That and this, these and those. in Hello.

I’m lying in bed with John. We’re both snotty and full of a cold. Annoyingly the duvet is on a skew, meaning that one corner is between us and I’m lying under a triangle. But John has the duvet tucked under his body so I can’t shift it. 😂
This is the first time I’ve been ill since I started my new job. Everyone at work had the lurgy about a month ago, losing their voices one by one, which is a bit shit when you’re a tour guide. I managed to dodge that one, I’m guessing it’s something I’d had before. But now John has come home from work all coughing and sneezing and I think he’s passed it on to me. Touch wood I don’t seem to feel as ill as he was. My throat is scratchy though, so it might mean I won’t be able to give tours for a day or so.
Work is still going great. I’m getting a lot of positive feedback from customers and my boss, which is a real ego boost! We’re opening a new interactive room this weekend and I only got my new script for it yesterday. It means I’m going to have to change my whole talk, as at the moment I talk about the history of the buildings, we watch a film about the nearby river we draw our water from, I talk about production and casking, we go into the distillery then come back to the shop for the tasting. Now this new room goes into great depth about the casking, which is fab as it’s the most important part of making whisky, so I won’t have to do as much talking. But we’re starting the new tour on Saturday, which happens to be the day of our whisky festival. We’re introducing our new limited bottle (£895 for four bottles, a new one released every year and Saturday marks the launch of number two, Hope). We’re going to be busy with people collecting their bottles, no doubt the tours will be full as most of the people coming in will be entitled to free tours and they will be running every half hour. This means there’s no lingering, tours need to be exactly an hour. What a day to start with a new script!
I still haven’t heard for definite if I will have the job after Christmas though. It’s looking very positive, but my manager can’t say for sure either way. He’s leaving at the end of this month, which is a shame because I really like him, but this new manager sounds like a bit of a mover and a shaker in the industry. My current manager is the manager of the shop and tours, but when he leaves, my current supervisor, Esme, will take a step up in responsibility and the new manager will be a more general manager of the shop, bistro and production area. Brian, my current manager, said if it were down to him, he’d definitely want to keep me on. Esme too said that, so she’s going to try to convince the new manager that I am needed in his first week with us. Brian has done the rotas right up until the first week in January and has put me in on that week, to show that I am actually needed. Hopefully the lady I’m currently covering will be well enough to come back as well. I was chatting to Brian generally about my job prospects and he said he’d been going through his emails and noticed I’d applied for the job a couple of years ago. He said “I don’t know why I didn’t snap you up then, you’ve proved to be a real asset. I’m kicking myself that you could have been working for us all this time, and I passed you over for [someone who didn’t stay with the company very long].” Well, how is that for an ego boost??!? I’ve also got brand training on Thursday. It seems a bit silly to invest so much time and money into me if they’re going to let me go in a couple of months, if you ask me! 😉
Rob seems to be settling into his uni. He still messages me most days and John and I are traveling to Buxton to visit him in a couple of weeks, staying overnight in a hotel. (It’s about a 3 and a half hour drive, seems silly to drive all that way just to spend a couple of hours with him!) The uni often hosts events, and the students can work those events, earning money and credit towards their degree. He’s already done a couple of those. He’s also got himself a part time job at a new trendy looking chain in the town. They were looking for everybody, so Rob applied for the CDP role and was offered the job after doing a trial shift. I’ve told him his studies should always come first and not the job and he’s aware of that. I’ve also told him to tell them he’s coming here over Christmas, but I’m not sure if he’ll do that. He is a really hard worker and doesn’t like doing nothing!
Belle had a bit of a wibble with her A levels and had to have a couple of mental health days. College were AMAZING. Unlike school, they seem to really care for the kids. They have a mental health team that work there solidly and can override anything a teacher says if they think a student needs to spend time with them. Belle has a “pass” which means she can just leave a class and go to the inclusion room and they properly look after her, not like school who would often tell her to get back to class and just deal with her anxiety/panic attack. On the second day she was poorly, I rang the college again to report her absence. The receptionist said “are we aware of this? Has she been to the doctor’s and had an official diagnosis?” I said she had, she’d been under CAMHS, then discharged by them. The lady at the other end of the phone, who was just taking my call, not a teacher or part of the MH team, said “that’s disgusting. It’s obvious she still needs the help. If you take her back to the doctor’s, with our help, we can really push for another referral if you like.” I was shocked! I told her how amazing her words were to me and that I was so happy she was at that college because her old school couldn’t give a fuck about her MH. She said “it’s what we’re here for. A strong mental and physical health is paramount to the students wellbeing and learning.” It’s so good to know they’ve got my back.
She’s switched her A levels. She was doing maths, physics and DEC (design, engineering and construction), but she found she didn’t like the DEC and has switched to pure engineering. She’s got five weeks of coursework to catch up on, but her teacher told me he had every confidence in her being able to do that. She wants to go on and do physics at uni. Her ultimate goal is a PhD and maybe going into lecturing. That would be really cool. :)

Last updated October 22, 2019