Monday 21st September to Friday 2nd October.
Term has begun much as usual really. As per the norm there was no sign of a certain wandering Frenchwoman - I really don't know how she gets away with it, I really don't. If I was as tardy and unpunctual I am sure I would have been shown the door. [There's the door!]
All in all a pretty quiet week to begin with, as happens sometimes. The two West Australian AFL teams both had the weekend off as they won their first match and didn't need to got through the repecharge system - although maybe a week off was too much for some, as I will explain later.
At Uni I had a bit of a crisis of confidence as I realised that after this year, that is it. Full stop. End of my days as a student. This was completely overwhelming and I even began to well up a little. I called Dad at his Uni and was put through immediately (which is a first - I usually get an irritated woman telling me he is in a lecture or a tutorial or a meeting). I did actually blub down the phone to my Dad so he told me off and made me go onto Skype so we could see each other.
It is actually streets better seeing the person you are talking to when you are upset, even if you can't hug them. He was calm and sensible and gave me reassuring words. He spoke about climbing and how, when I was stuck I didn't give up and abseil back down, I would look around for an alternative route. He made me promise to come up to Cumbria this coming weekend to have a hug and so we could watch the AFL Semi-finals together.
He even said he'd send me a few copies of the Times Higher Education magazine which are chock full of jobs. I just love him so much.
On the tram home I told Loll this and I kissed her. Some grumpy old git behind us exclaimed, in a voice that could have been heard in Bognor, "Well, really!". So Laura turned around and said, "Yes, really!" and she proceeded to give me a really passionate snog there and then; tongues and all. I hope the old git died of apoplexy!
I called Mum when we had finished our evening meal and she told me I wasn't surgically attached to my house! That was a bit of a shock. I do love this place. It is my first ever house and I have lavished lots of love and attention on it. She did tell me all about the moving she and Dad did and how it was upsetting to move but each new place seemed better than the last. I can't quite imagine that about my little house. I tried using the uncertainty of the long distance relationship tack with her but she was able to counter that reminding me that Loll and I had conducted the early stages of our love affair when we lived over 100 miles apart.
A little while after this Dad sent an e-mail with a list of all the Higher Education places offering degree courses within a 50 mile radius of my house. There are masses. Good old Dad!
We sneaked away from Uni at lunchtime on Friday to get to Dad's before he Louisa and Chloé got home from Lancaster. We had a meal already cooking for them when they arrived and I kidnapped Chloé for a stroll round the village while they got themselves sorted out. Molly and Eric were pleased to see me and my baby sister (half) and they were even more pleased to be invited to the Food fair in Cockermouth on Saturday. It is quite unusual for Eric to be home at the weekend. We arranged to pick them up at about 10 am - to avoid the crowds.
AFL: Arrggghhh! Gloom and doom. The Dockers got their arses severely kicked by Hawthorn - again. It was really quite upsetting, Ironically, it ended up being Dad who needed the hug after the game! We watched it in the family room with Dad and I sprawled on the corner sofa, snuggled up under his left arm. Laura was snuggled under my left arm and Louisa and Chloé completed the picture under Dad's right arm. [Sultan in his harem?]
The game was tense and fraught and not without incident and controversy but the Hawks lead at the end of each quarter and we were well and truly stuffed. This has happened so many times this season, we go into a match as favourites and get beaten. The Hawks scored 15.4 = 94 points to the Dockers feeble 10.7 = 67 points. (The figures are 'goals' - 6 points; 'behinds' - 1 point and the over all total.) Fyfe even broke his leg during the game!
On the Saturday I kidnapped Chloé and we drove Laura's Mum & Dad and the kidnp victim into Cockermouth. There were far more stalls for the Food Fair this year than last and we tasted and sampled loads of things. We had a mega chat with a lady from Haverigg Prison, near Millom, who runs a rehabilitation scheme for the prisoners there by means of a smokehouse. There are usually a couple of trustees on the stall with her but she explained they bad been naughty boys and had their privileges suspended. We bought a few packets of her smoked items for our evening meal [they were delicious, btw]. As a consolation for Dad I bought him a bottle of the Lakes Distillery's 'One Gin'. I have some of their 'One Whisky' but as a new convert to gin I have started sampling this ruination of mothers. LOL
It was nice. Not as earth shatteringly brilliant as Tanqueray10 but a close second. We downed a series of glasses mixed with tonic and citrus slices as we watched with horror The Budgies beat North Melbourne. OH NO - nightmare scenario enacted: Docker lose, Budgies win. They could go on to win the bloody Premiership next Saturday! Despite having six tumblers full of G & T I didn't feel intoxicated at all.
On the Sunday, which was another gorgeous day, I dragged everyone - Dad, Louisa, Laura and Chloé to Lorton Valley. I drove us in Dad's car so we could take the wolf pack too. Parking at the foot of Rannerdale Knotts we ambled up the valley to the hause between the Knotts themselves and the start of the Grasmoor path then dropped down into the village of Buttermere. I carried the baby in its papoose all of the way until we got to the cafe in the village. Louisa took her to the loo to change her and then carried her the rest of the way back to the car.
We walked past the north shore of Crummockwater and the fossilised dinosaur tail of rocks that extend out in to the water. It isn't really a fossil, that was just my childhood name for them and it has stuck.
Sauntering along the shore I had a longish chat with Louisa about the baby and stuff and she said she was delighted to be able to get back into a lot of her favourite clothes again. She wasn't exactly a large person to begin with and I used to wonder how someone so skinny could manage to pop out two babies without causing herself serious injury. (Cheryl, her oldest is the same as Laura but she and Mum don't get on!) The walk was a good way of her seeing how her fitness levels had returned too. The only thing she really needed now was getting Dad to have sex with her as often as they did before! Well, please... That was a conversational gambit too far, IMHO. I changed the subject. It is really weird hearing your parent's sexual habits discussed. It is definitely something I don't wish to repeat any time soon!
We almost drove round to the Kirkstile Inn for lunch but in the end we didn't. Dad found out later in the week it was packed out, a combination of the gorgeous weather and the Food Fair in Cockermouth bringing the locals out. Dad knows the owner and he told him that some people at the bar got a bit fractious as the two staff serving/taking orders got swamped. When I worked as a barmaid in Cambridge I used to hate it when the bar was busy. People could get really unpleasant if they thought you had served someone who was after them in the queue (scrum, usually).
After lunch we made a leisurely return to Sunny Sheffield (it was sunny too) so we could get an early night to be primed to watch the eclipse of the moon. At three oh five my alarm went off and we trooped out in to the back garden to see the moon starting to be totally obscured by the Earth's umbra. Total coverage came at about 3.25 and we witnessed the orange disc created by this exceedingly rare phenomenon. It was a bit chilly, standing in the garden in our dressing gowns and I said so. Laura said she knew how to warm me up and began to inveigle her naughty fingers under my dressing gown and then into a warmer place of my own. It had the desired heating up effect, as it always does, and we decide to adjourn back inside where I could play hide the fingers too. Plus we were a little worried in case any of our neighbours were secret watching the eclipse too, from the comfort of their own windows and could see exactly what those two blonde girls we doing under the blood red moon.
It was almost five when we attempted sleep again. We were both a hell of a lot warmer, though!
The same night I encountered my ex-boyfriend at the Vet's as it was Callie's booster time again. The receptionist (Hannah) told me the news that Alan (the aforementioned vet) was getting married! There was a turn up. I almost cancelled the appointment after I realised who the receptionist told me I'd be seeing but I thought it would seem pretty strange to phone straight back and do so, it would wouldn't it? Plus, it was the last appointment of the evening, so cancelling that would have meant choosing another day.
Alan was Mr Professional during the consultation and afterwards he told me his news. His bride to be is called Gail, he did tell me what she did for a living but my mind was off wandering... Why had we not reached that stage in our relationship? Why didn't we have sex until after I had dumped him?
The cheeky bugger interrupted my reverie and asked if he could steal a kiss for old time's sake. My mind was going Nooooo! My mouth just kissed him. The naughty man then tried to put his tongue in my mouth... Once again the mind and body were out of sync and I responded in kind. After a minute of eating each other's faces I could feel an insistent bulge pressing against my tummy. I pulled back and said, "Down boy. down!"
He accused me of being responsible for the bulge and that I could always do something about it if I wanted. Boy did I want... It would have been so easy to have unzipped him and taken that firm sausage into my mouth again. I have done it many times before [when we were a couple, not at theVet's!]; luckily common sense prevailed and I pulled away. I told him I thought it would be better if I saw Maxine in future and left.
Sitting in the car I couldn't help but wonder why he had been so forward and what that meant for the security of his marriage with the unfortunate Gail. I did feel as guilty as hell for snogging him though. I mean, what a stupid, stupid, stupid thing to do! I need my head examining at times.
The wayward Felice arrived during the week demanding to know where I had been. The cheeky madam. I told her I had been in the usual spots with my phone at all times. She countered saying that every time she called she got a strange tone. The dozy cow has a new i-phone six and has somehow transposed two of my numbers. No wonder she couldn't get through. She edited her contacts list and, hey presto, was able to ring me from one seat in the SCR to the other!
She wanted to contact me because she is single again. (No surprise there...) I assume she wanted a shoulder to cry on, metaphorically, and it was my fault that she had mistyped my number!
I have been given the new list of undergrad mentees for this year, I now have over 50 of them, spread over the three years. I e-mailed my newbies and my old stagers and arranged meetings with them during the next fortnight. I started with the freshers on Friday. They look even younger than ever! The usual mixture of bravado, arrogance and shyness, over-topped with a feeling of awe at meeting a 'staff member' who will be their mentor. A couple of the guys seemed really obnoxious, I hope they calm down during the semester.
One girl reminded me of Mandy, my wall flower fresher who became a limpet for a while. This one was very shy and nervous and when she left gave me a hug and a peck on the cheek. Ahem! She's called Lucy, is from North Wales and has that sing-song way of speaking that some Welsh people have. She is doing Art or Art History or something along those lines. She reminded me, a bit, of my niece Annabelle. She had that same naive enthusiasm mixed with worry about not fitting in or getting things wrong or people not liking her.
The rest of the week was the usual mix of Uni and Work and swimming and dog walking. We did manage to fit in going to rock on one evening when we finished early. Just onto Stanage Edge. The weather was so good, it was an opportunity not to be missed.
A final note, Steve has asked me if I am OK to do some picking up on Saturday. I agreed but I'll be cutting it fine as we have a concert at the City Hall in the evening. The money has gone up to £75 for the day, which is a pleasant surprise, and two birds if enough are shot. Luckily I didn't invite Mum & Tony over for a meal before the concert as it may have been cutting things a bit fine.
Words on the concert; the picking up and our Girl Dining Club meal in the next post.
