Wildewire

I've been up for hours but late for work. I feel like I deserve an award for actually turning up! I felt like calling in sick with a "Mental Health Day". It is hard for me: I am thought of as strong, confident, aggressive, arrogant and perhaps all are true, but it doesn't negate the feelings of depression and anger when I find myself YET AGAIN working for people I simply can't respect. I have written about the toxicity of the working environment- made worse by the plastic smiles and 'stock' conversations- You know the ones: speaking logically to someone whom you KNOW understands what you're saying but chooses to appear baffled or (worse) refusing to accept logic over written procedure. By accident I've been reading some management training recently which has actually cheered me to bitter laughter as I compared my boss and the way she has been introducing her new ideas to my own ways of doing things which are more than endorsed in what I am re...

Insecure middle class white women will say ANYTHING rather than take responsibility when they fuck up in front of a confident black man. -At least that has been my experience! A particularly ineffectual female, caused a minor kerfuffle at work that, when it was revealed that the problem stemmed from the miscommunication of someone delivering a parcel [I kid you not: the LENGTHS to which people like this will go to try to prove a point- especially when they feel WRONGED] She still REFUSED to accept anything other than "That Woman" had been rude to her... I persevered in an attempt to diffuse it but she was having none of it. In the end I reiterated that I was trying to give her information with a bearing on the current issue but as she was refusing to acknowledge it I had more important things to do which I could be doing "I really don't have time for this" I told her and left. She complained to her boss! I told her boss I had no intention of meeting her...

Previously; I have returned from Laurieston with a palpable 'glow' that takes months to fade away. This time, perhaps because of the troubles ahead for the community there and definitely because of the return to a clearly toxic work environment, the ease and fortitude against the vicissitudes of 'everyday life' I normally experience are absent. Going to work on Friday was like accepting my enslavement. The polite middle class white women to whom I report are just poisonous. I was contracted to work as a community development worker with some building management duties. Do to THEIR fuck-up [OK maybe not directly the fault of the current incumbents] the community development work is deemed "outside the charitable objects" of the organisation and therefore 'illegal'. My suggestions for addressing this problem have been rejected as this news is more in line with the new world order planned by the CEO and Board. Rather than doing the right thing and offer...

For some reason I was wide awake at 06:25 yesterday. I decided that was too early and tried to sleep. I was out of bed at 6:38 and off to shower. I helped Sarah in the wash-up for something to do and to keep my mind off the impending departure. I ended up being paired with the prat I encountered a couple of days ago and enjoyed his discomfort.  Last mornings are never easy at Laurieston. Goodbyes were poignant for the most part. It was a little different this time as there is the question mark over whether groups like ECC will come back to the Hall and if they do the format of the weeks are likely to be very different and also I have begun what could be a three year process to join the community there. We had to be gone by 11:00. I left around 10:00 after a coach had taken a large group off to Carlisle and I was back in Newcastle around 12:30. I have had a couple of invitations back and I can't wait to be able to accept them though I do want members of the Engine Shed team to c...

I had my first really unpleasant interaction here today albeit a minor one. It was my first interaction with this individual but I learned from witnesses to it that he is known for acting in the way he did. Uncertainty had been introduced into something that has NEVER been in question before and caused unnecessary anxiety. On behalf of those experiencing this uncertainty, I asked this individual to clarify the issue when he was making an announcement at dinner that didn’t address it. I waited until he had finished and asked my question- he was visibly irritated- affronted to have been approached and offhandedly told me that the issue had been addressed, but when I asked if the people concerned had been informed he said no. I asked him if he’d step outside to have a word about it which he interpreted as a threat! I was told that this is the way this individual is known to act, that he is apparently or believes himself to be a leading light in ECC and has left a trail people ...

Oh it really is lovely to be here! I am enjoying myself more each day. I have been taking photos like its going out of fashion. I'm already dreading going back- its hard to remain in the present when you're unaccustomed to getting what you want. Weather has been a little disappointing in that it has been warm but cloudy with intermittent spells of HOT sunshine. Today (Day6) has started well and there is a good forecast. I was in Kilt today so didn't go wandering around in the woods etc very much for fear of midges and ticks, but I wss outside most of the time. My Samsung tablet seems to be taking AGES to recharge today so I have taken fewer photographs than before- which is probably for the best; the amount of editing that will be needed before they're ready for presentation is immense! FOOD has been EXCELLENT as usual. Although the Apricot fool thing served at dinner LOOKED incredibly unappetising to me so I avoided it. From other accounts it wasn't popu...

My phone reappeared by 12:00.  Today was pretty varied day. I took a LOT of photos, partly because of a fear I might not get to come back here. I think I will add a montage of some of the best on here as a blog post eventually. Higlights included 'losing' my keys and phone charger temporarily (lol) I avoided the fund-raising auction as I have no "spending cash" having sent money to Chris on Friday. I went instead on a walk up the left hand fork in the path to the loch which I realised I'd only ever walked once before. I do love it here. unfortunately the tablet ran out of juice before I got to the end so I turned back, I will finish that walk sometime during the week. The photos are excllent, even though I say so myself. Later in the evenng Wayne and co put on a "prom night" which was quite fun. A real highlight was getting to grab half an hour with David in the Goat House... (lol I've just realised how "racy" that might sound to...

I drove to Laurieston Village to get a signal from my 'phone to send some money to the guy working at the Engine Shed. -Though why I didn't do that from the Laurieston office escapes me now I think of it. It gave me an excuse to go leave the estate. I ended up in Castle Douglas before I found a place I could get a signal AND stop safely. I 'lost' my phone 3 times and as I write it is still unaccounted for. I've been taking photos with my tablet but it refused to charge yesterday (I think it might have been a dodgy socket) so I used the phone and kept putting it down in places. Now I don't know where it is, but I am confident it will reappear before the end of the week. I would be most devastated to lose out on listening to music through the phone on the car's audio system on the way home. How's this for irony: in the base group a guy was whingeing on about being "out of sorts" because he didn't get much sleep and got up early because ...

The nominal theme of the week is "Restoring Your Creative Balance" which has complicated connotations for me... "Peaks and troughs" has been my experience so far! Struggling to find the balance between “being myself” and inflicting that self on others. I have a fundamental fear of boring people. I avoid people who bore me and the thought of being that person in anyone’s life makes me shudder. I came to the Billiard Room to write these notes after sitting next to someone in the hall speaking LOUDLY to someone else in a tone I judged (!) to be superior and laced with snide about the way this event has so many “rules” etc in comparison with spending time in a villa in Portugal for part of the summer with 6 or 7 other people and sharing costs. Its OK to be a LITTLE bit of a dick from time to time! -Better than calling someone out on their ignorance and misplaced arrogance in front of the person they were trying to impress. I just gathered up my stuff an...

I doubt I'll be able to express my true feelings at actually arriving at Laurieston Hall for an Edward Carpenter Community, Gay Men's Week. I'm one of MANY people who regard Laurieston as my "Spirtual Home"- a palpable feeling hits me when I turn off the road onto the drive to the Hall. I was all the more keen to come this year when I discovered that this MIGHT be the last 'Season' that the Lauriestonians welcome visitors- at least for a while, Edward Carpenter Community have been coming here for 31 years. Despite a 12 year gap that ended last year, this is my 15th ECC event and almost all of them have been at Laurieston. There are over 60 gay men here from all over UK. So, getting here was a doddle from Newcastle- apart from taking a wrong turning off the M6 and refusing to trust the Sat Nav when I got to Laurieston (from a new direction) and going 4 miles AWAY from the house until I realised... Oh, and I spun off the road on a country road approching...