New Year's Eve

Here we are again. I went and had a look back to last year and that was funny - I thought that I had gone to get my blood test on Christmas Eve last year and yet the blog said it was New Year's Day? That was a bit strange as I was certain I had done Christmas Eve. Oh well - it just shows how your mind plays tricks on you.

I saw that I resolved to get healthier and lose some weight, so that happened. I'm about 15 stone 10 or 12 at the moment which is pretty good but I think that I ought to go for a lower weight in 2011. I need to get back exercising again too and to make some serious time to work and to rest.

So perhaps I'll list some resolutions:

1. Lose some more weight gradually
2. Get fitter and try to make exercise regular
3. Make time for work and rest and distinguish between them
4. Try and get a little bit better in terms of outlook (not as depressed as I get)
5. Enjoy life a bit more

I think they are achievable. I'd like 2011 to allow me to take the business, Doddle, a little bit further than it is at the moment. The survey is coming along nicely which we need to add some real weight to our business plans and I'm getting really enthusiastic about the New Year and the work we are going to be doing in January and February to finalise the business plans and start to find finance.

Happy New Year to you all.

No Silver Bullet

I remember reading the Mythical Man month by Fred Brooks and part of the re-read recently was No Silver Bullet. You can find a bit more data here and here.

The Silver Bullet - often seen wiping out Werewolves and Vampires is a simple straightforward solution which, of course in real life isn't always the case. In No Silver Bullet Brooks looks at why complexity is inherent in software development.

So what on earth am I talking about? Well I'm looking at the complexity of life and of your actions. You see it would be great to just pack everything in, move somewhere and go and start all over again - that would be great. Then you realise that you have roots, family, associations, friends, work and all sorts of complexity that invisibly hold you back. If you just upped sticks and did it yourself, you'd leave someone else with the mess you'd leave behind as there is a trail of loose ends and things left undone or part done.

I'd like to get a thumping great big broom and get rid of loads of stuff and clear my brain and my life out and just get going from a relatively clean sheet. It isn't going to happen but it would be nice to imagine that you could. New Year's Resolutions wouldn't come much bigger than changing your whole life I guess :-)

For now, I doubt that the gravity of my life will allow me to pack it all up and go do something different but it would be nice if it were possible.

Christmas

When most people have trouble one way or the other. Ask my friend who mans a telephone helpline for the Samaritans - this time of year is one where break down occur and things start to get troubled for many.

I can see that as I'm probably feeling a bit like that myself again. It happens every Christmas even before I got ill and I work my way through it - or appear to. Things are not always right and it was funny that today, Flocky Bicep called up and I suddenly realised that I no longer have the Secretary's job and actually in a perverse way I miss that because it kept me busy and allowed me to perhaps take out some of my boredom on it.

Then there is the very real changes going on in the household, the kids aren't kids any more and have their own social life and one drives and the other one soon will do. They are out a lot and there is a lot of adjusting that needs to happen basically because kids run your life and when you start to get it back again you need some time to rehabilitate. I've just sat up as they have been about 80 miles and back this evening and gone to a Ski Dome for snow boarding lessons - its a long trip around the major orbital motorway around London and they've just got in way past midnight but then they are 20 and 17 and so it isn't a problem - I very much doubt I was in until the early hours myself at their age.

I just think that things are a lot different this year and that Mrs. F. and I have to start adjusting to it. Unfortunately those adjustments aren't without their problems in that over the years many of the things I like she despises and - if the truth be know - I don't find talking about children and her work in the Nursery particularly interesting nor inspiring, heroic and wonderful thought that work maybe, I never understood the subtleties of 3 year olds psychology preferring to immerse myself in scientific and historical pursuits.

So tonight after trying to work out what to do as the kids are doing something for New Year (well they are having a party at our house) I was trying to suggest things to do and to get out of the way as who wants your parents around to spoil your party? We won't go to London for the New Year's Eve celebrations - whilst the trains run all night I just can't imagine myself in a crush of people to watch the fireworks for 10 - 15 minutes. Parties - well Mrs. F. doesn't "do" parties or people particularly well so that's not on the menu either. I doubt she'd like the pub and these days you have to pay and get a ticket to get into the pub on New Year's Eve. A restaurant might be on the cards (I can imagine not an expensive one though - Mrs. F. doesn't do expensive either).

I'd be happy to get away for a few days to a Hotel somewhere but not sure that will go down well either as she'd not want to leave the kids to fend for themselves. I reckon the UN ought to come in and mediate in the decision :-)

Oh well - I can see why other people, not just me, feel like this, I suppose it is a relief when they all clear off back to school, University and work and leave me home alone to press on with my stuff that some sort of equilibrium falls about the house.

That figures

Heard from a distant relative about her daughter and found out that she had breat cancer which I knew about but that the stress of that sometime afterwards had led to what we old peopl call a nervous breakdown. Having seen this sort of breakdown at first hand and, dare I say, been quite close myself (I'm sure), it would appear to me to be totally within context of having Cancer and carrying on family life and even a career whilst getting on with the business of having your treatment and having the arguments in you mind all the time about it.

Now, I'm not sure if you can get cancer and just treat it in your mind as something like a broken leg or serious illness? My experience says that you actually battle a lot of this out in your mind and that you seriously wonder about the future and you do a lot of inward looking stuff. I imagine some people are so busy or make themselves so busy that they don't think too much. Whatever it is, I think it is pretty important to know that not only are you weakened by having cancer physically you must also be weakened mentally although I also believe you draw an awful lot of strength and determination through it.

Hopefully she is on the mend but these things take ages - a friend's wife has been pretty down all year but came out before Christmas to an lunch and was in good form - where before she wasn't good at all. It takes a long time to repair body and soul when you get cancer and I just hope that she recovers quickly and gets on with things without putting herself under any more stress.

Well that was unexpected

Mr. Waste of Oxygen turned up and was almost a changed man - apparently retirement has done him well, he is less stressed and less obnoxious and was downright chatty and even amusing at times.

I'm staggered but pleased also as this guy has disrupted my Christmas for many years. At least he was bearable and even went as far to make some presents for us (he doesn't normally do presents). We decided this year not to embarrass him by not buying him anything. Now who looks red faced :-)

I've had quite a good Christmas so far and I managed to only offend a few people so I'm getting better at this.

And now for Christmas

In just a few hours I'll be up and getting things sorted out for another Christmas Day here. Unfortunately the waste of Oxygen man will be here and so I will be extremely busy elsewhere all the time until he falls asleep and can then meet the family. Not my side of the family, Mrs. F's side and I get on OK with them all except the one runt in the litter. You may perceive my disdain and non Christian feelings but at the end of the day he just disrupts the general feeling of proceedings. If he was a horse, we'd have to shoot him - nuff said.

I make a special effort at Christmas to get along with most people but this guy stretched my patience and my goodwill to the utter limit. I'd rather it not be a test and for him and my sister in law to "GET THE MESSAGE" that I'd rather not have this social misfit in the house at all. However, as he amuses everyone else I suppose I had better let him in. Never have I met someone with the airs and social graces of Gollum's father :-)

So - peace and goodwill to everyone but Mr. Waste of Oxygen - to you - all I want is for you to behave and don't give me back chat or be your unsocial, bigotted, ugly self. For once - turn up and enjoy the company and occasion and don't make everyone else feel like they want to murder you at the end of the meal. I take no prisoners and tell him the way it is in direct and non direct terminology - the irony being that neither he nor my sister in law get it at all - someone please bring me a cattle prod or tazer for Christmas - you KNOW I will make good use of it!

Merry Christmas to everyone and peace and good will to all men, except Mr. Waste of Oxygen. Have a good one!

Worked a Treat

Getting my blood done on Christmas Eve is great as I waited all of 3 minutes until my number was called and I was in and out in less than 5 minutes. That's excellent and even better than last year. I went and got some Chestnuts on the way home but declined the Cafe and Pub returning home to cook the Ham and just chill out with the family. The girls been quite funny this afternoon dressing up as nativity play cast members and photographs a plenty have been taken.

Mrs. F. and the girls have gone off to Church and will collect me on the way back and we go - as is tradition - to our friends house for a lively party start to the party season. It is all very special and all the children, who have grown up together, well hardly children I suppose, will be reunited and we will hear all about University life and what they have been up to since we last saw them.

I'm wearing sensible shoes this year and I am not going to fall over in the ice like I did last year!! That was a crazy episode.

Tomorrow everyone is over here and I can get to cook the Christmas Meal - maybe next year I'll do a bit more cooking - after all I'm pretty good at it - there just isn't much call for me to do it as everyone's lifestyle means they are rushing around all over the place.

Merry Christmas to you all. Let's wish for health and peace for the coming year.

Late again

I've decided to go get my blood test again on Christmas Eve - it worked out nicely last time with just a few minutes waiting and so I will do that again tomorrow coming back by way of the Cafe and the Pub. Then it is into Christmas Eve routine of cooking and glazing the gammon and then off to friends for the evening - this time I will not fall over!!!

I'm late because I worked all day today to get messages out for my survey for the new service, rallying people to the cause and then we watched a couple of films which was nice. Then Blade was on TV - and I have only ever seen the last 5 minutes of that so I watched it and then realised that finishing at 1:40 wasn't in my planning at all.

I'm fasting now until I get the blood test done so just water. The GP instructions don't tell you so I had to ring up. No apology or acknowledgement that they don't tell you of course. At least I'll get that out of the way for another year.

Looking Back

I see that this year, at last, I'm looking in better shape than I have for the previous 4 Christmas periods. For this will be my 5th Christmas since being diagnosed and that in itself is a massive milestone that - until I just checked, hadn't occurred to me. I looked back and each year is slightly better than the year before but what surprised me is how re-reading them I feel that I was "down" in each one and not the way I perceive myself to be.

I feel that I am up far more than down person. I really feel that I have been positive and yet when I read what I felt like last year and right back to 2006 I see that, in fact, I was actually quite low or my writing was quite low. I seem to be rattling on about lots of things that were getting and keeping me down and I guess, being ill, it does mean that you go through a lot of unpleasant stuff and I can remember that Christmas of a few years ago I was pretty ill and another I was trying to recover from BCG treatments and another I had my operation cancelled and I went back in again just before Christmas and so on. This year - I have had a clear in my recent scan, I'm up about the business, I feel confident and I am beginning to get back to the "me" of 5 years ago.

I said earlier this year (here) that cancer took away my self-confidence and made me lose my identity and doubt myself. I can't tell you what that is like unless you have experienced it for yourself. Worse than that - whether it is me or not - I feel that no one I know treats me the same since that date and whilst that may be surprising, it doesn't re-wind and everything resets itself to June 2006 - far from it. I still feel a little alienated from some of my friends and family - not in a seriously bad way but I'm just different and I couldn't tell if it is them or me that changed those relationships. don't get me wrong, some of these relationships have got closer, some more distant and in many ways I say I don't care but in truth I find the loss a little hurtful sometimes.

So - there's me starting off with how good it all is and yet it is still a depressing old post :-) Not meant to be, just reflecting on the changes and the differences. I am massively improved this year - confident - strong - brain working again and firing on 80 to 90% and almost back to my own comfort levels. Self confidence is being worked on - I am much better but the bouts of claustrophobia and emotional wobbles are still there - manageable (just) and I am beginning to cope with them although whether or not I could ever commute into and out of work in London everyday now is debatable, I hated it even when the trains were relatively uncrowded, the recent weather would have completely rattled me with huge delays, cramped conditions and broken down trains - no - glad I'm no longer doing that. Why on earth you'd put yourself through all of that I have no idea.

So what have I learnt looking back?

• Living is good
• Exercise sucks and still does but it helps keep you healthy
• Eating properly has advantages - look I lost a stone and a quarter already and still gradually losing weight - not for the next 2 weeks though!!
• People and good health are more important than loads of money and stress
• Worse things happen to other people
• Humanity is out there - it arrives unexpectedly and unannounced sometimes - that's nice
• People may treat you badly - it doesn't mean you have to go down to their level and join them (OK so occasionally I enjoy giving as good as I get)
• I have every right to express my opinion as do you - get over it
• The biggest rut you have to get out of is the rut YOU are in
• A one in a million chance still means there is a chance
• You meet the nicest people on the Internet and occasionally the nastiest
• If it itches - scratch it
• Friends - it's nice to have them - value them
• Jealousy, deceit and loathing destroy relationships
• Building a business is a lot of hard work and sweat and toil not some romantic journey where you don't participate but reflect in my hard work as if it was your idea (sorry I needed to get that out of my system).

So I'm sure there are plenty of other lessons and things I learnt too. I have made a decision that today is the last day that I am working and the remainder of the holiday period is mine to potter around and enjoy.

I think I'll come back to doing a review over the next week or so as I found it quite disturbing to read how I was over the past 4 Christmas periods. The first one was interesting as of course I was on treatment for CIS and hadn't quite realised how serious that was - thinking that perhaps the worst was behind me at that time - I know different now of course!

Reconnecting with some old friends

I hadn't realised quite how I'd disconnected myself from my old friends - whether consciously or not and it was nice to re-build those relationships and friendships especially now that I am feeling up to it. I think I can now begin to see and believe quite how ill I was these past years and where I thought I was doing a good job of keeping in touch and all the balls in the air - I didn't. I suppose I knew that when I took the job at the Charity - it was a very convenient bolt hole and I'm forever grateful for them for that. I hope they got good value out of me in the time I was there - I feel they did - but I'm biased.

I feel my confidence growing and my strength returning and my brain is getting back to what it used to be like. Things, of course, are not the same as they were before, far from it, they are better in many ways and I've learnt some home truths that I'm disappointed about but not surprised by. These are things about me and I've had to deal with finding out that I wasn't as universally liked as I thought I was before I had cancer. I mean it's no beauty parade with me anyway - that's why I used to run projects and manage things - someone has to do it and someone has to not be liked all the time. I'm slightly disappointed in myself in terms of quite how I behaved then. It is interesting that the new me is quite different although I feel that in order to do what I've got to next year I may just have to return to being Mr. Assertive and things may just have to be done to get to a resolution.

I'm reflecting on what happened to me this time last year as on the Christmas Eve last year I fell over on the ice causing wide spread panic amongst Mrs. F and the girls who thought I had broken something - I had - mainly my pride and composure :-) No new shiny leather shoes this year I can tell you. I had - if memory serves me rightly - only just come out of Hospital too which didn't help matters. At least this year that is right out of the way and I can relax into the holidays.

It has been good to reconnect and it has helped to have moved on a bit. I may go and look back at my blog and see what has happened these past 4 Christmas holidays and remind myself how far I have come. I've come a long, long way - I know this - it takes a period of stopping, reflection and looking back to realise sometimes just how far I've come.

Well that was interesting

Flocky - bless his little cotton socks - picked me up this evening so we could go to our rehearsal as my Jag is in the garage still being sorted out - not good news - been over a week now :-( Anyway, it's snowing and not nice but he came and picked me up and dropped me off - it is pretty slippy out there so big thanks to him.

When we got to the centre I found out that I won the Christmas raffle draw and so I came home with a box of goodies including a nice 1 Litre bottle of Famous Grouse whisky which is great as I was planning on buying one. Also loads of sweet and savoury treats for the family too so for £5 stake I guess there had to be £50 worth of goodies in the box. I'm pleased about that and so are the girls who have laid claim to the two tins of chocolates :-)

It is travel chaos out there and the snow continues to fall, the airports and railways struggle and I imagine we just ought to hunker on down and ride it out.

Admin, admin, admin

Makes the world go around :-) Phew - that's the first lot out of the way. It is one of those things I hate doing, I build things and get the working or fix things but I'm pants at running things. Administration and routine are not my thing at all, I just can't bear to do the same thing day in and day out it would drive me insane.

Still more work needing to be done on another set of tasks which I may leave to tomorrow as I have done so much work today.

Have been considering quite what to do over the Christmas period and I have come to the conclusion that pottering about is favourable. Just doing a bit here and a bit there and just chilling out. Time to get some "me time" and consider what is going to happen next year. If we thought we had been busy this year, 2011 holds far more in store and we need to be a bit more visible and proactive. I can see January being a hard graft filled month as we struggle to get to the real detail of the business costs and challenge all our assumptions and ideas.

Gee but it's cold

I don't remember a cold snap like this for 20 years or more. We got out today but it looks as if the whole place will turn into an Ice Rink tonight and tomorrow. Plus, we have more snow on the way to give us more problems tomorrow.

In the meantime - I am trying to work out why my radiator in my office isn't working? Airlock maybe? Will have to do some exploratory work tomorrow on that. At least working up here the heat is rising up the stairs so warmer here than downstairs.

Getting a crack on with my administration work which is just what I need to do. If I've learnt nothing else about having to do stuff you don't like it is to just "bite the bullet" as they say and get on and do it. I prefer the phrase we use at Doddle which is "time to eat the frog" :-)

Frog partially eaten - more frog to eat tomorrow. Best get it out of the way....

Extraordinary People

I always liked the saying "Remember that you are unique, just like everybody else" - tonight watching the TV I was reminded that so many people just what we think of as ordinary have extraordinary things they have done. Young girl on the TV survived a massive brain haemorrhage, another person today just turned up at a local shopping centre spending 3 hours digging people out of the snow and just RAOK (Random Acts Of Kindness) and then there are the people who have volunteered to work at the Hospitals because staff can't get in.

We forget how good we can all be with all today's negativity and this recent sneering TV attitude these days. Interview with Transport Minister giving him grief about condition of the roads - how often do you get 6" of Snow in 30 minutes? Then when he was trying to answer that they kept interrupting. The BBC used to do good unbiased reporting and they actually used to have news on the news. Now because of some entertainment programmes - you get breaking news followed by some anal entertainment update then some news items about hundreds of people being killed. I am going off the news from these guys as they rarely give unbiased reports, their journalists react rather than report and their propensity to talk down to me and to treat a ballroom dancing light entertainment as world news needs to be seriously thought through. Utter bollocks in my opinion and hardly the torch carrier for the world in terms of journalism.

The snow came in with a vengeance this morning and we are back under about 4 to 6 inches of snow - not as much as before but wetter and more inclined to freeze than the last lot (doesn't make sense but the last lot was more powder snow). Somehow we need to get L to work tomorrow if possible. It looks as if we might just miss a further set of snow tomorrow - but we wont know until then.

I have moved back into the office freeing up the dining room I have been working in for the past 6 weeks or so. I need to get stuck into some serious work in the next few days. The survey and web site seem to be going along fine at the moment so I'm pleased about that - but I am curtailing my workload for the remainder of the week and will try to make a fresh start on the 4th January - well that is the plan.

I'm now quite pleased with myself following last Tuesday's judgement day after having a few low days afterwards. Hearing from Steve in the US and also some of my friends - this is quite common and it seems unexpected but when you consider the sort of stresses you are under (even if you prepare and don't show them) you could see how it happens.

Whoa - Snow and Tired and Disaffected and...

So yes - Snow - wasn't expecting that until tomorrow - it has stopped but we have a good dusting - enough to make the roads slippy. The car isn't cured (this is my car) and will have to continue to wait to see what is wrong. Some sort of electrical problem the man says - they just need time to find and sort it out!

I've been working all day and just didn't fancy going out in the snow, hanging around for a train, getting cold all so I could get a few free beers and vol-au-vents - so I just carried on here. I have to say I didn't feel particularly welcome when I went there last time and so in a way I need to make this break with the place. I can't keep balancing that and my doddle work.

We are expecting a huge dump of snow tomorrow - that will be fun.

That's not good

I've been following a blog for some time and got the wrong end of the stick and thought that Jeanne had died a few months ago and was just shocked but I hadn't read it properly.  Things looked they were going quite well until today when this post was released.

I can't even begin to imagine how this feels.  I'm pretty sad about it but you have to admire and be in awe of this lady's attitude.  The Blog http://assertivecancerpatient.com/ is an excellent resource and testimony to living with cancer.

Saw this the other day - Christmas Dream - Perry Como

I'd forgotten the Odessa File started like this - rather seasonal I thought.

I'm getting into the spirit of this now :-)

Thursday dawns

I was up earlier than normal and I'm pretty much charged ready for today with the team.  I've cleared the decks and I'm ready to finish the year with a flourish and finalise the things I am working on and then get to do some serious R&R.

Before then though - I reckon I need to spend a few days on catching up on my administration work and a few days getting in touch with people I haven't spoken to all year long...

It's rather nice now, on reflection, to be looking forward to a year which promises a healthy start and I hope that it continues when the next judgement day arrives in April 2011 - it sounds a long way off doesn't it?  I bet it will be here in a flash :-)

Relax

It is time to slow down and relax.  The team are here tomorrow and I intend to look at shutting down as far as possible for a couple of weeks to recharge our batteries and hit 2011 at full pelt.  It will also give me time to catch up on some essential administration here.

I could do with a couple of weeks off and just take some time for myself for once.  I don't think I will need to convince the boys too much about that.

After tomorrow I have a few more things to do to get ready for Christmas but it is Mrs. F's birthday first and Christmas doesn't happen until the 17th at the earliest and more like the 18th.  She has to work tomorrow which is a real shame.  We are booked for a meal in the evening so we may get back home before the bad weather - on its way from the Arctic, sets in.   Bbbrrrrr.....

After the High - the Low

Now you'd be right to think what has HE got to be Low about but it is just the way I feel today - I should be ecstatic but in fact I'm a little bit down and not bubbly etc.  I can raise my game to be me when everyone is around but actually I feel a little flat.

I think it is to do with the stress (whether concious or not) of going to get your judgement and I felt really in control and well prepared yesterday and happy but not leaping around when it was over.  I hadn't thought about it one way or the other.

Today I think my body has just relaxed and it is as if I am drawing breath again and so I feel quiet, reflective, grey, neutral and not much of anything.  It is a very strange place to be in but just goes to show how much it takes out of you leading into one of these procedures where you get to have your fortune read and where your stress levels are much higher than you probably thought they were.

After all said and done I am very happy with the result - today though I am just not showing it :-)