Its been a while

Gosh! time seems to move on quite swiftly - since I've left work I haven't had a moment to sit down and write any blogs... well I wrote this one on the 12th but didn't get round to posting it until now. So here you go...

Its raining hard today…On wet days it always makes me smile at the umbrella acrobatics and duels that take place in the crowded streets. A friend once said to me “save space, get rid of umbrellas” and she’d be right. On rainy days, on a busy pavement, there isn’t enough room for everyone AND their umbrella. The speed at which reach destination is greatly reduced on wet days because you have to go into battle with those giant, eye poking, block-out-the-light, space guzzling golf brollies. It should be compulsory for golf brollie owners to share some of the space in a similar fashion to car sharing. It would certainly save a few eyes, and make way for smaller less intrusive umbrellas.

It’s great fun to watch the brollie battles as two on coming people realise there isn’t enough room to brush past each other so they do a little jig raising their umbrella high above their head or tilting it to one side. Of course, the ‘side tilt’ is a dangerous manoeuvre as you can easily become entangled with another unsuspecting brollie carrier or worse, gouge a hole in the head a person who’s forgotten their umbrella at home.

Some people have the most folorn looking umbrellas you’ve ever seen, with bent or broken struts that hang down at a jaunty angle, funnelling torrents torrents of water on to the owner’s shoulder or more likely, the shoulder of someone else. And then there people who use the teeny, tiny umbrellas that just about keep the top of your head dry. What is the point of those?? (my friend, the one who doesn't agree with umbrellas, has one of these) One’s toupee might stay dry but the other 98% of the body is soaked down to the bone! If you are thinking of buying one of these, let me give you some advice - save your coins and by a shower cap, it works just as well.

Did you know that the umbrella was originally designed to shade people from the sun over 4000 years ago! And the word ‘umbrella’ comes from the Latin word ‘umbra’ meaning shade or shadow… now how’s that for a bit of trivia?!

So I suppose I should briefly mention that its my first week at Uni and it’s running relatively smoothly – Freshers week was last week but I avoided the traffic light parties, the excessive drinking and all related activities. I did make and effort to go to the Freshers Fayre to see what free goodies were to be had and came home with a ton of useless flyers, a spatula, a teaspoon and a small pouch to put your old chewed gum in instead of spitting it onto the side walk. I thought this was an amazing piece of ingenuity but I’ll leave that subject for another time.

I have also discovered why most mature students sit at the front. This is something I used to ridicule when I was a student (the first time round). But now I know…we mature students WANT to hear what’s being said. Unlike the kids, who spend all their time gossiping about who fancies who and how hung over they are, we actually want to pay attention. In my first lecture, I had to steel myself from giving them a stern telling off From now on, I’ll sit near the front. There’s not much else to report as we are easing into things pretty slowly. Our first project is based on mapping and I’ve just spent the last hour highlighting bits chewing gum on the pavement….