Bring me sunshine

Eric Morecambe's statue on Morecambe sea-front

“Bring me sunshine, in your smile,
Bring me laughter, all the while,
In this world where we live, there should be more happiness,
So much joy you can give, to each brand new bright tomorrow,

Make me happy, through the years,
Never bring me, any tears,
Let your arms be as warm as the sun from up above,
Bring me fun, bring me sunshine, bring me love.”

This weekend we have spent a long weekend in a luxury hotel – a lovely break, just the two of us, staying in Lancaster and visiting the sights of Lancashire. Here, on Morecambe sea-front, is the genius that is Eric Bartholomew, otherwise known as Eric Morecambe.

Also this weekend, I asked Claire to marry me. She said yes!

I know how lucky I am to have a second chance at happiness, and on a cold November weekend away we had all three: we had fun, we had sunshine and we had love – and I hope we will have for many years to come, whatever the weather!

A bunch of authors

Today I did something very unusual for me.

It all started with a spare hour in a shopping centre, while waiting for Claire. I took a comfy chair in a well-known coffee shop chain (that’s certainly not the very unusual thing), and considered how to kill the hour. Normally I would entertain myself on the phone – filled with enough apps to challenge friends and strangers at a variety of mind games, to join social networks, stalk celebrities and catch up with family, to surf the net, catch up on the latest world news and sport, or just to play games offline catapulting multi-coloured avians with anger management issues.

I’m also a fan of the low-tech. Instead I chose to arm myself with the Saturday Guardian and prepared myself to read news and articles the old-fashioned way. As the man to my left silently read through the Independent as his wife shopped, and the man to my right tapped away on his Macbook while his wife shopped, I didn’t feel out of place intending to flit between paper and phone.

But the unusual thing I did was to eschew the main newspaper and turn to a free giveaway. Included in the newspaper was a book of short stories. I actually read some fiction today.

A bunch of authors

I wasn’t quite sure where to start – I’m ashamed to say of the eleven authors featured, I’ve only heard of one of them, and so I turned to the story by Margaret Atwood. It probably says that the main reason I have heard of Ms Atwood is from an obscure nonsense song from Canadian vocal band Moxy Fruvous in the 1990s called “My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors” – but if that was the only link I had with this book, then it was a good lead to follow. (“Who brought the cat, would Margaret Atwood? Who needs a shave? He’s Robertson Davies. Ondaatje started a food-fight, salmon mousse all over the scene; Spilt some dressing on Doris Lessing – these writer types are a scream”)

The world-famous Moxy Fruvous

Anyway, I digress. Fiction, and specifically fiction writing, is often a little more prevalent in my mind as November approaches, as the excellent idea of Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) gathers momentum and publicity online. The idea is for the novice, the enthusiast, the ordinary bloke like me who has always wondered what it would be like to write a novel, to just get writing. Stressing quantity as much as quality – the idea is to just enjoy yourself, get writing (oh, I said that already – I’ll never make a decent author), and submit 50,000 words.

I’ve always thought I couldn’t do something like that because I don’t read enough myself. In adult life I’ve probably only read a handful of fiction books, which is not something I’m proud of. Perhaps half a dozen Stephen King books, a couple of easy reads by Ben Elton, and a few obligatory re-reads of my all-time favourite novel series: the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s not a lot, is it? And it’s not exactly Dickens, or Dostoyevsky.

I was gripped by the fifteen pages I read from Margaret Atwood though – even though within seconds I felt very inferior, as the second sentence mentioned “as dark as holes” – how can I come up with imaginative comparisons like that, the likes of which she managed to repeat throughout? I like to write – which is one of the reasons I enjoy this blog, though I occasionally get “blocks” just writing these few paragraphs (and attacks of apathy too). And I *do* like to read, but tend to confine that reading to newspapers, magazines, reference books, texts, articles, websites, and other non-fiction: the world of fiction is disappointingly alien to me.

But I felt better through having read an hour of good fiction writing that I would have done by spending the hour tweeting, surfing, or playing games. I’m writing this as midnight approaches, and would have got it done earlier were it not for the fact I wanted to know how William Trevor’s short story ended. It’s been an experience that’s heightened my admiration for those who are going to attempt to write a novel in November this year, including my own father who, as a man who I think shares the family traits of quiet determination to succeed in a (non-physical) challenge, will I’m sure succeed with flying colours. But something I just couldn’t do.

Mind you, I thought I just couldn’t run a marathon …

It’s given me the inkling of a very unlikely thought, wondering whether it could be a challenge to really enjoy. It’s a beginning. I learnt that from Margaret Atwood today.

Getting smaller

It’s true, almost six months after my mishap, my lower left leg remains a little on the swollen side, and I have long since stopped running regularly, or even irregularly . But I’ve got to the stage where I can’t keep using it as an excuse. I’m overweight, and should be doing something about it. In fact, I *have* done something about it. Two weeks ago the diet started, and at the time of blogging, I am a little over nine pounds lighter than when I started.

I’m in two minds as to whether to blog about dieting. Millions of people have dieted – millions have succeeded, millions have failed. I can’t see that I’ve got much to add to what has been said and written about, er, millions of times. But for those who know me, and are vaguely interested, I will mention it now. Dieting isn’t an easy thing, so, by definition, it is, if not a reasonably substantial part of my life, at least something that I am considering every day. Actually I’ll mention it again – nine and a half pounds off in 14 days, I’m quite pleased with that!

But what has been particularly interesting to me has been the reaction to my dieting. A few years ago, equally as unfit and overweight as I am now (in fact, slightly less so), I began a fitness regime that started with running for a few seconds at a time on a treadmill, and ended with the London Marathon a year later. Reaction was 100% positive – everyone who showed an interest or commented on my efforts was impressed, pleased, encouraging and positive. Not one person had anything negative to say – even though a finish in 5 and a half hours represented a significantly poorer performance than the vast majority of the field – my own triumph pales into insignificance compared to the exploits of fitter, faster contestants who have all achieved amazing goals of their own.

Fast forward three years, and reaction to the diet is a little bit different. OK, it’s changed from *entirely* positive to *mostly* positive, so perhaps I’m making more of this than is necessary. But some reaction has led me to believe that instead of dieting I should be more permanently healthy. I should make a long-term change, not go on a short-term diet. Diets, by definition, come to an end when targets are met. People who diet generally stop, then lose control and slip into bad habits, without concentrating on making a permanent change to bad diet and fitness habits.

First of all, these opinions … are absolutely true. I didn’t get to be the way I am today through any condition, through any fault of anyone else, or through any reason other than the fact that I eat too much, particularly of the wrong things, and don’t exercise enough any more. But it does seem strange to have to deal with the anti-diet opinions at the very moment I am starting to make the effort I need to. I can’t report on my healthy lifestyle from the point of view of a fit, lean, healthy person. I’m not one! To become one, permanently or otherwise, don’t have I have to lose weight? Doesn’t that mean dieting?

People have ideas about dieting that they are only short-term fixes. But, however varied they are, they all have one goal. Use a series of rules to encourage those who have failed to eat healthily over recent times to break bad habits and eat the correct amounts of foods in the correct balance to reduce excess bodyweight.

What are the alternatives – go back to old habits? Get the KFC loyalty card working overtime again? Accept that I’ve never lived a regular healthy lifestyle and give up on the idea that it might change? To me, this is the equivalent of reporting triumphantly on my ability to run for 30 seconds when the previous week I could only manage 20 … and being told not to bother learning to run as I’d never break three hours for the marathon. Or that getting fit and running a marathon would be a waste of time as the moment I stopped running I’d get unfit again. Leave the running to those who make the effort to stay fit, lean and healthy *all* the time.

It takes strength to diet, but only because it takes weakness to get into such a state where it’s needed in the first place. Those strong enough not to have to need to diet – I’m pleased, proud, envious and full of respect. I’m one who hasn’t been strong enough in the past (takeaway restaurants in more than one area of the country are on first name terms with me) – but I’m going to lose weight whatever people say. So, to me, six pounds in the first week is significant. Nine and a bit pounds in two weeks is also significant. I think I’m doing quite well, and plenty of people will encourage me to keep doing so. And I might actually surprise people and keep it off. I’ll certainly be trying my best – everyone knows how difficult it is to keep good habits going following a diet. But let’s get to that point first.

Back off my high horse and onto the logistics of my diet – this week will be a difficult one. I’m away on business in a nice hotel in Glasgow which prides itself on great food, and I am looking forward to the hospitality of my colleague and his family for dinner tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll cope though – I do have the willpower to do the best I can under the circumstances. My next diet-related blog may be a while, because diets are are not to everyone’s taste or interest. But when it comes, I’ll be lighter, thinner and healthier. Fact.

Deep fried mars bar (courtesy of wikibooks.com - they really do have the recipe ...)

So, how many syns in a deep-fried Mars bar?

Moving on

Well it’s about time I did another update. Much of this will have been alluded to in my last post, but time is passing, and two of life’s big changes have been upon me recently. We’d sold our house and were in the process of buying, and my new permanent job was imminent. I was moving on, in more ways than one.

So what has happened since? Well, the job has started and all seems just fine. I’m happy with my new company – a small company of expert consultants and friends in the only business I professionally know, which is technical stuff in market research.

And that’s about all I’ll say. It’s about all I ever do say about my work – many people define themselves by their profession, but I don’t. It’s neither a profession to be proud of, nor one that makes me any more interesting as a person, so in effect it pretty much just “pays the bills”. But, it’s doing just that, and is simultaneously allowing me to feel secure and giving me a new start on a profession I enjoy.

My heart may wish I was an environmentalist, a primatologist, or someone else making a real difference to the world. But in the meantime I’ll be happy making a difference to a few market research firms and hopefully making life as comfortable as possible for my new family. That’s not so bad, is it? And working from home is making a better contribution to the environment, my sanity, my sleep patterns, and overall happiness.

The final piece in my life’s “moving on” jigsaw ought to have been fitted by now. A few weeks ago we agreed a price on a new house which was to be ours – our new, improved, bigger, more comfortable home, complete with extra bathrooms, living space and office. Everyone knows that no house move ever goes completely smoothly, so a dawdling period of four or five weeks (I’ve lost count of exact timings, it doesn’t seem overly important) didn’t seem too much of a problem, during which time our vendors took what seemed like an age to get paperwork written, signed, and moving.

However, there’s been a snag. A big snag. It involves a conservatory that turns out not to be a conservatory. It was a real feature of the house, but to cut a long story short, because the external wall of the house was completely removed it was masquerading as an extension and not a conservatory, and therefore is illegal. It breaks building regulations, and there’s every chance it broke planning regulations too. Suddenly, there’s no satisfactory resolution. The vendors won’t be happy to spend money making expensive alterations that don’t benefit them, and we certainly won’t be happy with the alternative – taking on a house with the millstone that is an illegal conservatory.

From dream house to deadlock. From moving on to moving nowhere.

As I write, there’s no resolution to the problem, except to come to the conclusion that we need a plan B. If there’s any chance of moving on, a plan B means only one thing – a difficult decision that ultimately involves finding a new place to live. Thankfully, we have restarted the search, and though there are very few new alternatives on the market since we sealed the deal on the first house, one of those few options looks very nice indeed (I’m being coy about saying the fact that we love it even more than the one that looks like it’s falling through at the moment), so it would be great to think that there will be more promising news to report soon.

Yesterday I spoke to my mother on the phone (I can be a good, dutiful son, sometimes!). I don’t really think that I, at the age of almost 40, really still look for approval from my mother for important decisions in my life, but that’s not to say I don’t appreciate approval from someone important to me when it is given, especially when that person’s opinion agrees completely with mine! She said she was very much of the opinion that when one door closes, another one opens up. The implication is that we mustn’t miss out on this second chance, nor look back on what might have been. Anyone who knows me or has followed my life, my ramblings or both over the last couple of years will know that’s been a pretty relevant phrase on a fair few significant occasions recently.

So, we (that’s not the royal “we” but that’s Claire, myself and the kids, who are very much part of my life) will continue moving on. Even if that means, in the literal sense, moving somewhere completely different!

What’s in a blog?

Three weeks or so ago, I received some good news – I’ve been offered a job. Obviously this is great news, and at least one person suggested I put it on my blog. After all, it had been some while since my last entry. The sharp among you will realise I didn’t follow that particular suggestion, and it’s therefore been the slightly longer period of some while plus a few weeks since my last entry.

So why the hiatus? The simple reason is I’m just not sure what to put in this blog. What should it be? I don’t really want it to be a factual record of my life events. If so, then the job offer would definitely have gone into the blog. It’s worth pausing now to mention it – I start on September 12th in a job working in a similar role to technical roles I’ve had in Market Research. But best of all, it’s working mostly from home. I’ll be working for a small company with colleagues I know and trust from working with them many years ago. And for those reasons just stated, I’m delighted. A lot has happened over the last few months, but I would never have had this opportunity (dodgy leg or no dodgy leg) had I not been made redundant.

Many nights I write a blog entry … in my head. Even this one right now has been rattling around in my thoughts for a couple of weeks. I’ve thought about blogging about my new job, or my current thoughts, fears and aspirations for the day. But I’ve composed mental blog entries on subjects as diverse as Google Plus (if I don’t get round to writing that one, which I probably won’t, it can be summed up with a word often heard in this household courtesy of an oft-indifferent twelve-year-old: “Meh”), global capitalisation (inspired by South African toothpaste), the rights and wrongs of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and even a Craig David inspired anecdote about house moving (we even chilled on Sunday). But so far none of these have been written – the thoughts and words have been mine, and mine only.

Writing a blog is a bit like calling your mum, or a good friend. Write/call several times a week and you can write about the inane, or your thoughts and feelings of that particular day. Leave it a couple of weeks and there’s nothing to say unless something more major has happened. Today – I’m tired, a little stressed, happy, and excitedly looking forward in equal measures. But that information tells you nothing when it’s out of context.

At least I know my limits, or more to the point, my viewing figures. Or whatever they’re called (my hits?). They’re small. Double figures in a day when I post, and usually single figures when I don’t. And most of those are looking for either “Rear Window” (that’ll fool them as I just mentioned it again) or a gorilla with an iPad. There are influential bloggers and there are those with an online charisma and presence whose every word will be read, tweeted and retweeted ad infinitum regardless of what they write. But these particular ramblings of mine are going (almost) nowhere. And perhaps that lowers the motivation to write sometimes.

Previous blogs of mine have had a purpose – monitoring getting fit to run a marathon, highlighting an important environmental issue, or taking a photo a day for a year. This blog isn’t like that, and perhaps that’s what makes it difficult to keep writing. So, if the thirteen of you who read this have got ideas what they want to read here, or ideas to reach the elusive millions (or even the elusive twenties or thirties) let me know!

Craig David. Because I mentioned him earlier and it's always good to have a picture

I’m not overly happy with this post (it’s nowhere near as good as the one I’ve had in my head for a couple of weeks and I’m sure I’ve forgotten to put loads of stuff in), but I’m hoping it gives me the impetus to carry on blogging again.

Eighteen percent better than Meat Loaf

Some while ago, I posted this - the ten things I had been missing while my leg was in plaster, where I hoped my recovery was going to lead me. And then this happened. Objectives achievable at that point in time: zero.

So I’m in recovery now for the second time, and for the second time I’ve got those ten things to aim for. How am I doing?

It seems Federico Fellini once did a film about my leg ...

Full recovery will take six months of blood thinning tablets, and also six months of wearing fetching green stockings. I think I can cope with that. I do have some difficult dietary constraints though: no cranberries or grapefruit, no liver, and no sudden dieting. That’s going to be tricky …

But I can drive now – check. I can walk, and because I don’t need crutches any more, I can fetch and carry. I’ve spent money, I’ve cooked dinner, and showering is now not a problem. I haven’t gone out and bought a Starbucks, but could easily do so now (and will very soon!). And I sit up to the table to work every day.

Eight out of eight … so what now about wearing shoes? I’ve given this a half. I have one battered pair of trainers I can wear, just. My foot is so swollen, that I just can’t see how I’ll get a different pair on. I’ve considered inserting a picture of my swollen foot here at this point but you can use your imagination instead. The tenth one on the list? Running – I don’t think so. It’ll be some time before I try that again – I managed over thirty years avoiding it earlier in life so I’m in no hurry to try it yet.

And so, barring a third leg-related catastrophe, I’m going to draw a line under it there.

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I want to write about all sorts of things on this blog, but the events of the year have somewhat taken over. But assume in a few months I’ll be good as new, doing all the things I took for granted before (possibly except running). I’ve been lucky enough to have a steadyish stream of work from home during my recuperation, so life is not all bad.

And 8.5/10 isn’t so bad. By my calculations that’s 18.33 percent better than Meat Loaf had, and he seemed happy enough with his lot!

Working from home

Towards the end of last year, I spoke with a senior manager at my company. Struggling with a 150 mile round trip commute, I asked if she would consider a request to work some of the time from home. I had tried it temporarily before, and on one-off occasions, but it had never been granted to anyone in the department.

WFH - "working from home" nicked from the zazzle website

My manager was positive. Department morale was low, and she thought that offering this particular option would be a great option for those such as myself who could benefit. Recently having returned from the Amsterdam office, where the majority of technical staff worked from home, she warmed to the idea. She offered hope, took the idea to the next department management meeting, and promised to report back to me.

A few days later, she got a more junior manager to let me know that the answer was no. An important part of my role was to be visible and available, and that was to be the end of it. Any warmth in our personal working relationship had instantly thawed, to the point that she never spoke to me again, not even to be involved in my sudden removal from the company three months later. I have little doubt that whatever the justification was in my subsequent redundancy, and the way in which it happened, that I did myself no favours in my request to work from home.

So why, then, were they so reluctant, when it works so well for some people? For the last few weeks (and for the foreseeable future, at least in the short term), I have been working permanently from home. As someone struggling with mobility and unable to drive, it has been the perfect solution, and certainly the irony is not lost on me that the option that I pushed hard and unsuccessfully for is now working perfectly to my advantage.

Working from home won’t work for everyone. It’s not ideal for management staff, who need to be in the office to be available to their staff and for face-to-face communication. And clearly there will be professions where it can’t be a consideration. But for those, like myself, who can set up at home, go online and have a phone with them at all times, well, it’s just one big skive. Isn’t it?

The answer is no. Well, I would say that, wouldn’t I? I’m trying to advocate working from home, and I’m still writing as the biased angry man who wants to prove a point from a distance to his evil ex-employer. But let’s put my personal opinion and bias to one side, and look at the pros and cons.

In the office, everyone can see you. It’s true, they can see that your lunch hours are no longer than sixty minutes, and they can see whether you’ve snuck onto Facebook instead of working on the tasks you’re supposed to be working on. But nobody stops you if you’re collared by a colleague for fifteen minutes to talk about Aston Villa. And people will judge you based on whether you arrive early, stay late, or do neither. You get pulled into meetings which aren’t directly relevant to you, you get impromptu work discussions, and hours can soon rack up.

At home, of course you can hide. You can be in Sainsbury’s instead of at your computer. You can be picking up the kids from school, catapulting irate birds across a phone screen, sorting out tradesmen at the house, cheering for the latest British semi-final hope on TV, or in my case visiting doctors or physiotherapists. You can “skive” to your heart’s content and nobody need know. But when out of sight and out of mind, there is just one thing to deal with. Your deadline. It has to get hit – if your manager can’t see you, or you are working entirely for yourself, you have no excuse. Your client or manager won’t care about the kids, your dodgy leg, or Andy Murray. So long as there are no circumstances outside of your own control, you hit the deadline. You just do.

So last week, did I work 9-5:30 every day, with an hour for lunch? Of course not. I had five days’ work to do in the five days, and it all got done. But I was able to take long breaks to incorporate Wimbledon, finish early to go to an event at school, take in a physio appointment, and so long as my phone was with me, I was contactable. To counter it, there were days started before breakfast, days spent working into the evening, and lunch hours ranging from ten minutes to, er, a couple of hundred.

Working from home, when the alternative is driving 750 miles a week, saves money and saves carbon emissions. The average small car emits 400g of CO2 per mile. Fortunately I’m a mathematician so I don’t mind doing these things … that’s 14.1 tonnes a year over 47 weeks. If you’re not an environmentalist, why not? Nevertheless, it can be justified in price too – if the same small car does 37 mpg then that’s an annual saving of £5449 in petrol and a car that doesn’t run itself into the ground in three years. It’s a no-brainer.

It’s true that I am now working for myself rather than for a company, so perhaps the lack of guaranteed salary makes my motivation higher. But nevertheless, if you can work from home, and your productivity over the course of the week isn’t jeopardised, then you should do it. If your employer won’t allow it, I think that’s a real shame. Fortunately for me, I’m no longer working for the employer that wouldn’t allow it for me. And though my income is less certain as I freelance, I haven’t looked back and I haven’t been this happy in my work environment in a long time.