High lights this week include the fact that emails were sent out from me telling people what we were planning to do next year and I got emails back that allowed me to adjust the plans so that people could teach. I much rather make these alteration before we hit crises rather than afterwards. Then I made a date for seeing Pauline and also I worked a full week for the first time in ages. That does not mean I have been sick every week but holidays and bank holidays mean I have not had full weeks in work. Oh and I have not had a migraine today after a very heavy day yesterday.
So the week on the whole has been quiet. The regular rhythm of going to work and such. I was at writers group on Monday which went well. Tuesday was just a normal day and Wednesday the only exceptional thing was that I had Dr Nagi to see me and I did a lot of programming for him for his thesis. Data reorganisation mainly but I had learnt one or two tricks so things that could have taken days took minutes. The current favouring of area under the curve worries me. It seems to measure two things together, the level of the variable for which it is calculated and the time that data has been kept for the variable. This would make sense if there was some idea of cumulative damage done by the variable being either too high or too low but normally the variable itself is seen as an indicator of disease progression. They need to have some sort of baseline but starting point isn't a good one. Thursday I took half my day off as I was expecting to be tired after Wednesday and also to try an split a recording up. Friday at last we had a greek class again and have them set up for the summer. I also got my hair cut and it is back short and manageable again. For those who don't know my hair is getting lighter but not going grey. Cathy's I think is doing the same. At an event recently someone for the first time I can recall commented "You'd burn easily with your colouring?". The answer was such a definite "yes" that I have always wondered why people saw me as not having the pale skin, blue eyes look and put it down to having brown hair. So I put it now down to people seeing my hair colour as something of the red scale. Of course its only brown because my genes are indecisive, my mother has black hair and my father red. So my body compromised and I got brown as did Cathy. However the black pigment tends to stop being produced once we hit forty and the result is that our hair is slowly turning a pale red. Most people would see this as a blessing, but oddly when I found I was first doing this I felt most miffed. Going grey was a sign of getting older, going a washed out sand was not a sign of anything in particular and just another half colour to cope with.
Saturday was the Summer Fair at Chesterfield. I got there for around 10:30. I was not the first there by any means but I was fairly early. There was Marion and John plus a friend of Marion, also Nancy and Bill . John would have been there at 8:30 in the morning if he could have but had to wait until 9:00 a.m. for a lift from Bill. Actually people come in shifts, you get the early birds like these, then you get the over lunchers which Helen and Patrick fall into and then you get the catering ladies who do the teas in the church and who only arrive at lunch time. In actual fact John and Bill had an easier job of it this year as the scouts had largely set up the tables. I went to lunch with Marion and John which actually worked out as a brilliant break as they both went to get ready while I could just sit and make notes on what I had seen on the morning. I think the person with the hardest stall this time was Ethel, not because she did not have enough stuff but because she had too much stuff. Seriously the table was loaded when she went home for lunch and she came back to find more stuff had been brought while she was away. At the end of the afternoon the table still looked half full but she had probably sold a table and a half of stuff. I am not surprised she was too tired to make Just desserts on the Evening. The problem with being photograher is that you walk miles during the day. At about 4p.m. I realised that my legs were aching with the walking and standing I was doing. The problem is that you are always moving and on the go and you cannot have a chair to sit down for a while. I also missed the mid afternoon tea and coffee run. I was therefore worn out by the end of the afternoon so I asked Helen for a lift back to the station which she did while Patrick was counting the money. I was rather disconcerted to find on getting into a taxi at Sheffield station to find my legs just folded at the knees rather than try and step up into it.
I took Sunday rather quietly going only to the evening service and getting up when I was ready. The service was on the holy spirit and at one point the tea urn decided to boil in the background. I wasn't the only one in the group to think "Help that isn't Pentecost happening again" when it did so. I calmed myself down by reminding myself that God does not seem to like exact repetitions.
Yesterday was a bit of a washout as I seem to have got a sinus infection from somewhere. I presume it was left over from the cold a couple of weeks back and that having a glass of wine on Sunday stirred up a histamine reaction and that set me up for it. Yesterday at 3:30 p.m. I realised I was fanticising about being in my bed at home having taken pain killers so I thought that the best thing was that I would go home and see what an hour or so in bed would do which meant missing writers group.
Today I have been out to Rotherham to visit Pauline and to see the church. It must now be the largest church in the former district unless one in Doncaster beats them. They have a weekly congregation of about 120 so bigger than St Andrews when I first attended it back in the 1990s. Actually if they are going to set assessment on things I suggest they do a weighted mean of members, attendance, income and reservers and then subtract from that an allowance for new members and children. I suspect we would see growth much quicker with that formulation than any other. The manse like the one at St Andrews is directly connected to the church grounds and they are looking towards extending their buildings even further than it is already, replacing the activity hall with a community hall, that is building a new two storey building. The membership is local the furthest distance travelled is five miles.
Then home relax and finish writing this up.
Later this week I have annual church meeting at Chesterfield and a funeral on Friday as well at Chesterfield. Actually only the second since I came and it is of someone I interviewed. I have to decide how I handle transcription with his wife and there is one photo I took that I also need to think about. I am not playing politics with the church but how do I stop myself being used for politics and is it even right to.
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