm not in the minority.

I went for a girly night out with a friend early this week. It was a tonic of an experience. I'd got to the restaurant early, stressing about the things I'd done during the day and the things I had to do the following day. I forced myself to write stuff. I missed writing. Do something before she gets here, I thought. That's the kind of person I am.   When my friend arrived we gassed about everything and nothing in between munching on pasta and olives and various other titbits. It was a joy. By the time the evening had to draw to a close, I was considerably more relaxed than when I went to the restaurant. (Interestingly, after I said goodbye to my friend I noticed the same stresses and strains come back and lodge themselves in the pit of my stomach.)

What was reassuring about what we talked about was hearing how her husband often found himself working and thinking in the same way I did. He's always reading newspapers apparently, always watching the news. He always needs to keep an eye on what's going on. I know her husband and look on him as though he's the kind of person who *doesn't* need to do that because he's so very good at what he does. When I learnt that he is pretty much the same as I am, I felt instantly reassured.

It didn't last long of course. Come the next day that same familiar feeling crept in and accompanied me on my way back into work. Work starts early in the morning - this week as soon as I've woken up - and rarely finishes until my head has hit the pillow again. In between those times I'm painfully aware of the need to keep energies up, remain focussed and try to maintain a relatively cool and reasonably good-humoured exterior.

Inevitably, it's not easy. There are questions to be asked and assessments to be made, fears about deadlines, concerns about possible misinterpretation of emails and messenger conversations and the thorny issue of my own personal sense of trust.

Good little producer

Little wonder my mate from Belfast asked me how I managed to remain stick thin when we last went to visit. Post-it notes and notepads might give the appearance that everything is very well-organised in my life but at times it's little more than a reminder of the physical state of anxiety I find myself under from time to time.

I spend a lot more of my time thinking about what can be said and what can't be said, fearing a great big god-like figure somewhere up in the sky bearing down on me with a big staff, wagging a finger in response to a personal judgement or a decision I've made.

This is one fine example of where my professional life bleeds into my personal one. Weighed down by a constant fear of crossing boundaries, the joy I felt I had writing a blog six months has disappeared. This perpetual state of self-assessment has an impact on my creative juices. It stops me from writing. It questions what it is I should and shouldn't write. Should I even hit the publish button? Should I, in fact, have my work read over by at least three people, proofed and typeset before I hit publish?

But perhaps the most destructive question of all is what to blog about. Think about that one and my hands won't go near the keyboard for fear of immediate humiliation. Plenty of people blog - seen a never ending stream of pundits on TV during the Mayoral election run. Those blogs are popular. People go there for news and comment. The bloggers are personalities in their own right. They are the new journalists. Those blogs and their authors are on the ascendancy. That's the kind of writing people want.

People generally don't want to and probably won't read the ramblings of someone wearing his heart on his sleeve. Don't do it. If it doesn't fit it with what everyone else is doing, don't do it. You'll only make a fool of yourself.

That's where I'm at with the writing thing. At the moment I'm finding that work throws up many, many reasons not to write and publish and not solely in terms of the amount of time I have set aside to do it every day. Sometimes that can be terribly disappointing depending on my blood-sugar level at any given moment.

Out on the decking in May

It's only today - a gloriously sunny Saturday in London - as I sit in the kitchen with the back-door open, listening to the Weepies on CD that I begin to feel the benefits of a mild-spring day. There is sixty pounds worth of bedding plants to pot-up, the grass to cut and the sheer indulgence of replaying "To Serve Them All My Days" from BBC iPlayer Radio. Its going to be a charming afternoon.

This may not immediately seem like the most appealing way to spend a Saturday nor to include in a blog posting, but I'm reckoning I deserve the simplest of indulgences and absolutely no interruptions whatsoever. Even the most passionate and committed individuals are allowed to break out of the sometimes destructive habit they have.

And if it means I feel suitably inspired and confident to write over the bank-holiday weekend, then fantastic. If not, then there's always Doctor Who and large bottle of red to sink.