Tag: Emilie Autumn

If I Burn

13th May 2020 13th May 2020 by Sleeper in , No Comment

I could beg a thousand times.
I could explain.
I could use rhymes
And rhythms meant to catch your eye,
But I know you won’t see.

Tuesday

Completely failed to get the kids dressed before breakfast. Oh well. Seem to have settled into what seems like a low-stress rhythm at work, which no doubt can’t last for long. By the time I broke for lunch, things had started to go south, of course. There was an interview booked in for the afternoon, which it turns out our recruitment team had forgotten to invite the candidate. D’oh. Apart from that little issue, though, the rest of the day passed reasonably without incident.

Ended the day getting the kids into bed slightly late, then a conversation with J about the nursery arrangements – they’ll be re-opening on June 1st and had asked when each child is expected to return. From July onwards if the kids aren’t back, they’ll be charging half fees. We’ve said early July for now; who knows what will happen in the next seven weeks? Finished up with a FaceTime drinks session; this one was low-key and we finished around 10:30, plenty of time to sleep.

Wednesday

… or not. Woke at 5am and failed to get any more rest. Eventually gave up shortly after 7, and chased the kids, who were downstairs watching TV, back upstairs to dress before breakfast. Miraculously, everyone was ready for the day well before 9am, something that hasn’t happened for weeks.

Any pretence that the wildlife hasn’t completely destroyed the carrots is now well and truly over; I checked on the vegetables before breakfast only to find the planter half emptied, compost and battered looking seedlings surrounding it. Argh. I’m currently planning on sowing some replacements at the weekend and using something substantial, like chicken wire, to keep the blasted animals away. The potatoes at least seem to be doing OK; I’m not sure about the beans which probably didn’t take well to the late frost a couple of nights ago.

Work was… fine, I guess? Some good parts, some bad? I’ve had worse days by a long shot; punctuated by meetings which were broadly productive. Nothing really to report there.

After dinner, took Sleeper Jr. on a bike ride. I’d been researching local routes and found a dirt track not far from us that leads to a decent-sized park right on the edge of the green belt, surrounded by countryside. Was pretty fun, but very slow going. I’d taken the hybrid as I didn’t expect the terrain to be suitable for the road bike. On that I was entirely correct; even that was a struggle with the narrow road tyres it has fitted, making for one of the few occasions that my son was a much faster cyclist than me. On the way home he complained of a headache, which he was really struggling with by the time we got back. I suspect his helmet was too tight, after his sister decided to play with the adjustment dial. Either way it’s a trip we enjoyed on the whole, but we’ll probably not head that way again in the near future.

Tonight I was supposed to be kegging the saison in the fermenter and cleaning the beer lines before hooking up the kölsch ready for drinking; by the time everything was settled, it was way too late. One for Friday. Instead I’ve been planning a vague route for my next road bike foray; I’m pondering Hampton Court Palace and back on Sunday morning.

One Foot in Front of the Other

3rd April 2020 3rd April 2020 by Sleeper in , , No Comment

How did I come to this, where every song I sing
Is nothing but a list of pain and suffering?

We never will forget, and no, we will not forgive!
We’ve fought hard not to die, yet we don’t know how to live-
How do we change our world to what we want it to be?
How do we move beyond all of this misery?

Thursday

Ouch. Maybe staying up till midnight talking nonsense isn’t such a good idea after all. Woke at 5am with a headache. Eventually dragged myself out of bed at 7, got the kids up, dressed and breakfasted, then went back to bed for half an hour before I started work at 9, by which time I felt mostly human again. Settled in for a sprint planning session that lasted far longer than it had any right to. I’ll be glad when this project’s over and I can get back to my normally-scheduled work routine.

More cold cuts for lunch, this time in bagels; we’re running out of bread. Lunch was cut short a little as my boss needed an urgent catch up before I headed into an interview at 1pm. We’ve had a run of disastrous candidates; today’s was thankfully an exception, but I don’t know if they have what we’re looking for. Emailed our recruitment team to set him up with the next stage; that will tell me pretty quickly whether he’s any good. For once I had an afternoon free of meetings; I was able to get some work done almost uninterrupted!

Had a long, useful talk after the kids were in bed, about what we can do in the short to medium term about childcare arrangements. While right now we’re not paying anything (or at least, a nominal amount) to the nursery, it’s a struggle to fit full time work in and keep the kids from killing each other. We’ve got something of a plan; hopefully it’ll work out well enough.

Friday

Woke at 7 from a nightmare involving trying to contact my mum who’d been admitted to a hospital which bore an uncanny resemblance to Bristol Temple Meads railway station, with added shades of Altered Carbon; people at the reception desks kept tapping at their computers and then talking about sleeve death. I’ve been trying to stay away from current events news too much, to keep the kids’ mental health up as much as anything else, but it’s still obviously getting to me.

Went straight in to an early morning call with my boss to discuss a sudden, unexpected, incoming political bunfight; gave him the data he needs to push back hard. Found myself dragged into a meeting as a result, but managed to give all the details required quickly enough, in contrary to some of the other endless meetings I’ve been in.

Braved the supermarket over lunchtime; wasn’t too horrendous, and at least in the rapidly-moving queue outside everyone was maintaining a reasonable separation. Had a brief chat with the guy marshalling the queue who took advantage of the fact he was outdoors to sneak a crafty roll-up; he’d bee there since 7am and was just getting to the point (at 1 in the afternoon) that he could take a break. Sterling work there; he was in decent spirits despite what must be an enormously boring job. Inside, at least in some aisles, the social distancing wasn’t so great, but armed with the scan-and-pay app I managed to stay away from majority of people and get almost everything I wanted, the exceptions being flour and frozen vegetables, of which they had precisely none. I could at least get pizza dough mix so the plan for home made pizza isn’t out of the window.

Back to work on my return, mostly head down apart from one Zoom call to say goodbye to P, my now ex-boss, and an apologetic one from the new boss asking me to keep an eye on Slack over the weekend due to a badly organised performance test run happening.

Spent some lovely time with Sleeper Jr., talking about major events in recent-ish history; concentrating on the good we’ve been talking about the Apollo missions and the Berlin Wall coming down. We watched some footage from both on YouTube. It’s been nice to actually educate him on things he doesn’t know about, and which aren’t computer programming or maths related for a change. Tomorrow, we’ll maybe get to do some gardening!