Intimidated

I have been quiet on this blog recently. Things are going sort of ok at work. My new management colleague is very pleasant and always has my back, he understands the issues of Autism and is very supportive; we work well as a team. The other side of this coin is that he has other responsibilities in the wider school, and is disinclined to doing the huge amount of departmental planning, timetabling and other admin, so my workload is still ridiculously large. 

Meanwhile Davie has started Freshers week at UWS and is loving it so far. Cat is in Oslo visiting Ally, and Jamie is working 70 hour weeks as a very junior doctor.
Yesterday would have been Jack's 17th birthday (and Jill's too of course) which made me a bit sad. But as James pointed out, he probably didn't enjoy being deaf and getting weaker even though he won't have understood why. He had a good life.
Last night Heather and Ewan came for dinner and we had a pleasant evening chatting about all sorts. Inevitably the referendum came up, things are really hotting up as the vote is next Thursday and it is on everyone's minds. As good and long-standing friends I felt comfortable chatting about it in their company.
But I was in town at lunchtime yesterday to meet friends and I found the atmosphere rather intimidating - the Yes voters were out in force and (in my opinion) very aggressive; there was shouting and swearing. I don't mean to sound prissy but I do find that quite scary. No wonder they seem in the majority, I think a lot of people who will vote No are frightened of saying anything in case they get shouted at and made to feel unpatriotic. But I think you can be a patriot without being a nationalist. And I think that the quiet, intimidated majority may vote No. We will soon find out!