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I finally managed a big walk! Today I walked the dog to Bishopthorpe along the cycle track. The track also hosts a scale model of the solar system. I walked just past Mars this afternoon; I supose next time i'll have to reach Jupiter. A quick look at the map makes it about an 8km walk. Marty found lots of muddy puddles to jump in and I saw two wrens and a long tailed tit in the wood at the bottom of the Knavesmire on the way home.

Today I went to an agency and misremembered most of my past employment details (not many) voluntary work (lots)to register. Then I had to do a test on MS Word and for typing speed. my typing was fast but with lots of mistakes and Word could have been better :( On the bright side they let you play with the computers there for free to get better at Word, Excel and Powerpoint so I can go in and do that anytime. In fact i'll probably do it while job hunting *sigh* and to get out of the house.

I finished reading Labyrinth by Kate Mosse on Monday. It is about the Cathars and the Holy Grail - this time from Egypt- set in the period just after my dissertation. It was quite good apart from the two chapters in the present tense and the Grail bit wasn't too annoying. This means I need a new book and so a trip to a book shop!

I got an email from Iona this evening asking if I was still interested in volunteering and can I send in all my references. Obviously they are highly efficient since I sent the form to them in April/May. So I might end up there for a while. Still not sure where i'm going to fit a job in, hopefully before my trips so I can afford them.

It appears I have managed to go a month without posting thus sparing the details of my job interview (why haven't I heard back yet!) exams and general other stresses.

At the moment i'm in Edinburgh. In theory till Tuesday possibly till Wednesday if we can get tickets to see my singing teacher in Carmen on opening night. This depends on one of us remembering to phone tomorrow as the internet booking isn't instantaneous. I have also managed to buy some material to make my white witch costume. There is a good fabric shop on Clerk st/ Nicolson St (depending on how far down the road it is) which had silver crushed velvet for £4. I also found a slightly different silver top in a charity shop which will do. I was going to make a dress but decided not to because 1. I didn't bring the pattern and so couldn't remember how much material to buy 2. I have 2/3 days to make it.

Yesterday I went to Saline near Dunfermline for a Pardshaw committee meeting and managed to negotiate the buses. On the way there anyway... The meeting was long as expected as we always seem to have far too much business. It was slightly hampered by Ericka's dog Pipin and puppy whose name is galic and I cant remember wanting to play with us. The puppy was very cute and was very fond of licking my leg and trying to climb on my n otes. Ericka's house is very nice. It is a converted Wee Free Chapel, which was a coal store and is now a house.

I have even managed to have a look at a couple of job websites and concluded that Exeter's website is much nicer than Edinbrugh's but much less helpful as there is one job in Scotland on it. Still no idea what I really want to do and the one job that looks interesting had the deadline on the day so no chance of applying. I guess something will turn up if i can work out what i'm looking for.

Most important things to do this week: write Pardshaw Notes, make White Witch Costume, Order Degree gowns since I will be graduating afterall.

This weekend I went to stay with Peggy in Oxford and had a great weekend. On Friday we were out till 2:30am with some Taruithon (Oxford tolksoc) people. They hadn't noticed that the horses dissapeared in Return of the King which amused me. Less good was coming back and hearing Peggy's hosuemates smashing glass bottles as we were getting read for bed. The glass was still there on Sunday!

On Saturday we met up with another school friend who is at Brookes. We went to Zizz's and I had a meal without goats cheese. On Sunday we went punting which was great fun. I eventually managed to get the punt going reasonably straight until we ran into other crafts. Apparently Tarutithon has the Drogo memorial punt party, with occasional pirates, which sounds really cool.

Today I picked up a couple of John Buchan's and the English Hymnal while waiting for in the library. and I managed to miss her and went huting round the English section and found Frances instead. I got one book I wanted as i'd forgotten the references of the others and then had fun spending more money.

Other purchases this week. 2 tops and a skirt in Oxford and 2 copys of Ursula le Guin's new book Voices- one for me one for a birthday pressie. Luckily the shop had two copys.

Well i'm at home this weekend instead of being at YFGM having useful and constructive committee meetings about events in the summer which I am helping to run. By the way why does Great Western feel the need to charge me £10 to refund my train ticket. grrr!

On the bright side this means I now just about understand my presentation as I was able to go see my tutor yesterday. So instead of writing it I have ended up on lj. Yesterday I just played Ocarina of Time and baked a cake fore fft. despite the fact there were only three of us (and Charles) at the service we were chatting till about 9pm about the evil that is calories and labeling food with advice like x contains fat etc on something which is usually obvious, like cheese. Other topics were school buses, cooking and that was about it. When I got home we watched Grumpy Old Men and I sewed some of my top.

This morning I was informed by stonefox84 that I have not been using lj properly as I have failed to answer a single quiz thingy. And yet I don't not feel that I have missed out. Back to the presentation...

With my dissertation handed in an my Witchcraft presentation successfully negotiated I am now encredibly stuck on my presentation for next week which is driving me mad. Not having enough sleep due to lack of Easter is hardly helping. Last night I had two dreams about missing trains!

On the bright side I cooked a new pasta dish this evening and only mucked up the leeks by half cooking them. Doh! Choral soc was fun and we went to the Lemon Grove for the first time in ages for a drink. Much better than the Vic in terms of prices and definately nice to be in than the Ram.

I went to a service at the Mint Methodist Church for the first time this morning. The children's address was all about how St Peter was meant to be a rock but often ended up acting like jelly. The main sermon was quite good too.

This afternoon I finished my dissertation! 36pages and 9606 words. It took my printer an hour to print it out. Apparently I have it on a daft setting because it'sin linux. I spent the intervening time singing along to the Lion King soundtrack and Pergolasi.

This evening we went to the service at Chapel with Taize bits. Afterwards we had supper at Charles' house and listened to Roald Dahl reading (on a tape) The Giraffe the Pelly and Me. Sarah read far too much into a story written for six year olds. The Duchess of Hampshire sang My Diamonds are over the Ocean which was very entertaining. Kathleen is currently driving a toy car around my computer and various library books in an attempt to relive her childhood.

I got back to York on Wednesday and within an hour had volunteered to help Mum at three services and sing at two of them. On Good Friday we are going to use Bitter Was the Night -yey for the Methang Musical and whoever chose it. I also went to a study group at St Martin's which was really good fun and ate half the chocolate fingers.

On Friday I met up with Mum to watch her and a David Rhodes eat lunch. David Rhodes wrote the Sparrow Story which i've just finished reading. The books is a retelling of the Gospels set in contemporary Palestine. It's really well written and puts some interesting and challenging angles on the story. I particularly liked the new Martha Mary story where Martha throws a plate at Jesus because he is not concerned enough with her cooking ;).

Friday evening I took a train to Edinburgh and had to stand till Newcastle, which shows one should book in advance if traveling on Friday rush hour. The train was full of army and navy people who all looked about 18. At Newcastle I got a seat and the rest of the journey was fine. I spent the weekend relaxing discovering the terrible puns in Attack of the Clones. On Sunday we found the Episcopal Cathedral and went to the morning service. The choir was verg good and sang a Palestrina St Mathew Passion.

This afternoon I took a train back and again had to stand till Newcastle (an extra half hour from Edinburgh) becasuse the previous train had broken down. At least GNER have more carriages than Virgin. I've spent the rest of the day doing my dissertation. I have now finished my introduction and have only one section left to finish drafting. It is possible I may make my Thursday deadline.

Tomorrow I have St William's singers (choir) which is always interesting as I dislike most of the members of the choir but it is nice to sing in the cathedral and I think we have new music this year!

Tis the season for covering crosses in small pieces of purple cloth. It seems St Michael's only do it on one Sunday in Lent so in that respect Chapel is being Higher. The service was combined with St David's so there was actually a reasonable congregation for once. There was not sermon a fact which I only realised after the service, which says something about the standard of sermon. I stayed for the AGM because I wanted to talk to my Aunt and by the time i'd finished with choir it was about to start. I then had fun watching everyone else eat lunch and let Fiona persuade me to come to evensong.

When I got home Sarah dragged me to the shops and now I am listening to Andy banging around in the loft and trying to come up with at least 1000 words to say about the perceptions of Dualism. So far i've managed 107 so quite a way to go. On the brights side I have an evensong rehersal at 04:45pm and hopefully a trip to the pub afterwards. Tomorrow I will finished what I fail to achieve today so it will be fine *crosses fingers*

*wonders when the dragons will stop being green* Perhaps I should become angry just so I can have a red one.

Yesterday I managed to achieve all the jobs i'd put down for today so now i've got yesterday's work to do today. I need to finish drafting this dissertation section which shouldn't take too long as I have written 1952/2000ish so I just need to check it makes some sort of sense. The it's onto planning the third theme so I have a draft of all three by the time I go home next week.

At the moment the house is being repairded. The loo floor/ kitchen ceiling is being fixed so I am/ will be working to a background of building noise. On the bright side we will be once again able to use the upstairs loo without fear of ending up in the kitchen so cant complain. I'll just turn up the Bach. I'm listening to my pieces with the hope I will be able to learn them through osmosis. It doesn't really work when listening to a piece in translation from German which is different from the one in my book.

In case I don't have enough distractions I can continue knitting a scarf with wool in the most almighty tangle. I have somehow managed to find both ends of the wool and so the ball is in a mess and I have to unravel it after every row. I'm looking upon it as an exercise in patience. By the time i've finished it the weather will be far to warm to wear it but i wont be short of scarves for next year.

On Sunday I managed to get to St Michael's on time. We did the Byrd 4 Part mass and an anthem by Victoria which we only had time to reherse half of. The clergy were in faded pink because it was rose Sunday or whatever the name is. The sermon was uninspiring as usual but the music was fun. I agreed to go back next week since i'm around and both my Aunt and Cousin will be around and it will be nice to see them again. I had lucnh on Sunday! which is perfectly legitimate because it was refreshment Sunday. My Aunt cooked turkey for lunch and I had fun peeling potaotes and carrots. After lunch we walked round the campus lakes and I fell over on a bridge, but luckily not into the stream.

Yesterday was a good day. I managed to get nearly 900 words of dissertation written. I would probably have managed more if I had woken up earlier than midday. Sarah and I went shopping and tried to get t -shirts forom clobbur but they weren't ready. We now have food for the rest of the week which means i've nearly run out of reasons to go shopping. I have to buy some birthday cards and then I might actually be able to avoid going into town for a few days.

Choir was great. I am singing a solo in the Purcell piece we are doing. Woot! The Parsons is coming on quite well and there was yet another piece of muisc I hadn't seen. It's in ESM which I am buying a copy of. Next week we are doing a Japanese piece which will be interesting. Hopefully no one in the audience will be able to tell if we are singing it wrong. (Concert 19th May)

Well today I managed to finish reading the relevant sources and rewriting my plan in a coherent order but got no further. I am hoping to start writing tomorrow. On the bright side I also read an article so I guess I was reasonably productive.

elstaplador and I decided to have roast potatoes with our cow pie so we went veg shopping and got to Opus too late to get my CD changed. I will have to go back again tomorrow. We went to Evensong which turned out to be a Eucharist on the eve of the annunciation. Why not have one on the day she cries! Anyway it had the shortest Sermon i've ever heard. Something about God being a fire in a glass and obedience and that was it. On tbe bright side the service was a bit shorter. I bumped into Steve afterwards and was invited to sing at St Mikes on Sunday. Since i'm, going there anyway I thought why not and they are doing the Byrd 4 part mass which I love. The Agnus Dei is brilliant. I learnt it over the summer so no problem with sightreading this time.

Well I managed to achieve half a plan yesterday and so the day wasn't a complete failure in terms of work. The St Matthew Passion (Bach) was great. It was a new one for me; I have sung bits of St John but never heard St Matthew. It is very soloist based, especially around Evangelist, perhaps becuase it's the longest Gospel and so needs the most recit ;). Evangelist was excellent and really carried the evening. The Soprano had a nice clear tone but you could tell her standard was lower than the others, but yey for no vibrato! The choir sang mostly chorales and the chorus bits were very short so if you want to sing one in a choir I reccomend St John. It was an excellent performance and the Catherdral is always a great place to have a concert.

This morning elstaplador and I made pancaces without setting the kitchen on fire. An excellent way to have breakfast. It's like having a mini shrove Tuesday since I am fasting till the evening. Though probably not a good idea for every morning, but there is another egg to use up so perhaps tomorrow...

After breaksfast I decided that tidying my desk drawer and sticking reuser labels on envelopes was obviously the most constructive way to use my time. So I still need to get up and achieve some work. I also need to go into town because I bought a Purcell CD from Opus yesteday and they gave me the wrong one. Doh! This means I will probably end up buying the St Matthew passion as well. There is a 10% discount with the concert programme so it is very tempting.

Well, I seem to be falling into the dark side and actually posting on this journal in the light of day. I put this down to the fact my other options are 1. cleaning the fridge and hoping that there is no more water leaking across the floor or 2. planning Theme 2 of my dissertation: Practices of Medieval Dualists. it may also be because I can now have dragons to reflect my mood; they are also a lot less worrying that el_staplador's 'happy' frogs.

So things to do today, work, tidy room, sing and make pea pasta for supper. Pea Pasta is a great meal which i can only do when stonefox84 is out because it contains lots of cream. Yummmmmm.

Singing is good at them moment because i'm in a new choir with loads of renaissance music and a really nice and competant choir master. I am also having fun singing my way through the Messiah. Though no more lessons as my teacher is going to sing with Scottish Opera. It is also even better than procrastination as I have to do practice to learn the choir pieces and it's fun!

This evening i'm going to hear Bach's St Mathew Passion in the Catherdral. Never heard it before but it should be good fun. (7pm tickets £6)

So I have a LJ... Well that was interesting. I guess I will be allowed to go to bed now.