Well, that was odd. I received all the experience of losing a job – the surprise, the reasoning, the acceptance, the wishing everyone a slow and painful death etc – only then to retain it at the last as the company withdrew their redundancy offer. Need to help the company achieve targets etc. I was effectively made, as my friend and uncle chimed, dundant. And who the hell wants to be dundant? Other things I appear to have gained is more face. Although in fairness, I don’t think it’s happened just this week. In my aging state, which is a good a place to be as any when confronted with the alternative, the moisturiser (modern man, you see) seems to spend more time outside the cupboard than the hair wax. More face, less hair. Which, when you have a face as pretty as mine, isn’t such a bad thing, right? I know I’ve mentioned before how much of a positive person I am, even I didn’t realise I was quite that positive. When does positivity and delusion collide, I wonder? I’ve been churning through a few things this week, Dr Chatarjee’s Feel Better in 5 Minutes about gentle exercises to improve mind and body (great for those with little will-power) and more interestingly The Art of Resilience - Strategies for an Unbreakable Mind and Body by Ross Edgley. There’s a common saying within start-up companies that every overnight success is ten years in the making, and Ross is the embodiment of that. Ross travelled the world meeting far-flung tribes to understand stress and endurance, before setting himself the challenge of circumnavigating 1,780 miles of Great Britain by water without anything but his body, willpower and vast amounts of cake. Let’s say it all didn’t go swimmingly (arf!), but he writes engagingly and has one hell of a story to tell. An incredible read.
I’ve spent the weekend up in the bush again, enjoying the peaceful surrounds of country victory. This morning I thought I’d take in the quiet solitude with a cup of tea and a tranquil sunrise, for all the world believing I was the last human. But then that’s the problem with the wild, it’s packed full of wildlife. With the creeping light came the shrieking of the galahs and cockatoo’s, the swooping yet shy rosellas (twats), the squawking magpies, the crowing . . . ermm, crows, a sodding cacophony of birdsong. The gall!! F‘sake! I am trying to enjoy nature, here!
1 Comment
John Drummond
2/27/2021 11:17:25 pm
The noisy crows chimes with my experience. When I was a schoolboy living in North London, my brothers and I spent our summer holidays in Scotland with our maternal grandparents. They lived outside a small village in a house in the grounds of the local Cemetery because Grandad was the supervisor. A bit spooky maybe? But we never felt any fear of ghosts. But a Cemetery should be 'as quiet as the grave' shouldn't it. But within the Cemetery there was a small wood which was home to about 40 or 50 crows. Every morning at dawn (very early morning in a Scottish summer) we were woken by the racket of crows quarrelling. I have always been sceptical of quiet holidays in the countryside ever since.
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