Well here I am, at the half way mark of when my dissertation needs to be written by, and needless to say half a dissertation has not yet been written. Still, this was to be expected as anything even remotely related to me always takes the most unlikely of courses, so I would be a fool to think this would be any different. Indeed it has been a somewhat turbulent time since the end of May with joys and sadness in fairly equal amounts.

At the end of May we celebrated Neil’s Mum’s birthday with another trip to Vinopolis (which is becoming a bit of a favourite haunt of ours now), where I fell in love with a £40 bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape. Needless to say we had to part company at the ‘tasting table’, but I hope one day we will meet again.

Throughout June work on the garden has been in full swing with Neil and I having finally established gound level, and are very pleased to have taken our final van’s worth of weeds and rubble to the tip. Our modest patch of earth still does rather represent ‘the Somme’ with an added hint of ‘Auschwitz’, following the discovery of a barbed wire overhang belonging to a neighbour. I am hoping a well placed clematis may help resolve this issue, although I also have my eye on some bamboo we could use for screening that, when cut and dried, can also be fashioned into the most terrific pea shooter! In a sense this will be killing two birds with one stone - although it is not birds I intend to target with my hand crafted device - but rather next doors cat that keeps peeing on my alchemilla mollis.

The middle/end of June was largely consumed by some very sad news, as my favourite uncle Phil lost his life to Lymphoma. Needless to say it has been a bit of a rubbish time for everyone, and none of us can quite believe he is no longer here as his was such a big character.  In true Godfrey style however (my Mum’s side of the family) he got (and quoting the vicar) “a bloody good send off” as the church and get together after the funeral was packed with people wanting to share their memories of Phil . My Mum in particular recalled accounts of being left up trees and locked in the chicken shed by her big brother! Be good up there Phil - I know Granny won’t think you too old to give you a good clip around the ear…..!

And now it is July, it is raining, and I can’t believe that midsummer day has passed and its all downhill again from here! Still, our holiday is booked and so I am not short of things to look forward to, including the handing in of my dissertation and the receipt of my freedom. In the meantime I am taking stock, and as recent events have taught me, I have begun appreciating the everyday as you don’t know what might happen the next. With this state of mind, food shopping has again taken on an additional amusement value, in particular the root vegetable aisle.

Now I am not sure whether this is a recent occurence, whether the EU have relaxed their rules regarding vegetation perfection, or whether for comedy value those hard working polish people trudging away in the fields of deepest darkest Norfolk have let a few slip through, but amongst the box of sweet potatoes I have recently uncovered some interesting finds:

Further proof I am not yet a grown up…

Cleavage shot….

I fear this may turn in to a weekly feature.

This Tuesday I handed in my last ever piece of coursework at Uni (see above) marking the end of an epic battle with deadlines that has consumed my very existence for the past two years.

Ok - so I still have a dissertation to write - but no longer will I have to rise at 5:15am every Tuesday morning to catch a train, no longer will I have to endure painful lectures on the intricacies of Strategic Environmental Assessment, no longer will I have to stifle giggles at our lecturers emphatic hand gestures, try and hide yawns when sitting in the front row of class or pass out through tiredness on the bus home.

Now all that stands between me and freedom is 15,000 words regarding socially rented housing in high market value areas.

Hmmmm…..

Where’s that gin and tonic?

I love our basement at work - it is an awesome place and I’ll use almost any excuse to visit its maze of secret passages, gloomy corridors, curious cubby holes and also for a chance to peer at the enormous safe housed down there with its supersized door and chainmail security gate more fitting to a chamber of gringrotts. On my latest adventure to this hidden world (a mission to place some of the overflowing files from our ‘paperless office’ into the archive store) I came upon a room I remarkably hadn’t discovered until now, hidden behind a faux wall and mountain of cardboard crates filled with dusty copies of old committee reports.

Now normally curiosity gets the better of me, and if I have the opportunity I will sneak a look at what is behind the mysterious closed doors. On this one this particular occasion however I was stopped in my tracks by the description of the room’s contents marked upon a sign…

It looks like someone is either having toilet problems or we are taking the prospect of cultivating GM foods too far.

Either way - I think there are some things best left undiscovered.

I have been experiencing a strange sensation of late in which I have lost all concept of time. I only realised it was the beginning of April this week after a colleague cunningly hid a whoopee cushion on my chair….

You see currently my life is organised only by university weeks and when assignments are due. I have no idea what month it is, year it is, day it is or even if I continue to exist as a real time human being. I only know that we are on ‘Week 9′ and that my thesis presentation has to be done for 10 days time along with a whole bunch of other stuff filed under the growing pile of ‘things to do at some point’.

This strict and strangely timeless timetable has however had other consequences in that several painful sacrifices have had to be made as to my activities. This is why ALBD has been sadly neglected for so long and why I have worn Neil’s socks to work twice this week. There does however come a point when you need to break free of the monotony of everyday life, revive your soul and experience the world that exists outside of Planning Policy Statement 3.

It is therefore, following a much anticipated pay check, I allowed myself 1.5 hours on Tuesday afternoon (’Week 8′ ) to assult Reading in a bid to find some summer clothes, just in case England decided to have one this year. Now shopping is not usually my most favourite of tasks as I am known to suffer horrendous pedestrian rage, have issues with shop assistants that say hello as you walk in the store but fail to open a till when the queue is out the door and half way past Sainsbury’s, and typically have to search every store to find anything that:

a) Slims my calves

b) Flatters my robust frame, and most importantly

c) Swooshes

I like clothes that swoosh.

By some miraculous marvel however, the gods were shining on me on Tuesday and I hit gold with the Fat Face ‘bargain rail’. Hoorah! I picked up a pair of very comfortable shoes, a useful top that I think will go very nicely with my new blue necklace (you know the one), and a skirt that - you guessed it - swooshes! To top this happy experience and much needed respite away from books and computer screens, the legend that is Fat Face also provided me a useful reminder surreptitiously printed at the bottom of one of its labels:

Life is out there

Something I have to admit to losing sight of recently and you know what, after ‘Week 22′ when all the work is done…

I must just go and live it.

A little belatedly (the return of the missing no.7 resident has been quite a distraction), here is my account of Monday to complete the ‘my day in four’ series.

I took the day off on Monday as I knew with Neil coming home there would be very little chance any work would get done, and despite every intention to crack on with a few uni assignments, my instinct was right! Indeed I was just a little bit excited on Monday and woke up ridiculously early, opening the curtains to find another beautiful day on the other side.

Having made myself respectable to the outside world I did a little bit of shopping, posted some letters and then waited for news that Neil’s plane had landed. Finally at 11:55am it did (having been rather delayed) and within a few hours he was home safe and sound and with a present for me!

Not that I was at all expecting one at all…..

Or had sent him away with a list of acceptable gifts, my favourite colours and sizes in US and UK conversions….

Needless to say I was very happy with my new apparel!

After a fortnight apart Neil managed to stave off his jet lag long enough to catch up on the latest gossip with Janet. Here they are together…

So with Neil home once more and my source of sanity restored, Janet felt it an appropriate time to say her goodbyes, pack up her little watering can and head off home.

Wherever that might be….

Where did it go? As you can see I am rather behind with my weekend update - and ‘poor show’ I say being the penultimate post of the ‘my day in four’ series. Please accept my apologies.

Saturday

I woke on Saturday having had a marvellous sort of sleep - one of those ones where you wake up feeling heavy and relaxed, and this happy sensation was furthered as I rolled over to find bright sunlight streaming through the gap in my curtains. I jumped out of bed (literally, I kid you not), had a shower and began what turned out to be a very productive day:

I finally got around to putting the wood stain on our new wardrobe doors!

I did some much needed housework and made all of the glass things shiny again

I looked after Janet who is suffering from a poorly yellow leaf (at the bottom draped across the pot)

After which I did some uni work and reading for my dissertation before one of my oldest and bestest friends Amanda joined me for supper. I’m not sure how she’d rate it, but I had a lovely evening as we tucked into sausage and mash, watched some girly films with a bottle of Merlot and put the world to right.

Followed by some chocolate brownie.

This is Amanda with Ant and Dec - she’s so showbiz!

Sunday

Sunday was of course Mothers Day - and in true Turner tradition, this inevitably means a day out somewhere random. This year’s choice was a little village called Selbourne - somewhere in Hampshire where the locals are ‘local’ and that’s the way they like it.

In Selbourne we visited ‘Gilbert White’s House’ and the ‘Oates Museum’ - somewhere Mum had been itching to go ever since I was an undergraduate in Portsmouth and we used to drive through Selbourne on our way to the coast. If I’m truly honest the museum and house were a bit lacking in things to see, but we enjoyed a very nice ‘locally farmed’ ham ploughmans in the dear little tea shop and walked around Mr White’s extensive gardens. Here’s me and my mum:

Selbourne is a very special type of place - a place time has forgotten if you will, although they certainly are doing their bit to keep up with the times, having recently installed broadband within the community:

Selbourne may also be seen to be ‘doing their bit’ for equal opportunities and diversity within society, giving support to all participants in this years local ‘fun run’.

One way however that establishes Selbourne as a true ‘local’ community are the physical attributes of its population.

May she rest in peace.

Well…Friday was weird.

It started out perfectly normally - alarm went off, lots of grumbling, had an a.m. bath as I couldn’t find the energy to stand up and wash, found some clothes that didn’t shout at each other, explored the food stores to find a sachet of cuppa soup that would do for lunch and piled out the front door.

The next bit got interesting. Lets just say a combination of a slighly dodgy gear stick and a useless handbreak not-so-happily combined today sending my car rolling away from its designated car parking space with me gripping onto it, before very slowly - but surely kissing another car, pushing it backwards into some hedges! Fortunately all involved were unscathed, but I was a bit shaken, and having left a note I braced myself all day for being yelled at. So far however, I have not had a visit nor a phone call, and as the car rolled back at the most 2ft, I’m hoping our small incident this morning will be left at just that. Plus the other person had driven off within 15 mins of it happening. Awesome dent in the bush though!

So after calling the office to explain about my mini adventure, I worked from home today where all else went without a glich - but that sadly doesn’t make for good blogging material. It has been pretty wet today though….

which was kind of perfect weather for writing policy consultations.

At lunch time I took a bit of respite and thought I’d really push the boat out (as if my life wasn’t exciting enough!) and iron some sheets. With my squirty water squirter and the base of the iron I created an unintentional smiley face…

This evening has largely been spent in conversation, as after a lovely long chat with Neil who I’m very much looking forward to seeing on Monday, I then spoke to my Mum, and then Neil’s Mum - and after that made some curry.

All I can say is that I suspect Janet probably isn’t vegetarian after seeing her tuck into her Saag Masala…

Hooray for the weekend! Will keep you updated!

One thing about where I work is that in the winter it is absolutely freezing!

In the corner of our office we have a thermometer, and next to the thermometer is an official looking piece of paper taped to the wall telling us what extremes of temperature it has to be before we’re allowed to fold away our little foil blankets and go home.

I swear that wretched thermometer is broken.

I regularly sit at my desk in snow gear, supplemented with hat, gloves and slippers and the damn thing reads 21C. We’re almost down to our underwear in the summer - we practically live at the water cooler, and you’ve guessed it - 21C! We’ve complained to the building caretaker people on several occasions, but they merely point at the thermometer….

Damn it.

Here is Helen and I prepared for another day’s work at the Wokingham Planning Department.

Adeline got a load of stickers for Christmas that bring otherwise dull and inanimate objects to life. In our busy and important role as planners however, we never have time to indulge in such childish activities.

This is me on a site visit at 13,000ft on top of a mountain in Breckenridge, Colorado!

Yeah, ok so it’s Neil, but as he’s not renowned for updating his blog or Facebook pages, I thought I’d show you what he’s up to these past two weeks! I also feel this picture provides an excellent example of the contrast in our lifestyles at the moment…. but that’s ok…

…… There is always Janet.

Here we are at Wednesday, and this morning started like every other in the office with an update of ‘foot watch’. We are monitoring how many people use the town centre in Wokingham for some sort of report we’re meant to be writing. Instead we decided to make a waether chart to predict when most people would be out and about shopping. This is Adeline giving today’s forecast.

I had a browse around Wokingham market at lunch time and happened upon the card stall that sported a section for those wishing to pass their sentiments onto ‘Open Males’ and ‘Open Females’. I have to admit to being openly female, but its taken years of counselling….

All I can say to the below is that a rather burly gentleman emerged from this vehicle in the Paddocks Car Park earlier today.

Me and Janet

Tuesday is the day I go to Oxford Brookes on ‘day release’ from work to study a Masters Degree. Currently we are being taught ‘research methods’ by a chap who explains everything with very emphatic hand gestures - so much so he puts the sign language interpreter who stands next to him to shame. We were quite overcome today by his frequent use of jazz hands. Below is Claire offering a reconstruction.

As we tend to switch off after about 20 mins, the lecturers build in coffee breaks in the hope a Mocha might help us through the many intellectually stimulating debates regarding PPS25. We simply take advantage of the fact the cafe gives you a free flake when you order hot chocolate.

Today as a random promotion - every ‘Fair Trade’ drink you purchased came with a fortune cookie. Mine read:

‘Accounts receivable are bill gotten gains’. Robert Orben.

Now, I’m not sure whether you stand to be misfortunate if you are unable to understand the fortune proscribed to you, but I have no idea what this means. All I can gather is that Mr Orben could be in some kind of financial difficulty. If you are able to shed any light on this mysterious note, I would be very grateful if you felt motivated to leave a comment.

I have been having too many late nights already this week, so Tuesday ended with Janet (the pot plant - please see previous posts) and myself enjoying a cosy night in.