Who, Who, Who Let the Marmite?

Absolutely typical. Today was German Reading Skills so I hopped over the hill to my local uni. (not my actual alma mater) for two hours of grammar, revision (eek! better learn those imperfects!) Kafka and to hand my assignment in (feeling rather pleased with myself). I'd turned my mobile off and when I got home the house phone was ringing: it was my Ma-in-law saying that she'd had to fetch the Bright-Eyed Boy home from school as he'd been complaining about feeling sick/dizzy/faint (again - this has been going on since a rather unpleasant incident at school the other week). I groaned. It's the THIRD time he's come home from school early in about ten days. I think it's largely psychological as he's the sort of little fella who somatises his anxiety. Worry really does make him feel sick.

Anyhoo - I was in the middle of my rather late lunch: 2 slices of toast & Marmite and a cup of tea. Leaving it on my desk, I immediately went to the car, slamming the front door behind me.....and realised the key bunch I'd picked up didn't actually have my house-keys in it. Nor did I have my mobile with me. And I was in my slippers.

Luckily, daughter #2 lives just round the corner and was in, so I borrowed her bunch and proceeded to the in-laws. The B-E-B was certainly looking a bit wan, but also a slightly shifty, and the M-I-L was hyperbolacally making much of his symptoms. I was not really either impressed or so convinced. Trouble is, the school is very keen to ship them off home at the first sign of a 'bug' (stops it spreading , I guess). Took him back home and made him comfy on the sofa. Two minutes later the boy was shouting to tell me 'the dog's being sick - I've let her out the back!'. I raced through and found a small pile of dog barf on the back doormat.....and a much larger pile in the kitchen - with my half-eaten toast and Marmite nestling in the middle of it! Grrr! I told her off for being opportunistic and greedy (well - more like 'Dirty dog! Bad dog!' actually), made two fresh slices, and warmed my by-then-cold tea in the microwave. Two o'clock and not a stroke of doctoral work done. Typical. Absolutely typical.

Time and Thyme Again

The German tutor was quite specific - "Do NOT" she said "leave your assignment until the last minute. It'll take quite a few hours to make a good job of it." So here I am, with barely 48 hours to hand-in, staring at an unwritten commentary (if you can stare at something that doesn't exist). *sigh*

It's quite worrying, the way that time telescopes in on itself, like a piece of tissue paper self-crumpling before my eyes. It's all a question of priorities: I spent much of last week dividing my time on writing up a draft chapter for my next supervisory meeting, and parsing Greek verbs to form my own corpus of the Pauline verbs (don't ask - it's a long story!). I need to make steady progress with that to keep on track. Somehow, I kept back-staging the German project, although we'd had two weeks to complete it. I have done the translations (last weekend, after spending all Saturday at a conference that wasn't really relevant, as it transpired), but life just keeps getting in the way. I feel compelled to remain polite and sociable, but having a morning (actually, a couple of mornings) monopolised by someone that has no idea of the pressure I'm under or what I have to do, is making me increasingly twitchy.

Today, the Husband and daughter #3 are competing at the British Indoor Rowing Championships down in Birmingham, so a lot of yesterday was taken up by preparation for that, culminating in taxi-ing them to catch their train. Today, I had to mobilise the in-laws to take the Bright-Eyed Boy to his junior league football match as I was reading in church first thing. So I zoomed off to the pitch after delivering a section of John's Apocalypse (one of my favourite books of the Bible: super-weird!) and stood watching his team getting trounced in the biting wind. Then home again in time to catch a webcam deliver a garbled and halting coverage of the d#3's race. Then a number of phone calls to the Husband, who had recovered from his magnificent race earlier this morning (SEVEN seconds faster than his all-time PB! What a star!!), a trip to the shop to stock up on fruit, veg and bread for the week, home again to chop and cover the veg with olive-oil to slowly oven-roast with sliced pork, apples and thyme. And now it's 2.45pm and I've only just had lunch and a sit-down. No wonder I'm feeling shaky and weak. Before long they'll be on their way home, so another trip to the station will be in order, then dinner and sharing the excitement and then I'll probably keel over with a glass of wine.

Ah me! Where will I fit the German in? Tomorrow, I guess. But it's the father-in-law's birthday this week and no present's been bought yet (I know, I know). Tuesday IS German Reading Skills Day (you see, at least I remember that now), Wednesday, I have to email my portion of work in to uni for next week. Thursday, I'm actually going down to uni to do a 'presentation skills' workshop (ugh!). Then Friday, which is when my dear old Mum and Dad will probably land squarely at 10.30 and raise their eyebrows that I haven't been keeping up with current political events or even housework*. And I was up at 5.15 this morning, which doesn't help. I did manage to do some 'serious' reading on Pauline metaphors, but I'm feeling a bit stale now. I think I'll have a look at one of the poems in a few minutes and make some notes about the more obvious features. It's Lit. Crit. - you can say pretty much anything you like as long as you back it up with evidence! So I will.

* they don't understand that it ranks pretty low on this house's agendum: my Mum is still fussing around with a duster and Dad's tea on a tray at 80, and makes constant reference to cooking, gardening and busying about as having to do with woman's sense self-worth . O pur-lease!!! Rod? Own back?

Head Down

I've spent most of the past few days sitting in front of the computer working on my doctoral studies. The weather has been very wet and windy, so the idea of venturing out hasn't been that appealing. This means that I'm rattling along nicely with my chapters and getting into the swing of dedicating most of my day to study. But I'm very aware that most of my day is spent pretty well motionless, and what with the temptation to punctuate thought with a coffee break (and a biscuit, of course) it's not a recipe for healthy living. I've long since given up the pretension of going to the gym. Just before the summer holidays (while I was still doing my PhD part-time), I made a few desultory attempts to go, but I resented the time spent on boring cardio work and kept putting my neck out with weights. I had a bit of an epiphany when I looked about and saw all these grim, humourless faces pounging it out on the treadmills like raddled hamsters and thought 'God! They're so busy trying to stay fit and prolong their lives that they are no longer enjoying them!' So I never went back, despite the fact my membership doesn't run out 'til February. They can keep it - the point of life is life, as Goethe said. Now I'm studying full-time, and being paid for it, I really can't spare the sort of time required to make a difference.
That being said, if the weather's good, we walk the school-run (dog in tow, a mile there and a mile back), and I'll walk at a brisk pace into the middle of town if I feel like a break. I used to quite enjoy swimming, but because I do that stupid woman-keeping-head-out-of-chlorinated-water swimming style, my neck wasn't too good after it. Plus I resented the inordinate time it seemed to take to get showered, wash my hair, get dried and dressed again. I guess I'm either lazy, or impatient, or possibly both.
There's something about the dark evenings that encourage eating large amounts of carbs too: pasta, pies, mash, baked spuds...and a nice glass of wine too, before snuggling torpidly down on the sofa for David Attenborough. The Christmas hols aren't too far off either, and although they are trying for a number of different reasons (see last Christmas's posts), this year I am rather looking forward to the blurring of the presently sharply-defined compartments of the daily routine. Sherry for elevenses, anyone?

A Slip of the Mind

Back into the swing of things after our busy half-term and I'm already flagging. The week started splendidly with my birthday (hooray!), but that in itself meant that I had to be generally sociable, look pleased and receive guests. I ended up going out for lunch with daughter #2 which bisected the day so completely that I ended up not doing any doctoral stuff at all. OK, no panic then, I start in earnest on Tuesday morning: so I did, and made reasonable progress on 'intentionality', got a number of interesting points down on paper, read a few PDFs (I could really do with a Sony iReader to store them on - I must have killed off a small copse by now in printing them out), had a think about 'reader response'...couldn't decide what I thought anymore, as per usual etc. etc. The husband came home and, over dinner, asked how it was going. Fine , I said, I just have to look at my German Reading Skills prep. for tomorrow, then O M G! The sudden realisation that I had, in fact, missed the tutorial which had been that very morning!!!! I'd been so intent on making progress on my chapters that the class had been completely forgotten. Ever get that nasty cold wave that starts at the top of the skull and seeps right down the spine? Well, I did. I generally pride myself on punctuality and attendance, and now I had ****ed up big style, particularly since I had missed the previous week through being abroad. Doesn't look too good, does it? Especially as it wasn't a course that I had been overly keen on taking, it was really just to tick an appropriate box on my 'training needs' record at uni. To an outsider it could look like truculence, whereas it was, in fact, pure forgetfulness. I found it quite disturbing actually, to have been so obliviously unaware that I'd been missing something. Thinking about it rationally (once I'd calmed down and fired off a grovellingly apologetic email to the tutor), I think I'd had it at the back of my mind that the class was on Wednesdays -as it had originally been scheduled when I 'd registered back in July - and somehow I had defaulted back to that unconscious setting since our first session a couple of weeks ago. Oops! I have tried very hard to catch up (future + conditional tenses, plus literary appreciation of the poet Rilke), but it was a salutary lesson in remembering to write scheduled stuff in the diary.

Religion

Oh dear....during a conversation with an agnostic friend the other day, the talk turned to spirituality and then religion, the result of which was that she started to question me, very kindly and interestedly, about my faith. And I'm afraid to say that I did not give a very good account of it or myself. I always find it difficult to discuss my beliefs with anyone, as - I have to confess - I'm not entirely certain what they are myself. I just can't put what I feel into words or rationalise it in a way that either sounds satisfactory or coherent.
It's like trying to communicate what the feeling of 'being in love' is like to someone that never has been.
A lot of people can empathise with the awe that one feels in a great cathedral, or be moved by sacred music, or love to see the incense-filled spectacle of the Mass, or be moved by icons and flickering candle light and I admit that it is difficult to define exactly what it is I feel in addition to the uplift that these things certainly give. To the rational mind (like my friend) that is all there is: a need for the feeling of transcendence, and there may be a lot of truth in the neuroscientists' claims that man is 'hard-wired' to feel religious. Maybe I'm not really a 'true believer' as I harbour a great many doubts, both about the church and the religious tenets that it espouses. I carry my doubts about as rather regrettable baggage that stands in the way of my unquestioning acceptance. I'd really like a true, clear faith, unclouded by dark 'what-ifs'. But I haven't got one. I don't really know if God exists, or if Jesus was his son - but I act like I do because I want (and trust) it to be the case. I want it to be the case that this life doesn't end at the grave, that we do - in some form, either bodily or atomic - meet our loved ones in a love that transcends death. I keep these feeings in tension - not entirely happily - within me, as I know that there will be no resolution in this life. Not for me blind, unquestioning obedience to the church either. I am not happily yoked, although I still pay lip-service it and am happy that there are such black and white, incontravertible teachings handed down to us. I know that the church has been responsible for some absolutely terrible things being done in the name of Christianity, awful unforgivable abuses of power. That is a fact that cannot be escaped, but power in any organised form can give rise to horror. It is part of our flawed humanity, the need to dominate and control at any price - and it cannot be excused. So how do I convince her that what I feel is either real or, indeed, desirable? Well - I can't. I just know that once I had precious little faith, and then (after an epiphany of sorts) I did, as if I had suddenly grown another layer of consciousness, or extra organ that supplies it, and it is refuelled by the liturgy and beauty of the church. And if that sounds lame or self-deluding, I'm sorry. But that's how it is. I'm mute in the face of questions, because it's not something that can be rationally explained away or even given voice to. The nearest analogy that I can give is the 'magic eye' pictures that were popular around ten years ago. On first examination they appeared to be an unintelligible mess of colour and pattern, but if you relaxed your vision - 'gave in', in a way - and looked beyond the picture, an image startlingly appeared to hover in front of your eyes. And the strange thing is, once you could see it, you couldn't 'unsee' it.
Well, my faith is somewhat like that....

Barcelona!

The long dry and mostly sunny autumn seems to have eventually come to an end: today is distinctly cold, dreary and wet. Daughter #3 has very bravely gone off to rowing-training, though I don't imagine it'll be as much fun as it was in the lovely mellow days just gone. She's doing tremendously well and has taken part in a couple of races, thoroughly enjoyed them and won a couple of medals. She is so good at organising herself for this, her guitar lessons and school that it's difficult to remember that she's still only twelve. Twelve, and on her road to independence. I am, by turns, very proud of her and sadly nostalgic that she's growing up so fast. I am feeling somewhat overwhelmed by my doctoral studies. Not that I'm not enjoying them - I really am - it's just that having got funding, the pressure is on to crank up the pace to submit in two and a half year's time - not the five years that I'd originally scheduled. There is so much to do and so much I don't know that even chipping away at it bit-by-bit is quite daunting. Luckily my supervisor is excellent and keeps my feet firmly on the ground, so I don't have the hassle that a lot of my friends have had with unsatisfactory working relationships. The only thing I'm finding a bit of a trial is the obligatory hoop-jumping that seems part and parcel of PhD work nowadays. 'Investors in People' meets academia: paper trails and finding and completing exercises just to have them box-ticked on my training-needs record. Honestly - I'm coasting downhill towards retirement. I'm not realistically going to find gainful employment at the end of the day, am I? (fair enough, my younger colleagues have none of them, to a man, found a job in their chosen field), so why pretend that all this time-consuming workshop attendance is anything more than a form filling exercise that takes me away from the real business of writing?

Half-term looms again (can't believe we're nearly half way to Christmas this term already) and fortunately we've lined up a real treat: Barcelona, courtesy of Airmiles earned through shopping at Tesco. Brilliant - I can't wait, never having been there before. I'm going to try and savour every single moment, not get too stressed over the travel arrangements (like I usually do), and take time to stand and gaze in awe at all the unfamiliar stuff around me. It should be lovely, and a much needed break for the Husband, whose job is pushing him into meltdown, if not complete burn-out.....

A Glimpse of Eternity

Daughter #3 and I went into town this morning to see the relics of St Therese of Lisieux which are in the Minster before making their way (not under their own steam, obviously) to Leeds' and then Middlesbrough's cathedrals. Despite being allegedly incorrupt (and apparently emitting the odour of roses on inspection), the remains themselves were not on open display, being enclosed in a tiny casket within a glass case. The faithful and the curious filed by respectfully touching the glass with their prayer cards to absorb some of the sanctity of the saint who died at the age of 24 never having left her convent. Her 'little way', is seento be achievable by absolutely anyone - to do any task or service, however menial, with complete love. Relics are indeed curious things, dividing even the faithful in their reactions to them. Some, like my Pa-in-Law, shudder at the thought of them (squeamishness? horror mortis?), others reverence them deeply. I'm most certainly not in the former camp, nor yet really in the latter: I am curiously drawn to them, and will seek them out if given half the chance. The continent is particularly rich in relics and any self -respecting cathedral has a number of mummified body parts, splinters of the true cross, phials of saints' blood, and bones mounted in crystal reliquaries, usually badly top-lit by buzzing neon tubes. The family is either quite resigned to, or heartily sick of, what they see as my almost prurient interest them. But do I love to visit them. I can't quite describe the feeling that I get in the presence of relics. I tried to describe it the Husband (I'm not sure he really understood) as a feeling of mildew: of timelessness, like you get from the smell of incense or hot candle-wax, damp wood or cement; from the sound of distant dripping water, or the feel of your hand on marble; the sight, on dull drizzly days, of gloomy thickly carpeted altars in dim side-chapels, covered in faded silk flowers or dead roses; those flickering votive candle-bulbs that light up at the drop of a coin. A feeling of unity with all those who have prayed there before, lives lived and gone, young girls who became mothers who became old women. Red velvet covered by heavy white lace. Whispering. Candles. Holiness.

I can't quite remember which was the first relic I ever saw. I think it was the tongue of St Antony of Padua (he was a renowned orator). I remember thinking, full of atheistic eleven year-old scorn, that it looked like a raspberry. Not long after we were taken to the relic-filled treasury of St Mark's in Venice by some devout Italian family friends. I revisited these when we went back there this spring and was not disappointed. Rome was well-endowed too, and we visited the Capuchin crypt of Santa Maria della Concezione on the via Veneto to see the ossuary where the dead monks' bones and remains decorate the dank subterranean walls. In St Peter's we visited the undercroft where Pope John-Paul II is buried in a flower strewn tomb amongst his papal predecessors. Even my daughter's school has the mummified hand of St Margaret Clitheroe in its chapel (she says that it looks like a rice crispie). I would like to sit in their presence and try to fathom out what it is that I feel, but the children are too antsy and the Husband, although kindly tolerant and nominally Catholic, would rather not. One day I will take myself off to Rome and find a quiet church (St Ignazio has a wonderful altar with a crimson-robed saint in tiny slippers and a silver death-mask) and sit there and think, and work out what exactly it is that I get from the dead. (below: the relics of St Robert Bellarmine, St Ignazio, Rome)