Optistatic

Via SMS

2011-11-20T00:11:00.005Z

This is an actual conversation I had with Anne earlier this week, by text message.

Anne: Did you poo on the kitchen floor?

Me: Not that I noticed. It's not the sort of thing that one normally lets skip out. Mince pie?

Anne: Nope it was definately poo

Me: That is very strange. No idea. Have you checked for wild animals? Also, where was it? I didn't notice anything when I went in this morning.

Anne: By the dishwasher

Me: Didn't step there this morning and can shed no further light on the mystery at this time. Although someone had put Daddy's keys outside my room, which was odd. They have the same Honda key fob, but I would expect Daddy at least to be able to tell the difference.

Anne: Meh

Two things:

We haven't yet solved that particular mystery. Anne says it was me. I maintain that if that was the case, a bit of stray poo is the least of my problems.
Yes, my text messages are really that long. "Skip" was a predictive text typo, though: I meant to say "slip".

NaNoWriMo

2011-10-30T01:31:00.004+01:00

I have signed up for NaNoWriMo this coming November. Basically, what this involves is writing a 50,000 word novel over the course of the 30 days of November.

Right now, I am confident that I can do it: I have a plot, which is more or less workable, and also have a small cast of characters. I shall, of course, be writing something clichéd, of the "this has been done before" variety. There will be a princess, some fairies, a witch, and several princes. I rather suspect it will end up in the "feminist literature" category, although probably not in a particularly readable way.

As a result of this, there will probably be a change in frequency of my blog updating. I would probably initially hypothesise that the frequency of posting would be likely to decrease, but that would suppose that I am not in need of procrastination; the rate could increase instead. It is likely that I will be unwilling to engage in writing which does not advance me towards my 50,000 word count, however, so it could be that I will say pretty much nothing to my devoted multitude of readers this November. Sorry about that.

You should do it, too. NaNoWriMo, that is.

(You totally shouldn't. It's a stupid idea. I'm actually only doing it as an excuse to meet some new people; that's how hard it is to make friends when one returns to one's home town after finishing University, but one's friends have all moved away, and one finds oneself without any particularly sociable interests. Funnily enough, I have made few friends through the medium of organ practice.)

Have a lovely November!

On correcting people

2011-10-11T21:47:00.004+01:00

So, I heard that people don't like to be corrected. Apparently it annoys them. One would therefore assume that my habit of correcting people isn't generally taken to be a charming idiosyncrasy, but is instead taken to be one of the symptoms of my general annoyingness.

Having thought about this carefully, with a little guidance from Henry (who found me to be overly critical, and would probably have done well to tell me about that at the time), it has become apparent that I need to stop correcting people. Furthermore, I need to chill out about when people do things that are not my way, and refrain from judging them. Judging other people is also seen to be a bad thing, I believe.

Why would a person correct another person, though? What right does person A have to say to person B "It doesn't work like that"?

From my own point of view, I correct people for (I would guess) three reasons. The first reason is that I perceive a problem with something they are doing, and want to save them the hassle of doing it in a less efficient way, then having less good results, having to do it again, or possibly breaking something, or failing to achieve the original purpose. That has a certain amount of usefulness when I myself am correct, and absolutely no usefulness at all when I am incorrect (except that I get experience of being wrong, which helps me to learn, and I get taken down a peg or two, which is probably very good for me).

The second reason I correct people is because they are making a grammatical mistake, generally while speaking, or a mistake somewhere in their writing. I will generally do this because I believe that good spelling and grammar are intrinsically better than poor spelling and grammar, and that by correcting something I am both helping with that person's education, and helping to make their particular piece of writing better.

The third reason I correct someone is if they are both really annoying me and, to my mind, wrong. I do this to annoy them back.

The first two reasons for correcting people do appear to be motivated by good intentions. I believe that the road to Hell is paved with them. Lucky me. The third is not, so it may not send me directly to Hell. This is, to my mind, a positive thing.

I think that the question of when to help people is a good one. As is that of how to help people. Is it a good thing to help people, or is it better to leave them be?

I wonder if my "helping" people is not a problem simply because it involves words and not actions. Having said that, sometimes actions can get in the way, too. Sometimes, it's best just to let people get on with their own thing, and to help them to pick up the pieces, if necessary. Also to learn from their way of doing things.

Ooh - this is a spectacularly poorly-written and thought-out blog post. Sorry about that. Perhaps I will edit it, or perhaps you can correct me in the comments. It will annoy me a little, I expect, but one should be prepared to take what one dishes out.

Hey - I've just felt an entirely new sort of despair - one that I've never felt before. Wow. I hadn't realised despair could feel like that. It's a feeling that came up the front of my chest, went over the top (only about halfway), and came back down the middle - it felt like it went round my heart and told it it didn't deserve to be happy; it felt like newly-reborn and unexpected hope being snatched away because it was wrong to be hopeful in the first place, and I was stupid for thinking otherwise. Isn't it fun to be human, and to experience all of these feelings? Ha! Oh, the joy of being alive.

Anyway, I have resolved to stop correcting people unless they actually need it. Examples of people who actually need it include people to whom I am providing an actual educational experience (they don't need correcting, generally: they just need to be asked the right questions so that they can correct themselves), and people who just asked me whether or not what they just said, did or wrote (or what they are about to say, do or write) was (is) correct, and people who are just about to run a red traffic light.

Regarding judging people: apparently that's God's job. It is acceptable for me to judge the standard somebody is reaching while I am teaching them, so that I can help them to improve (it's in the job description), and the standard of people's work if it is my responsibility. It is acceptable for me to judge the behaviour of my children (who, fortunately for them, do not exist) so that I can ensure that I am parenting them to the best of my ability. It is acceptable for me to look at somebody else's behaviour and decide that it is not something I should be doing myself. I'm not convinced it's acceptable for me to judge much else, though. Comments?

In other news, the job's wonderful. Taking it seems, so far, to be one of the better decisions I have made with my life. If I go to work in a bad mood, I tend to feel better by the time I leave. I did three hours of overtime today, and it was a thoroughly pleasant experience. Speaking of which, I must get myself an audio book from the collection and get to bed, in preparation for a long journey, followed by a long day, followed by another long journey tomorrow. And a 6am start.

Actually, starting work at 8am feels normal now. I hate it just as much as I used to hate 9am starts, and get it right an awful lot more often. Now 7am is the new 8am. My 6am start, of course, refers only to the time I have to wake up (I leapt out of bed as the alarm went off at 6am this morning; clearly I had been a bit anxious about oversleeping); I don't have to be in work until 7. At which point it will be dark. Again. I have keys today, though, so I can pick up the van and scarper as soon as I arrive. (You should see the size of my keyring today. Usually it's quite big, but today it has an extra bunch of keys I borrowed, and a van key attached. It is more than twice as big and heavy as usual, and that's saying something.)

Oh, what a change: talking about work makes me happier. May it always stay that way.

Erm?

2011-10-01T22:35:00.003+01:00

Winter got frightened, apparently. Although the trees continue to do their autumn thing, the weather is very firmly in summer mode.* This means barbecues, evenings in the garden and trips to the pub. Also, the wearing of summer clothes. As a person whose summer T-shirts have just started to fit her again, this is good news. As a person who, just this morning, re-discovered her favourite jeans, this is of little consequence: jeans work in the cold, too. The re-discovery of the massive goth pants, and the nearly-fittingness of them, is just a bonus to be appreciated in a few weeks.

There's not a lot of point to this blog post. I just wanted to look back in a few years and remember the hot October day when I had lunch with an old friend, then went shopping, then went for a drink outside, then wasted the evening on the Internet.

*I would say that it is back in summer mode, but it didn't really try this summer. I suppose I got a few days at Greenbelt, and probably various other assorted days when I was stuck inside churches or the workshop, but this summer has been a letdown. Again.

Winter is coming...

2011-09-18T22:45:00.006+01:00

It's still keeping its distance (I think it might not like it when the trees have too many leaves, or something), but it won't be long now before the top accessories in my house will be hot water bottles, and radiator hugging becomes the most popular pastime second only to lighting the fire in the living room. (Then sitting by it, of course.)

My bedroom is at somewhat of a disadvantage on the cosiness front, what with being on the corner of the house, directly beneath the roof: I have more external sides on my room than are available in any other bedroom in this house. Of course, my room has all of the natural cosiness advantages which go with a low, partly sloping ceiling, a lovely plush carpet, a warm colour scheme and my natural flair for making a place beautiful,* but it certainly does not win on the warmth front. When you think about it, warmth is an important part of cosiness.

I do, of course, have an excessively large radiator in my bedroom. When the radiator man came earlier this year to clean our system and fill it up with supermagic central heating fluid, he found it to be a great adventure: apparently he only ever came across small, modern radiators. Our behemoths are from the late '70s, and the majority of them could probably have you in a fight. Mine has two sections: front and back. This is common to most radiators in our house. I have no idea how much the back section helps; I expect that it staves off the bone-chilling cold which comes from the fabric of the house, in order to give its compatriot the chance to shine. Or something.

"Now this is all very well and good", I hear you say, "but what about the boiler itself? Is it a new and efficient boiler, or is it an old, cantankerous one, which drinks gas as though it is a liquid?"** Well, I am pleased that you asked. We did, in fact, have a lovely new boiler fitted only a couple of years back. Obviously it was a wrench parting with the boiler I have known for the whole of my life, but in my heart of hearts I knew it was the right thing to do.*** This new boiler, although it does not sit on the floor and thus denies us the luxury of having something on which to dry our socks, is rumoured to be more efficient, and certainly takes up less space.

With these excellent heating foundations we are capable of having a snug winter, even in our large, poorly-insulated Victorian house.

However, there is one more link in the chain. Daddy.

Mother doesn't believe in God. I think that she's wrong, but one has to accept that other people do not necessarily share all of one's beliefs. Daddy, however, is much worse. He doesn't believe in turning the heating on.

I mean, it's not as though it doesn't go on at all. For two hours every morning**** and evening, the boiler chugs away and the radiators do their thing. Unfortunately, in such a large house as this that doesn't go very far. Warm clothes are the order of the day, and my notactuallyasecretbutIpretendnottouseit fan heater is, erm, not useful at all, because I am dutiful and would never waste electricity on such frivolous activities as keeping my fingers and toes acceptable colours. The electric blanket goes back on the bed any day now, and I may actually have to start wearing clothes in bed again.

What I really wanted to share is that I've re-arranged my bedroom so that my settee (without arms this season: it's very versatile) is against the radiator, and my bed is far away from it, thus maximising both heat output into the room and sitting leaning against radiator potential, which will be excellent whenever I am in my room and the radiators are on. I would provide you with a photo, but I've not even thought seriously about tidying my room yet, and it needs a couple of additional hours spending on it first. By which point I will have forgotten all about it.

Still, the room looks a lot better. I have a lot more floor space available, except that there are an awful lot of books lying on it, which wouldn't fit into my bookcases. There is only one actual shelf remaining: the one holding Mother's ornaments. I extracted her desk from my room without any resistance or objection (to my immense relief; it took up an awful lot of space, and was ever so convenient for me to use as a place for stacking random crap, meaning that it always looked truly awful); I wonder if I could do the same for her ornaments. Or perhaps I should evict some of the books from my (her) bookcases and put them in boxes in Robert's room. All controversial stuff. Don't tell her I'm suggesting this, 'K?

Still, victory is mine already, on account of having reclaimed my bedroom from the forces of Camping, Other Holidays and Lack of Access to the Radiator. Once Entropy has been defeated, I shall be entirely there.*****

*Three of these things are real.

**That doesn't really work, does it?

***Also, it's my parents' house, so I don't get a say anyway.

****The two hours start at approximately the same time as I leave the house in the morning, so that doesn't help me all that much.

*****Probably very rich, also.

Some more months happened to me, too

2011-09-03T02:30:00.003+01:00

Hello, all!

Life is continuing, as is its wont. Since I last posted here many happenings and developments have occurred. Hopefully, much learning has taken place; I think I find out about that when I end up in similar situations in the future and either use a better tactic, or fail miserably and simply use whatever tactic failed to work last time. I suspect the latter, but always hope for the former.

So, what's been going on? Well, I have used my drill. Once. I did make it so that the second battery fits into the carry-case (I used the perhaps overly-sophisticated technique of cutting a hole in the box where the drill bits probably wanted to sit. Except that the drill bits live in a container which would require more impressively major surgery to insert into the case, so I decided not to do that at all), so the drill hasn't been entirely idle. Sort of. Actually, I can't justify that statement. It has been idle. Had I bought one, currently one would be able to accuse me of wasting my money. I did take it to Greenbelt with me, but they had much better drills so I left it in the car.

Other than that, I have started to play for services (actual, full services, with voluntaries and everything!), probably more or less one Sunday out of four. The first service was, on an absolute scale of things, not really all that good. Fortunately, it was more or less good enough, and it fulfilled its main (for me) purpose of getting the first service on this monster of an organ without any pistons to aid with registration aids, out of the way. It seems slightly strange that I should be nervous about playing for exactly the same congregation as that which met downstairs over winter, but I have been told that it is stupid to berate oneself for what one feels, and should instead concentrate on reacting appropriately to that feeling; I didn't berate myself for feeling (actually rather) nervous, but instead concentrated on not playing too many wrong notes. The failing, ultimately, didn't matter.

The second service was better because it wasn't the first service. Unfortunately, I had neglected to realise that this service was a Communion service. This means that I was supposed to have prepared a quiet piece of music to play while Communion was taking place. My lack of preparation could have been a problem. Fortunately, I was able to dig out that Bach piece I learned really well that one time, and practise it in the choir vestry (on the table - no keyboard there). I went over the sections I was getting wrong a few extra times, and when I came to play it, it was nearly note-perfect. Result!

The third service was better still, because I remembered that it was a Communion service, and prepared something to play. Unfortunately I have now used up my repertoire, and will have to learn some new pieces. Additionally, it has become apparent that I need to get myself another teacher. Action must be taken; this organ isn't going to learn how to play itself.

(Oh, but it did get fixed. Not properly, or anything, but all of the stops currently turn on or off on demand, and we may even have every note on the pedals working (after a fashion) by next May; possibly even sooner. It is ever so exciting!)

I have been having a good time at work. The warm weather and new t-shirts we have have helped a lot, but the fact that it is the sort of work that I enjoy helps more. Holidays are still a treat, but are now far less of a necessity.

Additionally, I have been working on a list of favourite things. My current favourite thing in the world is an accessible toilet in a church (i.e. available and unlocked). My second-favourite thing is a heated church. This is second-favourite because it is only particularly helpful for about half of the year, and I can do things to make myself warmer without too much hassle. I can't do things to make myself warm enough, apparently, but warmer is a good start. After these, I suspect I like my pillow the most, very closely followed by my duvet, then my bed. Also, tea. After that, it becomes harder to prioritise. I like an awful lot of things, you see.

So, holidays. I went to Slovakia for a week and lost 2lbs. Most successful holiday ever. We looked at a lot of interesting views, and I took lots of photos on my new phone. This phone probably comes high up on my list of favourites, as it can put me to sleep, wake me up, keep me entertained via mp3s, take photos, make phone calls and send text messages. It has a touch screen, but I don't hold that against it. If it lasts for five years, I will consider it to have been an excellent investment! (How long do touch screens last, by the way? Probably not that long. Meh.)

My second holiday this year was Greenbelt. I volunteered for the site vibing team, which meant that we were putting up exciting decorations around the site before the festival started, then taking them down afterwards. It is, without a doubt, the best job: first there's the fun of making, assembling and putting things up; then there's the fun of having the entire festival free. After that, everything needs to be taken down again, but that wasn't too much of a problem. Apparently I was often good to work with, but that sometimes I should be less of a perfectionist in favour of getting the job done more quickly. The important thing is that I should be able to go back next year and do it all again. Next year, I shall be more trusting, and listen to other people's ideas more. If I do that, people will be less annoyed with me, so when I make my (obviously totally necessary) requests, people will be less inclined to throw sharp objects at my head (didn't happen, but I reckon this was down to good self-control), and more inclined to hold the ladder while I do it myself. Because it's always best to do these things yourself; other people won't quite do them perfectly! ;-)

Of course, membership of the vibing team had other advantages: my parking space was ridiculously close to the main entrance, and my tent was particularly close to where all of the action was happening, without being too close to the toilets. (Oh, the toilets: how I wish I could unsee them, and unsmell them. Mostly, they were excellent, but they had their moments of horror and gagging. One of them had a cute spider in it, though.)

I had decided to take a four-man tent with me, along with a foam mattress; I figured that I should spend my nine nights there in comfort. My tent hadn't been used for rather a lot of years, and whoever used it last didn't dry it out properly before it went away, so I had a fairly horrible scrubbing session the afternoon before I went away. Then I painted the mouldy bits with silk paint, to draw the eye from the nasty mouldy spots. Also, I sprayed the thing with Febreeze. It worked. What's more, the tent didn't leak at all, which surprised and pleased me immensely. As a reward, I shall not throw it away just yet; instead, I shall have a repairing session with some glue and some flexible waterproof stuff, so that the groundsheet within the sleeping compartment does not have any holes in it at all. The fake Duck tape I used didn't stick properly to the corners, so it has been removed.

I also made an actual new friend; one who lives locally. This means that I can pretend to have a social life from time to time, which will be a novelty.

Drill and organ; the exciting things in my life

2011-05-14T15:16:00.004+01:00

Somebody recently said that they had read my blog, which reminded me that my job is to write it. Not my only job, fortunately, although I would probably be more prolific if it were.

Right now, my big news is that I have a brand new cordless drill of my very own. It makes me feel slightly sad that this is my big news, but I am sure that the novelty will have worn off by the middle of next week. I expect it to reappear when I actually get to use the thing. Which has two batteries! This means that it can be used even when the first battery goes flat! Hooray! Just something Daddy had lying around the house, unused. Natch.

Of course, I have inflicted some damage with it. I stood it up on its battery, which is a pretty standard manoeuvre to perform with the drills owned by my colleagues, and it fell over and made a dent in Mother's shiny wonder-table. Also a couple of other marks. Apparently my drill is a bit more top-heavy than its peers. That is because it is a Black and Decker, while my colleagues' drills start at Bosch and work up. Still, it is free and doesn't smell as though something died in it, which is what the old one (donated by a kindly colleague) would do had its battery not recently given up the ghost.

My next task is to adapt the case to hold the extra battery. This will involve some cutting and some swearing, I expect. It will be done somewhere Daddy cannot see; it might make him cry, then take back the drill. This is, of course, assuming that the case is big enough height-wise; there's no way it will fit sideways.

What else is going on?

My church is open again! Beforehand, some of my colleagues spent a couple of days inside the organ, and managed to get rid of loads of faults, and to get it into tune again. Then the humidity dropped by a long way, and it broke again. Big, loud faults, with the big, loud pipes involved (although they were just transmitting news of the faults; they were not actually involved. Thank goodness!). Also, an elephant noise from a quiet, important stop. Fortunately, a colleague was able to fix both these problems, and another one which was just waiting to show itself. Unfortunately, the day before the church opened again, another stop failed. The bit which broke is particularly inaccessible; when we pay our £8,500, this will be fixed, along with a lot of other problems just waiting to happen. Until then, we just have to hope for tall, thin, flexible and dedicated organ builders!

On Sunday I played my first hymn in a service on a church organ for a very long time; over a year, in fact. The introduction went quite well, actually. Verse 1 started badly and finished badly, which led to verse 2 starting badly, but after that it sounded as though I actually knew how to play the organ. Verses 3-5 were absolutely fine. And nobody complained. The organist sympathised with me. It should only get better...

Which leads to next Sunday. Not tomorrow; the one after that. I shall be playing the full service on my own, on the organ. Music beforehand, five hymns and music afterwards. I think that Charpentier's Te Deum Prelude is what will be happening afterwards, because I can more or less play it, but beforehand has not yet been decided. Probably the random crap I used to play before the service at St Isidore's. That should be easy enough to brush up; I must actually do that beforehand.

The five hymns may well turn out well. One of them is one I learned a while ago, and the other four are not. I must go and practise in a minute! Wish me luck!

I'm back!

2011-02-28T21:20:00.003Z

Starting to take anti-depressants was an interesting experience. The only side-effect I noticed at first was the crazy dreams, which started just as I was falling asleep, and were suitably vivid and disturbing/weird that they woke me up at once. The third one was the strangest; after that I decided it wasn't worth trying to go to sleep after all.

I was lucky; that only happened on the first night. I did have a fair bit of trouble getting to sleep for a while after that, and spent hours listening to music and sleep hypnosis thingies in an attempt to make my mind go to sleep. With them, I could sleep; without, getting to sleep was a struggle.

When I returned to work, I did have a few problems holding things in my short-term memory. I would be asked to do something, and then forget immediately. Funnily enough, this caused a few problems at work. My workload wasn't quite as easy as it appeared to be, to me! Of course, at first I didn't realise what was happening. How is one supposed to remember forgetting things when one doesn't have much of a memory?

After I left work and went to mainland Europe for a few months, the only problems I noticed were when I reduced my dose. I would feel slightly nauseated every day around 5pm (and a lot of other times, too; that was the only consistent one), which would result in me working more slowly.

However, coming into this new job, I really started to notice the problems with my short-term memory. It took a lot of effort to keep an instruction or idea in my head longer than it took for something new to enter it. The moment a new thought entered my head, the old one was gone. This is all very well, but when one is holding keys and turns around to pick something up, it is generally considered useful if one can remember which key one is supposed to hold next. I feel that I have not necessarily impressed all of my colleagues a vast amount.

In December, I came to the conclusion that I has happy, settled and stable enough to come off the anti-depressants. However, it seemed to me that December, the most stressful month (in general), would not necessarily be the wisest month in which to do this. I waited until January, and was then given permission to do so by my doctor. That was good.

I came off anti-depressants completely two weeks ago on Saturday. Two weeks ago on Monday, I became ill. As I was recovering, I became ill again. As I was recovering from that one, I became ill again. By last Thursday, however, I was mostly feeling well again. Since then, I have noticed some interesting things.

For starters, things will stay in my short-term memory without me making a large effort to remember them.
I no longer have an overwhelming desire to sleep, sometimes, against which Pro-Plus is powerless (normally it takes six and some coffee, and still doesn't really work; today I took three, and it worked beautifully!). That's good; I was beginning to wonder if it was some form of narcolepsy.
I feel more alive, happy and energetic; as though doing things is a really good idea (although I wasn't exactly feeling bad in that department before).
My brain has started to work again. This is the big one! I can think of things and come up with useful solutions. My brain is full of ideas and questions. This is going to make me hell to work with - they already think my mind is overly enquiring. I am enjoying it. It's a bit strange that I didn't notice it going away, but I suppose I had other things on my mind.

Theoretically, I shall now be updating a lot more often. In practice, who knows? Initial indications are good, but will I have the stamina?

Find out this, and more on the next edition of Optistatic: not so static right now. Coming soon, to a blog near you.

(It's good being me again.)

There appears to be a slight humidity problem...

2011-02-27T21:47:00.000Z

When I returned from my foreign adventures, I was lucky enough to be called within a few days of my return, with an offer of a one Sunday out of four job playing the organ in my local church.* Of course, I jumped at the opportunity. After having to play five Sundays out of four for a while, I was certainly up for a job which involved less commitment. I was also overjoyed to have the keys to get in and play the thing once again.

However, all was not well. A few weeks into the preliminary period of my appointment, which mostly just involved getting keys and certainly didn't involve any actual playing of the organ (I was to start in January), the wall at the side of the church, the one which stopped other people's gardens from coming into church,** started to lean in a more exaggerated fashion than usual. Unfortunately, the pipe which carries the gas to the church's heating system runs along this wall. In a moment of brilliance, the PCC (or the architect, or somebody else quite important) decided to turn off the gas to avert a potential explosion.

This cunning plan may have saved the church and the people who live next door to it, but it did come with the disadvantage of making the church itself unusable for a congregation who does not like the idea of frostbite. As a result of the congregation's liking for maintaining body temperature within a range which can sustain life, all services have been moved to the church hall, underneath the church. In addition, they bought several new gas heaters. This means that church services currently take place in a cozy place, in the warm. I expect it has done wonders for the congregation's togetherness - everything is very close. The people even have to sit by each other. No empty rows here!

The organists' fingers are able to move, too. It's a great feeling, turning up to play and not going blue at any point, and on any part of the anatomy. Sometimes, I like to take off my scarf. I always take off my coat. I have even been known to remove my jumper. The piano lives next to a heater, which is lovely for one of us (hint: not the piano).

I am sure that you are currently feeling a bit concerned about what is going on in that big, cold, empty church at the moment. Let me tell you: damp. The humidity level regularly makes it up to 80%, and 91% is not unrecorded.

As I have a one-track mind, I confess that I am not worried about any part of the church, with one exception: the organ. The poor thing has spent so many days wet to the touch, and things started to drop off. Literally. So far, only one disc of ivory which was used to label the stop, but imagine if more had come off! We'd have to work out which label belonged on which stop. Too much like hard work. Additionally, bits of the organ stopped working, and bits started to work a lot better than they had done in the past. The Swell trumpet, for example, comes on more frequently than it is selected, and goes off less frequently. It is showing real dedication to the whole "being on" thing. This displeases us less during loud playing than during quiet playing. It can have a disruptive effect during quiet playing.

It all came to a head the day after I bought a humidity reader. The readings horrified myself, the organist, and my boss. Action was to be taken immediately. We put plastic sheeting round all openings to the organ, and installed three dehumidifiers, which have little heaters in them.

The installation of the sheeting was an adventure. The thing about big organs is that they are big, with vast swathes of fragile, expensive bits, just waiting to be squashed by an unsuspecting foot. The first hole we had to cover was the one at the front of the organ. It went about 3.5m in the air, at the level of the upper floor of the organ. (Yes, my organ is on two levels. Two big levels.) In order to poke it into the place where it needed to be, we used large bamboo canes. I am sure that scaffolding would have been easier, but where would have been the fun in that? Once the bamboo canes had been secured in place, the rest was easier. The console only needed a ladder, a staple gun, a knife and some tape. Don't worry - the stapling all took place where nobody but the very tallest person will be able to see it. It will all come out in the end.

When this was in place, we had to get a dehumidifier or three to dry the place out. This would have been easier had the shop had them in stock. I had to delegate that particular role. One has been installed at the console; the other two inside the organ itself. They get moved every day, when they are emptied. They only have a 6l capacity for holding water, so they need to be emptied every day. Except for the one that doesn't work. That doesn't need emptying at all, ever. I think it's going back tomorrow.

So, someone needs to go there daily to empty and move the dehumidifiers. It's certainly a good incentive to practise - may as well get some in while one is there. Also, the plastic sheeting round the console keeps it at what passes for a reasonable temperature when one is in a church. It's possible to move one's fingers, and everything! On the minus side, it is a bit windy with the dehumidifier. Keeps blowing the pages.

There's a recital on 8th May. By that time, the organ needs to be in tune and working. The dehumidifiers have a lot of work to do! And that's just the beginning....

*This is because it is the church I used to attend before I left to go to University. The organist knew me then, and still knows me know. In addition to this, he really wanted to take the occasional Sunday off. The speed with which he contacted me does not, alas, reflect the quality of my playing.

**Jesus did not have a mission to save gardens. So they can just jolly well stop trying to fall onto our land through some large, heavy sandstones piled several metres high to keep them in their place. Gardens, know your limits!

...

2011-02-26T21:12:00.003Z

The exercise thing is sort of continuing well, except that I took a particularly long week off. Fortunately, this coincided with a particularly long week during which I was ill three consecutive times. Had I not planned to take a week off, I would probably have taken one off anyway. This would have made me feel bad. I am therefore delighted with my decision to take a week off.

Up until a week ago last Tuesday, I was exercising 3 times a week, doing circuit training (the 1.5 mile run was a lie - it's closer to 2 miles), Pilates, yoga and climbing. My poor legs felt somewhat unhappy Mondays - Wednesdays, what with the occasional disconcertingly painful twinge whenever I moved wrong, or sat wrong, or just looked at anything wrong. In addition to this, I was unable to make a Sunday evening class due to being on a train. I think they frown on taking runs on trains, and I also couldn't be bothered. Pilates was cancelled, due to the instructor taking a holiday. Climbing kind of didn't happen because I decided not to go. It was a good break.

Alas, tomorrow is Sunday, and that means circuit training. Also playing at church. The latter is the easy task. In addition, I have taken on a certain amount of responsibility for emptying out the dehumidifiers in the church organ. Which is a whole other story. I think I will tell that at a later date. No point in confusing the issue here. It would be a shame to write an incoherent blog post without a proper point!

I did go corset shopping last weekend, and that was cheering. I was put in a 26" corset which felt very comfortable indeed. For a corset. Apparently I could have gone down to a 24" waist. I imagine that would have felt a lot more like I expected. This is in honour of my bridesmaid duties next March; we have to choose an outfit, and corsetry will be involved.

The end.

It begins

2011-01-30T22:54:00.004Z

I have, only this evening, taken part in my first circuit training session for, I would guess, about four years. To warm up, we jogged 1.5 miles.* It was a two hour session, not the one hour session I was expecting.

However, it hurt a lot less than I expected. This was because my body didn't have it in it to cover 1.5 miles of distance in a comparatively short time, hit some pads with some gloves, hold pads while an actual boxer girl hit them (I think she was holding back, but not entirely) and then keep moving for 10 lots of two minutes at different stations. I flagged. I stopped a lot, and didn't keep sweating during the last thirty minutes. By the time I had finished, I almost felt warmed down.

Now my body rebels when I try to climb stairs. Unfortunately, my clothes for tomorrow are downstairs, and I live at the top of a large house. I do not look forward to tomorrow!

On the plus side, I braved the big, scary circuit training class, full of big, scary people (who I didn't even consider before turning up to the class. Just as well, really), and over-paid 50p for the class. I have to go back next week to get my change, apparently.

So, my losing weight campaign has now begun in earnest. The difficult bit is underway. I should do before photos, but I don't think that I will. There are some things the world doesn't need to see.

So far, my new trainers have been little paragons of delight. I bought them earlier in the week, as the last pair I bought are well on their way to being thoroughly dead, and I appreciate having good footwear. They are the Avia 2053, and I bought them myself from T K Maxx, with my own money, and everything.** They didn't seem to need any wearing in, and they can psychically untie laces when one is in desperate need. Miraculous. They didn't even seem to mind my particularly wide feet, which is nice of them. At least one aspect of my person was prepared for the running component of today's little torture session.

I shouldn't have written this post at all. I was, in fact, simply procrastinating, as my next job is to go downstairs, and then to come upstairs again, with some clean clothes. Do not like. (Well, I like clean clothes.) However, I must brave the stairs and also have a shower. My colleagues deserve it.

*Well, nominally we jogged 1.5 miles. Certainly, I completed 1.5 miles, keeping going all the time except for when my wonderful, wonderful shoelace came undone just when I decided I needed a break for a few moments. Thank you, shoelace. I love you.

**A lie. With the credit card's money. But I pay for it next month with my own money.

2011

2011-01-27T23:23:00.003Z

Happy New Year!

I know. Late again. If anybody read this, they might be disappointed. The lack of an audience is very liberating.

I think that bloggers traditionally review a year, and then write their New Year's resolutions. As I appear to be struggling for content (an illusion! I am struggling for the motivation to write about the content), and it is always useful to record one's resolutions somewhere (not logical, I know. But I've started now), I shall write them down here. Not that I have any resolutions per se, but there is a list of things I must accomplish:

Set up a pension. I promised myself I would do that this month.
Buy a subscription to the tunnel so that I don't have to find change every morning, and so that it cannot mistake another 20p for 5p or 10p and thus steal my money.
Become stronger and more flexible, through attending Pilates and yoga sessions, and through going climbing.
Become more fit, through doing actual aerobic exercise.
Lose three stone. This should be achieved by next March at the latest. It will be achieved by a combination of diet, exercise and drinking less wine.
Buy a corset. Probably when I have lost 2 stone, or so.
Learn how to play the alto and tenor parts of a hymn in 4-part harmony in the left hand, leaving the right hand free to solo the melody on a different stop.
Stop biting my nails completely. It is not a good idea when working with lead, even if I wash my hands thoroughly and leave a gap of at least a day between working and biting.
Be a good sister.
Make more of an effort to get to bed on time.

So far, nothing is going badly except the pension thing. Actually, I achieved item 2 while in the process of composing this e-mail. Number 3 is well underway, and number 4 starts on Sunday evening. Number 5 will be very difficult indeed. Number 6 will be fine if I have the money. Number 7 is like learning to play the organ all over again. I do not like it. It will be very good for me. (It is not going badly because I am not doing it at all at the moment. If I were trying, it would be going badly.) Number 8 is fine if I keep a nail file on my person at all times. Number 9 will involve a lot of patience with the teenager, and being more thoughtful with the other two. I should visit them, and stuff. Number 10 is being broken as I type. Suggestions? "Just go to bed; it's not that difficult" will not be considered to be a helpful suggestion.

Success!

2010-11-09T23:27:00.003Z

In the spirit of updating whenever anything important happens, I shouldn't be updating today. However, I am. The success to which the title of this post refers is that I wore sticking plaster for over four days without any itchy allergic reaction at all! I think this means that my body is doing something right, for a change. Perhaps getting a suitable job and living a life pretty much free from responsibility does have some advantages...

I am off to take a shower to celebrate.

Hello again

2010-11-02T21:06:00.006Z

Hello again, everyone!

Where were we? I was in Germany, and very wet, I believe. I expect that you will not be surprised to hear that I am no longer wet. Are you surprised to hear that I am no longer in Germany? Whether you are or not is immaterial, I suppose. The fact is, I have been here for about two months now, and have actual productive employment. My job no longer makes me want to find any excuse to avoid going, even though I have to wake up before 7am (which is an actual real time, it would appear) in order to ensure that I can both have dry deodorant before I get dressed and get to work on time. Both of these things happen most days.

Generally, when one has been through an interesting experience, such as my great moving to Germany escapade, one will summarise some things about it. Normally, they will use actual sentences, quite unlike the sentence I just failed to write in a convincing manner. I will attempt to write something vaguely summary-like and interesting. I do not promise that paragraphs will not contain much repetition of interesting words. It is late, and my brain broke about the time I went on anti-depressant drugs. (Don't worry - it's just the memory and a certain amount of the cognition that went. I know absolutely nothing about the subject, and am therefore confident that they will return when the drugs are stopped.)

The big reasons for my Germany trip were to learn German and to get some organ building work experience in a country that wasn't the UK. Under the circumstances, I was looking to get work experience in Germany. I failed on both counts. My German has improved to such an extent that I can have a very slow and stilted conversation with a friendly German who really, really wants me to know what they are saying, and is prepared to use very simple language and slow speech. I demonstrated this three times on my last day! (And the day after that I arrived in Paris and had what I remember as a fairly effortless conversation in French - it's good to know that one of my foreign languages improved. Although, having said that, on my penultimate day in Germany I did have a date in French. It lasted for hours. I think that my French improved a lot.)

The work experience thing failed. I was getting somewhere about two weeks before I left (friend of a friend of a friend), but then time ran out and it wasn't worth pursuing.

Another thing that failed was my looking after of the vegetable garden. The guy who owned the flat was not impressed. I had thought that I had left it in a more-or-less OK state (freshly mown! Weeded in parts! No apples on the grass!), but I was wrong. I will not take on a vegetable garden on my own again in a hurry. No siree.

I did learn how to spin and weave, though. I made three scarves which could be worn, one of which was good and all of which were pretty. OK, so it took about 40 hours of spinning to produce the yarn for the good scarf, and I cheated and used entirely bought yarn for the other two, but it's not as though I was short of time.

Another thing I did was reflect. And find myself ready to start to work and interact with people again.

And I didn't gain weight, overall. Which is more than can be said for the last two months.

I also realised that I enjoy the company of family members a lot. This made moving back to my parents' house seem like a very inviting prospect. That was excellent, because it's great! I am especially enjoying time off being a proper adult who has to cook for herself. One day I shall return to that role, and I shall enjoy it; being able to ignore it completely at the moment should have a decidedly restorative effect. I love running away from things!

It was hard spending so much time away from having conversation with people. On my return, though, it was very strange. There's this thing about people in England: they speak English. If you want to ask them a question, you just ask it in English and they understand, then answer you in English. You don't have to translate your question into German, or even French. Nor the answer. They only rarely use vocabulary with which I am not familiar (the local vernacular can be interesting). It is so liberating! Shopping briefly became an adventure!

So, the job. Pretty much what I wanted, really. Organ building. Not making new organs, so there is no requirement to make 61 pipes which are beautiful and identical except that each one is ever so slightly smaller than the last one in nearly every way, and is possibly also a little less eary. Of course, I still have to clean the little darlings, and make them beautiful again, but that's actually quite fun. Not that making pipes would not be fun (she says, seeing her future career running away without so much as a backwards glance), but a whole week of doing nothing but making pipes would not please me in the slightest.

One of the excellent things about this job is the variety. I won't go so far as to say that there are never two days the same, because that would be untrue. There are an awful lot of organs which need to be tuned, and that involves sitting more-or-less stationary and moving my fingers, hands and arms a little, but mostly keeping them still. That gets samey. I enjoy it a lot, though. (I think that this is evidence that I am a little wrong in the head, but I am sure that it would not take much digging to find evidence which is significantly more compelling than this.) Cleaning pipes can last for days, too. That is only dull if a) you are entirely sane; b) the pipes have been washed already, but poorly, and the job is therefore being repeated or c) you know it will last for three days. So far, only the middle condition has been fulfilled in my case (and that only rarely), so I am enjoying that, too.

One of the less excellent things about this job is the cold. I am investing in more warm things. I have some sheepskin fingerless gloves, which feel as though they are hugging my hands. I love them. Any week now, the thermal underwear comes out. The overalls I was given are holding that at bay nicely, though, as is the very thick fleece, the Puffa gilet and the scarf. I'm not thin at the best of times, but I imagine that I look somewhat Michelin-Man-like when I am tuning.

I think that I will probably not talk about the job very much now, though. It's never a good policy to blog about work, and it is possible that I have said too much already.

I also got myself another organist job. I think that, this time, the situation was not desperate (normally, when people offer me a job as an organist, they are), and it was more a case of both knowing the right people and being in the right place at the right time. Having a very flexible approach to when I work probably helped, too. And this job is for one Sunday per month! It hasn't exactly started yet, but it sort of has; I played on Sunday because the service was on the piano and Dave the Organist (for it is his church) hates pianos. At the risk of receiving an angry look, I shall venture to say that pianos are not wild about him. Reducing antipathy, getting some practice in on an easy instrument and earning some money are all excellent motivators, so I was glad to volunteer for this particular service.

The service mostly went well. I don't think that I played badly at all, and my wrong note percentage was way below 1. I also had an 80% success rate for playing the hymn I had agreed to play. That's not bad for a first time, is it? Anyway, the offending 20% of hymns was only out by 1 (258, instead of 259). And the congregation didn't seem to know the one I was supposed to play. And I admitted my mistake only a few moments after I was supposed to have started to play, but had instead looked in horror at the hymn book and the lack of a match between the hymn I had practised and the hymn which was in front of me, and the unlikeliness that I would be able to sight-read something so modern at such short notice. Fortunately, the theme was about the same, and the people leading the service very graciously allowed me to play the hymn that I had prepared. I then played through the whole thing reasonably well (just in case nobody knew it), which made a change as I usually go to pieces when I completely fail to play a single note of what I should be playing (i.e. the correct hymn). Thank goodness it was an easy one!

In future, however, I shall most certainly not be agreeing which hymns I will play on a Friday night. That is a night for family fun, and not for doing things which involve cognition. I was warned about the likelihood of the exact mistake I ended up making, in a particularly explicit way (that's the wrong hymn - she wants 259), but convinced myself that I had made a typo and that I knew what I was doing. I had not, and I did not. Lesson learned, I hope!

It's not all organs, though. I have taken up Pilates again. I like it. It helps me to lift heavy trays of pipes like a man. Grr. Hear me roar, and all that. And climbing is happening, too. Sometimes. I have been lent a spinning wheel, and have bought a digital radio (Tesco - working really well so far and helping me to get to sleep at night, and to wake up in the morning. Currently it is about fourth on the list of my best friends. I suppose this means that I should give it a name, but I apparently don't treat all of my close friends with that much respect).

Mother let me put up a net of white lights on the wall above my bed, and Father helped me to achieve the drilling of holes. I love it - I can turn the light off without leaving my bed. I have given up on my old mobile phone (it was convinced I had plugged in headphones, and so would not speak to me without a loudspeaker) and now have a "new" one (from HWSNBN, via Anne), which has really horrid text settings. If I sent text messages, I would probably have gone mad by now.

This is turning into a list. I so wanted it to be a pretty little narrative. Ah well - that's a whole load of narration out of the way. It has just occurred to me, though, that if I am not talking about either of my jobs (the real one, or the one which happens once a month), my love-life (or complete lack thereof), and I am not really seeing any of my friends, this blog will continue to be very dull. It's not even as though I am going to make any soap in the near future, as I made about 12kg of the stuff before I left England for France. I have about 11 1/2kg left (I gave quite a bit away). (I know - I'm exaggerating. I have under 11kg left.)

Ah well. We shall see. And it's not as though anyone reads this, anyway, so nobody will be disappointed.

Let's summarise now, and get a cup of tea before listening to Radio 7 and going to sleep:

Life is good. I like it.

Conclusions

2010-08-17T15:45:00.001+01:00

Coat: waterproof
Front of trousers: not waterproof
Seat of trousers: not waterproof
Back of trousers: not enough evidence to judge
Shoes: pretty much waterproof
Socks: evil devices for channelling water into pretty much waterproof shoes

It is raining in Münster. I was warned that it rained here pretty much like it rains in Lancaster. So far, this has not been the case. In my recent Lancaster experience, it has rained on an awful lot of days, and generally not all that hard. In my more recent (and yet admittedly more limited) Münster experience, it rains less frequently, but with a bit more commitment.

The first time I was caught in the Münster rain, I was on my way to an organ recital at the Dom. Mother and Anne were arriving that evening, and I hoped to sneak in a quick bit of music before I collected them from the station. I cycled to the Dom, wearing my jeans and waterproof jacket. This was when it became clear to me why one does not wear jeans when out hiking. It also became apparent that my waterproof jacket was a long way from living up to its name. Granted, the jacket part stood, but the waterproof part was not in evidence at all. It stuck to me. I wore it during the recital (those who didn’t walk out in protest at the fact that there was not, at any point, any discernable tune gave it a standing ovation. I can only assume that he played the random notes very well), as the other option was putting it on again while it was cold and wet, and I figured that my body heat might make it dry out more quickly. Certainly, by the end of the recital the sleeves were sticking to my arms with much less commitment than they had been at the beginning of the recital.

Yesterday, there was a repeat performance. On Sunday, it rained a lot, too. As the Internet is closed on Sundays, I took the opportunity to stay indoors all day and read, mostly. I also did some spinning, and worked on a job application letter. It was a lovely day. I was supposed to go to the vegetable garden and water it, but figured that I would probably get away with leaving that to the weather.

Yesterday, however, there were things to which I had to attend. I went and bought some wool to complement the wool I have been spinning (I will shortly start to weave what I hope will be a very beautiful scarf, but must first spin yet more wool, so that I have enough warp threads), then went to check my e-mail, and whatever else it is I do. I left at a more reasonable time than usual, as I wanted to go to a supermarket that closes at 10pm. Unfortunately, it was raining quite hard.

Mother had taken pity on me during her stay, and lent to me another pair of trousers and her waterproof jacket. You know how it went. The trousers, though, dried out impressively quickly. The socks were still wet when I went to bed.

Today it continues to rain. I was hoping to find a pair of waterproof trousers here, but have not done so. Had I realised the extent of the rain, I would have asked Mother to bring my waterproof trousers with her, but I realised too late. Today, I must do the Internet thing again – there are things I need to check before I send off this job application letter. Which I would like to do today. Which SO isn’t going to happen. I am annoyed with myself for being so behind. I need to make plans, which I will not be able to do until I hear about the results of this letter.

And on that note, I shall leave the dry sanctuary of the flat, and head out into the Great Known. And get wet. Who knows – I may even get this job application finished, printed and sent before the Post Office closes...

Two weeks

2010-07-27T19:36:00.001+01:00

So, I have been here for two weeks now. Two weeks and some. I can find my way around, enough to get where I want to get and to buy food. I still have no friends, but one mustn’t rush these things, you know. Finding friends takes time. Also, language skills.

Actually, the language skills are coming on in leaps and bounds. I can now construct vaguely useful sentence fragments, describing little bits of what I am doing or will do, and can also construct whole sentences, as long as one is not too fussy about the grammar.

I had a visitor these past few days. She actually came prepared with an itinerary, and we went out and did a variety of interesting things.

On the first day, we went for a tour of Münster. This was in two parts. First, we walked. Second, we went on the bus. It was expensive, but I now know about a few of the important bits of Münster. Some of the churches have lovely organs within them! Then we had a tasty meal and a few drinks.

On the second day, we went on a boat ride on the Aasee. This is an artificial lake, through which the river Aa flows. Afterwards, we made ourselves beautiful, then went to an event in which restaurants which sell particularly expensive food participate and sell their food at a much reduced price for a couple of days. It’s a publicity thing.

We arrived there slightly later than we should have done, apparently. There was nowhere to sit. We sat on the grass. For the first course, I had crab with courgette capriccio, whisky cocktail and caviar sauce and quail’s egg, on a nest of cress. It tasted good. For dessert I had Valrhona chocolate torte with anis mousse. Except that I didn’t, really. The torte had gluten in – it was basically a cake. The other dessert was goats’ cheese in milk and white chilli chocolate. We swapped, except that she had the jam stuff with mine, and I had the anis mousse, which was the main thing that I wanted, anyway.

We also had some expensive prosecco, both with and without lemon sorbet, and some local strongly alcoholic stuff, which tasted a bit like brandy. Then we went to the pub. We had cocktails. It was good. Then we went home and had some Martini. I also had a cup of tea. That was better.

In the morning, I felt OK. I said goodbye to my friend at lunchtime, then returned home. Then the effects of the gluten hit me, and I was glad to be at home. Then I slept. That was good.

Today has been my first day alone for a while. It has been good. It is far more fun having a day to oneself after three days with another person than after ten days alone. I spent the morning and afternoon listening to German CDs, and the evening visiting a church for an incomprehensible service (although those around me appeared to understand what was going on) and then spending time on the Internet. I sent some e-mails and caught up on some blogs. It was good.

However, the really exciting thing, other than that fact that this visit seems to have taken me away from despondency, is that I have found the wire to connect the computer to the speakers! This means that I can watch DVDs. Of course, I do not have any DVDs, but at least if I manage to get hold of some, I can have entertainment which does not consist of listening to a German CD, or reading a book about how to speak German.

I have decided not to post any more updates unless I actually have something to say. My definition of "something to say" may well not be the same as that of other people. We shall see. Less of the "diary of utter boringness" format from now on, though.

Raphael

2010-07-21T23:37:00.000+01:00

I got a new bike today. I know – same old story. This one is a bit newer than the last new one. It is way less cute and considerably more nickable-looking, and it has gears (three of them) and is another of those weird Dutch hybrid bikes. Having encountered two such bikes in close succession encouraged me to look around a little, and discover that there are, in fact, many bikes in the basement of this block of flats alone which are this sort of hybrid. This bike brakes a little more smoothly than Dinky when backwards pedalling occurs. This is not exactly difficult, but I like it a lot.

Either the new bike has been named already, or it is owned by Raphael.* The sticker on its handlebars says so. Raphael seems like a good enough name to me, so Raphael it is. I think that Raphael will be my main bike, as she comes with a working dynamo and two lights attached, both of which work.

Today has been a day of shopping and dynamos. It is Wednesday, which is market day, so I went into town first thing this morning** to buy fruit and vegetables. That accomplished, I treated myself to pea soup with some sausage in and returned home.

I had been told that the guy in the flat across the way from me had a dynamo that I could use on Dinky bike. I was to ring his doorbell at 3pm. I was only three minutes late (I was trying to finish my tea – I sensed that the dynamo exchange could be long, involved and incomprehensible, and I wanted both to be properly hydrated and to ensure that no flies could drown in my tea while I was away. I am all about the safety of flies), but there was no answer. I didn’t push the issue,*** and returned to the flat to make poppies out of felt, and to learn German.

At 4pm, my closest neighbour rang my bell, and asked if I had seen neighbour across the way. I said that he had been out, which she translated (I think) as he had been sleeping. She probably had a lot more knowledge about the situation, so it was very good that I didn’t push the issue. When she rang the doorbell, it was answered, and the quest began.

It all started out simply enough. We went into the basement and two dynamos were located. One was deemed to be suitable, and I was shown how it must be fitted. I said that it was not difficult to fit a dynamo, and that I had a spanner to go with the proffered spanner, then thanked the neighbours. Neighbour across the way departed. So far so good.

But it was not good enough. Neighbour below me had to be summoned by closest neighbour to fit the dynamo. I don’t think that females here are expected to be able to handle two spanners round here. He came, and we eventually got the dynamo attached. It would have been faster had I been left alone, but it hadn’t taken all that long. I thanked the neighbours and hoped that the task had been completed.

The task had not been completed. Although I had seen how to fit the wires to the dynamo, I had to do it while watched. The back wire connected easily enough, but the back light didn’t work. Closer inspection revealed a distinct lack of bulb. This was quickly remedied, and all was good.

The front light, however, was a problem. Its wire was too short to reach the dynamo. As I have a spare front light with batteries in in the flat, I wasn’t worried. My neighbours, however, were. First, the light was inspected and a bulb was fitted (which sounds simple, but took about ten minutes). I gather that these are important for proper functioning of bike lights. A piece of copper wire was obtained, and put into the dynamo. It was held against various parts of the bike light to no avail (please note that we did turn the wheel to make the dynamo do its thing). Apparently, electricity in Germany is no more magic than the English sort. The wire was poked into bits of the light and the process repeated. Eventually, the bulb was removed and put into the rear light. It was found not to be working.

A new bulb was procured. I inspected the inside of the light and wondered how it could possibly work. I have, for a number of years, been of the opinion that electricity has to have an in and an out to make a light bulb work, and this only had an in. Or an out. Either way, one of the directions appeared to be missing.

While I was pondering this mystery, another light was procured from another bike. The bike was rather dead, apparently, although it looked a lot better than those I am riding. I think that the bottom bracket was kaput. Also, it had no saddle. Again, it was poked and prodded, and the copper wire was inserted. Again, this process was to no avail. New bulbs were inserted, wire was removed from kaput bike, connections were made, bulbs were moved around. Nothing.

The dynamo was then removed from kaput bike, and attached to Dinky bike. It wasn’t sitting against the wheel properly, but I figured that I could fix that when I was alone. When appropriate, I discreetly held the new dynamo in place so that it produced power. Still nothing.

By now, it was 6pm. I had things to do (more shopping and e-mailing), so I asked if I could finish fixing it myself tomorrow. I think that I won’t be fixing it alone (or, possibly, at all), but the project eventually came to an end at 6.15. This is when I was given another bike to use, and promised that the lights worked. They did. I am very pleased.

Finally, I was able to send e-mails and do the rest of my shopping. This wasn’t very interesting. I then returned home, tidied up a bit in preparation for my friend’s arrival tomorrow (today’s train tickets were too expensive), learned some more German while playing the recorder (go, Blackadder theme tune!) and cooked and ate an artichoke. It was delicious, but the butter didn’t contain enough salt.

The flat looks good now, though. It needs to be hoovered and some surfaces in the kitchen need to be wiped, but I finally feel as though I am settling in properly.

And before you say anything, I am immensely grateful to my neighbours for their help and concern. They really do go above and beyond the call of duty for this uncommunicative foreign girl who arrived in their midst (in the flat of the strange foreign man who doesn’t wear shoes a lot of the time). Without them, my stay here would already have been a lot more difficult. I am thinking of making them a cake. And possibly also something out of felt.

*I don’t ask where the bikes come from. I would have to use German to ask the question, and even more German to understand the answer. I just trust that they have come from authorised sources, and will give them back when I leave.

**OK, at 1pm. This lack of routine is not doing my sleeping any favours. Nor is my lack of self-control.

***One pushes the issue by ringing the doorbell multiple times. If nobody is in, they do not know that one is pushing the issue; if somebody is in, they come to the door eventually (generally), but they are angry. Good things do not come from pushing the issue, particularly when one does not speak the language.

Dinky!

2010-07-20T22:56:00.001+01:00

My new bike is made out of cute! It is ever so small and light, and only has one gear. It has shiny new tyres, which make an excellent contrast with the rest of the bike, which is pleasantly aged. It does not look very nickable to me, which is exactly the sort of bike one wants around here!

Also, it seems to go quite fast. I expect that this is just the illusion one gets when one is pedalling hard, but it is a comparatively exhilarating ride. I like it a lot. I think that it will be a she, and I will call her Dinky.

Dinky is, however, part-Dutch. Obviously somebody’s German bike had a bit of a thing with a Dutch bike, and this was the result. She has one actual brake, and also the pedal backwards thing going on. I find that I don’t mind this – having one brake makes me feel a lot better than having no brakes, and I appear to be able to control my pedalling backwards a lot better than I could when I was riding the Dutch bike on the first day. So far, there hasn’t been anything even approaching an incident.

I must make the saddle higher, though. And attach some lights. I discovered some lights on the table by the front door, which will save me some money. They look good, too. They are, however, too big – the little black things which attach round the bars of the bike will rotate freely at their tightest. I must ameliorate this problem!

I am thinking of making something out of felt to make the black things tighter. I know – profound thought! Think of all of the engineering involved! But it’s OK – I have started to make things out of felt again, and so far it is going well. I would like to set up an Etsy shop, but first I must have some things to put in it. At the moment, I am making a large (i.e. approximately poppy-sized) poppy, which can either be a poppy in its own right, or some sort of accessory. I think that it will be pretty when it is finished. If it is not, I think that perhaps this Etsy project is not meant to be. I have half-made some fuchsia already – I think that they will make good earrings (well, these two flowers will not, but my next lot could well do. Tricky things, fuchsia flowers). I still need to obtain some dangly bits for the bottom. I was thinking of spinning my own from the same wool as I am using for the outer, but I am not convinced that I will get round to buying the spindle. Having said that, I would only need a few centimetres of thread. It shouldn’t be too difficult to spin some myself without the aid of a spindle. Well, it’s not as though I am short of time at the moment!

No news on the arrival time of my friend tomorrow. Perhaps she is not coming. Ah well – perhaps I will buy myself an interesting new pesto to make up for it. Perhaps supermarket own brand this time – last time I was accidentally extravagant. Tomorrow is also market day. I promised myself cherries, a lemon and some vegetables. Tomorrow will be a good food day! I must also obtain more breakfast cereal. I am running out and experimented with the oats again today. There was cramping. Bearable, but I certainly won’t be eating oats more than once a week!*

Mind you, if my friend does not come to stay, I needn’t have put off making the teff pancakes.** Apparently, the batter needs to ferment for three days, and I didn’t think that teff pancakes on their own (which could well be what I will end up eating) would necessarily make an entertainment-worthy meal. Especially if they don’t work out as planned. Having said that, I could experiment with that oniony orange dish. I wonder what its ingredients are, apart from onion, injera and chilli powder. Must do some research!

Hmm. This post looks to be a bit of a brain-dump. This posting every day thing is all very well, but it might not be right for me, given that I am not exactly doing a lot at the moment. I suppose, though, that it isn’t really an issue, as nobody is reading my blog. I can ramble away to my hearts content, and nobody cares at all!

Speaking of rambling away, I have just noticed that my arms aren’t really fat any more! My recent weight gain has been way above and beyond what I have ever gained before, and my arms, which usually manage to stay reasonably slim-looking (I am the classic English pear shape, with a lot of weight on the bottom and very little on top) became quite fat. Now they look OK again. I keep getting a shock when I look at them.

I think that I am about 68kg now, compared to 77 when I arrived at Taize. And no, I don’t know what that is in real weight – I did the calculations and was so horrified that selective amnesia immediately took hold. It is for the best – it was a big amount of weight. You can work it out for yourself, if you care. Anyway, I think that I am trying to lose another 10kg, although the selective amnesia wasn’t suitably selective, and I don’t remember that bit, either. It’s definitely more than 50kg (the final weight I want to be, as opposed to the amount that I want to lose), because 50kg is a weight for some 14-year-old girls, and I am not one of them. I remember weighing 45kg when I was 13, and that equates to about 7½ stone. I think that I want to be more than 8½ stone. How much more, I do not know. We shall see. Not more than 9¼ stone. That is the heaviest I can be and still have something like a flat stomach.

It’s a bit strange to care about this again. I suppose that having very little to do will warp one’s mind. I find the idea of watching football to be an OK one at the moment, as long as it is in English. I enjoyed watching the horse riding event in Aachen, even though it was in German. BBC world service is excellent except for the repeats (even the short attention span it seems to encourage does not upset me too much), and those can be avoided by watching CNN world service, or the Dutch channel which occasionally (or possibly frequently – I may find out over the next few months) has old sitcoms in English with subtitles.

Even the German CDs make suitable entertainment when combined with some felting. I must do more felting and learning, though. I am currently revising CD 3 of 16, which really isn’t good enough, considering that I have been in Germany for over a week now. I should be on at least CD 8. Must try harder!

I can also water plants. The seeds I planted have started to germinate, and I must go to the vegetable garden again and water that. It is slightly exciting, waiting for these things to sprout. I have just this moment started to regret planting one edible thing each in three different pots, though. It could be a little confusing. Hopefully I can be relied upon to pick the parsley and not the poppies when I want something tasty to eat.

*Note my hierarchy of worries. Loneliness is obviously a concern, but the real issue is whether or not I will get to eat nice things. Hang on – isn’t this using food as a reward? Don’t people who do that end up really fat? Well, that explains a few things!

**Teff being the staple grain of Ethiopia, apparently. It is gluten-free, and full of protein and all sorts of nutrients. This is partly because the grain is so tiny that the husks cannot be separated from the insides, so teff flour is always wholemeal, and partly just because it is just generally great. Teff pancakes, or injera, are really yummy when made by people who are not me. I have only had proper fresh ones once, and they were delicious, but I have eaten a lot of mushed up ones in traditional Ethiopian food. Oh, the joys of having a housemate who lived in Ethiopia. I have been waiting for several years to get my hands on some teff flour. This had better be good!

More perky

2010-07-20T19:04:00.000+01:00

I am feeling a bit more perky today. I actually started to feel better yesterday evening. No idea why. Today I gave myself a list of things and accomplished them. OK, so the list consisted of going into a building, looking at a piece of paper, sending a text message and then doing a few things on the Internet, but I did it all! Go me!

Then (then being after I wrote the list, but before I started to accomplish things on it. My time-line is not excellent), in a fit of responsibility, I took out my biological waste, which consisted of two tea bags and some cereal on which I poured milk which smelled fine, but looked, shall we say, gloopy. Not a good look for milk. It does have a big advantage, though – I was able to salvage most of the cereal by scooping the really nasty bit out and putting the rest in another bowl. This pleased me – gluten-free cereal is not cheap, and this has something approximating real chocolate in it.*

While I was accomplishing this great feat of preventative flat maintenance (avoiding both fruit flies and bad smells), I decided that I would go to the bike shop over the road if the time was after 2pm. As it was 1.58 at the time, I gave myself a day’s grace and went into the basement to get the bike (phew – that was a close shave!). On the way up the basement steps, with the considerably heavy bike by my side (well, at arms length ahead of me – I find that if I lock my arms straight it makes pushing the bike up the cunning slope at the side of the steps that much easier), I was accosted by a man.

When one of my schoolfriends tells these stories, they always end badly. I have been involved in a few myself. She has a strange man magnet, I think. Hers normally start, “I was (insert place and activity here) and this really strange man started talking to me/started to follow me/was minding his own business until I started to talk to him and thus sealed my own fate” (note that she doesn’t actually say the third option, but I have been involved situations with strange men and her more times than I care to remember, and the last option does occur in times of crisis involving lost hikers and a need to know whereabouts on the map we are. At least two times in Wales alone). My stories end better. They usually give me houses, or something.**

This man asked me if I needed a bike. In German, of course. I wonder if he was the Russian man who fixes bikes and is rumoured not to speak much German but to be good at English. If he was, the rumours are not to be relied upon – his English was almost as bad as my German. However, he showed me a bike chained to a nearby railing, unchained it, and motioned that I was to try to ride it. I did this, and marvelled at how diminutive it felt. I think that it was the perfect size for me, but my perception of what a bike should feel like has changed somewhat over this past week. I rode it round, noting that it uses the pedals to brake, like a Dutch bike (although it has a “standard” brake, also), and that it felt like a bike (which is a good thing) He said that he would come to my flat this evening.

This evening, he did indeed come to my flat. He took me to the bike again, greased its chain, and got me to ride it round again. Then he put it in the basement for me. He pointed out that it has no lights (well, no dynamo to power the lights) and I said that I had a rear light, but not a front one, but that I could get them both (note that the conversation was not nearly this succinct – it involved a lot of gestures and, at one point, the English-German dictionary (thank you, Henry – it’s excellent!)). I do need to obtain a screwdriver now, also, but I think that I can manage that.

Alas, that means that I must once again go buying things tomorrow. I have no idea which is the cheapest place to buy cycling accessories. I get the impression that my local supermarket is not it. Perhaps Lidl is the way forward. If only Germany knew about Home Bargains (aka Half-price or less). I don’t understand why countries make do without Home Bargains. I wonder if Germany has an equivalent. I already found the Superdrug equivalent, and was delighted to find a shop which is waay better than any organic chain I’ve seen in the UK (and, in some ways, better than Lancaster’s own Single Step shop. Not in all ways, though. This shop is clearly out to make a Profit). It has teff (flour and non-milled), and everything! But no general cheap shop yet.

It is amazing how expensive some stuff can be in Germany. Take tea, for example. I am paying 10 cents a tea bag. For an English person to pay that much is ludicrous. I can’t afford to support that habit! I just did some maths and discovered that I am accustomed to paying about 5 pence per tea bag. Not such a big difference, then. The paper wrapping on every tea bag does feel a bit excessive, though. A cup of tea is not an occasion – it just happens.

Some things are a lot cheaper, though. Those little holders you can get for felting needles are ¼ of the price, compared to the UK, for example. Also, there is some tasty fruit juice which costs 89 cents for 1 ½ litres. It’s not all that specific about which fruit (I think there are 12 of them, so presumably they blend them according to seasonal availability)

There appears to be some sort of party going on around here somewhere, judging by the music. I cannot imagine that the other people who live in this block like it very much... The not so good thing is that I feel slightly sad that I am not invited. Listening to the music, though, it sounds as though it isn’t a very good party. I remember those. Very awkward. I suppose it is for the best that I am not invited.

Wow – the double glazing here is excellent. They have just closed the window and suddenly the music is just a little background noise. I imagine that my neighbours don’t mind the noise at all if they like to keep their windows closed. Oh, the marvels of German buildings.

Ooh – they’ve opened the window again. The party is happening in the next room. Wow. This building was built well. The music is terrible, though, and the lads there sound like a load of thugs (here’s hoping they don’t find my blog and work out who I am!). The girls have started to sing something very annoying.

For the past three nights, it has been so cold that I have had to sleep underneath my duvet cover, not on top of it. I think that tonight I could be closing the window, also.

I feel ever so guilty, though. I should so be a Catholic. I feel as though I am being bad listening to the music, and that I should turn it down. Ah well – I shall revel in the reflected badness of it all, and feel like a rebel. They can’t pin anything on me! If people knock on my door demanding silence, I shall just mumble in English, and that will make them be quiet! Mwah ha ha ha ha!

Midnight, and the party appears to have stopped. What sort of a party is that?

12.30, and it is in full swing again. I think that the lads have gone, as ABBA has started. It is a big improvement. It is “Knowing me, knowing you”, though. “Breaking up is never easy, I know, but it’s time to go”. Great. Just what I need. Britney Spears. At least it is nothing to do with me this time – last time I heard it, it was coming from my common room. Very embarrassing for all concerned, especially those who decided on the music. I don’t get the impression that they realised that it was embarrassing, though, so I didn’t say anything. How would they have shown their faces again after that?

Argh! James Blunt! I wish that people didn’t think that his music was so abhorrent. If they thought more of it, I wouldn’t have been subjected to input on the TV which means that I can identify some of his music and dislike it with authority. I much prefer not knowing what it is that I dislike. Somehow, the dislike is harder to put up with when it is defined. Also, they forced me to think about the music, as opposed to simply letting it wash over me.

Oh – they didn’t finish that song. Is he so bad that even people who choose to listen to his music, and go to the trouble of obtaining it, can’t listen to the end of the track? Poor guy. Did you know that he’s really posh? Do you realise that admitting that I know this makes me feel a little bit bad inside? But it is my duty to ensure that you are informed of Relevant Facts, when deemed appropriate. As I am the one doing the deeming, we can consider that this timing was indeed appropriate. But if you are better at deeming than I, please do speak up.

In other news, I have people coming to visit me. One friend is rumoured to be coming the day after tomorrow, and staying until Sunday, and Mother and Anne are due on 4th August for a week. I have the transport problem solved as long as I fix the puncture on the fold-up bike, and Anne doesn’t mind riding a Dutch bike. I think that I would really be better finding another bike for her, though. If her braking by use of pedals ability is anything like mine, there will be Incidents. This is one accident-prone child. Hmm. Had better see what I can do. Mother will be riding the “new” bike – her idea of a big enough bike is much smaller than mine, and there is no way she would be prepared to ride the large bike. Which I have just decided to call Hubert. The little Dutch bike is Franzi. It seems like a Franzi to me. The “new” bike doesn’t have a name yet; I’ll keep you posted. I am absolutely sure that you are on the edge of your seat with anticipation, so I will try not to take too much time. Naming bikes is a serious business, though. One cannot name a bike until one has taken it through its paces. It would be a mistake. The name might totally not suit the bike and then one would have to change it, or have a bike with an unsuitable name. Imagine the shame! Not only would one be the crazy person who gives names to a variety of inanimate objects, but one would be seen as having poor judgement.

Louise might visit, also. We shall see. It occurs to me that the weekend she is thinking of visiting could well be while I could be visiting the parents in France. That might not be good. On the other hand, it would be cheaper to entertain her than to take the train to the other side of France! Unless she takes exception to a braking system in the pedals, also. If she has an accident, it could get expensive. If she makes me buy a new bike, it could get expensive. I don’t think that she has that much power, though, and she certainly shouldn’t know my PINs. (Notice my cunning use of no superfluous words! Please note that I actually say “PIN number”, though; I am not actually suitably committed to the cause of Not Saying Things Wrong,*** because it sounds quite strange omitting the “number”. I am inconsistent in my use if correct English, and should be punished. But you’ll have to find me first. Do try – I could really use the company right now.)

*I always wonder why people put real chocolate in these things, though. It’s like ice cream – the chocolate can’t melt because the ice cream is too cold, and so you get chocolate which you can’t taste, which has a weird texture. With the milk in cereals, the chocolate stays similarly cold and weird. However, the chocolate pieces are small and heavy. They sink to the bottom of the bowl. This means that I get a mouthful of chocolate at the end, which I can then hold in my mouth until it warms up and I can taste it. It turns out to be a lovely way to end breakfast.

**Well, the first house in which I lived after ceasing to be an employed person living in student accommodation came to me when I was accosted by an old man in the street asking me if I needed a house. As a matter of fact, I needed one rather urgently. He only charged me twice as much rent as I was prepared to pay, which was about half of the (very cheap – this was in Lancaster) market rate – it was the summer holidays, and one can get some very good deals at times. So that ended very well indeed. The flat in which I am currently living was also offered to me by some guy. He obviously has a well-developed sense of trust! To live up to this trust, I have learned how to put the bins out (very complicated in Germany, although most of the complication comes from not being able to understand the descriptions of what goes in which bin), and have only spilled tea once! That is some sort of record for me, I think. The tea, not the bins. I can usually understand the bin concept and did, in fact, work for two weeks as Queen of the Dustbins in Taize. Although nobody called me that. But I totally was.

***Or, perhaps, Not Saying Things Incorrectly.

Still no human interaction

2010-07-18T21:07:00.000+01:00

Normally, I enjoy being single. Normally, though, I am in a country where I speak the language and have some friends. Today, I am not enjoying being single. Today, all I want is to curl up on the settee with my boyfriend and watch Sherlock Holmes. Alas, I am missing all three parts of this equation, and will have to settle for writing, drinking tea, playing Spider Solitaire and learning German. I may even eat some potatoes later on.

I tried to go to church. I got very lost on the way, and ended up in totally the wrong part of town, but I did eventually find the correct road. I think that I even found the building in which the service was taking place, although it was not very clearly-labelled. I didn’t see anything which said that this building was what I was looking for. However, I shall try again next Sunday, and make sure that I get there on time. The people going into the building should give me a clue about the location of the entrance. I shall have a look on the website again, also.

Being unemployed is starting to lose its attraction, also. Being employed full-time doesn’t seem like such a good idea, either, but a job in which I got to talk to people from time to time certainly sounds more fun than hanging around, wondering when something is actually going to happen.

I know, I know – in order for things to happen, I have to make them happen. It’s just that this language barrier thing has taken me way outside my comfort zone. It’s not great fun going up to people who speak your language and asking them to interact with you; when you have no idea whether or not they will speak your language, it is an awful lot harder. I know – moan, moan, moan. Sitting there playing Spider Solitaire (which I am not doing – you can clearly tell that I am typing right now) is going to solve nothing. I need to learn the German and go out and make friends.

On the plus side, though, I missed out on a week of silence at Taizé, but I am certainly getting one now! I have had plenty of time to contemplate my life, although there has been very little spiritual guidance.

Yes, this is pathetic, oh life is so hard, me. I want to give up and return to Taizé, or home, but I know that if I do that, I will regret not giving this a proper try in the future. Also, I am really enjoying getting around by bike. I think that perhaps I will do more cycling when I get a bike which is my size.

Are there any good blogs written by people who don’t talk to other people?

I am lacking in human interaction

2010-07-17T21:05:00.000+01:00

So, it would appear that M!crosoft W0rd is not happy with my blog post. I would normally compose blog posts in Blogger itself (which is, of course, a way to guarantee that my posts will never get lost), but I am without Internet access in this flat. That explains the funny formatting you may have noticed in the previous posts – they were just cut and pasted from Word via some other programme. No idea what. It wasn’t co-operating when I tried to post today’s offering, and so I was unable to accomplish the task of copying and pasting my favourite blog (for this week) onto my memory stick to read at home later. This means that I will have to be productive and learn some German this evening, instead. Damn.

Thinking about it, you were lucky not to have to read my previous blog post (the one eaten by W0rd), as it started off describing what I was going to eat for dinner, then saying that this really wasn’t an adequate blog topic, and that I could really do with some human interaction. This paragraph was much shorter and only a miniscule amount less funny.

It’s funny, though, because I don’t appear to be making a very good job of responding to my e-mails, and they are interaction with a real person, albeit at a distance. I suppose that I don’t really feel like responding to other people’s questions.

It is lonely here, you know. I don’t speak the language, and don’t know anyone who is helping me to get integrated into any sort of social scene. I missed going to the garden to help out today because I got up late, and figured that people would be unimpressed were I to fail to be punctual, so I made no new friends today. Tomorrow, I shall try out the English-speaking church. It looks like totally not my scene, and could take a long time to get there, but social interaction is social interaction, and it might surprise me...

However, in order to get there, I must ride the bike. The bike is a lovely piece of machinery, which really seems to want to be good. It could teach Marigold the Death Bike a thing or two about being nice to people (although I feel that it would be a mistake to expose it to Marigold’s malign influence). However, it has a few problems. It really likes to select its own gear (although it has been holding steady for a few says now), it is only the forces of good holding the front wheel straight, and it is too big for me. The first two problems would only really be an issue with a bike which wasn’t so anxious to please (go, anthropomorphic personification!), but the third problem has started to hurt my knees. My knees are important to me, and so I shall have to brave the bike shop very soon. Probably on Monday. Argh! If I could speak German, it would be less frightening. I only hope that the shopkeeper speaks English. I think that the place over the road from here is a bike shop which sells a lot of second-hand bikes, and I think that their prices will be reasonable, especially as I particularly do not want a bike which looks good. Here in Münster, bikes are disabled by means of a bike lock, and then abandoned, not attached to anything but themselves. I feel that a bike which looks as though it might be worth actual money might not last long here. There’s no point in paying extra for a more nickable bike. Oh, how I miss Marigold. Apart from her lack of seat (thank you, Louise) and stand, she is exactly what I want. I suppose that her homicidal tendencies are hardly ideal, but she has never actually tried to kill me...

I made a discovery today. Orange-flavoured milkshake does not taste good. Of course, I knew this already, but I decided to try it anyway. Now I know for sure. Please trust me when I say that it is as bad as you might imagine it to be. There really is no need to try it out for yourself. I should have trusted my instincts, but I was thirsty and it was cheap. Never go shopping while you are thirsty! (Although I realise that sometimes it is necessary to go shopping while thirsty in order to buy oneself a drink, and that one might possibly become ill were one to be denied this opportunity to go shopping, should a suitable drinking water tap not be in the vicinity. Under these circumstances, I would argue that it is more useful to go shopping than to refrain therefrom. Which is a word the spellchecker seems to think that I just made up.)

I bought plants, seeds and nectarines at the market today. The plants were basil, parsley, sage and lavender, the seeds were sweet peas and wild flowers (all due to be planted before the end of last month), and the nectarines smell tasty. They will be eaten with yoghurt – this is my new favourite snack. It makes me feel healthy and virtuous, and tastes excellent. Any deficiencies in the nectarine’s flavour can be disguised with honey, which is so much better than sugar because it is more natural. Or something.

Anyway, I now have a little garden on my balcony, and it should smell good. The sweet peas, should they grow big enough, should climb towards the balcony above me, and hopefully won’t cause me to fall to my death while trying to cut a particularly high-up bloom (because that would totally be the fault of the flowers, as opposed to me). The wild flowers may look pretty, should they do the flowering thing. The Lavender will annoy my mother, and the other herbs will smell good and help with my cooking. Which reminds me – I need to get Delia’s parsnip and parmesan bread recipe at some point (the tenuous link being that it involves sage, and is pretty much all I ever used my previous sage plant for). Probably before I have someone to visit me for a meal. Although perhaps I should be feeding them potato soup with potato croutons, followed by mashed potatoes with potato sauce and potatoes on the side, then sweet potato fritters (as in potatoes with sugar on, as opposed to sweet potatoes themselves, which are, in fact, a different species from potatoes and, moreover, are absent from this flat). Perhaps with a potato smoothie. Potato lassi, anyone? I have cheese to go with it now. Anyone?

Tomorrow marks the one-week anniversary of my arrival here in Münster. It’s weird to think that this time last week, I was sitting in my last church service in Taizé. How things change. At Taizé, life goes on, and here, nothing much happens.

I felt, when I arrived, that it was a good idea to cut myself some slack and not worry about getting a job straight away. I felt that one or two weeks would be long enough to get settled in, and then I could start to look. Now I am feeling slightly guilty because I have scarcely made a start with advertising my amazing English skills (about all I have that is marketable at the moment, I think, because pretty much every other job requires some German skills, at least while one is applying for the job), and certainly feel no closer to finding out how one might go about getting a cleaning job. Of course, it could all change tomorrow when I go to church. Or it could not change at all. The latter scenario seems more likely to me, but I am aware that I am a reasonably cynical sort of person. Also realistic, sometimes. Except for that time I really trusted that guy, and it turned out to be a bad idea. That wasn’t cynical at all. So not only am I inconsistently cynical, but I am also not good at arguing my own point, and step in to ruin my own argument. Go me. I don’t think that I have a point any more. Instead, I shall have a shower and go to bed. I shall see what tomorrow brings.

Catching up

2010-07-16T23:52:00.000+01:00

I have been in Munster for nearly a week now, and there are all sorts of things about which I would like to write. Alas, I do not appear to be able to compose blog posts while in the presence of a computer (although the ones I compose when there is no computer around are beautiful. Promise.).

Anyway, I have been here for a week and I still can’t speak German. Also, I still only have one friend. The former problem does not help in my quest to solve the latter. I went to the International Students place today, only to find out that the only event left to happen this academic year will probably take place in Hungarian, and probably wouldn’t be all that interesting anyway.

Still, tomorrow is Saturday, and I shall go to the vegetable garden to help. I may make myself some new friends there, or I may just be disappointed to find out that everyone there speaks German, also.

This is al very sedentary and dull. I kind of though that moving to a different country would somehow make my blog posts better. I suppose that human interaction is an important factor in a lot of good blog posts, and I get most of mine at the moment by nearly being run into by cyclists who don’t like the way I am wavering on my bike, and by shop assistants who scan my items and tell me how much they cost. Which I understand sometimes. I even questioned a total the other day*. I said “nein” in a disbelieving tone of voice. Sure enough, I was right! I saved myself 5 Euros with the combination of my amazing language skills and my amazing maths skills.

So, dear reader, I suppose that I ought to do something exciting so that I have something to write about, and so that my blog is therefore worth reading. I think that listing the things I bought since coming here will not impress you, but I am going to try with the list of things (abridged) that I have eaten since coming here.

I started off with yoghurt. It was a bit battered, having come from Taize, but tasted lovely. I also ate oats and UHT milk, but that wasn’t going to last me very well – it’s breakfast food, really. After going shopping, my food options expanded to rice and spicy pesto. No further, as I cooked enough rice for four days on the first day post-shopping, and was feeling in a parsimonious sort of mood. The microwave here is excellent. After that, we went to the vegetable garden, and my dear, lovely neighbour (and I mean this without even the slightest trace of sarcasm – she is wonderful) decided that it was a good idea to dig up most of the potatoes; I didn’t have enough German to ask her to stop in a polite manner. I am supposed to give them away, but I don’t yet have enough friends to give them to. I therefore have several kilograms of potatoes waiting in the kitchen.

I am on the third day of potato-based meals now. I boiled some two days ago (when I decided that the rice was no longer fit for eating), and fried the remaining ones yesterday. I also made some extremely dodgy clafoutis (recipe: some milk, some eggs, some gluten-free flour, some sugar, loads and loads of delicious cherries from the market), which was nonetheless edible (less flour next time), and at the same time as baking that, baked some delicious-smelling peppers, again from the market. This morning I finished the clafoutis, and this evening I made a sauce from the peppers, the remaining tomato sauce, some bacon, some garlic and some low-fat spread. And, of course, some wine. It is Friday, after all. I ate it with microwaved fried potatoes. My best meal so far. Tomorrow, I eat leftover sauce, and will have to cook some more potatoes. If you fancy eating potatoes, please do call round!

The oats have gone on hiatus, though. Apparently my body doesn’t like oats. They have been going through me... well, I’ll spare you the details. I have been feeling perfectly well, though, so they can’t be that bad. Perhaps they can be a once-weekly treat.

Ooh – I hear rain, I think. It is fairly consistently above 25C here, and all rain is welcome. Except, of course, for the rain which comes after I have made the effort to go to the vegetable patch and water the thing. I got lost twice on the way back. Well, perhaps “got lost” is putting it a bit too strongly, but I assert that it would have taken me an exceptionally long time to get home this evening, had it not been for my adequate sense of direction.

Ooh – it’s definitely raining now. There’s lightning, and everything! So much for my good intentions with the potatoes.

Hmm. This really is rambling, isn’t it? Ah well – there’s a week (nearly) of stuff to be dumped in here. Having got it out of my system, hopefully I will be able to post in a more orderly and less crap fashion.

Mmm – lots of rain! I am getting splashed. I’m sitting here in the bedroom with the window open, and the computer between myself and the window. Perhaps I should close the window a little. It doesn’t like to be closed a little, apparently. There we go – just open at the top now. I still get the lovely breeze, but the monitor is no longer being splashed.

Shower, then bed? Then we forget that this horrid post ever happened and I return (stop sniggering) to my usual good blogging form? Thank you. Goodnight.

*15 + 1 + 1 does not equal 22.

Moving on...

2010-07-11T13:47:00.000+01:00

Hello again!

Well, I have certainly had a lot to blog about these past few months. Unfortunately I have had neither the time nor the Internet access to convey these things to you. I could have written them down using a pen and paper, I suppose, but where would be the fun in that?

Now, however, I find myself in yet another foreign country (told you I had a lot to blog about), unemployed and without knowing the local language. While this may not be conducive to a happy time, it should certainly allow me some free time to write about it.

But I shall try to start from the beginning. I forget where I left off. Did I tell you that I handed in my notice for my job, and was preparing to move to Taizé, in France, for several months? I think that I did. I don’t think that I told you about my boyfriend, though. I don’t think that I shall tell you much about him, as it may come back to bite me. Suffice to say, this guy is wonderful. Let’s call him Henry. I applied for a job in the company where Henry works, and was told that I would get an answer in July or August, and that the job itself, where I to get it, would start in September or October. This gave me the safety net I needed to take the plunge and leave the country.

I left England on 1^st May, if I remember rightly. I flew to Geneva, and spent the night with a school friend and her particularly cute children. The youngest, aged 18 months, appeared to be lacking a concept of gravity, which made supervising him quite fraught at times, but we all survived. I was supposed to arrive in Taizé on 2^nd May, but it turns out that Geneva is not an SNCF (the French rail network) station, and so has no SNCF machines. This makes retrieving a ticket from an SNCF machine particularly challenging. I was not up to this challenge, and I missed the train while I tried to sort out the problem. Fortunately, help was at hand in the form of a friendly ticket seller who sold me some new tickets for some more money. These tickets enabled me to arrive at Mâcon only 20 minutes after the last bus of the day to Taizé had left. I stayed overnight in a hotel near the station, and arrived at Taizé at about 9am the next day, having had an excellent night’s sleep.

I expected that I would feel some sense of triumph or achievement when I arrived, but I didn’t. Taizé looked familiar, but I didn’t feel any particular sense of rightness as a result of being there. Still, it was better than being at work!

I really don’t like writing this so long after it happened – I don’t feel that I can remember accurately what actually happened. I hope that what I am saying is truthful. I see that what I am saying, however, is not even remotely humorous. Unless, of course, you find the idea of staying in a monastic community funny, in which case these next few entries should make you laugh rather a lot. Perhaps the funny will come back again in a bit. (I am, of course, taking some of my earlier writing to be funny. I may be wrong about that. If you don’t find my earlier entries amusing, you are unlikely to find subsequent ones to be any better.)

But I digress. Upon my arrival I was given breakfast (for me, a stick of chocolate and some hot chocolate), and then welcomed. I was given a dormitory which I shared with two Swedish girls, one French girl, one Polish girl and one Dutch girl – quite diverse, especially as the first week in May was Netherlands week, and it seemed as though three people out of every four were from there. As I was 28 years old, I was put into the 25-35-year-old group, which was fortunate enough not to be allocated any work for the week. I figured that this would be the last time I would have off for a long time (I was correct, of course), and so vowed to make the most of it.

My discussion group was mostly Dutch, of course. They were all lovely people (from what I could tell, at least; certainly, none of them seemed to be concealing weapons about their person. Although it wouldn’t be very good concealment if I could see the weapons, I suppose), who had lots of interesting ideas which I attempted to take on board. I think that I failed miserably, alas, but I enjoyed trying. In my free time, I started to learn the alto recorder. There are tents for socialising around the back of Oyak (the place where one goes to socialise; hence the tents for this purpose), and I spent many pleasant hours sitting in the sun, trying to learn new notes. Well, about three hours, anyway; there wasn’t all that much sun around that week. In fact, it was a particularly cold and wet week, and I only had one pair of trousers up to the task of keeping me warm. They did not smell good by the end of the week. I also spent time catching up on sleep. By the end of the week, I was the most rested I had been for a very long time.

During that week, I had to discuss staying longer in Taizé with one of the sisters. I said that I wanted to practise loving people in a practical way, and that Taizé seemed to be a good place in which to do that.

I suppose that I should clarify a little bit here. God says that the most important thing is to love. I do not believe that he means us simply to think that other people are wonderful (i.e. to use “love” in the sense of an abstract noun); I believe that he wants us to use “love” as a verb, and to carry out acts of love for people. These are not necessarily big things. In fact, the little things are often the hardest, especially when one is trying to do little things whenever there is an opportunity to do so. It takes a lot of training (or, perhaps, a very godly nature) to be able to do that.

Anyway, the work at Taizé is not really allocated on the basis of whether or not the individual would like to do the work – it’s more to do with what needs to be done. The work changes on a weekly basis, in general, although there are some jobs which last for longer. I figured that being obliged to do whatever work was allocated to me would be very good for me, although I hoped that I wouldn’t be allocated any toilets to clean.

But I digress. I was allowed to stay on and, as far as I am aware, my plan to leave in September or October (confirming this in July or August) was approved, presumably provisional upon my not doing anything stupid.

That Sunday, I moved into N’Toumi, the place in which girls who stay in Taizé for between (I think) six weeks and six months live. I was in room C, and I shared it with three other girls. Three doors down was the common room; very large and spacious, and friendly-looking. It came with what was basically an unlimited supply of food, which did not bode well for the weight I was proposing to lose there. Still, it meant I didn’t need to go hungry at all; chocolate and cheese on demand (ooh – now I’m starting to get hungry), plus yoghurt, hot chocolate, tea and coffee (and bread and cookies for those who could eat such things). Oh yes, and various types of fruit. There were, I think, 23 girls there that week. It was great! Everyone had come for a reason other than that they simply had too much time on their hands. Of course, it took me a while to learn everyone’s name, but I think that I had managed by the end of the week.

My first jobs were El Abiodh kitchen in the morning (preparing the easy bits of lunches, such as salad and counting cheese), silence keeping in church during the midday service, and Cadole in the afternoon. Cadole is the place in Taizé in which they fix things, and one can end up doing pretty much anything other than food preparation there. I started by fixing benches, which was enjoyable albeit a lot harder than it looked, and finished by cleaning drains which was not enjoyable, albeit a lot harder than it looked. It was a suitably gentle introduction to Taizé life. It wasn’t exactly gentle, but at least it left me under no illusions about how hard I would be working. Generally, there are about four hours of work in each day except for Sunday, in which there are often more; Sunday is the day on which people arrive at, and depart from, Taizé.

The weeks continued along a similar vein. The jobs I did were: driver for Cadole (same as Cadole but with the occasional bit of driving thrown in); cleaning houses (mostly outside Taizé – I got to drive and to explore new houses. Perfect!); adult animation (making sure the adults (those aged 30 and over) look after themselves and tidy up after themselves); El Abiodh house (cleaning rooms. I am pretty amazing at cleaning sinks, especially limescale-encrusted taps); Point 5 (cleaning toilets, mostly. Not a problem at all with a good team – it is over very quickly and the work isn’t particularly nasty at its worst, in general. Plus, you get used to it); rubbish collection (queen of the dustbins, driving around in the rubbish van. It’s not called the rubbish van for nothing, although don’t tell it I said that); washing-up responsible (convincing teenagers that it is a good idea to wash, dry and put away dishes, mostly. Sometimes they are excellent...); black boxes responsible (emptying insulated boxes containing food into the bin or into storage for the next meal, so that every meal is used twice and only twice); and a quick stint cleaning the massive pans in one of the kitchens. Plus some driving. I have gained some useful experience. Should I decide that my next job will be cleaning hotels, I should be well-qualified.

While I was working in adult animation, I was offered the chance to stay in Münster (in Germany) rent-free and learn German. I decided to go there from July, after Henry had been to visit me, and stay until the end of October at the latest, returning sooner if I got the job for which I was waiting. Alas, Henry came to the conclusion that I am not the girl for him, and so I have withdrawn my application for that job. I am now thinking of staying in Münster until the end of the year at the earliest, unless I am offered a suitable job in England before then.

So, I now have several tasks:

To learn German
To get myself a job
To tend to the vegetables that I am growing as part of looking after this flat
To make some new friends
To avoid falling in love with a German; it is a bit of a cliché in my family to marry somebody from Germany
To visit friends who live nearby
To have friends to stay
To lose some weight
To learn how to play the recorder properly
To find out where the things I need are located (the fact that you are reading this indicates that I do, at least, have Internet access)
To buy some food – it’s oats, rice cakes, cheese, coconut macaroons, milk and coffee at the moment
To clean the flat – start as I mean to go on...
To make the bed – have washed my bedding (by hand, alas) already

The tasks are pretty much in inverse order of magnitude, although the four at the bottom are obviously the most pressing at the moment. I feel that the vegetables must have attention soon, also – I shall see them tomorrow. Right now, I want to go to sleep! I have to wait for one person to visit me (“in the evening”), then I’m free to sleep. Tomorrow, the exploration starts. I shall endeavour to write about what happens here; if nothing else, it will be interesting for me to read it back in years to come.

All change!

2010-04-11T02:55:00.003+01:00

I have just returned from my last late-night organ practice session as Motherchurch organ scholar. Tomorrow I am finished and must return my key. It is also my last service as organist at St Isidore's. In fact, a week tomorrow I leave Lancaster for good. I finish work on Thursday, and shall then be unemployed. I leave the country on 1st May.

I do have a plan. It is still tenuous, but I can't wait around forever for everything to fix itself. I have applied for an organ building job which has not yet come up (it still has a person in it, albeit a person who proposes to hand in his resignation in the next few months), and shall find out whether or not I am to be offered this position at some point after the person currently in post resigns. That is likely to be in July or August. In the meantime, I am off to Taize for a few months. I hope to find time to relax and get used to having mental space, so that when I return I am no longer such an ineffective person.

Obviously, I am in the midst of yet another house move. Some friends have very kindly agreed to take on key pieces of furniture, such as my chest of drawers and fake piano, and the rest goes to my parents' house. They are overjoyed. It gives them a purpose in life, and they relish having far too many things in the upper rooms of their house. My brother adores not being able to cross his room due to the amount of stuff in it, and only wishes that he still lived there, instead of just returning for holidays. The last two car-loads of stuff (for I only have two journeys there left) will be the icing on the cake. I know that my small bed-settee (smaller than the one I already have there) will be welcomed with open arms.

Once this has been accomplished, though, I should hopefully be nearing the end of my moving career. Of course, this organ job will come with the man of my dreams (how could it not?), who will help me to build my incredibly large house with straw walls and at least one organ, plus a large and well-equipped workshop. It will only take a few house moves (and a lot of hard work) before I am in this house, from where there will be no need to move for quite a few years. Or perhaps until the children put me in a retirement home. He can live there, too, and we will have lots of children, all of whom can be trusted not to hurt themselves when around tools (is that not the main thing one looks for in a child?), and who are good at choosing retirement homes.

Ha! If it works out like that I'll be amazed. Also pleased. Except for the retirement home thing.

Right now, though, I feel a little sad and overwhelmed. I don't like moving house, and I don't like to leave places. This house move is going quite well so far because I have been working on it for a few weeks, and transporting bulky items a few at a time, but the last load is always hard. The last church services tomorrow will be hard (I really don't want to leave either church, crappy organ scholar though I have been), as will the leaving do at work (they won't tell me when that is, but I can narrow it down to Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday during the day. It should include wine, as the Department has an accidental stock of bubbly).

Ah well. What would be productive now would be sleep. Having slept for far too many hours today I am not all that sleepy, but I will not thank myself in the morning if I stay up much longer.

It may actually be getting better...

2009-12-24T00:34:00.003Z

My life, that is, as opposed to my writing. That got worse.

Wow. Where did all of that time go? It's very nearly Christmas. Just in case you hadn't noticed. Although chances are that you won't notice this blog post before Christmas.

Well, this year has been an interesting preparation for the big event. I have made pretty much no handmade gifts for people (although I do have one in the pipeline), including truffles. I did make some fudge, but that is just being shared out between people, as opposed to being handed out to specific people as presents. Actually, my gift list seemed much reduced this year, which has been a relief. I am still not quite up to coping with organising my life so that I get things done (possibly due to the excessive number of activities I still have crammed in, and how precious free time has consequently become), and so this whole "being gentle with myself" thing, such as it is, has been necessary.

Having said that, life is generally good. The house and housemates are good, the organ music I have been playing over Christmas has generally been to an acceptable standard (with one good bit), I am spending time with interesting people, and they keep heating the Motherchurch, so when I do practice I can move my fingers. Quite a novelty!

Right now, I have just finished work for the year. I spent all of today relaxing and getting stuff done slowly. It started off with a lie-in, then lunch with immediate family and an uncle or cousin. We then went shopping and I bought the last two strictly necessary presents (although I daresay there are a few non-necessary ones I should really pick up tomorrow, and there is still that one I'm due to make). I then came home and cooked cottage pie for dinner, then we ate it. It was fine, although I have made better ones. Then I made a few phone calls and felted some more colour samples for my chart (which shows me which colours I have, and what they look like). At some point, wine and fudge were provided. Then tea was provided. Then I talked to all three of my siblings and both of my parents. It was a good day. Apparently it has left me motivated to compose a blog post - oh, the joy of relaxation! I think that I shall read a book when I get into bed.

Oh, and I am making a chocolate bell for someone for Christmas. I couldn't find a suitable mould, so I bought a polystyrene bell and covered it with clay. I have just cut the clay off again, and it seems to be holding its shape and will eventually dry out. Possibly even this decade.

Speaking of which, there's a new decade just around the corner. That makes me feel slightly excited - I am hoping for a whole new start next year (and have some plans to make that happen). It could be a very exciting decade indeed. If that happens, I may even post some interesting blog entries. Can't really say more at the moment (which is a big fat lie - I could tell you so much! But I really oughtn't to, and am pretending to have some self-control), so I shall keep you in suspense. (Ha! I am pretending someone is going to read this! See - I can be funny.)

In the meantime, I should get down to the serious job of enjoying myself and being a useful person to have around the house. Almost like a responsible adult. And also the slightly more painful job of constructing a Thing mostly by the wet felting method. There will be bits attached by sewing, and ripstop nylon in the middle, and closures, but wet felting will be the important bit. It will be unique.* I may even put up a photo when it is done.

Happy Christmas! I wish you health and happiness. Especially happiness. That's very important.

*And it may also be good.

Life without ingesting antihistamines...

2009-10-15T17:13:00.000+01:00

... 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.

Life continues

2009-10-14T20:51:00.000+01:00

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

Teaching soapmaking

2009-08-21T23:31:00.002+01:00

Today I taught four people how to make soap. As I shall be moving house soon (Saturday 5th September, to be precise), I am trying to get rid of some things of which I have too much. One of these things is my oil collection. Much as it would be lovely to put them into storage and get them out again next time I want to make soap, I must accept that these things go off and leak, and that storing them is actually not a very clever plan.

I decided to put an advert on my local swap shop, offering to teach people how to make soap. This was in exchange for chocolate, wine, or loan of a tent next time I go camping (next weekend). I got one bar of chocolate, one tent, and one cake. We made two batches of soap, both of which misbehaved in an annoying way. Next time I teach soapmaking I shall have to make sure that I use a tried and tested recipe!

The first batch was a daffodil one. It was supposed to be moisturising. The soap decided to go all oily in the pan, and had to be attacked with a blender until it decided to play nicely. Alas, it did not trace as it was supposed to, and so I couldn't show this stage to everyone. It behaved in the end, though, and did at least demonstrate what soap looks like when it is ready to be poured into the mould.

Alas, during the proceedings one of the local residents decided that it would be a lovely idea to piss into my back yard. He declared that he would laugh if we noticed him. There is perhaps a small possibility that he was somewhat intoxicated. I am very proud of myself: I resisted the urge to hit him with a stick. My guests were also well-behaved, and refrained from pouring caustic soda on the offending item. Tempting, but ultimately likely to get us arrested.

The second soap was purple. Well, it wasn't purple at all, but it will probably be purple by the time it has finished curing. We put alkanet oil in, which is red.* This then turns purple, or lilac, or whatever it wants to be called. It was a bit over-full in its mould, and a bit came out of the top, but it will be interesting to see what it looks like with a forced flat top - normally I stroke it a bit and hope for the best.

The five of us seemed to get on quite well together - I really hope that we can get together at some point in the future and do some more crafty things together. There were some interesting talents within the group, including spinning. I have promised the remainder of my oils to one of them shortly before I move out (I might want to make more soap before I go, but she can have what's left), and we will meet up again at some point in her house to make another vanilla soap. In the meantime, I am thinking of making a soap which uses the oil infused with vanilla that I have had hanging around for an unfeasibly long time. It would be good to use that.

I had a fun time this evening. Tomorrow is sailing and avoiding being thought of as the sort of person who wants to get into a relationship (hopefully not too tricky, but not pinning too many hopes on that), followed by cutting soap, followed by packing, followed by organ practice (which has been sadly lacking recently, but I figure that I should cut myself some slack). Sunday will be a day of church, then lunch, then looking at a potential new house (could do with getting that sorted before I move out of this house), then packing the car, going to the parents' house and dropping off 1/4 of my remaining possessions (only four more trips in which I can do this), then cleaning out their fridge which will be full of rotting vegetables. Yay. Monday will be organ building work experience, day three. This promises to be fun. I suppose that the last two would only count as fun if you like that sort of thing, but it turns out that so far I do. A career I enjoy may be beckoning me...

*To be a little bit more precise, the alkanet oil is actually olive oil infused with alkanet powder. It starts off looking a little like blood, and then goes purplish when it gets put in something with the same pH as soap, whatever that happens to be. I started to infuse this one in the previous house - it has probably been infusing for something approaching a year now.

Since getting home from work

2009-08-08T00:10:00.001+01:00

He came back to collect some more stuff. He went away again. I cried. I stopped crying. I brought some oils downstairs. I taught two people how to make soap. I did the washing up. They went home. I wrote a blog post. The end.

Mmmmm

2009-08-06T23:47:00.003+01:00

Well, I am happily settling into living alone. It is quite a revelation to have the whole house to myself all the time, and not to have anybody to complain if I don't clean the kitchen. Which, incidentally, I will be doing tomorrow afternoon, as I shall be leading a soapmaking workshop there, and don't want anyone to get the idea that I have no idea about kitchen hygiene. I am fairly sure that my theoretical knowledge, at least, is excellent!

Having given my bed away to a couple of friends, I am borrowing Serena's spare bed. I must take a photo of my new, improved bedroom, actually - there is an amazing amount of space in it. It is just the sort of bedroom I would like to have always. Such a pity that I shall be leaving this house in less than a month. The mattress is very comfortable, also, and I have a double duvet to go with it, despite the bed being a single bed.

I have also sent a lot of possessions home with Mother, and have offered to donate several pieces of furniture to some friends. The number of things that I own is slowly reducing. The house, of course, is not exactly tidy - the loss of my big bookcase has left the living room covered in books, and a search of my charity shop box for a shirt for Anne for Granddad's funeral has left the front room covered in the boxes that formerly resided on top of the charity shop box.

I am sure that this post was much more interesting than this in my head. It was also longer. Alas, my cognitive ability seems to be on holiday a little early (it's supposed to stay with me until tomorrow afternoon), and I therefore am having difficulty even making it to the end of this sentence. Perhaps that is my cue to give up and go to bed.

May I live in interesting times

2009-08-02T00:55:00.004+01:00

So, I am now single. The house, it would appear, is just the perfect size for me and my things. If only life could stay like this, and I didn't have to move into a room somewhere...

The wedding, it has to be said, did not go all that well. The bridal march fell apart in a reasonably spectacular fashion, when I lost my place and couldn't work out which notes to play. I played some notes, but there was no way and no circumstances in which they could have been described as well-combined notes.

And Granddad died a couple of days ago. The parents didn't tell me yesterday because they didn't want to mess up this wedding for me (just as well?), but they did tell me when I called today.

And there is a random little insect on my settee. I hope that this is not a bad thing. Ah well - it's a random little squashed insect now.

So, it has been a busy day. I am tired. I still don't know what the hymns are for tomorrow, but at least the bed settee no longer lives in the front room and I can access the piano in the usual fashion; this will aid my practice. Tonight I get to sleep on a proper bed! Yay!

On which note, I shall start the going to bed process. It will be a long one today. I predict a nap tomorrow afternoon.

Saturday

2009-07-30T18:29:00.003+01:00

Saturday is when it all happens. I play for a wedding and HWSNBN leaves me. There is also potential for sofa moving and drunkenness. As HWSNBN is taking the main sofa, I have decided to take advantage of the Manly Muscles (TM) of Will, who will be visiting Serena that weekend, to get a little help with getting my house back into a usable state. Sometimes it can be useful being able to sit in the sitting room!

I also just promised to give my bed to James and Ailsa. This could be interesting, as I have been known to use my bed to sleep on, but I am sure that Serena will lend me one for the remaining month that I shall be spending in this house. If she will not, I shall steal the mattress she keeps under her spare bed - she really should have chucked it out years ago, but it will do at a pinch.

I have also invited James and Ailsa over to look at the rest of my furniture and let me know if there is anything that they would like. I can find it quite hard to let go of things, but knowing that there are people who might otherwise be without furniture should help to melt my heart of stone. Or something. I think that I am exaggerating - I suspect that they do have the power to obtain various items of furniture for themselves, including a bed, but I may as well take advantage of someone else's difficult situation to make mine a little easier - the parents will no doubt be very relieved if I don't have much crap that I am requesting them to store,* and relieved parents can make for children being greeted with more enthusiasm!

In other news, life continues to go on. Camping trips are being planned, festival tickets have been paid for, socialising with friends is occurring, and most activities outside work have been put on hiatus for a while, to allow me to get back into this whole "being a well-balanced person" thing. The anxiety is mostly not a problem, although I have had to put actual work into that this past week; it certainly has not been easy simply to coast along as I would like. The drugs are good, though; I am very glad to have started to use anti-depressants, as they certainly seem to be enhancing my ability to cope with life.

Now I am off to do some organ practice (Pachelbel's Canon is not going well! I must not mess up during the signing of the register!) and then off out for dinner. It should be an enjoyable evening.

*OK, so not having much crap is a pipe-dream, really. I have a whole houseful of crap, and if I manage to reduce it to 1/4 of a houseful of crap I will be doing impressively well.

A wedding

2009-07-19T23:14:00.002+01:00

So, there's this wedding for which I am playing on 1st August. When I was asked whether or not I would be interested, it seemed many months away. Now, it is actually quite close.

The wedding will be very traditional, insofar as the entrance music will be the Bridal March (except that it sounds much more expressive when I play it, I reckon. Oh, the joys of narcissism. But I have more wrong notes, so it's swings and roundabouts, really), and the exit music will be the Wedding March (again, a little staid. Still more right notes than my attempts, though). It's good repertoire to acquire as an organist, and will stand me in good stead.

There are hymns, also: Lord of all Hopefulness, Make me a channel of Your peace, and Jerusalem (none of mine comes up to the standards here - why is it that YouTube has really good hymns but not such good playing? I particularly dislike the second hymn - no idea why. You might like it - this is quite a nice little arrangement here).

Anyway, to get back to the point, it has been quite a struggle to prepare for this wedding, as my concentration has been, shall we say, somewhat lacking these past few months. Progress has been slow, to say the least. The pieces are finally coming together, mostly. There is still an awful lot of tidying up to get through, but it seems as though getting there in time for the wedding might now be possible!

Alas, progress has not been consistent. Lord of all hopefulness was fine last week, but now I seem unable to find the correct notes with my feet. This is often considered to be a disadvantage. Only by those who want correct notes, of course, but they do seem to be the majority of people who listen.

It is very frustrating to play a hymn correctly, then find that it is deteriorating. I am sure that it is a learning experience, and all that, but I had jolly well better have learned whatever experience I need by the time this wedding comes along.

I have just realised that this entry is particularly dull. I had hoped to come up with some witty insight about playing for weddings, but perhaps one should have some idea about the insight itself before making such plans. Methinks 'tis after my bedtime, and that I should be heading bedwards. HWSNBN is away tonight, so I get the real bed! Hooray!

Oh, and as I have been looking around YouTube, I found my favourite piece (because it seemed quiet when I had found all of the pieces I wanted to find, so I went searching). You really should listen to this. I hope one day to find a piece of music I like more than this, but don't really think that's going to happen.

Erm...

2009-07-16T01:04:00.004+01:00

Yeah. So that was, once again, a bit of a break between updates. I am being exactly the sort of blogger I expected to be. Ah well - it's good that I know myself!

I am not entirely sure that I want to say what I have been up to since my last update. I suppose that I shall start and see what comes out...

It would appear that I am not quite so good at coping with life as I would have myself believe. After a rough couple of years (not all that bad, but somewhat wearing - I mean, there was an awful lot of good stuff happening, but the stuff that failed to happen no matter how hard I tried apparently caused me to give up), it was brought to my attention that I was not actually coping very well with life. After a few weeks of trying to get better by positive thinking/additional free time/rest and relaxation/counselling, I came to the conclusion that my brain was not going to play to any suitable timescale. The anxiety just kept being there all the time, even when there was nothing for me to be anxious about. That was wearing, too. That remains wearing, I suppose.

To cut a long, only briefly sketched, story short, I went on anti-depressants a week ago. I think that I am starting to feel a bit better. Certainly, the anxiety feels less important. I have got very good at ignoring a low level of anxiety and carrying on as normal, and as coming across as a well-adjusted person with a sense of humour (sometimes even I believe it!), but that's not really enough; constant anxiety is just stupid, and helps nobody.

So that's the story of just me and my brain. There are other things going on, though. HWSNBN is due to be moving out at the end of August, if not before, in such a way that we will no longer be partners: a break-up will ensue. This has implications for my housing situation; I cannot afford to have a whole house to myself, especially since my hours have been reduced to four days per week. I must either find somebody else to move in with me, or get rid of some of my stuff (!?!?!) and find myself a room elsewhere. I am currently advertising for another housemate (HWSNBN would move out as soon as this person was ready to move in), but I think that I should probably actually just bite the bullet and move in with someone else. It will be good for me to get rid of some of my things, and will leave me better-prepared for moving wherever I need to move when my organ building career finally takes off (2021?).

The parents have been very supportive. Having just that morning discovered that my wing mirror had been removed in the night (£200 of damage!), I drove into my parents' gate post with the back of my car. It was the other side from the missing wing mirror, so there was no way I could pretend it was the same accident! Not that I would do that, you understand. Anyway, I went inside and cried at both of my parents about the car damages, my stupidity, and my boyfriend announcing his departure, and they fed me and gave me whisky. Not much whisky, though - they were being responsible, after all. They looked after me for a very pleasant couple of days (I don't take much looking after, really - just regular cups of tea and whatever food happens to be going). They also said that I am welcome to go and live with them any time, although they did say that if I moved my stuff into my house I was only to fill Robert's bedroom to the extent that he could still get to his bed. What's the point of being the eldest if I have to abide by that sort of rules? Anyway, I was thinking that if I put his bed in the garden, that would remove that problem: I'm hardly going to want to keep my stuff in the garden, as it would get wet. He can have my tarpaulin.

I am mostly trying not to think about HWSNBN's departure. Although it is the right thing to happen, this is the guy with whom I have spent the majority of my twenties. At one point I thought I was going to marry him (OK, so it was only for a couple of months, but even so...). It is going to be very sad. I am also going to be very financially vulnerable. Sadness tinged with fear! What a tasty little combination.

Ah well - hopefully the drugs will help me to deal with the mechanics of the situation, and I can finish processing it when I am in a happier place. I think I have done enough processing of my situation to be going on with, and would like a break from that sort of thing, really. It would be very nice just to be able to cope with life like a normal person again, even when ever so slightly bad things (such as needing to turn the flashy Internet box off and on again) happen. Even when bigger bad things (such as one's boyfriend leaving one) happen.

It's all OK, really. Certainly, things feel better. Not better better, but much less bad. I have demonstrated that I have both enough motivation and enough togetherness (wrong word - do you know what I mean) to publish a blog post. Actually, that isn't technically accurate as I type, but if you have read it, then it is.

So, watch this space. But please don't hold your breath - I would hate to be held liable for your death by accidental asphyxiation. (Note the concern I show for your life. I obviously value it very highly. Hmm - perhaps I should work on empathy.) Although if watching this space doesn't interest you especially, please feel free to miss that out. I mean, it's not as though I have any right, nor any desire, to order you about. And I can be rather annoying. For example, I should have stopped typing before I started this paragraph, but I did not. Clearly, I should not be typing this. Perhaps all of my pent-up motivation (insert hysterical laughter here) has been waiting too long, and is now unstoppable. Perhaps I need more sleep. Perhaps I should now make steps towards getting that sleep. Yes, that is a good conclusion. Night night.

Not all about felt!

2009-06-04T12:02:00.002+01:00

Yikes - after a very short period of what could possibly be charitably described as productivity, I have once again been a very bad blogger. So, what has happened that is of note since my last update?

Well, it looks as though I am likely to be allowed to work for four days per week (as opposed to the standard five) in the very near future. This is not yet guaranteed, but the signs are looking good. This would leave me one day per week free to pursue some organ building work experience. It looks as though this work experience will be able to go ahead, so perhaps I will make some actual progress in my life quite soon!

Of course, cutting down my hours does have financial implications. I have calculated* that I shall be one car payment per month less well-off. The car payments must continue, however - there's no way I'm letting something so useful and reliable go; its running costs are about as low as car running costs can get, and it is incredibly capacious. Also, it is shiny (although in dire need of a wash). To return to the point, I have started to cut down on what I spend (starting, of course, by paying a £200 car insurance bill - way to go!), which will no doubt be painful when I actually want to buy something. Oh, but I have just worked out that I should still be on slightly more money than I was on when I started this job. Wow.

It will be my birthday shortly. Mother has offered to buy the next lot of wool for felting that I want, and I really need to think about if there is anything that I really want that my other relatives could buy for me. I think that HWSNBN is getting me some tools (I should be able to return the borrowed tenon saw to Father; hopefully he hasn't noticed its absence, although he did see me using it when I did a little joinery work for him. I made sure I put it back in my box when he wasn't looking. Never have children - they steal your things). Because what I need in my life is more stuff! He should also be getting me a tool bag in which to store some of the tools, and also for transportation purposes - the tool box I acquired a few years ago isn't exactly ergonomically designed!

I think that I need to up my felt production. I have two friends' birthdays coming up on 9th and 10th June, and want to make felt flowers for them both. One, I think, will like an iris or two (not to be too challenging to myself!), but I have no idea what the other would like.

I am also fixing a felt bag for another friend. Whoever made it didn't pay enough attention to crossing over some fibres (as opposed to have them all running alongside each other), and the strap was coming off. I removed it completely, cannibalised it (so that I had some matching wool to repair it elsewhere), and put it back on with a join that would be invisible had the bag itself not faded ever so slightly - the join is slightly darker. Now I am poking the strap with a needle repeatedly, in order to strengthen it and avoid a repeat performance. After I have decided that this has been done enough, I must repair the tears in the back. I would also like to reinforce that a bit, with fibres running in different directions, in order to avoid a repeat performance. I have wool in a colour which very nearly matches, and a little of the strap, although some of that went to reinforce it where it was getting thin on the opposite side to that on which it snapped.

I love felt, though - it is so easy to mend! Granted, a needle and thread might be quicker than poking, but that requires you to be accurate all the time. Felt is slower, and accuracy kind of builds up over time. Ha! This bodes really well for a career involving lots of accuracy with wood! Somehow, though, even wood feels easier than sewing (with the exception of the sewing of hems - I am good at hems. Probably because it's the only sewing skill I practise regularly).

Now to make lunch. Soup, methinks. Then, perhaps, I shall achieve something.

*This is a lie. I plugged some figures into a website, which did the calculations for me. I hope that it has not made me look potentially better-off than I shall actually be.

A ramble that is hopefully at least vaguely coherent

2009-05-26T22:51:00.004+01:00

Today, I have nothing to say. I expect that it is refreshing for you that I am admitting this at the beginning of the post so that you don't have to wade through to the end only to come to the same conclusion.

I managed to get in twenty minutes of organ practice this lunchtime. It was crap. The organ on campus has a broken note at the moment, which really doesn't help things, but I think that it was my own despondency which was the big issue. So much for my happy weekend! Having said that, work did seem to go quickly today, and I was extra helpful to several of my bosses who were having a technologically inept day. I did all sorts of wonderful things with teaching Excel (in one case) and Ctrl + Alt + Del (in the other two - killed two birds with one stone, although there was a bit of an incident with an unrestrained Del and an Inbox). Ah, the joys of having knowledge.

Now I am in that living room I showed you the other day. Imagine it without the piles of felt; they are upstairs. Don't bother imagining the dark blue martial arts kit bag that is there instead, though, nor the spirit level and the drill which will shortly be helping the key rack and the new kitchen shelf to become attached to their permanent homes. Woo hoo - additional storage options! Does this mean that the house will finally become tidy? Does that sound at all likely? No, it does not. But some of the crap will live at an ever so slightly higher altitude, which will clear a small amount of space down below.

Oh, and in breaking getting rid of crap news, I gave away my old plate set today. It was sad to see it go. They guy made me feel a little guilty that I have so much crap I don't need in the kitchen; he is furnishing an eco house and therefore looking for pretty much everything. I gave him a rolling pin, but he didn't want my coffee table, nor did he want my letter rack. I didn't ask, but I expect that he didn't want any of my old clothes, either. He probably wanted my casserole dish and 40-piece non-matching cutlery "set", with more forks than anything else, which is perfect for parties as it is cheap, environmentally friendly, and I am not going to do anything I might regret if a fork goes missing (lose a fork from my main cutlery set, and there's no knowing what I'll do. Probably send you to Liverpool to acquire a replacement. As I am not convinced they still make my beloved cutlery set, this could be quite an expedition). But I should probably have given it to the guy - at least then I wouldn't have to store it. Having said that, I'm keeping the caddy it lives in; it may as well be full. So perhaps I am justified in not giving my spare cutlery away. You'll thank me for it when you come round for a party and you get to use it. Or perhaps it will be the main set that is being used, and you will start to develop mild feelings of paranoia. You might notice HWSNBN looking at you funny if you use one of the teaspoons in your tea, even though that rule no longer applies now that we have a dishwasher. I prefer not to tell people when one of my weird little rules ceases to apply; they might get complacent. Or perhaps letting them know that it no longer applies would be admitting that it was a silly rule in the first place (which, incidentally, it was not - tea stains do not come off stainless steel without either scrubbing or a dishwasher, and the scrubbing was not going to happen).

On that note, having acquainted you with a little of my unjustifiable weirdness and cemented my unsuitability to be around other people in your mind, I shall take my leave. I shall make a cup of tea. The teaspoon rule does not apply to me, because I extract the tea bag with my fingers. It hurts more when I have a cut.

In which I digress

2009-05-25T22:00:00.003+01:00

It has been a restful day today. It's a Bank Holiday today, and so I didn't have to go to work. I feel as though, after today, I am ready to start doing lots of useful things around the house. Alas, tomorrow I shall be back at work and so this tidying will not happen. I have done pretty much all of the washing in the washing basket, though, which is a start. Now all I have to do is dry the stuff - the drying racks are full and there is another load waiting to be extracted from the machine. That is, of course, assuming nobody has taken advantage of the open utility room door (to dissipate the yucky smell which appears to come from the washing machine) and stolen my clean washing and bicycle (UPDATE: they didn't). I think that they won't have been aware of the door's openness, and so will have missed out on this excellent opportunity. Poor things - the washing is almost smelling nice nowadays. It's amazing what a wash at "90 degrees"* with some spirit vinegar will do.

I also made a case out of felt. this case is to hold the anthem book I am borrowing from the Motherchurch, which is not getting on well with the button on the front of my organ music file.** When I started to make it, it looked as though it would be a snug fit. Apparently I have anti-felt - rather than shrinking, as felt is wont to do, this has expanded. My lovely little carry case has therefore gone the way of pretty much all of my fabric creations to date - it is too big. How frustrating. If only stabbing it further would help.*** I would put a photo up, except that I am not sure how to from flickr (could be something to do with re-sizing), and I left my camera at the parents' house. See - the excuses keep coming. This excuse lasts nearly three weeks, I reckon. I also gave HWSNBN's spare camera to the parents on Friday, and would not be so disrespectful as to use HWSNBN's own camera.

I have decided to make a case to carry my chisels, out of felt. I shall use Herdwick wool, as it is hardwearing and cheap. It would be a shame to use pretty wool when I can use manly, local wool, of the sort they used to use to make foundations for roads. Herdwicks are my favourite sheep.****

And now HWSNBN is demanding that I should go to bed. Early bedtimes are the way forward, apparently. I shall endeavour to acquiesce.

*I don't think that it has ever got up to temperature. I suspect it probably managed about 40 on that particular cycle. Come to think of it, I wonder why I don't wash more things at "90 degrees". I should check that one out! Perhaps the element is broken. I mean, I am only speculating that the water ever gets warmer than it is when it comes out of the tap. For all I know, it could stay cold the entire time. Oh, the joys of inadequate washing machines (although rumour has it that this one will tumble dry, also. This is likely to remain untested - the tumble dryer which lives on top of it has been demonstrated to tumble dry. But I don't like to put my clothes in it; only sheets and towels. This is partly to save electricity, and partly in case the tumble dryer goes mad and eats them all. Having said that, I will now go and put the clothes from the washing machine into the tumble dryer on cool for 20 minutes. That should help to ease the strain on the drying racks, insofar as what I put on them will be a bit less wet...)

**The anthem book is not getting on well with the button. The Motherchurch has not complained about it at all.

***Yes, I needle-felted it. Yes, it took approximately a whole day. No, it did not turn out how I anticipated. Do you have a problem with that?

****What's your favourite sort of sheep?

Living room, May 2009

2009-05-21T23:20:00.001+01:00

Living room, May 2009
Originally uploaded by Abi Optistatic

I said that I would show you some photos of the house when it was tidy. It has been suggested that perhaps I do a lot of work around the house, and I wanted to set the record straight about how effective my efforts actually are. To be fair, the living room normally doesn't have all of the felt paraphenalia, lying around, nor do I habitually keep wood on my settee. The bright green stool (back left, inverted) lives elsewhere and may return there soon, also.

I think that a case could be made for the necessity of doing the felting that needs to be done on the table (but it's so unfair! Wet felting is so haaaard!) and then getting the stuff put away in my room. Which I will show you another day (there's a load of drying out in there at the moment; I'll put that away first. You could be in for a long wait).

If you click on the photo itself, you should be taken through to flickr, and will be able to see the tags on the photo. I reckon that they are worth looking at; if I didn't, I wouldn't have bothered putting them in in the first place. You might not think that they are worth looking at, though, and that's OK. It probably demonstrates your more mature outlook on life, or something else similarly deep and meaningful.

Less opti, more static

2009-05-21T18:17:00.000+01:00

As you may have guessed from the utter pointlessness (and sparseness) of my posts recently, there is not a right lot going on in Abi-land. I mean, obviously I am having a great time fashioning small objects out of sheep hair, and my organ playing is slowly but surely improving. I am also getting better at standing on one leg and waving the other one around. My house is finally at a stage where one can get into all of the rooms (although HWSNBN's room remains a challenge - I am itching to re-organise it*), and that is very satisfying. I did lose a night's sleep on the project, but it was worth it to be able to enter and leave rooms at will, without any climbing involved.

What I really want to be doing is starting a career in organ building, but the progress that I am making is painfully slow, to say the least. Some uncharitable people might even say that I am making no progress at all at the moment. They would probably be accurate.

It is so frustrating being in this situation. I expended a lot of energy for a prolonged period of time to move on from where I am, and it came to nothing. Now I don't seem to have enough motivation to do anything constructive. It's a bit of a vicious circle, really: no optimism = no motivation = no movement = no optimism, etc. Well, there is some optimism, and a tiny bit of motivation, but not enough, really.

I sent an e-mail off to another organ builder firm requesting some work experience a few days ago. I am not really in a position to gain much work experience, as I work full-time and organ builders only work during weekdays, during which time I tend to be at work, funnily enough. I do have some holiday left, though, so if this guy replies to my e-mail in the affirmative, I might finally start to feel that I am getting somewhere again. This should lead to improved blogging, which is the important thing.

And yes, I am aware that my "oh no! I can't get started on my perfect job!" complaint is a wonderful complaint to have. I am truly grateful to have such excellent problems. It's just that excellent problems are still frustrating ones, and losing the motivation to improve my situation annoys me an enormous amount.

Now I shall stop complaining for a bit, and hope that the quality of my blogging magically improves. Good luck to me!

*Re-organise? Where did that come from? I don't think that it has been organised since we moved in here. Perhaps organise would be a better word. Re-arrange might work...

Some felt flowers

2009-05-19T11:42:00.002+01:00

Yesterday evening I had a cold. I have a cold today, for that matter. Being a charitable sort of person, I decided not to spread it around my martial arts group (especially as two of them work at the hospital - way to let the viruses roam around the community!), and so spent the evening at home. I made flowers out of felt.

I have come to a couple of conclusions. I don't think that I will ever be able to make felt flowers quickly, and should probably just aim to be efficient. I am also not keen on wet felting - you don't get to see the progress you are making, and it takes a lot of effort. I shall try unsuccessfully to see whether wet felting will occur in the dishwasher, and then look at different ways of making needle felting work for me, I think.

Yesterday, I made a cherry blossom and started to make a lily. The cherry blossom is OK - it needs a bit of tidying up. I don't know how good the lily is, as I have only felted half of its petals; I imagine that it will be OK.

Having expected to have a really enjoyable evening doing practically nothing, I actually felt a bit bored. Very frustrating! Perhaps it is because (as evidenced by my recent blog entries) I am a bit boring. I think that perhaps I ought to schedule a few more commitments so that I can miss more things and thus enjoy my free time more. OK, so I was missing martial arts, but I think that perhaps I believed in my excuse a bit too much.

Photos of the felting to follow, assuming I manage to post them. Please do not hold your breath!

Also, more interesting posts to follow. Again, holding of breath would not be advisable.

A rose for Rose

2009-05-15T18:24:00.000+01:00

A rose for Rose - finished!
Originally uploaded by Abi Optistatic

I am experimenting with putting pictures onto the blog. I have been failing miserably so far, but am determined to make it work! This is the first attempt...

It was my friend Rose's birthday last Sunday. As she seems to like handmade things, I was considering giving her some of my new "sandalwood" soap, but was hit by some actual inspiration. As you may already have guessed, I decided to make her a rose out of felt. You can see the result. Hopefully.

A few things have struck me. Firstly, I need to incorporate the wire which supports the stem into the flower itself early in the construction stage. It was a pain in the backside trying to conceal the end of the wire after I had made it, and even after I'd had a really good try, distorting the centre of the rose in the process, it still wasn't quite right and made itself another hole. Building the rose around the end of the wire would have meant I could have got the end felted securely beforehand, and I could have built the flower round it quite easily. I might even have managed to make it look like the centre of a rose...

The other thing that strikes me is that I really need to do some work on my posting of photographs. I could do with finding a background which is better than my dirty old settee (yes, the cover could do with a wash. Why do you ask?). Given the state my house is in at the moment, I don't imagine that it will be easy to find much free space, but I should at least work on getting a good (clean) white background to put on the settee.

The final thing which has struck me is that I need to re-size my photographs before I put them on flickr - perhaps if they were smaller I would be able to make them display on other webpages, and would not use up quite so much of my monthly allowance. Not that this is likely to be a problem, of course, judging by my efforts so far.

Felt flowers

2009-05-14T18:18:00.000+01:00

This evening I have a bit of free time! Hooray. I mean, it's not entirely free as I have to get the house a bit tidier so that we can fit in a few friends staying overnight on Saturday for HWSNBN's birthday, but I will have a bit of space to sit and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer while creating flowers out of felt. I am going to have a go at making pretty ones which I can sell on Etsy. I don't yet know whether or not I have this capability, and probably won't be too disappointed if I do not, but I figure that it's worth a go.

I recently made a rose for Rose, and it turned out quite well in my humble opinion. The stem took forever, and was not entirely anatomically correct (leaves don't appear to go on the stem on which the flower grows; they seem to prefer stems coming off that stem. Also, its internals were made of wire and wool; real stem internals have tubes for moving water and nutrients around. I am less concerned about the second inaccuracy than the first); next time I may well end up with a shorter stem. Perhaps I will also make hair clips and hairbands. Even brooches may be an option.

My current project is a viola. As in the flower, not the musical instrument. It is a tiny bit more hefty than I originally planned - I was thinking that a viola was about the same size as a pansy (which it is not - violas are tiny), and I think that I had an exaggerated petal size in my head when I planned the first petal. I am going to have to consider future flowers more carefully! The rose was a good size (about what I was aiming for - perhaps a tiny bit on the little size, but not significantly so), but the viola is a leviathan of a thing.

I have also resolved to put some photographs up. To this end, I shall keep a usb cable in the living room to facilitate the transfer of images. We shall see how effective this resolve turns out to be.

Have a great evening (or whatever it is that you are about to have)!

A little bit of nothing, and not very much

2009-05-07T22:55:00.004+01:00

Oh, the tyranny of the blank screen. I am waiting for an e-mail to come in so that I can reply to it, and am trying to do something productive with my time. Here's a list of things that writing this blog post is more productive than:

Writing "sentences" like the previous one. Seriously - a preposition at the end of a sentence? And that's just the beginning of that sentence's problems.
Taking the washing out of the washing machine and hanging it up to dry. Washing doesn't need to dry, anyway.
Tidying the front room. I like it so full of stuff; it makes me feel safe.
Designing a new cabinet for the kitchen, which would both give me an opportunity to practice my joinery skills and provide some extra storage. Who needs joinery skills? And what's wrong with keeping tins in plastic boxes on the kitchen table?
Cleaning the utility room. Far too dark for that crap.
Writing snarky e-mails to Daddy about how he should name his files something other than scan0001.bmp. Hang on - I'm multi-tasking and accomplishing this as well! I suggested scan0003.bmp as a viable alternative.
Organ practice. It's not as though that improves my playing, anyway.
Making a birthday present for Rose - she probably doesn't really want one anyway.
Going to bed. I am not tired in the slightest. Ho hum.

So, as you can see, writing a blog post is clearly the way forward and could not, in any way, be described as procrastination. And, as the writing is superb, it is a treat just to be able to read it. I would never get myself a reputation as a person who writes about nothing from writing like this, would I? Hello? You still there?

Then, of course, comes the question - do I leave it as it is: a finely-crafted essaylet* about how useless this blog actually is,** or do I try to form an awkward segue (is that the right word? I don't think I've ever used it before) and try to introduce some actual content. My instinct tells me that the former is the way forward, so I only have myself to blame when this next bit doesn't work at all.

This evening's plan was to come home from work as soon as was reasonable, eat a quick dinner, and then spend a couple of hours at the Motherchurch practising on the organ. Unfortunately, I was short of dinner ideas and we ended up going for pork chops with mushrooms and creme fraiche. This takes an hour to bake; by the time I had finished eating it was nearly 10pm. Also, I'm tired, and practice has been arduous and unrewarding this week. I know that this means I need to try harder, but it makes it harder to try harder. I think that I shall be winging it this week. I bet it goes well, too, unlike my last lesson, before which I had a practice session in which I sounded something like an organist, and a lesson in which I sounded like an impostor from the days before I played the organ.

Well I have eaten plenty of food, at least. That can be my achievement for the evening: that, and annoying my parents. I have promised to cut out some specific pieces of wood for them, though; they should be pleased with the results, assuming I am suitably accurate. It will be good practice for my upcoming cabinet, though. I can make the mistakes on someone else's wood.*** My cabinet will then be perfect. Naturally.

Nope - I'm broken. It's pretty much all sarcasm from now on. I had better go and reply to that e-mail instead. I am sure this sarcasm will be very well-received.

*It's called poetic licence.

**And also about how ineffectual I tend to be.

***Only kidding - I don't make mistakes!****

****Gigglesnort.

Internet in a box

2009-05-06T18:31:00.000+01:00

Finally, over two months after moving to our new house, we have the Internet back! Instead of it residing on a silly little stick (which I had to plug into the laptop via an extra-long USB cable, before balancing the stick on the top of the bottom sash window in the bedroom, and wrapping the cable round the fastener for support, meaning that the only place from which I have been able to access the Internet is sitting in HWSNBN's spot on the bed), it now resides in a slightly less silly box, which spreads its lovely Internet rays around the house, to be intercepted by some network thingy box or other, which sends the Internet rays about the house in such a way that the laptop recognises them as friendly and Internetty, and stuff. At least, that's how I understand the process. What this means is that the Internet is faster, I am allowed to look at pictures (the stick is pay-per-byte; pictures are too big for it), and I can access it anywhere in the house! Last night, I sat downstairs on the settee and wrote an e-mail.

Next thing you know, I'll be having a housewarming party.

This weekend was a bank holiday, and so I did what any self-respecting woman would do: I made soap. I kind of suggested that I might be available to lead a soapmaking workshop on a specific date a few weeks ago, but when the time came round I was overwhelmed with moving, and hadn't yet found my palm oil (which is the cheapest one - I eventually found it on top of a cupboard in the front room, a couple of weeks later), and so I cancelled the workshop. This Monday, I taught one of the people who would have come to the workshop how to make soap. I think that she enjoyed herself.

We made two soaps. The first was supposed to be sandalwood, but I can't afford that and had to use amyris instead. It smells a bit like sandalwood, I hope. The only requirement for the second soap was that it should be purple. It turned out pale green. I think that perhaps I went wrong somewhere along the line. My next soap will be purple, though: I shall use paler oils and more pigment. I shall also avoid listening to pigment suggestions from somebody who has never made soap before.

Actually, my soaps had far fewer massive bubbles in than usual - I am obviously doing something right. Fewer bubbles means that I can give more of them away as gifts, and don't have to fob them off on unwary passers-by, who don't necessarily want to be taking home small piles of soap with them. It also looks as though I might know what I am doing, and that I might possibly care about how my soap looks.

And now my brain is so overwhelmed with tiredness that it is refusing to come up with ends to sentences; perhaps I ought to stop now, before the quality of this post deteriorates further.

A bit of a verbal meander

2009-05-01T00:00:00.004+01:00

This is my contribution to Blogging Against Disablism 2009.

I kind of agreed to write a BADD post a little while ago, but have very little idea about what I should write. I want to write something deep, meaningful and thought-provoking, but I get the impression that one should be deep, and have meaningful thoughts, in order to fulfil that brief; this post will not be deep, meaningful, nor thought-provoking.

Of course, this post would be better if I had any personal experience of disablism, but I don't: my temporary able-bodied* status is still going strong. As such, disability issues are not at the forefront of my mind. I also feel that I don't really have a right to join in with this event - the closest I have ever come to experiencing disablism is getting salad for lunch while everyone else eats lasagne, because nobody has bothered to order me a decent gluten-free alternative** (although the vegetarians were catered for; that's not even a dietary requirement, for goodness sake!). I did, of course, get the smug satisfaction that they were getting fat while I was not, but this was tempered with the fact that I was eating lettuce for lunch. Alternatively, I occasionally get a big, tasty-looking meal while everyone else gets crappy sandwiches, and I end up feeling conspicuous and guilty - as though I am trying to make a point that I am more special than everyone else.

I suppose that this does have some bearing on disablism, though. I mean, it's a thouroughly trivial example of a petty discrimination which ruins a few meals for me (seriously - I had to eat salad!), but it does give me a tiny insight into what people with an actual disability might feel when their needs are not being met, and also when their needs are being met. I mean, there is a certain amount of stigma attached to being disabled. I gather that some people do not want to advertise their disability, and that receiving accommodations for this can be tricky. I don't necessarily want to tell people that I can't eat gluten - it makes me sound like a faddy eater, possibly the sort who wants attention. Logically, I think that very few people look down on me for not eating gluten (although those who decide to cater for me have to be at least a little bit annoyed), but I still don't want to single myself out. Although I would rather do that than make myself ill, of course.

It's all about exclusion, isn't it? When adaptations are made readily and with the minimum of fuss, people can feel included and welcomed. It is so exciting going to a barbecue where there is food that I can eat (i.e. probably not sausages or beefburgers), as I don't have to stand on the sidelines feeling hungry and wondering why I bothered in the first place. It shouldn't be exciting - it should be normal (although this is an extremely trivial example - it's just a bit of food. I often bring/make my own now. The best beefburger I ever had was one I made myself). It is presumably the same with an actual disability; quietly facilitating what needs to be facilitated without making a fuss should make a big difference to how that person experiences things. Anyway, one should be kind to people. If everyone were just kind, disablism would be much less of a problem.

So yes, I have a, erm, useful perspective, and can contribute ever so much. Hmm. Perhaps I had better stick to expanding my own mind.Oh, the joys of having such a narrow and limited perspective.

So, what should I be doing to be less disablist myself? I sort of feel that I am doing OK - I try to offer to help people when they look as though they are struggling, and stuff. I often feel that I have so few interactions with people with a disability that this is not an issue which concerns me, in general, though. Having said that, I don't necessarily know whether or nor somebody has a disability; it is not as though a special badge or uniform is required, is it? I don't see that my role is to do any more than to treat other people as I would like to be treated if I were in their situation, being mindful that their situation may be more difficult than I realise; I should be as tolerant of other people as they are of me! I think that if this rule were to be applied, the only disablism which survived would be due to ignorance of other people's needs. I suppose that this is still a bit of an issue (to put it mildly), which is where Blogging Against Disablism Day comes in. I shall take a lot more out of today than I am putting in. Well, I suppose that I could hardly take less than this measley little post.

Do I have a greater responsibility? Should I, rather than simply trying to be good and kind, and to include people wherever possible, should I be campaiging against disablism? Or working towards pointing out things that need changing (in that way which annoys people so effectively) and making what changes I can.

So, people, apologies for my uneducated stance. Do let me know- other than not being quite so shallow and thoughtless, what should I be doing differently?

Oh, and it has become apparent to me that I do have a bit of a problem, known as "inability to construct an argument". Sufferers have to endure the jeers of unenlightened people saying that their blog post is rubbish, and they often get poor marks in their essays. They may also put their foot in their mouth and, only slightly knowingly, say something rather offensive. Sorry about that. The accommodation that I require is for people to prevent me from putting my "thoughts" on the Internet.*** Alas, this is not one I have received today, and I shall have to endure the consequences (as you have already done). ;-)

*I expect it is my mind which is more likely to be a cause for concern, anyway.

**Full disclosure: eating gluten causes (engage euphamism mode) my digestive system to run a little more quickly than usual (disengage euphamism mode), with the sort of discomfort which can come with that, it makes me feel slightly sick, and sometimes gives me a headache. It helps me to lose weight, though, as I don't feel like eating when I feel sick. None of this is the end of the world, and I will eat gluten occasionally (especially if, for example, I have turned up at a wedding and forgotten to tell them about my dietary requirements. Not that I would do that, of course; that would be irresponsible), but in general I prefer not to feel sick, and I dread to think what it does to my micro-villi, so I try hard to avoid the stuff.

***'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.
Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865).
Conversely (and my justification for joining in)
As you grow older, you'll find the only things you regret are the things you didn't do.
Zachary Scott

Lovely shoes

2009-04-25T23:48:00.003+01:00

Today, we went to a wedding. It was in a very posh old house in Lancashire, and a friend drove so that we were able to enjoy lots of alcohol. Judging by how sober I currently feel, I did not exploit this opportunity to its full potential. I expect that I will be glad of this tomorrow, though.

The big news is that I wore my wonderful pretty black strappy (yet also ballet-shoe-like) shoes today, and they were comfortable! I am paying per byte of data at the moment, and so I cannot post a picture of them (also, I haven't yet gone quite so far as to persuade anyone to take a photograph of my feet). I am also uncomfortable with promising to post a photo of them at some future point in time, as this then means there is another thing I can fail at. Please just imagine black ballet shoes with a little heel, but slightly nicer, and with a strap which wraps round the ankle. If you are imagining them properly, you will probably see why I am so pleased that they are comfortable.

The wedding was fun. We saw birds of prey, which is something we don't get to do every day (although HWSNBN does most Sundays). The food was excellent. I had forgotten to let them know that I shouldn't eat gluten, and had to live with the consequences of this. The starter was a tasty tomato, goats' cheese and pesto tart (I ate the top, and pretty much avoided the base), the main course was chicken, sauce and vegetables (the sauce so had wheat in) and dessert was a roulade (made of meringue - it traditionally doesn't have wheat in, but this tasted a bit funny...). Now my tummy doesn't quite feel happy, but the consequences could have been much worse. They still could be, for that matter!

Afterwards, I was able to fob loads of things off on my friend. She wanted a pestle and mortar (I had one I really didn't need), an magnetic knife holder for a wall (ditto - unused) and probably nothing else, but I was also able to give her a candle holder, some soap that I made and haven't yet used and a load of other random body products. It has obviously hardly made a dent at all in the amount of crap I have around the house, but every little helps. It also means that I don't have to take some of that stuff to the charity shop, thus saving me some effort.

I did some organ practice

2009-04-22T17:15:00.003+01:00

I went to do a bit of organ practice at the Motherchurch after martial arts yesterday.

As I have already discussed, I used to be quite nervous in a big, dark church all alone, but have managed to overcome that, mostly. Alas, yesterday I took a bit of a step backwards. On the committee in which they decided whether or not the female organ scholar should be allowed to use the organ scholar keys, apparently one lady was genuinely concerned for my safety. Presumably this, combined with the dark, isolated, surrounded-by-many-places-to-hide car park, made me think that perhaps there was a risk of being attacked, or something. I went into the church with trepidation, and exited it with trepidation also.

This is very annoying. The Motherchurch feels like a safe, welcoming place, and being scared is a bit too girly for my liking. No doubt a few more sessions of turning up late and staying later will reduce this.

I did get some fairly good practice in. I have realised that I am not even trying to find which pedal I am supposed to play by feeling for the ones that stick up, and so decided to do some sightreading to make myself try harder. I think that this worked a bit. I am also getting to grips with a couple of the pieces that I am playing. Not up to a suitable standard, of course (this is still me we are talking about - my standards are very high, but I do not quite have the capability to live up to these standards), but they may one day get there. I have to get good at this thing at some point!

Time off drawing to an end...

2009-04-15T00:03:00.004+01:00

Well, my little holiday is very nearly over. I feel like my biggest achievements during the period have been eating approximately a quarter of my bodyweight in chocolate and other sweet things* and making the dent in the settee a little deeper. However, this would be doing myself down. I also knitted a few comparatively neat rows in my current project,** without creating any additional stitches for long enough for them to become incorporated, and decorated the larger part of a room within 24 hours.

Damn - now I've given away the best bits. I may as well stop writing now for all the entertainment it will give. But, you know, I have over a week's worth of bloglapse guilt to assuage, and so I shall jolly well give a better account of how I have used this past week.

The week off started with a visit to the parents' house. They have better Internet than I do at the moment, but I do not blog from their house so that they do not accidentally stumble across this blog due to it being in that little bar thing into which one types web addresses. It would be a disconcerting blow to discover that their dearest darling daughter indulges in such a waste of time as blogging. Given my track record for wasting time, however, it should not surprise them too much, if they think about it.

That visit ended with a successful kidnapping attempt - on the Saturday evening, we left with Anne aboard. She did not put up much of a fight, and I scarcely had to use any force at all. Poor child. On Sunday morning she came to church with me (babysitting facilities are not excellent around here), but sulked significantly less than last time we tried that trick - it was very hard to tell that she was sulking at all. After church, we went to a local seaside resort to visit the supermarket, and I spent nearly all of my money. In a supermarket. Yes, I did feel a little stupid when I realised what I had done. I also felt a little broke - for this past week I have been living on £2.88 and my overdraft. Payday is tomorrow, thank goodness.

Upon leaving the supermarket, I realised that the car park was a pay and display one. Fortunately, nobody had done anything about my lack of a displayed ticket (although I would have been arguing strongly against a parking ticket, having just given the supermarket most of the rest of my money). Then we went home and I proceeded to make lunch, eat lunch, and sit on my bottom in a most unproductive manner. Anne put an end to my sitting, eventually, insisting that we should go to the Motherchurch so that I could get some practice in before my lesson that afternoon. Thank goodness she insisted then - I arrived just as Mr T, the choirmaster (you didn't know Mr T did choirs, did you?) arrived; he was setting up for the Girls' School's evening concert rehearsals, which were due to start as soon as somebody actually turned up. I got in about 10 minutes of particularly essential and productive practice, without which my lesson would have been extremely embarrassing, before rehearsals started and we scarpered. I did another hour of hanging around, dragging the unfortunate and remarkably patient Anne with me, then returned for my organ lesson. This went well, thank goodness; my last-minute practice was not in vain!

This having been achieved, we returned home and started on the serious business of making Easter eggs. I must say, if one is to engage in this tiresome task, a minion is practically essential. I don't know how I managed without one for so many years. We didn't make any, on account of it being quite late in the evening, but it was a start.

The next morning, HWSNBN was at work, and news came that he was off to Slightly Foreign Parts the next day with work, and was to stay there for a couple of days. Anne and I sprang into action: we went to the paint shop and bought carefully-calculated amounts of white and magnolia matte emulsion, some brushes (have just remembered that one still needs cleaning) and some white gloss paint, plus some sugar soap for cleaning the walls, but no rubber gloves, and in the process spent pretty much the rest of my money. Anne carefully stashed these away under the stairs, with the other paints, so that HWSNBN would not notice them upon his return home. Which he did not, as he does not look under the stairs habitually, and also they were with the other paints (the ones that came with the house) - camouflage!

Oh yes, and we also made about 12 full-size Easter eggs, plus a whole load of mini ones. I stayed up until 1am making sure that the last one was ready to set quietly, without causing any trouble. I did some painting while I was waiting - I painted some squares in different shades of pink, purple and blue. My artistic flare knows no bounds.*** I would like to say that I didn't go over the lines (yes, I drew out a grid first) once, but I think that it would be more accurate to say that I stayed within the lines about 20 times (i.e. there were 20 lines that I did not cross - in other words, probably about 15 squares had one or more edges which were as I intended). And some of these times I stayed within the lines, I then went over the line from the other direction, thus negating all of my good work. There is an excellent reason why I do not call myself artistic.

The next day dawned bright and early. We stayed in bed for ages. Well, HWSNBN didn't - he went to work at the usual time, then went to Slightly Foreign Parts at about lunchtime. We started emptying the room as soon as we were suitably conscious, and started to wash the room as soon as we were able. About 1 1/2 walls in, Some Guy, Serena's person, came round for lunch. The poor thing had to wait until we had finished washing the walls before I fed him. This took a while, during which time we discovered that the Mysterious Stains (there were two really mysterious ones, one of which had been hiding behind the curtains) would wash off with a judicious mixture of sugar soap and elbow grease, and also that whoever painted last did a truly shoddy job.

After lunch (to disclose a bit more, I started to prepare lunch at about 2.30, I think. Bad me - terrible hostess), Some Guy helped to rinse the walls. He was much better at it than Anne, possibly because he had more to prove, possibly because he had a longer reach, possibly in order to illustrate the importance of choosing one's minions carefully and not just taking one because she puts up little resistance and hugs one a lot. I think that is a bad way to choose a minion. Anyway, after that had been accomplished, Some Guy left, and we started to paint.

Oh, how I love to paint! The washing of the walls tends to be tedious (although these were less so than usual by virtue of their small size and interesting markings, and because it was so satisfying), the rinsing of the same moreso (same again, but with less motivation), but the painting is great fun! Obviously, I did the ceiling first - if one does this, one can be as messy as one likes at the edges and then tidy up later with the wall paint. Whoever painted last had obviously not bothered with the ceiling (nor with proper edging techniques) as there was a ring of blue paint round the boundary between the wall and ceiling; I was determined to do a better job. Although I would probably have done a better job than them had I painted the room using my hair as a brush, such was the poor effort they made.

Anne did a bit of painting too. I must confess that I didn't let her use the roller nearly so much as I ought, as it is my favourite bit and I am a greedy big sister. Fortunately for me, Anne is very tolerant and adoring. Silly girl. She didn't use the brush much, either, although I do not rate that as a fun job and was mostly just saving her the effort.

After that, I decided that we should have take-away for tea. The one I wanted to visit was shut, but we stopped at a cash machine by it. This is when I discovered I had a bank balance of £2.88. Anne decided that pancakes for tea would make an agreeable change, as she mostly has to eat sensible food. So that is what we had. They were very nice, and we had 1/2 of 1/5 our daily fruit and vegetable allowance each from the lemons we squeezed onto the pancakes. I only had to reprimand Anne once for excessive application of sugar, although I must confess that I only checked it once...

Then we (I) did the gloss paint. That was satisfying. The old gloss was quite horrifying, and this new stuff made a big difference. Once again, we got to bed extremely late. This time, Anne had to share with me as I had packed her bed away and she didn't want to sleep downstairs with the slugs.

The next day was Ikea day! Of course, I was late. We had to put some items back within the newly-decorated room and I had to re-paint the gloss that was visible (some skirting boards, round the window, and all stuff associated with the door), but then we visited the marvellous store itself. Wow. There were lots of items of furniture. The bed frame I want was reduced. I had to not buy it because it was too big for my bedroom. I did get some large lampshades, some waste paper bins, a shelf for the kitchen and some mini-shelf-things for my room. Then I forgot my credit card PIN, and had to use the joint account card instead. Whoops. Still haven't remembered that PIN. That is probably for the best.

Then I de-kidnapped Anne, and returned her to her rightful owners. I stayed for dinner, then went home at night while the traffic was quieter, and drove straight into a massive queue, in which I sat for about 40 minutes.

The next day I tidied up a lot more, then spent a couple of hours wrapping paper boxes in wrapping paper. This made the boxes prettier, and got rid of some excess wrapping paper. Now I only have about 3 years' supply. I also realised that the old paint I had used in my room (there was some left over from a previous decorating attempt. It was the appropriate brand and colour, and I decided not to waste it. Had I not used it, I would have run out of paint; it turns out that my careful calculations were relying too heavily on the truthfulness of the coverage written on the side of the paint tin, which were not entirely accurate), which had smelled a bit funny, was probably a bad idea; the room smelled funny. A bit like eau de cat wee - not the parfum, but a subtle smell designed to repel gently. I opened the windows and burned some fragrance oil. I also discovered that different sections of the wall smell different - it is possible to tell where the old paint was used, and which sections got lucky with new paint. I think that it will get better as the paint stays in situ for longer.

HWSNBN arrived home just as I had to set off for church. This was lucky, as my car had a dishwasher in the back; in a total lack of plot continuity, this appeared on Wednesday evening when my parents relinquished it to my care as they had a new one. I took HWSNBN's car, and thus didn't turn up to church with a dishwasher in tow. I am not sure what sort of a statement that would make.

After the church service I had plans to return home and cook dinner. Alas, these were messed about with my another choir member who asked me if I would accompany them to the pub. I apologised and said that I would not be able to come and then let my guard down. This was a mistake - he said that I should come just for one drink, and I did. We tried to go to the usual haunt, but it was full of people who thought that Maundy Thursday was an excellent excuse to go out drinking, and ended up in a much refurbished and new-ownered pub which had previously been quite dodgy. Somebody bought me a drink (which was good, as I had no money) and some cheese also turned up. Bonus! The choirmaster and organist were there, and there were a few male choir members and a hanger-on. All of the female choir members, with the exception of myself, are under the age of 18 - I don't think that women accompany them to the pub very often. It was a pleasant experience, though.

HWSNBN didn't seem particularly upset by my late return home, although he was not entirely impressed with the dishwasher extraction process with which he then became heavily involved. The dishwasher was moved to the kitchen with only a minor amount of fuss, and is still sitting in a thoroughly inappropriate place, which will not permit any actually washing of dishes to take place within it. I may remedy the situation tomorrow...

The next day, HWSNBN was at The Field, working on getting a large shed-type structure up. I went to church at 2pm, then to the choir practice at 6.30 - it was a big one, in preparation for Easter. I went to the pub again, and I was able to furnish some actual information about the organs that will be installed in the Motherchurch, hopefully starting within the next year or so. That was nice - it is fun having actual information. I did not, however, have enough, and could provide no information whatsoever on the pressure of air that would be used within each organ, nor the pressure within the extra loud trumpet they are having installed. I rushed back from the pub, only to find that HWSNBN was still in the vicinity of The Field. I did see the second half of the first bit of the new Red Dwarf thingy, though.

Saturday was a day of little happening. I was lazy. It was nice. Except that I had realised that I hadn't actually made an Easter egg for Anne. I think that I may have overcompensated a little, by making her the biggest, most Smartie-filled Easter egg I have ever made.

Sunday, of course, was Easter. The service was fine, and people generally didn't seem to notice the obvious deficiencies in my voluntary at the end - same old triumphant thingy, and still full of mistakes. It's not complicated, but requires a level of technical proficiency I obviously do not try hard enough to attain. After church was lunch, followed by visiting HWSNBN's mum, then my parents, followed quickly by dinner at my aunt and uncle' house. There, we went fishing. Uncle McMillan's big goldfish are living in the higher of two ponds, connected by a little overflow. They spawned, and the babies fell into the lower pond, thus deftly avoiding being eaten. Now he has more fish than he knows what to do with, and so gave some to Mother. I managed to catch six at once, and therefore I won (because that is what it's about). I also think that I caught the biggest one, although I didn't see the big one the others caught and therefore have no actual evidence on which to base this. They were all being infuriatingly non-competitive about it, anyway.

We played a board game as a family which did not descend into any type of warfare, open or otherwise. This was a bit weird. I wonder if it is the combination of HWSNBN's calming influence (he plays by the rules, and stuff) and having three teams, none of which was entirely composed of men. Anyway, our team won. It was quite lucky, I suppose. I had to mime "sick as a parrot", and was fortunate enough to be standing next to a parrot in a cage at the time. Most people do not have that advantage. They didn't get my Indiana Jones for ages, and they didn't get Del Boy at all, despite my making it perfectly clear that I was driving a three-wheeled vehicle. HWSNBN's "passion wagon" was hampered by the steam he kept drawing out of it - it really did look like a train. But it is the winning that counts, of course! Actually, I particularly enjoyed the friendly spirit in which it was played, almost as though the losers would not be executed at the end. Which they were not. So that was nice.

The next day, I managed to sleep in until 1pm. Apparently, I was tired. Anne built a "tree" "house", which was more like a stump shelter, but which was nonetheless rather a fun structure. The parents keep some particularly good scaffolding in their garden and basement, which is the basis for many excellent climbing frames. This was no exception. It was good to climb on, and had some planks. I spent much of the afternoon clearing out some of my crap from the landing outside my room in the parents' house. I am glad that task has been started.

Today I have done little. I took the car for an MOT (it failed - needed new windscreen wipers, which it now has) and ate some prawns and chocolate. I knitted a bit, then went to martial arts, then ate some more. And I read a book. Lovely day - wish that I could have similar days all week. Alas, tomorrow is my last day off, then I have 2 days of work before the end of the week. Oh, and HWSNBN is back in Slightly Foreign Parts, but I have no more decorating to do. I may settle for plumbing in the dishwasher, although I shall have to watch its first cycle so that I can get mopping if necessary.

Oh, and I read the Goldfish's post about blogging against disablism day. I really want to participate, but I have no clue what to write about. I suspect that I will fail to come up with anything profound (I will probably come up with something like "be nice to disabled people; they are inspirational" and end up with death threats) and will thus not write anything and pretend it never happened, while reading others' submissions avidly. Does that sound bad? Time to start digging, then! I tend to find that the standard of writing for Blogging Against Disablism Day is very high, and have my own theory as to why this is. It is as follows: disability does not discriminate; it affects really intelligent, eloquent people, and also affects people who are less so. Many of the intelligent, eloquent people who become disabled find themselves with time on their hands that they would not have had without a disability, and so they write blogs. Because these blogs are interesting and well-written, and I know about them, I read them. I then find that I am enlightened, to an extent. Of course, I am still me, and still very clumsy, and therefore most adept at saying thoroughly inappropriate things; enlightenment can only take me so far when I have this nasty little habit of putting my foot in my mouth and leaving it there for long periods of time. Anyway, nobody will ever read this far, so my ravings are safe until somebody types an offending phrase into a search engine and notoriety (in a weak, crappy way) ensues.

And on that note, having attempted to spell "foot" as "fut", I think that it is time for bed.

*OK - I exaggerate - probably about 1/120 of my bodyweight, if that.

**A scarf, of course. I figured it was best not to start too complicated.

***People whose artistic flare knows bounds such as, for example, the lines they are meant to stay within sometimes do better at art than I. Let me tell you, those geography lessons in which we had to colour in maps were a nightmare. I also couldn't seem to colour very evenly. Additionally, my handwriting has always been terrible. Model pupil, me.

A Break :-)

2009-04-03T17:54:00.000+01:00

Another week is nearly over. Next, I get some holiday!

I have really been looking forward to this holiday - it would be an excellent chance to catch up on everything in a relaxed fashion if it wasn't for the fact that I am me and will therefore either pack my days so full that I don't get any time off, or sit around watching the television. HWSNBN was due to go to Dublin for the first week, which would have meant that I had the house to myself and could get on with tidying, etc.. I don't know what is wrong with me, but I only really seem to be able to motivate myself to tidy when I am alone in the house; people are very distracting.

Of course, I have Anne coming to stay with me for a few days. I shall be removing her from her home on Saturday evening, and returning her (via Ikea - she's a strange child and likes that sort of thing) on Wednesday afternoon/evening. This will disrupt the tidying, but will facilitate the Easter egg making; she should have the enthusiasm I am so sadly lacking after so many years of chocolate pouring.

If HWSNBN does go away, we will also launch a sneak decorating attack on my room. It has a mysterious stain on one of the walls, which somebody has tried so hard to remove (unsuccessfully) that they have scrubbed though the magnolia paint to the blue paint beneath. There is also blue-tack liberally dotted over the walls. Our contract says that we are not to use blue-tack, but apparently previous tenants have not felt constrained by this. Mother has some special anti-stain paint I can use as an undercoat over the mysterious stain and the blue-tack marks (when the blue-tack has been scraped off, of course), so they shouldn't represent a long-term problem.

HWSNBN does not want to decorate any of the house at all. He doesn't seem to like it very much, and thinks that the best thing to do about this is nothing. I am finding this very hard - I have a very strong decorating instinct. I want to paint all of the dodgy bits so that they are shiny and clean*. He just wants to move out as soon as possible. I suppose that decorating does affect him a bit, as he has to put up with the furniture being moved about while the walls are being washed and the paint is being applied (unless he is in Dublin, in which case he could return home to a shiny** new room. I don't think that this would go down very well). I don't quite understand how he can just live with the peeling window frame and dodgy colour-co-ordination in the bathroom. I suppose he can't, really, which is why he decided that we wouldn't move here. Even so, it's frustrating!

The Ikea trip could well be very productive. I need to buy three bins (one extra for each of the extra rooms we have in this house, and one for joinery) two rails for hanging up pans in the kitchen and a partridge in a pear tree. Or perhaps just a small set of shelves onto which I can put some boxes full of food, in lieu of a suitable number of cupboards. And, of course, I shall end up buying some random crap I don't need. At this exact moment in time, I can't think what else I could possibly want, but I don't think my resolve will be quite so strong when I see some random shiny thing I will suddenly wonder how I ever managed to live without. Oh. It's started already. I need (really, really need!) some large round paper lampshades for the ceiling lights. The previous house was tiny so we had to buy tiny lampshades so that it didn't look stupid, and so that we could get past them. This house has high ceilings, so we can get away with big lampshades. If Ikea doesn't have them (it doesn't have them in the biggest size, which is the one my parents need for their house; hopefully the next size down will be available) I can go to Habitat in Chester. This is always fun. It's a few steps up from Ikea, both design-wise and price-wise, but it is difficult not to buy the pretty things.

The organ playing is coming along slowly. I have managed to get in a few hours this week, although it has been a struggle. The prelude is starting to sound quite good, although I can't even get through the first page without making a mistake (or at least a slip), let alone the other three, but I think that a few more weeks work will fix it. I will then get to play that before or after one of the Sunday services. The Priere a Notre Dame looks really easy, but is actually really hard. It is coming along painfully slowly. At least if it looked a bit hard I would find the mistakes less frustrating. The hymn I am playing is getting there; I get most of the notes right, and am managing not to hit additional keys while pressing the magic buttons that change lots of stops at the same time. Well, most of the time, anyway.

Tomorrow, I hope to convince Dave the Organist to let me have a go on his organ for a few hours. I could really do with the extra practice, and his organ is one of the better ones on which to do this. It's really nice, and quite large; its tone is impressive. I started to learn to play the organ on it, and it is always fun to re-visit it.

I really want to learn some new stuff, but I'm having enough problems with what I have already. It is very frustrating! Some of the stuff I want to learn is reputed to be quite difficult, but I like a challenge! Except for while I am actually working on overcoming the challenge, at least. But when the challenge has been overcome it can be satisfying.

Have a great weekend!

*Well, matt and clean, anyway; I always use matt emulsion, as silk emulsion annoys me. Shiny walls are the devil's work. They show up every imperfection, and although I don't mind a bit of imperfection in my walls, I certainly don't want to advertise it.

**See * (Sorry - couldn't resist. Yes, my life is dull.)

Excuses

2009-03-30T18:48:00.000+01:00

Already, this turning up to practise thing is not going well. I managed to stay late on Wednesday evening, and that was all the extra practice I managed.

Of course, I have some excuses. On Thursday I was doing joinery until 9.30, then I had to put up shelves in my room, but ended up talking to my parents for an hour. On Friday, there was somebody already there, practising. On Saturday I spent too long talking, then too long at The Field preparing the potato bed for being dug over, and had to prepare dinner on my return; after dinner, I was a little too drunk to be driving to church. On Sunday, I went out for lunch with Brian, and when I arrived at church after that, Mr P, my organ teacher, was already there. As he had a recital that evening, I thought that it would be better not to bother him; I went to sleep in the car instead. No point in driving home and back again when I have a comfy car. I don't think that anyone noticed - the car park was nice and quiet, and I didn't have any car seat marks on my face (yes, I checked).

Naturally, this week will be different. I shall go there and get an hour in before Postgrad Group, and Wednesday will also be fruitful. I may actually manage to go there on Thursday after joinery (the threat of very little extra practice before my next lesson will, no doubt, give me a little extra inspiration).

Yesterday, I played for the first time before the service in the Motherchurch. It went well, considering. I think that I got faster as the piece went on; this is because I was told that I had 2 1/2 minutes, and had better get a move on. I was told to relax, as there was no hurry, towards the end, adding credence to my theory. I think it ended up a better speed than it started, though. Most of the notes were correct...

I was a lot less nervous than I expected. It helped that it is hard to see the congregation from the organ console. It also helped that I am getting to know that particular piece of music quite well now. I think that it will be harder next time, though - I shall not be playing a piece selected specifically because it looked easier than the other pieces, and was by somebody famous; I shall be playing a piece selected because I thought it sounded very pretty, and I could download the score for free.

This morning, I played for my first funeral. The St Isidore's organ is getting sicker and sicker, and it was certainly a challenge making it sound passable. I didn't quite manage to rise to the challenge (because I am not made of magic), but it was a reasonably good attempt. Because of the cracks in the soundboards (the wood containing the channels which take air to individual pipes), when enthusiastic chords are played some extra notes creep in intermittently. This makes the player sound really bad. There are also some notes missing - I couldn't play one of the pieces I wanted to play because there weren't enough notes. One of the stops is profoundly out of tune, too. I was really lucky that there were a lot of people there, as the loud stops were more in tune than the quiet ones. Of course, playing the loud ones with the quiet ones sounded dreadful both times (no, I do not learn especially quickly. Thank you for asking), but the second time round I came up with a back-up plan. All in all, I was happy with how it went. I need to get in touch with the guy who built the organ, though, and see if he is up for spending several hours poking it over Easter. It may be a lost cause, but if it were a lost cause which played in tune at least fewer people would notice.

And it has just occurred to me that I still have not prepared anything for Palm Sunday, nor for Easter Sunday. I shall have Anne in tow for part of that practice time - I haven't worked out what I will be doing with her while I practice. I might just leave her alone in the house with Red Dwarf and my phone number. If HWSNBN is there also, they can watch it together. It really is essential viewing, especially as some actual, real, new episodes of Red Dwarf will be showing over the Easter weekend - it's important to refresh the memory about what went on before.* The downside to this is that it means that my DVD collection is no longer complete.

*It is not even slightly important to refresh the memory. This isn't Harry Potter, or anything. But it is nice to refresh the memory. Red Dwarf is, at least, more child-friendly than some of what resides within the DVD collection.

Keys

2009-03-26T08:31:00.000Z

Apparently, I am to be given keys at the Motherchurch, which will enable me to practice whenever the church is open. I am to receive them this evening, so perhaps this is when the extended practice sessions are to commence...

Actually, now that the prospect of actually doing extended practice sessions is very nearly upon me I am feeling slightly less enthusiastic. I think that this is only natural - I am about to take away the various assorted bits of free time I keep handy in case I want to sit on my bum doing nothing, and put them into a large, possibly cold building in a situation which will involve lots of work.

Also, now if I fail it will be my fault. So far, I have been able to blame my bad playing on lack of access to the instrument, but that will not be an option from now on. If I do not make the effort to turn up frequently and put in good work (I am very prone to putting in some good work, then getting distracted and starting to play any old nonsense) then I shall not improve. I think that this is what the problem is - it's not a problem with being unhappy about devoting time to practice, really

Given that failure is not an option, I am sure that it will all be fine. The MSc worked out in the end, and this has got to be easier than that! I should at least avoid the issue of writer's block - it's never hard for me to find something that needs practising.

This evening, of course, is choir practice. I spent quite a while working on one of the pieces yesterday evening, but when I played through it at the end of the session it was almost as though I hadn't bothered. I hope that it will have consolidated itself overnight (it very frequently does, and I wonder when, exactly, I managed to learn a particular bit of music); I have another 15 minutes to play with this evening and then I must be off to collect my keys, and face the music (as it were) with respect to my lack of practice.

Additionally, I must remember to push the "publish" button, to ensure that I don't end up posting a day later, and getting all sorts of error messages. Duh.

The weekend is here!

2009-03-20T15:47:00.004Z

Hooray! A chance to drop items off at charity shops, and refill fabric conditioner bottles; to play the organ in a small variety of different contexts; to feel bad about not having the time to visit Mother on Mothers' Day; to get up late on Saturday.

Only two more weeks before the Easter break. I get nearly two weeks off at that point, which will be a relief. I shall kidnap Anne and force her to make Easter eggs for my family, and attempt to achieve large amounts of organ practice while the church is open, thus heartily annoying anyone who wants to actually go to church to sit quietly and peacefully. If one is doing it correctly, the majority of organ practice should probably be quite boring to listen to.

I shall also hopefully get a chance to recharge my batteries, and may be able to write better afterwards. How I wish that I could stop feeling so tired! I might write something less deeply unsatisfactory than this post. That would be a novelty.

Itchy again

2009-03-19T10:03:00.003Z

Ooh - over a week since my last post. How time flies!

We are making progress on the settling in front - we have a wardrobe in the bedroom, and I have a) realised that I have far more hangers than could be considered to be reasonable, and b) started to hang up some of my clothes. Today, for the first time since moving, I was able to locate and wear a skirt. This is excellent news, as my legs are amazingly itchy at the moment. They woke me up this morning at about 2.30, and are not really playing nicely at the moment. I kind of want to do something drastic and make the itching go away, but mostly I think that I should let it do its thing until I see a doctor on Monday (for something completely different) so that he can perhaps give me some insight into why they are so horrible. When I scratch them, they look like bad teenage boy pimple-face, but without the really nasty bits. But I think I just crossed some sort of boundary there, so I shall return to the subject about which I was trying to talk.

The other bit of progress we have made is that we have the other bed-settee. It is a bit too big for the room in which it is currently residing (the front room), but I don't think that it can go anywhere else, so it will just have to deal with that. It's a bit of a joke, really - as settees go, this one is quite tiny. I am in awe at how much stuff we actually managed to fit into the previous, smaller house. Of course, when everything is settled here it will seem a lot more spacious than the previous house. There will hopefully be an occasional bit of wall without furniture against it (although I shall be honest - so far I have always seen that as an excellent opportunity to acquire more furniture to help to store the crap which invariably covers my house. I aim to stop doing that now, and possibly even look at getting rid of a piece of furniture).

Yesterday evening I gave the bread maker to Serena, who will pass it on to her mother. I am glad to be rid of that! I only used it once, and have never had a space to allocate to it in the kitchen. The next step is to get rid of all of the rest of the crap that is earmarked for disposal. I foresee a couple of arduous charity shop trips this Saturday (arduous because what I shall be carrying will be bloody heavy, and possibly also quite unwieldy), followed by a fresh sense of awe at how much crap remains.

This evening, I shall have the evening off! No places to be, just a house to tidy and dinner to cook. Sounds relaxing, does it not? HWSNBN's mum and sister are coming round tomorrow evening, and so I feel that I should make the effort to make the house look like the sort of place where it might be nice to live. Yes, this will be a challenge, but just think how much fun it would be to have a house with usable rooms! I can't even remember the last time this really happened.

Actually, I can. Yesterday, while I was attempting to make my room look a bit better, I stumbled across a box full of old photos. Flicking through, I found loads of photos of my old student room. Ah - those were the days! It was a very large room, and had to serve a variety of purposes: bedroom, kitchen, dressing room, office, living room and menagerie. It had a load of guinea pig hutches and cages set up in the corner, with the occasional guinea pig allowed to run round the floor. I had forgotten how shiny the guinea pigs used to be! I would make an effort to scan in some photos and post them up except that a) I am too lazy, and b) the floor had a lot of sawdust on it, and I wouldn't want you to know about that. You would be able to see how slack I am capable of being around the house.

There were also photos of my baby sister when she was still tiny - they were very cute indeed. She really did look like my little sister then. Alas, with all of the looking at photos I got distracted and never did manage to finish sorting out the bookcase in my room, so that I could put some actual books on it. I did, however, manage to get some skirts and a dress put into my wardrobe, meaning that I got to wear a skirt today. A full-length one, of course; it's rare that I wear any other sort (if I am being honest, this is because they are all slightly smaller than I am thin at the moment - I'll get to wear them again one day, I am sure). This is great - it hides my hideous, itchy legs. Except when I hitch it up because the fabric is making my legs itch. Thinking about it is making my legs itch at the moment, though, so that's not really much of an achievement.

I am so tired. Apologies if none of this makes sense. Right now, I'd like to sleep for a long time.

Meh

2009-03-11T11:43:00.002Z

It's a bit of an uphill struggle this week. I have no free time (I know - who could possibly have predicted that?) and even if I fill all of my time with things I need to do, I still don't have time to get everything that needs doing, done.

For example, last week I managed about four hours of organ practice. I knew that this wasn't really enough, but what I was playing seemed to be coming together quite well. At the lesson, it became apparent that I ought to be looking at doing twice as much practice to see if that would get me up to a suitable standard. This week, I have managed 20 minutes so far. I should manage another 30 minutes this lunchtime, if the church keys are handed to me this evening I should get another 30 minutes to 2 hours (30 minutes looks more likely - I am tired and need to get to bed on time) after choir practice, and there is a good chance I will manage 30 minutes tomorrow lunchtime, also. After that, there will be no other opportunity to practice before my lesson. Therefore the best-case scenario is that I manage 3 hours 20 minutes, and the likely scenario (I am SO not going to get the keys this evening) is up to 1 hour 20 minutes. Really not enough time. I now need to cancel my lesson for next week. However, after that I should hopefully have the church keys, and I also will not be going to London for a while, so I can really start to get into it.

Where does this leave HWSNBN, though? Does he want me to be unavailable every waking moment? Did he get into a relationship with me so that he had someone to share a house and a bed with? I think that he did not. Especially not this house.

Ah well; time to soldier on, I suppose. It will probably not get much worse than it is today (choir practice this evening and I still cannot play the pieces properly), and it may even get better at some point. I can't help but feel that I am neglecting a lot of important stuff at the moment. This is, of course, because I am neglecting a lot of important stuff at the moment.

Moving, part 4, plus beer and tiredness

2009-03-06T18:20:00.000Z

The boring non-saga of settling into our new house continues. The settee is in its rightful position and orientation in the living room, and more floorspace has been unearthed. Yesterday evening we moved a desk, a bookcase and a cupboard; a good evening's work. If there had only been five minutes available, anyway. We are slowly getting rid of small amounts of crap (you would be amazed at how popular guinea pig cages are on Freecycle around here!), and HWSNBN has initiated a campaign to get rid of some of the out-of-date food we have lying around. It would be the out-of-date food we have in our cupboards, except that we don't have any cupboards for food. Perhaps we will reduce the scale of this problem over the weekend by putting up a large ugly metal shelf in our shambles of a kitchen, and putting the food on this, within boxes. I imagine that its top shelf would be an excellent place to store HWSNBN's large pasta container, which usually lives far too high-up for me to reach.

Tomorrow evening there will be a beer festival. Of course, as I can't really consume gluten, I shall not be drinking any beer. It's a pity that the day after the beer festival is a Sunday, really; I might be tempted to go for it anyway and justify any illness I end up with as being the price one pays for drinking beer. Nobody gets off scot-free.* As I shall be being a good girl, I can only hope that they have good cider.

It is excessively cruel** taking me to a beer festival and not allowing me to sample the wares. I love good beer, and the beer at a festival should often be better than most, although the cider at the cider festival I attended was not all the best (nor was HWSNBN's feeling of wellness afterwards, for that matter).

Before the beer festival, we are to have dinner at our favourite local Indian restaurant (our favourite Indian restaurant is a Bangladeshi one (did I just contradict myself? Alas, I have the geography knowledge of a successful beauty pageant entrant) near the previous house, but this one does sherbet!). Anyway, it promises to be a tasty meal. There will be severe penalties for those who do a reverse performance of dinner, so I am hoping that everyone is nice and moderate.

Last week, when I opined to HWSNBN that he should be careful not to get too drunk at this beer festival, I was treated to the information that beer festivals are fine; one does not really get drunk at them. Cider festivals, are the problem, apparently. I asked him if he had ever met himself, but he remained steadfast; one does not get drunk at a beer festival. We shall see whether or not this anti-logic is true. I mean, we already know that it is not, but we will be able to see this for ourselves tomorrow. By "we", I do not include you, of course. I will not be blogging on Saturday after the beer festival. I mean me, HWSNBN, Serena, and HWSNBN's friend and his girlfriend, should they decide to come with us.

Now I am tired. I want the house to be set up neatly, and for me to be able to go to sleep for a long time, but instead I must go home, tidy up, then go off to do more organ practice for a couple of hours, return home and re-arrange some more furniture. We may have guests staying on Saturday evening, so we have to have both space in which to put them, and bedding to keep them warm. A challenge indeed!

*Does anybody know the origin of that expression? Would they care to enlighten me? I am too lazy to look in Wikipedia, apparently.

**Crueler, even, than taking me to a chocolate eclair factory.

Moving, part 3, felt and choir practice

2009-03-04T17:52:00.000Z

That previous post was very dull indeed. Sorry about that. Now it has been said, and hopefully I won't be moving again for a long, long time. I want to be here for a year!

Yesterday evening I managed to excavate my piano. There is also a space in the middle of the living room floor: my re-arranging skills are resulting in a great tessellation of furniture. You would no doubt be amazed (or perhaps bemused) at some of the corners I have created.

Paniceth not.* The landlord will be coming this evening to remove all of the furniture that belongs to him (with the exception of the Lovely Chest of Drawers, which is taking up too much place in our bedroom and may be evicted, should we be unable to find a suitable home for it. This may, however, simply end up in another room within the house), thus leaving space for us to arrange our own furniture in a more advantageous manner. Once this has happened I can move my piano into the front room and move the settee from its precarious position upright next to the bed and into the living room. There might then be space in the bedroom for a wardrobe, and I can then start to unpack my suitcases full of dresses.

On Saturday, I should be going into Town. I am teaching a feltmaking workshop on Monday and need to try to obtain enough foam pads to ensure that people are at a substantially reduced risk of stabbing their own legs repeatedly (although only the really stupid ones** are likely to stab themselves repeatedly, and they probably deserve it. Who doesn't learn from being stabbed and take steps to avoid it in future?) by inserting a big thick thing in between the needle and their legs, and I should also be able to take a load of old clothes to the charity shop which will also help the mess in the bedroom (or perhaps we will have moved the charity shop box to a different room by this point). *** While I am in town I shall, of course, have to obtain more stuff. Other than the foam pads, I also want wire so that people can make frames for their felt creatures. I think that I have enough wool to go round (I just ordered some in varying shades of brown, in case they want to make conventional animals. It has just occurred to me that I have no black and should probably try to get hold of some black wool and also some beads for eyes. Thank you, blog, for making me think), and I have also purchased enough needles for up to 20 people to make their own felt creations. I am a bit low on scissors, but that should be easy enough to sort out.

I am dreading letting the marauding hordes get their hands on my wool selection, though. Although I am generally a very untidy person indeed, I am ever so slightly obsessive about making sure that every single wool is back in the appropriate bag as soon as I have finished my felting session (unless I am working in a single colour - it is acceptable to have one small piece of one colour left out). I think that I will end up with lots of bitty pieces of wool put back in bags containing very similar shades, which just will not do. Having said that, hopefully most people will not be using very many different colours, and will be able to keep track of where their bag goes. I think that I have about 40 different colours now, and there are only about four sets of two colours which are very hard to tell apart from each other. Unless, of course, there are colour-blind people present.

Tonight is the first choir practice in which I am required to play the piano. The pieces I am learning are not ready. One of them cannot be ready in time, but I may be able to force the other one into shape between the end of work and the practice. I do hope so; otherwise it will be very embarrassing.

*Not really a smooth flow from one paragraph to another here. Also, is that the correct form of panic for a plural?

**I include myself in this number.

***Was that the worst and most confusing sentence I ever wrote? I do hope so, insofar as I hope that I have never written anything worse than that.