Hiatus Over

After a near three year hiatus I’ve decided to start blogging again. A lot’s happened between then and now, and some of those gaps I’ll try to fill in future posts. There was never a formal decision to stop blogging, it was just time constraints as I put my life back together post divorce (I’ve hidden away some of the posts dealing with this period as nothing good will come from raking over them).

This blog was originally intended to document my journey with Chronic Kidney Disease, so that seems a good place to start. I’ve now reached end stage and I’m working with the renal replacement team on what comes next. Next month I will be meeting the surgeon to discuss having a fistula created to facilitate dialysis, but I’ll elaborate on this in a future post. From a health perspective I’m generally well, or as well as can be expected given my prognosis. Fitness wise things are not quite so great, having managed to get down to 100kg, my weight has crept back up to 110kg over the last couple of years. I still try to keep active, but it’s a challenge balancing everything. I’m determined to get things back on track over the next few months.

From a personal relationship perspective things are good. I’ve been with my partner over three years now, we’ve just come back from a fantastic weekend away in Somerset where we were looked at engagement rings. Our relationship isn’t without its challenges, we both have lots of commitments, busy careers, our own health issues etc, but what’s great is that we really value the time we spend together, whether it’s trips to interesting places (Canterbury, East Anglia, Istanbul, Valencia, Wells etc), visiting our respective families or just chilled weekends doing dog walks and trying out recipes.

My relationship with my son remains strong, there have been some ups and downs, but he’s doing good. He’s changed schools this academic year which has recently boosted his engagement (the old school had a big reputation it sadly failed to live up to) and after a couple of years away he returned to his old rugby club last season and is really getting back into it. The situation with my daughter has been a bit more bumpy, we’ve gone through phases where our relationship gets better only for it to take a set back, but I remain immensely proud of her, despite her own challenges which disrupted her studies she did really well in her GCSEs, she’s now at college, has a steady boyfriend and is working part time.

Professionally things are solid, my position as a development team lead was made permanent and there’s a good team dynamic going on. I’ve got some pretty demanding projects in-flight which brings a certain level of stress, but they’re growing me as a leader as well as developing my technical skills. 

Outside of work I don’t get as much time as I’d like for extra-curricular activities; I did write, record and release the first episode of an audio drama on Youtube a couple of years ago, but the second episode has been pending ever since. More recently I purchased an action camera so I can record some of the cool places my partner and I visit, so I’m going to try my hand editing and uploading some of that footage in the near future. I’ve no desire to be a professional ‘content creator’, I already have a busy career, but I do like the idea of sharing the stories and places I find interesting.

At the time of my last post I’d recently moved into my new flat and renovations were underway, barring a few snags they are pretty much all done now. I’ve almost entirely renovated the place and I’ve done a lot of the work myself, with some help from my partner and my parents. It’s been tough but learning new or enhanced DIY skills has been really rewarding; not forgetting that being ‘handy’ has saved me a lot of money I can put to other things. 

 

Anyway, I think that’s enough for today.

Steady as she goes

So, I'm writing this having recently returned from a short break in Turkey with my son, and in general things are looking pretty good.

I completed on my flat purchase in June. I'm now fully moved in and renovations are in progress, it was always a fixer upper, but I'm enjoying the chance to put my mark on the place. I got my deposit back on the old flat and I was even able to sell on the washing machine and fridge that I had to provide for myself (there was a hilarious moment when a prospective new tenant was viewing the flat and the agent tried to spin it as a special feature that the landlord was providing the built in hob and cooker but the tenant had to provide the fridge and washing machine). I heard they were putting the rent up to £1,100 a month which is shocking for such a pokey little place with rather limited appeal.

Career wise my secondment as team leader has been extended whilst they sort out making it permanent, I'm still not sure what that means pay wise, but I'm guessing I will keep the higher duty pay I got when I moved up. I'm settling in to the role, and I've decided not to pursue my interest in Data Architecture as it's not the right move for me, there's a possibility I may look at product management in the future, but for now I'm happy.

My health and fitness is holding up pretty well, I'm hovering around the 97-98kg mark depending on how well I eat in any given week but I have plans for improvement. With the moving and the holiday I haven't run or been to the gym as much I'd like recently but I'm making an effort to get back into it. 

I've been sent an invite for renal replacement education at St Helier Hospital next month to walk me through the process of transplantation, it's still early days, but they're getting me ready for the journey. Apparently I missed an appointment in July, primarily because I didn't know anything about it. I've already had a session with the dialysis clinic down in Crawley, but ideally I'd want to do home dialysis when the time comes.

In my last post I mentioned how I'd met someone through dating and there were signs it might develop into something more. Well, I'm glad to say it has, we've built some momentum in our relationship and it's been fantastic sharing intimacy and trust with someone again. Forming a new relationship in your 40's is different, we're fully formed as individuals in a way we wouldn't have been had we met earlier, but I think we're both optimistic about a long-term future together.

My relationship with my son continues to go well, there's been a slight improvement in my relationship with my daughter. Last month she came to my birthday dinner with my parents and my girlfriend which was a positive development. I've started looking for other ways in which I can invite her into my life without putting too much pressure on her. 

Overall the future looks bright right now.

Ticking Over

Things have been going pretty well lately, I went up north for a week with my son and it was nice to catch up with family. As predicted I ate too many pies and made several trips to the club with my Dad and brother, fortunately I also made sure to get in a couple of decent walks each day to keep on top of things.

I had a bit of shocker with my car, my Dad took it to the mechanic he uses to see if he could find why it has a habit of cutting out at a stop. He did some jiggery pokery with the choke, but he also informed us that I had no brake lights as the brake light switch had failed. Because it was the switch and not the lights themselves that failed there was no warning message on the dashboard, so it appears I drove the best part of 250 miles with no brake lights! All sorted now.

At work I’m still getting into my new job, I’m trying to drum up work so that all my guys are fully utilised. It will take a little while as my brief is a little bit vague, but I’m picking up bits of work that other people have started. I’m also about to run a wellbeing survey wearing my other hat as an employee engagement champion, although August is not necessarily the best time to do this.

The house sale still hasn’t gone through, mainly due to people twatting around lower down the chain, fortunately I’m not getting involved in any of it as I’m not really part of the chain. Despite this my ex seems to be less shitty with me, which I’m pretty sure is because she’s found a way to resume hookups with the secret boyfriend. Since I’ve given her my set of house keys I’m pretty much out of the scene and that’s the way I plan to keep it.

I’ve got one week of work left before my summer holidays. I’ll be going to Spain with my son for the first week, and then the second week we’ll need to find some cost effective things closer to home to fill the time. Things seem to be getting better with my daughter too, so hopefully I’ll get to spend some more time with her over the rest of the summer. 

Trawling the January sales

I hate others buying me clothes, my size and shape means getting clothes that fit nicely, or that aren't hideous can be challenging. I can't trust standard sizes, because they're not really standard, and you can't trust the cut without trying on, many a time I've found a pair of trousers that fit my waist but then have inexplicably narrow legs, as if designed for a ball shaped person with pipecleaner legs! So every year I tell people not to buy me clothing as gifts, and every December this is ignored, and every January I take the unwated clothing back to be refunded or exchanged.

So over the last couple of weeks I've made my annual January trip to the shops. I don't like shopping, bookshops excepted, but it's a necessary evil and I could do with a few new shirts for work. I was hoping to snag a bargain amongst all the seasonal shite and leftovers hauled out of the store room; the better quality, well designed stuff that looks good year in year out generally stays full price, but you do get the odd bit of luck. Sadly, I didn't have any luck. There was no shortage of shite on sale, but one thing that stuck me looking at shirts is how many, nominally good quality shirts there were on sale, but in unusual sizes. I typically take an 18 inch collar regular fit shirt, tailored and slim fit are too tight for someone my size (slim fit is for bean poles, tailored fit is basically slim with regular shoulders). There were an awful lot of slim and tailored fit shirts on sale with 17 to 20 inch collars, which when you think about it is a pretty niche market, Okay, you might get some roid head musclemen with slim wastes and big necks who rock a tailored 17 inch collar shirts, but a slim fit shirt with a 20 inch neck?