laura and i put up and decorated my christmas tree this evening. it really looks lovely, and sadly the picture below doesn't really capture it. you'll need to pop by and see it for yourself. by the way, yes, that's a furry star on the top, and yes it almost reaches the ceiling, which makes it a little over eleven feet!

not the greatest couple of weeks. my cousin sally died, and we all found out just how many people loved her (300 plus at the funeral). work became officially a danger to my mental health. extra-curricular stuff has therefore been negatively impacted (listen, i can't help using words like this when i'm working 12 hours a day, deal with it) and voluntary work is going through a challenging time.

i did, however, have a most wonderful weekend with a most wonderful man, and he succeeded in helping me forget about the whole shooting match until monday morning. but it all came down like a ton of bricks at 9am, i can tell you. got into a deep funk by tuesday evening, but the walk home seemed to help clear my head. and now here i am at wednesday evening, my difficult time, with two EN meetings this time after a pretty full-on day. won't get home until after 10, probably, and we won't have solved the big problems either.

so this post, in case you were wondering, is a reminder to me to say it's only work. it's not life. no-one is going to die if something falls through the cracks. we might go bust/ not get funding/ whatever, but no-one's going to die.

and breathe...