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Thursday, April 11, 2002 16:45
I think I'll have....Well, the T'ai Chi class isn't for beginners any more. Apparently no one responded to the adverts for the new 10-week course, so Ian has decided to start teaching our class as an intermediate class. We are doing exactly the same things (we spent most of last night reviewing stances and doing the T'ai Chi walk!) but in rather more depth with greater explanation and more emphasis on getting the subtleties and nuances correct. He was very disappointed that only 5 of the people who professed an interest in doing more actually turned up, and was also a bit spacey because he had a couple of pressed acupuncture needles taped in strategic positions to deal with his toothache. He reminded me of a friend of mine called Gerv (which will make sense to any readers who might have met Gerv, but will be of no interest whatsoever to the rest of you). Getting quite excited about my holiday now. We are trying to decide what to do, but the weather doesn't look entirely amenable. I don't think we will be doing any snorkelling, and, given the wind, I'm rather dubious about doing any cycling, although I am due for a good long day ride. I should be aiming for about 70 miles around now, to keep progressing. I need to get in one trip of 70 - 80 miles, then I can consider taking the train to Bristol and just riding home. That would be a total mileage of just over 100 miles and I'd have done my century. At the moment, that's my primary goal - to do a century. After that, I shall start working up towards proper Audax distances. I'm also planning to start a cycle club for the cyclists here at the EA in Exeter, and decide on an evening during the week on which we could ride. There's one tonight, but I have an appointment with the gym, and I suspect I may have to see if people would be amenable to Tuesday night rides. Wednesdays are out because of T'ai Chi. Otherwise it's going to be a Sunday morning thing, and I want to keep that free for the local CTC rides, and my own rides, not to mention being a bed mole with Frood. I have just persuaded my line manager to nominate me for an emergency first aid at work course on the basis that I will be taking rides, however, so I have to organise something. I'm still trying to work out if the Gallery is serious about me riding to Tintagel to get some of that mead. It seems fairly preposterous, but then an awful lot of my 'continuing personal development' (as CIWEM call it) seems fairly preposterous when you get down to it. Currently trying to decide whether or not to go to the gym tonight. I should go, really. I feel pretty well recovered from my last session, which is a pleasing surprise. I should go to the moot as well, but it doesn't get going until around 9pm, I'm told, and so if we stayed even for only an hour we wouldn't be getting home until 11, which is terribly late given that I wouldn't have had any dinner. It's a bit much to go all the way home and then come back in to go to the moot. It seems very difficult to fit these things in, and, of course, if I don't go tonight just because I feel tired, then it's another 2 months until the next one because pagans in Exeter are apparently an extremely apathetic bunch who can't cope with having a get together more frequently than that. You see, I could go home and wash my bike and find out what is causing that really annoying squeaky noise. And then that means I'll be in bed early enough to get in really early tomorrow morning and leave at 4pm with no penalty to my accumulated flexi-time. I could even go to the gym, do a quick session of the things I don't normally do because the bench wipes me out and still have time to go home, clean my bike, get an early night and make it in early tomorrow. At the end of the day, do I really want to stay up late this week on a school night for people who can't be bothered with meeting more frequently than bimonthly? It doesn't show promise for how much they think of one another - then again, I could be missing out on a great opportunity. Gym first, I think, and then I'll decide what I'm going to do after that.
Wednesday, April 10, 2002 17:37
'You were unsuccessful'I didn't get the EPO position. I'm pretty gutted, as I'm sure you can imagine. So I cheered myself up by buying a new backpack:  It has to be about the most comfortable backpack I have ever had. I'm feeling a lot of pressure to get kit at the moment. I still have to get a bivvy bag and a decent gore-tex jacket, but I should be pretty sorted after that. I'm not sure why. I feel like I'm in training to be a Quest Knight or something equally daft. The things that I am being sent to do are silly and have no apparent purpose, such as fetching water from the Red and White Springs in Glastonbury - there was no (currently) apparent purpose to that. I can't drink the water, it has been sat for too long now and has things growing in it. I can't boil it or filter it. I don't know what to do with it. Next up, I think they are going to have me cycle to Tintagel to get some mead for Oðin, even though I can get some of the same sort round here quite easily. I really don't know what's going on there. Some of my relationships are changing, and the espoused purpose always is for me to rediscover my place, or discover my new place, but I feel like they already have something lined up, and something that I'm already doing, they just haven't had the courtesy to inform me. Not that this would be anything new. Recent things seem to be based far more here than elsewhere. The boundaries are blurring, and that does worry me. I did a rune reading for myself after hearing about the EPO thing. I was crying for a long time and actually in shock, because I really thought that I'd get it and couldn't understand why I didn't. My rune reading was: Ing with Ansur reversed, Ur reversed with Nied, Ken reversed with Wynn reversed, and Beorc in the result position. I'll let you have a think about that for yourself. You could always try gecko's runes page if you are in need of some helpful hints. It's not exactly the best of news, but it is possible to interpret it in a somewhat positive fashion, as is usual with divination. Just keep looking at the bright side. Have taken three days off at the beginning of next week. Frood and I are going to have some time to spend together, which we very rarely get. And I need some time off work before I start killing people or getting demoralised. Besides which, I had this utterly, utterly dreadful nightmare the other night in which Frood died. I knew he was dead, I felt what it was like for him to be gone, to know that for every minute of every day of the rest of my life I would miss him. I woke up in floods of tears and clung to him for the rest of the night. T'ai Chi starts again tonight, and even though we're going right back to the beginning I'm going to go along because I enjoy my weekly T'ai Chi session. I think we're even going to try to get to the Exeter pagan moot this week, at which I can inform people that I have started a new list for pagans (and likeminded folk) living in the South West area (for my own convenience I mean the EA South West region - check out the website if you don't know what this means). I have one member so far. How popular. Have to visit my folks sometime soon as well, but I think I need to arrange an Apex ticket for that one. And the training diary has gone up, for those that are interested. I really wanted that job. Sniffle.
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