Stuff on my desk

This is a companion piece to a similarly-themed article on Pete’s site, which, all things being equal, should be published at roughly the same time.

Here is my desk. It is an old wooden desk that we bought from the previous owner of this house. It’s good because you can hide stuff in the drawers, but it still does get very cluttered. I tidied it up for the purposes of this photograph. Unfortunately I’m not allowed to see the photograph while I write this post, for complicated technical reasons that I don’t understand, so let’s hope that things are still in the same place they were this afternoon.

Right there in the middle, that’s my flat screen, and also my very small keyboard. This is to give me more space for clutter. The very small keyboard is slightly rubbish because the backspace key is in ever-so-slightly the wrong place, and I often hit Home or = instead. And the bottom row of letters is disappearing, but I can handle that. Ms are over-rated anyway.

On my screen there is a pink heart-shaped post-it note reminding me to pay money towards my Mum’s christmas present. My brother and I are paying for her to get broadband, mainly so that I can go up there and work from her house, should she have some sort of emergency, and need me. I stole the pink post-it note from work, several employers ago.

Then there is the speaker thingy, and the phone, and the light, and the mouse. They do pretty much what you would expect them to do. On top of the speaker thingy there is a clip thingy holding a photo of me holding my son. See that card with the roses on, down by the light? That’s the thank you card for the present we gave at the wedding where that photo was taken. Don’t you love that lovely sentence?

To the left of the phone is a photograph of Pete and Bernard, taken about this time last year. Wasn’t he small and bald? Bernard too has a lot more hair now. Pete calls this my Fireman Shot.

As I mentioned, the desk was considerably less tidy prior to the photograph, but the same stuff is still there; it’s just in neater piles. On the right is some planning paperwork for work, and a small notebook that I don’t use very often. In the middle is my work stationery: pen with highlighter, pencil, and eraser. The eraser is very important, because people continually mess with my planning. They have no idea what a finely tuned operation I run.

The pile on the left is NCT stuff, my counsellor training notebook, various leaflets and articles that I should read, and a booklet called Evidence for the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding, published by the WHO. This is the part of the desk where things get piled up for weeks, until I need something urgently and can’t find it, and have to resort to filing.

In the middle, you will see my pink iPod mini, which has served me well, at least since it was replaced because it kept crashing. Hasn’t crashed since, but I only use it once a week now, when I go into the office. Oh, and my naughty coaster.

The desk has lots of drawers. These contain files, pens, notebooks, and stuff I used to use when I traveled. I don’t travel anymore, and I rarely do my filing, so the only drawer I regularly open is the one with the pens in. There are hundreds of pens in there, and frankly, that would make a more interesting photograph.

To the left of the PC, you will see my bookcase. This is not big enough for all my stuff. The top shelf is wasted because most of those boxes are empty. The middle shelf usually has many more books on it than that, but I have loaned several of them to members of my tutorial group. They are all breastfeeding, parenting, sleep, etc etc type books. I’ll lend them to you if you want.

The bottom shelf is big files and folders, some of which I absolutely never open. One contains a completed novel, but it’s really bad and I should just throw it away – but could you? Another one contains all the steamy emails Pete and I sent to each other in the early part of our relationship. I don’t bother to print them out these days, because they say things like did you want me to go to the supermarket on the way home? and what’s for tea?

On the wall, you will see a freebie calendar with food on it. The current recipe is for spicy parsnip crisps, which actually sounds like quite a good idea. Maybe I should go downstairs and make some now. I have some parsnips that really, really need to be used up. Next to it you can see the Orange Picture of Bernard, taken by the talented rr on the occasion of his first birthday. Below that is a pair of proof pictures of Bernard, taken at a toddler group where his ex-childminder had him dressed up like a Victorian urchin. Note the worried look on his little face. Needless to say, we didn’t purchase the pictures. The card from New York wasn’t from New York, it was from my Dad, and he has never been to New York in his life, so I don’t know why he sends cards from New York. And the pencil drawing next to it is by the excellent Doctor Pockless.

There are other bits and pieces, but you can probably work out what they are for yourselves. If you have a real burning desire for me to describe the rolls of wrapping paper or the spec. of the printer, do let me know.