Stomping about and swifter swimming.

Monday 3^rd November.

We had a swifter swim than usual this morning. I don’t mean we did fewer lengths, we just swan them in a faster time. I felt quite a twinge in my stomach muscles when we got out of the pool, as though we’d really had a work out.

I am trying a new shampoo which hopefully will not give me scary hair for washing it so often, it is supposed to be mild for frequent washing. I bet they haven’t encountered anyone with my hair length washing it as frequently as I do. Laura thinks I am a bit mad about washing it as she wears a shower cap on the subsequent times we get into the shower during the day. Occasionally it is three times a day!

At work I have been tasked with a large research task into a specific trial, I am not sure why at the moment, maybe it will all become clearer once I get my teeth into it. The barrister asking for the work has left a note but in such bloody dreadful handwriting I am not 100% sure what it says. He was out for the afternoon so I will have to collar him on Wednesday to get a clear picture of what he wants. Mrs B has said she’ll try and decipher the thing before then. I find this rather ironic because at Uni Felice and I are translating a whole load of documents written in old French and Latin, some of which are palimpsests and yet I am having trouble with a guy’s 21^st century handwriting!

Laura moved Trevor to tonight for his tutorial as we are off out on Wednesday. The theatre again, this time a musical / dance show called “Stomp”. More details on the day in question.

Trevor drove himself to his lesson tonight. He has passed hs driving test and Mummy let his use her car. That’s what I call trusting. Not so good was a knock on my door at about 8.15 asking if the red Citroen was ours. It was blocking the driveway to the whole row of houses. I went and fetched the offending profligate parker and got him to shift Mummy’s car. He didn’t like parking it on the main street, which is a very steep hill, but I told him if he parked it in gear as well as with the handbrake on it wouldn’t roll away. He was dubious about my knowledge until he did what I told him and the car stayed put. Why do men think they know more about driving than women? OK, they may know more about makes and models (it seems very anal to be able to tell a Renault from a Citroen for example) but surely we know just as much about the mechanics of driving the stupid little tin boxes on wheels?

Generally a quiet day.

Tuesday 4^th November.

Once again we swam our lengths in the new, quicker time, and once again we found there were muscles aching that don’t usually ache when we do our regular speed. The big question is, will this do us some good physically? You know, reduce the excess weight (not that there is any) or will we start to build extra muscle mass instead? If the latter is the case it could be quite counter-productive. Sarah has promised to ask a couple of the swimming instructors and fitness people at the pool. I tried googling the same question but just got masses of completely useless or pointless hits back.

Olivia and I had a fit of the giggles during our lesson, I can’t remember what it was that sparked it off, which is a pity but we ended up crying with laughter. Laura came through into the kitchen to see if we were OK and as we tried to explain why we were laughing she started to join in too. Her Mum, drawn by the sound, eventually succumbed as well. It was quite a while before we were able to restore calm and decorum again.

She has become bogged down with discursive essay writing, so we had a go at planning two based on the titles her teacher had given her to choose from. Once we had done that the mist lifted from her brows and she said she could see what she had to do. I thought it was pretty straightforward stuff, maybe her teacher doesn’t explain things properly to the class. Based on the evidence of the Macbeth literature question of a few weeks back, I think they don’t have a clue what they are doing at all. (I haven’t expresses this view to Olivia, of course.)

Generally another quiet day, all in all.

Wednesday 5^th November.

We didn’t have anything planned for Guy Fawkes night, mainly because of worries about Callie but partially because he is a hero in my eyes, not a villain. We could do with his counterpart today. Wouldn’t it do our country a huge favour if someone blew up all our lying, cheating, expenses fiddling, out of touch, millionaire politicians in one fell swoop? Then they could claim we are all in it together, because we sure as fucking hell aren’t at the moment. I said this to a couple of students this morning and they thought I was joking!

Stomp. I had no idea what to expect. Mum had said it was amazing and we’d love it, which was why we had agreed to go along with her to something which, on the face of it, seemed to be way off our radar. I am so glad we did.

It was loud, lively and thoroughly infectious. I was expecting some narrative drive (a la ballet) but instead we had a series of routines, performed by some very hunky guys, using all sorts of weird junk to make percussive music. They used dustbins and their lids, buckets, vacuum cleaner hoses – just daft items of a household or industrial nature and entertained us all royally.

They had a couple of silly moments which were either silly or gross, one involving the hoses, which became penises! Another involving them pretending to urinate, with their backs to us! The sort of thing that my nephew. Peter, would find highly amusing.

What I found highly amusing was during one of the “clap along sessions”. These got more and more complicated as the night wore on. Next to Mum was an old codger who had the co-ordination of a concussed marsupial. He was hopeless. The downside to his hopelessness was his lack of rhythm seemed to infect the people immediately around him, so they would start in time with the guys on the stage but when Mr Dyspraxic lost the plot, so did a handful of others! Mum finally hissed at him, “If you can’t manage it, don’t try!” I think it was meant to be a whisper but because of the noise it came out a bit louder than she intended. Several of the people who heard started laughing. Mum went so red!

There were lots of children in the audience and I guess it would be a great show to get them used to the idea of coming to the theatre. I try to bring the aforementioned Peter and his kid sister Angela to the theatre a lot. We are coming to a matinee performance of the Snowman later this month. I just know both of them would have loved this, too.

At work, in the afternoon before the show, Mrs Briggs had a deciphered version of the instructions for my search this afternoon which helped me get started and I think I am going to enjoy this one immensely.

As we walked Callie for her final walk of the day, there were still fireworks being set off across the village and even further away down the valley in the city. That seemed a bit anti-social to me.

Thursday November 6^th.

This morning Sarah’s questions had born fruit and we were given a photocopied chart of the effort required to stay trim / build muscle. It seemed a bit complicated for me, but Laura seemed to understand it. I couldn’t make head nor tail of the rows of figure. It was a list of numbers all about body mass and effort, very scientific looking but mere gobbledy-gook to this innumerate! Laura said she thought she understood, but would do some checking with the chart and the computer when we got home.

Suffice to say that four mornings of faster swimming had begun to make a bit of a difference; I wasn’t as puffed out afterwards as I had been on Monday. I am hoping that when the Lollster has been able to explain the chart in lay-woman’s terms it will mean the extra effort will make my boobs a bit smaller. The sad thing about dieting / exercising in the past has meant I lose weight from my tum, thighs and buttocks, all of which just serves to make my boobs seem even bigger as a result!

Our two A level girls were punctual tonight. They told us that they’re both going to different bonfire parties on Saturday night. I guess I hadn’t thought about how people stretch out the event these days. There were fireworks and fires last Saturday evening, up at Dad’s; we had them last night across the village and beyond and the two girls are going one this coming Saturday too.  Bonfire night has become bonfire week. Still at least it is better than the stupid American import Hallowe’en, which has become just another excuse to take money from people for a completely spurious reason.

On our walk this evening, Callie and I found that the owls were back in Hill Top Woods. We didn’t see them this time but they started their hooting from opposite sides of the wood and seemed to get nearer and nearer to each other until, as we climbed up to Lumb Lane, it sounded as though they were hooting a duet. Aren’t we blessed with the ability to put two and two together and find any number we want? Duetting owls? The very idea!