Month: Feb 2026

310: on the up

On Wednesday my feet did not want to go to the office. They didn’t want to leave the house, get on the bus or step onto the Central Line either. It was a wobble day – the worst I’ve had for a while, and I very nearly gave in and let them take me home again. Only the fact that I had a day of interviews ahead of me kept me moving forwards.

I stopped at Pret on the way to the office in the hope that a hot chocolate would be an excellent brain reset. It wasn’t and the final stretch between Pret and the desk was like wading through treacle. A couple of hours burning through emails at least felt practical, and then I had to switch on the smile and chat to people who want to work with us. They’ve put the effort in to apply, so they deserve a good interview. We met some really lovely people, and I think I fooled them.

I reached out to an old friend who also has the odd wobble, and they checked in on me through the day and over the next couple – as I’d done for them a couple of weeks ago. This helped a lot, especially as they know enough not to ask why it’s a bad day. There’s often no reason.

As the organisation’s Mental Health First Aider – and as a parent, step-parent and friend of people who live with mental health issues – I know the advice I would give to a colleague, the kids or my friends. It would not have been ‘go to work and pretend everything was OK’, but to take a step back, go and talk to someone and see if there was a way to take a break for a few days. What I told myself, though, was that I would be fine once we got going. I chunked up the day into manageable bits so I only had to survive the morning, lunchtime, and the afternoon and not a whole day. Sounds weird but it worked.

The text message – brief but cheering – from my Beloved, simply saying ‘I’m cooking’ was a big help, taking something potentially stressful out of the equation. I can’t remember the last time he cooked spontaneously, so this was a nice surprise. I was able to go home, eat dinner and go and drink tea and read a book in a hot bath – much needed as the interview room had been freezing.

Thursday was marginally better, and Friday was a WFH day where some of the day was spent keeping Miriam’s house elves company. I survived the week with the help of a good playlist and kind friends. Every day I can say ‘I’ll phone the doctor tomorrow if I don’t feel better’ is another day I’ve functioned and another day fighting off the black dog. I do not have time to be unwell, as my late and much-missed mother-in-law used to say. I have too much to do.

Still, now I’m levelling out and hopefully this week will carry on the upward trajectory. If not, I can always phone the doctor….tomorrow.

EDIT: I intended also in this post to talk about Mychal Threets, a lovely librarian and Reading Rainbow presenter on NPR, who blew up Threads this week when he spoke candidly (as he always does) about his mental health. As he says, another day he can talk about it is another day he’s on the planet. However…some women took it upon themselves to complain to his employers about his use of his personal platform, calling him threatening and triggering. NPR supported him as did the people of Threads, who were saddled up and ready to ride at dawn to protect him. He champions libraries, library kids, autism, books, mental health. He’s great, and he’s right to use his platform for his issues. If we don’t talk enough about mental health the stigma attached to it continues, especially in the culture of toxicity which can exist in some corners of social media.

Good things this week (yes, there were some)

  • Ballet with Thing 2 last Sunday – very, very funny. I thought the person next to me was going to fall off her chair laughing. I like matinee performances, as you can be home for teatime
  • The abundance of mindless trash on Kindle Unlimited that requires no thinking (and is not listed below!)
  • Lemon Drizzle cake courtesy of Thing 2
  • Getting round to making this yellow bag from a Merchant and Mills pattern
  • Discovering new music
  • The comfort of a warm furry cat tucked up on my shoulder as I write
  • How happy Dobby & Kreacher were to see me on Friday morning

Here’s hoping this week is better! I’m off to the ballet with Sue on Wednesday, this time to see something with opera in it, and we have more interviews to do before we start shortlisting and meeting volunteers.

Same time next week, people. Chin up!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

House of Flame and Shadow – Sarah J. Maas (Audible)

Ride or Die – Hailey Edwards

First Witches Club – Maisey Yates

309: have you had your break yet?

This week has been brought to you with the help of paracetamol, ibuprofen, Tiger Balm, Deep Heat and a wide selection of microwaveable heat ups. Not a migraine, just a persistent and nagging headache that took three days and a dizzy spell to subdue. Headaches, if you’ll pardon the pun, are a pain in the neck.

Luckily, the wonderful Mackenzie Crook’s latest offering went a long way to making everything a whole lot better.

Small Prophets, starring Pearce Quigley, Michael Palin and Lauren Patel alonsgide Crook and the always-good-value Paul Kaye, is described as a ‘comedy about a man who creates magical prophesying spirits that can predict the future’ but it’s sooooo much more. As with Detectorists and Worzel Gummidge, Crook’s gentle humour and eye for the magic in the nundane makes a simple six part comedy into something that invests you in these people’s lives.

Image copyright BBC, 2026

Quigley plays Michael Sleep, a man working in a DIY superstore, being bullied by the trolley attendant, bossed by ineffectual Crook (with a truly hideous ponytail). His dad (Palin) is in a nursing home and forgets that Michael’s girlfriend Clea disappeared seven years previously. There are nefarious people looking for her, her brother wants the house, the neighbour wants him to do something about the garden and all he wants to fnd out if Clea is alive and coming home. His dad comes up with a plan inspired by a mystic he met in Cairo on National Service – and magic ensues in the form of tiny homunculi grown in the shed.

But – this being Crook – the magical beings are not the only magic in the series. The magic lies in the burgeoning friendship between Michael and Kacey, in the perfect Christmas Michael is creating in case Clea ever comes home, in the tiny moments of mischief Michael brings to his boring job. Crook makes gentle, human comedy – never punching down or being cruel. Even the bully comes across as sad and is given no power. This has been a theme across Crook’s creations. The homunculi are almost secondary to the rebuilding of Michael’s life and re-engaging wiith the world without Clea. I’m known for crying at telly on a regular basis, but the last episode was worth a weep…It’s on BBC iPlayer, binge it now. The reviews are great, and they still don’t do it justice.

Other things making me happy this week

  • Taking some personal development time to do one of the V&A Academy’s In Practice courses – this time Illustrating Dresses with Erin Petson. I’m still no good at drawing people, but it was fun to have a go.
  • The dance scene with Diego Calva and Tom Hiddleston in series 2 of The Night Manager. Heavens, but that man knows how to wear a suit.
  • A long walk with Thing 2 again, She got hangry at 8 miles and we had to stop for a hot chocolate before tackling the home stretch.
  • Tea and biscuits with Heather, her Thing 3 and a giant cat last Sunday
  • Valentines Lego from my Beloved
  • Lots of music recommendations flying back and forth

Today I am off to the ballet with Thing 2 – we’re getting very cultured these days!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Amber Gambler/Midnight Auto Parts – Hailey Edwards

House of Sky and Breath/House of Flame and Shadow – Sarah J. Maas (Audible)

A lot of mindless rubbish on Kindle Unlimited.

308: time for a time out

There’s a meme that goes about every so often which reminds you that when a two year old is very very quiet you should be very very worried. This was brought home to me last night while I was babysitting for one of the grandbabies. I was sleepy. He was not sleepy as his dad had let him have a nap. He was cuddled up next to me on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket, and I dozed off and thought he had too, watching CBeebies Bedtime Stories. It was 11pm, after all, and I’d had a hard day of staring at recruitment software (again).

Dear readers, you will not be surprised to find that I was wrong, and he was not asleep. I awoke to find that the small boy had discovered Thing 1’s stash of day cream and moisturiser (which, to be fair, I had asked her to take upstairs several times) and had anointed himself, the sofa and the Batman plush he’d been snuggling up to with liberal quantities of both. I was not impressed and told him so in my best firm granny voice while I cleaned him up. His response was to put me on time out for telling him off. ‘YOU’RE on time out, KK!’

It’s been a long while since I’ve had to negotiate with small children and I am out of practice, clearly. Last time we had an incident like this was when Thing 2 had had a fight with her sister, when they were about four and six, and in revenge she had very carefully put a large smear of Sudocrem on every single one of Thing 1’s dresses in the wardrobe. Sudocrem is a bit of a pain to get off things it isn’t meant to be on. I don’t think I’d ever considered grounding a four year old before, but she didn’t get to go to her friend’s birthday party that afternoon. I was not her ‘bet wend’ after that, but I was justifiably annoyed about all the extra laundry.

Her brother used to phone the police on his Thomas the Tank Engine toy phone when I wouldn’t let him play Lego Batman, and if magic wands really worked I’d have been a ‘FWOG’ many times over for being a bad mummy. Telling off small people is a hazardous business.

Anyway. Batman is now in the tumble drier and doesn’t seem to be any the worse for his impromptu facial. And his cape is so soft!

Things making me happy this week

  • A jewellery making afternoon, turning lovely stitch markers from Chapel View Crafts into wearable things.
  • Catching up to week three on the Wildshore Blanket crochet-a-long – sadly everyone else is on week five now, but there we are.
  • Getting into The Night Manager on BBC iplayer. It’s very good.
  • The revival of The Muppet Show on Disney Plus. Please make more, Disney. And bring back the poor haunted Muppet who has been burned before.
  • Making another ridiculous skirt. So flouncy. Shorter than the last one.
  • Not the rain. I am so done with rain.

That’s all, folks!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

House of Earth and Blood/House of Sky and Breath – Sarah J. Maas (Audible)

Fair Market Value/Amber Gambler – Hailey Edwards

307: we’re looking for…

This week – like last week – has been very much about recruitment for our new team. Advertise, gawp at number of people applying, shortlist, interview, appoint. Straightforward, yes? Yes! We’re lovely people with a track record of building a team of people who bring new talents and perspective to our rapidly growing team. We like meeting people and we’re very relaxed in our interviews – one person said this week that they’d never been offered a cuppa in an interview before. Why not? We’re not trying to scare people. You don’t get the best out of people if they’re a bag of nerves, and the likelihood of you ever having to perform in the same way again when you’ve got the job is slim. I had a line manager in a previous role who was an absolute teddy bear, but looked so serious in interviews that everyone was scared of him. He made serious notes, never smiled, and kept the chat to a minimum. Eventually we got him to smile, which made interviews a lot less stressful all round.

I find that being human and smily is a good way to get the best out of people. The role we’ve been interviewing for this week is an early career position, so the interviewees have all been young and most don’t have a huge amount of interview experience. It’s been lovely chatting to them, watching them relax when they realised we actually want to hear about their experiences, letting some of their personality come through – these are the moments when we know whether or not we can work with them and whether they’ll be good in the welcome team. Sure, we’ve had to prompt them at times to answer the whole question – but I have lots of interview experience and these days I write the question down and blame the brain frog. We send about half our questions in advance so they have time to prepare answers, and encourage them to use their notes to answer. For some roles we send all the questions in advance – there are so many people in the arts, culure and heritage sector who have some form of neurodivergence and they really appreciate this. If one candidate asks for the questions in advance then everyone gets them, so everyone has the same opportunity.

Many of our candidates also attend our online or in-person info events, where they can meet some of team – including their potential line manager – and ask any questions they like. Almost like interviewing us, really, before they apply for the role. We’ve had questions about access, toilets, chances to use their other skills, progression routes – nothing is too daft.

Trust us – we want to give people who want to work with us every chance to get to interview stage and to get the job. Our job packs are comprehensive. We’re London Living Wage employers, we’re Disability Confident and feedback (unsolicited!) from applicants both successful and unsuccessful thanks us for making the application process open, easy and inclusive, telling us that they felt more confident about applying after the info evenings.

Inevitably some people don’t get to the interview stage, and while we obviously can’t interview 300 plus people (or 200 plus for the one closing tomorrow) and some people won’t get through, here’s my top tips for getting to the interview stage and beyond from the point of view of a shortlister/interviewer/line manager.

  • Look carefully at the essential criteria and tailor your supporting statement to these. We don’t look at your employment or education history (often they’re redacted) and this is all we shortlist on.
  • Provide examples of how your experience meets the essential criteria. Saying ‘I am a great team player’ is fine, but why are you a great team player? What in your experience makes you say that? Tell us about a time when you worked as part of a team, and how you contributed. Think about transferable skills if you’re early in your working life.
  • Use AI sparingly – it’s a useful tool, but when we’ve seen the same opening paragraph so many times we can recite it by heart and in unison, you aren’t standing out to us. If you do use it, make sure you read it through and personalise the output to your own experience. We’ve also run the job description through ChatGPT and asked it to write the job application, so we know what it looks like.
  • Don’t write ‘please see attached CV’ instead of a letter. If we’ve asked applicants to complete a form there won’t be an option to add a CV, so all your time has been wasted. And ours.
  • Writing ‘I’d be great at this job and when you interview me I’ll tell you why’ is neither big nor clever, and just ensures we won’t be interviewing you (actual example from a role in my previous job. Just don’t.)
  • Don’t write ‘I haven’t actually downloaded and read the job pack but this is what I assume will be needed to do the role’.
  • Remember that we’re looking for the right person for the job, so show us that you’re that person in a logical way.
  • If you have questions about the role and there’s an option to ask – ask!
  • If you don’t get to interview stage, we can’t always provide feedback on why – when there’s 300 plus applicants it’s just not possible. We – unlike some other places – always tell you if you’re unsuccessful, but can’t give individual responses.
  • We understand it’s frustrating not to get an interview, especially when you’ve been trying for ages to get a job and nothing is working, but my top tip here if you’re early career is to ask someone who’s in a management position, or a teacher or lecturer, to have a look at your application vs the job description and to give you some feedback. It is soul-destroying, I know, and the heritage/art sector is saturated at the moment with people looking for work.

Through to the interview stage? Well done!

  • We’ve chosen YOU out of all our applicants. This means we believe you can do the job, so show us why you’d be the best at it.
  • Smile! Not in a mad way, but be open and friendly. We’re excited to meet you.
  • Look smart – it doesn’t have to be a full-on business suit in our sector, but looking clean and shiny creates a good impression.
  • If you’ve been sent questions in advance, prepare for them – test them out on other people at home to make sure you’ve covered everything. It’s fine to use and take notes in an interview. We aren’t trying to catch you out!
  • Ask the panel to repeat the question if you need to – writing it down also gives you thinking time. Top tip.
  • Try not to patronise the panel. We notice that sort of thing. We’re quite bright underneath the friendly exterior.
  • There’s usually a chance to ask questions at the end – come with some pre-prepared ones about the organisation, that show you’re keen to work with them, that haven’t been answered in the job pack.
  • Try not to use the word ‘trainspotter’ in an interview with a well-known transport organisation. It’s all downhill from there. Trust me on this.
  • Didn’t get the job? Ask for a debrief on why – usually they’ll be happy to give feedback at this point, and if they’re not the sort of organisation who will provide it then you don’t want to work for them.

Didn’t get the job at interview? My Dad tells me it’s all good interview experience. Use the feedback and you’ll be more confident next time. The right role is out there, I promise.

Things making me happy this week

  • Turning an £8 Tesco duvet cover into a dress and a skirt, both by Sewing Therapy. Super easy to layer and wear, and the skirt came together from print to finished garment in a couple of hours.
  • Early morning coffee with an ex London Museum colleague, catching up and exchanging capital project progress – reassuring each other that photographing accessible door furniture and obsessing over chair finishes is perfectly normal
  • A long walk with Thing 2 last Sunday – almost 12k, only 8 of which she spent complaining that her face was cold
  • A short walk and mooch round the charity shops on Saturday, where I found a TARDIS and a nice pot to put things in
  • TT2 cooking dinner for us all on Thursday, when I was at my wits end about what to cook
  • M&S Movie Night popcorn flavour ice cream

That’s it from me, folks! Same time next week.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Vampire in the Potting Shed/The Goblin in the Sink Drain/The Mermaid in the Shot Glass – Hailey Edwards

House of Earth and Blood – Sarah J. Maas (Audible)

An Instruction in Shadow – Benedict Jacka

Direct Descendant – Tanya Huff