Hey girl with one eye, I’ll cut your little heart out cause you made me cry

Dress: Dorothy Perkins. Leggings: Warehouse. Boots: Dune. Shawl: knitted by me

A day of tiredness and frustrations, annoyingly. I decided early on to put my positive head on, and I did manage that to some extent but I do seem to have hit a phase where there are too many plans for the time available and the things I really want to do are shuffling closer to the backburner.

But, I’ve cleared a large and frustrating job from my decks, which should free up some time at work, and I’ve made a new connection or two and have plans for other areas of life, so I’m getting there.

Can haz sleep now?

Grey, pink and blue

Jumper: Wallis. Skirt: Vintage. Shoes: Dorothy Perkins via eBay. Shawl pin: www.purlescence.co.uk. Shawl: handknitted by me.

Well, this would have been a completely different blog post if it weren’t for a text. The afternoon at work was… frustrating, and  I drove home late, tired and craving chocolate. And then I got in to find a text from one of my oldest friends announcing her pregnancy. Fantastic news!

I still had the chocolate, in pudding form and with a cherry and vodka sauce, of course

It does make me the last remaining member of that friendship group, comprised of old schoolfriends who have been there for each other through thick and thin over the past 20+ years, to be neither married nor parenting. Isn’t it interesting how life turns out? And thank goodness they’re none of them the type that is evangelical about the joys of wedlock (Alan and I have been together almost 9 years – I reckon we’re as committed as we would be if we signed something) and motherhood (Just… no. Not for me.)!

Moderation

Jumper: White Stuff. Skirt: FatFace. Belt: eBay Boots: Dune. Shawl: handknitted by me

The end of another week – hasn’t January flown by? I apologise for the rather shorter blog posts this week so far – it’s been a challenging week at work, and that’s affected my sleep patterns and available brainpower somewhat. All resolved now, though, thank goodness

I’ve been giving a little thought lately to moderation styles. Yes, I’m a nerd and hang around on various forums (It irks me slightly that that seems to have become the plural instead of fora. Is that sad?), and if you do that you can’t help but stumble across different moderation styles for those occasions when folk rub against one another in a spark-inducing fashion.

It turns out that the more I think of it, the more I like visible moderation. I would much rather see an in-thread ‘Oi! You – cool it. You – stop piling on, you’re only making it worse!’ than see a problem and not see a resolution happening. Or find out that one has happened behind the scenes in a manner which will leave some folk thinking there are never problems (Bullshit. Communication issues happen everywhere – it’s all in how you resolve them.).

I also don’t think it’s very common for issues to be solely one-way – even if someone posts something inflammatory, you don’t need 27 people to tell them that so frankly 26 of them should STFU and allow for either the conversation to continue or the mods to step in. I think it’s fair in that situation for the mods to point out that if the conversation has moved on or your point has been made already by 6 other people you’re not behaving much better than a playground bully if you aim your kick at the original poster. Let’s face it, the reasons for chiming in that far after the fact aren’t tremendously flattering to yourself, are they?

I suppose it turns out that I like transparency. I’m not brilliant at confrontation in the real world, but I can cope with a bit of rough and tumble on the internet, and have learnt a lot from people with posting styles that others have found abrasive. I don’t like the ‘play nicely children’ sugar-at-all-times-and-nary-a-discussion approach – I like to play sensibly, I like to explore different viewpoints, and if I encounter a problem, I like to try to discuss my way to mutual understanding. If someone steps over the line, I like to see ‘Oi! That was a bit over the line – tone it down!’, not a bitchslapping delivered by multiple people and a behind-the-scenes resolution that results in the general feeling that dissenting opinions aren’t welcome however they’re expressed but bitchslapping is perfectly acceptable.

So, yes. It’s one of those different strokes for different folks sorts of things – we all just have to find homes which suit us.

Hepburn

Top: Wallis. Trousers: Next via eBay. Boots: Dune. Shawl: handknitted by me

Brogues. I completely failed to notice them when they became trendy again just recently, but I have a feeling I ‘need’ some. I keep trying to wear these trousers, but really they only work with flat shoes. It’s too cold for ballet flats, it’s starting to get too warm for my knee-length boots and the only thing I can see solving the problem is a pair (or two) of brogues. They’d be closed enough to wear with socks, flat enough to suit the length of these and trousers which aren’t getting much wear at the moment, and dressy enough to look smart for work.

Besides, I have a feeling that I’d rather enjoy rocking a bit of a Katharine Hepburn look.

Ahenny

Jumper: Dorothy Perkins. Skirt: Warehouse. Shoes: New Look via eBay. Shawl: handknitted by me.

When I’m not either working or blogging pictures of myself, I am something of a sci-fi fan. That leads inevitably to Douglas Adams, whose non-sci-fi book, The Deeper Meaning of Liff, has been keeping me entertained for the umpteenth time lately.

In it, Adams assigns various place names to previously-wordless things with such genius that I frequently find myself wishing everybody knew his definitions so I could just use them in everyday conversation. If you’re not familiar with it, here are a few examples:

BONKLE (n.)
Of plumbing in old hotels, to make loud and unexplained noises in the night, particularly at about five o’clock in the morning.

CLIXBY (adj.)
Politely rude. Briskly vague. Firmly uninformative.

DROITWICH (n.)
A street dance. The two partners approach from opposite directions and try politely to get out of each other’s way. They step to the left, step to the right, apologise, step to the left again, apologise again, bump into each other and repeat as often as unnecessary.

DUNTISH (adj.)
Mentally incapacitated by severe hangover.

FARDUCKMANTON (n. archaic)
An ancient edict, mysteriously omitted from the Doomsday Book, requiring that the feeding of fowl on village ponds should be carried out equitably.

GALLIPOLI (adj.)
Of the behaviour of a bottom lip trying to spit mouthwash after an injection at the dentist. Hence, loose, floppy, useless. ‘She went suddenly Gallipoli in his arms’ – Noel Coward.

GLENTIES (pl.n.)
Series of small steps by which someone who has made a serious tactical error in a conversation or argument moves from complete disagreement to wholehearted agreement.

HAMBLEDON (n.)
The sound of a single-engined aircraft flying by, heard whilst lying in a summer field in England, which somehow concentrates the silence and sense of space and timelessness and leaves one with a profound feeling of something or other.

PAPPLE (vb.)
To do what babies do to soup with their spoons.

THROCKING (participial vb.)
The action of continually pushing down the lever on a pop-up toaster in the hope that you will thereby get it to understand that you want it to toast something.

WOKING (participial vb.)
Standing in the kitchen wondering what you came in here for.

See what I mean? Ahenny, by the way, is defined as ‘the way people stand when examining other people’s bookshelves’.

Praise where it’s due

Dress: H&M via eBay. Belt: thrifted. Shoes: Clarks via eBay. Shawl: handknitted by me.

Time, today, to give a little credit to a talented friend of mine. Underneath the shawl, which came off after an hour or so when the office had warmed to a vaguely respectable temperature, is one of the two lovely necklaces my other half gave me for Christmas – the one on the right, here:

Both of these were made by a friend of ours who is a silversmith, so not only do I have two lovely new pieces of jewellery but they were handcrafted by a friend. Rather fabulous, no?

Her website – Kat Cross Jewellery – has just gone live, and while I know she’s still working on both that and building a collection to sell, she does accept commissions for bespoke items so if you like her style you can always drop her a line. I’m considering a brooch or two, myself, once I’ve escaped from Expensive Birthday Season.

Moving

Dress and top: H&M via eBay. Cardigan: White Stuff. Boots: Dune. Belt: Vintage. Shawl: hand spun and hand knitted by me.

Last day of 2010 in the office! I’m actually working tomorrow, but will be working from home in order to avoid the palaver of an office desk shuffle.

And my goodness, doesn’t the prospect of moving desks get people talking? Ever since it was proposed, there have been umpty loud and lengthy discussions on why it’s necessary, whether what’s necessary could be achieved in a different way, and whether people like their new positions. Someone even had a strop today and threatened to resign if their new desk was, as planned, going to leave them with their back to most of the office.

It’s mind boggling. I can’t say I’m particularly delighted about the move – I’ll be a little more overlooked and will lose proximity to a colleague with whom I trade a few chuckles through the day. So, I’ll be a bit more uncomfortable. But, well, it’s a desk. I’ll live, and it’s really not worth the level of debate and whinging that seems to have been going on for the past couple of days. I guess folk must get incredibly comfy in their spots, but I can’t help wondering how some of them would fare in a larger organisation with a huge open plan office. You can’t exactly have everyone sitting facing into the office, desks encircling the office walls and everyone clinging happily to the thought that No-one Else Can See Their Screen!

Absence makes the lunch go fondly

Dress: White Stuff via eBay. Cardigan: New Look. Shawl: handknitted by me. Boots: Dune

Ahem. Another lurgy-related blog absence, I’m afraid! I recovered enough to work from home yesterday (well, I did try to go in yesterday, but when your car starts emitting worrying rattling noises you find yourself at the garage for a while and then working from home!), but thought I’d spare you the series of pictures of poorly me and rejoin you without a tissue clamped to my nostrils.

Today was our office Christmas lunch, over which there was an amount of reminiscing that I have a feeling probably gave some of the new folk an, um, interesting idea of How Things Used To Be. Much hilarity, anyway, and the managing director gave everyone bottles of Prosecco and Bordeaux so we’ve all come home happy.  Almost Christmas and time off…