Chattering on a foggy November day

Thought I’d start with a bit of poetry well not mine and I did not have a camera at the ready to capture the texture of this morning so from John Clare:

"So dull and dark are the November days.

The lazy mist high up the evening curled,

And now the morn quite hides in smoke and haze;

The place we occupy seems all the world."

-   John Clare, November

It gives a feel for what the feel and texture of the weather is like here at present.

Well Monday was the sort of work day where I could do with a bit better pacing. I had two heavy (i.e. energy consuming) meetings on the morning. The second of which was a meeting with the Doctoral Training Centre which delivers research training for Social Science doctoral students and early researchers about creating a core of material that people can use to become more proficient at using NVivo. The result is that I am going to try and record my course onto Echo 360 and try putting it up on the web so people can use it when they want. I don’t think this is particular special as NVivo already has a lot of tutorials up on line and that will be part of going further. In the evening went to writers group and took a poem about the safe from Hanover which was left discarded in the builders rubble. Don’t think it worked as well as last weeks but I am glad to have written it.

Actually Tuesday and Wednesday were relatively quiet days in work, time to catch up, review some of the training I have been too and sort out where to head next. I am hopefully going to get to look after a group of webpages, I just suspect I need to find out who is the departmental webmaster. Also spent some time on a project on nutritional information in Men’s Health Magazines. It is certainly shall we say interesting, although the last few weeks have been spent trying to weed out the useless categories (e.g. anyone know what cabbaggin is? No nor do we but we guess it comes from cabbage).

Thursday was busier, editing a paper in the morning and also spending the afternoon reviewing work. My boss is going to have to learn that it is no longer possible for her to assume that when she has a spare hour she can just book it with me. I have significant amount of time booked every week up to Christmas. Partly that is with teaching which starts the week after next .
Friday I managed Broomhall Breakfast, and stayed on after to help put away as Sarah had gone early and there weren’t many of the men hanging around. then went into town to do a weekends shop and finally sat down to write. I got a fair bit written but am conscious that I need to go back over part of what I have written to finesse it. It is writing about writing always somewhat tricky. Anyway I have just done a final go over it and sent it to my proof readers (thanks Ruth and James) . I was using pomodoro technique  it does seem to work quite well for these writings up. I ended up with over 3,000 words this week, hmm. I think word count wise I will be able to take Christmas and New Year off, well maybe writing after New Year.

Yesterday I sat down and finally got all the interviews I had done at Herringthorpe and not sent copies out of, ready to send out. That was twelve different envelopes with CDs, forms and a covering letter plus a reply envelope. I had the bad habit of interviewing people for an hour and twenty five minutes and CDs only took an hour and twenty minutes so I was often having to split the interviews. I thought I was going to run out of CDs so ended up with a quick journey down town to buy CDs and labels for the envelopes. However the envelopes are filled and now just need posting (next Friday?)

I should have been at the study day for the Society for Liturgical studies but they were so badly organised that by the time I knew I was going other things had cropped up. The big problem with a study dayl in London is you have to book early to find reasonable priced accommodation nearby and I did not fancy an early train in and a late train out, especially as I had given my word to be a church meeting today (to deal with the technical equipment). However one of the organisers wanted to ask me about a paper I had written. Well one of his questions was fine, had I selected the church I wrote it about (yes and no) but the second was about my analysis method and that is part of the creativity in my thesis I had to give quite a thought out reply and also felt I needed to copy my supervisor in on it.

Today I went to St Andrews for worship this morning. It was Music Sunday and included one of the Middleton boys playing a piece called siesta on his guitar as well as the choir performing a couple of pieces. Stuart was reading a passage so I knew he was not working today. Church meeting was discussing Zero Intolerance/Radical Welcome . I am aware of many misgivings about the campaign, I also happen to think it is a good thing, not because of the stuff it does but because it says “We do evangelism”. I have a theory that as evangelism has had low profile on many of the denominational central bodies (it was seen as the duty of the local church and therefore not their business) it has been seen as not important by the local church, now with the centre clearly putting effort into it, local churches are perhaps going to raise it on their own agenda whether or not they participate in the actual campaign. Almost certainly I suspect in twenty years time we will look back at it as a crass first attempt, but hopefully we will have developed skills to actually make this sort of evangelism work for us. However I suspect most people are for it, in the same way most people are for motherhood and apple pie. However the “welcome” here intended is far more than a friendly handshake at the church door. It is in the end a commitment by the congregation to be open to change that is required if new people want to join. I am not saying new people should not change, but I am saying the change is not just one way. We, those already there, have to be prepared to change as well. That is deeper, much more difficult and I am afraid I suspect many in the church aren’t ready for it.

Lets be clear it is easy to tackle the headline issues that are open to discrimination, such as race or sexuality; you can talk about those and get an understanding by the congregation but difficulties such as coping with boisterous children in worship amongst a group of senior citizens, honouring different peoples cultural norms and creating an environment that supports those with chaotic life style whether due to working patterns, drug abuse or poverty is often more difficult and more challenging. The big problem for being welcoming may not be the settled gay couple with two jobs who enjoy classical music, but the young married couple with four kids who have a can of beer in the pushchair, go out for a quick fag during the sermon and use expletives in conversation or the older man with a drink problem who wets himself during a service (neither of these are not hypothetical, I have seen them in church and I have seen congregations struggle). The prejudices do not necessarily fall where we think they do.

Anyway during setting up the audio visual Sarah brought a long extension cable on a wind up reel but it was not winding. Fortunately I realised this before it was put in use. Mum and Dad’s church had a heater fuse because they used a cable while still wound. So we used others and I brought it home and unwound it and rewound it. As it now easily unwinds and winds again I think I will take it back to the church. Stuart came around later on, mainly I suspect because he rang the Dicksons and they were slightly abrupt with him and he wondered why. The answer was simply because he rang them immediately on them getting in from church meeting and it really was an inconvenient time. He really must learn not to take things so personally.

On the last lap of placement

Right this week has been a week of two halves with an evening out between the two of them. The first part of the week was dominated by the need to produce a report by next Monday, the problem as always is sorting out the data. Once the data was sorted the results wanted were so prescriptive that it was a matter of filling in the holes. However that always takes longer than you think and we did not start filling the holes to the second session. We also managed to make good progress with an article. That being said, I still ended up very drained each day.

One thing that did come through is that I needed a method for making progress on my thesis visible to me. I worked out that if I can write 400 words for 5 days a week then in 40 weeks I will have written 80,000 or my full thesis. Well that is the theory anyway. Let me first put a number of caveats around that. First writing this way means that I need to plan each chapter in great depth before starting to write it. Second, the four hundred words are first draft, a lot of the referencing and checking will be done on the second draft. Finally I know there is a lot of reading, exploring and such that has to go on concurrently with the writing. The first task is therefore to plan in detail most of the methods chapter. However this week I have been having fun, creating a mandala for me to fill with coloured balls or rolled tissue paper. I am creating a Triskele but am using a Pythagoras tree (scroll down for actual one used) which is proving fascinating to draw out but unlike the original triskele the arms interlock.

By Wednesday I was looking forward to the writers group social. In many ways writers is the group that I socialise with these days. We are on the hunt for a bug without loud music but with atmosphere in Sheffield. I think we have fairly conclusively established that such a pub does not exist in the Devonshire Quarter. However the talk was good in the first part of the evening and the company was pleasant. I must really bring something in for Christmas time as I find I never end up buying drinks at these evenings.

Thursday I did my final interview for my thesis. It feels strange to be wrapping things up after so long, it will feel even stranger I am sure when I sit down to write after the holiday. The interview went well and it is interesting to listen to what Pauline had to say. In many ways I suspect she has a very good idea how the congregation ticks. The comment by her that she would change nothing personally but that there would be change while she was there, I think shows a shrewd approach to the congregation. I think what she has probably done successfully is to persuade the congregation that doing things differently isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Indeed there probably see it as in some ways a good things but are not too sure on the principals that should guide that change. This leads to a conservatism as they have to battle issues out.. They seem to be looking seriously at taking over the pre-school group that uses their premises (its current management are retiring). At times I could see myself in Pauline. In her tendency to see a job and therefore go and tackle it; including the feeling guilty if I can’t.

Friday I served breakfast again. We served 47 or so, but at the start we were really slow having barely double figures in the door when we opened. One of the breakfasters, comes with his bike, helps set out tables, has cereal and coffee and then goes down to Waitrose for 8:00 a.m. to sell the Big Issue. Needless to say the helpers at Breakfast who see him there always stop to buy a copy. I did put my alarm on, it is a sunrise alarm (see http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lumie-Bodyclock-CLASSIC-Wake-up-Light/dp/B0049AHZSM/ref=sr_1_5?s=drugstore&ie=UTF8&qid=1315763031&sr=1-5 ) and I got it while I was really battling with depression as it enabled me to get up. I did only wake once during the night so perhaps it was an improvement although I still started to wake before it started lighting as I heard it click on.

Afterwards I went to collect a prescription, I went to get it and when the second pharmacist was handing it over I showed my pre-payment card for the second time. Only he commented on it being out of date. Panic! Since I have found myself very good at not changing cards over (not just prepayment presciption cards, but membership cards , credit cards and the like) I have made the rule to immediately put them in my purse.when I receive them. So where was it, had I forgotten to pay. I decided to check my paper piles before I contacted anyone. In the one by the door, where my cleaner normally puts the post, I found it in an unopened envelope.! Obviously had arrived a day my cleaner was in and she had put it there, while I forgot to check the pile when I came in.

Saturday I went household shopping on the morning then finished the report on Herringthorpe.,The finishing of the report meant going through it at least twice. One to take account of Ruth’s proof editing and one to combine it with the fair copy from James. It is done and sent..It also decided to get warm again after being quite autumnal earlier in the week although it pelted down in the evening. The fact that the sun was shinning through the rain created quite a spectacular view out of the window, so much so that I did not go and look for rainbows that would have been out the other side of the house.

Today went to Herringthorpe, only one church meeting and one Sunday to go. Also I got stopped by two students of oriental extraction who were asking where they could get food, clothes and computers. From where they were I presume they were new overseas student at Sheffield University and they had simply come with a minimal amount. The girl did not seem to have the sort of clothes she really needed even for today which was a mild autumn day. This was at 9:50 in the morning. I just hope some of the shops open at 10:00 a.m. and they did not have to wait until 10:30. There was a panic at Herringthorpe today. by 10:15 the carpark was full and people were parking in the overflow car park. This was partly as there was a baptism and the church seemed fairly full when I got in. Then at 10:20 a coach turned up with more members of the baptismal party. There was a hasty opening of doors so as to allow for extra chairs. The Baptismal party was large I would say about sixty people. There were no less than eight god-parents. I think this says something of the parents.

Rather a pleasant Saturday in the midst of a normal week

This has been a relatively quiet week. Monday I can’t remember anything in particular happening. I know I was in work and spent quite a bit of time sorting out the room for a course I am going to teach next week, I also started the process of updating the booklet for the course, and dealt with a number of other little bits and pieces. I went shopping at Waitrose and they have back in Twinnings Jasmine Earl Grey which is delicious black. The other thing is they have Saffron Cakes in. Now Marks and Sparks definitely take the cup for best Hot Cross Buns with their Cranberry and orange ones. Alright way way back in the mists of time Safeway and then Waitrose did an apricot version that was even nicer but I have not seen that for years. However saffron cakes are delicious too and well worth buying. They are slightly cakier than Hot Cross Buns but not much and they have a yellow colour to them.

Tuesday was an interview day. I suspect people think an interview takes just two hours, well you need to add that: the preparation time (about an hour), the travelling (usually over an hour) the writing up, two to three hours and the basic management. What looks like 2 hours work is at least seven hours work. It of course would help if I could just sit down and write it up, but my brain does not work like that. Then I am leading evening worship this evening and I wanted to do some preparation for that. By the time I was finished I had got Tuesday and Wednesday pretty full with just doing one interview and other bits and pieces. I also decided I needed to get the backup sorted for my computers and therefore ordered a 1TB network drive. This stores an incremental back up of my main machine and does a regular back up of my laptop once a week. The reason for the different approaches is that my laptop travels while my main machine doesn’t.

Thursday I was back in work, you may remember that during the summer I was doing some work on fibre, well teaching has slowed the work down as well as other research projects but this week it came up again. I spent two hours with another academic trying to finalise the paper. I expect it will take at least another hour on Monday and probably more. Its there but not quite and the not quite is about getting the detail right. I also was sorting out other bits and pieces.

Friday equally was a busy day, I basically needed to get the course notes up to date and in working form. I went to collect a prescription from the chemist, only it was still muddled and they had only the stuff I had not taken two months ago. The resulted in me getting an emergency prescription and them having to sort it out next week. I did not tell them that actually I could manage, simply because I have some extra left over from when I was cutting back on the prescription. However as I sometimes up my dose (with doctors permission) I like to keep that in reserve. In other words I am slowly using that supply up. The backup drive had come and I tried to set it up but about 8:00 p.m. it decided to disappear off the network.  Sort of got it up again, but wasn’t  really successful.

Saturday and still no luck with the drive, or none before I needed to get out to go to a Stationers to do some photocopying for me before going to a talk as part of the poetry festival.So I left it and headed out. What should have been a simple task at the stationers took longer than expected, and I ended up running down the hill to the Sheffield Institute of Arts Gallery,  which is in the Furnival Building on Sheffield Hallam University’s central campus. There was a talk on the friendship between Robert Frost and Edward Thomas in the early months of the First World War. Robert Frost was in England trying to get his poetry published and Edward Thomas was a literary critic at the time. Thomas seemed to grasp Frost’s intention as a poet as well as anyone at the time, and this formed the basis of their friendship. The central bit is actually about Frost’s poem  “The Road Not Taken”  which seems to have been based on shared experiences in Gloucestershire and also seems to have been key to Thomas’ decision to enlist. I am used to the more ironic reading of that poem, may even have got half way there myself, but I had always thought the woods American and to find them British is a surprise.  I then went with other members of my writers group who were also at the lecture to the Fusion Cafe  which had a delicious Moroccan lamb pasty and salad. There was plenty of vegetarian food (maybe the majority) but it all seemed to have cheese in it. I certainly think it is worth another visit.  I then went onto town to shop for food and found Practical Photography magazine in WH Smiths. I also got some nice shower gel as a treat. Then walked up home. As I got to West Street I could hear this drum beat and as I got by Zizzi’s it became louder so I stopped and a group of Morrismen came walking through.

When I got home I found the backup  drive seemed to have fixed itself!!! I have never really known that happen before! Modern computers are getting simpler to use. There would have been a time when I would have had to set up the network to look for the drive and so on. This time not only did it install straight forwardly but when something appeared to have gone wrong it actually sorted it out. I suspect an update of firmware happening at an inopportune moment for me. Stuart came around in the evening to discuss the week with me and brought another bottle of Ame. He is quite surprised at how much he is saving now that he is not drinking. Then later when Stuart had gone home I heard the blast of a car horns and a car came past waving the Indian flag, slightly later there was a another drum and this time another group of Indian cricket fans came marching past.

Today I have been to Herringthorpe twice. This morning was communion but Pauline I think was making a point, we had a wide variety of new hymns from no less than four hymnbooks: Songs of Fellowship, BBC, Mission Praise and Rejoice and Sing. None of them were repetitive a complaint against the songs chosen last week. That did not mean we were familiar with all of them, well I was but not many of the others. This evening I was leading, now leading for evening worship is not the same as taking a service. What it meant I did was that I chose a song or hymn and prepared to lead the discussion and keep and eye on the time. Well I started something the last time because I brought chocolates, we now don’t meet without food. This time I was not the provider but Dorothy brought a meringue with thick creamy filling and an orange (marmalade) flavoured source. I had taken my lactase tablets and I think I got away with eating a slice. Oh choosing the hymn was interesting. The theme was basically taken from Matthew 6: 1-24, but was called secrecy so emphasising verse 4. Hymns on that theme are few and far between. I found one eventually which was to a well known tune Ashgate.  

Thinking on Church Websites while on strike

This week has been odd. I am hoping that one of these weeks I will get a week in which I am able to be in work for four days, however the reason this week was strikes. Now I am not a great fan of strike action, but the UCU rarely uses it (I think this means I have withdrawn my labour for one working week in the nineteen odd years I have been in HE). In this case, I suspect the jobs issue is a no win one but perhaps an idea of feelings, Pensions is a bit more about fairness, when the stockmarket was doing well the Universities as employers took a holiday from contributing, now it is doing badly they don’t seem to understand the quid pro quo for having taken that. However my main reason for striking is I belong to the Union, I appreciate the work the Union does on my behalf (having been regraded un-unionised and regraded unionised I can tell you which one was the better outcome), and I also believe that if ever things came to a dispute between me and the University I would want the backing of the Union. Given that I don’t believe in being a fair weather trades unionist and only belonging when I want to, so  I was on strike. So although I was in work on Monday, which was quite quiet and Wednesday but I was off Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (Friday being my day off).

I am afraid striking and research do not mix. Tuesday was the sort of day where if I would have been in two minds about whether I could work or not. I was feeling off colour but nothing very specific but as I was on strike I went back to bed and slept it off. I then spent quite some time reviewing Herringthorpe URC website ( but it has been updated since and is updating) for the church.  I am surprised myself in doing this. Firstly there are some things that have not changed. Much of what I thought was appropriate for the front page, is still what I think is appropriate for the front page. However my focus for the site has changed. As far as I can see for communication within the congregation there are better ways such as email or Facebook (if the congregation has enough young members)  and the older ways bulletin sheet, newsletter, notices and the good old phone call all still work. So it is a noticeboard or a shop front. So what are we selling, well the services yes. But rather than just the name time and place, how about something telling them what a service maybe like?

I have this little script going through my head for Herringthorpe:

(IA is a member, VB is a visitor)

IA: People tend to be slightly early for church, this is often so they can have a natter and so with their friends, you are given a notice sheet when you come in and there are notices up on the projector screen

VB: So how do you know when worship is about to begin?

IA: Well at about the time the Bible is brought in!

VB: is that the start of the service.

IA: No, its a mark of respect for the bible and  a sign to shut up, because then further notices are given from the front

VB: You do seem to put an awful lot of effort into notices,

IA: Well there are always last minute alterations and the in case of fire notice, but when they are finished they ask for silence

VB: So that is the start of the service?

IA: Well no, the real start is when the minister stands up afterwards and says the opening sentences

VB: the what?

We need to stop assuming people know what happens in church and start trying to inform them.

Christianity and if so what form and style? Why us and not the next church down the street? Try and give something that has a personal touch, something that says “ours” rather than try to compete with the highly skilled apologetical sites. What they can’t do is give the view from the point of view of a person people might know a normal person. Alright so it might be a normal person like the individuals granny but still not a celebrity or a theologian. The thing is the issues talked about are likely to differ as well. You do really need a very skilled apologist to explain the Trinity, but why someone enjoys singing in the choir on a Sunday, is surely not within their brief.

Other are perhaps more mundane. Do we have good child safety polices, disability awareness? Where do we stand on inclusion?  but there are other things that people might be looking for, they maybe looking for a venue for a wedding or somewhere to have a child baptised (yes I know the problems but it might be as well to give them something to think about before they approach rather than leave it all to the minister). Then there is room hire and other activities. Do you perhaps want to recruit people for social outreach project or raise awareness of certain issues?

It took longer than I planned but my brain has obviously been thinking. I also had to get onto thinking about what I was going to tell Pauline on Thursday. On a sadder note I discovered that a member of my writing group had died on Sunday night. She had been suffering from Breast Cancer for the last nine months but was suddenly in great pain last Sunday evening and died that night. If you have spare prayers could you pray for J and her son T and daughter A. The funeral is on Friday, I am still deciding whether to go.

Wednesday was very ordinary, although coming back from prayer meeting at St Andrews I think I saw a buzzard soaring on the thermals above the buildings on Glossop Road. Now I am not sure. The soaring behaviour was clearly there but at first I thought rook or crow, but rooks and crows don’t usually do that. Then a couple of gulls came past and they were clearly smaller.

Thursday was a big thesis day. I went to see Pauline for lunch and then to talk about reporting back.They have a young golden Labrador called Emma and she was very suspicious of me at first but once she had established that I was not a threat to her directly and none of the humans regarded me a threat she went and slept in her cage while we ate lunch. Then spent an hour or so talking with Pauline. Pauline definitely deliberate over her choice of space. That is not a problem so am I. This time we were in the music room, which has a couch that just seats two people. This says something quite clearly about equality and closeness. 

Then it was on to interview Henry. This was really one of the most important interviews of my time. In the end for very different reasons to the interview with the equivalent person at St Andrews Chesterfield. Henry is 99 and has been with the congregation for close on ninety years. He became church secretary a very short time after he joined and served for 17 years. During those years the congregation would have gone from being Congregational to URC. Henry came from another Rotherham Congregational church. All this is true but Henry does not really live in the past, he seems to live in a continuous present. His relationship to Herringthorpe is rather like a man who has been married for fifty years and can’t see the changes in his wife. It is not that they haven’t happened it is that the changes have happened as much to him as to the congregation. That at least is my tentative understanding.  Oh and what would he like to have happen, more people worshipping particularly more young children in the Junior Church. He did lend me a history of the church, interestingly over ten years old.

Friday was the sort of day when I got things done simply because I was at home. Time of the month came and it was uncomfortable most of the day.  However as I was largely in I could sleep when I wanted to and work when I felt able. Saturday was also quiet although I got some PhD reading and Stuart came around in the evening and we shared a bottle of Ame and hot cross buns. I got reheating them right this time and they were warm without being too dry. By the way I think my favourite Hot Cross Buns are Marks and Spencers Cranberry and Orange. If I am in Waitrose I get their saffron buns instead.

Today morning church with another Baptism, Herringthorpe does seem to get a good number of baptism. This family clearly had church contact, were singing along to the hymns and as they were mainly fairly new ones out of Songs of Fellowship, this suggests recent as well. They indeed did know one or two members but did not really seem to be part of the Herringthorpe wider community.  Other than that resting and generally not doing much.

Normal weeks for the start of February

I think this will be thematic rather organised by date. The really good news is that I have sorted my diary, it now seems to be functioning properly or it is doing until the University moves its diary system over to Google Apps. Mind you I came down on Friday evening to find two of the directors larking about with advertising merchandise from Google. I hope things stay sensible. Anyway as long as I sync’ my contacts at the same time and don’t try sync’ing two diaries at the same time it usually does not get into a huff.

I think I am settled down to the normal routine in work, it is funny but getting back and getting into my stride always takes longer than I expect.  Most of my work at present is concentrating on getting the Butyrate paper ready for publication. I am not writing it but I am responsible for the graphs. I hope it comes out. Our conclusion is that the accepted norm is not proven. Indeed even to get the consistency we produce is dubious.The studies are not really comparable and their conclusions don’t agree. What we want to achieve apart from getting the paper published is for a set of more definitive experiments to be funded.

However due to a cold and then an interview for my thesis I then was not in work for very long that week. The interview was with a couple, both on their second marriage as their had both been widowed, who lived out at Maltby. He was a dyed in the wool congregationalist. As strong in that approach as any Presbyterian at St Andrews, while she was Anglican choir in background but had settled in Herringthorpe when her children were small as the local Anglican church had nothing for them. She was not the sort of person to sit on the side lines and was singing in Herringthorpe’s choir within a month.

Last weekend not only was i writing a paper for my next supervision (on small groups at Herringthorpe) but Stuart was giving me and Sarah and anyone who wanted it a tour of Western Park Museum. He was concentrating on the way that paintings are used among the displays to help people visualise what Sheffield was once like. However there was also a new exhibition called Sports Lab. Now normally I think this would largely be of interest to boys but this one included a dance game which I could see any dance minded girl enjoying. They had babies on it while we were there and they really did not get it. However I suspect a primary age girl with some dancing ability could get a really good display.

Sunday I was hoping to get to Herringthorpe for morning worship, church meeting and evening worship, In the end I only made evening worship, which rather conveniently was on not hurrying. Nor did I do any work on my paper but by then it was already clear I would have enough to write. Sunday evening services are bible study as worship. A fairly low key event provided you have a group who are willing to share the leadership and several musicians who will take it in turns to play.

Monday went to writers group and got a surprisingly positive response to the poem I took. Normally there are suggestions for improvement, but this time they seemed happy for it to stay as it was. Even asked whether I had intentionally based it around a sonnet form. No, I really should check what sonnet form is, it just was the form that was natural for that piece.

Wednesday was busy with both a research computing group and a post grad open day. I am afraid most people looking for postgraduate study assuming that IT is irrelevant to their application. Admittedly I did when doing my for Birmingham but then I expected and indeed use the systems at Sheffield. That however brought up a snag the one time in the year where we do get to give post graduates information is an afternoon at the start of term in late September or early October (last year 28th September, looks like 27th September this year ). I need to be around for that.

Thursday started collating the papers for my supervision together and sent them off on Friday having revised my essay. Last time there were relatively few; this time there were lots. That does not mean that last time there was little to talk about and this time lots, just that this time the topics to discuss are bitty so rather than having one big thing to discuss we have lots of little bits. Oh well I will have jumped through another hoop towards the PhD, basically this time give progress report. Did you know there is twice as much form filling associated with a part time PhD as there is with a full one. Someone needs to do something about it, the idea that part timers have that sort of extra time is ridiculous. When they allow up to update records online instead for these procedures then we will be onto a much better system. Oh and it is not necessary for me to review training and check progress separately.

Saturday was a day off, I did go into town, bought an audio extension lead a magazine and some food, then tried to make copies of recordings of interviews  onto CDs. I found out why I have not been doing this as I needed the software to do it. So I bought the software only for two of the remaining three CDs to develop faults. So I have had to order more CDs.

Today Herringthorpe in the morning and then an unwind and relax the rest of the day. I will try and write an account of this morning in church but then to bed.

Busy week in work, followed by an interview and migraine

The week has been busy at least work wise. For those who think that Universities have holidays can I assure you, you are incorrect. They have teaching time which is called Term and research time which is called vacations. When you are research support therefore your busy periods are distinctly different from what people imagine, largely coinciding with the holidays. The result is that I am just keeping my head about water at present. This last week I have been involved in five separate projects. Four from human nutrition and one from Education. The human nutrition ones are fairly varied. The take up of vitamin B12 in older people. Actually fairly interesting, as the take-up seems to be related to lifestyle rather than eating food groups related to B12. So you get some counter-intuitive findings, where a scale that scores highly on meat intake actually suggests poorer B12 intake (the scale also weights quite heavily for drinking alcohol and is related to smoking).

Then there is couple of sports ones relating mental ability to food allowing for exercise. Unfortunately fitness seems to be confounded with distance so the further people ran the faster their overall pace. It looks an interesting study, but I think they will have to do a follow up study probably getting people in to do a fitness check prior to doing the race. Maybe the researchers in human nutrition need to join with some from physiology and see if they can find funding to work with participants in a specific set of events.  The nice thing I can see is that participating in this study might be its own reward for the participants as they would get training advice and they would take even beginners.

Then there is the study on Butyrate. This is by far the most time consuming as I am having to spend quite a bit of time “developing” a meta-analysis for it. It is not straightforward as there are only about a dozen studies and most of those are inadequately reported. They also are not reported in standard units which adds its own complexities. I also suspect that the things measured are not normally distributed as there seems to be some sort of relationship between mean and the variation in the results. So it is going to require quite careful work.

The one for education was totally different. It was a researcher who had been so busy teaching that they had lost contact with their project and so needed to sit down and think through it again. The thing was that when I had caught onto what she wanted it was very simple to give her a way to do it easily with her project. What she wanted to do was to group like things together; basically put them in the same folder so she could think about them with some other notes on the side. Sounds easy the sort of thing you can do with scissors and paper except some of her things were sound recordings or tape recordings.

Well that kept me busy Monday to Thursday and then on Friday I had an interview in Rotherham for Herringthorpe URC. This one was with a local councillor, unfortunately he was ill but one of the people who works with him was there to talk to me and really gave me a lot of contacts. There is almost far more going on than people thing and I find that quite often those in council positions are some of the few who have an overveiw. I am still in two minds whether I should follow up by actually talking to another councilor for the ward the church is actually in or if I should leave it at that.

Unfortunately by the time I had got back from that I had gone into the migraine, cycle. This one was so long in turning up I thought I might have got over them for a long while. It held off pretty well for going to the Dicksons but mucked up yesterday quite royally. Tescos delivery and migraine don’t mix especially when person suffering gets the delivery time wrong. I “coped” by eating largely dry toast and drinking weak black tea. I went to bed after they delivered and got up early evening, thinking I was better. However by evening after taking five attempts to print something on the back of another sheet of paper, I eventually gave up. My brain was clearly not functioning right so I decided to take today as another migraine day.

So today rather than have a full day at Herringthorpe I have spent it inside, quite a bit in bed and finally got up and could face drinking coffee so am beginning to feel more normal although as the children running around down stairs still makes me fragile I suspect I am not ready for facing the world quite yet. So am not going to the songs of Praise at Herringthorpe.

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.

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.

Busy with PhD

Lets see what the last fortnight has brought. A week ago on Tuesday I got to doing another interview for my PhD. For this one the recording lasted over two hours which means it is going to be a difficult on to transcribe however a lot of it was interesting. This couple naturally talked at a more theoretical level than most people. He was a former church secretary and it was clear that he had thought about what was going on in the church. One of his objections was the diminition of the role of elder within the church and how elders should be far more the leadership within the congregation. I still have to copy the recording onto my computer and the file will be large. Maybe I let my computer do it while I am at writers group tomorrow

I have been to two housegroups as well. One last Wednesday and one this. They are at present studying Romans and people seem to be happier to talk about what is going on in Romans rather than on James which they had earlier. I wondered partly if the non-talking earlier was due to me being there but the leader of the group complained to me about it as if it was always there. I think he now expects people to phone him with queries, but I suspect they won't although they may talk with David Legge. There is still the old mentality of the minister being the authority on such matters, much as David may not like it. Actually I think there is something more going on. I would guess probably in the 1970s but maybe either earlier or later the church was faced with a generation of young people who took a quizzical look at the faith rather than accepting it authoritatively from their elders. I know many people always did, but there was a change in society with respect to how open one could be. What concerns me is not directly what happened to the young people themselves but what I noticed happened to the middle aged. They did not start doubting their faith, but they lossed confidence in themselves to talk and express it. Therefore they withdrew from situations where these questions were asked. I don't believe it has caused a whole sale collapse of the church but it has caused a change in the character of the church. The church today is far more conservatives than it was. People seem to be looking for people who are coping with the questioning and on the surface the conservatives seem to do this. This is showing itself in a number of ways in my thesis (more later).

The weekend St Andrew's Chesterfield was having one of its busy weekends. It had a gift day on the Saturday, which was held in the Michael room. For those who want some idea of size the Michael Room is a long thin room and must have about the same area as my lounge, perhaps my lounge is bigger. The gift day is solely within the congregation. There were two small tables that seat six max up for coffee. and a tray with the coffee on plus a smaller table for the treasurer. The room was thus full. They previously had dropped in individually to see the minister in his study, this year no one bothered about dropping in so David came out to chat. On the evening they had a quiz. It was organised by Rosemary and Ian who are not the usual suspects. What was not obvious was that the quiz night was openned to all Chesterfield churches and there was a good turn out from Rosehill Group as well as Holymoorside. It was not the sort of quiz I am good at, the wrong questions all the way through but we did not come last. Teams were created on the night. David and I tried to set up a microphone in the hall but it just played to the echo and therefore people were less audible.

Sunday they had two services but as I was writing I only went to the evening one. It was a Just Desserts and at the start of these David normally has a colouring activity for the children and discussion questions for the adults. Well he had both ready this time. The first question on the adult discussion paper was on whether Jesus knew he was going to be crucified. That was talked about. The next line mentioned the children's colouring activity and that is normally skipped adults don't colour things because Children do. Well almost every single adult did the colouring activity this week. I can suppose a variety of reasons such as: joint table (normally separate)= shared space, type of activity (decorate a cross with what is important in your lives), a method of avoiding the questions on the paper. It was intriguing behaviour. If I had done it or one or two had done it, it wouldn't have counted but everyone but one did it and there were about eight to ten adults all told.

The weather has taken a turn for the better a couple of days recently I have gone out in only a thick jumper. I would not do this if it was for a whole day but if just for about an hour then it can be pleasant and there is really not much risk of rain. On Wednesday at prayer group we sat out in the garden. Rosie who normally tries to get us out whatever the weather was sceptical but St Andrews Sheffield garden is so sheltered that, although it would have been difficult to sit out anywhere else in Sheffield, there it was very pleasant.

I have only had a half day off with migraine this last fortnight. The rest of stuff has been much more slight although I did miss church today. Telling a lie actually I decided as I was feeling over pressurised last night that I had better not go this morning and just catch up on what I had not done which was partly write other visits up. However as is typical of such situations I then threw a mild migraine this morning which was over by 11:00 a.m. but that was too late to go to church. The dispiriting thing is finding new things to try to see if the migraine will diminish. I have found that lavender, geranium and majoram essential oils put on an evaporator seem to help and I went to a cranial osteopath on Friday to see if they could do anything. He commented that my back was very tense (tell me something I did not know) but also at one time asked if I had had any other head injuries, none that I can recall. It was Cathy who seemed to be good at hitting her head when we were children.

This last weekend has been a cooking and baking one. I have made dhal and cooked rice. Also made a ginger cake which is an experiment as it has very little sugar in it and I replaced half the flour with buckwheat flour. I wanted to use oatmeal but Tescos did not seem to sell that. I thought I had got it with micro oats but that turned out to be oats for making porridge in the microwave. So Mum and Dad as you eat porridge I will send that back with you if you do not mind.

Oh Gell St Park has lots of wild daffodils all flowering at the moment.

This week I am off to Birmingham to see my supervisor. Otherwise just a normal week.

Thesis week before a weekend with my parents

Lets see what is happened this week. Monday was a none date due to a migraine but got to the doctor who agreed I could put medication up in the aftermath of the migraine and see if that gets me out of the post migrainous spell I seem to go through. Its a funny state, not really full blown migraine but still not totally a-migrainous either. I tire easily and get migraines quite often in that state. So we shall see if this will get rid of the state.

In work on Tuesday, well I had an interview planned for the Tuesday but the grandchild of the person was off sick on the Monday so had to be off on the tuesday and that meant Gran was child sitting. Child is a special child and I am quite sure requires a lot of Gran's attention when child sitting. So that was postponed to Wednesday. So I spent tuesday installing SPSS 17 on my machine instead and also putting in data for Churches Worker with Elderly people. Fortunately I had no appointments on Wednesday so the swap was easily made. The interview went well. Although the weather was doing fancy things. It was lovely sunny when I drove there and drove home but I looked up during the interview and thought "hum I wonder where that cherry tree is that is loosing its petals." The second time I looked up I thought "Duh those petals are snow" but the contrast of white soft flakes falling against what otherwise looked like a lovely spring day made me think they were cherry blossom rather than snow. I am fairly tired after I have done an interview so the write-up largely got left to the following day.

Thursday I spent the mornign writing up the interview. In the afternoon I got a letter from Birmingham University saying they had changed the "upgrade" procedure. They call it an upgrade but as I was accepted at a PhD level they can only down grade me. However as there is no problem with me passing this. I have done the work several times over for the old procedure I have not been particularly fussed about getting it but I have submitted. So I am in the odd situation of having submitted for this under the old rules but with new rules in place or should be in place before they are considered. Well I forwarded the email to my supervisor and asked him to clarify my situation. I will need to do significant re-writing if I have to submit under the new rules. They want a chapter written instead of just an extended piece of academic writing. They also want an interview but that is not really a problem as I am on top of things.

Friday I went to breakfast then onto work. The reasons for going to breakfast was I need to pay for my Reform and Messenger subscription and I needed to take a cheque out of my pigeon hole and put it in Jean Dickson's (well as she was at breakfast I actually handed her it). Now I know that sounds like a waste of energy but that was the agreed route for these things. The reason for it passing into my hands was that my signature should be on it, but I happened to have already signed one. Then on the evening I came across to Stockport and have been with my parents ever since.

Saturday we went to Lyme Park for a walk. We did not go very far, just up the hill and back down again. We saw a couple of sky larks, one of them ascending and Dad did some plane spotting. You can see planes coming in from Manchester Airport and Woodford Aerodrome from the hills near there. Then we went and had a coffee at the cafe by the pond. In the afternoon I ordered for Dad on his account Sam's and Hannah's easter presents.

Today Mum had a cold so has stayed home from church. I actually feel quite uncomfortable going to a church that isn't my placement church so I decided to stay home as well. That has left Dad to go to church which he has done. For Mum I sent on the emails from Aunties Val and Jean this week to Jack and Myrtle. Mum was going to put the print outs into an envelope and send them on. Dad should be back soon.

This week I have another interview coming up, this time with a former church secretary with a housegroup on Wednesday. Next weekend is also a writing one but St Andrew's Chesterfield Gift day and quiz night so busy. That is part of the reason why I wrote this this week.