Saturday 27 March 2010

Argh!!! Ooh! Ahhh!!!

The start of my week wasn't good. The husband suddenly told me that they were coming to change virtually all the windows on Tuesday. Nooo!!! I am up to my ears in trying to get this dissertation draft done and really having to concentrate and the last thing I need is a house full of builders needing regular cups of tea and sticking their heads around the door saying "mind if I use the loo, love?". Actually it wasn't too bad as I shut myself in the back room with the computer and the dogs and the builders were quite well behaved. This was lucky for the husband who might well have ended up stuck in one of the blasted windows if they had held me up.
On Thursday I dashed up to London to interview Heater Belcher. She had had to delay our meeting for just over an hour so I took the chance to do a quick flit around the Quilt exhibition. I have never been a great lover of traditional quilts but there were some really interesting modern ones esp. one made from steel wool (amongst other things) which the artist had made as a response to her mother's dementia which certainly struck a chord with me after the last few years. Some of the abstract ones were quite beautiful and I enjoyed standing in front of Sara Impey's and thinking 'I know her!' Fortunately as a V&A member I can go in as many times as I like for free so I'm definitely going back again.
I then met up with Heather and we had our chat in the member's lounge which I thought would be quieter for recording (wrong- when I was transcribing the tape -which took me nearly 4 hours!- you could hear every tea tray clang and every siren and in London there's a lot of those.) Heather is a delightful lady and gave me some real gold for use in my thesis, soon she off to visit Jeanette Appleton in Spain - lucky thing.
So this morning having been completely tied to the computer for the last week I decided as it wasn't raining for once to get the garden a bit tidier. With help of various animals it is looking a bit better with some joyful Pansies planted and the Camellias coming out. Working there caused me a long slow sigh of pleasure, I could breath. So next week its back down to it again as I would really like to break the back of this draft before Easter so I can get it sent off and actually have a short break- before I start barking along with the animals!

2 comments:

Heather said...

It's amazing how quickly windows can be replaced these days, they just seem to pop them out and the new ones in. What an interesting week you've had, even if a bit fraught in places. Glad the garden soothed you and good luck with the rest of your studies.

Judy Martin said...

It's great tp read about your dissertation work, Chrissy. Thanks for being so honest and interesting in your blog.