Diary 2013. Week Fourteen – Part Two.
Monday September 30th.
Two blondes went swimming this morning, after just one
blonde walked the dog. The dog is not blonde! It is starting to get quite dark
at 6am.
First week proper of a new term and I am a complete and
utter drongo. I have not felt so stupid for ages and ages! My teaching isn’t
lecturing; it is dealing with these Personal Tutor students! The Head Honcho
came and told me this morning, not an e-mail, but word of mouth - face to face.
I had got hold of the wrong end of the stick and ran with it! Any lecturing I
do will be all about the project I am working on. I wanted to turn into an
insect and crawl under a stone to hide. [Maybe not a cockroach, though. Urgh!]
HH was impressed by my outlines and proposals for Salisbury
and the area’s development and if any way could be found to include that into a
programme then I would definitely be considered to present it. Definitely be
considered? Oh bloody shite hawks!
I called my Dad at his work and had a jolly good cry at him
down the phone. He said he was surprised that I had been offered actual
teaching time but didn’t want to say anything in case my Uni worked differently
to his. I bloody wish he had. I wouldn’t be feeling like a complete ingenuous
twerp at the moment. He told me that his University would have made a definite
offer of a teaching commitment, not mentioned it in passing like mine had done.
I would have had to been employed on a lecturer’s scale of remuneration and
needed to join a Union.
He was like the Priest in R & J telling Romeo all the
good things which had happened to him so far when he discovers J’s betrothal to
Paris. Dad kept listing all the ways in which I would benefit from what I had
signed up for. Especially the fact that at the end of the three years I would
be awarded a Ph.D which I was being paid to get! He thought HH’s words were
encouraging too, but I shouldn’t expect things to change during this academic
year. The curriculum was a bit like a supertanker, taking tens of miles to turn
around. I wished I had the ability to disapparate like in the HP books. I would
have taken myself to his office so he would have been able to give me a hug and
hold me tight. That is what he’s there for, after all!
Felice supplied the hug but it wasn’t the same. I had a
second cry at her but I am not sure if she quite understood what I was saying.
She was reassuringly sensible and said we should get down to some serious work.
It would take my mind off the situation. I was tasked with the job of
contacting the V & A and speaking to the collections manager. That was a
feat in itself.
The CM was a very friendly sounding person and she was only
too happy to let us examine the caskets and photograph them too if we wanted.
They have a person who is in charge of textiles, and the like, who would be
made available if we wanted. Did we?!
Apparently they had a couple of women there a fortnight ago looking at
the boxes with a view to making one of their own! OMG. The synchronicity of
things, eh? They weren’t bothered too much about the history, just in the
construction of the box. She said they must have been well off as they were
staying at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel for the weekend and the rooms there
start at £450 per night! They drove to the museum in Taxis from the station! I
think our budget may not stretch that far.
It is all arranged. We travel down in just over a
fortnight’s time. Felice and I talked about transport arrangement and I did
volunteer to drive us down, park up at Stanmore and tube it in from there.
Felice said that wasn’t an option. I would be tired from driving then I would
have to drive the whole way back as well. She said she was going to book train
tickets. She has. Can you believe it? A
few minutes later she came back with the news that we have got two first class
tickets to London for £30 each! [That is £30 each way.] I don’t how she managed
it but good for her. Even better than that, we will get all our expenses
reimbursed as they are counted as justifiable in relation to what we are doing.
The Aged Parent phoned me after lunch, bless him, to see how
I was. He had chatted to a couple of colleagues and they were of the same
opinion as him. There must’ve been a misunderstanding along the line somewhere.
I told him I was fine now and had all but three of my “tutees” reply to my
e-mail so I would be earning my bread that way. He did invite me to come up
this weekend and we’d go to Z in Whitehaven for a meal but I have already
promised to feed Mum and hear about what she did in Oz when I flew home. I have
deffo booked in the weekend after and told him he has to let me watch Sleepless
in Seattle with him hugging me on the sofa if I am ever going to recover from
the ignominy. He just laughed! [I was serious.]
I let Laura drive us home and was able to put all my hand
and body gestures into telling her about my stupidity. She was sympathetic and
made all the right conciliatory noises. We prepped dinner together, this is
unusual – I am the one who always does it. I think it may have been her way of
being supportive.
It is strange having Sunday lunch on Monday evening and it
has thrown our menu out by two days as well. This was thrown even more out of
kilter when Steve came round with two fresh trout caught this morning. They
were browns and their season ends on Saturday [this wasn’t in my data set until
Steve told me] from then they can only catch rainbow trout. You learn something
new every day. I will grill them tomorrow with a stuffing, haven’t decided what
yet – maybe a chestnut based one.
Laura went off to the restaurant as usual tonight [they had
a hen party group booked in – the wedding is on Saturday] and I drove down to
pick her up thinking she’d be tired. She wasn’t. She came walking with Callie
and me for her last walk and asked me if I’d had a hen night. I hadn’t as our
wedding wasn’t scheduled until over a year after Richard had died. She asked,
“Will we ever get married?” I replied, “Who’d have us?” Why do I always joke about serious stuff? Her
response was “I’d have you…” G U L P !
Tuesday October 1st.
Walked Callie and went to the pool. Laura was dead keen to
drive the new car, she really likes it way more than the Picanto. I can see
why, the driving position isn’t as high but overall the drive is so much
better. I would go so far as to say I think it beats Dad’s Citroen C5 Estate.
Mum’s Audi A3 isn’t any better either. Good call by the girl with the blonde
hair and glasses! We managed a decent 80 lengths side by side today which is
pretty good. I was also able to control my urges in the changing room. It was a
good thing too as the place was quite busy; as we were leaving loads of people
seemed to be arriving.
Only at work until lunch time today, and most of that was
with the first few of the Personal Tutees. Three girls and one guy. They seem
awfully young and wet behind the ears and a little bit unsure of themselves.
They had all enjoyed the rush and excitement of Fresher’s Week but a couple of
the girls were a bit concerned about the sexist attitudes of some of the male
students. I wrote down what they told me in a note book I have put aside
expressly for the purpose of logging everything I consider important. It will
be informative to compare the experience of the other girls in the group. I
have three guys and eight girl altogether. I could be kept busy.
Felice and I have come to a working arrangement with the
office. It is mine when I have students there, it is hers when she does and at
the other times we will arm wrestle for it! We actually have a bigger work
space for dealing with the documents and casket which is probably where we will
be spending most of our time. I bought my self a new mug for the office [well
you have to don’t you?]. It has completely foxed Felice because it is in
exactly the same style as the red “Keep Calm…” stuff but mine says; “Dinnae
fash yersel an’ keep ya heid!” It is really tricky trying to explain Scottish
dialect to a non-English speaker. Today [this morning] I drank over a dozen
mugs of tea and peed rivers! It was so
yellow too! (Sorry, I was just amazed at the colour. I will have to bring some
Earl Grey in on Thursday.)
I rolled up at XXX & Y bang on 2.30pm. The start of the
afternoon for us moles in ARR. We ought to be pirates, really, with those
initials. (Think about it, Jim Lad!) I had more digitising of the archive to
finish but was interrupted by a request for some Case Law – I love doing
searches for this. It’s one reason why digitising the archive is so important.
We won’t need to look through massive tomes as much we will have access to a
purpose built specialist in house facility that will be able to be
interactively searched using keywords. By the time 5.45 came around I was dusty
and quite tired but thought I had done a good job. I’ll have more time
tomorrow.
Back home at 6.10pm to find Laura had stuffed and cooked the
trout and cooked all the veggies. She had even glazed the julienne carrots! Rah
rah rah. She had made a bread, lemon and dill stuffing, cooked some potatoes
and asparagus. The trout she had baked, then laid it over a lattice of
asparagus which was on top of crushed potatoes. The carrots were off to the
side. The whole thing looked a picture and tasted even better. It was totally
delicious. The lemon, bread and dill stuffing was something I haven’t eaten
before but I will again, it was inspired.
I could get used to coming home to a cooked meal. We had barely time to
cuddle afterwards before she had to zoom down to the restaurant. Well, I zoomed
her down in the car. Then I was back home in time to listen to Front Row on the
radio, followed by my CD of the Month from the BBC Music magazine – Bruch’s
Violin Concerto. [Well, there is also some Bach, Tchaikowski and Paganini on
the disc too.]
At about 8pm I got a phone call. I was a bit surprised to
find it was from Australia, but it was Mum all packed and ready and about to
get the early flight of the day from Perth, it being 4am Wednesday already over
there. I said that I’d be at Manchester airport at 8pm to pick her up. I also told
her about my fiasco at the University and I’m afraid I had another little
snuffle. I am a wuss at times. She was typically business like and efficient in
calming me down and putting me back on the tracks again – by almost giving me a
repeat of what my Dad had told me on Monday. I didn’t tell her this, she would
have been mortified to think she and he still did things the same way despite
being divorced for over 10 years.
I am really relieved that she is finally coming back. It has
seemed so weird without her calling me at least three times a day, or texting
every verse end. I am looking forward to hearing about her jaunts around WA.
Picked Loll up, dead on time, and we both took Callie up the
road for her last walk of the day. We started snogging at the turn round point
and I was so turned on by the time we got back home we just dived on to the sofa
and indulged ourselves there, then again in the shower and again in the
bedroom. We played with the new Rabbit in the last location. Laura wondered if
the girls who were squeamish about the rabbit in the game pie last week would
have been as worried about having this kind of rabbit inside them. She is so
rude…. Poor Mr Wabbit, sat on my pillow, just blushed to the tips of his ears.
Wednesday 2nd October.
I am fcuking gutted! I can’t believe those fcuking scumbag
bastards at Yahoo Answers have suspended my account. The twats! The worst parts
are: I had over 70 thousand points! Seventy thousand! And these fucking
scumbags have suspended my account! Secondly, the e-mail telling me I have had
my account suspended has a link to an appeals page which doesn’t fcuking work.
The cnuts. How can I fcuking appeal if the link they have sent is fcuking duff?
To say I am livid is the understatement of the year. The
fcuking scumbags are lucky I don’t live in California or I would be round to
their scumbag offices in a lorry filled with a couple of tons of weedkiller and
sugar explosive to blow their fcuking wanker, little scumbags souls off the
face of the planet.
Jesus H Fcuking Christ I am so annoyed it is beyond belief.
It is a bloody good job I wasn’t at Uni today or some innocent little mite
would have had their head bitten off if they’d had even looked at me the wrong
way. I was so fired up I was hoping that Christopher would come and see me,
with his stupid love struck puppy dog eyes. I was in the mood to shatter his
stupid bloody infatuation there and then. By about 11am I had calmed down quite
a lot and Mrs Briggs came down into the dungeon to see why I had been banging
about and being unusually noisy in there.
I was able to explain, quite rationally and calmly what had
happened. She just laughed. I mean she just laughed at my anger and annoyance.
I was hurt at first and then realised she was right. I was being ridiculous and
I did need laughing at to bring me down to earth. She then said why not open a
new account and call yourself something like Bloody Yahoo Suspended Me? Great
idea. She also said I am so pleased Christopher didn’t find you in the dungeon
earlier, I think we may have had to call the police after a murder had been
committed. She is so like my Mum at times, it’s uncanny! Then she went on,
actually being thoroughly nasty to him may shake him out of his obsession with
you. Obsession? I didn’t realise it was an obsession. Oh shite. I may need to
watch out. People who get obsessed can do really weird and dangerous things.
I was able to arrive home at exactly 6.10pm again. Just like
the perfect husband coming home to the little wifey. I had better not say that
to Loll’s face. She may slap me. To continue the analogy though, the “little
wifey” had dinner prepared again. I am so impressed. I gave her a huge kiss and
cuddle and told her she didn’t have to do this for me. Always pragmatic, she is
a mathematician after all, she told me that if she waited for me to get in and
start cooking then dinner wouldn’t be until nearly seven – the time she had to
leave for work. It made much more sense on Tuesday and Wednesday nights for her
to cook the meal. Who am I to argue with such impeccable logic?
We need to do a food shop because Loll had to raid the
freezer when she got home to see what was there that could be rustled up
quickly. Luckily there were a couple of bowls of previously prepared beef
strips in black bean sauce that had cooked before I went to Oz and frozen the
rest. It was still pretty tasty after two months at minus 18 degrees. The sauce
seemed a little saltier than when I had made up the whole batch, perhaps that’s
what happens in the freezing process.
The little Darling had done a stir fry with the remains of
all the veggies in the fridge and some salad veggies too. She was just draining
the rice when I walked in. It is easy to snog someone when their hands are full
and they can’t get out of what they are doing. I decided a bottle of
Spatburgunder would be ideal with the beef, so I rummaged in the cellar for one
of the few remaining bottles. I found a mini cache of Portugieser Weissherbst
there too – four bottles I had forgotten I’d got. I knew I had two cases of
Blauer Portugieser [6 bottles in a German case] left but I had forgotten all
about the rose lurking in the newly constructed wine cupboard. (I made it when
I panelled and insulated the cellar earlier in the year – is there no end to
this woman’s talents?) So we had rose instead of the red with the beef. I can’t
wait to drive down to Cochem again with Dad nearer Chrimbo to do our seasonal
stock up again.
A swift snuggle on the sofa and then Lollster was off to the
restaurant again. Once more I drove her down and picked her up at the end of
her stint too, not just practicality this time though, it was still bloody
raining. Callie and I got a little damp on our last walk of the evening while
Laura snuggled up safe and sound under the duvet. After my shower we played
with the double ender for a while – a lovely way to finish the day.
Thursday 3rd October.
I almost used an Elton John song to describe my Mum’s return
from Australia but that would be so unkind of me. Plus she isn’t a bitch [most
of the time]!
The Lollster and I did the dog walk and swim without the
predicted rain this morning, which was an unexpected bonus. It was ever darker
than usual for this early in October. The weather did make up for it later in
the day though. She wanted to drive us in to Uni again today, so I let her. It
is great being a passenger in a car. I wonder how much it costs to hire a
chauffeur? I can understand why though, my new car is lovely to drive. OMG, I
am turning into a car bore! I will not mention it again [I am lying, of course.
It will get mentioned later on.]
Felice and I spent the morning with the translation. It
makes your brain ache after a while. So we have decided that we need a drinks
break every half an hour. We will have worn a path down the corridor to the
ladies by Christmas at this rate. Not to be out done by my “Dinnae fash
yersel…” mug, Felice has brought one
which reads “Je suis Vierge prudence”. I laughed when I saw it. I used to claim
I was a virgin all the time up to going to University! No-one ever
suspected what a little sex-pot I really was. My Dad may have had an inkling,
having caught me with a boyfriend’s hand inside my bra once, but I never gave
them any cause to suspect I was an over sexed little trollop all the way
through the sixth form.
I had a worried phone call from the office about my car. It
was pointed out that I had forgotten to register the fact I had changed
vehicles with them. I’d thought putting the parking permit in my windscreen
would have counted but apparently they have a jobsworth who discovered my
permit and registration on his machine didn’t match. He contacted the office
and they contacted me. I mean, how petty? [Not the office, the jobsworth. Give
someone a uniform and they get delusions of power!] So I wandered across and
filled in another form for them. I also asked about my first month’s salary
which hadn’t arrived yet [according to yesterday’s internet banking]. They made
a phone call and I was told it would be transferred later today. So out of the
petty came something useful after all. [Post Script, when I checked at 11pm my
first month’s money was there, waiting, waiting…]
We were home by 4pm and I cooked tonight’s dinner. Steamed
chicken and courgettes, with cider. They always work really well. I dropped
Laura at the restaurant at 6.30 and then drove over to Manchester Airport to
pick up Mum. The plane was on time and she was through customs in next to no
time. She looked absolutely whacked though. She was startled by my new white
car waiting in the car park, she said she hadn’t imagined me ever parting with
my Picanto. By the time we got to Denton she was fast asleep. She slept all the
way back to Sheffield. I stayed for about half an hour and then had to leave to
pick up Laura at 11. [I was late.] She did notice there was no dust in the
house, hoorah! She was also pleased that I had given her car a swift spin up to
Owler Bar and back when I’d last been over [to make sure the battery was OK].
She said she would drive over tomorrow arvo and cook dinner for all three of
us. Her treat. She’d also bring us the pressies she’d brought us back. [Aww,
bless.]
Laura and Dominic were waiting with another tipple for me to
try when I arrived at the restaurant. I recognised it as a Chianti but that was
about all. It was really nice and very fruity. Dom said it was a new one his
supplier had left and he was thinking of using it as his house red. What did I
think? Erm… I was a bit embarrassed, how could my opinion actually matter? I
turns out he was asking lots of people who liked wine, so that he could gauge
their overall opinion. It will be a bloody lovely house wine, especially for an
Italian Restaurant. He has also asked if the supplier can get some Dornfelder
for him to try. Now that would be marvellous.
Back home I told Laura that Mum would be coming tomorrow to
cook for us, and to bring us a pressie each. Loll hasn’t taken off the uggs I
sent her in the house, since they arrived. I do like surprises. [Oh, I hope it
isn’t more uggs – I bought myself a new pair too.] Laura asked what Mum was
going to cook, I didn’t know, I hadn’t asked her.
Yet more rain during dog walk time, so Lollster went to bed
and the pup and I had another shower!
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