That was the week that was, erm, interesting..

Well, actually the last two weeks have been, erm, interesting. In addition to today’s flower photos I thought I’d give a taste of what I have been up to. This includes some work stuff. I know I do not normally blog about work but there are some weeks where it affects every part of my life. That said, my contribution to Guest in Jest today was work related.

Work stuff: The big event of my year happened on Thursday 29^th March when I took delivery of some very expensive new equipment for my lab. The process of purchasing this has been ongoing since last summer – before most of you even knew me. It has been frankly hellish – as anyone who has ever had to deal with UK public sector procurement could attest I’m sure. There is a strict cut-off date for delivery of purchases at the end of the financial year. Thanks to procurement dragging the process out I took delivery FOUR HOURS before this cut-off and this was only made possible by the monumental efforts of the suppliers involved after the tender was awarded. I was so stressed by that morning that I was unable to keep food down. Anyway- here are my new million-pound toys:

Also one of the existing instruments packed up and I had to call in an engineer. Coincidentally he was on site the same days as the people installing the new kit. It was bedlam in the lab so I hid in the office 😊

In addition to this, my only two free-ish days were taken up with meetings.

The consequences of this were that I did not get to the gym for two weeks. If you are accustomed to working out most days this is torture. Seriously. Coupled with the stress this was challenging.

The Easter weekend was thankfully peaceful. I got some gardening done and my latest artistic project has sprung from the collaboration with my blogging friends. I am so inspired to draw at the moment. We also went to visit the Mollster. She is moulting and you can see the state of Susan’s black gloves afterwards!

Tuesday the 3^rd we went to our home town for the wedding of two friends. I coped OK but I was not at my best I must admit, and was even quieter than usual. Some of the people there I had not seen for 30 years and it made me very reflective on change, especially how much I have changed and yet at the same time how some things still hold me back a little. Such reflection is not good for me.

I am also still troubled my my lack of activity with regards travel plans. Even the post I drafted on my travel anxiety has languished in my drafts folder for over a month now as I even have anxieties about posting it!

The week has improved. The lab looks better for a start. My artwork is going well. Though since putting the image of the start of a new piece on Instagram I have had a lot of new followers:

These are almost exclusively persons of the ‘life coach’ and ‘empowerment’ variety, or travel bloggers who seem to be largely young ladies who post pictures of themselves on exotic beaches or doing yoga. Often whilst not wearing much. Whilst I certainly have no objection to young ladies in bikinis (as if) I do wonder how they found me. Maybe I should message and ask? I am not naive enough to imagine it was the selfie of me in my new Indigo Acres t-shirt that attracted them. Unless it was the t-shirt itself??? You might be on to a money spinner here Roda.

Thinking about it, my list of Instagram accounts I follow is incredibly eclectic. It includes lots of artists, gardeners, and people with puppies (no surprises there). But also fashion, especially vintage, gothic and steampunk clothing and even jewellery designers. There are yoga and meditation bloggers (hello Martina). There are inspirational bloggers, authors, psychologists. Travel bloggers. There are special-effects makeup artists and studios. Musicians, poets etc. I guess the thing they all have in common is creativity and inspiration.

My other half would think at least half of this is ‘weird’ stuff. I sometimes wonder if Susan expects me to follow the 50+ Northern male stereotype of being an ultraconservative Daily Mail reading Brexiteer. Like that would ever happen!

Anyway. Enough of this. Here are some pretty pictures from the Easter weekend: