Almost over

Well it's goodbye to 2010 in a couple of hours or so although I feel far too exhausted to stay up having driven back from my mother's today and sorted my accounts this afternoon (only to find I have £120 to last me until 20th January, although Mrs TS has grocery money in the joint account)

I have plans for 2011 although I'll post them later.  One is to try to meet at least one blog follower in the flesh  in 2011 - all hide now!

If you have visited any of my blogs this year, I thank you for that - especially if you have commented.

If you'd like me to visit your blog next year (assuming I haven't done so) then feel free to ask.
 

Amazon and Snow

Snow can be a good excuse.

I find it a tad suspicious that my parcel from Amazon arrived the day after I complained that I had not received it. I had ordered three presents on 4th December and I had followed the progress with 'Track Parcel' on the website.  For these goods to arrive on 22nd December is poor.  This happened last year so I suspect Amazon cannot cope with the Christmas rush.
 

Completed

The work on my daughter's room is complete; we now await the carpet and new bed which are due tomorrow.

Reflection

It is that time of year when the 'round robin' letters start to come through the letter box poorly disguised as Christmas cards.  There is only one I enjoy reading: it is printed in newspaper columns and purports to be a journal of the year from the area of Peterborough where I was born. In one comment David says,

"A drunk thumped on my door at 11.00pm claiming he lived in my house.  He failed to take any heed of my brief advice concerning sex and travel, so I called the Police".

I think that's brilliant; I'm sure you have worked it out. I digress.

I always receive a long letter (2 sides of A4) from an ex-girlfriend who I have not seen for over 30 years.  I was simply going to stop sending her a card, but I did drop her an email as she had added that her father's heart is failing.

Then I had one from a former head teacher; I sent an email last year with news but had no reply.  All his news is of no interest to me.

Another letter made me sad, for myself; or is it jealous?  A lovely guy with whom I was an university married an equally lovely girl I also know well from uni.  He is highly successful and she is conducting concerts, in her area, of large-scale choral works.  Here I am in the Midlands, teaching crotchets and quavers to 8-13 year olds.  I'm expected to put on a school concert a mere 9 days into next term.  My own organ playing skills are practically non-existent and my fingers are seizing up.  I know why all my friends are such a success; they actually know how to get the best out of people.  It's not a skill I have although I get by.

I suppose what I'm saying is that one's life pans out in a way one cannot predict and, by the time you have realised, it is too late to do anything about it.
 

Christmas Holidays

We broke up from school on Tuesday.  The Carol Service ended at 1.00pm, I took a minibus and the choir cassocks back to school and then I was free! [By the way the Edirol support worked well]

Mrs T and I have cleared daughter #2's room in order to decorate it; a new carpet and a new bed arrive on Monday.

Now, all this DIY has really made my hands hurt but that was to be expected; I am getting old.  Mrs T wanted a shelf put up but on a partition wall.  I moaned and said I would have to find the studs under the plaster board.  I have a Draper sensor [it is some years old] but got confusing readings, so I bought a new Stanley model.

I set to work and managed to get a few readings.  After a time the wall was covered with pencil marks of various kinds.  Studs are suppose to be 18" or 24" apart although there is no standard.  I consulted with the school maintenance chap and he said it was best to stick in a bradawl and find the stud.  This I did about 30 times, so I had to fill the holes in.

Satisfied that I had something to screw into I set to work only to find that only one of the studs I located actually existed.  Consequently I have fixed up a support frame to the wall to spread the weight of items on the shelf. (The photo is on the dark side and I assure you the downward limbs are all the same length)

Shelf support (photo taken from an angle)

The next step is (after painting the walls) is to screw the angle brackets to the woodwork and secure the shelves (1 big, 1 small) to them.  More detail later.

 

Illusion

First of all I want to rave about two computer things.

[1] Foxit Reader which I use instead of Adobe - it has far more features.

[2] Dropbox This is a virtual memory stick which avoids the need for me to save work I do at home to a flash drive or email it to myself.  I can work on my laptop and school and the files are reader on my desktop when I get home (after a short download).  Everything is synchronised and I think it is brilliant.  I still backup files as before to an external hard drive and I only use this for school work.

How would you feel in the following circumstances?

You put on a musical which is regarded as a great success.  When the time comes to think about another (there having been a straight play in between) you hear that the musical you thought was a triumph did not 'please everyone'. Well, surely that is a given as you cannot please everyone. However, this is being given as the reason that the choice for next year is all the more crucial?  Why? Are the same people likely to cut up rough if they find they do not approve once again?

All very odd.

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