Wildewire

The biggest night in the calendar of the community centre where I work went off surprisingly easily- thanks to the excellent event management company we hired. I was told that previous years had attracted around 3,500 people, we counted 4,700 people onto the site and a conservative estimate of the people who watched in large groups from nearby was at least another 500. It should be noted that only 2,500 people live on the estate. The last two weeks have been quite tortuous as things I'd been promised since May evaporated. Some of the grant aid was refused- but reinstated on the day of the event! I had become so worried that I began to reduced the programme to what I was confident could be done well. In the event I was walking all over the site passing information etc all through the event and had to wait to the end to lock up. My boss had asked how I was going to capitalise on so many people coming to the centre so we could pass information to them about the programmes etc but...

My godson returned to his family on Friday and I have been through a storm of feelings since. When I was away a couple of weeks ago, I found myself moaning about how unhygienic the was boy to a friend who said that all 17 year olds are like that. Well, I wasn't! I won't go into details here as I am trying to shed the baggage accumulated over the last four years, but there is one detail I WILL share: The boy has long hair. I had no objection as long as he kept it clean etc... He didn't. His hair is EVERYWHERE in my house. When I left him at the airport he thanked me and said he really appreciated what I had done for him, but if that were true he would have made SOME effort to clean his room before he left. He may have been sincere, but I have struggled to accept things that he says because he thinks he should say them rather than because he believes or feels them. As it was: in under TWO MINUTES, I had to switch off the vacuum cleaner because it had begun to smoke: There...