Archie (or for short - Archibaldi Garibaldi Biscuit Boy)

It was raining

The dogs needed walking

We set off at a pace, not wanting to be out for too long.

Archie went off to explore in the long grass, me and Mollie stride off ahead.

He was taking his time to catch up, I call, no sign. I look back and what looks like some comedy puppet dog is stumbling along sitting, then kind of hopping around a bit. 

On closer inspection, he has got tangled up with giant burrs from the burdock. They were stuck like Velcro all over his body, mainly his legs and tummy. One had kind of velcrowed his front leg to his chest, hence his strange hobbling gait. I started pulling the burrs off, he squealed with each one poor little wimpy thing he is. At the last one, he leapt free almost clicking his heals together and skipping off! He came back to me, gave a little bark, I stroked his head and he was off again. Sooo cute!

Interesting fact...the inventor of Velcro developed it after noticing the burrs attaching to his dog. Archie is following the tradition of dogs wherever burdock grows apparently.

Rhode trip

So we were sat on a plane full of "Sweaty Pommies" as Leanne described it, destination Pefkos, on the Greek isle of Rhodes. 

Objectives: To lie around, read books, catch some rays. swim, eat olives, eat feta, eat stuffed vine leaves, eat kleftikos, you get the idea. (Oh yes and maybe drink the odd beer)

Equipment packed: swimming goggles, snorkel, three pairs of shorts, several t-shirts, togs, sunscreen and Uno.

Risks: Being detained by the metal detector at the air port.

Well. That happened.

Actually it always happens, to me anyway. Typical scenario. Put possessions in tray, hope trousers don't fall down due to lack of belt, try to get bracelet off. Fail to get bracelet off. Security person says just go through that will be fine.

*ALARM*ALARM*ALARM*

Madam if you can just step to one side. Well, this time it was the most intimate body pat down ever. I felt bad I didn't know the woman's first name. So intimate even, that she could tell I was wearing a sports bra for goodness sake!

Anyway...moving on.

Airport uneventful, flight the same, the longest slowest bus journey designed to give us the impression Rhodes is bigger than it actually is. 

Greeted by Paul the Greek from Michigan, reassured us he was actually Greek and a lovely holiday was had by all.

Voting status

Post vote thumbs up

I shared on Facebook, twitter (@rachelmcw) and instagram (rachelmcw) that I've voted, it's important not to waste one's chance of bragging about voting on social media...so thought I'd best blog about it. I could Snapchat, but my only friend on Snapchat is my daughter so it seemed a bit like overkill - she knew we were going off to vote as she saw us potter off down the road.

Here's a blow by blow account of how it all went for me.

We gather up the dogs, we walk to the polling station, I enter said polling station to cast my votes.

My conversation with the returning officer goes like this:

RO: "Which Collier-Wilson are you, Leanne or Rachel?

Me: "I'm Rachel, Leanne is outside with the dogs"

Leanne's conversation with the returning officer goes like this:

post vote stupid grin

L: I'm Leanne Collier-Wilson"

RO: Ooh, we've just had a Collier-Wilson in"

L: Yes, she's outside with the dogs"

Artist's impression of my vote

Quick question - do the returning officers also count the votes?

As a bonus I got a compliment for reading the instructions and putting the white voting slip into the box which said "white voting slips" 

Now I just need to stay awake...feeling sleepy as it's just gone 10 pm.

Some of my best friends are gay allies

Well I know this was a work thing but I’m going to write about my attendance at the Stonewall Workforce Conference 2015 anyway.

I was excited to have been asked to go. I go along to the University of Sheffield LGBT network group on a regular basis, I tweet the occasional words of wisdom from the account and I think I’m a pretty good role model. I promised to “live tweet” from the network twitter account @TUoSLGBT throughout the day. I not actually sure if there are any other ways to do this apart from “live” but hey - sounds good.

I was excited on a personal level as it would be the first professional conference I was to attend where you can pretty much guarantee, that as a vaguely butch lesbian, I would not be in the minority. I was confident I would even be able to go to the loo without receiving the funny look or even the challenge “do you know this is the ladies?”

An early start to catch the 7 am train. The day started well as I was treated to a glorious sunrise while driving across the moors towards Chesterfield. I was also warmly greeted on the train by a Sheffield colleague, whom I hadn’t met  before, based in HR. We were hopefully meeting up with another colleague who was travelling from a different starting point. 

We arrived in London, we wandered out the tube and headed off in the exact opposite direction as I’m using my phone to navigate, quickly rectified and we arrived at the venue - the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre.

I was not disappointed, lots of lovely short back and sided lesbians to make me feel I belong. Not only was it OK to go to the loo, but of course there was a gender neutral toilet just in case! This was Stonewall’s first ever trans-inclusive conference, making it all feel rather wholesome. It’s important to remember the T in LGBT and one of the things I took away was a reminder of the important distinction that the T is about gender identity and the LGB is about sexual orientation. The two however can fit together well to drive forward the diversity and inclusivity agenda.

Ruth Hunt et al on stage - my tweet behind on the wall

I sat and listened in wonder. First up was Ruth Hunt, a wonderful speaker, extremely engaging, and pretty hot! She spoke of the great steps we had taken towards inclusion, but even with equal marriage, we can still be spat at in the street. It’s a long time since that’s happened to me, I’m incredibly privileged to work in a University that's got good policy for Diversity and Inclusivity, I’ve a lovely family and live in a neighbourhood where, to date, there hasn’t been anyone opposed to our sexual identities. But that’s not to say it won’t happen again, of that I am fully aware.

One thing I found, is that Stonewall do a lot of work through personal stories and experiences. I think this is an excellent way of getting a message out, nobody can resist or challenge an account of someone's feelings. 

I enjoyed the session how to be a good LGBT role model, sat next to a lovely gay Mexican, we had to exchange personal stories. We parted at the end of the session with him sending kisses to my lovely wife and daughter - how cool is that! You don’t get that at library systems conferences that’s for sure.

We caught up with our other Sheffield  colleague. She reported that she thought she had seen me earlier, I must have a double…what - another woman with a short back and sides with glasses, here, what were the chances!

Final keynotes - still a packed auditorium, you don't get that at the end of the day at library conferences either.

Benny Higgins, the CEO of Tesco’s Bank gave a powerful and inspirational talk.  He focussed on the people and their value transcending everything else. He rolled out the Oscar Wilde quote “Be yourself as everyone else is taken” and read a poem by George the Poet with such conviction it left quite a few in tears. (In a good way). Pretty good stuff for a banker.

Last up on the podium was Ayla Holdom. Britain’s first transgender pilot. She started by saying she was just a simple pilot, but my goodness she is so much more. She sent out a strong message about being authentic. To stop apologising and comment positively. She was seen as being mentally unstable by The Sun, she said she wasn’t mentally unstable, had a certificate to prove it, she was just trans. I didn’t actually write any notes whilst she was talking, I was too wound up in her amazingness, her touching personal account, her words. Simple actions are important. A standing ovation and this time not a dry eye to be seen.

#EqualAtWork 

Quotes that stuck in my mind

“A workplace that successfully engages with workforce is 20% more successful”

“LGBT allies can have a huge impact on inclusivity”

“Nothing about us, without us”

“There is power in that individual story”

There was a lovely sunset when I drove back over the moors, and my lovely female family waiting with pizza and wine.  Kisses delivered from the gay Mexican. Possibly the best day I’ve had at work for a long time.

The view from the loo! (well - the hand washing bit)

How can you tell if librarians like cake?

Well you hold a bake sale and make over £160* for Comic Relief of course!

There's much to be excited about in a library environment when there's talk of a bake sale... well mainly the availability of cake and maybe the odd biscuit. A colleague enlisted my help with a Comic Relief bake sale. I was delighted, I could dress up in the style of Sue Perkins and eat cake (guilt free) all day! 

Unfortunately, I was suffering from a cold... fortunately the lovely offspring was more than happy to bake some biscuits. We thought biscuits in a bag so they could be transported home and consumed at a convenient time - and we included a free joke. High quality jokes about biscuits are, as it happens, plentiful. 

For example:
Which biscuit singer sang Dancing on the Ceiling? 
Lionel RichTea!

Classic. Who wouldn't pay a £1 for the joke alone?

As people delivered their offerings to us in the morning, I was aware we needed to be mindful of nuts. When a colleague presented an orange and almond cake I did, to my embarrassment, ask... "does it contain nuts?" He looked at me as if I was nuts and said "Yes - almonds!" In my defence, it was early and we were being overwhelmed by cake deliveries! (The cake was delicious btw).

We baked, we had photos of the bakers in red noses on the wall and we had bunting. People were surprisingly excited by the bunting. "Ooh look, bunting," led me to think we need more bunting in our lives, well in the tea room at least. We had a little bit of rivalry with another library site who had organised a quiz. I think that may even have accused us of having soggy bottoms, but all in good fun. It felt like a good community event and we ate loads of cake (not just me). There was a spotty cake, a spotty tablecloth and, I suspect, spotty complexions after all that sugar, butter and chocolate. But who cares? All for a good cause.

*full amount to be verified next week.

What's his name? Chess, like the board game Chess.

We had to say goodbye to our lovely Chess earlier this year.

It was a privilege to have had such a lovely, fun, calming, good natured dog in our lives. 

When we first adopted him, he was a rescue from greyhound racing, we had to teach him everything about living in a house. He had never even been up stairs before. He soon settled into family life though and was always a pleasure to take for walk. 

He amused us with his collecting. When he was left on his own, he would collect household objects - including mandarins and items of clothing - and sit with them in his bed. There was the one time though which gave us a bit of a scare....

We came into the lounge one afternoon and had a small panic, there was a little bit of 'dissaray' in the lounge, and a chewed up bit of fur on the rug. Oh my goodness we thought, he's killed a cat! But no - our daughter had been gifted a possum tail (a strange gift I know, but this was in NZ where possums are to be discouraged). Chess had found this and obviously thought it was an excellent game to toss this around the lounge and chew and pounce on it. Soon after, we purchased him 'Mr Cuddles' a rope toy which looked like a monkey. He was obviously now relaxed enough to allow himself to play. He loved Mr Cuddles. 

Chess also loved pizza night and the leftover crusts, he loved a glass of wine (if one was left unattended that is), loved bananas, bacon, especially chicken and his family. He struggled on the ice (it seemed he had too many legs), his farts could clear a room and taking him for a walk in the rain was similar to taking a sulky teenager anywhere - until you turned to go home that is.

He wasn't much use as a guard dog, he loved people and was always excited to see anyone at the door - some one else to lean on. EXCEPT...if you were travelling by hot air balloon. Chess didn't bark much, so it was of great surprise one afternoon, when Chess was barking frantically at the window. On closer inspection, there was a hot air balloon, flying really low over the street. This was obviously very disconcerting to Chess. We took him outside to watch the balloon landing safely on the neighbouring cricket pitch. This didn't reassure him much but at least the 'perceived' danger had passed.

To watch him run was amazing

RIP Thrilling Chess

14/1/2005 - 9/1/2015

21 things* to do with a redundant Tax disc holder

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Times are a changing, I’ve been driving around the streets of the UK now proudly displaying a tax disc for 20 ish (cough) years and yesterday, suddenly there was no need. I still have my tax disc displayed - along with countless other drivers -, but alas - it expired on the 30-09-14. It sits there all forlorn on my dashboard as the stickiness of the holder expired long ago. Actually, it’s not alone, there are possibly three years worth of tax discs there, shoved in the back as I’m too lazy to have removed them. (maybe the cause of the lack of stickability to the windscreen).

This has all led me to consider…what to do with all these tax disc holders. I’m sure I’m not alone so I thought - why not come up with a handy dandy cut out and keep guide? If only I had the technology to make it a perforated press out and keep guide, that would be good.

1. A tribute to tax discs gone by, it could remain on the dashboard/windscreen for the rest of the ownership of the car to remind ourselves of the pain of the perforations and tearing out the round disc without tearing it in half
2. I thought it could house emergency biscuits, particularly digestives - just the right size. Essential when stuck in traffic and blood sugar is running low. Possibly just one biscuit. n.b. try to avoid emergencies, and don't eat and drive, and maybe avoid chocolate biscuits
3. A handy place to store your driving monocle
4. A handy place to store a drinks coaster
5. A handy place to store  - well most round flat things
6. You could put it in your glovebox or the car door, with the remaining tax disc/s in as a symbol of not being quite as lazy as not bothering to remove from the windscreen/dashboard
7. Bring it inside to languish in a draw to be discovered by future generations to prove - yes they had invented the car xx number of years ago
8. Instead of storing a coaster, use as a stylish coaster instead. Guaranteed the stickiness would revitalise itself and stick to the bottom of the cup/mug/glass when you have your mum/vicar/in-laws round for tea 
9. A quirky accessory to any window, complete with tax disc. A great conversation starter “why do you have a tax disc stuck on your bedroom/lounge/bathroom window?” Yes why indeed…freak
10. Stick to the kitchen window to store the kitchen sink plug
11. A novelty hat for a small pet
12. I’m getting desperate now
13. Curious to see if you could keep it on the windscreen, but put a tomato in there for sun drying purposes…however, this is Britain.
14. Did I mention I was getting desperate 

*there may not be 21 things

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