... is somewhat itchy. Even my face has been getting in on the act, which is unusual. I predict that this experiment will end before the weekend is over. My new, magic, anti-histamine cream needs to be applied directly to the source of the itching, and I am not entirely convinced that the tube will last all that long (nor spread as far as is necessary)!
Had a bit of a rough drive to work this morning. My drive involves a steep hill, and I held the car on the clutch for most of this hill, which involved quite a bit of queueing. There was a bit of a funny smell - kind of the same smell as appears when brakes are sticking and about to die in an expensive, and potentially life-threatening, way.* I don't think it's the brakes; clutch sounds more likely. I do hope I haven't killed it.
Anyway, I hope that the car will get me home (to my parents' house - 1 1/2 hours drive away) this evening without any problems. If it does, I think that we can call it a blip, and I can avoid showing off my (actually quite impressive) clutch control skills while queueing on a hill in future. The handbrake's there for a reason! It's booked in for a service and four new tyres on Monday (Argh! Expensive!), so, assuming it makes it that far, I shall get it checked out then. If it does not make it that far, I am in for an unfortunate evening. Last week I was late because the cat was sick;** it would be great to arrive early today...
Tomorrow, of course, marks the day of cleaning very dirty bits of organ. I do hope there is not too much wire wool involved - it's like a tiny little cactus, and leaves tiny little spines behind in my fingers, sometimes. Very irritating. They are not easy to locate, nor to extract.
*As they did on my Peugeot 205 a few years ago, when the brakes failed at some traffic lights. Turns out that the problem was not an entirely harmless stone in the mechanism (although, in retrospect, a stone doesn't sound all that great), and was instead that the callipers on the brake had seized up. Good job the handbrake worked!
**I spent last week cat-sitting, which was fun apart from the clearing up of the cat sick. I maintain that I do not want a cat of my own.
Thursday, 15 October 2009
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Life continues
I think that perhaps I don't really have the hang of this blogging thing. I hear that it is traditional to update more frequently than once every other month. Actually, openings like this are getting a little tired, aren't they? Alas, I do not predict that they will become a smaller proportion of my blog entry openings, assuming that we take what has happened in the past to be a good predictor of what will happen in the future. Perhaps I should just stop lamenting my lack of updates, and just pretend that any entry I post is, in fact, arriving at an eminently suitable time. So I shall start again.
Things have been getting better, slowly but surely. I am now doing one day per week of work experience at a not very local organ builder firm. This appears to be going well. I have learned that organ pipes are very dirty things (and am about to learn about the power of search engines to lead inappropriate traffic to my site, no doubt), and need to be cleaned very thoroughly via a variety of different methods, including poking with a paintbrush (or bottle brush) to dislodge the dirt, vacuuming the dirt away, blowing the rest of the dirt away (blowing is not the first step, because that would be very messy!), washing with a strong solution of specialist pipe cleaner (aka industrial strength floor cleaner) and wiping dry. Sometimes I even get to use a q-tip in the mouth! Of the pipe, that is, as opposed to my mouth. Not always a good idea to put q-tips in one's mouth in such a manky place; it would probably be very good for the immune system, but it might cause some damage on the way.
I am also settled in a new house. I have a room to myself, of course, and also a share of the rest of the non-bedroom rooms within the house. I am living with two other people and a dog. None of them dribbles, that I can see. I wasn't really worried about the housemates, but dogs can sometimes be slobbery little things. This one is well-behaved and friendly, but not excessively so.
My room is great. It's not very big (I have had to get rid of a lot of my things!), but the bed is comfy, there is room for my chest of drawers and single bed settee, it comes with decent bookcases already (and my colourful wool collection looks great displayed in one of these), and it is well-decorated. Like a student, I have my alcohol collection on my window-sill.* Alas, I now have an alcohol problem: it can sometimes be difficult to close the blind behind the bottles.
There is another disadvantage within my room - I am very kindly storing a bookcase for someone, and the only place for it to go is in front of my radiator. This means that I am not turning on my radiator, and my room is the cold one. Meh. It is going a week on Thursday, so not long to put up with it now!
Serena and Heather have both moved Down South. This means that I am somewhat lacking in local friends. I am dealing with this by talking for far too long on the phone to people who is not Serena, nor Heather, which is great but will probably start to annoy my housemates very soon. Time for a new mobile phone, methinks.
It is very strange having two of my closest friends so far away. When I am in my previous neighbourhood, I expect to be able to go inside a couple of the houses there and I can not. Sunday afternoons between church and more church are not the same without Heather with whom to drink coffee and giggle about silly things. Nobody ever makes me cups of tea nowadays, with the exception of my parents.
Speaking of whom, they have scaffolding up the front of the house at the moment. Anne has grand plans to get herself killed off before her thirteenth birthday by climbing up the aforementioned structure. I am to provide my harness (she has her own) and rope, and shall insist that she wears my helmet. Apparently Father is not impressed with the idea - he thinks that the little fatso** will wobble it and bring it down. Not sure if Anne is perceived to be the victim here, or if it's the scaffolding, the house, or the car parked on the lawn. I think that perhaps the scaffolding will withstand the efforts of a twelve-year-old girl to scale it, especially if she doesn't throw herself about much. It will need to be checked out thoroughly, of course, but I am hopeful. It's a shame to deny little children the chance to climb large structures.***
The next day, assuming Anne survives her trial, will involve me taking her birthday shopping. This is an excellent plan, as it means that I don't have to think of what to get her for her birthday. Also, it should be fun. We will have to have an early start, though, she needs to be returned and fed by 1pm, before being packed off for more birthday fun. At least that's what the parents seem to think it will be: Anne doesn't seem entirely convinced. Well, it's not her birthday until next Tuesday, so she can jolly well just grin and bear it.
In other news, Robert has communicated with Louise, and bought birthday presents for her on behalf of us all. It's her birthday tomorrow. This is the second unprovoked communication I have heard of between the two of them recently - it's almost as though they like each other. Weird. Mother thinks that perhaps they are growing up. I wonder if one of them has been taken over by aliens. Couldn't say which one *coughRobertcough*, but it's a theory.
Organ stuff is really starting to build up now. I am playing at the Motherchurch before the service this Sunday evening, I have a whole service to play for myself on 31st October, I have quite a bit to do in the first Advent service at the end of November, I shall be doing most of a Christmas carol concert on 6th December (ooh - that will be an excessively busy weekend), and I am playing for the wedding of some friends in early January. Plus some other stuff. On the plus side, I do appear to be improving - I played the introit at the Motherchurch a couple of weeks ago, and apparently got all of the notes right. It was pretty much in time, and sounded as though an actual organist was playing. Result!
I do need to step up the amount of practice I am doing, though. It's very hard at the moment, as I appear to be even more busy than I was in June, before I cut down on my commitments. I am excessively relieved that I did cut down on my commitments - I dread to think what life would be like had I not done so.
So yes, life is more or less pootling along nicely now. Well, as far as I am going to discuss it here it is, anyway! Certainly things are more calm and under control. The car has new windscreen wipers, and everything! Not new tyres, but we have to take thing one step at a time so as not to become overwhelmed.
*OK, so this is not really true. The majority of my alcohol collection is in my parents' house, in their top kitchen. I have no idea how quickly those bottles are going down, but as the important ones reside with me that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
**Extreme sarcasm. She's quite skinny.
*** :-p
Things have been getting better, slowly but surely. I am now doing one day per week of work experience at a not very local organ builder firm. This appears to be going well. I have learned that organ pipes are very dirty things (and am about to learn about the power of search engines to lead inappropriate traffic to my site, no doubt), and need to be cleaned very thoroughly via a variety of different methods, including poking with a paintbrush (or bottle brush) to dislodge the dirt, vacuuming the dirt away, blowing the rest of the dirt away (blowing is not the first step, because that would be very messy!), washing with a strong solution of specialist pipe cleaner (aka industrial strength floor cleaner) and wiping dry. Sometimes I even get to use a q-tip in the mouth! Of the pipe, that is, as opposed to my mouth. Not always a good idea to put q-tips in one's mouth in such a manky place; it would probably be very good for the immune system, but it might cause some damage on the way.
I am also settled in a new house. I have a room to myself, of course, and also a share of the rest of the non-bedroom rooms within the house. I am living with two other people and a dog. None of them dribbles, that I can see. I wasn't really worried about the housemates, but dogs can sometimes be slobbery little things. This one is well-behaved and friendly, but not excessively so.
My room is great. It's not very big (I have had to get rid of a lot of my things!), but the bed is comfy, there is room for my chest of drawers and single bed settee, it comes with decent bookcases already (and my colourful wool collection looks great displayed in one of these), and it is well-decorated. Like a student, I have my alcohol collection on my window-sill.* Alas, I now have an alcohol problem: it can sometimes be difficult to close the blind behind the bottles.
There is another disadvantage within my room - I am very kindly storing a bookcase for someone, and the only place for it to go is in front of my radiator. This means that I am not turning on my radiator, and my room is the cold one. Meh. It is going a week on Thursday, so not long to put up with it now!
Serena and Heather have both moved Down South. This means that I am somewhat lacking in local friends. I am dealing with this by talking for far too long on the phone to people who is not Serena, nor Heather, which is great but will probably start to annoy my housemates very soon. Time for a new mobile phone, methinks.
It is very strange having two of my closest friends so far away. When I am in my previous neighbourhood, I expect to be able to go inside a couple of the houses there and I can not. Sunday afternoons between church and more church are not the same without Heather with whom to drink coffee and giggle about silly things. Nobody ever makes me cups of tea nowadays, with the exception of my parents.
Speaking of whom, they have scaffolding up the front of the house at the moment. Anne has grand plans to get herself killed off before her thirteenth birthday by climbing up the aforementioned structure. I am to provide my harness (she has her own) and rope, and shall insist that she wears my helmet. Apparently Father is not impressed with the idea - he thinks that the little fatso** will wobble it and bring it down. Not sure if Anne is perceived to be the victim here, or if it's the scaffolding, the house, or the car parked on the lawn. I think that perhaps the scaffolding will withstand the efforts of a twelve-year-old girl to scale it, especially if she doesn't throw herself about much. It will need to be checked out thoroughly, of course, but I am hopeful. It's a shame to deny little children the chance to climb large structures.***
The next day, assuming Anne survives her trial, will involve me taking her birthday shopping. This is an excellent plan, as it means that I don't have to think of what to get her for her birthday. Also, it should be fun. We will have to have an early start, though, she needs to be returned and fed by 1pm, before being packed off for more birthday fun. At least that's what the parents seem to think it will be: Anne doesn't seem entirely convinced. Well, it's not her birthday until next Tuesday, so she can jolly well just grin and bear it.
In other news, Robert has communicated with Louise, and bought birthday presents for her on behalf of us all. It's her birthday tomorrow. This is the second unprovoked communication I have heard of between the two of them recently - it's almost as though they like each other. Weird. Mother thinks that perhaps they are growing up. I wonder if one of them has been taken over by aliens. Couldn't say which one *coughRobertcough*, but it's a theory.
Organ stuff is really starting to build up now. I am playing at the Motherchurch before the service this Sunday evening, I have a whole service to play for myself on 31st October, I have quite a bit to do in the first Advent service at the end of November, I shall be doing most of a Christmas carol concert on 6th December (ooh - that will be an excessively busy weekend), and I am playing for the wedding of some friends in early January. Plus some other stuff. On the plus side, I do appear to be improving - I played the introit at the Motherchurch a couple of weeks ago, and apparently got all of the notes right. It was pretty much in time, and sounded as though an actual organist was playing. Result!
I do need to step up the amount of practice I am doing, though. It's very hard at the moment, as I appear to be even more busy than I was in June, before I cut down on my commitments. I am excessively relieved that I did cut down on my commitments - I dread to think what life would be like had I not done so.
So yes, life is more or less pootling along nicely now. Well, as far as I am going to discuss it here it is, anyway! Certainly things are more calm and under control. The car has new windscreen wipers, and everything! Not new tyres, but we have to take thing one step at a time so as not to become overwhelmed.
*OK, so this is not really true. The majority of my alcohol collection is in my parents' house, in their top kitchen. I have no idea how quickly those bottles are going down, but as the important ones reside with me that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
**Extreme sarcasm. She's quite skinny.
*** :-p
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