What an exciting week. My second full week in my new job and I am getting busy. Slowly but surely I am getting to a routine and getting things done. New leads, new friends and more fun. I am loving it! Really!!!

So what have I been doing outside work?

Monday was Hansel and Gretel’s first birthday. At night I went to a friend’s place and taught him some basic SEO techniques. Luckily he stopped me after 3 hours as I would have carried on, just scratching the surface of Social Media. Just by explaining others what I know, I notice how much I enjoy the idea of search and performance marketing in general. I always thought I wanted to change topics within the industry at some point and look into a more technology based products but I guess the “search fever” has taken over and I feel very comfortable and happy within this field. And, I am still learning daily!

The rest of the week just flew by. I feel tired, exhausted and run down. Because of the swine flu I am paranoid that it might be it but probably it is just tiredness paired with exhaustion. Basically sleeping 5 hours on average every night and not having weekends to catch up on sleep wears you down. They say that after 6 weeks babies get easier and sleep more. Fingers crossed. Still, my wife is the one who gets out at night, and I find it remarkable how she copes with that. I love her very much!

Saturday was very productive. I dug up a bucket (!) full of potatoes and about a dozen onions. It is a great feeling to harvest what you grew yourself. It is great to know that you can grow enough food to survive. Maybe not this year though However, the carrots never grew properly, the remaining salad got too wet and didn’t look good. So the only things still growing are the courgettes and the broccoli. And, funny enough, tomatoes which I never planted in the first place. Very weird. Our beans are still trying to grow too but it doesn’t look too good We are getting lots of raspberries though.
I hope I take enough learning from that and plant less potatoes next year and give the carrots more space and light. Also, the garlic didn’t prosper, so I guess we need to buy some of our ingredients this winter.

To finish off a good a good day, and the warmest for 3 weeks, we had a BBQ at our neighbours. That was great, lots of vegetables and meat and wine

On Sunday I donated a good amount to the guide dog charity. Why did I do that?
It is simple, we have a little Buddhist shrine where we donate little things, food (rice for example), water and money. The latter we donate in 5 pounds steps, e.g. 5 gold coins. We have collected money for over 2 years and I donated money for my job hunt, for the health of my baby and my wife’s health, and so on. However, we thought, being so happy and feeling so fortunate in life, that we should take the money and donate it for a good cause.

Guide dogs is a charity that obviously helps blind people in two ways. Firstly it helps them getting around in everyday life but also it gives blind people a comrade and friend. I feel very strong about that because blindness is something I believe is very hard to cope with. So we felt very strong about donating that money towards this charity.

Also, we managed to speak to our neighbours who are harassed and bullied by some other neighbours in the street for wanting to get a planning submission for a new home. The plan does not seem too bad to me and I believe that if there is enough space that people should be able to build the home they like. Maybe we can help them achieving just that. So we wrote a letter to the council supporting their planning application. Hopefully not too late!

We also managed to say hello to one of our old neighbours. She is 93 and it was lovely to see her holding little Colin. I remember when we lived above her about 3 years ago. When she found out I was German, she wouldn’t talk to me for days because she got bombed out several times in the 2nd world war. It took some of my charm to convince her that I am not that bad and we are friends now. She was delighted to see the boy, my wife and even me! Bless her.

Next week shall be interesting, as I continue with some more tests in hospital on Thursday. Fingers crossed that is the final stretch of consultants to see.

Have a good week, be safe!