Big scalp too given England having won the last WC, right? Good on them!

About to go on holidays, and the longest time away from work for quite some time and man, I gotta tell you, I'm feeling down af. I don't know why. Hoping that when I finally get away that it'll change my mood.

Anyone else here given blood and not been able to fill the bag? I gave blood and followed the normal procedures (like drinking all of the water, having snacks beforehand etc.,) and yet I couldn’t completely fill the bag. It got close but the flow pretty much dwindled down to drops. Normally my body freely gives blood but this time around it was like “nah bruv, that’s as much as I’m willing to part with”.

stem from a sense of bring unfulfilled, either with challenge and/or purpose

Ooooof. this hits hard! I'm definitely in this category. I'm also aware though that it would take a LOT for me to feel fulfilled in my line of work. Both this holiday and the coming Christmas period is going to be spent having some very hard conversations with myself about what I do next. That said, it would be nice if my work supported me in some way/shape/form in training and evolving my professional output in the way I want it to but that won't happen.

In your world though what kind of fulfilment do you think would result in overcoming this feeling?

Definitely - we have some time off coming up and it cannot come sooner, if nothing else other than to lock the door on that part of my mind, since I know this feeling only hits during work hours (thanks to a healthy dose of a decent work life balance that I've fought hard for). Plus, closing the laptop lid tonight will feel very sweet knowing the weekend is upon us.

Torn between that feeling of complete apathy to the work I do, and a burning passion to protect the area of knowledge and ability that I've carved out for myself.

Like, on the on hand: couldn't give melted diarrhoea in a plastic cup, as much as the work gives me the bum squirts due to stress. But on the other hand: I will ball my fist around a roll of dollar coins and smack a bish who steps on my plot.

That's awesome that you get so many on your balcony. And thank you, I'd love the little visit! I didn't check my rosemary as it's around the other side of the house, but I should have. Maybe they were all having a roast party or something and that's where mine were?

A friend who I hadn't seen for ages asked me recently what my music taste was like now and I answered with "It's easier to say I'm not into something (Country, mumble rap and most R&B) than pin down a genre." Which is true - Spotify at the end of every year spews out its stats and somehow I managed to listen to a shit ton of different genres.

BUT! The recent Spotify DJ guy, as well as the daylist thing really has hit home how much prog metal I still listen to.

Oh nice! Maybe I need to plant even more bee-friendly stuff.

Whitetails and necrosis is something that worries the hell out of me. I don't care that they're not deadly - I don't want no flesh-eating spidey bite to remind me some little fucker was able to invade me like that!

I know you're not looking for medical advice so I'll just say, hopefully you've managed to use antiseptic on the area and given it a good clean (or three). That and ibuprofen might help with the swelling.

I went outside into my garden and looked at all my lavender (it has self-set everywhere, as a "weed" is wanton to do, and I've dug it up and planted it in some form of order) - there's plenty of flowers and yet not a bee to be seen. It was really fucking depressing.

Had us in the first half, not gunna lie hahah.