Friday April 2nd

God April already.. it's true what they say about time going by faster the older you get. Blink and it was Christmas. And what was the first thing I noticed about April? It was snowing outside. Ha! for spring, eh?
Actually I went into town today - a bit more about that later, but I have to admit the snow we have seen has not hung around, unlike the rest of Scotland, which has had such serious falls that a coach went off the road taking kids on a school trip to Alton Towers, and one poor girl has died. The tv coverage was horrendous, you would have thought it was either the middle of December or January. There had to be at least two feet of snow. Terrible business.

So anyway when I went out today, about what, one, one thirty, it was just beautiful. Lovely sunny day, even a few flowers of some description coming through on the bit of grass before you get to the Royal Infirmary - it's a bleak spot up Alexandra Parade, major road intersection ahead of you, motorway to the right, and one of the worst new build flat developments I've seen for a good while - and there were these little yellow flowers amid a scrap of grass badly in need of a mow. Whether they were daffs, croci or whatever I couldn't see, but they were yellow and natural in amidst urban blight.

Anyhow I went to town because I needed a new juicer. My old one has given up the ghost, and because it was laminated rather than real stainless steel had even developed some species of rust infection - how is that even possible on laminated plastic??! Well anyhow a new one was required, and I now have a new little juicer, with way bigger capacity - which is good, ultra high speeds - the seeds bounce around even more and if you don't use the feeder tube your chunk of celery can even spit out at you! But if it looks cool and smooth and all the things you want a juicer to be, it fails on one certain test, the one you never think to ask about in the shop. It makes a noise like... like... I've never heard before, it screeches in the upper register at an alarming level of decibels. What my upstairs neighbours must think I'm up to, God alone knows. In fact, I've just remembered where I've heard that sort of noise before, from the frogs that Poggle used to bring in to Mum's house, the one's you had to go and discover cowering behind the fridge in absolute terror because the big furry thing was trying to tear them limb from limb. Great, my neighbours now think I'm a frog torturer. No, just juicing, people. Nothing to see here but a very nice glass of beetroot and celery juice.

Yes, I'm sort of trying to loose weight. In fact if I needed any more persuasion, I caught an apalling glimpse of myself in the background of a photo someone took at Keith's birthday party the other week, and there I was, a vision in vastness. So I'm even more determined now, even if I did buy cake at the supermarket today. Hell it's Easter people!!! Cut out everything I like and I'll go ape and scoff an entire cake in one go or something dreadful. No, for me to loose weight, I have to increase the fibre content of what I'm eating, and slowly and gradually cut down on the stuff that's not good for me. And I've been doing a bit of reading and so on, so I'm upping the rather odd combo of beetroot and celery, which are very good for you, not to mention cutting down on the meat, and upping the fish. I like a bit of fish - just as well really, and I've managed to find a brand where I can get the fish in those nice little boil in the bag sachets without half a pound of butter in them to accompany the fillet. I had a dinner in the week, where I marinated my little bit of salmon in a mix of finely grated ginger, lemon juice, a garlic clove and a bit of soy sauce, and well, frankly I could have eaten it raw, because what else is a - oh I've forgotten the name, but you can actually cook fish in lemon juice without heat going anywhere near it. Mum used to do it every now and again, and it was quite a regular thing in the theatre kitchens. Anyhow I had this with some broadbeans, beetroot, peppers and cucumber, on a bed of leaves - it was delish, let me tell you. But there's only so much beetroot you can eat on a day in, day out basis, hence the juicing.

So, the essay is done and dusted - uploaded that is, and can be put aside until the mark comes back.. (the noise you hear are my knees knocking...!) so I've turned my attention to the construction of my dissertation database. In order to do this, I have to construct the questions that I want to ask, and set it all up before I can start collecting the information. Trust me, there's nothing worse than getting in to it before realising you need to add something to it, and go back to all of your previous records and add in the extra information. And if I've got say 800 records, frankly, damn near impossible. Well it would be a lot of hard work. So to save all of that, I want a near perfect list of questions before I start, and I've been thinking about this on and off ever since I constructed my little test database for the proposal. I reckon I've got about twelve months to do this in, giving myself six months to write up, but of course in the interim of this, I have another two terms of full on study to get done, so you could really say I've probably got closer to eight months to collect it all in. I want this database to work well, and to be comprehensively stocked with records. I need to get a good filing system organised to, all that sort of thing. Lord if it isn't finish one set of work, start up with another... I'm taking this week off. I've told myself I'm taking this weekend and next week off - Abby is coming to visit, and stuff like that - but here I am, one day into my week off, and what do I find myself doing at about nine o'clock? Writing questions for the database of course. Yee Gods!