A White Christmas

At my Mums request I wrote a definitive account of our Christmas this year. So I am going to include a lot of boring trivia, be highly opinionated and hope you will stay tuned for the ride! All opinions expressed are my own, except when they have been carefully edited out by my parents!

First let me deal with some misconceptions that those not in the UK may have got from the media. Yes, I think for the last ten days it snowed somewhere in the UK everyday. No that does not mean everywhere had continual snow. This is the UK not Cananda. What has happened is that the snow first hit the South East of England, think London and Home Counties, then moved onto East England, the East Midlands and South West England, then by the weekend it hit North East England and the west Midlands, reaching Northern England and North West England on Wednesday, then onto Scotland and is slowly now clearing from the West of Scotland. This is not a weather front moving across the country but a band of slowly moving cold air, which has meant temperatures hovering at around zero, and what would normally be rain falling as snow. It is still likely to be snowing in Scotland but in Manchester the weather has turned to rain and is now above freezing. Yes, driving was hazardous especially on minor roads but the gritters were out and doing a marvellous job on major roads and B roads. So as a rule if you could get out of the bit of road on which you lived, onto something more major you could get where you wanted to go, or at least as far as the start of the minor roads that lead to them. The advice at least between Sheffield and Manchester was never “do not travel” but “take precautions”.  Take precautions equals, take a hot drink with you, give extra time for your journey and do not try to travel by very minor roads. For instance don’t try and cross Winnats Pass in Derbyshire (which is a pass you use if you are looking for a pleasant ride on a summers day, but not for going anywhere in a hurry). On Wednesday when I came over, even the Snake Pass (notorious for closing at the slightest fall of snow) was open, but the question was whether I could get through Glossop at the foot of the pass rather than whether I could get over. It is largely drivers pretending that the weather is not worse than usual that cause the problem. When drivers are driving appropriately for the weather conditions there is really no problem. Alright it may take you an extra twenty minutes for every hour of travel to get somewhere, but you will get.

So how was Christmas. Well when the snow first hit the South East Dad started to panic. I think its part of his habitual pessimism; he expects the worse and therefore is regularly nicely surprised when it does not happen. So when it started snowing he actually saw a  week ahead with heavy snow, freezing fog and black ice everywhere (note to father, black ice and frozen snow don’t tend to happen together, as black ice requires either rain or the snow to melt!)  He always does it is part of his nature. We have learnt to live with it, but it is handicapping him as much as anything else and certainly his worrying over it ain’t doing his blood pressure any good.

Yes on Tuesday, going up to my sisters was not a good idea, as they had had fresh snow there. My sister lives on the northern moors of Greater Manchester. You get better scenery there but you also have a higher chance of snow, and minor roads tend to become impassable quickly. (for instance on Christmas day it was about two degrees colder than down in Stockport which was not) . However it should be noted that while my sister advised my parents not to come up on Tuesday and they sensibly didn’t, both she and her husband went out to work that day and returned safely! In other words travel was possible with care; it was just foolish to be doing extra travel on that day.

On Wednesday my parents took the food for cooking that morning up to my sister’s at her work place. This meant that Dad did not have to cope with the icy condition of the roads around her house. Dad and Mum had bought frozen sprouts so rather than let them defrost my sister dumped them outside the church in the snow (refrigeration is not strictly necessary in this weather in the UK). They were also waiting on tender hooks to see if Hannah’s dressing gown would arrive. I had ordered it on the last date that they guaranteed delivery before Christmas. However it had not arrived on the morning but the delivery company had put it in the meter cabinet by the time they got back.

Dad’s caution meant he was all for me coming over by the M62 rather than going as I planned to visit friends which meant going through Derbyshire. All right my SATNAV decided Winnats was a sensible way to go not the route I planned A623 followed A625, which was nice and clear. In fact the one bit when I thought I’d follow the Winnats route I ended up following a snow plough and as part of that was B roads I knew Derbyshire was doing well and risked a B road that cut a considerable bit of the journey off for me, going to a friends and the SATNAV redeemed itself by getting me to their home, through the centre of Macclesfield without sending me twice around the ring road or up a oneway street the wrong way. I find for getting to residential homes in unfamiliar towns having a satnav is very useful. It saves me having to pull in and get out a map. Travelling through Derbyshire in the snowy weather was glorious. I quite regularly wished I had more time to get across and could stop the car and take photographs. Surprisingly it was after 4pm before the last light had left the sky. Dusk was very slow and gradual.

The meal with Fleur and Walter was good and it was good to stop over and chat. They both seemed to be doing well, with the delivery man still turning up with parcels for Christmas, even though they were off to Sheffield the next day. It does seem a bit ludicrous visiting someone to deliver a parcel who is the next day going to go over from whence you came but as I had hired a car (too large, next year I must remember to get a size smaller) and they were travelling by train, leaving it at Elizabeth’s (their daughter) was not going to be sensible. I set off from theirs shortly after nine pm, unfortunately I was still struggling with the size of the car and had difficulties pulling it out and it was starting to sleet and snow, but once on the main roads it was straightforward to get to my parents. At one point a driver thought they would be cheeky and overtake at a traffic light. Actually I was not bothered if they did, but having the bigger powered car meant that they did not have the chance they expected and I noticed that they settled in behind me.

Next day Mum and Dad got up to get into town early. The weather took second place to Dad’s worry about dealing with crowds doing last minute shopping in Stockport, hence the early start. As the day slowly warmed the roads were actually clearer later on. Also there was a milk delivery. My Mum and Dad still have a milk man who delivers but he does not do it daily so with the bank holidays he delivered rather a large quantity of milk, more than the usual fridge can cope with in this foodie season. The result is as usual the overspill ended up in the laundry (cold weather outside keeps that even cooler than usual so another plus for the weather). In previous years quantities of cheese and wine have also been stored down there. Modern British houses are all built to be kept at a single temperature; it’s the exception that has a room that is cool like my parents laundry. If I was designing houses I would have both a pantry (cool room normally on the north side of the house for storing food) and a drying room, which is a warm dry room, with airing cabinet and drying racks in it, used for getting clothes dry. The idea of just one standard temperature throughout the whole house seems daft to me.  

I just spent the day wrapping the presents; this seems to be an annual ritual. I turn up at my parents with presents, wrapping paper etc and proceed to wrap up the remainder of the presents.

On the evening Jean rang and mum had a natter with them. I think if Mum could have been in two places at the same time then she would definitely have been in South Africa this Christmas.

Snow again came in towards evening and Dad woke very worried about getting out. We tried to get out in the morning to get to Parrswood. The wheel spun on the car so we decided that discretion was the better idea and stayed in. However the day was a balmy 2-4°C and that is enough for snow to melt. My parents neighbour Rick was seen scattering salt on the front of their house and I realised that doing so would allow me to clear the slope from the house to the street which was really quite nastily slippery and that would make Dad a lot more confident about getting out. Anyway tacking things slowly with my hire car, I got it out, unfortunately I was still had not got its size right (actually if I am honest the car does not have a clear view to the rear and I feel I have little idea how I am doing when I am reversing. Mum and me loaded up the car. I should have left Dad in charge of checking we had everything out of the house as, as per usual we left the stool at home. Soon we must buy Cathy a couple of folding dining chairs, as Hannah will soon be too big to sit on the high stool from their kitchen comfortably at the dinning room table.  Once we were on the Didsbury Road at the bottom of the hill there were no problems until we got onto Manor Road itself. Then our timing was just out and two cars were leaving just as we got in. As there was a single clear track it took some manoeuvring but we managed. Somebody had cleared two car spaces on their drive and built a snowman with the snow so freed. Why do I think that somehow Hannah and Sam might have had a hand in doing so. Cathy had put her car into the garage so I parked our car in the space she had vacated.

Irene, Adrian’s mother had already arrived and they were back from the pub. Adrian was saying Mum does not like going to the Pub, that may be the impression given by my parents but the problem is not quite that. The fact is that the pub is crowded and Dad does not like crowds while Mum finds crowds make hearing difficult with a hearing aid as it does not tune out the background noise. So a quiet pub is fine, a busy noise one isn’t. Anyway we went up later this year so as to avoid going to the pub and that seemed to work.

Dad was planning to play a trick on Sam and leave his Christmas present in the car, but with the snow, Dad was not carrying the presents and Sam came out to help (initially in his stocking feet, until he got sent back in by his aunt to put something more substantial on) and so I let him carry in the large box that had his Christmas present in. Hannah’s response to Sam’s Christmas present was where was hers. So I pulled out the parcel for her from my parents. This contained a yellow dressing gown which she put on over her smart Christmas clothes.  I had had various freebies during the year and I put a pen and pad of paper to one side for Sam and a few bits of makeup for Hannah (from Boots when I buy makeup I actually want). Hannah was delighted with the bag with makeup in it and tried it out. So you have to imagine this small six year old in a smart grey shorts, sparkly top with tights on, over which she had a yellow dressing gown and bright red smudge around her lips and mascara smudged all under her eyes. She was a bit like a sprite in the process of dressing up as a pantomime dame.

Cathy and Adrian had prepared the Christmas lunch as per usual. This year Cathy had decided not to hassle and try and put on extras but just to do what she knew worked. So we had French Onion Soup as a starter, followed by turkey with all the trimmings and just Christmas pudding with custard. Sam, much to Cathy’s disgust loves sprouts! It appears he is the exception in the family. Hannah only like sprouts if Mavis cooks them! Mavis is the school cook and appears to be a favourite with both Sam and Hannah. They were listing the best cooks in the world, Cathy got first place and Mavis second on Christmas day, but my sister felt that was them flattering her and they really preferred Mavis, at which point Adrian pointed out that that meant that the best he could be was the world’s third best cook.

Sam is one, of those kids, who wants to be always helping. The problem was that between main course and pudding his job was to talk with my mum and day, Irene and me (although Hannah was rather monopolising me). He did not understand this as helping and wanted to be getting up and helping his mum. The result was that it had to be spelt out to him but in the end he got his new mobile phone out and started collecting people’s phone numbers for on it. He got my parents and then got mine, at which point we discovered that Adrian had my old mobile number. He must have got it when Sam was about three, and he and Cathy went away for a weekend, leaving Sam with Mum and Dad. However Dad was preaching at Zion Wakefield for an anniversary service, so I was called in to help. In order to keep in contact we used Adrian’s and my mobile. This meant that we could ring Adrian, hand Sam the phone and he could talk to Mum and Dad. So Adrian got an up to date phone number for me as well (given that I have had the present one for over five years).

Sam and Hannah are neither of them the sort of kids that will sit still. Or at least Hannah isn’t and Sam only seems to when he is watching TV, then if you get in the way you are in trouble. Adrian had specified no TV before 5 pm so they both wanted to be up from the table and away. Hannah immediately wanted to do something so pulled out the puzzle that I had bought her. It said for seven year old plus but as it was right up Hannah’s street I bought it for her anyway. The puzzle was 250 piece jigsaw to be done without a picture to work from. Also there was a story and questions to answer, but you could only answer the questions once you had done the puzzle. Hannah was darting all over the place while Cathy read the story, but when Cathy started asking question Hannah had the answers with out a single doubt, so she was obviously listening. My God daughter Cait is exactly the same. I wonder how they will get on as they get older. As we all moved through to their lounge I started to work on the puzzle not expecting to get very far, but just so Hannah felt someone was giving her attention. Sam so he was not left out was texting me, meanwhile Cathy and Adrian were clearing up and brought us tea and coffee.

Of course Hannah got bored with doing the jigsaw, little girls do and wanted to know when we would finish. Fortunately Cathy came and joined me and some how we managed to put the puzzle together. To make it worse it was four pictures, two sets of two with similar colour schemes so we kept finding we had put pieces together in the wrong quarter.  It was not helped that some of the pieces fitted almost. Hannah is doing well for a six year old, she is quite capable of doing what her great grandfather used to do and coming along and helping to put in the last twenty or so pieces, although sometimes she’d have the pieces the wrong way up even though she was trying the right space. Unfortunately unlike her grandfather she expects the others to do the early bit really quickly. At one time she was fussing with the pyjamas I bought so Cathy chucked them into the other room. Hannah grumped. Cathy told her she had a mean mummy. If Cathy carries on like this when Hannah is a narked teenager and calls Cathy mean, Cathy will have the luxury of informing Hannah that she has been telling her that for years, and its nice that she has at last realised and no she is not going to change her policy now.

At 5:00 pm Adrian allowed Sam to put on the TV for the Gruffalo. It starts  “One day a mouse went for a walk in the dark wood…” and this mouse is a very much a quick talking mouse who pretends he is going to meet a Gruffalo, but there is “No such thing as a Gruffalo!” You will either need to get the children’s story book or find a copy of the programme as I am not telling you what happens. Adrian having no doubt worked late on Christmas eve, then been busy helping with dinner, plus woken by Hannah at 6:00 a.m. or earlier fell asleep on the settee. Sam objected at this point to the fact his father was snoring. As my sister pointed out, she could ask people to shut up but there was not much she could do about his father snoring.

By the time that that had finished we had almost completed the puzzle. Then we had to ask Hannah the questions which, of course, she got right. I wonder how long it will be before she persuades her mum to do it again with her.

Anyway as Dr Who was coming on, and while Sam is an avid fan, I can not take it. Loathe it would be wrong, rather I have only watched it once right through, when sickening for some childhood illness and it gave me nightmares. I am not good at watching TV anyway and the memory of that experience is vivid enough to make me want to exit the room pretty soon after Dr Who comes on. This is even quicker than for most comedy programmes. Surprisingly when I have been to the cinema I seem to have coped better. Anyway mum and Dad were ready to come home and Irene. The journey back was uneventful although Dad sometimes was over instructing and unfortunately for him this lets me know when he gets things wrong. He wanted me back behind the white line when I was turning right at a green light, as mum and Irene confirmed to me, not that it really mattered as traffic was light.

Having dropped Irene at her house we had an uneventful trip back.

Since then we have spent time quietly. I slept most of the next day and I don’t recall my parents doing anything exciting. I think they tried to get around to the paper shop but it was too icy underfoot. Otherwise a very quiet day for us all although Sam texted me from his new mobile phone

Sunday was Sam’s eleventh birthday. Mum and Dad phoned him on the morning to wish him a happy birthday. I got a text from him, thanking me for his birthday present and also saying that he had enjoyed his walk the previous day. Mum and Dad went to church; I however was lazy and slept-in in the morning. Mum felt that Tony Cottam’s son, who is a Methodist Local preacher led worship well on the Sunday. Dad said that he did the text justice which is pretty high praise from Dad.

We had got for my father bird feeders for Christmas after his broke during the year. So later in the day I out to check the pole for my father’s bird feeder, I had been told it was fine, but I found that the top bit that was supposed to connect the pole to the bird feeder was either damaged in the fall or had gone missing. Anyway there was no way I could put the new feeder onto the top of the pole so we have had to order a new pole.

On the afternoon I tried to put into action Dad’s new birdfeeder but the crucial top of the pole bit has either been broken or lost and a new one did not come with the feeder so I have ordered for him a new pole hoping that it will come with that. Dad also wanted the ability to feed insect eaters so I added to his order a feeder and some dried meal worms so that he could feed them. Mum drew the line at live meal worms although she might accept peck ‘n’ mix as an alternative.

Today we went to Sainsbury’s to do some shopping and to get mum from a cash point near there, then Dad took me to fill my car up at a local garage. Tomorrow I head up to Scotland to visit Morag and Tony.

Advent service, Christmas preparations, and Carol service

what news is there from this week. Well I did not make my supervision due to supervisor being double booked. He is on temporary "promotion" due to basically the Dean of Arts getting a new job. I think for the first time he realised that I know how to handle people with busy diaries (thanks Fleur, Sarah, the Dicksons etc for the training) as when he did not respond with dates to my first email I sent him a second more persistent one. I am also learning to deal with busy people with Dyslexia. If you want them to act of something make sure it is the FIRST point in the email, if they think they can get away without reading on they will, and that rather blows things if from your perspective the main point is the second.

The Advent Wreath happened largely thanks to Lynn and Sandra (her twin sister). I think Asha the Chaplaincy assistance thought I was being odd when I introduced them by colour of clothing especially as both of them were looking down at the time and at present Sandra has more weight on than Lynn. However they are identical twins and though I can tell now just by looking someone who does not know them won't. Lynn has retired so came in specially bringing her sister and four bin bags of greenery. I am still trying to digest this years wreath. My analysis to date is it is more subdued but in better keeping with the front. The purple and I think blue will to create a depth and I wonder another year  I might have just some greenery sprayed with those.

With the supervision being cancelled I have actually had three quieter days this week (deliberately). I spent the time doing some transcription, writing up last Sundays service, making chocolates and decorating boxes as well as wrapping one or two presents and sending out my Christmas Cards. In between I have been playing with my camera and the result to date has been three panoramas of the view from my window in the snow. The first one after a flurry on Friday, the second later than evening and the last one this afternoon after a far heavier fall today. Fortunately the met office seems to think that the snow will decrease over the next few days.

Today I went to Herringthorpe for the nativity play, this year the play was set around the story of Simeon and Anna. The kids had written it. So it was set in the X-mas Factor, with contestants of Shepherd, Angels, Animals, Kings and Mary and Joseph. None of the acts caught the judges eye but there were two people cleaning around the place while it was going on. They of course were Simeon and Anna and although they appeared insignificant they were chosen as the most important. As the leader said afterwards they get more bible verses in Luke than do the Shepherds or the birth of Jesus and yet have none of the cute appeal the others had. I did rather get worried that he thought there were no animals in the temple, of course there were, even the passage we were reading has Mary and Joseph bringing two doves. Maybe animals don't count if they are going to be sacrificed. The other thing is that I think Anna and Simeon weren't nobodies you over looked. They represent the piety of ordinary folk who were part of Judaism, their piety made them exceptional. The piety did not bring them wealth but it gave them a way of living. So they were respected but for a totally different reasons. Oh and God was all for using the older person. In fact looking at a lot of biblical characters I am still too young. I think God sees eighty as about the median age for getting people to do things.

Last week I met up with a member there called Jenny. She used to attend Littleborough URC and then went up to St Andrews. So had enough in common to talk about things with ease. I could for instance say that perhaps Eldership should move more to an Academic Families pattern of pastoral care, and she immediately got the analogy. I wonder if that comment would actually work. There are several things about academic families that are interesting. Children choose parents and choose at least two (mother and father), families tend to be a mix of people parents have met in differing ways e.g. through societies, through hall of residence or through a social that the child and parent both attend. The result is that families are more mixed than most elders groups are. Its not a single interest group but a group where there are shared interests with some of the others. Hmm I think I feel a Musing coming on but will need some more thought before its written.

Tonight's service was a pretty normal carols by candlelight service. The things that stood were that they had both a choir and a young persons singing group. Both groups did harmony and the teenage girls have some strong voices amongst them. So I am beginning to see why they are thinking of putting on a musical. Roads were fine despite the snow but then the roads I am travelling along nearly all 40 mile an hour or higher with their speed limits so priority gritter roads. The problem was that most of the elderly stayed in so it was about a half a dozen mince pies each at the end.

Leech ware, Advent rings and Christmas shopping

News is going to be in highlight form. I have made a productivity break through. I found out about Leech block for Firefox and it has meant that I can keep more control over how much I browse sites that have the capacity to enthral me. I also found that totally banning myself is not a good move, but that if I give myself a short time on those sites I actually tend to control my use of the sites a lot better. However when I ban some sites others come along that are time wasters such as Snowdays and the Haggis Hunt. The Haggis Hunt is only onto 25th January but I think the Snowdays may need to go onto the banned list. The fun sites on the Haggis Hunt are Eilean Donan and Paris. The Paris one actually is of the Eiffel Tower which looks absolutely lovely when lit up at night.

Otherwise let me think, at work I have been busy, sometimes with PhD students and sometimes with doing some programming to provide a report on a weekly basis. Really the first test of it will be next Monday as up until now I have not run it without being very much in control. I am pretty sure that it will work ok and it is just in time for the busy period of term, i.e. this and next week. One of the students came to see mr just at the onset of flu, which I am glad to report I did not go down with. However I do wish people with cold and flu would think of others before they decided to visit them.

PhD wise something interesting seems to have happened to my with respect to Chesterfield. Now that I am finally finished at Chesterfield, I am far more prepared to sit down and transcribe and also to spend time with the interviews. I wonder if some of the tension that I felt before was the tension between getting new data and trying to handle old data. The effect of stopping it has meant that I am far more relaxed at doing things like transcribing. I am also prepared to go back to diary records and start to build analyses out of these. It is far more a question of sampling the data and then trying to see what I build out of that. The advantage is that by doing this sampling I am actually starting to build a much fuller analysis. Things are happening slowly.

Also I have the Advent ring for the Chaplaincy to do again this year. I have decided I am bored with red and gold. So this year we are doing white, purple and silver. I just hope everything comes together and that includes the person in charge of lights having something other than the traditional orange or red  filter. The big miracle will be if the silver ropes of beads turn up! At present they should arrive at my home tomorrow because I once again managed to fill in the wrong address on the delivery notice. If someone lets the delivery man in I might get them in time. If not I will have to do it without them. I checked at the local Sainsbury (technically one of their small shop, the equivalent to Tesco Express, but so big it would have been a full sized supermarket a decade ago) and they had none in. As they seemed to be the only shop selling them I tried getting them online. Then I messed up and now its too late. So if they don't come we will do without. I already have quite a lot of spray paint and ribbons and some white beads bought last year from John Lewis who had none in this year. I have picked six bags of greenery and had two definite donations and one maybe. Lets hope that I get more from somewhere.

However yesterday I broke the back of Christmas shopping. By that I mean I have three things left to get, but all of those are from places I would go to anyway. Given it was the next to last Saturday before Christmas, it was understandable that most coffee shops were rather full. I just looked at the queue in the Marks and Spencer one and decided against it. However having done a mamoth shop, I was feeling whacked and had to walk back home as the last shop on the list was on the way home. I fortunately decided to walk up by the Cathedral, and at the corner with Leopold Street there is a Lavazza Coffee shop which had a few customers in, only one couple waiting to order and lots of spare tables. When I left it was getting close to full and anyway placed there I suspect it is mainly a workers coffee shop. However the ability to get a coffee without even waiting and sit down and rest for a while was brilliant. I think I might check if these are regularly open on a Saturday and if so, make them the coffee shop I go to if I am in town. I have rather gone off the one that is next door to where SPCK used to be, since it got refitted. It went very up market, and what I liked was that it felt the sort of place where nobody minded if you sat in a corner, read a book and drank a coffee. Now it feels like a place where you go to see and be seen.

Today I went to Herringthorp, I think I am beginning to settle. I got a Christmas card unexpectedly off one of the elders well a couple of elders. I had not thought that I knew anyone well enough for them to think I should get a Christmas card, but obviously because I ended up working with the husband of the pair at the Christmas fair they thought it would be the right thing to do. I suppose I should have gone back for the Christingle service but honestly I was tired and I had the greenery for the Advent ring to pick, and one place I wanted to do during the light because I am not sure that drug users don't use it as a place to congregate out of watchful eyes when it is dark. During daylight it is next to a busy road and they would be observable but at night the traffic is less and the light does not really reach that far.

This week is busy with the Carol service on Tuesday and a supervision on Thursday. I intend to take Friday off so as to allow me time recover. Actually Saturday is recovery time as well, as I am planning on making home made chocolates for presents and to take into work.

A cold and a missed induction

This week isn't one full of news. I finished my SPSS course on Monday, but when I got back I noticed that I felt a bit odd, and that usually means I am going down with something. I was not necessarily sure what, but I sent apologies to writers group worried it was a migraine but feeling rather frustrated.

Anyway Tuesday came and it decided to declare itself as a cold, so yay for it not being a migraine, bah for it then being a cold. My suspect for handing it onto me seems to be a nine month year old child who had a foul one on the train. Mother was not managing her at all well, at least in part because she had a cold, was over stimulated having been out for the day, and tired. Of course her ability to keep germs to herself had not yet developed.  Well it was one of these that landed me in bed the next day (well the majority of the day anyway) and although getting  better towards the weekend has not been quick to clear. I still know it is there, just not all the time. Actually the extent of my creativity this time rose to wet weather pictures, and yes Fleur the yellow blob is Sandra and cleaning the fridge and the bath. The fridge should have been cleaned months ago but I just had not found the time.

Friday I got as far as doing a shop but that was really as much as I was up to and I had two things on on Saturday which were do not miss.

Well I made one of them on Saturday. I picked up the car fine on Saturday morning, had to fill with petrol that led to a detour, as there are no petrol stations on the way to Herringthorpe from my flat. Got to Herringthorpe early enough to get a parking space, even though I was only ten minutes before opening time. Ten minutes later there were none, and people wanted to be into the car park because the weather was bad. This led I think to triple parking. They have a morning Christmas fair which starts at 11:00 and goes onto 2:00 p.m.. It is is some ways very similar to those at Chesterfield. Most of the stalls could have been interchanged. However I managed to get onto the kitchen duties (yes I know that is not exactly difficult for me) which is something I never could have done at St Andrews Chesterfield. They booked me 11-12 but really needed me 11:30 to 1:30 unfortunately I had to leave in order to try and get to my second engagement of the day.

So at about 1:30 p.m. having vaguely sorted myself I set off to Nottingham to try and get to David Legge's induction at 3 p.m. that afternoon. I knew that Doncaster were away to Notts Forrest, kick off 3p.m. same time as the start of the ordination. I also knew that it was going to be easier to come in to Nottingham from a more northerly direction than the Motorway gives. So I had set my SatNav to go via Worksop and Mansfield.  Unfortunately I did not realise this meant the centre of Worksop and the centre of Mansfield. The centre of Mansfield was fine the centre of Worksop was not. Particularly annoying as I did not realise until I was off the ring road. What I also did not realise was although it looked like the main A road on the way down, it was infact most 50 or 40 mile and hour speed limit. Just a couple of miles or so further east is I think the A618, which does not go through Mansfield, and is national speed limit most of the way. It would have been a far better bet. I know now having driven up it. I got into Nottingham and knew the church was on Edwards Lane. I was one piece of information shore. I had assumed that Edwards Lane was a relatively short road. Lanes normally are quite short. Its about two miles long and leads into another long road called Beckhamptom Road. Even worse still it has the Edgerton Road South, Edgerton Road North feel about it, in that there is a major junction splitting the road into two parts. I ended up on the wrong part. The result was that I drove up and down it several times and could not find the church. At about 3:30 pm I ended up deciding that even if I did find the church now I would not go in and drove home without the Sat Nav. Actually originally just heading out of the city inorder to find somewhere I could get something wet to drink. I was half way home before I found one but the drive had been a lot smoother. I went in an ordered a Coke and a pot of tea as I had not had anything to drink since just after 11:00 in the morning. Having got home know that it was probably for the best health wise, I was tired enough only having done what I did but still dispirited at having missed the induction service after making all that effort.

Supervision week with some sorting out of things

Right what has this week brought. Monday was washed out with a migraine. I just curled up and slept. In some ways it was worse than normal in that the whole time I was feeling rotten, in other ways better, as it only lasted one day.

Tuesday I awoke and realised not only had the migraine left, it had also left me in a state I would call anti-migraineous. If migraines make me feel rotten, not want to be bothered with anything and want to curl up in bed, then this made me feel as if I could tackle everything that I was okay, I was slightly more bothered than usual and that I was able to do what I needed to do. That was good in some ways. I had plenty of energy to go to Herringthorpe for a Bible Study. I even sorted out what to eat by getting a pasty from the student shop. Not so good in other ways, I had two Amazon parcels and was too much in attentive to check they actually had in them what they said they did. Herringthorpe does bible study differently. It may have started with an Alpha group. They have a fellowship meal at 6 p.m. in the church which people don't have to go to, then at present they split into an Alpha group and a bible study group. They Bible study group go through to the church, and Pauline gives them a talk on the passage of scripture they are looking at for about three quarters of an hour. The Alpha group I presume watch a video in the hall during this. Then everyone comes back for coffee. Then it is into small groups, the bible study dividing into two. Neither group is led by Pauline. What is noticeably is they have a lot of people who are happy leading groups like this.

Wednesday was officially my quiet day. Still busy but nothing major. So I did a shop and other regular chores.

Thursday was off to Birmingham for a supervision. I had booked myself on an earlier train having got muddled over times (my diary said 12 noon my brain said 2 p.m., my brain was right). It meant that I had plenty of time at Birmingham, time to search for leads and such, time to buy a Birmingham hoodie (I wore and old one on Tuesday and people just seemed more relaxed about me being there if I wore something that said which University I was at). I also was in the one place in the country that was not flooded. I don't think I even had to cope with a mild shower. A funny-peculiar of the day was I went for a Taxi on the way home. Being the law abiding sort, I let the person in front of me get into a taxi first, only for the taxi driver to ask me where I was going, and then ask her to get out and get the next taxi. It turned out he had kids to pick up so could not do the long journey she was asking for. There were plenty of taxis. Another is I picked up the book "Worship and Liturgy in Context: studies and case studies in theology and practice" printed by SCM. It sounds like a general book on worship. Now let me start giving you clues its editors are Duncan B Forrester and Doug Gay. It has two articles by David Fergusson. Other names I recognise include John Bell and Norman Shanks. The chapter titles are clearly all based in Scotland. There really should be a hint, other than the editors names, on the cover that its perspective is definitely Scottish.

Friday was a bitty day, just never seemed to settle. I know this probably was partly coming in from Birmingham, partly that I had reason to take my lunch very early and partly just my brain working over time the day before.

Saturday I went to St Andrews Sheffield and spent a couple of hours just fiddling around with bits of equipment around the audio desk. Nothing much really, just testing every microphone, sorting out stuff that had just been stuffed into boxes and so on. We seem to have equipment breeding. I know its breeding, they had the box to put an electric guitar output straight into the mixing desk. I can not imagine that on any occasion St Andrews has regularly had someone playing the electric guitar. It might just have had someone playing the acoustic guitar on a handful of occasions, and the person would normally have been a guest preacher. I wonder what pieces of equipment have to breed to create one of those and why by natural selection it survived where something more useful, such as a phantom power supply box has not. Mind you I did find no less than 3 electrical extension leads of which one was of unknown origin. Otherwise wrote up last Sunday's notes.

Today I got to Herringthorpe. They were celebrating Bible Sunday, so they had Gideons in to present and they also gave Bibles to the children. They give bibles to children in Junior Church who are in years 2,7 & 12 of school. Children who already have Bibles are allowed to choose books as an alternative. What was clear was that they were giving them age related Bibles. They claimed they did not give kids new bibles if they already had them, but I would be rather concerned for any lad who in year 12 was still using the Bible he was given in year 2, I think I would want him to have something more adult although something aimed more at the year 7 might be more appropriate. The links are just to examples. Oh the other thing is that I have discovered Herringthorpe has its contingent with Pauline who thing "she's not Elizabeth Caswell is she" and tend to stay away. What is more this group appears to include at least one older person (I'd guess about eighty). If as I suspect, Pauline has actually moved the church to more mainstream URC in ethos then maybe I am going to have to revise my ideas that older people and Charismatic praise band led worship do not mix easily unless the older person is a long time charismatic. I suspect in fact what it was is they like Elizabeth's charisma and Pauline does not have that.

This week will finish the SPSS course. Now what dramatic thing do we expect this time, having had a burning building on the previous session for this course. Next Saturday is both Herringthorpe's Christmas fair and David Legge's induction at Sherwood. Otherwise a pretty normal week.

Evacuating buildings and meals out and that's just Tuesday!

There was slightly more happening this week as I did not sleep through a couple of days of it. Monday was largely uneventful although I got to my writing group and thoroughly enjoyed that. However I may well have to go this week without anything written, or bring one from a couple of weeks back which is in my opinion really weak.

Tuesday morning I was organising for the middle of my three SPSS classes having missed last week. I got up there and only four of the class remained. I am not sure whether this was because they forgot, life intruded or they all fell foul of a dreaded lurgy. However this time we had a fire. Oh not in the room we were in, just one in the building but it was the Hicks Building and we were on the top floor. It is a long story of why my department's teaching room is on the top floor of the Hicks Building, partly it is history and partly it is inertia. There was no real panic, first assumption was that it was someone testing the alarms, second one was that it was either a practice or a false alarm and it was only when I went back in to tidy the room after getting the all clear, I overheard porters talking of the smell of acrid smoke. So there must have been a fire somewhere in the building. Fortunately I had finished teaching for the day but the building catching fire is yet another new one on me. I had to create an evacuation plan on the spot and I may have sent people to the wrong fire exit as I sent them automatically to the main stairs rather than the set of stairs at the other end of the building which is possibly nearer. In the Hicks they have installed a lift for use in case of fire by the disabled, but it is so poor that Derek Collins has been recommended to come down after all the rest down the flight of stairs. Part of me wonders if it is due to some students trying to use it when they are able bodied.

In the evening I went out with CICS Prayer Group to Las Iguanas to mark Lynn and Cliff's retirement. We all made it except Mike who had managed to get his wires crossed with his wife and was needed at home to look after their children. The set menu was not as good as a few years back, when you could get several course that were imaginative for a very reasonable price, the set menu was largely standards that you can get at a lot of other places. They also had cut their fresh fruit options to one but then as I had taken a lactase tablet I could have IPANEMA MESS: Layers of sweet guava, creamy mascarpone & crushed meringue, I might even have got away with it without the tablet, but it would have been pushing it. Malcolm a former member of the group who retired about a year ago was there and looking well despite battling quite serious stomach cancer.

Wednesday was the first meeting of the NVivo users group, a group which I have thought of as necessary for the University for years but which I did not know any way of setting up. I started teaching it last April and it just seems to have attracted people. I will run at least three courses this academic year (1 run, 2 booked) and from one of the courses last year, someone decided something needed doing and got onto someone who knew who to contact. So the group has started. I have since created a mail list for them and need to get started on updating the course.

However by thursday a query I had been given by Patrice had started to bear fruit. Many years ago I wrote reports on the data from Petrmetr. Then people stopped using them (licensing software got better and the techie boys decided that immediate reports were better for their part). The result was that I dropped it. There is no point in doing a report if no one is going to look at it. Only we are back needing to have the reports again. Fortunately the software is still there. However I no longer have the ability to easily access the data. So another member of staff writes a report to extract the data, then I do some wizardry on the data and produce the graphics and measures we actually need for people to make sensible decisions. Meanwhile on the morning my cleaner was doing her fortnightly clean (or the family was as both her sister and mum came to help). The mum has the same attitude to my bath mat as my mum and asked permission to put it out.

Friday was a fairly normal day. I went to the Breakfast first thing, and had bacon and mushrooms on toast. It looked fairly busy although on later inspection people had just chosen to spread themselves around the room. Sarah was having a conversation with Phil on one table, on another Janet and Jean Dickson and a couple of others were talking. Legend/Peter was on the third and decided to call me over to talk to him. So all the tables were in use but people were spread out. Got back and did some more transcribing. I hope I can finish a second interview this month by transcribing on Monday and Wednesday. Then I must really look to getting them out. Went into work, and even though I had only one thing planned for the afternoon I ended up jumping in a number of different directions. So it was after five before I left.

I got in did a quick turn around and went back out again as the Dicksons had invited me for dinner. The traffic was awful even though it was approaching 6 p.m. when I got to the bus stop. It was not helped that it decided to rain, not a full scale Sheffield downpour but it was still pretty wet. So there was a wait for the bus. I think if I had known how soon the next would be I would have got it, but the traffic did not seem to clearing, although it cleared within minutes of getting on the bus, and the idea of being somewhere dry was rather tempting even if it was crowded. I was damp by the time I got to the Dicksons. It was pleasant after the business of the week to sit down with friends. Although when Jean decided to send me home around 9p.m. I was more than willing to go.

Saturday my parents came over. Mum had been struggling with sewing up the cardigan she had knitted me and had wanted during the week for me to help her with exactly how the pieces fitted together. The problem was that she'd lay them out in from of her and say something like does this go so to this. As I had no idea what either "this" was nor what shape they were it was very difficult to answer. She had asked my sister about it during the week but Cathy had been racing around keeping her household on track, she did not feel as if she had had a proper conversation about it. However she had sorted it by the time she had got here and I just had to try it on. She still needs to knit the collar and the facings for the jersey and I got a button for it while they were over. We also went down town, partly to get me a replacement bath mat, which dad decided was to be the surprise part of my Christmas present.

Today I went to Herringthorpe for both the service and the following church meeting. The thing that struck me once again is how much new stuff they are taking on. It is a very "can do" and "go ahead" congregation. This included voting to support the setting up of Street Pastors in Rotherham, voting new elders, choosing a charity to support as well as quite a debate about how to charge for use of the buildings to charities. The congregation got really quite involved in the deciding how to charge charities. It was one of those cases where church meeting over turned the decisions of elders. I came in and went to bed and slept for another couple of hours.

This coming week, I am going to try going to their bible study on Tuesday and also have a trip down to Birmingham on Thursday plus the two mornings typing up transcripts. Then next weekend hopefully a quiet weekend in.

Making the most of a cold

For those who want to see the rain pictures from last week then the best two are posted here.

The wet one from my bedroom window works better as you get the feeling of a really wet day. However as I said last week it would have been even better if I had managed to get myself up earlier so that you got the lights spread through Sheffield in the wet half light of dawn, that would have given the buildings some more shape and form. The evening one really falls down because simply it was not wet enough so I was searching for raindrops on the window. I got a few but not nearly as many as required for the image. Oh well something to try again on another day when it is wet and I am stuck indoors.


My news, is pretty scarce this week as the strange mix of illness last Sunday decided to develop into a cold. Well a cough, tiredness and occasional (at most twice a day) bouts of sneezing. I am not quite sure how it did it but last Sunday and again on Thursday it seemed to manage to mix migraine symptoms in with the cold ones. Mum originally suggested this might be due to flu but as my temperature did not go above 37°C, I somewhat doubt this. This meant that for the first time in all the years I have been in Sheffield I cancelled a course I was teaching. I have taught it before when I have been this ill but with this course and the spacing I have learnt that if I do teach it when ill, I may as well cancel the next one as so many others are off with the cold, plus I do not teach the course particularly well when I am off colour so cancelling and rearranging seemed sensible. Monday and Tuesday I spent most of the day in bed sleeping and when I was up I felt very tired. I find if I keep myself inside my flat when I have a cold the symptoms are less severe but I seem to be very tired.

 Wednesday I felt a bit better and decided to spend the day up and see how I coped. Quite a bit of the time I spent crocheting a duckling for Lynn who was a secretary at work until she retired recently, granddaughter Hannah. Hannah was born back in September and I got the orange wool for the beak and feet soon after. The yellow was bought for my nieces bee, which I do not have a picture of. It is somewhat bigger than the usual crochet amigurumis that I do. No the background was not pale blue, it was white, but if I took the picture with the the background white then the duckling looked positively orange and given that his actual colour is very yellow that would be problematic. It took quite a bit of fixing of the colour transitions for the camera for the picture to come out this well. I also on Wednesday finished another transcript for my thesis. So even though I was at home, it was quite a productive day.

Thursday I got the comeback of trying to be up all day on Wednesday and needed to sleep in the morning. That said I did manage to finish the duckling off. I am not quite sure whether it is a toy or an ornament. The eyes are put on with washers that go over the stem that goes through the crocheting. The washers are funnel shaped so pushing them off actually tightens their grip on the stem and the stem had ridges on to grip them. So as far as I can see about as sturdily on as you can get apart from just using embroidery for the eyes and I am no good at getting that right. Yes I have tried. Certainly they are better on than the using Fimo or Sculpey polymer modelling clay and then sticking them on, which is a technique I have seen recommended.

Friday I did some transcription on another recording. I still need to catch up a lot, but I got one interview sent out on Saturday and another sent back for checking. I just hope the postal strike does not go on too long. I now have five done, one in progress and another eight to do. I would ideally like them done before Christmas (Hah!) so will need to get a move on especially as I am back to making full notes on my placement. The weather has also got much colder so this week I got out my winter duvet. I am enjoying the fact it is down filled and not polyester so it hugs closer to your body and you do not need to warm as much cold air.

Today I made it to Herringthorpe and I got introduced to the congregation. The nice thing is that I did not have any  pressure to take the service, which is why I actually did not get introduced at St Andrew's Chesterfield. David thought that it would be a good idea if I took a service. I don't take main Sunday morning services, and simply my thesis was not the sort of one where I can take a service and tell people about it before I have been with them. The congregation keep telling me repeatedly that they are a welcoming congregation, I have not seen anything to contradict that, but they are in danger of in my mums words "over egging the pudding". My one conclusion to date is that growth is not directly related to how welcoming a congregation is, despite what the denomination has stressed for years. Welcome is one of the things that stops you driving people away, but does not draw people in. Two more groups of members I have come across, the ex Pentecostal and the Scots who mistook the CofE for a sister church for the CofS and wondered why they did not find it friendly (I suspect more to do with wrong expectations of friendship than not being friendly). Oh the first indication of the dominant female name at Herringthorpe, someone said "There are lots of Jeans here", although if I had guessed I would have said Val. Maybe the Jeanery actually covers the whole of South Yorkshire and not just St Andrews Sheffield.

Next week I am giving the course I should have the week before, with the one for this date moving a fortnight later, having a meal out with Cliff, Lynn and others from prayer group and also the first meeting of the University of Sheffield's NVivo users group, so another busy week.

Hoping that this week brings you joys from unexpected places, times of good friendship and opportunities to relax and appreciate life

In which nothing very much happens

Not sure there is much news this week.

I taught the start of a class on SPSS this week, and during my session on NVivo last week it suddenly trigged that what I miss is my ability to sense when a class is getting baffled. So I made little flip cards, which if I have time on Monday I will finish with piece of card and some blu-tac. Simply if I am going to fast and they are lost they flip it over, if it is just one or two then I can wait to the next work session but if it is more then I need to stop and replay. This does not stop the class from asking questions but means I can have some sort of clue to how they are following. The other thing was despite reminders the last couple of weeks, the person updating the notes forgot. So I ended up teaching with half of the documents and then I went up and the software I was using, which I thought was 16 turned out to be 15! So the old notes would have been fine. I ended up teaching until 4:30 and did not get down until after 5:00 p.m.. Which meant I missed completely Cliff Woodcrafts leaving do.

Wednesday was fairly normal only as I am trying to transcribe interviews at present it was my other half day off on the morning. Went in at lunch time firstly to prayer meeting (the microphone for the hall is back and working, I checked it on Thursday when I put it in). Then got on with my work. Same with thursday and friday, being the other half day I was supposed to get more transcription done. I did about half a minute. I really need to make better progress.

Saturday I went to town, I bought myself a tripod. I bought it so I can take photographs that require a longer exposure than I can hold the camera still for, but since getting it I also find I can relax more when I am setting up a photograph, I have the time to check the settings and make sure I am getting things right without wondering about how I going to continue holding it. Slower yes, but I think for me it is better. Maybe I should have got a full sized tripod earlier. I have still to discover whether I will be un-selfconcious enough to use it properly but have enjoyed the photographs I have done today at home. I tried manual focussing something I'd never dare try if hand holding. So I got photos of the rain drops on the glass of my windows. Admittedly I should have got myself up and out of bed earlier so I could have got the deep blue of a wet dawn but I didn't.

Today has not been successful and I am wondering why. I alternate between time of month exhaustion, a cold or maybe a migraine. I got up but partly lost track of time (something typical for me during time of the month), got to the car and things didn't quite come together, including me not looking at the clock, then ran into road works plus there was torrential rain. At the end I was just too late for the service, if I was further on in my placement I would have gone in, but I just felt as if it would cause panic upon panic, as first I would not be there and then I would. So I turned around and came home which as soon as I did it I knew was the right decision as there was enough wrong for me to be aware of it. I got home and went to bed and slept for three hours straight off. Since then have felt as if something isn't quite right, but not sure what. After talked with my parents have decided that at present should assume it is a bug and see what tomorrow brings.

Three weeks catch up post

Three weeks ago I was still getting over the cold although I had to be in work by Wednesday. Then I was at a conference for work. This had a study day beforehand that looked useful. I suppose it was, in that it made me aware that a lot of what I want to learn about a piece of software is not going to be in any book! Oh and that some statisticians still think that small sets of numbers which follow neat tidy patterns so you can work out the result, is what all statisticians like to use so they can get a feel for things. It was all right for me, I followed but I am not sure that the average member of the audience did. There was one other statistician in the group of about fifteen. The computer suite where the teaching was was okay but I am beginning to think that the one thing that was missing was the teacher being unable to see what was going on on anyone's desktop. That meant the lecturer had no idea when people were faking interest out of politeness as he had lost them half an hour ago.

That evening had arranged to meet up with a friend through ship of fools who lives in York. We went first to a pub on Goodramgate and then up a flight of stairs to the Thai restaurant. The pub was at least in a midweek early October evening a locals' pub, the sort of place where there are groups of guys sitting together having a comfortable chat before going back home. The Thai was the sort of place you'd have to be a local to spot. Its entrance was a rather plain doorway between two shops and then you had to go up a narrow flight of stairs, there is no way you could get a wheel chair up there, it isn't wide enough. The upstairs room was one of these open plan restaurants in much the same way as you find in big Chinese places but the room was probably only the size of a couple of living rooms knocked together, so not so huge you were lost in it. The food was delicious, well I like spicey, hot food (one of the dishes had ginger in it) and the price very reasonable. So rather than ending either sitting in, in a small cramped room or ending up being co-opted for a committee and going to its meeting, I had an enjoyable evening. Unfortunately I paid for it the next day with something that started like a migraine but I was able to knock it with strong pain killer but I was still overdrawn so did not stay until the end of the afternoon session, going home once they had had the session I was at the conference to go to, nor did I make the colour evening at Herringthorpe that evening.

The weekend however was spent writing an essay. It actually went quite well despite the fact my normal four day spell had been reduced to two and a half, as there was a departmental meeting on the Monday morning and I felt I ought to attend as the VC was coming and so a stronger whip than usual and that evening was a rehearsal for a reading my writers group were going to do on the Thursday. I had done a couple of writing sessions earlier in the month as I knew I would be short of time so the writing was easier than if I had come cold to a half baked idea. This one is probably my most successful writing to date for my thesis.

The reading on Thursday went well. We were more varied this year, we had a screen writer as well as the usual collection of novelists and the few poets. Actually we brought back a poet who has gone on to bigger and better things, so there were still three of us this year. We met at the Quaker Meeting House as the old venue wanted to charge. I am guessing but it would have helped if there had been clear information from the start. The road on which the Quaker meeting house goes Cathedral, Vegetarian Cafe (Blue Moon), Bar, Quaker Meeting hour. The bar must had been decorated by someone with weird taste. It was in what used to be offices, maybe even offices for the cathedral or the burgesses. There were preservation orders on various bits, but not apparently on the office walls so they had left the plaster ceillings as they were but knocked out the walls to make a big space. They also had cardboarded over the back windows and painted them white. Then had decorated in would be nineteen seventies wall paper only it was not "cool" enough so rather than being brightly coloured it was all in shades of black grey, silver and maybe the odd bit of red. To add to it someone had thought hippie curtain ideas would go with the wall paper and there was a bead curtain. Strange indeed.

The following weekend I had to write a presentation to give the following Tuesday for my supervisor and also made it to Herringthorpe. So it was very intensive. I just really did not have the time to do it earlier. In someways it took less time than I expected, partly because I realised I could take some of the presentation directly from my presentation to elders. Herringthorpe is weird. Lets put it this way, I went to another parade service, attended two services a month both of which were parades. Numbers were down but might be due to being second parade, not liking all age worship, swine flu, the minister preaching elsewhere etc. What they got was a proper all age worship, actually done fairly well by one of the congregation's lay preachers and his wife plus the music group. Most of the congregation there seemed to be enjoying this. This individual had some of the persona of a stand up comedian which helps. Still no hymns I don't recognise but now I have to add the fact that the congregation are perhaps less conservative about worship than the minister. Lets say it is not living up to its reputation actually I am going to go as far as to say St Andrews Sheffield might well have got on very well with Pauline as their minister if worship style was what counted. In fact I could see grumbles arising about how conservative she is.

Then on Tuesday I was down to Birmingham for a supervision. It went well, I didn't even get wet, despite leaving my waterproof at home. I ended up buying another ink pen, just a cheap one. Anybody wanting a cheap cartridge pen just let me know, John Lewis' own brand seem to do the cheapest I think for all of £3. The one I bought on Tuesday was from the stationary shop at the University main buildings and cost over twice that. I had a bit of a panic over the presentation. On Thursday I emailed my supervisor asking about projection for a powerpoint presentation. He said as we weren't meeting at Selly Oak there would not be. The problem was not the lack of projection ability which I got over easily by borrowing a pc from work which has a screen you can turn around 180 degrees but the fact that as far as I knew we were at Selly Oak indeed he had specifically emailed me to ask me to relocate to there from his office. Fortunately I bumped into him in the foyer of the Arts Tower and checked that the session was at Edgebaston.

Wednesday I was teaching a course. It showed me how much I relied on knowing how students were doing to know whether I had to repeat something. They had put the desks into straight lines and I could not see what was going on on the screens so I was never sure if students had followed what I was doing or not. It previously had had machines around the edge and although people tended to sit at machines and twist to see the screen it was possible to know whether a student was lost, following or gone off on their own tangent. The only ones that concern me is when a student is lost and I don't realise.

Not surprisingly after those two days my body decided it was not doing Thursday so I spent most of the day in bed.

Friday was back in work and then over to my parents. Ruth came over for a meal, she turned up earlier in the afternoon hoping to help mum with the garden. Mum allowed her to sweep up the leaves and does not seem to have developed a list of jobs she is not telling Ruth about. Dad decided to provide wine with the meal for Ruth and myself although he and mum drank water. I was dispatched downstairs to pick a bottle and as Ruth was there the FairTrade one was the obvious one to choose. Mum had cooked venison. This was Dad's choice. It was delicious but I am half wondering if Dad is going to keep on wanting Mum to cook venison whether a slow cooker would not be a held. Saturday I set up the Freeview box for Mum and Dad. Fortunately it came without a SCART cable so we had to go and get one of those, a trip to B&Q was therefore in order, which gave me the excuse for taking mum to buy some plants as she was worrying over blank bits of earth, particularly in the front garden. Ruth if next time you are down there are a couple of heather plants in the back garden in pots then they are to be planted in the front garden, I am hoping mum has chance to plant them before you go. The snag with the freeview box is that it will need retuning twice in the next month. I have left the manual out with Dad with the quickset up instructions on the page that tell about retuning. Basically you have to get it to reset itself.

I caught the train back and there were a couple of retired ladies who were originally from Bury and a man from Sheffield sitting in the seats opposite. The man was with his wife and three kids. The man had an off the wall sense of humour and the ladies who were going home from Derby had had a bad day and needed a laugh and were ready to play up to get it. There was just a lot of good humoured teasing and joking around arranging a Baileys ice-cream and coffee party!

Today I was over to Chesterfield for the last time with my PhD. I was giving the report to church meeting. However John Marsh had been preaching the previous sunday, plus it was half term week and then some absent themselves simply because it was church meeting. The result was a smaller than usual congregation, although there were about twenty three people present. The main item was my report. I think it went well. It was an interesting time to do it, as David is leaving in a couple of weeks and therefore they are getting very much into sorting out how things will happen during the vacancy. Some of this showed during the church meeting. Helen took a couple of paper copies of the report to put into the pastoral profile, fortunately it does not have my name on it. The report might look like a light weight piece of work, but talking to mum and Dad tonight I worked out to produce a report with such a depth of knowledge behind it, would mean employing somebody at least for two days per week for two years! In other words although only five pages long and a lot of that pictures, there was a lot of careful selection from a huge amount of information. I in the end culled it right down to a central message which was basically that they needed to decide what sort of congregation they wanted to be and then work to be that, rather than doing nothing so as not to risk displeasing anyone.

Cold stops play

Right onto News this week. The only problem is what news, the cold (it wasn't 'flu it just a sore throat, coughing, plenty of phlegm and an occasional bout of sneezing, but still very tiring) has kept me largely indoors. On Tuesday there was an event welcoming Research Students and there were desks with information which needed staffing. As one of the few specialist research staff I felt I should be in. Coped fairly well that day, but the next day realised I was in work but just staring at a screen and when I talked I quickly started coughing my head off. So I went home and slept all afternoon.

So apart from that what have I done. Well I have read two and a bit books. The two books read are by Fannie Flagg (she wrote Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle stop Cafe) the first Standing in the Rainbow was enjoyable, largely American nostalgia but actually quite a good story about women and politics hidden amongst the rest. The second Can't Wait to Get to Heaven I cannot recommend, the nostalgia has upper hand in the book and it shows. Heaven is portrayed as the home of 1950s radio host "Neighbour Dorothy" and it is Universalist in the extreme. She gets around how do you deal with bad behaviour in heaven by largely not having anybody who is likely to behave badly. Can battered wives still be beaten up by their husbands? Can people still be treated unfairly and allowed to starve? I am not necessarily strong on judgement but a portrayal of heaven where everyone gets in, that does not deal with the problem of evil doesn't seem to me to be healthy.

The book I have not finished is The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa and I highly recommend it. It is written from the perspective of an iguana and is set in Angola but the book does not get its title from him, I am not going to tell you as it will spoil the story. The Iguana watches the human life that goes on in the house of Felix Ventura, a second hand book dealer, who also creates pasts for people. It is fairly short, well written and the story has enough twists and turns to keep you reading through it.

Other than that, yesterday I put together the handout for my talk to church meeting at St Andrew's Chesterfield, have done some transcription and slept a lot. Oh I also made an arch out of plasticine (it is for the presentation to St Andrew's Chesterfield)

The result of the cold meant that I did not get over to Manchester. I was probably infectious, the cold is exhausting and I had to back for today as I was starting at Herringthorpe. So it was just not going to work. However I went to Herringthorpe. I think I have just about sorted the turnings on the round-a-bouts but I may keep using the SatNav for the number of times it gives me totally impossible advice when driving through Sheffield city centre. I keep being told to go straight on, when I can only turn left or right, or to go right and right again when all I can do is go straight on. For those that are wondering there is a nice cut through the city centre that gets me out from having to sort out how to cope with the awkward part of the ring road. If it had not worked I think I would have taken to doing the ring road in the other direction. Today however I sussed coming back. I left the parkway at the right place and also managed to go back up behind the law courts. Now all I have to do is suss how best to get to where I have to park the car. It may still turn out that going to Western Bank roundabout and turning in is the best idea! Got in and went to sleep for a couple of hours.

I doubt that I will find time to write next weekend as I will be both presenting to St Andrews Chesterfield's church meeting and writing for my next supervision. Once I finish that then I will need to prepare to present a "the experiences of a Novice ethnographer"

Sore throat at Elders

Let me see. There are three events this week. First my writers group started up again. This is fun although we are already in the run up to the Off the shelf reading (It is free and all are welcome to come) which means I have to get two of my poems through another draft and ready to be read for a week on Monday. I probably should be doing them now but I will do it later this week.

Second was that I presented my report to elders on Thursday. It was one of those days and not helped by the fact I awoke with a sore throat. I also forgot to ring the minister to remind him I need to projector and screen. Actually everything otherwise went like clock work except I talked too much, saying some things earlier than I should of and having to repeat them. For the first part of the elders meeting they had a local councillor in talking on ways they could engage with the local community. Why is it that councillors think we should always engage with the homeless. I agree it is a good work, but this is a church already involved in Pathways and other homeless activities and really needs to find places where it can build relationships which will make it more outwardly focused. Its not at this stage about evangelism its about making friends on an ongoing basis. This is just something that have not bothered to do. The one really useful comment was by Helen who said that the majority of the serving elders now were incomers. Very interesting, I had not worked that out before, it shows as she said that the incomers were able to tap into with the powers that be when some of the local people weren't.

Unfortunately I still had a burny throat that evening and decided it was time to call the cold, a cold. Friday we were supposed to have Greek but Betty had just died and Sarah wanted to go up after the Broomhall Breakfast to see what she could do. With that and my cold greek was cancelled. So I nipped into town to get supplies and since then have been trying to hibernate. Unfortunately needed to go out to St Andrews today to set some of the heating (the rest can wait until I am better but the evening service today and the Tuesday group were likely to need the heat on before then). The rest has been sleeping, keeping warm, ginger drink which is supposed to be good for indigestion but also seems to do pretty well at relieving cold symptoms, taking vitamin C and zinc and echinaea plus having an essential oil warmer going with eucalyptus etc in it. Basically I have thrown everything I can at the cold and it is only shifting slowly. So I think I am going to be off work tomorrow but hoping I am back to functioning normally by Tuesday. Voice has gone today so it might be interesting informing people of my status tomorrow.

Birthday, Migraines and

Lets see about this weeks news. Monday I was down for a supervision at Birmingham. It is becoming a bit of a routine, but I should have been suspicious when I started drinking lots of coffee that perhaps I was not as well deep down as I was on the surface. I got there, only to find no supervisor. Some clown had booked a meeting for him, that clashed with our supervision which was on the day he got back from Holiday!! After waiting for fifteen minutes I went to the departmental office (the first time I have been there as this was the undergraduate one at the Edgebaston Campus and previously I have always dealt with the postgraduate office at Selly Oak. I ended up having a coffee in the office and reading while waiting for him. Trains also were having bad days, the train I should have got, but remembered wrongly and did not get to the station in time for, didn't run (there are some advantages to forgetting things at times).

Tuesday was my birthday, my original plan was to visit Rotherham Local Studies library and then go out to Roche Abbey but I could not book a car (did the car system know something I didn't) so I changed it to going swimming. I woke up in the morning, feeling as if everything was too much for me, so after opening cards and pressies plus phoning my parents I went back to bed. When I am at home I tend to think "Life's too much I will go back to bed" instead of "Life's too much, uh oh migraine, go back to bed". Which meant that by mid afternoon I was thinking of myself as lazy and bullied myself into going swimming (not recommended with a migraine) So I did swim. I also stopped by Jessops and spotted they had a lens I wanted at a price cheaper than I was getting on the internet (they were selling off an end of line which was why) unfortunately they only had it with a Cannon mount which is not much good when as I have a Nikon Camera but I managed to order the lens over the internet. Perhaps swimming does lift migraine temporarily, but I still would not recommend it.

Wednesday woke again feeling grotty, this was a work day, so I had to put in the migraine line and ring people up. Actually I had spotted that there was migraine about as I was exhausted far more than I ought to have been the previous evening so made sure I had the phone numbers for the next morning ready by the phone. In the evening I installed my foot pedal onto my computer and started using it to transcribe. It was just so nice to have the recording played for audio typist rather than for a person to listen to. There are subtle differences. With audio typist mode it goes back slightly when you stop it so you can check the last few words and pick up where you are typing from. It is also easy to play a passage two or three times until you get what is said. With a normal listener mode it starts off exactly where it finishes and the one thing I have tiresome in the transcription is that the software does not easily go back about the last sentence, so I have to go back a whole chunk and listen to it again.

Thursday some more transcription in the morning. The old technique as I had started doing this recording this way. Then into work to find out what was on the go. Not much it seemed and finally got to shop for food in the evening. In other words a fairly normal day if there is such a thing.

Friday was in work all day. Actually spent most of the time dealing with people. Anybody want anything from Ghana or to send anything too Ghana as I think I have a courier in the next month due to having sorted out one person from a pickle they have got themselves into once again. Then I went out with the Dickson's to Nawaab's for a meal. They both seemed to enjoy it and we ordered too much food (about a third of it was left, when we had all reached the stage where it was physically daft to try eating anymore). They of course then offered us dessert! No we didn't have any and coffee was at my place.

Saturday was pretty quiet. I went down town for some bits and pieces and then started creating a powerpoint presentation to give to elders at Chesterfield. I am also aware I am going to have to use another method of writing my piece for the next supervision as the weekend I would write on is very booked around. However nothing exciting was bought.

Today I have been to St Andrew's Chesterfield both morning and night. The morning as I had finished transcribing an interview with a couple where the husband had since died and I therefore wished to hand the interview directly to his widow. I normally send them by post. The numbers were few but the Junior church had a good time, I could see it on their faces when they came out. I came home had something to eat and had a nap, then went off with my camera firstly towards Ecclesall woods to have a play (most of the pictures were duds) and then onto Longshaw Estate, where I discovered that the new lens I got works fairly well for taking pictures of birds at birdfeeders. I went straight on from that to St Andrews, or sort of, I was doing fine until I decided to follow roadsigns instead of my instinct and I managed to do a massive detour and arrive just after six. Fortunately with Just Desserts this does not matter.

A busy work week with little news

News from this end. Well none, I have had a busy week at work and I mean busy. I worked 4.5 days having booked a half day holiday and arranged things for it. So that means I have to take an extra days leave next week but next week is short already. Monday is a bank holiday, Friday is definitely my day off. Its going to be difficult deciding which day and a half I am actually going to be in work. Not helped by the fact that I should take a days study leave in that time as part of my writing weekend.

Work has been getting Information Commons figures for their annual report. The problem was I underestimate the effect 6,000,000 records would have on my computers processing speed. Fine for most things I wanted to do, but not for reading in or drawing graphs. When I needed to do that it was make a cup of coffee time or more accurately go for a leisurely lunch time. It is as well I started working with computers at the end of the days of sending programmes remotely from terminals, finding something to do for several hours, then getting a print out back that said you had made an error on line 10 and the job had not run. You learnt time saving techniques just to get small jobs run and I was using those techniques to finish handling the data I was using. However long hours churning numbers don't make interesting topics to write about.

Stuart can now photocopy the service sheets without me or Judith being there. I think in some ways the breakthrough was when I had to pass him onto Judith. Stuart's attitude when it was me I think was that it was a pleasant way to spend some time with me!!! My attitude was that it was a job I had given up to have time to do my thesis and it was not something I therefore wanted to be doing with someone else. The problem was as long as I did come it fulfilled Stuarts idea of what should happen. It was only when I was not there that he actually started to make the effort to learn how to do things. He did not even take in that there were clear instructions in the room on how to do it. With a person who wanted to do it, you could give them the keys and they could sort it out for themselves without any instruction. With Judith Stuart was not getting the reward so he actually set about learning. The result was last night I handed him the keys and he did the photocopying.

Yesterday I did shopping basically because I needed to. I really need to get more skilled with money off tokens. I could have saved ten pounds yesterday if I had just done! Now I have £15 in money off tokens to be spent by the 13th September. I also spent money on work clothes. My computer seems to have taken a dislike to putting in card numbers and the result is that I end up having to do them over the phone. So I purchased just ordinary trousers, tops and a fleece from Landsend, only for them having to ring me this morning to check. Oh well hopefully I will be smarter in work this autumn than I have been of late. Oh I am also struggling to find wool free walking socks. I also got a multi-tool, I was hoping it would replace both the screwdriver (which is quite bulky) and the penknife in my handbag but I decided that the pen knife had to stay, as it had a bottle opener on it. I think it has only been used once but I can think of at least one other occasion when it would have been useful. Oh anybody who thinks that either is going to be any use in a violent attack better think again. They are always bottom of the bag and they need careful attention when openning. If I wanted an offensive weapon my tiny nail scissors are a better weapon than these.

Today I went to Chesterfield for the service. It was quiet as are most congregations over the bank holiday. The magazine was going out and they have a couple of articles about the process of finding a new minister. Aparently East Midlands moderator has already met with the elders and they need to produce a profile and should be getting on with it.

Family visits make for a busy week

I am again going to go for highlights. Workwise I have been busy struggling with my computer which is struggling with the size of data set I am expecting it to analyse. But that is hardly news. Somebody has asked for stats and I don't think she is aware of how much there actually is in what she has asked for.

On Wednesday Cathy brought Sam and Hannah over. There is now a set pattern for what we are to do. So I went down to the station, I was early so got a soya latte while I waited for the train. I was slightly confused as it was only running as far as Doncaster and normally it goes to Cleethorpes but after Doncaster you were on the bus. Met them at the station, then walked via the tram route around to Ponds Forge and went swimming. Sam was probably the strongest swimmer in the pool and it was very frustrating for him as he could not swim for more than two strokes. Hannah was much to her frustration still too small to go in on the slides and decided that she did not like the waves the first time, and when Mum was not playing ball she said that she wanted the toilet. Sam and I went on the slides a couple of times and we swam around the edge with floats a couple of times as well with Hannah in the float. Actually one time we went around with just a float for Hannah and my hand in contact with her so she knew if she got into difficulties I would be there.

Then it was onto a Chinese Buffet for lunch. The kids thoroughly enjoy being at a buffet and being able to choose what they want to eat. Hannah discovered chicken and sweetcorn soup and ate one and a half small bowls of it. Prawn crackers were still fun. Also Cathy, Sam and Hannah had ice cream and Cathy came back to inform me it was non-dairy but I was so full by that stage I could not have eaten it if I wanted to. We then got the tram up to the University Stop and Hannah decided she wanted to see where I worked. Well as we were right next door, I took them up. Cathy was surprised at the untidiness of my desk. I don't know why, my desks have always been untidy.

Then off to the play park by my flats. They played quite happily for about half an hour, but then Sam and Hannah started to irritate each other the way only brothers and sisters can. We probably kept them playing for another quarter of an hour. Towards the end Cathy suggested they bounced on a trampoline and the one up the hill, so they both charged off. Unsurprisingly Sam got there first, and Hannah dutifully burst into tears at what she saw as unfair so I went to bounce with her at the set that was lower down. Unfortunately I got too cocky and tried bouncing from one to the other, the second time I did it, I did not watch my landing and landed solely on my left leg which decided this was totally unfair and gave under me sending me crashing down. This time hurting my knee. Actually I had already hurt the other knee just bruised from the see-saw which is a multi-person one and to balance things out Cathy sits with Sam while I sit with Hannah. Hannah asked why this was, and I explained I was heavier than Cath and she was lighter than Sam so it sort of evened things out.

Then we went to my flat and this time I remembered where I kept the box of games. Cathy and Hannah played pick up sticks while Sam and I had goes at trying to make up foam pieces into boxes. I eventually got a couple of them out but they are still tricky. Then it was back on to the tram to go to the station, where I handed them their journey bags and a pound each for sweets. Hannah chose a big box of tic tacs and Sam went looking for the best deal he could find and in the end decided that a bag of marshmallows from Mark and Spencers for 99p was it. Cathy meanwhile bought a ham sandwich, a loaf of bread and they had crisps and such for the journey back.

Saturday my parents came over and we went to Potteric Carr Nature Reserve just on the edge of Doncaster. It is a large reserve, if you look on the maps on the website we walked around the green path, which must be about a mile and a half long. There are a number of hides on route. Most of the birds around seemed to be coots or moorhens but I am pretty sure we saw a little grebe and chick as well although there is an outside possibility that it was actually a black necked Grebe. There must have been about fifty to sixty people at the nature reserve but there was lots of space and most of the time it was just us. The restaurant sells fresh food but once out of it, you are back to cafe fare, so we ended up with bacon and egg butties which was dad's suggestion (I know Cathy!). When they came the bacon rashes were more the size of bacon chops and the rolls were large. Mum and Dad started using an knofe and fork, I looked at it for about thirty seconds and decided these had to be eaten as a sandwhich which worked, both Mum and Dad joining me in that approach. After lunch we went to the nearest hide where there was a feeding station. While we were watching a Jay, a colourful member of the crow familly came down, and also a Great Spotted Woodpecker. We then carried on walking around. There may have been some interesting ducks on Decoy Marsh but my binoculars were not good enough to get identification detail from them, ducks yes and appeared to have a lot of white for a mallard, but other than that I could not say.

So to today, and nothing much happening basically as I needed down time after the last seven days and was realising I was getting migrainy sleepy last night. So I cancelled the car and have stayed in today.

This coming week should be quieter. I need to spend some time on greek just to get myself thinking back in that way. Then next weekend I actually have nothing planned and no essay to write so I am looking forward to having a study weekend. I may go to Rotherham on Friday or Saturday to do a recce, well to find the local history library and Tourist information so as to get background to Herringthorpe.