Weds 19th, sort of, because it's after 12 so really its thurs 20th!

Yep, and again here I am late at night, blogging. Well it seems to be a habit of mine. Anyhow weirdness of weirdness, today I got a notice that I've been selected for potential jury service. For the next two years, I can be summoned at three weeks notice, I have to let them know when I'm planning on being away, and serve on a jury. I've actually done this before, and frankly I have to say that I feel it's somewhat unfair that I can have my life thrown into this degree of uncertainty - they didn't hold me in abeyance for two years the last time! I just got a letter, went and served - none of this you will tell us where you are if you're planning on going away from home, in advance - not that I've got anything against jury service, but I think it would be a bit better if they shared it out a bit more fairly. What's wrong with the idea that if you've done it once, that's it, you've done your bit and thanks for that. Let's share out the duty and those people who, when I say I've done this, go Oh God, I've not, I'd love to - well why not let them? When I did it last time a woman told me once you're summoned, you get summoned again and again. What a pain. Why couldn't it have been your premium bond's come up?!
It is like winning the lottery, only not, if you see what I mean. If my number has to come up, on this not exactly common lottery-type event, why couldn't it have been the actual lottery? What's to bet I get summoned say in the first week of next term, or three weeks before an essay is due or something. Yep, that'll be it. My number will well and truly come up three weeks before I'm due to hand my dissertation in. Still mind you I can at least ensure that that isn't in a state of disarray three weeks before the hand in date!
So what else has been happening - Abby came to visit this weekend, and along with the trips around museums, I seem to have destroyed my knees. Every day they started getting a bit weird, but ever since she's gone home & I've been left to get on with normal life, it's like they've crumbled to some strange powdery state. I feel like a little old woman staggering around with my stick and on full dose painkillers. I shall have to take them to the doctor for physio I think. Mind you, having said that, I've been doing the exercises I got when I fell a couple of years back regularly for about the last three weeks, I've even constructed a support pillow for the back of the knee out of popping plastic and packaging tape. It doesn't seem to be doing a bit of good. However it was great to see Abby, and I don't think we stopped talking the whole weekend. We went to see some great places as well, the Tennement House, the Burrel Collection, and St Mungo's. St Mungo's is the Catholic Cathedral of Glasgow, and we saw a rather fascinating end of a service given for some sort of priory organisation that reminded me somewhat of the unsavory groups out of Dan Brown's little fantasies - a number of older men in smart suits wearing tunics over the top of these apparently constructed from white sheets. And a number of them could have done with the larger version too, they pulled across the jackets and seats of their suits in a most unfortunate fashion! I suppose I should add that I have no idea who these people were, but they were accompanied by six masons of what was clearly a very high degree to judge by the badges, iconography and medals they were wearing, not to mention the fact that these guys were in tail suits. Full morning dress, bar the top hats. Extraordinary. The cathedral itself was rather interesting, with a number of wall placques that are well worth a look. And the necropolis is fascinating, and at some point I'll get the photo's off my phone and put them on Facebook.

I'm off to a mapping workshop soon. They organise this sort of thing for post grads at the university, and this is in pursuit of my quest to be able to put spots on a map of antique Europe, where the miracles actually take place. I'd like a nice colour coded set of spots saying here were ten, here were twenty - here was a single miracle in say 595. You know the sort of thing. I think it will look very fancy in my dissertation, but it's not as simple as saying you get a map and put spots on it. This is going to be a seriously intensive course, I've had to download stuff, log on to digimap, which appears to be a system whereby you can access lots of ordinance survey maps - it's all very interesting. I like maps, there's something about them that whenever I see a map I end up gazing at it as if it was vibrating and turning purple. I particularly enjoy maps of old places that I used to live, it sort of takes me back I guess. But any old map will do, if I can't find one of where I used to live I'll settle for mysterious places. I have a road atlas of America, which I find absolutely - well, rivetting. I look at all those place names and marvel. It's not as if I particularly want to go there and actually see these places for myself - although I wouldn't turn it down, but I like actually looking at the map itself. What I'd really like to get hold of is a sort of A6 sized map of the UK, a hardbacked book type version, of the type of map that you used to have to have when you, ahem, ok, I was at school. I'd like to be able to get on a train or a coach and follow it, so I could see what that mysterious building twenty miles in the distance is, or what those hills are called. I think the only solution to this is to get one of these new Iphones, with a satnav on it. However, I'm keeping a very firm hold on this idea, no way am I doing this until I have work.
Which brings me to the fact that I still don't have any work. Pain in the neck or what? Oh well, I keep on trying.