Well, Christmas went pretty well.  We drove across on Christmas Eve and the roads were pretty good, though there were some dicey moments in Worcestershire, as expected.  Got to Parentville at about five, and was in church at eight for "Midnight" Mass.  Because there hadn't been any rehearsals to speak of (and what there had been had been very ( Read more... )

Matilda the Clio is going in to the dealer (again) on Thursday.  I arranged this because I am going to Manchester on Thursday lunchtime in order to help with a conference on Friday.  As a plan it may bite Himself in the bum, though, because he'll have to drive half an hour to pick me up when we get back from Manchester on Friday night, and ( Read more... )

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Un (pron. een) - I am still suffering the after-effects of the Cold Of Doom.  This is Day Twelve and I'm still slightly croaky and sinusy and coughy.  And VERY VERY BORED of feeling poorly.

Dau (pron. die) - I have a new baby laptop.  She is red, called Ruby and has an 11.6" screen.  Light and thin and supposedly capable of 8 hours' battery life.  ( Read more... )

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The General Election:  Our constituency remains Lib Dem.  Not really a surprise - it's basically been a two-horse race between Lib Dem and Plaid Cymru here for years.  I would have liked to have felt able to vote for Plaid, except that their policy on only employing Welsh-speakers in councils would probably lead to Himself and many of his ( Read more... )

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Thing The First  I bought a car.  As you have probably surmised from my various financial whinges over the past few years, I can't afford a new car, but beggars (aka people with cars with broken gearboxes and no chance of passing the MOT next month without £100s of work) can't be choosers.  It's an older car than I'd intended to get - 9 years ( Read more... )

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Just back from Parentville, where I: a) spent a lot of time singing in church; b) did practically no PhD work; and c) nearly almost bought a car (well, nearly nearly almost: I test drove it and spent about half an hour debating with myself and The Husband, but decided to go away and research before almost certainly coming back the next morning to ( Read more... )

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Driving to Parentville, The Car decided to lose power at a junction; The Husband pushed it across three lanes of traffic, after which it decided to start again, and behaved impeccably for the rest of the journey.  The next day (Wednesday) we took it to the garage, who rummaged about under the bonnet and found various things that needed cleaning, ( Read more... )

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More bloody car troubles.  The throttle cable snapped yesterday.

Luckily I was in one of the few mobile-signal-hotspots on that road, so I called the RAC, then The Husband (who was at work doing overtime) and then My Sister, who can always be relied upon to cheer me up when I ring her and say things like "I only came out to get something ( Read more... )

... today has been ... challenging.

After starting the day by dumping hot coffee all over myself (and my inner thighs and my "lady lap" - as my sister euphemistically called it - are itching like crazy now.  Argh.), I finally made it to the uni library at about midday, and worked on my dissertation.

Then I tried to print, and the swipey machine ( Read more... )

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I've been a bit hooked on the BBC's Aintree coverage for the past three days - not having Channel 4 or any satellite sporty channels, I rarely if ever get to see racing on telly, and it's made me quite excited.

I'm not really a big Grand National fan - 20 horses is tight on that course, and 40 is just silly; of course there are going to be ( Read more... )