Don't Try This At Home!
Somewhere in the middle of Wednesday morning I peered through a mild headache at the list of half term jobs I'd jotted down in my notebook. I was feeling tired and bored to the end of my wits with the banality of work and endless deadlines. November is possibly the most intense few weeks of the entire year for me, and though it's the last time I have to go through it before half a lifetime of spreadsheets comes to an end, I'm not looking the slightest bit forward to it. Seriously, if you're considering accountancy for a living, I urge you to think again. If you're thinking of taking your accountancy skills into the world of education - just don't do it. Or at least don't stay forever like I have. Maybe I'm just suffering from burnout after more than thirty years of endless nine to five, but it is exceptionally tedious almost all of the time. I tried to talk my son into doing something more interesting for a living, but he ignored my advice and followed me into this world. I tried anyway.
What cheered me though was that there were ticks beside most of the items on this list. I read the entries one more time and noted that the scariest items were all marked as either complete or as far underway as possible. "At least when term resumes I've got a head start," I reasoned to myself, and with that came a rare moment of spontaneity. "Can you manage if I take a couple of days off?" I asked Katie, my wonderful deputy. "Of course. You need a rest." After all she has to look at me every day so she can tell better than just about everyone else when I need a break.
And so here I am, sitting at home with a small vat of coffee after a delightful Thursday adventure with Lee, which included an all day breakfast with what must surely be the best view from a supermarket cafe in Britain (Sainsbury's in Penzance if you need to ask) and a wander to a predictably people packed Land's End to make some test shots for Longships lighthouse, to which we'll return in more suitable conditions later in the winter. We certainly won't be returning while they try to charge us seven quid to park for an hour there anyway. We drove back down a road for half a mile and parked along a side road before walking back.
We'd planned to finish here at Sennen Cove in the knowledge that the high tide would bring some drama to the breakwater. It's always worth an outing when the sea is in a bad mood. What we weren't prepared for as we drove down the big hill into the cove was the sight of three figures leaping from the breakwater into the protected harbour area as a huge wave hit it. Surely we'd imagined it. Who'd do a crazy thing like that a day after a storm that had brought thirty foot high waves to the Cornish coast?
We hadn't imagined it. Four local lads, none of them older than about fifteen, spent the next hour clambering onto the narrow wall and leaping into the water beneath them at the moment each roller hit the breakwater in front of a large number of onlookers. It struck me that if any of them somehow ended up on the western side of the breakwater they'd be in terrible trouble, possibly with fatal results, but this thought didn't appear to have occurred to them. Maybe I'm just getting old - I suspect they do this a lot at high tide and they probably wait for days like this. I won't be trying it myself in any case.
Later on, when to my relief I'd counted all four of them leaving the scene and heading for home they were replaced by an enormous seal at the water's edge drawn here by a lone angler bracing his rod against the ever energetic flow beneath him. If there were any fish to be had, my money was on the seal. The light faded, the onlookers moved on, and with more than enough raw files to try and choose one from our work was done. It had been so much more fun than eight hours of staring at a computer in confusion. I've decided that once the worst of the next few weeks is done I'm going to have another long weekend too.
Happy Friday everyone - enjoy your weekends.
Don't Try This At Home!
Somewhere in the middle of Wednesday morning I peered through a mild headache at the list of half term jobs I'd jotted down in my notebook. I was feeling tired and bored to the end of my wits with the banality of work and endless deadlines. November is possibly the most intense few weeks of the entire year for me, and though it's the last time I have to go through it before half a lifetime of spreadsheets comes to an end, I'm not looking the slightest bit forward to it. Seriously, if you're considering accountancy for a living, I urge you to think again. If you're thinking of taking your accountancy skills into the world of education - just don't do it. Or at least don't stay forever like I have. Maybe I'm just suffering from burnout after more than thirty years of endless nine to five, but it is exceptionally tedious almost all of the time. I tried to talk my son into doing something more interesting for a living, but he ignored my advice and followed me into this world. I tried anyway.
What cheered me though was that there were ticks beside most of the items on this list. I read the entries one more time and noted that the scariest items were all marked as either complete or as far underway as possible. "At least when term resumes I've got a head start," I reasoned to myself, and with that came a rare moment of spontaneity. "Can you manage if I take a couple of days off?" I asked Katie, my wonderful deputy. "Of course. You need a rest." After all she has to look at me every day so she can tell better than just about everyone else when I need a break.
And so here I am, sitting at home with a small vat of coffee after a delightful Thursday adventure with Lee, which included an all day breakfast with what must surely be the best view from a supermarket cafe in Britain (Sainsbury's in Penzance if you need to ask) and a wander to a predictably people packed Land's End to make some test shots for Longships lighthouse, to which we'll return in more suitable conditions later in the winter. We certainly won't be returning while they try to charge us seven quid to park for an hour there anyway. We drove back down a road for half a mile and parked along a side road before walking back.
We'd planned to finish here at Sennen Cove in the knowledge that the high tide would bring some drama to the breakwater. It's always worth an outing when the sea is in a bad mood. What we weren't prepared for as we drove down the big hill into the cove was the sight of three figures leaping from the breakwater into the protected harbour area as a huge wave hit it. Surely we'd imagined it. Who'd do a crazy thing like that a day after a storm that had brought thirty foot high waves to the Cornish coast?
We hadn't imagined it. Four local lads, none of them older than about fifteen, spent the next hour clambering onto the narrow wall and leaping into the water beneath them at the moment each roller hit the breakwater in front of a large number of onlookers. It struck me that if any of them somehow ended up on the western side of the breakwater they'd be in terrible trouble, possibly with fatal results, but this thought didn't appear to have occurred to them. Maybe I'm just getting old - I suspect they do this a lot at high tide and they probably wait for days like this. I won't be trying it myself in any case.
Later on, when to my relief I'd counted all four of them leaving the scene and heading for home they were replaced by an enormous seal at the water's edge drawn here by a lone angler bracing his rod against the ever energetic flow beneath him. If there were any fish to be had, my money was on the seal. The light faded, the onlookers moved on, and with more than enough raw files to try and choose one from our work was done. It had been so much more fun than eight hours of staring at a computer in confusion. I've decided that once the worst of the next few weeks is done I'm going to have another long weekend too.
Happy Friday everyone - enjoy your weekends.