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Oct. 18th, 2006 12:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
essayelHistory Matters
This'll get pretty detailed because I know what the social historians want so
Was woken by radio alarm at 6 am. We have it tuned to BBC Radio 4's Today programme which gives the news in a digestable form for that time of the morning without actually dumbing down too much - more difficult to do than it sounds. Other half got up to walk dog, I got up on their return when I got jumped on - by the dog, of course. today he wasn't wet, thank goodness.
I got up around seven, yelled at daughter to get up as well and washed and dressed - matching underwear for once, whoohoo, because my daughter normally nicks all my knickers, a thermal vest pulled well down, a long sleeved teeshirt, jeans, socks and heavy black lace up boots, with a fleece gilet to keep the warm in. I went downstairs to get breakfast. Nothing elaborate - tea and cereal. Bran flakes with a scatter of sultanas, tea with milk and two sweeteners. At that time of the morning it's still pretty dark and was quite cold. Daughter appeared, briefly and sleepily, in school uniform, ate toast then picked up the lunch she had made for herself - that way she gets what she likes - and took herself off for school at about five to eight since it wasn't raining. School starts at 8.40 so she had plenty of time to walk the mile and then sit around with her mates listening to their MP3 players and moping about being 14.
I logged on while I ate and caught up on my LJ friends list and some other communities and also to Googletalk so I could chat to Maru in Munich before we both went to work.
I drive to work - shouldn't really because it's only about 25 minutes walk but I have to come home to let the dog out in my lunch hour.
Historically my drive to work is interesting because about 100 yards of it is on the A40 - a major route since medieval times that goes all the way from not far north of London to the hopping off points for boats to Ireland. The bit I go on is very narrow and has small businesses and houses on either side of it and there are frequent holdups due to lorry drivers stopping outside the garage and nipping in to buy fags or chocolate. Then I turn off along a 'ringroad' that follows the track of the LNER railway line that used to be, then up Tudor Street, passing what used to be a turnpike house, and the remains of the town wall and along Castle Street to the Castle itself.
The Castle is a typical Marches castle - ie, wrecked but this one is built on a glacial moraine over looking the Usk valley, on the site of a former Roman fort and contains an early nineteenth century hunting lodge which has been converted into the town museum. The town itself still has the basic medieval street plan and the old burgage plots though the place was horribly hacked about in the 1950s and sixties.
This morning I had the museum to myself when I first arrived so didn't bother to make coffee. I pitched straight into doing the weekly accounts for the museum shop and worked until Ian came in at 10.30. I brewed up then and we enjoyed a little grumble about the new computer that was delivered on Friday that rendered ALL our other equipment obsolete apart from the biggest noisiest slowest printer in the world, which IT assures me is a state of the art colour laser printer but isn't a patch on our old HP laserjet that used to crank out b/w copies at a heck of a rate and never jammed. During the day Ian saw to visitors, while I dealt with paper work, did a bit of drawing to keep my hand in and tried to get my head round a new accounting system.
Home - cooked dinner - quiche and cous cous. Played with dog, played with daughter then online to write with friends and generally chat.
Had my attention drawn to a report about Neolithic housing on Salisbury plain and had another conversation about Walmart and the fact - yay? - that plans for converting our cattle market into one of the UK equivalent have been turned down.
Wrote other stuff and this until gone midnight then noticed the time and thought "Sod it, I'll post it anyway!" which I am.
Soon I'll have to catch the dog to put him to bed but I want to finish listening Hayseed Dixie - one of the weirdest sounds I've ever heard - first.
This'll get pretty detailed because I know what the social historians want so
Was woken by radio alarm at 6 am. We have it tuned to BBC Radio 4's Today programme which gives the news in a digestable form for that time of the morning without actually dumbing down too much - more difficult to do than it sounds. Other half got up to walk dog, I got up on their return when I got jumped on - by the dog, of course. today he wasn't wet, thank goodness.
I got up around seven, yelled at daughter to get up as well and washed and dressed - matching underwear for once, whoohoo, because my daughter normally nicks all my knickers, a thermal vest pulled well down, a long sleeved teeshirt, jeans, socks and heavy black lace up boots, with a fleece gilet to keep the warm in. I went downstairs to get breakfast. Nothing elaborate - tea and cereal. Bran flakes with a scatter of sultanas, tea with milk and two sweeteners. At that time of the morning it's still pretty dark and was quite cold. Daughter appeared, briefly and sleepily, in school uniform, ate toast then picked up the lunch she had made for herself - that way she gets what she likes - and took herself off for school at about five to eight since it wasn't raining. School starts at 8.40 so she had plenty of time to walk the mile and then sit around with her mates listening to their MP3 players and moping about being 14.
I logged on while I ate and caught up on my LJ friends list and some other communities and also to Googletalk so I could chat to Maru in Munich before we both went to work.
I drive to work - shouldn't really because it's only about 25 minutes walk but I have to come home to let the dog out in my lunch hour.
Historically my drive to work is interesting because about 100 yards of it is on the A40 - a major route since medieval times that goes all the way from not far north of London to the hopping off points for boats to Ireland. The bit I go on is very narrow and has small businesses and houses on either side of it and there are frequent holdups due to lorry drivers stopping outside the garage and nipping in to buy fags or chocolate. Then I turn off along a 'ringroad' that follows the track of the LNER railway line that used to be, then up Tudor Street, passing what used to be a turnpike house, and the remains of the town wall and along Castle Street to the Castle itself.
The Castle is a typical Marches castle - ie, wrecked but this one is built on a glacial moraine over looking the Usk valley, on the site of a former Roman fort and contains an early nineteenth century hunting lodge which has been converted into the town museum. The town itself still has the basic medieval street plan and the old burgage plots though the place was horribly hacked about in the 1950s and sixties.
This morning I had the museum to myself when I first arrived so didn't bother to make coffee. I pitched straight into doing the weekly accounts for the museum shop and worked until Ian came in at 10.30. I brewed up then and we enjoyed a little grumble about the new computer that was delivered on Friday that rendered ALL our other equipment obsolete apart from the biggest noisiest slowest printer in the world, which IT assures me is a state of the art colour laser printer but isn't a patch on our old HP laserjet that used to crank out b/w copies at a heck of a rate and never jammed. During the day Ian saw to visitors, while I dealt with paper work, did a bit of drawing to keep my hand in and tried to get my head round a new accounting system.
Home - cooked dinner - quiche and cous cous. Played with dog, played with daughter then online to write with friends and generally chat.
Had my attention drawn to a report about Neolithic housing on Salisbury plain and had another conversation about Walmart and the fact - yay? - that plans for converting our cattle market into one of the UK equivalent have been turned down.
Wrote other stuff and this until gone midnight then noticed the time and thought "Sod it, I'll post it anyway!" which I am.
Soon I'll have to catch the dog to put him to bed but I want to finish listening Hayseed Dixie - one of the weirdest sounds I've ever heard - first.