Je vais a la plage

Getting ready (spiritually and physically) for a semi-impromptu short holiday in Menton, to meet my parents for a weekend of haute cuisine and (hopefully) good weather. This will be the second time we have met there, two years ago at this time it was warm enough to wear just a T-shirt under a windbreaker, and the lemons hung as big as your fist in the trees of the Jardins Biovès. (Just looked at the weather page: currently 18°C and sunny. Perfect.)

I will possibly take my iBook with me, there is so much I still have to do on the Hobbyist project and I have two fourteen-hour train journeys (!) which I could put to use; on the other hand I do find that I work hard and often enough, so I might just leave everything behind except the camera, my iPod and a buttload of money (© Roseanne). The more I think about it, the better that sounds.

There are cybercafes, so there might be posting, but don't count on it. Have a nice weekend, everybody.

In other news I saw the first (yellow) crocuses of the season this morning on my way to the train station to buy the tickets, but didn't have my camera along so they will go undocumented. You'll just have to trust me that they were there.

In other other news, after wavering for two days I screwed my courage to the sticking place and sat down with G and U after work on Tuesday prepared to quit; but the conversation turned to problem-solving, brainstorming a brown-and-sticky situation that we have all been ignoring for months, and this was so interesting that I backed down from my resolve. I started to walk home, then gave myself a kick in the butt and turned back.

I told them that I had wanted to quit, but had been sidetracked by my enjoyment of the discussion; that it had been the first time in weeks that I had had any kind of enjoyment from working there; that I walk to work each afternoon dreading the shouting and insults to come; that I find their behaviour unprofessional, and also among supposed friends simply unacceptable.

We then talked for nearly an hour about their fears and the pressure that they find themselves under, and how it leaks out uncontrollably. Which I knew, it is clear to what extent they are being driven on by events outside their control. G likened it to being in a car with the throttle stuck wide open, racing down a mountain road: one can only try to steer and hope that nothing gets in the way, but the process is basically uncontrollable. We have re-planned it three times, twice for cost-cutting and a third time when the roofs in eastern Germany started collapsing under the weight of snow and a change in the building regulations was rushed through (more than doubling the to-be-calculated-for snow load, and therefore changing all structural members in the roof). Nonetheless, the project must still open on the same day in Spring 2007.

So I am still there, and G and U may sleep a tiny bit better having admitted and addressed their fears.