Review of the year at Christmas

Thanks for those who have been in touch and apologies that the majority of my contact is limited. Hopefully by this time normal service will resume.

When I first set down to write this review,  I had the usual feeling that there is nothing to write but there is plenty to write, but having sat down I realise that this has been a year of happening and it does not look like it will settle down for a while yet. So what was supposed to be the year that things quietened down with me finishing my thesis ended up quite eventful.

My thesis is not finished yet but at last is gelling. I hoped to get it done by Easter but with the best of my pushing I just did not manage it. I wonder now if there was more I could have done but that is wondering. I think I had underestimated the intensity of the final stages of writing. As a result it took over my brain between Easter and early summer as I tried to get it to gel and worked on the suggested changes by my supervisor. I could make the changes, and they did improve it but it did not set. I even got during August to putting it into final form, but I was not happy and indicated so to my supervisor when I sent the copy for him to read through. He agreed, suggested a major redraft and I am working through but it is at last coming together. The point which was probably most indicative was when at last supervision he asked me something and in a sentence I summarised the whole thesis. The change was to move the metaphor far earlier in the thesis and this just allows so much more use to made of it. It really is the core strand around which I build the thesis. I have just added the second important strand and now will need to pull the other strands into their respective places so the argument becomes a rope rather than tangled net.

The reason for aiming for Easter for finish was in part that Sarah Hall the minister at St Andrews was leaving there. She had had perhaps the most successful ministry of any recent minister at St  Andrews and is much missed. The congregation is missing her even more as the situation in Sheffield is in flux, and there is no plan over the long term provision of ministry for the whole city. Some of this is that locally people were waiting on synod which had the power to decide funding. However, synod felt that it was its duty to respond to local desires. In other words each was waiting for the other. As the ideas are very different and not looking towards the old system of pastoral negotiation where a combination of size and mission governed the amount of ministerial oversight you could expect, there are problems. Unfortunately much as I would have liked to be involved with finding my thesis more demanding than I allowed for at exactly the time the congregation was hoping for me to get more involved and ever so often I took on what was supposed to be a small job and then found it had a hidden demand that took three or four times the energy. By the end of June it was obvious that I was not coping and with other commitment the only way to manage church was to take a complete sabbatical.

Then early in July my mother and father went to meet up with friends at Tittesworth Reservoir which is fairly near Macclesfield. It was a warm day and dad had been off colour during the morning but on the afternoon collapsed and an ambulance was called. My mother is getting increasing forgetful with dementia and is no longer allowed to drive. So my sister got a panic phone call and had to go down to Macclesfield to collect Mum. She slept here the first night while I organised myself to get over and take up the care of Mum the next day. We went down that afternoon to visit Dad at Macclesfield and agreed he should go for angiogram at the North Staffordshire Hospital in Stoke on Trent. Unfortunately it was found that dad had more wrong with his heart than they thought at Macclesfield and they kept him in at Stoke. This was bad news as with Mum’s dementia it was difficult to get her there. Initially we thought of car but it would mean that both Cathy and I would have to go on every journey, one to drive and one to keep Mum stimulated so she did not switch down, as if she would do that she would forget what the point of the journey was. Adrian, Cathy’s husband suggested train instead. This meant that one of us could take her as we could give her our whole attention on the train. It was still a full day for every single visit. With Dad likely to be in hospital for longer we had to decide on longer term care for Mum. In the end we ended putting her for respite care in a home near my sister. My Dad joined her when he first came out of hospital. They were not happy there and got home as soon as they could and function much as they did before although we are trying to get them to keep a slightly higher level of care than they have.

Work wise I am still in the same job as I have been for over twenty years. It has changed many times. I work far more as research support for various groups. At the present these seem largely to be in Human Nutrition, Linguistics, Landscape and Medical Education. You will notice that I manage to cover three faculties in that. One irony is if you had asked twenty five years ago my parents which daughter would do research into human nutrition, they would have replied without hesitation my sister. Quite a lot of the stuff I am presently involved in falls broadly under the heading of food security. This looks both at the stuff around food poverty here but also at long term sustainability. With linguistics I partly support the users of statistics and I also deal with users who are using NVivo software. NVivo support is much like SPSS support was twenty years ago. Maybe in ten years time people will be using quite happily on their own but at present there is a lot of hand holding and people think of me as more skilled than I actually am.

I finally got a holiday in November. This was booked in the summer when I thought I would submit at the end of October. However with needing to redraft it was clear I would not. Also I had booked a cottage close to where my God family were living. Unfortunately their whole household disintegrated in September so none of them are now living near there. Even with this I decided that I needed a holiday and went. It was superb. I spent a lot of time exploring some of the more lonely birding sites in the area that are good in the autumn and then coming home to a real fire. Of course I had to set the fire up in the morning but I found that doing that gave me something to look forward to each evening.

Cathy, Adrian and their children still seem to be doing fine. Adrian is happy enough provided that he has enough work coming in. He does not like being idle. Sam is in his first year of GCSE and had great difficulty in choosing which subjects to stop as all his teacher thought he would do well at their subject. Hannah is doing well, enjoying dancing and is getting into the top years and starting to think of high school. Cathy was absolute brick during Dad’s illness. She took over all the organising of financial matters which left me able to spend time with Mum without having to worry over finding somewhere to look after her.

Writers group is doing well. We have done a couple of readings this year, one as part of the Broomhill Festival. The person who booked us was surprised at how professional a group we were. Not only was a programme developed but we also had everyone on strict time limits and finished on time. Then there was our annual reading for the Off the Shelf which is getting more and more professional. This year I organised a sound system. I could have connected up some metal boxes and it would have worked as well. That is not to say it did not work, it did but at a psychological level as people largely did read close enough for the microphone to pick them up and people were not confident moving the mic so it was close to

Since the holiday  it has been back to the usual routine and getting the thesis sorted. I have at present three chapter in supervisor draft, I hope to get another two before the end of the Christmas break and maybe start on a third. I am spending Christmas with my parents and we will be going up to Cathy’s for Christmas day.

A long with submitting my thesis next year will also be my parents golden wedding if they both survive. Not quite sure how we will celebrate has still to be suggested.

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.

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).

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.

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.