Monday 28 February

It made me smile today when I read on Facebook that friends in Indonesia were finding it 'cold' there.  Sitting just below the equator it never gets lower than 29C during the day and if you're lucky down to 26C at the dead of night.  Actually I've been really cold myself today but I noticed it was only 3C this afternoon.  Brrr.

It was cold at school as well.  The radiator wasn't on in the conference room for the new students, so everyone felt chilly.  Had a staff meeting as well to discuss the panel results for the students' assignments and exams.  We then went on to discuss students - the less said the better.

I thought my essay looked ok but then when I printed out my bibliography a lot of the sources were more than 5 years old so when I got home I started doing searches on the linguistics and language behaviour abstract database.  Apparently I'm getting familiar with 'Boolean operators' (AND, OR, NOT) but the searches turned up loads of articles in journals that the university doesn't subscribe to.  To read those articles, it costs £20 per go, so I just looked at the abstracts.  

Watched the Kate Humble programme 'Spices' which we'd taped.  It was on nutmeg and cloves in Indonesia.  There are 17,000 islands that make up the country and she travelled to the 2 where these spices come from.  She interacted so well with the people and it was beautifully done.  I couldn't help smiling as I watched - they'd captured the friendliness and gentleness of the people so well.

Sunday 27 February

It's so annoying that I haven't gone completely grey yet.  The white hair is coming through like an Alice band from ear to ear over the top of my head but my hairline is still more or less the same old colour.  I've started using semi-permanent colour that's supposed to wash out after 24 shampoos.  I used 'golden blonde' today which Him Indoors thought looked more 'mouse'.  Oh well, only 24 shampoos to go.  I look forward to the time when it's the same colour all over and I don't feel the need to go through all this.

Davey, a friend of ours is in a band sent us a clip from Youtube that was posted the other day.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4Gevw2LbYY    We haven't seen him playing live for a long time - must find out when he's next playing.

Spent rather a long afternoon on the esssay so it was great when wafts of delicious smells came upstairs as Him Indoors cooked a chicken curry, with lots of five spice powder this time.  Was yummy.   For some reason I was still ravenous after dinner, so he offered me fruit - very healthy.  I ate a banana but still craved chocolate and lo and behold!  There was some in the fridge.  I only had a little bit, well 2 bits actually but I did feel I deserved them.

Saturday 26 February

Why should he notice mine if I don't notice his?  Him Indoors had obviously read my blog.    I knew he hadn't had a haircut and in the end he had to tell me.  Eyebrows.  Touche.

It was pouring with rain so I drove him to the station to go uptown to meet Mr Badger et al for their birthday outing.  I'd have like to have gone too, but this essay deadline is getting to close for comfort and I really need to get them finished.

Later on Emma and Dulcie, along with Georgy, Andrew and Thomas popped in.  It was lovely to see the the two sisters with their two babies.  Him Indoors made it home in time and we had loads of cuddles together, while he and Andrew watched the end of the rugby - well done England!  With long drives ahead, our visitors had to leave but promised to visit again soon.

Nice day.

Friday 25 February

The second red sparkly barstool is now in situ and they both look good.  Can't believe it took 4 round trips in the end - rather takes the edge off the 15% discount.

My very first LP (yes, LP) was Spencer Davis Group Second Album.  I absolutely loved it, knew all the words and played it again and again.  There was a programme on BBC4 tonight about Steve Winwood so I made sure I watched it.  They played some of the early stuff like Georgia on My Mind and it's still magical.  His later 80s music was very catchy and Eric Clapton said nice things about him but for me there'll never be anything like that Second Album.   I'm fairly sure that every single song of SDG is in the house somewhere, so I need to dig it out and listen again.  Wonder if HimIndoors can track it down easily?

Thursday 24 February

The news is full of the evacuation of British citizens from Libya and I've noticed that the majority are expat oil workers, who therefore don't pay tax in UK.  The British taxpayer is picking up the bill for their rescue and whilst I think the British government should be responsible for them,  I also think that it's about time that expats paid taxes, just like the USA and Australia, rather than making no contribution whatsoever.  Very controversial I know, but I've never met a poor expat oil company worker either.

I had my haircut yesterday.  Tina's looked so great last Saturday that it inspired me to go.  Wonder how long before it's noticed?

Still no reply re my outline so I've gone back to the assignment I wrote over Christmas.  Naturally I've started re-working it and it's getting a bit unwieldy but I'm sure it'll be much better once I've finished.  I'm hoping that I'll get some feedback on the other one tomorrow so that I can get down to it over the weekend.  Then I'll have a week to hone and polish and send them both off by 12 March.

Wednesday 23 February 2011

Had an email from Biobank today.  http://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/

Last year HimIndoors and I went along one Saturday afternoon for about 4 hours of tests.  The results were sent off to researchers and the plan is to 'improve the health of future generations'.  Apparently, all the information is anonymous but they are studying around half a million over 40 year olds.  We only received limited information on the day, eg height, weight, BMI, blood pressure, but it included bone density which I found reassuring.

Anyway, the email wanted to know me what I ate and drank yesterday.  It just happened to be a no alcohol day and I ate (drank?) home made chicken soup which HimIndoors had made from the carcass of the roast chicken on Sunday.  No chocolate, cake or processed food whatsoever.  Amazing.

Monday 21 February 2011

Only 9 for intake today but a lovely group.  Part of the talk is about respect for other cultures and international experience and I could see them nodding about that.  Certainly, it's true that they meet men and women who are completely different to them in every way.

Another session at my desk.  Must get the outline done quickly.

Sunday 20 February 2011

A slow start but at my desk early and cracking on with essay outline.  Emma came to get her wallet which had fallen out in the car and she stayed for a delish sandwich made by my beloved Him Indoors.

Saturday 19 February

Up early, breakfast in bed and out by 10am as spending the day in Deal with an old friend and her gorgeous little baby daughter.  A bit of fog on the way down and managed to get slightly lost in the town before finding her house but at the pub just after 12.30 for lunch.  It was really cold, probably the coldest I've ever been in a pub, but it was a lovely afternoon.  Eventually we were 7 adults and 2 little girls round a big comfortable table.  The girls were beautifully behaved and when we left the bar staff were very friendly and smiley towards us, so they were likely besotted too.

Five of us then went on for a curry which wasn't bad and tried to work out who the large table of men were.   After quickly deciding they were probably friends rather than colleagues and out on a low-key stag night, we got bored with them and didn't even notice when they left.

Apart from a half of cider with lunch, I'd been drinking coffee and soda water so drove home, in silence apart from occasional snores and snufflings from He Who Had Consumed A Few Pints As Well As A Curry.   There was a lot of fog between Deal and Dover and I felt envious of our friends who live in Ashford as we drove past and on up the M20 but arrived home safely at half past midnight.  A grand day out, but next time we go to Deal I really must have a look at the town and the seafront as well, not just the inside of pubs and restaurants.

Friday 18 February

How annoying.  One of the exchanged bar stools had the gas thingy missing.  Him Indoors now needs to go back again to Homebase.  The single one is in place now and looks fine, reasonably comfortable too.

Did the last IELTS mock today and its the exam for real tomorrow.  They all did quite well in the listening - maybe they do listen to me sometimes!  It's fingers crossed for tomorrow but the results won't be out for 2 weeks.  They already have 5.5 but need a minimum of 6 for university and 7 for a 'good' one, so it'll be interesting to see how much they've progressed.

Another report came out today re the government's proposal to limit student visas which focused only on universities and didn't include language schools, which would also be hit badly.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12496610   Anyone wanting to go to university here in the future will need to already be at university level English and won't be able to come here at a lower level than that to learn our language.  Apparently foreign students are worth £5 bn a year to our economy and only about 30% are already at university level.  The idea is that bogus students who just want to become illegal immigrants will be prevented from entering and going to fake schools.  However, rather than closing down the fakes by insisting that all language schools have British Council status (which all the good ones do and are subject to a 4 days inspection every 3-4 years) the proposal is that all schools will close, including universities' foundation courses.  I may write to my MP again about this but after the last bout of communication with him, I doubt there'd be much point

Wednesday 16 February

Been a busy few days.  The bar stools were a bit of a dead loss.  One was black instead of sparkly red and neither of them had the correct fixings so you could put them together.  Him Indoors went back and spoke to  oxymoron 'customer service' who couldn't understand why he'd returned to the original store rather than going to Kidbrooke.  Where?  Precisely.  He steeled himself to go to Orpington instead where they had a much better idea of service and brought home 2 sparkly red stools.  They're still in their boxes in the garage but should be in their rightful place tomorrow.

We've had some good weather and spring flowers are coming out.  The days are getting longer which is good because it's been a bit grim getting up in the dark and then walking home just after five in the pitch black on my late day.

Having started by saying that it's been a busy few days, I can't remember what made them seem so full, apart from work and studying.  Oh, and down on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor.  After all the workmen it was in a bad way and really needed close attention.  Took ages too.

Saturday 12 February

Was up first and made the coffee then had a lazy morning with a rare bacon and egg breakfast before braving Homebase which was having a 15% off day.  There was a very long queue along the road but luckily it was just roadworks, not millions of people going mad on DIY stuff.  Bought a thin greenhouse which should just fit along our side path and 2 bar stools for the kitchen.  Not sure about the stools - they're a sparkly red colour but they were more comfortable than the black ones.

Watched England thrash Italy.  I felt quite sad about that, not because I wanted England to lose because I really enjoy supporting them.  It's just that I admire Italy playing a game that traditionally they've not been good at but have improved tremendously over the last 10 years that they've been part of the 6 Nations.  Italy's also my third favourite.  Wales is second, with France fourth.  Ireland and Scotland battle it out between them to be my least favourite.  You can imagine how I felt that Wales beat Scotland today - yippee!

Then I had to finish off my exam marking and doing second marking.  It's such a long, drawn-out process having to go back and forth, but it all has to go before the moderating panel so it has to be absolutely watertight.

Friday 11 February

Not a good start to the day.  I expect to be the last one in the classroom so when I only had one student this morning because all the rest were in the garden smoking, I'm afraid I hit the roof.  I marched downstairs, herded them up and then read the riot act.  My boss joined in too and then when he left the room, I gave them a little bit more of a rant.  For the whole of the rest of the morning, they were as quiet as mice.  I must admit I loaded them up with homework, so it'll be interesting to see which of them really felt contrite.  My other class obviously heard that I'd been on the warpath and they were very good too.  Maybe I should shout more often - we certainly got an awful lot of work done today without all the usual mucking about.

Our garage door has gone pink.  It looked an odd colour this morning when I went to work and then I realised that it had been open while the tiler was cutting bits up and all that dust has stuck to it.  We need a bit of rain to wash it off and make it nice and white again.

Disappointed to learn that Spurs has not won the Olympic stadium bid.  I don't really care about football but I did want Crystal Palace athletic ground to be upgraded.  In all the fuss about the Olympics, south London has really lost out and despite all of us paying extra council tax the same as those north of the river, we've not had any benefit whatsoever from all this 2012 Olympics.  Spurs had promised to upgrade Crystal Palace to make it world class again so that they wouldn't have to share but it seems that West Ham with all their promises of public money are the favoured team.  

Thursday 10 February

Adam, the tiler, finished today and it's looking excellent.  He was very polite when I pointed out a couple of bits that weren't quite perfect and promised to improve them - which he did.  When I came home he'd already been gone a few hours and my darling Him Indoors had started the clean-up.  Good man.

Him Indoors has just signed up to be a 'snow friend' with the local Council.  By promising to clear the pavement outside, he's been given a huge orange snow shovel and a big bag of salt.  The salt can only be used on the pavement of course but the shovel will come in handy for clearing our driveway as well.  Can't wait for the next batch of snow.

Opened a bottle of rose this evening that was in the mixed case I bought a few weeks ago.  It was really sweet so I think the other bottles will be going down to the cornish cousins where it will be better appreciated.

One of the MP expenses fiddlers Eric Illsley was finally sentenced today.  I was disappointed to see that he only got 12 months.  He has a law degree so he knew that he was breaking the law not like some uneducated benefits cheat.  I hope he loses his pension as well but somehow I suspect that the MPs have made sure that none of their kind lose out on anything.

Wednesday 9 February

My lessons for the next month are all exam preparation so when a colleague said she'd like to observe me sometime during the next couple of weeks I tried to put her off by telling her that .  It's also true that I don't enjoy being observed but it's something we have to put up with.

The tiler finally came today.  For one reason and another, he's had to delay.  I was horrified at the quote he gave us, thinking that the job would only take half a day.  It turns out, it's very difficult to do and it'll take him 2 days.  At the end of the first day, it's looking good but the whole house is full of tile dust.  Hopefully we'll be able to get back to normal by the weekend.

One of my pet peeves at the moment is the use of 'amount' instead of 'number', as in 'a huge amount of people'.  It should be 'a huge number of people'.  You can of course say 'a huge amount of beer' so the difference is that any word that you can count, ie 265 people, 5 houses, we use 'number' and any word that we don't count, we use 'amount'.  Someone will naturally point out that we do count beers, but it's actually the pints or measurements of beer that we count, not the liquid itself.  

Tuesday 8 February

A beautiful sunny day and a couple of cats in the garden.  They visit fairly regularly and we call them No 1 and No 2.  No 1 is cross-eyed and stares and No 2 is very timid but unfortunately both of them seem scared of company and won't let us stroke them.  Well, sometimes him indoors manages to get close enough but they manage to stay out of reach of me - good spatial awareness, I suppose.

More marking and received extra PDFs of scripts to double mark from our other school.  It's interesting to see comments from those teachers and how high their standards are.

Some high-brow and some low-brow stuff on TV, starting with University Challenge, going on to Gok, finishing up with a bit of Dancing (something or other, can't remember the name but it's on Sky).  Don't think much of the dancing usually but I do like the judges, especially Ashley and Kimberley.  They don't make a point of being nasty and are usually kind but they are honest.

I like Mondays.  It's intake day and I get to meet all the new students - well, not just meet them but spend the whole morning with them.  I test them, give them information, we do a quiz together and then they spend time speaking, while I stay out of it so as to not inhibit them.  There were 26 today with ages between 18 and 61 from Europe, South America and Asia. A really nice group who got on well.

I did exam marking when I got home - not my favourite task and then this evening watched the radio 2 Folk Awards on the BBC red button.  It was good: I don't think I listen to enough music.  I'd heard of some of them like Bellowhead but some were new like the 3 young lads who won the newcomers award.  They thanked their mums and dads for driving them around.  An oldie who should never had been invited to sing was Donovan.  He received a lifetime achievement award which he accepted with an exceptionally long rambling speech and then proceeded to horrify everyone with 2 songs that I didn't like 40 years ago.   The Levellers won an award too.  I liked them but still think the folk link is a bit too tenuous even if they do call themselves 'green anarchists influenced by traditional music'

Sunday 6 February 2011

A friend who knows told me I really should blog, if only to remind myself in the future of what I'd been up to.  I was reluctant because I feared I might just whinge all the time and/or just be boring - so if nothing else this may prove if I have become a grumpy middle-aged woman.

A slight hangover this morning following yesterday's Beer Festival.  I don't normally drink ale but they were good, especially Battledown.  However, we were up early to visit a friend who's not been well.  He was much better than we'd feared and we had a good time chatting, drinking coffee, eating muffins and generally admiring their lovely new apartment with a great view over the park.  I like to have a garden but if I had to live in an apartment, that's definitely where I'd choose.

On the train on the way home, there were people with their feet on the seats.  I want to tell them not to but Him Indoors doesn't like it if I do that - he thinks they may hit me, or even worse, hit him - but it really does annoy me.  It's OK if you're wearing jeans when you sit down and get something nasty on you but not if you're a bit dressed up in a nice coat.