"I'm wearing two vests and the longest socks in Christendom.  I'm still frozen."

"Where is Christendom?"

"Seriously?  Christendom is all countries where the predominant religion is Christianity.  It can also be used to describe a polity."

"Does that include Catholic Countries?"

Honestly.  Is this really an example of the American Education System, or is he having me on?  He did Industrial Engineering at Stanford...  Would it be wrong of me to try and explain that Catholic/Protestant is similar to Shi'ite/Sunni and Ashkenazi/Sephardic?  Is it a waste of time to start getting into the finer points of Martin Luther, John Knox (who wrote a book with my favourite title ever: 'The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women') and John Calvin?

xxx

"If any question why we died

Tell them, because our fathers lied."

Rudyard Kipling

Photo © Pittsburgh State University

Gee whiz, but the students are good at networks.  Well.  They are studying Business, so they ought to be.  However, it's breathtakingly impressive some days.

I email the ex RN doctor who's on the Rugby Team (he's terribly good looking and can be found on my Facebook): can he come and explain to my Brownies why Remembrance Sunday Church Parade is Important?  He can't, but he emails two of his friends.  They can't, but one emails six of his friends.

Next thing I know, I am being inudated with emails from (hopefully cute) ex servicemen who now work at JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers.

What a lovely way to start the morning.

xxx

Menaces.  The lot of them.  Particularly the student type...

It always follows the same pattern: can I do something IT related, under the radar, and then, let's go to the pub...  Monday, it was DRAMA!!!! (I nearly forgot to bold that.  Not half so satisfying to type....)  Today, it's Fairy - yes, that's his rugby nickname.  He's frankly a bit too hairy to be a fairy, but the guys have the oddest nicknames.

Anyhow, Fairy wants more diskspace, please, and has been out in my neck of the woods recently, and when am I free to show him my favourite pub/bar?  Imagine, if you will, the American English spelling: which nobbled my email spellchecker when I replied and added in all sorts of silly little wavy lines under my oh-so-British reply.

So, I sort out the diskspace, and email back that this has been done and only because the planets are in the correct alignment, and that I could introduce him to my favourite pub/bar this week, but then I'll be on holiday for a wee while.

"Shoot!" says he, almost immediately,  "This week is terrible for me, and I'm going to the States next week.  When are you back?"

Really.  I didn't think it was quite so, um, important....and I can't work out what he's actually suggesting.  There was a lovely joke last time I went out with him and some other student types: after his degree, he's going to stay in London, 'cos that's where I am .  Please, please tell me that this is going to morph into a group trip round the pubs and bars of my locale.  Otherwise, you may colour me uneasy, rather than being tickled pink that Fairy wishes to go out.

(Dear me.  That last sentence just sounds wrong).

xxx