First half of the day was fun. The boys had their end-of-term Suzuki Group violin concert today, which I attended, even though it is not “my” day with them. I always want to be supportive of them. Big Boy O seemed a bit tired and distracted and played quite perfunctorily, rather than super well for his group performance. But he did well in his orchestra – at least he put effort in. Baby F did well in his performances, both group and orchestra – he was really giving it his all – albeit he didn’t always get the bowings right, but he was alert and corrected quite quickly. Had lunch at our favourite local Xinjiang restaurant after the concert, eating another solid but quite soft meal.

Spent most of the rest the afternoon and early evening writing my “End of Year Self-Assessment / Performance Review”. Joy. It’s exhausting to self-praise and list all achievements for the year, for my fourth boss in 2 years. It seems so futile. Especially when I see people around me all “failing upwards”, expanding scope, growing their team and mandates… even when we are spending 1% of our revenue on Audit fees, missing our forecasts by a huge margin, having a Procurement function which enabled profligate spending etc. There’s clearly something wrong with me – it’s not them, it’s me. I can’t wait until the end of the year arrives and I start clearing my 19 days’ worth of annual leave.