Possibilities

Sometimes you just have to do something that might take you out of your comfort zone.

I am itching to tell people what I did this week, but as I don't know what the outcome will be I don't want to either raise hopes or get people worried. Naturally it depends on who you are as to what you will feel first - hopeful or worried. (or even raise my own hopes and fears for that matter - ha ha!)

All I can say is, it went in the post on Monday after sitting on my coffee table all weekend after being agonised over for at least a week. I should expect to get an initial result in late April or early May and then perhaps I might tell you what's going on.

If all goes as well as I hope it does then I will most definitely be stepping out of my comfort zone and I actually look forward to this possibility because I think that it will do a lot for me in so many ways. But who knows! All I can say right now is "watch this space"!

The Boat Race

I had forgotten that the Boat Race was on today - it's usually round about Easter so I should have remembered!

If you have no idea what I am talking about then you wont know why I have capitalised Boat Race and not given you any idea as to who the race is between or where it is held. If you do you know, then you wont need any further explanation at all and so I can ask you who you fancy for the winners this year?

For all you other poor unenlightened people there is absolutely no reason for capitalising Boat Race, it's just that if you ask pretty much anyone in the UK who they think will win The Boat Race, they'll know exactly what you mean! The Boat Race is a race between Cambridge and Oxford Universities although they don't race at either Cambridge or Oxford but in London on the Thames between Putney and Mortlake - which doesn't actually mean all that much to me - so I have to refer the Race website for more information about that!

According to that website the first Race was held in 1829, so you would imagine that it hasn't got long to go before it's 200th anniversary, except that it has not been run every year so there haven't been 179 races with this one being the 180th. It is in fact the 155th Boat Race today with Cambridge (light blues) leading the tally with 79 races to 74 although Oxford (dark blues) won last year.

The race starts at about 3:40pm but the coverage on the television has been quite intensive - it started at 2:20pm and will go on until 4:30pm by which time we should know who has won!! Just over two hours of coverage for a race that usually lasts under twenty minutes - which just goes to how much of a fixture it is in the sporting calendar - only if you are British of course. But that said - apparently many of the racers are not British - the only qualifier is that they must be studying at Cambridge or Oxford University.

Anyway - the race starts in about three minutes! I plump for Cambridge to win this year. (it was not to be - Oxford had a very good race!)

smells

or perhaps that should be fragrance, smells always gives the wrong impression don't you think?

 

Anyway - it's funny how certain fragrances bring back memories or how you can find unexpected smells in the most strange places.

 

Let me explain - I was classifying a few books yesterday (yes, I am a librarian!) and I picked up this book that had a rather plastic cover (for your information it was Paediatric Radiology by Karl Johnson) and I must have brought it close enough to my face to get a whiff of this plastic.

 

I paused and began to wonder what it reminded me of, it didn't take long before I realised that it smelt of those rubber rings that you can buy at those little shops next to the beach - it was exactly that smell and really made me think of summer holidays with the family.

 

It really can be quite surprising when you get a familiar smell from something that shouldn't actually smell like that, in fact, when I used to do my evening job and had to catalogue the re-recorded programmes on DVD - the DVD boxes used to smell exactly like hot water bottles!! 

 

P.S. this is another emailed post test and I hope it works this time.

habits

NB: this is a test to see if emailing to my blog works.

Anyway - back to the subject - "habits". I am sure that some of you will have noticed that I have gone very quiet lately.

All I can say is that the blogging habit is a very easy one to break, especially when there is some effort involved in getting to the blog and then thinking about what I want to say. Then if you add a week's holiday in Dubai to that, you can see why I haven't blogged in a while!!

So, if you were eagerly anticpating holiday photographs all I can say is "whoops!" I will admit that half the trouble is that I can no longer access my blog at work as the powers that be have cut of all access to social networking type websites which includes blogspot! So, I can't quickly type up a blog just before I start work or during my lunch hour and by the time I get home that last thing I want to do sometimes is turn on my laptop.

Hence this email test to see if I can email a post to my blog and how it looks when it is published....here goes nothing!!! (and thanks to Celia for asking if I am still around - yes, it was just a week's holiday ha ha!!)

P.S. the emailed post ended up in draft form - so I think that I need to set up something else first before I can publish by email - probably just a box that I haven't ticked yet!

Btw

very sorry for not blogging much lately - had a three thousand word essay to write before I could go on holiday!!

Now that's done, I am off for a week in Dubai!! I promise that I will bring back some photographs for you.

red noses

If you happen to look in your rear view mirror and see that the two people in the car behind you are wearing those plastic red noses for Red Nose Day then you are bound to be surprised and laugh out loud.

I bet they made a few people laugh today, but I wonder how comfortable those noses are?!