Personal

Image Source As has been the case with every year since I can remember, I rang the new year in at church, taking the opportunity to reflect on 2016 and my plans for 2017 as the year turned. As part of preparing for that, I took time out to reflect on where I was on achieving the wider goals that underpin the seven focus areas I have identified as part of my Life Plan. It is fair to say that it makes for gory reading, the details of which I’ll have to spare you. The cliff notes version is that, like everyone else, there are a few areas where I am pretty much where I want to be (Causes & Charity, Work & Career), a few where I have put in a decent shift (Financial, Physical & Health, People and Social) and a couple where I’ve gone backwards since the end of 2015 (Spiritual, Personal & Mental Development). ...

For the first time in a very long time, I have four day work weeks to look forward to. The theory behind getting these nine Fridays off is that they have been earned by working an extra thirty minutes each work day. How productive those extra minutes have been remains to be seen, but I suspect their value to our employer lies more in promoting a sense of being cared for in us than anything more tangible. The first of these was spent down south, catching up with friends and reacquainting myself with Stratford and the Olympic park. ...

Day 6 of the Better Man in 30 days challenge - Update Your Resume --- Another apt prompt - given I’ve been feeling like I could use a job change for a while, and I have only just received pass notification from another exam in April. Another day, another review which shows I am headed in the right direction but am still missing some critical research skills… That PhD can’t be put off for much longer at this rate :(

Image Source I catch myself sighing - Laboured breath held, And then expelled Like the unsteady, Weary chug of a steam Locomotive as it drags Its weighty backsides Up a steep incline. My dreams, a hurried, Harried concoction Of fevered, whispered Half phrases and fearsome Visions of a searing inner fire Haunt me, my mind Slowly numbed by the intense, Unforgettable clarity of a growing insanity And the delirium of delusion. The first time I saw you You were a distant- blob of light, bright pink, shimmering red, blazing sun- shine, driving dirty, grey snow into the corner of Kings and Guilds. Between there and here Is something irretrievably broken a gangrenous, festering sore That refuses to heal, its ochre Colour, the colour of dried blood. I catch myself sighing, Laboured breath held And then expelled slowly Like a puff of cigar smoke. But in the distance, Like a storm cloud bringing rain after a drought Is the redemption of the forget-ting