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!

Underway

Hello, what day is it again? that's what my brain feels like at the moment. I have spent the entire week chained to the computer and have completed about a third of the first draft of my dissertation. It is not easy! but then I suppose its not supposed to be. I get into the writing flow and then have to backtrack to include a footnote or a reference, do a word count to make sure I am proportioning the work correctly or to slot in a suitable illustration. And never being able to include 'I' or 'we' anywhere is really, really hard as I am not the most objective person in the world. Still I have made a start and as I work I realise just how passionate I am about Felt. Its history, esp. the mythology connected to it is fascinating and its just a shame that I can only include a tiny amount in the dissertation.
As I have reached a natural break in the construction I am going to award myself the day off tomorrow. Husband has a new car coming and wants to go out for a run and boy do I need to get out of the house (be warned - expect rain!)and tonight I am going to do some sketching to get ready to do a practical piece as I also really need to stitch. Lastly I have just walked down my garden and seen 2 tiny daffodils starting to bloom so perhaps Spring really is just around the corner.

Saturday saw 4 of 'us Material Girls' going to Enfield to give a talk to the local EG. The journey was a nightmare but we eventually arrived just in the nick of time and I think a good time was had by all, we were certainly made very welcome and the response from the branch was excellent. It was really interesting when picking out the pictures to include in the powerpoint to see just how far the group has come over the last 9 years and how much the quality of the work has improved. We have now started work on our next exhibition which will, with luck, be in 2012 and will have our work cut out to raise the standard even further but I am no doubt we will manage it.
After such a busy Saturday I was rather looking forward to being pampered on Mothers Day but alas it was not to be. Having been at the bottom of the pecking order of mums , so to speak,previously I am now the only mother left in our family so I thought I might be in for a treat but mid-morning I was summoned to my daughter's room where a bleary eyed individual reached below her bed, mumbled something, thrust a card and some choc into my hand (it was nice chocolate I must admit) and then sort of went back to sleep. The husband said he would cook lunch-unfortunately he doesn't do cooking so we actually got a bit of chicken from Marks and Sparks and some peas (I won't mention what happened to the potatoes but I think they were still growing, needless to say they weren't edible). After lunch he succumbed to his cold (Men get flu, children get colds, women get on with it!) and crashed out listening to his MP3. At this point I gave up and watched The Duchess which was definitely the best part of the day.
So for the rest of this week I am going to be chained to the computer starting on the first draft of my dissertation- which, with the way everything else is going lately, is going to require considerable luck if it isn't all to sound like gobbledygook.

Fed Up

Sometimes I think that this blog is just one long list of moans and I really don't want it to be as otherwise who would want to read it but I'm really fed up at the moment.
Having just about got over the dreaded Norovirus I have succumbed to the worse cold I've had in years with a racking cough, blocked sinuses and a mouth full of cold sores. To add insult to injury I also managed to break another tooth Monday night and its taken over a week to get an appt. with my dentist to fix it as they only have a dentist there 2 days a week now (and hes a locum) which is ridiculous , so I have only been able to eat slop for the last week.
Then on Friday I spent the day trying to do some research at the British Museum who could only provide 2 felt hats and that's despite supposedly having loads on their website.
Kirsty has also taken to clubbing in a big way which means she lurches in at 1.30, even mid-week, and I always wake up as I still can't sleep properly when she's out- so I'm grumpy through lack of sleep which doesn't help when trying to get through to her that all things must be balanced and being an adult comes not only with more liberty but also with more responsibility and consideration for others!
The one highlight of the week was a day Nuno felting with Cathy Unwin and AQUA and friends.
The dissertation is interesting but I'm not really a writer so it isn't that enjoyable for me and everyone else on the course seems to managing to go off to exotic places, do interesting things and enjoy every minute whilst I just seem to work and work and work and I've only been away from Hornchurch for a week in the last 2 years.
Most of all I'm fed up with me being fed up.