Issue 22

 

Dressing up

I am not a massive fan of dressing up. Not sure why I am just not. I groan whenever I am invited to a fancy dressed party. Partly because I have loads of ideas and then do a load of research online, get my heart set on a costume and then have a sanity check just before I click the purchase button and realise I don’t want to spend £100 on a costume that I will never wear again, just so some random people can laugh for 2 minutes when I first arrive. Inevitably, I am left scrambling around for something to wear an hour before the party and turn up with an underwhelming naff costume and see the disappointment in other’s eyes when I arrive (although that could just be my arrival rather than the rubbish costume).

However, last week I found myself dressing up twice:

The first was for a charity event for the kids in half term to raise funds for some equipment for a local epileptic boy. One of the mums thought it would be good to conduct a masked singer contest and approached me. As much as I love to sing, my voice is far from good, but I found myself recording a video of me wearing a mask, strutting my lack of moves to a disco light in the kitchen whilst singing Robbie William’s, “Rock DJ” and wearing a pair of tiger pants. So, a normal Friday night really!

The second occasion was Toby’s birthday. Up until now, Toby’s world has been cars. Every birthday and Christmas all he wanted were toy cars and he would gladly go off and play with them for hours at a time.  At Christmas it seemed he had finally reached his zenith with car presents. Instead he has moved onto figures that he can act out scenes with. It is adorable listen to his imagination and the world he comes up with. His latest interest is a through back to my youth – Super Mario! He has seen the boys play Super Mario on the Switch and as a family we all love to play Super Mario Party (great family game). And so, Toby is obsessed with Super Mario and all the figures. His birthday was definitely Super Mario themed with a Super Mario cake, banners and toys.  Unable to throw a party with his friends we had one as a family with the usual party games (pass the parcel and pin the moustache on Mario replacing pin the tail on the donkey). 

But the best part was when we presented the cake, we were all dressed up as Mario characters, I was Wario, Joe was Waluigi, Jamie was Luigi and of course Toby got to dress as Mario. As far as birthday’s go, it was pretty awesome.  

The Fixed Face

This is something that I’ve developed recently and has become a permanent fixture of my working life. Not sure what made me aware of it – perhaps the aching cheek muscles. I am of course referring to Skype meetings.

I’ve had an interesting relationship with Skype meetings over the past 12 months. For a few months they were a novelty; the camera was on, there was laughter and embarrassment when people were talking whilst on mute or when kids interrupted calls. I called this the “New Dawn era.”

Then came the lull when everyone seemed to have their camera off. No one could be bothered to keep looking at the screen. Excuses (no matter how legitimate) such as “eye strain”, “haven’t bothered to do my hair or make-up” and “it slows down my internet connection,” were frequently bandied about. Everyone felt the same, but it made us feel more disconnected than ever. I referred to this as the “reclusive era.” Recently however, there has been a shift. The addition of Teams to Poise has certainly aided this but I also think people are fed up of being isolated, they long to see other people and as a result people have been switching on their cameras more and more. It is refreshing, it helps and I call it the “resurgence era.”

However, with this new era (by the way I have completely come up with the names of the eras as I write the article, I don’t have different eras for different things in my life honest).

So, what is with the “Fixed Face title? Well with the re-emergency of people being on videos I noticed something a few weeks ago. As I was ending a group call, one of the members on the call, sat back, blew out their cheeks and looked to the heavens as if to say, “Lord give me strength,” it was a perfectly natural reaction and one we have all felt and done after endless meetings all day, but I suspect the poor individual had no idea they were still on camera. As such it has made me paranoid. Since that day, every single video call, when everyone says their farewells, I make sure I stare into the camera with a big smile on my face until I am sure the call has finished and everyone has left the call. 

This could be 10 seconds or up to 30 seconds (I am that paranoid). Do this 5 or 6 times every day, all week and it is starting to hurt my face. I am also beginning to resemble the Joker from Batman. It is completely irrational behaviour, especially as I didn’t think anything of the other person having that reaction at the end of a call. Still I am doing it regardless.

Right, I am now off to experience “Lunch era,”

So much more

If anyone asks how I am doing, like everyone my immediate response is that, “I am bored of it all now.” It is the truthful answer but as I write this issue of the Working From Herald, I realise there is so much more I could have said. I tend to write somewhere between 1,100 words to 1,500 words for consistency but in this issue I could have easily sailed passed that total. For instance, I haven’t mentioned pancake day. A day I love and a day that has been torturous for me as due to IBS and having to follow a strict diet, is a day I have had to miss out on (that whole issue could fill an entire edition of the Herald). 

There is also the feeling of helplessness we feel when loved ones are taken to hospital – On Saturday I was going to meet my good friend and brother in law for one of our long walks. I got a call half hour before I was going to be meet him to say he had been rushed to hospital with stomach pains and violent vomiting. There then comes a long period where you are starved of information and you can’t even go round and comfort the family by making them a cup of tea or something. Thankfully he was fine and released with a stomach infection. 

However, on Sunday I got a call from Mum to say Dad was in A&E as he had sliced open his wrist with sacateurs. Mum was distressed as the blood was pumping from his wrist rather than flowing. There then came the same period where you have no information and just have to wait. Again thankfully, my Dad was ok. He was extremely lucky to have sliced open the smallest millimetre of his wrist between the main artery and a tendon. An Nth of a millimetre either side and he would have been in serious trouble – instead he had 4 stitches.

I could have saved both those stories for future editions and expanded on them and I also realise both A&E trips are out of the ordinary, but, I wanted to make the point that we may think we are bored, but there is always something going on. There have now been 22 issues of the Herald in which I have written over 30,000 words and I can honestly say I have not once struggled for content once. We might not be doing what we want to be doing, but bored is definitely something I am not. In many ways writing my these articles and laughing through the tough times is therapeutic and I recommend it.

Oh and for those that asked. Emma did not disappoint with the scream whilst opening the Boomf card on Valentine’s Day – Even though she was expecting it!