December

Well, it's time for the last post of the year.  Obviously,  stuff  has happened since I last blogged here. In no particular order:

It snowed. It started at the end of November and just didn't stop until Christmas week. I got really good use out of my wellies (just as well, since they cost over £60 in All Saints). I didn't get trapped away from home like last year, but I did get more or less snowed in at home. 

The weather has warmed up a little bit, but I fully expect it to snow again before the winter is over. Watch this space.

 

The snow meant that my local shops didn't get any Christmas trees delivered, and as I like a real tree, this meant that 2010 was my first Christmas without a tree.

Instead of a tree, I had a tasteful arrangement of branches and fairy lights on the coffee table this year. I might do that again next year, but hope to have a tree as well!

Big surprise of the winter is -wait for it ...... the boiler broke down on boxing day. That makes three years running that we have had boiler trouble during the coldest weather.

The saddest news of all - we lost our dear Sylvestre.  She was very old and died in her sleep. Christmas has been very strange this year. It has been the first one since I was a teenager without a cat.

Grey November

Mainly because of the weather, which has taken a decidely wintry turn. 

We have hung wild bird food in the ceanothus to keep our robins going through the winter (if they come back this year), We're also hoping that the crowd of little finchy birds that appears occasionaly will become more regular visitors.  The tree is blowing around like crazy and Edd has just gone out to take our glass lanterns down in case they get flung out of the tree and through the window - which would not be a good thing. The tree is of course interfering with the satellite signal, as it does on anything but a calm day - trying to watch "Siegfried" with satellite breakup going on is a strange experience. (Why am I watching Siegfried in the afternoon anyway, you may ask - I am sick, OK? Actually, this is the first virus to make me stay off work this academic year, and I hope it doesn't last too long, as work is very busy just now).

Happy news 1: Tor had a happy birthday last week with a dinner at Prezzo, a pretty cake, light-up balloons and the most fabulous birthday present from her sister.

 

Happy news 2: Edd had a successful Halloween gig (in costume).

 

A final piece of very sad news: Niece M lost her husband in a traffic accident. Far too young. RIP Daniel

Nude October

No - not that sort of nude!

It's all about my problem with colours. I like pink- really hot pink for my kitchen blind, sugar pink for my Le Creuset etc. BUT - I can't wear it. I just can't.

What I CAN wear is ballet-shoe nude pink (or "corset pink" as Bex puts it). I actually have ballet shoes (real ones in  the wonderful yellowy-flesh pink leather that dancers wear for practice). I keep a pair in my handbag in case my "proper" shoes get wet on the way to work  - I can slip on a pair of ballet shoes while my real shoes are drying under the radiator. I have black ones too, for the days when no colour will do.

I crave clothing, jewellery etc in this same ballet-shoe pink. I have a favourite fifties-style nude skirt that comes out of the wardrobe fairly frequently, and I'm always on the lookout for more treasures. This week I found an eyeshadow in exactly the right shade and consistency - not too shiny (don't want to emphasise the age of my eyelids!).

I  searched for YEARS for a pair of pink posh shoes, and finally found some a few months ago. Not too high a heel, maryjane style, and metallic!  Of course I then needed to find a bag to go with them. Not to match, mind, I don't do matchy matchy. Anyway - It took a LOOOONG time, but I found one! Its leather with an amazing copper spring for a handle. Now I'm all set for appearing in the nude!

 

Birdies in my garden

Just a quick post from the phone to say the robins have a nest full of babies. The phone interface is rubbish. It switches caps on for every single letter typed. Won't be doing too many posts like this!

Another couple of weeks

We have a new Government - mostly Conservative - will have to wait and see how that pans out.  The most shocking part of the process was that hundreds (possibly thousands) of people were prevented from voting because the polling stations had not been set up to cope with the numbers of people wanting to vote. This should not happen in the UK.

I have a new baby great-nephew. Congratulations neph2 and welcome baby Theo.

There are elephants all over London - I have seen about 20 of them in various places. They are part of the "Elephant Parade"  which aims to highlight the plight of the asian elephant. My pic shows a few at Tower Bridge.

Wow - what a couple of weeks!

Since last time lots of stuff has happened - just a few mentions here.

We have robins in the garden - there are two, and I have heard that they are very territorial, so perhaps (hopefully) they are a mating pair.This may seem  trivial, but it is a very pleasing event - lat year we had greenfinches in the autumn, and we have seen a few this spring, but it is a first for robins.

Bro2 had a 25th wedding anniversary. Party in a good venue, although a little far from home. Bro1 helpfully gave us a lift, other wise we might have had trouble finding the place. Journeyplanner identified appropriate train, but we would have had to get a bus from the station. Bus route instructions were very odd - "catch the 101 going East" - 15 minute journey - not too bad. Then get off and "catch the 101 going West" for a further 5 minute journey. Odd, this. Why not just get off the first 101 five minutes earlier?  Suffice to say the party was in the Maidstone area (I have blogged about travel in Maidstone before). CuzJ was in such a hurry to get into the venue that she leapt out of her taxi and watched it speed off with the anniversary presents still in the boot. Party was a good opportunity to meet and greet family members I haven't seen for a long time. 

On a world scale, there was an eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland which shut down airspace over Europe for days. The sky became very clear (although apparently there was an invisible ash cloud) and we could hear the birds tweeting. Planes are flying again, but there is still a huge backlog of travellers waiting to get home, including two of my immediate work colleagues. There is a chance that this little volcano might trigger its more pronounceable neighbour Katje, which could be way more destructive and disruptive. Watch this space.

Could I be a nerd?

I got a shiny new iPhone recently, and have rediscovered the joys of twitter and other social networking sites, which has prompted me to restart blogging. I now have three separate blogs on three different sites (but all with a common "grey" theme, which says something about my state of mind, I think - colour has always been an indicator of how I am feeling).  This blog is for general ramblings, and I have another one which relates specifically to my professional development activities. The newest one is for draft reminders of academic writing topics, which I hope will prompt me to actually DO some academic writing. I want to keep them separated as they really are for very different activities.

But back to the iPhone - I wanted to find out how to set up folders in the "photo" application.  The application provides lots of space for albums, but no obvious way of adding a new album, or moving photos between albums. I assumed that this could probably be done in iTunes, where every else seems to happen, but no - there is no obvious way here either.  The online user manual is as good as useless for this. I guess that Apple think everyone must already know how to do this stuff. Finally, after a lot of trial and error I figured it out for myself. You have to go to  "my computer" , then set up a folder called "iPhone", then set up various folders inside that folder. THEN you can ask iTunes to synch folders from the "iPhone" folder to the  phone. Eureka! I now have albums in my photos app.

I love my phone, but it is quite demanding - my emails beep at me and twitter needs to be checked constantly - also facebook. Maybe this is a "new-user" phase that I will grow out of - or maybe not.

I'm still here!

Can't believe I haven't updated this since last September! What's happened since then? Well: 

• I haven't finished my MA (still! - and need to get a move-on as Bex starts hers soon, and I don't want to be left behind). I obviously have a block about this.
• Baby grandson is now just over a year old and has had to have operations on both eyes (poor little man). He has recovered well, and hopefully won't need any further surgery. Tori is coping remarkably well with this.
• My current students have turned out as well as I had hoped. They all passed their first semester and I have high hopes for semester 2.
• We had a LOT of snow at Christmas  - I actually got trapped away from home during the first snowfall and had to be rescued by Bex after several hours of freezing panic. 
•  I got paid for an article I wrote (first time I have had money for writing my opinion!)
• The tumble drier blew up, the cooker still relies on gaffer tape and the boiler broke down again.
• Tori is busy in renovating a flat (and hopefully will move into it in the not too distant future).
• Sadly, my mother's absent-mindedness is not just a funny quirk, but has been diagnosed as early alzheimers.

 I am on holiday from work at the moment, and had promised myself that I would clear out the rest of my wardrobe, retile the bathroom floor, get a new cooker and tumble drier etc etc . But have actually done pretty much nothing.  I DID buy some shoes - pink metallic mary-jane style -which I have hankered after for years. I now have three pairs of "posh" shoes - not many for someone with hundreds of black T-shirts.

Saw my first 3-D film (Alice in Wonderland) and got a headache from the glasses. I'm not convinced about 3-D for film and TV, but it may be that my replacement lenses (I had cataract surgery on both eyes some years ago) make it harder for me to get the full benefit of it.

On a final sad note, we lost our lovely Wookie after a serious illness. RIP.