Katie and her mental meanderings

Last week was solid meetings and desperately trying to get my grant in on time (I did!) and then being chased by the person who’s heading up the other grant (that I don’t want to be on) for bits and pieces (that I’m not interested in writing) (and he’d better not read this…) while trying also to run to and from meetings. And this week has been pretty hard work too as I’ve quite a bit to get done before going away next week, and before The Spouse™’s Very Big Birthday and associated party and general jamboree.

Monday I had the utter madness of an afternoon’s meeting in Cambridge. This involved getting up at the crack of dawn (once again, after not sleeping very well since I knew I had to be up early) to get a taxi to Blackpool, to hang around in a checkin queue, to get a plane to Stansted, to get a bus to Cambridge. We were far too early, so then hanging around Cambridge, lunch, a 2 hour meeting, and reverse the process. Give me the train next time.

Bit more relaxed for the rest of the week, went out tonight for a goodbye meal with a nice postdoc who’s moving a couple of hours south, while her partner stays here – bit sad for them I expect – and for us, there aren’t many women in the department beyond the students!

That is the sound of me dragging myself round the house as I am completely EXHAUSTED!

I managed to wake up at 5.30am, 1 1/2 hours before I needed to get up for my ride… But I’m glad we chose to start a little earlier than necessary – I got to the start at 9 and started at about 9.15 and really only the first hour was in any way comfortable, temperature-wise! However being completely exhausted before I started meant I was just plodding away to start off with. After that, the caffeine from a coffee and a diet Coke seemed to kick in, as well as my favourite fruit and cereal bars (you can get some lovely ones without added sugar), and the next couple of hours were pretty much OK, some nice off-road bits and some pretty bumpy ones, with some really horrid “pinch gates” which are things that you can’t actually cycle through, you have to squeeze through balanced on your bike and bash your legs with your pedals.

The last hour was a bit tiring, partly because I wasn’t entirely sure how far it was – the map said one thing, my milometer another, and the marshalls something else entirely! Turns out my milometer was wrong – and had been telling me I’d cycled less than I actually had all the time… Final total was 44 miles, 2 fruit bars, 1 pint of soda and lime, 1 egg and cress roll, 1 slice of chocolate cake, and 1 Feast. I think the cycling time was about 4 hours, not counting breaks.

It’s time for bed – irritatingly, though I normally work at home on a Monday, I have an excruciatingly boring meeting starting at 9am tomorrow. Probably for about 3 hours.

and my wrist is a lot better, and I slept pretty well last night, which is good since we’ve an early start tomorrow and I’m singing in a choir concert about an hour away, tonight.

The Spouse™ has been to the opticians and had drops in his eyes this morning – so he’s wandering around going “can’t see, can’t see”. It’s a bad day for it, too, though it’s not very sunny it is the middle of June and it’s very bright out! This morning we are trying to get everything ready for my rehearsal this afternoon, our picnic between the rehearsal and concert, the concert itself, and the ride tomorrow. So far I’ve put a wash on, packed my lovely new handlebar bag (buying oneself sports-related kit is a great way to get oneself doing the sport!), and finally found my ride number! I suppose I should really go and find some safety pins rather than writing my wiblog, really, shouldn’t I?

Thanks to everyone who’s sponsored me, it’s not too late to do so (I also take Paypal… though if you’re in the UK it’s more cost-effective to send a cheque… or I can take a US$ cheque… very flexible me), I’m actually quite looking forward to the ride tomorrow!

Suggestions are being taken for next year’s mad enterprise…

my hand that is. The nurse at work said “get a splint from the doctor” but the doctor said “no, keep moving it” so I’m trying gentle rotations between typing.

We spent the weekend at my mum’s and went through a box of stuff at my dad’s including finding my diary from the year I turned 11. Astonishing. I was a little prig.. it is hilarious. Perhaps I should put it here instead of my current life – it’s certainly more amusing!

Went to church Book Group tonight, discussing The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Over the weekend I read One for my Baby, by Tony Parsons. I was reluctant to read it as I hadn’t liked Man and Boy (“why I was justified in having an affair”, basically.) But it was a lot better – much more realistic. Now I’m re-reading one of my old favourites, Miss Manners.

While my hand, which appears to be suffering from RSI, recovers, and while I finish writing my grant.

It’s working!

You can sponsor me by clicking here.

You may note that this is not an official charity page and it doesn’t involve giving the charity the Gift Aid money. I know, I have been on to them about getting online giving working, and I will email them to tell them they are missing out on this. They say they don’t want to do online giving because they have to give a percentage away. I bet it’s not as much as they would get back from the government if they did set it up…

the website that is. I have put The Spouse™ onto the case.

Went to an exciting meeting about the new student fees. The different universities have all got different strategies for how to give money back to deserving students, some more sensible than others. Our two nearest neighbour universities are at the opposite ends of the scale: one is actually having lower fees, but they don’t want to say so, because it makes them sound like Discount Poly, so it’s giving a bursary to anyone whose parents earn less than £60,000 per year. The other wants to sound like Generous Place For Clever People, so is giving a scholarship of more than 3 times the fees level to anyone who a) has a parental income of less than £16,500 and b) has one of the top ten marks in the country in one of their A level results. Hmm, wonder how many of those scholarships they’ll actually have to give away…

I am going to see the GP tomorrow, an appointment which I booked when I was feeling really, really low. I am now feeling a bit better but not massively stable, but I’m not sure how to describe what I’m hoping for, or how I’m feeling.

Anyway, I’m very tired now, so I’m off to bed, and to read The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. It’s our church book group book – not too sure about it, it reads a bit like a slightly fake Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I didn’t like Love in the time of Cholera anyway; I was hoping for a pseudo Isabel Allende, who I do like.

Cycled 42 miles yesterday – and it was pretty hilly – so I think I’m ready for the big ride in 2 weeks’ time. I need a rest now I think – and I have an urgent grant application to get in too.

I have written a web page based on a previous sponsor form I used but the “submit this information” part isn’t working, probably because I used the same code I nicked from another form about 6 years ago.

Would anyone like to have a go at mending it for me???? I’m guessing you just need another website that has a “mail me the results of this form” code but I don’t know where to look and I have actual work to do, sadly!

The page I’ve written is here.

Having done a mega bike ride at the weekend (27 miles, sunny but windy, flat roads but very hard work cycling into a strong west wind!) I realised I need to keep my miles up during the week too for my sponsored ride (and no, I haven’t got a web page for you to click on and sponsor me, yet, because the charity involved is silly)… so with 4 days in the office and 2 I need to drive, that meant I HAD to cycle in today despite POURING rain… and I mean pouring, pouring, pouring….

Still trying to work out what to get The Spouse™ for his very large upcoming birthday. Actually, I have lots of ideas, but some have met with disapproval (a bike) and some don’t seem special enough (clothes)…