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Ear hoovering

Finally @Madgie went off to Rome for the Epic Cycle, and I was home alone for 4 days. I was really looking forward to spending time on my own and doing lots of pottering about and other bits that I never seem to have time to do, but it didn’t t quite gone to plan.

At the weekend I woke up with a blocked ear. I put drops in, like they say you should, but nothing happened. By Tuesday I tried to syringe it at home, but nothing happened. So more drops, and more syringing, but still nothing. By this time I was raging with it. The whole side of my face was numb, I couldn’t hear anything and I felt dreadful. On Tuesday morning I phoned Medicentre to get a nurses appointment for a professional to look at it, because I was convinced it was more than a blocked ear and I didn’t want an infection to stop me flying to Italy.

After syringing my ear for ages, the nurse gave up. She said ‘put drops in it’ because there’s nothing moving in there. So I filled my ear with drops and went to bed. More drops, more home syringing, more nothing and Wednesday passed in a dizzy fog – it’s amazing how difficult it is to cross a busy London road when you can’t hear properly. By Thursday I was ready to chop my own ear off. I was up at 4am trying more syringing, but to no avail, so I phoned a private doctor. Who was useless. Literally, he couldn’t have been more useless. He looked at it and said ‘yep, you’ve got some wax in there, use drops’. By this time I was convinced I wouldn’t be able to fly on Saturday and as a last resort stood outside the crap doctors and searched ‘extreme ear wax removal’, in the hope I could concoct some sort of home remedy involving magic ear wax removing acid. But better than that, a result came up for something called micro-suction.

By 5pm I had an appointment and by 5.05pm I was cured. Turns out ear hoovering (micro suction) is a miracle. They insert a tiny little tube and basically vacuum the inside of your ear. It’s really tickly but doesn’t hurt at all and takes about 30 seconds. So almost a week, 2 doctors and £150 bloody quid later I could finally hear (and cross the road) and boy was everything loud! But most importantly, I could go to Rome and know I could have a nice time.

Oh, and for the record – ear drops don’t work.

30th September 2016

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I went to a funeral, and on a trip down memory lane

I had to go to a funeral for my Auntie Kath. She wasn’t really my aunt – but I always knew her as such. My Dad’s side of the family is kind of complicated and sometimes it’s hard to work out who is related to who, and how. But that didn’t matter, she was a lovely lady and I spent a lot of my childhood staying with her and her husband Johnny.

Kath and Johnny owned a sweet shop in East Sheen, just a few minutes away from the flat(s) I grew up in. The shop was the centre of a bustling community and Kath was always there, usually standing in the doorway to the stock room, ready to chat and gossip with the customers. Usually laughing – she had one of those deep, infectious laughs.

My earliest memory of hearing music was at their house. I don’t know how old I was, but I guess I was small as I was sitting on the floor pulling pots out of a kitchen cupboard. At least I think I was. The tune was something by The Carpenters and it was the early Seventies. I seem to remember the radio always being on and watching Uncle Johnny wash his face and have a shave in the kitchen sink. Who knows if these are even real memories – I’d have been very young, but they certainly feel it. I do remember being sent to the shop as a small child, to get ‘mum’s books’, (her weekly magazines) and cigarettes. Mum would let the magazines mount up a bit and there were always a few to pick up. I think that’s pretty much how I first learnt to cross the road properly on my own. I’d walk up there and Kath would wait the other side of the road to see me across.

When my granddad died in 1978 I went to stay with them at the sweet shop, so that I was protected from the worst of it, including the funeral. They always made me feel so welcome – I’d never known an electric blanket until I stayed there and Kath had those funny dolls with the full skirts to hide the toilet rolls in the bathroom.

Later, when I was at secondary school I spent time working in the shop sometimes during school holidays. I probably drove Uncle Johnny nuts, babbling on about goodness knows what and giving people the wrong change! And later, pretty much every day when I got off the train I’d pop in to say hello before I went home. They were always interested in what I got up to – I remember getting my first pair of high-heeled school shoes and proudly prancing around in the shop showing them off. I reckon that was September 1984, just before starting the fourth year.

They never had children, and they were married over 50 years until Johnny died first a few years ago. But they were always young at heart. I think running the shop for so many years and mixing with the paper boys and girls and younger people kept them so. Even when they left the shop and moved away they were the same. Kath always had an eye for fashion and an interest in what was going on. She was always made up, with lots of blue eyeshadow and coiffured hair. I remember she gave me a lovely vintage black velvet cape when I was in my early twenties. Yesterday I was bemoaning to my mum how I should have kept it, when she told me it was still in the wardrobe upstairs. The cape must be 40 years old and it’s still in perfect condition – almost floor length black velvet with a hood. That’s definitely coming out again in the winter – it’s too gorgeous to stay hidden away. I was so pleased to see it again.

I’d forgotten half of those childhood memories until I started writing them down, and it’s been a nice little trip down memory lane. A lovely lady and a life well lived.

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21st August 2016

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Race for Life

The day after the theatre trip I was up early to meet girlfriends outside Harrods, to do the ‘Race for Life‘.

As before, we walked it together. And as before, it there was emotional moments – though mostly fun ones. And we had a well-deserved Prosecco or two afterwards, followed by Katie and I having a lovely lunch in Knightsbridge. I was worn out by the time I got home 🙂

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1st August 2016

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Littlehampton

We went to Littlehampton for the afternoon on the motorbike. It was a lovely run down there through the Sussex countryside and it was a beautiful sunny day. We lay on the beach on the stoney (West, I think) side of the beach and then had fish and chips sat on a wall. It was wonderful, even the bit where I got sulky because we weren’t on the sandy beach.

We didn’t get to paddle, as it was a bit windier and chillier down there than inland, but we did have a lovely time. I also had a play with an image app called ‘Prisma’. I quite like this shot of us on the beach.

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24th July 2016

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Heat

It should have been quite easy meeting today’s theme – ‘Heat’ – as it was a lovely hot day. I was in the hairdressers by 8.45, getting my colour done and while I was sweltering under the heat lights waiting for my colour to take, a picture of the heat lamps seemed like the obvious choice. Though a selfie of me with a bright red face and a head full of foils wasn’t a particularly pleasant image, and it was quite hard to get a good shot without looking like a twit.

After the hairdressers we went on the motorbike to Littlehampton. If I’d have waited til this evening to take the shot, I could have used a picture of Madge’s bright red face. Once again he forgot to put sunscreen on, and his face is pretty warm!

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23rd July 2016

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Flight

After work we went for some leaving drinks, which were really good fun – chats and laughs in the sun with Aperol Spritz and work friends. As people started to leave I suddenly realised that if I left immediately and ran to the station there was a train in 7 minutes. So, naughtily, rather than say goodbye to everyone I took off quietly to get avoid having to wait another 40 mins. I should have said goodbye but it was that or miss the train, so I took flight and made the next train home.

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22nd July 2016

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Train pain

I’ve been moaning a lot on Twitter these past few weeks about (and to) the company that run the rail franchise that I have to use to get to and from work. So much so, I’m now boring myself! The failures of Govia, which includes Southern Rail and Thameslink are well documented, and seemingly never-ending. The company appear to have carte blanche to cancel hundreds of services daily and in fact, are now approved to do so by the Government.

I’m sure the reasons for the appalling service are complex and multiple – I’ve read both sides of the published story: The unions who feel their members are being treated unfairly and the company who blame the unions and their staff for the problems, while penalising them through removal of train passes and, allegedly, overtime. But by far the biggest cost is to the passengers.

I leave home at 7am every day and I return at 7.45pm if I leave work bang on time, without working any extra hours or staying late to go out. It’s not a big deal, lots of people work long hours and I choose to live outside London so I can live in something larger than a shoe box. But my ability to do so is completely and utterly reliant on a functioning public transport system, where delays and cancellations are the exception, not the norm.

On any one day in the past few weeks, over 500 services have been cancelled on the Brighton to London line PER DAY, and today new timetables have been announced that cull 2 services an hour – 341 trains a day. Basically they are cancelling trains to avoid having to cancel trains and yet, with these cuts come no reduction in fares. Yep, the £4,600 or so I pay every year will now buy me 15-25% less service. Regardless of whose fault it is, it is quite astonishing that customers are picking up the brunt, both financially and emotionally, of this catastrophic mis-management.

I say emotionally, because I believe it is true that this disruption on people’s daily lives – on their ability to get to work, to hospital appointments, to job interviews and to go on days out has a tangible affect on stress levels, mental wellbeing and overall happiness. Not being able to get home to your partner, to pick your kids up or arrive home safely after a night out with friends is atrocious. You can’t guarantee getting to work on time – if you work for yourself that has a direct cost – and you can’t guarantee being able to get home on time. So all social arrangements are out of the window. Personally it causes me anxiety and frustration and increases my stress levels. I know they record punctuality and service performance, but I bet no one is recording impact on individuals and their stress levels during this disruption.

An Office of National statistics report published in 2014 looked at the relationship between commuting and personal wellbeing and the results probably weren’t that surprising, though I’m not sure the research asked questions around reliability of service as a factor to influence stress or unhappiness. It said that commuters who spend 60-90 minutes travelling to work each morning suffer the most, and are the most miserable of all of those surveyed. ‘The effects of commuting on personal wellbeing were greatest for anxiety and happiness, suggesting that commuting affects day-to-day emotions’, the report states.

So, how would they now measure the effects of harder/longer journeys to work, regular disruption, longer days – all brought about by the inability of Govia to run their business properly? I did a straw poll on Twitter (where else!) and the response was overwhelmingly that the situation is causing anxiety and frustration, and in two cases, caused people to actually change jobs. Overcrowding is also a huge issue for people, inducing claustrophobia and panic attacks.

But I bet no one is really surveying customers or thinking about customer experience right now. And I wonder how many current passengers would choose to use the company if they had any other option at all? Very few I would imagine. I also wonder if customer experience or brand reputation matters when you run a service that is effectively a monopoly over one of the busiest London-bound commuter routes and the Government gives you a billion pound to do so? And I also wonder how much you really care when your customers don’t receive full refunds while your CEO pockets £2.1m in bonuses?

At least I’ve got lots of free time, waiting for cancelled trains, to ponder it.

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5th July 2016

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2016: Part 2

It’s not technically the mid-way point of the year yet, but hitting the longest day does feel like a milestone. It certainly feels a long time since my holiday in India at Christmas, and this is a good moment to take a breath and mark the first six months of 2016 – and more importantly, look forward to the second half of the year.

Although January seems a long time ago, time seems also to have flown by since then. I started the year rested, but not entirely happy at work. I was starting to ask myself questions about what the next few years will look like (must be turning 45 that did that!) and whether I was excited and inspired where I was. After running my own business for such a long time, I was sure it wasn’t a hidden longing to go back to doing that full time, but more the feeling of not being happy where I was that was starting to creep up on me. Some fairly significant changes around Easter-time were unsettling, but quite quickly in the few weeks after that all the things that were bothering me were resolved and I am now the happiest I’ve been at work for a long time. I’m working on some great service design projects, with real grown-up business and delivery challenges. I’ve helped to bring in a new piece of business from a personal contact and building a team and seeing people develop beyond your expectations is properly joyous. There’s exciting things in the pipeline and I’ve reminded myself that when I’m happy, I’m hungry. Hungry to do good work with great people and to keep learning everyday.

When it comes to work, I’ve got the butterflies back in my belly. Yay!

But, I am tired. Really blinkin’ tired.

With the ups this year has come some downs – my Nan has been unwell for most of the year and in and out of hospital. At 90 years old it’s always upsetting when she gets ill, you can’t help wondering if she’ll recover and it puts massive pressure on my Mum and her sister. Last month my Dad was hospitalised and had to have surgery a week or so ago. It turned out not to be as bad as it could have been, thankfully, but for a time we were unsure, and once again we repeated the pattern of a Summer spent visiting hospitals. For my Mum, between my Nan and my Dad, it’s the fourth one on the trot. So I’m not the only one that’s tired.

Because it’s been a tough couple of years in that respect, and I haven’t spent a huge amount of time with my parents this year, we decided to book a family holiday – just the 3 of us. A lovely, relaxing mid-year break to recharge the batteries. That was curtailed by Dad’s illness and has now been rescheduled for later in July. I’m trying not to look forward to it too much, just in case lightning strikes twice in the same year, but it really can’t come quick enough. In fact, through lack of planning rather than by design, I seem to have bunched everything up and I’ve got a rocking part 2 of the year to look forward to, including:

Going back to the gym – again
A week in Antigua with the parents – sunshine, rest, cocktails and spa
Aperol Spritz’s in the sun
Race for Life in Hyde Park
A week in Spain with the husband – cycling (him), lying around (me) and some Birthday fun in Marbs
Going out more on the back of the motorbike
Losing some more weight
A quick trip to Italy, to meet Madgie after his epic ride from Venice to Rome
Seeing Funny Girl in July
Afternoon Tea at The Savoy
A walk over The Dome
Going to the theatre to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen
2 days in Barcelona with the the boys – now 18 and 21. Looking forward to taking them abroad and showing them the sights
And possibly…a trip to Cartegena to watch him give the motorbike a spin round the track and catch some late November sun

Then…dare I say it, planning a Christmas at home, which will be a novelty. I bet it whizzes to December 🙂

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21st June 2016

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Waiting, waiting

I should be in Antigua with my parents right now, all of us enjoying our first holiday alone together in a very long time.

But I’m not in Antigua with my Dad. I’m on a train, on the end of the phone, waiting to hear that he’s come out of surgery after 15 days in hospital. It’s not like being on holiday at all, this waiting and hoping that everything is all right. It’s a bit shit, really. Especially for Dad.

14th June 2016

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