Neil the tutor at my writers group had spoken of it taking a long time to do the layout of the booklet for my writers group. I presume this was because the way most people work it would indeed take a long time and drive me almost frantic. That is they decide how each bit of text should look individually and then alter it accordingly. I work with styles. I decide that there are a limited number of styles needed for a document and then I assign each piece of text to an appropriate style. If I therefore want to alter a style then I just edit the style. I do not have to search for every individual piece of text that I want like that and reformat it. I think I worked with Title, headings 1 to 3, two styles for Tables of contents, a context style, a poetry style and a prose style. The only extra formatting was putting odd words into italic because they were either slang or foreign. It works, it is easy to deal with. Over fifty percent of the corrections have been editorial rather than layout. Technically not my brief, but I don’t really have the ability to go back to the copy-editor and say “is this change ok” and in the end the author actually does have the final say with this booklet. Admittedly the one piece that missed the copy-editor completely was by the copy editor.
Anyway by Monday I was just handling the occasional request for changes and so found that I had unexpectedly free time. So I finally got around to digging out the Drupal book and reading a couple of chapters. I am now at the stage of installation. Well before I go that far I need to order my new PhD computer and let it arrive so my old laptop can be turned into a linux laptop and used for running drupal on. I also need to change my old machine in work into a Linux one but that is not for web development but so I have a back up machine.
Tuesday I was into work. Actually having had a break I was trying to pick up where I had left things. This was not helped by the fact works email was down and I had looked at it on Friday to see what needed tackling and had a note that there was at least one appointment that needed making. In the end it was not up until Thursday and as Friday was my day off, the appointment could not be made until next week. However a book had come with the formula for the variance. It was therefore a very quiet day. However I spent the afternoon struggling with a piece of software so that it would draw the graphs I thought it should. It did in the end, but I have also discovered that I seem to have misplaced a piece of software I support. This would normally not be a problem but with my machine being reformatted I should re install it. Mind you I have the manuals and I have not had a query about it since I said I would support it.
Wednesday and Margo was in and we reviewed the sports paper with Richard and saw how he was handling it, also we looked at the Butyrate. I had just solved out how to get the graphs I wanted from the original package. I think I am going to do a graph per sheet although really they should be three graphs per page, or better still all six on a single page. I then went to get my hair cut during lunch. My hairdresser offers a tea coffee or water while we have our hair cut. I asked for black coffee. Unfortunately it tasted nothing like coffee normally does but like a weird mix of chemicals. That taste transition is for me the main precursor of a migraine, so I went to Boots and got some Migraleve, back into work, sorted thing out so I could go home and sleep it off. The result of the advance warning and therefore being able to take diversionary action was that it was lighter than most. I think technically I still was recovering on Thursday but I was certainly able to get up and cope with life.
Thursday I got the graphs drawn, spent some time sorting out the SAS licenses and generally had a fairly productive but normal day. Still got to contact a colleague about getting more memory in my old machine so I can change it to a linux machine. It really is too low spec to run modern Windows operating system effectively at work but as I don’t trust my present machine I do need a back up.
Friday was interesting in that I was in one of my very rare homemaker moods. So amongst things I made a ginger, carrot and sweet potato soup and also put on some whisky and ginger schnapps. For those of you with Scottish sensibilities the whiskey was firstly a blend and secondly Irish which just happened to be the cheapest blend in Waitrose at the time. I think I am rather pleased with this as it will mean that the schnapps will probably be smoother than it would have been otherwise. I also rang the doctors surgery opposite Herringthorpe URC to make an appointment with the manager as part of Herringthorpe URC needs assessment. Unfortunately having psyched myself up I rang just as he was leaving and did not get through but when I rang fifteen minutes later he had left. So I will have to ring on Monday.
Yesterday my parents came over. We ate the some of the soup with coconut cream in it. I sent them home with two boxes with the base in it as there was not space in my freezer. Dad brought over their new router from Zen. He wanted to know how to set it up. I hope it is largely setup and they can just set up things from the box and it will work. Slightly concerned that the routers wireless name begins with Thompson, I hope they have sent them the right one and there isn’t a Thompson household with a router that starts with Russell. On the other hand Mum spotted I was reading Pioneering the Third Age by Rob Merchant which I am not finding very satisfactory. She wanted to borrow it, however I managed to persuade her to take Valuing Age: Pastoral Ministry with Older People by James Woodward and Wesley Carr which I suspect and I think she does will be more in line with her interests. As I said to her it was not important that she remembers what is in there as she is not anymore active in the pastoral care of her congregation but if she wants to think through this as an older person it is one place to start. What I am trying to do is find ways of characterising the discourses around older people within congregations. This is somewhat harder than for children as often the older people are creating the discourses themselves.
As per usual we went shopping in town. Mum wanted a ball of wool as she thought she would run out with the jersey she is knitting herself, while their coffee grinder had stopped working. So we went to John Lewis’ that sell both of these items. Dad uses the coffee grinder most days, so it was well worth replacing. Dad in the end bought a burr coffee grinder, partly because the blade one was only a pound cheaper and a Bodum one. It was expensive as it had a chrome body, but what put me right off it, was its grind button was exactly the same design as the one on my grinder and my experience is that I have to be very careful I clean that properly or the grinder stops working. It is a fiddly bit of plastic and awkward to clean. I think the one he got will be stronger and therefore likely to last longer.
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