Monday was a relatively quiet day, writers group in the evening. It felt wrong to be coming into a quiet building because no jugglers were meeting. There were three things on the go with the group. One was the actual class, another is the preparation for the observation and the third is preparing the book for publication. I have said I will do the layout. a bit of cheating and some knowledge of Microsoft office should not make it too arduous. Margaret one of the group is just finishing a novel which in my opinion is by far the best writing in the group. Her biggest challenge is to get it sent off to an agent over the summer rather than decide on yet another re-write. I am pretty sure there will be agents willing to take it. In fact I suspect all the group want to buy a copy already and will be really disappointed if it isn't published. We are discovering more and more twist and turns to the story each week and we would love to know how they all fit together.
Tuesday was an NVivo day as there was a query about why a certain files would not open in it. I eventually discovered that it was to do with memory management but my own machine is playing up. I am not quite sure what with at the moment but it managed to corrupt at least one programme while I was sorting it. That is a file went missing for some reason, I suspect the computer tried to overwrite it but did not do it properly. After work I got my haircut. My hairdresser agreed it had gone wild. Will people with curly hair who think this does not happen to people with straight hair please take note. Then on the evening I went to Herringthorp for Bible Study. Whereas St Andrews Sheffield seems to go for husbands always sitting with wives, Herringthorpe goes for men on one table and women at another. I also am realising my understanding of prophecy is significantly different to what some people at the church would hold. I am not sure that you tell true prophets by the fact their prophecy comes true, or that a person who is a prophet only is so occasionally. It seems to me that while coming true is a criteria it is only useful for short term prophecies, secondly that if I wanted to fool someone creating a short term prophecy that came true is fairly easy. The question that is more important is does this fit with God as we understand God to be. Hmm something to think about there.
Wednesday was a relatively quiet day. At work I went and sat down with the reviews of a papers that had been rejected and tried to work out why. The first thing that was clear was that we were not sending it to the wrong journal. Rather it seems that the problem was that because we were sending it to a journal that is outside the normal range where this research group sends papers, we had not made enough adjustment to house style. Specifically we had not actually read around the literature enough and we had also not been clear enough in our explanation of what was being done. It was very clear that the reviewers were making mistakes due to not understanding what was happening. In the evening I did a Waitrose shop. As a treat I bought a packet of Gingerbons which are delicious ginger flavoured gums. The company obviously knows how tempting they are because they are individually wrapped in wrappers that take some opening. I gave up trying to open them with my bare hands and used scissors instead.
Thursday morning was relatively quiet as far as I can recall, I wrote my findings on the paper to the main author. Then it was off to TFR at Church House in Rotherham. TFR is an organisation funded by the Anglican and Methodist Churches to enable involvement by the Faith sector in regeneration. Herringthorpe found them and managed to persuade them to provide an advisor while it goest through the process of analysing needs in the local community. This started out under the Buildings Group when they were thinking of going for public funding. I suspect that the advisor thought he was dealing with people who were doing this sort of thing for the first time. In actual fact he was dealing with me and Sue Ball who was a health visitor, did her masters at some stage and is now part of the management at the local health authority. So neither of us were exactly beginners. It showed, we came with a research proposal and were able to answer the questions he threw at us. The effect of asking directly about funding for the second part of the project was for Mark to have fourteen possible sources for such funding according to what we decide is necessary. Now we need to take the proposal back to the NAG meeting next Wednesday.
Friday I had a late start, the effect of the previous afternoon was that I was fairly tired and certainly was more than ready to go back to bed after going to the Broomhall Breakfast. I also needed to start putting together the slide show for the NAG meeting and I needed to write up last Sundays worship as I had not found time earlier in the week. Oh and I did type faces for the writers group publication. I have I think put out a mix, Two serif, two san serif and one modern. For those who think modern is going to be something like comic sans, forget it, its a halfway house between serif and san serif. Oh and none of these were fancy fonts.
Saturday I went shopping in the morning, I was up pretty promptly and in Jones Shoe shop before 10:30 a.m. The result of which is that I got a pair of semi smart sandals with low heals. There is very little with low heels this season and I was wondering whether I would have to buy a summer shoe instead. However I found a pair which have the straps interweaving a bit like celtic knotwork designs. They are pretty comfortable and look summery. I also shopped for the stuff for the brainsorming session I am hoping to run for the youth group on Thursday. I am hoping there are not more than ten of them at the group or I am going to have problems with the equipment. Came home and finished off the Presentation for the NAG meeting on Wednesday. One of the issues we have to get the rest of the group to understand is that there is no way Sue and I can do the first part of the research on our own. I am thinking that as it is a group of about 8 people and we want to do about twelve interviews, doing one or two each would be fair. We are giving people three open ended questions to ask. Actually there are two reasons for this which have nothing to do with Sue's or my time: firstly I want people to get a feel for what other people are saying and talking to them is the best way to do that; secondly I want people to build relationships with people outside the church who are involved in working with the community. However I also want them to see what is reasonable and what isn't.
Today I did not go to church. With three evenings at Herringthorpe this week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday plus how tired I was last night and I still needed to write up Tuesday's Bible study. It just felt as if I would be better in this morning. I just felt off colour, nothing that a couple of extra hours in bed did not put right. So I got up wrote up Tuesday's bible study and then went and had a shower. It is really good to have a shower in the middle of the day with the warm temperatures that are around. I have since had lunch, created a front cover for the writers group book and written this.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Office move
Lets see, Monday saw me off to Birmingham for a supervision. I persuaded myself that I had booked the 10:30 train when in fact I had booked the 11:00 one. Also the ticket machine decided to not release my ticket, even though I am pretty sure I put in the right number. It said that the ticket had already been collected which is what worried me, so I went to the ticket office and they issued the ticket without problems. So I ended up taking the wrong seat because I was on the wrong train. I had plenty of time and there was plenty of space for me to work on doing searches for my PhD. I came across the idea of Bio-ecological systems. Now it is not directly applicable, in the sense I do not expect to find something that is worked out for child development can just be taken over by congregations but the idea of layers of systems that interact is something that I seem to be working towards for my PhD. The question is can I produce a layered model where the interactive boundaries are so clear. I somehow doubt it but it is worth a go. Also the layers are not simply layered, each one getting larger but sometimes they are rather overlapping. Any congregation places itself both with respect to the profane society and the sacred society. I wondered if secular was a better word than profane but decided probably for discursive reasons (i.e. the way the discourse is framed in ethnography) that profane is probably the more correct. Then went to see my supervisor. His comments on my essay were useful and I need to sit down and do the re-write pretty soon. Maybe next Saturday. He also suggested a different way of transcribing. However I was pretty whacked by the time I got in.
Tuesday, the business of the last few days caught up with me and I ended up with a migraine. So a quiet day and I did not make Bible study in the evening. However this was fortunate as although work had said they were moving me the day before, they only did it on Tuesday.
Wednesday, I went into work to find the mess the porters had left. They had been asked to remove a bookcase-cum-cupboard and had not done so. The net effect was that with the three bookcases I was bringing they had not managed to get everything into the room. So I set about organising the room as well as I could. The first thing was to move one of my bookcases outside the room and then remove a bookshelf that had been put up by Cliff. The workmanship showed that it definitely was not a workman employed by the University. To start with all the wood looked as if it was recycled; secondly all I needed to do was to remove three screws. Luckily I carry a screw driver with me although I almost came home for a better one. However I did have to get one big box of books up and two crates of files, and that up two flights of stairs. I refused to move the bookcase-cabinet down, it simply was too large. I was shattered by the time I got home and went straight to bed.
Thursday I actually got some work done. That is once I had got through the morning, when the porter came and too the cabinet part of the bookcase-cabinet away. I realised I could re-cycle the bookcase part by putting it on top of one of my lower bookcases instead of on-top of the cabinet. This means I have added at least another bookcase worth of book/folder space. I am however going to have to make difficult decisions in the near future. Some are straight forward, like folders where I have one piece of paper from five years ago, need just putting out. Others are more difficult. I have the last set of printed manuals for two lots of software, all manuals for both are now on DVD or web. I am reluctant to throw out the manuals simply because they are the last on paper but given that it is several versions (three for one and seven for the other) since they were issued their relevancy is getting less and less. Then there are the journals of the Royal Statistical Society. While I am at the University I have access online if I need it, but if I move on, do I want to keep these? Hmm. Anyway managed to sit down and tackle the latest oviduct study for the group from the Jessop Wing. I discovered in the evening that my paper for the Society for the Study of Liturgy conference in September has been accepted.
Friday was another full day. I got up early so as to make breakfast in case Janet Brown was in to see me. She has been the last two weeks but I was really suspecting her next week. Then it was also departmental meeting. The elephant in the room is funding. We all know cuts are coming we just don't know how big or how the management is proposing to tackle them. However this was not announced on Friday, rather we had a fluffy meeting with awarding ABBAs to staff who had contributed significantly to the department. I am not sure how much one was a sop with the telephone operators getting one prize, but they were still being moved out of a private office in the computer centre. The other to the departmental secretary was richly deserved. She was left in September in charge of a team where the senior half had just left including her manager. She stepped up to the challenge and the department has not decayed into chaos. During the year we have had to recruit a number of more junior staff just to cover some of the roles. Somebody is going to have to inform her boss that the assumption for meetings is someone already present will take minutes not that the secretarial staff will provide a minute taker. That afternoon I reviewed a qualitative paper and then wrote up the week. I have another paper to work on next week, but it looks as if it is being accepted for publication. Then on the evening I went out with Stuart to Nirmals. When I had mentioned Nirmals earlier he said he'd never been, and as it is an experience, I felt that as he had lived local to it for about a decade it was time he went. Mrs Nirmal runs the restaurant, and she is very definitely in charge. Stuart asked me to recommend for him what he should have off the menu, I said that there was not much point as Mrs Nirmal will inform us of what we should have. I am quite happy to go with Mrs Niirmals suggestions as usually they are brilliant. Friday night was no exception to this. For instance she suggested one rice and one bread. The rice was good, but the bread was peshwari naan and another home made bread that had spinach in it that she had made herself. She also imports mangos from Mumbai in season, which it is at present. If you think you have had good mangos in the UK, then you should try some from Mrs Nirmal, they are in a class of their own.
Saturday my parents came over. It turned into a shopping day. The morning we went around Waitrose, mainly because I had not find time and energy to shop earlier in the week so was out of everything including coffee. Actually my parents then bought plums and decaff coffee beans. We also bought lunch although I forgot the carb so had to pull rice from the freezer. Then we went into town to shop, to buy wool so that Mum could knit a jumper for herself. The specifications were quite precise, we had to get a not to simple, not to complex pattern, in a fairly thick wool. However before we did that we had to go through the process of looking at what else there was, so mum would be sure this is what she wanted to do. We were also supposed to shop for trousers but Mum decided she did not need any new ones. On the other hand dad wanted a new battery for his pedometer, so I had to find the battery sort, then take him to Maplin (I got him to get two so when one runs out, we just put in the next, and then buy a new battery), I also then had to set it up. By this time I think we were all getting tired so we went back to my flat had a cup of tea and then the parents headed for home and I went to bed.
This morning I was over to Herringthorpe for the all age parade service. It was also the last one on the theme of Fruits of the spirit. In many ways it was a festival service with all the stops being pulled out. They actually seem to be developing a descent worship band. They now have a cellist, keyboard player, two guitars and somebody playing a simple drum. They also have two teenage girls with very good voices. Then they had drama and the all age worship team have some people who are very good at that (I think four or five to date, and I am not including the minister). So it all comes together very well indeed. They have a depth of worship leadership skills that many congregations would envy. On the other hand I suspect that there is a group of people who stay away on these Sundays because they do not like the style of worship. This seems a big shame and against the spirit of congregational worship. The line is that you don't pick and choose, but come for the times you do enjoy worship and also for the times when it is not your style. Just like when you are with your family you don't expect everything to suit the children or everything to suit the grandparents but the fact is both are around for the bits that the other enjoy. All right so I am exceptional in that I have yet to find a form of worship I could not get anything from including what for me is the most challenging and that is worship dominated by loud music. I care not whether the music is on the organ or from a rock band. When I participate in that style, just sit further back in the congregation. The band at Herringthorpe today were all unmiked so their volume was less that Douglas Jones going full blast. Oh the last hymn was "You shall go out with Joy". They sang it through twice, standard URC style but unusual for Herringthorpe which seems to have a once only rule. Then they said the grace and it was obvious to me that the band were going to play that again, only it wasn't to the band or the congregation, but they eventually got organised too but the projectionist had to hunt for the words. Even so it was only played through twice again. The thing is that traditionally that song is repeated, going faster and faster, until either the band or the congregation give up.
This week may be quieter, however have bible study on Tuesday and a meeting connected with Herringthorpe and tFr on Thursday afternoon, please pray for wisdom as I am not particularly happy in this role, but I am realising that Sue who is heading the Needs Assessment Group needs supporting. I just wish that there was somebody in the congregation who was more au fait with community work than there appears to be, who could support her. Next weekend should be quieter but I will need to do some shopping (I need new smart sandals).
Tuesday, the business of the last few days caught up with me and I ended up with a migraine. So a quiet day and I did not make Bible study in the evening. However this was fortunate as although work had said they were moving me the day before, they only did it on Tuesday.
Wednesday, I went into work to find the mess the porters had left. They had been asked to remove a bookcase-cum-cupboard and had not done so. The net effect was that with the three bookcases I was bringing they had not managed to get everything into the room. So I set about organising the room as well as I could. The first thing was to move one of my bookcases outside the room and then remove a bookshelf that had been put up by Cliff. The workmanship showed that it definitely was not a workman employed by the University. To start with all the wood looked as if it was recycled; secondly all I needed to do was to remove three screws. Luckily I carry a screw driver with me although I almost came home for a better one. However I did have to get one big box of books up and two crates of files, and that up two flights of stairs. I refused to move the bookcase-cabinet down, it simply was too large. I was shattered by the time I got home and went straight to bed.
Thursday I actually got some work done. That is once I had got through the morning, when the porter came and too the cabinet part of the bookcase-cabinet away. I realised I could re-cycle the bookcase part by putting it on top of one of my lower bookcases instead of on-top of the cabinet. This means I have added at least another bookcase worth of book/folder space. I am however going to have to make difficult decisions in the near future. Some are straight forward, like folders where I have one piece of paper from five years ago, need just putting out. Others are more difficult. I have the last set of printed manuals for two lots of software, all manuals for both are now on DVD or web. I am reluctant to throw out the manuals simply because they are the last on paper but given that it is several versions (three for one and seven for the other) since they were issued their relevancy is getting less and less. Then there are the journals of the Royal Statistical Society. While I am at the University I have access online if I need it, but if I move on, do I want to keep these? Hmm. Anyway managed to sit down and tackle the latest oviduct study for the group from the Jessop Wing. I discovered in the evening that my paper for the Society for the Study of Liturgy conference in September has been accepted.
Friday was another full day. I got up early so as to make breakfast in case Janet Brown was in to see me. She has been the last two weeks but I was really suspecting her next week. Then it was also departmental meeting. The elephant in the room is funding. We all know cuts are coming we just don't know how big or how the management is proposing to tackle them. However this was not announced on Friday, rather we had a fluffy meeting with awarding ABBAs to staff who had contributed significantly to the department. I am not sure how much one was a sop with the telephone operators getting one prize, but they were still being moved out of a private office in the computer centre. The other to the departmental secretary was richly deserved. She was left in September in charge of a team where the senior half had just left including her manager. She stepped up to the challenge and the department has not decayed into chaos. During the year we have had to recruit a number of more junior staff just to cover some of the roles. Somebody is going to have to inform her boss that the assumption for meetings is someone already present will take minutes not that the secretarial staff will provide a minute taker. That afternoon I reviewed a qualitative paper and then wrote up the week. I have another paper to work on next week, but it looks as if it is being accepted for publication. Then on the evening I went out with Stuart to Nirmals. When I had mentioned Nirmals earlier he said he'd never been, and as it is an experience, I felt that as he had lived local to it for about a decade it was time he went. Mrs Nirmal runs the restaurant, and she is very definitely in charge. Stuart asked me to recommend for him what he should have off the menu, I said that there was not much point as Mrs Nirmal will inform us of what we should have. I am quite happy to go with Mrs Niirmals suggestions as usually they are brilliant. Friday night was no exception to this. For instance she suggested one rice and one bread. The rice was good, but the bread was peshwari naan and another home made bread that had spinach in it that she had made herself. She also imports mangos from Mumbai in season, which it is at present. If you think you have had good mangos in the UK, then you should try some from Mrs Nirmal, they are in a class of their own.
Saturday my parents came over. It turned into a shopping day. The morning we went around Waitrose, mainly because I had not find time and energy to shop earlier in the week so was out of everything including coffee. Actually my parents then bought plums and decaff coffee beans. We also bought lunch although I forgot the carb so had to pull rice from the freezer. Then we went into town to shop, to buy wool so that Mum could knit a jumper for herself. The specifications were quite precise, we had to get a not to simple, not to complex pattern, in a fairly thick wool. However before we did that we had to go through the process of looking at what else there was, so mum would be sure this is what she wanted to do. We were also supposed to shop for trousers but Mum decided she did not need any new ones. On the other hand dad wanted a new battery for his pedometer, so I had to find the battery sort, then take him to Maplin (I got him to get two so when one runs out, we just put in the next, and then buy a new battery), I also then had to set it up. By this time I think we were all getting tired so we went back to my flat had a cup of tea and then the parents headed for home and I went to bed.
This morning I was over to Herringthorpe for the all age parade service. It was also the last one on the theme of Fruits of the spirit. In many ways it was a festival service with all the stops being pulled out. They actually seem to be developing a descent worship band. They now have a cellist, keyboard player, two guitars and somebody playing a simple drum. They also have two teenage girls with very good voices. Then they had drama and the all age worship team have some people who are very good at that (I think four or five to date, and I am not including the minister). So it all comes together very well indeed. They have a depth of worship leadership skills that many congregations would envy. On the other hand I suspect that there is a group of people who stay away on these Sundays because they do not like the style of worship. This seems a big shame and against the spirit of congregational worship. The line is that you don't pick and choose, but come for the times you do enjoy worship and also for the times when it is not your style. Just like when you are with your family you don't expect everything to suit the children or everything to suit the grandparents but the fact is both are around for the bits that the other enjoy. All right so I am exceptional in that I have yet to find a form of worship I could not get anything from including what for me is the most challenging and that is worship dominated by loud music. I care not whether the music is on the organ or from a rock band. When I participate in that style, just sit further back in the congregation. The band at Herringthorpe today were all unmiked so their volume was less that Douglas Jones going full blast. Oh the last hymn was "You shall go out with Joy". They sang it through twice, standard URC style but unusual for Herringthorpe which seems to have a once only rule. Then they said the grace and it was obvious to me that the band were going to play that again, only it wasn't to the band or the congregation, but they eventually got organised too but the projectionist had to hunt for the words. Even so it was only played through twice again. The thing is that traditionally that song is repeated, going faster and faster, until either the band or the congregation give up.
This week may be quieter, however have bible study on Tuesday and a meeting connected with Herringthorpe and tFr on Thursday afternoon, please pray for wisdom as I am not particularly happy in this role, but I am realising that Sue who is heading the Needs Assessment Group needs supporting. I just wish that there was somebody in the congregation who was more au fait with community work than there appears to be, who could support her. Next weekend should be quieter but I will need to do some shopping (I need new smart sandals).
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Life around packing up offices
Monday was the date of my annual review for work. I was not expecting major plaudits but there was an acknowledgement that I was doing fine at present. Actually my major grump that I can start saying things must be done weeks in advance and NO ONE listens until its too late and we annoy people by changing things when they are expecting continuity went home. The fact is when we update software we need to do it earlier than when we first install software (or rather we need to do it in a test environment earlier) so that we can tell staff what version will be running the next year before they go on holiday. So next year I have to work at getting people to do things. Something I am oddly reluctant to do at work, when it comes to PhD I am ready and willing. So I am going to have to look at courses on that sort of theme. I suppose I better hope for a breakthrough like last years when I realised why I was doing something, what was reasonable to suspect me to do and so concentrated on getting myself focused on a restricted number of tasks each day rather than trying to tackle everything. Actually having short lists is great because they give you time to play but you keep on top of things and I can manage a day at a time. In the evening I went to writers group. It was good to be back, although it turns out that Jan, one of the group has what sounds like quite a serious form of cancer.
Tuesday was a busy day with me doing an analysis for Jessops hospital and then talking through it, also I got the new slow cooker I had ordered. I finally decided over the weekend that the present one was:
Wednesday I found out that I was moving on Monday. I have actually twice moved offices when I was away. What I do is pack everything up, label it all, then porters move it across and I unpack afterwards. It means I do not waste a day, nor do I get in the porters/van boys way. So I spent Thursday and Friday packing when in work. I have labelled everything, I think in the end they will decide I have been neurotic about it, but I wanted to make things as simple as I could. Every last thing has been packed. i can lift every single box although a lot I would not want to walk far with them. Books went into smaller boxes although ring files went into crates. I am going to have to weed out the defunct files once I am in the new office as there are quite a few where I have been waiting for over five years for someone to come back with a PhD questionnaire that they carried out. They are not going to now. The new office is a single office again, but this is short term as the department is moving big scale oin 6 to 18 months, to the Brunswick Street building (former nurses home). This will mean the pulling out of a lot of staff from a lot of dispersed places.
Friday Evening I went to the Dicksons for supper. It was good to spend time with them again. Amongst topics James brought up was that he had a scan of a photograph of Lorna Trevorrow, but the original photo graph was damaged, could I do anything about it. I was dubious, I can do repairs of some things but I was scared that there might be a complex background or a lot of colour detail, bot of which makes it very hard indeed to manually do repairs. Photoshop CS5 I believe does them automatically but that is way beyond my budget and so I was using GIMP, which means that I have to have to do a lot more of the work myself. However the picture turned out to be a studio portrait of about fifty years ago in black and white. This meant none of my worries were founded. So I said that James could send them to me and I would have a go.
Saturday was an easy day, I really had very little planned for it. I needed to shop in town but wrote a list and largely stuck to it, although I still haven't got the hook. I also went to bed on the afternoon and then wrote up two diary entries for my PhD. Stuart came around to return my church keys. WE spent a time chatting together before he went off to watch the world cup match so that he was up to speed the next day at work.
Today I went to Herringthorpe and spent some time talking to the daughter of one of the regulars. Her mother rebinds the hymn books and such. Actually the rebinding is getting a bit much for her and were I joining the church I would be volunteering to help. Music is a hot topic at Herringthorpe. I saw a music rehearsal for next Sunday's parade service going on at the same time as people were complaining about the use of the electronic keyboard. There is some thinking to be done over this tension as this has a far wider range of hymns than any other congregation I have known. I am guessing that the music is actually a substitute item for the real issue but what is the real issue?
Tuesday was a busy day with me doing an analysis for Jessops hospital and then talking through it, also I got the new slow cooker I had ordered. I finally decided over the weekend that the present one was:
- broken- the setting button had come off and no longer allowed me to change the settings
- I needed a bigger one, when I started I thought I would cook perhaps double meals for myself and put one in the fridge. In actual fact I cook about four meals and put three in the freezer. The old one was not quite big enough for meals for four
- Had a long difficult clean after over filling it the last time due to number 2
Wednesday I found out that I was moving on Monday. I have actually twice moved offices when I was away. What I do is pack everything up, label it all, then porters move it across and I unpack afterwards. It means I do not waste a day, nor do I get in the porters/van boys way. So I spent Thursday and Friday packing when in work. I have labelled everything, I think in the end they will decide I have been neurotic about it, but I wanted to make things as simple as I could. Every last thing has been packed. i can lift every single box although a lot I would not want to walk far with them. Books went into smaller boxes although ring files went into crates. I am going to have to weed out the defunct files once I am in the new office as there are quite a few where I have been waiting for over five years for someone to come back with a PhD questionnaire that they carried out. They are not going to now. The new office is a single office again, but this is short term as the department is moving big scale oin 6 to 18 months, to the Brunswick Street building (former nurses home). This will mean the pulling out of a lot of staff from a lot of dispersed places.
Friday Evening I went to the Dicksons for supper. It was good to spend time with them again. Amongst topics James brought up was that he had a scan of a photograph of Lorna Trevorrow, but the original photo graph was damaged, could I do anything about it. I was dubious, I can do repairs of some things but I was scared that there might be a complex background or a lot of colour detail, bot of which makes it very hard indeed to manually do repairs. Photoshop CS5 I believe does them automatically but that is way beyond my budget and so I was using GIMP, which means that I have to have to do a lot more of the work myself. However the picture turned out to be a studio portrait of about fifty years ago in black and white. This meant none of my worries were founded. So I said that James could send them to me and I would have a go.
Saturday was an easy day, I really had very little planned for it. I needed to shop in town but wrote a list and largely stuck to it, although I still haven't got the hook. I also went to bed on the afternoon and then wrote up two diary entries for my PhD. Stuart came around to return my church keys. WE spent a time chatting together before he went off to watch the world cup match so that he was up to speed the next day at work.
Today I went to Herringthorpe and spent some time talking to the daughter of one of the regulars. Her mother rebinds the hymn books and such. Actually the rebinding is getting a bit much for her and were I joining the church I would be volunteering to help. Music is a hot topic at Herringthorpe. I saw a music rehearsal for next Sunday's parade service going on at the same time as people were complaining about the use of the electronic keyboard. There is some thinking to be done over this tension as this has a far wider range of hymns than any other congregation I have known. I am guessing that the music is actually a substitute item for the real issue but what is the real issue?
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Holidaying followed by a busy week
Lets me assure you it has not been laziness that has kept me from
writing for the last couple of Sundays. The first one was a blazing
hot day and I with Cait and Jenny were scrambling up and down cliffs
trying to find St Medan's cave. We did not find it and there is no
real sign of the path. The next stage I suspect is to try and find it
from the sea but that will be a few years into the future. Last week it was simply writing for supervision that kept me from writing here.
So lets me start with describing my holiday. I hired a Corsa, a far better size of car than the car at Christmas. It actually took a huge amount of stuff, although Jenny complained that she was short of space in the back of the car. Given that when I was her age my parents owned a Renault, I did not have much sympathy, plus its purpose was to get me around. One snag with the car is that someone (I suspect a previous hirer, had polished the windscreen with car wax, Tony did a marvellous job of getting it clean after I drove through a flock of suicidal flies just outside Manchester, the wipers would not touch the mess). Actually I think the modern Corsa has replaced the Astra as my favourite car to drive, despite having reverse in the wrong place. The decrease in size makes it more moveable and therefore I feel more in control. It has good viewing as well.
Morag seems to be doing well, and thoroughly enjoying her work as a
walk organiser (I think it is one of three jobs she holds down but I
heard little of the other two). Mostly she worked in the morning and
then came out with me on the afternoon. Sometimes we did bits of
things that helped her as a walk organiser on the afternoon but I bet
she did not count these into her working hours.
On the afternoon we would meet up somewhere, normally a coffee shop and then go and explore somewhere. At the start we were travelling further afield than
we normally do, going for walks in the area of Stranraer and even
spending one day over on the Machars going as far as Whithorn, but as
the week wore on we settled back to doing very local things. A couple
of decent walks from Chapel Rossan bay, one with Dora their dog and
the rest of the family and one on our own. I think we visited
everywhere we normally do except Kirkmadrine and we were in Logan
Gardens only for coffee (two days running).
The weather was glorious, nine dry days and two mild showers on the 10th. The down side to being in Scotland when the first good weather of the year occurs is that
that is when the farmers make their first cut of silage. Now I suspect
from my point of view the problem is not the fact that they are
cutting silage but it is the first cut and that is known to release
all sorts of things into the air, more so than second or third. Well I
was on hayfever treatment for about three days then the silage was
mainly in and I did not need the treatment. On the Saturday we went to
Port Logan and had a go at geocaching. We failed I think because we
were climbing over the rocks too much and not enough looking for loose
rocks near the path. The girls are growing up but not yet at the stage
where their mum and I are too boring to be seen with. No doubt it will
come. Although Dora the dog seems to think that the pack is complete
if I am there and she has to herd me in. She is a bearded collie but
shows most signs of having gun dog instincts, only she does not wait
for the bird to be shot before fetching and so far they have all
escaped to sea. However if she ever turns up at Sheffield having run
away I will know why. This set on Flickr contains most of them, there
are some duplicate pictures I have not bothered putting up but
otherwise that is most of what I took.
Since then I have had a busy week. Al; right so Tuesday was over
written with a migraine, except I managed to get to a meeting with Sue
from Herringthorpe who is chair of the Needs Assessment Group(NAG).
Made too important decisions, firstly that neighbourhood meant
immediate area of the church not including a more deprived area about
a mile away as yet. The reason was two fold. Firstly the realisation
that if the church did take on that area, they would have to do
something based in that area they would have to do something that
either meant deliberately going into the area or they would have to
bring people to the church, plus there is a cultural difference
between church members and people in this area. None of this would
matter if they were enthusiastic about community work, but as yet I
have no sense of real enthusiasm and I do not want them to overreach
themselves by taking on a challenge they are not up for. The other
thing was to use "loneliness" as a theme for something the
congregation may know how to tackle. Hmm not sure I should be doing
this but if this project is to get off the ground and church meetings
decision is that it should then decisions like this need to be taken.
Wednesday I was back in work and life did not stop while I was on
holiday. I found someone wanted to see me, and several other bits of
work needed doing. However one thing is that I am moving offices again
and expect to move again in six to eighteen months time. This time it
is back to 289 Glossop Road, top floor, quiet with quite a bit of
space (it used to be a 2 person office). Actually if I am honest the
move is just in time, as I am finding the main office of the computer
centre more and more distracting as I try to work at present. I
presume due to getting better but I don't like moves. I was offered
two other spaces but those would have been worse than my current
space.
Friday I started putting up a shelf over my bed (when I told Dad
earlier he automatically heard bookshelf). The reason being that while
I was away I found myself quite naturally saying evening prayer if the
books were on a bedside table by my bed. The nearest I can get for a
bedside table is a shelf, so I have now put up a shelf. It is
horizontal (near perfectly, i.e. I cannot tell the difference with a
spirit level). That said the first hole I drilled was a failure and
had to be filled in again and the rawplugs that came with the
attachments were useless. I ended up using some I bought and they
worked perfectly. The final hole I drilled worked fine. I learnt a lot
about drilling into walls and breeze blocks in doing it. Also over the
weekend got the papers ready for the next supervision.
Saturday ended up shopping at the same time as James and Jean, each
time we went out separate ways in the supermarket we ended up meeting
up again. If you want to know why I was wondering around in such an
odd manner I was looking for a hook to hang something from. Most
people use them for tea towels, I wanted it for a light cross as I did
not fancy banging in a nail just below my newly hung shelf. A thing
that Safeways used to have in, but I could not find anywhere in
Waitrose. Hence madly wandering up random aisles with a trolley load
of shopping. I will have to try Maplin next. I also sent out my
supervision papers to my supervisors.
Today due to time of the month I decided to skip morning worship and
only go to evening worship. I am going to have to debate with myself
whether that is a good idea. Not because I found them manipulative or
high powered charismatic, anything but. For those that remember
Parrswood Evening services during August, that is what the strongly
reminded me of. For those who wondered why I was nervous of
Herringthorpe, please understand this, it was not finding something
different, but finding myself at home that scared me, and that is what
I did tonight, liturgically I was at home, the people might be
acquaintances but the style, the manner and the content were familiar.
The familiarity of that service was unnerving, the problem is that
every time I find 'a home' in many senses then I have to move on from
it. Moving on is difficult, the more I do it, the less I like doing
it. I do not want to be drawn into the feeling of home, just to have
to leave it, and with this being a study placement I know now I must
move on in just over a years time. I learnt that my supervisor was
busy on Thursday (well all next week) and that we should really
rearrange. The thing is that if I had known it was for the week after
next I would have timetabled myself differently i.e. had this weekend
as a writing weekend and enjoyed the bank holiday.
Also before I forget I have started a Twitter account, no I am not
asking you to subscribe, it is pretty inane, being comments mainly
about what I am doing. However if at any time you want to check how I
am because you are concerned then have a look at it. It can be seen by
any of the following methods:
1) Look at my chattering blog and it is in a box on the left hand side
2)On my webpage http://www.jengiejon.info
3)On my Facebook wall you will need to be a friend of mine on
Facebook to see it but if you have a facebook account and want to be
just let me know.
4)Or if you have a twitter account follow jengiejon on Twitter.
So lots of ways. The reason for using twitter is it allows me to put
one message in lots of different places and therefore I hope people
who want to know how I am can find at least one of them.
writing for the last couple of Sundays. The first one was a blazing
hot day and I with Cait and Jenny were scrambling up and down cliffs
trying to find St Medan's cave. We did not find it and there is no
real sign of the path. The next stage I suspect is to try and find it
from the sea but that will be a few years into the future. Last week it was simply writing for supervision that kept me from writing here.
So lets me start with describing my holiday. I hired a Corsa, a far better size of car than the car at Christmas. It actually took a huge amount of stuff, although Jenny complained that she was short of space in the back of the car. Given that when I was her age my parents owned a Renault, I did not have much sympathy, plus its purpose was to get me around. One snag with the car is that someone (I suspect a previous hirer, had polished the windscreen with car wax, Tony did a marvellous job of getting it clean after I drove through a flock of suicidal flies just outside Manchester, the wipers would not touch the mess). Actually I think the modern Corsa has replaced the Astra as my favourite car to drive, despite having reverse in the wrong place. The decrease in size makes it more moveable and therefore I feel more in control. It has good viewing as well.
Morag seems to be doing well, and thoroughly enjoying her work as a
walk organiser (I think it is one of three jobs she holds down but I
heard little of the other two). Mostly she worked in the morning and
then came out with me on the afternoon. Sometimes we did bits of
things that helped her as a walk organiser on the afternoon but I bet
she did not count these into her working hours.
On the afternoon we would meet up somewhere, normally a coffee shop and then go and explore somewhere. At the start we were travelling further afield than
we normally do, going for walks in the area of Stranraer and even
spending one day over on the Machars going as far as Whithorn, but as
the week wore on we settled back to doing very local things. A couple
of decent walks from Chapel Rossan bay, one with Dora their dog and
the rest of the family and one on our own. I think we visited
everywhere we normally do except Kirkmadrine and we were in Logan
Gardens only for coffee (two days running).
The weather was glorious, nine dry days and two mild showers on the 10th. The down side to being in Scotland when the first good weather of the year occurs is that
that is when the farmers make their first cut of silage. Now I suspect
from my point of view the problem is not the fact that they are
cutting silage but it is the first cut and that is known to release
all sorts of things into the air, more so than second or third. Well I
was on hayfever treatment for about three days then the silage was
mainly in and I did not need the treatment. On the Saturday we went to
Port Logan and had a go at geocaching. We failed I think because we
were climbing over the rocks too much and not enough looking for loose
rocks near the path. The girls are growing up but not yet at the stage
where their mum and I are too boring to be seen with. No doubt it will
come. Although Dora the dog seems to think that the pack is complete
if I am there and she has to herd me in. She is a bearded collie but
shows most signs of having gun dog instincts, only she does not wait
for the bird to be shot before fetching and so far they have all
escaped to sea. However if she ever turns up at Sheffield having run
away I will know why. This set on Flickr contains most of them, there
are some duplicate pictures I have not bothered putting up but
otherwise that is most of what I took.
Since then I have had a busy week. Al; right so Tuesday was over
written with a migraine, except I managed to get to a meeting with Sue
from Herringthorpe who is chair of the Needs Assessment Group(NAG).
Made too important decisions, firstly that neighbourhood meant
immediate area of the church not including a more deprived area about
a mile away as yet. The reason was two fold. Firstly the realisation
that if the church did take on that area, they would have to do
something based in that area they would have to do something that
either meant deliberately going into the area or they would have to
bring people to the church, plus there is a cultural difference
between church members and people in this area. None of this would
matter if they were enthusiastic about community work, but as yet I
have no sense of real enthusiasm and I do not want them to overreach
themselves by taking on a challenge they are not up for. The other
thing was to use "loneliness" as a theme for something the
congregation may know how to tackle. Hmm not sure I should be doing
this but if this project is to get off the ground and church meetings
decision is that it should then decisions like this need to be taken.
Wednesday I was back in work and life did not stop while I was on
holiday. I found someone wanted to see me, and several other bits of
work needed doing. However one thing is that I am moving offices again
and expect to move again in six to eighteen months time. This time it
is back to 289 Glossop Road, top floor, quiet with quite a bit of
space (it used to be a 2 person office). Actually if I am honest the
move is just in time, as I am finding the main office of the computer
centre more and more distracting as I try to work at present. I
presume due to getting better but I don't like moves. I was offered
two other spaces but those would have been worse than my current
space.
Friday I started putting up a shelf over my bed (when I told Dad
earlier he automatically heard bookshelf). The reason being that while
I was away I found myself quite naturally saying evening prayer if the
books were on a bedside table by my bed. The nearest I can get for a
bedside table is a shelf, so I have now put up a shelf. It is
horizontal (near perfectly, i.e. I cannot tell the difference with a
spirit level). That said the first hole I drilled was a failure and
had to be filled in again and the rawplugs that came with the
attachments were useless. I ended up using some I bought and they
worked perfectly. The final hole I drilled worked fine. I learnt a lot
about drilling into walls and breeze blocks in doing it. Also over the
weekend got the papers ready for the next supervision.
Saturday ended up shopping at the same time as James and Jean, each
time we went out separate ways in the supermarket we ended up meeting
up again. If you want to know why I was wondering around in such an
odd manner I was looking for a hook to hang something from. Most
people use them for tea towels, I wanted it for a light cross as I did
not fancy banging in a nail just below my newly hung shelf. A thing
that Safeways used to have in, but I could not find anywhere in
Waitrose. Hence madly wandering up random aisles with a trolley load
of shopping. I will have to try Maplin next. I also sent out my
supervision papers to my supervisors.
Today due to time of the month I decided to skip morning worship and
only go to evening worship. I am going to have to debate with myself
whether that is a good idea. Not because I found them manipulative or
high powered charismatic, anything but. For those that remember
Parrswood Evening services during August, that is what the strongly
reminded me of. For those who wondered why I was nervous of
Herringthorpe, please understand this, it was not finding something
different, but finding myself at home that scared me, and that is what
I did tonight, liturgically I was at home, the people might be
acquaintances but the style, the manner and the content were familiar.
The familiarity of that service was unnerving, the problem is that
every time I find 'a home' in many senses then I have to move on from
it. Moving on is difficult, the more I do it, the less I like doing
it. I do not want to be drawn into the feeling of home, just to have
to leave it, and with this being a study placement I know now I must
move on in just over a years time. I learnt that my supervisor was
busy on Thursday (well all next week) and that we should really
rearrange. The thing is that if I had known it was for the week after
next I would have timetabled myself differently i.e. had this weekend
as a writing weekend and enjoyed the bank holiday.
Also before I forget I have started a Twitter account, no I am not
asking you to subscribe, it is pretty inane, being comments mainly
about what I am doing. However if at any time you want to check how I
am because you are concerned then have a look at it. It can be seen by
any of the following methods:
1) Look at my chattering blog and it is in a box on the left hand side
2)On my webpage http://www.jengiejon.info
3)On my Facebook wall you will need to be a friend of mine on
Facebook to see it but if you have a facebook account and want to be
just let me know.
4)Or if you have a twitter account follow jengiejon on Twitter.
So lots of ways. The reason for using twitter is it allows me to put
one message in lots of different places and therefore I hope people
who want to know how I am can find at least one of them.
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