(no subject)
Here is a list of my recent doings, compiled primarily so that I might prove to myself that I am doing something, even if the tenor of my life has become quieter recently.
1) I have started to remedy my woeful lack of knowledge of twentieth century history (a concerning gap in my knowledge seeing that I will be expected to teach it in the coming autumn) by taking out a vast pile of tomes from the library on such cheerful subjects as The Coming of The Third Reich, Stalingrad and The Cold War. (I imagine that the historians in question think it frivolous to be inventive with their titles.)
2) I am combating the gloom, which emanates from these books by watching episodes of Jeeves and Wooster at regular intervals, falling victim to my weakness for rose and violet creams while so doing.
3) On Sunday I baked a cake for my aunt's birthday. It was reasonably successful, possibly because I restrained my tendency for over-inventiveness, confining myself to the variation of using rose-petal jam rather than the more common raspberry in the filling.
Of course, I had to endure the birthday lunch that went with this, which was dull, particularly as Mum has secured a promise from me not to wind my grandparents up by discussing any remotely interesting subjects, as we are sure to violently disagree about them. This meant that most of the conversation revolved around my aunt's (admittedly pleasant) garden, and while I enjoy being in aesthetically pleasing gardens in a vague way, I have absolutely no interest in how they are created or maintained. I therefore spent most of my time feeding crumbs of the aforesaid cake to the goldfish and thinking up increasingly elaborate reasons why I had to leave immediately.
4) Yesterday I went for a long walk in the hills above Steyning. It was drizzling pretty steadily, but I rather enjoyed the effect this had, softening and blurring the grass and the cow-parsley and causing the chalk-choked mud to start flowing down the path. This latter circumstance briefly gave me pause when I went to go into the bookshop, but the woman at the desk (evidently used to walkers) told me to just take my boots off at the door. I bought a copy of Mikhail Bulgakov's A Young Doctor's Notebook, unusually, having seen the television adaptation first (and having enjoyed it, despite what i said in my last post), and some postcards.
1) I have started to remedy my woeful lack of knowledge of twentieth century history (a concerning gap in my knowledge seeing that I will be expected to teach it in the coming autumn) by taking out a vast pile of tomes from the library on such cheerful subjects as The Coming of The Third Reich, Stalingrad and The Cold War. (I imagine that the historians in question think it frivolous to be inventive with their titles.)
2) I am combating the gloom, which emanates from these books by watching episodes of Jeeves and Wooster at regular intervals, falling victim to my weakness for rose and violet creams while so doing.
3) On Sunday I baked a cake for my aunt's birthday. It was reasonably successful, possibly because I restrained my tendency for over-inventiveness, confining myself to the variation of using rose-petal jam rather than the more common raspberry in the filling.
Of course, I had to endure the birthday lunch that went with this, which was dull, particularly as Mum has secured a promise from me not to wind my grandparents up by discussing any remotely interesting subjects, as we are sure to violently disagree about them. This meant that most of the conversation revolved around my aunt's (admittedly pleasant) garden, and while I enjoy being in aesthetically pleasing gardens in a vague way, I have absolutely no interest in how they are created or maintained. I therefore spent most of my time feeding crumbs of the aforesaid cake to the goldfish and thinking up increasingly elaborate reasons why I had to leave immediately.
4) Yesterday I went for a long walk in the hills above Steyning. It was drizzling pretty steadily, but I rather enjoyed the effect this had, softening and blurring the grass and the cow-parsley and causing the chalk-choked mud to start flowing down the path. This latter circumstance briefly gave me pause when I went to go into the bookshop, but the woman at the desk (evidently used to walkers) told me to just take my boots off at the door. I bought a copy of Mikhail Bulgakov's A Young Doctor's Notebook, unusually, having seen the television adaptation first (and having enjoyed it, despite what i said in my last post), and some postcards.