Festive Fun

Well I hope everyone is having a lovely Christmas; I sure am. It is pretty jolly to be sitting here at home listening to Joy Division with Tabitha, but it gets even more exciting than that. Firstly, it has been nice to be back in the Jewel of the North, to unwind, to bump into people a few times etc. Its always nice to have someone else cooking for me and with me, especially when its my dads food, its also just nice to be getting honest Bradfordian pavement under my heels again - I have been into town more than a couple of times, and I always feel at home when I am. Being Christmas there have been a fair fistfull of festivities; parties and the like - a few more are due. All have been immensely fun - I haven't overdone it either (although I more than made up for it in advance my last night in The Mighty Puddle).

Christmas day was particularly nice; I spent all day in one place - not worrying about the usual stresses of getting to Harden mid afternoon me and my dad had my dads sister and family around for lunch; when they went we watched Doctor Who(very good; I am expecting Tennant to be even better than Ecclestone is such a thing is possible) and generally slobbed around. The most challenging thing has been Araucaria's bumper Christmas puzzle (with a Pride and Prejudice theme). In the run up to this Christmas I have been a little ambivalent: firstly, I have felt not especially festive - I am entirely perplexed as to why; secondly, I was getting more than usually fed up by the accompanying feast of Mammon. As a result I was snottier than I should have been about Angharad's desire to get the Cat a stocking for instance. Nonetheless come sunday morning I was all a sparkle; the morning service was positively frolicsome and Christmas dinner came together in an unbelievably smooth and relaxed manner.

Tonight I go to see my mother; I shall stay the night in order to be sped towards Kendal to see mum's brothers family. I only hope that all are well when I arrive. this time tomorrow then I shall have seen most of my accessible relatives; my dad's brother was briefly visited the day I came home. However, there is still a family party on friday towards which I am gladly looking.

I hope to see even more of people before I go west again, I also hop eto get a decent amount of both 'R and R' (rest and relaxation) and 'R and R' (reading and revision)...

Have fun everyone; now I have a machine gun...


HO

HO

HO

Various Events

Well I am writing this between my lecture and my seminar from the History Cyber Café – It always amazes me that this room is near empty even when the library is packed; I suppose in theory its not meant for work; but then not everyone at the library machines is working; and I betcha some of them are history students as well.

There is much to much to report. All essays and tutors are well and truly sorted, I even got round to grabbing a few books from the library to take home other Christmas.

Talking of festive things… the living room at park view is mighty festive with the addition of my Christmas tree; goodness knows where it’ll go when I get home; perhaps I’ll loan it to Angharad or something. I went Carol singing on Sunday instead of going to KISS; that was mighty fun even if someone had been messing around with the words (‘oh come all you faithful’ indeed; and what’s wrong with ‘very God’) oh and noone sung the descants for Once In Royal which was also upsetting to me. On Friday (Really stretching back now – I can barely remember last week) I had the girls of MSCM for dinner. I did them ‘Dauphinois Surprise’ (it had a layer of Mushrooms under it) and Provencal Stew (I would have called it Ratatouille but I fancied a change) both went down pretty well; the left other Dauphinois was my lunch on Saturday – and the Ratatouille was magically turned into Lasagne (with the addition of more tomato, passatta, more aubergine and courgette, a little soya mince and the left other mushrooms) I haven’t finished it yet; hopefully I’ll do so today – allowing me to create something altogether different for Wednesday and Thursday (something that’ll use up all remaining potato and onion – maybe potato and onion soup; with courgette fritters). Last thing that pops to mind is that I went to see Narnia; and very much enjoyed it, but was a little concerned by C.S. Lewis’ apparent dualism, I’ll think about it when I have a) reread the book and b) rewatched the film.

Coming home soon, and very much looking forward to doing so. I’ll miss folks from up here though.

Made me Chuckle...

From : Bradford Trade Justice Network
Sent : 06 December 2005 21:33:30
To :
Subject : White Band Day III

Please come to Centenary Square from 10-11am this Saturday (wearing your
white band, of course!) We hope to be wrapping Terry Rooney MP in a big
white band as part of our campaign for trade justice.

Best wishes,

Bradford Trade Justice Network


What a lovely idea - I shall probably be in Albert Square on the day instead, If anyone can get me a picture of Terry Rooney wrapped up in white I would be most pleased.

Also in my inbox this morning (t'other inbox though); Nick Higham Agreeing to be my tutor. So I crossed the first hurdle -- I emailed the right one. (Students at manchester may or may not know that there are two Nicholas J Highams, one medievelist and one mathematician)

Chuckiebum...

I handed in all my essays hurrah!!

Today (and to a lesser extent yesterday) has been quite productive. The last few weeks have been pretty busy, it is in fact my opinion that the whole semester has been pretty relentless, but these last few weeks especially so. In the time when I have been writing essays etc I have neglected somewhat all the small but important domestic tasks that one should complete to best maintain ones home. So today I cleaned and tidied; no longer does my floor host all the notes I never got round to putting away, no longer is my bathroom covered in dust (I did clean my bathroom but only doing the important bits). i find a nice tidy and clean room very pleasing indeed - makes me feel much more in control of my environment.

I have also just finished the second section of Nick Higham, The Convert Kings I am reading this because I will be covering the period in my long essay next year, and it seems possible that the author will be supervising me, if not he'll be supervising me on paper with Martin Ryan - his student supervising. All very intimidating; to be potentially discussing Bede with a man who just wrote a book about the subject could be interesting.

Oh and another thing...*
I met Charles Kennedy on Thursday: Inbetween lectures I had the opportunity, which I took of meeting him of being in a group of people chatting with him in one of the MMU cafeterias(cafeteria, cafeterii???) There were bundles of people taking photos and notes, both press and Lib Dem types - plus Channel M videoing. He gets publicity, ManUniLibDemSoc and a few hangers on get to chat with the party leader- everyone wins. He is a particularly chatty type, as I suppose one learns to be in that sort of job. Seemed friendly and genuinely open to discussion; I certainly didn't detect him trying to edge the conversation towards what he might have wanted to talk about.

Brownie Related Goodness

Probably the last blog of November; not long till I'll be able to say that I have been blogging for a year; certainly longer than I have ever kept a diary running. So in that sense it was probably a success. My private scrapbook is currently accompanied by a box full of things I have never got round to 'scrapping' in. I'll think more on that theme later perhaps.

I am happy to report the successful production of two batches of chocolate brownies; including one batch of experimental chocolate orange brownies; sadly not experimental vegan brownies, I forgot to check for vegan chocolate, and wasn't entirely sure about the most intelligent way to do egg substitute. I also took collection of some banana loaf and buns from Georgina who is unable to come tomorrow. "What's tomorrow Owen??" why dear reader tomorrow is the fair trade brunch - from 11-1 at Whitworth park I and my beautiful assistants will be distributing all manner of yummy things all for a pound. (In quantities somewhere approximating a light lunch or large breakfast). We even have Gluten free cakes! I am really hopping it all comes together OK, especially as I was trusted with a lot of the organising side of things!!

Also today I finished my Christianity essay, allowing me to hopefully start my (already begun) Liberal Nation essay tomorrow. On Monday I shall hunt for a tutor for next year (yes I know I should have done so already - there was always something more pressing).