Posted under Photo A Day 2011, Photography
A little light-hearted fun at bedtime…alas the emphasis on ‘fun’ was too great and they are still bouncing around now at 8.30pm which is waaaaaaay past their bedtime. All the photos are on the soft side but there we go. Here’s Diggy, making some fine tune adjustments to the Holga. Pity there’s no film in it of course…
Bertie battles with the beastly Polaroid…
The master at work. “Click!” he says triumphantly…”Good one!”
Posted under People I love
Not much sign of the people in this shot working is there? But I’m sure about 80% of them are…they look like they’re hanging out in a smart restaurant surrounded by some of the most expensive real estate in the City of London…but they are working, oiling the wheels of commerce and all that. The rest of them are skivers and shoppers.
I’ve been pondering about work a bit and, more specifically, my work and why I do it. I’ve worked since the day I graduated and have never been out of work, not even for a day. That’s, ahem, 19.5 years of continuos gainful employment and pension contributions (since I’m that kind of boring person who actually thought about pensions at the age of 21).
More or less I’ve enjoyed my various careers, and there have been three very different and distinct careers. Up and down, good days and bad days of course, but generally I’ve loved it. Mostly I’ve worked with brilliant, clever, funny, inspired and inspirational people…nearly always I’ve felt appreciated and been paid appropriately…only VERY rarely have there been days when I’ve not wanted to go to work, or dreaded it. That’s not bad going for a working life that spans half my life.
That said, I’d really rather NOT work. I’d be perfectly happy not to work, and ‘just’ manage the house and the children and our lives. Instead I work (part-time) AND manage the house and the children. Not on my own, since MrSpud is a brilliant hands-on father of the highest order, but there’s only so much he can do when he is out of the house for 11 hours a day. I don’t have help with the children, I don’t have family help. It’s just me (and, in the interests of transparency, a cleaner and a gardener).
We ‘could’ manage if I didn’t work, but our cloth would have to be cut accordingly and the cut would be a whole lot cheaper than it is right now. The cleaner would go, and the gardner, and non-funded nursery hours for Digs, and fancy holidays and more besides. Our lives would be different for certain, but we could manage it.
I just don’t know how I’d justify walking away from paid work though, and therein lies the issue. Bertie is at school, in September Diggy will be too. I can’t play the ‘my children need me at home’ card anymore although, I’m now finding, it turns out they need you WAY more once they start school although in rather different ways from the early years. I think that’s part of my current angst, that my work needs to be squeezed in to such a short day (i.e. the school day) that there’s no time to breathe what with the school run/work/after school activities/play dates and all that stuff. Soon Bertie will start staying up beyond 7pm and then my evening, as I currently know it, will start to be eroded to. Where in all this is there a little time to just ‘be’?
But, then, where is there time in MrSpud’s life to just ‘be’? The answer is, ‘never’. He gets up, throws milk/breakfast at any child that happens to get up, cycles for 30 minutes to the station, commutes to London for 1 hour and 15 minutes, cycles to his office for 10 minutes or so, works for 6.5 hours, then does it all in reverse, walks in to the house, reads to the boys and puts them to bed, cooks my dinner, hangs out for an hour or so and goes to bed. And then he does it all again the next day. And he never, ever gets a break from it. Ever.
So I work because, although I don’t ‘have’ to, it’s the right thing to do. I do it because it gives us more financial freedom as a family, because it takes some of the pressure off MrSpud, because one never knows what the future might hold and perhaps one day I might have to be the main breadwinner, because it’s folly to turn down paid work in this difficult climate, because my parents taught me the importance of a strong work ethic, because I want to set a good example to my boys, because I like the independence it gives me, because it’s good for my brain, because I was educated to do so, because I’m good at what I do and I’m valued for my contribution, because deep down I think I’d struggle without a role outside of being a stay-at-home-mum. Mostly, though, I work because it’s a habit.
Today Diggy thanked me for ‘letting him stay at home’ with me. I felt pangs of guilt if I’m honest. He goes to nursery for 4 short(ish) days a week during term time but my plan was that I’d keep him at home for an extra day every other week or so. In the meantime I’ve been given more hours at work so I’ve not kept to my plan. But, as MrSpud wisely pointed out today, being OFFERED the extra work doesn’t mean I have to do it. Which is more important, extra ££ that we ‘can’ live without in the short term…or some precious Mummy/Diggy days between now and July? In July Bertie will break up from school for the summer, and in September they will both be at school full-time. These are the last few months of me having time at home, alone, with Diggy. I’ve not had time alone with Diggy since he was a newborn and, honestly, those were dark days.
But these are BRIGHT days, not dark days. I want some special time with my surprise child and the days to do so are in short supply, and they are never coming back. I’m not jacking in the job, for all the reasons above, but I’m not going to feel guilty about working less hours than are on offer. We are lucky to have some flexibility in terms of my hours and our budget, and for the first 6 months of this year I’m going to take advantage of both.
Of course when I win the lottery it will all change ;-)
Posted under Lensbaby, Photography
Posted under The Gallery
Oh..The Gallery! Haven’t done this for a while, but then I haven’t come up for air for a while either. Tara’s theme this week is Mother Nature. I was a bit stumped as about 90% of my photos fall in to this category, but then I remembered this shot. I took it last Spring, along with many others, in a wonderful poppy field. I particularly love this one, although I never shared it for reasons I can’t remember.
I love the blurry Diggy and Bertie pottering along in the background. You can’t really see it but Bertie is hauling a couple of massive sugar beet along with him, left over from the previous year’s crop. Strange child…
Mother nature…flowers, greenery, megaboys…the holy trinity. x
Posted under iphone photography, Photo A Day 2011
Back to black & white again today. And the iphone. Lugged the Big Camera out but the battery ran out [basic schoolgirl error].
Presenting the River Deben where it meets the sea. Taken at Felixstowe Ferry, looking across to Bawdsey. Felixstowe Ferry is the weirdest place I know, a collection of ramshackle huts and grotty boats…bleak in this weather too. I’m really not at all fond of it although it’s worth the trip for fantastic fish & chips a the cafe. We had a blowy walk along the beach and found hundreds of beautiful shells, beach glass and other treasures. Diggy’s best favourite one was an old Tic Tac box which he clung to like it was the Holy Grail.
Another rather tough weekend of unpacking/sorting/chores/building furniture/putting up pictures and mirrors and all that jazz. One more weekend and it will be done. Then we’ll have a few months of relative calm before every bit of the house gets ripped up/hacked in to because we’re re-wiring AND putting in a new boiler/new heating system throughout. Pass me the gin someone.
Posted under Crochet, Photo A Day 2011
Finally, on day 22, a photo in full colour. Thus far my 365 has been starkly mono with one or two deeply desaturated shots. Today I’m all about VIBRANT!
I’ve now make 9 granny squares for Sarah London’s granny blanket project for those affected by floods in Australia. I started last night and can’t seem to give it up. It’s a real measure of how far I’ve come in just under a year that I can crochet a 5 round granny square in under 10 minutes. Although, ahem, that doesn’t include the tedious sewing in of ends as you can see.
I’ve picked out 7-8 balls from my stash and I’ll keep going until they are all gone. I think I’ll end up with 30 or so squares. I’m quite afraid of colour, although I love it, because I have very little idea about how to manage it. But making these squares has been so liberating…no point trying to be a all ‘matchy’ because my squares will be added in to those made by hundreds of others. So I’m just pikcing up the nearest colour and going with it.
One day soon I’ll rediscover the skill of shots that are actually in focus. Totally RAD….
Posted under Photo A Day 2011
Wooden letterpress letters…my name…a super present from The Wife…arranged quirky like this to annoy her well developed sense of order.
This looked like it was in focus when I checked it in camera. Clearly not. You live and learn.
Since I took this shot MrSpud has (a) pointed out the letters should appear in the reverse order and (b) has started a ‘fun’ game which involves rearranging the letters every time he passes them (they are on a window ledge on the staircase). Oh how I laughed! Two can play at that game…I’m getting some more letters which will include the letters KCUF FFO…for our continued rearranging pleasure. I win.
Posted under Photo A Day 2011
This is what happens when you leave your shot until the light of the day is on its way out and you’re on a conference call…you start shooting random crap. In a change from the usual, I shot this with my long neglected nifty fifty. I just LOVE that lens, although I am craving a couple of other prime lenses too [greedy icon].
Presenting my latest crochet project, a Granny Stripe blanket. I’m using up various balls of wool in my stash and thus I’m not madly keen on the colour scheme (hence the black & white, again). I’m going to give it to my aged aunt for her birthday on the basis that old people have shocking taste anyway? Awaits collective intake of breath…
Despite this being a ‘stash buster’ project I have ended up buying a few balls of wool anyway. How does that work? It wasn’t going to work at all without a few additional balls. Does that mean one can never, ever bust the stash? Granny squares used to be about using up odd ends of wool, but now they are an art form of their own.
I’m about to take a break from this project to make some granny squares for Sarah London’s ‘crochet a rainbow’ project, making blankets for those affected by the floods in Australia. Details here for anyone else feeling the need to get hooky to help.
Posted under Photo A Day 2011
In my office. Self -portrait in the very cool reflective backdrop to the bar. Yes, we have a BAR in our office. It’s all a bit Mad Men…
Suspiciously chunky looking calves. Perhaps the cankles are spreading north?
Posted under Photo A Day 2011
…are mice and shrews and voles and birds and bats and bunnies and weasels and other scurrying crittures and I want to go out there and chase them and catch them and bring them inside as a love gift for you.
…instead I am shut in this house, drowning in the Sea of Green Carpet, blinded by the Sunshine Yellow Curtains. I have been inside for 2 weeks now. When are you going to let me out? I am bored. Did you not notice my protest vomit on the Sea of Green Carpet today? You don’t have to be the sharpest pencil in the box to work out my coded message…LET…ME…OUT!
..somewhere out there…I am watching…I am waiting…I am biding my time…I will have my revenge…
