Sunday 19th September

This last week has felt like I've been running from one end of Glasgow to the other! And being hauled from up in the air to the pit of despair - alright perhaps not quite the bottom of the pit, but well pretty near to it at some points.
Firstly I got the job - yep this one I've been moaning on about every now and again for months it seems like. You would think this would have me leaping up and down in delight, and I'm certainly not complaining about it, but I do rather feel that I've been in the process of applying for it for so long now I'm exhausted with the whole thing. Then there's the fact it doesn't start until the second week in October, and I need to be working (and earning!) now!!! But still, one doesn't look a gift horse in the mouth, and you just damn well get on with it, and sort out the financial stuff, and you never know, something else might just come along to pad out that bit. At least that's what I'm sternly telling myself in the dead of night when thoughts of gas bills etc etc come creeping along.

On a way more positive note, uni has gone and got itself all organised. I shot off to my meeting with Alex, and I'm signed up to do courses on the Normans, and Renaissance-Anti-Renaissance next term. I don't know very much about the Normans - ha, what else is new, it's like everything I've done on this entire course has been about something I don't know very much about, but perhaps a smidge more than total ignorance. I did do courses on them in the way distant past, when I was doing Med History 1, etc, ie, in the first year of being an undergraduate. So as I say, a smidge more than total ignorance. This course looks interesting too, it's not about the Normans per se, but the Normans as invaders, colonisers etc, so as outsiders. That is always interesting no matter who's doing the invading or colonising, and a lot of this is looking at the other parts of their invading and colonising, in Italy, Scicily, etc. There was a fair bit of contact between them and the Byzantine Empire for example, and their relationship with the Papacy - well, let's just say it varied between non-existent and touchy.
As for Renaissance and Anti-Renaissance, I'll get to this later in the year.
So that was that sorted out, but back to the old financial doldrums, I decided to try and put in a claim for council tax benefit, and housing benefit, which is why I've been racing around from one end of the city to the other. Get the registry to stamp one form, then head back over to Parkhead Council Office with the form, they give me more forms so I have to get those filled in and go get the supporting evidence - I never seem to be terribly lucky with benefit claims, so we can only keep our fingers crossed. A bit the same as Jo, who as a good number of you know is not at all well at the moment, and is trying to claim a bit of disability allowance. First time in her life she's ever needed to claim a benefit, and she falls foul of this government and it's cuts. Her timing couldn't be worse eh? And if she's finding it difficult, imagine what it must be like for someone who's less able to stand her ground and fight her corner. It doesn't bear thinking about, particularly as people claiming disability allowance aren't in any position to be having to fight for things.
As for me, well I don't know. I can try to claim, and just see what happens - it's a bit of a pain to have to produce all this paperwork, but then again, fair that everything is properly checked and stuff. And I must say that they've been sending me letters and stuff awfully quickly, which I felt was very on the ball of them. I hadn't expected to be hearing from them for at least what, another week? But then I tried to claim benefits earlier in the year, and got absolutely nowhere. On the other hand, I feel quite strongly that as someone with no income at the moment, that I should at the very least get something off my council tax.

And I dare say some of you are wondering what the Pope's visit was like. Alas, I can't really tell you, except that on the day it happened, the buses took about twice as long to turn up as clearly half of them had been sent off to ferry people to Bellahouston Park. There'd been a lot of expecting the centre of Glasgow to be gridlocked with traffic, and the motorways to have seized up, but I have to say I saw no sign of it. So really in a way, no news was good news, and a bus did turn up eventually that did get me to where I was going, so... not a lot more I can tell you about that really. At one point, I had to go to my rental agency to collect some paperwork, (yes, more paperwork!) and my walk to this took me past a Church, with a large banner outside it announcing Pope Benedict's visit, and presumably this was where people had gathered to catch a bus to the event, but this was some hours after they must have done so, so I saw nothing of it. Nice looking little church though. (Says her father's daughter. Ah yes, the years of being dragged around churches rub off on one..) And they did have very good weather for it. Its been a bit breezy, but otherwise this week has been fairly dry - Monday and Tuesday felt a bit like everytime I set foot outside the heavens opened, but otherwise it's not been bad weatherwise.
So that's been the week that was, and the week that will is ahead of us, with first point of call being the Benefit Office, with the batch of requested papers. Then I shall be off to the library to pick up a few books on the Normans!