Monday February 16th
What a contrast out on my dog walk this morning; I am delighted and
appalled in equal measure. The snowdrops in Hill Top Wood are now a carpet
instead of a few isolated clumps. They look stunning. Plus out and about in the
same wood are clusters of daffodils pushing their spears through the grass
ready to step in to the breech once the snowdrops have gone over. Some look as
though they’ll be ready before the gorgeous whiteness has faded. I love this
time of year. The nights are drawing out; the mornings are lighter and there is
a promise of new hope and new possibilities just around the next corner.
Just around the next corner was the complete antithesis of this natural
beauty. Some f*cking bastard has emptied their macdonald’s crappy meal
packaging all along the Onesacre road. The f*cking scumbag. If I could catch
them in the act I would quite happily let them have both barrels of my shot
gun. However, the stupid tw@t has also dumped something they bought from the
co-op as well. They used their co-op membership card at the shop, and their
receipt is in among the rubbish with their name and membership number on. I
have photographed the rubbish on my phone, and filmed it. I closed in on the
receipt so you can read the name and co-op number. At work I e-mailed the co-op
with all of that information. It will be interesting to hear what happens next.
I hope Mrs Crawley gets prosecuted.
The rest of the day and our two lots of work were fine. We did what we
normally do without being confronted with the thoughtless actions of people
like the moronic Mrs Crawley. The only downside, minor, was Trevor (again) he
couldn’t see why we were so outraged by some litter. Obviously he is a scumbag
in the making too. I have had my doubts about this boy and he does nothing to
reassure me at all every time he visits.
Tuesday 17th Feb.
This morning I tied a cardboard sign to the post near where Mrs Crawley
dumped her rubbish. It reads “Take it home Mrs Crawley. The police have been
informed.” Laura thinks it’s over the top and will have no effect at all. Maybe
the f*cking cow will be unaffected but it certainly made me feel a whole lot
better.
Sarah thought I was a hero. Good for her. She is amazed by the way
people leave the pool and then dump their vending machine wrappers all over the
car park. She has brought it up at meetings and, although they have CCTV
footage of people dumping their litter all over the property, the management
are loath to do anything about it. I said I would just put up stills of the
people dropping stuff on a poster around the foyer. Shame the scumbags at the
very least. The problem is a lot of the tw@ts who do it see nothing wrong with
leaving their shit all over the place.
Today was our full Uni day and I was astounded to see how much litter we
have around campus. I suppose it has always been there but yesterday’s finding
a whole load in the beautiful countryside has made me more aware of it.
We went for a lunchtime special at the Indian (I had my usual meat Thali) and
the litter along Broomhill was dreadful too. Laura reminded me how, out in the
bush, when we drove to Kalgoorlie, and beyond, last summer, the whole highway
was littered with crap thrown from passing car and lorry windows. We were both
shocked by just how much detritus there was. It obviously isn’t just a UK
phenomenon, it happens in Australia too. I bet it is probably global.
Our two students, this evening, were equally as shocked by the litter as
we. Once again the girls put the guy to shame. But even Olivia did admit to
chucking stuff away without really thinking, at times. There is no hope. We are
doomed to be wallowing in a sea of other people’s shite.
Wednesday Feb 18th.
The third Wednesday of the month seems to have rolled round pretty
quickly. We had our girls’ meal tonight at Lorraine’s. She lives at Stannington
and we got lost driving to it! Durr. She is a really bubbly redhead who,
despite her hair, is actually very calm and placid in her dealings at work. She
is a legal secretary and she has been doing this for years and years, she’s 35
and is married. Paul works at an accountant’s in the city (Sheffield) I don’t
think he’s Chartered, I believe he’s the next level down [he’s definitely not
an AAT though]. He’s also got red hair! Her family are from Germany, which is
how we started to get to know each other although her folks are way over the
other side to Magdeburg, being from Essen.
Their house is a fairly large semi-detached. It’s quite modern and has
the staircase and hall as the connecting wall with the other semi. This is a
much better idea than having the lounges share the dividing wall. I do know
that she and Paul trying for a baby but that wasn’t mentioned at all tonight.
Maybe it isn’t common knowledge among the rest of the girls. I do find people
tend to share confidences with me quite a lot. Laura says it is because I have
a facial expression which seems to convey the impression that I am listening
intently, even if I am being bored out of my skull by the speaker or their
subject. She says it is this look which makes people think I am interested in
them, that and the fact that I don’t butt in or try to ‘top’ whatever they have
just said with an anecdote or a point of my own. (I think she may be describing
the difference between my pillock of a brother and me. I have started to call
him Al – Citius, Altius, Fortius – I don’t think he has got it yet. He always
has to have a ‘better’ story than yours. It is getting to be a very annoying
trait.)
Our meal was a three bird roast, turkey, duck and chicken breast with a
pork, apple and cranberry stuffing. She
had done some stir fry vegetables, which was a changed from boiled ones. Someone
asked if she had done the prep of the birds herself and she did confess it was
from Sainsbury’s. Wherever it was from I thought it was scrumptious. I think we
may have to pay Sainsbury’s a visit. A couple of these in the freezer would add
zest to our weekly menu every once in a while.
Our conversation rolled round to menus at our forth coming meals (and
the Scampi Tails quiz team) I said I was thinking of doing rabbit. That
resulted in some shocked expressions and out loud wondering if I was serious. I
asked Laura to describe my rabbit and chickpea casserole. She waxed lyrical
about the tomatoes and herbs and the way the chick peas seem to absorb the
stock. Plus, out of keeping with the Iberian roots of the recipe I add good old
fashioned suet dumplings as well. By the time she had done describing it all of
them seemed to be won round. Then she went and blew it slightly by saying that
last time I had missed a couple of shot pellets which came as a surprise when
she was eating.
The Scampi Tails are all primed and ready to go battling with the
population of my village (mainly the males, who seem to be seriously affronted
by the fact that we keep winning). The next quiz is on Wednesday 25th
and we are fielding two teams again. Just as a bit of silliness, and to keep us
on our toes, Lorraine whipped out some word walls between the main and dessert
course to sharpen out wits. Paul had the answers and we were allowed to offer
up our submissions per line and he’d tell us if we were right or wrong. They’d
dug them out of the Radio Times, apparently. Our trio: Me, Sue and Chrissy
completed our wall (it took about five minutes) the other two trios managed two
rows each with theirs. It seems that only Lorraine and I are afficianados of
‘Only Connect’ so the others were struggling with the concept. L & P are
like me, in having been fans since its BBC Four days. We followed the game
rules exactly, so that when we had two complete rows there were only three
more guesses allowed.
Having had our brains fried we were pleased that the dessert
was a cold one. It was a pavlova and delicious. It helped cool our fevered
brows. Afterwards we slumped in L & P’s lounge and finished off the wine
and then drank gallons of coffee, well, all except me, that is, as I don’t like
the taste of coffee. Being prepared for this eventuality I produced a t-bag
from my handbag and had a cuppa made with it instead.
We giggled and gossiped and generally did what we usually
do at these functions. The main one, I think, is to listen to each-others’
plans hopes, schemes and dreams and try to offer up help, suggestions or both.
Laura was given some advice on funding her part-time MA and I was told that if
I needed to get looking for what I was going to do after my casket work was
completed, there were several people I could ask; especially if I wanted to
branch into law rather than attempt to become a full-time lecturer. I didn’t
know, for example, that there are non-degree courses which will allow you to
specialise in a particular aspect of the law to enable you to become a solicitor.
Now that was interesting. [I didn’t say so at the time but I thought that could
be a brilliant fall-back option for me.]
The last of the guests left at about 12.30 (yes, that
included Laura and me). Stannington is a spit from our house and we drove back
via Bradfield, not getting lost this time, covering the distance in under 10
minutes. I was sort of hoping we would find the litter lout parked up along
Lumb Lane or the Onseacre road, but we didn’t. Callie and I did the short walk
round to Don View House this evening and I was busy zed pushing by 1.30.
Thursday Feb 19th
My cardboard sign has gone! Whether it was the shameful
litter lout Mrs Crawley who removed it, or someone else, I’ll probably never
know. The good news was the Macdonald’s packaging and the co-op stuff had all
gone too. That may be a sort of result. Both Laura, at home, and Sarah at the
pool seemed to think it was a sort of victory. Let’s hope so.
My students didn’t fall asleep or fidget during this
morning’s lecture. I had some sensible questions in the Q & A and had a few
of them hang back for more details about some of the points I had made. Today
was mainly about the building boom created by the new middle classes. I have a
pile of powerpoint slides of places built since the monasteries went the way of
all flesh. I didn’t go through all 100 photographs during the 50 minutes; there
wouldn’t have been enough time.
One of them showed me a Youtube video of someone called
the Everley Pregnant Brothers (spelling may be wrong) singing “Oyl int Ruwad”.
This is an old pedestrian underpass in the centre of town, which has long gone,
but which went under a roundabout and had the centre open to the sky. It was sung
in broad Sheffieldish and had references to local companies, landmarks and
products. It was a stop motion video using Lego Duplo figures. I loved it. Here’s
the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR6FmJSyp2A
If you are not a local, or have lived here for a while, you may need a
translation.
Our two students tonight are local Sheffielders, of
several generations, and they hadn’t heard of the band at all but they did get
all the song’s references! They were also appalled by the litter and general
rubbish around the city which currently makes the score - girls 6 boys 1 in
terms of thinking it is a problem.
Tomorrow is the BBC Philharmonic in our concert series.
Mum and Tony aren’t going but we will see them over the weekend. More Sibelius
and Tchaikovsky are on the programme. Getting to be a regular feature, it
seems.
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