Autumn Goals

Having a goals list for this past term has been a little bit of a lifesaver. I know I banged on about being overworked but this week, when I have some downtime (last night I watched the Bake Off final and then went to bed, what a treat), I'm appreciating even more how busy it was. However, thanks to The List, I did prioritise some nice things and even did things I might have otherwise cancelled because I'm very much a list-ticker. 

Not too bad. Let's start with the non-ticks. The kayak did not come out, though I did make plans with my friend Lizzy to go on a joint paddle, but the weather wasn't really friendly and, as Lizzy has recently moved, she didn't have much time either. I did one glow swim but couldn't manage to fit another one in, Thursdays have been busy. And 11 gym visits is not too shabby, especially when combined with almost weekly PT and yoga sessions. I'm noticing the benefits of not having taken the summer months (when I'd usually go to the quarry to swim) off the gym. 

I fitted in the woodland walk this past Sunday, when we went to Lacock for a wander and then a Sunday lunch which was much-hyped but ultimately quite disappointing as we waited ages and the food was tepid. But nevermind. The foliage was beautiful (thankfully not all blown away) and it was that gorgeous crisp sunny autumn weather. 

As you can see, Mr Z was overjoyed to be there. 

I got out the tin of pumpkin that I thought was a couple of years old, only to find it had gone out of date in 2021. I opened it with trepidation and it seemed good, so I made it into pancakes with this recipe - the loaf cake I like so much needed a bit more than one tin and I couldn't find any for sale, and couldn't be bothered to make my own. 

Trick or treating with the smalls happened. Lara went as Tinkerbell and had the best wings. Mati was Peter Pan in what looked suspiciously like a Robin Hood costume. We got rained on towards the end but it did not spoil my second year in a row admiring the efforts of Kingston residents to spook the local children. 

Matching jumpers. I should also have bought matching torches but you live and learn. 

I saw Poppy's play in Bath, it turned out an old colleague's husband was one of the musicians and I think I saw an ex-student in the audience. The back garden could definitely have had more tidying but it is much much better than it was. I need to do a tip run, really. I made mango chutney and crab apple jelly.  I wore all the old BPAL autumn perfumes I've got and decided I've gone off them, so I should probably get those on eBay at some point; but I did rediscover one that I really like, so I've started wearing that more. And I have ticked the Christmas jumper because I have knitted about a third of it, but it's the complicated third with the colourwork, so I am hoping it will now be plain knitting and I can get it done by the start of December...it's on the Autumn 2 list as well. 

And I now HAVE THE BOOTS! As previously mentioned, I did hope they weren't going to fit but, they do, and they are lovely. A bit hard on the toes as I'm not used to pointy shoes, but I will persevere. And cut my toenails. 

Don't be judging my dirty mirror, I am much too busy to clean you know. 

2025 Week 42

10 weeks left of this year! Time flies when you're working hard. 

An exciting development in my work life this week, as I was actually able to finish writing a to-do list. Up until this point, the to-do list just finished when the space ran out and not everything was on it. This week, that list had an end! I didn't reach it. But it was there. If everything goes to plan, I might be able to have next Saturday as a full day without any work. This is overwhelmingly exciting. I can tell you that my last such day was August 17th. 

Workwise this week, I have been working on a task for another exam board, after applying for a side hustle with them; chipping away at a poor version of the first part of my dissertation, which I shame-facedly submitted even though I felt it was awful; writing a paper, or trying to; and marking Y8 books for the first time in a number of years. This last task has been more of a pleasure than I was expecting. I haven't taught that year group for a while and I love the curriculum; I'd also forgot how exciting it is when you start to see those first whispers of them understanding the point of what you're doing. I saw the week out at an assembly some of our sixth formers did on colonisation and language. Even thought I didn't teach them any of the content that they shared in the assembly, I felt immensely proud because I feel like our curriculum gave them the skills and motivation to go and find out more. This is the sort of thing that reminds me why I'm in the job.

Just when I think I'm getting out, they pull me back in. 

No reading has taken place but Mr Z and I are now at the end of series 3 of The Wire, which is technically a rewatch but I never got past the middle of series 4 and Mr Z can't remember much. It's such smart drama and so interesting to watch story arcs unfold over a number of episodes. Dominic West's accent though...ooft. You can sort of tell they had no money for actors in the first series or they wouldn't have cast so many Brits. 

While watching, I've been knitting the Christmas jumper and have divided for the sleeves and done the collar, but it's cooling off for a bit while I try to churn out a second unicorn jumper for Nibling number 2. I am seeing them for trick or treating in just under a fortnight so I have quite the deadline. Hoping I can get through the last ten rows of colourwork tomorrow and then it's plain knitting for the rest of the week. 

I went to see Nicola Sturgeon at her book tour talk in Bath on Thursday. One of those that I was not especially drawn to, but I felt like I had to hear her, yknow? She was as charismatic as you'd expect a successful politician of 37 years' experience to be and even spent some time talking about her favourite books, which I loved, of course. 

Can't believe we're already this far through October. It was fully dark by 7pm tonight. I had a pumpkin spice latte today from a local cafe and it was actually nice (I cannot cope with the sugary chemical flavour of the Starbucks version). Tomorrow, I might even don some tights. We'll see. Maybe I will try to make it to half term bare-legged. 

2025 Week 37

Today would have been Father Hand's 75th birthday. I had quite a vivid dream about him this week, during which we had a conversation, where he told me he was going to go to prison for a while (in a way that made it sound like a choice he was making, rather than due to a crime) and he thought he might give heroin a try, because he'd never tried it and wondered what it was like. I have noted that my dreams have been increasingly more vivid and uncomfortable than ever this summer, but this one was really odd. 

Happy heavenly birthday, Father Hand. Stay off the smack. 

This has been a week of epic length. It started with Mother Z's funeral. She received a terminal cancer diagnosis just before last Christmas and lasted for eight months. During that time, in typical Mother Z fashion, she got absolutely everything relating to her departure organised to the letter, down to the shop where her immediate family were to buy their black funeral suits. She chose the music - recordings of choirs she was in - and the pictures for the slide show. She even wrote her own eulogy. It was exactly as she would have wanted it and it was standing room only. A sad occasion but a good celebration of her long life. 

The rest of the week was a chaotic whirlwind of work. I began with heavy overwhelm but had started to see the wood for the trees by Friday. The to-do list is gradually abating and I have had the 'I need to quit my job' conversation with Mr Z that he reminds me happens every September. There is definitely a little shadow over my shoulder of the dissertation that I have made no further moves with, but it has been less than a fortnight since the launch days so I think I will be OK. 

What else has happened? Hmm, hmm. I spoke at an online conference on Thursday evening. I came down with a horrible cold on Wednesday that swept on very quickly, so I skipped yoga and went to bed at 9pm. Happily I felt better when I woke up, though Mr Z has since succumbed to the same and we wonder if it might be covid. We did at least make it to brunch yesterday. 

Progress was made on the nice goals list. The fancy boots arrived and they are gorgeous and they do actually fit, which is good, really, but I was anticipating sending them back as they were quite spendy. Now I just have to make sure I wear them. I also did a lot of preserving last Sunday (hence the no blogging, I was at capacity) and churned out nine jars of crab apple jelly and six jars of mango chutney. 

I am at row 34 of 50 on the colourwork chart of the Christmas jumper and feeling slightly less worried about running out of yarn: for some stupid reason, I bought the yarn required for a size L when I was in Oslo over the summer, as opposed to the 2XL that I am knitting. This isn't an easy problem to fix: according to the pattern, I am 100g of sport weight and 50g of laceweight short. However, based on current progress, I think I will be OK. I have some ideas for getting round it if I run out, anyway, here they are in order of preference: knit it slightly cropped; add green bands to the sleeves/waist to save on the white; knit it with elbow-length sleeves; contact the yarn shop and ask if they can ship me some more; find someone in Oslo and ask them if they can go into the shop, buy some and send it to me. I think the most likely scenario is that I will have enough sport weight but run out of laceweight, but as they're carried together, I can get more of the laceweight (which is more easily available in the UK, thankfully) and even though the dye lot will be different it probably won't be THAT noticeable. It is the undyed colourway, after all. 

To go with the knitting, I had to find some things to watch, so I worked my way through the first eight episodes of Ken Burns's Vietnam War, which was actually much better than I was anticipating. Then it was removed from Now TV, because of course it was. Trying to decide if I want to see the end enough to buy the final episodes on Amazon Prime. I reckon if I just wait long enough, it will pop up on another service. The Mr Z declared it was time to rewatch The Wire (I never finished it all on the first watch through anyway) and I decided today that I would give Yellowstone a try. The jury is out. I like the landscapes but it doesn't really feel like it is for me. 

Tuesday Ten

Ten goals (plus two more goals) to achieve in autumn (deadline: November 1st). 

I made a list. It had ten things on it. Then I went to Oxford and my friend Poppy told me she was going to be in a play and so I added her to it. Then I remembered the very spendy boots I wanted to buy last year and had been dithering over again throughout August, so they made it onto the list too. So now it's 12, not 10. But I think a 'number of gym visits' goal doesn't really count, does it? 

No wait, it does. Tuesday twelve is better than Tuesday eleven. 

The boots are arriving tomorrow. The kitchen is full of preserves. The Christmas jumper is on the needles. I smell like some kind of apple and pumpkin pie. Autumn, I am in you. 

Summer holiday goals

I mentioned in my last post that I wrote a summer holiday list, inspired by an online friend who did the same to try to give his summer a bit of structure. It made me nostalgic for when I used to do monthly goal-setting on this blog. I'm not going to say I will restart because, well, yknow, I don't need any more deadlines in my life to feel guilty about not meeting. But I liked this and am going to work on an autumn version. 

Not too bad at all. I tried to keep it mixed and all fun stuff. Ginge is my car and Mr Z washed it for me last week, love him. 'Night out with friends' was my slightly more sanitised version of 'get drunk' because I never allow that anymore, I can never afford to lose the next day to the inevitable eye-wateringly early wake up and therefore essential afternoon nap that a lot of alcohol causes, but I decided this was me being a bit too controlling of myself and so we had the wine flight with the tasting menu in Oslo and then went for cocktails after. It is classic me to aim to get drunk in what must be the second soberest capital in Europe (our tour guide told us Norway is a lot of seconds...second greenest capital, second highest coffee consumption...). 

The house clean jobs turned into a bit of a decluttering mission but I think that's OK. I pulled out all the bags that were jumbled by the fridge and counted them...why did I need 64 reusable shopping bags, when I do the vast majority of my grocery shopping online?

Spot the horrified Lenin in picture one, appalled that a new space has become available to explore in the kitchen but there is this enormous barrier suddenly in front of it. 

It was quite hard getting rid of some of these, turns out I am weirdly emotionally attached to some bags, but I was inspired by the tote that said 'collect memories not things' (the irony) and so over half of these got donated to the local foodbank. I also had eight kitchen aprons, of which I need to ditch six. Sorting for charity shop and ragging must surely be a job for this next season. 

I didn't mean to count PT sessions and yoga towards the gym visits so really I only made it to five. I intended to go today but, here I am, just clearing the decks before I pop off to Oxford for my dissertation workshops, so I guess I paid them for the month of August and didn't use it. But that's OK. I am looking forward to getting back to it.

I will have to put the kayak on the autumn list. I haven't had her out once yet this year, shame. 

2025 Week 35

Remember back when I did my week 29 post and said, how different things will be when it's week 39 and how far off that seems? Ah, fun times. It's the last day of the summer holidays today...well, actually, it's the penultimate day, because school starts back on Tuesday. Right up until Friday morning, I thought school started on Monday. It's moot because I'm in Oxford Mon/Tue anyway, but ... wow. Wow.

It's been, of course, another full on week of crazy variable work stuff. I finished my assignments with a little time to spare (hours, not days) - one, I loved and wanted to do more of; the other, well, let's hope the people marking it don't find it as deathly boring as I did. It definitely convinced me that I am not cut out to be a quantitative researcher. 'It just has to pass' became the mantra. Then I had to write a dissertation proposal which I was fixated on and just couldn't do, so I submitted some awful cough in the direction of a document, just because I had to get it off my list. I have had somewhere over 100 re-marks to do, which I finished today. A small but important bit of other exam board work. And then I checked my school email on Friday morning and found that the head had added a 45 minute inset day slot on something that is my responsibility, which I had to plan and give to her to deliver. In her defence she sent it on Tuesday and I hadn't looked but, yeah. I had a list of school things to do already and therefore none of them have been done yet. 

Meh. I can only do what I can do. Let's not even mention the three events I'm speaking at in the next month, the school course I'm doing that I need to prep for and that article I said I would write for a magazine, that is due some time this week. Lol. 

Anyway, enough whining. Let's all remember that I do choose to say yes to these things. 

I have (in amongst all this because why not) been to Mother Hand's for a few days this week as she rented a beach hut. It wasn't really beach hut weather but we did try to make it work. We got up early on Thursday and managed to get to the beach in a brief window of sun, only with some rain around the edges so we got treated to a beautiful beach rainbow, well played, Portsmouth. 

I caught a (much delayed) train home on Thursday and then went for some drinks with local history teacher friends for an end-of-summer debrief. This sort of marked the end of the holiday for me as Friday was spent at work, although on Saturday, Mr Z and I did manage a brunch and we watched two episodes of The Last of Us while I wound yarn for my next knitting project. 

On that - I finished knitting the UV unicorn jumper for the niece, it looks AMAZING under the UV torch I bought to go with it. Sadly they did not come to hang out on Wednesday so she doesn't have the jumper yet, but hopefully she will love it. 

I'm now winding the wool for a Christmas jumper, Kristtjørn by Hanne Rimmen. I bought the green and red yarn in Oxford and the white in Norway this summer (the yarn shop lady helped me pick it out and told me Oslo was a city of around a million people that supported at least 20 knitting shops - further evidence that Norway is somewhere I could live). Unusually for me, I think I will knit a proper swatch for this one, since I probably only have time to knit it once before Christmas. I'd also like to use up the UV yarn on a small jumper for the nephew, though, so we will see how I get on. 

After a summer of many novels, there hasn't been much reading this week, probably because I'm trying to make myself read a book for work, which usually results in just, no reading happening at all. I have been reading an ancient children's book called Lone Pine Five that Mother Hand returned to me, I don't remember it at all but then I read millions of books as a child so that's probably to be expected. 

As I said, we've been watching The Last of Us and have one episode left. I finished my Sex and the City rewatch and started AJLT season 3 but I am already disappointed with it. I want to watch the new Clarkson's Farm, the Ken Burns Vietnam War series (I don't really want to but it has been so highly recommended by someone whose opinion I would normally value, that I feel I must try) and The Phoenecian Contract, which I see is out to rent online, another sad story for our cinemas. I might see if it is still playing anywhere before I rent it. 

While I am trying to get away from the 'every second of my life must be meaningful' vibe, I might make a list of things I'd like to achieve in the autumn. Every year, I get to November and feel like I've missed out on the whole apples, leaves, pumpkins thing. I made myself a summer holiday list which was not completed, but helped me think about things I really wanted to do, so maybe it's time to do that for the next season. 

Ooh! And I almost forgot the good health news, that arrived at the end of July. Following a second blood test, the surgery has declared that I am officially in remission from diabetes. Yey me! My sugars are still in the pre-diabetic range so there is no reason yet to stop, but the nurse was very pleased with my progress. Zoe said, 'So you were diabetic for what, like, five minutes?' - a quote I shall hang on to. Hopefully I can continue to make progress in this area of my life also. In all my copious free time.

Library Confession

I took a book back to the library today that I've had since 2020. I did not know I still had it. I am recording the episode here because the librarian didn't seem to understand what I was telling her and I feel the need to confess fully, for avoidance of doubt.

Firstly, I have the utmost respect for libraries and value them highly. Mother Hand worked in a library throughout her pregnancy with me so I feel we have a special bond (me and libraries, I mean). 

Here's how it happened. I wanted an obscure history text I heard some nerdy history teachers discussing. It was only available online for megabucks, so I turned to the library system. There was one copy available, but it was in the stack of the library in the next city over. No matter, I thought, I am not in a hurry. This was around about December 2019. 

The book took awhile, obviously. I got the notification of its arrival around February 2020. That was a busy month for me, I had a ski trip and a huge job interview to worry about, so by the time I made it to the library to collect, it was March. I went in during the unmanned hours as this was the only time I had. The book was so old and neglected, it wouldn't scan through the self-service. I tried several times. I even tried to see if I could type in the barcode, but no dice (this was where the librarian started to either not believe me or misunderstand me). 

I considered for a while and decided I would just take the book. Nobody had checked it out for over a decade. I would come back with it during manned hours to check it out properly. 

Well. We all know what happened next. Due to the pandemic, the book stayed with me, unchecked out. Shamefully, I did not read it. It inched gently under the pile of books by my bed, until it was at the very back of the very bottom. Meanwhile, I sourced a copy to buy for not many pence, in the USA, and had it sent to Father Hand for me to collect on my nest visit. In a classic Father Hand-me interaction, he read it and gave me an overview - 'Interesting enough, but it is a textbook'. I collected it when I saw him last. 

Fast forward to this summer, when the pile o'books was finally dismantled. Oh, the shame of finding the book languishing there! I resolved I would take it into the library to explain myself, rather than surreptitiously drop it in the returns box, anonymously.

The librarian gave me short shrift. She told me to hang around while she checked to ensure I had not amassed a hefty fine (I would have loved this, I am constantly running up small fines as a way of contributing funds to the library system, on account of our special bond). Turns out, the book has dropped off the system. This news was delivered in an accusatory way, though I do wonder, was it on the system when I got it? - because it wouldn't scan. The librarian did manage to stop short of rolling her eyes but it was clear my (to my mind, very rational) explanation was falling on barren ground. She would return it to the relevant authority, she said. 

So now, it is here. My confession. I did do a terrible thing, but in my defence, I would never steal a book from a library on purpose. I was just a victim of circumstance. And untidiness.