First snowdrops, 2010

It’s that time of year again – the first snowdrops have appeared. They’ve appeared at around the same time, almost to the day, for three years. Anyway, here is this year’s photo:

Sorry it’s a bit blurry.

Systems, snow, singing and other things

Well, we’ve had three weeks back at work now and what interesting weeks they have been. Unfortunately, I am using the word ‘interesting’ as a  diplomatic substitute for other words I could have used. So far, we have had a system ‘upgrade’ (or as my colleague called it a downgrade) which knocked the system out for four days. We then had to deal with all the resulting problems, which was fun.

On top of this we had snow. This was lovely to look at but troublesome to deal with, especially if you were trying to commute to work. I got to stay at home for a couple of days – one working from home and one as leave – because of the lack of transportation available. I was glad I did this, as the University of Doom didn’t seem to know whether to stay open or not and changed its mind several times over the course of a weekend. My poor colleagues. Here are a few pictures of the snow taken from the comfort of my front doorstep:

Meanwhile, the Shiny New Learning Centre continues to supply us with unexpected challenges, such as weird and definitely not good vibrations and strange smells in the office (not necessarily both at the same time).

I am still looking for a new job. I’m sure there must be one for me out there somewhere, but it is doing a good job (sorry) of hiding from me so far. It’s not really a good time to look for jobs at the moment, as there is rather a dearth of them, although there seem to be more around now than there were before Christmas.

We have had two choir practices so far this term – one was cancelled because of the snow. We’ve started rehearsing Vivaldi’s Gloria, which has been quite challenging so far, especially for the poor men. They’re not used to dividing into two parts, so now they’re not going to – we’re going to have female tenors! I really want to be one, but I think they’re being provided by the other choir (a girls’ school choir) and I can’t really sing the tenor part on my own until we join up with them – no one would hear me, apart from anything else! I have sung tenor before – a long time ago, when I was offcially a soprano. Anyway, I’m enjoying the rehearsals so far, and it actually sounds OK when all the parts are put together, even without anyone singing the tenor line (which is being bashed out on the piano).

In other news, Mr C has started volunteering as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant.

Christmas holiday (high)lights

I know it’s a bit late, now we’re going back to work tomorrow and everything  , but I’m trying not to think about work and so I am still thinking about Christmas! It is still the Christmas season, after all . So, I thought I would share some highlights from my Christmas holiday.

1. Various carol services

I went to a few carol services this year, although our own church carol service was cancelled due to the snow and ice and the fact that it would have been dangerous for our mainly elderly congregation to have attempted to get to the church. I went to the university carol service for the first time this year (someone had a spare ticket) and it was really lovely. There was a great variety of carols and choirs, including the gospel choir, who did a nice version of Do You Hear What I Hear. I was really impressed by all the choirs who took part. I was listening to O Magnum Mysterium on repeat for a while afterwards (on Spotify, of course), as it is so beautiful.

(This was the first recording I clicked on and it may not be the best, but it’s pretty good).

I also took part in a local grammar school’s carol service, as the choir I sing in was asked to sing in the service. We sang two pieces, one of which we messed up and one of which went quite well, but we were well outshone by the beautiful singing of the pupils at the school. I was, again, really impressed by their precision, their discipline as a choir and most of all by the lovely sounds they made.

2. Christmas trees

I love Christmas trees, especially the smell of real ones. We had a big tree in the SNELC, which was very cool, but sadly not very smelly, even though (I think) it was a real one. We went to my parents’ house for Christmas and they had a nice real one:

I had to adjust the contrast on the picture. I did take one with the flash on, but it doesn’t show the lights as well.

3. Christmas lights

…are also one of the best bits of Christmas, for me. We have some strung across our bookshelf and I don’t want to take them down (but of course I will).

4. Not having to go to work

One of my new year’s resolutions is to find a new job!

5. Seeing my best friend for the first time since last Christmas!

We managed to spend more than ten minutes together this year. It was good to catch up properly.

6. Chopping (and eating) vegetables

My mum let me and Mr C chop vegetables for the Christmas dinner this year. It was the most help with Christmas dinner she’s ever let us give her! She is an excellent cook  – I know it’s a cliche but I’ve never eaten a Christmas dinner as nice as the one my mum makes! My favourite bits of the Christmas dinner are  the sausages wrapped in bacon and the chestnut stuffing. I like bubble and squeak (fried left over mashed potatoes and vegetables) on boxing day as well – possibly even more than the dinner itself, especially if there is a sausage and some chestnut stuffing to eat with it. Yum. Now I’m feeling hungry at the thought of it!

7. Hibernating

I like staying in. Some might say I’m quite boring that way (as well as in many other ways). I especially like staying in when it’s cold outside and I have the heating on, a blanket over me and my hot water bottle cat on my knee. Can you tell I feel the cold?! I spent some nice time in this way this holiday and also enjoyed another of my favourite pastimes at the same time….

8. Reading

I usually have a book or two on the go, but it’s really only during holidays that I have time to sit down for any great length of time and just read. This holiday, I spent quite a lot of time reading Five Red Herrings, which I don’t think is one of Dorothy L. Sayers’ best works, but it passed the time and I like a nice, old-fashioned, detective story at Christmas.

9. Knitting

I got a knitting starter kit for Christmas. I last knitted anything, which was not very much, when I was about ten years old. This time I have knitted 80 cm of ‘neck wrap’ (a scarf which fastens with two buttons that I have also knitted) and am about to begin casting off, which I’m not sure I’ll be able to accomplish without help. My knitting has been a bit erratic. If you look (not very) closely at it you will see that I changed stitch-type several times during its making. Whoops. Never mind, hopefully my next attempt will be better.

10. Joy to the World!

This is one of my favourite carols and it was very jolly to play it on my flute at church this morning. A late Christmas holiday highlight!

A belated happy new year to all our readers.

Garden visitors

I now have a bird table. As I was on leave today I thought I might see some birds eating off it. I didn’t see any birds. However, I did see this:

The big green splodge in then top left-hand corner is a geranium leaf – I was taking the photo through the kitchen window. I know some people don’t like squirrels, but I do.

While the squirrel was merrily eating the birds’ food, I glanced down and saw another visitor – a little mouse, eating some crumbs that were on the ground. He ran away but then appeared again near the foot of the bird table:

I don’t know where that big bit of bread came from – it may have been dropped by a bird flying over the garden – unless Mr C put it out. I tried to get a closer-up picture of Mr (or Mrs) Mouse but it was a bit blurry:

Lovely glovely

A very lovely and clever lady at church knitted me these gloves to wear when I’m playing my flute in church because it’s so cold in there:

She didn’t tell me she was going to make them, so they were a nice surprise. I love the fact that (a) she thought to make them for me at all and (b) that she thought about how to make them so that they would be the optimum design for flute playing. Thank you lovely church lady.

A deeper bathing experience?

I saw this in the chemist’s today:

It just struck me as a bit odd, and quite funny, that you can get a bath gift set called ‘Theology’. What does theology have to do with bathing? Well…I suppose ritual washing of various kinds is an integral part of many religions, as is the very closely related idea of spiritual cleanliness. However, I doubt that this is what the makers of the Theology Black & White Bathroom Set had in mind when they designed it. But perhaps I’m wrong!

For me, it just brings to mind images of people reading the works of Karl Barth in the bath. It would be good if the bath set came with a short theological work included, but I think this is unlikely.

Lousy is such an American word to use

Actually, I didn’t get any kind of sense of satisfaction because I knew I was writing rubbish most of the time. I won’t be doing NaBloPoMo again next year. It just reminds me how bad at blogging I actually am. If you catch me trying to do it again please stop me.

More words

I’m still trying to write the post about ‘How a Heart Defect Affects My Life’. Today, I tried doing a brainstorm on the way to work and wrote down a list of words and phrases that came to mind when I thought about having a heart defect.

I made a Wordle from these words, as well. I’m sorry my list is not very cheerful or imaginative. It was quite early in the morning.

Apart

I made this Wordle of words from my blog. I chose this one because the word ‘apart’ is apart from the other words.

I bet you’re glad it’s the last day of NaBloPoMo today.

 

 

Weirdness

I just looked at my old blog because I wanted to see what I’d written about something and all the comments that people had made on there have disappeared.