Nodding off

Middle daughter's girlfriend was the lead in a play. Kitty and another friend had given me a voucher for my birthday, so I used it to subsidise two of the better seats for me and Mel.

Unfortunately, it merely continued mine and Mel's run of disappointing cultural events. The play was a hackneyed version of the heroic, inspirational teacher with unpromising pupil material to work with, who this time was faced with a stuttering child given a part in Hamlet. Hallmark-card-style language ("you're free!...free to soar!") and a wicked witch headmistress concerned with balancing the school's books.

In the feedback survey I completed afterwards, there was a question about "anything you particularly enjoyed about the performance and how it made you feel", for fuck's sake. I answered "The auditorium was warm and the seats were comfy, so I was able to sleep well."

Not getting the job in Bristol last week was a great disappointment. Unusually for the railway, I was offered feedback. As I had guessed, my responses to the interview questions at the end of the assessment day were too vague and generic. "We'd have liked to have heard about what you actually said or did to calm the football supporters down for example."

Then, yesterday, back in the gloom of my current workplace, a couple of the supervisors were voicing doubts about whether the long-promised rolling roster, that was originally promised from August, would be implemented at all.

I have formulated a plan, because working for Transport that Fails is a depressing experience. I'm going to wait until the new year; at the end of the feedback conversation the HR man said there'd probably be similar jobs to that for which I applied coming up then. Plan A would be to apply for a get one of those; Plan B would be to find another railway job (although I've been trying without success at that for over two years now); Plan C is to leave the railway temporarily, find something else in Bristol, and return to it as soon as possible.

Bad news from Norway, where Helen is in hospital with pancreatic cancer, noticed too late. She's having palliative chemotherapy, but Kitty said she's not expected to leave hospital. As soon as possible we'll be over to Norway. I'm hesitating about adding "to say goodbye", but that's what it'll be. And not yet sixty years old.