Hermione Laake's Blog: Thoughts, page 14

The Motherboard – parts 1-9, sci-fi Covid-30 blogged, romance novel series

This afternoon’s tidy up

https://hermionelaake.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/the-motherboard-day-1/

The Motherboard, parts 1-8

https://hermionelaake.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/the-motherboard-day-1/

Three – Discover Prompts

If you take a look at fairy tales, you’ll find they often come in threes. The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Cinderella has two ugly sisters.

I used to call my three siblings The Three Little Ones. I grew up with a love of story.

For a while I had three children, and never imagined I’d have any more, until I met the girl I’d gone to school with who had just given birth. We’d lost touch. I was sure that I was content with three children. The youngest was five. They were all at school. My dad used to say, “you have to replace yourselves.”

And then, all of a sudden, along came five and six. What a blessing children are.

I enjoyed every moment of being a a mum. It has been the best and most enjoyable work of my life. My children are all individuals. I love seeing what they create, drawings, stories, poems, essays, Music, dance, theatre, sport.

They’re 18 to 30 now and I’ve got all memories. I’m so glad I gave up my career to look after them all.

I’m so grateful for my lovely family. They are priceless.

The Motherboard, parts 1-7

https://hermionelaake.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/the-motherboard-day-1/

The Motherboard – parts 1-6

https://hermionelaake.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/the-motherboard-day-1/

The Motherboard, parts 1-5 Sci-Fi serial

https://hermionelaake.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/the-motherboard-day-1/

The motherboard day 1.

Hi,

I just read an astonishing article in The Sunday Times. Apparently computers are going to overtake us to such an extent by 2050 or 2100 that we will be like apes to them.

I was so incensed at the lack of reference to emotions in the artcle that I decided to begin this story.

For too long emotions have been undermined in society. It’s time we found out why it’s important to express emotions. This is our feminine side. Without emotions you cannot sing a song right, you cannot play a piece of music right, you cannot express yourself correctly. I’m not talking about fake niceities here, I’m talking about being vulnerable. The only vulnerability an algorithm has is that it is wrong. Being wrong isn’t the same as being vulnerable. I’ve decided to begin a sci fi work right now to explore these problems.

I’ll put a star in everytime I write so that you can follow the story. Just save it and then you can return to it.

Thanks for reading.

…………,…………,……..,……………….

The motherboard collected all 3 of my children at 6 am and told me to go to work. “Ya have fun mum,” the motherboard beamed at me with it’s perfect smile. I’d chosen the motherboard’s face and figure. Basically she was my mum. My mum was unthreatening. I knew she wasn’t going to have a relationship with my husband of 5 years. That made me feel better. He’d gone off sex after the 3rd child. He kept telling me he was ready for the chop and writhing around clutching his stomach in agony, going down with mysterious illnesses every month like clockwork. I put it down to his upbringing. His mother had doted on him, stuffing him with cakes and Italian pasta as soon as he opened his mouth. He was a total mummy’s boy. But he had a soft spot for any northern girl with a big smile and the teeth to go with it, preferably the arse too. He’d joked for a while that he wanted another me. I let him have his fun, jesting. And then I put my foot down. “Good bye mother,” I said. “Good bye mother,” my three children called. I felt impatient. I already had my work hat on and the suit to go with it. “Good-bye,” I said, “Mother will look after you. She knows exactly what you need, exactly what you like, and when you can have it.” Was I trying to convince myself? My words sounded hollow.

I turned my back on my family and jumped into my black copter. I loved my black shiny copter. It was a gift from my new employer Chisel.

Chisel had a beard to die for. I don’t have a beard yet, and I’m not courting one. My beard started growing last year. I’m 30. It’s frustrating. All I have are 6 wirey hairs. I pull them out with tweezers. Chisel says I should have hormone therapy to grow a descent beard so that I can chisel it like him, but I know he’s just kidding around. He’s 25, and a maths whizz. That’s why he’s my boss. I’m crap at maths. It’s ok now. I know you’re in 2020 and you think maths is everything. We’re way over that. Our arts graduates are valued. We just give them the creative work, and the problem sorting work. And believe me we have problems still. They’re just a little bit different.

New – born – discover Prompts

I gave birth to a beautiful bouncing boy in 1989. My own newborn. I was 22 years old. I had been married the year before. I was new to mothering. I was a career girl. A successful manger.

I fell in love with my helpless child and knew that I needed to look after him myself. I wanted to try not using throw away nappies and making my own fresh puréed food. Luckily for me this was possible because we’d bought our house when I was a teenager. We could afford for me to leave work.

I sold my old car and we bought second hand furniture. The local church sent someone round with a suitcase full of babywear. My mum knitted new and matching suits, hats, mittens and cardigans.

[image error]Thirsty work

I watched you, my newborn baby, speak your first new word, walk your first new step, ride your first new bike, swim your first length, run your first race, write your name, read your first book, make your first new friend, play your first new instrument, classical guitar. Play the violin, rip your first new pair of trousers, write your first letter to me, congratulating me on taking you all swimming twice in one week.

I gave birth to a second newborn, a girl.

TBC.

Manifesto for health and change

When I was a teenager, I worked as a manger in retail. I wanted to be an artist at the time, but I hadn’t had the opportunity to go to university. We used to work an 8.5 hour day with an hour for lunch and a twenty minute coffee break. As a manger, I would sometimes chose to forgo the coffee break, when we were extra busy, to keep things moving in the business, which was shoe sales. At that time I cooked all my own food from scratch. I made home-made ravioli, soups, pate, smoothies, muesli, cakes and biscuits, and rarely bought a take-away. I had the energy to do this, perhaps because I took regular breaks at work.

I worked hard for five years, moving from shop to shop, going up a grade each time, as I increased the takings for the the very successful corporation I worked for. I worked long hours but I was rewarded for it, with regular salary increases, a pension and good breaks. There were challenges, which I won’t go into here. What I want to write about is health.

Today, thirty years later, we have regressed. We no longer have tea breaks, we only take a half hour break. We rush our meals and resort to cheap, sugar and additive filled take-aways.

Late in 2015 I went back into management in the Private Sector, after working for several charities where it was sometimes difficult to take a lunch break, depending on the availability of volunteers. Sometimes, to protect my health, I closed the shop for lunch. Sometimes customers complained about me doing this, other times they were supportive. The response was varied. I was able to take an hour for lunch most of the time, but the premises was poorly laid out, meaning I had to carry all donations to the next floor (there was no lift), every day. That’s equivalent of carrying a delivery of goods up two flights of stairs every day for a year. In this role I developed a cyst on my thyroid. Within weeks of leaving this role my cyst disappeared.

After this role, which paid a meagre £16,000 a year, I found a higher paid role as a deputy in the Private Sector. I worked from 8.30 till 6 with a half hour lunch break as a deputy manager in the Private Sector role. If we weren’t too busy then I was able to take a quick break for a cup of tea. The Area Management Team at Head Office would watch me on cameras on their phones and ring up making jokes if I sat down for five minutes next to the till where there were no chairs, for a couple of minutes to rest my aching legs.

I enjoy hard work. I don’t enjoy sedentary posts. I became very unwell when I worked in an office for almost two years in 2013 in a hospital, typing medical letters. I’d just gained my English degree. I thought I’d try something new. It turned out that sitting down all day was worse than standing all day. In this role I was able to take a break and because I always arrived early for work no one was checking my time-keeping. I was trusted to mange my time. Still, I put on almost a stone in this role, and found it hard not walking about, even though I would take the post to the post room for my colleague and run other errands to the chemist, I was seated for almost 7 hours a day, 5 days a week.

So why can’t I find work which helps me stay healthy?

The answer is, I did find work that helped me stay healthy. But this wasn’t till a year later.

In 2016 I spent a year studying for a Cache Level 3 certificate. I had to complete assignments on line and digitally submit these. I signed up to a teaching agency but my lack of experience meant that I found little work. I lived on beans and cake for a year because my savings only covered my rent and bills, so I put on even more weight because I had a low income while studying. I’m sure many students suffer like this. But at the end of the year I moved to Bristol and found lots of work where I could gain a great deal of experience in supporting teaching in schools and colleges.

The best work was in a Special Needs college which offered me Fridays off. I finished this work at 4 pm and started happily at 8 am. I would drive for one hour to work. And, as I like to be punctual, I would arrive at 7 am and take a coffee in town before work because the coffee shop, Cafe Nero, opened at 7 am. After work, I would drive home. This took an hour. I was home at between 4 50 and 5.10 and was able to go shopping for food or take a 17 k cycle ride around the countryside on my doorstep. We only took half an hour break in this role, but the fact that my day was slightly shorter meant I was my fittest ever in 2017- 2018.

I got the Strava app in 2017 and in 2018 I completed my first cycle 300 for Cancer Research.

However, I was driving 30 miles to the teaching support role, so 60 miles a day, and it wasn’t viable. My car was becoming costly to maintain with 240 mile journeys.

After this, I started an MA and took up a keyholder post in a local shop. This was low paid work, but I didn’t have to finance my travel. I was able to walk in to work and cycle after work. Overall, I was much healthier than in previous similar roles. Except, because I couldn’t eat in this role (I was the only one in the shop), I’d taken up snacking on chocolate in my snatched 2 minute break. One day I became unwell. One of the symptoms was excessive thirst. After several blood tests, my doctor told me I was at high risk of diabetes.

I immediately cut out the chocolate in my diet and asked for help with sourcing healthy snacks. This meant that I had to take time out to think about my health and look after myself. I realised I’d put my diet last. When feeding my family, I used to cook home made pate, home made soups and home made smoothies. Lack of time had caused me to change my habits. My focus had become solely on work and paying the bills.

I’ve enjoyed all my jobs, and I’ve worked in every sector, private, public and not-for- profit. I know what it is like not to have work. I have experienced that at least 4 times for 3 months in a row in my lifetime. I have many hobbies and I’m also a prolific writer and I volunteer most years for something. However, nothing beats regular work. Work isn’t bad for you.

I know there are many benefits to the social interaction of work, since I’m not someone who talks much in a work environment, and yet on the 4 occasions when I was in between jobs for 3 months, I felt depressed, and sometimes found it hard to get out of bed and motivate myself. The fourth time this happened, I changed my behaviour and built in an early morning coffee habit at my local cafe at 7. 30 everyday. This gave me something to get up for. However, I missed the camraderie of shared experiences.

Work isn’t bad for you. What is bad for you is lack of nurturing and praise and toxic workplace environments where you cannot take healthy breaks, and long hours which prevent exercise and healthy eating and a good work life balance, which in turn facilitates healthy relationships.

I’ve had my share of challenges to my health at work, but nothing beats what the author of When Breath Becomes Air went through. If you get a chance you should read that book, because, although it isn’t the premise of the work, the author is training at a prestigious college to become a surgeon. He is performing highly stressful operations, and yet the overwhelming theme running through the book is lack of self-care. The protagonist, who is dying of lung cancer, is not sleeping and is denying himself breaks for food. How can this be? How can it be that people who strive to achieve and work hard aren’t given the care that they should expect by their employers?

I think we should change working hours to allow people to take better health- enhancing breaks and to arrive home in time to buy food to cook for their evening meals or to take a walk or swim or go dancing or cycling. We’d all be happier and healthier. You wouldn’t see so many overweight people. Take it from me. I know.

Distance – Discover Prompts

I’m getting used to distance. I’m of an age when your children have flown to university and some of them beyond that are adults making their own way.

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I’m used to distance. Usually I get in the car and drive to a city to cut out distance. Several of you live in several big cities.

I’m used to being at home alone, quietly working at one of my desks, depending on my mood. The old Mac where I’m writing a children’s novel or my friend’s laptop which gives me instant internet access to look up the odd word that isn’t in everyday use anymore, which sometimes makes me doubt my own instinct.

I’m used to distance but this distance hurts. I can’t drive to London, my childhood village, walk along the Thames to visit my sister. I can’t take you out for ice-cream in Salisbury, tea in Bath, or coffee in Dorset.

Distance gives room for expansion. When you view things from a distance you can receive a new perspective. It Isn’t at all the same as not having the money to bridge the distance. I’ve experienced that. Losing a job. You never get asked, how will this loss impact on your life or the life of your family? No-one thinks about the distance you avoid by faithfully turning up for work like clockwork, on time and punctual every day. Yet still it is not enough. That distance-imposed loss is worse.

At least with this distance, everyone is suffering right alongside me.