Grey and Blechy

So, the Met Office went out on a limb the other day and predicted a "typical British summer".  Yesterday being the first official day of summer, with the last fading trace of a sunset disappearing into the cloud speckled northern sky about 1030/11pm or so (thus, in my mind, entirely making up for the grey and dark in December), I look out the window today - 22 June.  It's grey.  The trees are blowing all over the place and there are occasional splatters of rain.  Yeah, typical British summer.  Oh well, it's better than drought (I think, anyway).  David and Robin are both away this weekend, both doing "disaster recovery" or some such nerdy thing, leaving me rattling around the house on my own.  You would think I would relish the time on my own, given that I so enjoy my solo cycling and that I rarely actually have time on my own in house.  I don't think I do actually.  It's kind of lonely. There is just no satisfying me, I guess.  In the meantime, I have eaten far too many cookies.  Moo.

Been in my job now just over two months - I can't actually believe it's been that long (but then, I couldn't believe it was time for my six month dental appointment today either).  It's a funny thing.  The place is so rigidly hierarchical on the one hand that I'm afraid to fart without asking permission, but, on the other, I'm expected to be the techical expert in my area and I'm expected to provide the solutions for the team.  I admit I did kind of snap at this one very annoying woman the other day.  She was moaning on about the printer not working properly and was banging things around trying to get attention (much as a small child would).  She wanted me to do something about it, to which I replied (being in a pissy mood at the time), "do I look like a printer engineer?".  I feel sometimes like I've been dropped into someone else's very large, very messy attic and told I have to create order from the chaos - while everyone else watches and directs (but doesn't actually give any useful ideas).  I suppose it's what I wanted, to be able to do this, but somehow I thought I would be able to come in and fashion some sort of bullshit synergistic (I hate that word) collaborative effort where we all pulled ourselves together towards some goal, rather than me having to create the entire structure and slot everyone else into it.  It's a bit different than the situation I was in before.  The thing I really have to get my head round though is that I think I can actually do exactly what I want there and create whatever the hell I want because I know what I'm doing and they don't - but I have to play the silly game, say the silly words, abide by the (very silly) structures, etc.  That's the hard part, simultaneously being a boundless pain in the ass free spirit in a rigidly set box, breaking as many rules as possible while toeing the party line.  Is that being a hypocrite or being practical?  Not sure, but it is definitely a peculiar place to be.

Winding down to the last month of my 30s.  Funny thing, years.  In the same way as crossing an entirely imaginary geographic border changes everything (I suppose because we have decided that it changes everything), I kind of think that crossing this (almost as imaginary) time border is going to change everything as well.  If my 20s were about learning to live on my own and my 30s were about trying to decide what I wanted to do when I grew up (and probably partying way too much on the way because I didn't really know and was afraid to find out), I kind of feel like my 40s needs to be about finally starting to live my life, entirely as myself.  That could be entirely a load of twaddle, but someone said to me lately, with regards to all my cycling and travelling to random, silly places, that this seemed out of character for me.  I said that no, this is actually entirely, 100pct my character - this was me, happily being my nerdy, often immature self, and that what really was out of character was me trying to go out and be one of the cool kids.  I guess what has really started to change in the past few years is that I have started to embrace the dorkdom and it has made me a hell of a lot happier for doing so.  I do wonder what constitutes being a "grown-up".  There are certainly a lot of people I would consider a "grown-up" (not me) and I tend to find them stultifyingly boring.  I really do like that Germaine Greer quote - "you're only young once, but you can be immature forever".  I think that is a very good mantra for life.

Oh, I forgot - I discovered a new after-work game (or, rather, have re-invented the very old game where Poppa drove me a different route to kindergarten each day).  Now that I work in the suburbs, I am surrounded by an endless maze of little streets.  The new game I've called "cycle in a circle" and the basic rule is to make as many random turns as possible while still trying to cycle vaguely in a circle and end up at home.  I have ended up in some very strange areas that way (London seems to have some very very strange areas) and a few real loser streets, but, generally speaking, it's loads of fun and I've been seeing all sorts of random places in SE London.  It won't work so well once it starts getting dark in the evening (going to have to go back to running then - boo - boring!) but for now, it's keeping me amused.

Right - it has stopped raining - time to go out and wash my bike, then go running to try to run off some of the immense amount of junk food I've snarfed down today.  Tomorrow is a big bike ride after brunch with David and a New York friend of his he swears I have met in the past (oh dear)...