Back from Holiday

Three weeks to report on.  I have changed teams at work, this is not a big change really (or at least I hope not because I am aware that there might be other agendas afoot that might make me and some other people very uncomfortable). However I have sought assurances that it will let me get on with the work I am doing at present and will not be a diversion into big machine computing. I want to stick to helping individual researchers and small teams who are using their desktop computers as a major tool in their research. That is what I do, that is what I am good at and that is was at least three quarters of the researchers in the university do. It gives me a very different perspective from the big computer guys. Otherwise I have more than enough stuff to keep going on with. A video course to finish preparing, a number of other courses to set up which I will teach, some on going relationships and so forth.

The holiday went fine by my plans. Then my plans were not to do a lot of touring or doing other activities. I took the luxury of having a late start 10:00 a.m. breakfast, then a couple of hours studying (except at the weekend) and then spent the day doing whatever was on the books. Apart from the weekend there were three options:

1. 
   Walk Dora the dog, the longer and more strenuous the walk the better but I really should have checked my walking shoes ability to rub blisters. I did three separate walks with her on her own. The first we walked from Maryport to the headland before Drummore along the beach. I had beach shoes on and though they gave me bad blisters  (barefoot in new shoes is not a good idea) they did allow me to go more where the dog wanted to go. The second was from Maryport to Portlennie along the Mull of Galloway Trail. Dora now knows it is not a good idea to bite electric fences, but otherwise enjoyed it but would not go through kissing gates unless I did as well. At Port Lennie we saw both a rainbow and a passing seal. The final walk was up the hill to Creechan and beyond. This is really not as good as the other two as Dora has to be on the lead a fair bit. So I took her down to the beach for a run but she decided not to come back to me when I called  (chasing seagulls was far more fun) and as a result I marched her up to the house on a lead. There were I think Barnacle Geese amongst the gulls as well.
2. Time out with the girls.  Two of these days, one which we spent in PortPatrick Geocaching and then a meal at a pub, which was enjoyed by the girls and Tony. We stopped being geocache version and found two caches that day, one in PortPatrick and one at Ardwell Dam. The second was the day before I came home and we went to Kirroughtree Forrest (see  ) much to the girls and everyones delight I did not get the pronunciation at all right. I said something like Ker-rough-tree and it is pronounced more like Kir-Rock-tri. Cait was not feeling too good so left her in the car while I and Jenny went for a short walk (it was longer than I intended though we went at a good pace) so I was not surprised Cait thought we had taken too long. Then we went onto Newtown Stewart for an Indian meal. They have an Indian Restaurant there, not sure where in India the cuisine comes from but they really only do chicken dishes although you can get lamb and fish on request. The vegetable dishes are all side dishes.
3. 
   Finally I had two days for myself, the first of these I went exploring the Crook of Baldoon which is a very minor RSPB reserve. The facilities consist of a parking area (which looks like the general area back of a farm buildings and a picnic area. It has a farm causeway that takes you out onto the bay salt marshes but no hides. There are hides attached to Wigtown but you have to go back into the town to get to those. I suspect long term there could be an attempt to develop this to attract in Birdwatching tourism as the hot season starts in November and continues to March or so, with birds wintering on the salt marshes. On the second I went to Logan Gardens for a visit and then onto photograph Killantrigan Lighthouse in the evening light. The land is much wilder around there in the North Rhins than it is around Maryport.

Over the weekend I did things with the girls and the dog. On the Saturday I took Jenny and Cait over to the Machars and we went geocaching. The first one which was down by St Medan’s in the Machars was a geocache remember Gavin Maxwell who grew up around there and called Ring of Bright Water. The problem was that Morag had banned me from taking the girls near cliffs and it seemed to be hidden half way up one according to the SatNav so once we had tried approaching it from two angles with no success we had to rethink.  So we headed for Withorn for lunch at the cafe. Wigtown would have had more to offer but also be crowded with the first days of the Wigtown book festival. The cafe for the Whithorn Trust was empty apart from us but did give us sandwiches and soup.  The second one Kilsture Forrest, which is mainly conifer plantation. We found this one, but then went for a walk, we were relatively map less and I knew that we were on a round path but not whether we were going clockwise or anti-clockwise. We came to three point junction and chose to think we were going anti-clockwise partly because it said back to the car park. this way. This was a mistake, we were going clockwise and the path was leading us to another carpark all together. Anyway I brought home two tired girls who’d enjoyed their day out.

The next day Jenny wanted to walk to Mull of Galloway along the trail. The dog had not really been walked the day before so we needed to take her with us. This meant complications as we had to get the dog over a ladder style and also we could not just walk to the Mull cafe and get a lift back as Mo and Tony were not prepared to have Dora in a car. Well we got as far as East Tarbet. Dora would only tackle the style if I went first but then would make it. Me standing almost on her tail behind did not work even if the girls were over. The big problem was actually the walk was slightly too far for Cait, she’d have made it too the cafe easily but the journey back was longer and on rougher terrain. She did  very well indeed walking back and we got in safely just as it was getting dark and there was a splendid moon over the bay. Jenny being older and actually keen to walk did it easily and made a good pace. If Cait had been slower I might have sent Jenny on ahead to say we were coming.

Drove home via my parents, they thought I was coming back on the Wednesday yet all I can recall and the evidence at their home suggests I had always said Thursday. The only reference I can think of to Wednesday was that I had suggested they could extend their stay in the Brecon Beackons to Tuesday but had to back for Wednesday. That was so that they would visit Cathy and Co. Another change of plan was due to Fleur being robbed while on holiday, she and Walter needed Friday for sorting insurance and other business out, so I drove straight home which meant I could get the car back to the hirers on Friday which eased things on Saturday somewhat and gave me chance to do some editing on my thesis.
  
More photos from my holiday can be found on flickr

Today was communion. I was second table elder with Ian Cooke as first.  There were 46 for communion but we were a bit short of elders. We were fine in the end but there does need to be some sorting doing. I also took the initiative and rearranged the elements on the table for serving. This meant that both for the serving and for the procession out things were right where the elders who were serving came to get them and there was no fussing about. There is time to do this within the current arrangements. Ian seems to enjoy working with me indeed he was offering to be first table elder again for me during my apprenticeship. Anne Cathels is right the role of Communion Sunday duty elder is significantly different from that on any other Sunday, the really crisis will happen in February when I am down both as duty elder and second communion elder a combination that is tricky. The other thing is I think the system at present works with the old style duty elder (whose main job was to make sure the minister was in the right places at the right time). The current one is far more managing the front house welcome. I think some jobs may be better shared by the communion elders.

On a second "easy" Sunday

This week has been busy but not over busy indeed the bank holiday allowed me to get on top of my next chapter which is with my supervisor now. This weekend I simply spent getting the descriptive data chapters ready to send to my placement churches. This was more complicated than I hoped as I first realised at 5:00 pm on Friday that I needed paper and then with trying to print double sided that I also needed a new print cartridge half way through printing on Saturday morning. However it all got done and I managed to get the print copies to the binders in time for them to be bound on Saturday so if I am fairly organised today and tomorrow I can send the copies to the placement churches. This is the last stage of the permissions for my thesis and I am aware that the chapters will look significantly different in the final thing but I am pretty sure that the portrayal of the two churches is not going to change significantly unless they produce something pretty startling. The accounts are all fictionalised, but people in the congregations and around them are going to have a pretty good idea who all the characters are based on. At least they should do. I also have deliberately on occasion put in detail which is aimed to mislead the casual reader.

Work wise this week I was only in two days, well not quite I did see someone on Thursday but that was because the desperately wanted to submit their masters thesis on time and the thesis was one where I was the originator and so I felt responsible for that. Ellie has been coming to the Breakfast Club and looking at the food patterns people who eat there have. I need to sit down and think whether it is worth getting the project again but looking at the people using the Breakfast club who are not homeless and why do they come. Many of these are still vulnerable people and quite often there are housing issues that need to be sorted for them. However if someone wants to do something for free for the Breakfast Club, something that created a visual image that held rapport with the clientele would be good. This would need to be largely visual as a substantial number of them can not write and one of the items would be to use it on a notice board so we could share pictures, achievements and so on with others at the Breakfast

Friday I had an Indian with Margo, it was supposed to be end of term with several students that had done the human nutrition course this year but they came in for a quick drink and then left.So we ended up looking for somewhere to deliver a curry. We eventually settled on Jannath but as I did not have a menu I ended up ordering curry and leaving it for them to choose but they just gave us the dishes in a curry sauce.

Yesterday I actually started getting ready for the trip to Maryport, so far the shopping has mainly been dog walking supplies, on the grounds that that is something I am likely to do on several days. I also finally got around to getting myself walking gaiters which seem sensible gear for walking anywhere where there might be wet vegetation as they basically cover between the boots and the ankle. I have binoculars and I also could do with a couple of trips to photograph lighthouses. Then there are geocaching trips with the girls (plus getting a takeaway) and seeing if I can find anything when my sister is not there. Together with some birdwatching, drinking coffee and writing a thesis I do not think I will have too much time to get bored.

Today I turned down the option of being on the management team at St Andrews, with the amount I need to get through in the next six months taking on anything new is going to be very difficult indeed and something else would have to go. I also do not mind doing practical things, but if it comes to managing and organising other people to do them, then I really have little inclination at all to do it.

eventually getting around to chattering in the New Year

Hope you are all had good times over the New Year and the return to normal work has not come as too much of a shock.

The journey up to Galloway was smooth although quite wet/foggy over Shap. I stopped at Tebay and then drove through to Newton Stewart. I am finding however that I am deliberately taking alternative routes when possible as the driving along major roads for hours at a time is tedious. Yes the A75 is a major road and you can’t let your concentration drop although the monotony of driving tempts you to (Motorways are worse). At least on country by-roads, although you still have to concentrate, there is not the same monotony, you are always responding to the road and circumstances. I therefore drove towards Caelaverock but as it started to rain on route I did not stop, I also went through the Wigtownshire Machars. I am never sure if this refers to the whole penisula or just to the North West part of it, Whithorn and Wigtown seem to stand as separate identities and yet also interact with it.

Actual time was quiet, the car must have been used to the drive from the Mull Village to Maryport and back. I did not even get into Stranraer. The trip I had half planned to PortPatrick did not happen due to weather and tiredness. It was too windy to risk taking pictures of lighthouses when I thought I might. The Mull Village is really no longer a village but a collection of houses en route from Drummore to the Mull, however I suspect that a hundred years ago it was precisely that. A functioning village with school and shop (the school building is still standing), however then Drummore would have been very close on the size of a small town. Today it functions as the equivalent of a street name but retains the title Village for convenience.

Most days I took the dog for a walk along with the girls. We actually did a set walk, along Maryport bay towards Drummore. Only on the Tuesday did Morag join us with her taking the dog. I can see why the dog prefers me to walk her. I will let her off the lead more readily than Morag (dog pace is not human) but I also keep verbal contact with her. By the end she knew she was not allowed on the beach unless there were a human part of the pack there, and she was not to get to far away. I also called her back and put her on the lead if other people and especially dogs approached, it helps that her eyes are covered in dog hair and therefore I tend to see them approach before she does.. She tends to get excited and I prefer to know that she is reasonably under control. I also suspect that dog understands us wanting to get into tight formation in the presence of another pack.

Morag is still enjoying the challenges of her job and I suspect hoping for a continuation of funding past the present contract terms. This of course is dependent on the Charity that employs her finding the money. Cait seems to be doing well although she clearly hero-worships me. Not sure that is totally a good thing because in part it is built on an unrealistic version of me, the one that appears at holiday times and has endless times for girls and dogs and so forth. The everyday me is far more like her mum, short of time, struggles to fit in what needs doing and often too tired to give real attention. Jenny seems to be doing well. There are comments on how good a cook she is, I suspect in part this is a survival technique as knowing how to cook is one thing Morag is quite clear that she does not know much about. She is actually developing into quite a beauty if in more historical form than is currently fashionable.

Travelling down on my last day, through what I think of as the fairy glen I surprised a hawk sheltering from the winds which promptly got flustered and dived into the bushes. From my description of it my father thinks it may have been a Red Kite. About the only things I could accurately tell about it was that it had squirrel red tale feathers and a medium size, it probably had whitish breast feathers.

The day before I came back and the days I travelled there were high winds. I was fortunately in a heavily laden Vauxhall Corsa, Corsa cars are traditionally styled pretty low (not so good for deeply rutted roads, but good for winds) and the winds did not cause me too much concern. None of the roads I wanted to travel on were blocked (might have been a bit difficult as I went A712/713 through Galloway rather than A75), I think I saw one tree blown down. The Rhins are traditionally windy places so when they heard of gust in Edinburgh around 100 miles an hour every ones actions was “so what are they here!”. When I looked at the forecast about 50 to 60 mph I would say, in other words considerably less than in Edinburgh. Indeed the extreme South West of Scotland seemed either to have been well adapted or relatively sheltered (thanks to Ireland?) compared with elsewhere. Perhaps a combination of the two.

Anyway I got the car back in on Thursday and have spent the last few days trying to sort out things before I go back to work. Friday was spent in a mix of shopping and revising work that had been proof read, Saturday preparing for supervision and getting the papers off. I also had to submit electronically this time. This should be interesting. My experience leads me to think that the initial few times this happens there will be hiccoughs in the system as both I and my supervisor get used to it. I suspect that the system is really for record and that we will need to continue our normal sending of actual papers to each other.

Today I woke and during prayers started getting migraine visual aura. If you can imagine something like the following picture but not static, rather it was as if the tiles were changing fairly fluidly, and was in an arc across my vision you will get an idea. So it was back to bed, then when I came around doing brainstorming for my next chapter of my thesis.

Holiday and associated business

Sorry not to have written for three weeks, the explanation is holiday.

So what have I been upto. Monday 19th saw me at a supervision in Birmingham. On the whole this was straightforward, but at this distance feels slightly disjointed. I suspect in part having just come out of placement, going immediately on holiday and therefore not yet being in the process of writing up.. Tuesday was a busy work day and I therefore did not really start thinking about travelling until Wednesday although the car had been booked months in advance and the B&B.

As my parents were on holiday in the Lake District at Grange Over Sands in the Christian Hotel there, I stayed at New Ing Lodge in Shap. If anyone is looking for a relative small but pleasant hostel style accommodation plus some private rooms I can recommend it. I do not think any of the rooms are en-suite. They do do evening meals and also packed lunches. No TV as far as I could see but there is a guest lounge. I stopped at Thor

Then on the next day and into Scotland, I stopped in Caerlaverock WWT site  hoping to see some Barnacle Geese, they had started to arrive, but only 400 to date and I did not even see one of those. Unless like me you travel to the Rhins  from England I suspect few people have any idea of vast tracts of land there are around the Solway Firth. The geese could have been anywhere in a stretch of land probably about twenty miles broad and 100 miles long. Indeed I knew there was a good chance if I had been bothered that I could have seen those birds on the sands outside Wigtown. The site has developed since I was last there with now a proper cafe (when staffed)  rather than a help yourself and honesty box. However the hides are just the same it is a pleasant place for a stroll even if the best photo I got was of berries.

Then onto Newton Stewart where Morag had arranged to meet me the night before. She was finishing work relatively early and there is a decent Christian coffee shop, well the coffee and the cake is good, although the Christian books and tat leaves something to be desired. Yes I did browse because Morag was towards the end of her estimated time of arrival and found absolutely nothing amongst it that brought up any more than mild interest..Then she went onto meet up with girls who had swimming lessons and I went onto Diane’s to unload. At 7:30 p.m. she was busy telling the girls she might have been mistaken and it was only tomorrow that I was coming up! Needless to say I turned up about 8:00 p.m as planned.

The visit was deliberately times to coincide with the Wigtown Book Festival  but it also coincided with an Open Door Day in the area and the last service of the summer in Kirk Covenant. For those who know Kirk Covenant (I forget which saint it is actually dedicated to. Not St Medan, that goes to the new church in the centre of Drummore (this is the former Free Church of Scotland building which Kirk Covenant is the old Parish Church).. What I also spotted on the Saturday was Logan Gardens was participating in the Open Day so Morag and I after taking Cait to Kirk Covenant went on with her to Logan Garden.  At which point Morag found that as long as she just went in for coffee she could get in free any time in September and October. Jenny and Tony were across in Withorn for an archeology day with the Whithorn Trust.

The rest of the week was a mix between days spent over at Wigtown or Newton Stewart taking part in the Wigtown book festival and dog days. Do days are the sunny sort of days when I borrow Dora, such days normally started with a grooming session, getting rid of matted hair and then long walks on the beach. I realised after the first of these that I really needed a portable dog drinking bowl and a flask of water, plus a book as we preferred to stay on the beach even when not walking than sitting in the house. Dora loves chasing birds but as she is a bearded collie whose hair rather gets in the way of sight she does not chase them until they are airborne so I suspect there is little chance of her ever catching one. The biggest problem is therefore that she will go out amongst the rocks after them, loose line of sight and get into difficulties in the water without you realising it. I am not sure she knows enough to realise that jumping off a set of rocks in hot pursuit of birds might does not mean the water is shallow and I rather not find out the hard way.

On the Friday, family politics were getting to me and I decided I needed a break. So I decided to go on an explore. I took the car and went for a drive around the North Rhins. So I drove to Stranraer and then headed west from the main route South. There is no route directly North unless you take the ferry and the one east goes off the Rhins. From there on I had no plan, not timetable and no aim except to find what I would find.  Some of the decision was taken for me by a combine harvester that was, I presume, being moved between farms (anyway it was moving quite a distance along the road. At a traffic junction it headed toward Lewalt and as I was behind it I headed towards Kirkcolm, from there it was just following the road.  I did get to the Corsewall Lighthouse and then came back to Portpatrick. By then it had taken to raining although there were still families with small children on the beach at high tide. I did wonder at it, although you could get icecream, the amusement arcade was shut and the public toilets were all locked. Then of course it probably would not be British seaside summer if it wasn’t like that.

Saturday resulted in me taking the girls to Logan Gardens just to get them out of the house and therefore out of Tony’s and Morag’s feet. It really was not the day for going around the gardens as the weather was a fine drizzle but at least there were ice-creams and coffee in the cafe. Sunday we were over at Wigtown. I took Jenny to look for a geocache while Cait was in a session. We are still geocaching virgins having yet to find a single cache after looking for three of them! We are close but we just never seem able to find the box. Oh well we have three locally we know the vicinity of and at least another two that should be easy reach.

Monday Morag had the day off and once she had done a couple of jobs in Stranraer we met at Logan Garden cafe and drank coffee and talked and talked and talked. It is really funny but there are just things we don’t talk about in front of most of the family (Cait is the exception we seem to suspect that she will understand or be so caught up in her own imaginative life she won’t notice) . I suspect it is the suspicion that both of us have that there is more to life than meets the eye and that other ways of looking at it are valuable.

Tuesday and Wednesday were days for travelling back. I stayed over at my parents and therefore was back by 11:30 p.m. and had returned the car by 1:00 p.m.. Petrol prices can vary widely at Tebay Total station Southbound it was 147p a litre, on the A57 between Mottram and Glossop (I think near Gamesly) it was just over 130p (apparently the Oldham garage my Dad uses is also about that)! Stockport was134p and Sheffield 136p which is close to what it was in Newton Stewart which was cheaper than Dumfries. So please don’t ask me what determines price.

For those who like photos there is a selection of them from the holiday  . I think I took most of them but Jenny and Cait contributed some.

Thursday and Friday saw me back in work and I am aware I really need to do some thinking of the direction my job is going in. There is something that needs tackling and I really should but if I do it will mean I need to do things I am not good at. It also means getting a number of departments to admit that they are in a mess and need help! The difference I see when I have somebody who knows what is required and I work with them is huge! Masters projects can produce academic publications but the standards are a lot higher than people think. So many masters projects are not even at the level they should be for masters projects simply because the students are not given the support they need to reach that level.

Saturday I started planning the detail of writing my thesis. I am used to doing it for science based projects but having to do it for a qualitative one was interesting. Firstly I knew the standard approach was not appropriate but what was. It took a couple of books and a lot of thinking. and I think I have a route map through. Maybe I need to split it into two chapters but at present I will treat it as one. I am basically splitting each chapter into 2000 word essays that I plan to write in a week. We will see if this will work. I have also set up a blog to record my progress  I hope to update weekly, it will help me to keep this up if people check it and comment on it, it gives me a feeling of people supporting me.

Today I went to St Andrews, it was harvest, there seemed to have been a URChins (a toddler aimed worship activity) beforehand which fed in, there was also some Back to Church Sunday activity so not your normal Sunday. Then is there ever a normal Sunday? The core group of the congregation that was there twenty years ago was smaller and older but there was at the same time so many bits around them. URChins had around eight boys up to about eight years of age there, including the Middleton boys, both of the Wheats and Margaret Falls grandson and also a couple of lads from a family I did not recognise. There were several older people there who I did not recognise including Donald Letham’s daughter and somebody who definitely are coming to sing with the choir. Also two guys from the Broomhall Breakfast came I think for a first time and another guy I think came in off the streets and literally slept from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. when we had to wake him as we were clearing up after harvest lunch.  It felt different, on the one hand there appears to be a greater number of people who are at least semi-attached, on the other hand the central core seems still pretty much still self contained.

Reporting back on the festive season

Lets see how I can do for a brief roundup. I left Christmas too late really or the snows just made everything that much more difficult. The fact that for two to three weeks I could not get to Herringthorpe meant that when I could I felt I should go there. This meant going to both the Cristingle and the Carol Service. That at least one week meant two services. The upshot of it was that I called off going to the works party. That did not mean an extra day off work but that I did not have the hassle of trying to organise myself to be on form for it. I am really getting to the stage where I feel that there is little point in my attending although I do still try to go for good form sake. I honestly would prefer to be managing the reception desk for the whole day than at the party.

The next day it was pack up and go to my parents. I aimed to be there about 6pm, but it was nearer to 7pm when I actually arrived. No the journey from Sheffield does not take long but I had so much to do. Not just collecting the car but buying too really big plastic boxes to put stuff in. I was so intent on buying the boxes I did not spot that they were on “buy one get one half price” which was nice. I have now found a place to store them in my flat. Hopefully both of them will only be needed at Christmas and I can get away with only one mid year.

The reason for the late arrival was my inability to get past Chesterfield, this despite having spent two years negotiating the back routes for my PhD. I guess I was cocky and I failed miserably until I just decided to follow the signs from Hathersage and stop being clever. No gritters this year although the car was less powerful than last (it was also smaller which in my opinion is a good thing) and I was not turning down the gears quick enough but there was little other traffic on the road.

The next day was quiet although I made the Christmas Pudding, however I spotted when I started cooking that the quantity of the packs of “150g pack Waitrose Soft Tropical Fruit Medley, roughly chopped” were not what I had bought but 220g pack. That’s odd I thought, then realised the stuff I was dealing with looked almost glace in texture. Brain starts thinking “They are treating this stuff differently to what they used to I really want the other stuff”. So I put in a full bag, as I am pretty sure that you get less genuine fruit per gram, but the fruit had poor flavour. Next year if I repeat the recipe I think I am going to have to buy other soft dried fruit and make the mix for myself.

The day started quietly, Dad decided that church was out as the streets were too icy to walk and car moving was not appropriate. However to get up to Cathy’s we would go in his car. That meant all sorts of fancy maneuvers as Dad would not countenance me parking in the slot of someone who appeared to be away on the day. Instead of which the position I parked in may have caused a neighbour to have difficulty in getting out but appeared to be the only other option.

Cathy had this year decided that Christmas should be lower key and that she was not going to fuss so much. The result was an overall much pleasanter Christmas meal. My MP3 player that has all the Christmas music on it decided to stop working. I don’t know if plugging it into a computer might bring it to life or if I just need to get on with it and buy a new mp3 player and speakers for next year. As usual we ran Irene home.

On the Monday I made a whiskey and ginger cake to this recipe, the thing is that you can either make that a mild ginger recipe by using fairly mild ginger or a strong ginger recipe by using strong ginger. Needless to say as it is me, I made the strong form. I also went shopping around Heatons. Not much was open but the Somerfield at Moor Top has been taken over by Co-op and this seems to have improved it. It was not bad before but the stuff was better displayed and more the range I am interested in. It also was distinctly different from the Tesco Metro just up the road at which I bought nothing.

On the Tuesday I was up to Drummore. The run was straight forward, and I went the south way around Manchester. I think now they have sorted the traffic problems around the Trafford Centre it is probably the better way to go. This time I missed the Old School House for Lunch and therefore had to continue onto Newton Stewart. I decided I might as well see what was open there and found that Cinnamon a local Christian cafe, book shop and grockle outlet, was open and selling home made soup. I’d prefer to shop there for Christian books than the local branch of CLC which is the best Sheffield now has on offer.

The big news from Drummore is the former Ship Inn is now a Thai Restaurant. This is really quite a daring experiment. Posh pub food (also served at the Ship Inn) is about as exotic as Drummore has previously got. The locals seem to be willing to give it a try but we did not over the holiday time.

The rest of the time passed fairly quietly, in part because I had to do a lot of reading for my PhD. I am trying to collate the ideas I have had over the last four and a half years and see if I can find a pattern/ range of themes or such that could be sorted into a thesis. It is not lack of ideas, plenty of them, as those who have read the papers I have written will know but it is actually trying to develop a rope out of all the different strands.

Also while I was there Erin from Ship of Fools died. The first inkling I got of this was actually on 2nd December. Morag had taken the two girls to the Quaker Meeting in Newton Stewart, and they had done Sadako, who tried to fold 1000 paper cranes, as part of her cure for Leukaemia caused by the bombing on Hiroshima. She folded 663 before she died. Folding the cranes became her way of fighting the disease. Cait wanted to hear the story. Now it is a sad story and I knew when she asked me to read it, that I did not want to. Nothing I could put my finger on so I read, and was in tears for the later part of the story. I presumed some displaced grief was being released and thought nothing more of it. The next morning on browsing the Ship of Fools forum I spotted a “Important -Please Read thread in Styx” apparently started by Erin. My initial response was “Drat what an awful time for them to decide to take the ship into dry dock”, but I clicked on it, only to find it was actually posted by her brother Jason as Erin had died on 30th December. From the sound of things it was pretty quick, Erin showing ‘flu like symptoms earlier in the day, before being rushed to hospital and dying on admittance. She was only 39.

Now Erin isn’t someone I would claim as a friend, she is someone I respected highly, but I did not personally interact with her. I am trying to sort that out, because people talk on the Ship of being scared of her. I think I can say that with me it was not so simple. I never felt the need to post things that drew her ire, I rather listened and learned about what was and what was not acceptable on the site. However I don’t think I ever did not post something because I felt it would annoy Erin. I usually did not post something because I felt that either others had said it better or that what I had written was rubbish. However she was deeply connected with the boards. In the early days she helped “save” the boards when under attack from an internet troll who had scuttled other boards. She developed ways of coping with trolls and other storms that effect all internet forum firstly on the fee paying boards and finally on the public boards. These methods largely work, ship-of-fools is neither a lovey-dovey strongly controlled coterie nor a boards continually caught up in cataclysmic wars. Through a range of methods including having ten fairly straight forward rules, having a place to take personal attacks and also a board dedicated to issues that people tend to talk past each other on, she helped create a place where discussion can happen. Some of these are taken up more widely. If a discussion board has clear published rules they often owe quite a bit of what is in them to Ship-of-Fools. Others are hotly debated, the Hell board for containing personal vindictiveness, is effective but many people seem to get confused by it. The instruction to “take it to Hell or shut up” seems to work better than the instruction just to “shut up”. Linguistically the places is rougher, but it is a bit like having something out with someone in front of a school forum where others can comment. It sorts the trolls from the merely inexperienced who want to learn.

Ship of Fools is also a community that knows it grieves well. That is it can handle grief and perform well during times of grief. This goes back to 2002 when Miss Molly died, if you doubt this read this . If you have the time, spend more time in Limbo and read the other threads to Gambit and Kenwritez. However it is a strange time, Erin was bigger than anyone else on the boards. She was present even when she wasn’t in the way people related and it is a complete surprise. I am not sure even yet that everyone knows who should.

I travelled back last Thursday, Mum and Dad were surprised to see me back around 4pm, but if I leave at around 10:00 a.m. then the journey between Stockport and Drummore takes until around 4pm usually. Gritters were out but again clear roads. Then on Friday came back to Sheffield via Fleur and Walters. They were kind enough to provide me with lunch which I appreciated, however Erin’s funeral was at 4pm GMT and although I was not going I hoped to be in the Ship-of-Fools cafe for the time, so I could not stop.

Yesterday was spent sorting things out, then installing software so I could access the work I have done over the holidays on PhD from my main home computer and then Stuart came around to catch up.

Today I attended Herringthorpe and so am back into life in Sheffield. I have a busy day tomorrow and probably won’t go back into work until Wednesday (taking an extra days holiday so I can finish what I need to write for this months supervision).

Courses, Holiday Preparations and quiet days

Lets see what this week has involved. Monday was the bank holiday. I think I spent most of the day recovering from the migraine that came on the day before. Luckily it cleared early evening. However I had all the post migraine problems like not remembering what I supposed to be doing before the migraine set in.

Tuesday I was in work and giving the last of the three new SPSS courses. This one has had a lot of work on it, and still needs more work on it. I am going to try and do this over the summer. The work there is mainly putting in exercises where I have just given data sets. The ending actually worked pretty well but I have to find a data set for one exercise. On the evening I went out to Herringthorpe for a  Bible study. I decided to have a go and seeing if I could draw a Nicky Gumble talk. The answer is yes I can and I tend to be less argumentative afterwards. Whether that is a good thing with Nicky Gumble I don't know. I think he might find me quite challenging if I was ever in a group he led in real life rather than on a DVD.

Wednesday I had a meeting with Ahmed about the data for analysis. This set of data I am enjoying as it is coming out as it should on the first analysis which means I need not explore further. The data is on using sperm or plastic beads to stimulate response from oviduct and a second on whether oviduct or kidney cells respond more. That is interesting as it seems that kidney have much lower values even with OVEC but that when sperm is put in these respond more. I also think my new computer came. However as that was shopping night I decided I better go and do that rather than setting it up. So I went down to Waitrose and bought bits and pieces. Then Stuart came around for a shower, having annoyed Monica (his Landlady) the previous day by taking a shower in a room she was treating for mildew. He continued coming around to Friday.

Thursday was election time. had an interesting talk with my hairdresser when I went for a haircut. She was saying that what scared her was many of the younger voters were voting according to how good looking the leaders of the party were. I am afraid my view at present is that what you want to do is vote for a good local MP. However as I live in a safe Labour seat that is not likely. I suspect that locally more labour voters came out to vote to prevent Liberal democrats getting in. I think this is hugely unfair as the one party that makes an effort locally is the Greens and I would hope people would vote for people who were around on the ground. Any way I got my new computer up and running. No Cathy this is not the one with Dad's money that will be one solidly for PhD. This is one I bought for personal use. It is MY computer, one I can do what I like on and one that is reasonably light to carry around.

Friday was officially study day though I changed that largely with Saturday so went shopping on Friday. I sorted the torch I bought last week from Argos and got one that was working. This was really a bit late as I wanted it to try and photograph cherry blossom against traffic at night, but the blossom on the tree required has all gone brown in the last week. Other trees are still in full bloom but taking the photograph from them is not as feasible. Secondly I bought another pair of trousers, so I now have two for holidays and saturdays although my old dusky pink ones are still the most comfortable ones there are and I am wondering whether to pack them even though they are perilously close to having holes. I went into WHSmiths to buy some extras for the packs for Jenny and Cait and got stopped by a girl selling make up. She showed me a tiny pack with 25 different sorts of makeup in it. My brain was going "Who on earth uses 25 different bits of make up!" I use a maximum of twelve and then only on high days and holidays, most days only eight bits and when I am having a quiet day nothing. My aim is not for people to go "cor!" but just to present a decent face to the world. She then went onto suggest I bought twice that amount. She has got to be kidding, and as a rule I don't give make up, its to personal (the exception being for young girls who are playing with it). I went into Sheffield Scene to buy a book about Sheffield for someone up in Stranraer who is missing it. While in there I noticed that Shiregreen URC had a book about them being sold there as well. I wonder who would buy it. Sometime back came across this set of postcards and had thought about getting them instead but I wasn't sure that Victoria Hall would be open or that the lady in Stranraer would like religious paintings.

Saturday I spent most of the day reformatting an interview. It actually took quite a bit of time as I had to split it up into stories and comment on them. I am really needing to do this for all the stories interviews I have transcribed which is a pain, but think I may get away with putting them into Nvivo and categorising the stories from that.

Today I have not done much largely due to time of the month playing up and giving me cramps. I was going to go to Herringthorp but I did not feel good when I awoke and suspected that I had slept poorly due to it. Annoying as I was hoping it was getting better. Anyway it was  bad enough to send me back to bed with a hot water bottle by midday and I had little concentration between getting up and going back to bed. The only thing that seems to work is alcohol.

New Year in Scotland and coming home to snow

On the 28th December I headed north to visit Morag and Tony for New year. Lets be clear now. Most of the UK has been bound by snow this last fortnight, but it is only most, not all. As can be seen from this photo. You will have to look closely but you can tell that part of main land Britain actually escaped the snow. If you know where the Solway Firth is, that inlet that looks like a smile on the west end of the Scottish border, now follow the Scottish coast west, there is a bump belly below Dumfries, followed by the point protrusion which is the Machars of Whithorn. Carry on past and just as you are getting to the point that seems to point out westward, look again carefully and you will see a double penisula, with little or no snow on it. That is the Rhinns of Galloway and it was where I was staying. We got very cold spells and severe frosts but very little snow indeed. If you wish for further proof there then my pictures of the time are up on Flickr. We spent the time, taking things as easy as we could with two excited girls and a bearded collie puppy called Dora. I think I am probably in big trouble with her at the moment as I seem to have escaped permanently! She does not like people escaping from her pack. Sorry I have no pictures of Dora, the main reason being that what she wanted was attention and that meant physically being fussed. We did most of the usual things, we climbed the creeky hill (don't look for it on a map, these things are relative, and basically this was a walk from sea level to the top of the peninsula, Creeky is short for Creechan, went on a walk with the Ramblers Association, which was meeting locally (Morag is trying to get a walking group going in Stranraer as one of her jobs) visited the old parish church site (pre Kirk Covenant and I refer to by its dedication St Catherine's to distinguish it from the present parish church, St Medan's, the middle parish church, Kirk Covenant). If that was not enough religious sites, there is a pilgrimage site and several other former churches in the parish, excluding the link to Sandhead and Ardwell. No I am not even starting on religious sites in the Machars of Whithorn. We are talking about setting up a website to bring together the things we discover while we are doing the exploring. It looks like it will be a mix of information of religious sites (no decisions made on Standing stones and such), short walks, coffee shop - local eatery reviews and places to stay. It may include bits of theology, devotional works, fiction (Mo tells her daughters stories about people who were once around these sites), information on other things to do nearby and so on. In other words its a method of focusing what we would be doing anyway. 

Getting back was interesting. As a rule I could make any journey but the last one hundred yards. I actually got stuck, trying to turn the car around at my parents to put it in another place. Two fostered children by a neighbour came to help and we got it moving again. The next day I went A6, A625, A623 and A612 back to Sheffield as both the Snake (A57) and the Woodhead (A628) were closed. Dad was in favour of me using the M62. I was slightly worried of about the route from M62 to Sheffield, unless I used the M1 which seemed a very long way to go. I got to Sheffield again fine. The roads were very clear here and I was okay until I tried to park my car in my parking bay. I simply could not get it out. In the end went down to Waitrose and bought cat lit which I mixed with dishwasher salt (the advantages of having a non-standard dishwasher which cannot take tablets). Anyway I was glad to get the car back to Hertz on Friday!

While I was at Drummore things kept dropping out of pockets, and pockets that were buried deep too. The first time it happened it was my B&B ladies keys which I had had so I could lock the door. That day, I had done practically nothing, except walk Dora on the beach and get pulled over by her. The assumption I made was that in the fuss of being pulled over and tidying up (I succeeded in scratching the outside of my lip and it bled slightly)  that the keys dropped out. The next day when all we did was the walk up the Creeky hill and around and my mobile phone went missing. I left it twenty four hours to see if it would try and tell me its power was running out. There was no point in ringing it as there is no reception in the area, I use it instead of a watch. However this resulted in me giving permission for someone to try to ring it knowing they would fail: no reception, battery flat and the chances being that the electronics were ruined due to a wet night on the Creeky hill. Anyway I was due a free upgrade and the replacement sim cost me all of five pounds. The new phone is apparently Sony Ericsson T715 although I wish it was in the silver colour scheme rather than the one I got (grey) the difference being that the silver has white font while the grey has a metallic aqua font. I have not changed my phone number (old sim disabled, phone too old to bother about), however if I had your phone numbers on my previous phones I now no longer have them. Would you mind ringing or texting me, so I can store them on this one please.

Otherwise, I have bought myself some more thermal underwear, baked bread, worked on designing the website, warming the house up (another of my storage heaters had gone phut. I guess I must look to replacing it this year which will be interesting. Storage heater is really great for the one that is left functioning in the house but the rest of the rooms are better with timed heating as I am not usually in much after 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. at night. So storage heat, heats the house largely when I am not in. For core heating which is what the hall does that is fine but for rooms used only some of the time a pattern of heating is better. So am looking to replace one storage heater with an electrical heater on a timer, with probably a second electrical timed heater in the room next door replacing a panel heater that has a wonky timer, I thought it was broke but it is only the timer. Oh well I shall no doubt find it interesting when I decide to do it.

Oh Morag I have long cherished the idea of getting Tony a paper log maker, but since you don't yet have solid fuel heating there is still no point. However there may well be some peace over you buying the Guardian. The question will be whether you could keep long enough to read it. Did I ever tell you of my experience with the Times. I had answered a survey which said I was an occasional reader. They rang me to ask whether I would like to become a subscriber. The first question was when had I last bought the Times. I answered honestly that I did not think I had ever done so. They presumed because I read it occasionally I bought it occasionally. I don't buy it, my father does and I read it when visiting him i.e. when on holiday. Therefore I am an occasional reader but am unlikely to want to subscribe. After all I only have the time for such activities on holiday.

Supervision, Interview, Holiday and Baptism

For those of you who are not on my support group list, I have had another supervision. It went well. There is a paper there but it needs more work on my PhD thesis before it will really come together. Bits are beginning to fit together but the analysis always comes later after the description. I am doing a lot of thinking at present about the relationship of right believing, right relating and right behaving. They are of course always held in tension within faith but I am thinking that the centroid of the the triangle has actually moved.

Right the busy Sunday, or how the Sheffield Marathon stopped me getting to Church. The plan for Sunday 26th April was that I would go to church at St Andrew's Chesterfield and then onto Helen and Patrick's for lunch and would then interview them. So I booked my car well in advance. I should have been slightly cautious as it went missing on the Thursday prior to that. I knew the marathon was on, the car I booked was not on the route but I knew I'd have to go through Ecclesall to get to Chesterfield. So I was early. There was no car there. Rang Whizzgo and got them to rebook it. Fine I would still get to church on time.

Only I asked for a car on the marathon route, and arrived just after marathon runners started running by, they could not let me have the car to 1:00 p.m. which was too late. So I rebooked. I was going by memory and asked for Brown Street instead of Charles Street. This resulted in me having to walk down to by the station (the spaces are just outside The Showroom, Sheffield's independent cinema). Again it was on the route but I think either the runners were past that or not expected until late morning. So I got the car out but now had to get out of Sheffield City Centre. It was an interesting experience. I actually wonder how much the shops lost that day as the city centre custom was decidedly down even when I got back. It was now about 10:50 and I could not see anyway I could get to St Andrew's Chesterfield for 11:00 a.m.. So I decided to miss the service and turn up afterwards, pretty sure that Helen and Patrick would be there.

As I got into Chesterfield I suddenly realised I had not put the spare batteries in for my recorder. So I went and stopped at the Little Chef to see if they had any. They didn't which meant I had to brave Tescos at the next roundabout. There was no a question about whether Tescos had batteries but there was a huge one over whether I could find them in a store that stocked so many things. I went through the electrical goods there but there were none that weren't packaged with something else so went into the food stuff part and eventually found them about half way along the aisle by the cash tills. Well that is half of the food store that I did not have to go through I suppose. I then drove onto Chesterfield and waited for the service to end. Then onto Helen and Patricks for lunch, we went in my car, as I don't pay for petrol only for the time I have the car. Helen does not believe in running two cars if only one can do the journey. Patrick had to go to the bank to withdraw money so they could pay the builder before they went on holiday. The interview went smoothly, I then drove Helen back to Chesterfield for the two counties service. I did not go to the service simply as I had so much writing up to do after the interview.

Had a migraine on Monday, obviously overdoing it well that and the shopping on Saturday.

Tuesday was in work and running around like a mad thing. This always happens before I go on holiday.

Wednesday it was up to Drummore. The journey to Newcastle went fine, Cross Country were splendid. Scot rail however were into money saving and after two coaches had broken down in two different trains they had combined the good coaches together to form a train. The only thing was there was no toilet on either of the coaches. Not bad if you are travelling for half an hour or so but on a four hour journey it is not good. What is more they did not announce long stops (one in Carlisle and one in Dumfries) so if you were in the know you could have got off the train and gone to the loo but not if you weren't. Needless to say I was popping by the time we arrived in Stranraer. Morag and the girls turned up to get me off the train.

Rather than giving a day by day description I will describe some highlights of the holiday.

Lets be clear the B&B I stayed in is great, it is run by Diane Gilmore and on a clear day you have views of five kingdoms: Scotland, England, Mann, Ireland and heaven, from your bedroom window. Diane is very good host and will cater for most guests peculiar behaviour, if she copes with mine she will cope with anybodies. She also does Reiki. If you want to find out more Diane has a website where you can read more . Despite what Diane saying it is coastal it is about a mile from the nearest beach about as far as you can be from the sea on the Mull of Galloway. Morag was laughing at the insurance guy who had asked her if she was inland from Stranraer. I guess the correct answer was something about being on a different part of the coast near there. Morag is all of 100m from the beach.

I bought an SLR camera. This was a surprise to me but I was getting near a crisis point and not being able to find my own camera before I went precipitated it. I have found it since, bottom of the rucksack I take to Birmingham for Supervisions which I had checked before I went. I do quite a lot of photography while I am there and some of it is used for publicity purposes by Tony and Morag. The results of the photography on both mine and dad's camera can be see at Flickr.

I became a friend of the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh. That is not as odd as it sounds. The place Morag likes going for coffee is Logan Botanic Gardens which is just the other side of the penisula. Faced with going for coffee on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday as definate on my first visit I thought that paying the £20 to become a Friend might well end up saving me money as entry was £4 a time. In actual fact we only went four times: Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Thursday. Friday we stopped at Sandhead after shopping in Stranraer, Monday we took the girls somewhere, Tuesday we went to Mull for coffee and Wednesday I took Morag out for lunch at Port Logan. The gardens are spectacular at this time of year with many varieties of Rhododendrons in flower. The gigantic rhubarb is not very spectacular yet but we did see pheasant chicks. I got out my paints and painted a postcard for my parents which I promptly lost (now found and I will try and post it on Monday). You will see lots of flower photos.

We built a labyrinth. Oh nothing permanent just pebbles on a beach. The design was mine but the girls and Morag did much of the laying of the pebbles while I collected them and carried them from higher up the beach. We actually made two but the first one was just a trial to see if it would work. I need to spend some more time working on designs the twists were pretty simple on that one and they need not have been and no it was neither the Chartres nor the Classical labyrinth though obviously related to the classical labyrinth. I find it intriguing that those two labyrinths are the only two produced when I know that the classical is only one of a family and that there is a whole other family that is not represented. I would call those cyclic labyrinths. I have not worked out which family the Chartres fits into or whether it represents yet another labyrinth family. Then I have not worked out the way to draw it without tracing it from a copy. There do seem to be similar ones that are no identical.

Perhaps the most holiday of days was Saturday afternoon (the morning I spent at Logan Garden with the girls) which we (Morag, the girls and I) went to Wigtown and viewed the osprey on its nest. There is a live video link from the nest in the town centre so we could watch what was going on without disturbing the birds. It was fairly uninteresting, an osprey sitting on a nest was all I saw. We then had coffee at the Reading Lasses where the girls devoured two large pieces of chocolate cake. Morag and I made do with coffee and carrot cake (well actually Morag had the carrot cake as she had not eaten anything since breakfast and it was now about 3pm, the girls had had plenty). Then we went onto St Ninian's cave which entailed a walk of about a mile there and a mile back. Cait was ahead of us all the way there but was tired on the way back and walked stooped holding my hand although she did not hang on my arm. Then it was off to the Steam Packet Inn at the Isle of Whithorn which was fully booked but quite happy to give us supper in the bar. Then home with an attempt to stop at Kirkmaiden. We had gone past it by about a mile by the time we stopped to check the map and with two tired girls going back was not really possible. On the way back a deer jumped out in front of the car. Fortunately allowing Morag time to brake otherwise we would have come home with a huge quantity of venison.

Wednesday was Morag's birthday. I took her out for a meal at Campbell's Restaurant at Port Patrick where they set us in front of a window. It was not the same standard of view as at the B&B but it was a good enough view and to Morag's surprise I was quietly entranced by the small going-on that I could see from the window: gulls, tourists and clouds. We then went back to Drummore and up to her Aunty Yvonne's for tea having collected Jenny on the way back. Cait was already there making pancakes for the party.

Thursday we took the girls to Portpatrick to buy icecream. Lets me be honest good quality icecream is readily available in the area courtesy of Cream of Galloway but I had promised the girls superduper icecreams after their spotting efforts in the car on Saturday. To get something a bit different like a flake in their icecream we had to take them to Portpatrick. This also meant that we found that the fish and chip van at Portpatrick now does lovely chips (to keep the girls from being too hungry as tea was going to be late we shared a portion between us).

One day someone from the church called around to deliver Morag's copy of Life and Work. She also seemed to be on a recruitment campaign for the church telling me how much they liked having new members. The word desperate comes to mind when you start trying to recruit holiday makers to your congregation.

The journey back was not good. The tractors finally caught up with me (when I am driving the area I rarely come across tractors although others seem to encounter them frequently) but they had to resort to hitting a railbridge outside Stranraer to do so. This delayed the train I was on by about two hours. I fortunately had bought a saver ticket and so I could travel on any train and not two apex which might be cheaper. However they then went and cancelled the train at Dumfries. This caused major hassle as I have a heavy case and that meant instead of one change I had at least three having to catch a local train to Carlisle and then at least two trains on from there. I weighed up the options at Carlisle, realised that by the time I got to Newcastle I would be facing rush hour traffic without a booked seat plus possibly having to change at Doncaster or York. For a while I was optimistic of changing at Stockport at there was a train to Birmingham but it was going through Warrington and not Manchester. So I finally settled on getting a train to Leeds (Carlisle-Settle route) and catching a train home from Leeds. The result was that I was not home until about 8pm at night.

Today I went to St Andrews Sheffield as it was Zachary Wheat's baptism and I am still officially Elizabeth's elder. I have kept telling them that for both our sakes they should change that. As it was I arrived there and found myself busy, the sound system is playing up and then as Ian Cooke was away I was asked to sign the baptismal certificate as Elizabeth's elder. The baptismal party was huge, easily numbering the same number as the congregation and there were to my eyes clearly people who would have been invited who did not make it. The elders were encouraging the party to sit fairly far forward but Helen and Patrick (Elizabeth's Aunt and Uncle) plus family were having none of it and sat firmly two thirds of the way back. It was interesting in the fact Elizabeth only made the baptismal promises and Jon made supporting promises. Afterwards there was cake to be served and I ended up handing it out then helping with putting things away once the baptismal party had left. Fleur and Walter were there but with being Zachary's grandparent and Fleur being a former minister I knew there would not be chance to chat as other people would have claims on there attention. They looked as if they were well and we did manage to exchange greetings.

New Year 2009

Lets see. Since I last wrote I have travelled over 600 miles at I guess an average speed of about 55 miles per hour. This is while a lot was by motorway there was an awful lot on A roads. The car I hired, a diesel Astra took it all quite well although it could be cleaner if there was just a rainstorm or two. It took me longer to get used to this car than the previous time I hired an Astra but if I am having to do a lot of driving I think they are still my car of choice. The car was pretty laden on the way there. I solved the problem of how to carry boxes on the back seats by using the seat belt with each box but on the way out all three places in the back seat were taken and I covered them with granny's old brown travel rug which did the job admirably. It was big enough, it was clearly old and its colouring was non-descript. It said with every fibre of its being, anything under me isn't worth having which is exactly what I wanted it to say. The fact that what it was covering was largely food, craft materials and cardboard boxes was beside the point. I wanted the theif to think nothing worth having without trying to investigate.

At a slightly slower pace the walking around the world thread I had been looking after had made the 40000 km distance that is approximately the circumference of the world. I still have to total the final distance but as a couple of posters have posted distance since the finish I am sure we have made it.

Christmas was just the family. Sam is growing up and this year had clearly thought about what people might like for Christmas. So he bought my father a book on cricketing jokes, unfortunately it got into my pile and when I checked with Hannah she assured me it was mine. I thought this was odd, so was rather relieved when Sam found the error about a minute afterwards and corrected it. Dad, Mum and I both enjoyed reading snippets from the book. Last I knew Dad was putting it into the chapel so he could browse it instead of the paper. This year due to a practice of over remembering I don't think we forgot to take anything. By over remembering I mean that we set it up so we all had a list of everything that needed to go and we all were responsible for checking them off. Just as well as I forgot to do the final check off myself. Cathy and Adrian cooked a splendid lunch and the crackers worked well although Hannah I think got more enjoyment from the fact that there were rings on the outside of the crackers so she ended up with 24 rings. Fortunately I ended up with the eyelash curlers which is my choice for the most useless cracker filler of the year. I think Hannah claimed them but I bet she has no idea what they were for.

Boxing day was a quiet day spent with my parents. I am not sure mum thought it was a "quiet" day as Dad had decided we'd have venison for lunch. Mum had found a recipe this time but it was so complicated that it had her all flustered. I also sorted my parents computer our so they should now be sending regular letters once again. I think Val you will go back to only getting one letter per week rather than two. I am afraid my efficiency meant for a while you were both of family list and being added by Dad. For some reason Dad was not aware I had put you on the list.

Then I drove up to Drummore on the 27th, I got in in the daylight after a fairly smooth ride. There is a theory going around that the locals around Drummore issue an alert when I am due up and keep off the road. I certainly do seem to strike fewer tractors and such than most people and there is an effective bush telegraph. Of the family, Jenny probably was the most changed physically, she had the build of an older child now which is significantly different from that of a young child at least in females (I presume preparation for puberty). She had also had her hair cut. Jenny I think was surprised that I gave her a present that she was able to do and Cait wasn't. Cait is water to Jenny's earth and at times this is clear. For instance Cait like Hannah and Sam is a water fiend. Have water anywhere near her and she wants to be in it. This means Cait has swimming lessons she thoroughly enjoys (they are essential with her propensity to get into water, either she learns to swim or her mum has to always worry over her getting out of her depth in water). However Cait is also almost constantly doing things, exploring and such. Jenny is steady and sure footed, likes things firmly grounded and to know where she is and what is happening. Jenny likes facts, Cait likes fantasy both want to write. My guess is that Jenny stands the better chance of making an steady income from writing. She is likely to become something like a technical writer or a journalist, maybe a travel writer. The slow careful writer, checking facts, making sure the information is correct and presenting it clearly are in greater demand than the creative ones. Cait will want to write novels, poems and stories. She will either not make anything at all or a huge amount.

The days were spent doing things that kept us occupied. Morag had had accepted an article on Kirkmadrine Stones and wanted pictures of Kirkmadrine that were not the typical ones of the chapel . She engaged me to take these photographs as she claimed I had better cameras. I think I got one or two which were distinctly different but with the cold and taking in an evening I could have done with a tripod for some of the shots. We also went up to the Mull on New Years day. There were lots of people around and I think the cafe was definitely loosing profitable business by not being open that day. By the way there are some photos up some photos up of the stay on my flickr account If you get a flickr account (they are free and let me know I don't mind adding people to friends or family which means you will see also the pictures with people in them). We also made a Swiss Apline scene for the "Boredom Busters" column Morag is writing for her local paper.

Unfortunately Morag and at least one of the girls had colds. I stayed clear most of the holiday but developed one the day before I needed to drive back. The result was that I was pretty whacked when I got back to Sheffield having spent a night at my parents on route. I kept going on the Monday as I had to return the car but by Tuesday I realised it was take time in or don't get better. So I took the day off.

At work otherwise it was head down to get a course ready for last Wednesday unfortunately I had not checked that the software was on the network and started to teach then realised that I would not be able to demonstrate nor would people be able to do the exercises. It was most unfortunate as the previous form of the software was there but that was significantly different from the form I was teaching. So I had to cancel the course. So this has been re-arranged for a week on Monday and next wednesday's course moved to another room which has the software in it. It should be interesting to do.

The reason this did not get out last week was that I was writing a review of the interviews to date for my PhD. The work in writing it took up my Sunday Afternoon. Then I found that there was a meeting of the Monday Club. Now Fleur, that is an institution within an institution. The Monday Club is an organisation run by members of the church that attracts a number of ladies who are on the fringes of the church. As the club secretary is from a congregationalist background it is run on congregationalist lines, i.e. all decisions come to meetings of the members. However it clearly had its members and others are fringes. To be a member you don't need to be a church member and there are many church members who are on the fringes of this group, this is unlike Network at St Andrews Sheffield which if you are a church member you are treated as a member of Network. So here we have a sub-group under St Andrew's umbrella that is run differently, has a distinctive membership. The talk was interesting one by Alex Harrow on his time as a police surgeon. If his account is anything to go by, there must have been times when he was waiting for John Clark to turn up while John Clark was sure he had plenty of time and not rushing.

Friday saw me at a Burn's night supper organised by Rosehill URC but facilitated by St Andrews. They intriguingly also had the Society of Friends as guests along with the Caledonian Association committee. St Andrew's Sheffield had its Burn's Night on the same evening. I was walking down from having parked the car on Friday night and glanced across at St Andrew's Sheffield and realised the lights in the hall were still on. As this was 11:00 pm they were making a late night of it.