2026 Week 12

It was only a four-day work week this week; we had Friday as a twilight inset day in respect of Eid, so I went to Oxford on Thursday night to wrestle with the dissertation. This was a very wise decision and I managed to make a great deal of progress, not necessarily on the writing but certainly on the planning, reading, getting to grips with qualitative research and generally beginning to feel like this is going to be achievable. I got up early enough on both days to get my very favourite Rad Cam seat, which is in a very sunny morning spot, keeping me warm and cheerful. I had intended to study in the education library on Saturday but then discovered it was closed; so I visited there later on Friday afternoon to beg a renewal of a book and view the famous magnolia that was the inspiration for the department logo. 

I bumped into a friend form the history teaching world while I was there, always a pleasure. I had dinner in college on Friday night and with a course friend, Lin, on Saturday - we went to the Perch, on the other side of Port Meadow, which was in flood and full of horses during the beautiful sunset, as we walked over there. The way back was a much darker story, we had to do some deft manoeuvring out of the paths of some horses and one tall specimen was stood resolutely in front of the foot gate so we had to climb over the big gate to get out. I think he might have been the same one hanging his head over the fence in the hopes of stealing someone's chips as we'd come in. 

Anyway. It was lovely to catch up with Lin. She lives in Singapore but is doing a PhD (or DPhil as Oxford prefer it) and is back in Oxford for this term as she needed to resubmit her research plan. We had a good chat. She helped me think about some work things. I had a tough meeting with the head on Thursday and I need to undertake a support plan. The trust suggest (apparently) that this is because I am too nice: I am not holding people accountable when they don't do what I tell them to do. I have felt a bit meh about this since the meeting because I don't want to be that person that is running around putting everyone else on support plans and making them feel grim. But Lin pointed out that I can hold more of a critical friend perspective. Not at all a bad idea. I just need to work out how to do it. 

Thinking again, of course, about just quitting. Maybe this is my sign. Another sign. I don't mind the support plan as it confirms my suspicion that I'm not very good at this job (yet). It also proves that I really can't do all the things at once and do them well. But I'd rather go out on a high. And I have got a ski trip to run next year. 

So, I managed to cram quite a lot into the four-day week. I ran a second round of MSc interviews, attended an interview about a certain infamous Bristolian whose statue is now missing for some UoB students who are making a documentary, went to an evening history lecture and saw some ex-students (lovely), ran a long afternoon webinar about assessment while a colleague delivered the training I'd planned for my own staff, rushed to Oxford for the evening coaching call even though I hadn't managed to do the work. Went to the sauna. Went to the gym but then left because I hadn't packed a t-shirt....I am definitely not hitting my gym goal this month but I am not really minding. Last Sunday I had the embarrassment of missing the bracket when I tried to rerack my weight at the end of the third set of bench press, when I had absolutely nothing left to force the weight back up, so I had to call on a young man for help. The shame. This is what I get for feeling smug when the man at yoga offered me a strap I didn't need. This small incident at the gym left my shoulder an neck feeling quite pulled for the week but that did mysteriously clear almost as soon as I'd finished my Thursday webinar, so perhaps there was some stress in there as well.

I've been getting on with knitting the new purple jumper, which is going fast. I finished watching Lord of the Flies: I loved the 70s cinematography. I finished reading my Alanna books and finally picked up some real books, Robert MacFarlane's Is A River Alive? and back to Claire North's House of Odysseus, which I tried and failed to get through last year but which is flowing much better now, although of course I can no longer remember the finer points of the relationships between all the characters. 

I've booked a ticket to see Robert MacFarlane speak in London in May. It's fantastically indulgent because I will just go to London for one evening. But he's written a new book about birds and I just couldn't resist.