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Published: August 8th 2007
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A decent stint in Suffolk this time, and moved on with a lot more
TEFL work (thanks to Tim/Nat for letting me use their computer, as our phone line started misbehaving whilst I was in London, and still wasn’t fixed when I headed off again). I completed a lot of work on my book chapter - collating all the material into one document under sub-headings, so that I have the basic structure of my chapter in place, although I wouldn’t say that any of it was yet WRITTEN as such!
Bank Holiday Monday ended up on a very long cycle ride in pursuit of the
Guardian - determined to keep up with the Media pages at the moment… left it a bit late in the day to start looking, but ran it down in Harleston’s garage, where she was just about to pack them all away - countryside comes with very early closing hours - I’ve got too used to the city where I’d not even think about going food shopping, etc. til about 6pm!
I’d noted an advert for ‘Boot Camp’ in the local paper, and with memories of enjoyable Boot Camp in Manchester (yes, I said enjoyable,
thanks to Mark), I’d contacted
Mick Glynn, but had not been able to commit to the 12 week stint - however, he contacted saying some weeks he could offer PAYG, so 9th May, in the pouring rain, there I was for my first ever outdoors, military style Boot Camp. It was hard work, especially bearing in mind that I’ve not had many gym sessions since December, so all my upper body strength has pretty much gone… Certainly not the fastest, but didn’t come last - out of about 50 people, think there were still about 10 behind me, and I know I worked hard, so pleased with that. A nice bunch of people, and I have another 3 sessions signed up - hopefully they won’t be as wet!
I nearly didn’t want to go to Boot Camp because I’d received a book I was quite excited by -
Barbara Sher “What do I do when I want to do everything?”, which I’d received from Amazon that day (along with a John Legend CD), but I finished reading it the next morning… it just made so much sense, and makes me think I should celebrate being a generalist, rather than keep trying to specialise, although my PhD has proved that I can!
Immediately on putting down the book, I phoned
Carol Fogarty, a Life Coach from the company Vitamin C, for our pre-arranged conversation. We spoke for over an hour, and she gave my thoughts several new directions, and was very encouraging. After the conversation I wrote 6 pages of notes, and 3 actions, which I then made a start on! Very helpful - seriously consider spending the time and money on it!
13th May, I went to the Car Boot Sale at
Banham Zoo to check out how these work, and what I needed to do to prepare my material to sell at a sale soon - hope I manage to pick a sunny day! That was a very early start, and will need to be even earlier when I sell! Congratulated myself on not buying, and getting ideas about how to lay-out and price goods (less than I expected!), then made it to church in time for the 10.30 Family Service, then was invited out for lunch, which was very enjoyable! 17th May, I spent most of the day sorting through the goods I’d decided to take to the car boot sale, and decided how to price them up/display them -
and we’ll see what happens! Planning on doing it 27th May, but we’ll see what the weather’s doing! Alsohad some chats with Tim & Nat about their plans to open up their farm for Open Farm Sunday, 10th June 2007 (look for a farm near you:
http://www.farmsunday.org/farmsunday/)
A lot more cycling, running, walking and seeing family was filling the rest of my time - including continuing to watch the spring turning into Summer. I had 2 sets of jabs (getting my Hep B and Japanese Encephalitis at the moment - expensive but necessary!) - with still more to come. 14th May, I took my car in for its MoT, expecting it to need plenty of work, and wanted to ensure that it could get me to Kent at the weekend - well it is 11+ years old - and couldn’t believe that it passed with just a lightbulb needed for the number-plate, a whole 73p - amazing! No wonder people recommend
Willow Tree Cars... although I already knew that I'd used them in the past - and if they recommend you need something, experience is that you do! Came back to sorting out my goods for the Car Boot Sale, in
between reading a number of
Georgette Heyer books (again!).
16th May, my Mum had bought me a ticket to Peapickers, performed by
‘Eastern Angles’ - I didn’t know what to expect, but it was a very interesting play, and I now think I know what the Norfolk dialect sounds like (there’s a Norfolk Accent preservation society, rather than the hackneyed Devonshire that is usually used in the Media), although I found the American accent used rather painful! The main character was a mixed-race boy who’d left East Anglia for the States in the 1960s, and risen to become an eminent figure in DNA/Schizophrenia research, and come back as the keynote speaker for a Cambridge conference, decides to check out his personal history, and comes to realise that his own mother suffered from bi-polar disorder. Certain comments provided an interesting perspective on the realities on academic life, especially the sciences, which I could empathise with! Friday 18th, got in the car in the evening and headed down the A12 to Kent once more!
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