But, it looks like Xanga’s not going to be going in about 6 weeks time. Unless they raise $60,000. Which seems like an awfully huge ask. And, I suspect, will happen again, and again, and again. I am a pessimist. I do not understand why it is so much, so quickly, with no clear plan of how it would be spent. “We need to hire developers, we need to pay for hosting space”, well, good luck with getting someone for next-to-nothing (or taking advantage of peoples’ good natures).
So I’ll be shifting over to http://extremeknitting.wordpress.com
Most of my Xangan friends are long gone from here. It was a blast. We’ll find each other elsewhere.
The only thing that I cannot find in the flat is my holepunch. I have found the lost hot water bottle and the card (after I’d bought new).
The Time Travelling Day was not a roaring success, but it was Good Enough, with the odd point at which things could have gone better. No major crisises – most of the problem was not having enough people. At least two who’d promised to show up didn’t, and a couple more were ill/swopped out of their activities at the last minute. This is what happens. It was FREEZING cold. Freezing, and so many Brownie parents didn’t send them in adequate layers. Sigh. There’s very little you can do about that, apart from remembering the thermos for hot ribena, and the heated hand packs. This Brown Owl forgot.
We’ve had a successful disaster recovery, well: so far, it’s successful. The bits I did worked fine. I even wrote some very belated scripts to make it easier next time. We shouldn’t need those, though. It’s only taken me 3.5 years to get round to writing them, but that’s not a problem. They are, at least, written. And some guarantee that the the new system will be in place for the next time round.
T’s Thomas the Tank Engine Victor Engine has been dispatched, so we’ll have it ready for Friday week when his Ma and Pa are getting married prior to moving to Dubai.
My to do list is nearly manageable.
May Day was fun, if freezing.
I have sown chillis, chives and some form of green broccoli into pots on the windowsill.
I have bought broad beans and cress for Brownies on Friday week. I am shifting the textiles stuff, as I’ve got a lot of prep to do for that, and I’m not really in the mood. I want to knit.
I have knitted.
Knitting is addictive. It is good for not killing your colleagues at DR (I dunno. If the files are named, with a date stamp, and the type of backup, it really shouldn’t be so hard to find the full backup, should it?). It is good for keeping calm when your friends are, rightly, annoyed about something that you feel you should have control over but, in reality, don’t. It is good for making warm things to keep you warm. It is succour when the world is going bonkers and you’re Fed Up with April and what it’s doing to everyone.
I’m going to have avocado salad with goat’s cheese for supper.
Whether city sprint will actually ring the doorbell.
Why county events seem to cost £10-£15 when it’s perfectly possibly to run an event for £5 per head and, still, apparently, have a little profit (haven’t got the expenses for pancake cooking in yet, but I’ve currently got a £400 surplus and I doubt it’s going to be *that* much).
The environmental impact of laminating.
Whether 150-odd Brownies and Guides will enjoy themselves tomorrow.
What the hell we do with the damp canvas tents.
Seriously, where is the hole punch and the blue card?
Also my thermal underwear. D’ove?
Whether we’ll weather the weather, whatever the weather, whether I like it or not tomorrow.
How I managed to end up running this thing by stealth. All I was meant to do was provide a venue. Lesson learned.
Monday saw me hie up to York, to go to Al’s funeral. Funny, brilliant, caring Al. Who was the most wonderful Dr Who who never was. Who made us all laugh until we cried. Frequently. Whose sense of the bizarre was heightened, and who felt that silly hats were vital. Who loved Morrissey, Dr Who, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Monty Python, and, most of all, Jenny. We sang ‘Always look on the Bright Side of Life’, and had a Dr Who re-enactment (complete with Cyberman made by covering some earmuffs in tin foil) during the funeral. I have never laughed nor cried so much at a funeral. I still tear up – all those people. And, anything that I think he would have liked is making me a bit smeary at the moment. Apart from Dr Who. I don’t have time to get emotional over Dr Who this week. It’ll all fall to bits if I do. I may have to go and find a copy of The Chap, as he used to write for that.
Jenny was doing much better than anyone who has lost the love of their life to cancer could be expected to be. She always was grounded. Caring, lovely, huggable, and friendly. I will do much better than I used to at keeping in touch *wanders off and sends email*
Al describes himself best: “Seriousness should always come last, after fun and dreams and friendship.”
Saturday we dedicated Em’s place, a lovely campfire and talking circle up at our campsite in Herts, and it was sunny, and wonderful, and vastly less traumatic than I’d anticipated. Challenging, at times, but not traumatic. Sunshine will do that for a day. When I got asked for my input, I was absolutely clear that it should be FUN, and it was.
Friday, I had a lapse and suggested that a Brownie’s tea had escaped, and that she might want to wipe her face (it honestly looked like she was wearing baked beans). Parent has pointed out since that she has a sore face, and that I was insensitive and not looking properly. Lesson learned. Do not mention that a Brownie looks smeary, because they probably aren’t, you will get told off (she’s not leaving, so it could be lots, lots worse) and you’ll then spend a good three hours beating yourself up over it.
Who Day is nearly here. I can’t wait. I can’t wait for it to be over.
Photos of knitting (I’m nearly done on Al’s Widow’s Bigger on the Inside, which is just as well, as his funeral is Monday. I’ll write more about that when I’m through the whole wretched thing).
Tidy sitting room it is less worse. But I keep doing stuff…. Right now it has two mahousive pieces of poster board out, ready to be photo’d. One mahousive piece of board, random photos, a receipt book, some dying flowers and an awful lot of bags. But the fan heater has been put away.
Send more commissioner’s qualification evidence throughSome sent. I need to .pdf lots of it.
Finish off K9 (he needs stuffing and decorating)
Collate the WhoDay risk assessments Bwhahaha. I need the assessments. So far, I have about two.
Make the wretched ribbons for Who Day – does anyone fancy a bit of a ribbon twist party on Thursday at coffee? I’ve got ribbon, scissors and safetypins, and want to make twists like AIDS awareness ribbons now postponed to the train journey on Monday – 4 hours on a train should sort it.
Sort out the felt llama templates for Em’s memorial
Print pictures of Em, get a photo album, get some really BIG sheets of card to stick them onIt was raining at the crucial moment for the card, but lovely @ciorstaidh got me card on Tuesday night. Glue fest commences soon. done! Giving up on album for the time being.
morris at Spitalfields Market (there’s a festival called ‘The Big Weave’ on, and there will be sheep – I must take some antihistamine)
Cocktails
Laundry Wednesday, as I WFH then
Yoga postponed, N does not have yoga shorts with him!
Run
It’s been a funny old week. Very black and white for a lot of people. I’m going to work from home on Wednesday, the day of the funeral – both my cycling routes to work are blocked off by the procession, as is the bus route, and, frankly, I don’t want to get caught up in any unrest before or afterwards. I also have a nice chap coming to fit the new cooker. The cooker itself fits in the space widthways, but the cavity at the back is a totally different design from the previous cooker (I could have saved so much hassle by simply ordering the same model, but it didn’t get such good reviews in Which and Good Housekeeping), and it won’t all sit remotely flush to the wall until I’ve had the gas connector changed, rotated, moved, or something. And I can’t have it sticking out as much as it is, there’s a HUGE gap for food to fall down, and it’s in the way. So, the gas man cometh, and the cooker will be legally fitted, even though N and I are perfectly capable of getting it fitted ourselves, apparently it has to be done by a gas safe engineer. Sheesh.
From an iron lady to the gas man. My life.
I was hoping for a lie in this morning, but the pneumatictastic drills started up at 8.10am. They have now, at 10.30, shut up. Highly annoying.
My friendships on facebook, and, to a lesser degree, Twitter (for some reason, it seems to be a tad more left-wing on Twitter) vary from those who my Mother describes as being “True Blue Tory” to “Bright Red” via various other hues, and with a degree of vaguely anarchistic thrown in for good measure.
The sheer strength of feeling over Baroness Thatcher’s death is overwhelming. I can see both sides of the arguments. All three sides at some point. I can see why people are appalled that she’s being given a state funeral. On the other hand, I can understand why she’s being given a state funeral. The first female Prime Minister does deserve recognition just for that achievement: but no-one can look at her legacy and say that everything she did was a good idea (Poll Tax? And let’s not get into the Belgrano. Someone dared criticise that move at a political dinner in the Carlton Club, once. Someone else disagreed, and the rest of the room was within a gnat’s breath of breaking out into a rousing rendition of Land of Hope and Glory combined with the National Anthem, simultaneously. It was very weird. I didn’t go to another dinner).
Anyhow. Outright violence is going to erupt at some point, because there are an awful lot of people who think it’s a wonderful idea to go and celebrate her death, and an awful lot of people who think that this sort of behaviour is beyond the pale. The natives will be restless tonight
I also suspect the city’s going to end up in some sort of immense lockdown for her funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral.
And there will be a riot.
In slightly more positive news, my recycling didn’t get collected this morning owing to a handbag lurking on the top of the bin. No cash or phone, but there was a debit card, and an awful lot of really nice makeup and a huge bunch of keys. So I took it to the local police station, which was closed, and then took it to the next local police station. All this bussing about took well over an hour – but: I managed to track down the bag’s owner via Linked In, and let her know I’d found it, and what I’d done with it, and she’s very happy.
Staying up until nearly midnight assembling the powerpoint cabaret slide show (all singing, if not all dancing) for Jo’s wedding on the night the clocks go forward (bear with us in Europe, we’re a bit behind on these things) when there’s church in the morning is probably not the most sensible thing I’ve ever done. Still, it is, mostly, done. There may be some tweaking of the timings on some slides. Some are just pictures, some are somewhat wordy. I also need a version of Elton John singing ‘Chapel of Love’ which doesn’t have the introduction from Four Weddings and a Funeral. Fortunately, N has software that can deal with this. It dealt with Gangnam Style for Brownies (30 seconds required).
Anyhow, we don’t need the bit about being ‘Ready to Face the Enemy’ really. Regardless of how any of us might feel about it. Anyhow, lop off the first 6.93 seconds, and we’re good. Powerpoint refuses to do this for me, and I gave up struggling. Plus, with 33 slides, we need the full 3 mins 34 seconds of Elton. The Shirelles are about a minute shorter (no guitar solo). I’m faintly hysterical: where is the badge (on that note, where are the Who Day badges?)? Should I be printing photos for an album tomorrow (answer, probably, find memory stick and transfer when I’ve finished with this).
Oooh! paternally supplied gin.
So, anyhow, after really not enough sleep at all, and then a rush in the bathroom since my Mum spends about as long in there as a teenager, we had church. Our vicar is a frustrated thespian (question, does he want to rush off and get into his tights, closely followed by the verger who has one of the more amazing combovers known to mankind owing to its sheer fuzziness?). He is keen that the liturgy be theatrical. So, Palm Sunday generally features a donkey (unfortunately, the donkey wasn’t well this year, so they had to pretend) and we begin the Easter service by lighting a fire outside the church and lighting the Paschal Candle from that. We weren’t allowed to cook sausages on the fire (small boy was fairly put out by this), but he did light it with only one match like a boy scout should. Well, until Dad suggested that the fire should be lit by rubbing two wolf cubs together and I died of embarrassment and Mum had turned her hearing aid of so, thank goodness, didn’t hear. We then had lots of leaping about in the service, and he doused us in holy water with the help of a sprig of hyssop. This was not well received by the napping three year old in the front row, who wailed piteously for quite some time, with half the congregation trying not to giggle. She was vaguely mollified by the promise of Easter Eggs (he had a METRE of Easter Eggs), but really was not keen either on the idea of going up to the altar for a blessing, digging her heels in like the most stubborn goat, and squirming into Mum’s lap while he tried to bless her. He was very apologetic. He thought it had gone in her eye, rather than waking her up from a snooze. I think I might take an umbrella next year… Communion was punctuated by trying to poke daffodils into the rough, rude cross, draped in chicken wire, which had been rudely fashioned from last year’s Christmas Tree. It was pretty huge (it was a pretty huge tree). He gave us the glad tidings that the church is currently in surplus for the first time since he started the ministry there – and I think he’s blued the surplus on Prosecco for after the service. Dad took us away from temptation, and we went home via Roald Dahl’s house, to see how far it is from the station. About half a mile, so fine for Brownies to walk there.
Then I went for an exceedingly hilly run, and then I bought a cooker. Please can we all pray that Cannon did not lie, that it is indeed 595mm wide and thus will fit in the gap, and that I will be able to persuade the delivery men to get it up the stairs without having to resort to a Man With A Van. I bought the nice one, with the BIG burner on it, as I’ll miss it if it’s not there, and although I plan to move at some point, not quite yet, and who knows what cooker will land up where. I am very much looking forward to sausages.
I’m also looking forward to catching up on Dr Who (epic fail to watch at the correct hour) and to decompressing a little more.
I do sometimes feel that I should just gracefully retire this thing, and have done with it. I don’t post even a quarter as much as I used to, and most of the interaction that my friends and I had on blogs has been replaced by twitter – and this speed of response has enriched my life immensely. Plus I’ve made some new friends that way.
But, my blog is here. I’m here. It’s a useful venting tool, and, occasionally, I have some knitting to share. More often that not, though, that’s on ravelry…
It’s cold, winter seems to have no end in sight (I remember the last time it snowed on my birthday, it was about 20 years ago), I’m stressed and busy, and I feel like I cannot keep up, that I have perpetually forgotten something. I inadvertently offended someone at morris, who upset me immensely by their vehement, out of character, response. That upset that I left practice early.
I will be glad when Jo’s wedding is done – I’m now singing the responsorial psalm and the gospel response. In addition to everything else. I need to head over to my parents’ soon, there to spend time on the laptop pulling bits of Guidemin and Receptionmin together (please, please, God, let the blinking badge we’ve had made for the reception cabaret turn up in time). I’ve got stuck sitting here, writing nothing of any import, and, goodness, I need a bit more sleep. This won’t happen at my parents: Mum’s hearing is almost entirely kaput, and she likes the telly up loud in the room next to my bedroom. It’s almost easier to fall asleep on the tiny sofa in the sitting room.
Meanwhile, have an article from the Daily Wail about how to get rid of ear worms. It’s the best I can manage right.
I got 3/4 of the way through the 10km race, then pain. So I stopped. I was sensible, I was incredibly frustrated, I vented my spleen, and I cried rather a lot.
Walking home was OK, though – nothing like the pain of last weekend, so it’s definitely healing. Just not quickly enough to be able to safely run a half marathon 4 weeks today. So I shan’t. I shall do one later in the year.
I have officially cancelled my entry, I’ve entered the ballot for the Royal Parks Half, I’ll sign up for run to the beat, and I will be back.
Now I’ve finished being stroppy, and apologised to those who got caught up in said strop.
In the meantime, I’m on the sofa with a blanket, an hwb and I’m considering a second cup of tea. It was mighty cold out there.
He was Born in Tarnopol, and he worked in import and export. His wife was called Neta. He died, aged 57 in the ghetto in Kuoczynce, probably of disease, because he was a Jew.
On Wednesday, Eff and I went to a lecture at the Jewish Cultural Centre, in which Professor Yehuda Bauer explained the origins of World War II in terms of Hitler’s crackpot ideology: that if they didn’t exterminate the Jews, the Nazis themselves would be killed by the international Jeiwsh-Bolshevik conspiracy. That all of Germany was permeated by this ideology owing to some very persuasive speakers. As good little Marxist Historians, we felt that he was slightly underplaying the social and economic role played in Germany’s advance to war (the good professor suggested we go back to our Engels), at the same time, the idea that, while the 6 million were being exterminated, another 29 million also died because a bunch of lunatics somehow got in charge, was perturbing. We are pondering still.
And in the meantime, on National Holocaust Memorial Day, I light my candle, and decide to be more proactive about ensuring that it never happens again.
