Author Archives: Cas

Some days. Those days.

Some days clients get to you.

Most days it’s fine. You do your stuff, they do theirs, you close the file, you move on.

Not some days. Some days you answer the phone on your way out the door and end up listening to a story that wrings your heart out through your soul for fifteen minutes straight. And all you can say as you hang up the phone is “I’m sorry, I’m not sure we’re the right people to help…”

Most of the time it’s as simple as listening, taking their number, getting them a caseworker, or putting them in touch with another organisation that can help. But some days that organisation doesn’t exist. Some days there really is no help you can give but listen. Some days you get sucked into the world of the client.

When just listening really is all you can do it is never, ever, enough.

I want there to be less of those days. I want those days to affect me less.

I don’t want to see so clearly into peoples heads and lives. I don’t want to be hard and bitter; I love helping people. I just wish some days I could retreat behind a barrier to save myself a little pain. I just… I just want there to be fewer conversations like the one I had at 5 o’clock today.

Sunday Roast: dismount the banister!

As you might have gathered from Friday’s post, things have started to pick up in the interesting stakes here at Meadow Towers. Change is in the wind etc, etc, etc. Which, as I expect I have mentioned previously, is exciting and terrifying all at the same time. Don’t expect too much blogging greatness till the dust has settled (middle of September). As is sometimes wont to happen with us personal bloggers, I am busy living my life so I will have something to write about down the way!

I shall warn you now – do NOT expect a Roast on the 14th or the 21st of September as those weekends are designated to be Moving Hell. I have a lot less stuff than I previously dreaded, but sill, the prospect of moving all my crap to another city and a much smaller room in the space of one (and a bit) weekends is not something anyone would rightly look forward to. I’m strange, but not that strange!

What to look forward to in this roast? You’re gonna have to read it to find out 😉

According to the Guardian we should all move to Hull by December.

A message in a bottle has been returned to its sender after 23 years. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea and the serendipity of its return, but I am amazed no one has commented on the irony of the bottle being swept onto a beach being cleaned of litter…

Prior to my current imposed dietary revolution, I ate most anything, bar mushrooms. I abhore mushrooms. The taste, the texture, the smell… Ugh! Just the smell of cooking, especially frying, mushrooms is enough to drive me from the room fighting nausea. My fathers way of trying to tempt child-Cas into eating a mushroom (“eat it, it’s only a fungus!”) not only seemed to me a perfectly good reason NOT to eat a mushroom, but became part of family history. Then mushrooms force a plane to land. Always knew no good would come from mushrooms…

Like Rowan, I hate to give up on a book. To me it smacks of failure and giving in, both things I try not to do. But then you get to books that just defeat you – there isn’t a glimmer of anything to make it worth your while, trudging through the morass. Only one book currently sits, glowering at me in its unfinished state from my bookshelves, taunting me for money wasted on its purchase: Susannah Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. What books have proven to be your literary nemeses?

Breaking News!!! The moon landings were faked!!!

Doodling is great, I think we all (bar my old English tutor before he realised I was paying attention as well as decorating my exercise book) love a good doodle. So why not share them?

Awesome pictures of the world from space.

British Superheroes – a potentially very funny new TV show (just in time for me not having a TV, sigh)

A few map-related links for my lovely map-geek friends:
Are online maps wiping out history?

The UK in 1940

Interactive maps of historical journeys

Ghost Town – I am NOT a fan of Ricki Gervais, but by the end this had me giggling, reluctantly

Real Time – one hour left to live and Randy Quaid on your case? Scary!

The Secret Life of Bees – potentially yet another in a long line of ‘heartwarming southern family dramas’, but something about the trailer caught me and I really want to see this!

The Brothers Bloom – screwball comedy and a rough-round-the-edges Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody. What more can you want?

(And don’t even waste your time looking for the provenance of this weeks title – Moose succumbed to the lure of bad movies and we watched National Treasure 2 last night. And I even giggled in a few places. Oh dear).

Touching Base

It’s been a rather packed week here at Meadow Towers:

  1. I got offered the Cambridge job – unexpected!
  2. Much deliberation later (thanks peeps for listening to me ramble) I turned down the Cambridge job – eek!
  3. Then I found a place to live in Oxford – woot!
  4. Interspersed with finishing both Twilight and New Moon – Edward is a whining twonk and Bella needs a good slap
  5. But I didn’t get offered the Oxford job – boo!
  6. And then the ELDO left work – sob!

All of which equates to:

  1. Moving to Oxford in three weeks, nice place to live, but no job confirmed and no eye candy to keep me entertained at work – eeeks and wooots in equal measure

Which is all a bit much for poor little me, so I am off to curl up with a glass of whisky and a trashy novel to drown my sorrows/make wonderful plans.

Bank Holiday Hiatus

IMG_0265 This is a notice to you all, lovely readers, that Bright Meadow is going to go on a temporary hiatus. Tis the August Bank Holiday here in the good old United Kingdom (well, apart from in Scotland) and traditionally us Brits pack our bags for the long weekend and head away from it all in the vain pursuit of some sunshine.

Because it ALWAYS rains on the August bank holiday. It’s like the fourth law of robotics or something.

This time I am making a run up to join the Crazy Canalman for a day or so, frolicking about on the boat with him and (hopefully) Brother Dearest. Whilst I am busy not-roasting, I am also going to be doing some hard thinking and budget planning. A ghastly way to spend a holiday, I know, but essential when facing my current employment dilemma. Come on people, cast some votes and help me decide here – Oxford or Cambridge?!

Have a good weekend doing whatever it is you are doing, and I shall be back shortly with hopefully more exciting and glorious news to share. At a minimum, I should at least be in a position to be able to put to rest all the confusion over where I’m going to be living in a month. I know I don’t like to plan, but this is getting ridiculous, even for me!

Sunday Roast: feeling uninspired today

You know, I think I might finally have run out of exciting ways to introduce these Roasts. It has taken over three years of more or less weekly writing, but for the life of me I can think of nothing new and fun to talk about this week. I know I have brilliantly fun plans in the pipeline, but I don’t want to talk about them too much for worry of souring them.

So I am going to get on with this post and hope somewhere along the way I get inspired…

I didn’t start out collecting links this week that concentrate on the visual, but somehow it just ends up that way.

Always knew Google Maps were evil

I’m not a fan of Cow Murderer Federer, but this picture is damn impressive (photo source)

I want!

Possibly one of my favourite photographers in the world

Followed swiftly by another favourite

I haven’t been following the Olympic games much (bar Moose’s regular updates on how my baby Nadal is doing in the tennis), but this images are hilarious! Pictures 8 and 11 had me totally creased over when I saw them at work.

Looking at my groaning bookshelves, I hate to think how much I spend each year on books. Add to that it is not unusual for me to get through 6 books a week, and you have me blessing the fact our local libraries are rather good, just round the corner and open till late! Whilst I frantically pray Oxford is similarly blessed with decent public libraries a short walk from wherever I end up living, how do you balance your book budget?

Only the Norwegian’s could have a penguin as their Colonel-in-Chief (and no fewer than four people independently emailed me this story at work on Friday – hugs to all of you for knowing me so well 🙂 )

I want to be able to pass this story off with a jokey “only in America”, but it is genuinely freaking me out too much to find it even mildly diverting – a Texas school is letting teachers carry guns in classrooms. WHO in their right minds could possibly think having more guns around kids is a good idea? Picture me sitting here in baffled incomprehension.

What Just Happened? – if only for the bearded, fat Bruce Willis

Max Payne – I expect this comes from some comic/graphic novel I have never heard of, but this trailer excited me more than I would expect a simple revenge/shoot-em-up too. I think it is the flashes of wings that promise something much, much weirder

High School Musical 3 – and with this admission, I hear by resign any claim I ever had to even a smidgeon of cool. Yes, I watched both HSM1 and 2 and I plan to watch 3 when it comes out on DVD. Yes, I know I am 26 in a month. Yes, there is very little you can say to me that Moose hasn’t already mocked me with.

Now I am off to hide in embarrassment till it is time to go round to Neko’s to be looked after 😀

Sunday Roast: never eat more than you can lift

Before you ask, no I am not going to tell you how the job interview went. It went, leave it at that. Job interviews, like exams, are things I am notoriously bad at judging. I think I’ve done awfully and I pass with flying colours; conversely, I think I have done well and I crash and burn spectacularly! I will find out when I find out and then I will make whatever decisions that need to be made.

(To tell you the truth, I am all excited and looking forward to the next adventures that await come the middle of September. Scared witless, but excited).

Looks like this week is Movie Week here at Meadow Towers. *rubs hands together in glee* Lots of lovely, yummy movies to look forward to down the bottom of the roast. There are also a few other things that have grabbed my attention round the net this week, so read on…

For Neko

I can’t think of a good intro to this, other than it is a damn gorgeous photograph: Bubblicious

Possibly my favourite tumblr entry ever

Some random thoughts on ebooks – there are some interesting points in there, mainly about the pricing. I want an ebook reader, I really do. I’ve started rereading The Baroque Cycle by Stephenson. Brilliant books, but at over 900 pages each, even the paperback versions are a trial to read with my wrists at the moment. A nice, portable ebook version? Bliss and would have kept me occupied on this weeks mammoth train journey!

As Moose said when she sent me the link, nooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

Continuing our conversation about bees and the perils of honey farming, Himalayan bees with 3 meter nests!

And those movies I promised:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – spine tinglingly evil and dark. Love it 😀

Death Race – so I like me a bit of Jason Stratham, plus the whole thing is one big car chase with lots of explosions. What’s not to like? (Yes, I am your dream girlfriend right now, aren’t I? 😉 )

Rachel Getting Married – DVD material, but intriguing

The Spirit – I am so conflicted over this movie! It looks like it is going to be mindblowing visually, but is that enough to make a decent movie?

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist – a bit of light candy floss for the mind. Again a DVD when the library has their 2-4-1 offer.

Madagascar Escape 2 Africa – thank you for flying penguin air

Ballet Shoes – this was on the TV last christmas here in the UK, and it is a really sweet adaptation of the book. Well worth it. I can even (almost) forgive the one major deviation from the book as it does make for a more modern happy film. Maybe.

Babylon AD – the teaser I saw for this a few months ago was better, but this still looks like it could be fun. See my afore mentioned comments re Death Race and apply them also to Vin Diesel and this film…

Oooooh, honey honey

Here’s a question for you to start your week – how do they mass produce honey?

The Surgeon General keeps bees so I know a little of how it is produced on small family farms, and it is fairly labour intensive to make honey. Plus honey from Long Meadow bees always tastes far superior to anything you can get in the supermarket, so how the big companies makes it can’t be the same.

I repeat, how do you mass produce honey? It is not like you can battery farm bees, or can you? I have visions of huge swathes of moorland given over to rampaging herds of bees, grazing on all the heather they can get their proboscis’ into, till the bee keeper whistles them in for the night, perhaps using so trained badgers as sheepdogs.

So I stretch the analogy some, but that is what my brain does! It makes these silly leaps when I have no information to fill the void, so again I ask – how do you mass produce honey?