living for the weekends

Another weekend, and a much needed one has come and gone. I live for the weekends just now, this semester is tough… I am trying to get out of as many meetings as I can without getting into trouble. So far so good. My biggest challenge at the moment is to find markers for dissertations, and trying not get cross with our project manager. 

From a geopolitical perspective last week was awful. I am linking to John Grace's The Politics Sketch in the Guardian from Wednesday 06/11/24 (first paragraph) for an articulate expression of my thoughts.

But with my head buried in the sand, it is still possible to enjoy the small things that make me happy. I expect to have my head buried in the sand quite a lot in the new year, and beyond. My ballet class is a weekly highlight. We’ve been practising pirouettes. I find the spotting quite difficult. Spotting means that we have to keep our eyes fixed on a spot ahead, then quickly whip the head around to reconnect the eyes with that spot. Meanwhile the body turns in an elegant circle. Not necessarily my body, for sure. The spotting helps with dizziness. Just now, my head insists on moving with my body and much hilarity arises after 3 of 4 turns, each with decreasing elegance.

My winter months knitting is underway. Keeps the fingers warm of an evening. I am making socks with one of the South African sock yarns Moira gifted me when we met in Cape Town. This seems like a long time ago. I am deliberately delaying booking an international work trip to Jakarta. While it is exciting to explore new places far far away, it is also exhausting. The flight options are not great, with too much or too little connecting time between legs of the journey. Anyway, the socks are shaping up nicely. The yarn is self-striping, creating a pattern as I knit my rounds. I have never knitted with this type of yarn and I am intrigued about he dyeing process that creates it.  

I spent some enjoyable time sorting through old long forgotten shoes and handbags stored in neat boxes in our "walk-in" wardrobe (a hole in the wall with a door). I found a huge pile of shirts in need of ironing in there, all Richard’s. He piles them up until there are 20 that need ironed, then takes them to the local dry cleaner to be done. This is a progressive household, we do our own ironing. Or not. It was dusty in there. How does it get dusty inside a wardrobe I'd like to know? I decided to vacuum the floor space and noticed that the vacuum cleaner didn’t sound as it should. My mistake was to open the lid to check if the dust bag was full. It was not but the collected dirt of hooverings past was clogging up the inside of the vacuum. It was not pleasant to clean up. But the wardrobe is tidy once more, with donations ready for charity. 

On Sunday, I went for a soul-restoring walk with my friend Karen. We drove out towards Kilsyth and walked a circular route that takes in two Roman hill forts along the Antonine Wall. Also a iron age fort. The weather was gloomy at first, with smirr (the worst of all precipitation types), but it brightened up eventually and we spotted the sun. We were too busy setting the world right to take photos but you can see some views on this link.

In other news, James no longer has a job but still no time to study for his prelims. Alistair discovered a way to approve his time requests for social media use during the night when I am soundly asleep. I am once more a step ahead but it will be only a matter of day before he is winning again. I wish he'd just sleep, like most people do. 

And now it is Tuesday again, I am procrastinating over a final reflective essay that I need to mark and a plagiarism referral for which I need to complete the paperwork. Please send motivation, preferably in a Costco sized bulk package. 

Thanks for visiting 😊