Excitement in an envelope

I love getting post. So much so, that I think I do a lot of my shopping online just to get some mail when I get home. Sad, I know.

However, on Saturday, I got a rather unusual piece of mail. When I was in Ireland, I searched in vain for information about my great grandfather and his activities. A lady at Cork City Gaol suggested that I write to the local paper with information. I did so and forgot all about it.

Until Saturday. When I got home from having my hair cut, I noticed an airmail letter with handwriting I didn't recognise. The handwriting was that of an older person. Then I saw that the stamp was Irish. Confused, I opened it.

The letter was from a man who lives in the same village as my family and with the same surname. He talks about my great-great grandfather smoking outside the dispensary on a summer's evening as an old man and about how my great-grandfather may have had six daughters (he did). He apologised for his vague memories and wrote his mobile number on the letter.

I wrote back, asking questions. I find the whole thing very, very exciting. I hope that he writes back, as I'd begun to despair over the lack of information I was finding. I'm reading lots and lots about the Irish fight for Independence, but I want to connect it to what I already know.

I hope he writes back...

Holidays...

So, school broke up last week and I have been mooching around. I've eaten a lot of fudge, discovered I really love playing a particular game on my DS and knit a pair of *really* offensively bright socks. I've walked to and from town everyday apart from today, I've read two books and I'm finally getting my bum into gear with regards to the research I intended to do over the summer. I also wrote a few letters, sent a couple of parcels and slept a lot.

The reason I'm sleeping a lot is that I am coming off some medication that I have been on for about nine months. I made a decision with my doctor that I wanted to see if I could cope without it. Upside- I seem to be getting my creativity back. Downside- the physical symptoms I had before have come back. So we'll see how it goes. I'm trying to stay positive, although that's quite easy when I spend a large proportion of my time asleep! It'll be interesting to see, once the first three weeks of the holidays have passed, how I feel. I'm teaching four days of a summer school next week and I have a sewing lesson on the Thursday (I will master my sewing machine!)

In other news, I got commissioned last week for an article in a magazine that I'll actually get paid for! It's based around my Irish research and I have about six weeks to write it. I'm quite pleased that I had the guts to finally email someone with an actual idea and that it paid off. Let's just hope someone somewhere likes what I'm doing and wants to keep paying me to do it! I have dreams of one day owning a house somewhere where I hide away for months at a time in order to write. Very Virginia Woolf/John Steinbeck... In these dreams though, being a hermit also appeals, so I'm not sure how feasible as a daydream they are..

Update-o-Rama

Well, not massively, as not a lot has happened (well, it sort of has as well, but not) I'm just in one of those moods where all my emails and letters are getting answered, I'm feeling really positive and things are getting done. I think I'm preparing for the 22nd when we break up, which is actually three teaching days after the rest of the country, which is quite irritating. Swine flu has also hit school, but as far as I know only one pupil has it. So, we'll see how many don't come in... there are always a few.

So, I've been knitting away at some bog-standard socks, a Hypoteneuse shawl and ignoring my February Lady Sweater and my blanket. The hot weather has been too hot for big projects. I must admit that I much prefer the stormy weather we've had of late. I love being inside when the thunder hits!

Massive news: I finished my CBT :D So I'm beginning to feel better again for the first time in months. Yay!

Longest Day of the Year...

So, it's 9pm and I'm sat here with a cup of tea, a burning candle and Bat for Lashes on the stereo. It all feels very.... ethereal, I guess. I don't feel depressed when the longest day has been and gone; I quite like the nights slowly drawing in. I'm not genetically built for summer- pale skin, red hair and freckles equal sunburn paranoia. I love autumn. But I guess by November I'll be wishing for summer again. I'm never happy with what I have..!

Benn is due back from cricket soon and I'm glad. The intense pain I get in my side is back and I hate being on my own when it hits me :( Seriously, it's like being stabbed in the side and the pain is so intense, I go all hot and cold. It's worse when I'm teaching and it happens; it's hard to keep my face straight. Thankfully I'm going to the hospital to have it checked out on Wednesday. I'm a bit nervous, as I don't know what they'll do. *Sigh*. The pain has been with me on and off for nearly three years and it's only now it's being taken seriously. We'll see.

So, I spent the longest day of the year knitting and watching season 2 of Buffy. I like to say it's for the new unit I'm writing for Media Studies (a study of how the changing faces of Batman/the Joker or the presentation of Buffy show changing attitudes of society) but who am I kidding? I want to finish my socks and relive my teenage years.

Oh, and my sweet peas have flowered! I don't know if you remember the fiasco of last year, but today a bright red/pink flower bloomed and cheered me up no end. I need to get a little posy vase to put them in. I'll have a look when I venture on my hunt for tea caddies at the weekend (don't ask!)

Well, I'm back!

I suppose I better un-neglect my blog! I don't know where the last two months have gone, life has been both hectic and dull... School has been very busy and I have been just using my downtime to knit, read and potter.

However, on the other hand, I have actually been on an aeroplane! We went to Ireland for five days back at the end of May. I discovered an *amazing* tea shop in Dublin: http://www.palaisdesthes.com/en/ One criticism I would have of Dublin is that, despite its literary heritage, there is a distinct lack of good bookshops.

Whilst in Ireland, we visited my great grandad's home town, Cork, and I did some very interesting research about his life there. I found out about the Irish War of Independence and the Civil War and I'm chasing his involvement in the latter and WWI. It's absolutely addictive and brings out the history geek/journalist in me. It was even worth the 4 and a half hour coach trip from Dublin and back again. We visited two prisons and I now have a collection of books on the Irish fight for independence... I'm so rock n roll!

My knitting and reading have been steadily pottering along, I've been working on my blanket, I finished a pair of Hedera socks and now I'm knitting some hot pink ribbed numbers.

I also had a piece published by the Bookseller and it's looking like a website I've been working for might be going online soon, so my writing is coming on. Hopefully I will get more and be able to build my portfolio (and who knows, maybe become A Real-Life Writer!)

Right now though, I want to sit down with my knitting (after nudging Balders out of my place on the sofa..) with a cup of tea and the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I should be working on some Wuthering Heights stuff...

Books

I am an avid reader; I have probably read about twenty books this year and (much to Benn's chargrin) I keep adding to my collection. The oldest book I own is a 1902 Haworth edition of Mrs Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte (which unfortunately was the only book to be damaged in the collapse of my bookshelf). My collection of Bronte books is getting to be quite considerable, actually. Oh well.





Reading is perhaps my first love. I've always enjoyed a book and it's the one thing that has always been constant for me. No matter where I am or what I'm doing or what's happening, I've always turned to a book.





This week I got two new ones, which have cheered me up no end:

The Virgin Gardener is a beautiful book and is great for a lazy gardener like me :) Lots of indoor projects and stuff suitable for flats etc. I got a good deal on this second hand from Amazon and it came on a day when I was feeling particularly low. It made me go out in the garden and get on with working. We've had fantastic weather this week.

I also got Cookie A's new book from an Amazon seller and when it arrived, it was signed! There are loads of excellent patterns in there, so I think I may be knitting socks for a good long while.

Right, I have to sort myself out; I have lots of marking to do!

Je suis un blogger terrible

Hello,

I have been a rubbish blogger and I haven't really had an excuse as to why, except that my life is not terribly interesting and neither am I :) (See my tweets for the evidence of that- and the stalking of Stephen Fry..)

So, in the last month, the following events have happened:

1) My birthday. Which was very good and involved a HUGE cake. I was very spoilt overall.

2) I finally finished a project! Woo! Think it's the first one of this year- my mum's shawl. Shall post pics soon. Have nearly finished my February Lady too. Woot!

3) Baldrick was left by my neighbour as he went on holiday. We vaguely knew that he was going away, but didn't know where or for how long, until last Wednesday I found a note and some cat food outside our door. The cat has now moved in (we don't have a key to upstairs and we didn't want to force him outside all the time), has been deflea'd and claimed a place on the sofa, much to Bronte's disgust. I have found out-finally- that the neighbour is coming back on the 24th. Whether Balders will go back upstairs on this date is debatable. Benn is still not happy about the additional cat, but yesterday I caught him stroking Baldrick on his lap. Benn then spent the rest of the evening apologising to Bronte. *Sigh*.

5) Work has been exhausting. As it usually is at this time of year.

6) I visited the Tower of London. Again, I will post photos soon.

7) I have read all four of the Twilight books. I look forward to normal service resuming in terms of my literary pursuits. And I may just send Stephenie Meyer a thesaurus, so that she can find another word for 'smug'. Seriously, I've never seen a word so overused in all my life. Has she not heard of 'self-satisfied'? 'Pleased with oneself'? (Goes to thesaurus..) 'Pompous'? Arrrrrrrrrgh.