On the day after Christmas

The end of term year ended up as busy as the last six months. I did not manage the University Carol Service as I was teaching on that day, and I also missed the Sunday before Christmas at St Andrews as a cold was coming on and I decided that curling up in bed and trying to get rid of it pdq was a good idea. If I can catch a cold on first indication treat it pretty fiercely (stay indoors, bed rest, vitamin C, eucalyptus and tea tree oil etc etc) then sometimes I give my body enough of a boost that it manages to fight off the cold before it gets a hold. If I don’t then I am in for the full blown thing.

The Monday and Tuesday of the week before Christmas I was in work and busy, but the Wednesday which was my last day in work was works party and therefore even though I was not going I felt justified in not making any appointments for anyone to see me. This gave me a lovely day, when I just pottered around doing all the sorty out things that needed doing but had been sidelined in the general melee of business. So my desk is slightly tidier than it was, I think I have sorted the emails for next year and so on.

On the evening I had an invite around to a friends open house. It was one of those occasions when I went knowing I would know almost no-one. It turned out to be a great event. The date is set because it is her son’s birthday but the children have the “party” before and the adults start turning up about 7:00 p.m. for chilli including vegetarian and wine. You have people from all ages spread through the house talking to each others from a vast variety of ways of life although University employees y managed to buy a good selection. Sam my nephew has unusual tastes for a thirteen year old lad (and always has had), they therefore ordered one dish with very hot peppers in it (Sam loves these). We managed to warn my father not to have that dish but mum did not pick up on this and got one of those peppers in her mouth and it spoilt the other wise superb meal for her.

Friday I took easily, walked into Stockport on the day basically to buy things I had forgotten a timer and a carton of Christmas compote. The whole place was busy but not excessively, think a normal Saturday afternoon rather than the last before Christmas.  I did a similar trip on Saturday to Heaton Moor for cough medicine for my Mum who had caught a cold off my father but while his inhabited his nose, hers went directly to her chest. Unfortunately the closest one was shut. I suspect for holiday season at least as the roller shutters were full down. On the evening I decided that rather than go with my parents to their church I would see what the local Anglican was offering at 7:30pm on Christmas eveniannah buying a chinese for evening meal. They had come down so Mum and Dad could be involved in preparing the veg for Christmas dinner. They had some difficulty finding the local chinese as the onilm.  By the way has anyone seen a non-corny portrayal of an angel on film. My tendency is to think that you are better off not portraying those pieces as they always fail. This one was very average for films.

Christmas day was as normal. Mum and Dad made it to church in the morning as there was no snow this year. Dad said it was as well as could be expected, it being Christmas day and all age worship. Then they had a sandwich before we went up to Cathy’s for the main meal at around 3pm.  The  table needed setting as I was bringing the table cloth and therefore they had not managed to set it. Meanwhile Hannah and Sam managed to open their presents. In fact as there was a twenty minute wait we all did, but Sam and Hannah’s were acting as Santa’s elves and handing them out. Sam dutifully hid his Birthday presents behind the sofa so as not to open them until his Birthday (tomorrow).

The meal was delicious as per usual, but what should I expect from my sister. Unfortunately the  TV had removed the Gruffalo from our after lunch slot and replace it with Ratatouille, which is fine but not the same.  Admittedly this was ng. I am cautious to call it a service, it consisted of a film of the nativity interspersed with Christmas Carols. I don’t even think the carols were chosen with how they would relate to the film.  By the way has anyone seen a non-corny portrayal of an angel on film. My tendency is to think that you are better off not portraying those pieces as they always fail. This one was very average for films.

Christmas day was as normal. Mum and Dad made it to church in the morning as there was no snow this year. Dad said it was as well as could be expected, it being Christmas day and all age worship. Then they had a sandwich before we went up to Cathy’s for the main meal at around 3pm.  The  table needed setting as I was bringing the table cloth and therefore they had not managed to set it. Meanwhile Hannah and Sam managed to open their presents. In fact as there was a twenty minute wait we all did, but Sam and Hannah’s were acting as Santa’s elves and handing them out. Sam dutifully hid his Birthday presents behind the sofa so as not to open them until his Birthday (tomorrow).

The meal was delicious as per usual, but what should I expect from my sister. Unfortunately the  TV had removed the Gruffalo from our after lunch slot and replace it with Ratatouille, which is fine but not the same.  Admittedly this was because a Gruffalo’s Child was on later but still the Gruffalo was just about the right level for after Christmas dinner and Ratatouille was too sophisticated and complex. Yes I cope with complex every day of my life, but after Christmas lunch I want simplicity.

Anyway we came home about 7 O’Clock and Dad decided at 10 pm at night that we MUST eat up the rest of the smoked Salmon that evening. Needless to say we have not felt much like food today so much so that Dad has changed the evening meal from soup from scrambled eggs. I am not sure I am even up to soup.

A busy work week with little news

News from this end. Well none, I have had a busy week at work and I mean busy. I worked 4.5 days having booked a half day holiday and arranged things for it. So that means I have to take an extra days leave next week but next week is short already. Monday is a bank holiday, Friday is definitely my day off. Its going to be difficult deciding which day and a half I am actually going to be in work. Not helped by the fact that I should take a days study leave in that time as part of my writing weekend.

Work has been getting Information Commons figures for their annual report. The problem was I underestimate the effect 6,000,000 records would have on my computers processing speed. Fine for most things I wanted to do, but not for reading in or drawing graphs. When I needed to do that it was make a cup of coffee time or more accurately go for a leisurely lunch time. It is as well I started working with computers at the end of the days of sending programmes remotely from terminals, finding something to do for several hours, then getting a print out back that said you had made an error on line 10 and the job had not run. You learnt time saving techniques just to get small jobs run and I was using those techniques to finish handling the data I was using. However long hours churning numbers don't make interesting topics to write about.

Stuart can now photocopy the service sheets without me or Judith being there. I think in some ways the breakthrough was when I had to pass him onto Judith. Stuart's attitude when it was me I think was that it was a pleasant way to spend some time with me!!! My attitude was that it was a job I had given up to have time to do my thesis and it was not something I therefore wanted to be doing with someone else. The problem was as long as I did come it fulfilled Stuarts idea of what should happen. It was only when I was not there that he actually started to make the effort to learn how to do things. He did not even take in that there were clear instructions in the room on how to do it. With a person who wanted to do it, you could give them the keys and they could sort it out for themselves without any instruction. With Judith Stuart was not getting the reward so he actually set about learning. The result was last night I handed him the keys and he did the photocopying.

Yesterday I did shopping basically because I needed to. I really need to get more skilled with money off tokens. I could have saved ten pounds yesterday if I had just done! Now I have £15 in money off tokens to be spent by the 13th September. I also spent money on work clothes. My computer seems to have taken a dislike to putting in card numbers and the result is that I end up having to do them over the phone. So I purchased just ordinary trousers, tops and a fleece from Landsend, only for them having to ring me this morning to check. Oh well hopefully I will be smarter in work this autumn than I have been of late. Oh I am also struggling to find wool free walking socks. I also got a multi-tool, I was hoping it would replace both the screwdriver (which is quite bulky) and the penknife in my handbag but I decided that the pen knife had to stay, as it had a bottle opener on it. I think it has only been used once but I can think of at least one other occasion when it would have been useful. Oh anybody who thinks that either is going to be any use in a violent attack better think again. They are always bottom of the bag and they need careful attention when openning. If I wanted an offensive weapon my tiny nail scissors are a better weapon than these.

Today I went to Chesterfield for the service. It was quiet as are most congregations over the bank holiday. The magazine was going out and they have a couple of articles about the process of finding a new minister. Aparently East Midlands moderator has already met with the elders and they need to produce a profile and should be getting on with it.