Elf Help

Christmas can be too much work. Gone are the days where you get up and presents suddenly materialise underneath a tree followed by chocolate galore and toys that you always wanted alongside a great big dinner with people that you haven’t seen for at least a year but you’re not bothered because you’ve got all this cool new stuff to play with! Nowadays someone must put the effort in to make the magic happen. And the later you leave it the less magical it seems. It would be nice, but also a bit scary if someone else did it for you. Would they organise it the way you want it? If so, that would be amazing. If not, you’d have someone to complain to; but they could always turn around and say at least they attempted to make the magic happen and that everyone would just be sitting around the breakfast table if they didn’t. So planning is key. Time to get going.

 

Oops

I didn’t mean to do it. I had the best intention to complete an entirely different action. This is just what transpired instead. All I wanted was a little light to help me start my day. So I reached out for a little assistance. But my finger just couldn’t find the switch to the bedside light. I poked around and reached a little further and the next thing I heard was a crash. Now I had to get out of bed to turn on the main light to see what I had done. But before I could ponder getting up, this was done for me.

‘What are you doing making all this noise? I thought there’d been a break-in!’

‘I didn’t mean to; I just knocked the light off the bedside table.’

‘Just look at this mess. We’re going to have to get a new lamp now all because of your clumsiness.’

Return to the Gym

My regular gym is back open. I’ve been meaning to go for a while but my head’s been full of wax which meant that I wouldn’t be able to hear any of the instructors properly. This meant that I missed taking part in their opening week for free. Fortunately, the following month was half-price but I was still blocked up; but then my luck held out and the following month was half-price as well. After giving on the on-line booking system; I made a telephone call to discover that I couldn’t book more than seven days in advance. But once I finally got a slot; getting in was a cinch. I checked in with the staff member on the door and never even had to swipe my card as the gates were already open. Then I headed upstairs and grabbed my very own spray and cloth to clean the machines with. Getting out was a bit of a problem as I could only see no exit signs anywhere. I tried to watch the videos on my phone but in the end I ended up going out the same way that I came in. Maybe they think I’m special. But after watching the videos when I returned home; I’m beginning to think that they’re special.

 

"As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others."

 -Bill Gates. I’ve been working with a variety of different leaders for a long time. I’ve now got to the point where they won’t teach me anything new; or at least they don’t want to. I’ve seen them struggle with many situations where I thought they could have been handled better with a little bit more thought and care. And I’ve seen situations where at the end of the day they just want to do their job to ensure salary while protecting the security of the business that they manage. I seem to learn more about new things when others complain about them; while at the same time I see these leaders unable to influence a change to create a better outcome for everyone. My leaders have become my peers and the only empowerment that I feel is that I get to hide behind them when things go wrong. But there’s no ability for me to grow so I must look elsewhere.

Subbuteo

I used to love Subbuteo. I never knew anyone who played it properly though. We always used to enjoy flicking the hell out of all our players until they’d vanished off the pitch while the ball travelled the grand total of two inches. But we’d be brilliant at goal kicks. Rather than using the dedicated goal kick figure (sold separately); we’d flick the green tail end of the keeper which would cause even more fouls and injured players. Naturally, this didn’t do our figures or fingernails any good; and we’d constantly be saving up our pocket money to buy a replacement team that wasn’t standing at a 45-degree angle. And this got us interested in the many accessories involved. I remember buying new goals with patterned nets, a plastic scoreboard with a billion team names that you cut out and fed into its slots, and the important silver Subbuteo F.A cup which was twice as tall as players. I’ve since read that (thankfully) the new pitch is a lot less itchy. Perhaps you don’t have to iron it as much.

Cultural Cow #dreamdiary 94

I’ve decided to take my mother to see a show in sunny Stratford-upon-Avon. We’ve ended up at this village hall with a bar. I order a glass of red wine for Mum and the barmaid reels out a list of suggestions for myself. I choose a pale ale. While I wait for my drink, I decide to explore the surroundings. It’s not a large hall and there’s only a small stage. It’s surrounded by tables and chairs rather than rows of seats. There’s not many people about and I suddenly wonder if we’re too early or whether the performance is taking place outside. We decide to venture out to investigate the latter. There’s a large freshly mown field and we round the corner to see what’s behind a clump of trees. There’s just more space that leads to a kissing gate, but as we return there’s a cow with horns approaching us. I manage to distract it around the side of the building while Mum makes her escape through the gate. I’m rescued by two cowboys in chequered shirts complete with hats and lassos dressed for the rodeo.

Heavy Duty

Our daily delivery usually arrives in great thick plastic black boxes. When there’s something inside it, you need both hands to lift it as they span over double your chest, and they weigh a tonne too. They’ve got grooves in them which are designed for stacking which is great when you’ve got a sack truck handy and they’re not loaded over the rim. But lifting one of those boxes on its own when there’s stuff inside is a real effort; and you wouldn’t want to carry it too far. If you dropped it from a height, the edge really would shatter and we’ve gone through a few of them that have become dangerous because of the way that they’ve broken. We used to have boxes which were half the size with fold-out handles on the top, and you could also use the handles as a base for stacking another one on top. But someone decided that there were too small and decided to retire them, and now we’re stuck with them.