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
Showing posts with label Serena. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Serena. Show all posts
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Thursday, 30 July 2009
Saturday
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.
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.
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Itchy again
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.
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.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Moving, part 2
We are installed in our new house. The move went very well, considering. I sort of want to write a big long post containing everything that happened (I know that if this were a blog I read, I would feel cheated if the writer were to fail to do so for me; one day I expect I shall read this, and may be disappointed with the omission) but I am too tired. I shall write and see what comes out. The whole story may well do so... Additionally, I have told the story so many times that it bores me. But you have not heard it yet, and so you might not be bored by it.
So, the move started on Friday evening. Actually, it started on Friday lunchtime. I went round to the house and covered a couple of carpets with Shake & Vac (Neutradol edition) and hoovered (well, dysoned) one of them, before running out of time and getting stuck in the supermarket when somebody with many items beat me to the checkout and didn't offer to let me go first (which I totally would have done for her as I am perfect in every way, of course; my slight indignation is therefore perfectly well justified).
After work I went back to the house and covered all of the remaining carpets with Shake & Vac, and dysoned all but two of them. I then swept the kitchen and was working on finishing dysoning the living room (the penultimate carpet) when the parents, Robert and Anne arrived (HWSNBN was staying at the old house and packing, which was very kind of him). Mother put the dinner on, Anne and I went to Serena's house to acquire some chairs (it's so much fun having neighbours with chairs!), and then we had a tour of the house and started assigning curtains to rooms. Then, having failed to get any curtains up, we ate dinner. This was a beef casserole, with peas, fried new potatoes, peas, peas and peas, and was very tasty. As were the peas. I have learned that one bag of frozen peas is more than sufficient for feeding five people.
After dinner, the work really started. People started cleaning cupboards and walls, Mother did an amazing job of cleaning the grill, and I slunk upstairs to clean the bathroom. The magic vacuum cleaner came out and started vacuuming under the sink, and new and amazing discoveries were made in the kitchen cupboards. One of the back boards has rotted through completely, which is very yummy. HWSNBN has put the pans in that one now.
By 10.30 we were fed up. Robert and Father went back to the old house, and Mother, Anne and I went to pick up the van (I collected the keys for the van at 5.30, but didn't want to drive it any further than necessary, nor to park it on my new street). It was much better than the last van we hired from that place: it liked to go in straight lines.
When we got back HWSNBN and I loaded up boxes from the front room into the van, found bedspace for everyone and went to his mum's house to sleep in our bed settee, which currently resides in her spare room.
Wow. I have no idea whether or not this is boring you, but it is not exciting me. If you give up at this point, you are forgiven. If you gave up earlier you are forgiven, but you may never know without reading this bit...
Saturday morning happened next, as is its wont. We got up really early (for me for a Saturday morning, at least; not early by most non-students' standards), and were ready to start the move by 9. By 10 we had a vanload of stuff ready to go, so HWSNBN and I set off together in the van. We picked up German 1 on the way (although we had to leave behind his wife and baby due to lack of space), and had a quick run round the house to pick up curtains and move the landlord's furniture into one room for easy collection by him, before starting to bring the boxes into the appropriate rooms (we started off so well!). When that was done we returned home and started to load the van again. We were starting to get hungry and Mother was making lunch (bacon and mushroom butties) and cups of tea, so this took a long time. German Wife was wanting to walk to the new house with Baby, so I felt really bad about the time it was taking, especially as I had given an unrealistically optimistic estimate about how long we would be taking. We finally got the van loaded and put German 1, Robert and HWSNBN in it, then I went with Father to HWSNBN's mum's garage to collect a load of boxes in his estate car.
Now it occurs to me that this is getting extremely boring. Suffice to say it carried on a bit like this until 7.30, with Mother doing an excellent job of cleaning the old house and packing the occasional box while I tried to be useful and mostly just managed to be inefficient. At 7.30 we gave up for a bit and all went to the new house. Serena and I went out looking for dinner. The Chinese take-away we both adore was closed, so we had to go to the one we used to frequent the year after I graduated, when I lived in the centre of Town. I think that they eventually understood about making two of the dishes gluten-free (I had no gluten-type repercussions), and dinner was received enthusiastically. Mine was very hot. I don't think that I will have that exact dish again.
After dinner, the parents worked to make the new house ready for the night and HWSNBN, Robert and I went to move heavy things (such as the washing machine) from the old house to HWSNBN's mum's garage. By 11.30 we had finished this and loaded the van with a lot of the rest of the contents of the old house, including the fridge. By 12.30 we had returned the van and got to Serena's house - we stayed there overnight as she has a spare bed and we did not have enough space for beds for six people. Serena's mattress is very nice indeed; I want one like that!
On Sunday I did not have to go to church, so we went round to the old house and cleaned/emptied it. Mother and Father were amazing, and cleaned/moved massive amounts of stuff between them. I could only marvel at their efficiency (really, helping would have been more useful). After a while of ineffective helping, I went outside to get the garden ready. I emptied plant pots and planted bulbs, then sorted plant pots (well, delegated the task to Anne in the form of the "stack the plant pots in size order" game, with which she was not delighted), then swept the path repeatedly.
We also had lunch. Mother was delighted with her discovery that a pan lid makes a great emergency plate. Anne tried to spread butter with a fork. Much merriment was had by all. HWSNBN finished the ice cream, except for the really dodgy-looking bit at the bottom.
When that was mostly over, the parents, Robert and Anne went home. It was sad waving goodbye to them from the last time from that doorway. We loaded the car, then went ourselves; we were due at Serena's for dinner.
(Running out of steam here, you will be glad to hear.)
Serena cooked a lovely diner for us. We only had 30 minutes for dinner, as I had to be at Motherchurch for evensong and an organ lesson; it was very generous of Serena to cook for us under those circumstances.
Evensong was confusing. I didn't know what was going on, I lined up wrong, and I had to sight-sing some pieces during the service. Not really very easy! It will get better, though. One of the men in the choir was saying that he had just been thinking that the choir should get some female altos, so apparently my timing was good.
After that, I had my first organ lesson for nearly a decade. I have picked up some bad habits. The lesson went well, considering, but hopefully next week's will go better. I think that the main thing that I established was that I have to work on using my toes effectively and appropriately (the insides of the toes are fine to use, but the outsides are not), and on being able to find the pedal notes by feel, rather than relying on just knowing where they are. Being able to do that will improve my playing a lot, and should also make it a lot easier.
We started to look at a piece I got close to OK a few months ago. Apparently it is a hard piece. This made me feel a bit better - I thought that it was an easy piece but that I just wasn't very good. It turns out that the hardest bit is yet to come: I have to use the swell pedal!
Let me tell you about the swell pedal. Many organs are built with one section of pipes in a large box. This box is called the swell box, and the pipes are linked to one manual (normally the top one if the organ has three or fewer manuals); this is known as the swell organ. Shutters on the side of the box can be opened and closed to make the music louder or quieter by means of a large pedal in the middle of the piece of wood - it pivots, and when the top is closer to you the box is closed; when the top is away from you, the box is open.
Anyway, I have to be able to use one foot on the pedals, and one on the swell pedal: I have to operate the swell pedal while also moving the other foot around to play different notes. This is hard. Two hands and one foot each doing a unique thing involving much pressing is one thing, but when the second foot (and it varies which the second foot is, according to the music) has to do a different thing in a different place while the first foot carries on as normal that is a whole new matter. My co-ordination is terrible (although it is improving!), and so far I have not been able to do both actions at the same time. I think that I shall have to practise with just the pedals first. I need to be OK at this by Sunday, at which point I have another lesson. Hmm.
After my lesson I went home and worked on getting the house looking better. When I got back I saw that HWSNBN had made an excellent job of tidying the kitchen: some of the equipment had been put away and there was space down the middle of it. I was impressed. I worked on getting the bed ready (and failed at this - I got too cold in the night and nearly pushed HWSNBN out of bed by moving towards him to get the heat. Alas, he moved away from me, repeatedly, and then there was no bed left for him) and some clothes put away.
We got to bed late. I was very tired the next day and am still very tired now. It is hard to think, and I do not know when I will next be capable of doing anything useful other than unpacking. I'm not even doing well at that now - I need the landlord to come and get rid of all of his furniture so that I have an extra half-room with which to play.
So at the moment the house is a complete tip. The main settee frame is leaning against the wall next to the bed, there is no wardrobe to hang things so my dresses are still in suitcases around the bedroom, my room has a clearing, HWSNBN's room has a desk and a computer network (what can I say? He works fast), the living room is slowly being unearthed and the front room is full of unwanted furniture AND wanted furniture, books, DVDs, coats and other as yet unidentified boxes, plus a few plants thrown in for good measure. The curtains are closed today because there is no way I am making my way over that assault course before breakfast.
On the positive side, the bed is good and I have my underwear. I will soon have clean trousers in sizes that fit me, and bits of the kitchen are well-organised. The bathroom is not terrible (depending on where you look), and the bath fills up very quickly. Also, the house feels like home. I think that I will like living here. The bedroom feels like my sort of space, and the kitchen is growing on me (probably in the literal sense). I am happy to be here. Terrified about the playing I must do tomorrow evening (must unearth the piano to practise!), but pleased with how things are going. Yay!
So, the move started on Friday evening. Actually, it started on Friday lunchtime. I went round to the house and covered a couple of carpets with Shake & Vac (Neutradol edition) and hoovered (well, dysoned) one of them, before running out of time and getting stuck in the supermarket when somebody with many items beat me to the checkout and didn't offer to let me go first (which I totally would have done for her as I am perfect in every way, of course; my slight indignation is therefore perfectly well justified).
After work I went back to the house and covered all of the remaining carpets with Shake & Vac, and dysoned all but two of them. I then swept the kitchen and was working on finishing dysoning the living room (the penultimate carpet) when the parents, Robert and Anne arrived (HWSNBN was staying at the old house and packing, which was very kind of him). Mother put the dinner on, Anne and I went to Serena's house to acquire some chairs (it's so much fun having neighbours with chairs!), and then we had a tour of the house and started assigning curtains to rooms. Then, having failed to get any curtains up, we ate dinner. This was a beef casserole, with peas, fried new potatoes, peas, peas and peas, and was very tasty. As were the peas. I have learned that one bag of frozen peas is more than sufficient for feeding five people.
After dinner, the work really started. People started cleaning cupboards and walls, Mother did an amazing job of cleaning the grill, and I slunk upstairs to clean the bathroom. The magic vacuum cleaner came out and started vacuuming under the sink, and new and amazing discoveries were made in the kitchen cupboards. One of the back boards has rotted through completely, which is very yummy. HWSNBN has put the pans in that one now.
By 10.30 we were fed up. Robert and Father went back to the old house, and Mother, Anne and I went to pick up the van (I collected the keys for the van at 5.30, but didn't want to drive it any further than necessary, nor to park it on my new street). It was much better than the last van we hired from that place: it liked to go in straight lines.
When we got back HWSNBN and I loaded up boxes from the front room into the van, found bedspace for everyone and went to his mum's house to sleep in our bed settee, which currently resides in her spare room.
Wow. I have no idea whether or not this is boring you, but it is not exciting me. If you give up at this point, you are forgiven. If you gave up earlier you are forgiven, but you may never know without reading this bit...
Saturday morning happened next, as is its wont. We got up really early (for me for a Saturday morning, at least; not early by most non-students' standards), and were ready to start the move by 9. By 10 we had a vanload of stuff ready to go, so HWSNBN and I set off together in the van. We picked up German 1 on the way (although we had to leave behind his wife and baby due to lack of space), and had a quick run round the house to pick up curtains and move the landlord's furniture into one room for easy collection by him, before starting to bring the boxes into the appropriate rooms (we started off so well!). When that was done we returned home and started to load the van again. We were starting to get hungry and Mother was making lunch (bacon and mushroom butties) and cups of tea, so this took a long time. German Wife was wanting to walk to the new house with Baby, so I felt really bad about the time it was taking, especially as I had given an unrealistically optimistic estimate about how long we would be taking. We finally got the van loaded and put German 1, Robert and HWSNBN in it, then I went with Father to HWSNBN's mum's garage to collect a load of boxes in his estate car.
Now it occurs to me that this is getting extremely boring. Suffice to say it carried on a bit like this until 7.30, with Mother doing an excellent job of cleaning the old house and packing the occasional box while I tried to be useful and mostly just managed to be inefficient. At 7.30 we gave up for a bit and all went to the new house. Serena and I went out looking for dinner. The Chinese take-away we both adore was closed, so we had to go to the one we used to frequent the year after I graduated, when I lived in the centre of Town. I think that they eventually understood about making two of the dishes gluten-free (I had no gluten-type repercussions), and dinner was received enthusiastically. Mine was very hot. I don't think that I will have that exact dish again.
After dinner, the parents worked to make the new house ready for the night and HWSNBN, Robert and I went to move heavy things (such as the washing machine) from the old house to HWSNBN's mum's garage. By 11.30 we had finished this and loaded the van with a lot of the rest of the contents of the old house, including the fridge. By 12.30 we had returned the van and got to Serena's house - we stayed there overnight as she has a spare bed and we did not have enough space for beds for six people. Serena's mattress is very nice indeed; I want one like that!
On Sunday I did not have to go to church, so we went round to the old house and cleaned/emptied it. Mother and Father were amazing, and cleaned/moved massive amounts of stuff between them. I could only marvel at their efficiency (really, helping would have been more useful). After a while of ineffective helping, I went outside to get the garden ready. I emptied plant pots and planted bulbs, then sorted plant pots (well, delegated the task to Anne in the form of the "stack the plant pots in size order" game, with which she was not delighted), then swept the path repeatedly.
We also had lunch. Mother was delighted with her discovery that a pan lid makes a great emergency plate. Anne tried to spread butter with a fork. Much merriment was had by all. HWSNBN finished the ice cream, except for the really dodgy-looking bit at the bottom.
When that was mostly over, the parents, Robert and Anne went home. It was sad waving goodbye to them from the last time from that doorway. We loaded the car, then went ourselves; we were due at Serena's for dinner.
(Running out of steam here, you will be glad to hear.)
Serena cooked a lovely diner for us. We only had 30 minutes for dinner, as I had to be at Motherchurch for evensong and an organ lesson; it was very generous of Serena to cook for us under those circumstances.
Evensong was confusing. I didn't know what was going on, I lined up wrong, and I had to sight-sing some pieces during the service. Not really very easy! It will get better, though. One of the men in the choir was saying that he had just been thinking that the choir should get some female altos, so apparently my timing was good.
After that, I had my first organ lesson for nearly a decade. I have picked up some bad habits. The lesson went well, considering, but hopefully next week's will go better. I think that the main thing that I established was that I have to work on using my toes effectively and appropriately (the insides of the toes are fine to use, but the outsides are not), and on being able to find the pedal notes by feel, rather than relying on just knowing where they are. Being able to do that will improve my playing a lot, and should also make it a lot easier.
We started to look at a piece I got close to OK a few months ago. Apparently it is a hard piece. This made me feel a bit better - I thought that it was an easy piece but that I just wasn't very good. It turns out that the hardest bit is yet to come: I have to use the swell pedal!
Let me tell you about the swell pedal. Many organs are built with one section of pipes in a large box. This box is called the swell box, and the pipes are linked to one manual (normally the top one if the organ has three or fewer manuals); this is known as the swell organ. Shutters on the side of the box can be opened and closed to make the music louder or quieter by means of a large pedal in the middle of the piece of wood - it pivots, and when the top is closer to you the box is closed; when the top is away from you, the box is open.
Anyway, I have to be able to use one foot on the pedals, and one on the swell pedal: I have to operate the swell pedal while also moving the other foot around to play different notes. This is hard. Two hands and one foot each doing a unique thing involving much pressing is one thing, but when the second foot (and it varies which the second foot is, according to the music) has to do a different thing in a different place while the first foot carries on as normal that is a whole new matter. My co-ordination is terrible (although it is improving!), and so far I have not been able to do both actions at the same time. I think that I shall have to practise with just the pedals first. I need to be OK at this by Sunday, at which point I have another lesson. Hmm.
After my lesson I went home and worked on getting the house looking better. When I got back I saw that HWSNBN had made an excellent job of tidying the kitchen: some of the equipment had been put away and there was space down the middle of it. I was impressed. I worked on getting the bed ready (and failed at this - I got too cold in the night and nearly pushed HWSNBN out of bed by moving towards him to get the heat. Alas, he moved away from me, repeatedly, and then there was no bed left for him) and some clothes put away.
We got to bed late. I was very tired the next day and am still very tired now. It is hard to think, and I do not know when I will next be capable of doing anything useful other than unpacking. I'm not even doing well at that now - I need the landlord to come and get rid of all of his furniture so that I have an extra half-room with which to play.
So at the moment the house is a complete tip. The main settee frame is leaning against the wall next to the bed, there is no wardrobe to hang things so my dresses are still in suitcases around the bedroom, my room has a clearing, HWSNBN's room has a desk and a computer network (what can I say? He works fast), the living room is slowly being unearthed and the front room is full of unwanted furniture AND wanted furniture, books, DVDs, coats and other as yet unidentified boxes, plus a few plants thrown in for good measure. The curtains are closed today because there is no way I am making my way over that assault course before breakfast.
On the positive side, the bed is good and I have my underwear. I will soon have clean trousers in sizes that fit me, and bits of the kitchen are well-organised. The bathroom is not terrible (depending on where you look), and the bath fills up very quickly. Also, the house feels like home. I think that I will like living here. The bedroom feels like my sort of space, and the kitchen is growing on me (probably in the literal sense). I am happy to be here. Terrified about the playing I must do tomorrow evening (must unearth the piano to practise!), but pleased with how things are going. Yay!
Friday, 23 January 2009
Moving?
So.* I found us a new house. I spoke to the current tenants and to the landlord, and it looks as though we are likely to move in to it in just over a month. Nothing is signed yet, and there is still plenty which can go wrong, but I am hopeful.
This new house is quite different from our current house. It is quite a bit bigger: it has three bedrooms instead of two; the main bedroom is a decent size; two reception rooms instead of just one (although they are each quite a bit smaller than our current living room) and a large kitchen diner. It has storage cupboards built in (joy of joys!) and the cupboard under the stairs is a real thing instead of just something which could have happened had they made a hole in the wall.
It has a yard instead of a garden (good: no cat poo; bad: no garden), and a small brick outbuilding instead of a garage (not great, but OK), and no loft (where on earth will we put our supply of boxes for when we move next time? Oh, I remember: HWSNBN's mum's garage's attic).
It is in town, but away from the centre. We will be able to walk to the centre to the pub without any problems, and back again even more easily (because alcohol makes walks shorter and less challenging unless one needs a wee), but HWSNBN will not have to cope with the one-way system to get to the motorway to go to work in Next City Down, where he works. We currently live half-way between City and Next City Down, so it will be more of a drive for him, but I don't think that the difference will be too great. Coming home, he may have difficulties getting on to the motorway, as the queues may not be very nice. I shall be able to cycle to work on my new-to-me bike. Hooray! I get to actually use it, and my bright yellow semi-waterproof garment.
Today I am terrified. It seems as though the list of things I must get through is insurmountable. HWSNBN says that I must also get rid of a lot of clothes before we move, too. I reckon I need to get rid of about half of them, which will be traumatic. I am very tempted to buy many, many garments I don't want so that I can get rid of them and it looks better. Of course, that would be stupid. It is tempting, though. There are also other things which are worrying me, but that is probably going to involve the biggest amount of trauma (I prefer my trauma to be soft and velvety, not this crappy pain, illness and dying sort some people have to put up with). I am mostly terrified about teaching maths, big career decisions with approaching deadlines and moving out of our current house.
We are thinking of moving here for about a year. The housing market is due to crash in that time, and we may be able to afford a house at that point. If nothing else, this move will give us (me) the impetus to de-clutter so that the next move will be easier, and we will not have too much crap in our first real home.
It will be very good indeed to be connected, though. I will have friends, pubs and parties within walking distance. I can go cycling along the old cycle track I used to love. Church will be close (although I expect I will still have to drive, as the music is quite heavy and I am knackered after afternoon practice sessions). Serena's house will be just round the back of mine. The kitchen diner will be great for parties.**
I think that it will be good. One last year of connectedness before throwing ourselves into the house search and hopefully finding something that suits us both; in the middle of nowhere with a decent pub less than 10 minutes walk away would probably be great, especially if vegetable-growing facilities could be installed in the back garden.
So now all we have to do right now is wait. It could come to nothing, but I don't think so. Fingers crossed it goes smoothly! I don't quite believe that I had the audacity to get to this stage (HWSNBN was not really on-side, IYSWIM).
*Why do I always seem to want to start my posts with "So"? If you look through the archives you probably won't see it very often, because I mostly make myself delete it.
**I cannot move into a house without at least one party room - that is my main requirement. Part of it is that I need to have one big room. I was brought up in a very large Victorian house and cannot get used to the lack of space in so many houses within my price range. The other part is that I will not live in a house in which I can't have parties - it's just a bit boring, really.
This new house is quite different from our current house. It is quite a bit bigger: it has three bedrooms instead of two; the main bedroom is a decent size; two reception rooms instead of just one (although they are each quite a bit smaller than our current living room) and a large kitchen diner. It has storage cupboards built in (joy of joys!) and the cupboard under the stairs is a real thing instead of just something which could have happened had they made a hole in the wall.
It has a yard instead of a garden (good: no cat poo; bad: no garden), and a small brick outbuilding instead of a garage (not great, but OK), and no loft (where on earth will we put our supply of boxes for when we move next time? Oh, I remember: HWSNBN's mum's garage's attic).
It is in town, but away from the centre. We will be able to walk to the centre to the pub without any problems, and back again even more easily (because alcohol makes walks shorter and less challenging unless one needs a wee), but HWSNBN will not have to cope with the one-way system to get to the motorway to go to work in Next City Down, where he works. We currently live half-way between City and Next City Down, so it will be more of a drive for him, but I don't think that the difference will be too great. Coming home, he may have difficulties getting on to the motorway, as the queues may not be very nice. I shall be able to cycle to work on my new-to-me bike. Hooray! I get to actually use it, and my bright yellow semi-waterproof garment.
Today I am terrified. It seems as though the list of things I must get through is insurmountable. HWSNBN says that I must also get rid of a lot of clothes before we move, too. I reckon I need to get rid of about half of them, which will be traumatic. I am very tempted to buy many, many garments I don't want so that I can get rid of them and it looks better. Of course, that would be stupid. It is tempting, though. There are also other things which are worrying me, but that is probably going to involve the biggest amount of trauma (I prefer my trauma to be soft and velvety, not this crappy pain, illness and dying sort some people have to put up with). I am mostly terrified about teaching maths, big career decisions with approaching deadlines and moving out of our current house.
We are thinking of moving here for about a year. The housing market is due to crash in that time, and we may be able to afford a house at that point. If nothing else, this move will give us (me) the impetus to de-clutter so that the next move will be easier, and we will not have too much crap in our first real home.
It will be very good indeed to be connected, though. I will have friends, pubs and parties within walking distance. I can go cycling along the old cycle track I used to love. Church will be close (although I expect I will still have to drive, as the music is quite heavy and I am knackered after afternoon practice sessions). Serena's house will be just round the back of mine. The kitchen diner will be great for parties.**
I think that it will be good. One last year of connectedness before throwing ourselves into the house search and hopefully finding something that suits us both; in the middle of nowhere with a decent pub less than 10 minutes walk away would probably be great, especially if vegetable-growing facilities could be installed in the back garden.
So now all we have to do right now is wait. It could come to nothing, but I don't think so. Fingers crossed it goes smoothly! I don't quite believe that I had the audacity to get to this stage (HWSNBN was not really on-side, IYSWIM).
*Why do I always seem to want to start my posts with "So"? If you look through the archives you probably won't see it very often, because I mostly make myself delete it.
**I cannot move into a house without at least one party room - that is my main requirement. Part of it is that I need to have one big room. I was brought up in a very large Victorian house and cannot get used to the lack of space in so many houses within my price range. The other part is that I will not live in a house in which I can't have parties - it's just a bit boring, really.
Saturday, 8 November 2008
Bonfire night
Today is Bonfire night, as far as the city council is concerned. To this end, I shall be going shopping, having some food with Serena, watching the fireworks, going to the pub, then going to The Field to see more fireworks. Oh yes, and I must practise the hymns for tomorrow. I said that I could play the first one, which I probably can, but I was actually thinking of a different one when I responded with enthusiasm. As I have learned both of them, and I am seemingly a little dense, I often confuse them for each other. I started learning tomorrow's hymn sooner, I think (probably about a decade ago...), so it may be deeply ingrained... Anyway, my pedal technique has come on in leaps and bounds (as it were) these past few weeks, so I am hopeful. If I arrive on time tomorrow morning, I shall give it a go.
Yeah, there's not really anything worth reading today, either. I am confident that I shall have something to say within a few days, though. Now I must have a shower, in order to have some chance of accomplishing everything is is necessary to accomplish within a suitable time frame...
Yeah, there's not really anything worth reading today, either. I am confident that I shall have something to say within a few days, though. Now I must have a shower, in order to have some chance of accomplishing everything is is necessary to accomplish within a suitable time frame...
Monday, 20 October 2008
It is written! And sent off!
Thank goodness for that. Now I wait.
This weekend has been one of ups and downs. HWSNBN escaped to Foreign Parts again, in order that he might be lonely in a hotel room and do Technical Things to foreign computers. He appears to be approximately as happy with this as I would expect him to be, although I cannot rule out a degree of measurement error, insofar as expecting him to have a level of happiness may make me more likely to believe that he is that happy.
I had planned to buy birthday presents for Anne on Saturday, but had to cut my shopping trip short because I wasn't feeling well. Every time I tensed my abdominal muscles (which happens more often than I realised) it hurt. Walking fast uses abdominal muscles, so I slouched around for a while, trying to find the umbrella shop (defunct) or a pretty umbrella (was unsuccessful), before being escorted back to the car by Serena. I then went to sleep on the back seat while she went shopping. I must say, the Jazz is far more comfortable for this type of activity than the Seicento (my previous car) would have been. In fact, should I find myself homeless at any point, let's just say that there are worse cars I could have (i.e. most other cars which are not camper vans).
After my sleep I felt far more human, and we returned to Serena's house for dinner. After dinner, much to my surprise, I felt well enough to go to a party to which we had been invited.
I had not exactly been looking forward to this party; I was a little worried that it would be awkward, and that there would be no crisps that I could eat. Having already eaten dinner, the latter was not likely to be too much of a problem, but the former could make it a waste of an evening. However, I had promised to bring some fire lighting supplies for the back yard, and thought that I should at least make the effort.
Upon arrival, we made our way to the back yard, to be presented with a choice of a barbecue or a dustbin as a vessel for the fire. I expressed my doubts as to the suitability of the dustbin for lighting fires, as I was worried a fire was likely to suffocate itself without holes in the side, but I was overruled. I lined the dustbin with cardboard, put kindling (kindly donated by my next door neighbour) on top, then poured a small bottle of old cooking oil and salad dressing (with a little old garlic and vinegar - for that lovely sharp flavour, rather than because I failed to decant accurately, of course) over the lot, before putting some of the damp branches which made up the majority of the fuel over the top so that they would dry out then hopefully catch light. This was finished off with some alcohol offered to my by one of the hosts.
My first attempt at lighting it did not go well, and extinguished itself after a short while. The second time I tried, I must have approached it from a more advantageous angle, because a small inferno quickly ensued. I get the impression that I started a chip pan fire in this dustbin, and can heartily recommend this method to future pyromaniacs. We could hear the water in the damp wood boiling off, and it all dried out a treat, and burned as though it was created for such an event.
When this had been achieved, I went and got a drink, and was delighted to note that one of the hosts had made gluten-free pizza and brownies. Naturally, I couldn't let this go to waste, and forced some down, despite already having eaten.*
Alas, the evening was over** all too soon. I did not sleep well; I woke up two hours earlier than necessary, which did not please me.
Funnily enough, I was a little tired on Sunday. Church went well from the point of view of everyone who did not particularly want to use a data projector. Alas, I had promised to visit the Parents and Anne for a few hours in the evening, for Anne's birthday celebration. This entails three hours of driving (1 1/2 hours in each direction); not a good idea when overtired and feeling slightly ill. I also needed to go shopping in Liverpool on the way, in order to pick up some actual presents for Anne.
The journey was good, as was Liverpool. It really has improved of late; there are a couple of new, rather upmarket, malls*** containing many wonderful shops. I was able to buy a mug, some socks and an umbrella for Anne, to go with her Death Kitty hoodie. When I gave these to her, she seemed to appreciate the lot of them. It makes me a little sad to be writing this on the Internet, but my twelve-year-old sister is a freak who likes socks and household items, and deems them to be suitable, even exciting, birthday presents. I dread to think what she will appreciate when she is forty. I also hope that her friends do not pick up on this to the extent that she gets a lovely set of designer jars for her 21st birthday from them. Not that I would know about that. Anyway, I have never been particularly interested in socks.
Unfortunately, my parents decided that I was not well enough to drive myself home that evening, and there was nobody else who was going to do it. Fortunately, Louise is still away at University, so I got her bed. I lay across it diagonally, which is my favourite sleeping position, and was most disappointed to be awoken by the alarm clock. I made my way downstairs, said happy birthday to Anne (who was just preparing to go to Alton Towers for the day, with Robert), and had breakfast. Nana then came into the kitchen, so I chatted to her for a little bit. She pretends to understand more than she actually understands (I think it's partly a hearing issue, combined with not wanting to make people repeat things), and is getting more forgetful and vague, but it was great to see her.
Then I went to work, and stayed particularly late. Then I failed do some organ practice. Next, Postgrad group, then home, perhaps washing up, washing and bed.
Still not feeling right, but at least the headache's gone.
Happy birthday, Anne!
*Yes, forced. I am not a greedy, hungry person who can eat dinner and still have room for the same again. Honest. Stop looking at me like that!
**i.e. I was told it was time to return home
***What are these in English, rather than American? I feel a little stupid now.
This weekend has been one of ups and downs. HWSNBN escaped to Foreign Parts again, in order that he might be lonely in a hotel room and do Technical Things to foreign computers. He appears to be approximately as happy with this as I would expect him to be, although I cannot rule out a degree of measurement error, insofar as expecting him to have a level of happiness may make me more likely to believe that he is that happy.
I had planned to buy birthday presents for Anne on Saturday, but had to cut my shopping trip short because I wasn't feeling well. Every time I tensed my abdominal muscles (which happens more often than I realised) it hurt. Walking fast uses abdominal muscles, so I slouched around for a while, trying to find the umbrella shop (defunct) or a pretty umbrella (was unsuccessful), before being escorted back to the car by Serena. I then went to sleep on the back seat while she went shopping. I must say, the Jazz is far more comfortable for this type of activity than the Seicento (my previous car) would have been. In fact, should I find myself homeless at any point, let's just say that there are worse cars I could have (i.e. most other cars which are not camper vans).
After my sleep I felt far more human, and we returned to Serena's house for dinner. After dinner, much to my surprise, I felt well enough to go to a party to which we had been invited.
I had not exactly been looking forward to this party; I was a little worried that it would be awkward, and that there would be no crisps that I could eat. Having already eaten dinner, the latter was not likely to be too much of a problem, but the former could make it a waste of an evening. However, I had promised to bring some fire lighting supplies for the back yard, and thought that I should at least make the effort.
Upon arrival, we made our way to the back yard, to be presented with a choice of a barbecue or a dustbin as a vessel for the fire. I expressed my doubts as to the suitability of the dustbin for lighting fires, as I was worried a fire was likely to suffocate itself without holes in the side, but I was overruled. I lined the dustbin with cardboard, put kindling (kindly donated by my next door neighbour) on top, then poured a small bottle of old cooking oil and salad dressing (with a little old garlic and vinegar - for that lovely sharp flavour, rather than because I failed to decant accurately, of course) over the lot, before putting some of the damp branches which made up the majority of the fuel over the top so that they would dry out then hopefully catch light. This was finished off with some alcohol offered to my by one of the hosts.
My first attempt at lighting it did not go well, and extinguished itself after a short while. The second time I tried, I must have approached it from a more advantageous angle, because a small inferno quickly ensued. I get the impression that I started a chip pan fire in this dustbin, and can heartily recommend this method to future pyromaniacs. We could hear the water in the damp wood boiling off, and it all dried out a treat, and burned as though it was created for such an event.
When this had been achieved, I went and got a drink, and was delighted to note that one of the hosts had made gluten-free pizza and brownies. Naturally, I couldn't let this go to waste, and forced some down, despite already having eaten.*
Alas, the evening was over** all too soon. I did not sleep well; I woke up two hours earlier than necessary, which did not please me.
Funnily enough, I was a little tired on Sunday. Church went well from the point of view of everyone who did not particularly want to use a data projector. Alas, I had promised to visit the Parents and Anne for a few hours in the evening, for Anne's birthday celebration. This entails three hours of driving (1 1/2 hours in each direction); not a good idea when overtired and feeling slightly ill. I also needed to go shopping in Liverpool on the way, in order to pick up some actual presents for Anne.
The journey was good, as was Liverpool. It really has improved of late; there are a couple of new, rather upmarket, malls*** containing many wonderful shops. I was able to buy a mug, some socks and an umbrella for Anne, to go with her Death Kitty hoodie. When I gave these to her, she seemed to appreciate the lot of them. It makes me a little sad to be writing this on the Internet, but my twelve-year-old sister is a freak who likes socks and household items, and deems them to be suitable, even exciting, birthday presents. I dread to think what she will appreciate when she is forty. I also hope that her friends do not pick up on this to the extent that she gets a lovely set of designer jars for her 21st birthday from them. Not that I would know about that. Anyway, I have never been particularly interested in socks.
Unfortunately, my parents decided that I was not well enough to drive myself home that evening, and there was nobody else who was going to do it. Fortunately, Louise is still away at University, so I got her bed. I lay across it diagonally, which is my favourite sleeping position, and was most disappointed to be awoken by the alarm clock. I made my way downstairs, said happy birthday to Anne (who was just preparing to go to Alton Towers for the day, with Robert), and had breakfast. Nana then came into the kitchen, so I chatted to her for a little bit. She pretends to understand more than she actually understands (I think it's partly a hearing issue, combined with not wanting to make people repeat things), and is getting more forgetful and vague, but it was great to see her.
Then I went to work, and stayed particularly late. Then I failed do some organ practice. Next, Postgrad group, then home, perhaps washing up, washing and bed.
Still not feeling right, but at least the headache's gone.
Happy birthday, Anne!
*Yes, forced. I am not a greedy, hungry person who can eat dinner and still have room for the same again. Honest. Stop looking at me like that!
**i.e. I was told it was time to return home
***What are these in English, rather than American? I feel a little stupid now.
Friday, 17 October 2008
I love it when a plan comes together
So. This letter. Well, it would appear that it has inched its way closer to completion today, after a massive session with my friend Roxy, who is good at That Sort Of Thing. At least, I assume it was a massive session - it went there on Monday and returned today bearing signs of having been mauled. I took the suggestions on board, tidied it up and printed it out.
I was just about to send it off when I stopped to think: it's Friday today. If I put it in the post now, it will be just the same as if I put it in the post on Monday. In the meantime, everyone will let me know what I have missed out, but I won't be able to do anything about it.
With this in mind, I shall take it to Serena to have a last poke at it tomorrow, and it can go off first thing Monday morning, only a week after I promised I would send it. That makes me look reasonably reliable, doesn't it?
I am feeling a lot happier with life in general. Heather assured me that if I took some B vitamins my life would improve, and that does indeed seem to be the case. Does this suggest that there may be some merit in eating a well-balanced diet?
The thing that worried me most about feeling better was the potential for me to lose momentum to escape from this rut in which I have become well and truly stuck. With this letter about to be sent off, I think that I will have enough momentum to cause some change or other to happen.
If my Cunning Plan of Escapefulness does not work out, I know that I must quickly write up my new, shorter research proposal and look for research assistant funding. I have a person with a record for publishing behind me, so my odds aren't zero.
If that falls through, I can try again for Departmental funding for my PhD next time round.
If that falls though, I can throw it all in and go to be a nun in France.* I like France.
Will keep you updated on Plan 1 - The One With The Letter. If it fails, I can certainly let on what I'm not going to do, and if it succeeds I should say nothing at all for fear of having my sacred anonymity well and truly blown (yes, I am going to be a spy. Bugger. I said too much).
*I may not yet have thought through all of the implications of this. I reserve the right to change this plan without prior notice.
I was just about to send it off when I stopped to think: it's Friday today. If I put it in the post now, it will be just the same as if I put it in the post on Monday. In the meantime, everyone will let me know what I have missed out, but I won't be able to do anything about it.
With this in mind, I shall take it to Serena to have a last poke at it tomorrow, and it can go off first thing Monday morning, only a week after I promised I would send it. That makes me look reasonably reliable, doesn't it?
I am feeling a lot happier with life in general. Heather assured me that if I took some B vitamins my life would improve, and that does indeed seem to be the case. Does this suggest that there may be some merit in eating a well-balanced diet?
The thing that worried me most about feeling better was the potential for me to lose momentum to escape from this rut in which I have become well and truly stuck. With this letter about to be sent off, I think that I will have enough momentum to cause some change or other to happen.
If my Cunning Plan of Escapefulness does not work out, I know that I must quickly write up my new, shorter research proposal and look for research assistant funding. I have a person with a record for publishing behind me, so my odds aren't zero.
If that falls through, I can try again for Departmental funding for my PhD next time round.
If that falls though, I can throw it all in and go to be a nun in France.* I like France.
Will keep you updated on Plan 1 - The One With The Letter. If it fails, I can certainly let on what I'm not going to do, and if it succeeds I should say nothing at all for fear of having my sacred anonymity well and truly blown (yes, I am going to be a spy. Bugger. I said too much).
*I may not yet have thought through all of the implications of this. I reserve the right to change this plan without prior notice.
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Busy day
No news on Anne or Grandad - HWSNBN has yet to sort out the phone (we just lost free land line calls, but have better Internet. Apparently) so that I can call people cheaply. Mother promised to call me later this week. I suspect that Anne is fine today, but Grandad is not. I would be interested to know where they are keeping Nana - she has been supervised pretty much constantly for the past couple of weeks, mostly at her house, but I suspect that Mother is back at work this week. Robert is probably on Nana-sitting duty.
I went to register with my new doctor today. I think the nurse with whom I registered was a little alarmed at all of the small things that are wrong with me. I am to see the doctor on Monday morning. I wonder exactly what I am supposed to be seeing him about, though. Is it the gluten intolerance (and associated crap diet), the ongoing asthma investigations, or the questions being raised as to the viability of my contraception? It can't be the weird itchy legs (kept under control by never shaving and eating six evening primrose capsules each day, except for this evening, when it has most certainly not been under control); I didn't get round to mentioning that. I don't think I alarmed her with my alcohol intake, although my total lack of exercise for the past few weeks is apparently not good. I may be going climbing on Thursday, though. It's such a pity I have a vicious paper cut on my finger - mixing that with chalk will be uncomfortable.
I appear to be a little bit of a mess at the moment.
I also failed to find the motivation to make dinner (the main reason my diet is so crap - lack of motivation). HWSNBN made us beans on toast (fake toast for me). I then fell asleep in front of the TV for 2 1/2 hours (HWSNBN was watching the TV and I was lying in front of him while he stroked my head. Life doesn't really get much more perfect than that), and woke up feeling refreshed. I made pancakes, which I was kind enough to share with HWSNBN. They were good. I have two left over for breakfast, which will be a welcome treat. I have to be at work on time tomorrow; an unusual occurrence, which happens mercifully infrequently, and nearly always results in no breakfast for me.
Work tomorrow promises to be interesting - it is my favourite day of the work year. I will be fed a delicious, nutritious lunch, and will get to talk to the people with whom I will be working until I escape. I hope.* I shall do very little of any value in the afternoon,** and shall go to Serena's house afterwards for my tea. That will also be relatively nutritious. I predict fake pasta with a really interesting sauce - she knows how I feel about soup at the moment. We may do something about that letter.
And now to bed. I hope I get to sleep quickly - the thing I hate about falling asleep so close to bed time is that it often takes far too long to get to sleep again. I should have just had an early night. Damn me and my weakness.
Oh, and apologies for the boring entry. One day it will improve. I know, I say that all the time, and so far it only seems to have got worse, but it will, I promise.***
*i.e. I hope that I don't have to stay there so long that a whole new lot of people arrive. That would be bad.
**Perhaps not strictly true - it may well be valuable, but it will not be particularly difficult, nor will it take much effort.
***I don't really promise. Sorry. I would like to do so, and I do think it will get better, but I think that promising was a bit rash, really. My funny died.
I went to register with my new doctor today. I think the nurse with whom I registered was a little alarmed at all of the small things that are wrong with me. I am to see the doctor on Monday morning. I wonder exactly what I am supposed to be seeing him about, though. Is it the gluten intolerance (and associated crap diet), the ongoing asthma investigations, or the questions being raised as to the viability of my contraception? It can't be the weird itchy legs (kept under control by never shaving and eating six evening primrose capsules each day, except for this evening, when it has most certainly not been under control); I didn't get round to mentioning that. I don't think I alarmed her with my alcohol intake, although my total lack of exercise for the past few weeks is apparently not good. I may be going climbing on Thursday, though. It's such a pity I have a vicious paper cut on my finger - mixing that with chalk will be uncomfortable.
I appear to be a little bit of a mess at the moment.
I also failed to find the motivation to make dinner (the main reason my diet is so crap - lack of motivation). HWSNBN made us beans on toast (fake toast for me). I then fell asleep in front of the TV for 2 1/2 hours (HWSNBN was watching the TV and I was lying in front of him while he stroked my head. Life doesn't really get much more perfect than that), and woke up feeling refreshed. I made pancakes, which I was kind enough to share with HWSNBN. They were good. I have two left over for breakfast, which will be a welcome treat. I have to be at work on time tomorrow; an unusual occurrence, which happens mercifully infrequently, and nearly always results in no breakfast for me.
Work tomorrow promises to be interesting - it is my favourite day of the work year. I will be fed a delicious, nutritious lunch, and will get to talk to the people with whom I will be working until I escape. I hope.* I shall do very little of any value in the afternoon,** and shall go to Serena's house afterwards for my tea. That will also be relatively nutritious. I predict fake pasta with a really interesting sauce - she knows how I feel about soup at the moment. We may do something about that letter.
And now to bed. I hope I get to sleep quickly - the thing I hate about falling asleep so close to bed time is that it often takes far too long to get to sleep again. I should have just had an early night. Damn me and my weakness.
Oh, and apologies for the boring entry. One day it will improve. I know, I say that all the time, and so far it only seems to have got worse, but it will, I promise.***
*i.e. I hope that I don't have to stay there so long that a whole new lot of people arrive. That would be bad.
**Perhaps not strictly true - it may well be valuable, but it will not be particularly difficult, nor will it take much effort.
***I don't really promise. Sorry. I would like to do so, and I do think it will get better, but I think that promising was a bit rash, really. My funny died.
Sunday, 5 October 2008
Life just got more interesting...
I had a lovely evening yesterday. It was Serena's birthday outing, and so we went out.
I also had a lovely day. HWSNBN was a bit cold, so he put the central heating on.* He then oiled the bathroom window so that it would shut. He also brought me a cup of tea in bed. I stayed in bed for a while and finished off a book I was reading. I'm not really sure what I was supposed to have got out of it - either something about how you shouldn't wait around for happiness/redemption, but should go out and grasp life, or that even when life is crap and it's partly your fault you can still act with grace and die alone. And the nuns will think you're great.
I then had a shower and luxuriated in the warmth downstairs for a few hours, before finally starting to make the rest of Serena's birthday presents. Unfortunately, I was a little too relaxed, and managed to leave the house about 10 minutes after I was due to arrive at Serena's house, which meant that I was 45 minutes late. Nonetheless, we made it to the Chinese restaurant in plenty of time (they had a table which wouldn't be available for long, which suited us perfectly).
After dinner, we popped into a bar for a quick drink, then went to the theatre to see Jeremy Hardy. He was very good, and seemed nice and moderate. Very Radio 4. He also catered for us younger members of the audience with a quick game of peek-a-boo. I admit that I was indeed a bit frightened at first, but that I did find it more funny when I realised he hadn't actually disappeared.
Afterwards we returned to Serena's house for a cup of tea, and I stayed there overnight. Her sleeping bag is my new best friend - I have never encountered such a fluffy, friendly sleeping bag before.
Today, after church, Heather and I went out for a drive, some lunch and a quick walk. The weather was great - sunny and warm (in contrast to church - it was incredibly cold. The nuns are on holiday and nobody could get into the office to turn the heating on. Brrrr). Lunch was tasty - dessert was meringue with brandy cherries and cream. Unfortunately, I drank far, far too much tea and rather embarrassed myself with my tiny bladder capacity. I think that it may have been somewhat similar to taking a 2-year-old in the middle of potty training for a walk. I may not be invited again.
Afterwards, I returned home to be met with the news that Grandad's cancer (?!?) is getting worse and that he has about two weeks to live. I was supposed to hear this news from my mother, but she left home about an hour before I called to take my baby sister Anne to the hospital because she has a really bad headache. I am hoping that it is a "The doctor is not open so we will go to the hospital" rather than an "Oh shit" visit; I daresay I shall find out when they return and Mummy calls me.
I did get to speak to Robert, my brother, though. He is hungover, having been to Liverpool yesterday night. Apparently he enjoyed himself. He says that Nana, who has been rather ill with what seems to be the cough which stopped me from breathing properly, is asleep on their settee, has been eating, and is giving the appearance of being compos mentis, which is excellent news. Nana is much more friendly and amenable than Grandad, which means that if the natural laws are obeyed she should live much less long than Grandad. When I was told to call Mother, I thought that it would be bad news about her.
I am feeling slightly like a bad person - I know that I should have been a better granddaughter to Grandad. I also know that he should have been a better Grandad (see how I deflect the blame from myself ever so neatly?). Alas, I am not a boy, I went to a crap university (twice) and I got a 2:2, so I'm not worth remembering really. I shall not justify myself here - it always comes out so defensive (funnily enough).
I am quite frightened of having to visit him. I am afraid of people vomiting, and am worried that he will do so. Or somebody else on his ward might do so. That would be frightening. I need to grow up, really. Being frightened of spiders or needles would be so much more socially acceptable. It wouldn't have helped much with my multiple spider attack in the shower yesterday, though. Massive great hairy things! I thought it was the same one back again the second time, but HWSNBN assures me that there were two. When I thought about it, the second one was slightly smaller and may have had hairier legs. Naturally, as they were so big, they were easy to handle. I shall say no more.
I am worried about Anne, too. I don't like my baby sister going to the hospital (not that it has happened before - it's usually me with a broken bit of anatomy), and hospital-worthy headaches make me uneasy. It's probably just a migraine - she's at about the right age. That means that she will probably just be condemned to multiple episodes of excruciating pain for a few years, and banned from taking the pill forever. Well, there are worse things. There are better things, too.
As I appear to have mentioned everyone else I ever met, I should also say that Louise has been dropped off at university. She is in what promises to be an excellent room this year. I must visit some time...
So there we go. An only slightly ranty account of what I have been up to. There was more, but I think that this is enough. The more was less important, and possibly also less interesting, although I was interested.
UPDATE: Anne has returned from the hospital - apparently it was a migraine. She is now feeling better. Also, it is reputed that 60% of men get prostate cancer, and they reckon that Grandad is one of them...
*This is a bad sign in terms of habitability - he doesn't usually get cold. When he decides to put the heating on, I know that I was better off in bed than out of it. Did that make sense?
I also had a lovely day. HWSNBN was a bit cold, so he put the central heating on.* He then oiled the bathroom window so that it would shut. He also brought me a cup of tea in bed. I stayed in bed for a while and finished off a book I was reading. I'm not really sure what I was supposed to have got out of it - either something about how you shouldn't wait around for happiness/redemption, but should go out and grasp life, or that even when life is crap and it's partly your fault you can still act with grace and die alone. And the nuns will think you're great.
I then had a shower and luxuriated in the warmth downstairs for a few hours, before finally starting to make the rest of Serena's birthday presents. Unfortunately, I was a little too relaxed, and managed to leave the house about 10 minutes after I was due to arrive at Serena's house, which meant that I was 45 minutes late. Nonetheless, we made it to the Chinese restaurant in plenty of time (they had a table which wouldn't be available for long, which suited us perfectly).
After dinner, we popped into a bar for a quick drink, then went to the theatre to see Jeremy Hardy. He was very good, and seemed nice and moderate. Very Radio 4. He also catered for us younger members of the audience with a quick game of peek-a-boo. I admit that I was indeed a bit frightened at first, but that I did find it more funny when I realised he hadn't actually disappeared.
Afterwards we returned to Serena's house for a cup of tea, and I stayed there overnight. Her sleeping bag is my new best friend - I have never encountered such a fluffy, friendly sleeping bag before.
Today, after church, Heather and I went out for a drive, some lunch and a quick walk. The weather was great - sunny and warm (in contrast to church - it was incredibly cold. The nuns are on holiday and nobody could get into the office to turn the heating on. Brrrr). Lunch was tasty - dessert was meringue with brandy cherries and cream. Unfortunately, I drank far, far too much tea and rather embarrassed myself with my tiny bladder capacity. I think that it may have been somewhat similar to taking a 2-year-old in the middle of potty training for a walk. I may not be invited again.
Afterwards, I returned home to be met with the news that Grandad's cancer (?!?) is getting worse and that he has about two weeks to live. I was supposed to hear this news from my mother, but she left home about an hour before I called to take my baby sister Anne to the hospital because she has a really bad headache. I am hoping that it is a "The doctor is not open so we will go to the hospital" rather than an "Oh shit" visit; I daresay I shall find out when they return and Mummy calls me.
I did get to speak to Robert, my brother, though. He is hungover, having been to Liverpool yesterday night. Apparently he enjoyed himself. He says that Nana, who has been rather ill with what seems to be the cough which stopped me from breathing properly, is asleep on their settee, has been eating, and is giving the appearance of being compos mentis, which is excellent news. Nana is much more friendly and amenable than Grandad, which means that if the natural laws are obeyed she should live much less long than Grandad. When I was told to call Mother, I thought that it would be bad news about her.
I am feeling slightly like a bad person - I know that I should have been a better granddaughter to Grandad. I also know that he should have been a better Grandad (see how I deflect the blame from myself ever so neatly?). Alas, I am not a boy, I went to a crap university (twice) and I got a 2:2, so I'm not worth remembering really. I shall not justify myself here - it always comes out so defensive (funnily enough).
I am quite frightened of having to visit him. I am afraid of people vomiting, and am worried that he will do so. Or somebody else on his ward might do so. That would be frightening. I need to grow up, really. Being frightened of spiders or needles would be so much more socially acceptable. It wouldn't have helped much with my multiple spider attack in the shower yesterday, though. Massive great hairy things! I thought it was the same one back again the second time, but HWSNBN assures me that there were two. When I thought about it, the second one was slightly smaller and may have had hairier legs. Naturally, as they were so big, they were easy to handle. I shall say no more.
I am worried about Anne, too. I don't like my baby sister going to the hospital (not that it has happened before - it's usually me with a broken bit of anatomy), and hospital-worthy headaches make me uneasy. It's probably just a migraine - she's at about the right age. That means that she will probably just be condemned to multiple episodes of excruciating pain for a few years, and banned from taking the pill forever. Well, there are worse things. There are better things, too.
As I appear to have mentioned everyone else I ever met, I should also say that Louise has been dropped off at university. She is in what promises to be an excellent room this year. I must visit some time...
So there we go. An only slightly ranty account of what I have been up to. There was more, but I think that this is enough. The more was less important, and possibly also less interesting, although I was interested.
UPDATE: Anne has returned from the hospital - apparently it was a migraine. She is now feeling better. Also, it is reputed that 60% of men get prostate cancer, and they reckon that Grandad is one of them...
*This is a bad sign in terms of habitability - he doesn't usually get cold. When he decides to put the heating on, I know that I was better off in bed than out of it. Did that make sense?
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Creative
It being Serena's birthday today, I got to work making presents for her. I am nothing if not organised.
I took away some old nettle tea from her house yesterday, which I used as the base for a rather interesting soap.* The idea behind this is that nettle tea is soothing,** and some of its properties should be present in the soap. To complement this I used a variety of different oils which are also reputed to be gentle on the skin, one which imparts structural integrity and lather to soaps, and a load of additives (butter powder and some clays) to just generally make it better. More is more, and all that.
Alas,*** the soap did funny and weird things. I think that I used too much coconut oil, but can't see how that could have caused so much weirdness. I added extra water and lye and it seemed to settle down. I did forget to cook it for a long time to evaporate of the extra water, though, and now it is a little more sloppy than I would expect a soap to be.**** It needs to be ready on Saturday if I am to give it to Serena for her birthday. I may yet be making another soap.
Ha! What am I talking about? I am so going to make another soap. I saw one which used paprika as both a colourant and an exfoliant, and I have to try that out. I may also make a daffodil one. As I am fast running out of many oils, I shall probably use a lot of corn and olive oils. They are readily available around here.
I also made all sorts of other goodies: exfoliant body butter bars, two different types of face cleansers and a solid moisturiser bar which is water-soluble - the idea behind this is that it doesn't need any preservative as it contains no water, but it still turns into moisturiser when it does get wet. I saved so much money compared to what I would have paid buying similar products from an actual shop.*****
Next I must work on packaging. Also, I must make some conditioner. This may not keep well, so I shall do it tomorrow or Friday. HWSNBN will not be impressed with the kitchen being less than perfect a few days on the run.
He actually made dinner today. I came home to the smell of cottage pie cooking. It was very tasty. There is even enough left over for lunch tomorrow. I am very excited that there is no need for me to have soup for lunch tomorrow. Seriously.
Wow; such sentence structure. Could I have written that previous paragraph any better? Not if I were six years old, that's for sure.
*I am using "interesting" as an euphemism for "worrying".
**Unless you have to drink it. Drinking nettle tea is most assuredly not soothing.
***I think that this might be my favourite word.
****I would not expect a soap to be sloppy. Viscous is as wet as I will accept.
*****I did also buy her a necklace which I believe she has a high probability of liking rather a lot. This came from an actual shop. I am not a total cheapskate. Sometimes it costs more to make things than to buy them. When I realise that, I feel silly.
I took away some old nettle tea from her house yesterday, which I used as the base for a rather interesting soap.* The idea behind this is that nettle tea is soothing,** and some of its properties should be present in the soap. To complement this I used a variety of different oils which are also reputed to be gentle on the skin, one which imparts structural integrity and lather to soaps, and a load of additives (butter powder and some clays) to just generally make it better. More is more, and all that.
Alas,*** the soap did funny and weird things. I think that I used too much coconut oil, but can't see how that could have caused so much weirdness. I added extra water and lye and it seemed to settle down. I did forget to cook it for a long time to evaporate of the extra water, though, and now it is a little more sloppy than I would expect a soap to be.**** It needs to be ready on Saturday if I am to give it to Serena for her birthday. I may yet be making another soap.
Ha! What am I talking about? I am so going to make another soap. I saw one which used paprika as both a colourant and an exfoliant, and I have to try that out. I may also make a daffodil one. As I am fast running out of many oils, I shall probably use a lot of corn and olive oils. They are readily available around here.
I also made all sorts of other goodies: exfoliant body butter bars, two different types of face cleansers and a solid moisturiser bar which is water-soluble - the idea behind this is that it doesn't need any preservative as it contains no water, but it still turns into moisturiser when it does get wet. I saved so much money compared to what I would have paid buying similar products from an actual shop.*****
Next I must work on packaging. Also, I must make some conditioner. This may not keep well, so I shall do it tomorrow or Friday. HWSNBN will not be impressed with the kitchen being less than perfect a few days on the run.
He actually made dinner today. I came home to the smell of cottage pie cooking. It was very tasty. There is even enough left over for lunch tomorrow. I am very excited that there is no need for me to have soup for lunch tomorrow. Seriously.
Wow; such sentence structure. Could I have written that previous paragraph any better? Not if I were six years old, that's for sure.
*I am using "interesting" as an euphemism for "worrying".
**Unless you have to drink it. Drinking nettle tea is most assuredly not soothing.
***I think that this might be my favourite word.
****I would not expect a soap to be sloppy. Viscous is as wet as I will accept.
*****I did also buy her a necklace which I believe she has a high probability of liking rather a lot. This came from an actual shop. I am not a total cheapskate. Sometimes it costs more to make things than to buy them. When I realise that, I feel silly.
Monday, 29 September 2008
Grr
Had I got the funding, I would be starting a PhD this week. This thought does not improve my mood at all. I imagine that I am not much fun to be around at the moment.
I have caught myself, on several occasions, wandering around smiling today, and giving off friendly vibes. I think that I must just have got into bad habits. I suppose that there are worse habits to get into. I can't imagine that scowling at everyone is going to improve anyone's day.
I am also very jealous of anyone who appears to have recently escaped from any sort of rut. Some friends just got engaged; another friend went off to theological college; the old vicar got himself a new parish a couple of hours away; friends have new jobs; new students are hanging around looking all hopeful (several of them even had the audacity to make conversation with me).
Tomorrow I shall go round to Serena's house again for tea. I am looking forward to this a great deal. I am proposing to give her a lot of responsibility for writing one of my letters (I must work on finding an appropriate reward); we may even look at it together.
It is Serena's birthday on Wednesday. Her present arrived in the post late last week, and I collected it from the Post Office this morning. It is rather lovely. It is an unusual necklace, in brown and amber, with a large hand-blown* glass pendant. I don't think that many people could carry it off, but I think that it will look excellent on Serena. I must also make her some soap and some face cleaning things. There are a couple of recipes I must try out. If she is wrestling with my letter, that gives me more free time to create.
On Saturday we will be going to the theatre together to watch Jeremy Hardy. I shall give her presents at that point. Hopefully I will have amassed a small collection of goodies at that point. If not, I shall have to hang my head in shame again, and I do not want to do that.
How are you? Is life good for you?
*People blow things with their hands all the time in America.
I have caught myself, on several occasions, wandering around smiling today, and giving off friendly vibes. I think that I must just have got into bad habits. I suppose that there are worse habits to get into. I can't imagine that scowling at everyone is going to improve anyone's day.
I am also very jealous of anyone who appears to have recently escaped from any sort of rut. Some friends just got engaged; another friend went off to theological college; the old vicar got himself a new parish a couple of hours away; friends have new jobs; new students are hanging around looking all hopeful (several of them even had the audacity to make conversation with me).
Tomorrow I shall go round to Serena's house again for tea. I am looking forward to this a great deal. I am proposing to give her a lot of responsibility for writing one of my letters (I must work on finding an appropriate reward); we may even look at it together.
It is Serena's birthday on Wednesday. Her present arrived in the post late last week, and I collected it from the Post Office this morning. It is rather lovely. It is an unusual necklace, in brown and amber, with a large hand-blown* glass pendant. I don't think that many people could carry it off, but I think that it will look excellent on Serena. I must also make her some soap and some face cleaning things. There are a couple of recipes I must try out. If she is wrestling with my letter, that gives me more free time to create.
On Saturday we will be going to the theatre together to watch Jeremy Hardy. I shall give her presents at that point. Hopefully I will have amassed a small collection of goodies at that point. If not, I shall have to hang my head in shame again, and I do not want to do that.
How are you? Is life good for you?
*People blow things with their hands all the time in America.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)