Right lets see what has gone on in the last eight days.
Well work-wise things were a bit easier last week. Mainly because one researcher was on holiday. That gave me time to think. Things also got out of sync as my boss fairly late on Friday the previous week chose to move a meeting from Tuesday to Friday. That meant that as Monday and Tuesday were already spoken for with other meetings I had to have my day off on Thursday. Just as well because with doing that I was able to sort someone out so they are now able to do their analysis for themselves.
However to counteract that I had a lot of other sort of activity.
On Wednesday Cathy brought Sam and Hannah over. My father claims they are arch-conservative ritualists with visiting me. The routine has to be the same. Cathy suggested that this time they might come by car, but that was not on, they had to come by train. I suspect part of it is because they get activity packs to keep them occupied on the way home if they come by train and they are not sure whether they will get them if they come by car, but Dad had taken my letter to imply the normal Chinese Buffet was shut. It was not, the alternative one was. As they came over at 10:30 we did however manage to persuade them to allow Cath and I to have a coffee before going for a swim. Also Cathy and I got more swimming done this time as Hannah is now happy to swim and does not want to cling as much. Cathy points out that it is all very well saying she must not go two feet away from Hannah while Hannah is in the pool, but Hannah quite happily goes two feet away from her. Sam was beating me at swimming. This is no surprise, Sam is probably now a better swimmer than I ever was as I never made the transition from School swimming lesson to club even though for a while I went to a school with a very high standard of swimming lessons. Then onto the Chinese, with Hannah not really remembering the way, so asking about five times whether we were nearly there yet (the restaurant is all of 500 yards away) and when we got to Jessops which is next door saying in disgust “I know my way mummy”. The kids enjoy the buffet no end and the thing is that they both happily eat there. I think part of it is that we let them go and choose their own food. Their eyes are slightly bigger than somewhere else but not by much. Then it was shopping time but the sun had gone in and Hannah was cold. She ended up borrowing my coat (I think partly because she liked the fact that I joked we could get three Hannah’s in there). Actually I am not sure she was that wise to do it, as the sleeves looked lthe right length to make it a temporary straight jacket for her. Sam decided to correct my pronunciation of Primark. I tend to say it as Prim-ark while he prefers Pri-mark with an ‘i’ as in Prime. When we finally got up here they played for a short while in the local playground before a light shower came on. Then it was drink and chat at the flat before heading for the train. Sam carried the bag with the presents in all the way down and they both were given £1 to spend at the coffee shop on the platform.
Thursday I took easily after that although I decided that I needed to start sorting out interviews. I am not sure that I got very far but I did put one recording down to CD and started checking equipment. I also went to try and collect a prescription from Boots to find that they had only ordered the ibuprofen. This was fortunately not a disaster and they hopefully will have the correct prescription by tomorrow but I will be worried if not.
Friday I was back in work and I was supposed to find time to print out some of the forms for Chesterfield, which I failed to find time for as I was that busy, but I managed over the weekend to get another form ready for sending. I need to listen to the recording before I send the form so they take a while to actually create. I also went shopping and bought four glasses, two batteries and a battery tester. I also thought I had got myself ready for the interview the next day.
Sunday I went to Herringthorpe in the morning and when I got there I got worried as their appeared to be a Song of Praise in the afternoon and as I was interviewing someone after church that made time very short indeed. Fortunately it was a mis-print on the service sheets. One of the elders was leading worship as Alex (the ministers husband) had major surgery for bowel cancer on Friday and was still in extra care unit in the hospital. So anyone with prayers to spare I am sure that they would be appreciated by Pauline and Alex. I then went onto conduct the interview only to find despite my care the night before to prepare a folder with everything in it, to make sure I had fresh batteries in the equipment only to leave the folders at home and to find the microphones were not recording. I had a spare microphone that relies on being on a hard surface and that worked well, while I found an old copy of the questions and an example form. I think the fact that Karen who I was interviewing spilt the coffee helped to relax me and actually I was pleased with the interview. I think one of the reasons it was shorter is that I talked less, which means I am getting better at conducting them.
Today has been a busy one at work. However my monthly meeting with my boss was cancelled because she was off sick. Ironic when you consider it was a rare month when I had had no sick leave. However that time was quickly booked with another meeting to get a student started on his analysis. Actually the nice thing about this business is that I think it signals that a long time colleague whose marriage broke up leaving her caring for two young children one of whom is diabetic, is finding her research feet again. I suspect at least two papers will result from this activity.
This Friday I have another interview to conduct this time for Herringthorpe, with a local councillor and I need to sort that out, plus hopefully listening to a couple of interviews including the one done yesterday. I don’t want to get any further behind.
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