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Tuesday 31 January 2012

Workmen in

I am not good at being invaded, even when its because I want some lovely new fitted furniture. We thought that they would be confined to an upstairs bedroom, with the occasional foray to the fuse-box in the utility room. But they are everywhere! Both front and back doors are often wide open and its only about 3 degrees C out there. When we came back from Tai Chi, there was a small light on in the kitchen and some paper-work on the work-top. They see a (previously) clean and empty space and think they can use it. They are not even supposed to be in the kitchen! I had to anti-bac everything, even the wrapper on the outside of the bread which was sitting there waiting for our lunch. I know I'm OCD but it is our kitchen and there are a lot of germs out there.

They say they will be here for another three days!!!!!! Its only a wardrobe and a desk really.

Sunday 29 January 2012

I had such a good time

This week we went to Nottingham. TSH is celebrating his 65th year by visiting as many steam train events as possible. I booked a John Lewis pamper session, which was great. Two hours with fashion advisor James, who was excellent, so helpful and no pressure to buy and then a 45 minute make-up lesson at Clarins. If you factor in free tea, coffee, bubbly and a scone (not in that order!), vouchers and some free products, the whole session was free. I learned about some new facial products and tried on clothes I would not have thought off (some of them were great).

I tried to do some MA work whilst we were there - it is really interesting trying to look at word classes from first principles instead of just saying 'its a past participle'. But I don't have good definitions for all the terms and I am waiting for some tutor guidance. But I love this part of the course!!

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Grammar's much better

I have just started the first weekly activity. It concerns dividing words up into classes. Like nouns, verbs and adjectives, but these are old-fashioned. So we are working on semantic and pragmatic classes, as prescribed by Cognitive Linguistics. I know. I still haven't finished sorting it all out but I'll get there. This is fascinating. A bit like Maths. Did I say I used to be a Mathematician? In another life and I don't remember much but my mind still works that way.

Having a good hair week - good cut and I have used a serum on it for a few days so its really shiny.

Had a manicure on Monday - fabulous dark pink with glitter. But lots of it came off! Not chipped, but coming off in chunks in the bath! The manicurist took it all off properly, put a plain polish on and gave me a credit towards my next treatment. And I invested so much time into not chipping it. And TSH made the meal when it wasn't his turn.

I'm worrying about what to wear on Friday. I'm having a make-up lesson and seeing a fashion consultant, so I need a good image. At the moment its my pale purple knitted dress.

Friday 20 January 2012

Nearly finished Spoken English for ever

I will be so glad when this part of the course is over - nearly there now.
OU is still refusing to explain my bad result - I cannot understand why they are so secretive about it.

Yesterday went to really sad funeral - only 62 and having such a good life.

Monday TSH is 65 - manicure (for me) in morning and smart meal out in evening. Outfit not fixed but probably purple velvet dress with the velvet jacket I wore on New Years Eve.

Friday 13 January 2012

It's getting better

The second face-to-face day for my course was last week and it was infinitely better! I understood it all and the tutor seems much more committed.

I still have to finish the Spoken English assignment and I've had a worry about that this week. The course director said that for the prosody option he would expect analysis of 2 minutes of conversation. I have been working on 10. How do you write 5,000 words about 2 minutes of speech? I wrote to him and he agreed to look at my work. I then spent a few days thinking I might have to start again completely. 5,000 words on the role of the larynx suddenly seemed more atytractive. Better than recording, transcribing and analysing anoither conversation, anyway. But he said my analysis was 'great' and I am on the right lines. Things are improving. I'm not stupid or past it.

Oh, and TSH's daughter has asked me to help choose the wedding dress! A true honour.

But what will I wear? For the shopping, as well as the wedding?