Dinnae fash yersel an’ keep ya heid!

Diary 2013. Week Fourteen – Part Two.

Monday September 30^th.

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 1^st.

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 2^nd 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 3^rd 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!