Well, will you look at that? It’s already over two months since I last updated here. This is probably not a huge shock to those who are familiar with the annual cycle of anyone who works in education, however. There’s a tendency amongst us Further Education types to make the most of the summer break, and then when we come home and return to work, we’re tied up with year-end stuff that fills our time in July and August, and then suddenly it’s September, the start of a new academic year, and everyone involved has gone suddenly and indiscriminately crazy. You walk into work on the first day of the autumn term, are instantly sucked into an ever-expanding black hole of new students, registers, withdrawal and transfer notifications, and emails (oh my god, the emails!) and the like, and before you know what’s going on, it’s the last week of September and you literally have no idea where the time went. It really does feel that sudden. One day you’re fired up and ready to roll up your sleeves and get stuck in, and the next it feels like you’ve been involved in the college office equivalent of the Battle of the Somme. (Of course, my lack of updates since we got back from the US could also very well be a result of sheer idleness on my part, but hey, it’s early in the post, let’s gimme a break, eh?)
So what’s new? Well, the aforementioned walking into work, for one thing. As some of you are already aware, ever since Covid hit in 2020, I’ve been working from home pretty much all of the time. I loved it. Divesting my working day of its hard-coded routine was an absolute gift for me; I’ve always been the type that doesn’t tend to thrive on structure, probably because I’ve always enjoyed my own company and, despite all appearances, am actually pretty good at organising myself and making the best use of my time. As you might gather from the paragraph above, this is something especially valuable at this particular time of year. There are numerous other benefits of course: I’m always home when the postman calls, so there have been very few of those irritating red and white collection cards pushed through our door; I have time now and again to actually do domestic chores, prepare meals, that sort of thing; and of course Hippy Towers being what it is, the soundtrack is extraordinarily good.
So what happened? Well, that’s more difficult. But by all appearances it seems that some other staff members have spoiled it by taking advantage of our ability to work remotely, resulting in a blanket recall for the vast majority of us. Y’know, I could rant and rave about it - there’s no question in my mind that I got a lot more done in a given period of time at home than I did in the office, with its noise and periodic interruptions (the most that happened at home was occasionally a song that was playing via my media player would feature a guitar solo that just couldn’t be typed through), but I have chosen to take the proverbial high ground and make the most of it. In fact I’ve already starting personalizing my desk space: there is a Pink Floyd calendar hanging by my desk (the nice Wish You Were Here-themed 2025 one, that happily has September to December 2024 included in it), and my PC currently supports my trusty Dale Cooper Funko Pop and an emotional support plushie, Mac the bull. I daresay these will not be the only things that end up decorating my workspace. Hey, if they want the best out of me, they should be happy that I’m doing what I can to make my workspace suitably relaxing and inspiring. Sadly I can’t add Pink Floyd wallpaper to my PC (IT corporate dictats being what they are), nor can I lug a stereo in there, or fill a handy server with all my music files, or put beds in the office for our cats Lyra & Serafina, but needs must, and all that.
There’s also the physical aspect. There’s no delicate way of putting this, but my god I’ve put on weight working from home. This is probably partly due to easy access to the biscuit tin, but more significantly due to the lack of a commute. Rather than walk about three miles a day (from our front door to the college is about one-and-a-half miles, so that’s the round trip), I get to walk from my bed to my computer desk, which is all of about ten yards, if that. So yeah, I’ve definitely been becoming increasingly unfit, and it was alarming at first to see just how tiring it was to waddle through town to collapse at my desk, red-faced and swearing (and that’s before I read my work email; oh the stories I could tell, etc). However, about a month in it’s becoming slightly less of an ordeal, and whilst I can’t honestly say I’ve noticed much of a weight loss, I think there has been one. There are certainly more biscuits in the biscuit tin, so that’s a win.
Not that walking has been a particular pleasure, with it being so bloody wet. Jeez, it’s been bloody miserable the last couple of weeks and no mistake. A number of times I’ve been thoroughly soaked by the time I got home, which as you imagine has often inspired some dark mutterings upon reaching the old homestead. One time I walked so much water into the flat that it actually looked like I’d just dropped a bowl of water, and couldn’t actually wear my comfortable trainers for three days, they were so soggy. It’s a wonder I didn’t get trench foot or something. Well, OK, I’m being a bit dramatic there, but you get the gist. Today the river finally burst its banks - at least, part of it did - and our local park is partially underwater. I took a photo on my walk home but, predictably, haven’t got my shit together and actually downloaded it, so perhaps my next update will be more pictorial as compensation.
So yeah, work has been crazy - albeit the traditional amount of crazy. As usual, there are days when it drives me crazy, and other days where I feel I thrive on the mayhem. Gamers will know of a place called ‘the Zone’, where you’re almost not conscious of your play but are hitting everything bang on, surfing the wave of obstacles and achievements in a way that almost feels uncanny - a bit like in The Phantom Menace where it is said of Anakin Skywalker that he sees things before they happen (“It’s a Jedi trait.”). Well, the Zone may be more fun when gaming, but it exists in other activities too, and just occasionally I’ll have a day where everything falls into place. No matter how crazy things get, or how many things have to be juggled, somehow I manage to be just ahead of the curve, managing to sort things just as they need to be sorted; even as the day, Tetris-like, gets slowly faster and faster. It doesn’t happen a lot (all too often the problems are too convoluted to solve quickly and you end up falling further and further behind - these are the days that try men’s souls), but when it does happen, it’s satisfying. Hey, I’ve been doing this job (or various iterations of it) for very nearly 30 years now - it can’t be that bad or I wouldn’t still be doing it, am I right?
Elsewhere, other things are clicking slowly into place. I’ll be back out on the road taking lessons again shortly after a couple of years not driving… It’s a long story for those who haven’t heard it, but basically my theory test pass expired during Covid when they shut lessons down, and with everything else going on lately I just hadn’t got my shit together to re-sit my theory and get back on it. Well, I took my theory test again just after getting home from the US and passed it once more, so my long-suffering instructor Jez will be trying to get me back up to speed for a practical test early in the new year. I confess, the non-driving has become slightly embarrassing after all this time, and there are numerous reasons for me wanting to get it sorted now. All these years I never bothered because I worked in the town where I live and could easily walk to and from my place of work without the hassle and expense of having to maintain a car (not to mention finding parking space on heavily congested roads, something that still leaves me rolling my eyes - you can be sure that when we move from our current flat, designated parking will be very high on the list when we’re looking at other places). A little more independence would be no bad thing (especially when it’s pissing with rain, mutter mutter), and frankly if (when!) we finally get to be Welsh gits - that’s still the dream - it’s going to be a necessity, so it needs sorting.
Work on Hunter’s Moon continues, albeit very slowly at the moment due in part to the autumn term workload - still, this is not a race and writing is not my full-time occupation, so it’ll take as long as it takes. After spending so long fleshing out the environment and the characters, it all feels so real to me that I’m determined to do the very best job possible on bringing it to life, however long it takes. These are probably the only full-length books I’ll ever write - I’m not going to suddenly become a prolific writer as a consequence of planning out this series - so it’s more important to me that I’m happy with the end result. As always, more on the book when I have something significant to report.
I’ve also got a trip to that London next weekend, in order to go and see Eivør at the Electric Ballroom in Camden with regular gigging partner Ian - not been to that particular venue before, but good, bad or indifferent, I’m sure the main attraction will ensure it’s a magical evening. Very much looking forward to that - I haven’t got to nearly enough gigs of late.
This weekend I’m living the bachelor life, as my better half Christine is away at a training weekend. Tonight being my first evening alone - well, Lyra and Serafina are here of course, but you know what I mean - I’ve started as I mean to go on, with a slap-up curry from Chillis just up the road accompanied by an ice cold bottle of Cobra; a viewing of Floyd’s new version of Delicate Sound Of Thunder (so much better than the distinctly 80s feel of the original film); and a distinctly Floydian soundtrack thereafter. In fact there’s a distinct whiff of 1987 in the air at the moment, as I’ve just listened to Floyd’s A Momentary Lapse Of Reason followed by Roger Waters’ Radio K.A.O.S. (both truly excellent records and dear to me). I’ll finish tapping this out and then consider turning in to roost for the night accompanied by something new to read on my trusty Kindle.
Sweet dreams, all! Nos da.