Falling Branches and Ministering Angels?

Monday 7th October.

I think I am going to have to prise the steering wheel from Laura’s hands if I ever hope to drive the new car again! She took driving duty to the pool and into Uni, today, and she wouldn’t take No for an answer. She was never like this with my little Picanto. One plus point, though, I have discovered I notice a hell of a lot more as a passenger than I do as a driver. I had forgotten that. It is really nice to be driven. I wonder what she’d do if I sat in the back seat when she insists on driving again? That could be funny.

Felice and I have got our routine more or less sorted out now. I do the first tea. Then she does the second one, we alternate like this odd / even until the fourth one which has biscuits. We keep the biscuits rationed as we may end up like the Michelin Man if we scoff too much. We have decided to only have them on multiples of four. Some days we never reach the twelfth pot so that is another figure saver, too. We also are trying to make a packet of biscuits last three days. We’re taking it in turns to bring those in too. She has cheated slightly with some gorgeous Palets Bretons which she brought with her back from France. I hope she has brought lots of packets over. They make our plain chocolate hobnobs rather tame in comparison.

I have finally got her to agree to Earl Grey as our tea of choice. She wasn’t sure at first but I have been working away at her, and TBH, it is by far the nicest tea available in Britain. She has also realised that it does taste better from a teapot, rather than making individual mugs full. I’ll make an Anglophile out of her yet. Loll has sussed out it is cheaper to head round to our shoe box office rather than visit the refec. for a swift cuppa during the day. That throws our regimented regime out a bit but I don’t mind. Well, I don’t usually, but this morning she brought two of her Maths colleagues with her and had promised them a cuppa too! We may need to sort out some sort of ground rules if she does this often. There are only five other girls doing her course, the rest are guys. The two she brought round, are from Skelmersdale and Wales so we had a real mix of weird and wonderful accents to confuse Felice even more than usual.

Back home I turned our kitchen into a Turkish baths as I cooked our meal. I think the cooker hood has died. It stopped extracting the steam from the saucepans just after I had got them boiling away like a Terence Cuneo painting of old steam engines. It isn’t the fuse or anything as the light was still on. I took the panel with the switches to bits after we’d eaten [the last of the lamb – it had a long bleat, did that little creature] and fiddled with my testing screwdriver. The cable to the switch just wasn’t live anymore. I couldn’t find out where the power break was as the switching unit was a sealed item.

After the Lollster had gone to work I surfed the net and found that it would be better to buy a new extractor than to try messing with the switch. A new extractor was on the agenda when I had the cupboard fronts changed in the kitchen when I bought the house, but as it still worked fine, and looked fairly clean and grease free I saved the money and bought another pair of speakers for the hi-fi, to run through into my kitchen instead. [That way I can have music in both downstairs rooms at a sensible volume rather than having it blasting out in the lounge so I could hear it in the kitchen – antisocial or what?]

The only problem may be the fitting points. They are all a standard size, 60cm, and they all have a pull out front which switches the thing on. The cupboard door fits to this pull out front. It is where the extractor fastens on to the wall which may be an issue. The old one didn’t go all the way up to the top of the units and the plug socket had been placed in the space it left. If the new ones are bigger I may have to move the socket too. That may need a real sparky for that as doing it myself may invalidate my home insurance. I put new electrics into my loft room when I moved in. There were no sockets in there at all, so I ran a cable from the fuse box in the kitchen up through the house and put a separate new ring main in there which had its own fuse down stairs. The electrician who came to inspect and validate the work was very impressed but at first refused to believe it was me that had done it all. Typical bloody man. How can a girly have done this? Sort of attitude. Needless to say I didn’t offer him a biscuit with his cup of tea. I was going to attempt to run a radiator up into there too but Phil’s friend is a plumber who did it for nothing, so I didn’t argue. Apparently my boiler could run another three radiators, goodness knows why the previous owners bought one with such over capacity for the size of the house!

Dominic’s Dornfelder has arrived. It is very nice but the wholesaler has charged him a huge amount for it. He thinks it will have to go on his wine list at almost £20 per bottle! That is a vast mark up! Laura made another £30+ in tips tonight. If she goes on like this her tips will be higher than her actual wage. Because she was tired I offered to wash her in the shower. We didn’t get much washing done. There’s a surprise!

Tuesday 8th October.

The scum bags at Yahoo have sent another e-mail which ignored completely my account suspension appeal. The bastards. I have sent them three more e-mails from each of my non-Yahoo accounts telling them how rubbish their system is. I somehow don’t think I’ll be getting my account un-suspended soon.

We swan 100 lengths each this morning. Rah, rah rah! We also refrained from any shenanigans in the changing rooms. Aren’t we good girls? Laura drove us into Uni again but I didn’t sit in the back. Chick, chick, chick, chick, chicken! Felice and I had our weekly meeting with our supervisor, who seemed as vague as they always are. But they were happy. So we are obviously OK. Felice is going on another date tonight. Someone she met in the supermarket!? I will have to keep my ear to the ground and get all the goss.

At X, X, X & Y things are pretty much as they were before I went to Australia. Nothing major seems to have happened during my antipodean adventure. In fact the digitising of the files seemed to be exactly where I had left it in July. I asked Mrs Briggs about this and she said that no-one was available to do it. Mmmm…. I am not sure what to make of that, at all.

Bloody Christopher appeared like the spectre at the feast and is still giving off those bloody "love-sick" vibes. He is so annoying. I don’t really know what to do to stop him being such a pain. I don’t want to report him and get him into trouble but I wish he would stop coming down to ARR and sighing at me. Maybe I could set him up with Felice, he can’t be as bad as supermarket guy will turn out to be. [Actually, that could possibly be worse.]

Laura had dinner waiting again on my return. Very tasty. We fed each other which we thought would be quite erotic but it turned out to just be funny instead. Still, you never know unless you try, do you.

Her tips tonight were a bit lower than yesterday’s but she is still making a mint. It is kind of worrying that the customers may be giving her big tips because of her looks. I know that is silly but I have a weird feeling that it is somehow wrong. She does look absolutely gorgeous anyway. In her waitress’s outfit she looks like sex on legs too. I wonder if it is a kind of jealousy?

I spent the evening taking the old cooker hood off the wall. I said it looked clean and grease free – well, that was incorrect. It was filthy. I am surprised at how gopping it actually is. It came off pretty easily and the door was simplicity itself to remove. I am now faced with the task of searching for the best deal on a replacement. I gave the whole space a thorough clean [as you can imagine] but I have left the screw holes for the moment. I was going to pack them with filler but decided to leave them until I knew for certain then one I buy won’t share the same holes. I dumped the unit by my wheelie bin but I bet the binmen don’t take it when they are here on Thursday morning.

All three of us did the final walk tonight and then Loll and I showered together. I just don’t think I have removed all the grease from my fingers, despite repeated washings, so I was a bit circumspect about using them in Laura’s interesting little places. She was quite pragmatic and told me to stop being silly and just use them as they were. Who would have thought OCD could make a barrier to sex?

Wednesday 9th October.

Our dining group met at Claire’s tonight. She had been prevailed upon to do another Spanish meal and duly obliged. I can’t recall what she called it but we had about three different mains and a pineapple dessert. The mains were hot and meaty, full of tomatoes and spices. No rice and no prawns anywhere! They stained your fingers or clothes if spilled. Luckily I didn’t discover this the hard way, Sandy did. All down her lemon skirt! Claire gave her one of hers to change into and we tried to remove the stain. It didn’t shift! This was much later in the day of course.

Our day began with Laura still being the driver to the pool but then I took the car off to work for the day. Still being the "Digitiser", like the Terminator but in reverse, saving stuff not destroying it. Bloody Christopher came down again. He wants to know if I have played the Nigel Kennedy DVD. Just an excuse I suppose, but I couldn't bite his head off for that. It is brilliant. It isn't the Four Seasons and I imagine Vivaldi would be horrified at the liberties Kennedy has taken but I loved it. You'd have thought the idiot thought I was saying I loved him.

More bad news on the Christopher front. He has bought tickets for the entire International Concert Season at the City Hall too! Bloody shitehawks! He's seeing the Britten War Requiem which we didn't book, so he'll be there for every other single sodding concert. Staring a week on Saturday with the Halle again! Laura and I may just have to get really affectionate with each other in his presence just so he really gets the idea! I told Laura this and she thought it was hilarious.

Claire's home is in one of the new flats they have build along the River Don in the city centre. It is straight down the road for us and a doddle to find. She has been in it for about a year now. The view is pretty smart from inside although I wouldn't want to be a ground floor resident. We had Spanish food, as I have said and everyone brought Spanish wine. We brought some Tempranillo Rose, which I was surprised to find and even more surprised to discover it was delicious. There were only six of us tonight, which was a bit disappointing but hey, it isn't a three line whip.

She is mad keen on women singer song writers so we had an evening being serenaded by Katie Melua, Amy Macdonald et al. I asked if she got any Joni Mitchell and she'd never heard of her! Can you believe it? I rushed down to the car and brought out one of my CD wallets. I put Dad's CDs in them. He burns me everything he buys and some I have had since I was at school. Each wallets hold 200 CDs and there are six in the car. I took out "Court and Spark" and everyone was amazed by the purity of J M's voice and how good the songs were too.

She ended up burning copies of my burned copies of five Joni Mitchell albums. That was quite an unexpected turn up for the books. I think when she gets time to listen to them properly she'll fall in love with "Blue" it is my favourite. Even the Lollster was a Joni Mitchell virgin. I guess you need to have an older person introduce you to stuff if you are ever going to find anything of interest.

We got talking and looking through the CD wallet and I have a wealth of Classic Albums from my Dad over the years in there. Wallet is a misnomer. They are ring binders with clear plastic pages. Each page holds four CDs and each binder has fifty pages. They do take up a lot of space in the car, to be honest. You can guess they are all indexed. I did have them arranged by title but now they are by artist instead. It makes things easier to find. This wallet was K to O.

In my descriptions of him I think I have sort of made him out to be some cool, switched on parent, they all want to meet him. Mmm.... that could be interesting. Laura helped fuel the fire by saying her Mum fancied him like mad. (I did know that already!) They were amazed by the fact he married a woman almost twenty years his junior last year and even more so when I told them that Louisa was hoping for a baby! They were totally unsympathetic to my objections and thought it would be lovely. Lovely?! Arrgghhh!!

We hit the road at about ten past midnight and witnessed a chap being breathalysed just near Sheffield Wednesday's football ground. Luckily I had the recommended amount to keep me under the limit. Loll on the other hand was a little inebriated. She dug out the Flying Wilbury's CD and played Tweeter and the Monkey Man over and over again all the way home. We both did an out of tune sing along, I have to admit.

She stayed in while I took Callie out for her last walk of the day (or the first of Thursday). When I got back Laura was fast asleep in the kitchen arm chair with one arm still in the sleeve of her duffel coat. I took her coat off or her and tried to get her to stand but she was out of it, big time. So I managed to stand her up and fireman's lifted her up to bed. I know she is very slim but seven and a half stones gets heavy when you are carrying it upstairs.
She was still fast asleep when I poured her onto the bed from my shoulder. I took great delight in slowly and carefully undressing her, then getting her into her PJs.

She woke up just as I was climbing in alongside her. "You are the best thing that's ever happened to me...." she slurred at me and then was off again. It made me cry, I used to say that to Richard.

Thursday 10th October.

It seems that Claire had been topping everyone's glass up all night, except mine. I had said I was the driver. I hope the other three weren't driving home or they could have been like that poor guy at Hillsborough.

Looking very fragile, Laura cried off walking, and swimming, this morning. Sarah noticed, at the pool, and we joked about youngsters not being able to hold their liquor! Back home I was greeted by the smell of frying bacon. The gorgeous girl had done bacon butties for breakfast! She was still feeling very delicate and I drove us into Uni. It was probably a good thing I did too.

The wind which had been pretty strong for most of Wednesday seemed even stronger as we left the village and, driving along Middlewood Road, a huge branch fell from a tree right onto the roof of a car heading in the opposite direction just as it passed us! Out of the corner of my eye I could see the thing fall and the splat onto the roof of the car. The guy swerved and then when straight into the bank side crumpling up the front of the car.

I stamped on my anchors and pulled up on to the kerb. I got Laura to phone for an ambulance and the Police and rushed over to the car, which was partially embedded into the side of the hill. I don't know why I did it but I took out my phone and started filming as I hurried over to the car. It was a silver grey Honda Jazz. 63 Plate. Sheffield letters: YT. The driver was a white haired guy who was sat looking completely dazed behind his air bag.

I yanked open the door and asked him if he was OK? Was he hurt? Could he move? What was his name? I told him I was Vicki. I was from the white car.

I was still pointing the phone all through this. Filming away. He said, "Are you the police?" I assumed it must have been the white car and my outfit which made him ask. A dark navy two piece (blazer and pencil skirt) and dark tights. He said he was called Henry, but everyone called him Harry. He was fine. He thought he was fine. A bit shook up. He wanted to know what had hit his car. I was able to tell him he'd been hit by a falling branch.

He had a graze on the side of his forehead  but otherwise I couldn't see any other visible injuries. I asked him again if he was hurt and he told me his foot hurt. His left one. I couldn't see under the airbag all that well, but it looked like the whole front of the car had been pushed backwards. I assumed that his left foot could be trapped by the pedals or something but didn't pursue it further.

I told him that Laura had phoned for an ambulance and help would be here soon. As I said that she walked across and told me and Henry the same thing.

She then went into the road and started to help move vehicles past the Honda just like a traffic cop would do! In about three minutes we heard a siren and an ambulance came haring round the corner. It pulled up behind the Honda and two people got out, a man and a woman. They asked me who I was and I explained and told them about Henry. They said they would take care of things from there and if I could help that other woman guiding traffic it'd be useful.

Another couple of minutes passed and a second siren drew closer, this was a police car. The WPC parked behind my Kia and came across to talk first to the medics and then to Laura and me. Then a second police car pulled up and a very overweight policeman clambered out. He talked briefly to the WPC and then took over directing the traffic while she walked us back towards her car. She asked us to sit in the back, she sat in the front and then turned round and asked us what had happened.

So we explained. About our drive to work. Where we were going.  The fact I was driving because Laura had had a skinful the night before; the fact we lived together. We gave her our names and our address and our work address. I explained about the branch and how I'd seen the car swerve into the bankside. I then remembered my phone and played her the video I'd shot. It went on up to me pointing it at Laura directing traffic. Then I'd turned it off.

She talked with us a bit longer and then said we could go on our way. She thanked us for our help and said they'd take care of everything from now on. She told us that someone may be in touch with us later and they may need a copy of the phone footage too. This must have taken way longer than it has to write it. But it seemed to pass very quickly.
The big guy was still directing traffic as we left and a police Landrover pulled up on to the space we drove away from, nose to nose with the WPC's car.

We arrived at Uni as excited as little children who'd been to a fair or circus and nobody took a blind bit of notice. I walked up to our office and Felice had left a post-it on the door asking me to go along to the French Department where she was tied up with something. It was such an anti-climax. We  felt like super-heroes and no-one there gave us another glance.

Loll and I met up for lunch in the refec and she was greeted as a star by Felice which made me feel jealous as hell, because that was just what I hoped would happen to both of us when we arrived. Yes, Felice thought I'd been very responsible and public spirited, and all that sort of stuff, when I explained where we'd been and why we were late. BUT Laura got the shrieks and the loud cries and the excitement. It was so disappointing. Then I felt really guilty for having wanted to be feted because old Henry's misfortune.

Life is so weird like that. Isn't it. You want to be calm and matter of fact and say it was no big deal, anyone would have done the same thing and yet you want to be fussed and praised and told you are brilliant and stuff, all at the same time! Perhaps I am just a really immature person at heart.

Sitting at the refec table I had this unbelievably horrible thought. It was the very first time it had occurred to me. I must have gone as pale as death because they both asked me what was the matter? I just said, "Bloody hell, you know, we were so lucky. That branch could have hit us!"

Do you know, that was the very first thing my Mum said (and my Dad) and Dominic at the restaurant, and virtually everyone else we told about it?

I bet Callie would have said the same too if she could talk!

Mum and Daughter get sozzled again!

Friday 4^th October.

Even darker this morning than yesterday, maybe it had something to do with the deep cloud cover above our heads? I was a solo dog walker this morning but Laura was all ready with the car to whizz off to the pool when Callie and I returned. She really does love driving the Quokka around. Callie has managed to hide her three chew toys underneath the load space protector! I have no idea how she has done it, the silly puppy! I fetched them out for her before I closed the boot and when we came out of the pool she had hidden one again already. Dogs do the silliest things at times.

Laura played chauffeuse into University too. I could really get used to this treatment. We arranged to meet for lunch in one of the eateries on campus. Felice asked if she could tag along. I get a bit worried about Felice at times, in case she blabs about how she and I almost had sex together before we both realised we were making a terrible mistake. Me, because of my overwhelming guilt at betraying Laura and Felice, for not feeling pleasure when we kissed but instead almost a feeling of revulsion! The thing is she has an unpredictable manner and often comes out with the most unexpected things as though she doesn’t understand the consequences of what she says. Perhaps this is simply a characteristic of the French? We have talked about how she mustn’t let Laura know what we nearly did but I still get fretful.

We have made some good progress this week. The document we selected seems to be another inventory but this time of land holdings. We tried to discover whereabouts the places mentioned were but we are running through treacle on this at the moment. That is our focus for start of next week. We’ll be doing an archive search, right up my street! I have only three students left to see for their initial meetings, then we’ll have to play it by ear.

One of the guys is absolutely gorgeous. I mean he is such a good looking bloke I bet the girls will be swooning over him. Well, until he speaks that is. You then discover he is the most arrogant, conceited, self-opinionated little twat I have ever met. No doubt some silly wench will put up with his pompous misogyny because of his looks. I do hope he drops out. Shame really, probably a waste of a good penis there. Although, all his obnoxious demeanour may be used to hide the fact he’s a pinky dick! I cannot remember ever taking a dislike to someone so quickly in my life. He may be a complete nightmare. One of the other tutors was saying he liked to get the students to socialise as a group. Mmmm…. That could be tricky. Would it be possible to accidentally forget to tell him about every group event I arrange?

Laura is as happy as a pig in muck with her new course. She is one of the few women who seem to read numbers the same way I read a book, and everyone on the staff who meet her treat her as though she is really special [well, that’s what she tells me, anyway]. I can vouch for how special she is to me. The only downside of this is I can’t understand a lot of what she’s talking about. Even when she tries to dumb it down to my level, at times I still don’t get it! Arggh!

Mum was busy slaving over a hot stove when we got in, she had brought a leg of lamb and it was roasting gently. It smelled absolutely delicious. She had missed eating it out in Oz as Suze and the girls aren’t happy with eating it, so they never buy it. She’s got a tray of roast veggies on the go too and several pans ready to switch on with veggies to boil too. Callie, apparently, had never been more than a yard away from her all afternoon as she was prepping and then cooking. Dessert was one of my own Lemon Meringue Pies, she’s had to endure the kids going on about Aunt Vic’s LMP while she was out there too, so she brought one I had made for her, which she’d frozen. We opened a bottle of Dornfelder for the occasion, although Loll had only one glass as she was at work for 7pm.

The meal was absolutely scrumptious. There was masses left, so Callie had the veggies with her sup sup at 6.30ish [that’s the time of her evening feed, just as the BBC Radio 4 Evening news finishes] and Mum and I split the remaining meat between us. There will be enough for a meal tomorrow evening, which will be useful as we are off to the Crucible to see “The Winter’s Tale”. That’s Laura and me, not the three of us. I think Mum’s going later in the run – it’s on until November. Loll decided she’d better drive herself down to the restaurant as both Mum and I were probably over the legal limit by 7pm.

When she got back the dipsomaniac Mum & Daughter had almost finished a second bottle of Dornfelder! We had been having a good old reminisce about Australia. The present she had bought us was brilliant. You recall the heart shaped Lapis Lazuli pendants inside a gold setting, which I mentioned previously? [In earlier the blog! Do keep up!] Well, she found the bracelets that went with the hearts. They are small Lapis hearts inside gold settings, about eight of them, round the gold bracelet. They are simply gorgeous. I think any displeasure that may have been forth coming from the Lollster was washed away by the bracelets.

We decided not to open a third bottle as that would definitely give us a sore head for the morning and Laura and I were going climbing with Mike & Angela, from the Uni. Mum was pleased at how clean and tidy my second bedroom was [just because she uses hers as a junk room]. She was out like the proverbial light. Callie and I had a small wobble for our last walk of the night, which she didn’t seem to mind.

Laura was a little miffed that I had got a bit sozzled with my Mum. I don’t think she could imagine getting sozzled with Molly which might have explained her pique. She soon came round when I proved alcohol didn’t impair my performance. [We had to remember not to make too much noise, in case we woke up Mum.]

Saturday 5^th October.

Mum was dead to the world as I took the pup for her first walk. She was still under when Laura and I went off to the pool. We were surprised, therefore, to find her up and frying bacon when we got back! You can’t beat walking into a room where someone is cooking bacon. The smell just sets of the salivation worse than a Pavlovian bell. We had two butties each for breakfast and several cups of sweet tea.

Mum followed me as I drove across to Stanage Edge, where we were meeting Mike and Angela who started their novice climbers group last year. There were masses of freshers who signed up so we have decided to do some Saturday mornings for training. Mum drove on to the Fox House and then Owler Bar which is just a spit from her house. She will have avoided all the town centre traffic this way.

The Uni mini bus was in the car park, so we piled out to meet and greet. You could see the looks on some of the students as Mike introduced them to what they’d be doing this morning:  first Vicki would demonstrate pitch one while Mike narrated the climb; then Angela would climb pitch two while Mike narrated the climb. Then each in turn would attempt pitch one and two.

I love the expression on people’s face when I do the limpet act and clamber up a rock face before them. This was quite amusing though as I had to go slower than I would normally have done as Mike had to explain each move as I did it. It was a tiny pitch really so I was being belayed from below [by Loll] using just a chock and crab up above. At the top I abseiled back down and climbed again at normal speed. Then I made myself fast at the belay point and waited while Angela did the same thing up pitch two, a few yards away.

Once we were both in place we started to assist the students up their first pitches. As Laura had belayed me she was the first climber, and she showed that she was more than a novice by making a safe and swift ascent. They all managed with varying degrees of ease of panic or both and when they had finished they swapped over. This time just to remind them, Mike climbed my pitch and Laura climbed Angela’s.

By 1pm each of them had managed five different pitches and they were feeling pleased with themselves. We relocated to the Fox Hill Inn and would you believe it, bloody Callie got greeted by name! Angela had phoned our lunch orders through as the last climbers were finishing off so we had hardly any time to wait for our meals. I had their Yorkshire pudding filled with beef and veggies. Loll had the lasagne. [I don’t cook with cheese so she often has cheesy meals when we are out to compensate for that lack.] Callie had her usual bag of pistachios and a few surreptitious ones from other customers in the bar.

We meandered back home and had a leisurely time cleaning each other in the shower. Well, we cleaned each other some of the time. Laura wanted to know what The Winter’s Tale was about so I spent a good half an hour explaining the details and telling her how she would find it enchanting. She seemed to think that the statue coming to life would be a bit obvious. [Mathematician’s brain, you see!]

We had a second go at Mum’s lamb for tea and have discovered we’ll have enough for tomorrow’s lunch too, if we can stand it for three days in a row.

The Winter’s Tale was just as entrancing as it’s always been and even Laura was able to admit that, “yes it was obvious but it was lovely too.” [She was referring to the bit where the statue comes to life.] We had an after show snorterino in the bar rather than head out into the city where the bars would be crammed and noisy, plus we’d get hit on by every bloody chancer and his mate – it often happens. So we sat and had a glass of Sauv Blanc in the theatre and we still got bloody hit on by a chancer and his mate!

Bloody patronising pair they were. “So what have you been doing today? Shopping?” Dozy bloody drongo. “Actually, “ this was Laura, “we’ve been out in the Peak District teaching students how to rock climb.”

You could see their little brains couldn’t quite compute this fact. “So why are you here then?” What another cretinous question. “We have been to see The Winter’s Tale.” This was also a surprise, almost as much as the fact we’d been rock climbing. You could see they hadn’t a clue what a theatre was, despite the fact they were sat in the building!

We decided that the intellectual stimulation provided by these two was extremely limited so we got up and left them. I hoped it was a shrewd move as they both had full pints as they came over to our table. I half expected them to come outside after us, but they didn’t – or if they did they didn’t see where we’d gone. We had a giggle at their expense as we drove home. It was their question: “You’ve paid to see Shakespeare? Bloody hell!” That caused the most mirth. What a pair of numbskulls. I do hope they aren’t a representative sample of Sheffield’s manhood. What a pretty sorry example they were.

Sunday 6^th October.

Another promising morning preceded a great day, weather wise.

The clan gathered at Phil and Jane’s for lunch today. Mum wanted to go and see her newly pregnant daughter-in-law and her two other grandchildren. Laura and I were invited too. We didn’t drive together [that’s Mum & us] so we could be flexible about our departure times. Mum watched the CD of Jane’s ultrasound scan. I still can’t see the baby! She is over the moon at P & J’s news. Thankfully, she never says anything to me about me, perhaps, becoming a mother. Good job really as it would probably just make me very upset.

We had a post lunch walk out on the moors above Horsforth [where P & J live] which was quite delightful. It was so warm, you can’t really believe it is actually the beginning of October. Peter and Angela enjoy walking so long as we don’t go too far or too fast. They love throwing things for Callie to retrieve and I had brought her small retrieving dummy just so they could do that. Callie is a great advert for weimaraners [well dogs in general really] as she is so gentle with the kids. She delighted them by fetching the dummy from a pond, which they hadn’t expected her to do. [She loves swimming, but will only swim for a purpose – like working trails or game retrieving.] They threw it in for her several times. I think they loved being showered with dog spray as she shook as much as her fetching dummy for them.

Phil finally twisted my arm enough to let him have a drive of my new car. Laura had been going on about how she loves to drive it so much, so I suppose I had no choice, really. He was quite impressed with it too. Shame he said it in that patronising way of his, as if he expects his little sister not to be able to make good decisions about what he considers “Man Stuff”. He was just the same when I lined and panelled out my cellar. I did most of it on my own, over a few days, and he was so condescending about it I almost hit him. To be fair, he has subsequently praised his feisty kid sister who will get her hands dirty doing mega DIY things which lots of men would baulk at. He has the tale of how I shifted two large skips full of earth and debris when I made the “Battleship Potemkin” Odessa steps up into my garden, as one of his examples of how his sister is a seriously weird person. [I only did that because he had decried the idea as beyond me, and that I should get “some man in” to do it. I did get some man in for the bricklaying, but almost everything else I did. Including being the brickie’s navvy – which meant we got the job done much quicker than he’d expected!]

Mum had brought a memory stick [Wow, techno Mum!] full of Australian photographs which we watched before tea – Mum and I did a running commentary on them. She took quite a lot more than I’d realised of our time together and a hell of a lot of her journey upto Geraldton, Kalbarri and Monkey Mia. She had a couple of me looking very worse for wear after our session in Margaret River. A couple would be very good blackmail material against me as I seemed to be in the process of falling out of bed and losing my PJs at the time! [I can’t even remember that, which is a worry.] There were even some of the Grand Final of the AFL, in Melbourne, which The Dockers lost!

She stayed on after tea but Loll and I zoomed off back to Sunny Sheff for a quiet night in and lots of naughtiness together. Well, you have to, don’t you?

Dinnae fash yersel an’ keep ya heid!

Diary 2013. Week Fourteen – Part Two.

Monday September 30^th.

Two blondes went swimming this morning, after just one blonde walked the dog. The dog is not blonde! It is starting to get quite dark at 6am.

First week proper of a new term and I am a complete and utter drongo. I have not felt so stupid for ages and ages! My teaching isn’t lecturing; it is dealing with these Personal Tutor students! The Head Honcho came and told me this morning, not an e-mail, but word of mouth - face to face. I had got hold of the wrong end of the stick and ran with it! Any lecturing I do will be all about the project I am working on. I wanted to turn into an insect and crawl under a stone to hide. [Maybe not a cockroach, though. Urgh!]

HH was impressed by my outlines and proposals for Salisbury and the area’s development and if any way could be found to include that into a programme then I would definitely be considered to present it. Definitely be considered? Oh bloody shite hawks!

I called my Dad at his work and had a jolly good cry at him down the phone. He said he was surprised that I had been offered actual teaching time but didn’t want to say anything in case my Uni worked differently to his. I bloody wish he had. I wouldn’t be feeling like a complete ingenuous twerp at the moment. He told me that his University would have made a definite offer of a teaching commitment, not mentioned it in passing like mine had done. I would have had to been employed on a lecturer’s scale of remuneration and needed to join a Union.

He was like the Priest in R & J telling Romeo all the good things which had happened to him so far when he discovers J’s betrothal to Paris. Dad kept listing all the ways in which I would benefit from what I had signed up for. Especially the fact that at the end of the three years I would be awarded a Ph.D which I was being paid to get! He thought HH’s words were encouraging too, but I shouldn’t expect things to change during this academic year. The curriculum was a bit like a supertanker, taking tens of miles to turn around. I wished I had the ability to disapparate like in the HP books. I would have taken myself to his office so he would have been able to give me a hug and hold me tight. That is what he’s there for, after all!

Felice supplied the hug but it wasn’t the same. I had a second cry at her but I am not sure if she quite understood what I was saying. She was reassuringly sensible and said we should get down to some serious work. It would take my mind off the situation. I was tasked with the job of contacting the V & A and speaking to the collections manager. That was a feat in itself.

The CM was a very friendly sounding person and she was only too happy to let us examine the caskets and photograph them too if we wanted. They have a person who is in charge of textiles, and the like, who would be made available if we wanted. Did we?!  Apparently they had a couple of women there a fortnight ago looking at the boxes with a view to making one of their own! OMG. The synchronicity of things, eh? They weren’t bothered too much about the history, just in the construction of the box. She said they must have been well off as they were staying at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel for the weekend and the rooms there start at £450 per night! They drove to the museum in Taxis from the station! I think our budget may not stretch that far.

It is all arranged. We travel down in just over a fortnight’s time. Felice and I talked about transport arrangement and I did volunteer to drive us down, park up at Stanmore and tube it in from there. Felice said that wasn’t an option. I would be tired from driving then I would have to drive the whole way back as well. She said she was going to book train tickets. She has. Can you believe it?  A few minutes later she came back with the news that we have got two first class tickets to London for £30 each! [That is £30 each way.] I don’t how she managed it but good for her. Even better than that, we will get all our expenses reimbursed as they are counted as justifiable in relation to what we are doing.

The Aged Parent phoned me after lunch, bless him, to see how I was. He had chatted to a couple of colleagues and they were of the same opinion as him. There must’ve been a misunderstanding along the line somewhere. I told him I was fine now and had all but three of my “tutees” reply to my e-mail so I would be earning my bread that way. He did invite me to come up this weekend and we’d go to Z in Whitehaven for a meal but I have already promised to feed Mum and hear about what she did in Oz when I flew home. I have deffo booked in the weekend after and told him he has to let me watch Sleepless in Seattle with him hugging me on the sofa if I am ever going to recover from the ignominy. He just laughed! [I was serious.]

I let Laura drive us home and was able to put all my hand and body gestures into telling her about my stupidity. She was sympathetic and made all the right conciliatory noises. We prepped dinner together, this is unusual – I am the one who always does it. I think it may have been her way of being supportive.

It is strange having Sunday lunch on Monday evening and it has thrown our menu out by two days as well. This was thrown even more out of kilter when Steve came round with two fresh trout caught this morning. They were browns and their season ends on Saturday [this wasn’t in my data set until Steve told me] from then they can only catch rainbow trout. You learn something new every day. I will grill them tomorrow with a stuffing, haven’t decided what yet – maybe a chestnut based one.

Laura went off to the restaurant as usual tonight [they had a hen party group booked in – the wedding is on Saturday] and I drove down to pick her up thinking she’d be tired. She wasn’t. She came walking with Callie and me for her last walk and asked me if I’d had a hen night. I hadn’t as our wedding wasn’t scheduled until over a year after Richard had died. She asked, “Will we ever get married?” I replied, “Who’d have us?”  Why do I always joke about serious stuff? Her response was “I’d have you…”  G U L P !

Tuesday October 1^st.

Walked Callie and went to the pool. Laura was dead keen to drive the new car, she really likes it way more than the Picanto. I can see why, the driving position isn’t as high but overall the drive is so much better. I would go so far as to say I think it beats Dad’s Citroen C5 Estate. Mum’s Audi A3 isn’t any better either. Good call by the girl with the blonde hair and glasses! We managed a decent 80 lengths side by side today which is pretty good. I was also able to control my urges in the changing room. It was a good thing too as the place was quite busy; as we were leaving loads of people seemed to be arriving.

Only at work until lunch time today, and most of that was with the first few of the Personal Tutees. Three girls and one guy. They seem awfully young and wet behind the ears and a little bit unsure of themselves. They had all enjoyed the rush and excitement of Fresher’s Week but a couple of the girls were a bit concerned about the sexist attitudes of some of the male students. I wrote down what they told me in a note book I have put aside expressly for the purpose of logging everything I consider important. It will be informative to compare the experience of the other girls in the group. I have three guys and eight girl altogether. I could be kept busy.

Felice and I have come to a working arrangement with the office. It is mine when I have students there, it is hers when she does and at the other times we will arm wrestle for it! We actually have a bigger work space for dealing with the documents and casket which is probably where we will be spending most of our time. I bought my self a new mug for the office [well you have to don’t you?]. It has completely foxed Felice because it is in exactly the same style as the red “Keep Calm…” stuff but mine says; “Dinnae fash yersel an’ keep ya heid!” It is really tricky trying to explain Scottish dialect to a non-English speaker. Today [this morning] I drank over a dozen mugs of tea and peed  rivers! It was so yellow too! (Sorry, I was just amazed at the colour. I will have to bring some Earl Grey in on Thursday.)

I rolled up at XXX & Y bang on 2.30pm. The start of the afternoon for us moles in ARR. We ought to be pirates, really, with those initials. (Think about it, Jim Lad!) I had more digitising of the archive to finish but was interrupted by a request for some Case Law – I love doing searches for this. It’s one reason why digitising the archive is so important. We won’t need to look through massive tomes as much we will have access to a purpose built specialist in house facility that will be able to be interactively searched using keywords. By the time 5.45 came around I was dusty and quite tired but thought I had done a good job. I’ll have more time tomorrow.

Back home at 6.10pm to find Laura had stuffed and cooked the trout and cooked all the veggies. She had even glazed the julienne carrots! Rah rah rah. She had made a bread, lemon and dill stuffing, cooked some potatoes and asparagus. The trout she had baked, then laid it over a lattice of asparagus which was on top of crushed potatoes. The carrots were off to the side. The whole thing looked a picture and tasted even better. It was totally delicious. The lemon, bread and dill stuffing was something I haven’t eaten before but I will again, it was inspired.  I could get used to coming home to a cooked meal. We had barely time to cuddle afterwards before she had to zoom down to the restaurant. Well, I zoomed her down in the car. Then I was back home in time to listen to Front Row on the radio, followed by my CD of the Month from the BBC Music magazine – Bruch’s Violin Concerto. [Well, there is also some Bach, Tchaikowski and Paganini on the disc too.]

At about 8pm I got a phone call. I was a bit surprised to find it was from Australia, but it was Mum all packed and ready and about to get the early flight of the day from Perth, it being 4am Wednesday already over there. I said that I’d be at Manchester airport at 8pm to pick her up. I also told her about my fiasco at the University and I’m afraid I had another little snuffle. I am a wuss at times. She was typically business like and efficient in calming me down and putting me back on the tracks again – by almost giving me a repeat of what my Dad had told me on Monday. I didn’t tell her this, she would have been mortified to think she and he still did things the same way despite being divorced for over 10 years.

I am really relieved that she is finally coming back. It has seemed so weird without her calling me at least three times a day, or texting every verse end. I am looking forward to hearing about her jaunts around WA.

Picked Loll up, dead on time, and we both took Callie up the road for her last walk of the day. We started snogging at the turn round point and I was so turned on by the time we got back home we just dived on to the sofa and indulged ourselves there, then again in the shower and again in the bedroom. We played with the new Rabbit in the last location. Laura wondered if the girls who were squeamish about the rabbit in the game pie last week would have been as worried about having this kind of rabbit inside them. She is so rude…. Poor Mr Wabbit, sat on my pillow, just blushed to the tips of his ears.

Wednesday 2^nd October.

I am fcuking gutted! I can’t believe those fcuking scumbag bastards at Yahoo Answers have suspended my account. The twats! The worst parts are: I had over 70 thousand points! Seventy thousand! And these fucking scumbags have suspended my account! Secondly, the e-mail telling me I have had my account suspended has a link to an appeals page which doesn’t fcuking work. The cnuts. How can I fcuking appeal if the link they have sent is fcuking duff?

To say I am livid is the understatement of the year. The fcuking scumbags are lucky I don’t live in California or I would be round to their scumbag offices in a lorry filled with a couple of tons of weedkiller and sugar explosive to blow their fcuking wanker, little scumbags souls off the face of the planet.

Jesus H Fcuking Christ I am so annoyed it is beyond belief. It is a bloody good job I wasn’t at Uni today or some innocent little mite would have had their head bitten off if they’d had even looked at me the wrong way. I was so fired up I was hoping that Christopher would come and see me, with his stupid love struck puppy dog eyes. I was in the mood to shatter his stupid bloody infatuation there and then. By about 11am I had calmed down quite a lot and Mrs Briggs came down into the dungeon to see why I had been banging about and being unusually noisy in there.

I was able to explain, quite rationally and calmly what had happened. She just laughed. I mean she just laughed at my anger and annoyance. I was hurt at first and then realised she was right. I was being ridiculous and I did need laughing at to bring me down to earth. She then said why not open a new account and call yourself something like Bloody Yahoo Suspended Me? Great idea. She also said I am so pleased Christopher didn’t find you in the dungeon earlier, I think we may have had to call the police after a murder had been committed. She is so like my Mum at times, it’s uncanny! Then she went on, actually being thoroughly nasty to him may shake him out of his obsession with you. Obsession? I didn’t realise it was an obsession. Oh shite. I may need to watch out. People who get obsessed can do really weird and dangerous things.

I was able to arrive home at exactly 6.10pm again. Just like the perfect husband coming home to the little wifey. I had better not say that to Loll’s face. She may slap me. To continue the analogy though, the “little wifey” had dinner prepared again. I am so impressed. I gave her a huge kiss and cuddle and told her she didn’t have to do this for me. Always pragmatic, she is a mathematician after all, she told me that if she waited for me to get in and start cooking then dinner wouldn’t be until nearly seven – the time she had to leave for work. It made much more sense on Tuesday and Wednesday nights for her to cook the meal. Who am I to argue with such impeccable logic?

We need to do a food shop because Loll had to raid the freezer when she got home to see what was there that could be rustled up quickly. Luckily there were a couple of bowls of previously prepared beef strips in black bean sauce that had cooked before I went to Oz and frozen the rest. It was still pretty tasty after two months at minus 18 degrees. The sauce seemed a little saltier than when I had made up the whole batch, perhaps that’s what happens in the freezing process.

The little Darling had done a stir fry with the remains of all the veggies in the fridge and some salad veggies too. She was just draining the rice when I walked in. It is easy to snog someone when their hands are full and they can’t get out of what they are doing. I decided a bottle of Spatburgunder would be ideal with the beef, so I rummaged in the cellar for one of the few remaining bottles. I found a mini cache of Portugieser Weissherbst there too – four bottles I had forgotten I’d got. I knew I had two cases of Blauer Portugieser [6 bottles in a German case] left but I had forgotten all about the rose lurking in the newly constructed wine cupboard. (I made it when I panelled and insulated the cellar earlier in the year – is there no end to this woman’s talents?) So we had rose instead of the red with the beef. I can’t wait to drive down to Cochem again with Dad nearer Chrimbo to do our seasonal stock up again.

A swift snuggle on the sofa and then Lollster was off to the restaurant again. Once more I drove her down and picked her up at the end of her stint too, not just practicality this time though, it was still bloody raining. Callie and I got a little damp on our last walk of the evening while Laura snuggled up safe and sound under the duvet. After my shower we played with the double ender for a while – a lovely way to finish the day.

Thursday 3^rd October.

I almost used an Elton John song to describe my Mum’s return from Australia but that would be so unkind of me. Plus she isn’t a bitch [most of the time]!

The Lollster and I did the dog walk and swim without the predicted rain this morning, which was an unexpected bonus. It was ever darker than usual for this early in October. The weather did make up for it later in the day though. She wanted to drive us in to Uni again today, so I let her. It is great being a passenger in a car. I wonder how much it costs to hire a chauffeur? I can understand why though, my new car is lovely to drive. OMG, I am turning into a car bore! I will not mention it again [I am lying, of course. It will get mentioned later on.]

Felice and I spent the morning with the translation. It makes your brain ache after a while. So we have decided that we need a drinks break every half an hour. We will have worn a path down the corridor to the ladies by Christmas at this rate. Not to be out done by my “Dinnae fash yersel…”  mug, Felice has brought one which reads “Je suis Vierge prudence”. I laughed when I saw it. I used to claim I was a virgin all the time up to going to University! No-one ever suspected what a little sex-pot I really was. My Dad may have had an inkling, having caught me with a boyfriend’s hand inside my bra once, but I never gave them any cause to suspect I was an over sexed little trollop all the way through the sixth form.

I had a worried phone call from the office about my car. It was pointed out that I had forgotten to register the fact I had changed vehicles with them. I’d thought putting the parking permit in my windscreen would have counted but apparently they have a jobsworth who discovered my permit and registration on his machine didn’t match. He contacted the office and they contacted me. I mean, how petty? [Not the office, the jobsworth. Give someone a uniform and they get delusions of power!] So I wandered across and filled in another form for them. I also asked about my first month’s salary which hadn’t arrived yet [according to yesterday’s internet banking]. They made a phone call and I was told it would be transferred later today. So out of the petty came something useful after all. [Post Script, when I checked at 11pm my first month’s money was there, waiting, waiting…]

We were home by 4pm and I cooked tonight’s dinner. Steamed chicken and courgettes, with cider. They always work really well. I dropped Laura at the restaurant at 6.30 and then drove over to Manchester Airport to pick up Mum. The plane was on time and she was through customs in next to no time. She looked absolutely whacked though. She was startled by my new white car waiting in the car park, she said she hadn’t imagined me ever parting with my Picanto. By the time we got to Denton she was fast asleep. She slept all the way back to Sheffield. I stayed for about half an hour and then had to leave to pick up Laura at 11. [I was late.] She did notice there was no dust in the house, hoorah! She was also pleased that I had given her car a swift spin up to Owler Bar and back when I’d last been over [to make sure the battery was OK]. She said she would drive over tomorrow arvo and cook dinner for all three of us. Her treat. She’d also bring us the pressies she’d brought us back. [Aww, bless.]

Laura and Dominic were waiting with another tipple for me to try when I arrived at the restaurant. I recognised it as a Chianti but that was about all. It was really nice and very fruity. Dom said it was a new one his supplier had left and he was thinking of using it as his house red. What did I think? Erm… I was a bit embarrassed, how could my opinion actually matter? I turns out he was asking lots of people who liked wine, so that he could gauge their overall opinion. It will be a bloody lovely house wine, especially for an Italian Restaurant. He has also asked if the supplier can get some Dornfelder for him to try. Now that would be marvellous.

Back home I told Laura that Mum would be coming tomorrow to cook for us, and to bring us a pressie each. Loll hasn’t taken off the uggs I sent her in the house, since they arrived. I do like surprises. [Oh, I hope it isn’t more uggs – I bought myself a new pair too.] Laura asked what Mum was going to cook, I didn’t know, I hadn’t asked her.

Yet more rain during dog walk time, so Lollster went to bed and the pup and I had another shower!

Stampede ! Hikers almost trampled to death. Plus Mad Meg's Curse!

Dairy (Lol) 2013 – Week Fourteen. Part One.

Friday September 27^th.

Little Loll wasn’t needed at Uni again today so she stayed put. This meant she decided to have a lie in while I walked the woof and went swimming afterwards. Sarah was impressed that we had won the quiz last night and disappointed that her team had not done all that well. It is hard to know what to say in these sorts of situations. When you know that your mind is full of loads of stuff that other people don’t bother to, or can’t, retain, it is tricky. She has told me of a prize quiz in a pub near Barnsley that has a current roll over jackpot of £378. I have asked her for more details, Maybe the Scampis could go on the road?

Felice is back. Rah, rah, rah!

We had a long meeting with our supervisor and the guy who did all the testing of the casket. Some of which I had heard before and some of which was new. I told her all about the V & A caskets and we are going to see them soon. How soon I don’t know. I told her I’d get in touch with the Collections Manager and see if they had any others which weren’t on display, that we could examine too. Felice is a part time embroiderer. She claims to be not very good.

It seems that as Felice is technically not part of our department and has her own office I get to use the shoe box office which Andrea and I were going to share as my own. How neat is that? All that may change at the end of next year, of course, but I am not bothered. It will be my feet under the table already. Her BF is now history, that’s her big news of the summer. She hasn’t hooked up with anyone else yet. The BF was the one who, having met me, asked Felice if she thought that I’d be up for a threesome with them! Why are men’s penises in charge of their brain most of the time?  She almost dumped him there and then but for some reason she didn’t. The straw breaking point was the fact at the height of passion with her, during the vacation, he called out another girl’s name! Whoops!

She was pleased that Laura had moved in with me and jokingly said “Maybe you two and me would make a better threesome!”  It took me a moment to realise she was joking, though. She has driven across from France in her car, it’s a new Twingo. I used to love those as they have really cute faces. The new one has lost its face and is just another run of the mill car. She has to keep going back to France in it so that she doesn’t have to reregister it over here or something. I didn’t quite follow what she was getting at TBH.

If we go to Alport Castles tomorrow she has asked if she can come too. I said, “Bien sur. Naturellement.”

Back at Chez Nous the Lollster had done it again. This time with a plate of Scampi! How appropriate! We had homemade chips and mushy peas. Heavenly. She had cooked so many scampi I almost didn’t have enough room for dessert. Almost. Well, the apple cake needs eating up. I must get on with baking some more. They really are utterly marvellous. Good old Woman’s Hour.

I dropped Laura at the restaurant and then drove across the city to Mum’s house. I had promised to go and check it out for her. She is coming home next week so I went to make sure there was nothing amiss. As far as I could see the only thing wrong was the back lawn was rather longer than Mum would have liked. If it hadn’t started to go dark I would have got out Mum’s lawn mower and given it a trim.

She had a mountain of post in her hall. Nellie, her next door neighbour, picks up the mail everyday [except Sunday obviously] and puts it on the console table in there. I had a similar heap at home when I got back; 90% of which I threw straight into the bin. As I had quite a bit of time on my hands I decided to give her home a clean. I dusted and vacuumed everywhere. I am not sure if she will notice when she gets back but I felt good about doing it.

Callie had a good old charge about the garden, I used her ball wanger to give her a bit of a run. She just loves retrieving stuff but doesn’t know when to stop, so I have to be careful that I don’t tire her out completely.

Laura was changed and ready when I got to the restaurant so I did stop for a chat. They were rushed off their feet all night but the plus side she had made over £40 in tips! She wasn’t too whacked to walk Callie with me and as I’d given her loads of exercise at Mum’s we only did a tiny stroll, up to The Big House on the Onesacre Road and back. They often leave their cars on the drive at night and they have consecutive personalised number plates. I am not sure if that is really cool or totally tacky.

I hope the weather’s OK for tomorrow. I am sort of sad about selling my Little Picanto. It’s done me sterling service over the two years I have owned it. The Ce’ed is quite a different proposition all together. I hadn’t realised that Laura is a little wary of driving it. Just goes to show how I can be totally insensitive at times, doesn’t it? I hadn’t even registered what she felt about it.

Saturday 28^th September.

OMG. The 'Dairy' bit approaches! A cattle stampede nearly wiped out the Scampi Tails!

After walking the pup and swimming we had a huge fried brekkers this morning. It is always useful to have one if you are going on a long walk. [Alport Castles from Ladybower – and back – is about 8 miles in total.] First, though, was the small matter of getting my new car.

It looked brand new at the garage. Fully cleaned inside and out [they call it valeting for some reason] and full service too even though it hasn’t even done the 12K before its service  is due. They have even given me a full tank of diesel; I dread to think how much that is going to cost when I have to refill it. I was asked if I wanted to take out their service plan which meant that I’d pay £19.50 a month for the next three years and that covers the next three services of the car. Laura did the maths and told me I would save marginally by not taking it out but just putting away the amount each month, when you factor in the compound interest over three years. I have no idea whether that is true of not but my savings interest statements each six months give me enough extra cash if needed so I declined their offer.

It turns out I needn’t have fretted about Laura and the car after all. It appears that my Ce’ed is the Kia version of Hyundai’s i30 (how was I supposed to know that?). Laura learned to drive in an i30 up in Cumbria. So there is no problem at all, in fact she knows more about how it will handle etc, than I do. The salesman who sold me the car looked like a bloody sixth-former! He told us if we have any problems with it at all to contact him direct. I should hope we have no problems at all. He watched with amusement as I tried to get Callie to jump into the boot. She is used to it with Dad’s car, obviously, but seemed reluctant at first. The guy told us to hang on a moment. (Hang on?) He came out of the showroom with a catalogue of stuff to buy. There is a bumper protector thing which fastens round the bottom of the tailgate and covers the top of the bumper. It’ll be ideal for stopping Callie’s claws scratching the paintwork. I have ordered one. They will phone when it arrives.

I have put Callie’s chew bones and her vet bed in the boot, plus her rope knot. I hope she likes her new travelling space. One of Dad’s dogs used to be sick every time it was put into the boot. Luckily she grew out of it and now occasionally salivates a river if she travels in a different car! Callie spent the entire journey to Ladybower standing up, leaning against the dog guard. I think she may have been getting her sea legs!

Seven of us met up at the end of the road to the higher Dam walls, Laura, me and Felice and four other Scampis. We all had fairly well stuffed rucksacks as, unlike last week’s walk, there is no pub in the middle to stop for lunch. It almost didn’t matter at all. My route took us up through Crook Hill Farm, from there we follow a really well defined ridge all the way to Alport Castles. It is so easy really, once you get the initial climb up through the farm out of the way.

 In about the third field from where we’d parked there was a herd of cattle. About half a dozen heifers and nearly a dozen calves, at a guess. One of the girls asked me if I was going to put Callie on the lead. Talk about bloody prescient! I had just explained to her why this wasn’t a good idea when one of the heifers decided that my little pup was a threat to her baby and headed down the slope straight towards us and her. One or two of the other bloody stupid creatures decided to join their mate and we had a mini stampede heading straight at us! It was really fcuking scary [pardon the language], we were too far from the field boundary to leg it. I knew we’d be better in a bunch than spread out across the field. The sensible part of my brain knew the heifer was targeting Callie the scaredy-cat part was ready to scream.  

Some of the Scampis started to panic and wanted to try and run, even though I had told them it was the wrong thing to do. I had to shout to stop them. I had Callie’s ball in my hand, so when the herd got a bit closer I threw it away off to our left and yelled, “Callie” Fetch!” The good old dog’s retrieving instinct took over. She zoomed off after the ball, the heifer change direction and pursued Callie and all the cows followed her. Bloody hell! I felt a bit shaky and some og the others had gone a bit pale.

I told the others to keep walking steadily towards the stile, which was about 50 yards away, and if Callie came back with her ball I’d throw it again. The heifer almost caught up with Callie as she stopped to pick up the ball. Its head was bent low down and it made a wild sort of lunge, as though it was trying to head butt her. Callie looked up, saw what was heading her way and simply dodged off in the other direction. The girls scrambled through the stile and I called out, “Callie! Come!” She circled around the, by now sauntering, herd and headed straight for the stile. I suppose the heifer, realising that Callie was too quick and agile to be caught had given up the idea of chasing her. I knew I had to sound really calm and collected, as though this was something I had encountered lots of times before. I simply said, ”Aren’t cows just the most stupid animals?”

I absolutely dread to think what would have happened if I had tried to keep Callie on the lead. Some of the Scampis were a bit shook up by being charged at by a herd of cattle, others were quite excited at their lucky escape. I knew that people had been killed by herds of cattle when walking their dogs, thinking that keeping it on the lead and close to them was the safest thing to do. It is a good job I had seen that particular news item or I may have tried the same with my puppy. Phew, eh?

The rest of the walk was uneventful in terms of our lives being threatened by marauding domestic animals. The weather was brilliant, though, and so clear for the time of year. The ridge, which is actually the edge of the valley of the Alport River, winds its way steadily and gently up to The Castles and if you followed it all the way up it would eventually take you to the Bleaklow Plateau.

Alport Castles is an old quarry, I suppose. It’s one of many dotted about the Peak District, where at the start of the industrial revolution people from Sheffield and Manchester used to come to get their Millstone Grit grinding wheels. In places there are huge finished wheels just lying about. The place would have looked pretty much like a modern working quarry when it was a going concern but centuries of neglect and the ravages of weather have made it a magical place. It is great for scrambling about. There is a really nice stack, called The Tower, which I climbed while the others just hopped about below me on the boulder field. Sandi attempted to get to the top with me, but her nerve gave out and she told me she’d wait where she was and we’d scramble back down together. Even the usually proficient Laura took one look at the stack and decided to give it a miss. [This is the girl who has climbed Nape’s Needle with Dad and I, baulking at what was, in effect, just a scramble.]

We had our lunches, swapping morsels with each other and then after some more messing about and photographing we decided to head on back. One or two asked if there was an alternative route back to avoid the cattle [wusses] so I told them we could veer off down to Lockerbrook Farm and then drop down to the reservoir side and walk back along the lake, if we wanted. The majority decision was to do that. So we did.

We had a bit of a surprise down at Fairholmes, the Upper Derwent Visitor Centre was open. As was the refreshment kiosk. I hadn’t mentioned all this in case they were closed and the girls would have been disappointed. To arrive and find them open was a very nice treat for us all. We must’ve spent about an hour here too. There is nothing as refreshing as a freshly made cup of tea out in the open. It appeared that everyone and their Dad was out for the afternoon [did I mention the weather?] and had decided to descend on the centre. Felice caused a stir by calling the coffee she was given “Camel’s pizzle” and throwing it away. I supposed she was expecting a little more than instant! The kiosk person tried to answer back but she was met a string of French invective and furious arm gestures and decided to shut up. She did offer Felice a soft drink instead (Why? It would never happen to me.) so she chose some flavoured water instead.

The last bit of the walk along the reservoir was delightful. The Ashopton viaduct comes into view eventually and you know you have almost finished the walk. I told them the story of Mad Meg and her curse on the village of Ashopton. [I read it in a book of local legends.] It goes like this: (paraphrased)

In the middle of the 19^th Century Ashopton was thriving farming community just far enough from Sheffield to not be influenced by it. In the village lived an old herbalist / healer / wise woman, called Meg. She was the one the villagers would turn to for remedies, cures and potions. The older she got, the crankier she became and some of the villagers became frightened of her. She ended up being branded as a witch and was driven from the village.

Now Meg, who was most definitely not a witch, loved the area and didn’t want to leave, so she set up a bivvy of sorts on the edge of Kinder Scout, at a place which is now called Mad Woman’s Stones. Here she would live her life and could be seen occasionally on the hillside shouting curses at the villagers of Ashopton for throwing her out.

Life continued as it does, as normal, until one autumn a farmer hired a jobbing shepherd for round up. There used to be lots of these itinerant shepherds who would work their way down the Pennines, from the Cheviot in the north to Darley Dale in the south, being employed as extra hands for the round up. The shepherd was given the task of fetching the sheep down from the edge of Kinder as none of the local ones would go up near Meg, being frightened of her.

The shepherd found a pile of rags near a mound of stones and poking them with his crook was horrified when a decomposing skull rolled out. Not knowing what to do he gathered up the remains and took them down into Ashopton. There the local constable and doctor decided they must be Meg’s remains and by the state of decomposition she had been dead for almost a year.

This is where the story takes a twist. For, in the months leading up to the finding of her body a Meg-like figure had often been seen silhouetted on the skyline near Win Hill summit, shouting curses on the village and villagers. One person remembered the last curse they had heard. It was, “You shall all be drowned in a great flood!”

In 1932 the people of Derby and Nottingham needed more drinking water so they formed the Derwent Valley Water board and built three huge dam walls across the Derwent River: Ladybower, Derwent and Howden. So that nowadays the village of Ashopton can be found 120 feet below the surface of Ladybower reservoir! Meg’s curse had come true!

The girls thought it was a great story. They demanded to know if it was true. I couldn’t answer that but told them that there is usually a grain of truth in most legends. What is clear is that Ashopton can only be reached by divers, but Derwent village, which was also drowned by the reservoir, occasionally appears when the level of the lake gets really low. I have seen pictures of the summer of 1976 and the streets and bridges of Derwent were clearly visible.

We parted at about 6pm, having had a brilliant day, despite nearly being trampled to death by a herd of stampeding cattle. At home our beef stew was done to perfection. Aren’t slow cookers a marvellous invention? [There is an unintentional irony there, isn’t there?]

We ate before we showered. Dirty cows that we are. Then we sprawled on the sofa, snuggled up together. I had day dreams about the Young Montalbano and Little Loll fell asleep in my arms! [We watched the TV show on BBC4.] Callie was content with a romp around the field as her final walk.

As a post script the Scampis want to do the prize quiz. It is down to me to sort out the details. Thanks for that!

Sunday 29^th September.

Oh No! Bad, bad, bad news! The Dockers LOST! Bloody Hawthorn beat them in the Grand Final. The family are gutted, sick as parrots and any other sporting cliché you’d care to mention. Even more so as they had flown over to Melbourne to watch the final live. I was Skyped by Annabelle after they’d got back to Warnbro and she was still tearful over the video link. According to Mum, who is a little more dispassionate, the Dockers weren’t out played and it was a very close, low scoring game. At one stage they closed down Hawthorn’s lead to just three points but the win wasn’t to be. They lost 77 – 62. If three of Freo’s behinds had been goals they could have won. They scored three more behinds than Hawks which is always disappointing. Knowing that a few feet would have turned one point into six!

I was hoping the Dockers would win. I was all set to watch the edited highlights over the interweb this morning but in the end I didn’t bother. Too painful to watch. Mum is all set to fly back home. She leaves on Wednesday. I have arranged that I’ll come on over on Thursday night and cook her dinner for her when she gets back from Manchester airport. Then she is going to have a girly day with us, in town on Saturday and lunch on Sunday. I have missed her not being here. Strange how that happens, isn’t it?

Before lunch I decided to take Quokka for a spin, so we zoomed up the M1 into Leeds and through to Horsforth to visit the Older Brother. He was surprised to see us; more surprised at the new car and even more surprised by the deal I’d got. He wanted to take it for a drive too but I wouldn’t let him. That brought out Mr Grumpy for a while but not too grumpy to invite us in for Sunday lunch. That was an unexpected bonus. He also played the CD of Jane’s ultrasound scan which still looks like nothing at all to me. Even Peter and Angela had to agree. I think Peter was a bit embarrassed by the fact his Mum is pregnant again, Angela is looking forward to having a living dolly to dress and play with.

She then asked are you going to have a baby Aunt Vicki? I was sorely tempted to say, “Yes. Barbequed!” but held back just in time. Peter came out with, “She can’t you idiot!” You could almost hear the intake of breath round the table before he went on with, “You have to be married before they’ll let you!” Never has a mouth full of roast potato produced such an expectant pause.

This innocent remark brought about a huge squabble about cousin Julie who had her baby and wasn’t married. Their spat doesn’t bear repeating but it was funny to hear the sort of concepts children get into their heads. I wonder if I was full of such total misconceptions at their age. {Arrghh! No pun intended!} Laura really confused them both by saying, “Vicki isn’t going to have her baby until she’s forty, that way it’ll be older when it’s born!” You could almost hear their brains trying to work this one out!

I was so pleased we had to press on, leaving Phil and Jane to deal with the consequences of that particular pearl. We decided to drive back the A road way, rather than use the motorway, to get a better feel of the gears and the power of the engine. I am gobsmacked by how the thing accelerates going uphill! I used to have to change down in the Picanto but with the Quokka you just put your foot down and off it goes! Another thing we have noticed. When you get that loud 'enginey' working hard noise that the Picanto used to make at about 65mph, in the quokka you are doing almost 90 before you hear it!! Both of us will have to watch out for that, speeding tickets are the last thing we need.

Laura took over in Huddersfield and we made our sedate way through all the speed cameras back home. The drive on the front of my house is plenty big enough to park straight across the window but I used to park the Picanto pointing down the garden. Quokka needed a bit more thought to get it in. Mainly because the wheelie bins are in the way. I have had to shift them down the garden.

Our joint of meat had cooked itself through nicely, and was ready to eat but as we’d stuffed ourselves at P & J’s we decided to have our Sunday lunch tomorrow night instead and have salad filled wraps with satay chicken pieces for tea instead.

It was so warm we were able to sit out in the garden, where we were joined by Steve & Ann and Muriel & Ken. When it got a bit chilly, as the sun set behind the Onesacre road, we decamped to our conservatory. We got through five bottles of wine between the six of us during the evening. It was hard to believe it was the last Sunday in September.

New job, new car, new boss. {Scampi Tails win AGAIN!}

Diary 2013 – Week Thirteen. Part Two.

Monday 23^rd September.

We went for our usual swim this morning in rather subdued fashion! That whisky was the nail in the coffin of our sobriety last night. It was a Lowland malt called Auchentoshan and it was so smooth and palatable. It slipped down with no effort at all. It did make slipping through the water a huge effort this morning though. After 50 lengths I thought we’d had enough, Laura was only too pleased to agree.

Meetings, meetings and more meetings today. I hadn’t realised there’d be so many. Loll went off for Fresher Week things while I sat and felt my gluteus grow numb in the meetings. Still it will be worth it I suppose.

The chest is back and we had a woman come along today and tell us all about the embroidery it was, partially, covered in. This was absolutely fascinating. So afterwards I looked up on line more information. I discovered there is a woman in the US who teaches people how to make replicas of these things. She’s employed a joiner to make some rather more elaborate caskets than ours and then over the course of a year she teaches you how to do the required stiches and techniques to make the pieces of work which are put onto the caskets. The price for this activity? $3700!

Apparently the V & A have several examples of this kind of casket in their collection, two of which are on permanent display. It may be worth have a little trip down to London to have a look at theirs. I haven’t been to the V & A since I was a teenager. I think we’d have to go by train, I wouldn’t fancy driving all the way down to London. Well, the drive to Mill Hill would be fine it’s then the tedium of trying to negotiate London traffic that is the anal irritation! I shall apply my little grey cells to the matter.

We were back home by about 3.45 which made for quite a short day really. I could get used to this. Felice is back on Wednesday [my non day] so we will get started proper on Thursday. I shall probably spend tomorrow reviewing what materials I have got and my notes on what we have translated so far from the chest. I unearthed, from one of my plastic crates in the under-eaves storage space, a piece of stump-work I began in Australia just after my Breakdown. I found the concentration required in its making was quite therapeutic at the time. I haven’t even looked at it since I came back from Oz. The techniques I have used on this piece are a contemporary adaptation of the work on the casket. There the technique is a bit clumsy in places and the range of stitches quite different to what we use to today but looking at my cottage garden picture [it wasn’t my choice] and the photographs of the work on the casket, there is a definite line of progression between the two.

Loll was quite excited about the whole new term too. She has taken flyers from lots of undergraduate societies although she hasn’t actually signed up for anything yet. There is a canoe/kayak one which looked interesting and of course there is our Climbing for Novices one which she’ll be coming on anyway, if she wants.

I have had an e-mail from Mum. She has had her return flight rescheduled for next Tuesday and the whole family are going to the MCG to watch the Grand Final on Saturday! She is using her Lotto win as money to pay for it all. If I was slightly jealous before, I am incredible hulk coloured now! As it was about 5pm when this little snippet arrived through the ether it was too late to call the antipodes so I will do so tomorrow morning. Assuming she is in. Last week she went up to Geraldton [on her own] and took one of the day trips through the Pinnacles Desert. Then she went up to Monkey Mia to see the Dolphins. I am pleased that she has branched out and not stayed in Warnbro.

Laura wasn’t needed at work tonight after all. Monday is usually very quiet and Dominic had only about twenty bookings for the whole evening. That meant we had a night together. We had a dinner of home made curry, a Madhur Jaffrey one. Then we spent a lazy evening watching the backlog of things recorded on the PVR. OK, it was only an episode of Young Montalbano. OMG, he is so cute. Even nicer than Luca Zingaretti who plays the older version. I could have become part of his investigations any day. We also watched the Lucy Worsley programme about Murder. I think she could be my role model. Imagine a female historian presenting so many different TV shows? Wow!

Callie’s last walk was a joint one again. I wonder if she actually notices that there are two of us with her? She hasn’t shown Laura any particular attention at home as far as I am aware.

 

Tuesday 24^th September.

It looked as though it could be quite sunny in town but over the hill behind the house there were lots of clouds. Does the weather know what it is supposed to be doing today? Did it listen to the forecast? I bet it didn’t. Swimming was fun today as we decided to try and swim backwards. This is easy with breast stroke but impossible with any other. It takes a hell of a lot more effort than swimming forwards and by 10 lengths we were both as tired as if we’d done or usual amount. It did make lots of the other swimmers stop and gawp at us. I suggested it as Laura had another bikini on and I knew that without a distraction I wouldn’t be able to control myself. Back home we spent almost 30 minutes in the shower together! I dread to think what my water bill will look like!

This morning I was given a list of students who would [if they turn up] be members of my personal tutor group. OK, it was e-mailed to me. Nothing like the personal touch, eh? I have only really spoken to the ancillary staff, everybody else seems to communicate with each other by e-mail, even if they are just one room away from each other. Still the cleaner knows me and the secretarial pool and the caretaker. Lol.

I am at a loss as to what to do with the list, so I have decided to do what happened to me. I have allocated each of them a 30 minute spot next week, put it on a piece of paper and pinned it on the notice board outside my office. What more can I do? We have our own little notice boards. To be fair, I have copied what I have seen on a couple of other boards. I’ve put details of what my lectures will be for the first three weeks as well. That appears to be what some of the others have done too. Spoke to one of the lecturers and she pointed out to me that the e-mailed list had the students’ new Uni e-mail addresses as well. What an idiot! I spent the next few minutes sending each of them their meeting appointment. I hope she doesn’t pass on this information, I’ll look like a complete drongo.

Part of my day has been negotiating with the science department which dated the casket, and contents, to get a copy of their results. I was fobbed off with “Andrea already has them!” I had to explain she has left and taken them with her! This lead into a long chat about why she left and as I felt absolutely no loyalty to her at all, I explained clearly and in detail why she left and what I thought about it. Maybe that was a mistake. I have been promised a copy of all the findings – by e-mail ! !

Out at 3.45 again. I received a flyer from the garage which services my car yesterday, advertising a mega sale. They are offering a 62 plate Kia Ce’ed for just under £9K. [They have a few of them, actually.] I ‘phoned Dad from work and he told me if it’s genuine bite their hands off; especially if they have a diesel model with low mileage. We stopped at the garage on the way home. They had three 62 plated diesels, one with 32K on the clock! How can you do 32K miles in a year? Bloody hell. One with 5.5K and one with 8K. The 8K one was white and had quite a lot of added extras – tow bar, alloy wheels, window spoiler, load space protector, mud flaps. I took it for a test drive up the Halifax road and it was a dream to drive. Plus it seemed very quick. It reminded me a little of Mum’s Audi A3 inside.

The asking price was £8995, they offered me £6200 for my little Picanto, so I did as Dad suggested. I have bitten their hand off. They will valet and fully service the car before I collect it and they are going to put a dog guard in it for me for free [how’s that?]. Laura was quick off the mark with the maths and told the salesman the difference in price would be £2795 before he had even switched on his calculator. You could see his expression change as he looked at her, wondering how could such a gorgeous blonde be so quick at maths. [I have similar thoughts about her all the time. She astounds me with her calculations – she can tot up the prices in the shopping trolley at the supermarket in her head. She has often amazed the checkout person by saying it will come to £XX.YY and she’s right!]

We will do the swap on Saturday morning. The new plate will be a Sheffield one YS62; my last was a Cumbrian one PX11. We looked at the vehicle registration document in their office and although it is a 62 plate it was first registered in January of this year. When I phoned Dad [again], when we got home, he was really chuffed for me. Callie will love it. There is enough space in the boot for her to have a party. Laura and I were both able to climb into the boot and sit down in there. I think the salesman thought we were mad. The only downsides are; the colour – will it get dirty quickly?  I will no longer have Callie being able to put her head over my shoulder as we motor along. The plus side, if I do get a second dog there will be plenty of room in it for her. Oh, another plus, the road tax per year is only £30! That is around £150 less than I pay for my little car!

I received interest statements on my savings earlier this month and the main one has given me just over £6K in the last six months, so I will use that to pay for new purchase. I am going to call the car Quokka. It is small, but unbelievably cute, just like quokkas.

Laura has arranged to swap Wednesday night for Friday so she can come with us to the girly meal at Collette’s. This is miles away on the route to Mum’s on Carter Knowle Road. So I will go and check on Mum’s first before going. I have told the girls I will bring the most amazing apple cake for one of the desserts. It is brilliant. They will love it as much as they love my lemon meringue pie, I am sure.

Wednesday 25^th September.

Swimming again, luckily a more practical costume today for the skinny blonde, unfortunately she seemed to be the fruity one and kept trying to interfere with me as I swam. We really will have to stop using the changing cubicle for sex, someone is bound to find out and I’ll get banned! I wonder if it is all a ploy by Laura to get out of swimming altogether?

Everyone was really pleased to see me back at X, X, X and Y this morning. I even had a visit from Christopher. He had heard about Mrs Briggs and I meeting at the Halle concert. He came to give me the DVD copy of the four seasons he’d recorded from the BBC Proms broadcasts. I am really looking forward to hearing it. The newspapers gave it an excellent review [according to Dad, anyway]. I gave Chris a quick peck on the cheek as a thank you. I also warned him that I was only doing it as a thank you as it seemed appropriate. He wasn’t to read any more into it. He got that stupid bloody dreamy look in his eyes again, so I left the staff kitchen. Why do I do it? I am just being me but he sees it as a come on! Oh, Bugger!

I am back on the digitisation programme unless there is no-else free for retrieval. I really enjoy this as I come across all sorts of strange and lunatic cases. There are the mundane and ordinary too but the weird and wonderful make up for it. It seems strange without Catherine in the office. She would always say really silly, unexpected things. I obviously can’t think of any now I have said that, isn’t that just typical? I think she may have been a secret Comedy Store performer in her free time!

Laura caught the bus back to the village tonight, she didn’t need to stay as late as I did and thought she’d zoom back and rescue Callie from the palace. Bonding, perhaps? When I got home she was all changed and ready so all I had to do was have a swift shower, put on some glad rags and hot the road. We decided that the girly / startling thing was totally inappropriate for our GDG, so we dressed in any old stuff. Laura was in jeans and T-shirt; I had leggings and a tie-dyed top. 

If you asked where Collette lives, on hearing the answer you’d automatically assume she’s really posh. Living on Carterknowle Road is one of the smarter addresses in Sheffield. Actually, if she owned the whole house it would be very smart, as it is she has a two bedroomed ground-floor flat. There aren’t all that many on this road, believe me! We didn’t drive on past and head for Mum’s after all. I had forgotten just how long it can take to drive those few miles.

Despite being a ground floor flat in a big house I swear Collette’s place is bigger than mine overall. It is stuffed with bloody nick nacks though. It would drive me barmy all this clutter. On the walls are loads of pictures, I am not sure if they have any significance for her or not. She has a huge block mounted print of Derwentwater looking north east to Blencathra in the distance. When I commented on how stunning it was she just went, “Oh. I wondered where that was!”

She’d done us a huge pie with game – rabbit, pigeon, pheasant, grouse etc . I thought it was very good. You could see some of the others trying to hide their surprise but, as I shoot and eat what I dispatch, I wasn’t complaining.  They eventually starting making the appropriate noises but I could sense they were a bit insincere. By this time my appropriate noise was the sound of me finishing the last morsels of the pie in the hope there’d be more. Even Laura who isn’t usually squeamish about food seemed to baulk at the idea of game pie.

Greedy guts did have a second slice, I think I was the only one. Everyone gushed about my magnificent apple cake, so I confessed that I had heard the recipe on Woman’s Hour on Radio 4. I pointed those who were interested in the direction of the website which was where I had taken the recipe from. A couple of them had never even heard of Woman’s Hour! Can you believe that? I may have converted a few to listen in the future.

The Scampis who’d walked upto Derwent Edge were mad keen to do another this coming weekend if the weather was good. I suggested Alport Castles in the next Valley west from the Upper Derwent Valley, we said we’d finalise plans at the pub tomorrow, where the Scampis will ride again. Although it looks like we will field only one team as the others had forgotten during the ten week Hiatus of YT.

Next time, in a fortnight for some reason which seemed logical at the time but which I can’t recall now, we’ll be at the baby of the group’s place, Claire. She is 22 and was fresh out of University last year. She’s only done one meal before but that was a brilliant Spanish evening so we all pressed her for another.

We rolled home at about 11.30 on the drive back Laura and I had a character assessment of all the participants. She has met some of them before, obviously, but it was fun to talk about the others behind their backs as it were. It was just Callie and me for the final walk tonight and when I got back in little Loll was pushing the zeds. She had obviously tried to stay awake and surprise me because the double ender was lying beside her as she slept. I’ll have to make sure we use it in the morning. As I slipped into bed she muttered, “I love you, you know…” but had dozed off again before I could reply.

 Thursday 26^th September.

We didn’t wait until the morning. At about 5am I was woken by a delightful sensation down below and found Loll’s busy fingers at work! This must be sort of how Richard felt when he woke up to find himself deep inside me, I used to take advantage of his morning glory while he was still asleep!

Just me walking Callie again but both of us went to the pool. I told Sarah about the Scampi Tails outing at the pub and she said she’d try and get along. That would be nice. Laura was almost up to my speed today and we finished on 80 each as I slowed down to let her keep up. I haven’t had conversations while swimming before at this early morning session, which seemed unusual. Although you do learn stuff. She told me that she has already been given her University e-mail address, which means my ten students should have got theirs by now too. I must check my account pronto when we get in.

The ‘we’ turned out to be me as Laura isn’t in today. The real stuff begins next week for both of us, I guess. Although with another two meeting this morning it felt pretty real to me already.

Pretty ordinary day to be honest. Felice isn’t back yet, she will definitely be in tomorrow. I am looking forward to seeing her again. She makes me smile as her English is so good yet she lapses into very Gallic gestures while she’s talking to you. I wonder if she’s an embroiderer. That could be useful. We may be able to get the Uni to fund a trip down to the V & A to examine their caskets as part of our study. I will put that to her when she does arrive.

“Scampi Tails are Go!” again. Eva was pleased to see us once more. I am not so sure some of the regulars were though. We actually had enough for two teams, and Sarah did turn up with her friend who I think was called Sally. They made up enough for team two.  I am sorry to have to report we won again. This is getting to be a bit beyond a joke. Once again we donated our winnings to charity [of Eva’s choice]. Our second team managed to come fifth out of eleven teams. We were miles ahead of the second placed team, by at least twelve points.

I didn’t have a meal with the girls tonight as Loll had been at work in the kitchen while I was at Uni. I arrived home to a brilliant chicken dish which was almost like a fricassee. It was really tasty whatever it was. We finished with some more apple cake. I’d made three altogether with the intention of taking one to the GDG, putting one in the freezer and eating one. We are on the freezer one already!

Dominic was keen on knowing about my taste in wines tonight when I walked across from the pub to the restaurant to pick up Laura. He had never heard of Dornfelder, for example but he listed a lot of Italian reds I’d never heard of. I asked him if Vino Nobile de Montepulciano was the same as M.D’Abruzzo and learned that it is not related at all! We shared a glass to illustrate the point. Loll was whacked when she finished. The restaurant had been very busy, so after driving us home, I walked Callie alone again. I was expecting to find Laura asleep when I got back, but she seemed to have gained her second wind and we didn’t get to sleep for at least another hour!