Stuff 'n' stuff

So. Friday Matthew selfishly decides he'd rather like to work at his desk rather than hunched over the coffee table and takes his office chair back. I fix my chair. Everything is hunky-dory.

Then yesterday I fell through my chair. Ow. I fixed it again (this time with glue, rather than just pushing the nails back in to the giant worn away holes), and so far it is holding up. Or at least holding me up.

By the way - Friday's deadline? Got an extension. Well, no technically, I didn't. I discovered that research students are supposed to spend the allotted time of their course researching, and THEN write up the thesis, and that it is only 'exceptional' people who hand in their theses early (the allotted time of my course is 365 days, and Friday would have been 363 days - that means had it been finished by then, I would be 'exceptional'. Ha!). I also discovered that I'm supposed to fill in a form three months before I hand in my thesis. Oops. Apparently it won't be a problem.

I intend to finish within two weeks though. Partly because there's a weeklong literature festival I want to go to in the second week of October, and partly because I have my next physio appointment in mid-October and want to have done some knitting before it so that we have a clear idea of what my hands can and can't do.

The other day I noticed that there was a giant brown rat wandering over the lawn in front of our flat! I've only seen two wild rats before: one at Stretford tram station in that overgrown fenced off area that is full of litter and doesn't get cleaned because it's fenced off (or have they tidied it up now?), and one running down an inner city street at night which disappeared down a drain into the sewers. I did not expect to see one on our manicured lawn in the middle of the day, lolloping around in the sunshine. I stood at the threshold and it walked straight past me, only running away when I moved.

Sadly, no pictures (but remember the mouse from last year?). It was all over too quickly to run up and get the camera, and also the new people opposite (three young couples in two months have moved onto our road; there are only 12 households on our road and before this we were the only young ones) were looking out of their window and probably didn't need to see me taking a photo of the vermin.

But to make up for it, here's an artist's impression.



(yes I did do that myself; no I don't have Photoshop, but isn't Paint impressive?; and yes it was a scabby brown rat, but this Roan one is much prettier, doncha think?)

Oh, and we finally got round to replacing the lightbulb in the bedroom after it blew about 6 weeks ago a while ago. The new bulb flickers every 4 seconds even when switched off. That's normal, right?

There is no time in the thesis-writing schedule for this

Admittedly, it was a very rickety old chair that used to come apart quite frequently in an oh-that's-not-a-problem-you-just-push-the-legs-back-on way. And then there was the incident the other day during a flying thing removal from the bedroom (I was on my own, it was late, and I really didn't want to have to sleep on the floor in the study). While I was very brave with the capturing of the flying thing, I took no prisoners in removing it from the flat, and if that included knocking over a rickety old chair, it included knocking over a rickety old chair.

Luckily I have been able to pinch Matthew's office chair. And I was quite thrilled with the idea that maybe having a 'proper' chair would mean I'd no longer have to sit on these



to be at the right non-RSI-inducing level at my computer.

Sadly, I am a short-arse, and even with the office chair pumped up to its maximum...



(and yes, I do need to rest my feet on another block *coughortwocough* in order to reach the ground. Reason number #276827165b why RSI sucks).

In other news, today is Matthew's birthday, and it is also International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Sadly I am crap in the arrrr-me-hearties-ing stakes, but Matthew has written a pretty nifty program for his website that automatically turns it into pirate speech on International Talk Like a Pirate Day. You have about 4 hours to check it out, otherwise you'll have to wait a year.

An ARGH for the day

Today I started chapter three. Since I have not read over the texts for chapter three for, um, about three years, I decided to spend the day reading.

I started with the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus (hehe his name is Mr Floppy). Now, one of the earliest poems in existence, Hesiod's Theogony, is an interesting work of how to make really interesting stuff really boring. The Theogony relates the beginning of the world, and there is lots of fun stuff to work with. Sadly, fun stuff like the battle of the Gods and Titans is related in a couple of lines, while all the offspring of certain sea nymphs are listed in all their glory (seriously: there are a couple of paragraphs that are just lists of names).

The Argonautica is the story of Jason and the Argonauts. That's pretty interesting, right? This is a Latin 1st century AD vague translation and reworking of a 3rd century BC poem in Greek called the (go on, guess) Argonautica. Now, I read the original Argonautica the other week, and it's fine. It's interesting, it's readable, it certainly didn't make me want to stab myself in the eyes with knitting needles... no, scrap that... knit with knitting needles, knit long and hard till both my elbows really hurt.

So, given that the Latin Argonautica elicited that response (don't worry, I didn't act on it) yet the Greek one didn't, I have to suspect that maybe, just maybe, the fault is not with the Latin reworking of the Greek poem, but with the tedious archaic bloody English bloody translation of what I am giving the benefit of the doubt was a respectably interesting Latin poem. Somehow, the translator has managed to make a story about battles and storms and dragons and fire-breathing bulls and heroes REALLY REALLY REALLY DULL.

And you know the worst thing about reading such a boring story, so boring that you have no idea what's going on half the time until you vaguely remember that a similar thing happened in the Greek version and you can work it out from that, so boring that you can't remember what you've already read and nearly read book three twice (that was a close one, I can tell you)... no, the worst bloody thing about reading such a bloody boring book, is that some cheeky stinking bloody pooey poohead has ripped out sodding page 415. ARGH!

Unfortunately, this poem isn't really up there with the Iliad and the Odyssey, and this awful archaic 1934 translation is one of the only ones available, and the only one in the university library. The other translation worryingly appears to be in blank verse, but the excerpt I have read on Amazon didn't induce any notions of self-inflicted knitting injuries or put me to sleep through boredom... plus I actually paid attention. Stinks that I have to buy it, but since I've only bought two other books this year* and since I'll actually require this book for my PhD (and so if you work it out on a cost per use thingammybob it's not too bad) I'll just have to suck it up and order it. And hope it arrives by Wednesday. I guess this means I'll have a free space on my library ticket.

EDITED TO ADD: Just ordered it from Amazon. They're sneaky, ya know. On the 'buy me buy me' page is says if I ordered within the next 12 hours they'd deliver it by Wednesday. Cool. That is A Good Thing. I go through checkout (adding a *coughcoughknittingbookcough*+ to make the order qualify for free delivery), only to find out that to get the delivery by Wednesday thing I have to pay £8.99 postage! Ha! No! I'll stick with Mr 1934 (I'm sure page 415 isn't that great anyway) until the free postman turns up, thank you very much.

* Two other books for my course. I now have a large collection of teenage fantasy fiction. Garth Nix and Cornelia Funke rock.
+ Don't worry it's actually about the process of knitting rather than actually knitting.

Two little dickie birds

Chapter two is finished, hoorah! On Monday I had dyed some combed top* using Kool Aid** which I decided I could not spin until I'd finish chapter two. So finishing chapter two has been hell. But worth it! I've spun half tonight and it looks lovely. Sadly no photos, since Matthew is away with the camera.

This means no photos of the jay doing acrobatics in the garden yesterday, or tonight's exploding Yorkshire Puddings (well, they just got reeeeeeeeeeeally big. Really big. Impressively big. Photo-worthy big). Instead I shall spend the week digging through the photos I've taken in the past and not got round to sharing.

So:



I took this picture back in June, after Matthew pointed them out to me. Admittedly, it looks like a sparrow and a blackbird, but we're pretty sure it's actually a mummy blackbird taking her baby blackbird out for a stroll. Awwwwwwwwww...


* Note to Mancunians: While it is also 'great', 'top' is used here as the technical name for a long wad of combed fleece used for spinning
** Note to all British people including Mancs: Kool Aid is an American powdered drink mix that, due to it's wonderful ingredients, can be used as a colour-fast dye with no dye-fixers needed. I have to say I am unsurprised at the rising levels of kids in North America diagnosed with ADHD, if this stuff is common: I felt hyperactive just smelling the sealed packages, never mind adding A WHOLE CUP of sugar and drinking it! E-number-licious!

Spot the Pigeon

There are loads of wood pigeons which hang out in the trees at the back of our flat, which swoop over the roof leaving a dangerously small amount of clearance space. And... well, sometimes they miss :-0



At least now we can see whether we do get window cleaners or not...


(Pigeon was fine, by the way. Although it - or, to give it the benefit of the doubt, one of its friends - did fly into the kitchen window a couple of days later).

Some things never change

Surprise surprise, my desk is a mess - whadda change, huh?

In good news I got confirmation that I had been accepted onto the PhD course today. Let's see how many things the office manage to do wrong with this application. In bad news I spent about two hours crying this morning because of my stupid bloody arms (tm) and now my eyes hurt. Ho hum.