What I'm reading at the moment

I couldn't finish the Barry Humphries book, and started to feel a bit low about all the bad books that are out there and that I seem to be encountering at the moment. It's because I'm reading other people's choices - too many presents and none of my own selection for months. Then I fired up one of my Audiobooks on the way to London.


The Uncommon Reader
by Alan Bennett

narrated by Alan Bennett

"It was the corgis' fault. When they strayed through the grounds of Buckingham Palace, the Queen discovered the City of Westminster travelling library. The Queen has never had much time for reading - pleasure's always come second place to duty - 'though now that one is here I suppose one ought to borrow a book.'"

A treat, a delight, at last something I've really enjoyed. If anything, too short - it was over by the time I'd got halfway back up the M40.



Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park
edited by F.H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp

"Bletchley Park was arguably the most successful intelligence operation in world history, the top scecret workplace of the remarkable people who cracked Germany's vaunted Enigma Code. Only now, nearly half a century since the end of the Second World War, have any of the men and women in this group come forward to tell this remarkable story in their own words - a story that an oath of secrecy long prevented them from revealing."

Mr A and I are going on a guided visit to Bletchley Park in May, and he left this lying around the house so I thought it would be useful background. Hard going, since I'm not particularly au fait with military protocol or terminology, even with the help of the glossary.



Leave it to Psmith
by P.G. Wodehouse

narrated by Jonathan Cecil

"The idyll of Blandings Castle is about to be disturbed, for the Hon. Freddie Threepwood is poised to make his debut as a jewel thief. Freddie, however, is not alone: Blandings is simply brimming with criminals and impostors all intent on stealing Aunt Constance's £20,000 diamond necklace."

Now that term has started, and it looks like I'll have to drive to Nottingham and back five times a week, I should be getting through audiobooks at quite a rate.

An enjoyable excursion

I thought I would get a lot done once the exams were over and I had a few days of freedom, but when it came to it I didn't do very much at all. During the day I revelled in catching up with bloggy, podcasty and computery things, and in the evenings I played badminton, returned to the pub quiz (only 7th, mainly due to a poor choice of joker round), and went out to dinner with Mr A to celebrate the end of exams (not that we really need an excuse). I also attempted the Truly Magnificent Chicken Curry, but mine only came out OK.

I've spent the last few days doing Good Deeds. Good Deed #1 was donating blood. Cleaning the kitchen and the hall floor might not count towards the official tally of Good Deeds, but it felt good afterwards. Then off to London to visit mum and dad, and to perform a wide variety of Good Deeds, mostly computer-related. I visited each computer in turn, and both received an installation of AVG anti-virus software to replace Norton, and Mozilla Firefox browser to complement IE. We went through mum's list of queries, and dad now has a blog of his own. When he asked Lola II why she doesn't join the exalted ranks of the blogorati, she quite rightly said, "I have a life."

On Saturday I hit Lola II with AVG and Firefox, and marvelled anew at how incredibly slow her PC and broadband connection are. It's lucky she has a fast-paced life that makes up for it. As usual we ate a load of Japanese food, then she bought me a nice massage, I 'helped' her with the washing up, we watched a couple of episodes of 'Sex and the City', and then the film 'Armageddon'. For supper, we had another feast: peas, M&S lemon cheesecake, a glass of wine and a mug of Redbush tea. We really know how to have a good time. Really.

Now I'm back home, vaguely contemplating the jobs I didn't get round to, but actually returning to the computer instead, to blog and to read blogs. I'm looking forward to going back to school tomorrow, starting with the relatively uninteresting new topic of 'Data Transfer, Analysis and Presentation' and more Biochemistry, before getting into Food Safety, Nutrition, Physiology, and Food and Catering towards the end of the week. It will be nice to see my fellow student friends again, too.

Blog etiquette

Since my displacement activity took me way out into the blogosphere, I have been rewarded by one or two return visits from other bloggers. This is quite the most amazing thing that the blog has done - my self-indulgent choice to write down stuff that I'm doing for other people to read has led to just that, other people reading it. Who'd have thought?

And I bask in the gratitude of my parents, who must have spent years wondering what I get up to and why I don't talk to them about anything I do. I don't talk to anyone about anything I do. Either it's embarrassing, or not their business, or unimportant, or just not interesting. Nothing I've written in this blog is particularly important, I just try to make it as interesting to read as possible, and sometimes I find a nice turn of phrase that adds some spice.

[Actually, I do talk to Lola II about stuff, but she has an incredibly high boredom threshold and doesn't seem to mind hearing about unimportant uninteresting stuff. And she's very good at asking questions.]

Most of all, I'm writing things down that may be fun to remember in years to come, a combination of a photo album and a diary. But a very selective diary, given that absolutely anyone can come and have a look, and can even leave me comments. And that has taken me into the world of blog etiquette - must I comment on the comments? It seems polite to thank people for taking the trouble to leave a note, and that is what is commonly done elsewhere, but I can't bring myself to leave a comment that says "Thanks for leaving your comment, I really appreciate it" because, well, I'm not sure why I don't want to do it. It's just A Bit Much.

So if I still have readers from the blogosphere, I really am grateful for your comments but I can't bring myself to thank you in a comment, except if there's something else to say as well. I'll just visit your blogs and comment there. I'm almost ready to include a few blogs in my links list, and I hope that will stand as thanks as well.

What I'm reading at the moment

Women in the Background
by Barry Humphries

"He's risen above his unexceptional origins in Australia to become the toast of the London stage and a top-rating television performer ... Slowly at first, then with frightening speed, Derek Pettyfer's frayed life unravels, helped by sadistic dentists, fetishistic secretaries and the ugly-spirited beautiful people who infest great cities."

Another Christmas present from Mr A; all right so far but I've got a bad feeling about how the story will go, given the cover quote.

Exams

Other than for multiple choice tests, past exam papers are available. Naturally we become intimately familiar with them, noting style, format and content in order to judge what are most likely topics to appear this time.

The Biochemistry exam offers four questions of which two must be answered. For the last five years, one question has been on carbohydrates, one on lipids, one on nucleic acids and one on enzymes, except the enzyme one has always been impossible, as it was this year. Only when brushing my teeth in the evening did I realise that I'd drawn and described an ester bond instead of a glycosidic bond in the carb question.

The Whole Organism Biology exam requires ten questions to be completed in an hour, and the past four years' papers have repeated about five of the questions. I had my annotated drawing of the heart all ready, but in the event it wasn't needed. Luckily I'd practised drawing the hormone levels for the menstrual cycle, and the cross-section of the brain, but nothing this time on open and closed circulation (arthropods and molluscs have open circulation, where there is no separation between blood and lymph, in case you care).

Then Dietetics this morning, and it's all over at last! Not too bad today, although I think I might have got the Atwater factor wrong for carbohydrates (how many kcal there are in a gram). Now I'm off to make soup, clean the kitchen floor, renew the sealant in the shower, find a new string for the electric blanket, pay the builder for the kitchen roof, book a service for the car and put a whole lot of stuff on Freecycle to see if I can clear some space in my room. I might even need more shelving...

Return via Carlisle and Altrincham

The holiday feels like a long time ago now. M and Mr A both left us on 2 January, M to visit friends, Mr A to nurture his business. He gets very twitchy if it's left without him for any time, as if it were a delicate flower. Which I suppose it is.

It snowed! I love snow. We slushed our way to Carlisle and looked for somewhere to eat. We're picky about where we eat - it's got to suit both of us, and there are no hard and fast rules, although if there's anything Japanese or soup-based then I'm inside before you can say "Café Soya".

Carlisle had nothing Japanese or soup-based. In fact it had nothing at all that suited our mood, and I think we walked around most of the main roads in the town. We nearly settled for a Chinese buffet but thought we would both eat too much, and then after joking that surely this town would have a Café Rouge or Pizza Express, we stumbled upon Pizza Express, and that was where we ended up. I tend to sneer at restaurant franchises, but at least you know what the quality will be, and clearly they're handy as a last resort.

Then we went to see the new film 'Enchanted' - the afternoon showing with loads of kids and their parents. I probably enjoyed it even more than they did. Lovely film. Onwards to food and games with Helen & Gail, and Lola II inadvertently provided entertainment for the dogs when she emerged wearing those pink fluffy slippers - the best toy they'd seen this side of Christmas.

The last leg of the journey was home via Altrincham and a visit to Hugh and Bernadette. Hugh was very excited about the new 'standing up' machine, and I agreed to be a guinea pig so he could practise (he's not yet allowed to operate it on Bernadette). It's really clever, especially when it sits you back down on a chair. We also saw the new hoist at the back door of the flat (it's huge, much bigger than I expected) and the adapted bathroom.

When I got home, we had a new kitchen roof. They'd worked on it flat out for two days, and the previous roof was in bits on the lawn because we'd economised by not hiring a skip. It's all in the back of Mr A's van now (that was an hour of backbreaking work), ready to go to the dump at some point. Richard had watched them working from his attic, he told us, and it had looked good.

And then I carried on revising.

The delightful company of Lola II and Marcus and the Truly Magnificent Chicken Curry

One blog-free day was enough. I revised pretty much all yesterday, although I kept getting distracted by checking to see if any new posts had arrived on any of the blogs I've subscribed to. Google Reader is the best tool I've installed for a while, but it seems to feed an addiction.

Back to the holiday - we've established I know the cottage owner, so let's see if it's a nice place. It is! Warm (very important indeed) with all the necessary facilities, and a great little conservatory and garden that would be splendid in the summer, but we didn't use at all. After something to eat, we went out to explore Alston.

The requirement that there should be a pub in walking distance was easily met - there are at least seven pubs in Alston, and it isn't a large place. We chose the Angel Inn, and what a fine choice it was. Eveyone said hello when we went in, and Lola II's choice of Ginger Wine (a test of any establishment's quality) resulted in a huge unmeasured slosh for apparently no money.

M arrived next day, then it was New Year's Eve and I took the day off from my revision so we could all go walking together. The environs of Hexham was chosen, and a shortish walk so as not to put too much strain on M's recovering knee. That was the plan; in actual fact the walk turned out to be about twice as long as the book indicated, and the knee suffered accordingly. But we found chillies! Lola II had volunteered to create NYE dinner, a chicken curry which required chillies, but Alston Co-op had failed to deliver. Hexham Waitrose was another matter.

Readers, the curry was Truly Magnificent. And she produced chocolate mousse for dessert. Best meal of any sort I have eaten in 2007 - which leaves 2008 fully open to contenders. Games were played, Jools Holland and Take That accompanied us into the new year, and M had a great time with Mr A's flight simulator, seeing if he could sink ships by crashing the plane into them instead of dropping bombs.

On re-reading, I've mentioned everyone but Mr A in this post. He too was there, and also provided delightful company, although he soooo missed out on the 'best meal of 2007' award. He deserves credit for being Truly Magnificent, though.

The amazing coincidence of the Cumbrian cottage owner

First exam is over - 90 minutes of multiple choice questions on Genetics and Cell Biology. There was only one I really had no idea about: which of these is an icosahedral non-enveloped virus? Flu, polio, rabies, HIV, Tobacco Mosaic Virus. Probable answer: polio, I've just looked it up. Thing is, I probably don't need to know that for my future dietetic career. Or for anything else.

So I'm treating myself to another short blog, about the amazing coincidence etc etc. In September we'd established that Lola II and Marcus were interested in joining us over New Year in a rented cottage somewhere, but I didn't do anything about it for ages. Lola II sent a link from the Guardian recommending a company, so I looked at their website in October or November.

They let you specify certain criteria, so after checking for New Year availability I booked a cottage at the lower price range that would hold up to four people, with an open fire, central heating and a pub within walking distance. That's how we came to find ourselves on the road to Alston (the highest market town in England), in the fog, with Lola II driving and me on the mobile to the owner to find out how to get into the cottage.

The owner's name was a fairly common one, but the accent of the voice on the phone was very distinctive. After I'd been told how to find the front door key, I tentatively asked whether the voice belonged to the Jim that I knew from my last job? Turns out that it did. What are the chances of that?

Even better, Jim and Chris invited us round to their place on New Year's Day, so the four of us drove over for wine, snacks, roaring fires, singing (Marcus), and fine conversation.

Happy New Year

To all those who have been reading this stuff, thank you very much for all the support in 2007, and the good news is I'm going to carry on! I've only been blogging for six months or so, and I didn't realise I'd miss it so much being offline for a week.

There are a few problems, though. Exams start tomorrow (TOMORROW!) and there is no way I can justify the detour away from the books, so this entry must be short. But having been away for a week there is much to write, and I will have forgotten most of it by the time I'm allowed to blog at length again, which ought to be Monday 14 January in the afternoon. I've got a list a page long of all the things I'm going to do when I'm finally free.

So look forward to an account of some or all of the following: the amazing coincidence of the Cumbrian cottage owner, the delightful company of Lola II and Marcus, the Truly Magnificent Chicken Curry, the return via Carlisle and Altrincham, and the new kitchen roof.

On holiday soon

Here I am, last post before going on holiday to Cumbria for a week. Long ago I thought I'd like to become a writer, and made some tentative steps in that direction. One of the bits of advice I was given was to write every day - it didn't matter what, just write something. At the time, I felt on some days there simply wasn't anything to write. Now I have more rubbish to put down than there are hours in the day, and I don't think it's because my life is inherently more interesting.

Christmas passed very pleasantly - when I went to lock up for the night, I discovered the front door still locked from the previous night. The pheasant was delicious; we didn't eat the guinea fowl at the time but it's good cold too. Both taste similar to chicken but with an extra something. The state of the kitchen wasn't too disgraceful at all, but I'm still washing up.

Most interesting present was the Internet radio (Mr A's idea). We now have more radios of various types than is strictly necessary: three ordinary tuners (in my room, the living room and the garage), three digital (bedroom, Mr A's room and kitchen) and a spare with shortwave for holidays, in a drawer somewhere. The digital reception in the kitchen is so bad that we sometimes can't use that radio, so we are trying the new Internet one there. It works off the wireless router, there's a delay while the station buffers, and the sound quality is a bit tinny, but at least we can listen to Radio 4 whenever we want (as long as broadband is there). An added bonus is the ability to Listen Again whenever a radio station offers this feature. The downside is that you have to press a LOT of buttons to change to a channel that isn't preset, select 'listen again' or whatever. If it works out, I get to try the digital one in my room.

Today I need to assemble belongings for the week away, and with no pressure to revise I'll probably do more revision that I've done in the last week. It's going quite well; I've done about half and it's about halfway through the holiday. As the actual exam dates approach I expect that extra tension that should allow me to concentrate a bit better, and in Cumbria I won't have the Internet to distract me, just Mr A and Lola II. And Marcus. And Helen and Gail...