Tales from the CDG Tardis

It’s Saturday. Here’s what’s on my to-do list for the day:

• Prepare prayers and reading for tomorrow’s service. I can pray extempore but it makes more sense to other human beings if I write it down beforehand!
• Do the handwashing (in the machine of course)
• Plant some cat grass and sweet peas, if it’s not raining
• Lop back the fried egg plant (cistus?) as it’s swamping the wee rhododendron
• Add 2 new DVDs to my LibraryThing catalogue (Friends 7 and Red Dwarf 5 - I’m a slow collector…)
• Record money spent. My other half keeps a careful check on our incomings and outgoings.
• Enter scores online for the latest Hotel Chocolat delivery. Our favourite were the honey and caramel tasting batons, although I thought the cranberry truffle was pretty knockout too.
• Recycling paper and card. We generate a lot of this but fortunately they do collect it.
• Ring my great-aunt in Liverpool and tell her I’m coming down in June for the UC&R conference. Hoping to extend my stay seeing family.
• Finish my ‘Kissing with confidence’ presentation for East Midlands CDG/EMBOC AGM.
• Start planning CDG Scottish Division session for Peebles day and writing related article for Information Scotland.
• Do some recorder practice. Trying to regain the agility of my lost youth.
• Get the Spanish books out - I’m going to my dad’s in Spain next Friday and I still have German in my head from the Dortmund trip!
• Do some sit-ups. Exercise has gone out of the window recently but I am beginning to resemble Pooh Bear (”Honey or condensed milk on your bread?” “Both please, but you needn’t bother about the bread”)
• Watch Doctor Who OF COURSE. Agatha Christie story tonight, so a double treat for me as I was a big Christie fan when I was around age 11 or 12. Sadly I stock edited most of them years ago except for a few old favourites for reading when in bed with the flu.

Tomorrow is another blog…

A quietish day today. Back to the office for the first time since Friday, so getting reacquainted with my inbox and my tasklist. It’s not pretty but things are moving in the right direction, gradually.

Pay my CDG expenses in at the bank during the lunch break, all the travelling soon adds up and it’s been a busy month with trips to Cardiff and London.

No rest for the President though as a few more engagements are looming - speaking at East Midlands AGM next Wednesday; Revalidation course in Edinburgh on the 29th; leading workshops at Peebles and Liverpool in June. I know I will enjoy each and every one of these events when I get to them, but the preparation and panic about whether I’ll be ready in time do sometimes kick in!

That’s an hour of CDG work this evening, so I’m going to knock off, eat some lovely prawn stirfry, put the washing on (overfull basket following trips down south) and CHILL OUT!

Well, here it is, this blog is only a week old and I’m about to abandon it for a week. Hush; dry your tears. We will blog again soon. I’m off to sunny Tenerife tomorrow and Martyn and I have a sacrosanct NO INTERNET pact. I will be eschewing email, web browsing and telephones in favour of novels, conversation, sun, sea and honey rum. Fasting can be good discipline - we once did a corporate fast which included a week off the media and a week off non-essential shopping.

CDG is of course never far from my thoughts, and there’s a lot coming up in the next few months - April will see our national conference and AGM in Cardiff, plus the Scottish Division AGM at the Saltire Centre; May is Council, my Presidential Reception, a trip down to East Midlands Division and our first Scottish Revalidation course, which is shaping up rather nicely (I have a selection of useful Margarets at my disposal). And June is looking distinctly hairy.

In my holiday suitcase is a copy of The house of the spirits by Isabel Allende - always meant to read it and whaat better opportunity than to do so as part of the Passport to Latin America sponsored reading challenge, raising money for the group’s international projects.

It’s not hitherto been public knowledge, but when on holiday I seem to form part of a bizarre Celebrity Death Squad. It started when the Queen Mother passed away during our Spanish holiday in 2002. A trip to Portugal coincided with the last days of the Pope. Other vacations have seen us say goodbye to such luminaries as Jim Callaghan, Mo Mowlam, Brother Roger of Taize, and last year it was the turn of Bob Woolmer. It doesn’t seem to matter whether we holiday at home or abroad; we seem to spread chaos in our wake. So watch the news this week and think of us.

It’s not a day for work or even for professional development; it’s a day for the LIFE bit of work-life balance. Why is it we feel guilty when we’re working and guity when we’re relaxing? Or is that just me? It’s been a great day so far. Blazing sunshine this morning (yes, really, in spite of the cold wind!) and I potted up two new patio roses and gave my Cordyline a haircut. Went to church and led part of the service. Joyous hymns but too many high notes! Cooked a roast dinner with Easter eggs to follow. Martyn has a Dalek Easter egg that goes ‘Exterminate’ . It’s a thing of wonder. Domestic dabbling this afternoon and some more holiday packing before the evening service. Saving a glass of wine to enjoy when watching TV adaptation of The colour of magic tonight. Martyn and I like to joke that rare unsigned copies of Pratchett books cost double the signed ones. He does get around, bless him.