Work!

Stepdaughter #3 has been offered a job locally, a proper job in engineering, a job that uses both her degrees, she tells me:

"I have received employment"
"if anyone needs me, I'll be in the having a job dome"
"lalala i win"

She's delighted to inform her landlord and all the utilities that she's "moving shacks".

She starts next month, and they'll put her up in a hotel during the week for a couple of months while the lease on their Loughborough house finishes. In the meantime, she and her partner are getting a place done up to live in, partner having a teaching job in a local school, starting September.

"productive, innit"

Relatives everywhere

Amazing connections!

Husband's granddaughter #2 has a Great Little Friend and they go to each others parties, but didn't know they were related. Why should they? It's only because GD#2's father is becoming rather well known that someone made the connection and asked about the surname. GLF is the granddaughter of husband's cousin, making GLF and GD#2 third cousins.

GLF is delighted to find she is related to GD#2. And her grandmother remembers GD#2 well as she has been to GLF's parties and vice versa.

I've never met husband's cousin - I don't think they've seen each other for years, so their children's children meeting like this is extra amazing.

Old friends in Bath

We picked up daughter and went to Bath to meet friends we haven't seen for more than ten years, lovely people that I've known for more than thirty years, who gave us our visitors' book.

We had a lovely time, including a meal by the river.

Warm weather

Today is so warm that my Facebook friends comment:

Friend #1 Hello sandals, goodbye boots!

That's a nice positive way to move from winter to summer

Friend #2 has just conducted a phone tutorial wearing a swimsuit and a face pack. Thank god we don't have a video link!
Her friend: I bet many people would disagree!
Another of her friends: roflmao I often think that when I am doing an online grocery shop in my PJs.

(roflmao means "roll on floor laughing my backside off")

Friend #3 please put on a shirt, I do not want to see your wobbley moobs. It's really not that hot.

Says she! It's too hot for me in the sun, where my garden thermometer says it's 30 degrees. I like it in the low to mid twenties.

Friend #4 beautiful day for cycle ride round our new home and BBQ with the fam :)

It's nice to know that the family is together this weekend, and that their part of the country is good weather too.

And this morning in London:

Friend #5: Beautiful day, but a way too crowded lido so I was dreaming of Lake Windermere!

And a fellow OUer:

Friend #6: sun, lounger on balcony and catching up with S189 course book.

Aunt's electricity

Sometimes these interactions with authorities on behalf of my aunt do work.

Aunt had a bill from Southern Electric - she doesn't remember getting her electricity from them, because she wasn't - she was getting her electricity from another provider when she lived somewhere else. So her memory's good there. But Southern Electric addressed the bill to the district council and was charging for the weeks when the flat was empty before she moved in.

So I decided to

1. set up a direct debit for the electricity
2. pay the extra rather than explain the whole situation in order to get the bill sent to the district council

But when I rang Southern Electric, Tracy wanted to sort out the name on the bill, to change it from the district council to my aunt's. So she passed me to Sean, who

• amended the bills to charge aunt only from the day she moved in
• changed the name on the bill
• took the district council address and will send the missing weeks bill to the council
• set up the direct debit
• arranged the bills to come to me, not aunt
  

I'm well pleased with the service.

Distant relative

I note this Fulbright prize winner because her uncle (sort of) is my uncle (sort of). It's pretty good anyhow that she's a professor of English and poetry, let alone win such a prestigious prize. Our mutual uncle points out that our family came from Ireland at the time of the great hunger, through the Liverpool court slums where twenty to thirty families shared a yard with one pump and one toilet. In 1866 our great great grandparents, Charles and Mary, were too illiterate to sign their names on their wedding certificate.

Four generations later, life has improved for us.

Tadpoles

I've got some new pets! I've got tadpoles for the first time in years.

In late March, I was passing a pond when I noticed it bubbling all over, like it had lots of aerators in it, but on a closer look, I saw the bubbles came from lots of mating frogs. Mating frogs means frog spawn, so I grabbed a bag I'd been keeping in the car for this, and scooped out a handful of spawn. Now, weeks later, the tadpoles are wriggling round in a stone sink in our garden.

Watch and I'll post photos as they grew.

Voting day

I have voted.

It wasn't easy. The choice isn't great. Today's paper has a Matt cartoon of someone in a polling booth chewing his pencil and thinking while the officer looks at his watch and says, "You know we close at 10pm, don't you"

Although my polling station was quiet mid afternoon when I went, that doesn't surprise me because more people can get there first thing in the morning or in the evening after work. What is interesting, even exciting is the people on Facebook who are talking about voting at Democracy UK. The news tonight is that people were queuing late this evening to vote.

I think my family members have all voted. At least one of them is choosing to vote tactically by voting in her university town rather than here where we've little choice.

Wait now and see what tomorrow what we have done.

Way to vote

Lib Dems have wound me up by declaring they'll make Catholic schools take non-Catholics if they live close to the school.

"We will ensure that all faith schools develop an inclusive admissions policy and end unfair discrimination on grounds of faith when recruiting staff," (Lib Dem manifesto page 37)

But such people, eschewing the faith, can refuse to attend the religious assembly, so take the education but not the culture that comes with a faith. And yet the Catholic communitypays towards the school. Yes, I know faith schools take public money too, but since the Catholic community contributes, local non-Catholics shouldn't get priority over more distant Catholic children. That's not right or fair.

So how do I vote? Our alternative is the Conservative candidate, David Lidington, but he apparently (according to the Lib Dem literature) has claimed £12,000 for dry cleaning expenses. £12,000!. Husband and self together in decades couldn't spend so much on dry cleaning - and why on expenses? That's what a salary is for. And then when you retire, you save money because you don't need to spend on dry cleaning, so you can live on your little pension.

So how do I vote?

Scuola Cantorum

We avoided the mayhem in Aylesbury by going out:

• morning coffee in Princes Risborough at the Field Mouse cheese store
  
• lunch in Oxford at the Nosebag, a cafe I've been going to for decades
• a lovely afternoon meeting old friends from the Oxford University tape-recording society for tea at the Ashmolean rooftop restaurant
  
• sharing supper with friends at Browns
  
• finally an evening at a concert of Handel and Bach in the Sheldonian. See http://www.schola-cantorum.net/ who were having their 50th anniversary

Aylesbury under siege

There are protests in Aylesbury. The English Defence League has a protest, and the Union Against Fascists have a counter protest and the Muslim have a protest against the protests.

Mounted police, roads closed, empty streets and Kingsbury not usable.

Sounds like martial law...

Aunty's post

Aunt's post is still coming to her old address, so my father asked me to get it forwarded. I went on-line - that's easy- see here. You have to give

• the old address,
  
• the new address,
  
• the date of the move,
  
• the date when you want to start forwarding,
  
• the old phone number for security
  
• the new phone number.

I can give aunt's phone number because if they ring her, the sort of question they ask, like

"have you moved?"

isn't going to confuse her, apart from

"why are they ringing me?"

But I fell at the last hurdle, because they want a payment card and it must be a card with the old address on, again for security, but it's months since she moved so the card has the wrong address on it. Besides which, it now has my address on it.

So I've passed the problem back to my dad, to fill in the form from the post office, which isn't terribly easy for him. It's a pity I didn't think to do it when I was up there a couple of weeks ago.

Fusor reactor

I went to a staff development event for work yesterday (yes, Saturday). Amongst other things we had a lecture from Dave Elliot, a professor of engineering on renewable energy. He has just retired but his web site is still here on the OU site, otherwise find him on wikipedia.

A couple of things stick in mind:

1. there's no point in building nuclear reactors because we've only got enough fuel for it to last a few years, then we'll have to find something else and have to deal with the nuclear waste for thousands of years.
2. fusor reactors are absorbing 50% of research money on renewable energy, but it will take up to a hundred years to build something useful

He mentioned this newsletter web site http://www.natta-renew.org/ if you want to keep up to date, which I'll have to do because son is planning to build a fusor reactor over the summer and his university is supporting him.

Lost a friend

An email today tells me my friend's husband died yesterday while out on a bike ride with friends from work. He was her best friend.

She's my age. She has children the same age as mine. We did our OU degrees together. We both tutor OU courses. Four years ago our paths split as she took on the role of staff tutor and I started my research studies.

Her husband's died. I remember how she feels.

Volcanic sticking

The Icelandic volcano ash has affected British based people who travel by plane:

• Step son is stuck in Finland. Fortunately his wife and children are happily holidaying in the lakes with her parents
  
• Colleague's husband is stuck in Serbia, which means she can't go out this weekend because she has to mind their two boys.
• Our French lodger booked a return plane flight.
  

Fortunately, step daughter #1 is home, having travelled to Italy by car and ferry - how wise!

A web site "Watch Air Traffic" that shows you air traffic in Europe shows very little movement today. It also says "Users on line: too many"

LOL

Husband's new toy

Husband likes to go to MK to have lunch with working and retired colleagues, but then he has a pint and can't drive home, so he goes on the bus instead, but the bus station is miles from the pub. Once he cycled up there, but it's a forty mile round trip and he's exhausted by the time he gets back.

So
he's got a new bicycle, a folding bicycle. And is he pleased!

Election issues

What have we learned in 2,065 years?

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

-- Cicero - 55 BC

Nothing, apparently.

(With thanks to an OU colleague for drawing this to my attention)

Daughter grown up

Daughter has had a birthday - no more teenagers in my house now.

Ultimate frisbee

Step daughter #3 plays Ultimate Frisbee, a game that has gradually got to mean more to me - though I'm still not sure what the 'ultimate' bit is about. This week's Telegraph explains the game in detail, including the lack of referee. Whoever heard of any game without a referee? But ultimate frisbee has no referee. I like that approach because it means that people have to be honest instead of abrogating moral responsibility.

So next time I watch her playing in the garden with the grandchildren I may have a better idea what to expect.

Insuring Aunty

Now I need to insure Aunty's contents in her sheltered accommodation, but that's not simple.

• one insurer said they'd wouldn't insure her because she's in sheltered accommodation and other people like the warden can access her room
• I rang the council to see if they do insurance but they've gone home for the weekend
• Tesco won't insure aunty's stuff over the phone unless they can speak to her first. They offered to ring her and then ring me back, which would be okay if someone were there with her so she's not confused by a phone call out of the blue.

I can insure her contents on the web and no one will know it's not me. I might have to do that.