On balance

I am not going to a conference in Prague in May like some of my colleagues BUT I was happy that I made the point about the lack of visibility of his selection process to my boss and he was then forced to ask me to provide feedback on his management style for a leadership course he is doing. I was frank. My daughter mistook the container with the beef and anchovy stew for her lunch box and it all spilled in her school bag BUT it was washable and her nice teacher lent her money to buy lunch. I have a potentially stressful workshop that I am running tomorrow BUT I made good preparations today and am happy that I have the risks covered off. I paid out $50 in babysitting last night BUT my kids got to spend time with their old babysitter who was so happy to see them AND I got to have dinner with 10 women colleagues from work and we had the best time. As a result of last night, I am organising an event with our women customers. It's an antidote to golf days. We're going to a private viewing and dinner at the National Gallery. I had a good talk with a headhunter yesterday. I don't know who the company is and it's kind of hard for me to feel enthusiasm for a nameless entity. They won't tell me till they short list but I asked her, do you think I'm a good fit? She said, oh yes, but it's quite a blokey environment, how do you think you'd feel about working in that. I told her when i went to teach in Libya, Col Gadaffi was trying to encourage more girls to enter the university and my recruitment was part of a conscious drive to have women teachers (ha, the practicality was something else) so I didn't think it was too much of an ask. Then today, I was talking to my friend M and we were discussing how would it be to work in an environment surrounded by people who wanted to help you get the work done without scoring points, understood your life and shared your interests and wanted to have fun while they were working. Is that too much to ask? I am trying to make zopf at the moment. It doesn't seem to be rising as much as I would anticipate but I'm telling myself it's because it's such a rich dough but I'm not sure how late I want to stay up...

Comments

[anne]

Sorry you are not going to the conference in Prague as it would have been good to meet up then.

Very impressed with your networking efforts.

Anne

[kitschenette]

good luck with the zopf! if it doesn't rise quick enough you can help it along by placing it in a warm water bath, or on the door of the oven. when i make it i usually seal off the kitchen to cold draughts etc. 2 -3 hours usually does the trick. actually, sometimes i let mine rise overnight, because otherwise it is bit of a long process! let me know how you fare. by coincidence, i just made yr puff pastry and it was great! i made a chicken + leek pie. i had a whole lot of pastry left over (just made a small pie) so i bunged it in the freezer for another day. is it ok to freeze?