Playing truant

If you're standing, sit down, I have some shocking news for you. Ready? Well, I didn't go to school on Friday, and I wasn't ill - I bunked off. Yes, a morning and afternoon of lectures that I should have attended, I wasn't there, I was at home reading and writing about constipation* and making tea for Alf.

I had decided not to attend lectures before Alf phoned to say he was coming over for the day. There were a few reasons: the usual wonderful lecturer was away and had delegated to a much less experienced chap, and I was starting to get far too stressed about coursework. I thought I would be able to get ahead by spending an extra day not usually available for working. And the afternoon lecturer on pharmacology has already given us the handouts and doesn't usually add much during the actual lectures. It's just a pity the lecture I missed was about drug interactions and adverse drug reactions, which sounds quite interesting.

I have reached the point, and gone well beyond it actually, where I am no longer spending time on things because they are interesting. They are still interesting, but the workload at the moment means I spend exactly as much time on things as it takes to get them finished - by the 80/20 rule, I used to spend the extra 20% of time making everything wonderful - not any more. Something's finished, it gets put aside, I read through it one more time before handing it in, to pick out typos or anything obvious I've missed. That's it.

It has turned out to be a good idea to spend Friday on coursework, because I was finally pushed over the filth threshold into housework. I've mentioned before that our house is shockingly dirty and neither of us is doing much about it. After a day when Alf renovated the front door and door frame and finished a couple of walls with plaster skim, the state of floors, surfaces and assorted detritus could no longer be ignored (although Mr A seems to have an astronomically high tolerance for filth). Instead of school work on Saturday, I spent pretty much the whole day cleaning up. So I exchanged a day at school for a day of cleaning, and didn't gain any time for more coursework at all.

The front door is beautiful now, a slightly more purply blue with a new handle and shining brass number 1, which it has lacked for several years. The next job will have to be the side door between the house and the garage, even though we would like to finish the bathroom sooner. The door has been in a poor state for a long time, and this winter it has pretty much rotted away.

Now while you're sitting down, there's another bombshell to report. Smurf is leaving the pub. In just one week, he will be handing over to another landlord/manager, and disappearing from our lives, perhaps for ever. You can perhaps imagine our sadness, but it has been a great two years while he's been in charge.

* I feel that having mentioned writing about constipation, you might be slightly interested in the subject. I'll save it for another post, though.