Categories: uncategorized
Date: 04 May 2004 18:53:34
The stroppy phone call did the trick (actually I didn't get too stroppy, honestly). So, I now know what a ton of gravel looks like. When it was being winched to the ground by the crane I thought it looked rather small, and I was convinced it wouldn't cover even half of the area I needed it to. However, by the time I'd started transferring it from the bag outside the front of the house to the garden, one measly bucket at a time, I realised that actually it's a huge amount, and loads more than I really need. So I will have to extend the area I wanted to gravel, which is no bad thing but does mean lots of extra digging and lots of extra trips from the front to the back of the house with a heavy bucket. I'm already walking round like I'm wearing a full suit of armour, every muscle without exception aches. I've stopped for today, I could have done more but was interrupted by some quite spectacular thunder, lightning, hail and lots of wet stuff. I like to think I'm tough, but the truth is I'm an utterly utterly wimpy fair weather gardener and all round big girl's blouse.
In other news: I've made a decision about my research for the dissertation. I'm just waiting to hear back from some colleagues abroad, but if it works out it means that I will be doing the fieldwork in the Republic of Moldova rather than in Lewisham, which sounds more glamorous than it actually is but I'm really excited and I hope it works out. It also means that while I'm there I can put feelers out for contacts for the PhD which would also be good obviously. Now on my "to do" list is to contact my new tutor (each module we have a different tutor, I think for the dissertation I will have quite a lot of contact with this one so it's important to establish a good working relationship early on), follow up the UpNorth University supervisors whom I'd written to last month suggesting they really would like to supervise me, and sign on to the Open Uni discussion boards. From what I can gather, doing the dissertation can be quite isolated as there are no face to face tutorials or study days, but my past experience of OU Development Management students is that they are a really interesting lot and I think there will be some fascinating discussions going on over the next 6 months. At some point I also have to prepare a talk for Thursday's post-natal group (the last few weeks I've managed to bring in visiting speakers but it's back to me for this one, hope they don't notice the drop in quality too much!).
So it's all happening, as usual. I could do with a bit more on the social front though. One of my new year's resolutions this year was to be more of a culture vulture (seeing as I am in a city with culture coming out of its ears). Last week I'd wanted to go and see some modern dance at the Laban Centre (dance school near here, award-winning new building which looks like it's covered in pink and green perspex, one of the main dance schools in the country), but although I tried to get friends interested the replies I got ranged from "can't do that date" to "not really my cup of tea" to "I'd only consider going to see modern dance if I was trying to pull". Tuh - the philistines! Anyway - I've decided to take the bull by the horns and commit to going to at least one museum or gallery or garden or suchlike each month, so you will be delighted to know that from hereon in you will have a more cultured and erudite wiblog experience.