Monday December 9th.
I walked the dog and we swam as usual this morning. Sarah
was pleased to see me back and well. I only managed 30 lengths though. I
decided it would be foolish to push it! I think I may have lost a few pounds in
weight. Certainly looking at myself in the changing room mirror my boobs seemed
bigger, always a sign that weight has come off me somewhere.
Last night when we got back from Dad’s I looked quickly at
my e-mail account. 178 e-mails in three days! That’s what happens when your
internet connection doesn’t work!
I ought to have checked my Uni e-mail account too, but
didn’t! Durr. I rolled in this morning to be asked if I was OK for 11am. I had
to ask for a quick recap of the requirements. [I am good at bullshitting if
necessary.] I was expected to participate in a seminar with some MA students on
Cathedrals, especially my work from Salisbury earlier this year! Phew. That was a relief. I have all my notes
on my tablet and some audio visual stuff, including some photo’s of records
from the Cathedral archive and the Wiltshire County Archive too, which would
normally be accessible only through their archivists in person.
It was a shock though. That’s for sure.
Mandy called at the broom cupboard and told me she was
pleased to see me. Which was nice but in a slightly worrying way. Feli was just
so full of Cumbria and Dad’s house and the party. No mention of a certain Mr
Radford, though. I will wait. She is bound to spill if anything happened
between them.
We had a long discussion in the refec about the Universities
UK news and gender segregation. We Research Assistants called a meeting for
tomorrow morning to present a united response to our Uni authorities. To be
fair, they haven’t issued a statement (or anything) yet but we want to pre-empt
any situation that might happen, by making our position clear.
This sounds as though it could spell serious trouble ahead.
I mean, if some fucking Muslims don’t like to be in mixed gender groupings in
our Universities, then fuck off back to some dark age country where segregation
still happens. If this is allowed to take place what will happen next?
Religion is the biggest fucking cause of trouble on this
planet!
Rant over. Sorry.
We spent a long time this afternoon trying to decipher a
particularly crumpled piece of parchment but couldn’t. We had the idea of
contacting the forensic science people who tested the cabinet in the first
place. The person we spoke to sounded like they’d be up for a challenge, so we
are off to see them tomorrow morning too. We could have a busy morning ahead.
Oh, the seminar? Pretty good, I think. I was able to give
them an angle into the building of the new minister and the relocation to the
present site which they hadn’t been aware of. Always nice to open people’s eyes.
The big wows were my short films of various parts of the old site and the
present minster. Only one of the students had actually been to Salisbury! I was
incredulous at this fact, which caused some of them a little embarrassed. OK,
they had been to other Cathedrals which sort of made up for it, I guess. My
contribution was only one of many but I enjoyed the buzz it created.
Back home Laura and I had so much washing that it took two
loads in the machine! Thank heavens for the old fashioned ceiling clothes
drier. I can’t believe I let so much dirty washing build up while I was ill. I
was so busy laundering PJs I forgot to do anything else! I blame the illness!
Mum phoned and is coming round tomorrow for her wine. Laura
invited her to stay for tea, which will be a Lollster’s surprise!
Work at Dominic’s was manic, apparently. But she made £32 in
tips! Sort of makes up for being rushed off your feet a little. Only a
fortnight to go until the holidays. Why are they so late in starting this year?
Tuesday 10th December.
50 lengths this morning.
Feeling like my normal self but there’s no point in over
doing stuff. I have learnt my lesson from two weeks ago. For some reason there
was a huge number of swimmers in today. [Working off the weight so they could
pile it on at Christmas, perhaps?]
We had a meeting of RAs and other ancillary staff in a spare
room at Uni this morning. There was a lot of strong feeling about UUK’s stance
over segregation. There was a union rep there, which was useful. They said an
individual response may put our heads above the parapet and the best course was
for the Union to write a letter expressing our deep concerns but not singling
any one person out by name. They are going to draft the thing and circulate it
via e-mail today so we can amend it as appropriate before it is sent to the
University Authorities. Rah rah rah. So begins a quiet revolution against those
who worship a paedophile prophet [look up how old Ayesha was when Mohammad had
sex with her]!
Had the first of the last meetings with my tutees this
morning, which ate into our translation time but is fun. Mandy was there as
always. She is definitely trying to ingratiate herself into my life. I am not
sure what I should do about it. Laura and Feli are of the opinions that unless
it becomes a problem ignore it. I have sent an e-mail to myself expressing my
concern. That way I have dated documentary evidence of my concerns should
anything arise. I guess this blog might also count as evidence too, mightn’t
it?
My reception at XXX & Y was overwhelming. I hadn’t
realised people would miss me so much or care about my welfare. At the Uni I
haven’t been there long enough to be really well known but I have been at XXX
& Y since September 2010 so I have a lot of friends. Mrs B was especially
pleased as I had given her my Ensemble 360 tickets for Friday [5th
of December] and she had thought the concert was wonderful. Guess who came down,
bearing a jar of his mother’s home made mincemeat. Er, what? Mincemeat? That is
guaranteed to sweep a girl off her feet! He said if it like it he can get me
loads more. I promised to bake some mince pies tonight for the ARR staff
tomorrow. Christopher has been invited to come and sample them, too.
I have spent the day digitising records, which is becoming
less inspiring as I go on. There have been no gory cases for a few hundred
files now. This is a disappointment. Still, I will no doubt find some soon.
Mum came round for Dinner and to collect her wine. She was
actually there, already, when I walked in.
Laura’s surprise was a rabbit
casserole. Rabbit! I am that impressed she was able to bring herself to cook
with it. Mr Thompson [village butcher] gave her the rabbit in exchange for all
the ones I had brought him in the past three years! Wasn’t that nice? She had
cooked the rabbit with a red wine based stock and it was brilliant. So tender
and succulent. Mum was surprised that she would like it so much.
We had a bottle of Hilmar’s new Red to go with it; his
recommended Rulander. I have to say I agree with his opinion. It is the nicest
Rulander I can remember drinking. Mum was disappointed she hadn’t got any in
her 4 cases, so I agreed a swap: 6 Dornfelders for 6 Rulanders.
Mum stayed behind after Laura went off to the restaurant. We
chatted about the Old Wine Party at Dad’s and my illness and the meeting about
UUK and a whole host of topics. I asked her if she wanted to come and stay at
Dad’s with me while he and Louisa were in Australia. She thanked me for the
offer but thought it might bring back too many memories which she was trying to
forget. I kept pressing anyway, and she has agreed to seriously consider it.
[Dad bought out Mum’s share of the Cumbrian house when they divorced.]
I was thinking of a way to bring up Tim Carr, but couldn’t
bring myself to do so. Instead we set to and made some mince pies using
Christopher’s mother’s mincemeat. Mum said, “His Mum made this???”
I had to agree, it was very, very nice, indeed. There was
enough in the jar [a big jar] for 18 pies but I am sorry to say we ate four
almost at once as they came from the oven. Delicious. I am definitely going to
see if I can buy some more from Christopher, I can’t really accept any more as
a gift. Mum asked if I could get her two as well, that’s how tasty it was.
Laura arrived back to inform me that Dominic’s customers who
had tried the Dornfelder had fallen in love with it. He has asked her, to ask
me, for Hilmar’s phone number to see if he can buy some more – on a regular
basis.
Wednesday 11th December.
Made it to 60 lengths of the pool this morning. It is now so
dark in the morning that we are leaving the pool with darkness still outside. I
hate this month and his short days. I ache for the nights to get longer again
and the dawn to come earlier. Today’s sunrise time was after 8 am!! I suppose
we are quite lucky, in that our latitude means we get about an hour of growing
light before the sun puts in its scheduled appearance. In Australia, dawn and
dusk are almost like turning a switch.
You do get brilliant sunsets but they last only a few minutes.
At XXX & Y I tracked down Christopher and told him if
his mum sold the mincemeat I would like 6 more jars, please. I think he was
surprised. I also told him that if he came down to ARR at lunchtime, we were
going to break out the mince pies I had made last night. He was like a bloody
puppy with two tails!
I knew something would turn up. I found a case today about a
foiled attempt to rob a security van taking the summer holiday wages to British
Steel, Stocksbridge in the early 1980s. It was fascinating and would make a
great plot for a story. The police had a tip off about it from one of the
inside men and, according to the case notes, if it hadn’t been for the tip off
the robbers would have got clean away. I’ll expand on this some other day.
Lunchtime in ARR, usually has us eating sangers etc at our
desks and making gossip across the room with each other. [Unless we use the time
to go off into town shopping.] Today I went round everyone offering them
home-made mince pies. They went down a storm! I had to put one away especially for
Christopher as the gannets in my department ate the lot! [OK, I did have three!
They were my mince pies, though.]
Mrs B had one and
pronounced it the best mince pie she had eaten. I told her that her nose was
growing! She did admit to a bit of exaggeration but thought they were very good
and certainly knocked shop bought ones into a cocked hat.
Christopher didn’t come down for his pie at lunch, so I
internal mailed it to him during the afternoon. He sent me an e-mail back with
the words “Thanks. Lovely!” Mmm… A bit ambiguous or what?
Home again to another surprise. A spag bol from Dominic’s
restaurant for dinner. He had brought it as another thank you for the wine and
my cake of last week. He had thoughtfully put the Parmesan into a bag rather
than sprinkle it on top as he knows about my cheese allergy. That was so sweet
of him. To do it justice we had a bottle of Vino Nobile de Montepulciano to go
with it. It is one of my favourite Italian reds. I say ‘we’, I had the lion’s
share, Laura had a single glass, because she was working. I promised I wouldn’t
drink it all before she came back.
A quiet evening was spent listening to Parisfal on Radio 3.
We started to listen during tea and I wallowed in it throughout the night,
doing more sewing and accidentally finishing off all of the wine! Laura said
she knew I would do that, especially listening to Wagner! I think that was a
joke. I did offer to open a second bottle but she said she was thinking about
other long round things she wanted to play with. I didn’t refuse the offer.
Thursday 12th December.
I thought I would stick to 60 lengths until Monday, this
morning. Why push it too far? But when it came down to it I pushed on to 70
with no trouble, so I kept going and decided to stop at 80. Laura is very
solicitous for my welfare, making sure I am alright and not overdoing anything
with the lengths. I guess I really did frighten her that morning when I sat
back down on the bench and was sick. Despite swearing on everything I can think
of she knows me too well to take what I say at face value too much.
Today we had some sun at long last. Bloody typical really.
Now I am back at work and not able to enjoy it as much.
More tutee meetings today. They will be their last before we
go down for Christmas. Still three students to catch up, though. Maybe they
didn’t get the e-mail. I resent it to them both rescheduling a time that fits
with their timetables.
Translation akimbo today. We went to forensics and chatted
to the techies who were going to try to make our parchment more legible. They
thought they had a result! It seems they were able to photograph it using a
different sort of light source which made the images on the paper stand out
more clearly. I don’t really understand the science but the upshot is that we
now have a computer generated version of our parchment which we can read. Rah
rah rah.
There is a downside to it though. The new images while being
legible are merely a bloody inventory! Dullsville really.
We went down into town this lunchtime and had a wander among
the Christmas stalls in the peace garden and Fargate. There was some nice stuff
on display but I think a lot of it was really over-priced! I’ve been doing most
of my Chrimbo pressie buying on line, for the ones I have still to get that is.
What did we do before internet shopping?
The letter to the Uni Authorities has been agreed and sent.
I am not going to reproduce it her but essentially it says if the University
acts in any way that is discriminatory [or condones any discriminatory actions by any person or
society within the University we will report the action to the Equal
Opportunities Commission. Gender discrimination is still a criminal offence!
Not exactly manning the barricades but enough warning to let the powers that be
know what we feel. Plus there is no one person’s name on the letter to become a
target for the authorities.
The Union rep has sent a copy of our letter to every
University in the country, especially UCL, where the whole stupid thing
started.
It isn’t the students who are revolting this time, it’s the
staff! LOL. On the grapevine, I understand that the Student’s Union is also
making similar representations to the Uni on the matter. So they bloody well
should. It is they who are being discriminated against anyway!
Mandy, was of the opinion that most of the student body have
no idea of the fuss that has been caused at UCL, they are more concerned with
going out and getting pissed / laid or both. Surely some exaggeration on her
part?
Laura agreed to some extent with Mandy but thought their
apathy stemmed from having to pay such a high price to be here, they didn’t want
to do anything to jeopardise that! I think students here seem less promiscuous
and wild-living than I remember from my time as an Undergraduate which is only
5 years ago. [Approximately]
The T shirts that caused offence at UCL are available on
campus. I have bought one. It has a picture of two people who must be Jesus and
Mohammad carrying placards saying Don’t Laugh at Our Religions. Jesus has a
speech bubble saying, “It doesn’t seem to be working.” Mohammad has one which
says, “Yeah, I know. Let’s go and burn something!” I think it is a brilliant
cartoon and if people are offended by it they deserve to be. Our society is
based on freedom of speech not kowtowing to Dark Age religions who don’t like
our ways!
Laura made even more in tips tonight than on Monday. The
Christmas party season is obviously lucrative. She was still rushed off her
feet and pretty whacked by the time she got in. I offered to give her a massage
using the body butter stuff we have, so after her shower she lay on the bed and
I set to. She was fast asleep before I had finished her back!
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