Categories: general
Tags: Books
Date: 06 September 2007 22:45:44
So, what have I been up to? I've been making the most of my freedom before I start work in 10 days, to travel around the country a bit. Since moving back to Manchester a few weeks ago, I've done Manchester - Swansea, Swansea - Cheltenham, Cheltenham - Manchester, Manchester - Edinburgh, Edinburgh - Dundee, Dundee - Edinburgh, Edinburgh - Manchester. And in 2 days I'm doing Manchester - Chester, Chester - Birmingham, Birmingham - Manchester. Sigh. That makes me tired just thinking about it! Its been good though. Edinburgh was meeting the parents which went well (I think!) and I also helped John sort out stacks of stuff in his room. I would show you the impressive photo of his bookcase after I'd tackled it, but this computer doesn't like flickr. It was great - I put the Bill Byson's with the Bill Byson's, and the politics books with the politics books. And made a Jen pile of books I wanted to borrow... He had done some sorting before I got there - there was a whole section of the bookcase for God books and another for Dr Who. Which I found quite amusing, as Dr Who was directly above God.
Dundee was good fun too - I met one of John's best mates, who tried to take us to the zoo but we got there at 3.50 and it closed at 3.45. Oops. We still had great fun though, playing in the play ground and eating icecream! We discovered this fantastic music pad, with 9 squares of metal and when you jumped on each of them, they each made a different pitched sound. So you could dance over all 9, and produce a fantastic tune! John took a video on his camera of Andrew and I dancing over it - I'm going to have to persuade him to put it on the net somewhere!
Since getting back to Manchester I have been relaxing, sorting SCM stuff and helping my Dad to decorate the back room, in varying quantities. Its been great to sleep in lots every morning - something I haven't been able to do for a long time, but then I have been trying to get stuff done once I'm up. This morning I had some exciting news - I had my degree result. I rang up my Grandparents with the news, and my Grandad couldn't understand why I was so happy about two ones.
This afternoon I went to visit G, who I have mentioned before here, and possibly referred to her as my adopted grandmother. She, very kindly, gave me a wooden cross which she herself made out of the pews of her old church, when it was being knocked down, and she wrote my name on the cross. Her and her late husband have spent their lives serving the church around the world and are truly inspirational. On Saturday night my church is having a concert to raise money for a school in Panama, which her and her husband established 50 years ago, when there were no other schools in the area. He was a Methodist minister out there, and he became the school's first headmaster. On the school's first day it had one borrowed room and 7 pupils. Now it has 7 classrooms and 350 pupils. Sitting and listening to her life's stories is just fascinating, as its full of equally amazing achievements.