Christmas dightdightdights

 

Daughter 2 gave us a flat-pack locomotive.

 

 

 

Mr Life rose to the challenge.

 

 

Less imaginatively, we gave her a chocolate snowman and teddy.

 

 

Daughter 1, SIL 1 and Grandson came to lunch. Grandson played with his stones...

 

 

... and did a lot of hiding under the table.

 

 

He liked the Christmas tree. "Dight!" he said. "Dight! Dight! Hello Gah! Dightdight!" Surprisingly, he just fingered the ornaments rather than pulling them off. "("Ball! Ball! Ball!")

 

When he touches something I don't want him to, I tend to go "Ah-ah-ah!" and he's developed a habit of reaching out to a forbidden object and then murmuring to himself "Ah-ah-ah" before withdrawing his hand. I wish I could persuade the cats to self-regulate in this convenient way. Someone has scratched our bedroom wallpaper and it wasn't Grandson. Mind you, someone else left the door open and it wasn't me. Or Grandson. He can't reach the handle.

 

 

Daughter 1 is making a blanket of granny squares for his little sister, Volume 2. She put it round him like a robe. He wandered around in kingly fashion.

 

It's not really just over a week till Christmas, is it? Oh dear. Tomorrow is free-ish (in other words, must be crammed with myriad activities) then on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we have Grandson. I'm out Tuesday evening, tutoring a friend's son on Wednesday evening, out to lunch on Friday and rehearsing on Saturday morning for our choir carol service, which is on Saturday night. Meanwhile, my brother and his family arrive to stay on Saturday. Is everything organised for Christmas?

 

Well... .

 

Better get on.

Some of us have the art of relaxation...

... and others of us do not.

I never would have believed it before I retired, but life has been too busy to find time to blog. I haven't even been reading other people's blogs except in the most occasional and non-commenty way.

When I started blogging, in 2006 (I think it was) we were in the run-up to Daughter 1's wedding. Since then we've had Daughter 2's wedding and now it's only six weeks yesterday to Son's. Do I have anything to wear at this wedding? Well, no. I do hate clothes and thinking about them.

I must go and mark Higher English exams (yes, not quite fully retired yet) and practise my fiendishly difficult piano piece in which the left hand goes twice as fast as the right. Theoretically.

Mislaying one's head

Am exhausted with various minor tasks and crises. Am beginning to think longingly of a nice desk with some nice simple marking on it and some nice cheery students to teach.

Still, I did manage to pop into Daughter 1's to have a little fix of Grandson. I don't know why the room seems to be at a very severe angle. What can I say? Art photography.

While Daughter 1 and her son admired each other, SIL (you can see him in the background) wrote thank-you notes for baby presents. He's a New Man. He also tidies, does washing, shops, cooks etc. He's impressive.

Nearly Monday yet again

I do not see why I should have to be a person. It would be so much more restful to be a cat. It's 10.20 on Sunday night and this is the first chance I've had to sit down to write a whole lot of reports. Which I don't awfully want to do. Moan. Sulk. I would much rather do something else, for example lie in the bath reading the very interesting biography of Samuel Johnson which is on my bedside table.

Mutter mutter. Why can't I be one of the idle rich?

Still, I've started my Christmas shopping. Just. Now don't tell me if you're one of those people who have all theirs wrapped because I've got my fingers in my ears. Lalalalala - can't hear you.

Better get on. Reports don't write themselves.

Collapse

It's been such a long time since I posted. I feel like a boxer - thrown against the ropes each day just to stagger back in time to face another. Teaching is such an all-consuming job, keeping people entertained and supplied with suitable handouts all day, every day. And then there's the marking.

The garden blooms on, unseen.

At the end of last session I decided that I would no longer teach an evening class in addition to my full-time job. Somehow I seem to be doing it again. There were no other volunteers. I do get paid extra for it and actually it's my favourite class. The marking is a killer, though. There are 29 people in the class - far too many - and if they all write something in class and also do their homework, that's 58 pieces of work to mark each week, just from this class. When you consider that each piece can take up to 15 minutes - well, it adds up. I just hope some of the students aren't too diligent.

So I teach till 9 o'clock on Tuesdays and I stayed at work on Thursday last week till 9 also, just to try to catch up a bit. And of course I bring work home too. Yes, I know: teaching's a part-time job. Ha.

Daughter 2 went down to London last week to see her actor boyfriend on The Plinth. British people will know about this - one plinth in Trafalgar Square hasn't got a statue on it, and the artist Antony Gormley has invited people to occupy it for one hour each, 24 hours a day for 100 days.

The actor boyfriend applied for, and was allocated, one of these hours. Unfortunately for him it was between 2 and 3 in the morning but astonishingly, about twenty of his friends were there to support him as he sang his own satirical songs and accompanied himself on the ukulele. Daughter 2 supplied the banner and lots of cupcakes for the spectators. I'm torn between thinking the whole thing is ridiculous and telling myself that he's young and this was a bit of an adventure. (And he has nothing much else to do because he's largely unemployed.)

As usual, last weekend was a rush, too. There was the usual dusting and tidying to do. Then Daughter 1 and her husband got home from holiday and came for a meal on Saturday. She turned 30 while they were away (what happened to that 30 years and how am I so old?) and so on Sunday they came for a birthday tea and we had a cake and sang to her.

"It's just as well we cycled over," said Son-in-Law, surveying the 30 candles burning away, "to offset that carbon footprint."

Our son came over again. I think we need to have a crisis or a birthday every weekend to bring him home. (The photo of him arriving is in the wrong order but life's not perfect.)

And then the week began again. Ten classes, each with 20 to 30 students I've never seen before, many of them called Kerry Ann or Carianne or Lee-ann or Lianne or some such confusingly similar name.

I plan to work for two more years. About 375 working days to go. I think that might be manageable.

Just about.

I apologise for any typos here. Normally I type in Word and then copy and paste but Blogger wouldn't paste tonight so, having spent ages doing the photos, I then had to retype it all on to the post. And now I must go and mark and then get up to my mother's house

This and that

I was marking the register: checking faces and muttering names.

Harvey [to James]: Hey, give me my notepad back! [Grabs it.] Oh, you’ve drawn a – look what you’ve drawn! My mum might see that!

James: [grabbing it back]: Oh, give it here. It’s all right; I’m just changing it into an elephant.

But that was yesterday. Today is the first day of the holidays and I have:

spoken on the phone to an ex-student, who's now training to be a primary school teacher, about an essay she has to do; taken my mother to the doctor; been to the pharmacy to collect her prescription; had another phone conversation with the same ex-student, who was still anxious; gone to pick up my aunt to take her to my mum’s for lunch; had lunch with my mum and aunt; taken my aunt home again; had a brisk walk round the Botanic Gardens; bought our and my mum’s weekly groceries at the supermarket; taken my mum’s shopping to her house; come home and unpacked ours; prepared a meal and fed it to Mr Life, Daughter 2 and also Son and his girlfriend, who’re here for a very rare weekend. It’s lovely to see him but he’ll be away before we know it.

The cats have done none of these things.

I have a cold. And am tired. And am off to have a bath.

This weekend

The weekend:

Friday evening: book group.

Saturday morning: went to supermarket at 7.20 am so that husband could have car in time to pick up my mother at 8.40 am to take her to the Church of Scotland Guild annual meeting in distant town - son has our other car in different distant town. By mistake, locked keys with shopping in boot (trunk) so that husband had to catch bus and then run down the road from bus stop with spare keys to rescue me. Husband didn’t reproach me. Ah, a good man is worth more than rubies (though I also like rubies).

Rest of Saturday: did some blog-reading then some housework including defrosting freezer. Cats did NOT like latter, which involved cold air, lumps of ice flying across the kitchen as I chipped it off, ice melting chillily on kitchen floor and me using noisy hairdryer to speed up the process. Daughter 2, who had sore throat, did some reading for her work on the sofa. Or that was the idea.

In evening, went to party given by colleague. Husband, not long home from sitting through day-long meeting with my mother, nobly accompanied me to party though he’s more of a sit-in-front-of-television-with-cat-on-knee person than a party person.

Sunday: went to church. Had Daughter 1, SIL, mother to lunch with Daughter 2, husband and me. Took mother home. Took Daughter 1 and SIL (who don't have a car) to buy sawdust for their guinea pigs, to supermarket and then their home. Came home myself. Went out for walk with husband. Tidied up. Sat down to type out year-long schedule for one of my classes, but first answered some emails. Then put off work slightly further by writing this blog but any minute now will get down to that schedule, which will take me some considerable time. It’s now 10.50 pm.

These are some of the reasons why I don’t make quilts or knit socks or do anything creative.

580 working days to go before I retire.

40 years on...

Busy busy busy here in Life country: Daughter 2's had a birthday, I've been to a (high) school reunion (40 years since we left school - can't wait to tell you about this) and I'm therefore behind in my marking and WAY behind in my blogreading. So - must stop having fun in a moment.

However, the passage that the students had to answer questions about in the exam concerns landscape and the environment and how these change through the years. You might be interested to know from their answers that:

"Stone Age man needed food to survive."

"There are very few bisons, giraffes and hippos in Scotland nowadays."

and

"We used to have fauna in Scotland but you never see any of them these days."

I'll be back. Save your exciting posts till the end of this week, please.

Not the best day in my life

Lilacs - how I love the scent. Things are not good in the Life household at the moment – various family problems, by far the worst of which is my son-in-law’s depression. Which is intermittent but completely disabling when it strikes. Anyone have a magic wand? He seems to read this sometimes, so - we love you, J, and you're great. Just keep determinedly thinking about the good things.

Also I just don’t have enough time to read all the interesting blogs I keep coming across. I’ve just had a big catch-up, and people have had panic attacks, babies, grandchildren, knitfests, quiltfests, painting sessions and so on without waiting to see if I was watching. So thoughtless.

A while ago I was kindly awarded the Thinking Blogger award (but I have no idea how to put it on my template – if that’s the word). Actually, because I read so many thinkers’ blogs, I can’t now think who hasn’t had it. Most of you have. So give me a few days to pass it on. Also I’ve been tagged for 7 random facts, but – I have to go! I’ll be back- but don’t do anything exciting in the meantime.

I do wish all you bloggy people could all come round for coffee. Including you, J, and Daughter I - oh, and you, dear husband, if you wanted (but you'd probably hide in the study). I don't think Son or Daughter 2 reads this, but they'd be very welcome too. I'd make a cake.

This post is probably full of mistakes because I am in a great rush, and this would serve me right for the odd critical comment which has appeared on these pages (are they pages?). Still, see me dash off....