Diary 2007

December 2007

Ray LaMontagne was fabulous. We were two rows from the stage. Wow!

The end of term was chaotic and stressful, but I finally got my academic contract.

At the end of November, Maddy was diagnosed with Lens Luxation. Apparently this is something that is quite common in Jack Russells. She had to go to Leominster to a specialist eye clinic to have the lenses removed from both eyes. Thank God for pet insurance as the bills have been astronomical. She's doing well. She had no close vision, so she can't catch a biscuit or a ball anymore, but her distance vision is very good. She still loves a walk or a trip in the car.

At around the same time, Saffy had to have lumps removed from her leg and chest and have her teeth cleaned. We ended up with both of them in lampshades at the same time, which was noisy and clumsy!

October 2007

16th October 2007
I have a horrid cold. Alwyn and I are going to see Ray LaMontagne in St David's Hall tonight. 8 more days with the little dogs. 8 more teaching weeks to the Christmas Vac.

5th October 2007
Doesn't time fly when you're having fun?! It's the second week of the new term and things are just about starting to calm down into a routine.

Little Candy dog broke her jaw a couple of weeks ago, fighting with one of the other little terriers. Thankfully she has made a good recovery, despite having to have the front part of her lower jaw removed. She didn't have many teeth to begin with! She'll be back with Mum in 19 days, not that I am counting or anything ...

August 2007

29th August
Yahoo photos is closing. I have had to transfer everything over to Flickr. It is going to take me some time to update all the necessary links. Please bear with me! I might have to move them again as it appears that anyone who wants to look at my photos has to be sent an invitation as a guest. What a pain in the neck.

June 2007

1st June
The smoking ban has been in place in Wales since 2nd April. It is fantastic to be able to go out for a drink or a meal and not come back stinking of other peoples' cigarettes. The only downside to the smoking ban that I have so far discovered is that boy oh boy can you tell when someone farts. For example, last weekend we went out for a drink in our favourite pub The Three Horseshoes, Pentwynmawr, someone in there was farting fit to beat the band and the stench was absolutely appalling. It was so bad at one stage that Naomi rushed off to the toilets because she thought that she was going to be sick! Perhaps we need a farting ban ....

The other thing that I am in favour of banning is very low cut jeans. Last night I went out for dinner with my friend, Debra, and in the restaurant was a young girl with her ar*e crack showing above the top of her jeans. Just want I want to view whilst eating.

May 2007

24th May
Tragedy has struck our robins. Something got into the nest yesterday and cleaned it out. All the babies have gone. They were only about two weeks old. I am very upset. My money is on a magpie or a rat. Worse, I haven't seen the male robin since Monday evening when he came into the kitchen looking for food. The female is still about but she is very shy and although she will accept mealworms, they have to be at least three feet away from me before she ventures after them.

We have been doing a lot of work in our garden. Starting in 2005 all of the fence panels at the bottom of the garden were replaced. Many of the posts and panels had rotted and fallen down and this was causing problems in keeping certain small dogs contained.

The garden was very overgrown and it took quite a lot of work to clear the areas before the new posts and panels could be installed. Photographs of the clearing work are contained in one of my Yahoo photo albums at this link: The Garden.

Last year we cut down the fig tree (with which Alwyn had a definite hate relationship - but that's a story for another day) and the cooking apple tree which was blighted and managed to produce one solitary apple in the whole time I have lived at this house!

We initially cleared this piece of ground behind the garage and tried to grow some vegetables on it. Unfortunately, despite copious quantities of proprietary deterrants, it became a mecca for every slug and snail in the neighbourhood and our veg was all nibbled.

This year I have bought some young apple trees and have so far planted two of them in this area. (The third one doesn't seem to be doing any growing).

10th May
I went to the council tip (dump) today to get rid of two monitors that had been lurking in the attic. It was closed. Thwarted from that aim, I went to the Post Office and when I got there that was closed too. I know Post Offices traditionally close on Wednesday afternoons, but today was Thursday! Running errands today = nil.

I am hoping to do a car boot sale this weekend with some other junk that has been lurking in the attic. The weather does not look favourable, so it would appear that the junk is going to have to continue to lurk.

Recently I have been told that I look like the actress who plays Trinity in the Matrix. I prefer to think I look like me!!

A recent ponderance
Last weekend I was told a story about a young buck who has started getting up in the night and urinating in his bedroom (generally after drinking alcohol, it has to be said!) and, on the latest occasion, he managed to wreck a fairly expensive piece of electronic equipment. I had the misfortune to live with a chap, several years ago, who also had this tendency and I have heard from a number of other people about their own or their partner's tendencies in this vein. However, from the anecdotal evidence I have heard so far, it is always the chaps who do this; never the girls. If anyone would like to comment on this, please email me. I'd be fascinated to hear further evidence on this one. All names will be removed to spare the (not so) innocent their blushes!

April 2007

26th April
Two students turned up for the two-hour catch-up workshop I put on. A further two claimed they turned up and I wasn't there and several more have now requested personal tutorials. Sometimes I could scream!

We have robins nesting in our garden. The male robin has become tame enough to come to us and take food from our hands. He will also perch outside the patio doors and look in if we are not outside. If we open the patio door he will come inside to be fed! Here's Alwyn in the lounge with the robin:

We have taken some video and placed it on esnips. Follow this link: Robins

The robins have so far raised one clutch of four and are now sitting on another clutch of eggs. There are some more photos at this link: Robins in the Garden.

Mum and I went down to London at the weekend to attend the wedding of my eldest cousin, Paul, to Sharon. It was a lovely ceremony and we both had a fab time. Pictures are here: Paul and Sharon's wedding photos and here: Mum's photos of Paul and Sharon's wedding

5th April
I have invented a new definition for "ironing". (The precursor to this is that anyone who knows me will know that I do not iron. Anything. Ever. The closest I come to ironing is putting away the iron and ironing board after Alwyn has ironed something.) I had some time off and asked Alwyn if there was anything that he needed me to do, he said "ironing". So "ironing" now means, "the repeated use of sarcasm, particularly when applied to domestic chores." Well, it amused me!

March 2007

22nd March
I have *the* most revolting cold and a cough to go with it. I should be at home keeping my germs to myself, but typically I have a mountain of things to do and no-one to cover my classes. Tomorrow is the end of term, so I only have to hang on for one more day.

15th March
I woke up this morning convinced it was Saturday. What a bitter disappointment. I should have just pulled the covers over my head and taken a "mental health day" as in "if I don't take a day off I'm going to go mental".

Any day that starts out like that generally isn't going to get any better. Mine didn't. I have been having a battle of wits with a particular group of students. Last term they decided not to attend the lectures and workshops I ran because they felt that the subject was of no relevance to them. This despite the module being core, not optional. Most of them, predictably, failed the assignments. I set a date for resubmissions only to have them complain that they had too much work on. I pointed out that if they had done the work properly in the first place they wouldn't be in the situation. No dice. Da Management allowed them more time. Since they didn't attend the workshops etc by choice they don't really know what to do for the assignment, so again, I have to arrange more workshops in order to help them out. I complained and sent letters at the time of the absences, which were ignored and now I have to give up my time during the vacation period to babysit a bunch of ingrates. Bl**dy marvellous.

My e-pal Paul sent me the following link. Behind the Counter. It's a blog written by someone who works in Wal-Mart. I think it is hilarious! It kept me amused for a number of hours.

This next page comes from a link that was on Behind the Counter. The Blank Top Chronicles This blog is even funnier, to me at least, because the writer is actually able to say what they really feel to the stupid people that call up. Now that's my kind of job.

13th March
Last week, my Mum had a BIG birthday. (I won't tell you exactly which one because a lady's age is her own business!) In honour of this milestone I arranged a few surprises; the first of which was my brother, Mark, flying home from the US for the weekend and the second was a Secret, Surprise Birthday Party, to which I had invited lots of family, her friends and colleagues with whom she had worked prior to retirement. It was all fantastic and I would like to say thank you to everyone who came along and made it a very special evening for my lovely Mum! Pictures are here (Link opens in a new window): Photos from Mum's Birthday

On Sunday evening, we went to see the X Factor finalists. What a great, fun night out! All of the singers/bands were great. The pics below were the view directly in front of me!

Not only did I have the benefit of this wonderful view, towards the end of the concert the bird in the hat started dropping off to sleep so the stupid hat was nodding around like a dashboard dog!

I have put the pictures of the singers/bands into my photo album as they are quite large. Enjoy! Photos from the X-Factor Show

Again this morning I was irritated with the radio newsreader. This time a woman was talking about the new twenty pound notes that are being introduced soon. She said that the old style note would be "faded out". Faded out? Phased, woman, the word is PHASED. And, while I am on the subject of things that annoy me, since when did "all right" become one word? Lordy that annoys me.

7th March
I usually listen to local radio on my way to work; Red Dragon FM. It's a pretty good radio station (apart from the annoying adverts, but if you listen to local channels what can you expect?). Over the last couple of weeks I have been extremely irritated by some of the radio news reporters. For example, one young woman was reporting on an armed robbery in Cardiff and described the area as having been "cornered off by the police". For goodness sake! The word is CORDONED!

This week a weatherman described the day's weather as "sunny but interjected with showers". Interjected? Surely you mean interspersed?

The other thing that drives me crazy is the way radio newsreaders refer to people as, for example, "that man who was charged with ....". Talk about dumbing down. It is bad grammar, it is overly familiar and comes across, to me at least, as treating the listeners as if they were a bit thick. Grrrr.

However it appears that such gaffes are not the sole preserve of the radio presenter. This week on the BBC news a presenter was heard to say "at 3 AM in the morning." Well duh! When else is 3 AM going to occur?

In spite of last week's comments about yucky baked potatoes, I met my sister for lunch today, ordered a baked potato and lo and behold it was actually very nice!

Alwyn's car has stopped working. The immobiliser has completely immobilised the car, rendering it un-startable. The upside of this is that it is unstealable, the downside is that it is also undriveable. However, as Karin commented, it is the greenest car in the street - no emissions there!

Our desktop computer has also stopped working. I am pretty sure that this is not an immobiliser problem, however, it wouldn't surprise me particularly if it turned out to be so!

2nd March
What's going on?! I have just realised that I have spilt my lunch on myself. The reason I didn't previously realise this is because I have on a red top and lunch was predominantly red. Why have I noticed now? I can smell tuna .... ewww!

I am wheat intolerant. (I'm intolerant of a lot of other things too, but that's a whole other story!) Anyway, as I am wheat intolerant, if I go out for a meal quite often I will end up eating baked potatoes. The problem with this is that most of the baked potatoes taste like they were cooked yesterday and reheated. Blee. How difficult is it to cook a decent baked potato? Obviously a lot harder than I thought.

Alwyn has put some of our videos onto esnips.com. You can see them by following this link Kijo Movies on esnips.com. There is a very good one of Maddy playing with a helium balloon. If you turn the sound up you can hear me laughing like a hyena in the background.

February 2007

11th February
On Thursday morning I awoke laughing. The reason for this? The announcer on the radio said "We've had six inches of snow and the country is in chaos." How Scandinavia and Canada manage I don't know! I got in my little 4x4 and went off to work without too many problems, gathered up another stack of marking and made my way back home - no problemo - by lunchtime it had started to rain anyway!

When I awoke on Friday the snow was coming down heavily - heavily, that is, by Cardiff standards. I attended a meeting in Cardiff Bay and left not long after lunch - Cardiff was completely gridlocked. It had been snowing all morning and by lunchtime all the major employers in Cardiff had started to tell people to make their way home. I was very glad I had caught the train as, apart from a short (but very cold) delay in Cardiff, I reached home in less than an hour (normal journey time is about 25 mins).

Alwyn's employer had sent everyone home at 11 AM. My employer had closed down at 12 (I found this out later from my email!). For lack of anything better to do (yeah! right!) Alwyn and I decided to pay a visit to our local pub, which turned out to be rather busy. In conversation with the Landlord, we discovered that he had had two "better than average days" because of the snow. Alwyn observed that although people get sent home from work due to the snow, no one gets sent home from the pub ... sage!

I was in conversation with one of my dog walking acquaintances the other day when it occurred to me what an odd situation it was. We were both standing there discussing the weather, the behaviour of our dogs and other less arcane subjects when I realised that we were both holding small plastic bags of doggy-doo. A bizarre sign of the times, I suppose!

Last weekend we went to see Ray LaMontagne at the Manchester Apollo. Wow! He is amazing. The concert itself was fantastic and then we actually got to meet the man himself in the pub afterwards. He is very, very shy and quiet, but we were both thrilled to be able to shake his hand and say thanks for such a superb concert. This is a link to Ray LaMontagne on My Space: Ray LaMontagne. You can listen to some of his tracks.

At the concert, the two men in front of us kept talking. They were "shushed" by various people sitting around them, including me. I pondered the situation: you pay at least �25 for a ticket to a sell-out concert for a man who will be playing in the UK for a very short length of time and then you talk throughout. What's that all about?!

The weekend prior to that, we went up to Ystradfellte and walked around the waterfalls. The weather wasn't marvellous, but it didn't rain either which is always a bonus! The waterfalls were pretty impressive as we've been having quite a lot of rain. We walked behind one of the waterfalls and took photographs, when we got back to the side of the river we discovered we were missing a dog - Saffy was stuck behind the waterfall! Alwyn had to go back to persuade her to move; she was scared of the water.

One of the series of falls at Ystradfellte

Maddy approaching the waterfall

Alwyn, Saffy and Maddy behind the waterfall

Maddy and I behind the waterfall

Saffy stuck behind the waterfall

January 2007

11th January
Here I am, marking again! I have just marked an assignment in which the writer is talking about possible weaknesses (in an interview situation) and says that describing oneself as a "perfection list" is a common interviewee response. Now, using my powers of deduction I am assuming that this is meant to read "PERFECTIONIST" but who can tell?!

Yesterday I was waiting at traffic lights behind two other cars. The lights turned green and no-one moved. I waited, ooooh must have been at least 15 seconds, and then leaned on the horn whilst shouting "Waiting for a written invitation, are you?" As the cars started to move I realised that the song playing on the radio was Take That's Patience. Oh, the irony!

6th January
Damn, I'm good. Not only have I taken down AND put away all the Christmas decorations at home, I have also tidied up here! I've moved all of last year's entries into a new file to clear the way for this year's random rambles and observations on the series of (usually embarrassing) incidents that make up my life!

I had the damage to my car repaired (from where it was hit by the car parking barrier, Dec 06). I also received a letter from the Uni's insurers saying "Why should we be liable for your damage?" I feel like writing back saying "The barrier belongs to the Uni, does that give you a f***** clue?" Jeez!

I joined a new gym. This one has really good equipment and lots of it! The first time I went to the gym, I wasn't really sure of "changing room etiquette" so I took myself off into a cubicle to change to go into the sauna. When I came back from the sauna and shower, there was a woman in the changing room stark naked (ok, hardly surprising!) rubbing body lotion into herself. Personally, I found this a little disconcerting, but when she put one foot up on a bench and bent over to rub lotion into her lower leg ... some things really are best done in private!

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Last updated: 17 January 2008

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All photographs are copyright Saffy 2007, unless otherwise attributed.

Last year's diary entries are here: Diary 2006