Katie and her mental meanderings

Hooray, it’s the weekend! Have not had a good week – was feeling overwhelmed anyway when my head of department landed me with some more, fairly urgent work. It’s good work – we got through to the second round of a funding bid – but it’s got a deadline on it, and I Don’t Do Deadlines. Either I take ages to do something (my deadline being, Whenever), or I do it the minute I get the task (hangover from being that irritating child who did homework the day it was set), or I do it on my Set Day for doing that task, and if I run out of time on that day, I set another day (Friday being Admin Day, for example…).

Inflexible, me? I was almost in tears, though, in the staff meeting on Wednesday, and I think what with one thing and another (working overseas, Easter, a holiday) this is actually only my second full week in the office after the miscarriage, I was exhausted from a busy weekend in London, and they started talking about a colleague’s maternity leave. It all got too much for me.

Anyway we are off to a Posh Hotel tomorrow to celebrate having been married a year (that can’t be right, must be a typo). A present from my mum arrived in the post but the present I ordered for The Spouse™ hasn’t arrived… grr… And I am a complete mug, because I have agreed to spend tomorrow (the day before our Revolutionary Anniversary Day – I was banned from decorating the church in red, but we did wear red roses, though it was mainly a Lancashire thing…) at The Spouse™’s old church’s weekend away. He’s very persuasive when he tries. But Sunday is all ours…

I’ve got one… very old lady-ish, but also very bright! It is a bit like this one http://tinyurl.com/cucrv, but it is stripey. Or like this http://tinyurl.com/cqog2 but a LOT brighter.

Well, I was pleased. I took it to Sainsbury’s but I filled it very full. Note to self: don’t think you can fit a whole supermarket trolley’s worth of stuff in the thing.

Struggling to stay awake, and getting nothing at all done today, except faffing around with my tax return figures (it makes me sound mega organised, doesn’t it? but it’s because I’m hoping for a refund!)

We had a really nice weekend, seeing loads of people in London and not going to a wedding, what’s more! Last year I think we made 7 trips to London and the first three involved organising our wedding, the fourth WAS our wedding, and the last three involved going to other people’s weddings. We love all our friends and wish them every happiness, but we would like a break now. Thanks.

Anyway this weekend involved staying at the flat of some friends in Mile End and then a slap-up lunch at a pub near their house (progress of eating plan: backwards). The friends are currently wading through applying for a Keyworker Housing Loan or some such thing, which involves S, a teacher, ringing up the Loan Approving Body and saying "yes, I am a teacher, I work in a school, I spend all my time teaching or working with children and parents, I just happen to have a different job title. And where it says Full Time 10:10, what do you think it means? It means I work FULL TIME! OK?".

Then we were down in Richmond for another friend’s birthday dinner (progress of eating plan: even more backwards) and stayed overnight there, followed by meeting yet more people in town for lunch (progress: let’s not even talk about it. At least I managed to find a dish without chips). Everyone was having a good time and it was a sunny day. We had quite a long journey back but not too bad: we should go more often, so long as my friends promise not to get married too often. Are you all listening there??

I took the major step of removing the wool lining from my raincoat yesterday (woo hoo!)… but I still had to wear my warm gloves and a woollen cardigan to work today. Other people seem to be in summer clothes, cotton jumpers etc. Am I a wimp (don’t answer that)? Or are these just the people that drive to work?

The blossom is definitely on the trees, though, and it’s light in the evenings, but we needed a fire last night. That could have something to do with the fact that the TV room has a 3-panel bay window plus another window, and the temporary double glazing on the second window fell on top of me when I tried to clean the window, and wouldn’t go back. So we have major draughts which even our natty draught excluder snake from the Cancer Research shop can’t deal with.

In other news: lost 2lb this week, and I’m trying to work out a) how we can get our summer holiday flights on Air Miles and b) why American Airlines thinks it’s 169 miles from Manchester to Oslo! It’s very sad, I know, but I managed previously to go from California to Brazil on Air Miles so it’s worth trying if you fly as much as I do.

No, life isn’t just exercise – but the rest of it is sitting at my desk looking at my computer or out of my window.

Walked to work today with a much fitter friend. I was puffing going up the hills, and she says she doesn’t normally walk that slowly… And lots of my friends think I walk fast!

Choir last night was quite good, as I haven’t been since February, before the miscarriage etc. etc. I am enjoying most of the music we’re singing (except something best described as "crunchy" by Malcolm Arnold) – there weren’t enough of one book to go round, so I decided to order it (the Oxford Book of Spirituals, if you’re interested) as I’m sure I’ll use it again. However no-one asked me how I was or seemed to have noticed I’d been away, not even the conductor (who had been told I was ill by my colleague who’s in the choir) or the altos I usually sit next to. In fact, one of the altos who previously has seemed friendly was very uncommunicative so my paranoia made me think perhaps people think I’ve been skiving.

Currently reading: Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde. So far, lives up to the promise of his previous books pretty well… this is definitely a book addict’s author…

We normally have a seminar on Tuesdays at 12, in term time… and I’ve been thinking about going to a swimming class at 12.30 on Tuesdays which only runs in term time, so obviously they clash. We had a planning meeting for the seminar today and I walked in about 12.10 to find people saying "shall we run it in summer term, at all, then?" to which I replied "Well I’d be very happy not to since I want to go to a swimming class". Result: no seminar. Hoorah!

Went along to the pool – class starts next week. Never mind, I’ll swim today anyway now I’m here. One snag: no-one else has signed up yet for the class, and if enough people don’t sign up, it doesn’t run. Clearly waiting to see if it runs next term is no good for me as then there will be seminars! Aargh!

My healthy eating regime aka Weighwatchers is going well – I’m finding it relatively easy to stick to the foods that they recommend especially as I have been full of energy and done lots of extra exercise which means I’ve no qualms about adding on anything small I fancy as well. Something I’m agonising about is how to eat healthily when with friends – previously I was quite successful at losing weight by keeping track of everything, but I tended not to tell people I was trying to lose weight until they actually noticed. But I’ve been finding myself making some fairly drastic changes – I’m not hungry at all but not everyone drinks skimmed milk, or eats low fat yoghurt with fruit for breakfast. What if people think I’m weird? Or what if they do that reallly annoying thing of saying "it won’t matter just this once will it"?

One suggestion was not to say "I’m trying to lose weight" but "I’m losing weight". Which sounds a lot more positive!

Settling in to a new town always takes time, and when I moved Up North I was worried that I would never see any of my friends. Fortunately, one friend’s granny lives down the road, and another one has conveniently started seeing my closest (geographically) cousin, who has moved to an hour away (thanks, C, that was very convenient of you!). But there’s another advantage I’ve found which is that we are On The Way to places.

Friday night I was just putting the rice in the pan for the risotto when we got a phone call. "Hi, it’s B." Where are you? "We’ve just come off the motorway at the exit for your town". Surprised is not the word. Well, she and A had stopped off on a previous occasion when driving north but we had all been on the way home from the same place. Anyway it was lovely to see them and easy to add more rice to the risotto. So, if you are headed north OR south, we are probably on the way… give us a call.

I’d been chatting to B about settling in to a new place, as she’s done the same as me, only more so – and she asked if I felt more settled in. I think I do, and in an odd way it’s because of what’s happened recently – when something awful happens it is likely to bring out the best in people – and people have been really kind and caring.

This morning, however, someone at church asked us if we were visiting. The Spouse™ was much politer than me – he explained that we were usually late and sat at the side. I was tempted to say "No, we’ve been coming here for over a year now". Which is true.

A very short week but I feel I need a weekend already…

Managed to get rid of some of the paperwork, my in-tray is now in less danger of toppling over. Also recoded some data a student collected as part of a project (how she managed to analyse it is beyond me, given the coding she’d given it). The results look interesting… but I won’t bore you with them.

Oh all right then. Children who are learning to speak English rarely use the passive ("John was kissed by Mary") before the age of about 6 or 7 but we gave children aged 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 picture books to take home and got Mum to read the stories, half of which were in the passive, every day for a week. The ones who heard the passive stories produced passive sentences more when we asked them to read the stories in the lab. Conclusion: Children are ready to use the passive much earlier than they have been supposed to be previously.

Strangely it hasn’t rained all day, despite dire weather forecasts this morning, and I am planning to go home very soon, while it still isn’t raining.

Currently reading: The Subtle Knife, the second of the Northern Lights trilogy. I like it, though it’s not as gripping as the first one. People say the series is very anti-religious but if that’s its aim, it’s not nearly as cutting as it might have set out to be..

Work again – and no prospect of relief in sight – I think I will be taking the first May bank holiday but not the second one, as we don’t get them officially and they seem to coincide with exams (!), and term starts on Monday – I already have appointments with students for next week. A large mound of paperwork needs to somehow vanish in the next couple of days, and I’m not sure setting fire to it is an option. At least I managed to clear my emails this morning.

In other news, I decided to try and formally lose some weight and have taken the very cheesy step of joining Weight Watchers, but there is no way anyone is going to drag me to a humiliating public meeting, this is all anonymous and online in a very 21st century manner. I have decided to try something called No Count which means you eat your meals from a long list of fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, and low-fat meat, fish and dairy, snack on fruit and veg, and then add in fatty things and sweet things occasionally – hopefully this will reeducate my eating habits a bit better than counting everything as I was doing previously. Helpfully I really like fruit so I’m just off to see what the Spar on campus has for my lunch…

In Oslo for 2days on our way home. Museums yesterday, shopping today. My feet hurt. Nearly managed to get knocked over by a man with a chair on his head.