The long summer is over, and I'm not sorry to see it go. It hasn't been a great one - messy, bitty and overshadowed by heartache. Autumn, mists and mellow fruitfulness notwithstanding, is dominated by the start of a new academic year. Today the new research students arrived; tomorrow the taught students descend en masse for the induction event. All of a sudden the rising stress of the last couple of weeks, last-minute admin tasks and a full timetable of meetings, are eclipsed by the buzz of returning and new students keen to get underway. Mountains of handbooks and forms will be handed out with the usual dire warnings about deadlines and plagiarism, and then everything settles down to the comfortable hum of industry.
There's actually a two week gap until the teaching starts, but that time will whistle past in an unbroken succession of interviews, tutorials and supervisions, the handing out of booklists and assignment marks, and liberal quantities of encouragement and coffee. (In case any students are reading this, mine's black, strong - two teaspoons of coffee - with one sugar. To go with it, I like, in order of preference, doughnuts, cream cakes, double choc-chip muffins and Hob-Nobs)
Normally, this period also marks the return to an autumnal pattern of domestic life: flaking out on the settee when I get in from work, stews and curries replacing the salads of summer, and weekends with friends. Alas, this cosy domesticity has been stymied temporarily by the ongoing work in the kitchen. After a rather complicated and stressful period acquiring the stuff to go into it,
I then had to watch as Son number two ripped out everything that made an empty room into a functioning heart-of-the-home and set about knocking holes in the wall (to increase the number of electric sockets from two to twelve). So far we've had takeaways of several varieties and eaten out twice, but I'm starting to ache for fresh veg and real coffee. On the plus side, having Son number two doing this instead of a random workman is paying off in the quality of workmanship. If I can stay sane for a few more days, I'll remember why it was a good idea to have the work done...Son number one has been in residence for a while now, and is on the point of returning to his own house in the wake of departing ex-partner. (Daughter and boyfriend have just split up as well. I wonder if it's infectious?) It's been nice having his company, but he's found commuting to Leeds daily a tiring chore. His period of residence has left me with a nicely decorated spare room and a renewed respect for his good nature as well as an empty fridge and an exhausted washing machine. Last night Sons numbers one and two and I went out for a drink and a pub quiz, and it was good to be reminded what pleasant company they are.
Meanwhile, what one correspondent referred to as my "perfidious lover" has made occasional contact, assuring me with confidence that his ex will tell her husband just as soon as she can find the appropriate circumstances to do so. My broken heart is nicely on the mend after a night under canvas alone with my demons when he and I should have been enjoying a romantic weekend in Paris. There's nothing like a tiny tent, a sleeping roll and waking with aching joints to a view of the sun rising over Mam Tor for rekindling the senses of proportion and humour.
Well, proportion anyway - I laugh less than I used to, I think. On the plus side, I have crosswords and books strewn across the bedroom again and I've migrated back to the middle of the double bed.A new academic year, new possibilties, a new kitchen: life's not so very bad.
pictures linked from:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/79/Mam_Tor_from_the_south.jpg (Mam Tor) and http://www.focusdiy.co.uk/content/ebiz/focus/invt/28620/28620.jpg (Socket)
No comments:
Post a Comment