would you just look at that

I've had rather a sense of deja vu today.

This afternoon I picked up my thesis and handed it in for the final time. It felt rather different to when I handed it in the first time. I didn't have the same sense of 'good riddance!', more a sense of tying up loose ends, which is much more satisfying.

Of course, I was met with rather a lot of bureaucratic nonsense and form-filling that left me so frustrated and feeling so flat that I just *had* to go to the museum cafe, and then couldn't help but burst into tears when they told us they were closing... But, you know, it's been an emotional day!

Still, I'm smiling again now, and as I went looking for that blog post about handing the thesis in the first time round, I ended up ambling through a whole load of other posts about the PhD too. It's actually quite interesting to have your life compartmentalised according to little blog post tags, and I rather laughed at some of the stuff I came across.

For a start, I sounded every so sensible after I was told I'd need to spend another year writing. I'm sure I've done a whole load more childish tantrum throwing in the months since then! And I found this cheery post, about what I was going to do after the PhD, which set me all to thinking about what I *was* doing after the PhD, and how I really want to sit down and think about some nice shiney new goals for the coming months.

Out of those goals I wrote back in August 2009, it's nice to see I've actually achieved a few. I've got a lovely new job, which uses the PhD, and is fabulous and interesting and worthwhile. I was 2 days a week for a while, and now it's full time, which I said back then I didn't want, but which has its advantages, especially since it's only temporary. I've written on this blog a little more, although I'm not sure I can say it's been consistent or regular just yet.

Oh, and there's a mention of those trapeze lessons again...

One thing I've been planning to do for a while, but don't think I've mentioned yet, is this course. Entirely frivolous and unnecessary, but what fun! And really, after the last 7 years, I'm very much feeling in need of a few weeks of 'living 'meditation' of presence, aliveness and cheery connection'.

bravo!

Look at that blue sky! Those tulips! That newly painted bright yellow kitchen wall! I always wanted a yellow kitchen, and now I've got one, hooray!

I've been full of the joys of spring today, and thoroughly ignoring the howling wind and rain (or rather, using it as an excuse to wear my wellies...). And what's the source of all this jollity and cheeriness??

Why, the end of the PhD, that's what.

Yep, that's right, after 7 years and 4 months, I've finally finished.

And my goodness, it feels great. I'm quite giddy with it all. It's been rather difficult to concentrate today.

Tonight we will mostly be drinking champagne, planning a party, and looking forward to the first weekend for 7.5 years when I will be able to do whatever I want, without the underlying feeling that I should be doing something else.

As I said, it's jolly exciting!

I'm looking forward to so many things. Gardening, for one. Baking. Drinking tea with people I haven't seen in a while. Drinking tea with people I see all the time. Sewing. Lying around and doing absolutely nothing. Reading. Running. Lazing around in the bath until I go wrinkly.

Oh, and I seem to remember that A Long Time Ago I promised myself trapeze lessons when I finally got to the end of all this...

Hmm.

Let's just concentrate on the Women's Institute in the morning, shall we??

for today...

FOR TODAY
Outside my window... the snow is slowly thawing, and freezing, and thawing and freezing. It's dark, and the air is cold.
I am thinking... about hot chocolate, and blankets, and just *how many* things I have left to do
I am thankful for... a roof over my head, and central heating, and hot water. Very thankful.
From the learning rooms... the pile of 'nearly done' phd chapters is growing. I'm aiming for a full, decent draft (again!) before Christmas. And I might just make it.
From the kitchen... pancakes. again. Much as I'd love to be making biscuits, and mince pies, and festive cakes, the focus is all on the phd. I'll appreciate it in the end, I'm sure.
I am wearing... more clothes than is reasonable in a centrally-heated house. And a scarf. And a blanket. And a hot water bottle.
I am creating... plans, and following them through, in a feat of organisation I don't think I've ever witnessed in myself before. I wonder if it will last?
I am going... nowhere right now, if I can help it. I don't *need* to be anywhere until Wednesday (and then I need to be in London, which is pretty far away right now given all this snow...) But until then, small, walking-distance, local journeys only, to the cafe, the charity shop, the library, the fields for some fresh air...
I am reading... chapter drafts, over and over and over, and encouraging words about writing, from people who know better than me
I am hoping... that the snow melts enough for us to be able to go on holiday. I'm not sure I can bear not having a holiday *again*. So please, clear roads, or at the very least, a functional rail network... please...
I am hearing... the central heating, and an occasional plunk as a bit of snow melts from the roof
Around the house... piles of things that should be somewhere else. Things are getting a little free-and-easy in the tidying up department this week... but that will have to change, we're having friends round for festivities at the weekend!
One of my favorite things... hot chocolate, and a hot water bottle, and a blanket, and a sofa (oops, that's four things)
A few plans for the rest of the week: writing, and reading and rewriting. Maybe a little dancing. Tea and cake. A trip to the dentist (possibly connected to the cake...). The last of the Christmas preparations. A small and festive gathering of friends.
Here is picture for thought I am sharing...

Just to remind myself that the snow really is beautiful, and that there's exciting things waiting around the corner...

Join in with the simple woman's daybook here

out with the old...

the sunshine and the rain clouds

wildflower seeds to plant in the garden

Yesterday was my last day at work. No fanfare, no speeches, just a couple of quiet goodbyes, and a copy of the new Rose Elliot cookbook.

It felt strange walking away after three years. Not strange enough to want to go back, mind you. And by the time I'd walked home via the new Food Glorious Food exhibition at the museum (of which more later), I'd almost forgotten about work altogether. Amazing what a good walk can do.

So far this month my main job has finished, the casual work I do has come to an end, and I've finished working on one of my voluntary projects. This was all part of the plan, but it does rather feel like obligations and commitments are dropping out of my life at a rate of knots.

Which, I'm discovering, is a rather nice feeling.

It's even looking like this PhD might just be finished one day.

So what have I done with my first free day? Nothing out of the ordinary. Had breakfast in bed. Went to the post office. Visited some friends and spent a long time looking at knitting patterns. Comtemplated the completely outlandish prospect of altering knitting patterns. Ate biscuits. Drank tea. Walked home through the fields. Planted wildflower seeds. Made flapjack. And curled up on the sofa with a cuppa. Just an ordinary day.

Back to work tomorrow though. The serious business of being a full time student again, for a whole three weeks. And there's plenty to fill the time with.

There are a few more cheery little projects on the cards for the next couple of weeks though. A new knitting adventure. A bit of cycling. A couple of fabulously patterned sheets just waiting to be turned into fabulously patterned skirts. Being Rock Star Girlfriend at Peter's exciting new project tomorrow evening. A weekend picnic in the lake district.

So it's not going to be all work...

Judgement and acceptance

I've been stopped in my tracks a bit this week. My PhD viva (oral exam) was on Thursday, I didn't come out with the result I was hoping for...

I've been writing the PhD for so long (six years!), and I've had so many emotions about the process and the thing itself, that this almost felt a bit flat. I've felt elated, crushed, frustrated, annoyed, incompetent, useless, grumpy, grumpy, grumpy about this thing, but whatever I've been feeling, it's been such a big part of my life for so long, it was hard to believe it was ever going to go away. Finally, it seemed like the end was near - and now it's been pushed just that little bit further away again.

This isn't the place for details, but suffice to say the examiners didn't like what I'd written. This is always one of the problems with putting something out there into the world, there will always be people who don't like it, it's just annoying when the people who don't like it are the people who are there to officially pass judgement.

It would have been easy to stomp on Thursday afternoon, to set fire to my thesis (oh, how many times did I threaten to do just that in the last six years??), to slam a couple of doors, or to burst into tears. I actually managed to do none of those things, and in fact behaved impeccably, no tantrums, no tears, no bitterness, and a genuine sense of congratulations for the other woman who was being examined in the room next to mine (and who passed).

We all went for a drink together, us two examinees, our supervisors, other students in the department, and the other woman's examiners (my goodwill didn't quite extend to inviting my examiners to the pub...) We had a nice evening, and we came home worn out and only a little bit tipsy.

There's plenty of people I could blame, justly or unjustly, for this daft old situation I now find myself in. My supervisors, for example, for thinking my thesis was ok when it wasn't, my examiners, for thinking my thesis wasn't ok when it was, the whole system of PhD-ing for making one set of people's judgements matter over another set of people's, myself, for not doing it properly in the first place...

However, I'm a cheery soul, and not much given to self pity and bitterness. Peter's dad says 'deal with things as they are, not as you'd like them to be', and I think that's pretty wise advice. Attitude is everything in situations like this. I might not like what they said, I might not at all like the fact that I now have to spend several more months writing something I thought would be out of my hair by now, but that's the way it is, so we'll take it from there and move forwards.

So, in the spirit of cheery acceptance, let me list the things about this I'm grateful for, rather than the things I'm annoyed about. I'm grateful that the viva itself felt like a positive chat at the time, rather than an inquisition (whatever I think when I look back on it!). I'm also very grateful I don't have to do it again. The last few months of writing were rushed, so I'm grateful for the opportunity to spend a bit more time exploring things I hadn't quite got my head round.

I'm grateful that, since there's work to be done, I've got a whole year to do it, rather than a few weeks, even if I'd rather be spending that year doing something else. I'm grateful for the support that my friends and family have shown, being positive when I've needed it, and also letting me let off steam a bit when I needed to do that. I'm grateful for another year of cheaper train travel and council tax discount...

And I'm also grateful that I was able to whizz off to Bristol on Friday and spend the weekend with some lovely friends and their children, in the welcoming chaos of the new home they've just moved into. A bit of discussion, and a lot of singing and playing and messing around and getting wet and looking at colourful things and crafty things and eating cake was just what I needed :)

Now I've come back, it's dawning on me just how little time there is left before Christmas. I've got a couple of pictures of things I've made to show you, but that can wait for a different post. Christmas decorations up after work tomorrow, I reckon, then I might start with tiny glimpses of Christmas-presents-in-progress... Can't wait!

Back to reality

Well, here it is..

Not entirely sure how it took me 6 years, but there we are! I did hardly anything other than write, eat and sleep for the whole of October, and so far November has mostly involved working, coughing, sneezing and resting.

I'm slowly starting to re-enter the 'real world' now (whatever that means). So far, it's meant strolling over the hills looking at the scenery...

Trying to see the positives of leaving the house for work at 7.30am...

Appreciating that our city air is clean enough for lichen...

And generally stomping through leaves and loving the colours...

I've slowly started sewing again this week too, and if the sun ever shines for long enough when I'm in the house with a working camera, I'll take some photos. I've got lots of plans for Christmas presents too, which will be underway soon... And I'll be heading back out into the garden this weekend - I've already been out and picked some last minute tomatoes which are ripening on the windowsill.

All in all, I've breathed a huge sigh of relief at having got to the end of this writing extravaganza. It's been a long, hard slog, and even though I willingly started it in the first place, there's been many times I've wished I hadn't... I'm grateful for the opportunity, and if you ask me in another six months, I might even say I enjoyed it, but for now, I'm trying not to think about it at all.

I've started lifting my head up again and taking notice of what's around me - in the kind of housework, bank account, overgrowing garden, late birthday presents kind of a sense... So if you're waiting for me to do something that I should have done and haven't, then it's (probably!) on the list and I'll get round to it very soon! I'll have more to say about work, money, making things, growing things, and undoubtedly lots of other things very soon...

So, gardening, sewing, dancing, music, eating, more sewing, more dancing, and a bit of cake is on the cards for the weekend I reckon :)

Squeezing it in

Well, I'm bored of posting pictures of computers and laptops and piles of books and paper. That's what I look at all day every day (or that's what it feels like!), so I'm going with a few pictures of nice things for a while, and forgetting about the work, although obviously there's still a lot of that going on! 

So here's what I'm appreciating this week: 

Sunshine streaming into a (relatively tidy!) living room...

And, as ever, a gorgeous early morning walk over the hills... 

Sometimes I just can't believe how gorgeous this place is that we live in... 

Yesterday involved a good, old fashioned bit of spontaneity, which always rejuvenates me. Peter had his first gig with the Angel Brothers, who he's playing with for a few gigs this autumn. I couldn't go, it was in another town, Peter took the van, and left early afternoon, with me left at home working. 

At first, I was appreciating the solitude and peace and quiet :) I got a fair bit of work done, and planned an evening of more work, a bit of tidying up, and dozing off in front of a nice film. Then, as the afternoon wore on I started thinking about how nice it would have been to be there, and (and this does show just how mad I was going temporarily) whether it would be feasible to cycle there (the answer? It's 25 very hilly, dangerous miles over the moors, and it was on the verge of going dark, so no.)

Just as I was starting to get annoyed, a friend rang up to see if I wanted a pint. Somehow (must have been my lucky night) I managed to persuade him to drive us both to the gig! So a quick pasta tea, into some glad rags, and a drive over to a most marvellously excellent pub, The Globe for a fabulous evening of music and dancing and gorgeous friendly loveliness. 

The evening ended in the garden, with music and singing, and a very cold couple of hours kip in the back of the van. It's not all glamourous... 

Working and relaxing day 1

... working...

... and relaxing...

The end is nigh...

Most of my time is spent writing these days. I should consider myself lucky! I do consider myself lucky. Although it does feel a bit much at the minute. I've got three weeks of PhD left. Three weeks. After five years (or four, or six, depending on what you count), three weeks seems like nothing. 

And so I'm abandoning pretty much everything else to get it done. I'm trying not to think about the sunshine I'm missing while I'm staring at the computer screen... but this is all temporary... 

And I have managed to sneak a little bit of fun in the last week:

... picking blackberries

... and making a few pies

... harvesting the broad beans (yep, this is the entire broad bean harvest from our garden)

Anyway, I thought a little mini blog project might help me keep sane over the next three weeks. I've taken (stolen?? call it a tribute...) the idea from Heather's morning and night series, but since what I need to be doing at the minute is working and relaxing, that's what I'll call it. 

Each day (or as close as I can manage), I"ll post a working picture and a relaxing picture. Just to keep me on track, and make sure that I'm doing both :) So here we go:

... working - in the university library

... relaxing, with garlicky goodies from a friend for watering her plants - including this cucumber

So, let's see how it goes, shall we? 

Saturday pondering

Well, we finished off those tasty buns for breakfast in bed this morning, a tranquil start to a busy day. They were just right, and I'm glad we didn't give into temptation and eat them all yesterday... 

Today's been a bit of an all-over-the-place day. I'm writing, writing, writing at the minute. Or rather, trying to... Isn't it funny all the little games you play with yourself to make things exciting? (or is that just me??). Last night I scheduled out an entire itinerary for today, as if I was at some kind of event, with specific time slots for work, divided into specific activities for each slot. There was time for gardening (including reading a gardening book...), time for a bit of house keeping (yes, it does happen occasionally round here, increasingly often), and time for writing a thoughtful and considered blog post at the end of it all (hmm...). 

Well, I pretty much stuck to it. It was actually nice having that piece of paper telling me what to do. I got in a nice walk this morning to water a friend's green house plants, being horrified when I got there that I had ONLY watered the greenhouse the other day, and hadn't done the pots in the front garden, which were all dried up and looking incredibly thirsty... I'll offer to replace those if they haven't perked up by tomorrow! Lesson learned about slowing down and paying more attention... 

I've spent a lot of time sitting in the garden, working, eating, reading, drinking tea. I love these old green glasses, they make me feel like a princess drinking out of a goblet :) 

And I spent a lot of time sitting on the concrete path of the garden, writing and staring...

I'm finding it so difficult to concentrate on finishing this PhD. It's just not where I want to be any more. Well, not right now, I can see that with six months distance from it I might feel differently! :) 

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about what I want life to look like afterwards. After all, I've been doing this for six years, full time, and while I've also been working two days a week for most of the last two years, other than that I've had quite a lot of freedom. No set office hours, being able to work at home in my nightie, taking the laptop to a cafe, or a pub, or a field. I've met some wonderful, wonderful people, from all over the world, who I treasure dearly, and will keep in touch with. I've had opportunities I would never have had otherwise, I travelled on the Orient Express from Paris to Vienna, stayed in Denmark for three weeks, visited Stockholm, London many times, Austria, Sweden, Norway... 

And I've learned a lot about myself along the way too. I've moved house three times during the last six years, been in two different (very different) relationships, got an allotment and given it up, paid off the credit card I ran up with work expenses, which just then wouldn't go away, worked three jobs on top of the PhD - all at once for a while! Things change - I used to work better in the mornings, these days I don't seem to be able to get going til 3pm.  I've learned I don't deal very well with a huge project hanging over my head that I can't switch off and forget about. Often I switch off all to easily, and the wrong moments... 

I don't want to spend any more of my days staring at a computer screen. Oh, I don't mind a little bit of that... :) But not all day, every day. I don't want to be constantly worrying about something every time I leave work for the evening. I do not want to work for someone else five days a week. I want to spend time with my hands in flour, warm water, soil, in that order ;) 

When I started this blog on Boxing Day last year, I think I thought it'd be a place to put photos of the garden as I gradually tamed it as a place to sit, eat, and grow. I thought I'd look at it, and probably Peter, and maybe my mother. Well, Peter reads every entry I write, and so does my mother :) And I've picked up a few other people along the way too, which I'm thoroughly grateful for. 

One of the unexpected things that happened was that I wanted to do things so I could put photos up here. Perhaps not the right reason, you might think! But really, it's ok. It made me stop staring at the computer for an hour and do some knitting, sewing, baking, gardening, or whatever for a while instead. It made me decide to have a go at making all the presents I give this year. It made me start soaking dried beans instead of buying tinned, making my own yogurt, making soap, stop using shampoo (more on this another time...), and see my home more as somewhere to be, rather than somewhere to live. To see that they're the same thing. 

I've spent plenty of time reading other people's blogs, and learned so much from them. I'm just not sure how much I would have made the effort to put some of those things into practice right now, with everything else so busy, if I didn't have my own little corner of the blogging world. I think mostly, I've learned so much from Rhonda's blog, where she's got fabulous tutorials on making soap, yogurt, and just about everything else. Rhonda, I've read your posts on time management over and over and over these past few weeks, and I try to put some of the things in practice. Isn't it wonderful how you 'meet' all these people you never would get in contact with otherwise?? I'm trying to add slowly to my blog reading sidebar thing, I have no idea what the etiquette of these things is, so be patient!

Anyway, this post wasn't meant to be about how much I love having a cheery little blog, or how much I love other people's blogs. It was meant to be about how I've decided on a few things to prioritise over the next few months. In the next month - finish the phd (tough one, that!), without going completely bonkers and neglecting everything and everyone else in my life. Make sure I get enough exercise, and it's all going to be walking at the minute rather than anything more strenuous. And I think we'll be trying to make more of a shift towards organic/local food in the coming weeks, we'll see. 

Before Christmas? Because that's always a nice end point for some goals :) I'd like a new job, please :) Two or three days a week, with maybe another day volunteering somewhere cheery (I've got my eye on a few places). It'd be nice to use the PhD, of course, or at least some of what I've learned! But I don't want to, and don't need to, work full time doing that (and yes, I do consider myself lucky), so we'll see what turns up. I'd like to start writing on this blog consistently and regularly. Oh, and trapeze lessons. Yes, trapeze lessons, because that's what I promised myself as a do-something-completely-different-present when the PhD was finished. I might only have one, I'm not a huge fan of heights, but I have to have a go... 

So, there we have it. A huge waffly blog post full of appreciation for most things, slightly less appreciation for others (ahem, PhD, ahem), and a few goals to be keeping us going. And a nice picture of the view from the concrete path this afternoon... 

Budgeting, and a bit of handmade goodness

I made these little cash purses today, partly inspired by Heather's post about budgeting. I had a proper budget for a while, when I was trying to make sure I had enough money for two months off work. I used the envelope system, putting each bit of money into a plastic cash bag from the bank. 

The system kind of dropped off when I actually stopped working, ironically enough. Not going to work seemed to save me spending quite a lot anyway (hmm....), and I just got lazy. Now I've been off for a few weeks, with the prospect of being off for a few more (fingers crossed...), it's about time to instigate the system again. 

But those plastic bags just weren't inspiring enough. So here are the little purses. Not really robust enough to carry round all the time, but that's not what they're designed for. The one with the birds and flowers on is for the garden budget (of course). The pink one with the stars is for cheery things. The one with the leaves on is for food. And the butterfly one? For emergencies. No link at all, just liked the fabric :)

I'll do a more sensible post about the difficulties I've had with budgeting, and what I'm learning, another day, I just wanted to show off my lovely little 'envelopes' that I'm so pleased with. 

And, while we're talking about home made things... this Cheerful Dragon (yes, that's his name) arrived in the post the other day. 

My sister had asked my 3 year old nephew what he thought Peter would want for a birthday present, and he said "I think he'd like a dragon". Of course he would :) It's got pride of place on the kitchen windowsill, feet planted in basil plant pots, and very happy he is too. 
And for no reason at all... this is the garden bench when I arrived home this afternoon. I love, love, love the late afternoon sunshine on the water on that bench. I'm so glad I painted it blue, it makes me smile every time I open the door :) 

And from one enthusiastic colour to another... this is where I found myself planted at 9pm tonight, staring, as I have done for most of the day, at the computer screen. Bleurgh. But got to keep writing, for the time being at least, and this cosy corner of the attic sometimes even makes it seem alright. 

A spot of gardening

I've been out in the garden tonight, after another week of staring at a computer screen. A bit of repotting of some basil (look at that purple ruffle basil!), and some harvesting of herbs, which are taking over the garden. I'm really pleased about this, with such a small garden it's hard to find any crop that we could grow all our needs of, but with herbs we can, and these ones my mum bought a few months ago have really done well. I'm going to try freezing a few.

The cabbage was a bit of a surprise. I'd planted it last year, put it outside ready to pot out, and then completely forgot about it. This spring it started to grow again, after being completely ignored for months and months. Planted it in the garden, and just got round to harvesting some (slug eaten) leaves this evening. We're having it for tea tonight, although so far it's tasting a bit tough and bitter. Maybe I should have picked it a bit earlier... 

Anyway, in the midst of all the work this week, there have been some lovely times too. My old office mate, who started his PhD at the same time as me, graduated this week. Another friend who now lives in Durham visited, and we had a lovely evening of catching up. Last night I spent some time at a friend's wedding, then had a late night cuppa with another couple of friends. And today we sat by the river at Bakewell, drinking tea and reading. How lovely, and just what I needed. 

I got a bit bogged down in tidying up this afternoon, but fortunately remembered just in time to stop and blow a few bubbles. 

There should always be time for some silly fun! 

Busy, busy...

Gosh, it's been a busy few weeks! There's been lots of sunshine and sitting in the garden, lots of garden (look at that perpetual spinach!), and a fair bit of writing. We've made more rhubarb jam, done a fair bit of sewing, and had a couple of lovely weekends away. The garden is flourishing, although the only thing we've managed to harvest so far has been spinach, cabbage, one broad bean pod, and one strawberry :) And very nice they all were too. 

I also had a trip to the exhibition of one of our friend's paintings. Lyn paints gorgeous, beautiful, strong, vibrant women, and I love to see her work. Have a look at Lyn's website for more of her paintings. Isn't it fab when someone can make a living out of doing something creative that they love? An inspiration to us all. 

For a while I've been thinking about ways I can simplify my life, making more things from scratch, spending less, doing more. Last week, I finally achieved one of my goals and handed in my notice at work. I needed those extra 20 hours a week to finish off this phd, and managed to organise my life for the next couple of months to manage without the money. 

My boss, however, had different ideas... We've negotiated, and instead of leaving altogether, I am taking July, August and most of September as unpaid leave, until the phd is submitted. While part of me would have liked a clean break, this way leaves my options open and gives me work to go back to in the autumn. 

In the meantime, my head is down writing, writing, writing. Peter de Vries once said 'I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at nine o clock every morning.' I can't say I quite achieve that every day... But I'm chipping away at it, and it's a lot easier now I can see the whole thing emerging in front of me. There's eleven weeks until my deadline, and I'm trying to channel my energy (panic) into positive writing. Watch this space... 

On a cheerier note, I gained a gorgeous new nephew last week, my third! I'll be visiting him and his two big brothers tomorrow. I'm so looking forward to it!