So. Here we are, about 20 minutes before I was due to leave. The Builder is due any minute for a quick wash and a change (not in the office, in the men’s washroom!).
The web page I have been working on for the group project has had one or two niggling, irritating imperfections. Mat, the Placement Student, and I had been looking at it for about an hour trying to work out how to fix them. Finally, it all became clear. We fixed them. Happily, I wombled off back into the office, ready to think happily of my evening out. Had a warm and fuzzy look at the web page. CALAMITY! It had all gone horribly wrong. The data was sprayed randomly all over the screen. Nothing made any sense. It was all catastrophically disastrous. The most recent save before that was beset with the same muddle. None of it worked. The pictures had all vanished. It was All Over The Place! And the hand in was 3pm the following day, though strictly speaking it was at my class which starts at 9, since I wanted to put it into the lecturer’s paw rather than submitting it electronically.
I tried to rescue the situation. The Builder arrived, all dusty and hot, eagerly expecting to wash and change. I more or less ignored him. The Placement Student came in to help. I choofed him out. It was All Bad :-( Nothing worked. A problem for tomorrow, I think. We are Going Out.
So we did. We wandered up through town towards the City Hall, and met Freyja in ASK for pizza and wine (and a restorative, calming gin and tonic for me). Then we all three headed to the City Hall, for we had tickets to see Tony Robinson in his One-Man-Show. Front row tickets, as it turned out. On the side of the stage, it’s true, but front row nonetheless. And it was fantastic. He is a very funny man and his show strung together lots of bits of his life in this rambling, funny, melodramatic, poignant monologue that made us all laugh and laugh. The second half saw him fielding questions from the audience, most of which gave him the opportunity to ramble some more. It was a great evening. I even forgot about the trauma of the web page. We hardly ever go out in the evening, and almost never to things like that. WE should do it more often.
We’re going out again tonight. To a beer festival just outside of Chesterfield, at a railway museum. Two nights out in a row. How will I get up to come to work tomorrow?!?!?!?!?!
You will be pleased to hear that I got the web page fixed, working and looking very pretty. It was even handed in at this morning’s class. I even made copies of it so the rest of the group could see it. Thus far, I’ve been the only person who’s actually seen the entire finished product (apart from The Builder and the Placement Student). Certainly nobody from the group has. Though I hope they have now!
It was our last class today. I shall miss it. It’s been a great addition to Friday mornings, and I’ve enjoyed the other students and the two lecturers. I now have two quite large projects to work on, but they’re not due until September. Still, I can’t leave them for that long. Apart from the fact that I’ll forget everything and never be able to write them up, they are sufficiently substantial to require a bit of time devoting to them.
It’s a post-grad certificate I’ve been doing. I wonder if I should look into converting it into a Masters.
On Wednesday of last week, The Builder lit a bonfire. It burned merrily for a while, then he covered it with couch grass turfs and left it to smoulder. Each day he has covered it with more couch grass turfs and raked out the ashes from underneath, morning and evening, and it has smouldered on. Now, we have nearly run out of turfs to put on it, it is smouldering less enthusiastically, and we have what looks remarkably like Mount Etna growing in our back garden. And where once we had mountains of useless and invading couch grass turfs, now we have useful and non-aggressive potash to put on the gardens. He’s a clever little arsonist, is my Builder.
Oh look. Nearly time to go home. Hooray! A beer festival beckons
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