Live/Work Blog

It’s not possible! Surely! Two months have gone by since my last blog. So before you start thinking nothing’s been happening in my worklife, or I’ve retired to Dun Bloggin in soporific Budleigh Salterton (the very name conjures for me images of electric buggy gridlock and overworked dentures), here’s what I’ve been up to.

It’s been a bit head down to be honest. Personally subsidising First Great Western – what a totally inappropriate name when they’re always last in the reliability league tables. I’ve been seriously nomadic, doing a lot on the hoof, frequenting too many “grand” hotels where the price of a hot chocolate is directly proportionate to the length of time you wait for it, carrying out a one-man survey of cheese ploughmans, and returning rather late most nights to the black plastic command post.

So it’s been a real pleasure to be here in my “den” in between all the rushing about, cuddled up with the cats as I pick out and zap the day’s accretion of SPAM. (Why do we call it that? Anyone know? As a seasoned vegetarian, I think it should be re-named TOFU – aka New Age Spam – as in “Tossers Out For U”). My carpetbagging of late leads me to wonder if we could really become totally mobile and not even require a home base, let alone an office. Could I pick holes in a contract while sat on a beach in the Caymen, or deal with a bitter battle in brand development from a lemon grove in the High Alpujarras? Could Officia endure being scattered to the four corners, stripped of its multi-story, glass clad “clothes”, and forced to rely on the goodwill of its workers? It will be a while whatever happens – we were talking about this stuff 10 years ago at Henley Management College’s Futurework department.

Life has of course seeped into the cracks in my peripatetic portfolio workstyle. Due to an invasion by three-year-olds (well, one actually – just seemed like lots, and a grandson to boot) the Burmese Boys took a long weekend break under the bed in February, emerging briefly at night to snatch some Pedigree Prawns, patronise the poo-tray, and rearrange the utterly sacred layout of Brio trains that everyone else had to tip-toe over. Same grandson reminded me of the power of free screech, emptying an entire room of visitors at a local gallery, when all he wanted was another ice-cream. So unfair, what some people say about children. Right.

Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday saw us indulging in the wanton destruction of piles of golden pancakes, assisted by an orgy of fillings (lemon and brown sugar’s my favourite – what’s yours?) – not an edifying sight - and we escaped for Easter to sunny Spain – long religious processions, mountain walks and that essential for us SAD sufferers: strong light bouncing off the whitewashed walls of an ancient hill village thousands of feet above the Med.

Meanwhile, back in Blighty, the homeworking community has been hotly debating the subject of pets: are they a liability (how do you explain away a deep, stereophonic purring to the nervous new client on the phone for the first time to – horror of horrors – a homeworker) or an asset – something to stroke while you’re composing a difficult email? By the way, the Burmese Boys are now trained not to walk over the keyboard but that doesn’t stop them from sitting on the printer at the critical moment.

I recently came across a list of in-vogue business terms – well, the ones we seem to be using this week in the glittering spires of Officia – including “pushing the envelope” which apparently means increasing the scope of the project, “drill down” (I really hate that one – why don’t they just say “go into more detail”? It reminds me of the time I “drilled down” in my then mother-in-law’s floor in a frenzy of guilt-induced DIY and hit a buried, high pressure water pipe) and “hardball”. What is that? It’s bad enough keeping up with the constantly changing teenage terminology – “random”? – but do we really need 40 year old teenagers confusing us as well?

Good news on the indulgence front. Elizabeth – her of the menacing marshmallows and lonely lunches – has instigated good food with friends and can now reach parts never reached before: her jeans! Well done Elizabeth. Does that make me an Agony Uncle?

So, if you’ve a dilemma or even a fully formed problem, share it here. You never know, you might get a jargon-free, left-field (whoops!) and non-judgmental suggestion.

Now I wonder what happened to Lenny and his cardigan?