The House Husband

It was World Whisky Day today…apparently. People all over the world were having ‘events’. These events seem to consist of grabbing a bottle of whisky, grabbing a mate and drinking it responsibly. It was timed rather well because Nicktor came round to stay…but more about that later.

Another glorious day with no rain (pretty much the opposite of Queensland, according to Mum and Dad who seem to be surrounded by floods and very relieved they no longer live below sea level, like they used to) and stunning blue skies. It’s all very lovely but, really, we seriously need some rain. The south east is almost on drought alert with rivers drying up and fish moving to wetter climes.

Things are so bad that the blackbirds are having to use our bird bath. In most gardens this isn’t that unusual but in ours, the poodles drink most of the bird bath water – don’t ask me why – so the birds are quite lucky to get a look in. Or, in this case, a bath.

Do you mind not pointing that thing at me while I'm having my bath?

Actually I spent quite a lot of the day in the garden. Mirinda left detailed orders and I tried to accomplish a lot of them today. There were plants to plant, horse manure top scatter, grass to mow, beer to drink. Life just doesn’t stop. And life doesn’t stop for tulips either. The red ones have started to come out and are looking glorious in the sun.

So red, they hurt your eyes

And I mustn’t forget to mention the magnolia which is dropping its petals like a crazy thing…which is quite apt given it’s actually in the Crazies’ garden and only overhangs ours. Nicktor asked me whether I threw the petals over the fence, since they really belong to them. I said I was too scared.

Always lovely against a blue sky

I also had a few household management things to sort out as well as making some last minute changes to the spreadsheet I completed for Mirinda on Monday.

Anyway, as I said earlier, we had a Nicktor Night tonight and after the football (see tomorrow’s post), we made sure to toast all things pure and distilled in the world of whisky with a few wee drams of the Eagle of Arran. It was a pleasure.

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And a Hankley update…I stole this photo from the Daily Mail website just so you can see what happened to what we call the monastery on Hankley Common. Apologies to the Daily Mail but I’ll include a link to their story as well.

Skyfall Lodge burns like a beauty - I hope Judy Dench wasn't in there!

Daily Mail link

We are hoping Hankley will be back to normal next weekend.

In LaPIS today, we had a guest lecturer who is presently ‘doing’ her PHd. Each week we have a different person, giving us a different view on the Information Sciences.

We’ve had a woman who carries a load of donated books around the world, sets herself up anywhere she wants and says she’s a library.

We’ve had a girl who works for a publishing house who was so soft, I still couldn’t tell you what she talked about.

We’ve had Frank Webster who was absolutely brilliant. He put me on to a couple of authors who are fantastic. He’s a sociologist.

Today was the second last LaPIS class (the rest of uni is now finished but because of Easter, and specifically Good Friday, we have another week to go for this module). Today’s guest speaker told us about how the slow movement can be applied to information or, rather, should it.

The Slow Movement started in Italy. This guy was sick of Fast Food so he set about starting a revolution. It’s not just the idea of cooking from scratch – the opposite of Fast Food – but also creating the food for yourself in the first place. It’s about being a huge part of nature, taking it slow and becoming one with it. Anyway, it’s very famous and has been applied to other areas of life such as business.

This woman’s thesis is that we are, in the Information Society, a bunch of Infomaniacs and wouldn’t it be better if we were Infodiverse. Some of what she said made sense but a lot was a bit rubbish. It was like she’d struck on a good idea for her doctorate but then it didn’t really go anywhere so she twaddled around and came up with the stuff we saw today. Anyway, it was entertaining enough. She had Maria convinced.

Afterwards we had a half hour talk about an article that the lecturer had read lately. Bit of a waste of time, if you ask me, although Mirinda claims that’s what they all do. I guess in a way, they do, but it’s not usually ONE article they talk about.

Then to Waterloo, meet Mirinda and come home.

In keeping with recent blog entries, I’ve included another tulip photo.

Gary was very annoyed when he realised the poodles had snapped off his prize tulip!

Not much happened today. I didn’t even go into Farnham. I did manage to leave the house for an hour and a half when I took the puppies to the park but otherwise I was tied to my desk!

I managed to get the most boring part of my second essay almost complete. Though I made a few pleasant diversions by cleaning the bathroom, burning the rubbish and doing all the washing as little breaks through the day.

Still, though dreary to the extreme, I think I’ve broken the back of this one and just waiting for a book to arrive for a citation for the first one. Things are looking better. I will have Monday and Tuesday to complete them both.

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One of our patches of tulips has sprouted one single flower. Although there’s about 12 in the patch. It looks a bit weird among the green foliage. The colour in this photo is a long way off correct. It’s actually a darker red with a yellow fringe around it.

Smallest tulip in the garden