happy Friday

Or not, as the case may be.

Today will be a day of two halves. In the morning, we have a staff meeting. However, this should be pretty good - we've kept the agenda as light as we could get away with, and since the staff are scattered around Wales, and since we all get along really well, it is always nice to see everyone. It will be especially nice this time as everyone will be there for the first time in months - Judith and Tracey have both been off sick for the last couple of meetings (breast cancer for Judith, she's back part-time now, and Tracey is awaiting surgery to remove a large but thankfully benign tumour from her womb) and Natasha is coming even though she's technically still on maternity leave.

And then we have our Christmas Jolly at the Mochyn Du, where they do the best food ever, so the afternoon should be fab. Looking forward to it. :-)

happy Friday

Or not, as the case may be.

Today will be a day of two halves. In the morning, we have a staff meeting. However, this should be pretty good - we've kept the agenda as light as we could get away with, and since the staff are scattered around Wales, and since we all get along really well, it is always nice to see everyone. It will be especially nice this time as everyone will be there for the first time in months - Judith and Tracey have both been off sick for the last couple of meetings (breast cancer for Judith, she's back part-time now, and Tracey is awaiting surgery to remove a large but thankfully benign tumour from her womb) and Natasha is coming even though she's technically still on maternity leave.

And then we have our Christmas Jolly at the Mochyn Du, where they do the best food ever, so the afternoon should be fab. Looking forward to it. :-)

ever so slightly brain dead...

Maybe the brain-deadness is a Friday night thing. Maybe it is a post-Christmas-Lunch (two in two days!) thing.
Maybe it is just me.

Staff meeting this morning seemed to mostly involve discussing performance indicators, aims and objectives that mostly seemed to circle back around to more work being dumped on me. And I'm already working to capacity. Wasn't terribly happy. But lunch was great. Didn't bother going back to the office after - went straight to my mum's for tea. Not that I intended eating anything after that huge lunch, but it is a standing arrangement on Friday nights. Wished I hadn't bothered when their power cut out. Played lots of word games with Small by candlelight and then came home again.

Small isn't sleeping over this weekend, since they are putting their Christmas decorations up this weekend and she wants to help. I actually get a Saturday to myself!

Watched Rome when I got home, taped from Wednesday night. Despite the distortion of historical reality for the sake of television drama, it is a pretty good series. Was equal parts amused and grossed out by the shipwrecked Vorenus and Pullo making a raft out of dead bodies! Those two really are fun, and I don't usually enjoy the characters I'm meant to root for. Their struggle to find their way through the murk that was Roman politics is complex and enjoyable to follow.

The battle of Pharsalus was disappointing - cutting from the two sides preparing for war straight to Caesar returning to camp victorious, with just a few vague images of soldiers fighting in between. I can see that the battle would have been a logistical nightmare to re-create, but the way they did it just felt flat. "Oh dear, we are grossly outnumbered. Never mind - the other army has more options and therefore more to worry about...Hey, whaddya know. We won."

The lesbian stuff with Servilia and Octavia was telegraphed way in advance, probably has very little basis in historical record, and served little purpose other than to tittilate any men watching. And then Pompey and his family went to Egypt. The wife and children stayed in the boat, while Pompey waded ashore. And I sat there going, "Oh! I remember this - genuine historical detail. This is where his supposed friends turn around and murder him in front of his family and stick his head on a pole!" And then my video cut out and I missed the, presumably, gruesome end. Gutted (but, you know, not as much as Pompey). I'll have to try and catch the repeat on Sunday.

Best line of the episode was Atia to her daughter, Octavia. "It's nice to see you looking so pretty for once. You usually prefer to dress like a frump."

ever so slightly brain dead...

Maybe the brain-deadness is a Friday night thing. Maybe it is a post-Christmas-Lunch (two in two days!) thing.
Maybe it is just me.

Staff meeting this morning seemed to mostly involve discussing performance indicators, aims and objectives that mostly seemed to circle back around to more work being dumped on me. And I'm already working to capacity. Wasn't terribly happy. But lunch was great. Didn't bother going back to the office after - went straight to my mum's for tea. Not that I intended eating anything after that huge lunch, but it is a standing arrangement on Friday nights. Wished I hadn't bothered when their power cut out. Played lots of word games with Small by candlelight and then came home again.

Small isn't sleeping over this weekend, since they are putting their Christmas decorations up this weekend and she wants to help. I actually get a Saturday to myself!

Watched Rome when I got home, taped from Wednesday night. Despite the distortion of historical reality for the sake of television drama, it is a pretty good series. Was equal parts amused and grossed out by the shipwrecked Vorenus and Pullo making a raft out of dead bodies! Those two really are fun, and I don't usually enjoy the characters I'm meant to root for. Their struggle to find their way through the murk that was Roman politics is complex and enjoyable to follow.

The battle of Pharsalus was disappointing - cutting from the two sides preparing for war straight to Caesar returning to camp victorious, with just a few vague images of soldiers fighting in between. I can see that the battle would have been a logistical nightmare to re-create, but the way they did it just felt flat. "Oh dear, we are grossly outnumbered. Never mind - the other army has more options and therefore more to worry about...Hey, whaddya know. We won."

The lesbian stuff with Servilia and Octavia was telegraphed way in advance, probably has very little basis in historical record, and served little purpose other than to tittilate any men watching. And then Pompey and his family went to Egypt. The wife and children stayed in the boat, while Pompey waded ashore. And I sat there going, "Oh! I remember this - genuine historical detail. This is where his supposed friends turn around and murder him in front of his family and stick his head on a pole!" And then my video cut out and I missed the, presumably, gruesome end. Gutted (but, you know, not as much as Pompey). I'll have to try and catch the repeat on Sunday.

Best line of the episode was Atia to her daughter, Octavia. "It's nice to see you looking so pretty for once. You usually prefer to dress like a frump."