Tired!

When I was a little girl I used to say, "I'm a bit tired," when I didn't want to do things. These days I usually do want to do things, but am still a bit tired, Chris even more so. Recently there's been, and still is, too much on our minds.

Charlotte and Natasha

Since my last blogpost, we've had the car checked and seen to the vaccinations, paperwork and cash for China, where Chris had to give a training course. We've attended the Rockcliffe Flying Club's AGM and Wings Dinner; Chris has flown various people around in PTN and taught four ground school classes after work. I've organised four or five German group meetings, been co-opted onto a couple of CFUW committees and written a report about the RFC's AGM while packing. Meanwhile, we had Natasha, 17, from White River in the wilds of Ontario north of Lake Superior, and Charlotte, 16, from New Westminster on the outskirts of Vancouver, participating in the Rotary Club's Adventures in Citizenship program and staying with us for 5 days. A day and a half after they'd left, we set off for Beijing, stayed for a week and flew back last Sunday. I'll give a description in my subsequent blogposts.

Emma at her meeting, photo by Michael de Podesta

This evening Chris is supposed to be teaching another 3 hour ground school class after a full day at work but I'm not sure how he's going to manage it. He's fast asleep on the reclining chair in the garden as I write this, fighting off a cold, having come home from work earlier than normal for that very purpose. Both of us were out of bed wide awake at 3am this morning, jet-lagged. We have plenty on our minds. Our daughter Emma has just given a talk (summarising 7 years of her scientific work) at the Royal Society at Chicheley Hall in Buckinghamshire, but is uncertain what to do next, and my mother's moving into a "care home" in Wales for a month's trial stay next week while my sister goes on holiday. Chris is being asked to do some more safety-critical software work in California and will be travelling there the week after next, also probably to Germany in December and to England next February. Because of these obligations, we've been talking about changing the dates for our visit to Australia, presently arranged for November, which would mean interfering with our son's plans, and I have just booked flights to the UK and back in July / August so that I can be there for my mother's birthday and our nephew's wedding.

Thank goodness the weather's so congenial just now. Being outside for brief respites in the fresh air is a boon in the midst of all this turmoil.