Post Holiday Blues

They have struck. Are striking. Will continue to strike. Jeez I love holidays. Other than birding the patch, ahem, they're the best thing ever. However yesterday's eleven hour day in the mines banished all thoughts, all memories, all recollections of what was a fabulous time away. It is amazing how quickly it fades. My boss described me today as being in post-holiday shock, and which looking at my three page to-do list (none of it involving relaxing or having a good time) I can well believe. Apparently I have been very quiet, a sure sign, she says, of stress. She is probably right, the last couple of days have been intense. The happy news is that as of that eleven hour day on Monday, I was once again a permanent employee. Pensions, holiday rights, healthcare, and an opt out from the 48 hour European Working Time Directive. Oh yes, I am back. This is no mean feat I will have you know. My chosen sector is not an easy one to get into, especially after time away. So despite my grumblings, I am quietly pleased to have managed to get back in. I am a conservative and sensible person, a full-time job is a must have, and I always felt slightly uncomfortable being a contractor.

I am of course back at the same institution that dispensed with me some four years ago. I had just started this blog, which I hope was unrelated. A short while later, the news came and I was one of those people you read about in the papers, stood outside a shiny building with a cardboard box in my arms. I faced the future with aplomb, of course, and threw myself into the job of becoming a full-time domestic goddess. I became amazing at this, by my reckoning. By Mrs L's reckoning, I just about scraped average some weeks. It did make for better blogging than when working of course, and in the two years I had away from a career I put in the groundwork to become a better photographer. So in 2009 you got a load of crap, which at the time I felt was stunning, whereas now you get this, which in a couple of years I may well also dismiss as total crap, but which currently, and humbly, I think is pretty good.

Such a beautiful gull

You also got domestic poetry. How long has is been since I was this creative? And of course, blue sky thinking, with clarity of thought that remains as true today as it was then. Re-reading some of these posts with yesterday's news in mind, it is clear that I am very weak and, at the time, somewhat unrealistic. Never go on the central line again? Ever?! Pah - I am a total idiot! And how much gardening did I do? Precisely none, and the garden only got sorted out when I returned to work and hired a gardener. Many of the things about birding were true though. So, there you have it, I am back.

Of course, I've been back for a long time. Back on the central line almost two years ago in fact. Nothing actually changed yesterday, it is purely symbolic. But it's still interesting to go back and read my incredibly naive posts from a time when my life was moving in exactly the opposite direction, and see what I felt about it then. Was it a peak, or a trough?! How will I ever know? Hah! I think I know well enough, and the fact remains that the two years I spent not working are right up there as amongst the two best years of my life. I probably didn't make the most of them, certainly not in terms of changing direction, but then I am very very lazy deep down. But I did have a fab time with my kids who at the time were small and appreciative of daddy being at home. Look how big they are now!!

Life moves on, and my holiday is over.