well, that'll teach me to moan about winter!
And.....it's spring.
Not according to the calendar. But the garden is sure convinced. The stuff blooming is incredible -- wattle, magnolias, daffodils, even poppies. In JULY. (Which, for those of you in the Northern hemisphere, is the equivalent of January.)
The hens are equally convinced. They lay/don't lay based on light/dark hours, but even though we're barely a month out from the shortest day of the year, they're laying up a storm. Five dozen eggs in just this one week! And one of the hens is already sitting on a nest to hatch the eggs. That too doesn't usually begin until September.
And we've had a glorious few days of weather. Sun. As in, SUN! Big yellow thing in the sky! Still, clear, sunny days.....holy crap, my mood has lifted so much it's unbelievable.
Plus, we had a faboo meal this week at a local restaurant (Little Savannah, in case anyone's in the neighbourhood). The beef was perfect, the ostrich sublime, the biltong excellent, the beer/wine list impressive, and the dessert was not just delicious but also free (!) because the restaurant comp'd it due to it being wifey's birthday. (And they served it with a candle in the ice cream, and a slew of staff came out and sang happy birthday to her.)
And... AND (!) (because it's been that kind of week)..... after over a year of banging my head against the wall, begging my boss, begging my boss's PA, begging our HR rep, etc, I finally leapfrogged the whole effing lot of them and went straight to the head of HR/payroll. (It helps that he knows me a bit from some shared committee work, and so he was willing to give me a brief slot in his calendar.) I was prepared for a knock down drag out fight to get one of my staff the promotion/pay rise she is sooooo overdue for. He cut me off at the knees -- before I said a word, he offered me MORE than I was even going to ask for her! Moved up three pay grades, and a $15K raise backdated for a month. I thought I was going to faint.
This has been one of those weeks that restores my faith in people, my job, and my life. Imma happy hamster :D
Not according to the calendar. But the garden is sure convinced. The stuff blooming is incredible -- wattle, magnolias, daffodils, even poppies. In JULY. (Which, for those of you in the Northern hemisphere, is the equivalent of January.)
The hens are equally convinced. They lay/don't lay based on light/dark hours, but even though we're barely a month out from the shortest day of the year, they're laying up a storm. Five dozen eggs in just this one week! And one of the hens is already sitting on a nest to hatch the eggs. That too doesn't usually begin until September.
And we've had a glorious few days of weather. Sun. As in, SUN! Big yellow thing in the sky! Still, clear, sunny days.....holy crap, my mood has lifted so much it's unbelievable.
Plus, we had a faboo meal this week at a local restaurant (Little Savannah, in case anyone's in the neighbourhood). The beef was perfect, the ostrich sublime, the biltong excellent, the beer/wine list impressive, and the dessert was not just delicious but also free (!) because the restaurant comp'd it due to it being wifey's birthday. (And they served it with a candle in the ice cream, and a slew of staff came out and sang happy birthday to her.)
And... AND (!) (because it's been that kind of week)..... after over a year of banging my head against the wall, begging my boss, begging my boss's PA, begging our HR rep, etc, I finally leapfrogged the whole effing lot of them and went straight to the head of HR/payroll. (It helps that he knows me a bit from some shared committee work, and so he was willing to give me a brief slot in his calendar.) I was prepared for a knock down drag out fight to get one of my staff the promotion/pay rise she is sooooo overdue for. He cut me off at the knees -- before I said a word, he offered me MORE than I was even going to ask for her! Moved up three pay grades, and a $15K raise backdated for a month. I thought I was going to faint.
This has been one of those weeks that restores my faith in people, my job, and my life. Imma happy hamster :D