Tag: work

A slightly unexpected change.

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Well, this week’s a bit of a strange one. That’s because (barring holidays and illnesses), this is the first week in six years that I haven’t been working or volunteering at the Museum of English Rural Life.

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No more staff entrance for me – I’ve handed in my notice, handed in my key, and to be honest, it all still feels very strange indeed.

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I’ve written about my various roles at the museum on a number of occasions, and I’ve really, really enjoyed spending my time there over the past six years.

(This little upside-down piece of glass is one of my favourite parts of the Waterhouse-designed building.)

So why leave?

Well, one reason is that the fibromyalgia’s been getting on top of me. It’s been mostly stable, but not improving, and having a job that was mainly sitting down, particularly in a cold environment, wasn’t really doing me any favours. I was spending more time recovering from the work than I was actually doing the work, and that seemed silly.

Another is that my job-share colleague decided to take the plunge and leave the museum to start a course in clinical aromatherapy. This made me think about the massage qualification which I completed in 2006, and then wasn’t well enough to follow up. I’m doing my two distance learning courses in Aromatherapy and Herbalism (albeit very slowly), but perhaps there was more I could be doing.

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A couple of weeks later I spotted an advert from the local Physiotherapy clinic, asking for help over the summer. I spent a day doing a voluntary session there, just watching what was required, and chatting to everybody who came in for treatment. By the end of the day I was very tired from having been standing up and dashing around for hours, but I didn’t have that terrible grey fibromyalgia exhaustion which leaves you unable to do anything, yet simultaneously unable to sleep.

About an hour after I got home I received a phone call asking me to go in the following morning for a bit of a chat, at which point I was offered the job of Physio Assistant. Hopefully not just because they’d already got a badge in the drawer with my name on it!

A hard weekend of thinking followed, and a decision was made. The clinic is a five minute walk from my house, so no more commute, and I save around £35 a month on bus fares. The hours are about the same, the money’s about the same, the job makes direct use of a qualification I worked hard for and would like to expand upon, and there is room for expansion into other roles at the clinic in the future.

Decision made.

I love the museum, and have made a lot of good friends during my time there, and I know I’m going to miss it terribly. But I think this change will be good for my health, and I have to put that first.

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As a result, the past few weeks have been full of training (turns out treating people with lasers isn’t anything like as exciting as James Bond made it out to be), as well as working my first few Physio Assistant shifts, and working my notice at the museum. It’s been hectic, but I think it’s going to be okay.

The only down side of the new role?

After all these years of eradicating all traces of synthetic fibres from my wardrobe, and insisting on natural fabrics and organic cottons… this is the label from my new uniform!

Still. I can wear my Monkee Genes dark blue chinos with it, and comfy trainers… and no more worrying about Smart-Casual. From now on, when I’m not at work, I can wear anything I like!

From my sick bed

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I’d only been back at work for about five minutes after my holiday when I came down with The Plague – otherwise known as the stinking cold that I catch every year when 3,500 new students arrive at the University. Usually my hyperactive immune system knocks me down flat for a couple of days, during which I stay in bed, and then I emerge feeling sorry for myself but generally well enough to go back to work. This time I was off work for a week, mostly because I had a cough but no voice, and was therefore pretty useless on a telephone and a reception desk. Once that week was over I assumed I’d be fine, but no. I went to see the doctor yesterday (about something unrelated, as it happened), and she immediately gave me a note for another week off work.

I’ve been spending a fair few nights awake, propped up on the sofa, to try and avoid keeping Paul awake with my terrible coughing. This has resulted in quite a lot of knitting being done, including learning a new technique. This nightmarish tangled mess, for which I do not currently have enough swear words, is two socks at the same time, on two circular needles. It only took me two goes to cast them both on the right way round, and I only knitted with the wrong needle (thereby finding myself trapped in an impossible loop) three or four times, so I think I’m getting the hang of it now. The toes are done, and I’m knitting my way slowly up the feet. (Very slowly, as these are for Paul, who has Very Big Feet.) I’m fairly certain I’m spending more time untangling the two balls of yarn than I am actually knitting, which is extremely frustrating, and makes the whole process seem very slow.

The yarn, by the way, is the “Sulley” colour way of Superwash sock from Woolly Wonders. It was supposed to be for me, but for the first time ever, Paul saw it in my knitting bag and quietly asked me whether it might turn into a pair of socks for him. Despite his size twelves, there was no way I could refuse… and I do have two other fantastically bright skeins (Carnival and Rainbow Sparkle) to knit socks for myself!

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I’ve also been doing  a few bits and bobs for the new incarnation of Mr & Mrs Magpie’s Inexplicable Emporium. They’re explained (sort of) in the first blog post, and will be available in the shop as soon as the set is complete.

I have to confess to feeling horribly guilty about doing any kind of making while I’m off sick from my Proper Job. The thing is though, there are times when I’m genuinely not well enough to leave the house by 8am, speak to people all day, answer the telephone, concentrate on booking forms and looking after visitors… but I am well enough to sit at a table and quietly make something. (Well, I say quietly, but you haven’t heard this cough!) At home I can get up when I feel like it (except for Paul leaving to drive to a meeting at some ungodly hour this morning), I don’t have to speak to anyone, so my cough is slowly getting better, and if I want to pack everything away and go for a nap half way through the day, nobody will mind! If it was possible for me to do my Proper Job from home I’d be doing just that, but moving the museum’s reception desk to my house doesn’t seem terribly convenient. So, I’m mooching about, doing everything very slowly, and achieving what I can as I try to look after myself.

Desire To Fly from R&A Collaborations on Vimeo.

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs while I’ve been tucked up cosily on the sofa, looking in particular for artists who work with magic and fantasy and character. There are a whole bunch of people I could list (Mister Finch, The Pale Rook, and Amanda Louise Spayd, for a start), but I’ve been particularly enjoying the fairies of Samantha Bryan. I love the fact that she imagines a busy working life for her fairies – and then provides them with everything they might need to be successful. Absolutely wonderful!

There’s a bit of character-related work going on behind the scenes here, although it’s currently very firmly in the “thinking about it” stage. Lots of notes and lots of ideas, but absolutely nothing to show for it just yet. It’s related to the Emporium, in that I’m hoping to be able to bring Mr & Mrs Magpie to life a little bit… but it’s an ambitious project, so it’s sitting quietly in the background for now. We’ll see how it goes.

It’s not all work, work, work…

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A question I’m asked fairly often is whether I plan to eventually give up my job and work full time for myself, making and selling things. If you’d asked me a few years ago, the answer would have been a resounding yes! I’ve had a couple of periods in between jobs where I was lucky enough to be able to work for myself full time, and whilst I did enjoy it, the pressure of needing to bring in a steady income coupled with the isolation of being alone at home all the time made me, quite frankly, go a bit bonkers.

For the past five years I’ve been volunteering and subsequently working at The Museum of English Rural Life, in a whole host of different capacities.

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Chicken-wrangling, during a visit from a local farm…

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Dressing (approximately) as a Victorian, for a Dickens at Christmas event…

…and bonnet-wearing, with colleagues, for #museumselfie day on Twitter, in the photo at the top!

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As Learning Assistant I had access to the most fantastic supply of materials, so I could work with the Toddler Time group, and with families to make all sorts of things…

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… like this “pomme pomme” for Apple Day!

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This paper puppet, inspired by our life-size straw effigy of King Alfred…

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…and these adorable little Christmas trees. Recycled cardboard tubes and paper plates are an extremely versatile mainstay of toddler craft projects!

Admittedly I’m not working with the toddlers at the moment, having asked for a small cut in my hours to try and get my health back on track. But I am still working as part of the Visitor Services team, which means mostly half-days on the front desk meeting and greeting visitors to the museum, helping to look after the shop, and being on hand at lots of different types of events. I haven’t stopped working on the craft projects completely (I’m currently putting together a printing activity for our Village Fete), and I’m lucky enough to work with a great team of colleagues – many of whom I now count as friends.

Handspun and hand dyed yarn from The Outside, with hand carved drop spindle

Of course, we all have days when we wake up in the morning and think, “I wish I didn’t have to go to work today”, especially when the making is going well, and I don’t want to have to take a break from a particular project. But having a steady part-time job gives me just enough income that I don’t have to rely on my artwork to pay the bills. This alone is incredibly liberating, as it gives me the freedom to experiment with different projects without having to worry about whether they’ll sell. It also gives me enough time to actually do the work, as well as being fantastically inspiring! Since being at the museum I’ve learned to make felt, to use a drop spindle and a spinning wheel, and been privileged to work with lots of other fantastic artists. There are tools and textiles in the collections which are endlessly fascinating, as well as tremendously knowledgeable colleagues to talk to. The garden is beautiful, and there’s always something different going on.

There’s a school of thought which suggests that the only ways for an artistic type to actually earn a living are either by teaching, or working part-time for somebody else. At the museum I get to do a bit of both, and a lot more besides. What more could I ask for? I used to think that my eventual goal should always be to end up working solely for myself, making a living from my artwork and sewing. It turns out that having this balance suits me much better, and I hope it can continue for many years to come.

(And thanks to the marvels of Modern Technology, this should magically update itself while I’m at work today!)

 

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It’s Apple Day at the Museum of English Rural Life next Saturday – October 19th. I needed to come up with an apple-related activity for families, but because my usual teaching space is being turned into a café for the day we’ll be doing the activity in the museum itself. Because a large number of our objects are on open display, this means the activity has to be very clean – no glue, no glitter, no paint.

Enter this ridiculously cute apple pompom! I used a mug as a template for the outer circle, and a bottle of tipp-ex for the centre. This results in a pompom about the size of a tennis ball, and uses about 20 metres of chunky wool. After you’ve tied off the centre of the pompom, you just wrap a pipe cleaner through before you remove the cardboard, and then twist the ends into a stalk and a leaf. Ta-da!

I know it’s just a simple little thing, but I’m disproportionately pleased with how this has come out. The yarn is so soft, and the pompom is a lovely size, and I might just have to rummage through my yarn stash and make some for myself! I’m usually opposed to the making of novelty yarn items that have no functional value, but I can feel myself being strongly swayed by this one.

If you want to make one for yourself, all you need to do is take yourself and 50p (plus the £1 entrance fee for adults) down to MERL next weekend!

Learning to spin

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A spinning wheel was donated to work recently, but it wasn’t needed as part of the collections, so it made its way along to me. As Learning Assistant, it’s now my job to learn how to use the wheel, so that I can eventually demonstrate and teach it to other people. Gosh, it’s a hard life sometimes, isn’t it?!

The wheel was dropped off to the museum while I wasn’t there – I came in to find the wheel itself, and a bucket of bits. The bucket contained the flyer, a couple of bobbins, the drive cord (broken), a niddy-noddy, and a knob that I haven’t discovered the function of yet. If anyone can tell from the photo above where there isn’t a knob and there ought to be a knob, please let me know!

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The piece of leather attaching the pedal to the drive shaft had split, so Fred (the Conservator) very kindly replaced it with a whole new piece for me. Once that was done, and I’d tied a knot in the drive cord, I could start to spin! I practiced just treadling for a bit, until I could do it without the wheel swinging backwards all the time. I came to add my own fibre to the yarn that was already wound around the bobbin, and discovered that I didn’t have an orifice hook – hence the straightened paper clip above!

I’d thought my first attempt at spinning was going rather badly, until I took my first metre and a half of yarn off the bobbin and plied it back on itself. Obviously it’s extremely uneven and wonky, but it’s got twist in it, and I’ve made yarn! Admittedly it took several attempts to get this far, lots of wondering why the yarn wasn’t winding around the bobbin, and adjusting the tension, and wondering whether it was too tightly spun, and losing control of the wheel with my feet while I was trying to draft with my hands.

I’ve emailed the local Spinners, Weaver & Dyers to ask for a bit of help, so hopefully I should be on my way to learning to spin really soon!

Snowed under at work…

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Not literally, thank goodness, although this is a picture of the garden at work when it was very frosty just before Christmas! But there have been a lot of changes going on, which has meant a lot of meetings, which has meant going into work on my days off, which has added up to nothing getting done! And this week’s half term, so I’m working extra days for that, so nothing’s going to get done until next week now.

Shortly after that I start a new shift pattern, which doubles the hours of one of my roles, and means working half days and different days each week. All very confusing at the moment, but all we can do is see how it all settles down in time. The best part about this change is that I no longer have to work every weekend, just one in four! So I’ll be able to spend some time with my husband again, and we can hopefully start taking our cameras out and about.

All this is a very long-winded way of saying that I have no idea when I’ll next be able to sit down at the computer and write something, but I hope it won’t be too long!

Arthralgia

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While I was on holiday, something a bit odd happened. A couple of times, for no particular reason, I found myself wishing that I’d taken my walking stick with me, because out of nowhere I was suddenly too exhausted to walk without it. When I got home I seemed to be better, and managed a normal day at work last Friday. Then I woke up on Saturday morning unable to walk without a stick again, and with pain in every joint of my body.

On Monday I shuffled over to see my doctor, where the magic word of the day was ARTHRALGIA. This means that there’s pain in all my joints. Which I knew already, thanks. I’ve had blood tests done, looking at thyroid function and inflammation markers, and they’ll come back next week. Every time I’ve had those tests done before they’ve come back within “normal” limits, so I have no doubt that these will be the same. All my doctor could say was, “maybe it’ll go away”.

Well, maybe it will, and maybe it won’t. Maybe I’ll be fine for months, and then one day I won’t be able to get out of bed because of the pain.

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The trouble with pain is that, like depression (from which I also suffer), it’s invisible. Unless you’re openly weeping, or covered in gaping wounds, the general assumption is that you’re fine. I mean, you look fine, so how bad can it be?

Well, the trouble with pain is that it varies. One day you might be able to go to work as normal, the next you might not be able to get out of bed. It’s also subjective. A pain that might cause one person to merely sigh and reach for the paracetamol might leave another person bedridden. All of which makes it very difficult to explain that yes, I may have been fine yesterday, and I may look fine, but today I just can’t make my body work.

This is why I don’t have a full-time job. Even though I look fine, I’m just not well enough to travel to another place and stand up and talk to people for forty hours a week. At least working part time, I can try and make sure that I get enough rest while I’m at home, so that I can get through my working days without hurting myself. The difficulty comes when I’m ill on the days when I am supposed to work.

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Obviously everybody sometimes has time off because of illness, but if it’s just everyday things like coughs and colds, it tends to be just a couple of days here and there. Maybe a week. In fact I only took a week off work after my last hip operation! But I might find that this current bout of pain lasts for another week, or a month, or six months, or who knows how long. And taking lots of time off work because of a mystery illness, when you look fine, and can often do other, gentler, things when you’re at home, leads to resentment from the people who have to cover for you at work, disciplinary action if you’re perceived to be taking too much time off, loss of trust if you suddenly become unreliable, and all sorts of other unpleasant things. I’ve lost count of the number of jobs I’ve resigned from, having been told that I’d taken too much time off sick, and having been made to feel no longer welcome as a result.

Of course, it’s easy to understand that no employer wants to be constantly having to find cover for an employee that’s hardly ever there. Employers need employees who are physically and mentally capable of doing the work set out for them, and they have every right to expect that. But where does that leave me? I am capable of doing the work… but not all the time. I’m reliable and hard-working… when I’m well. And unfortunately, it’s impossible to predict when I’m going to be ill, or how long the illness might last.

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I’ve been really lucky during this past year, in that my most recent surgery has left my health very much improved, and I’ve been able to find and keep a job that I’m really enjoying. But if this current development doesn’t pass quickly, I don’t know how things will work out. Like so many people in my line of work, I’m employed on a temporary contract, and my employers would be well within their rights to replace me if I’m no longer able to do the work that they need me to do. Even freelance work isn’t any better, because I might be simply unable to guarantee that I’ll be well enough to work on the appointed day.

Recently I’ve been applying for traineeships and internships and looking at professional qualifications that might enable me to build on this new career that I’m enjoying so much. But if I’m not going to be well enough to actually go to work, then what on earth’s the point? I can get myself as many qualifications as I like, but if the state of my health won’t allow me to get out of bed then it’s nothing more than a vanity exercise, not to mention the most enormous waste of time and money.

Perhaps the pain will pass in the next couple of days. By the time the blood test results come through, I could well be completely fine again. But if I’m not? Who knows how long the pain will last, or what I’ll be able to manage. Perhaps it’s time to re-think some of my plans.

(Why the doll pictures? Sitting in bed and needle-felting her hair was about the most strenuous activity I could manage today, and I still hurt my hands doing it. But being able to make something, or accomplish one small, simple task, even when I’m ill, helps to reassure me that I can still achieve something.)

Vaguely Victorian: Part Two

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Here you go – for those who were wondering, this is what the vaguely Victorian outfit looked like at the end of a long day, in a lovely Victorian staircase hall.

Contrary to a few people’s concerns, I did not boil to death with so many layers of clothes on. The skirt was quite heavy, but the bustle was so comfortable I kept forgetting I was wearing it and trying to squeeze through spaces that were impossible to negotiate with such an enormous bottom!

At the end of the day I also learned that it is possible to run for the bus in a corset and bustle – although I wouldn’t recommend it! In fact it’s not the ideal outfit for bus travel generally. You can’t get upstairs, for a start, and I was a bit worried that the driver would ask me to buy two tickets for taking up so much room!

I must admit that, without the complicated underpinnings, I’d actually quite happily wear this outfit (or something very similar) to work on any old not-particularly-Victorian day.

Crafty King Alfred

King Alfred Paper Puppet

Have I mentioned lately that I love my job? I run the Toddler Time sessions at the Museum of English Rural Life (every Friday during term time, 10-11 & 1-2), and part of that is to come up with an activity every week – preferably one that’s linked to the museum’s collections in some way.

This is a sneak preview of Friday’s activity – a paper puppet of King Alfred to colour in and cut out. You fasten all the pieces together with split pins, in case you were wondering. One of the highlights of the museum is a six foot straw sculpture of the king in question, so I thought it would be nice to make a little something in his honour.

I drew a quick pencil sketch, and had planned to recreate it in Illustrator. But the scanner won’t speak to my computer, I couldn’t get a photograph that was clear enough to be useful, and so I decided to go back and do things the old fashioned way. I traced my sketch onto a new piece of paper, drew over it with two different thicknesses of pen, and rubbed out the pencil lines. On Friday I’ll fit all the pieces onto A5 paper, then use the photocopier to enlarge it onto A4 card.

Sometimes it’s so much easier to do things the old fashioned way!

[edit] If you’d like to see some of the puppets that the toddlers made, I took some photos. Can you tell which is the one I made myself?

A little holiday

I’ve been so excruciatingly busy during these past few weeks that I haven’t had time to blog, tweet or do anything that wasn’t work. That state of affairs is ongoing, but we did manage to grab a couple of days in Brighton for our wedding anniversary.

I’m hoping that things will calm down enough for me to find the time to show you what I’ve been up to. It involves a glorious silk steampunk outfit, several bridesmaids’ dresses, hallowe’en costumes for my tiny niece, and a whole pile of theatre costumes.

You can have a sneaky peek at some of it over on Flickr, but I haven’t even managed to upload all my photos yet!

It’s nice to be busy, especially as it’s all interesting and creative work, but I do think I might have overdone it a bit, this time.