anyresemblance

Meet the new boss

That would be me.  Temporarily.  I am "acting" as it's so quaintly put but I think I am pretty good at acting.  I get to read lots of email, answer lots of phone calls and help people make decisions they could perfectly well have made on their own.  Such are the corridors of power.

My new PA is great.  She tracked down a replacement phone charger for daughter number 1 and went out to the shop and bought it.  I love her already.

My girls came home yesterday after one month away.  It was two weeks too long for me.  The younger one has settled in well but the older one is missing her dad, missing her horsey friends and finding it hard to adjust back to living with mother.  I am cutting her some slack but it cut me to the quick that she sent her dad an email saying she wanted to be back with him.  Yet she should want to be with him and I understand the depth of those feelings and being 13 and holding 3 contradictory views at the same time.  And I want to beg her to tell me about it all but I also know that she loves me and thinks I have no understanding of her life or her miseries in equal measure.  I would not be 13 again for anything, or 14 or 15 for that matter but I would like to know what to do to ease that unhappiness.

After 15 overs

Tasks accomplished this january.  Few.  I have managed to apply a second coat of paint to the bookshelves which is an infintisimal achievement.  I have taken my rubbish out to be collected by the council for clean up day.  This includes piles of cardboard boxes and a hideous office chair that squeaks.  I keep thinking someone might salvage the office chair and think they have a good piece of pruck* but I should really leave them a note saying "this chair has the most irritating squeak which will drive you to drink, leave it here for merciful release".

I had a hard week at work and am mercifully glad old boss has finally left.  I love him madly, but the endless leaving parties were driving me nuts.

I have been to the beach twice this weekend.  Went grocery shopping in Balmain which was a bit of a hike but I did eat 3 beautiful ripe figs from a nice greengrocers and mourned my fig tree.  I bought lots of foods and have cooked up a storm in anticipation of the return of my girls.  Had my nails done which was bliss.  Went to the beach and admired my coral coloured toe nails.  Swam in crystal clear water.  Ate and ate. 

I am making lemon ice cream from Nigel Slater.  It is divine (I have to stir it every couple of hours and lick the spoon, there'll be nothing left to stir soon).

I am typing this listening to the cricket which is as incomprehensible as the shipping forecast but just as soothing.  I love radio.

*unsure of spelling, but recall this via ganching as an item received luckily on the cheap which proves to be a great find

Office politics

I went to Perth for some work.  I caught up with my niece, her new baby, her 3 year old and husband and my sister.  It was a flying visit but I was still smacked with jet lag like lethargy on my return (3 hour time difference).  I forgot how tiny a new born is, how they snuffle for food and how hard they concentrate on sleeping.  My sister wanted me to talk and talk about my childhood but I was finding it quite painful and didn't want to go there.  Not really my own pain, but our sense that there had been a turning point in the life of one of our other sisters and we hadn't really realised it at the time.  I think it impacted the rest of her life and not necessarily for good.

And I am missing my children.  Miss, miss, miss the chance to put my arms around them and breathe in their scent*. 

So back to work and a world of political manoeuvring too tedious to write about but meaning that my resolution to not whine about my-colleague-who-i-do-not-warm-to has gone by the wayside.  We went to dinner last night for my boss.  It was fine but I am tired from too many late nights.  I had involtini of veal which was really too heavy for a January night except it was blowing a gale.   I have concluded that meat and cheese don't work for me. 

I am reading Nigel Slater and enjoying his pot luck from the farmer's market but most of all I like his confessions of being caught at the corner shop with a packet of fish fingers and frozen peas.

*my niece says it took her years to realise that all babies don't smell of Issy Miyake, she thought they did as they only ones she got to cuddle were mine.  Also, she is going to start her midwife training next month.  I am so envious and excited that I will be related to a midwife.

A week in view, dull but worthy

I had a pretty good first week back at work.  Yesterday was my boss's leaving party - the first of many.  It was a bbq hosted at the house of a colleague towards whom I do not feel much warmth.  Still, this is the year of being more charitable.  Her husband is an architect and they have a architect's home.  They had a little gravel channel down the front hall way with tea lights placed in it.  Very pretty but I wondered where they kept the little rake to keep it manicured and how they stopped their one year old from eating the gravel.

I left around 9:30 and delivered my boss's 17 year old daughter and her friends to Bondi on my way home so they could party.

Today I have been to the beach and got a bit over-pink but it has been so grey all week I just wanted to revel in some sunshine.  The sea was unbelievably clear with little fish swimming the shallows and so, so warm.

I have made a lamb curry for tonight and am making a carrot and mustard seed salad I remember my sister making years ago.

Tomorrow I am going to Perth where I will see 3 generations of women who I love, including new baby, Esther Pearl.  My niece lives in Perth and my sister is over helping with new baby and existing 3 year old.  I am making a flying visit but hope to catch up on some sleep on the plane.

Guilty, as charged

I have been a neglectful person but I have not felt like writing at all.

New Years Day was unspeakably hot. The Visitor and I went to the Pissaro exhibition at the NSW Gallery of Art. It was cool and quiet inside and I liked the exhibition, especially the landscapes. The car temperature gauge showed 45C when we got in. It was too hot to sit on the seats so we had to find some green Coles shopping bags to sit on. It was the hottest place I had ever been, even despite my trip to the Sahara. Fortunately it rained that night and brought the temperature down. The Visitor went to visit her relatives and I spent a few days doing not much and going to the beach.

On Saturday night, the Visitor and I went to Icebergs at Bondi. I reveled in my newly acquired Bondi Beach car park pass. I live in the last street on the edge of Waverly Council, entitling me to residents parking at a princely $30 a year. Considering it costs $20 for 4 hours in this car park I think I have found a bargain. We parked by the beach and I suggested we could eat our fish and chips in the car gazing at the sea English-style, but we decided instead to have the Sydney glam experience in the restaurant. I ate crab salad with some chilli and polenta to start and then veal escalope with salsa verde and rocket. It was delicious though the Visitor tried to make me feel guilty about baby calves and all that but I soon quashed that talk by maintaining that Australian veal is a very different affair. She ate a salad of figs and goats cheese and the biggest pork chop I have seen in my life. It must have come from one of the pigs at Blandings. She feigned ladylike astonishment but did seem to get through it. We shared French fries and a salad of peas, mint and finely grated fetta which was also delish. I thought the desserts were a bit ordinary – we both had burnt caramel icecream with that odd Persian candyfloss which reminds me of pubic hair for some awful reason. I can’t believe I wrote that. My least favourite client was in the restaurant and I endured a New Year kiss. What is this with kissing people you don’t even like much? Guilty, as charged.

Now I am back at work and it is oddly restful. It may be that my new office space has a hundred times better ambience than the old one. They both had harbour views but this one has a panoramic view across Darling Harbour through windows that are clean rather than encrusted with pigeon poop. And plenty of lifts that work. And a coffee stand and flower shop. And parking right in the basement. Plus, the hot desking phenomena means that I get to sit next to different people and talk to new people most days.

On the work front, no announcements about new boss, no-one beating a path to my door to offer it to me either. I have a few options so I am not too concerned and feel reasonably positive about the professional year ahead.

My children are with their father. I miss them a lot, especially the warm cheek and cuddles of my youngest.