All these things that I have done

Went to training at my new school on Thursday and the positive vibe definitely continues - I have a really good feeling about the move. We sorted out my application for the leadership course they want to put me on next year and they're right behind the writing assessment project I've got planned which will take forward what I've done this year. Also, on a geeky note, they want to buy me what looks like an *amazing* smart TV thing to use as my interactive board for my classroom, which would be super exciting. I really hope it arrives before the holidays so I can have a play with it over the break as it'll be quite different from what I've used before. Obviously the shiny video on the product website is always a bit misleading but it does look like I should be able to do some really quite neat stuff with it eventually, including controlling stuff on the kids screens and so on.

I am really enjoying the garden at the moment and I can't get over how much more light it gets now that we've had the horse chestnut next door cut back. It does mean that the decking is in full sun in the middle of the day though so I might have to buy a patio umbrella to sit under - it's not good for the laptop, if nothing else! Generally though, it's all looking really nice and the kittens love playing out there. They're only allowed out under supervision at the minute, but soon they'll be having their ops and then we hope to retire the litter tray - not a minute too soon!

I had the most lovely morning this morning. I started off with a cup of tea (courtesy of Alex) and a video of Tim Harford doing a TED talk in bed. Then Cassie cat came up to sit down next to me and we both enjoyed a relaxing hour or so, both occasionally stretching, shifting around slightly to stay comfortable and purring when we looked over at each other. True, she was dozing and I was reading some internets on my phone but other than that, we were completely in tune :)

I thought I would write this entry and tried to log in to DW to do it but I couldn't get it to load the main DW pages for some reason, so I had a shower and mused about posting to Google+ but in the end, it didn't feel right. G+ I can imagine using to post things I want to *share* - "look at this" type posts - but this isn't that. There's no reason at all that you should be interested in my morning lounge with my cat and obscurely, I feel like if I post it to G+ then I'm somehow asking you to be. Whereas LJ/DW is different. It's fundamentally my diary (even if I don't write in it very often). Sure, I let you read it if you want to, but I don't feel like I'm saying the same thing by posting something here. I want to record the experience and make it available, to myself if nothing else. It's the first time I've thought about what I might actually use G+ for though, so it's just about possible that it'll get more use than my moribund twitter and facebook accounts. I really shouldn't be on Facebook. I use it to friend people from work, but given that they're active, I really ought to check on it more often. Partly is aesthetic - I just can't get to like the look/layout of Facebook, although I'm not sure why. G+ is much more appealing from that standpoint but I doubt that the work crew will migrate to it, which in some ways is a good thing and probably also increases the likelihood that I'll actually use it.

You can tell it's the school holidays! I'm about to actually post and I have another post in mind already about my own personal food culture. I might try to make a New Year's resolution to actually post some diary entries again. After all, I do love looking back at the old ones - why deprive my future self of pleasure?

Project CatCam! Yes, this person has attatched a camera to his cats collar to find out what it does when it disappears! I have wanted to do this with our cats for so long! Also, I need a webcam to set up so I can watch for kitties in the livingroom while I'm at work. [via damiancugley]

So, while tidying the kitchen this morning, I heard what I thought was a rustling sound coming from the fridge. I gave it a suspicious stare, but decided that it was just things settling inside as I had just rearranged it. However, when Charlie started taking an indecent amount of interest in the gap down the side it was time to reconsider and staring fixedly down the side showed a little mouse dashing across.

For this, I blame Cassie as she used to bring live mice in a lot more frequently than dead ones so I should have guessed that she would have managed to do it a time or two here. Usually she keeps hold of them and brings them right over to me, possibly hoping to train me to hunt, but I guess this time she must have become distracted and dropped the damn thing in the kitchen.

( Alex tries to extract the mice - click for amusing pics! )

The upshot of it all is that
(a) we have a mouse in our kitchen
(b) the fridge still appears to be working and has now been pushed right back into the alcove to allow the cats enough of a gap to hunt in the area (I'm pretty much betting on them chasing it out where I can get at it)
(c) I need a humane mousetrap and
(d) we have finally found Ruth's missing D12, which had been chased under the fridge by the cats in times past, apparently. There's also the big D20 and a pink D20 under there but we couldn't get at them.

I seem to have forgotten how to use SMS to LJ temporarily so I'll repost here: Cassie returned. When I popped home last night before the gig she came in and demanded hugs and food vociferously. I guess she probably got into someones garage on Saturday night and didn't get let out until Monday morning or something like that :) All well now.

Two piccies of Charlie up the Christmas tree for you all, somewhat late, but still cute. Also, if you want to post one image from SB using plain text then going to the update page and using the Insert... dropdown list option to insert an image still works fine, thank goodness! It's a bit more of a faff if you want to add multiple images though because you just have to repeat the process.

So, Christmas approaches apace and I've already got one out of the way, having just come back from having a Christmas with my parents & brother a week early. They enjoyed their pressies lots and I got lovely things too. Then we had a fantastic leg of pork roasted by Dad and lay around all evening in a well fed stupor. Just as I'm planning this week.

We even managed to stop off in Cambridge to see Alex's sister and her boyfriend, who've got a lovely little house in Cambridge with an open fire. In fact, fires were rather a feature point of the weekend. I'm enjoying mine so far but it turns out that smokeless fuel does not burn, it only glows, which is not much fun. I'm seriously thinking I might just buy normal coal and risk getting a fine if it gets reported. After all, I'm already planning to burn the logs I've got from cutting down various things in the garden. I wonder where you can get ordinary coal in Oxford. I don't recall seeing it at B&Q but I might check tonight.

Have heard from the vet that Charlie is fine after being in today to have her tubes tied (or whatever it is that they do in there to keep her kitten-free). I felt mean forcing her into the box this morning - she's only teeny after all - but it's for her own good. They're microchipping her while she's under too so less chance of losing her, which is good. We'll have to give her lots of fuss and hugs tonight.

Another busy couple of days. Went to the Ashmolean Museum with the parents yesterday which was really nice. The collection there is so varied - they've got some wonderful art (there's a beautiful portrait of Henrietta Maria by Van Dyke (I think)) as well as a wonderful collection of Egyptian artefacts, mediaeval (the Arthur Jewel for example) and a gallery of modern Chinese painting which I've never seen before and which was beautiful. Then in the evening, we went back to the Petit Blanc. Once again, it was wonderful - a quality meal and a lovely evening was had by all.

Today was shopping day. We went into the city and I bought some of the things that I'll need for my potential cats and then we met up with some friends of Mum and Dads who were in the area (ish). We all headed off to the Ashmolean cafe for tea, sandwiches, scones and chat - very British I know :) I went into Blackwell’s with Alex and discovered that they'd finally received my copy of This Sceptred Isle the 20th Century box set so I used his discount card to snap that up (I'm listening to it in bed now - I love the delivery and attention to detail of the series. Soon, I'll be as good on 20C priministers as I am on 19C ones :) )

After that, and a brief sojourn in Borders we adjourned to the cinema to watch the Lord of the Rings. I was the only one of us (me, Alex, Mum and Dad) who hadn't seen it but the others all wanted to see it again. Although there were a couple of niggles (I wasn't sure about the way they'd done Saruman or Boromir) I thought it was great and very impressive. They'd had to chop some of the storytelling around to make the pacing suit the film better but that generally worked pretty well and the tricks they used to make the hobbits look small are not really visible at all which is pretty impressive. I also found it really scary in some places, even though I know the plot. The black riders were terrifying and the mines of Moria had me gripping Alex's hand for dear life too. I think though, that when the loud bits are making the speakers in the cinema rattle then it's too loud :)

Well, here I am - back again properly this time, with the slight proviso that I'm off work again tomorrow. Holiday this time though. I have to be in when the lady from the insurance company calls to have a look at my house. I don't quite know why they want to do this - I keep worrying that they'll find some excuse or other not to give me any money for my laptop which would be a real bugger. I don't know. Cats protection league have not got back to me about arranging the home visit yet so I'm pining about that and Sky haven't sent me the contract yet. Fret fret. Still, I did get some choccies through the post this morning from a friend of mine as a belated Christmas pressie so that's pretty cool.

Grrr. The CPL are away until Jan 2nd and NTL haven't run cable down the gravel drive/path leading up to my house so I can't have cable. Bugger.