here again......

suprised to find it's a year since I last posted.
Last time I wrote here I said this....

To update:
1 - I still feel comfortable at work - the job is interesting, varied, stimulating, challenging and I'm in a good team.
2 - T's Rheumatoid Arthritis treatment is still not working fully yet, so things are still quite unpredictable and it's hard to plan ahead. The challenges of disablism are constant and our relationship has changed to adjust but life is fairly stable.
3 - I work 3 days a week but have been doing extra days for other organisations to earn a bit more - on average have worked 4 days most weeks. This has been a bit too much. My colleagues are keen for me to work full time, but I'm sticking to my plans.
3 - When I am not working, T and I still get out and about in the campervan a lot - we spent 2 and a half weeks in the Outer Hebrides in May 2008 - a fantastic trip!
4 - My youngest step-son has just started at a new Uni - he went to Uni last year but it didn't suit him - wrong course, wrong Uni. He's done some voluntary work and paid work this year and changed quite a lot. So far he's loving his course. My oldest step-son has been working for a homeless charity and had his own house with his partner. They've just moved back to her parent's house as they are going to travel interationally for 6 months next year. The house is now officially empty of "children" again, but they'll be staying over regularly.

All this means that I am STILL sometimes stressed, always busy, but overall content with my lot.

In Dec 2006 I said this.....

I am pleased to say:

I have done some paid work and some joint projects with the local self-advocacy project that I first worked with in my last job.
I have taken a lot of photos with T- being paid for some of it - and we had our first exhibition recently which was a fantastically positive experience.
I took a life drawing class last year at Uni, but it doesn't run anymore.
I sing with a women's natural voice choir and sometimes take the sessions as the deputy leader which has given me loads of confidence. I bought a new piano accordion recently which is beautiful,
but -
I still need to get good at that.
I don't walk enough.
froom is still on hold
and blogging has been ignored but here I am again!

didn't think I'd been gone that long!

I'm amazed to find that I haven't posted here since February!
I started my new job in Feb and have obviously been having such an interesting/ busy time since then that blogging didn't fit in anymore.
Should I carry on?
Well, I don't know, but I'm not ready to close it down yet.

4 important changes have taken place recently
1 - I feel comfortable with myself at work - I feel like I fit in - I'm a lecture at a University locally, based in the arts/ sociology department
2 - my partner T has Rheumatoid Arthritis and is having treatment that is not really working yet, so things are quite unpredicatable and it's hard to plan ahead. It also means that there are lots of challenges brought about by the oppression of disabled people that we face and I support T to get through as best I can.
3 - I work 3 days a week but have been doing extra days for other organisations to earn a bit more. When I am not working, T and I get out and about as much as we can in the campervan.
4 - My youngest step-son has just started at Uni, the older one having left home last year to do that, but it didn't suit him and now he is working and studying new subjects planning to go away to Uni next year. So, the house is now empty of "children".

All this means that I am sometimes stressed, always busy, but overall content with my lot. This doesn't mean I no longer care about "issues", but I have other things that take priority over blogging.

I am sure there will be times in the winter months ahead when this blog will be useful to me.
I will probably shifting the focus from women's oppression to disablism somewhat - but my feminism is always a thread that runs through everything I do.

I've started....

my new job at Staffordshire University.

I was shockingly overwhelmed on my first and 3rd days. I had a headache all day on Tuesday ( my first day) and choked back tears 3 or 4 times on Thursday afternoon/ evening after my 3rd day.

But I still think it was a good move.

Wednesday was the best - I felt at home there all morning and had lunch with my job share co-worker, who is great - funny, intelligent, kind - we should get on like a house on fire.

It was very peculiar doing 3 days and knowing I'd done my first week's work. It's also odd knowing I don't go back in until Tuesday. I hope I don't get used to it, so that it always feels like a treat.

I will be busy on Monday anyway as I have volunteered (but then had it agreed that I can do it as part of my new job) to organise an exhibition of the Mencap SNAP photographs.

3 days a week....

I'm going to be doing a job share - it's been agreed!
I am still waiting for my written job offer, but the 2nd choice candidate has agreed to take the job share..... I should be able to start in February. I never got a new contract from the NHS when I started this new job despite chasing them for it twice, so I'm still on one month's notice!

I'm not sure about research yet, but I do know the holiday entitlement is more than I get now and the pay is slightly more pro rata.

All in all it's a fantastic deal and opportunity - I intend to make the most of it.
Amongst my plans for what to do with my other 2 days a week are:

• get away a lot in the campervan that we have recently acquired...
• volunteer at the local self-advocacy project that I have been working with a lot
• act as broker for a young person and their family to take control of Self Directed Services
• take a lot of photos - hopefully getting paid for some of it - with Cultural Sisters and other local community arts organisations
• take up drawing again
• make lots of music and sing
• walk and swim
• re-launch froom
• support Pan the local group that I am a member of to develop and seek funding
• blog....

Think I might struggle to fit it all in but I'll give it a try!

working hours.....

how many is too many?

I have been offered a new job as a lecturer at the local Uni and I am taking part but I am in the process of negotiating hours.

I work 4 days at the moment. I do not want to go back to full-time -

• I got so worn out last year I have got used to needing a 3 day weekend to keep my batteries fully charged.
• T has a condition that means I am his carer some of the time and I like being around at home - it stops him getting too isolated.
• I want to do other things with my time than be employed in one job.
  I do some voluntary work and some paid self-employed work e.g. photography. I'd like to do more of both if poss. I'm keen to get froom going properly too.

So I have asked to do 4 days or a job share of 3 days. The Uni are looking into both. They have asked the 2nd choice candidate if she wants to do 2 days a week so that I can do 3. That would be ideal. If she can't sort that out with her current employer and doesn't feel confident she will get other work to make up her hours, then the Uni will have to think again. They don't think they can offer me 4 days as the funding for the job is for a full time post and they don't usually recruit to jobs that are only 1 day a week which I can understand. So it might mean I have to seriously consider working full -time at least in the short term until they can recruit another person to job share with me.

So I have been worrying about this. Can I cope with a full time job? I believe that I would be able to work from home sometimes and the hours would be flexible.....

I will not get too anxious about it until I know if the other candidate can job share........ should know by mid week.

workplaces need to change.....

now that's a surprise! (not)

According to a Guardian article today Jill Treanor says "Senior executives from 150 leading companies will be asked to help draw up a new set of industry standards to promote more women and to create working environments which break away from the traditional male-dominated, aggressive workplaces"

The number of women in the boardrooms of Britain's biggest companies has fallen sharply. While 50% of the graduate recruits are female, the proportion reaching senior levels falls to 30% and to just 15% in executive roles. There are only 12 female executive directors at FTSE-100 companies last year - down from 20 last year. The 12 women work for 10 companies. Only three FTSE 100 firms have women chief executives. 90 women serve as non-executives, but more than a quarter of FTSE 100 firms have no female director.

Yup - there's a lot of work to do!

Professor Lynda Gratton, leading the research says "It ís not simply that companies [are choosing] not to promote women but that women decide to leave". One of the first things the centre will do is to bring together all relevant research on its website, london.edu/womeninbusiness Then it has plans for studies into topics such as what draws women to entrepreneurialism and the reason women seem to be good at innovation.

In an interview in the Guardian last week Gratton said "We need to show organisations, through research, what benefits women can bring, what they can do.....

Research published this Wednesday also found that women were both task- and relationship-oriented, meaning, in lay terms, that they get things done as well as get on with people. Gratton describes this as a "huge finding". I think it's totally patronising - women have to be doers and networkers to survive with a family to support, it's not news!

This week's research suggests that more than 30% of any workforce needs to be female to change an organisation. Women are surrounded by fewer and fewer women as they move up the greasy pole. Gratton also points out "Being a minority is an unpleasant place to be. The surprise I sometimes think is not that there are so few senior women but - given how hard it is and how extraordinarily good they have to be - how many." This point that echoes the earlier posts I have written about how women, despite having to spend hours on "beauty-work" can still achieve as much, if not more than our male counterparts, if we choose to.......

how much time do you spend at leisure?

I mentioned yesterday that some of my favourite photographs in the Masquerade exhibition are of women with moustaches. I have talked about hair a bit before here in this post on the Beauty Myth.

I have just read an article from the Guardian on the 4th May based on a speech given by Germaine Greer about leisure time. There is a big difference between the way men and women use their leisure time. Basically women don't have "leisure" pursuits - we work when we are not doing paid work - either doing housework or volunteering or doing beauty work....some of that is to do with hair.

"The time they don't spend working for the employer and the taxman they spend doing something called "housework", to which, for most women between the ages of 25 and 50, may be added "childcare". There is also the onerous task of body maintenance, keeping the otherwise disgusting female body clean, tidy, deodorised, made up, not to mention toned and becomingly clad, plus the exhausting, sometimes painful and expensive business of hair and hairiness management. Work, all of it.....

Older women, whether they play bingo or break out the camp stove, are heavily involved in leisure, but theirs is cut-price leisure. They are not in the market for recreational vehicles, or powerboats, or even motel accommodation. They are the people who make possible literary festivals and antique fairs, who support local art galleries and museums, who volunteer for every community chore, and happily raise money for what they believe to be good causes, giving, giving, giving of their time free. If we had a way of quantifying the output of the leisure industry of older women, we would probably see that it contributes vastly more to the GDP than the corporate leisure industry."

I spent such a large part of my life dealing with hair from puberty until my mid 20's that I feel certain one of the reasons I now have time for real leisure, such as singing in the LoudMouth Women singing group I am part of, is because I don't remove hair anymore. Neither do I wear any make-up. How many hours do you think you spend "working" on your body image?

work life balance on way to being restored....

I am feeling the benefit of -
a) being off work again for a week
b) going to T'ai Chi once a week (been twice so far)
c) doing some Molly dancing (a style of Morris dancing) and accordion playing once a week (been three times now) with Black Dog Molly
d) eating dark chocolate covered ricecakes (what I am addicted to and had run out of and now have 2 wholesale boxes of )
e) having some long lie-ins
f) knowing that we are off to Cornwall soon...
g) knowing that my manager is ok about me putting in an application to go down to 4 days a week - she thinks we can make it happen and is willing to discuss how....

I think my ideal would be working a 3 day week with time to do more unpaid work getting froom up and running and helping support the development of Write-on. I could also use the time to perhaps do some sessional University teaching on regeneration/ community development/ social studies/ advice work/ counselling eventually, if I could get some hours.

I am a late bird, not an early one - and as a result am seen as lazy and a misfit. Why is the standard working day 9-5? Most people seem to prefer either 8-4 or maybe even 7-3, or a minority of us who prefer 10-6, 11-7 or even 12-8. I really need a job that is based around a working day that runs from 11am to 7pm - those are my natural peak hours.

But going down to 4 days will be a good start and should help me build up my energy levels and resilience.

My doctor told me that the dizziness I've been getting is probably not a balance/ inner ear problem. It could have been a virus thingy. It also could be a side effect of the St John's Wort. So, as I am no longer depressed I have stopped taking it and will wait and see how I feel.
I am not going to know if the dizziness was related to it if I am not dizzy again. But if I am dizzy again I will know it was not due to the medication. A bit of detective work will be needed to see what the cause is. I will probably assume it's fatigue/ stress.

The 4 day a week thing is an interesting one......
it feels like such a luxury. I am so lucky that I can afford it.

I also have struggled to get my head sorted about being a part-time worker - I had always imagined myself working full-time and climbing up the career ladder. I have now realised that I have a choice and life isn't all about career. I need to feel like I am influencing decisions that affect the bigger picture - the way services are delivered, the priorities that are set in public service, the tackling of the causes of inequalities and prevention/ reduction of them. I assumed this meant I had to be managing big budgets or lots of people or writing high level strategies.
I actually don't like do those things and have started to feel like my contribution to those things will not effect the sort of changes I want to see. I have come full circle back to the belief that is it grassroots social action that can make the biggest impact.

T and I were talking about this yesterday (again - it's a common topic in our home) and we are of the view that due to the lack of clear political principles all that government departments can do is "manage" - and that means create change to structures and systems and move people around a bit. The work that gets done is always the same. The effect on the people who are served by the services (local govt and nhs) is at best no change, at worst severe disruption to services during the upheaval and changes in personnel with reduction in trust.

For example - the cycle that the library service has gone through in the last 10 years is 5 changes of deparment each costing thousands in public money to re-brand, re-structure re-organise internally, with less to spend on changing the outfacing service.

The nhs has gone from a Family Health Service Authority monitoring the work of independent GPs, to a Health Authority, then with fund holding powers passed to GPs as individuals and groups. After that GPs formed Primary Care Groups, and then became Trusts if they were big enough. Those Trusts were told they were too small and some had to merge and the Health Authorities role shrank and so they also merged to cover larger regions. Now there is a another round of mergers and GPs will have to engage in practice based commissioning of care and services from next September. What goes around comes around.

The amount of time and money that is spent on this could be spent on managing stasis instead of managing change - and that would allow organisations to put efforts into building long-term meaningful relationships with their communities and "customers". But then the election campaigns would have nothing to put in their manifestos about changes to public services..... or is that just too cynical????

Also - back to the part-time working thing...... I have doubts about justifying it when again I am lucky enough to have a job that is not putting life and limb at risk every day. Nor is it illegal - unlike the work that some people are forced to do - having read this Guardian article about women trafficked into the sex trade, I almost cannot imagine a worse way to be made to earn money. Women and girls as young as 10 are encouraged to come to Western Europe to make money and once here are raped until they become submissive and then forced to work as prostitutes and pay their "debt" - the "cost" of bringing them to the country - back to their "owner".

As Bianca Jagger writes -
"On one level, the UK government recognises the problem. A few years ago, Home Office research estimated that 1,420 women were trafficked into the UK in 1998 in order to be forcibly prostituted. The expert consensus is that the scale has significantly increased since then. There are now certainly thousands of women and girls trapped in a horror-filled existence. Desperately poor women and girls are typically stripped of their passports and other documents by their new "employers", and taken to secure flats and beaten and raped by their "owners" to "break them in". After that, it's a soul-destroying treadmill of dehumanising servitude, providing sex for 20 to 30 men a day, according to the Metropolitan police.

Scared and abused... many lacking a good command of the language, and told by their traffickers that what they are doing is illegal and could lead to imprisonment, they are truly caught in a web. Even if they escape the imprisonment of their owners, the route home is often barred anyway, as traffickers will threaten to expose them to shame there or even threaten their lives or the lives of their families. Britain needs to stop treating women forced into prostitution as criminals. They are automatically criminalised.
In May, a new European treaty established fresh guidelines for this. The European Convention Against Trafficking, the world's first international law specifically for protecting trafficked people's rights, puts victims first. Organisations such as Amnesty International are backing the convention and calling on the UK to sign up to it, but the government is stalling. Why, when Home Office minister Paul Goggins has said that the government "fully supports" the aims of the convention? Could it be that the government is afraid of criticism from anti-immigration lobbyists that the convention extends rights to women and girls who could fabricate a story of sexual slavery to gain access to the country? You could be forgiven for thinking that protecting some of the world's most terrorised and vulnerable people ought to cancel out these peripheral concerns."

proper blogging?

I think this is what I understand as proper blogging - what I read of other people's is more stream of consciousness-like blurblings than what I've blogged so far.

Yesterday was my first real day off sick. I went to the doc's on Weds last week at 3pm and got 2 weeks off. I then went shopping in a bit of a daze. On Thursday I had a long sleep-in and then went out shopping again. We went out to a friends for tea that evening. Friday I did more or less the same but with T as it was his day off and then we went to Z's BD get-together in a pub - that was good - I talked to D a lot. We have thought a lot about getting a campervan since going to Scotland and D has one.

We were going to be having our best friend- C's daughter over to stay on Saturday but her Mum was really ill in hospital so we looked after her and her brothers, while S went to visit C. We had another friend over for the evening. On Sunday we went to visit C in hospital and I was distracted - partly by the 70's film of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" with Gene Wilder on the TV in the ward, and partly by nothing at all- just unable to concentrate on C which has never happened before.

I went for a long lunch with P on Monday which I really enjoyed - she is great company. Afterwards I had a counselling session that I was late for due to traffic jams. It was good though. I was reminded that I don't need to try and think things through whilst I'm off - that's what I usually do - that I can "feel" instead if I like. I realised I have been trying to fill my diary with plans for doing things - especially catching up with friends, housework etc. - and that leaves little time for real rest and recuperation. When I got back I cancelled Tuesdays lunch date - with a friend who I used to work with - knowing that seeing her would mean talking and thinking a lot about losing that job that we both did, and would put off the "recuperation". I felt guilty for a second or two, but not as bad as I often do about cancelling people.

So, instead yesterday I slept in again then lay in bed reading for ages - a book about depression. I did the exercises in it - all of them - so you see I just have to "do" and "think"! I worked out that I have mild depression that is short term and the main symptom is fatigue causing lack of concentration - I think of it as stress not depression as it is not long term clinical depression - that's my self-diagnosis anyway!

I gave myself a really painful back though - sitting up in bed. So I took some photos in the garden for a short while and then starting surfing the net again. My Mum called round with a new quilt for us - it's an early Christmas present!

Yesterday evening T took R out somewhere that was obviously very difficult for them both - the old anxieties, sadness, anger and worry came flooding back and I felt unable to help. Two years is not long after someone dies is it? It was 2 years yesterday.....

So - where does this rambling lead us - well today (Wednesday) I have slept in again, spoken to Mum on the phone, and am now writing this.

One of the things that struck me yesterday is that I am splitting myself in two by having two blogs - I decided to have 2 so that this one could be anonymous and I could write stuff I don't want everyone to know is me writing it. The other one is the "public" one. I often don't know which one to write on and it's confusing me. I want to be whole - wow I guess I don't feel whole at the moment - there are things about me that I know people can't deal with and I have been trying to be confident that it's their problem and not mine, but not succeeding.

That's interesting isn't it - that there are things I don't feel confident writing as my real name in case I am judged- I am realistic that people do judge me. In fact - the second post I ever did on this blog got me an offensive comment - something like " I hate you and people like you make me sick, so die!" As you can see I deleted the comment..... That was not a good start but it helped me justify the split! But now I am starting to blog more it's harder to manage.

I had decided this morning to give up having two blogs and just have one, but writing about it now just scares me into keeping them separate. I wanted to be able to blog about stuff that I wouldn't want people I don't know very well to know about me - like this post in fact. How do other people do it? Most people's blogs seem very personal....

Well, at the moment I am going to carry on - I was going to say what my other blog is called but I won't - although anyone who knows me well will work it out - but they are the people that know all this about me anyway. Of course all this assumes anyone is actually reading this at all - if they are not then what is the point? Some feedback would be good I suppose.

time to think and write

I am off work.

It took me 3 weeks to work up to talking to the doctor about it... I just kept pushing myself through the feelings hoping they would go away and worrying about not being at work. I eventually accepted that it would feel uncomfortable and asked the doctor anyway. I was tearful as soon as she asked if I had been feeling tearful!

I am reflecting on life's up and downs, work, myself and how it all fits together. I am also sleeping a lot. I guess I will write some more soon....