Another much-delayed catch-up from me. Work has been utterly overwhelming in the past week. I am updating this thread from work just now but I have been working 12+ hour days so I figure it's fine to take a bit of time back this morning, although I really should be preparing for a meeting.
Not going to derail the thread with complaining about work though. I actually love my job; it's just impossible at the moment with staff shortages, hiring freezes, a convergence of deadlines and no control over the workload. Love the work, hate the volume (and senior management tbh).
On a more positive note, I've been nominated for a really prestigious award in my sector. I don't think I've got a hope of actually winning the thing, but it's really wonderful to be recognised.
Unfortunately, the awards ceremony is taking place at a conference later this year. Aside from the ceremony, there are other reasons for me to go to this conference so I managed to arrange funding earlier this week and booked it all - on non-refundable bookings. I've now realised that I have a semi-regular medical appointment happening at the same time, which means I need to call and see if I can rearrange. I'd rather not go into the details but generally I hate making phone calls at the best of times, and I had a similar situation the last time I had the same type of appointment and it was a pretty awful situation with the receptionist being really exasperated with me messing them around, and the specialist I see is very high in demand, plus only works 2 days per week so it was impossible to find another appointment. This time it's going to be worse as, two weeks after the conference, my mum will be coming to stay or six weeks and I absolutely do no (and cannot) have her knowing about this appointment/treatment; due to the nature of it though, it would be impossible for her to be in the house without knowing, so I'm going to have to say, on the phone, that I'm vetoing a massive chunk of time.
Can you tell I'm building this up in my mind? I need to wait until tomorrow and my day off to make the call as I don't think I can cope with doing this at work with other people around. I keep thinking about the post upthread about us being a group of strong women and I feel I'm letting the side down over a phone call 😟. Also thinking about the wonderful uncle described upthread and that people have had to deal with a lot worse than this. Tbf, I've also dealt with stuff which is objectively a lot worse than this but the brain does what the brain does...
But the award nomination is really lovely and I need to hold onto this. Also have been loving the birds recently; DH isn't keen on having bird feeders in the garden - we used to have one and ended up with a rat under the decking - so we don't get the same variety as we used to, but there is a lovely blackbird couple who nest in our clematis every year (obviously not yet) and recently I've been seeing more bluetits than ever before, alongside our resident robin and the starlings. The snowdrops are also out and the nights are definitely getting lighter - I'm very much enjoying these signs of spring.
As someone who will belt her heart out when alone in the house but who finds the idea of singing in public as offputting as making this phone call, I'm awe of those who sing, and I love the description of choirs as teamwork. I've never thought about that before but it makes so much sense. I'm struggling to manage a team member at the moment but I know that she sings in a choir and loves it so I might use this analogy as a way of getting through to her about the way she works with others.
Gaaaaah. I made it about work again.
A more Nigel-adjacent topic: I received a mushroom growing kit for christmas! Lions mane mushrooms. They are ready to be picked and I'm looking for suggestions for cooking them. Advice online is generally keep it simple and seem to recommend flavouring with garlic and herbs,or Asian-inspired flavours - soy, ginger etc. I think I'm leaning to the latter but wonder if anyone here has any specific ideas, advice or recipes. I should say that they don't really look like lions mane, which seems to resemble fluffy balls when I've seen them on tv or online. My self-cultivated shrooms look a bit like cauliflowers with distinct mushroom-shaped "florets". Not sure if the mis-shape would affect the cooking - advice is generally to slice and sear like steaks but I don't think these will slice neatly. Will try to remember to take and post a photo later.