James fixed it for Ally

It has been a pleasant weekend. I got my hair cut on Saturday and didn't hate the experience or the result too much, then I met James for lunch at Prezzo. James has designed a spreadsheet for me where I can record my spending and really know what is in my account; it incorporates all the things I spend every month like music lessons, school fees, contact lenses and many more! The beauty of this is that I can now clearly see what is still to come off my account, whereas if I just look at my balance online it gives me a false optimism. It is going to be very helpful now that I am paid every four weeks, because that has been confusing me - I used to get paid on the last Thursday of every month and then all my standing orders would come off on the 1st of the next month, which would only be a few days away so I knew I would definitely still have money to cover them. With the four weekly pay I find it harder to plan because pay day changes each month. Anyway, it's not like me to get excited over finances but I can see that this spreadsheet is going to help me a lot.
We went over to Heather and Ewan's for a curry in the evening and had a great time; by now they will have arrived in Madrid for their holiday. I'd love to go there one day; James will coincidentally be there this week on business! I would especially like to visit the Prado museum to see the Velazquez paintings among others. 
This morning James decided that we would go to Ikea to buy bookcases for Alasdair; he was delighted because he has been nagging us about getting them for ages. He has already constructed them with much noise and hammering and started to fill them. Then the four of us had a blowy walk at Largs, from Nardini's to the Pencil and marina and back again. The highlight of the evening was watching an episode of the first series of Bergerac with Grandma so that we could look out for places we visited in Jersey! It was good fun, especially as the series is now thirty years old. The island looks very much the same apart from the airport buildings and St Helier. And the plot wasn't too bad either. 
Finally farewell to Sir Jimmy Savile who died yesterday at the age of 84. I loved the television programme Jim'll Fix It in the 1970s and although I always felt that there was something strange and a bit creepy about him, however he seems to have been an eccentric but genuinely well-meaning person who raised a lot of money for charity. James and I once spotted him walking near his house at Glencoe; with the tracksuit and wild hair it was unmistakably him! 

Ally and I get unexpected treats

Yesterday we took Grandma for a run in the car up the Clyde Valley, with the idea of going for a walk round Lanark Loch and then perhaps lunch in a garden centre; James and I have been going on variations of this time-honoured Lanarkshire outing for thirty years! The only hitch to our plans was that Friday's glorious weather had been replaced by rain, not heavy but a steady drizzle. So we went to New Lanark instead and went to the visitors' centre. This turned out well, it has been updated in recent years so there were new things for us to see including a roof top garden, and Grandma seemed to enjoy the day. It was not an unpleasant way to spend a rainy afternoon, and we also went to a garden centre and got some herbs for my herb barrels to replace the ones which died in the cold winter. Davie came with us and he was cheery company, meanwhile Alasdair was at home doing Latin. In the evening James surpassed himself, he wanted go to the cinema and when he looked up the listings he suggested a French film called Les Aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec directed by Luc Besson. I love French cinema, both when it's very good and even when it's very bad, and I always try to get to the French Film Festival. James has watched his fair share of French films over the years (to support me) but isn't usually very impressed by them and says so! So I was amazed and delighted that he actually suggested it. There were only a select dozen in the cinema to see it, even though it was Saturday night, and as soon as it started two people got up and left hurriedly. I wonder if they had come into the wrong cinema by mistake or whether they were put off by the fact that it was in French! Anyway Adèle Blanc-Sec was a lovely film. It was a film adaptation based on a French cartoon by Jacques Tardi and it was really well done; funny, fast-paced and so French. The actress who played the title role was excellent; Louise Bourgoin. I loved it! When I asked James what he thought of it he said it was quite good but gave a quizzical look. It was really nice of him to take me to it. Today James and Davie went walking at Lochgoilhead, while Ally and I stayed at home for him to study and me to write my multi-disciplinary essay. However a pleasant surprise was in store for him when Dougie came to the door to offer Ally his ticket for the Old Firm game. Ally was so excited that he was literally dancing in the hall. I drove him over there and picked him up later, and he had a fine old time, the score was 0-0 but Celtic had missed a penalty near the end which pleased him. James and David arrived home at tea-time tired but happy, and I had made a good start on my essay. So a good day was had by all. 

The Paper Chase

The last couple of days the weather has been good - still not warm but blue skies and big white clouds. I have been in particularly good spirits, perhaps due to the exercise I took at the weekend. Work very busy but going well. David is in the process of applying for work experience for a week in May, he is definitely interested in studying science and may be interested in pharmacy so it would be good if he could find out more about it by working in one, he has sent off a couple of applications. Ally had two hours of maths tutoring by Ruth tonight - I think they were both exhausted! Then Ally and I watched Silk which is about lawyers and quite good. I have ordered from Amazon a series about law that I enjoyed about 30 years ago called The Paper Chase, I think it's set in Harvard. I was telling Ally about it so I thought I would get it for him, I hope it's not too horribly dated! Watching the news with the boys, headlines are about Libya. I'm not sure what the bombing is going to achieve - won't it prolong the fighting? But then I am no expert on international affairs. Japan is now slowly picking up the pieces after the horrific earthquake and tsunami on 11th March, the images of devastation we have seen on the news are terrible. Jamie has just phoned and was chatting about the people who will be on his BMSc course and what he studying just now for his exams in April - the main areas are neurology, psychiatry and reproduction and there are also smaller modules on ophthalmology, aging, and child & adolescent mental health. It's great that he enjoys it so much because it's very hard work. He has also been re-elected to the post of safety officer in the University rowing club. And so to bed. 

Good news for Jamie

I was out for my tea tonight with friends and when I came in there was a message from Jamie to phone him. Turns out he has been accepted for his intercalated degree which is an BMSc in Applied Orthopaedic Technology. He is delighted by this, apparently it is very competitive to get in, and it will strengthen his applications later for orthopaedic placements - his ambition is to be an Orthopaedic Surgeon. I felt very pleased for him and he assured me that while I will have to wait an extra year for his graduation from medicine, I will get to go to a graduation ceremony next year if all goes well and he gets his BMSc! James is a bit worried that during the intercalated degree Jamie will take his eye off the ball and forget about all his medical studies but Jamie is confident that this will not happen and in fact it will make him a better medical student, and improve his job prospects. I hope it all works out well for him! We asked him what he would like as a reward and he asked for a Tesco online shopping because he seems to have no money for food - despite his weekly allowance which we think is quite generous - so I have ordered one for tomorrow with some tasty treats in it. 

A Pleasant Saturday

It's Saturday afternoon and I've been having a relaxing day so far. What a contrast with a rather stressful day at work yesterday. I won't say too much except that it involved our unauthorised departmental toaster, 3 fire engines and the evacuation of 1800 pupils and staff. The toaster was being used for pupils' life skills but the fact is that toasters are banned in school and as depute head I had to meet with and apologize to the head teacher and the firemen, who were very understanding and pleasant to me about it. The rest of the day was particularly busy and I ended up doing paperwork well into the evening.
So back to Saturday. First of all James brought me my porridge in bed, always a lovely start to the weekend. Then he did the ironing while listening to some of his favourite music (The Yes Album and Yes Close to the Edge) while I took Ally and Davie to collect their glasses from Carol & Craig's. Their prescriptions have both changed a little, and they were pleased with their new frames. Ally mainly wears contact lenses but he needs glasses as a back up and to give his eyes a rest. Then James and I went to Morrisons to get our passport photos taken, but annoyingly the machine was broken and the photos were blank. So we went to Spar. James lost patience while I was brushing my hair in the booth and his hand appeared in through the curtain and pressed the "ready" button before I was finished so my brush was in the first photo! I don't know why I bothered putting on make up for the photo, you are not allowed to smile and you have to tuck your hair behind your ears. Our photos both looked like criminals' mug shots.
I popped round to Marjory and Forrest's with Jenny's birthday present - it doesn't seem like 13 years since she was born. She seemed delighted with her Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt, I also gave her a copy of Diary of a Parent Trainer. We had a chat about London, where they will be going at Easter.
Lunch with Ally and Davie before Al went into town to meet friends and Davie started rearranging all the furniture in his room to make it better for playing Kinect games on his Xbox 360.
Later on today we are going to the Aye Write Book Festival with Heather and Ewan to see Graeme Garden and Barry Cryer, then Sarah Waters. We first went to it last year and I'm really looking forward to going again. Yes, a pleasant weekend indeed.

My first post

I have been thinking of starting a blog, inspired by our friend Ewan, who has started writing one recently. This evening seemed as good a time as any, while I am sitting with middle son Alasdair as he attempts to memorise his extended Higher History essay, which he tells me is 2700 words long. He will have to write it under exam conditions tomorrow, and he will have 2 hours to do it.

Anyway, when embarking on my blog I have to consider what I will put in and what I will leave out. I have decided to make it mainly about family life. I would love to write about my job as a teacher and part time Depute Head in a base for pupils with autism because it is a very interesting part of my life. However the issue of pupil and colleague confidentiality forbids, so this will be mainly about my life and that of my family and that's why I have called it Life at the Andersons.
I won't aim to write my blog every day because I want to write about events that interest me rather than a record of every day, which is what I tend to do when I write a diary. I feel obliged to fill it in daily so it can end up "Got up. Went to work. Tired. Had bath." which is not exactly enthralling, and if there is some world or home event that is very important to me there isn't room to write it in detail, for example "Set off on holiday. Felt excited." which isn't really adequate.
So I'm hoping the blog format will suit me better, although knowing me I will probably still tend to write it as a record of events.
This evening James is out at one of his hill-walking club's social evenings. Typically he said he wished he wasn't going out but I'm sure he will be enjoying it now he's there, the hill-walking club are a really nice crowd. Youngest son David has been upstairs working on his Macbeth essay. He has just read my post so far and he and Alasdair agree that nobody is going to read this blog! Eldest son Jamie is in Dundee where he is in 3rd year studying medicine. I phoned him earlier and he said he has had a very tiring day - doing a laparascopic skills trial by practising it on a simulator, as well as lectures and diagnosis skills. That's James in now so we're going to have a cup of tea :-) I hope Ally gets on ok tomorrow with his essay.