Farewell to the Forties!!

Hi again.
This is going to be my last post on this blog, for obvious reasons!

Tomorrow I turn 50! I feel ridiculously excited about it. I've just been on a fantastic holiday with my daughters and a friend. We spent a week in Keswick in the Lake District, which is one of my favourite places in the whole world.

Tomorrow evening I'm having a 'Glamour and Glitz' party at the local bar where I used to perform my poetry. It promises to be a great evening, an eclectic mix of friends and family. It hasn't been easy, making friends in the last few years. I spent my time working/nursing a sick child. I didn't have time, energy or opportunity to meet people - but finally I seem to have grown a group around me. I know some lovely, creative, quirky people here, and I love and appreciate them very much.

So! New decade, new blog. I'll be launching it soon, then I shall add the address to this post. See you there!

http://myfantasticfifties.blogspot.com/

The Final Push...

Yes, it's finally here! August, that is. I'm able to walk without crutches, swim over twenty lengths, and I've left my job!!!

I'm sorry for the lack of blogs lately. There has been so much going on that I have been distracted, but one of my New Year's Resolutions (I make them on birthdays, seems eminently more sensible!) is to blog at least every other day. Every day may be optimistic, given that I am hoping to be Supply Teaching, which I know of old is pretty exhausting. On the other hand, I shall quickly have a fund of entertaining stories. I can't wait!

I left my job last month in a blaze of indifference. My boss never quite got round to writing my reference (well she said it had been posted and emailed, but several weeks on it hadn't arrived in either form, so I drew my own conclusions, which I accept may be wrong, but it doesn't seem likely).

The Farewell Fuddle (for two of us) was a masterpiece of English Embarrasment at its best. Apparently I shall be remembered for a training event I helped to run 6 years ago ("which was a disaster, but Speranza stuck to the script and kept us going") and for "unfortunately being off sick for a long time." Ah well, I've learnt my lesson. This is the first job I've ever done for longer than a year (apart from Motherhood, which continues as a lifelong, long-distance blessing!) Nine years was obviously just Too Long. Alas, no mention of the many children I've actually managed to help. Still, I know who they are...

My line manager stepped in and wrote my reference, bless her, thus continuing her wonderful work of enabling me to carry on (or in this instance, to leave). As she is an artist, I gave her some painting-related gifts when I left, and wrote her a poem. I thought you might like to see it...

For -----

You work with an artist’s eye

for the potential of white spaces,

content to leave them be for now

and see what comes.

There is always room

for creativity.

I wonder if you see

How much you bring to people’s lives?

You patiently explain

systems and protocols

until they take on meaning.

This is Art.

Your explanations

are gems of clarity in chaos.

Tiny masterpieces, they

hang in my mind in golden frames.

You washed me with confidence;

gently painted until

your light touch

brought fresh colour to my work.

You daily show

an artist’s patience

with the people on your team -

and that makes all the difference.