2026 Week 43

The term ended this week, probably just as awfully as might have been expected, with a nasty shock on Monday that is going to have a lot of fallout. Not being mysteriously, temptingly vague, just necessarily vague. Thankfully it doesn't directly involve me but it has left me feeling like I'm in mourning (nobody died). Just par for the course in this horrible term, thankfully now in the past. The only positive thing was that we managed to appoint another teacher of my subject, against all odds and at under a week's notice, so my timetable should ease a bit next term. Just as well because I am going to be doing my job and parts of two others. 

The last day of term was Hallowe'en dress up and I reprised an outfit from a party I went to a few years ago, the wicked witch of the east. It was windy enough to almost blow my house away for real; I had to deal firmly with a shouty parent in it; and when I leaned out of an upstairs window to shout at some truanting students, one of them actually screamed in horror and shouted, 'WHO IS THAT?!' much to the amusement of my year 10s.

It has been a fun weekend. I went to hot yoga and then to Gaz's house where we ate Chinese and sort of watched Strictly with Corners - an annual tradition, even down to the horrible storm I had to drive to and from her place in. Of course today has been lovely. I went to the cinema with Emrys to see Ghosts, very funny. I did a little actual, in-person shopping: a sadly dispiriting experience because of the whole 'find your size online' thing - you're telling me, Uniqlo, that in all your piles and piles of jumpers you don't have room for one XXS and one XXL? And then I bought a dress in Harvey Nicks and they didn't give me the expected 20% discount they were touting all over the shop and I didn't have the heart to ask. People talk a lot about the death of the high street but I'm not sure that I can recommend going in person when I can't try on my size or read the discount Ts&Cs ahead of time. I guess it was nice to actually look at things, though. 

I've continued with the usual knitting project and marvellous book, I want to devour it but I have been pretty sleepy. I've been catching up on Five Star Weekend (meh) and Leaving on Netflix, a very old three-part series with Helen McCrory that was better than I was expecting. Excitingly, I managed to see both the Bake Off and Traitors live, what a thrill - no avoiding spoilers needed. 

A whole week off awaits, though there will be exam board tasks within that. But still...lie ins, lazy hours with a book etc. 

2026 Week 42

A surprisingly good week at work. This might have been down to my complete weekend off or to the fact that Y13 have been in mocks, which has halved my teaching load. Either way, I have been joking that I must be about to die because it feels like golden time. I managed to get loads done. Perhaps the visitors will come next week (it has to be soon) and I can capitalise on this efficient feeling.

A couple of nice social things happened. I went to a supper club at a local charity that was a collab with a restaurant near work and Farro, a bakery I am obsessed with. Unfortunately we tried to go to the actual restaurant, only to discover the dinner was being hosted at the charity premises in Bedminster, so had to do a bit of a cross-town dash; but it was a very informal sort of dinner so it was all good. It was great to have a meal with Parpy Jo and a catch up, such as has not been had for a long time. Then on Friday night I went to see Lizzy's new house (she has been there a year but...) and we had dinner and did some knitting. Socially nourishing is this season's vibe. 

I went to the sauna and to yoga. I watched the Traitors and Bake Off. We started watching War, which I thought would be some sharp political thriller but it turns out to be about divorce and I predict they will reconcile because the whole thing is really being driven by the lawyers. Good characters and wow, what a cast, but I can't yet get over my disappointment at it not being what I was expecting. 

I continued to knit the accordion scarf I'm making for the cleaner at work. I've just joined colour five of ten, so we are getting there. It's a very, very easy pattern but I think this is making me slower because it's just not very interesting. I continue to read Land, which is very interesting. I have had to pause it briefly because it's sucking me in and I can't be doing late nights at this end of term. 

I've spent much of this weekend baking for the school bake sale tomorrow, something I haven't done in a very long time. I made this spiced squash and apple loaf from Riverford Farm; ginger butternut cupcakes from my Dan Lepard cookbook (it must be getting on for 10 years since I made these, ever since Sainers stopped selling pre-chopped glace ginger, I hate chopping the ginger); and snickerdoodle cupcakes with a caramel buttercream. I used the tinned condensed milk caramel for the buttercream and it is awesome, though very sweet. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy baking time: another thing that can come back now the Masters is finished. 

2026 Week 41

A really quite unpleasant week at work for reasons I won't go into. Many things that could be written in my journal of reasons why I will be resigning, but I am starting to believe that I won't need it and I will manage to resign without the support of my previous words; in fact, the difficult bit will be working out the year. 

Happily, I was able to leave at breaktime on Friday and travel to London for an exam board thing, which was a bit amorphous but did involve some merch, including little branded cupcakes, and a catch up with current and previous bosses. Afterwards, we all went to a nearby pub for some drinks with the guys I see every year at the May conference I go to, and usually only then - what a treat to get an extra evening with them. There was a gradual peeling away until it was just two of us but we managed to make the evening last until 10.30. I didn't even really notice I hadn't eaten dinner until I was in bed later. 

It made me reflect a bit about how hard it can be to make friends as an adult and how it's even harder to make friends with members of the opposite sex, due to the obvious. I also met up with this one - R - in July for drinks but it feels hard to suggest meeting just the two of us. How do you do that without potentially sounding like you're asking them on a date? Or does it just not sound like that: is that not what is assumed? I will continue my experiments in this area. We're probably going to the theatre together in December; I finally felt able to ask after five rounds of drinks. Absurd. 

Saturday was a lovely sunny London day; I took myself to the Last Princesses of the Punjab exhibition at Kensington Palace, to a conference at the British Library, then on a long walk to Trafalgar Square via an ice cream shop recommended on Ruby Tandoh's central London ice cream map (I recommend this). Mango and Milo in a black cone. Lush. 

I had a quick wander around the National Gallery which closed much earlier than expected, then tried to catch a bus back to my hotel in Kensington. It drove straight past me but I remembered that, the previous night, I'd been stuck on said bus in traffic not much further on, so I walked its route and overtook it, catching it at Green Park, where a woman was sitting in the actual bus stop on her suitcase (why, just why). I got a very early night after some Sticks n Sushi and some sweet treats from Whole Foods and with the new book I've started, Land by Maggie O'Farrell (superb). I had a very restful night. 

This morning, I went over to Liberty and managed to get their last Bayeux Tapestry scarf. Then home. I am about to go to bed because I am not sure I will be able to hold out and not check my school email, but I want it to be a properly work-free weekend because that is on my early autumn list. It has been restorative and very much needed. Now only two weeks until half term and this week will be much easier because there are exams happening which halves my lesson count. And I have two nice dinners planned and a sauna booked. I can do this. I will prevail. 

As for the rest of the week - a bit of shawl knitting. I have been enjoying Celebrity Traitors and watched Trust Me on Netflix, about Mormon polygamist paedophiles. I had my nails done in a glorious shade of almost-sparkly navy that I can't stop looking at. Not much else to say. 

Summer Holiday Goals

Slowly getting round to posting all the things I've wanted to post. It's been nearly four weeks since dissertation hand in so I am feeling more like myself again. 

Oh look, almost all the failures were chores! I think I can cope with that. 

I think the dissertation was 17,000 words before I went back to work - not too shabby. I didn't quite manage sauna every week but I did do enough sauna visits to count as one a week, just about, so tick to that - and a number of different saunas, too. Plus the hot yogas: I managed to make a very sweaty summer deliberately sweaty. 

There were many swims. I thought 10 would be a challenge and was fully prepare to visit both my local pools if needed but it turned out to be quite easy and it made me go and swim in at least two places I might not have done otherwise. When I landed in Krakow seven hours earlier than Zoe, and then had to queue through passport control for over two hours, throwing myself in a body of water was basically the only thing I wanted to do with the time so I took public transport and then a walk and then had to figure out how to swim with my phone because I was too nervous to leave it on the beach (waterproof pouch ftw). It felt like half of Krakow was down there: what a treat to be a little like a local. 

I stopped counting the places I bought ice cream from because they were so numerous (best flavour: cherry poppyseed in Bratislava) and, although I listed cocktails there, there were also considerably more than five of those (best new cocktail: plum sour in Budapest). There were plenty of novels. I read The Names almost in one day on my journey to Krakow: it was a good distraction in the passport queue. I didn't really rate Yesteryear and James was OK (probably would be better if I'd read Huckleberry Finn before) but I loved the others. 

At home, I finished Euphoria - a fitting end; and we defrosted the freezer early in the holiday so I got it out of the way before the heavy dissertation work kicked in. I went to one Tuesday crafting and haven't been able to go since, but I'm hoping to be a more regular visitor. 

Workfree days? There were a couple. One of the exam board guys finished an email to me saying he hoped the board wouldn't be 'chasing me down the runway with scripts' which they sort of did, a record 44 came through to mark after I'd left the country, but then they did finally stop and I did have a couple of days of holiday when I didn't do any dissertation work, though they were days with excursions or travelling involved. But it was always going to be a stretch and it got me out of some house chores and it was only one summer. Next summer will be much different. 

 

2026 Week 38

The dissertation is in! I am free! 

It has been an interesting couple of days reflecting on it, because the worry about getting it done has been a fixture for a year but I sort of forgot that the rest of the course was around for a whole year before that, so it has been two years of thinking, in most free moments, that I could be doing some reading or writing. I had my good weight loss episode right at the start of the course but haven't managed to lose any more and now I am wondering (hoping) if it was the distraction that has prevented it. I also noticed that, even though Thursday was a tired day as I'd been up very late finishing, I was straight away able to bring more to my job than I had been since the start of term. The brain is such an interesting thing. I definitely wanted to do the Masters, but I'm not sure I really considered how much work it would be. 

Anyway, it's done now. I submitted around 1am on Thursday morning, shortly after my computer fully crashed as I tried to save it as a pdf for the 4th time (kept spotting mistakes) and wiped at least a month off my lifespan. Naturally all I can think now was about the bits I wish I hadn't put in, or said, but at the least it should pass so I should try to worry a bit less. 

I've spent the weekend lazing, mainly: a 2 hour afternoon nap on Saturday (cannot remember the last time I allowed myself to do this), a lunch and a book talk from Robert Harris with Rachael on Sunday. Many re-marks, obvs, but the deadline for those is Thursday so the end is in sight for that, too. 

I continue to read my library book, At First Light. I've almost caught up on Vigil. I went to the sauna for an impromptu Thursday session and they have a new sauna installed, very lovely. I made it to hot yoga on Saturday morning, and then knitting, where I cast on a new project. The Return of the Life. 

Tuesday Ten

Ten things I will do when this dissertation is handed in (roughly 36 hours to go)

1. Catch up on Vigil.

2. Lie in bed reading a novel I borrowed from the library in June.

3. Shop for orange sport weight yarn for a jumper I will probably never get round to knitting.

4. Wash the living room floor.

5. Apply for my alumna Bodleian library card.

6. List my expensive book on coding for resale on Amazon. Probably the one on systematic reviews as well. Spend the money on cakes. 

7. Book a spa night away with Mr Z. 

8. More blogging. 

9. Sort and donate the charity shop pile....now more whole-room than pile.

10. Go back to the gym. Whoever thought I'd be a person who missed the gym. 

One thing I hope not to do

1. Fixate on how much better it might have been if I'd spent more time on it. 

2026 Week 35

I have many posts I'd like to make about my summer, but really I need to save as much writing energy as I can for finishing the dissertation, so I will content myself with just a brief update about the past week. 

I spent last weekend down in Kent with my family, Mother Hand grew up there and wanted to take the grandchildren back to see it. We rented a house right next to the beach, so I got up each morning, donned swimwear and my dressing gown and then went out and got straight in the water. What a dream! I suppose I wouldn't be able to do this every day in my everyday life but I do wish I was living by the sea again. 

It was the usual family saga. I won't bore you. But I had a lot of fun with the niblings. 

I drove home on Monday and have spent most of the rest of the week seated at my computer, doing mark reviews, prepping school work or (the bulk) working on the dissertation. I'm just over 14,000 words now and feeling like the end of the first draft might be in sight. Maybe. I want to try to finish my results section today. 

There was some social activity as well. On Thursday I fitted in a quarry swim and dinner with my friend Caroline, whom I haven't seen in person for nearly two years. We had a great catch up, she is so much fun to hang out with. Then on Friday I went to the opening of the new Coconut Tree on Bristol centre with my local Bristol friends, our first get together since Christmas. Also lots of fun although we did not have great service, in spite of the fact there were at least seven people working front of house. They did comp us the drinks, at least, and the food was good, but it was a bit painful. Nevermind - more time for catching up. 

I also made it to hot yoga and we tried a new location for knitting group, which was indeed pretty dark. The hunt for a central, accessible cafe with gluten free and vegan options that has enough space and light for us continues (spoiler: it doesn't exist). 

I finished knitting the blue jumper I've been working on for a couple of months, only to realise that it is very similar to another jumper I have already knitted - but without the big lightning bolt, so probably a bit easier to wear. I might make a post about it when it's dried from its blocking and I can photograph it.

No reading, but I started a new audiobook on the drive home from Kent, How the South Won the Civil War, which seems like it will be very interesting. I finally finished watching Euphoria, they really have ensured that's not coming back though I feel there might be a Fay/Wayne spin off hinted at. Mr Z and I have been watching Legends which is really very good, we're a bit sad it is only six episodes and one season but presumably that's how it's going to stay very good. 

Throwaway Thursday: cassette cases

An occasional series that I might also title, 'Things in my house that are basically rubbish but I am a borderline hoarder and cannot bring myself to throw them out'. The idea is to memorialise such things here and then bin them for good.

In case you hadn't guessed, I've been doing some clearing out over the summer. My main aim in life is to get to a situation where everything I own and use can be stored away in a sensible and accessible location. Thus, I decided that keeping things I use when travelling (rubber ring, mosquito plug in, sun hat, adapter plugs) in a box under the spare room bed was not supportive of this goal and I decided to clear out/consolidate the boxes in the office, to make room for this stuff. 

As part of this, I found a new home for my old cassette tapes. These lived in my school shoe bag and, in the last round of clearing out, I could not part with them. Before I opened the bag, I reorganised the box of DVDs that I brought home 10 years ago, when I left my last place of employment, and got rid of about a dozen DVDs so I'd have room for the cassettes.

I know, it just doesn't have to make sense though, OK?

Space cleared, I opened the bag. Ah, the cassette mix I bought in Tenerife in 1996! My Now double edition tapes! And...oh wait, this seems to be a tape recording of my Uncle and Aunt's wedding from before I was born, they got divorced at least 20 years ago, I probably don't need that. Oh but my mix tapes!...but wait...there are no tapes in these cases.

No. Tapes. In. These. Cases.

OK, now this is where it not making sense actually is a problem. Why did I choose to keep these? 

Short answer: I no longer have. They're easily recycled as they are all plastic. I took pictures of the carefully-recorded track listing in each one and can make myself playlists so I can relive the Walkman days. Well, some of them anyway. Having dived deep down a hole on YouTube, I can confirm there's a very good reason why I don't remember some of these songs.

Throwaway Thursday: electric toothbrushes

An occasional series that I might also title, 'Things in my house that are basically rubbish but I am a borderline hoarder and cannot bring myself to throw them out'. The idea is to memorialise such things here and then bin them for good.

A complicated feeling, this one. Mother Hand bought me these toothbrushes for Christmas and it was not very long ago. I asked for one; she picked up a two-pack by accident, which undoubtedly cost her a lot more money, as Mr Z pointed out a day or two later. I used them both: one while the other charged. 

At some point, though, I got seduced by an online advert for Suri. I was excited about the prospect of travelling with no additional chargers and being able to send brush heads back for recycling, so I bought one, intending to just use it for a travel toothbrush. But then I liked it, a lot, so I stopped using the old ones. They have sat on the bathroom windowsill now for a year. 

So - a complicated thing to throw away. Firstly, I have daughter guilt about throwing away something Mother Hand spent a fair amount of money on. Secondly, they're not dead yet, though the rubberised handles have no gone sticky with disuse. Thirdly, they are small electricals and, although I will put them out for recycling, I'm not 100% convinced the small electricals I send with the kerb collection actually get recycled. 

This is why I have so much stuff in my house, isn't it? I will tell myself (1) a present, once given, has done its job and what happens to it next is nothing to do with the original; and (2) and (3) one day, they will need to be binned. Nobody is going to be horrified at not being offered the opportunity to use my second hand electric toothbrush. Waiting longer won't make them more recyclable. 

They can go in the green box for the next collection. I absolve myself of any guilty feelings. 

Throwaway Thursday: the purple folder

An occasional series that I might also title, 'Things in my house that are basically rubbish but I am a borderline hoarder and cannot bring myself to throw them out'. The idea is to memorialise such things here and then bin them for good.

I can't tell you how long I lusted after this folder. I saw it, this exact shade of shiny lilac, in a Ryman, circa 1994. There was no Ryman in Portsmouth. I had no need for a ring binder - I hauled all of my notes around in a lever arch file that I had plastered with bits I'd cut out of magazines, with notes from my friends written on the inside covers. (That makes me a little sad because I'd love to read those notes again). 

With no easy access to a Ryman and no need for a new folder, this folder remained unpurchased for a long time. My lovely Mother Hand tried to get me one like it, but it was never the right purple or it wasn't shiny or it didn't have white insides or some other absolutely miniscule detail that was exceptionally important to me as an ungrateful swine of a teenager. 

I can't remember when I actually bought this; it would either have been when I was studying for A-level Business Studies in the year before I went to uni, or while I was at uni. Or perhaps it was after. I don't remember the exact, choirs of angels, halo'd in gold moment when I finally parted with hard-earned cash for it. But I remember very clearly the visceral desire I felt for it, over a period of years. I'd visit it in Ryman every time I went past one. This has meant that I haven't thrown it out, even though it is faded, and scratched, and has lain empty for a number of years, since I decided notes on educational ICT from 2002 were probably never going to be useful again. No, I have hoarded it. 

It turns out, though, this is actually from Woolworths. Somewhere along the way, my Ryman dream merged with something more accessible and the lack of stickers, notes and otherwise suggests it arrived in my life some distance past full-time education. So it is a cuckoo. It is not the totem I had convinced myself it was. 

I'm not throwing it out though; it can come to school and start a new life as a sixth former's day folder. It, too, deserves stickers and graffiti from friends. 

Adventures with dyeing: Boden coat

It occurred to me when I posted my last dyeing post that I think most of the people who read this are very accomplished dyers and my little machine dyeing escapades are not that adventurous, but I will keep posting about them because I am always pretty excited with how things turn out but have a terrible habit of taking a few pictures and then never sharing them anywhere. 

Such as - possibly my most successful attempt yet - the Boden coat. 

I actually blogged about buying this coat back in 2008. All summer long, I had marked extra (and this was, I believe, real paper extras) to build up the funds for a purple and purple spotty coat from Boden. It would have been my first proper coat. For some reason, I did not buy it - instead, I bought this cord version, which was machine washable and warmer and cheaper. It has been an exceptionally wearable and useful coat. There are many, many picture of me wearing it over the years. Here are my favourite things about it:

1. As stated, it is machine washable - and it has been through the machine many times. 

2. It only has four buttons but they are spaced so well that one could wear it as a garment. 

3. The third button down nips in at exactly the right point, just above my waist, to create a very flattering empire line. 

4. It is warm and, although it really isn't waterproof at all, it will absorb the rain and keep me dry. It does then need a day off to dry out, though. 

5. It has good deep pockets. 

I have a number of coats now but this is the one I kept coming back to, until I didn't. I realised a couple of years back that I never reached for it anymore and tried to think about why. It was clean and I'd resecured the buttons, but it had done that thing that navy garments do when they are washed a lot, which is that it had started to become a little brown, especially around the collar. It had gone from faded navy to really very faded and actually perhaps it is grey now navy. I might have used the word drab. Even worse, it was kind of patchy.

I did think about giving it to charity, but I thought that it might end up in the ragging pile and I really think this is the perfect coat. Boden don't make anything like it since they took that VC money and got really big - they do some cord blazers now and then but nothing you can put in a machine to wash (actually you can't even spot clean them, they are very poorly dyed, I fear to get caught in the rain in mine). So I decided I would try to revive it, based on Mr Z's old adage of 'If it's not something you're wearing anyway, you might as well try anything because you've got nothing to lose'.

I removed all the buttons and the little faux belt on the back. I said goodbye to the colour of the lining, which I realised was also going to go, though exactly how I could not be sure. I then machine dyed it - this one took three pods of navy machine dye. Sadly I forgot to include the faux back belt so I had to scrap that, but I was not overly sad because the results of the re-dye were splendid. 

Here's Lenin, inspecting it. 

When I say it is like a whole new coat...I have had many compliments, many people asking where I got it, many more wears out of something that had been sadly neglected for too many years. Here it is, hamming it up with me on the streets of Almaty a month after it was dyed:

Just a whole new lease of life! It dyed very evenly; the lining retained its pattern, if you look hard enough, and the sleeve lining stayed olive green. There is a little bunching on the inside around the hem, probably as a result of being washed and spun three times on the bounce without any shaking/smoothing, but I have taken to fidgeting with it when I'm wearing it, to work the inside seams flat again and, anyway, it's one of those things I don't think you would notice unless you were wearing it. 

I do think this is what clothes should be, right? This is going into its 18th winter. I live in a city and work in a school so my coats are not going to take a lot of abuse. I hugely appreciate something that I can clean myself and rework when it gets a bit past it. Kind of sad that Boden don't espouse those values any more. 

2026 Week 31

Five weeks since I've managed a Sunday update! In that time, I've managed to finish off (allegedly) the summer exam series, complete the last three and a half weeks of the school year (which included four days in Birmingham and a sports day, but very little actual teaching) and add about 3000 words to the dissertation. There has been much lolling around doing little silly bits on the computer and playing endless hands of Freecell on my phone. There has been some arguing with pension providers because the exam board managed to get my date of birth wrong when they updated their payment system earlier this year. That's all the annoying stuff, anyway. 

On the plus side, there have been trips - I went to Oxford for an overnight to do dissertation work right after we broke up, which included a swim in the Thames at Fiddlers Island, off Port Meadow. I have wanted to swim here since my first uni visit to Oxford but have not been brave enough to go in alone. This time, I walked over there promising myself I would only get in if other people were there, and there were, so I did. Of course, being me, I could not get in where everyone else was, so I waded in at a likely-looking spot that was so deep with mud it almost tugged off my sandal. I spent the rest of the swim slightly concerned that I had a footful of leeches or some other problem - I did not. 

It's very pretty there and the water flows from two places, rejoining under a bridge, off of which some lads were leaping. I overheard them telling some dog-walker that they'd travelled all the way from Aylesbury for a swim. At that point I was gently swimming towards the middle arch of the bridge; one of them said, 'Oh I will just jump in once more' and came to right above where I was, climbing onto the parapet to prepare to jump. I really think he did not even see me, so I had to take swift evasive action and he landed a few feet away. I know there's a whole thing about middle aged women being invisible, but come on. 

I quite fancied a jump from the bridge but then decided I couldn't know the depth and didn't want to deal with wet hair, so I contented myself with just bobbing about. Said boys then moved on to going off a rope swing, though I noted with interest that they were ever so fraidy about letting go - not that surprising, maybe, because poor timing might have landed them painfully on the bank. It made me think about the fear. On the other side of me were a couple of girls who were contemplating one day bring like 'that lady' (me) and going out of their depth. There was me, contemplating jumping off the bridge. Then there were the bridge jumpers, contemplating going off the swing. I wonder if there were people on the meadow, contemplating getting in the water. I am not sure what might be scarier than going off the rope swing. 

I got a fair amount done in Oxford but not the full first draft, as I wanted. I was supposed to work on it all this week but I managed an hour on Friday, pretty pathetic. But it will get done. I have convinced myself that it could now be completed in one 48-hour burst - not well, but finished - and so I have lost any motivation to work on it. It will come on holiday with me and maybe I will find my groove again. 

After Oxford I hot-footed it off to London for many excursions and catch ups. I did 37,000 steps in two days and my knee is still talking about. I began in Richmond on Sunday, with a visit to Ham House with Burhan (very little ham, but not one of those NT houses where the owners don't really want you there, so that was good). From there I went to my hotel by St Paul's and had a drink in their slightly disappointing rooftop bar, great views but poor service and what seemed to be a pre-mixed cocktail. It was deliciously cold up there, though, which was very welcome. There were a couple of women I'd given directions to earlier in the evening, huddled on a sofa, wrapped in blankets like old nonnas. I lasted one drink and one chapter of Dracula and then went to bed. 

Monday was the busy day. I went to the sauna first thing, marred by the pumping Europop (why?!); then I went to St Paul's and immediately climbed to the roof to enjoy the views. I scouted Ally Pally and took a picture of it. I returned to ground level for the tour I'd booked, taking in Tyndale's bible - which involved reclimbing a whole bunch of stairs. From there, I hot-footed my way over to Somerset House for the Escher exhibition, which I really loved. I even managed to piss off a man by not doing what he wanted, bonus. 

From there, over to the V&A for the Schiaparelli exhibition. I loved this, such fun clothes, but I didn't realise there was a modern iteration and I'm not sure if it was really my thing. The old stuff though - superb. Loved it. I could have spent a lot longer there, but I was getting a bit browsed out by that point, so I went back to the hotel for a micro-rest and then over to the ladies pond on Hampstead Heath for a swim. It was much warmer than last year and a lot busier, but also a lot more ducklings - so cute. 

Sample conversation:

Girl 1: Our limit it 2.3

Girl 2: And what is Matt putting in? 

Pause

Girl 2: 1.1? 1.2?

Girl 1: 1.4

Girl 2: So you're capping at 900,000? Well you work hard enough...

Girl 1: Stop, it's...Mind your business!

Girl 2: You are my business.

Hampstead, eh? 

From there I went over to AP and took a picture of St Paul's, so I could meld them together for a morning/evening comparison. 

I'm way too excited about this. 

I met one of the exam board guys for drinks, which was fun. We normally only see each other once a year at a conference but this year we have managed three. We never seem to run out of things to talk about and chatted until I was much colder than I realised. 

The next day was meant to be another sauna and a swim before my haircut and getting the train home but I managed to leave my swimmers at the pond, so gutted. I managed to find the bikini top for sale on ebay and bought it right away, but had to replace the bottoms with some other bottoms - which are actually a better blue, it must be said. And those bottoms were starting to go a little white-thready, like when the elastic goes. But I hate losing things and so that was pretty annoying. I even joined the Facebook group for the pond and someone went to look in lost property for me, to no avail. Ah well. I hope they are off having amazing adventures on someone who really appreciates them.

I should note, here, that I did not need to replace them. I have too many swim items, I can't stop buying bikinis since they started to be more commonly available in my size. But - I repeat - I hate losing things. Even telling myself that I could have lost something more valuable - my phone, my headphones, my purse, my laptop - didn't make me feel better. 

What else has happened? I had lunch with Alex, back from Kazakhstan before starting a new job in China (new place to visit). I had dinner with my friend Vanessa. Mr Z and I celebrated 20 years of marriage by having his family over for ribs and cake. 

I've been working on the sleeves of the jumper I'm knitting, they are going slowly but they are going. Mr Z and I watched The Hawk on Netflix this week, which we enjoyed: I feel like Will Ferrell is a very safe pair of hands for comedy. I started watching The Five Star Weekend and I need to finish Euphoria, I have put it on my summer holiday list. 

I finished reading Dracula, I had forgotten how abrupt the ending was and so it left me a little HUH. I dived straight into Yesteryear which everyone seems to love but I just didn't. I like the premise but the story wasn't especially well-developed. I wonder if I don't really get on with books where every character is meant to be unlikeable, or whether I don't like books that have no redemption or happy ending, but it wasn't for me. I was left feeling like the author had a great idea for a book, and then the film studios got wind of it and made her write it how they wanted it to be - so it's the book of a series that hasn't yet been made, sort of thing. That would explain why it felt like it lacked depth. Happily, it only took me about three days to plough through it and I made a start on a library book, At First Light, that I will need to set aside from tomorrow because it is holiday time!

Adventures with dyeing: orange playsuit

Mother Hand taught me about machine dyeing clothes, a long, long time ago. She used to dye lots of things when she was younger. I forgot about this for a long time but, in the covid era, my memory came back. I am a lover of strong, saturated colour. I think fashion has preferred muted tones and soft beiges for a while. But I have started to see this as a blank canvas. 

The playsuit has become the garment of my 40s. I live in them during the holidays and I am constantly on the look out for new ones. I made over and dyed a couple of playsuits back in 2022: both from Tesco; one a pale green Mrs Hinch jumpsuit that I cut the legs off and dyed turquoise, another a beige linen creation with a poorly scaled belt that I cut up and fashioned into something to stop the straps from slipping down, then dyed bright pink. Both still going strong.

Fanciest hotel bathroom ever. Any excuse to share this picture again, it's one of my faves. 

So, anyway, when Sea Salt brought out the Salt Air linen playsuit with a button over the shoulder I had to have it (I've linked it but if the link has gone dead it's because I bought it in 2024). It came in two colours that I wouldn't have chosen, so I chose the sand colour. I tried it on when it arrived and Mr Z, who is helpfully blunt, said it looked like I was wearing a flour sack. The colour does not work for me. I'm sure it would work for others. 

This is the back. I should make a point of taking pictures of garments properly before I mess with them, but I still remember when I went to machine dye a red dress from Boden, laid it over the counter for the before shot, wondered what the smell was, realised I had laid it over the toaster that was making my breakfast and burnt the back out. So gutted. Dyed it anyway because the dye was already in the machine; kept it for about 3 years before I finally had to admit it was not salvageable. I keep telling you - borderline hoarder. 

Anyway, I went with orange for this playsuit and it took the dye so well. Linen always does but I was very pleased. I keep meaning to change the buttons for something a bit jazzier but there's no need, really. Here I am playing in it in fountains in Skanderberg Square last summer. It is a playsuit, after all. 

If you are feeling the need to machine dye something and you've somehow stumbled across this post looking for comfort - you do definitely need to follow the instructions on the tub; yes, you need to run that many cycles; yes, you absolutely must weigh your fabric in advance (ask me how I know); no, it won't ruin your machine - I did once end up with the seals dyed a bit navy but they were colourfast and stayed navy until the machine broke, many years later when a bearing went; yes, it will be colour fast afterwards. If the thread used for stitching is nylon it will stay white but it's no biggie - the stitching on the pink one, above, remained white but you'd have to get very close to me to notice. I use the Dylon tubs and they really could not make it any easier. I'd like to level up and start colour mixing so I get custom colours, really, but I am also trying not to buy more clothes until the old ones wear out. 

Also I don't want to say I am a trendsetter but I have just noticed Sea Salt have the long version of this in a strong orange this summer. Just saying. 

Things I will do to procrastinate the actual work whilst sitting at my desk

1. Any small bit of easy work, whether it needs doing or not

2. Scroll on my phone while sitting at my computer

3. Tidy the desk

4. Huff about how cluttered and dirty Mr Z's side of the desk/office is and make plans for how to organise his stuff

5. Delete and file emails - home and work inboxes; Gmail if I am really going for it

6. Write worklists on my whiteboard

7. Block out future holidays on the wall planner

8. Clean the keyboard

9. Blog pointless lists

94 scripts left to mark and two big reports to write. If I can get them done today (this is not achievable but...) then I could not do any work at all over the weekend.

Yet here I am...blogging. 

Things I think about the heat

1. Thank goodness I lost some weight two years ago because this would be infinitely more hellish otherwise.

2. As I learned in bikram - keeping still and quiet and expending minimal energy and not wiping the sweat more than you can help is the one.

3. I did feel minorly guilty a month ago when I found a mini electric hand fan at school and took it home rather than turning it into lost property but I do NOT feel any regrets now. 

4. The older I get, the more I dislike air conditioning. 

4. I appreciate the heat because I know how lovely it will be in three days when I'm sitting outside in the evening and it's actually a little cool on my skin. 

6. I appreciate the heat because it turns the mundane into an almost biblical experience: drinking a glass of really cold water, taking a cool shower, lying on the bed with wet hair in front of a fan. I know this is a bit Pollyanna of me. I don't care. It's too hot to care. 

7. It's not as hot as it was two weeks ago. 

8. Please, please let this autumn be the autumn that I finally stop procrastinating and get thermal-lined curtains for the front rooms of the house. 

9. Remember when it rained basically every day in January? Fun times. 

2026 Week 25

It's been a week of exam work, with a little dissertation work wedged in around the edges. Oh, and school, obvs. 

School is weird. What I'm doing looks like it's being successful, I'm told by my boss it's being successful, but the trust don't want me to continue doing it, so my role might change for next year. I'm trying to resist this, for a variety of reasons, but ultimately need to remember something I say often to other people: I work for them, they get to choose what I do. A few conversations have been had. In one of these conversations, I plucked up the courage to tell the Head that I think next year needs to be my last year in teaching for a while. I've been thinking it for so long without saying it that I could feel myself blushing and hear the blood in my ears. I know this isn't the same as resigning and I'll still be in role for another year, but I feel like I've started the countdown. I don't want to leave my school but I don't think I can continue to work for this MAT. I don't have it in my to lie down and shut up. 

So, a lot of the week has also been spent mentally calculating my living expenses and mourning the future loss of my monthly salary. I will be financially fine but I kind of like being paid every month, you know? I expect interesting projects will come along once I have capacity for them. Mr Z has also pointed out that I haven't been particularly happy at work for about two years, which I hadn't really noticed (I realise how stupid this sounds but sometimes it does take someone else to say these things out loud to recognise them). So I think I am ready to start letting it go. 

I spent Wednesday at the university for a training day, with my good friend Jonty who does my job at another school, so we get this nice catch up every year now. A couple of other friends I haven't seen for a while were there as well, so nice to see people, especially at this time of year when it feels like all my communication is with people I mark with and all by email or text. 

I went to the sauna, to hot yoga and for a quarry swim. No Sunday gym, I am out of the habit now but I am not being down on myself about it, it will come back when I've got through the dissertation work. We continued with the second season of The Pitt until we ran out of episodes; I've been watching the new series of Amandaland which is almost too awkward for me to cope with, but I love Lucy Punch in it. No knitting. Bit of Dracula reading. 

TLDR - not a very interesting week but it might turn out to be an important one, in the long run. 

2026 Week 24

It has been a predictably busy few weeks. 

In half term, I went to Oxford for the week. It was a very productive trip. First of all, I found a new library that I hadn't been into before; it turns out that it was only opened in October last year, which explains why I had never been in, even though it is under 10 minutes' walk from where I stay and open 9-9. I spent a very long day in there, as well as hitting All Souls and the Rad Cam, my two long-standing favourites; I ate at my favourite breakfast, lunch and dinner spots; I walked in University Parks. My Oxford swansong. I booked an additional night there just before dissertation hand in and also discovered I can get a Bodleian libraries card as an alumna, so the libraries won't be totally off-limits. I'm fairly sure I won't get back there nearly as often as I'd like to, though. 

The best thing about going to Oxford was the progress I managed to make on my dissertation. I have gone from it being a low-level panic that I thought of when I woke up every morning, to something that I am now confident I can finish on time in a state that will pass. I got about 7000 words down in the week and I finished my research interviews; since then, I have made some updates to my lit review and started coding my data, as they say. I was all in my head about coding my data for a long old time but then I realised that it just means reading it and picking out some things that look like common themes. Not such a big deal. I had an online meeting with my supervisor this week and it really does feel like the end if in sight; after doing some coding, with the meeting coming up a day earlier than expected, I decided I would sit for an hour and bash out some things I had spotted: that turned into a thousand words and a comment that 'this looks really good, now it's just a question of finding some quotes'. Thrilling. 

It is hard to carve out the time now that we are into marking season, but carve it out I will. The date for the end of All The Work is still the end of September, but as that draws closer, it is actually comforting. The period of endless hard work is shortening. Work is being done. It will be fine. 

A couple of other half term adventures included a walk around Chew Lake with Saff and Kate, on a blisteringly sunny day, and a visit to an exhibition of lesser-seen Elizabethan portraits during my quick trip to London. Plus the new Banksy statue. 

I wedged a lot in. It's what happens when I'm busy with work. On Friday night I got AI to teach me how to code a button on my homescreen that plays the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme tune whenever Mr Z says something about everything going wrong. It took longer than it should have done but I was thrilled with my new knowledge and with my new ability to soundtrack his life. We are into week 4 or 5 of impossibly hurty knee, so he is less thrilled than me. 

This past week has been setting up everything for exam marking, which necessitated a couple of 16-hour days, but it is becoming clearer to me that the more hours I can put in ahead of online marking starting (this weekend), the more fruits will appear. The way that the system works now, the bulk of my labour is done. That feels very odd to say that, but it is true. There is plenty more to do, of course, but it is spread out and deadlines are fairly moveable. 

I've been re-reading Dracula through all of this, which is easy to pick up for a few pages, mostly because I know it so well. I saw Cynthia Erivo playing Dracula in London during Oxford week. It was a great version where she played 23 different parts, interacting with pre-recorded characters she'd played, and I enjoyed it hugely. The one thing that irritated me was that she had a conversation with Lucy, early on in the play, where Lucy admitted to having been intimate with Arthur. I didn't remember this being in the book and it was so f'ing hackneyed, that awful old trope of 'woman has sex and then gets horribly murdered' that shows up in all the sexually-repressed American films, that I had to come back and reread the book to see if it was in there and I'd forgotten. It's not. There's a letter that Lucy writes to Mina where she says she is looking forward to Arthur being her 'husband and lover', but that's it. Now, I never read Dracula at school: I haven't done a deep dive into the themes and metaphors Stoker apparently put in there (I think he was just looking to write a blockbuster horror book like Mary Shelley but I'm not an English teacher so...) but I think it would be a stretch to suggest that Lucy was promiscuous just because she was proposed to three times in one day and was excited about marrying a man. 

As you can see, this topic has been living rent-free in my head for some time now. I just hate the inherent misogyny of the whole 'if you have sex, things will end badly for you' theme. For a modern example, see Taken: friend says she will have sex with Frenchman she met, friend kidnapped and ends up dying after being overdosed with heroin in a squat. Meanwhile, girl who was shocked at the idea of having sex is rescued. Tell me that's not barely-coded messaging to elicit patriarchal society's preferred behaviours among women, but I will not believe you. And I'm very annoyed that the writers of stage Dracula decided to take this quite modern trope and wedge it into a 19th century book. As if we need any more trad wife messaging*. 

Anyway. 

The blue jumper grows: I'm about 4 inches off finishing the body. I am concerned about the roll of the neck but I will take some steps to fix it when I'm finished and know how much yarn I have left. I shouldn't be spending any time knitting but I am desperate to see how much yarn the body will take and the only way to find that out is by knitting it. 

The peonies came out in the garden in spectacular fashion and have now gone over and been replaced by the honeysuckle. The cooler June has enabled outside sitting. I've enjoyed it. Maybe a separate post for the peony pictures because they were so lovely, I took loads. 

I've been baking this weekend, ahead of teacher appreciation day. I don't bake so often these days and I don't write about it on here, but I will say that I made a mint version of the lemon curd recipe I discovered over 15 years ago. I think I had in my mind that a lovely mint curd would be like a slightly less cloying version of the centre of a Fry's peppermint cream bar. I couldn't find a recipe I liked, so I halved the OG lemon curd recipe and blended a fair old bunch of mint leaves with the sugar before I made it. This definitely worked, but the result is more toothpaste that peppermint cream. I might try mixing in some icing sugar before I put it in a cake. 

* be a trad wife if you want to. I am here for it. Feminism is all about women, and men, choosing what they want. But within that, don't tell other people that it's the better way to be. That's up to them to decide. 

Early Summer Goals

I tried to make this list a bit more about accountability and it was helpful. 

Not too shabby at all! I didn't manage seven gym trips; I didn't go on any Mondays. Letting myself off a bit. I was very close to seven but, meh. I also didn't make it to hot yoga because I bought a 10-class card that expires in September, so of course I didn't go even once. But meh, there's always this term. 

I've ticked a couple that others might not have done. I have sorted well over 100 things to donate (socks count as two - my rules) but they haven't left my house yet, I need to sort into ragging and wearable. I did make a start on this but I need to do one last sort before I end up taking holey socks to the charity shop. Did I do an hour of dissertation work every day? No. I tried to on every day that I could, though. Sometimes it was just staring. But it has, thank goodness, all started to come together, thanks to my week in the libraries of Oxford last week. I am horrified that the first draft is due in under 8 weeks but this no longer feels completely unachievable. Also - it may be awful for the next 8 weeks but, after that, it will be basically done. 

I finished my research, hurrah! I did lovely things like catching up with my coursemates at a lecture in Oxford and the Macfarlane lecture and Wonderwool and Powis Castle. 

I returned to the quarry for a swim, first time in nearly a year, it made me sad I don't go as often these days. But it has been winter so, yknow. And I have found the local sauna now and that is not the same but very good in its own way, and cheaper, and closer to home. 

I've been reflecting on whether I need a list for this term. I don't think I do. It is going to be too chaotic between the marking and the end of the school year and the dissertation. I have written myself an impossible schedule of work to follow and so my goal is really just to stick as close to that as I can, because this will make for a happier summer. 

But I will be thinking of nice things to put on my summer holiday list - of that you can be assured. 

2026 Week 21

The best part of this week was undoubtedly waking at 5.20am on Saturday, thinking it was a work day, then doing my usual slow mental processing - have I taught that yet? have I had that meeting? - until I figured out it was all done and the week was over. And that meant the term was over too. And back to sleep I went. 

Actually, it's a bit harsh calling that the best moment when I managed to get Mr Z to go out to dinner with me and it's not even our wedding anniversary. Mr Z has been struggling with a swollen and painful knee; this week he actually went to the hospital, where they aspirated said knee and gave him a leg brace, so he can at least hobble around, but isn't able to drive again yet. Nevertheless, he accompanied me to local Bristol eatery Wilson's for a tasting menu, based on food produced on their farm 20 miles out of Bristol, that offered an accompanying non-alcoholic flight - what a treat for those of us who were driving. The whole meal was really special and even more so because they offered non-fish alternatives for Mr Z, on account of his aversion to creatures of the sea. Highly recommended. I'd love to go back in the autumn. 

So that was the best moment, then the realising it was Saturday, then the swim in the quarry on Saturday morning, my first since October. It was nearly 17 degrees and the sun came out just as I arrived. I had forgotten how much I enjoy being in the cold. It was a bit brisk for the first leg but, by the end, I didn't want to get out. My body retained that chill for a very pleasant half an hour after I left, which was most welcome in the heat. 

I went to Oxford for an evening on Thursday, which was a bit mental but I had a good time. There was a lecture about assessment and AI (which was excellent but turned out to be a bit depressing) and a few of my coursemates met, plus the first years were finishing up their fortnight so I got to meet a couple of them as well. One of them works for the same exam board as me, although she actually works for them in what sounds like quite a senior role, whereas I'm just a lowly contractor. It was good to have a brief chat with her, though. You never know when I might be applying for a job there. 

I made progress on my lit review. It is slow going but I think it is getting there now. I have to turn it in tomorrow night and need to keep reminding myself that the whole point is to get feedback on how to improve it, so it doesn't have to be perfect when I hand it in. 

I finished reading Is a River Alive? which was as good as I might have expected. It wasn't quite Underland levels of good but...well, maybe it was in places. It has sparked off a whole new idea for a scheme of learning, about colonialism and rivers in India. I was also bereft when it ended, which is the sure sign of a gripping book.

I put about 10 rows onto the new jumper: it's a bit warm now to be thinking about jumpers but it will be quick if I can make myself do it. Mr Z and I started season 2 of The Pitt. I cast around listlessly for something easy and quite to watch but found nothing, so there wasn't much more TV this week. No more audiobook, either. Brain is still a bit full. 

2026 Week 20

Another one of those weeks that I crashed through at speed, without really noticing. Exams began. Work was definitely done but I can't remember much of it. I continued to read Is A River Alive? and it saved my bacon a little on Friday. I added nothing to the knitting project but I did manage more of Anxious Generation and now only have an hour or so of listening left, and it also inspired me to an activity for school that was helpful so that was good. 

The reading I've been doing for the dissertation has begun to coalesce and I need to spend the greater part of today trying to get that into something that resembles an essay. I'm getting annoyed at myself now for just not settling to it. I have to turn something in (let's hope for 2000 words) after next weekend so I really need to avoid the tears of an eleventh hour grind but I am not confident in my ability to do so. I did finally bite the bullet and ask my 'book friends for help with interviews and they are going to come good so I will at least manage to get that part done this week, I hope. 

Enough of that - the best part of my week was undoubtedly going to Newcastle for the annual conference I go to. I flew because it was cheap and quick. There was some guilt, especially on the way back when I was the only person seated in the front four rows, but I did get the train to skiing in February so that can be my swap. Also I did see two rainbows from the plane on the way. 

The conference was good. I did my usual trick of spending basically the whole thing with the same two people but I really only see them at this event so I am not going to worry about that: I always feel I should be more sociable because I know so many people at the conference, but ultimately that's not what I prefer to do, so there it is. We stayed up much too late at the bar, for two nights this time, and we WON the history quiz! By half a point! Since we did a challenge over one point before we knew how close it was going to be, which was successful, I am not sure it was the fairest result, but we did win. Woohoo! I used to run this quiz with my friend Rich (pinnacle was 2023 when Mary Beard was on one of the teams) so it is pleasing to get to win it for once. 

The sessions were all really good. I realised that the one I was running was an hour, not the 50 minutes I had planned, hence my unplanned reading from my current book, but this went down well and has actually inspired me to a project for next conference. The problem with being a senior leader is that I don't do curriculum work and next year I won't be teaching anything new, so it is hard to generate something that other people might want to hear about and, although I'd love it, I can't just keep talking about assessment every time. But, as always seemed to happen, a few ideas from disparate sources came together and now I have an idea and have recruited a geography guru to help me with it, though when I am going to manage it is anybody's guess. 

Maybe my favourite thing was the walking tour and the wildlife, though. I heard at last week's bird talk that Newcastle is the furthest inland that kittiwakes nest and I can confirm that they basically own the city - at least the bit I saw. The workshops all took place in rooms overlooking the bridge and I was horribly distracted by the constant bird traffic, as they built nests and went out for food. They were noisy when I was able to get outside, too, and also digging up chunks of turf and soil to build said nests from the bank outside the hotel. I wouldn't have known a kittiwake from a regular gull last week, and my discussions with other people about them (basically anybody who would listen, I was obsessed) revealed that I am not alone in this, but I can report that they have black legs and black wingtips, and are not as large as you might expect a 'regular' gull (whatever that is) to be. I downloaded the Merlin app and it confirmed my sighting, though. 

Bit blurry because of the zoom but she had a great nesting site. 

So yes - I observed hundreds of kittiwakes, some little rabbits, a great tit living in a hole in a wall behind the big letter S. There was a Millennium Bridge tilt. We went to a library and I saw a picture of a Victorian spiritualist, surrounded by a garland that had reportedly been constructed for him by a spirit he contacted in a seance, I love this sort of thing, it is so of its time. I asked for a selfie with a stag dressed as Cher, at the behest of his friends. I sweet-talked the hotel reception into letting me use the sauna after the conference was over, even though I'd checked out: note to self, remove the metal earrings if it's going to be a hot one, I have blisters on my earlobes now, what an idiot. And at least two people came up to me to gush about how my work has helped them in some way, an experience I never cease to find astonishing and incredibly humbling. There are a few key reasons why I love this conference but enjoying my celebrity status* is probably on that list. 

One more week of school and then I am off to Oxford for a week and then it's term 6, which is basically not even a thing. Oh and all the marking. And another conference to present at. But it will be over quickly. I keep waking up and thinking about my dissertation but woke up this morning to the epiphany that the time will pass very quickly and it will be done, even if I don't enjoy it, so it's not really something to carry stress about. I enjoy a lot of my life. I don't have to enjoy all of it, all of the time. 

* it's preposterous to call it this but, in a very small community, not inaccurate. 

Tales of Toxic Independence

A while ago, I read about the concept of toxic independence, where a person goes out of their way to avoid asking for or accept help, even when they need it and it would be willingly offered. This is likely rooted in some kind of trauma from younger years. I don't want to think too hard about that part because this is a trait I have really started to see reflected in myself. 

So - today's tale. I was hauling my little cart of archive materials to a classroom for our after school archive club. I bought the little cart so I don't have to keep borrowing the caretakers' cart. I brought it to the room, which was up a small flight of three steps. Somebody passed. 'Do you want a hand? It's not very heavy, we can lift it up.' 'No, no,' I replied, 'I'll be fine.'

For, at the top of the steps, I had long noted a couple of eyelets - it was clear to me that the platform lifted up and, I decided, it was going to be a ramp. I would just wheel the cart up. No need for anyone to help. 

I positioned myself behind the eyelets and prized them out. I yanked hard - one side came free, but the other was stuck. Repeat but the other side came free. I decided it must have been a long time since anybody did this. Nobody knows it's here! I thought. I wiggled myself into a better position, channelled all my deadlift training and yeeted the ramp up, whereupon it became obvious that it was not a ramp but a hatch, concealing a dark pit that had clearly not seen sunlight for at least half a century, and into which my phone had tumbled, thrown out of my pocket by the force of my yeeting. 

At exactly this point, the caretaker appeared around the corner. Sometimes the universe messaging is just too strong to ignore, so I allowed him to retrieve my phone since he was not wearing a skirt ('Not today, anyway,' he replied) and there was the filth of ages in the pit. He resealed it, and whatever plagues were threatening to waft free, for probably another century. 

This could have all been avoided if I'd accepted the offer of help in the first place. I sheepishly requested help to get the cart back down at the end of the session. 

You really think I'd have learned by now but no. 

Tuesday Ten

Ten booked trips to look forward to

1. Newcastle, this very weekend, for the usual conference. I'm flying. I feel ridiculous but it was under £30 and under an hour. I've never been to Newcastle before, only through it on the train. 

2. Oxford, half term. I have to write as much dissertation as possible. It will also be my last library tour. 

3. Within that, London, for one evening. I'm going to see Cynthia Erivo play all the parts in Dracula. I booked this on a whim and I'm now really excited about it. 

4. Birmingham, for a work conference. I debated putting this on the list but I needed a tenth and I quite like Birmingham, there's a really good sushi place near the station. Undoubtedly the trust will try to book our hotel and there might be some dismal networking dinner but I might go rogue and book myself a spa hotel, make an occasion out of it. 

5. London - the haircut days. I've scheduled this for right after my first draft hand in date. My friend B and I are going to Ham House, I think I'll go to St Paul's, an exhibition at the V&A, the bathing pond on Hampstead Heath. Maybe Borough market. I booked a spa hotel (a running theme). 

6. The anniversary trip. Mr Z and I reach 20 years this summer! I am planning to use the spa voucher Sib gave me for Christmas to have an overnight at a hotel in the Cotswolds. We didn't get away last summer due to Mother Z's decline, so it will be a real treat. 

7. The big summer holiday. Zoe and I are off to Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. Maybe a day in Austria, too. After this, I have to get my passport renewed, so I'm not booking anything for October half term but my brain keeps revisiting possibilities. 

8. Hythe. Mother Hand grew up in Hythe so we are off there for August bank holiday weekend with Sib and the niblings. 

9. Portsmouth, for a school reunion. It's early September, a lovely time of year for such a thing but appallingly close to the final hand-in date for the dissertation. 

10. Christmas marketing in Germany. I thought I would venture a bit further afield than London for my Christmas haircut trip this year. We're getting the train to Aachen (more spa) and having a day in Cologne. I'm recruiting knitting club people to come along, we're up to four so far. I've only ever been to Berlin, so I'm looking forward to this. 

I do get around. How exciting. 

2026 Week 19

I have done much this week in pursuit of the life part of my miserable work-life balance. This has left me a little twitchy and feeling behind (so I'm writing this instead of moving on with any of my to-do list) but I have enjoyed it and find myself yearning for the future date - I've decided it's the end of September - when 'everything' is done and I can get through weekends without a crushing doom-like feeling of things left unfinished. 

I'm overstating it. It's not really that bad. It's just like a low-level unease. I had a conversation with the head this week, in which she asked how the dissertation was going, and then said that she'd handed hers in (she's been doing a part-time undergrad degree the entire time I've known her) and it had necessitated locking herself in her bedroom for 3 days and a lot of crying. This is a foreshadowing, I fear. Three days is optimistic for me, too, because mine is double the length. 

Anyway - I did manage to get a sense of how my lit review will look and I carried out another interview this week and have another tonight - just one more pair to find; I need to make a plan of what I will do each evening because, though I come to work on it every day, that work is pretty useless because I have not structured my plan. I have two more weeks and then a week in Oxford: I need to make that week as productive as possible, so some legwork needs to be done. 

Meanwhile, I'm trying to rework the presentation I gave with my colleague in April, for a conference next weekend; work on the coaching course I'm doing through school; and work on school things. The marking is ebbing, thankfully, as we are so close to the exams now, but the end isn't really in sight yet. I also need to figure out how I want marking season to go from June. Make a list, make a list, make a list!

(I paused here to make a list). 

So, what did I do in pursuit of life, amid this bin fire of work pressures?

The best thing was Friday night, when I went to London for one evening to hear Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris talk about their new book, The Book of Birds. I am such a fan of Macfarlane and I am also (as he might say) 'a bit birdy' so this was a real treat. I couldn't find that they were speaking anywhere else and, when I weighed up how I might feel about not seeing it compared to how I felt about the fuss and expense of going to London for the evening, there was no contest. And I have no regrets. The talk was accompanied by huge versions of Jackie's beautiful artwork of birds and included readings from the book itself. I find Macfarlane's writing to be so absorbing, it's like he's writing non-fiction in the style of fiction and his are consistently non-fiction I actually want to read in paper form, rather than as an audiobook, which is quite rare. The Book of Birds is a little different in that there are rhymes in it, so it is sort of like poetry and sort of like prose. I thought it went really well with the images. Their relationship is also delightful and I really enjoyed their banter. 

I went along with my friend B, who's been my friend since the OG exam board job in 1999, who I love catching up with, who I never see quite often enough. We went for Japanese food first and nearly chatted our way past the start of the talk. He was less inspired by the readings but enjoyed the talk. I'm also pretty certain I saw Mel Giedroyc as I was exiting the bathroom. I did that awful thing of seeing her, double taking, realising it probably was who I thought it was, deciding I wouldn't ask, then realising I was pretty much blocking her entrance to said bathroom during this whole thought process and awkwardly scuttling out of the way. I expect she gets a lot of that. 

I had to run for the train home but it was 2 hours from the Royal Geographical Society, where the talk was, to my own front door, which was pretty pleasing. I once went to a lecture with B when I got the coach to London and back for one evening, which was possible because it was in the holidays and cost under a tenner, but was a long, long time to spend on a coach. I'm richer in money and poorer in time, now. We've decided we're going to go to Ham House to see if there might be some ham in it, in July, when I go to get my hair cut. The summer hair cut days are shaping up nicely - Ham House, Hampstead Heath bathing pond, Schiaparelli exhibition. I just need one more thing to do. 

As well as this adventure, I have been devouring Macfarlane's Is a River Alive? which I have been flirting with for a number of months now, but have reached the halfway point of. I watched all of the episodes of Rooster and Euphoria - Euphoria as bleak as before and I'm annoyed with myself for starting it before it is all out, but I had watched so many clips on Facebook that I was in danger of ruining it. I recorded Wuthering Heights to watch but I am putting it off because the length of time for a film feels like a bit commitment. 

No audiobook progress because my brain needs some time when it can navel-gaze. I also sacked off yoga and did not manage to motivate myself into the gym on BH Monday, but I did get to the sauna on Tuesday. I keep looking at my late spring list and trying to work out when I can squeeze in two hot yoga visits; I definitely can't. But I will keep trying. 

I have divided for the arms on my latest knitting project and wound some more yarn. The first ball of yarn got me to half a row before the armhole division so I am feeling quite confident that I will have enough for the whole jumper. It's the most amazing, saturated blue and I can't believe that it's not rubbing away on my hands - what an excellent dye job. 

Throwaway Thursday - Miss Selfridge body spray

An occasional series that I might also title, 'Things in my house that are basically rubbish but I am a borderline hoarder and cannot bring myself to throw them out'. The idea is to memorialise such things here and then bin them for good.

Another scent memory: Miss Selfridge body spray, in Heart. 

I was never massively into body spray. We all had a thing for Impulse O2, obviously, being 90s children, but even then I was fairly sparing in my application. I have strong memories of Zoe standing and spraying herself in a circular motion, like she was creating a tornado of the scent, which is probably why that scent is just an immediate transport back to that time (or would be, if it were still available). But as a very sweaty person, I was mainly using Right Guard in some less overpowering scent, in a desperate attempt to stop my arm pits from soaking all my outfits - a fight I have long since given up on. 

Thus, I don't really remember using this body spray. It's about a third full. I loved Miss Selfridge cosmetics and still appreciate the aluminium packaging, which might bear responsibility for the scent lasting as long as it has. I have no idea what the scent is, but it takes me back to late 90s, possibly as I was moving out of home at 17, living in a bedsit in London and going clubbing with my boyfriend's friends every week; maybe even a bit later, and uni. 

It smells of vanilla and then maybe a bit fruity, like jelly sweets, or maybe something a bit floral (I'm terrible at doing scent notes) - it isn't exactly edible but it smells vaguely juicy. It is funny that I have held on to it for so long because, I have to say, sniffing it doesn't flood me with a happy feeling. I don't know what it is. That gap year before uni was not my happiest year, so I guess that would kind of make sense. 

Just had a full on stare for a couple of minutes, thinking of those nights out that this scent probably accompanied. Thank god, thank all deities, that digital cameras and social media were not a thing. I'd either have had a lot less fun at the time, due to a shred of self-preservation; or (more likely) I'd have had a lot less fun afterwards, when it all went up online.