I feel like I’m going through a strange patch at the moment – but maybe life is just a series of strange patches – and the last week has made me revisit quite a lot of them!
I last moved offices over 10 years ago and I’ve worked at the University for over 20 years and I’ve spend the best part of this week – when not in Cardiff – going deep into my life. I felt like throwing the lot away but Paul – who never keeps anything – said that much of the stuff should be archived – for future researchers – and when I looked at it – it is an idiosyncratic version of Liverpool’s history – so I sorted and ended up with two things – an unusual collection of reports etc of their time – mainly 1985 – 1995 and then in a similar time scale - things that I was directly involved in.
Hindsight is an amazing thing – or maybe it’s just the understanding that age and experience gives you – but I looked back at myself and I was surprised how much I quite admired that Tricia - she was quite cheeky – though not very strategic - I felt that I do understand more now. But then I had an overwhelming sense of what has changed – or not changed – and that was depressing. How many wheels have been re-invented – how many lessons not learnt – how much older am I – and how much of my life has gone by! My snapshot being a tiny element in the world but a snapshot never the less and for all that work is anything much better?
Anyway it’s now Friday night and I’m home – comfortably drinking a glass of wine – lap-topping in the front room – looking forward to walking with my sisters tomorrow morning, having the boys tomorrow night and then I suppose at some point coming to terms with living life with all its imperfections and inadequacies- but what more can any of us do?
