Category: Life
-
Who’s rap-rapping at my door?
…It’s the Three not-so-Little Pigs! I’m on a bit of a fitness kick at the moment, owing to our renewed membership of the area swimming pool and a complete unwillingness to change my diet. I’ve been out jogging a couple of times, and I’m trying to get back into cycling. So when I needed to pick up a prescription from the pharmacy round the corner, I decided I’d cycle.  I took Finn with me, as I thought he’d benefit from some exercise, too. It’s only a mile away, so to make it worthwhile we took a detour on the way back… Read more
-
“You’re my little puppy now”
What a week. For a minute back there, I thought I’d been human-trafficked. It all started on Tuesday when I found out (from someone not even on the project) that the next phase of the project I joined only two months ago, and the phase on which I was scheduled to spend much of the next year, had been “indefinitely postponed” – generally a euphemism for “canceled”. This happened on my last project as well, and was one of the reasons I moved onto this project. (Now I’m starting to feel like the kiss of death on a project…) No-one… Read more
-
My Glittering Second Career
I have a bad habit of writing in books. Only textbooks, and only my own books, but it’s still a bad habit. I highlight key passages, make notes in the margins, and underline important concepts. I even cross out bits I disagree with. I know that you shouldn’t deface books (lord knows I had my knuckles rapped for it often enough at school) but I read a lot of textbooks, and this makes it easier to find back key information when I’m looking for it. Plus, I find I actually retain more of what I read this way. An extension of this (and… Read more
-
Wart: A Palaver
I’m currently bed-ridden. Or at least sofa-ridden. Yesterday I underwent major surgery and I’m now convalescing at home. Actually, major surgery may be stretching it a bit – I had a verruca (or plantar wart, as they call them here) removed. But for all the palaver they made over it, it may as well have been major surgery. It all started out simply enough with a very small verruca on the ball of my left foot. Finn had a couple of them recently (so I know where it came from…) and we managed to freeze his off at home, in… Read more
-
Gimme Back My Donuts
Apparently my social skills aren’t quite as refined as I thought they were.  I thought I’d been rather convincing as a ‘regular guy’ when I accompanied Finn on his last scout weekend away, but he just had another one, and this time the wife announced that she’d be taking Finn, and not me. Actually it may not be entirely down to my unavoidably-antisocial nature: when I asked the wife if she wanted me to dig out the tent again she replied “Um, no. We’re staying in a hotel”. I guess I drew the short straw there, then. And the straw got shorter still when I… Read more