Stroppy Brunette’s Stuff

I am trying to make sense of the stats on my research project. It all seemed so straightforward with my supervisor last week; but now I am at home on my own with SPSS and a load of nonsensical notes, and I’m not so sure. Today I have progress of a sort, as after much tortured thinking I came up with ‘refocus on your hypotheses’ so - now that I’ve remembered what they are - I’ve got a framework of a sort. Yesterday, however, I was tired from the London trip, spent the morning faffing about reading different blogs, then took Sparks for a walk with my SIL and nephew at Nostell Priory.

The newly restored Obelisk Lodge at the top of the park.

Lars lends a helping hand.

She loves me, she loves me not…

Lars and Sparky smile for the camera.

I’m of the Anglican persuasion anyway, but after yesterday’s trip to the National Gallery I am really really in favour of the Reformation. Waaaaay too many pictures of the Madonna, crucifixion, St Sebastian pierced with arrows and Judith chopping off Holofernes’ head. I was in there with my firstborn son, who is planning to take 2 art A-levels, and virtually his only comment on the day was “There were an awful lot of pictures of the adoration of the magi.”

I prefer portraits and Dutch landscapes. Firstborn prefers anything that isn’t religious, although he did comment at one point that Canaletto’s sea was ”crap”. Which, on a closer view, I had to agree with. Brilliant buildings and ships, but his sea consisted of a solid background with little white wavelets.  After a cup of tea, gingerbread men (firstborn) and treacle tart (me) I whisked him round part of the National Portrait Gallery, which is one of my favourite places in the world, and bought myself a poster for the 18th century Bluestockings exhibition, in the hope it will inspire me to keep going with the research project. then we mooched around a few bookshops on Charing Cross Road, inspected the Chinese garden in the forecourt of the British Museum, and met Annabelle for dinner.

Excitement and exhaustion followed on the way home: we left King’s Cross at 8pm and were due in at Wakefield about 10.15, but our train stood in Retford station for half an hour before the guard announced on the tannoy that a train ahead of us on the line had caught fire! Aaargh! I had visions of us having to sleep on board as the guard told us there was no way to get past the stricken engine. However they got it moved eventually and we were just an hour late home.

It’s nice to be able to get into London so easily (fast trains from Wakefield mean only a two hour journey to King’s Cross) but it’s even nicer to get home and be picked up from the station by a warm and welcoming husband. M’husband had been tracking our journey home online so arrived just a few minutes before we did. Not so the poor woman he was talking to in the station, who had driven all the way from Holmfirth to pick up her son from the train which was due in at 9pm, only to be told on arrival in Wakefield that his train had caught fire (I am so glad I booked on the 8pm train from London rather than 7pm) and now wouldn’t be arriving until about midnight.

Here’s a picture for today; it’s the engraving used on the Bluestockings poster. Excellent exhbition, do go and see it.

It’s hot and my garden is responding to that and all the rain we had last month:

The roses are going great guns, and I didn’t even realise there were that many buds on the bushes.

I’ve spent the day at Bramham horse trials - first day of dressage today, plus the hunter show.

That’s Mary King, a member of the UK Olympic eventing team, ready to go into her dressage test.

There’s Sparky, sprawled out in the grass by the side of the dressage arena wearing her free neckerchief. I couldn’t get any decent pics of dressage tests; my camera is too small.

There were dogs everywhere, all very well behaved and on leads. The only place to let them off was on the cross country course (no horses on it today). These three belonged to a rider who was walking the course, and shortly after this the German Shepherd pup and the Jack Russell waded into the water jump - to test the bottom was nice and firm for the horses on Saturday, obviously. Sparks and I left them to their musings, and walked off to get through the woods and on the parkland loop, but first we came across this rider in the dressage practice arena:

I don’t know what that building is behind her. A summer house? A folly? It’s quite close to the main house, which we have never actually got around to visiting, despite living only 40 minutes away.

On Saturday horses and riders will be galloping around and encountering fences like this:

And this:

Most of them look quite inviting - if, and it’s a big IF, you had a good horse.

There were some lovely horses in the hunter classes. I love show hunters. I’d have a middleweight, or a heavyweight, in a flash, except that practicalities start to creep into my mind like a) if I fell off when I was out riding, how on earth would I get back on again without a mounting block and b) how much do they cost to feed. A darn sight more than a hardy native pony, I’d imagine.

Here’s Imperator, the winner of the middleweight class:

And here are the judges discussing final placings in the heavyweight class:

It was a very pleasant day, and a welcome distraction from my academic woes. I’ve given up on the PhD idea - for now. In the end, I’d decided this before I went to see my supervisor. I discussed it with her anyway, in the hopes she could produce some miraculous idea, but no such luck. There are too many family demands on my time and attention at present for me to devote myself to such a huge project, and I felt quite upset and frustrated by that. Especially when those demands are things like ‘make sure this gets posted for me’; ‘make me a sandwich’ and ‘when did anyone last dust?’ But I have a plan; I shall spend two or three years taking some short term and/ or part time contracts for things, as well as doing other independent study to keep my hand in.

Soon after we moved in here (20 years ago next month!) this aquilega appeared:

I can’t remember if it merely seeded itself, or came in a pot from m’mother’s garden along with some other stuff. Whatever, I wasn’t that impressed by its washed out pinky-purple flower and kept pulling it out. But it was persistent, as evidenced by the fact that it’s still there.

A few years ago I bought this aquilega:

Which turned out somewhat different to what I thought it would be, but it was interesting so I let it be. It turned out that aquilegas love my garden, as it kept seeding itself and can now be found all over my back garden flower beds on the sunny side. It also seemed to get on well with the pinky-purple resident, as they swapped pollen when my back was turned and came up with this:

A deep periwinkle blue, I think. And then this came along:

This one tends to the maroon end of the spectrum, so I find it a little bit funereal but I’ve allowed it to stay. Then last week I was fiddling with the plants and actually looked closely at this year’s self-seeded aquilega crop and realised I now had this as well:

I think it’s fabulous. Like a Victorian petticoat; all stiff frills and furbelows.

I am still musing on the PhD idea. How much do I want to do it? How bored will I get if I stick with what I’m doing now? Will I be able to stop myself being totally distracted by family stuff? If I’m going to do a doctorate I think the best time would be now, whilst I’m in the swing of research. If I left it a few years I’d then have to go through the whole ‘I can’t, I’m not capable’ panic all over again.

Meeting with supervisor is tomorrow. Given the amount of work I haven’t got done, she may laugh the doctorate idea out of the building.

Very soothing in the woods right now, as the tree canopy has thickened up and you are bathed in a soft, green light. Like this:

And it makes me keep thinking about singing ‘Into the Woods…” as I am toying with the idea of applying for a PhD. The one that’s come up sounds perfect, but… Well, I wouldn’t have time to go for many long walks with the dogs, and the emotional support at home can be somewhat sporadic, depending on how much cleaning is being done. On the plus side, I’d have a desk in the department, so I’d be able to concentrate on my work without endless distractions from children, washing, dirty bathroom floors and husbands who complain about the amount of paper I accumulate.

I’m going to discuss it with my supervisor tomorrow. As she would also be the supervisor for this PhD she may well exclaim in horror at the idea of supporting me through an even bigger research project. In the meantime I’m going to think happy thoughts, just like Sparky and Willis when they see an expanse of long grass:

The filly has been named: Caphouse Alice.

Shortly before this photo was taken she had been poking her nose in a mud puddle, just for the heck of it. So now she looks a bit like a donkey.

Through my viewfinder, this pic looked magnificent. Then I looked at it in detail on my computer and thought “she looks like a dirty, cheeky rascal.” Which I am sure is exactly what our Alice will turn out to be. Her colour is changing already; she is a dull dark brown (not a normal adult Dales pony colour) with grey/ sable sheeny patches.

She is already great friends with m’sister, and comes up to the fence for a nice scratch.

Look at that lip starting to tremble. My Alison is on her way to the top scratching spot.

And she’s got it. Shortly after this Alice moved away, I think in self defence before she fell over with sheer pleasure.

Here’s Winnie the Fell pony. They’re similar to Dales ponies but smaller. Winnie is now sharing a field with Alice and her mother, Doris, and all three have settled down well. Winnie and Alice are fast friends, which m’sister and I are really pleased about as the other ponies have given Winnie a bit of a hard time since she arrived, about 18 months ago.

Winnie also loves m’sister, and here she’s giving her a little nuzzle. Isn’t it lovely?

However what you can’t see is Willis, busily lowering the tone just out of shot with repeated attempts to hump Fly the Border collie. M’sister is looking down as the action is taking place around her ankles. I have to give Willis full marks for persistence as he just keeps on trying, no matter how many times he is shouted at by m’sister, or snapped at by Fly. 

Anyone viewing this blog would probably think I lived an idyllic country life rather than my actual townie existence. So here are a few pics from the town/ city side of my life:

This is at the top of the Leeds University campus. The majority of buildings on the older part are redbrick, and many are terraces like this (go down to the bottom, nearer the city centre, and there are plenty of concrete monstrosities, but I’ll save those for another time). There are also loads of red brick terraces around Hyde Park, nearby. They probably looked lovely when they were built, as the lintels and door frames are of sandstone. There are a couple of buildings which have been cleaned up and the pinky cream of the sandstone really compliments the brick. However, sandstone picks up pollution very easily and consequently Leeds’ industrial history can be seen in the fact that the once lovely lintels are now black. Some people have added to the darkness by painting them black (why, I don’t know); others have tried to regain the original look by painting them cream or white. This is not that successful a move. The cream isn’t too bad, but not nearly as beautiful as the original stone, whereas the white is just - yuck. Especially where dampness and overhanging trees have resulted in the spread of green lichen over the white bits.

Look closely though, and you can still see some interesting features:

Like these coloured stone tops to the window arches. This is on the Faculty of Law, which the last time I visited was an absolute dump inside with extremely fierce and unhelpful staff in the general office. But the outside is nice.

And then there’s sheer beauty round the corner:

A horse chestnut tree in full bloom. Awesome.

Here’s Mort after his bath. (I tried to put these in my previous post, but WordPress wasn’t having any of it).

What surprised us most was all that white skin showing up - we thought he would have black skin, given the depth of his coat colour. He also looked a fair bit slimmer when wet, although he’s still definitely overweight. You have to brace yourself to pick him up, he’s that heavy. M’husband thinks he’s picking up food from some other house also, but I think it’s mainly because our other cat, Susan, has a tendency to eat three mouthfuls then wander off, leaving Mort to clean up after her.

What a beautiful bank holiday weekend. Glorious weather. Saturday I was working, but then Sunday we visited both my MIL and my parents. M’husband fitted a new leg to the caravan, and I wiped down the inside walls and surfaces ready for his trip off with the boys next weekend. Up at Ma and Pa’s, sons 2 and 3 joined me, Sparky and Fly the border collie to inspect m’father’s new field drains and ditches. It was so lovely, being down the field glorying at the hedges. I spotted a good clump of blackthorn and made a mental note to go back in August to get the sloes, and youngest son, the dogs and I hid from middle boy under a hawthorn tree/ bush. We had one of those perfect moments where boys and dogs were running with delight through a sea of buttercups - and of course, I didn’t have my camera.

On Monday we went to see Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull AND I got loads more gardening done. We all enjoyed the film, although youngest son and I simulataneously squeaked “It’s the janitor!” during the FBI interrogation scene. M’husband and I hate having to queue for anything, so we hustled everyone out of the house at 9.45am to get to the first showing nice and early. It was even more of a hustle as, after I got out of my bath, we put Sparky in (firstborn had been complaining of the smell she was making in his bedroom, although I suspect that may be a case of the pot calling the kettle black) and then m’husband decided it would be a good idea to bath Mort the black cat. Mort has a very thick coat, which he regularly leaves clumps of on the furniture and freshly cleaned carpets, and an occasional scurf problem, and m’husband has been theorising for some time that a bath may help. I refused to have anything to do with this scheme, mainly because I was dressed in clean clothes and my best t-shirt, so m’husband captured his cat, let some of the bath water out, plonked him in there and soaped him up with the (rather expensive) Eucerin skin soothing body wash. 

Despite being a pretty placid cat, Mort was appalled at this treatment and stalked off as soon as he was released. When we returned from the cinema and garden centre, m’husband went around picking up cat hair - I think Mort must have been grooming the entire time we were out.