Nik's Saga

Today has been... uncomfortable.

I am sure, in part, that this is due to knowing that Gytha's funeral was taking place in Kirkcaldy and I was here, a thousand miles away. And these thoughts, of course, brought too-raw memories of Mum's funeral to the surface will a perfectly ill-timed broadcast of Parry's Jerusalem.

It has been difficult to concentrate again, although I did manage to get some work done - some marking here, some paperwork there, some email there. I had a resit exam this morning and I did get the results back to our administrator before the end of the afternoon. I may have to go in on Saturday to mark the resits that will be submitted on Friday, although I might just work late instead.
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Remember the mysterious letter from the Post Office?

Well I've eventually received another one, this time saying that they've opened the parcel and it does not contain a receipt. It contains jewellery of some sort, and they want me to contact the sender and get a receipt. Now, considering that I've no idea who would be sending me jewellery by post and they haven't told me of any further details, I've no idea what's going on. I've now emailed them and told them this. We shall see what the next installment in this tale brings.

Of course, if you're reading this and have sent me jewellery in the post over the last week or so, please let me know! Indeed, I am more than a little curious as to who's reading this anyway, so please feel free to comment and say hi.
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Remember the mysterious letter from the Post Office?

Well I've eventually received another one, this time saying that they've opened the parcel and it does not contain a receipt. It contains jewellery of some sort, and they want me to contact the sender and get a receipt. Now, considering that I've no idea who would be sending me jewellery by post and they haven't told me of any further details, I've no idea what's going on. I've now emailed them and told them this. We shall see what the next installment in this tale brings.

Of course, if you're reading this and have sent me jewellery in the post over the last week or so, please let me know! Indeed, I am more than a little curious as to who's reading this anyway, so please feel free to comment and say hi.
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Constant darkness and constant light are both used as forms of torture.

Now while I'm not going to say that I'm being tortured up here :) I can certainly understand how constant light leads to disorientation and distress. The continuous daylight here is definitely disrupting my normal life. This is the first time I've dealt fully with the bright summer days, as last year I fled back to the UK for six weeks around midsummer. This year I'm experiencing it in the full.

In winter, your body clock tries to reset itself to what little daylight there is, with the result that you don't want to wake up until at at least 10:00, which makes it very difficult to get to sleep again until at least 03:00. This can be a bit of a problem if you've got to be in work by 08:00. As a result, you go through the winter in a state of perpetual tiredness.

Then, for about three weeks each side of the equinox, life is wonderful. The sun rises, you wake up, go to work, come home, the sun sets and you go to bed. This is the way the world is supposed to work. But gradually it takes longer and longer until the sun sets, and soon 'night' is non-existant as the light merely fades a little before returning to full strength.

Which is what's happening at present. Last night I sat embroidering by natural light at midnight. Tonight the sun will not set until 23:37, will rise again at 02:48, and will drop no lower than about 4 degrees below the northern horizon at its lowest point (at about 01:09). For UK readers, that's about the same light level as at 19:30 BST - and this is the middle of the night.

The result is that I can be pottering about at midnight completely oblivious to the time. With no darkness to reset it, my body clock loses all track of when it should sleep. It's not too bad once I decide to go to bed, as I can generally get to sleep reasonably easily, but I no longer have any of the it's dark so I should be getting tired signals.

Things should get back to 'normal' at the beginning of September. In the meantime, I'll just enjoy the extra sewing time and hope for the occasional cloudy day.
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Kim Bauer is an idiot.

Last year I sat and watched season 1 of 24. It was quite entertaining, although I could have done without the Kim bits because she was an idiot. Now I'm watching season 2 and she's even more of an idiot. I know they need a second plot strand to make the timing on the first plot strand work, but couldn't they have come up with something a bit more intelligent? Or was it just that they needed some eye candy for the viewers?

Yes, it's been another wildly active day. I've finally figured out to how make alchemy work in WoW, completed a couple more quests, worked out how to do this fighting underwater thing and made it to level 15. Not a lot else to report, really.
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I've completed the first quarter of the wedding sampler.

This is one of the Historic Sampler Company's wedding samplers, which I'm doing on Aida rather than linen as Sew and So (my normal online needlework supplier) didn't tell me it was available on linen. Never mind - I have the original company now bookmarked so that I can buy direct from them. I could be quite tempted by one of the band samplers sometime in the future.



I like the colours as well as the design for this one - they're very Jacobean, just the sort that you'd use in crewel work (something of which I don't do nearly enough) As yet I haven't put the human figure in as I think I'm going to change the figures a little bit so I thought I'd do the main body of the sampler first. My favourite motif so far is definitely the not-quite-square tree made of six different colours of squares. That may get turned into a card at some point.
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I have now finished Zorro by Isabel Allende

And it wasn't bad. It was the Zorro equivalent of Batman: Year One in that it fills in Zorro's backstory, from his birth as the son of a Spanish ex-soldier who moved to California and a Shoshone warrior, through his education in Barcelona (where he joins a secret society of vigilantes seeking justice and fairness for all) to his return to California where, of course, all has gone to pieces during his absence requiring him to fight to regain his birthright. No real spoilers there.

Zorro's first outing was in 1919 in the pulp magazine All-Story Weekly, but shortly thereafter moved onto the silver screen played by Douglas Fairbanks Snr. in The Mark of Zorro in 1920. Batman didn't appear until 1939, and I don't think it's too outrageous to claim that Batman is Zorro for the twentieth century. The elements are the same - rich kid decides to take up arms against crime and oppression, leads a double life where only a few trusted friends know his secret, and turns a cave he found as a child into his centre of covert operations. Neither use guns; Zorro has his whip while Batman has his batarang.

My, that sounded a bit on the pretentiosly arty side, didn't it? :) I'd actually be interested in reading some of the original Zorro stories. Of course I remember the TV series from the endless repeats in the seventies (it was one of those Saturday morning shows like The Flashing Blade, Robinson Crusoe or White Horses), and the reason I picked up this book was to read more of the same. Something mindless that would distract me for a while. This book certainly isn't intellectual candyfloss, but it's no heavyweight either. It's also a bit too politically correct for my liking. For instance. was the term 'person of colour' commonly used in nineteenth century California?

Still, it's an enjoyable airport book, and vastly better written than that other currently-popular airport book, The DaVinci Code. I suspect I'll enjoy the Zorro movies more than the Robert Langdon ones.
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It's another one of those Christian holidays we get off over here. Ascension Day, I think.

So have I done anything useful with it? I've done some embroidery. I've played a little WoW. Not much really. I'm beginning to wonder if running around hitting things is really all there is to WoW. Having now tried six or seven different character classes and races it does seem to be mostly running around and hitting things. And dying occasionally.

Other than that I've probably thought too much. I remember thinking when Gytha announced that she had lung cancer just how awful it must be for her partner Richard, as the thought of losing someone so close - like Mum, in my case - terrified me. This was before Mum went into hospital.

The embroidery is going well though.
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My good friend Gytha died early this morning.

I was astounded to read the news when I logged on this morning; it is just over a fortnight since I was sitting there talking needlework with her during my escape to Scotland just before Mum's funeral. She was bright and cheerful and looking forward to a change in her treatment plan. My heart goes out to Richard, who's just lost the most important person in his life, as I lost the most important person in mine earlier this month. I wish I could afford to attend the funeral but after my recent travels it's just not feasible.

Gytha gave me the confidence to wear things I'd never even dreamed of. She held a tudor corset-making stitch-and-bitch at her house which I attended, mainly for the company. Nevertheless, I decided that I'd give this a try mainly as an academic exercise to learn the techniques involved. I was convinced that I would look terrible in it (I'm convinced that I look terrible in most things). Gytha encouraged me and laced me into the completed work, reassuring my all of the time that it was going to look great... and she was right, it didn't look anywhere near as bad as I'd imagined it would look.

That's how I will remember Gytha, as a highly creative woman who was always happy to provide encouragement or a shoulder to cry on. I will miss her.
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Two different types of post though.

I got a strange letter in the post the other day - entirely in Icelandic and bearing the gold posthorn on a red field that is the logo of Posturinn, the Icelandic post office. Now I have to admit that I try to avoid the post office as much as possible here, as it's one of those places where I really find my lack of Icelandic a handicap. I can just about ask for stamps... unless they put the price up again, which they have since I bought my last set, which means that I'm now going to have to get extra stamps for the extra 5 kr it now costs to send a card to the UK.

When this letter arrived I looked at it and attempted a translation. I worked out that it was something to do with customs and a parcel, so off I went to the post office this morning thinking that there was a parcel awaiting me for which I'd have to pay duty of some kind. Not so - there is a small (0.12kg) parcel in Reykjavík with my name on it and the customs people needed my permission to open it to see if there's a bill inside so that they can triumphantly charge me import duty and, no doubt, a hefty administration fee.

The strange thing is that I'm not expecting any parcels. I shall wait, with a certain curiosity, if not bated breath, for the next instalment in this exciting postal adventure.

Post the second is more electronic in nature. I've been meaning to update this site to get all of the spacing correct for a while now, and as cascading style sheets are not one of my fields of expertise I was going to use Dreamweaver to do it. Then along comes Jean-Loup with his web wizardry and points out exactly what I need to do to fix the problem. Voila! I now have a site I don't need to be hideously embarrassed about so I can concentrate on redesigning the academic website instead. This is a much smaller site, so it's a better place to try out these web programming skills I'm supposed to be developing.

Merci bien, Jean-Loup!
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For how else are we to tell the difference between May and November?

Remember that I've mentioned the snow recently? This morning I got up and it was completely white again. I'm back to wearing my nice warm Drachenwald hood to go shopping. Down at the quay by the supermarket it was just like a miserable grey day in Liverpool (apart from the snow in the wind, that is).

Strictly speaking, it isn't midnight sun season yet, as the sun sets tonight at 23:08, but it never sinks low enough to become darker than early twilight. Fortunately I have good blinds on the bedroom window which, together with the valerian and hops (as opposed to valerian and wild lettuce - I like to alternate occasionally) isn't too bad on the sleep patterns.

In spite of the miserable weather I've had quite a productive day. One of my tasks this summer is to get to grips with Dreamweaver and Fireworks, so I've started work on the website update. I'm quite pleased with the work so far - I have nice buttons that exhibit colour-coordinated rollover behaviour - although I was a bit thrown by the fact that Dreamweaver wants to do everything as tables. Now while this is good from one point of view (I'm quite good with tables) it does seem to be a bit of a step backwards from CSS. Aren't tables frowned upon as much as frames nowadays? I suppose it may have something to do with using Studio MX rather than Studio 8, but that's the version we've got at the University. I think I may have to splash out and get Dreamweaver for Dummies as well as the Studio MX for Dummies, as although Studio gives an overview I'd like a bit more detail in some areas.

Perhaps I'll even have time to read that book on Graphic Design that I bought last year.
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I have a number of things to do, and a complete inability to focus on any of them.

For instance, I have a fairly large embroidery I have to finish before a deadline, and I can't face picking it up. I've got to make and write a number of thank-you cards and, although I've managed to do six straightforward decoupage ones, I'm completely lacking in creativity to do any original cards. I don't even want to watch any television that requires me to concentrate, which rules out anything new.

All I want to do is read and sleep. Yesterday I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, which is a very refreshing book. I'm particularly taken by the idea of numbering chapters using prime numbers because they're more interesting than cardinal numbers. At last I've started Zorro, by Isabelle Allende, and have already got slightly miffed at the fencing stuff, which is all Italian (in spite of the fact that Spanish fencing was popular until the 1850s and Don Diego is studying in Barcelona in 1812).

Ah well... such is life. Must pick up embroidery...
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But a thought has occurred to me on this subject.

Earlier this evening we (several of the departmental bods and myself) had dinner at Grefinn with the external examiner. As a result, I completely missed Eurovision (no loss there then). While I was there I realised that we'd had exactly the same dinner exactly twelve months ago, when again Greifinn was relatively empty due to Eurovision. This was also the week that Star Wars III came out over here which, you may not remember, I walked in to see and then walked out into a snowy wasteland.

So, clearly, snow is not uncommon at this time of year.


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It's mid-May and the snow is settling.

Admittedly it's not very thick, but it's still a little unnerving. The semester has finished, students have packed up, completed their exams and gone off to start their summer jobs, while we've marked everything and had the examiners meeting. At this point we should be looking forward to a summer during which we can do research. Note my use of the word summer in that sentence, because we're still waiting for it.

Nevertheless, today's meeting means that the teaching and ancilliary matters are now complete and I can finally do training and research things again. Like learning how to use Macromedia Studio MX (yes, expect a redesign on the Stormbird and academic websites). I only have part of a module to teach next semester so I can write that reasonably quickly. So hopefully I can go in on Monday morning and start focussing on research for the first time in several years.
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Do you think that there's a Midsomer University?

If there is, it's probably in Causton, and it's probably a 1960s university. And I want to work there. Just think of the possibilities that open up with a job there - living in a small English village, being the local academic who generally keeps herself to herself and has some very odd friends. People who come together one Sunday a month to dress up in renaissance clothing and practice swordplay in the water meadows beside the river then hold barbeques in my garden (which is, of course, tended by a ruggedly handsome gardener). Of course, some of the villagers will naturally get involved with this pleasantly eccentric group, so when the village busybody is found dead, run through with a rather nice Darkwood rapier, this eventually leads to a climactic fight sequence between Inspector Barnaby and one of the locals who was, unbeknown to the rest of us, a stage fight choreographer back in the seventies.

I'm almost tempted to try writing the screenplay. It would allow me to watch all of the Midsommer Murders again in the name of research. :)
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... Nanulak.

And for those of you who've never heard it, neither had I until I read this article on the BBC News website. Nanulak is one of the suggestions that have been brought forward for what to call a polar/grizzly bear hybrid. I think it sounds much better than the two alternatives - grolar bear and pizzly. Especially pizzly. Nanulak is a compound work formed from elements of the Inuit names for polar bear (nanuk) and grizzly bear (aklak). Actually, those names themselves are rather good as names go. I must try to remember them.

Apart from discovering interesting new words, I've had quite a busy and productive day. I'm throwing myself into work to keep my mind occupied (although I did have a moment when I realised that whenever I phone home now it'll always be Dad who answers in future). I've marked all of the group and final year projects, had a couple of meetings and done some tactical teaching planning. Suffice it to say that it's been a three cups of coffee day.

As expected, Icelandic television has not improved during my absence, so I'm considering what to watch while I sew tonight. Season 2 of 24 has a certain appeal. as do a Midsomer Murder or two. Then maybe at the weekend I'll venture out to see The DaVinci Code. Maybe.
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Yes, I'm safely re-established in my living room.

While I've been away summer has arrived. The snow has retreated up the mountains (although it hasn't entirely disappeared yet) and it is still, at 22:15, light enough to sew by. Not that I've done any sewing this evening; rather I've been virtuous and marked the coursework I should have marked before I left for the UK but was too distracted to begin. Tomorrow I have an exam paper to mark so that everything is done in time for the examiners meeting on Friday. Getting back here in time to do this was important to me, so I'm very pleased I've got everything under control again.

Now I'm back I need to spring clean. I could also really do with a couple more bookcases within which to put my expanding DVD collection rather than have to resort to two layers on the window ledge, but that's not going to happen until next month. Nothing is going to happen until next month, given the cost of travel. Why are hotels at Glasgow International more expensive than hotels at Heathrow? The room I was in last night was 50% more than the equivalent one at Heathrow (same chain of hotels too - Holiday Inn Express).

While travelling today I read The Penelopeiad, by Margaret Attwood. It's interesting enough, although a bit lightweight. Attwood tells the story of how Penelope managed to retain her sanity during Odysseus' absence during and after the Trojan war. It's certainly lighter than The Handmaid's Tale, but it was diverting enough for a flight.
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...That has expensive Wifi, which is why I'm not posting it until I get back tomorrow.

Still, at least it has Classic FM. My Freeview widget seems to require a proper aerial connection to work properly, which is a shame. I think I'm going to need to buy a splitter and an aerial cable for travelling. Alternatively, I can be evil and unplug the TV aerial and stick it directly into the widget - this has partially worked, as I have about two-thirds of the normal Freeview channels. Unfortunately I can't get UK History, but I can get News 24 (which beats Sky News into a cocked hat). There's also the temptation to watch one of the DVDs I've got with me, although that would need me to find my get-up-and-go again.

Everything I seem to read or watch at present seems to be about mothers and daughters. I've just finished The Constant Princess by Phillippa Gregory, which is about Katherine of Aragon trying to emulate her mother as a warrior queen. The Simpsons has been very Marge-centred (doubly tough as Mum's name was Marj). Was... it seems so wrong to use the past tense. I'm going to try to dispel these demons by reading Isabelle Allende's Zorro - and yes, I am hoping for culturally-appropriate fencing sequences. :)

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I do miss having a car.

My original plan for the day involved a trip to B&Q to get a couple more storage boxes, probably attached to a trip to Queens Drive to see Liverpool bring the cup home. Sunday bus schedules are not too hot, and these things are in opposite directions and would have required at least three busses each way, so I didn't. Dad and I did go into town earlier to buy a 3000 RPM alternator to go with a small diesel generator he has on the boat, but Dad won't go down to the retail park (where lurks B&Q) on a Sunday as it's full of idiots. Grumpy Old Man syndrome, that's what it is.

I'd go downstairs and embroider, except it's not worth the haranguing I'd get about embroidery being a 'complete waste of time'. I should be going through the office and sorting out all of the craft and embroidery stuff from the 'work' stuff, but working out what to do with all of the UnFinished Objects is too painful right now - deciding which ones I should finish and which ones to throw away is so hard as I know that Mum was the last person to hold them, to put a stitch into them. But then I don't have any boxes to store things in anyway.

Tomorrow I head up to Glasgow ready to fly out on Tuesday morning. I think I shall spend the journey and the evening sewing. If the hotel has internet I might even try reading my email. My apologies to those of you who've mailed me - I will reply, but I just haven't been able to face my email for the last month.
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I was going to do things today, but didn't.

To start with, I was going to gt into town to get some stuff, but then my cousins Michelle and Tricia arrived, together with Michelle's 3-year-old son Sean who I'd never met, which put paid to the morning. By the time everyone had gone it was nearly time for the FA Cup final and, while I know that the ciry centre would have been deserted then, I wasn't sure of my ability to get out of town again before the celebrations or the drowning of sorrows began. So I stayed here, sorted some things and listened to the match in the background instead.

It occurred to me later on that by next Saturday I'm going to be back in Iceland. I am definitely going to have to check out BitTorrent again, as that was a hell of a cliffhanger at the end of Dr. Who.
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Are hymns always played at half speed at funerals?

I got through this morning, and early this afternoon, on autopilot. I spent much time looking at the brass eagle on the lecturn, the cracking paint beside the altar and the painted angels in the roof. There was a piece of purple string that held the family flowers onto the coffin. Kayte walked with Dad and I walked on my own. The organist played The day Thou gavest far too slowly and Jerusalem a bit too slowly (and with errors) although the congregation sang it properly and he speeded up to catch up a bit. There were about a hundred people there and lots of food at the reception, although I didn't have time to eat much as I had to talk to people.

Fortunately Martin came over from York and we escaped from the rest of the family early in the afternoon. He'd never seen the Anglican cathedral so we paid it a visit. It's big. It's so big that it has ruined my sense of scale - I was disappointed by St. Paul's, York Minster and Stonehenge because I know the Anglican cathedral. As Martin's a keen bellringer we went up the tower to see the bells. There are 12 ringing bells plus Great Peter, the hour chime. They don't look that big until you see the door that leads into the bell chamber for maintenance, then you realise that the 10 is about the height of a man. The tenor (the 12th and largest ringable bell) takes two strong men to ring it, I am told, and there is enough space between the bells and the tower walls for two busses on each side.

There was also an exhibition of 19th and 20th century ecclesiastical goldwork. It was very pretty; Mum would have loved it.
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There seems to be a party going on downstairs.

It's in the morning room, while Mum's in the lounge. I'm in the bedroom, avoiding it. Not because Mum's in the front room, but because I'm not a great fan of family parties and would far rather hide in my bedroom instead. Mind you, I have brought a bottle of Jacob's Creek Shiraz up here with me.

I plucked up the courage to go into the front room to see Mum. Unfortunately the funeral directors weren't able to dress her in her own clothes due to the surgical wounds, so she's wrapped in this lilac thing. I know it's a cliché to say it, but she does look like she's asleep, wrapped in a lilac blanket. I'm a bit disturbed at all of the Christian trappings, as they're far more Dad than Mum. This whole thing is a funeral the way Dad wants it, not how Mum would have wanted it.

So to save any confusion later, here's what I want when I go. If it's feasible, I want to be cremated and my ashes scattered in orbit (solar, not terran, as I don't want to become a hazard to shipping). Failing that, stick me in a wood with a fruit tree on top (a plum tree or a peach tree). And I don't want any of this Christianity business either. If I can't have a Wiccan officiator then a Humanist will do instead.

Now for the music. I'd either like the traditional New Orleans jazz band business or Edge of Darkness by Eric Clapton as the entrance piece and then Sixteenth Century Greensleeves by Rainbow during the exit. And none of this black - I don't want anyone having to go shopping for black shoes that'll look suitable sombre the day before my funeral (guess what I've been doing today). Garb is quite acceptable, otherwise party frocks will do. Don't kill too many flowers for me - make donations to the Marie Curie Cancer Trust instead. Eat and drink well. Sing if you want. Enjoy yourselves, so that your last memory of me will be of a damned good party rather than a miserable funeral.
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Today I escaped to do a bit of embroidery.

Wednesday is the day that Mum's quilting group meets, and I escaped to join them for a couple of hours this afternoon. Up till then I'd spent the morning fixing Mum's photo for the hymnsheet and creating a map of how to find 449 and the church to be emailed out to various people coming from outside of the city.

Once I got back I had to start to sort out all of Mum's craft stuff to get it out of Dad's way. Preventing all of this useless timewasting stuff (as he views it) from taking up space in his house. I'll be taking selected items (such as a box full of Malaysian silk for dressmaking - the idea of a silk Tudor or 'Bethan is quite tempting and a definite possibility), but the rest is being split between the dressmaking, quilting and craft groups that Mum ran, which means that all of her crafty friends can have a relevant memento before the rest of it goes to the charity shops. I think that Mum would have like that. There is rather a lot of it, and there's no way I'm going to be able to finish before I leave for Iceland. Well, I suppose I could do it all, but I'd be a wreck by the end of it. I'll get as much as I can done just to shut him up.

I think I'm going to end up storing the stuff I want at my Aunt's house, probably together with the six boxes of stuff I want reasonably easy access to that are already here. In theory I could put them in the loft here, but then it would be a major logistical exercise to get at anything, and given that the items within the boxes were selected because I do sometimes need them, this is a far more workable solution.

Right now I'm minding the printer as it protests occasionally at 150 hymnsheets. Still, it means I have an excuse to watch UK History while I do it.
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Today I escaped to do a bit of embroidery.

Wednesday is the day that Mum's quilting group meets, and I escaped to join them for a couple of hours this afternoon. Up till then I'd spent the morning fixing Mum's photo for the hymnsheet and creating a map of how to find 449 and the church to be emailed out to various people coming from outside of the city.

Once I got back I had to start to sort out all of Mum's craft stuff to get it out of Dad's way. I'll be taking selected items (such as a box full of Malaysian silk for dressmaking - the idea of a silk Tudor or 'Bethan is quite tempting and a definite possibility), but the rest is being split between the dressmaking, quilting and craft groups that Mum ran, which means that all of her crafty friends can have a relevant memento before the rest of it goes to the charity shops. I think that Mum would have like that. There is rather a lot of it, and there's no way I'm going to be able to finish before I leave for Iceland. Well, I suppose I could do it all, but I'd be a wreck by the end of it.

I think I'm going to end up storing the stuff I want at my Aunt's house, probably together with the six boxes of stuff I want reasonably easy access to that are already here. In theory I could put them in the loft here, but then it would be a major logistical exercise to get at anything, and given that the items within the boxes were selected because I do sometimes need them, this is a far more workable solution.

Right now I'm minding the printer as it protests occasionally at 150 hymnsheets. Still, it means I have an excuse to watch UK History while I do it.
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Today I drove from St. Andrews to Liverpool to meet with a retired vicar.

Curiously enough, the meeting - a fact-finding trip for him and the point at which we decided the music for the funeral - was less painful that I expected. It was certainly easier than the last one, ten years ago for Nana's funeral. I have to say, the final plan is not how I would do things as it's terribly traditional... or would have been thirty years ago. I'm also less than happy that the coffin will be arriving here on Thursday afternoon and will stay here overnight. Kayte is staying at a hotel. I don't really know what I'm going to do. I suppose that this is one way of dissuading me from sitting in the louge sewing in future.

Having selected the hymns, it's now up to me to create an A5 hymnsheet as we expect to have more people at the church than hymnbooks. Everything is done but the picture on the front - I'm going to have to scan in a photograph and tweak it to get rid of various background features, which'll probably take a couple of hours. Sometimes I can be useful after all.
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Today I had two quite uplifting sessions with friends.

This afternoon I went over to visit Gytha, who is being ably nursemaided :) by Emma. I was so pleased to see Gytha looking so well - recent events had me fearing that she'd look terribly pale and ill, but I can confirm that she's definitely looking okay at present. I hope this continues for a long time. I also got to meet the incredibly fluffy Magnus, who left fur all over me, as is his prerogative as a long-haired cat.

Later this evening I went back over to Debby and Bob's place. After all, it would be very anti-social of me not to spend an evening playing games with Jamie.We watched the first three episodes of The Tomorrow People - oh my... how seventies it was! How stage-acted! But what fun! This was interrupted by the arrival of Jamie after his dodgeball sess, and a two-hour game of Igor then ensued, which Bob technically won although we all agreed that Jamie was the most expressive mad scientist. This is definitely a game that lends itself to OTT roleplaying.

I do wish I could stay longer, but I must return to Liverpool tomorrow.
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In the dim and distant past there was Sirius Moonlight.

This was the magazine of the University of St. Andrews Science Fiction and Fantasy Society and, although I was never editor of this august publication, I was frequently involved in the physical production of it. For a long time, this production involved a hand-cranked duplicator that was capable of nearly breaking your fingers if you forgot to stick the paper feed bar back in place before you started turning the handle. Many were the afternoons that I (and several other people) spent in one of the common rooms in David Russell Hall producing 120+ copies of up to 12 double-sided pages of A4 that were printed on one side then spread about the room to dry before printing on the other side. These could all then be collated, stapled, labelled and delivered by hand, the entire process being repeated four times a year.

Last night there wasn't a duper but I did spend a couple of hours collating and binding stuff for my friend Paddy to take to E3 in California today. After producing many copies of reports for projects in Dundee I'm a dab hand with a binder so it fell to me to work out how the new machine worked and get the pages produced by his lovely colour laserprinter all bound up nicely.

All of this was after an excellent lunch made by Andrew, in the company of Toby, Kate and little Beth. I also took advantage of the high techie count to get my latest gadget working - a DVB-T adaptor for my computer that gives me Freeview digital television anywhere I can get a signal through the aerial and allows me to use the computer as a digital video recorder as well. Now if only I could actually get a signal here at Wayside...

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Who says schooldays are the best days of your life?

Mine weren't. University was much, much better. And so this afternoon I wandered into St. Andrews to wallow a little. Of course the place has changed a bit - some of the shops are different, to start with - but it still feels the same. I could still buy fudge doughnuts in Fisher & Donaldson (although I consider myself fortunate, as it was later in the afternoon than I'd normally expect them to sell out). I could still have a strawberry and straciatella ice cream cone dipped in chocolate at Luvians. The Citizen and Bonkers still sell pretty gift-type things that I wanted to buy for Mum.

I didn't do too much shopping though; I'd really only gone in to get a copy of the Telegraph as we've put an announcement in there so that the rest of the Shell retired fleet folks know about Mum. Most of them read the Torygraph, it seems. In spite of that I did find a couple of interesting and useful things. The art shop, for instance, had a set of pens designed for doing embossing - you write or draw with them then sprinkle the embossing powder on in the same way you would using a stamp for the design. The record/CD/DVD shop that now resides where the tourist information centre used to be had the first two Tomorrow People DVDs, so I snapped them up too. And I found the latest Phillipa Gregory novel, The Constant Princess (about Catherine of Aragon) in WH Smith. Mum would have liked that one too.

So I suppose I'm coping well enough, distracted by Classic FM, New Scientist and my embroidery.
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Life is trying to go on as normal.

So I'm going to write about other things. I've now arrived in St. Andrews and discovered that somewhere around Wayside is an unsecured wireless network. The signal strength isn't very good, but it's enough to let me post, which is sufficient. The plan is to stay up here until Tuesday, so I'm intending to see various folks on Sunday and Monday.

In other news, I've done some knitting. No, you're not reading me wrong there. As I've admitted to Pink_Weasel before, I do not knit. But amongst the stuff that Mum had in the hospital was this rather long purple knitted scarf thing. It's made of a very strange thread, which has a central core about the thickness of perle thread but it also has inch-and-a-half fine threads sticking out like tinsel. It makes up into a very odd fabric that looks and feels like some sort of purple fur. Mum had done about four feet of the thing on quite big needles, so I took it upon myself to finish it for Kayte (who also likes purple).

This was quite an adventure. First I had to untangle this strange thread (it hadn't enjoyed the journey home in a plastic bag full of other stuff), which wasn't easy. Then I discovered that Mum was half-way through a row and that she'd picked up the thread somewhere in the middle, so I had to undo the ten or so stitches of that row. So far, so hoopy. Now all I had to do was cast off, something about which I had no idea where to start, let along where to finish. I went upstairs and pulled out the first big general craft book I found and, lo and behold, knitting instructions. I then proceeded to stare at the pretty pictures for a bit, read the instructions, and eventually have a small revelation, enough to successfully cast off about twenty stitches. I was surprised but happy at this. So was Kayte when I handed it to her.

Finally, Kate E (the one who's getting married) has asked me to be her bridesmaid. I've never been a bridesmaid before! It's a good job that I didn't buy a hat the other day after all. I only held back because I remember what happened last time I bought the hat first then eventually had to make a suit to go with it and never did find a matching pair of shoes. But then, unlike Mum and Kayte, I do not feel the need to have forty or so pairs of shoes at any one time, so I suspect I just didn't put enough skill points into Shoe Buying when I generated my original character sheet.
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I am so very tired.

It's not as if I'm running around doing things either - the days when I went to the hospital twice a day were physically more active, but less wearying that the last couple of days. I don't have the energy to sew and barely have the energy to read. I'm also sore - my stomach is knotting like a particle string and my shoulder is playing up again. This is, I am assured, simply a result of stress.

Today we fixed most of the rest of the paperwork and organisation. The funeral will be at 09:45 on Friday 12th, at St. Michael's in Garston, the church that has traditionally hosted all of the family's hatchings, matchings and dispatchings. It's also the church at which I used to go bellringing while I was at home during the summer and Christmas vacations.

Tomorrow I'll be heading up to Scotland. I'll phone folks when I arrive to arrange visits. I suspect that I'll need Saturday to fall apart, but I should have pulled myself together sufficiently by Sunday to talk to people without going to pieces energetically enough to prove a shrapnel hazard.
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I still can't believe it.

I'm wandering around in a state that oscillates between floating serenely but slightly surprisedly through a world that seems to be going on as usual around me and intense outbursts of emotion. Curiously, I'm finding that the intellectual detatchment that so frustrated my therapists is serving me well - I am observing the world rather than being part of it. Just like I am right now as I write this. I suspect it may be shock.

Today I visited two of Mum's needlework groups to fly the flag, as it were. The ladies were all very kind and thoughtful, feeding me cake and coffee as they talked about things Mum had done for them or with them. I then went shopping for funeral clothing; not the easiest thing to do in summer. The funeral isn't until the end of next week, so I'm heading up to St. Andrews for the weekend (and maybe a little longer) because I think I need to be around some of my friends right now. So those of you up in that corner of the world may well be visited (or at least coffeed) if you're around.

Thank you all for the hugs and thoughts; they really are appreciated. It's rather lonely and quiet here right now, and it helps to know that you're all out there.
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Mum died peacefully an hour and a half ago. I was there at the time. Right now I'm not really in any shape to write more, but thank you all for your hugs and best wishes over the past couple of weeks.
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And so it begins.

There was a short conference at the hospital today. Mum's steroid levels are so high that she's not healing at all and she's allergic to the stuff used to lower them. She's far too ill to undergo surgery to fix the latest bowel problems, never mind the pituitary tumour. The doctors have recommended palliative care and asked us to consider what she would want under the circumstances.

I have to say that if it was me, I'd want to just slip away. Mum's been through a lot over the past six weeks, and it can't have been comfortable. Nevertheless, switching off the life support is as final as it gets, and is not a decision that I would want to take for someone else. At present, she's more awake than she has been for a fortnight, so I'm hoping that she can take the decision herself. I do not envy Dad the task of discussing it with her - that's something that Kayte and I will leave to the two of them.

Her wakefulness makes it all the more difficult, as it would be so easy to see it as evidence that she's actually getting better. In spite of this, though, they've been having to give her noradrenaline ever-more-regularly to support her heart. If they stop it then her heart will probably give up within a couple of hours at most. Kayte has already admitted that she doesn't think that she can bear to be there in that case. I don't think that I can either, but I will. I will not go to pieces yet.
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