The House Husband

I had a pretty busy day today. And a long one due to Carmen deciding I needed to wake up at 5:45! Rotten dog. And then, to douse insult over injury, she had an FSI during our walk in the park. I never plan a bath buffer into my days so I end up rushing her through the shampooing and rinsing and towelling off. Still, it’s her own fault. Actually I think she prefers it when it doesn’t last too long. Anyway, she then was all fresh and fluffy.

I put some time into my fourth and final essay, downloading lots of lovely articles about eReaders and eBooks. Annoyingly, when searching for them, I had to run three separate searches because they are called, variously, eBooks, e-books and e books! Oddly, this formed part of a point I made in the conclusion I drew for my previous essay with regard to automatic indexing. So, quite handy, really.

After a few loads of washing between study, I was off to record the Talking Newspaper for the month. Our presenter today was Prudence. She straightaway told us we had to be nice to her because it was her saint’s feast day. When I asked what she was known for, Prudence shrugged then said

“There’s something about wind.” Which made everyone look up, “If it’s windy, the sheets will dance.”

Quite surreal. Anyway, having consulted my Oxford Dictionary of Saints, there doesn’t appear to BE a Saint Prudence! I decided to spread my search a little further. I asked the Catholic Online website, which purports to have the largest list of saints EVER. The closest thing to a St Prudence is two saints called Prudentius, both of whom were bishops and, clearly, men. One has no feast day and the other is on April 6. I think someone has sold Prudence a turnip painted as a carrot. Still, we were nice to her anyway so it doesn’t really matter.

We were also regaled with stories from Ann, who was one of my fellow readers. She was having a moan about the Scots and, by way of illustration, told the story of her trip up the east coast of Australia. They’d travelled from Sydney to Cairns and started having a chat with an old Queenslander. When they said how far they’d travelled he was amazed. He’d not been any further than Brisbane his whole life and here they were travelling all that way. Ann’s husband said he had lived in England all his life and never travelled to Scotland. The old bloke then said:

“Why the bloody hell would you go to Scotland?”

We all laughed and then I said, in my broadest Australian accent:

“Why the bloody hell would you go to Cairns?”

They then set about laughing at my new hat, declaring it should have corks around the brim. They also asked if I was trying to bring on the summer weather – it was quite overcast all morning. I laughed and smiled politely.

After recording this weeks issue of the Haslemere Herald, Liphook Herald and the Messenger, I was off to the shops to buy my dinner and then to the TA Queen’s Barracks where my polling station is. For today was election day. I did my bit for democracy by placing a cross in the appropriate box. Actually I only really made up my mind this morning. I’m one of those horrid swing voters the parties hate so much. I glory in being so choosy.

But really, I don’t understand party loyalty and always voting for the same group of politicians. I reckon if you’re going to do that you should just have a permanent vote which gets counted and you don’t bother going up there on the day. Voting should be for people who want representation for the community not for the ones who only adhere to the tenets of a club.

Anyway, I did that then wandered up to the hospital to pick up some drugs for Mirinda, finally arriving home at about 4:30pm.

And, of course, due to my hat wearing, the weather has turned lovely. I spent a good half an hour burning rubbish with Carmen for company. When it’s warm, she likes lying flat with her belly on the grass. She looks so comfy, I took her photo.

Carmen chills

I have to admit that on the way home I didn’t see any dancing sheets.

Back to school I hobbled. The trouble with gout…well, apart from the actual gout…is the fact that, in order to walk, you have to hobble on the outside of the affected foot. Once the gouty bit eases off, your entire foot aches because of the odd way you’ve been walking. And so, I hobbled to uni with a foot that is sore all over. Still, it’s not as bad as the gout!

Todays first class was about Digital Libraries. Actually, the whole second half of the semester is about them. I missed last week (when I was sick) so I had a quick catch-up on the train. I’d downloaded the notes to my trusty netbook and tried to stay awake reading them. God, I love my netbook. I call her Nettles.

So we listened to Andy as he explained the intricacies of creating and maintaining DLs (as he calls Digital Libraries) and then, after the break mid-class, we huddled in our groups to prepare for the tutorial. Our group is very small. It’s not actually really small but a lot of them weren’t there. Compared to the other three groups, we were minute!

After chatting about all manner of DL stuff, we started discussing who would get up and give the tutorial. Alison said she had the flu so she couldn’t. Maria stated that she’d been dumped on Friday and had been crying all weekend, so she couldn’t. I decided to offer my gout into the mix. Fortunately, Alice was happy to present. She did an admirable, if somewhat rushed, job. Rushed because the other groups had gone over their ten minute time limit, leaving her zero minutes.

Interestingly, Maria was dumped by text. I thought this was just an urban myth. Apparently not. Poor thing. I was dying to ask her what she texted back but she was on the other side of the group and I didn’t want to open any wounds that may have still been tender. For next weeks tutorial, we’ve been paired up so maybe I’ll ask her then.

After lunch in the park – it was a lovely day – I trotted off (slowly) to a far from exciting lecture on indexing and tagging. It was every bit as dull as it sounds. Still, it’s one of those things I HAVE to know. I hadn’t realised that I already knew. A few people took advantage of the mid-class break to escape. I wish I’d been as fleet of foot. Damn gout, defeats me again.

The second half of the class was an exercise. We had to index an article or four. The classroom was very warm. I was getting very tired. The class ended just in time.

I chatted to Mirinda on my journey back to Waterloo. She’d been out looking at flats today and had a lot to tell me. The bus ride was very quickly over. The dogs went insane when I arrived home. Actually, they’re still going insane. They keep hearing something out the back. I’m not letting them go out and bark.

And then, at 7:45, while I was talking to Mirinda on the phone, there was a knock at the door. I thought it was a neighbour come to complain about the girls being too noisy. Standing before me were two clean cut chaps with laminated badges on. I asked what they wanted.

“Good evening, sir,” One started. “We’ve come to give you a message.”

Then I read the badges. The Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints. I was very tempted to ask them which saints were the latter ones. Was the cut off St Joan, perhaps? Later? Earlier? I actually really wondered. I think I’ll have to google it because I just said I wasn’t in the least bit interested and shut the door.

Can you believe it? 7:45 at night! A message? I have a message for them. And it isn’t from some mythical spirit creature and some selected heavenly host, either.

Just to prove it was a lovely day, I took this at lunchtime at uni. This is the main building. Isn’t it ugly?

Lunch outside uni