Lucifer has theories

Last week was in theory 2x0.5 days and one full day. I say in theory because Thursday ended up being the kind of day where I ended up pulling an all nighter - but I did have a 3 day weekend to recover!

All things considered its going well - additional support is still there - I've wrestled the inbox down to 200 emails - though things are going a bit slower as I'm now working through the more thorny issues no-one could deal with while I was off. Alas I only have 2x0.5 days to deal with admin this week, as this morning, Thursday morning and Friday morning as are all site inspections.

But it feels OK and I'll be setting aside some dedicated days for admin clearance and work digital decluttering from August through to December.

Ridiculously I still have 20 days annual leave which I'm supposed to take by the end of August so obviously that isn't happening!!

However I'll be taking every Friday from next week off, and I've booked time off at the end of August. Which means I'll have 10 days left. We can carry over 5 with no issue and in the past they've agreed to 10 in special circumstances so I'm hoping to get that signed off. If not I can sell the extra 5 back - but Id rather carry them over - though that does mean I'll end up with something like 40 or 45 days leave (including public hols) for the next 12 months. That's an issue for future Ruric. :o)

Friday's off mean a return to crochet club and I went to my first session for ages last week and the week before. Made significant progress on one outstanding project so feel happy about that.

Because this week is still phased return I have tomorrow and Wednesday off. Current plans are: tidy front garden, tip run, continue with sorting bedroom, tackle the allotment for a few hours early Weds morning and do a giant load of washing at the ex's on Weds afternoon.

It's still hot as balls here - 29-31C but it feels a tiny bit less brutal - as we've had some breezes and the humidity has dropped a bit.

On the casa chaotica front tidying is taking longer than expected because HEAT but I am plodding along slowly.

This evening will be an episode or 2 of TV, making some healthy food and I still have a couple of hours of work to do (left the office early because it was too hot).

Having had 6 weeks off after brain and body went "this far and no further" I start a phased return tomorrow.

Half days Wednesday (working from home 8:30 to 12:15pm) and Thursday (office 8am to noon or 10am till 2pm) then I'm off Friday. Plans for the time I'm not working between now and Monday include finishing tidying the bedroom,tidy the front garden and start getting the allotment back into shape.

Next week will be 2 half days and a full day and the following week 2 full days and a half day so by 20 July I should be back to normal. Still will be splitting time between. Working from home and office.

Priority for tomorrow is to triage my personal inbox (250 emails), fill out return to work forms for occupational health and update my car insurance and put in an expenses claim.

Thursday I need to start triaging the work inbox which has some 1100 emails which collgeagues have either partially dealt with,fully dealt with or which need my input. They look like they've done a decent job trying to colour code and tag them so the ones which are ticking can be prioritised.

Then next week its back to inspections - one of my colleagues has booked some in for Monday, Thursday and Friday so I guess those are the days I'll be working.

There are promises that things will be different on my return - I'll be interested to see if those are watertight!

Also why does it feel like its a billion degrees in my flat this evening? Both my phone and weather forecast say its 18C but it feels like 29C. Grrrr.

Yesterday temps in my flat hit 36C in the afternoon - which was less than delightful.

I've upped the amount of water I'm drinking and will be buying some electrolytes today as well - because Inpay closexattention to scientists talking about the dangers of wet bulb temperatures. *G*

Overnight temps are not dropping much below mid 20s this week, but last night there was a bit of a breeze around midnight - so I opened my windows and sat in the bathroom for 30 minutes with the top half of the stable door open to enjoy the slight drop in temps! This sufficiently dropped the temps in most of the flat to 25C so I did get some sleep.

Woke up at 5:30am this morning - kept windows open till 8am by which time it was starting to get hot again so battened down the hatches and all curtains closed.

Unfortunately my flat is E/W aligned - so blazing sun in the bedroom in the morning, then same in the living room in the afternoon/evening and the bedroom pretty much does not cool down.

It's supposed to be 32C today, 34C tomorrow, 30C Saturday and then drop to mid 20s. In theory there's also meant to be a lot of rain on Saturday/Sunday - fingers crossed that drops temps and doesn't just produce a humid stew!

Progress on sorting out the bedroom is non-existent at the moment because days are so hit that lying on the couch and napping/reading is the only viable way to survive!

Making the most of my last days before returning to work - next up is a tip/recycling run then home for a cold shower and to check if I can pop over to the ex's this afternoon with some laundry. And to see if I can make some modest progress on the bedroom today.

Today is supposed to reach 33C, tomorrow to Friday between 33C to 38C and as ever with humidity and Victorian buildings London is not prepared - so the temps in my flat are likely to reach the 40C's at some point over the next few days.

Though I'm not back at work until next week an advisory has gone out to work from home through the rest of this week.

There was a breeze yesterday and some rain both of which are which are very much missed this morning. Humidity is at 84% but at least my living room is currently a tiny bit cooler than the bedroom and I have plans for a cold shower in a wee while. At least temps are forecast to drop to the low 20s overnight.

The Met Office and Mayor have a heat advisory out.

My plan for today - drink plenty of fluids, maybe continue with a little gentle cleaning of my bedroom and see if I can squeeze in a recycling/tip run this afternoon, plus do everything I can to keep the cats hydrated.

THursday orFriday I plan to hustle over to the exes to do laundry- with the forescast high temps and sunshine I should be able to do several loads and get the dry!

So I've been signed off work since 19 May due to severe stress/depression.

Both GP and work have been super supportive and fortunately working for a local authority I get paid in full for sick leave.

Most of the last 4 weeks have seen me sprawled on the couch napping, reading for a short time then napping again.

Finally started to feel human again last weekend. At GP appointment yesterday we agreed that I'll return to work (phased return) from 1 July.

My plan is to be constructive over the next 13.5 days - clean the flat, do some gentle gardening and allotmenting and have already got time booked to use exes washing machine.

Had a lovely Bank Holiday away at gingerpig's.

Drove up Sunday early evening and had a very clear run so arrived in Suffolk just before 8pm - dinner of pizza, wine and chat and before we knew it we were into the wee small hours and retired at 1:30am.

On Monday we manage to leave the house briefly for a wander round the barns (antiques and jewellery) and I may have purchased a few small items which were calling my name. Coffee and cake in the cafe followed by a snacky lunch and we - perhaps unsurprisingly- had 6 eps of Heated Rivalry on the background whilst chatting.

After dinner I talked GP into watching the feeds for the Met gala (who are we and why are we watching this)? We had the feeds from the Mark and Carlyle hotels in on You Tube from 9pm to watch the departures, GP had her laptop queued up to the Vogue feed from the Met which was due to start at 11pm
(to make sure we missed nithing), and I was following the Met instagram on my tablet and in the London Loons Whatsapp chat for gossip.

A lot of time was GP and I saying who are these people (apparently we are now olds and not at all tuned in to pop culture) - fortunately the London Loons WhatsApp mostly knew the answers or the Met insta did. We were all hilariously scathing about most of the outfits (disappointing lack of imagination for most I felt) - though we were very impressed when Connor got his arms out on the Met steps and with Hudson leaving the Mark in little more than a bathrobe and stunning eye make up.

There was a sad lack of stills from the event on Tuesday - but some notable commentary on the fact the boys partied until dawn. If you can't do that in New York in your 20s when can you? I commend their ability to remain upright on so little sleep!

However from Wednesday onwards there's been a positive abundance of behind the scenes pixs and videos, from the sweet, to awkward to hilarious (the vids of Hudson trying to squash Connor into the matador jacket probably caused various designers/fashion houses to have a heart attack whilst the rest of us chortled in glee). I've been deriving a significant amount of second hand joy from them particularly in the hell week of local elections.

Speaking of which I pulled a 16 hour day on Thursday working as a poll clerk in Richmond. In some ways quite enjoyable (we were the party polling station with rounds of applause for first time voters and a chatty electorate), we were visited by many lovely dogs (despite the no dogs allowed sign) and lots of parents bringing kids along who we encouraged to pop the ballot in the box. I crashed as soon as I got in at midnight (fortunately didn't work the count) but the team whatsapp went mad at 4:30am the the news of the landslide. Every single one of the 54 councillors elected in Richmond was LibDem. I'd worried Reform might get a foot in the door but the voters came through with a very clear message.

Unsurprisingly my ward in Merton had voted our 3 Labour councillors back in with a strong majority, but more heartening the Greens were clearly in second place and Reform and the Tories were trounced. Forvoverall control of Merton - Labour have 39 councillors, LibDems 19, Conservative 4 and Indie's 2. Considering how many St George's flags turned up in the borough at one point I was very glad to see Reform not get any seats and they only made it to second place in one of the 20 wards.

Unfortunately nationally Reform took 1400 seats and several councils but their councillors have a habit of either stepping down when they realise the work involved or they say shitty thing which get them suspended. Going on the results of last year's local elections they'll fuck up the councils where they have control and cancel many much needed services whilst increasing council tax. Such absolute muppets.

As usual at work there's too much to do and not enough time but I'm feeling less stressed about it than before my weekend away.

Today was out allotment plant sale - I bought things - and tomorrow I'll be spending a lot of time on my plot strimming, prepping and planting. This evening I went back to my piercer, replaced the 3 studs I'd lost overvthe last few weeks and got my helix done again. There'll be a couple more helix piercings this year and then I start planning new tattoo's for 2027!

Tonight I plan to drink wine, eat a decent meals, clean the flat and read fic.

Almost a month since my last entry. So what's been going on?

Office move - my org started modernising our main building 18 months ago - they did 1st & 3rd floors. Now it's time for 2nd and 4th. We were supposed to be in our temporary space by 1 April LOOOOOOOL. Needless to say we packed all our shit, it was moved to new office space, but sign off on us occupying said space was delayed until Monday. So I'm behind with a lot of stuff as the things I needed to DO THINGS were inaccessible in the new space and then there was Easter.

Wales - I decamped to the cottage for Easter - and yes I did say to ravurian "Would-you-come-to-my-cottage-this-Easter" IYKYK. Lovely time was had - we chilled out, ate good food and visited some artists studios and bought more art which neithervof us has enough wall space to display. The solo drive up was long (traffic and road works) and took around 8 hours but the cats behaved. While away I watched Heated Rivalry (again - I'm well into double figures now in the space of 6 weeks), spent an afternoon and evening watching the EmptyNetters reaction podcasts which were delightful, especially the last live reaction pod followed by a summary. Watching 3 straight dudes talk themselves into the middle of the Kinsey scale was awesome. I read about 1 million words of fic (30,000+ Heated Rivalry fics on A03 and increasing at around 2k per week) and the quality of what I've read/am reading is astonishing. Also slept for 9 hours a night. The drive home was much better than the drive up.

Gigs and exhibition- Christian Kane was over for a con last weekend - didn't go 'cos they'd sold out of the good tix and not really convenient timing for my friends and I. But he played a gig last Thursday at the O2 Islington which was very well attended so off we went to that instead - which was a lot of fun and a reminder that I do like live music. Getting home turned into a bit of an adventure as it wasn't clear that Angel tube closed at 10pm for track repairs. Next day we met up for lunch (Wagamama in Battersea), a quick look around the Power Station development and shops and then we hit up the Rameses exhibition - which was good. Spent a couple of hours there - took loads of pics of the Egyptian jewellery. Then coffee and cake before we all headed home. Two days of socialing left me wrecked for the weekend though so all I did was nap and read.

Work - is pants - too much to do, not enough time or support so I'm pulling some very long days in the hope that it will give me some breathing space in May. Ha!

Heated Rivalry - yep still way down THAT particular rabbit hole. A lot of the fandom is happening on Threads and I'm there on two group chats (where the squee seems to live) as the people I know are either over it, not interested in the wider fandom (disappointed face) or have not seen it - though I'm working on an office colleague. I forgot how much fun it can be to be in a very active fandom with new filming on the horizon, and a new set of episodes coming and with a cast who are involved in lots of new projects too. I thought I was done with writing until last week when that muscle twitched again. Also the last 10 days have been a TIME to be in the fandom. With the leads stratospheric rise not only is there new TV to anticipate but all the other stuff. Connor's Verizon ad dropped, then Hunter's Laufrey music vid and Hunter's Peleton ad, Rachel and Jacob's panel at the bookcon, Connor's Tiffany dinner/campaign, a ridiculous amount of stunningly artistic photos of various cast members surfacing and then finally the show was announced as a Peabody winner today.

The fandom lost its mind.

The majority of posts have been a collective version of "I am ded, you have killed me", super thirsty posts about the ridiculous amount of new stuff realeased which absolutely shows smart brands and smart boys taking a massive punt at toxic masculinity and leaning knowingly hard into what they are selling, intermingled with detailed media literate analyseis of the books/TV series - so much content on Thread/Insta for that, rabid speculation about S2 and a potential S3 and what other projects are being announced. And then there's more fanfivs, edits, new fic and on and on.

Considering the rest of the world/news is depressingly fucking awful all day/every day and I seriously don't think we'll make it as a society through the next decade it's pretty much saving my sanity to get home in the evening a dive into HR and try to forget everything else for a few hours.

And on that joyful note I'm off to watch a couple of fanvids and see if either of the three huge WIPs I'm reading has dropped a new chapter!

How you are doing?

Last week was busy, this week will be too - but we have spring weather here in London, blue skies and that combination plus my current obsession is stopping me spiralling into apathy.

HOME: continuing the slow and steady deep clean and declutter - bathroom done. Next up is the bedroom. Didn't quite tick off all my targets last week but happy with progress.

HEALTH new hair cut was a hit at work - unexpected compliments left, right and centre! Opened up piercings not giving me any issues - definitely going back for helix (helices???) in May or June. Titanium jewellery the way to go. Planning new tattoos too. Sleep patterns normalising as I'm trying to put in the effort to get a solid 6-7 hours a night. Arthritic knees feeling OK. Rejoined the gym at the weekend - now just need to figure out how to fit sessions into my days. Need to find my Fitbit.

LIFE ADMIN: pretty much up to date - need to sort out green waste fees for the cottage, review council tax bills for cottage and London and apply for a postal vote. Sorting pensions on back burner until decluttering done - which should reveal where I stashed all the paperwork!

DIGITAL DECLUTTER: email still around 11,000, not managed to reduce it - in fact I looked away from it last week and by the weekend had 2000 unread. Ugh. Staying on top of transferring To Keep items from tablet to dropbox, have started reviewing and decanting images from phone because it is FULL.

GARDENING/ALLOTMENTING: barrowed 30 bags of compost from delivery site fown to my plot on Friday. Community day at the plots on Saturday, which was lovely, and then Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon I started prepping my plot. I have a plan to tackle it in 1-2 hour blocks to avoid overwhelm.

COOKING/EATING: fewer takeaways last week and stocked up on healthy food at the weekend - so no excuse for bad habits. Getting back into overnight oats for breakfast (great for grab and go mornings) and giant salads for lunch. Reactivated membership of a logging site which let's me track macros and calories - suspect I'm out of whack on my carb/protein balances.

READING/LISTENING: Finished re-reading Heated Rivalry matching book chapters to rewatch episodes. May be diving back into a reread of the other books as I have time off for Easter.

WATCHING: still Heated Rivalry all the way. I think I've fully reheated 5 times but also watched various eps as standalone so ai'm at the point where I've lost count and no longer care. I'm all up in the fanvids too - I'd forgotten how much I enjoy them! Picking up some shorter fan edits too (mostly from tumblr and insta I think). May have to do a short term subscription to YouTube premium over Easter so I can legally download my faves. This fandom is also very generous - people are sharing Google doc fic links which are truly epic and so much other material. Unfortunately reading between the lines the fandom has evolved as fast as the show which means certain of the less great things are surfacing - homophobia, racism and in some places exclusion of queer audiences which WTAF way to miss the point. I want all the nice things do not piss off the show runner, creatives or actors. Luckily my lists are curated so I only tend to see this alluded to and not the actual posts. And it sounds like many of the people involved have stepped back from social media engagement - which, good for them!

CREATING/LEARNING: still have crochet projects underway - we did new things at crochet club on Friday so no progress on existing projects - spring wreath, Halloween blanket, granny square blanket, hexicardi, granny square bags x 2. Might get one or two done by the end of the month.

CATS: all good. They're both being super affectionate at the moment. Cuddles all the time.

VOLUNTEERING: community day at the plots was good with another one planned for 19 April. Our community plot - where we host parties and the plant sale - is looking good.

SOCIALISING: busier than usual last week! Post work drinks with a few colleagues on Thursday - just for an hour - which was both nice and enough. Hung around a bit on Friday afternoon with allotment people during compost distribution. Same on Saturday as we had a pizza lunch after working. And a few calls with ravurian.

WORK: first round of inspections almost done - hope to finish this week. Need to do the ton of admin it generates and deal with end of year close down. Reprofiled my parts of the capital budget. Have mostly packed everything for the office move at the end of the week.

Today I'm working from home - likely in the office Tuesday through Thursday and probably Friday morning, then working Saturday 11 to 2pm. Aiming to try and add in some gym and allotment time to this week too.

I had a whole weekend at home - for the first time in 4 weeks! Remind me never to organise/volunteer for things that mean I have to work 3 Saturday's on the trot because that is exhausting. On the plus side I have a chunk of flexi leave to take.

So quick summary:


HOME: deep cleaned kitchen and sorted out a bunch for a recycling and tip run today. Next week it's deep cleaning the bathroom, and chipping away at the chaos and decluttering/#orjenising in the bedroom and living room. I have detailed bullet point lists and daily/weekly targets!

HEALTH still a bit FUBAR'd but improving. Finally took myself off to Toni and Guy's on Friday where a very firm hairdresser chopped off a significant amount of my hair. It had almost reached my waist and had way too many split ends. I got a free treatment (whatever product they used smelled awesome and made my hair super silky) and I now have a really simple cut - still long enough that I can put it up when gardening /at the gym, but short enough to wash and go and no danger of overnight knots. Today I got my piercings back - found a great piercer locally and I was just going to get single studs in each ear but happily we discovered 5 of my old piercings were still open! She popped new studs in those - because I have no idea where my old studs are - only the tons of dangley earrings on the board in my bedroom. She redid the middle piercing on my left ear and now I have all the shiny jewellery back. Once the current ones have settled down I'm going back to get my helix piercing redone - might get one each side.

LIFE ADMIN: still planning to move from Gmail once I've decluttered it. Applied for a postal vote as I'll be working local election day (7 May) as a poll clerk in Richmond so won't be around to vote locally. Have to make time to complete training for that and it will be a long day (5am to midnight including travel to/from) polling station.

DIGITAL DECLUTTER: have kept email at mail at 11,000 but not managed to reduce it; staying on top of transferring To Keep items from tablet to dropbox, my phone images storage is a mess.

GARDENING/ALLOTMENTING: nope - too cold and/or wet and lacked motivation.

COOKING/EATING: reboarded the takeaway train over the last week - there just seemed to be no time at all, long work days!

READING/LISTENING: LOL. Thank you Rachel Reid - read Game Changers, Heated Rivalry, Tough Guy, Common Goal, Role Model and The Long Game and now re-reading Heated Rivalry matching book chapters to rewatch episodes. What do you mean obsessed?

WATCHING: Heated Rivalry - 4th rewatch. Everything else is having to fit around that!

CREATING/LEARNING: several, projects on the go/nearing completion - spring wreath, Halloween blanket, granny square blanket, hexicardi, granny square bags x 2. Might get one or two done by the end of the month.

CATS: all good.

VOLUNTEERING: one new task to complete as of meeting last week.

SOCIALISING: a 3 hour call with gingerpig consisting of two hours of Heated Rivalry squee and one of catching up. A formal "WiLlYoUCoMeToMyCotTageThisEAsTer" invitation extended to ravurian - because, thanks to Show, I'm never going to be able to invite anyone to the cottage unless I adopt concussed-and-ever-so-slightly-high Shane's rhythm of speech.

WORK: much improvement - BRAG quarterly meeting went well, the Seed Swap was a success, the three consecutive Saturday's of work are over until 28 March which is my next weekend day of work. I've started the current round of inspections which is generating a ton of admin (which is this coming week's issue), I need to carve out some time to dealing with financial year end (how is it almost the end of March?!!!) and reprofile the capital budget.

It's going to be a long work week - think I'm going to work from home tomorrow as I should be able to plough through a chunk of admin uninterrupted. Tuesday through Friday lunchtime will be office days and site visits. Then I've got 30 bags of compost to shift from a site wide delivery down to my plot on Friday afternoon - say a prayer for my knees and back! Keeping my fingers crossed for sunshine and blue skies next week.

Arriving suitably late to the Heated Rivalry party.

I did try to get into it last year- my brain was not braining in the right direction to make that feasible. I suspect a lot of that might have been due to the uncertainty of whether a second season would be happening and I didn't want to get invested in something only to have it brutally yanked away. (I'm still furious that My Lady Jane didn't get a S2).

I had a day off on Tuesday, spent the afternoon noodling around online as I figured if I couldn't get into the show I would at least enjoy the unhinged glory of watching soundbites of the cast interviews and reading and bunch of articles. (Yes I'm aware of Ember and Ice, and yes I will be listening to that too).

One thing led to another and I started watching Heated Rivalry at 7pm thinking I'd do an episode a day.

UM.

By 1am Wednesday I'd watched all the eps, bought the books and was whatsapping (ravurian and gingerpig) tragic messages along the lines of "yes I'm 4 months late, talk to me about HR".

I was also patting myself on the back for having the foresight to 'add to memory' a lot of the DW posts that had been on my circle over the last 4 months clarifying the timeline (thank you mific) and making videos and fic recs.

First rewatch completed today and fully expect to complete another by the end of the weekend or I might dive in to the EmptyNetters reactions which I gather are highly recommended.

All of which is a longwinded way of saying I am down for talking about the show, the delightfully unhinged cast interviews (a gift that keeps on giving), the soundtrack, the books (I'll be finishing Game Changers this weekend), and anything related to the upcoming S2 which I am led to believe starts shooting this summer.