There was a very interesting program on CH4 about dyslexia last week. Apparently there's no such thing, or not in the sense of there being a special group of people who have difficulty reading because of an exceptional brain problem. People diagnosed with dyslexia are those who have difficulty with reading but who are highly intelligent in other ( Read more... )

Standing at the bus stop today. 28 degrees. About 20 people. It starts raining, gently. Everyone crowds into the bus shelter, so they are standing only inches from each other. I stayed where I was and got slightly damp and considerably refreshed. Strange people. What is so scary about getting wet?

We're off to my house for Xmas tomorrow, though only for 3 days as ben really needs a break just lounging round doing nothing - well, playing morrowind in fact, for hours at a time - but de-stressing generally, in a way which is just not possible in someone else's house.

We're spending Xmas day itself with sarafiin and will be subjected...er...treated to ( Read more... )

We are having a marathon Lord of the Rings watching day tomorrow. It was going to be on sunday, but Ben is ill with some nasty cold-type thing so we might as well make it tomorrow and hope that he feels better enough on sunday to do something else. Though I am not feeling great myself, so it is quite likely that I am coming down with it too ( Read more... )

I tried out my new bike properly on tuesday. I had a route planned that involved mostly roads, but some tracks through the woods as well. I thought I'd break myself in gently. It was very good fun. Definitely need a helmet though. The hills round here are steep and atm (though i suspect for most of the year) covered in very wet mud and leaves.

( Read more... )

There are no birds. No birds.

I have seen seagulls ominously circling overhead. I have heard a blackbird singing the dawn chorus. Ben has even seen sparrows - sparrows! - hopping around outside the front door ( Read more... )

Having said there's plenty of time for my revision so long as nothing else happens, of course something else happened. So I am going to have to concentrate entirely on studying at least until I'm in a position to see exactly how much more time it's going to take me ( Read more... )

My Gran (Dad's Mum) died this evening at 7.27. Dad had just been over to see her and left an hour earlier. She had been ill all this year with cancer of the mouth. She was also suffering from some form of dementia, which meant that she was very vague and out of it a lot of the time. She had been in a lot of pain the last few weeks and was unable to ( Read more... )

At last I have got my assignments done. Not completed, certainly, but I've done as much as I can do on them (given that they have to be posted first thing tomorrow morning) and I am very very glad to have that out of the way. I didn't get them to quite as advanced a stage as I had hoped, but I don't really care right now. They're done. Hooray!

This is connected with my posting about language on the 26th June, if anyone is that interested. It is also what I was getting at in my last email to lilfurrydan and hinted at in my last email to esbat, in case they are wondering. I figured it out a bit more clearly ( Read more... )