17th January

I'm just taking a break from my reading - lots of stuff about Visigoths! Actually less about Goths of any variety than about the Arian controversy, which will be part of the seminar on Monday. It's all very interesting. I picked up my marked database exercise quite late on Friday, and it got a very good mark! I was dead chuffed.
Apart from the reading, I've been tidying up and doing loads of washing - you know that feeling that you're running the boiler at breakneck pace, and one more little thing will be the straw that broke the camels back. So I let the washing pile up a bit, and now I'm trying to catch up on it. I have to add that there's no possibility of my running out of clean clothes, even if I have to take to layering for a day or so!! But now I have the temptation of ultra clean jumpers for Monday which is always a secret thrill. You know the temptation of clothes that are not only clean, but were washed yesterday. Just so much more tempting than the jumper that's sitting there and has been clean for a week or so. It's the scent of the fabric conditioner I guess.
So what else have I been up to - nothing I was about to say but actually I've been running up a few new bookmarks, hoping to catch the Valentine market. I had some nice Swarovski hearts left over from before Christmas, so I've beaded them up - I've got some new glass hearts coming from America, where I buy quite a bit of my stock. These aren't crystal, but blown glass, which I'm hoping will catch a bit of attention. I only did six, but I'm going to put a few more together tomorrow, and hey presto, I will have Valentine stock. Whether it will sell or not lord only knows, but heart type bookmarks will actually sell throughout the year, so it's not a problem.
But apart from this it's been Goths and the Arian controversy all day. And alas, tomorrow must also be Goths and Arians, no doubt with a chunk of some additional secondary source material chucked in for good luck. This seminar is actually all about "Intuiting Gods", and I've yet to actually make sense of this in terms of the Arians. However - and here we go, it could well be something to do with Syncretism, which it turns out is about including symbols and facets of other religious beliefs into a newer form of religious belief. Although I've not yet finished this particular book, my guess is that some people believe this happens, and other's don't, which accounts for the title being Syncretism/Anti-Syncretism. Ulfila - a Goth bishop, not a form of plaster for walls, apparently included some facets of neo-Platonism in his theology, although I don't know much about Platonism, let alone neo-platonic thought. It's an entirely new field of knowledge every day basically and can I master enough of it not not make a fool of myself? I rather suspect that Platonism is one area where one should simply admit ignorance, although I'm pretty sure it's something to do with perfect forms now I've said that, and old Ulf was a sort of semi Arian, concerned about the substance of God (both father and son, the holy ghost didn't get a look in where Ulf was concerned.) So maybe I do know a bit more about this than I thought I did, or maybe I've already absorbed enough reading today to not make a fool of myself. What a life eh?
Just a quick ps here, you should see what the spellcheck has just made of this!!!!