In the lull before the final push to submission

I am getting this written before I put my head down next week for the final submission of my thesis. For the most part I have not been working on it although today I started to read through and I really should have done a full read through before my supervision on Wednesday so I need to get a move on. It has been odd not having it to work on whenever I had the energy but quite a bit of time has been filled with social commitment of one sort or another.

The Monday after my last blog my writers group got together for one of our socials. We have maybe three or four a year at odd spacings. Usually two of them are like this one, just a pub night together outside term time.  We have one after reading as part of Off the Shelf which is again at the Bank Street Arts  on Friday 25th October. I hope that thesis does not take over too much before I get there. The group is now up and functioning for this term. We are full with members who came last term and have not had the usual drop out. One of our members had found an anthology produced by the group before any of the current members joined. It showed us that the WEA used to sponsor books and secondly that a friend I thought had been in the group actually had.

The week after that I went over to join in a family celebration for Cathy and Adrian’s eighteenth wedding anniversary.  It was held at a Chinese Restaurant and we ordered a banquet for most of us but individual dishes for my nephew and niece. This was partly to make sure they ate something but it was also to supply them their favourites. Sam’s was a noodle dish while Hannah wanted the deep fried chicken dumplings. Try finding the second on a menu of a normal Chinese restaurant but Cathy had a brainwave and ordered her sweet and sour chicken with the sauce separate. I think I might try Sam and the local noodle bar when they are next over. My Uncle insisted on paying although I had arranged with Adrian that I and he would pay 50%. We thought this would balance things.

On the following Tuesday  I went back over to spend the day with my Aunt and Uncle and my parents. We went to Styal Mill which is what the picture is of. We got a ploughman’s meal from the restaurant and then went to book tickets for the Apprentice house as I felt that a trip around the mill would be too much for Mum and Dad. Dad still tires easily. He managed to walk down the hill to the mill but after lunch was quite prepared to sit while the rest of us walked around. Mum at one stage was asking where Dad was, I think actually meaning to ask where Uncle Charles was, but not quite getting there even after being told Dad was sitting next to her, when she started asking where Harry was.

This weekend I went to York for a meet with a number of posters on Ship of Fools. One of the long serving host was over from Canada. We went to the Ask restaurant for dinner including this little fellow who is sat by a glass on the table. In York, the Ask restaurant is in the Assembly rooms. This is a huge hall building with really impressive decoration. The sort of place where you get asked whether the marble is real or painted. Quite a few of us also made it to evensong at York Minster before the meal. It was a good evening although the echo-ey nature of the hall (possibly a good thing when they were Assembly room) meant that the conversation across the table was limited.  There was a minute of confusion when we realised that the person booking the table was not there and we did not know what name the table was booked under. Somehow “ship of fools” did not seem likely, none of us could remember the person who booked actual name (as opposed to their shipname). When we looked at the list it was obvious which, but we then turned to ask a couple behind us if they had that name! They answered “Yes” and looked relieved which must have confused the restaurant staff even more. It was saved in the name of the host who had come from Canada, and none of us had met him in real life previously.

Work is very busy at present with more than enough to keep me going. Indeed I may be taking a thesis day on Wednesday to see my supervisor but I will also be doing work for work on Friday which is normally my day off.

I seem to at present have a fascination with the way the Autumn is coming this year. This is a picture I took tonight on my way to Evensong. As far as I could tell all the trees in the right hand side of the picture were the same species and are planted along the road. The trees on the left are actual the end of a separate group that is planted along a path. Yet one of the trees has turned a brilliant orange while the rest seem to be staying green. I did not notice the dark leaves on the left which may be a similar phenomena.

Time I think I wrote another chatterings.

Leaf in the Gardens at Dunham Massey,
shades of autumn

Well Dad survived surgery, and he went to join Mum at Shawside at the very start of August, Basically so that he had time to recover somewhat before they went home. Dad lost track of time somewhat so we had to keep reminding how long he had been in Shawside. After barely a week, he was sure he had been there a fortnight. Anyway just before my sisters birthday and at barely a fortnight they came to their own home. 

We put in someone to come in every day, partly to clean, to be around while Mum bathed twice a week and to also give them some social interaction each day. We also organised for them to order meals from Wiltshire Farm, for them to give an order to Help the Aged for Sainsburys  (you phone it through rather than do it over the internet) and also for an alarm to be installed. Mum and Dad have very assiduously since been finding reasons to get rid of the help. I think, the daily person in might have continued longer, if she had not surprised Mum and Dad one Sunday before they were up. It left Mum feeling very uncomfortable. The installation of the alarm was not done well. They succeeded in almost cutting through the phone line. Ruth, thankfully went around and sorted so the phones were work. Dad eventually got his computer man out to fix the computer. They are now back in full communication.

However,once Mum was is Shawside I did find time to get on with my thesis. So when at the end of July I saw my supervisor he felt I could still submit by the end of October. However to do that I needed to get a decent/proof copy of my thesis to him by 16th September. For me getting from Second Draft to Proof draft was very intense. On one level all the corrections suggested by my proof readers needed to be dealt with. On the other there was still quite a bit of sorting out what was being said and getting it clear in my hear. I needed for instance to draft an abstract. The thesis has a limit of 80,000 words, the abstract is 200. Condensing the central ideas into 200 words was challenging to say the least. I could have done it in 500 with ease. Then there were details to check such as the Bibliography. I spent two whole days just working through nearly every single reference and checking that I had the right information in the Bibliographic database and then making sure I had that information in the Bibliography. Finding out that I could not easily include originally published  information and so had to produce the Bibliography and then manually add all that information was a pain. However not half as much a pain as would have been doing the Bibliography from scratch by hand. It went on for twenty pages when I had finished. That is not all the books I read towards this thesis, just all the books I referenced. Were I to try and include all I read then it would be twice that length. There is a couple of books that I may need to include, but the vast majority of the rest were interesting excursions that helped my exploration, but not necessary to the argument.

Anyway despite printers malfunctioning and post offices being closed I got it posted on Thursday morning by special delivery. It has at least been signed for, and I hope that it gets to my supervisor by tomorrow.There is a slight snag in that I sent it to his official address at Birmingham and not to the building where his research office is. I never know quite how to deal with University post. Sometimes is all seems to go through a central office, at other times individual buildings get deliveries. So I am hoping it has got there. 

When I had got it off in the post I took sparkling wine and snacks into work that afternoon. It seemed the right thing to do. When I formally submit I will be in Birmingham, I will be in Birmingham for my viva and I expect that when I finally send in bound copies I will also be in Birmingham. So this was probably the one time people in work would be around to celebrate. I now see my supervisor on 2nd October and then it is my head down for submission. I just hope that neither he, nor my final proof reader finds major problems with the thesis. I am aware of a lot of niggles that need sorting and suspect that there is some expansion of the conclusion, but I hope that on the whole everything is good enough for a doctorate.

This last weekend I have been over to my parents. I was officially bringing the car back plus it was my Birthday. Yesterday worked well, I arrived just before lunch time having done a shop at Waitrose so as to bring something over for today. The journey over was pretty smooth although the traffic delay at Hollingworth was bad, not the worst I seen it, I can remember delays right through Glossop but still pretty bad. However though busy the M60 was pretty straight forward. We almost turned around and went out so got to Dunham Massey for lunch at the restaurant. They are building a new visitors centre there which looks interesting. I suspect we would still go out to it. Afterwards,we went for a walk around the gardens. Well a bench crawl around the gardens. In fairness to my parents they had been on a walk to the local shops that morning.

Today Mum and Dad were tired. Although Mum cooked a roast chicken for lunch and we ate it, Dad went up to bed shortly afterwards as he was that tired. Mum was also showing signs of tiredness and when I got in this evening and run back Dad and Mum had gone back to bed.