Well Monday was a day and a half. I started off forgetting I had a dentists appointment until ten minutes before it was due. The dentist is only five minutes walk from my flat so not dire but I had not had breakfast. So I went to the dentist and then came back and had breakfast. I think the postman also delivered one of my guarantees on my dish washer (I have two, two-year ones, one from John Lewis and one from the manufacturer). I then got into work and I think was quite busy although no appointment. At 5:10 p.m. I checked my googlemail box and realised I had an email from Pauline Calderwell (Loosemoor or Parkin) as she was taking my placement for next year with Herringthorpe to church meeting tuesday (the next day) evening, would I mind putting together some information about it. I went home, got myself something to eat and sat down and typed. By 7:00 p.m. I had a document to send to her, there was no time to get it to proof readers so it had to go out as was. Then it was onto writing group for the evening.
By Tuesday morning my migraine had returned. However I am suspicious that I had a low level tummy upset. My reason for this are two fold. The migraine was preceded by a couple of days when I lost interest in food, followed by the fact the dominant symptom was nausea, which is exceptional for me although it is sometimes a secondary. So am hoping that now I am clear for a good long time
I was better by Wednesday so went into work. I had two appointments on the afternoon. The first involved an intense lot of programming which was very involved the second was some thinking outside the box. Two very different queries and my brain was not really functioning A1. Then on the evening I went to Chesterfield for a celebratory meal to mark the end of House groups for the year. I counted about 15 people around the table and at least two or three were away. So out of a membership of seventy the house-group has a following of about twenty. Interesting that the first person plural pronouns were seen as far more threatening than the second person plural. Are people conditioned to "you" meaning somebody else?
Thursday I was in work in the morning. In about ten minutes I sussed the programming problem that had had me baffled the day before with a simple statement rather than a lot of complex calculations (ten lines instead of twenty, so far more elegant, yes even computer programming has its own aesthetic value system although it is closely related to those of mathematics). Then it was home to await my new dish washer. They turned up promptly just after two having had difficulty finding the flat. I directed them in and watched as they unloaded my order. The only thing was they unloaded a huge washing machine (instead of a small dish washer) so I went down stairs and told them that that was not my order. I think they were hugely relieved when they found out how much smaller and lighter my order actually was. They did not install it, I think this was a good thing as they seemed barely competent as delivery men.
Friday I took the morning off and got some transcription done and then went into work. I sort of had an appointment on the afternoon but guessed it was a mistake, however it through out the concentration part of my brain. Otherwise an ordinary afternoon although at 4pm it started to rain (well actually do the Sheffield impression of a tropical rainstorm) and it did not start to slow until about 9:00 a.m. the following morning!
Saturday was the main celebration for my fathers fiftieth years in the ministry. He decided in the end that what he wanted to do was to go out for a meal with Doug Thacker. The choice of restaurants being what it was on a Saturday midday (limited) we ended up at Antibos. As it was Italian I think dad was expecting cheese things. However this is a good Italian restaurant and so Dad had Barrimundi, Mum had lamb shank, Doug had sea food risotto and I had the same main-course as Doug but with pasta instead of rice. I think Dad enjoyed the time with Doug. I sent another picture of them walking together back to my flat obviously deep in discussion, to Reform with a spiel.
Today it was over to Chesterfield where there was a service to mark the second anniversary of the joining of the Scout troop. It was a good service if only because it demonstrated quite palpably that the church cared about the Scout troop. The service was based around the three stages: Beavers, Cubs and Scouts; with each linked to a bible passage and there was a presentation to the recently retired troop leader from the church. Tea and coffee was served in the hall afterwards, and many of the Scouts brought their parents in for coffee. That is correct it is the children who say "Can we have a drink please?" The more cocky ones actually come for a drink without asking their parents which means that we find parents coming in and saying "have you seen ...?"
Next week all I have is writers group on Monday and the church meal on Saturday. So somewhat quieter and I will split my day in two again so that I can get some more transcription done. Hopefully ted will come and install my new dishwasher.
Showing posts with label dishwasher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dishwasher. Show all posts
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Supervision and interviewing followed by a migraine
Monday was quiet, very quiet in many ways. I spent some time trying to see what I could do with nxview and raw photographs but in the end downloaded an add on to GIMP called UFRAW as the version of NXView that came with my camera seems to be a cut down version and much more about organising slides than converting raw files. The UFRAW seems to give everything the full NXView does and more. You can see some I did on flickr . Otherwise a quiet day.
Tuesday was a supervision day so it was off to Birmingham in the morning. The train was smooth, on the evening I caught the 5:00 p.m. train out of Birmingham New Street. I have learnt that it is a good one to catch. The office workers aren't out yet and the conference people aim for the 4:30 p.m.. There are major works in the quad a Birmingham as they are fixing a service tunnel and the weather was unpredictable, there were showers so I ended up having lunch in the common room. It is exam time and that means fewer students around but not as few as vacation time, so I managed to get a computer to check emails before seeing my supervisor. The supervision went well and I am on track. I need to get down to transcription. Now all I need is the discipline to sit down and do that little by little.
Wednesday I woke rough but not much the worse for wear so went into work slightly late. At lunch time only Cliff and I ended up at prayer meeting so ended up talking with him. I passed Janet Brown's card onto him as she was having difficulties with getting her computer online. Cliff sorted it on thursday but warned that the computer was very near the end of its life. Cliff is if anything conservative in what he condemns. Otherwise a quiet day, I shopped on the evening, partly as Tuesday I was in Birmingham but Waitrose also seem to have Tuesday like the old fashioned Monday and lots of things are out of stock by Tuesday evening. Wednesday evening I can nearly always get what I want. I also hit on the brainwave as my dishwasher was not draining properly, of putting in some drain unblock, leaving it a while then running a wash through to see if that would clear it. I don't know if it did clear it, because someway through the first wash the dishwasher blew the fuse circuit it was on. I reset the circuit and fitted a new fuse but on plugging it in the fuse blew again. I decided this probably meant that it had given up the ghost. If it was just the electrics that had gone it might have been worth getting an engineer but it wasn't draining properly and it was leaking and I had been nursing it along for a couple of years. The only place locally that stocks such dishwashers (they are the compact sort and really quite rare) that I am aware of is John Lewis. So I went onto their website and found that they only have one in. So that was the decision made for me. However it took me a hour to get the order through. The new one is 75% more expensive than the old one was, but it has major advantages too (like the inside is metal and not plastic so less likely to crack and leak). I doubt it is as simple as my old one which was very basic.
Thursday afternoon was the interview with David and Tricia the minister and wife and my placement congregation. However my brain had been working over night and I realised that un fitting the dishwasher was not something I really felt up to doing. So I emailed Ted and asked if he would do it for me. I also had to go into work to print out the paper work for the interview. There were several noticeable things about the interview with David and Tricia. That they did not mention that it was an elderly congregation, that they were worried about the level of socialising (too low, in a congregation I can barely keep up with the social events). They worried about people class difference being barriers in a congregation that values people for "being able to do X for anyone". X varies from "talk to" "do anything" "can ask anything of" but being open to all is also important. I gave probably about an hour back, about what I had found out. David was incredulous that I could find so much out in such a short time which had taken them about ten years. David wanted me to write a Grove book on how to hear a congregation. I won't do that until I have finished but I guess I might refer him to "Studying Local Churches" and suggest he dips into chapters as they take his interest. I think he was surprise that I affirmed his impression that there real was no community around the church. Yes it is in the middle of suburban housing but it is actually on the join of several housing estates and these face different directions so all of them have their back on the church.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday have been dominated by a migraine, largely my fault for not giving into it on Friday or Saturday (I got myself up for a doctors appointment on Friday plus Ted came around to unfit the dishwasher and to do a short shop on Saturday which just seemed to be more than my body was ready to take). Hopefully it will clear overnight and I will be ready for work tomorrow.
Tuesday was a supervision day so it was off to Birmingham in the morning. The train was smooth, on the evening I caught the 5:00 p.m. train out of Birmingham New Street. I have learnt that it is a good one to catch. The office workers aren't out yet and the conference people aim for the 4:30 p.m.. There are major works in the quad a Birmingham as they are fixing a service tunnel and the weather was unpredictable, there were showers so I ended up having lunch in the common room. It is exam time and that means fewer students around but not as few as vacation time, so I managed to get a computer to check emails before seeing my supervisor. The supervision went well and I am on track. I need to get down to transcription. Now all I need is the discipline to sit down and do that little by little.
Wednesday I woke rough but not much the worse for wear so went into work slightly late. At lunch time only Cliff and I ended up at prayer meeting so ended up talking with him. I passed Janet Brown's card onto him as she was having difficulties with getting her computer online. Cliff sorted it on thursday but warned that the computer was very near the end of its life. Cliff is if anything conservative in what he condemns. Otherwise a quiet day, I shopped on the evening, partly as Tuesday I was in Birmingham but Waitrose also seem to have Tuesday like the old fashioned Monday and lots of things are out of stock by Tuesday evening. Wednesday evening I can nearly always get what I want. I also hit on the brainwave as my dishwasher was not draining properly, of putting in some drain unblock, leaving it a while then running a wash through to see if that would clear it. I don't know if it did clear it, because someway through the first wash the dishwasher blew the fuse circuit it was on. I reset the circuit and fitted a new fuse but on plugging it in the fuse blew again. I decided this probably meant that it had given up the ghost. If it was just the electrics that had gone it might have been worth getting an engineer but it wasn't draining properly and it was leaking and I had been nursing it along for a couple of years. The only place locally that stocks such dishwashers (they are the compact sort and really quite rare) that I am aware of is John Lewis. So I went onto their website and found that they only have one in. So that was the decision made for me. However it took me a hour to get the order through. The new one is 75% more expensive than the old one was, but it has major advantages too (like the inside is metal and not plastic so less likely to crack and leak). I doubt it is as simple as my old one which was very basic.
Thursday afternoon was the interview with David and Tricia the minister and wife and my placement congregation. However my brain had been working over night and I realised that un fitting the dishwasher was not something I really felt up to doing. So I emailed Ted and asked if he would do it for me. I also had to go into work to print out the paper work for the interview. There were several noticeable things about the interview with David and Tricia. That they did not mention that it was an elderly congregation, that they were worried about the level of socialising (too low, in a congregation I can barely keep up with the social events). They worried about people class difference being barriers in a congregation that values people for "being able to do X for anyone". X varies from "talk to" "do anything" "can ask anything of" but being open to all is also important. I gave probably about an hour back, about what I had found out. David was incredulous that I could find so much out in such a short time which had taken them about ten years. David wanted me to write a Grove book on how to hear a congregation. I won't do that until I have finished but I guess I might refer him to "Studying Local Churches" and suggest he dips into chapters as they take his interest. I think he was surprise that I affirmed his impression that there real was no community around the church. Yes it is in the middle of suburban housing but it is actually on the join of several housing estates and these face different directions so all of them have their back on the church.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday have been dominated by a migraine, largely my fault for not giving into it on Friday or Saturday (I got myself up for a doctors appointment on Friday plus Ted came around to unfit the dishwasher and to do a short shop on Saturday which just seemed to be more than my body was ready to take). Hopefully it will clear overnight and I will be ready for work tomorrow.
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