Reasons

I have written a little more of the part of the book concerned with the power balance in the lyrics. Basically, it is hardly ever with the narrator, who perceives himself to be at the beck and call of lovers, rivals and political and military opponents.

I've also started modifying the dissertation to produce a suitable article for submitting to a journal.

But today ....... Apart from having to carry all the washing up upstairs to deal with it in the bathroom. And carrying drinking water downstairs all the time. We have always had an open dustbin in the kitchen. Sounds dreadful but it means it has large capacity and its totally hands free. And we empty it often, so no smells from the rubbish and no smells from the lid or other parts of the closed bin. But TSH thought (note past tense) that we should have a smart stainless steel bin to match the new kitchen. I said then that I wanted no part in the inevitable cleaning out when bits ended up in the bin or on its lid. It worked for the first week. But today I discovered that most of the rubbish was in the bin rather than the bin bag. So I had to scoop it out into the bag - wearing rubber gloves, of course. And in the process, the bin came apart and we had breadcrumbs and worse on the dining room floor. So I carried the bin upstairs to wash it under the shower but en route it came apart further so there was a trail of crumbs everywhere. And there were bits of ham trimmings in the bath. TSH hoovered the bits. And we are having a new open bin. From Ikea.

After the fitter left for the day, TSH continued his sterling task of trying to paint the new ceiling before the kitchen is finished. When he started this a few days ago, he was working by torchlight because there were no ceiling lights. But now there are ceiling lights so it boded well. Meanwhile, I said I would prepare dinner in the dining room using the microwave as an oven. Never really done this before. And then lights went off and TSH (and me too) was plunged into darkness. This happened a few times until I realised that the circuit in the dining room wasn't adequate for a cooker. So the food all had to be done in microwave mode, which was not what was intended.

Did Shakespeare and Wordsworth have these issues? I have a 'room  of my own' but no kitchen and sometimes no electricity. Come to think of it, they didn't have electricity either. I'm in the footsteps of the great!!!

Two Operas, 'and' and 'the'

We don't get out much, so the opera twice in a week was a  treat. Both were at the Lowry in Salford and both were performed by Opera North. The first was Puccini's 'Girl from the Golden West', a bit unusual in that there were no grand arias and it was more like a sung play. The second was Verdi's 'Macbeth', which has the benefit of being based on a gripping story. Quite a bit of the Shakespearean dialogue was in there and its amazing how much I remember from studying it at school about 50 years ago. We really enjoyed both but wonder if the Opera North chorus always wear muted colours with lots of caps and headscarves.  Excellent voices in both performances.

I was very tired at lunchtime after two late (for us) nights but I had a productive afternoon, improving my keyword analysis chapter. And and the again. Its amazing what you can deduce from such basic words.