During a very busy time with the thesis

This will have to be short as my parents will phone in a bit and I also need to get the flat into some sort of order so that my cleaner can come tomorrow and sort things. I am afraid things are busy, busy and although I am hoping I can take two unallocated days holiday before the end of August I am not holding my breath.

The four major things are the coming over of Cathy with Hannah and Sam to Sheffield, going to supervision the following wednesday, my parents visiting on the Saturday and finally going geocaching at Shaw with Cathy and Hannah and Sam.

Cathy, Hannah and Sam seem to be pretty good at bringing good weather with them when they come over to Sheffield, as the day was gloriously warm. I remember for my mum’s eightieth birthday we considered sitting out to drink coffee, not bad when you realise my mum’s birthday is in February. Anyway they came earlier than usual and we took them up to Waterstones on the pretence that Cathy and I wanted a coffee and a natter. They are innocent enough to think we would really walk right across town to get a coffee just because we liked the coffee shop.  The fact was that I was giving them book tokens for them to spend while we nattered. It worked and it was amazing how much having spending money and Aunts and mums who were not going to give huge amounts extra concentrated their minds. Then we went to Ponds Forge but it was the National Swimming Championships and they were not allowing people into the leisure pool until 12:30. Anyway Sam wanted a tennis racket from Decathlon and Hannah needed a new swimsuit so we went along there, which was quite a walk, bought the things and got ourselves a drink for a local Sainsbury’s supermarket. Then came back and joined the queue for the leisure pool. Sam was clearly the best swimmer there and I could see some people staring at the way he confidently dived into a wave. Then we went and found a chinese buffet, not the usual one as that has shut but one up by Victoria Hall which did a good line in prawn crackers. Then back to the station where the kids played table tennis before catching the train home

The following week I had a supervision at Birmingham, the day was damp for once.There is more on my thesis blog , but the day was unusually damp. My supervisor suggested restructuring my thesis, as I was struggling with the theory for the chapter on worship and then the argument was going to have to be written in. That means major rewrites on all three data chapters to date. Instead he suggested that I wrote the theory into three separate chapters. Oddly enough the act of doing this which I though was initially going to change the basis of my thesis has re-adjusted it and has made it come more clear. I know what I am arguing in each of the three chapters. I am still slightly concerned about my final one, where I have to step back and take an even bigger view than I have done in my other two theory chapters but which will pull the whole thing into a cohesive whole. There are also bits of the chapters which have been written that I need to pull out and put into the new chapters. My supervisor said it meant I was only halfway through but it felt as if I was only half way through despite my count on my blog saying I was three quarters. I have also put the third chapter into a draft form which means that once it has been proof read these three chapters can go out to the congregations for reading.

Then at the weekend my parents came over, we are making a habit of going out to Old Moor nature reserve when they come as it seems to provide a good entertainments. This time they had a DVD of birds showing on a large screen in the cafe and it succeeded in distracting both me and Dad while we ate our lunch and later had a cup of tea. There were no unusual sightings this time but trundling between hides and then sitting in them seems to suit my parents as a way to spend the afternoon. The fact that there are nice cakes back at the Gannet Cafe for when they are feeling peckish is no bad thing. Dad as usual had been pessimistic about the weather but I said we could at least get lunch at the cafe, in the end he was too warmly dressed for the weather and there was no sign of rain.

Then last Tuesday I hired a car and went over to Cathy’s for the afternoon. The aim was to see if we could get geocaching to work. We tried for a couple of spots very local to them, one in a park that is being refurbished and the other just the other side of the road from it. The answer is that my sister is very good at finding the caches provided she is looking in the right place for the right thing. However my older satnav is not that good for finding them being only accurate to about 50 m, my phone one is a lot more accurate and in both instances the description is that accurate that when it was right we knew the place to within half a meter.  There are some problems in woodland areas but if the detail is accurate enough we can find them eventually. The only problem with my phones satnav was it decided to take me interesting routes through the back streets of Manchester both going and coming back. I should have obeyed my instinct and gone on the M60 when I crossed it going rather than being diverted.

Other than that I have been busy with work and not had the normal space in the day to fit in extra students so I have been diverting them to MASH (Maths and Statistics Help). However that is looking like a cooperation that might well work out so as to make that side of my work more like a team than an individual with me specialising in long term support of researchers and they with taught students and with doctoral students splitting it between us. We will also be working to create resources others can use without seeing us personally and to move towards providing just in time workshops on using statistical research. The other thing is that I am getting more managerial roles, not managing people but the sort of thing that keeps things moving such as making sure people are informed and that environment feels good.

Visit of Niece and Nephew before an interview

Right lets see what has gone on in the last eight days.

Well work-wise things were a bit easier last week. Mainly because one researcher was on holiday. That gave me time to think. Things also got out of sync as my boss fairly late on Friday the previous week chose to move a meeting from Tuesday to Friday. That meant that as Monday and Tuesday were already spoken for with other meetings I had to have my day off on Thursday. Just as well because with doing that I was able to sort someone out so they are now able to do their analysis for themselves.

However to counteract that I had a lot of other sort of activity.

On Wednesday Cathy brought Sam and Hannah over. My father claims they are arch-conservative ritualists with visiting me. The routine has to be the same.  Cathy suggested that this time they might come by car, but that was not on, they had to come by train. I suspect part of it is because they get activity packs to keep them occupied on the way home if they come by train and they are not sure whether they will get them if they come by car, but Dad had taken my letter to imply the normal Chinese Buffet was shut. It was not, the alternative one was. As they came over at 10:30 we did however  manage to persuade them to allow Cath and I to have a coffee before going for a swim. Also Cathy and I got more swimming done this time as Hannah is now happy to swim and does not want to cling as much. Cathy points out that it is all very well saying she must not go two feet away from Hannah while Hannah is in the pool, but Hannah quite happily goes two feet away from her. Sam was beating me at swimming. This is no surprise, Sam is probably now a better swimmer than I ever was as I never made the transition from School swimming lesson to club even though for a while I went to a school with a very high standard of swimming lessons. Then onto the Chinese, with Hannah not really remembering the way, so asking about five times whether we were nearly there yet (the restaurant is all of 500 yards away) and when we got to Jessops which is next door saying in disgust “I know my way mummy”. The kids enjoy the buffet no end and the thing is that they both happily eat there. I think part of it is that we let them go and choose their own food. Their eyes are slightly bigger than somewhere else but not by much. Then it was shopping time but the sun had gone in and Hannah was cold. She ended up borrowing my coat (I think partly because she liked the fact that I joked we could get three Hannah’s in there). Actually I am not sure she was that wise to do it, as the sleeves looked lthe right length to make it a temporary straight jacket for her. Sam decided to correct my pronunciation of Primark. I tend to say it as Prim-ark while he prefers Pri-mark with an ‘i’ as in Prime. When we finally got up here they played for a short while in the local playground before a light shower came on. Then it was drink and chat at the flat before heading for the train. Sam carried the bag with the presents in all the way down and they both were given £1 to spend at the coffee shop on the platform.

Thursday I took easily after that although I decided that I needed to start sorting out interviews. I am not sure that I got very far but I did put one recording down to CD and started checking equipment. I also went to try and collect a prescription from Boots to find that they had only ordered the ibuprofen. This was fortunately not a disaster and they hopefully will have the correct prescription by tomorrow but I will be worried if not.

Friday I was back in work and I was supposed to find time to print out some of the forms for Chesterfield, which I failed to find time for as I was that busy, but I managed over the weekend to get another form ready for sending. I need to listen to the recording before I send the form so  they take a while to actually create. I also went shopping and bought four glasses, two batteries and a battery tester. I also thought I had got myself ready for the interview the next day.

Sunday I went to Herringthorpe in the morning and when I got there I got worried as their appeared to be a Song of Praise in the afternoon and as I was interviewing someone after church that made time very short indeed. Fortunately it was a mis-print on the service sheets. One of the elders was leading worship as Alex (the ministers husband) had major surgery for bowel cancer on Friday and was still in extra care unit in the hospital. So anyone with prayers to spare I am sure that they would be appreciated by Pauline and Alex. I then went onto conduct the interview only to find despite my care the night before to prepare a folder with everything in it, to make sure I had fresh batteries in the equipment only to leave the folders at home and to find the microphones were not recording. I had a spare microphone that relies on being on a hard surface and that worked well, while I found an old copy of the questions and an example form. I think the fact that Karen who I was interviewing spilt the coffee helped to relax me and actually I was pleased with the interview. I think one of the reasons it was shorter is that I talked less, which means I am getting better at conducting them.

Today has been a busy one at work. However my monthly meeting with my boss was cancelled because she was off sick. Ironic when you consider it was a rare month when I had had no sick leave. However that time was quickly booked with another meeting to get a student started on his analysis. Actually the nice thing about this business is that I think it signals that a long time colleague whose marriage broke up leaving her caring for two young children one of whom is diabetic, is finding her research feet again. I suspect at least two papers will result from this activity.

This Friday I have another interview to conduct this time for Herringthorpe, with a local councillor and I need to sort that out, plus hopefully listening to a couple of interviews including the one done yesterday. I don’t want to get any further behind.

A White Christmas

At my Mums request I wrote a definitive account of our Christmas this year. So I am going to include a lot of boring trivia, be highly opinionated and hope you will stay tuned for the ride! All opinions expressed are my own, except when they have been carefully edited out by my parents!

First let me deal with some misconceptions that those not in the UK may have got from the media. Yes, I think for the last ten days it snowed somewhere in the UK everyday. No that does not mean everywhere had continual snow. This is the UK not Cananda. What has happened is that the snow first hit the South East of England, think London and Home Counties, then moved onto East England, the East Midlands and South West England, then by the weekend it hit North East England and the west Midlands, reaching Northern England and North West England on Wednesday, then onto Scotland and is slowly now clearing from the West of Scotland. This is not a weather front moving across the country but a band of slowly moving cold air, which has meant temperatures hovering at around zero, and what would normally be rain falling as snow. It is still likely to be snowing in Scotland but in Manchester the weather has turned to rain and is now above freezing. Yes, driving was hazardous especially on minor roads but the gritters were out and doing a marvellous job on major roads and B roads. So as a rule if you could get out of the bit of road on which you lived, onto something more major you could get where you wanted to go, or at least as far as the start of the minor roads that lead to them. The advice at least between Sheffield and Manchester was never “do not travel” but “take precautions”.  Take precautions equals, take a hot drink with you, give extra time for your journey and do not try to travel by very minor roads. For instance don’t try and cross Winnats Pass in Derbyshire (which is a pass you use if you are looking for a pleasant ride on a summers day, but not for going anywhere in a hurry). On Wednesday when I came over, even the Snake Pass (notorious for closing at the slightest fall of snow) was open, but the question was whether I could get through Glossop at the foot of the pass rather than whether I could get over. It is largely drivers pretending that the weather is not worse than usual that cause the problem. When drivers are driving appropriately for the weather conditions there is really no problem. Alright it may take you an extra twenty minutes for every hour of travel to get somewhere, but you will get.

So how was Christmas. Well when the snow first hit the South East Dad started to panic. I think its part of his habitual pessimism; he expects the worse and therefore is regularly nicely surprised when it does not happen. So when it started snowing he actually saw a  week ahead with heavy snow, freezing fog and black ice everywhere (note to father, black ice and frozen snow don’t tend to happen together, as black ice requires either rain or the snow to melt!)  He always does it is part of his nature. We have learnt to live with it, but it is handicapping him as much as anything else and certainly his worrying over it ain’t doing his blood pressure any good.

Yes on Tuesday, going up to my sisters was not a good idea, as they had had fresh snow there. My sister lives on the northern moors of Greater Manchester. You get better scenery there but you also have a higher chance of snow, and minor roads tend to become impassable quickly. (for instance on Christmas day it was about two degrees colder than down in Stockport which was not) . However it should be noted that while my sister advised my parents not to come up on Tuesday and they sensibly didn’t, both she and her husband went out to work that day and returned safely! In other words travel was possible with care; it was just foolish to be doing extra travel on that day.

On Wednesday my parents took the food for cooking that morning up to my sister’s at her work place. This meant that Dad did not have to cope with the icy condition of the roads around her house. Dad and Mum had bought frozen sprouts so rather than let them defrost my sister dumped them outside the church in the snow (refrigeration is not strictly necessary in this weather in the UK). They were also waiting on tender hooks to see if Hannah’s dressing gown would arrive. I had ordered it on the last date that they guaranteed delivery before Christmas. However it had not arrived on the morning but the delivery company had put it in the meter cabinet by the time they got back.

Dad’s caution meant he was all for me coming over by the M62 rather than going as I planned to visit friends which meant going through Derbyshire. All right my SATNAV decided Winnats was a sensible way to go not the route I planned A623 followed A625, which was nice and clear. In fact the one bit when I thought I’d follow the Winnats route I ended up following a snow plough and as part of that was B roads I knew Derbyshire was doing well and risked a B road that cut a considerable bit of the journey off for me, going to a friends and the SATNAV redeemed itself by getting me to their home, through the centre of Macclesfield without sending me twice around the ring road or up a oneway street the wrong way. I find for getting to residential homes in unfamiliar towns having a satnav is very useful. It saves me having to pull in and get out a map. Travelling through Derbyshire in the snowy weather was glorious. I quite regularly wished I had more time to get across and could stop the car and take photographs. Surprisingly it was after 4pm before the last light had left the sky. Dusk was very slow and gradual.

The meal with Fleur and Walter was good and it was good to stop over and chat. They both seemed to be doing well, with the delivery man still turning up with parcels for Christmas, even though they were off to Sheffield the next day. It does seem a bit ludicrous visiting someone to deliver a parcel who is the next day going to go over from whence you came but as I had hired a car (too large, next year I must remember to get a size smaller) and they were travelling by train, leaving it at Elizabeth’s (their daughter) was not going to be sensible. I set off from theirs shortly after nine pm, unfortunately I was still struggling with the size of the car and had difficulties pulling it out and it was starting to sleet and snow, but once on the main roads it was straightforward to get to my parents. At one point a driver thought they would be cheeky and overtake at a traffic light. Actually I was not bothered if they did, but having the bigger powered car meant that they did not have the chance they expected and I noticed that they settled in behind me.

Next day Mum and Dad got up to get into town early. The weather took second place to Dad’s worry about dealing with crowds doing last minute shopping in Stockport, hence the early start. As the day slowly warmed the roads were actually clearer later on. Also there was a milk delivery. My Mum and Dad still have a milk man who delivers but he does not do it daily so with the bank holidays he delivered rather a large quantity of milk, more than the usual fridge can cope with in this foodie season. The result is as usual the overspill ended up in the laundry (cold weather outside keeps that even cooler than usual so another plus for the weather). In previous years quantities of cheese and wine have also been stored down there. Modern British houses are all built to be kept at a single temperature; it’s the exception that has a room that is cool like my parents laundry. If I was designing houses I would have both a pantry (cool room normally on the north side of the house for storing food) and a drying room, which is a warm dry room, with airing cabinet and drying racks in it, used for getting clothes dry. The idea of just one standard temperature throughout the whole house seems daft to me.  

I just spent the day wrapping the presents; this seems to be an annual ritual. I turn up at my parents with presents, wrapping paper etc and proceed to wrap up the remainder of the presents.

On the evening Jean rang and mum had a natter with them. I think if Mum could have been in two places at the same time then she would definitely have been in South Africa this Christmas.

Snow again came in towards evening and Dad woke very worried about getting out. We tried to get out in the morning to get to Parrswood. The wheel spun on the car so we decided that discretion was the better idea and stayed in. However the day was a balmy 2-4°C and that is enough for snow to melt. My parents neighbour Rick was seen scattering salt on the front of their house and I realised that doing so would allow me to clear the slope from the house to the street which was really quite nastily slippery and that would make Dad a lot more confident about getting out. Anyway tacking things slowly with my hire car, I got it out, unfortunately I was still had not got its size right (actually if I am honest the car does not have a clear view to the rear and I feel I have little idea how I am doing when I am reversing. Mum and me loaded up the car. I should have left Dad in charge of checking we had everything out of the house as, as per usual we left the stool at home. Soon we must buy Cathy a couple of folding dining chairs, as Hannah will soon be too big to sit on the high stool from their kitchen comfortably at the dinning room table.  Once we were on the Didsbury Road at the bottom of the hill there were no problems until we got onto Manor Road itself. Then our timing was just out and two cars were leaving just as we got in. As there was a single clear track it took some manoeuvring but we managed. Somebody had cleared two car spaces on their drive and built a snowman with the snow so freed. Why do I think that somehow Hannah and Sam might have had a hand in doing so. Cathy had put her car into the garage so I parked our car in the space she had vacated.

Irene, Adrian’s mother had already arrived and they were back from the pub. Adrian was saying Mum does not like going to the Pub, that may be the impression given by my parents but the problem is not quite that. The fact is that the pub is crowded and Dad does not like crowds while Mum finds crowds make hearing difficult with a hearing aid as it does not tune out the background noise. So a quiet pub is fine, a busy noise one isn’t. Anyway we went up later this year so as to avoid going to the pub and that seemed to work.

Dad was planning to play a trick on Sam and leave his Christmas present in the car, but with the snow, Dad was not carrying the presents and Sam came out to help (initially in his stocking feet, until he got sent back in by his aunt to put something more substantial on) and so I let him carry in the large box that had his Christmas present in. Hannah’s response to Sam’s Christmas present was where was hers. So I pulled out the parcel for her from my parents. This contained a yellow dressing gown which she put on over her smart Christmas clothes.  I had had various freebies during the year and I put a pen and pad of paper to one side for Sam and a few bits of makeup for Hannah (from Boots when I buy makeup I actually want). Hannah was delighted with the bag with makeup in it and tried it out. So you have to imagine this small six year old in a smart grey shorts, sparkly top with tights on, over which she had a yellow dressing gown and bright red smudge around her lips and mascara smudged all under her eyes. She was a bit like a sprite in the process of dressing up as a pantomime dame.

Cathy and Adrian had prepared the Christmas lunch as per usual. This year Cathy had decided not to hassle and try and put on extras but just to do what she knew worked. So we had French Onion Soup as a starter, followed by turkey with all the trimmings and just Christmas pudding with custard. Sam, much to Cathy’s disgust loves sprouts! It appears he is the exception in the family. Hannah only like sprouts if Mavis cooks them! Mavis is the school cook and appears to be a favourite with both Sam and Hannah. They were listing the best cooks in the world, Cathy got first place and Mavis second on Christmas day, but my sister felt that was them flattering her and they really preferred Mavis, at which point Adrian pointed out that that meant that the best he could be was the world’s third best cook.

Sam is one, of those kids, who wants to be always helping. The problem was that between main course and pudding his job was to talk with my mum and day, Irene and me (although Hannah was rather monopolising me). He did not understand this as helping and wanted to be getting up and helping his mum. The result was that it had to be spelt out to him but in the end he got his new mobile phone out and started collecting people’s phone numbers for on it. He got my parents and then got mine, at which point we discovered that Adrian had my old mobile number. He must have got it when Sam was about three, and he and Cathy went away for a weekend, leaving Sam with Mum and Dad. However Dad was preaching at Zion Wakefield for an anniversary service, so I was called in to help. In order to keep in contact we used Adrian’s and my mobile. This meant that we could ring Adrian, hand Sam the phone and he could talk to Mum and Dad. So Adrian got an up to date phone number for me as well (given that I have had the present one for over five years).

Sam and Hannah are neither of them the sort of kids that will sit still. Or at least Hannah isn’t and Sam only seems to when he is watching TV, then if you get in the way you are in trouble. Adrian had specified no TV before 5 pm so they both wanted to be up from the table and away. Hannah immediately wanted to do something so pulled out the puzzle that I had bought her. It said for seven year old plus but as it was right up Hannah’s street I bought it for her anyway. The puzzle was 250 piece jigsaw to be done without a picture to work from. Also there was a story and questions to answer, but you could only answer the questions once you had done the puzzle. Hannah was darting all over the place while Cathy read the story, but when Cathy started asking question Hannah had the answers with out a single doubt, so she was obviously listening. My God daughter Cait is exactly the same. I wonder how they will get on as they get older. As we all moved through to their lounge I started to work on the puzzle not expecting to get very far, but just so Hannah felt someone was giving her attention. Sam so he was not left out was texting me, meanwhile Cathy and Adrian were clearing up and brought us tea and coffee.

Of course Hannah got bored with doing the jigsaw, little girls do and wanted to know when we would finish. Fortunately Cathy came and joined me and some how we managed to put the puzzle together. To make it worse it was four pictures, two sets of two with similar colour schemes so we kept finding we had put pieces together in the wrong quarter.  It was not helped that some of the pieces fitted almost. Hannah is doing well for a six year old, she is quite capable of doing what her great grandfather used to do and coming along and helping to put in the last twenty or so pieces, although sometimes she’d have the pieces the wrong way up even though she was trying the right space. Unfortunately unlike her grandfather she expects the others to do the early bit really quickly. At one time she was fussing with the pyjamas I bought so Cathy chucked them into the other room. Hannah grumped. Cathy told her she had a mean mummy. If Cathy carries on like this when Hannah is a narked teenager and calls Cathy mean, Cathy will have the luxury of informing Hannah that she has been telling her that for years, and its nice that she has at last realised and no she is not going to change her policy now.

At 5:00 pm Adrian allowed Sam to put on the TV for the Gruffalo. It starts  “One day a mouse went for a walk in the dark wood…” and this mouse is a very much a quick talking mouse who pretends he is going to meet a Gruffalo, but there is “No such thing as a Gruffalo!” You will either need to get the children’s story book or find a copy of the programme as I am not telling you what happens. Adrian having no doubt worked late on Christmas eve, then been busy helping with dinner, plus woken by Hannah at 6:00 a.m. or earlier fell asleep on the settee. Sam objected at this point to the fact his father was snoring. As my sister pointed out, she could ask people to shut up but there was not much she could do about his father snoring.

By the time that that had finished we had almost completed the puzzle. Then we had to ask Hannah the questions which, of course, she got right. I wonder how long it will be before she persuades her mum to do it again with her.

Anyway as Dr Who was coming on, and while Sam is an avid fan, I can not take it. Loathe it would be wrong, rather I have only watched it once right through, when sickening for some childhood illness and it gave me nightmares. I am not good at watching TV anyway and the memory of that experience is vivid enough to make me want to exit the room pretty soon after Dr Who comes on. This is even quicker than for most comedy programmes. Surprisingly when I have been to the cinema I seem to have coped better. Anyway mum and Dad were ready to come home and Irene. The journey back was uneventful although Dad sometimes was over instructing and unfortunately for him this lets me know when he gets things wrong. He wanted me back behind the white line when I was turning right at a green light, as mum and Irene confirmed to me, not that it really mattered as traffic was light.

Having dropped Irene at her house we had an uneventful trip back.

Since then we have spent time quietly. I slept most of the next day and I don’t recall my parents doing anything exciting. I think they tried to get around to the paper shop but it was too icy underfoot. Otherwise a very quiet day for us all although Sam texted me from his new mobile phone

Sunday was Sam’s eleventh birthday. Mum and Dad phoned him on the morning to wish him a happy birthday. I got a text from him, thanking me for his birthday present and also saying that he had enjoyed his walk the previous day. Mum and Dad went to church; I however was lazy and slept-in in the morning. Mum felt that Tony Cottam’s son, who is a Methodist Local preacher led worship well on the Sunday. Dad said that he did the text justice which is pretty high praise from Dad.

We had got for my father bird feeders for Christmas after his broke during the year. So later in the day I out to check the pole for my father’s bird feeder, I had been told it was fine, but I found that the top bit that was supposed to connect the pole to the bird feeder was either damaged in the fall or had gone missing. Anyway there was no way I could put the new feeder onto the top of the pole so we have had to order a new pole.

On the afternoon I tried to put into action Dad’s new birdfeeder but the crucial top of the pole bit has either been broken or lost and a new one did not come with the feeder so I have ordered for him a new pole hoping that it will come with that. Dad also wanted the ability to feed insect eaters so I added to his order a feeder and some dried meal worms so that he could feed them. Mum drew the line at live meal worms although she might accept peck ‘n’ mix as an alternative.

Today we went to Sainsbury’s to do some shopping and to get mum from a cash point near there, then Dad took me to fill my car up at a local garage. Tomorrow I head up to Scotland to visit Morag and Tony.

Family visits make for a busy week

I am again going to go for highlights. Workwise I have been busy struggling with my computer which is struggling with the size of data set I am expecting it to analyse. But that is hardly news. Somebody has asked for stats and I don't think she is aware of how much there actually is in what she has asked for.

On Wednesday Cathy brought Sam and Hannah over. There is now a set pattern for what we are to do. So I went down to the station, I was early so got a soya latte while I waited for the train. I was slightly confused as it was only running as far as Doncaster and normally it goes to Cleethorpes but after Doncaster you were on the bus. Met them at the station, then walked via the tram route around to Ponds Forge and went swimming. Sam was probably the strongest swimmer in the pool and it was very frustrating for him as he could not swim for more than two strokes. Hannah was much to her frustration still too small to go in on the slides and decided that she did not like the waves the first time, and when Mum was not playing ball she said that she wanted the toilet. Sam and I went on the slides a couple of times and we swam around the edge with floats a couple of times as well with Hannah in the float. Actually one time we went around with just a float for Hannah and my hand in contact with her so she knew if she got into difficulties I would be there.

Then it was onto a Chinese Buffet for lunch. The kids thoroughly enjoy being at a buffet and being able to choose what they want to eat. Hannah discovered chicken and sweetcorn soup and ate one and a half small bowls of it. Prawn crackers were still fun. Also Cathy, Sam and Hannah had ice cream and Cathy came back to inform me it was non-dairy but I was so full by that stage I could not have eaten it if I wanted to. We then got the tram up to the University Stop and Hannah decided she wanted to see where I worked. Well as we were right next door, I took them up. Cathy was surprised at the untidiness of my desk. I don't know why, my desks have always been untidy.

Then off to the play park by my flats. They played quite happily for about half an hour, but then Sam and Hannah started to irritate each other the way only brothers and sisters can. We probably kept them playing for another quarter of an hour. Towards the end Cathy suggested they bounced on a trampoline and the one up the hill, so they both charged off. Unsurprisingly Sam got there first, and Hannah dutifully burst into tears at what she saw as unfair so I went to bounce with her at the set that was lower down. Unfortunately I got too cocky and tried bouncing from one to the other, the second time I did it, I did not watch my landing and landed solely on my left leg which decided this was totally unfair and gave under me sending me crashing down. This time hurting my knee. Actually I had already hurt the other knee just bruised from the see-saw which is a multi-person one and to balance things out Cathy sits with Sam while I sit with Hannah. Hannah asked why this was, and I explained I was heavier than Cath and she was lighter than Sam so it sort of evened things out.

Then we went to my flat and this time I remembered where I kept the box of games. Cathy and Hannah played pick up sticks while Sam and I had goes at trying to make up foam pieces into boxes. I eventually got a couple of them out but they are still tricky. Then it was back on to the tram to go to the station, where I handed them their journey bags and a pound each for sweets. Hannah chose a big box of tic tacs and Sam went looking for the best deal he could find and in the end decided that a bag of marshmallows from Mark and Spencers for 99p was it. Cathy meanwhile bought a ham sandwich, a loaf of bread and they had crisps and such for the journey back.

Saturday my parents came over and we went to Potteric Carr Nature Reserve just on the edge of Doncaster. It is a large reserve, if you look on the maps on the website we walked around the green path, which must be about a mile and a half long. There are a number of hides on route. Most of the birds around seemed to be coots or moorhens but I am pretty sure we saw a little grebe and chick as well although there is an outside possibility that it was actually a black necked Grebe. There must have been about fifty to sixty people at the nature reserve but there was lots of space and most of the time it was just us. The restaurant sells fresh food but once out of it, you are back to cafe fare, so we ended up with bacon and egg butties which was dad's suggestion (I know Cathy!). When they came the bacon rashes were more the size of bacon chops and the rolls were large. Mum and Dad started using an knofe and fork, I looked at it for about thirty seconds and decided these had to be eaten as a sandwhich which worked, both Mum and Dad joining me in that approach. After lunch we went to the nearest hide where there was a feeding station. While we were watching a Jay, a colourful member of the crow familly came down, and also a Great Spotted Woodpecker. We then carried on walking around. There may have been some interesting ducks on Decoy Marsh but my binoculars were not good enough to get identification detail from them, ducks yes and appeared to have a lot of white for a mallard, but other than that I could not say.

So to today, and nothing much happening basically as I needed down time after the last seven days and was realising I was getting migrainy sleepy last night. So I cancelled the car and have stayed in today.

This coming week should be quieter. I need to spend some time on greek just to get myself thinking back in that way. Then next weekend I actually have nothing planned and no essay to write so I am looking forward to having a study weekend. I may go to Rotherham on Friday or Saturday to do a recce, well to find the local history library and Tourist information so as to get background to Herringthorpe.

Mums 80th Birthday and other events

I am going to go for the highlights rather than the tell the time as it is, simply because my memory is not that clear. I have had to try and remember back and things have happened since and things slip off the top of the pile.

Right lets see. I managed writing group a fortnight ago, for the second week running. What is more I was worrying over missing them last monday when I remembered that it was half term, so there was not a meeting. Its a group of about twelve which meets regularly, most of the others are writing novels, there is one specialist poet and then there are a handful like myself who are still exploring mediums or would that be better described as unsettled. Anyway we are planning to have a whole day next week on plotting a novel, should be interesting as one of the reasons I don't write anything longer is I am not confident that I could plot it out. I am pretty sure if I had a plot I could write the story around it because the plot itself would provide the way to divide the story into writable bits. Anyway I have a PhD thesis to plot eventually.

I don't think anything particularly happened on tuesday or wednesday but thursday I was out interviewing for my PhD again only this time I decided that the headache on my right hand side was not serious enough to be a migraine. Actually I was fine driving out, but the interview was less satisfactory, whether because I had not given the information packs in advance, natural reserve or my migraine meaning that I was not communicating as well as I normally do. However the clear sign I was not functioning properly was I had the recording all set up but did I think paused it right at the start. A typical under the weather mistake for me. So I only have recorded the last question of the interview. The journey back was scary as I realised that my brain was now decidely showing signs of migraine and I did not feel safe (I am not sure what the other options were).

Friday was a writing day although I spent a good deal of it analysing the interviews I had. Saturday was also a writing day. Sunday I used most of the day to write with but went to the Just Desserts in the evening as much because I enjoy Just Desserts as any other reason. The session theme was what do we mean by Lord when we use it of Jesus. Started off by us trying to find common phrases meaning "Lord". Had an argument over whether it mattered to God when we sinned. The person was saying it did not because God would love us anyway. I was saying that it did matter precisely because he loves us. Then again a talk afterwards with David when we said that to see the call to discipleship as that to obedience is really too weak, the call, or invitation is more similar to falling in love with God. Perhaps not a bad thought on the day after valentines day. Mind you I think I had the best valentines greeting I could have got that evening. David and Trisha's son is mildly autistic. He came up to me an said "I like you" and walked off. No agenda just the bald statement. He is actually very good when with the congregation, just like a minister he will work a room and greet and talk to everyone individually.

Monday I finished the essay. Actually spent a long time putting in sign posts and when I got it back for proof reading I was still up the creek without a paddle in places. Those are the very hard bits to edit as I have to suss what I meant from the gibberish that I wrote and sometimes the two are so intertwined in my brain that I have great difficulty doing so.

Tuesday was Mum's eigtieth birthday. So the whole family apart from Adrian came over to Sheffield. It at least started out as a sunny day with a hint of spring in it. So much so that the kids were quite happy putting their hands into various fountains and Mum and Dad when we first stopped for coffee decided to try sitting outside. I think we counted five on our route up to the Peace Gardens. That was including the big one in the Peace Gardens. We gave the poor waiter a terrible time as there were six of us all wanting hot drinks, with five different types, I ordered decaffienated Lattes Mum and Dad, Sam was a Hot Chocolate with whipped cream, Hannah was a decaf-cappucino with whipped cream, my sister a milano hot chocolate, and me a decaf soya latte. Being by the Peace Gardens Hannah and Sam (provided they stayed within view) could run around while the adults drank and chatted. When Mum and Dad decided to go to the loo I took Hannah to go on a fairground ride that was in the Peace Gardens. Cathy waited to gather up the rest. Then we went for a stroll around Fargate. Cathy needed to get money out, I needed a couple of birthday cards and there were other rides which Sam might like to have a go on. Unfortunately Sam chose a ride where you always got a prize. This seemed unfair to Hannah whose ride did not have prizes and she burst into tears. Also Mum and Dad were then taking Sam to Blacks to get a late birthday present, I could not see how if he got his birthday present we would not have a bigger and greater squall. So I took Hannah into Boots opposite to get something specially for her. This had a double effect. Firstly she got something, secondly she did not see Sam getting even more. We then walked down to the No1 Chinese Buffet . This is a favourite with Sam and Hannah and as both Mum and Dad like Chinese food we thought it would be a good place to have lunch. We were the first group in although it was half fall by the time we left. It is help yourself and somehow Dad managed to not just get on his plate small dark red chillies but eat one which then lodged between his teeth. He tried drinking water and such, to little avail until I went and got him ice-cream, I bought him a very small helping but was sent back for seconds!!

After dinner we then caught the tram up to the University and walked up to Weston Park Museum which was pretty full but not packed. Early on mum and dad decided they were tired so went and sat down and waited for the rest of us to go around. The RSPB had a competition on the go and Sam wanted to enter it. Hannah and Cathy went hunting for animals in the next room but did not find either a weasel or a mouse of some sort. When they came back to the table, Hannah found they also had colouring in so we went to look for the weasel and the mouse but only found the weasel. Then went rather quickly through the rest of the displays. So we then walked down via the Hallamshire Hospital to my flat. I forgot that most of the way was rather steep down hill and we regularly had to wait for Mum and Dad to catch us up. In the flat we had afternoon tea which was bog standard for Cathy, coffee for Hannah, Green Tea for Mum and Dad, Lemonade for Sam and Lime and Ginger tea for me. However Hannah was worried by this time that they'd miss the train. This was silly as we knew that there was well over an hour before the train. However she managed to get my Mum worried so we ended up setting off for the station about an hour before the train. Unless a tram breaks down there is no difficulty in getting to the station in an hour. Mum and Dad chose to wait on the platform while Hannah by far the smallest of us, demanded that she had her sandwich on the way home, so we went to Marks and Spencers. Cathy thought this was due to the fact she had been told that was what they were doing so there was NO WAY she was going to not have her sandwich.

I had a migraine Wednesday and Thursday. I think due to a lot of small accumulations during the day before which had just tipped me over the balance. Friday was a normal working day.

Saturday I at last had my post Christmas pleasure shop. So went and spent some Boots tokens on make up and went and spent the book tokens I had got for Christmas in Waterstones (the Sheffield branch do take book tokens). So now have a good selection of lighter reading to get through. I also bought the wool to make an amigurumi tortoise for my Mother and also to make a cat for myself.

Today I went to Chesterfield in the morning and then did some plant care this afternoon. So all my pot plants and my heather and looking as if they have had a bit of a haircut and have been fed and watered. It has been the sort of day where I was begining to worry that if I did not deal with them soon they would start to have this years growth on them and it would be too late.

Next week I am down to Birmingham again and I have a busy week work wise.