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My beloved told me I was working too hard (possibly the falling asleep all the time was a hint) – and having come off nights I’d singularly failed to actually take any time off*, and so today, that’s broadly what I’ve done. I eventually got off my arse and emptied boxes of clothes out, and endeavoured to sort them into ‘charity’ and ‘keep’. I’ve got rid of lots of tank tops that don’t really fit, skinny fit teeshirts which don’t look good on me at the moment – and are, frankly, a bit worn out. And various other things.

But other than that I’ve pretty much chilled out on the sofa, read more Three Men on a Bummel**, listened to podcasts… and thought about my desk.

See, I was talking to Nikki on Sunday about her desk – and we discussed that she’d not built a standing desk – which is kind of the new in thing, well, slightly new, slightly in. Y’know what I mean. Anyhow – she has done a big rearrangement of her home office and not ended up adding standing. Given my job, in which I’m often standing or walking much of the day (sometimes more or less the entire shift), I want a sitting desk…for those days. But I quite fancy a standing desk for the days off. Really, what I want (as usual) is both.

And then it came to me. I could perfectly well have both. My cake may be available in edible form.

I have a ridiculously cool concept in my head, which involves counterbalances, and scaffolding and funky things like that. Basically I want to use victorian sash window concepts to make it so that not only can the desk be either in the sitting or standing position, but also so that I don’t need to lift the entire weight of the thing each time I shift it. Essentially so I can get home and it be a case of me just dropping it or raising it to the position I’d like.

My brief (very brief) experiment with this says that the standing height I want is about 10″ higher than the standard(ish) sitting desk height. Unfortunately, me being me, each itteration of the desk’s design is more complex than the last and I now have a suspicion that what I want to create involves running metal cables though the inside of the scaffold poles to a central counterbalance weight***. I don’t know if I’ll actually create said object, because frankly any desk would be nice at this point, but it’s awfully tempting.

* I got home, chopped wood for my mum (with the table saw), did university work, then the day after drove all over the country with Nikki to collect my piano**** and a new wardrobe; then yesterday more uni work and moving the piano and wardrobe in (and this, unlike the last wardobe we bought, is a large and high quality bit of Edwardian furniture).

** My dad used to read me Three Men in a Boat when we went on holiday, when I read it I can still hear my dad’s voice… Kathryn spotted a double edition of Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on a Bummel – and got it for me for Xmas, which is awesome, because my dad’s copy of Three Men in a Boat was disintegrating even when I was a kid – so having one I can read that’s not damaged each time I open it, and that I’m deeply attached to, that’s very nice. Also, I’d not read Three Men on a Bummel – and it’s so far as hilarious as Three Men in a Boat.

*** I was originally thinking of counterbalance weights at each end of the desk, but the massive weight of the wooden desktop and the record deck (and potentially amp, monitor, and any other things I may be putting on there) meant that I’d need a massive weight. I will still, probably, need a massive weight, but I can hide it inside a box – or somesuch – which means it doesn’t have to be something pretty.

****

I’ve been very unmotivated to do my uni work, or indeed the house, of late. I keep planning it all, then the moment arrives, passes and I’m sat doing something else. I mention this purely because I think that they’re linked.

See, I’ve been jogging. Jogging, properly, for 3 weeks now. And I’ve cheerfully done 2-3km every couple of days. Not a lot, but enough. I’ve cleaned the bathroom, and the lounge, and the kitchen… I’ve got the stuff in from the garage to sand-and-paint. I’ve washed the work clothes (hell, I’ve done 7 loads of laundry in 2 days*).

The problem is I’m prevaricating (like I am at this moment). I think when I was thinking about my course before I started I imagined I was going to be better at managing my time than say, 22 year old me. Or than 18 year old me. It turns out I’m not. I’m just the same as I was. I put it off, wait, do other things (like this), and then finally get around to it as we near the end of the available time.

Which is broadly okay, so long as I get it done, except that… well… I’m not really managing on this bit of the course (not least ‘cos I’m a bit bored of it) and also, because the catalogue of jobs which I should be doing is getting bigger, and I’m not doing them because ‘I should be doing my coursework’. But I’m not doing my coursework because I’ll do anything else. And that’s beginning to annoy me about me. So now I’m going to sod off and do some coursework. Feh.

* Yes, it did get out of hand, but that does include several loads of work clothes and dust sheets.

So, our DSL is sickly. We don’t know where the sickness is coming from, but much testing has revealed that the main fault is either the box, or something obscure with the line. We should be getting 10Mbps, we top out at 4Mbps. However, further testing (albeit with a potentially sickly box) has revealed that our house phone ‘network’ is hurting our broadband speed. Quite a bit.

Like, from averaging 4ish Mbps on the master socket to Averaging 3Mbps on the socket on which it’s normally used.

And given the crappyness of our incoming ADSL* this is quite a concern. Unfortunately, the wires are now plastered into the wall, and I am not, come hell or high water, changing them. They also are held in place with clips under the floor in a region that’s inaccessible. And the phone wire was of reasonable quality, at least, as far as I’m aware.

So there’s a couple of things we can do. Disconnecting the ring wire, that’s something I shall probably try soon. The other plan is a bit more cumbersome, but essentially revolves around moving the router out to the utility. Whilst this actually puts it further from the incoming phone point, my thought is that I can slap the ADSL filter in-line at the master socket such that the run to the ‘phone in the lounge is filtered, and the run to the utility is ADSL only. However, this does then put a whacking great extension lead, in essence, in the way of the router.

The other option, as I see it, is to hide the router under the stairs, whence it could reach both the alarm’s power supply and the master socket. However, that means locating the never connected network cable which runs to, currently, under the floor by the master socket.

Of course, the best plan would be to go back in time, and when I was specing the house mains wiring to remember to put the mains socket next to the phone point under the fuse box. Which was my original plan. That would eliminate this problem, because I could do the filter-at-master socket trick, and not be stuck with either no power cable, or no network cable, which is where I’m at at the moment. Bother.

* All this is because I don’t like Virgin’s position on things like privacy. And I don’t want to give (B)Sky(B) any money, ever.
** Sort of

So, we made this after we had the first failure with cooking that we’ve had for a very long time*, as we contemplated what to have for Christmas Breakfast, Kathryn suggested pancakes – which I made, and Orange Sauce, which she made. Excuse the mixed measures, but we run a kind of anglo-american kitchen and use cups/weights/litres/fl oz interchangeably, depending on what’s handy.

For the pancakes:
75g Plain white flour
75g Wholemeal flour
1/4 cup chopped pecans / pecans and hazelnuts
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1 tsp. Baking powder
2 tbsp. Caster Sugar
Pinch salt (we tend to use virtually no salt in our cooking, you may want more)
~ Two tablespoons melted butter (allowed to cool a bit)
~140ml milk
One egg, beaten.

Extra butter to cook in (or veg oil if you want to be a teeny bit healthier)

Mix the dry ingredients *EXCEPT* blueberries in a large bowl. Keep aside the blueberries for later.
Mix the egg, milk and butter together, add to the dry ingredients and whisk until a smooth batter with roughly the consistency of whipping cream (heavy cream) is obtained. Add milk if the mixture is too thick.

Heat a small amount of butter in a frying pan on a low-moderate heat . Pour ~1/4 cup pancake batter into the pan; as soon as the batter is in the pan drop 3 or 4 blueberries into the batter in the pancake mix in the frying pan. Flip over when small holes appear in the top surface of the batter and fry briefly on the other side.

We keep our pancakes warm in a low oven – and using a large frying pan we can fry 3 or 4 simultaneously :)

For the Sauce:

1/2 Pint Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice
5-6 Tbsp. Caster Sugar
A ‘splash’ of Brandy
1/2tsp. Cornflour.

Mix the Orange Juice, Caster Sugar and Brandy together and heat over a high heat until boiling gently and stirring regularly. Maintain a low boil to reduce it down. When down to ~1 cup add the cornflour and stir until dissolved a smooth syrup is obtained.

Pour over buttered pancakes and serve hot.

* I say we, mostly me. We were trying to make the hairy bikers hollandaise sauce. I don’t know quite what went wrong – I’m guessing that despite our best efforts it was too hot – and the metal bowl we were using transferred heat better than the bain-marie you’re meant to use. Anyway, what we made was basically butter with ultrafine scrambled eggs in butter. Twice.

So, just a quick Xmas update. We had a lovely, if strangely tiring Xmas. Spent a very chilled out day eating pancakes*, opening presents in front of the fire** and eating rich foods. We have a vast amount of very tasty eggnog left over, and quite the best presents in the world. Indeed, I have a Tetris cushion (made by Kathryn) for the car to replace the scabby old pound shop filling-only cushion I’ve been using. And some quite lovely presents from Kathryn’s mom. Indeed, between Kathryn’s mom and my mum I now have actual smart casual clothing which I’m very tempted to wear :)

Anyway, I must make uni work happen (since I unilaterally*** took Xmas Eve off).

* Post to come with actual recipe. Yes, we’re branching out!
** Love the fire!
*** Heh. Oh, okay, it amuses me.

Just for me, so as I know how insane I am:

– Finish Masters
– Finish House (mainly Stairs / Kathryn’s Office / Bathroom, also floor in utility, building my desk, assisting Kathryn with the shelves wherever she wants assistance, a few small jobs in Kitchen)
– Finish painting garage, sort crap in there and build shelves
– Fix motorbike
– Fix Enfield EV
– Fix BluRay player
– Fix Dead Bug Jumping record deck
– Install Speakers, Parrot gidget and ‘interior’ in RebeccaMog
– Paint outside of house

I think that’s “it”. I think, perhaps, I should stop taking on new jobs.

1) MPs should not receive a second home allowance of any sort. A ‘residence’ should be maintained for all MPs in London which is provided free. I suggest a nicely renovated towerblock. MPs continue to pay full council tax on their current properties.
2) MPs & senior civil servants should not be allowed to be employed in any private industry in which legislation passed by them or their department has direct impact for 10 years following the last provision being enacted from that legislation.
3) Green energy and sustainability. All the money currently given as tax breaks and subsidies to large corporations pulled and reinvested in green energy and sustainability projects.
4) A proper, integrated public transport system.
5) A-political reform of healthcare (removing it from the government’s direct control, but maintaining the requirement for universal provision of public healthcare).
6) Change corporate law to require not just a a duty to shareholders, but also a duty to the environment in their actions.
7) Using deliberately misleading or incorrect statistics in a debate or to promote a policy or legislation results in

• a requirement for an apology on the floor of the house
• the policy or legislation, if passed, immediately being repealed and returned for a fresh debate

8) Council tax on second homes? Charged at 1.5x standard rate (rather than no council tax). My experience of second homes? They kill the villages they appear in.
I’m sure there’s more. Just some immediate thoughts.

So, I’ve completed the wild stabbing in the dark that is my ‘blog’ component of this module. I’m not very happy with it, because whereas last time I sort of managed to shoe-horn in a literature review of sorts, this one had 8 questions (well, 8 questions, but one had 3 sub parts) which, realistically, I can’t be expected to do 8 literature reviews for (not in 4 weeks).

Not only that but it had ‘Describe’ questions. Describe isn’t masters level thinking. Evaluate, explore, examine? All of them I can do. Describe, though? Well it’s just describing innit. I can describe it and vaguely compare it to other things, but it doesn’t feel very…well, it doesn’t feel enough.

I’ve done it though, and got some positive remarks on some of the postings. I’ll probably poke at it a little tomorrow – with the space of an evening off to allow it to mull in my head (like wine).

Next week, the next section starts, and assuming that I’m well enough I’m planning to get back to doing the house. It’s been quite upsetting having time off and being relegated to the couch. Apart from the fact my back is really not very impressed with me sitting on the sofa and-or bed all day and night, and the rest of me is yearning for outsideyness, the kitchen is so close. So close. I can taste it.

Also, we are having our splash-out piece of artwork delivered in January (I hope) which means that ideally, we should have finished painting the bit of the house in which it’s supposed to hang by then. Also handy, since we have picture rails, would be a picture rail hanging system – not least because we’d quite like some of our paintings and pictures up and hanging on our somewhat blank walls.

So, let’s get one thing straight, I’d like to be well so that I can:
– Put the skirting (baseboard) on the walls in the kitchen and hall.
– Put the picture rail up where it’s missing in the kitchen.
– Touch up the paint.
– Seal the sink and replace the drainer on our kitchen sink with one that has an overflow.
– Level the sink with the worksurface.
– Repoint and paint the grotty bit of wall.
– Hang the painting.

Then, in a change to advertised plan (which was, I think, Kathryn’s office and the Bathroom then the stairs)
– Sand the last few bits of filler in the stairwell that need sanding.
– Drill the holes to mount the phone downstairs (we have an A-B Payphone (sadly without the nice chrome bits for the free police calls) which needs installing).
– Paint the right hand wall and all of upstairs
– Reattach the heater downstairs (because it’s bloody cold and our heating is struggling without it – this job may get done out of sync).
– Strip off the last bit of the other wall downstairs, fill and paint.
– Paint that and the downstairs ceiling.

…then it’s just Kathryn’s office (strip, fill, paint), the bathroom (strip, fill, paint, install shower and shower curtain, lift floor and replace then tile), and my desk that need doing. Oh, and the bookshelves. Uh. I think that’s it. Oh, and painting the inside of the garage which has gone distressingly furry (untreated ply on the internal walls). And sorting the garage which is, it must be said, a hideous disaster area.

Yeah, so not much.

But some of that? Some of that before January.