I know. It is last week in January and I have not written since before Christmas. I have just had a bad attack of life. To be more accurate I am having a bad attack of life. At the bottom of this is the realisation that I need to finish my thesis sooner rather than later and therefore I need to pull out the stops to get that done.
Christmas and New Year were quiet and followed the pattern of previous years with me spending time with my parents over Christmas with my parents and then going up to Drummore to my God family for New Year. Oddly this year I was quite nervous over driving up. Highlight of the Christmas presents this year was a scarf that came with the Dickson’s present. They usually give me a very generous book token which was still there but there was a scarf as well in the colours I enjoy which was just great to receive. Previous years I had gone through ice and snow and not thought too much of it, but this year with only rather a lot of miserable rain to contend with made me a lot nervous. Needless to say the travel was more straightforward than usual and I did not even manage to get lost on the Manchester ring road, something that I seem to do every other time I travel.
In early December I finally got to the official writing up stage of my thesis. It is an intriguing state to be in because it means two completely different signals. On the one hand the University of Birmingham stops charging me tuition fees, on the other hand my supervisor now becomes a lot more hands on than he has done before. The plan over Christmas was to write the theory bit for my worship chapter, then take a break and then review the work that needs doing. I came back to the January supervision having done that and with a timetable that means that I should submit around June time if I stick to it but it is heavy. I am also submitting around two chapters a month, well rewritten chapters and not waiting until the supervision to do so. For people’s information a chapter is around 10,000 words and the redrafting is major as this is when the theory tends to take hold. My immediate boss at work has asked if I want extra days for working on my thesis and I would like to take him up on this but it is not the panacea that it appears. I have work I need to get through at work and am struggling to do that in the four days I work at present.
I am also aware that my parents who are doing remarkably well for 84 are becoming more fragile each in their own way. The big worry at present is that it appears that mums diabetes is not well under control and as badly controlled diabetes can exacerbate dementia that may well be causing her to deteriorate quicker than she has been. It might of course also be the winter and mums tendency for her mood to deteriorate when it is dark, wet, cold and generally miserable.
Maybe some of stuff is that I have not been as stable healthwise over the break, I seemed to have had rather a lot of small minor migraines plus a cold just at the start of the Christmas hols. Then this last week when the snow came I managed to have a tummy bug and just recovered from that when I went down with a cold. My normal trick of staying in, tea tree, eucalyptus and jasmine essential oils, echinacea, vitamin C and sleeping a lot did see it but it took a couple of days despite catching it early. The result however was I ended up with a week off work. I had what looked like a tummy bug and realised it might be stress so booked the Monday off as holiday, the Friday was my day off and after Monday I was down with a cold until Thursday. Needless to say I now need a return to work interview.
Also in work I am helping to put together a course for linguists on statistics. I need to do some work with that and I also need to get on with recording the NVivo videos. This on top of the advising I do which fortunately so far this term has been fairly quiet.
Today was the first time I made it back to St Andrew’s since Christmas. Today was not just Homelessness Sunday but also the first church meeting at which the management group was reporting. The group is getting through a phenomenal amount of stuff. It also was the report of the church life review group. Actually I think it was one of the best attended church meetings I have ever seen and it looks as if some of the newer members are starting to attend as well. This is heartening. However I am worried that the groups idea that we should develop cell groups is none starter. Do not get me wrong, I am all for small groups and particularly ones that help people develop their faith. I am all in favour of Bible study but I wonder if there is any possibility of running such a group especially when outreach is part of its remit. I am wondering and may put forward come September time that we explore especially for those who are newer members something like Emmaus. That is a chance to share faith stories in the light of the big topics of the faith. Plans are also starting to be formed for when Sarah leaves. Unfortunately it looks as if she will leave just as I come back onto the eldership.
Writers group has restarted , we have had a bit of a struggle to get numbers up to the level that is required by the WEA but we have now. I am considering seeing if I can write a series of poems based around a library. I have a couple in draft already but I think both need more time. It is a bit of escapism as rather than working from life I am using memories of twenty years ago. Mind you I have a poem that started this morning and may need writing soon and it is totally off topic.
As I said at the start I have a severe attack of life, and I cannot see it getting better quickly, so while I still intend to write these missives, they will be more infrequent over the next few months. Hopefully by the summer I will be into submission and will have more time.
