Disaster at church..............

I meant to tell you about this the other day. I use a little branch library in an area of Bath called Weston. Nothing much goes on there so you can imagine the excitement when this happened.....

.........just along from the library outside a pretty church which you reach from a lane dating back to the 18th century......

 ......about an hour before I got there!   Phew! A lucky escape! Meanwhile the vicar, the verger and a tree surgeon were on the case and decisions needed to be made about the fate of the rest of the tree.  I'll pop back this week to take a look and let you know...............can you guess who the little chap is on the front of this house?

Bella and I decided to have a mooch around the graves....the great thing about the Georgians was their messages on the gravestones.  Most cemeteries around here boast a number of them - and quite a few of the recipients lived a suprisingly long life too!

The Pile Decreases...

And so the long march through the Mountains of Marking continues into its final week.... Yesterday saw good progress as did today, with a mere 338 exam questions now between me and a celebratory half-pint of shandy! Managed to get out several times yesterday - for lunch, for a walk with Bella and to see "The Necks" at Bath Music Festival.  Very disappointed in them, especially after Saturday's excellent gig - so we left after the first set and came back up to our local to drink vodka and eat somosas.  I think today's assessment sessions have benefited :-)


This afternoon managed to tear myself away and went for a walk with Su up to Charlcombe church.  On the way, we saw what a neighbour really uses their garage for:-

as well as some excellent cornflowers

Walked passed Charlcombe Manor, complete with monogrammed drainpipes

And at the Holy Well, Saint Susan had an apparition (or something!).

Festival time and "the kidnapping"!

It's yet another Bath festival this week...in fact there are two....the music one and the fringe.  We went to a freebee
last night to see John Ethridge and Andy Shepherd, two of our favourite musicians. It cost nothing (a rare event in Bath I can tell you) cos it was being recorded for the a jazz programme on Radio 3 (who else??!! - for our overseas readers this radio channel usually plays classical music so is known as "posh" radio and Bath is also known as rather posh too).

It was a fantastic concert and as you can see, was very well attended....

The venue was the Assembly Rooms which are rather grand and where 18th century gamblers and dancers and diners used to hang out and spend all their filthy lucre...






But before the evening's entertainments, as you know, I kidnapped the spouse and made him have a good time at the beach......Unfortunately it was freezing cold but at least the dog enjoyed herself.

And the seaweed was good too......

Kidnapped willingly

Su told me today that I wasn't allowed to do any work, and that she was going to kidnap me to keep me away from the dreaded m*rking.  After three days of getting up at 6 am and talking to students about projects for hours, I readily accepted this proposition! So, after being forcibly confined to bed for breakfast and morning paper reading we set off on a mystery tour (not that much of a mystery really) to Brean.

 The weather was quite challenging - cloudy, windy and a cold Bank Holiday weekend day! Su still managed to wear her shades though...

Bella enjoyed herself

A geocaching event was happening there - not, as I thought at first, a stray Guardian advert!

Tonight we are off to see John Etheridge/John Horler and Andy Sheppard/John Paricelli at the Bath Music Festival, so must get ready for serious late night jazz groove, hepcats:-)!

I'M BACK!

 It's been a week of chaos - hence my lack of memory and forgetting to do the blog!  The pic above shows Steve and Kevin replacing our old plastic windows for lovely wooden sash ones.  They've been fantastic but they've also been here for 3 days which meant having to get up, take down curtains, strip bed and cover bed all before 8.15 x 3 so they could get to work pronto...all before I'd had my first cuppa (apart from this morning when Marcus very kindly made me one). But they've now finished so our home's our own again for a few days before the next batch of visitors arrive in a week or so.......

It's also been a mad house next door as the owners have been getting it ready for new tenants but didn't realise that the carpet fitters wouldn't take away the old ones! New tenants are young, in love and pregnant so not bothered about a bit of rubbish...unlike one of our readers!!!!

The house to the back of ours is having an attic conversion so lots of banging and swearing going from that direction too.......

.......so my yoga class has been a very welcome retreat this week.

"You'll have to expose me...."

So said Su when she realised that she had missed posting her blog posting yesterday.  This in response to prodding from our avid international readership, who clearly expect regular instalments from us!  I confess to also not having been blog-aware last night - tired from a day of final year student presentations.  Started today bright and early before the heavy rain with an early visit to the park, unusually devoid of parked cars because the barriers were still up from a cycling event yesterday.

Came home and Bella played with her Snoopy toy before breakfast

After that, shared a lift in with Stephen through filthy rain to talk to ten final year students about their projects.  

Some truly excellent work, and lots of staff time discussing whether one piece of work is really first class, or another is really a fail...

Managed to get a breath of fresh air mid afternoon and saw this subversive sticker...

As we finally left, met some second year students trying out a bluetooth-enabled costume for tomorrow's assessment on their Creative Process and Projects module - this is the sort of thing that I'll miss when I leave UWE!

Su should be back to posting tomorrow, and may well show you some of the great pictures she took today. Don't be too hard on her for the memory lapse:-)!

Marking Groundhog Day Again

Another day chained to the marking, with little sign of an end to it. At least today's experience of student performance was slightly less depressing than yesterday and the view was great.

Su met up with our friend Jane, and they came back this afternoon with cake - made for a welcome break from wielding my red pen, and a chance to sit in the sunshine.

After finishing today's stint of marking, I paid a brief visit to our little patch on our neighbour's allotment- beat back encroaching nettles, grass and bindweed as well as to water beetroot and mystery vegetables (not lettuce, probably not spinach, possibly broccoli - time will tell!).  Phlox and geraniums were out as well.

 
Tomorrow I get a break from marking exam scripts   - solid presentations instead will fill my waking hours for the next three days.

Sell, sell, sell!

I've been through my wardrobe, draws and laundry basket and put loads of stuff on eBay.
If I get good prices I'll treat myself to some summer clothes NOT bought at supermarkets!

Marcus has just emerged from "MARKING LAND" - he's totally unimpressed with the standard of this batch of students' work and has just said he doesn't know why he
bothered to teach them when they haven't bothered to learn/revise/do better at exams!  I hope they're not reading this............

Tomorrow I go and have blood test to check my thyroid for some explanation as to why I've put on so much weight.....Marcus thinks it might have something to do with my consumption of healthy, organic chocolate, which, as every woman knows IS NOT FATTENING!!!

One day nearer the end of my marking marathon

After a day of shredding my fingers, today has seen me chained to the red pen for marking once more, although I was allowed out on good behaviour for a few hours when we went to Westonbirt.  This morning was grey and cold:-

although the elderflowers, blackberry blossom and other flowers are coming out.

At Westonbirt, it was sunny and windy, but warmer

Even spotted the shy and retiring Crested Su...

and the Royal Oak was in the sunshine.

I have finished marking another whole pile of stuff today.  Onwards and upwards tomorrow!