themis1

Since I am doing research myself at present, when asked to take part in a piece of National medical research, I felt obliged to turn up, as indeed did one of my neighbours, thus proving I suspect that they set appointments by postcode order!

Anyway, I scored 100% on snap and not nearly so well on 'pairs' (my eyesight is too poor to take in the detail in the time allowed) and, needless to say, was judged overweight. Very. No surprises there, then.

The nurse taking the blood sample gave me the usual askance look when I cheerfully advised her to not even think about using anything except the butterfly, but after 10 minutes of poking and prodding admitted defeat and got one out of the drawer. I smirked triumphantly. She then proceeded to take SIX vials of blood.

I have therefore concluded that Biobank is a cover for a very clever sect of British vampire.

PS On the PhD front, in one week I have got back nearly 100 completed questionnaires ... who says policemen won't fill in forms?!

... today from the university computer room, which we found by being very British and asking everyone we met until someone sent us to the right room.  It snowed again overnight, so everything was crisp this morning, but the pavements are mostly slushy now.  The sky in the mornings is beautiful and blue, by midday it starts to cloud over, and by mid afternoon it's usually snowing.  The keyboard here has all kinds of extra letters in, so if you get a ö or a ü or a õ in the middle of a word, it'll be because I keep getting those characters instead of the ones that are usually there!

I think I have a cold, but it's hard to tell as it disappears when I go out in the cold!

Nothing else to report, really - how are things in England, anyone?!

 December has gone in a flash, really.  We've been busy at work, and I do like to try and get things at least moving in the right direction before packing up for the festive break.  One or two things didn't get done, but on the whole I feel reasonably happy with the state of play. I was doing quite well on the 'throwing things away' front, too, until we got a huge delivery of packages which, for lack of space elsehwere, got stacked in front of my filing cabinet until the New Year - !

I haven't done anything at all on the PhD front other than collect more paper - but I now have a week off, so hopefully some of that will find its way into files.  If I can just get some order into the chaos, everything else should follow naturally (she laughed).

The unusually warm Autumn has meant we have a rose in bloom in the garden for Xmas - actually with the freezing fog the last few days I think it's freeze-dried, but nonetheless!  The heron I've seen once before passed by again this morning, which was nice as Phoebesmum and Wannabedolphin saw it too.  It must live in the area - last time I saw it I just thought it was lost!

We are now just about ready for Xmas - the turkey's in the freezer (well, the turkey breast, there only being two meat eaters), the vegetables are all over the place, and there's the usual abundance of twiglets, cheese and crackers around the place.  I've nearly finished the wrapping, and tinsel has been draped over everything that doesn't move (the cats narrowly escaped).

I never did get into Neverwinter Nights 2, I'll have to give it another go at some point, got back into Neverwinter Nights 1 instead - and I must check up on some of the downloads!  Have also discovered Dragonfable, a free (or very cheap, you get benefits from a one-off payment) game which plays in the browser.  Silly, simple and great fun.

My passing gentleman hasn't managed to get here in time for Xmas so one of my pressies will be late this year, he had flu and then his daughter's car broke down, so there went the week before Xmas ...

No other news - merry Xmas to all my readers!!

I would probably do more entries in here, but my proper computer's version of Microsoft ME has developed a fault so I can't send any messages from it to the internet. It'll let me do e-mail now, but every time I try to log in to LJ, Explorer falls over. I really, really hate Bill Gates, as anyone who knows me is well aware. If new computers came with a copy of the operating system, I could have reinstalled. But no. And upgrading to 2000 would be a major task because I'd have to track down and download the drivers for all the peripherals.

So, I can only update if I wind up the laptop, which ought to happen more often now I've started the PhD since I need to log on to the University 'blackboard' and download a bunch of reading.

Except ... these 2 weeks are about as hectic as it gets. I have meetings every day, a 2-day trip to Belfast for the ACPO Youth Conference (more a case of seeing and being seen than anything else) and a Workforce Day organised with 60 people signed up and the presentations not even written yet. Oh yes, and a special education needs conference in Brighton I was asked to do a workshop at, which I haven't written yet, either. I sure hope I can wing it on the day.

So, this week starts at 8:30 at Bicester Nick, meeting the schools officer who's coming to the SEN conference with me to discuss a plan of attack. Then in to the office for a team meeting, and the rest of the day to (a) work on presentations and (b) reread the paper on YOTS I wrote a month back before ...

Tuesday, 8:30, BCU Commanders' meeting, discuss said paper. Oh, and find out if they want me to look for some money to fund Local Safeguarding Children Boards.

Wednesday, a slightly later start, phew, 10:00 at Bicester Mags Court for the Local Criminal Justice Board sub-group on youth, but after which ... straight to Brum airport to catch the plane to Belfast ...

And back in time for the weekend ... which I suspect I will have to spend working or I won't be ready for the following week!!

So, PhD ...? Other than the shape of it developing in my head, not a lot of work.

For anyone who's interested, the week at Luton was a bit of a roller-coaster. I arrived feeling quite smug, having got an e-mail from the Chief agreeing a piece of work I'd done, and another from the Chair of the Police Authority inviting me to a meeting. Concluded very quickly I was the least intelligent and worst read person present, and then some - there are six of us currently on the course, although there seemed to be some question about that (others may join us), five of us are female which I found a little surprising. Two YOT Managers, both very erudite and experienced, and a number of other equally busy, intelligent people. And me. Oh well ... I've only paid for the first year, so if I fail to produce anything workable I've only lost £3,000 and at least I'll know I've tried. At any rate I got very good at navigating the various one-way systems in Luton, and could find my way straight to the car park nearest the University and straight out again at the end of the day, and I even found a pleasant cross-country route that cut out a lot of potential traffic jams.

In other news, Men & Motors look to be stopping showing Miami Vice at ep 85 or thereabouts, very irritating when I wanted a decent copy of Jeff's ep. His 'She Spies' ep however should come up week after next, however I'll be in Brighton ... although I'm sure Phoebesmum will tape it for me, even though it clashes with Veronica Mars.

That's it for now, gotta go shopping!