From the weekend after the jubilee

I am going to do highlights rather than the whole thing, actually because I can’t remember far enough back to do a blow by blow account. The week before last was quieter. I suppose a highlight was going around for a meal with my friend Margo. I have sussed now what to take for her children to drink. Marks and Spencers still lemonade works a treat. Her son likes proper lemonade and her daughter does not like fizzy drinks so this suits both of them without seeming to choose one over another. Her daughter is Sam’s age and her son I suspect is between Jenny and Cait. He is also a proper book worm. It is pleasant to go out for a meal with friends and Margo is a good cook and her daughter a good baker.


Otherwise the Jubilee weekend was spent editing. alright so there was a migraine thrown in with that. I managed to reduce the chapter by over 4000 words, it still needs to diet further, not least because I am realising I have to include the way the congregations relate to the minister which is interesting, This past week I have really started the next chapter, although it was writing the relevant appendix. As with all chapters at this stage I am feeling quite a lot of trepidation but I am now at least confident that I know how to get there. This one is centred around worship, as such it will include the material I have already turned into papers. However those will also have to be substantially rewritten. The one on Cafe Church is going to have to be one on subsidiary and occasional services. That would alter the focus quite substantially. the one on hymns can probably remain largely intact. There will also be one on communion, not about who can have communion but about the actual liturgy used. There is definitely one of baptism which therefore leaves me with prayers and sermons and I may have little to say on those. Then I have to pull together the ideas around worship and what is going on with respect to identity.. This chapter should also build on the previous two.


The week was otherwise quiet and I was looking forward to having Thursday to actually get some development work done, it looked hopeful when I got up but over breakfast I developed cramps due to time of the month and when painkillers did not settle them I went to bed with a hot water bottle. I thought I would be up in the afternoon and indeed the cramps stopped quite quickly but then I went off to sleep and did not wake until after 2pm which is too late to go into work So I finally did the reading of a couple of chapters from a couple of books that I have used in my thesis. I had read about the chapters but had not read the actual chapters. One problem is that in one case I have had to use a collection rather than the original (in the other though obscure enough copies of the original were available for Oxfam to provide me with one).

Friday was a bit of an odd day, I did not settle very well for a variety of reasons, I eventually started to make Minerva (she is amigurumi that I created for myself. An owl (owlet) with an eyepatch and walking boots. I googled owl designs but did not like any of them really, was far happier producing a cape like cover for the back rather than the cartoon style wings quite a few of the patterns had. Birds do not use wings as alternatives to arms, and if she does use anything like hands it is going to be her beak. The aim was to produce something I could use to create a small image to use in work rather than my walking boots but it also gave me an example of what I do which I could take to writers group. Not sure if anyone will want one but it is something I can do with relatively low hassle. I think I may have to do further work to get this right. Maybe I need to print the photograph and then paint it to get what I want for the image.


Today I was at church, one of the Henstridges family was being baptised so the church was pretty full. I have noticed that people tend not to sit in the rows by the pillars. I sent an email before last weekend asking Sheila to look for elders to serve at July’s communion, as with not serving and not regularly being around church I find time chasing people to do things time consuming of thesis time. It was simply a reminder. My mistake was not making it clear. She interpreted it as me not doing table elder. I wondered why she wanted the case. This was a communication failure on both our parts. I guess I sounded apologetic because I felt awkward reminding her and therefore she interpreted that I was apologising for something. Whatever it is, it is a miscommunication and the responsibility lies with both of us. So now we have to stop people from panicking.

Chattering after a tiring couple of weeks

The weeks have been tiring. Work is still busy, I have been expecting it to quieten down since last September time and it hasn’t yet. I wonder if this is going to be the pattern of things from now on. I don’t mind being busy but when as busy as last week I am actually over stretched and I fail to do things I need to do because I have not got the time. Much of this is consultancy but I am still doing the odd bit of statistical work for people but not finding that I have much time.

Work is taking its time to sort out the situation it got into. I think there are real problems behind this. There is a view that people will get on with who they are put with regardless. This can cause major problem in a department that chooses people for the special skills. The skills seem to come with add idiosyncrasies and when we ignore them we end up with head on personality clashes. The other thing is that I suspect the rules applied now will be scrapped within two years and that will lead to some very grieved people and in the mean time a sort of guerrilla warfare over “time out rooms” with people trying to claim them as theirs. However that is not my concern. I will see what they come up with.

The other thing that happened was I was teaching the course that got cancelled the week before last, this Thursday. On the morning I realised I had not had a reply from someone who I was hoping would check the room for me or tell me who to go to. The licensing situation needed checking. Well not to worry I thought if the XP disks don’t work the managed service would do. I got there the XP disks were not working as the license had timed out. No need to panic just swap them. I even managed to get all of the managed hard disks loaded. Then I started one up and they were not the modern managed service, indeed they were at least three years old! The problem with this is the license for the old version of the software I was teaching was no longer available. PANIC, I had a class of about twelve and no machines. I am therefore very grateful to the Helpdesk who came up pretty swiftly and put fresh license codes into the XP disks.

Last weekend I was partly writing and partly editing my methodology chapter. I only managed to get rid of under 2000 words, which is problematic as I also added a section of about 2000 words on why I chose the methodology I did. Fortunately in finding that I found that one argument I had made had been made quite clearly in the literature in about 2003, there was therefore no reason to be as explicit as I was being. I still need to do more work on cutting down on the number of words. This weekend I have got the introductory bit to my data chapter on location out. Therefore I am going to have to write about actual data next week. I am going to have to deal with the wider location I think first.This is fun as it involves not just the settings but also the ways that different congregations understand themselves as connected to the locality. There are in some-ways such similarities and yet differences. Some of this includes an analysis of distance from members homes. There is also a second problem of the fact that the wider communities that they relate to also understood themselves differently. Anyway if you want to catch up more formally there is more on my thesis blog. What I will say is writing is far more consuming than I expected. It seems to infiltrate into everything and I am not one of those people who felt “I am only writing up, I can do other things”. Don’t get me wrong I suspect some of this is because I actually enjoy doing it, or like the time and challenge. I feel a slight high on going into work if I have done my half and hour of writing before I go in. I tend to resent weeks when I don’t get a full day dedicated to writing because of other commitments.

Writers group has started meeting again, which is a good thing although the heating system decided to loose pressure and not to heat up the first time. This meant that I turned up with grandpa’s blower heater (I really must put the plug on that better, I changed the fuse once and did not put it back particularly well). We are beginning to think about publishing more work this year. The options include web publishing. This is something I know I can do, in that I have the skills but it is not something that I have the time to do at present. I can act as guide but I certainly can’t do it. It also depends on what they want to do. The big thing with a website is to get the publicity it needs to make it successful. However I am glad they are back and functioning, it provides a major part of my socialising while I am doing my PhD.