Skip to main content

A day of CPD, meatballs and homecomings

Warning received at work, yesterday, that I was due to see, today, and have to deal with a problem that I have less than limited experience of managing. While being extremely grateful to colleague who alerted me to this, I am embarrassed to admit that it threw me into a single-minded panic: single-minded, in that I thought about little else until I had found the references I needed, sat down and restored my lost knowledge. Do others get thrown into similar fugs of despair, plummeting confidence and I've-got-to-find-something-else-to-do panics? I hope they do, because if it's just me, then ... well, that is rather depressing. And distressing. CPD (as in the title of the blog) refers to Continuous Professional Development, something I have to do rather a lot of and prove that I have done, in order to fulfil the constraints governing the continuity of my professional role. Me, who would far rather be outside walking the dog, or gardening, or doing something with my kids, or writing, or blogging for that matter, or doing anything that doesn't involve work. Me, who at this time of year when date for proof of CPD looms bright on the horizon,  is forced to become fastidious and swot and make notes about my swotting. Who reluctantly acknowledges that in cases such as today's, it makes the difference between incompetence and doing my job, if not well, then at least safely. Satisfaction!!! Never!! But maybe, if sometimes I slightly enjoy my job, there is perhaps a chance that I can continue to do it for the next dozen or so years (at least until the children have stopped being quite so expensive). Please tell me I am not the only person to feel like this ...

Meatballs - simple supper after work: oven proof dish, drizzled with olive oil. Toss in meatballs and sliced red onion and diced red pepper. Add tin of chopped tomatoes, a good spoonful of mixed Italian herbs and a glass of red wine (rioja tonight, but any red would probably do - keep the rest to drink later). Cover with foil and bake in oven at 180deg for about 30 to 40 mins, or until meatballs cooked. Good with pasta and shavings of parmesan. And remaining red wine!

Homecomings? Long-legged-boy flew back, with his bags, but fewer clothes, from Mumbai. Four-legged-friend and sisters displayed much wagging of tails, bouncing and whoops of joy to see him; tales of the sights and smells of poverty humbling, but we all grow through the experiences of others, and my white, British , middle-class lad has witnessed things he will never forget.

Sleep now needed, but first Littlest wanted me to notify the Tooth Fairy that Lady Penelope's car should have it's engine warmed, as she has a tooth in imminent danger of falling out ...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

Yes - it is a real word. Flochetage. Well, a real-ish word. One invented by the painter Delacroix, when he found the dictionary cupboard bare and required a word to describe his technique of layering different coloured paints, using lightly pulled brush strokes to create texture and pattern and thereby enhance his base-layer colours (... lost? - stick around, read on and all will become clear. Or perhaps muddier ...). Flochetage implies both stringiness and threadiness. Apparently. And it sounds good - in a filling-the-mouth-with-sound sort of a way. Try it ... flochetaaaage. Not that I speak French. So I am probably mis-pronouncing it. Nor am I an artist. So what do I know about painting techniques - except that I think this one works. What I do like is the concept - you invent a new technique in whatever it is you do, hunt around for the vocabulary to describe it, find the dictionary is lacking, so make up a word of your own and announce to the world what it means. Delacroix isn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Holiday cake and old friends

Chocolate cake. Most of us who bake probably have a favourite chocolate cake recipe - the one that always works; that forgives being made in a rush or once without eggs (added to the cake tin five minutes after it was initially placed in the oven ... even I didn't think I'd get away with that one); that tolerates the fickle heat of different ovens and different tins and without fail, at first sniff of it baking, brings back delicious memories of old friends and old holidays. And picnics and sand between toes and laughter and blustery walks and holding hands and eating too much and wind in your hair and squinting in the sun and dancing in the rain and dragonflies hitching a ride and castles and hill-tops and freezing cold lochs and a long walk with a black and white cat. This is my favourite chocolate cake recipe. Written by the dearest of old friends, on this scrap of paper, over twenty years ago. (Annotated by he who should have known better and me. He was right abo...
Post a Comment
Read more

My beloved boy, how lucky I have been

It's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die ... and I say someone here even though the one in question was a dog - but to us he had character and a place forever in our hearts and was more of a familiar someone than some of the people in our lives. So, I'll start again - it's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die, our senses go into overdrive. We notice things that normally would be part of the background of our every day. We breathe more - or rather, we don't but what we do is notice our breathing more, as we watch his. We pause. We think. We listen to ourselves and our inner voices speak. Memories flood our dreams ... though sleep is fitful.  Why am I telling you this? ... ... we lost this beautiful boy today And in the hours before he went, I saw perfect spheres of dew on blades of grass - little orbs holding micro-images of our world; a bumble bee drunk on nectar, yellow-dusted with pollen, resting in a crocus; ten - yes, ten! ...
Post a Comment
Read more