Tax Rebate Outcome, Redux

Yes, I kept my job again.

There's not a lot I can say this time that's any different to last time. I'm happy for me and the friends that got through, and sad for those who didn't.

I don't know if I can do this again, but that's a problem for next year.

Next week, I'm off to Malta. Blogging resumes shortly afterward!

No News As Yet

Still no news on the job front.

I'm checking out of the whole thing, and going off to Jersey for the weekend to visit the family. News will be posted here on my return!

Das Bierfest

Things We Learned At The Tynemouth Beer Festival

• That undertakers are the most likely to survive in a zombie apocalypse. (We began by agreeing that midwifery, tax collecting and undertaking were the three most certain professions. But would undertakers be doomed if the dead returned to life? We agreed not - they are used to dealing with corpses, and have ready access to shovels, an excellent weapon against the undead in its combination of 'sharp wide metal blade' and 'long wooden handle'.)
• That street food is a welcome addition to beer festivals. Seriously, I don't miss the days when greasy chips with "curry" sauce were the only food to be had. Give me a burger made from something that once went "moo", any day.
• What a beer festival looks like when it runs out of beer. See photo. 
• That ska-dancing is fun. 
• There is never a bad time to play "Monkeyman".

And one thing we did not expect to hear:

"Hang on, are they out of beer?"
"It's alright! They've been to Tesco's!"

Depressing Realisations, 1

When you are listening to music as a soundtrack for preparing for the fourth time to interview to keep your own job (I'm rapidly reaching the point where I think, I can't do this again, this is the last time), put Pulp's "Common People" on as a soundtrack for revising tackling inequality, and thinking, this song came out when I was 13.

It would be nice to think that in twenty years' time we'd moved on enough as a society that it was a historical curiosity, instead of the grim reality that it's more relevant than ever.

On the other hand, I have identified the song that will be my personal manifesto if I get booted (if you're in a hurry, skip to: 1.55)

The Tale of A Rose

When I learned we were due to have a Flower Communion at my church (a traditional Unitarian Ceremony), one thing I immediately thought was “I must take a rose in”.

I have a rather lovely rose bush growing in my back garden. It’s a “Forever Friends” rose, which is apt, since it was given to me as a moving-in gift by one of my best friends, J.

J and I have been friends since we were 14. We went to the same secondary school, and found ourselves sitting next to each other in GCSE Biology class. This was lucky, because the teacher was not especially concerned about arriving on time to his classes, and we soon got to talking to each other. It’s one of my few friendships – well, actually the only one – where one of the first bonding moments occurred over a shared refusal to dissect a lamb heart. (Her due to lifelong vegetarianism, me due to a lifelong unfortunate tendency to faint at the sight of blood.)

Following our shared dissection refusal, our lives took similar paths, as we moved to a different school to do our A-levels, went to the same university (Durham), and ended up living not far from each other. Our friendship has held steady through life’s rocky moments, and there have been some very rocky moments, but I am now the godson to her two adorable boys, who like to come around and rearrange my house for me every now and then. I particularly wanted the flower I would take to the Flower Communion to be a rose from the rose bush she had given me.

I did, however, face a problem. Since I had deadheaded it (you know you are at a certain point in life when the word “deadhead” enters your vocabulary), the rose bush, for reasons best known to itself, had decided to grow all ten of its flowers on a single stalk, as you can see. I really didn’t want to cut all of the roses off, but they had very short stalks.

I left deciding about it late, until the morning of the Flower Communion, itself, then went out with the secateurs to take a look. I took a closer look at the bush, and smiled.

As if it had read my mind, there, tucked away behind the flower stalk, the rose bush had grown a single perfect pink rose.

I clipped the rose carefully, tucked it into a bag, and carried it to church.

Here We Go Again

So, I have the date for my redundancy selection interview towards the end of September, and the deadline for submitting a written expression of interest.

Words don't quite capture how much I really don't want to do this again. Unfortunately, the only thing I'd rather do less is "not have a job", so here we go. I may be off the radar for a while.

In better news, I have, finally, achieved my diploma!

Sea-Flowers (Back to the Inverted World)

A piece I wrote for my church's Flower Communion.

Flowers are marvels, and beautiful in two ways. Firstly, they are beautiful simply to look at, but secondly, they are beautifully designed for their function, of allowing the plant to reproduce itself, and create the next generation of flowers. Insects and flowers exist together in harmony; the insect transferring pollen from one flower to another, and receiving its reward in the form of nectar. Yet there are no sea-living insects, no water-bees to transfer pollen or its equivalent between undersea flowers. So are there no flowers beneath the waves?

 

This is a plumrose sea-anemone, taken at St Abbs. Sea-anemones, of course, are named from land anemones…

Because it is very difficult for a human eye to look at a sea-anemone, and not immediately think “It’s a flower!”

The sea-anemone is fascinating, because it inverts the relationships we are used to with land-flowers. As most people know, it’s actually an animal, with a foot, a long tube-shaped body, and the familiar fringe of tentacles that make it look so flower-like under the water.

As most people also know, the sea-anemone’s behaviour is less like that of a land flower, and more like a Venus fly-trap. It stays still most of the time, but should a small fish or crustacean come near its tentacles, the anemone will swiftly sting it and eat it for dinner.

 Yet some creatures are immune to this; clownfish or porcelain crabs. Like a bee on a rose, the clownfish, or crab, and the anemone live together, each providing food and protection for the other.   

A highly-prized photo for divers is to capture an image of a clownfish or crab lurking within its anemone home; I haven’t managed it, but others have! In addition to its larger house-guest, each anemone contains many single-celled algae within it. The anemone provides the algae with a safe home, access to sunlight and protection from predators, and the algae provides its host with food and oxygen.

Anemones are not the only “sea-flowers”. Another beautiful animal is the feather-duster tubeworm, which feeds on particles filtered from the water around it with its long filaments:

The Book of British Marine Life comments that “There are few finer sights in our waters than a group of plumrose anemones swaying in the current”, which I agree with.  

Like so many things in nature, it is a marvellous sight. Above the waves, the flowers and insects exist side-by-side, each benefitting the other. Beneath the waves, the anemones may not be plants, but like their namesakes on land, they too exist as part of a marvellous web of life. I am truly lucky to be able to see a bit more of that web of life than many other people, and I hope you’ve enjoyed me sharing some of it with you.