Things I found when cleaning out my desk at work

So it’s a Thursday afternoon, and we are getting ready to move to a clear desk system at work.  I hate clear desk systems.  And to make it harder, they are taking away desk drawers and moving to a hot desk model.  Yuck.  I spend so much time at my desk, that I like to have photos up and post its etc.  I have always been this way.  My first real desk at an insurance brokers, more years than I care to count ago, was covered in photos of my friends and family.

So, today, I set out to clear off my desk.  To clear out the drawers and to throw away a lot of stuff.  I found all manner of things.  I found fold up Frisbees, that are now being thrown around the office, I found ex staff passes, I found a lot of stuff that belongs to a team I have not worked in for 2 years.  It all went back to them to deal with.

And I found this – its Sam’s first letter to Santa.  Awwww – the translation is Dear Santa, Bee costume please, love Sam.  I remember that year vividly.  Sam was 4.  It was the first Christmas that I was spending away from my family.  My sister was still working and she scanned and sent me this gem.  It goes with the Christmas card that he sent me.  Or if you were Sam aged 4, Chrimmas.  I treasure both of these things.  There was also a copy of his Santa photo that year.  Awww.  Sam received a bee costume that year – my sister found one for him.  And the result was very cute.  

This time three years ago, I was a home for Christmas.  It was for my sisters wedding.  Since then, I have another nephew to bore people silly with.  His name is Archie and he is adorable.  It was a great Christmas – I spent it in the sunshine, we sat outside, ate way to much and I enjoyed seeing my family.  I headed up the coast for New Year, had a great wee impromptu concert with friends and generally had the time of my life.  Every now and then when I think about that Christmas, it makes me smile.  My friends keep telling me how happy I looked and how content I seemed.  Yep, London agrees with me.

Two years ago, I had my first and last pub Christmas.  It was brilliant, lots of London orphans gathered together and ate till we could eat no more, drank till we could drink no more and generally ran amok.  The next day we cested on couches and watched movies till way to late.  I loved that Christmas so much.  I miss the players of that Christmas - most of them are scattered around the globe now.  But we will facetime on Christmas day, hopefully - hint hint, you know who you are!

 

Last Christmas I was in Brussels – freezing, not quite snowing, and spent Christmas Eve in Brugges.  This year, I am heading to Norway with a group of friends, to try my hand at a hostel Christmas.  I am being very brave, I really am not a hostel fan.  I am hoping for good wifi so that I can facetime with my family, there is nothing better than speaking to excited nephews on Christmas Eve.  Well maybe actually being there for cuddles would be better, but this is a close second.  The number of times I have answered the question – Nicca are you coming home for Christmas this year?  To have to say no and be answered with upset whining.  The only thing that heals that cut is a chat to them on Christmas morning.  

I love Christmas – I love the tacky decorations, I love the iceskating, I love the buying and giving of gifts, I love the mulled wine, I love the family or friends time, I love overfed naps and I love watching Christmas movies like Love Actually.  This year, as with every other year, I reach this stage, the before I knock off for the year stage, where I just want to slap a number of people and am at my wits end, and then after a week or so off, I am back to my sunny happy self.  I used to find a week at the beach did wonders for my soul.  The last few years I have had to make do without the beach, but a few days off always makes me feel better.

Christmas can be hard when you are so far from home, I remember as a child my aunt calling from England, how much that must have cost her!  I am thankful for Facetime, which other than the cost of the internet is free.  Its essential to surround yourself with an urban family and celebrate as hard as you can, so that you don't feel the ache of the people who are not there.

So that is my Christmas, a few nights away, with snow and lots of booze – hopefully.  Where are you spending yours?  What are you up too?  Do you love Christmas as much as me?

It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt or something...

It’s a Sunday afternoon, I am on the couch watching the X factor from last night, huddling next to the radiator, its freaking freezing at the moment.  It’s so cold that my fingers are not registering on my smart phone.  And I am braving Norway for Christmas!

Anyhoo, it’s been a while since I have blogged and there are some very good reasons for this, a whole heap of shit has been happening.  Least of all a wee assault.  Yep that is right, I was assaulted, attacked or grabbed, whichever way you want to say it, it happened.

I was involved in the annual electoral canvas for the second year in a row.  The first year went by with very little drama.  Its hard work, in the freezing cold, knocking on people’s doors to get them to register to vote.  Whilst I am not really political, I do believe that not that long ago, a generation gave their lives so that we could have democracy, and we owe it to them to exercise that right.  So, our job is to knock on the doors of the people who have not returned the forms that have been sent to them.  It was during the course of this exercise, that a not very nice man, tried to pull me into his flat, after a 5-10mins of stalling me, trying to get me to come in and being creepy in general.  

That is obviously the light version of events, edited for public consumption.  The reality is that it was a very frightening and very upsetting encounter.  It still upsets me that someone, who does not know me, who has no idea of who I am, where I come from or who loves me, wanted to do me harm.  However, I am very lucky.  I got away.  I was strong enough to do it and I have worked for the last 6 weeks especially to ensure that the rest of my life is not affected by those unfortunate few minutes.  As it happened during the course of my working, my workplace has been incredible and organised counselling for me.  Which has been invaluable in helping me to get over this.  And I have a large group of people who were horrified and upset that this happened to me, who have given me an endless supply of hugs and drinks to ensure that I am ok. 

In the week after this moment, I was encouraged to take leave, to try this, to try that, to do this, to do that.  I had a wee holiday to Lisbon booked, so I chose to try and keep things as normal as possible until I could get out of London.  Sadly, that worked for about 20 minutes.  I had nightmares and could not concentrate for long periods of time.  By the time that Wednesday rolled around, and it was time for us to head out to Gatwick, I was a bit all over the place.  But I was lucky enough to have my bestie who looked after me on those few days.  We headed to the lounge and had free drinks, dinner and grabbed some magazines for flight.  We spent the flight watching music videos, laughing and drinking some more.  When we arrived in Lisbon, we were happy to check into our posh hotel.  I felt awful for barely having slept, and I still did not sleep much that night either.  

The next day, we decided that massages were in order.  We spent the morning drinking herbal tea and relaxing.  It was just what the doctor ordered.  I just wanted to sleep and chill in the spa for the rest of the day, but I felt that it was time to see some of Lisbon.  We headed out to Sintra that afternoon.  We ate delish pastries, the local delicacy, and they were amazing.  We climbed up a huge hill, in the mist, we could not see the top of the hill and there was not a view when we got there, but it was beautifully atmospheric, it felt as though we were the only people in the world.  A few weeks later, a friend showed me her photos from the same spots, with the view and we laughed at my matching ones with the mist.  We decided to stay in Sintra for dinner and some more drinks before heading back to Lisbon, for an early night.  This time I managed to get some sleep, not unbroken but ok.  

The next day we slept in and headed up for Bario Alto, in search of lunch and wine.  We found both!  And a whole lot of fun along the way.  We had a great day that day.  We drunk way too much wine, and I wrote postcards home, that were, I am sure hilarious to read, if you could read what they said!  We ate amazing food and laughed some more.  It felt good to be myself again, to not worry about London any longer, to be laughing.  It was a fragile happiness though, the smallest thing reminded me of what was really going on and it only took a second to break.  I am again so thankful for my friends here, their patience and kindness to me on this holiday was just amazing.  Enough gushing.

So I guess that the point of this blog is to say, it is hard to write when there is so much going on in your mind, you either need to write about that or give up.  I chose to give up until I was ready to share my story with the world.  I have been lucky to have wonderful friends and family, work colleagues and also a wonderful counsellor who worked with me to get over this.  And to me there is no shame in saying that this helped no end.  I am very certain that should I have tried to get through this alone, I would still be having sleepless nights and unhappy holidays.  And I now chose to be thankful for these things, rather than focusing on a very scary time in my life.