Bummer of a birthmark !

One of lees favourite cartoonists is "The Far Side" so we have some old collections on our bookshelves, one depicts two deer standing side by side with one having a target on its back while the other says "bummer of a birthmark Hal". Today I sort of know how the deer feels, with Lee off for a few days in Oslo I was contacted by the hospital to attend my "targeting" CT scan this morning. So Poppy, Holly and I all set off in a taxi to the Western General Hospital with a supply of colouring books and pens so that they (the medics not the childeren) could set up the reference points for the radiotherapy. So finally after 44 years of being pretty boring I now have some (actually really small) target tattos on my torso, these were set in place in the middle of a big polo mint (and without any of the nice anesetic cream used by professional tatto places). Apparently these small marks create reference points which the radiotherapy beams use to set their locations (up 10 down 2 shoot etc). The whole thing was over pretty quickly and the kids were fine so all in all we are getting pretty professional and blase at this hospital/cancer thing !

Tonight Lee has got back from Oslo I have been showing off my targets and making plans to buy Poppy her birthday present tomorrow ( a few weeks early ) she wants a trampolene so that is the main part of our day tomorrow, apart from a few conference calls. In addition I have a new back axel to fix onto the MG on Saturday so that I can drive to Northumbria, see my old mate Neville on Saturday night and then go to the MG show on Sunday. Unfortunatly having spent a few pounds on a new axel, after the old one made bad grinding sounds when I was out with Jeff last week, I find that the new axel does not come with half shafts, bearings or oil seals. In short what I expected to be a half day spanner job has become a two day detail alingment and complex shimming job and requires the removal of the full carberettor system, exhaust system and rear brake/suspension system on the car to get the access needed to put the new axel in place. All to be done and road tested by Saturday evening. So that may not happen as my current ability to concentrate and work is limited, at one point yesterday evening I can remember lying on the creeper (rolling thing that gets you under the car) looking at the sun setting for about 10 min while mustering the energy to look for the spanner I needed. So each day I think about spending 2 hrs or so on the job but actually work for about 30min before deferring the next task to the next day. I suspect I will go to the show in the Mondeo in the end, no doubt to some ribbing from my MG club friends, a dilemma will be if I should take a break for the England game Saturday, history in the making so I think the spanners will need to have a rest.

Over this last week I am seeing more of the symptoms of being disconnected from work for a long period of time, that means that my chances of interacting with people informaly and picking up hints and suggestions has been strongly constrained and so my "radar" has been compromised. Hence unexpected things happen and some concerns get legs which could have been dealt with earlier and more in the context of an overall plan. I guess there is little I can do about that which would not push my stress levels and/or work rates above what makes sense for me just now (still sleeping today despite work and MG crisis from 2pm to 4pm so it just shows how much fatigue I still have in my system). So we have suffered some setbacks and need to regroup in some work areas, I am firmly putting that in a box labelled "deal with that in September" although I have one or two discussions planned in the meantime. Overall the lesson of the six months has been that the colleagues have done a great job so my hope is to only come back in areas where I am acutally adding value and leave many of the colleagues who have "stepped up" to cover my absence with their new responsibilities, this should help them develop and grow as long as they have the time available to carry on.

The next period of time is basically going to be some family time camping and at the lodge which I am really looking forward to, then radiotherapy time for a few weeks which I will work part time through, and then some chill out time in Ireland with the family, kids and mum for rebuilding soul and getting my fitness up to the level where I can go a whole day without sleeping in the middle. I can say that this time has had the very strong benefit of building relationships with the family and in the local community as I am not always "away" as I was before. I will miss lunch at the cafe across the street and chatting to the local bucher about his holiday plans, its been a privilage to be able to experience a different type of life closer to a homemaker than my normal existance, and not without its emotional and perspective changing opportunities. However the balance to this is I had no idea how much of a family and a community my friends in Gore globally had become, and how much I had become personally engrained in their success and contentment with the committments they took in Gore. I have enjoyed the uninterrupted contact with my own family but missed more than I thought the contact with the family atmosphere in Gore.

So a lot of thought about how to balance the two in future will be needed over the rest of the summer !

So on that note, enjoy the summer, specially if you are from the USA have a nice 4th of July and remember to take your holidays, in the end you will make better business decisions and find better perspective, good perspective and judgement are the key to good decisions and good decisions are the key to good buisness.

Holidays make profit.........sounds good anyway !

Cheers

Gerry