What Sophie Said

It seems an appropriate day to share a story about my dad. Soon, I'll fill you in a bit on why there's been two weeks of silence... but right now it's a space for a story about my dad. Or rather, a story about my dad and me. Of both of us, of a period of 15 months where we were both father and daughter, and boss and employee. When I first graduated, I worked for my dad for just under a year and a half, and in that period we learned a lot about each other and about ourselves. Not only were there new boundaries to navigate, and the need to establish that line between work time and family time, but I was in a period where I was struggling. Towards the end of university was when my anxiety first decided to properly rear its head, and the Sophie that was working with dad then was not the Sophie of now or the Sophie of six months before. I was cautious. I was apologetic, I had forgotten what my talents were, where my strengths lay and how strong I could be. We wer...

You’ve come round quickly. January seemed to last for weeks on end, but February crept by without me really even noticing. I’ve had a fairly quiet month, mainly working then relaxing in good company. March is a busy one, this year. I’ve filled up my weekends with things I’m really looking forward to. There’s the day my mum is coming to London for food and museums and exhibitions. There are two shows in my diary. There’s an overnight stay in a place which looks beautiful and calm. We have a big event at work mid-month which I know will be a long day, but I’m interested to see how it all runs, as I hadn’t joined the company yet when it ran last year. I’ve started seeing a new counsellor. More to come on that soon, but those sessions will be another key feature of the month. We had our first appointment last week and I’m feeling good about it. Apart from that, there are catch-ups with friends lined up, and a couple of my favourite people have birthdays...

I’ve got that Sunday feeling. If you work Monday to Friday, you know what I mean. Or you might remember it from your school days. I’d understand it more if I didn’t like my job or something, but I do! So it’s not that there’s any real reason for the Sunday dread, other than the fact the weekend is almost over. Even though there will be another one in a week anyway. I feel it like a physical reaction, that moment when my brain realises it’s Sunday afternoon. It’s almost a panic feeling, telling me I’m running out of time. I watch the time tick over, and it seems to move so quickly in that final part of the weekend. I’m running out of time. My free time is almost over. I’m running out of time to…. What? Usually, my Sundays are empty. I have a bit of a thing about keeping them free, or at least the afternoon free, to relax and do nothing before a new week starts. So I’m not really running out of time to DO anything, because I purpose...

Storytime today! Because one year ago today was potentially one of the most nerve-wracking days of my life. At the beginning of January, I had started a new job based just south of Manchester. I knew I would be working with both my office and colleagues in the London office, but I don’t think it had quite registered that that would involve trips to London. You see, at that point, the only trains I had managed post-anxiety were 5 minute local-stopping trains. I had never travelled to London alone. I’d only been there a handful of times in my life. I’d never stayed alone in a hotel, apart from trips with family where I was maybe in a room next door to my parents. I was doing pretty well in terms of my anxiety, but those were still big hurdles. Anyway, when it was dropped into conversation that I’d be making my first trip to the London office in a couple of weeks, I replied just as casually that yes, of course that was fine. It would have to be! I knew I would find a ...

Well, it’s back: The Apprentice. Which truly means it’s Autumn, and that I’ll be glued to the tv on Wednesday evenings. I’ve got such a love/hate relationship with the show. I love watching it, but I hate some of the traits it shows up in the candidates. Of course it’s all entertainment, and we know these people would never make the series if they weren’t larger-than-life characters, but sometimes you just want to cover your eyes and live in denial that people could be so rude/loud/incapable/selfish/bullish (delete as appropriate). Editing plays a part too, but some of the scenes are just ridiculous. Like the man who told Lord Sugar no one had volunteered to be PM and he had expected more confidence… When he hadn’t put himself forward either. Or the project managers who seem unable to hear the voices of anyone else in the room. Or the man who applied to a show under LORD SUGAR admitting he couldn’t sell face-to-face. Of course, plenty get by in business without this skill – ...

On 29 th May, I left my job. Without a new one to go to. There were lots of reasons why, which I won’t go into, but the main one was that the role taught me exactly what it was I wanted to be doing. And it wasn’t quite what I was doing there. I think part of growing up is learning to acknowledge when things aren’t working. Work will never be perfect, all of the time. All jobs have stressful periods. Most jobs have great periods. Throughout my childhood, and on into university and graduate life, I’ve taken huge comfort from stability, from always knowing what’s coming next. I moved through primary school, to secondary school, to sixth form, and straight to university. After university, I got a job, and I’ve been working full-time for the past two years. But when you leave university, or education at whatever stage you leave it, the world is a big place, and there are so many routes you can follow. And part of growing up is sometimes not sticking with so...

This is the first of three Christmassy blog posts: the build-up, the parties and the day itself.  I absolutely love Christmas, and it’s been such a busy festive period that it feels like the perfect way to get back into blogging ahead of the new year. I started to feel Christmassy this year on the day of a trip to The Ideal Home Show at Christmas with my mum.  The queue was enormous, but we were greeted at the door by a choir singing Christmas carols, santa and an elf in their sleigh, and it was snowing over the entrance. On arrival, we walked through a winter wonderland of Christmas trees guiding us in to the main exhibition hall. The stalls were divided into different sections, such as health and beauty, clothing, Christmas, home and garden.. and by far our favourite was food. We watched a few demos, and sampled plenty of foods and drinks - although we did decline a 10am bowl of curry! Having not really known what t...

Well, Monday, here we are again. The start of a working week, the first early morning after the weekend... Mondays have a bad reputation. But recently I've warmed to them. Because yes, we have to get up early and go to work, but it also feels like a weekly opportunity to have a bit of a 'fresh start'. We're all guilty of putting good intentions on the back burner, or saying we'll start tomorrow, next week, next month, next year... I'm trying to view Mondays as a brand new little opportunity every week. Every week I want to think of one new thing to implement, whether it's to do more exercise, ring one friend for a catchup, or spend longer reading a book. By introducing little habits in isolation, but often, I'm hoping I will be able to stick to a wider range than failing with those ridiculously long lists of things we 'SHOULD' do on January 1st. So there we have it: every Monday is now an opportunity. Every Monday is another little ...

This is part 3 of my uni life series – 5 blog posts in which I reflect back on my three years at university. I’m looking at halls , friendship , holidays, the academicside and the top ten things I’ve learnt . By far one of the oddest things about being at university is that strange limbo between being independent yet still being in education, reliant on your parents and/or loan, and returning home for university holidays. Realistically, the minimum student maintenance loan is rarely enough to cover all rent, utilities and living expenses and most students have to get jobs (term time or in holidays) or rely on extra support from their parents. In this post I’m focussing on those ‘in-between’ times, the holidays in between terms. Most of us, when it gets to Christmas, Easter and summer, pack up and return home for at least a portion of those breaks. The packing itself is hard enough; 5 weeks at home is a large amount of things to fit in a suitcase. In addition to that, there ar...