Suspect I’ve used that title before.
I had a good morning at work. The first half hour was spent doing some Speed Shelving with my friend S as there was loads left over from last night so we set ourselves a mission of getting as much cleared as possible before we opened.
Then I spent an hour doing on online training course thingy on Treating People as Individuals (or TIP as it’s apparently being called (by all the cool kids ;))).It was quite interesting, all about the councils policy on such stuff, their action plans to ensure everyone is able to access the councils services and that they are a fair place to work. It finished up with a quiz that we had to get at least 80% on, or keep taking until we did. I got 100% straight away which I was both expecting but slightly pleased with.
I had an hour on the enquiry desk (no interesting enquires) and the final hour on the counter where I had a few chats with borrowers including a woman who usually comes to reading group but missed last night’s. It was a quick morning.
I arrived at Liza’s slightly early and spotted Liza and the children walking down the road but ducked back out of sight to prevent them running to me and not paying attention to crossing the road. Davies and Scarlett were rather subdued and Liza looked pretty harrassed and confirmed it had not been a great morning. After the run up of the last couple of days when I got Davies and Scarlett in the car to explain why Liza might not have had a great morning with them and got stories of squabbling and petty arguments I lost my rag. I possibly overreacted but sometimes I think these things need to come to a head and it certainly did that today. 🙁
After a lot of ranting, loads of tears and some calmer explaining and serious chats they decided they wanted to ring Liza to apologise for being selfish and causing her to have a crap time in their company. I was actually very proud of them for being prepared to suggest something slightly scary, admitting they’d not behaved well and being up for apologising and trying to put things right. We discussed expectations of each other and what is fair and I reminded them that a ‘good’ person isn’t someone who never makes mistakes or gets things wrong, it’s someone who is able to identify when they have made an error and take steps to put it right, take responsibility for it and apologise. Utterly draining, upsetting and unpleasant for all three of us 🙁
I’d have happily cancelled our afternoon plans to meet up with Julie but I knew she’d already be on her way to Highdown gardens where we were meeting so we went. We arrived before them and after more chatting and some cuddles in the car we got out and as there was a handily placed icecream seller (with old fashioned bike) we chatted to him and got an ice cream each. I try hard to match Davies and Scarlett in resiliance and not bear grudges although I definitely find it harder than them.
Julie and co arrived and also got icecreams then we went for a wander round the gardens. Julie and I did some walking along holding Lorna’s hands as she is at that lovely toddling along stage and very close to walking unaided