Working From Home Herald - Issue 28

 

Issue 28:

Deceiving the Dog

Sometimes you do odd things every day as part of your morning or night time ritual. You do them so often that you don’t even consider them as peculiar until you mention it to someone else in passing. This happened last weekend whilst standing watching Jamie play football. I was talking to the other parents and the conversation centred around one of the parents and their gorgeous new puppy. Despite their best efforts their dog was just not getting the whole toilet training thing.

Inevitably they asked what we did. Being an honest sort of chap I admitted that even at 3 years old, Scout still has the odd, rare accident, but this was mainly due to the boys waking up at all hours in the night and disturbing him and me not hearing his soft barks to go out. The accidents are few and far between but we initially struggled to train Scout until we came up with an innovative solution to stop him having accidents during the night. 

You see, Scout is a homely dog. He loves a cuddle and loves a snuggle. At around 7pm he can’t wait to go to bed. Anyone that goes upstairs after 7pm whether it be to use the loo or get something from their room, will prompt the dog to scamper up there after them in the hope that we are going to bed. 

When we take Toby up, he races us up there and goes straight to sleep. From 7:30pm to the morning (where he is one of the last one’s up) is too long for him to go without doing a wee. However, getting him to come back downstairs is a nightmare, unless we carry him. Even then he is like a cuddly toy and just plonks himself down where we put him.

Our solution? Good old Alexa. Every night about 9pm, we play the same game which involves Em and myself shouting in outraged voices? “Huh? What’s that? Is that a cat?” This results in Scout raising his head in a half-interested expression. This is then followed by, “Alexa what noise does a cat make?” Alexa duly obliges providing an assortment of miaows which is enough for Scout to jump up and tear downstairs and into the garden where he circles madly on the hunt for a few minutes, before realising he has been duped for the 1000th time and then weeing in disgust. Slightly cruel maybe, but it works.

What do you do that’s odd but you have just got used to?

Coffee Shop

This week marked the return of going indoors. I can’t tell you how much I have missed going to a coffee shop. I wouldn’t even say I am a huge lover of coffee and definitely can’t manage more than one cup a day. 

But there is something about the ambience of a coffee shop that focuses my mind and allows me to churn out work. On Tuesday, I had no meetings until 11am and so after dropping Joe to school for 8, I headed to the local coffee shop, logged on and got my head down. It was the most motivated I had been in months and I tore through a lot of outstanding work. In fact, the majority of this week’s WFHH was done in the coffee shop including this article. 

I’ve said all along, when people have been discussing whether they wish to stay at home or return to the office, that as long as I have the option to do a couple of hours somewhere different every couple of days, I am fine. 

It has done me the world of good and I recommend you try it. 

Transfer Deadline Day:

Like me, my boys are football mad, if they are not watching it, they are playing it in the garden. This week we got to go to Selhurst Park for the first time in over a year. It didn’t matter that the season is effectively over for Crystal Palace, nor did it matter that the pre-match pub we go to has shut down (although very sad), nor did the final score matter (we lost cruelly). All that mattered was that it was an activity that I love doing with the boys and they love doing it with me, and for 90 minutes, we sang, we laughed and we moaned and loved every minute of it. 

Both Joe and Jamie are in football teams. I manage Joe’s team but attend as many of Jamie’s matches as I can (Emma attends the rest). I am also a competitive person but have excelled at not making this a thing when managing Joe’s team. We are in the bottom division, we win some, we lose some but I’ve tried my utmost to bring the fun element to the team and the parents have all brought into that philosophy, especially as I usually let them join in the last 10 minutes of each training session. 

This year, we are riding high in the division (second) with a double header (two games back to back) against the top of the table team. We have also got one eye on next season and increasing our squad as the games go from 9 aside to 11 aside. As such, over the last few weeks we have trialled some new boys who have settled in very well. They will also improve the squads ability immeasurably. 

Where as some of the boys are content to join next season, one boy is happy to join immediately, which means registering their details, getting their photo, putting together a player card and sending it off. 

Now, I have to confess, having said all that about not being competitive, last Thursday when the boy’s parents said he would like to join, something ignited in me that I had chose to remain dormant. A vision of not just finishing second but possibly winning the league emerged. If I could put together the registration there and then, then there was the smallest chance our new star signing would be eligible to play by the time we played the top team.

This idea germinated and grew and grew which is why at 16:25 on a Friday evening, having registered the player online, I left the house in a blur to get to Sainsbury’s to purchase Pritt stick. From there I drove 3 miles to pick up some blank player card, where I hastily stuck the players photos on to said cards and struggled irritably to scrawl his details with a biro which barely had any ink. The result looked like a child had scribbled on it, but I had a completed card and just needed to post it by 17.00pm. As I exited the car feeling triumphant, I saw the post man pull away from the pillar box - it was 17.02. I had failed!!! Despair beyond belief overwhelmed me, as a manager of 12 years olds (who lets be honest didn’t care in the slightest) I felt terrible. The new signing would not have a chance to make the match the following week now. I rationalised that I am not a competitive manager, it really didn’t matter and the last half hour had been a frantic waste of time. I even chuckled to myself at my sillyness. I got back into the car, looked in the rear view mirror to see the postman’s van at the lights at the end of the road. What was I like?….unless…

Inspiration suddenly struck, I screeched into a three point turn and set off in a deadly pursuit of the van, chuckling at my own pathetic behaviour as I hunted the postman on his final route of the day. I was still laughing to myself as I caught him up and handed him the envelope as he emptied the pillar box (after making me post it)

Maybe, I am terrible at quelling my competitive nature. Oh and in case you are wondering, the player’s card still hasn’t arrived so it looks like it was all for nothing anyway. 

Where the Stallion meets the sun

Last week was wellbeing week with the focus being firmly on nature. I cannot recommend getting out and about in nature enough to improve your mood and it was great seeing all of the posts and photos from everyone. 

One morning I woke up at stupid o’clock (well before everyone had even thought about hitting the snooze button for the first of many times). It just so happened that Scout got up with me (normally he is one of the last to stir). On a whim and inspired by all the posts on nature, I decided to put him in the car and go somewhere different for our morning walk. We didn’t travel far because we are lucky enough to have some fields nearby. Before these fields is a hill with a magnificent church and a field next to it. 

On this particular morning (due to the early hour no doubt), all of the horses were on the field next to the church. We walked by them and over the first sty where Scout decided to do his morning business. It was whilst I was picking up said waste that I happened to look back at the hill. It was at this precise moment that all the other horses were on the other side of the slant out of sight and all that remained was a white horse standing on the crest of the hill with the morning sun rays shining down on it. Not only that, but the horse reared on it’s hind legs and whinnied incredibly loudly. 

It was an image from a movie and an incredible moment that was only topped by the answering thunderous hooves as four horses galloped across a neighbouring field to join the white horse on the hill where they spent a few moments of frolicking. 

Part of me wanted to film the scene but sometimes you just have to enjoy the moment. I looked at Scout and was not surprised he sat and just watched the horses, seemingly taking as much pleasure from the scene as I did. 

It was 5:45 am, when I woke up I had been seriously tempted to log on and get a head start on the day. I am so glad I didn’t and went with my whim.