Happy news

I have exciting news. The Builder is a grandfather again! Jeanette, Matthew and Rebecca have now been joined by Eva-Rose (Evie) who arrived at around 7:30 last evening. All are well and everyone is very excited. So that’s four granddaughters for him now, ranging from 16 years to brand new. So that’s good :-)

Otherwise, it’s been fairly quiet. The Builder worked both days last weekend, I did not. Well, I cleaned most of the house. And did the washing and ironing. And dug up a bed of potatoes on the allotment and weeded and mulched a couple of beds in the garden. But I wasn’t At Work and I did enjoy some lazy times.

The weather, after a dull, grey, wet summer, has been beautifully autumnal. Lovely sunny days (though it is raining fitfully today) with cool evenings and nights. I do like autumn. (I like all the seasons, really. I just don’t like February much. But then, I don’t like February wherever I am!!)

My purse had an adventure last week. I came in one morning to find the cleaners looking especially pleased to see me. They are usually moderately pleased to see me, but this was surprising. Had I lost my purse? Well, no, actually. Was I sure? Well, yes. Let me just show it to you. Fossicked about in my backpack – and there it wasn’t. It was, in fact, in the possession of one of the cleaners who had found it in the ladies’ loo on L3. Goodness only knows how it had got in there. It still had everything in it apart from a £10 note. Freyja thinks it had taken itself off to the Odeon for a film and some popcorn the evening before. I think it’s much more likely it had been out on the razzle in the city pubs. I realise that £10 isn’t much of a razzle – but it’s only a small purse! It’s under curfew now. No more razzling for it. Actually, I think it needs replacing. The zip is starting to go. And once a purse shows a tendency to wander off on its own, you can almost guarantee that it will disappear altogether within a short time.

It’s been fairly quiet at work, too, gearing up for the start of term on the 24th. I’ve got some Post Grad classes next week, but things really kick off the following week. Well, it’s been quiet from an actual work point of view. From a staff point of view it’s been anything but. The University as a whole has been going through a regarding exercise which has left those of us in my job more or less untouched. Except that where I was at the top of my grade, I am now in the middle of it so with incremental room to move and a back pay rise due from August of last year, which will be nice. The IT side of things, however, has all been downgraded. They are not happy. Not happy at all. Various other bods have also been downgraded. They also, of course, are not happy, but they are not fizzing. They are taking calm and sensible steps to see if anything can be done to rectify it. Then, in the middle of all that, we (the advisers) discovered that the redevelopment of our teaching rooms has left us with what appear to be effectively unusable teaching PCs. I’m supposed to be teaching in one of them next week. We’ll see how it goes. I may be in traction for my back afterwards!! (Plus, I’m supposed to be teaching in a room – not one of ours – in a new building at 11:00 on Monday morning. When I ambled over to see if I could find it at lunch time yesterday, I did indeed find it, but full of equipment in boxes rather than equipment up and ready to roll. I am not optimistic that it will be ready for Monday!)

Woke up this morning, bright eyed, bushy tailed, ready to face the world. At 3:00! I’m a tad on the tired side now :-(

I have seen a squirrel. On our fence. Several times now. It’s the first squirrel I’ve seen since we moved in. I devoutly hope I do not see this or any other squirrel actually in the garden. I might have to buy The Builder a squirrel gun! Oh but I hope it doesn’t move in its mother and its father and its sisters and its brothers and its aunts. I have enough trouble waging war on slugs, snails and caterpillars without adding squirrels to the equation!