Monday 3rd 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 21st
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 4th 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 5th 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 6th.
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!
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