Christmas Roundup of the Year

The year has been dominated with writing up my thesis. I got into the pattern of most days writing by hand for about half an hour before I went into work. This produced the momentum to keep going as I formally typed them in each weekend. The result is that at present I have 90,000 words for a 80,000 max thesis, and two short chapters (introduction and conclusion) not even written. It is alright. I knew that there was going to have to be major edits but I needed to write to actually get some idea what was in my brain. I am hopefully drafting the introduction over the rest of the holiday season (i.e. read through what I have written, write the reason for doing the thesis and then the route that is taken). The conclusion will have to wait until I have worked through the chapters again and got them largely into their final form. The intriguing thing is that writing has been the way that I have done most of the analysis for this thesis. Another reason for the overflow was that halfway through the year the expected number of substantive chapters doubled from three to six (introduction, methodology and conclusion takes the total to nine). Unfortunately I had already written 45,000 words in the three substantive that were written and 20,000 in methodology. So an over flow was inevitable. That said it is to be hoped that I manage to finish the revision around Easter time.

The reason for that being is that I have said from Easter time I am willing to go back onto the eldership of St Andrews URC Sheffield. I have tried to keep my commitment to the congregation limited at least timewise this last year, so as to make space for writing up. I do need to be in worship at least two Sundays a month now, one as I am working the sound system and the second as I do door duty. I am also one of the table elders and will take over as senior table elder come easter, which means I really have to be making elders meeting, as I will need to chase elders for communion duties. On top of this Sarah our minister has announced that she is leaving after Easter. The way things are run in Yorkshire at present, there will not be a direct replacement for Sarah, and we will be a largely self running congregation. Actually something which due to the long vacancies in the past the congregation is facing with a fair amount of equanimity. The other thing is when I look I around I realise that there are probably as many adults under fifty attending the congregation as there has ever been in the time I have been there. This feels strange, because while the congregation is going to grow smaller, I am not sure that I can assume that the demise is as guaranteed as the older generation have always said it was.

Work wise I have moved offices (twice) and moved teams once but am officially doing the same job. That said the workload has increased out all recognition to what it was eighteen months to two year ago. I am jolly appreciative that Maths and Statistical Help (MASH) has largely taken over the handling of queries from Undergraduates and taught Postgraduates. I still seem quite a few research postgraduates, quite often these days with them seeing MASH as well, they tend to use MASH for the basic stuff and me for the depth. I am also helping MASH tutors develop their skills in helping students and it looks as if there may be more teaching. I am still working on NVivo tutorial for online. It is taking longer for me to do than I thought, basically because it takes longer to video than I expected. I can spend five hours easily on a five minute video, a lot of the time I spend psyching myself up to do it.

Writers group is still going along, it provides a place where I am off duty and among friends. I have found with writing my thesis that I have tended to write poetry. The idea that I could cope with the complexities of writing anything much longer while trying to keep hold of all the wild horses in my thesis, just seems to me impossible. A poem, often so short that it is often compared to a haiku (it isn’t, normally too many syllables, and not the right twist at the end). However I am able to concentrate on getting the words right for just that short piece of writing. My writers group have published another collection which we launched at our annual reading as part of Off the Shelf. This is the fourth or fifth collection and the third I have contributed to. Rather  more scary was the realisation that some in the group looked up to me as a writer. I still see myself as very much a beginner, the main difference is that I am better able to tell when others are writing well and when they are not. I find the act of self criticism very difficult indeed and it often surprises me what others think of as good.

Holiday wise I spent the normal extended week at Drummore, this year again in the autumn. The weather was typical British Autumn weather and it was a matter of making the best of the weather when it was dry. That said there is now a path all the way from Stranraer to the Mull of Galloway mostly along the coast. The advantage of this from the holiday point of view is that it has opened up the track towards the Mull. Jenny and Cait are both capable of walking to the Mull lighthouse but Cait finds walking back a bit too far. Dora the dog is quite happy to go walking, will cross styles and such if and only if I have gone over first. I suspect Morag going over might also get her over but Morag was finding her hearing aids difficult and spent quite a bit of time without them in.

My sister came over with my niece and nephew during the summer holidays for the day. We are still able to pull some wool over their eyes. They were willing to believe that we walked all the way across town to have coffee at the Costas in Waterstones just because we enjoyed their coffee. Needless to say the reason was their was a Waterstones and I was pretty sure that with a book token each, that Cathy and I would have time to chat while they decided how to spend them. I also went over to them and did geocaching. Cathy is very good at finding caches if she is looking in the right place but a modern GPS really does make a difference and the sort on smart phones beat the older specific technical GPS unless you are outside the range of a signal. Sam is doing well in school with all teachers happy to have him studying their subject for GCSE, his main challenge is whether he should do Music or Domestic Science. Hannah is doing well, having recently done exam for her dance classes. She is also learning the violin like Sam but where as Sam seemed to have the knack of making his early squawking sound musical, according to Cathy Hannah is not doing as well.

My parents are getting older.  My assessment is that as a couple they manage fine as each compensates for the others difficulties. Each however would struggle very much if doing it alone. The problems arise when each tries to take over the others strengths then problems arise. Today when they were out delivering Christmas Cards around the neighbourhood, Dad decided that he would do the physical delivering rather than just making sure they went in the right address. The result was that he tripped at the first house. Nothing hurt except his pride but Mum would have done it with ease.

Next year the BIG CHALLENGE is to submit and finish my thesis. The aim is to submit around Easter time but I acknowledge that is optimistic and will take a lot of hard work even if everything goes smoothly. When that is over I am going to need to do a lot of assessing where to go next. I can’t even claim that the thesis answers the questions that drove me to study originally. It has put me in a different place from which to try and move towards a solution/answer and I am also going to have to assess whether from the new position an answer looks possible.

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.

Summary of the year or Round Robin

This is my attempt to give an impression of the past year, it therefore does not handle the news of the last week in particular, so apologies for those faithful followers of Chattering for whom much of this can be repetition. I am going to work this through on themes rather than give a month by month account.

Firstly therefore let me turn to my PhD. I am now in the final part of the process prior to submission and that is actually writing it up. This is not the same as being a student in “writing up” state, I need to get a pretty good first draft done by the end of June 2012 if I am to be allowed to be in that state from September 2012, the formal “writing up” state is for people close on submission, I am therefore still a fully enrolled student. However it does means I am no longer doing active field work and and am spending a lot of time either with pen and paper, computer or checking books. It also means I have stopped going over to Herringthorpe URC on a regular basis. It was quite a strange feeling to be leaving doing placements after four years. Herringthorpe was a good congregation, different from St Andrews Chesterfield. Some of the differences were just down to dynamics of size, Herringthorpe is almost twice the size of St Andrews Chesterfield and things that functioned at St Andrews failed at Herringthorpe. Not much with respect to the thesis, but there were times when I realised many people at Herringthorpe behaved as if it was the size of St Andrews, for instance you were expected to know who the treasurer was by just mentioning his name. Fine at St Andrews where you did not need even that often as the treasurer was the one with the cheque book, but at Herringthorpe more difficult particularly as they did not fill any sort of treasurer type roles during morning worship. Another thing which became clear is that the two strands “Presbyterian” and “Congregational” related differently to their traditions. Presbyterians were always conscious of being Presbyterian and doing things in that way. Congregationalists never named the tradition, it was always this is “how we do it”. They never felt any need to identify it as “Congregational” or “Independent” or “Reformed”. I suspect to many English Presbyterians this looked like a lack of tradition when in actual fact it is the mark of a dominant tradition. Anyway  with now writing up I have started a blog which keeps notes of my progress. If you want to know how I am doing please make a note of it. Finally as you will see there, the Society for the Study of Theology held a postgraduate meeting in Edinburgh a few weeks back and I presented a paper at that. I am not planning on writing up the paper for publication at present but might well do so once my thesis is done as it is practically publication ready.

Work wise, the year has been more of the same. That does not mean no change, it does mean that for the most part the style has not changed. Perhaps the biggest change is that I more and more being consulted and then cited as a resource during research bids. This means that I am in the process from the start. Some of this is actually down to the fact that I can talk a number of research dialects and therefore am a pretty good translator of ideas between different departments who are doing research. I think I am involved in two to three active bids. It will be interesting to see what comes out. I am also moving some of my teaching into videos just to cope with demand. I am not able (and never have been) to meet the demand for this particular course. My real reason for not trying this earlier is that I do not see it as a particularly good course, very old fashioned talking head. Anyway my hand has been forced and I now need to find the time to actually get it into a video form. I suppose equally remarkable is this year I have not moved offices but am still in the same one as last Christmas, according to estates we should be moving out of there about Easter time. This is a slight delay on the original date for leaving the offices which was sometime in mid 2000.

Health wise my energy levels are improving an enabling me to cope with both the thesis and the increased work load at work. Nothing major just the slow improvement that keeps happening, it is of course far too slow for my liking and I always have a tendency to over stretch myself. I still get migraines but these are less frequent so maybe I am getting better at pacing. Unfortunately the same could not be said for all around. The New Year started with the news on Ship-of-Fools that the person who was the brains behind the bulletin boards (Erin) died very suddenly from flu at the age of thirty-nine. Dad has also lost several  friends, this started with the death quite suddenly of Roger Tomes a long term colleague of his, then in the autumn Doug Thacker died, at a respectable age of 83, but they had known each other since University days and kept in touch and finally Fred Able died. To crown things for him his Aunt died in November. She was in her nineties and family relationships had been distant for a while but she was also the last of that generation to die.

Other family news seems to fairly mundane. Mum and Dad tick along, alternately wondering at how well they manage and at other times getting on each others nerves. Mum is doing particularly physically and Dad is doing very well mentally, but the reverse could not be said. However one compensates for the other, and they seem to keep going. They had a holiday at the Christian hotel in Grange over Sands which seemed to go well despite the weather. The advantage of doing it this was was the chance to have company in an evening. Cathy and family seem to doing fine. Adrian, Cathy’s husband, was made redundant just before Christmas and after three or four months of looking and not finding anything he particularly wanted he decided to go solo. He is picking up a decent amount of work, partly because his former firm is passing work in his direction, but he is also making contacts elsewhere. Sam is doing well at school, still very good on the violin and at swimming with an interest in astrophysics. Hannah seems to be doing well, is much better at settling to read than Sam ever was and is enjoying dancing as well as swimming although in that she will never make Sam’s class.

I spent New Year up with my God family and again went up for almost a fortnight at the end of September beginning of October. My God-daughters are doing well though both have changed schools. Jenny because she was going up to high school and therefore travels now to Stranraer everyday and Cait because she became quite unhappy at the local school. The timing of the autumn rather than spring one, was partly due to Morag’s study pattern and partly because the Wigtown Festival was on at that time. However it worked really well for me as it allowed me to have a break between placement and writing up. In some ways it was a quieter holiday than previous ones, despite there being a lot on at Wigtown, I was not in the mood for setting out at the start of day and coming in late to attend things I was only vaguely interested in. Two of the days I just spent looking after Dora their dog, combing her hair and taking her for long walks along the beach during which she chased any seagulls that decided to take off into the air. While they were sat on the shore she really was not that interested. I will hopefully be up with them again for New Year.

So now all that remains I think is to wish you all that your lives may be touched by the joy that comes at Christmas and that during the coming year you might have the energy to meet the challenges and enjoy your achievements.

Holidaying followed by a busy week

Lets me assure you it has not been laziness that has kept me from
writing for the last couple of Sundays. The first one was a blazing
hot day and I with Cait and Jenny were scrambling up and down cliffs
trying to find St Medan's cave. We did not find it and there is no
real sign of the path. The next stage I suspect is to try and find it
from the sea but that will be a few years into the future. Last week it was simply writing for supervision that kept me from writing here.

So lets me start with describing my holiday. I hired a Corsa, a far better size of car than the car at Christmas. It actually took a huge amount of stuff, although Jenny complained that she was short of space in the back of the car. Given that when I was her age my parents owned a Renault, I did not have much sympathy, plus its purpose was to get me around. One snag with the car is that someone (I suspect a previous hirer, had polished the windscreen with car wax, Tony did a marvellous job of getting it clean after I drove through a flock of suicidal flies just outside Manchester, the wipers would not touch the mess). Actually I think the modern Corsa has replaced the Astra as my favourite car to drive, despite having reverse in the wrong place. The decrease in size makes it more moveable and therefore I feel more in control. It has good viewing as well.

Wigtown Monastory site
Originally uploaded by jengie@btinternet.com

Morag seems to be doing well, and thoroughly enjoying her work as a
walk organiser (I think it is one of three jobs she holds down but I
heard little of the other two). Mostly she worked in the morning and
then came out with me on the afternoon. Sometimes we did bits of
things that helped her as a walk organiser on the afternoon but I bet
she did not count these into her working hours.

On the afternoon we would meet up somewhere, normally a coffee shop and then go and explore somewhere. At the start we were travelling further afield than
we normally do, going for walks in the area of Stranraer and even
spending one day over on the Machars going as far as Whithorn, but as
the week wore on we settled back to doing very local things. A couple
of decent walks from Chapel Rossan bay, one with Dora their dog and
the rest of the family and one on our own. I think we visited
everywhere we normally do except Kirkmadrine and we were in Logan
Gardens only for coffee (two days running).

The weather was glorious, nine dry days and two mild showers on the 10th. The down side to being in Scotland when the first good weather of the year occurs is that
that is when the farmers make their first cut of silage. Now I suspect
from my point of view the problem is not the fact that they are
cutting silage but it is the first cut and that is known to release
all sorts of things into the air, more so than second or third. Well I
was on hayfever treatment for about three days then the silage was
mainly in and I did not need the treatment. On the Saturday we went to
Port Logan and had a go at geocaching. We failed I think because we
were climbing over the rocks too much and not enough looking for loose
rocks near the path. The girls are growing up but not yet at the stage
where their mum and I are too boring to be seen with. No doubt it will
come. Although Dora the dog seems to think that the pack is complete
if I am there and she has to herd me in. She is a bearded collie but
shows most signs of having gun dog instincts, only she does not wait
for the bird to be shot before fetching and so far they have all
escaped to sea. However if she ever turns up at Sheffield having run
away I will know why. This set on Flickr contains most of them, there
are some duplicate pictures I have not bothered putting up but
otherwise that is most of what I took.


Since then I have had a busy week. Al; right so Tuesday was over
written with a migraine, except I managed to get to a meeting with Sue
from Herringthorpe who is chair of the Needs Assessment Group(NAG).
Made too important decisions, firstly that neighbourhood meant
immediate area of the church not including a more deprived area about
a mile away as yet. The reason was two fold. Firstly the realisation
that if the church did take on that area, they would have to do
something based in that area they would have to do something that
either meant deliberately going into the area or they would have to
bring people to the church, plus there is a cultural difference
between church members and people in this area. None of this would
matter if they were enthusiastic about community work, but as yet I
have no sense of real enthusiasm and I do not want them to overreach
themselves by taking on a challenge they are not up for. The other
thing was to use "loneliness" as a theme for something the
congregation may know how to tackle. Hmm not sure I should be doing
this but if this project is to get off the ground and church meetings
decision is that it should then decisions like this need to be taken.

Wednesday I was back in work and life did not stop while I was on
holiday. I found someone wanted to see me, and several other bits of
work needed doing. However one thing is that I am moving offices again
and expect to move again in six to eighteen months time. This time it
is back to 289 Glossop Road, top floor, quiet with quite a bit of
space (it used to be a 2 person office). Actually if I am honest the
move is just in time, as I am finding the main office of the computer
centre more and more distracting as I try to work at present. I
presume due to getting better but I don't like moves. I was offered
two other spaces but those would have been worse than my current
space.

Friday I started putting up a shelf over my bed (when I told Dad
earlier he automatically heard bookshelf). The reason being that while
I was away I found myself quite naturally saying evening prayer if the
books were on a bedside table by my bed. The nearest I can get for a
bedside table is a shelf, so I have now put up a shelf. It is
horizontal (near perfectly, i.e. I cannot tell the difference with a
spirit level). That said the first hole I drilled was a failure and
had to be filled in again and the rawplugs that came with the
attachments were useless. I ended up using some I bought and they
worked perfectly. The final hole I drilled worked fine. I learnt a lot
about drilling into walls and breeze blocks in doing it. Also over the
weekend got the papers ready for the next supervision.

Saturday ended up shopping at the same time as James and Jean, each
time we went out separate ways in the supermarket we ended up meeting
up again. If you want to know why I was wondering around in such an
odd manner I was looking for a hook to hang something from. Most
people use them for tea towels, I wanted it for a light cross as I did
not fancy banging in a nail just below my newly hung shelf. A thing
that Safeways used to have in, but I could not find anywhere in
Waitrose. Hence madly wandering up random aisles with a trolley load
of shopping. I will have to try Maplin next. I also sent out my
supervision papers to my supervisors.

Today due to time of the month I decided to skip morning worship and
only go to evening worship. I am going to have to debate with myself
whether that is a good idea. Not because I found them manipulative or
high powered charismatic, anything but. For those that remember
Parrswood Evening services during August, that is what the strongly
reminded me of. For those who wondered why I was nervous of
Herringthorpe, please understand this, it was not finding something
different, but finding myself at home that scared me, and that is what
I did tonight, liturgically I was at home, the people might be
acquaintances but the style, the manner and the content were familiar.
The familiarity of that service was unnerving, the problem is that
every time I find 'a home' in many senses then I have to move on from
it. Moving on is difficult, the more I do it, the less I like doing
it. I do not want to be drawn into the feeling of home, just to have
to leave it, and with this being a study placement I know now I must
move on in just over a years time. I learnt that my supervisor was
busy on Thursday (well all next week) and that we should really
rearrange. The thing is that if I had known it was for the week after
next I would have timetabled myself differently i.e. had this weekend
as a writing weekend and enjoyed the bank holiday.

Also before I forget I have started a Twitter account, no I am not
asking you to subscribe, it is pretty inane, being comments mainly
about what I am doing. However if at any time you want to check how I
am because you are concerned then have a look at it. It can be seen by
any of the following methods:
1) Look at my chattering blog and it is in a box on the left hand side
2)On my webpage http://www.jengiejon.info
3)On my Facebook wall you will need to be a friend of mine on
Facebook to see it but if you have a facebook account and want to be
just let me know.
4)Or if you have a twitter account follow jengiejon on Twitter.
So lots of ways. The reason for using twitter is it allows me to put
one message in lots of different places and therefore I hope people
who want to know how I am can find at least one of them.

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.

22nd Sept 07

I am writing a day early in an attempt to get this out after a long period (about a month) of not writing. The reason has been essay preparation followed by a holiday that although only 10 days long manage to include two Sundays, the first through travelling up, the second because I was there and my internet connection was limited. Yes I still had wireless broadband, but at Morag's not where we were staying. That meant it was the time I could nab between demands from Jenny and Cait. The fact that my parents also wanted to read any family epistles, meant that there was a reduction even in that time.

Lets see if I can update people. First thing I can recall is worshipping at St. Andrew's Chesterfield for the first time. Problem one is how to make clear to the minister that the one thing I am definitely not there to do is to check how REFORMED it is!! I might be interested in how it embodies its Reformed position or even how it rejects it, but I will not make any judgement on whether it is making the grade as a REFORMED church. I am interested in "how" not "what". Of course you have to look at "what" to understand "how" but you are looking relationally. I am jokingly-serious thinking at present that I should get a t-shirt with "I am not the Spanish Inquisition" on the front and "nor have I any dealing with section O". Section O being the URC national disciplinary procedure which we seem to have inherited from the Congregationalists at least on my father's account. It rather functions in the same manner as the "men in grey suits" do in the Conservative Party, i.e. quietly efficient when necessary.

Then I have moved offices (again, and I doubt I will get through this year without a second move). Although I am technically in an open plan office, I have got a good space almost private surrounded with 5'6"(plus) screens and two windows (I am the only non-section person with two windows to myself! I may as well make myself comfy, as living in packing cases is miserable and the last time I did that I stayed put for three years. They told me it was temporary and then did not succeed in moving us out. The only worse experience of office space I can remember is when I basically had a open office to myself (technically I was sharing with a very part time guy). The rest of the space was huge and housed junk! So I am not a fan of big offices, I just like offices with plenty of bookshelves. At present am succeeding in keeping it tidy. I still would like my white board up and to put up a couple of photos.

We have also got as far as I think I can take St. Andrew's sound system. In that we have now put permanent supports for both the lectern microphone and a back up pulpit microphone. Both of these are wired. It now means I need to get the instructions re-written for doing the sound on a Sunday. Cliff has also shortened one of the leads for use in the pulpit.

Then there was holiday. Driving up was good, I am slowly finding a good place to stop at on the way up. I went to suss out Caerlaverock WWT site. It looks good and I am hoping to see a Barnacle Goose at Christmas time. For those who have not known me long, my M.Sc project was on Barnacle Geese. I wonder what would have happened if I had decided when I finished that that I really wanted to do was to do the job I had trained for and become an Ecological Statistician. Certainly I would have had a very different but interesting life. Not grumbling, my present life is interesting enough but it is one of those paths not taken that I am semi curious about. I don't think it occurred to me that it was a serious possibility at the time, there is really only entry for about one person per year into that field and something that was that exotic just felt totally out of my reach. If I had, I probably would have worked abroad for several years and even my jobs in the United Kingdom may well have been in out of the way places.

Well by going there I have discovered there is also a National Nature Reserve and a RSPB site at Mersehead. If you add in the cross at Ruthwell it should be easy to spend a day there and break the journey up. Coming down I think will need to be a single journey with lots of stops. There comes a time when getting home to your own bed out weighs the length of journey left. Of course choosing a date is important.

We did many of the things that a week up in the South Rhins includes. That means at least one visit to the RSPB Site on the Mull with a stop at the Gallie Craig from something to eat, a trip to Port Logan Botanical Gardens (my parents also managed to visit the Port Logan Fish Pond which is a rock-pool that was converted to house fish indefinitely. Originally this was so the laird could have fresh fish when he wanted it, but now is used rather as an aquarium for North Atlantic species although I do not think they have either whales or dolphins. We went also to Ardwell Gardens (because I got them mixed with Logan Botanical and thought we could get lunch there) and also saw the Kirkmadrine Stones .

The Saturday was my birthday and Morag and the girls had gone to town making a birthday cake in the shape of a church. As Morag says it was a bit high for me. The service was at 8:00 a.m. and signs of stained glass. However there was a goodly sized congregation of Jelly Babies including one of the doing the sound system! Some photos of the tripe are on Flickr.

I think the highlight was the "folk" concert we went to. Not because it was good. In many ways the event was just totally wrong for us. Three people with hearing aids and the fourth having to put her hands over her ears because the music was so loud. The main reason others seemed to have come was for a change in drinking venue. However we spent the whole of the first half sending messages to each other using pen and paper! A waitress came around to ask us if we wanted any more drinks, we said no but some more paper would be nice! Other people were trying to talk regardless of the performance but I think ours was the only conversation where every word was "heard" by all participants. In the Irish sense the crack was good even though we would not have chosen either the event or the venue if we had known more about it. The music was not bad being a person performing pop classic ballads, just loud (it was getting distortion from the speakers so even those with good hearing could not hear the words). Yes I knew some of them so I am pretty sure of my classification.

Another find was getting a Zen Stone plus and an Audiax FM Transmitter, means I can have music on to lower thought distraction when driving (almost essential on Motorways). I find that CDs need changing and radios have talk which actually is too distracting. Having the random selection playing from a good portion of my music collection (I have not put on my Christmas and Easter specifics) means that I get flow of music while I am driving without problems. The one thing I have discovered is I am eclectic in my music choices. Anything from pop balladeers (Chris de Burgh, Bruce Springsteen), some Jazz, through Celtic pop (Clannad, Runrig, Iona), Christian Praise, classics (both Mozart and moderns including Part) to world music particularly Indian and Jewish. Very little is particularly mainstream but it does cover a wide range.

I got back on Tuesday and since then have been trying to sort out precisely where I am supposed to be (with things going on it is nearly three weeks out of general circulation). I spent Thursday in Birmingham at a meeting of my supervisor's research students. My Supervisor has just been promoted to chair of liturgical and congregational studies! I am glad for him after a tough year in which he has lost both his parents. He is also deputy head of school and moved back to Edgebaston campus!

I think that is largely everyone up-to-date with what is going on, I will need to send a couple of notes to subgroups of you tomorrow with specific news (as I am at St. Andrew's Sheffield tomorrow it will have to wait until then), by the way we are having harvest at St. Andrew's tomorrow, I think global warming has brought the Scottish harvest forward to September from One World Week in October!! Does anyone with curiousity out there know what the theologising* behind "He was a master builder" is

Chattering 15th July 07

Last weekend was definitely hectic. It started with a walk near Chesterfield with Billie Anne on the Friday. It was a good walk and enjoyed by all. The terminus was at Old Whittington where some of the conspiracy for the Glorious Revolution took place. The Glorious Revolution is the one where Roman Catholic James II got kicked out in favour of his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. A most intriguing struggle where Parliamentary democracy was chosen over religious freedom. Then onto Chesterfield to get something to ear (the Pub stopped serving food half an hour before we got to it but was happy to give us juice and crisps). Yes I know that Thursday was a wet day elsewhere, we saw plenty of showers just none decided to empty itself over us for very long.

Saturday Mum and Dad were over. We waited for Tesco to deliver and extra shop for the Monday, and then went and bought a second bird feeder. During the wet spell the sparrows and green finches were emptying a feeder every day but since it has dried up they have found other sources of food and the feeders are taking about a week to empty. As we were walking down there was a schools music carnival going around Devonshire Green. We watched a bit .Then we went to my local Chinese, well noodle bar to be correct. Mum ordered Sweet and Sour chicken while Dad ordered a noodle beef dish. Now the only one having any proficiency with chopsticks is myself and this is a proper oriental place (I actually think more likely to be Thai than Chinese) so if you failed with chopsticks they did allow you a fork but no knives! Then we went back to my flat before wandering into town to get Decaffeinated Coffee beans for Dad. I think it threw him to discover the shop had both medium and strong decaffeinated beans. Well they actually used to roast their beans on site when I was first in Sheffield.

Sunday did not happen due to a migraine. I think I probably had been over doing it.

Monday Morag, Tony, Jenny and Cait came over from the cottage they were staying at just outside Hope. Tony needed to go to the bank as a cheque had bounced and when I mentioned that the nearest bank was just down from Boots, Morag said she wanted to go to Boots. So we walked down to Boots, while Tony nipped down to the Halifax, we went into Boots to get Jenny a new comb and a nit comb for Cait who insisted on getting a brush as well. Then we popped over the road to SPCK where I got Cait another Veggie Tale video and Jenny a bracelet to help her recall the Lord's Prayer. This was in replacement for the Easter Present that went missing. Then we came back and Jenny, Cait and I prepared lunch. The Tesco's order was essential for this as it gave me the ability to get things like baby carrots and other half prepared stuff. I got Cait and Jenny making up tooth pick skewer for a hedgehog, which both could do together working amiably while I got the rest ready. Adult food was cooked in advance.

Then it was off to Ecclesall Park for outdoor games. Only the games were barely played with. Two problems , they were all introduced at once so the girls tried random games and secondly Tony wanted an ice-cream, so there was pressure to get through the games a.s.a.p and get to the cafe. Well as it was Bradfield ice-cream I do not blame him. Yes its good high quality locally produced stuff so is very good I believe (I only discovered it after I stopped taking milk) then a spell at the children's play park with Cait being far more ready than Jenny to move outside her comfort zone. Then finally a trip to Waitrose for the week's shop for them while I entertained the two girls away from the food aisle. Then a quick turn around and they went home while I got ready for a directors meeting.

Tuesday was a none day, with a migraine, however I did manage to get myself up and organised so as to join Morag, Tony and the girls at the Millstone for dinner. I have managed to get myself fixed up with Whizzgo and as I had invited Sarah for the evening, on the grounds that I suspected she and Morag would enjoy each others company, I hired a car to take us both out there. It worked really well, they only had the front bar open so there were not huge crowds of people, the girls looked to me to entertain them, though Morag had brought a bucking camel which was as moody as any real life camel could be and definitely did not want to lie down so its load could be put on its back. The food was decent and as all I needed to do to entertain people seemed to be to take them to the toilet hardly arduous.

However by Wednesday I was up and active again. Thursday was my study day and I got a decent amount of an interview transcribed plus had coffee at the Botanic Gardens (well a J2O and a mineral water to be exact) then went on to explore the Greenhouses where the plants have really grown and I ended up pushing my way through some of the larger planets just to follow the path around. There are some explanatory boards but unfortunately I did not find it easy to spot which plants they referred to in the jungle that surrounded them.

Friday I managed to get back into work. This Saturday I went walked to Greek through Ecclesall park, then got a lift back. I then slept before doing more transcribing, finished the transcribing yesterday so now all I need to do is take the transcriptions from the package they are in and put them into the analysis package and then I can try doing some sort of analysis on them.