Where I've Been: Where I'm Going.

No don't panic, it's not a post full of  pious reflections for the new year!

Where I've been is down the rabbit hole that was the revised Part 1 of my thesis, which went off to my supervisors on Monday lunchtime. It would have been sooner, but for the s*dding referencing. Also if my subject poet had not written quite so much in Gaelic. As it was, checking the quotes, the Gaelic spelling and putting in the references took me over twelve hours. I know, I know, I should reference as I go. But that breaks up the flow of the narrative for me too much. Also it would help had I not been 'strongly advised' to use a referencing system known as MLA. This was developed specifically for humanities subjects and  is supposed to make the work an easy read. Which, to be fair, it does. It doesn't make it an easy write, especially if, like me, you are dependent on a lot of manuscript sources, for which it is not really suitable.

Anyway next Tuesday - aaaarggghhhh! less than a week away! - I have a supervisory meeting to discuss it, and the Lit Review which was sent off before Christmas, so I may beg for permission to use something else. I am not looking forward to the supervisory meeting but at least it is here in Orkney, with the Aberdeen and Glasgow 'people' joining us via Skype. I will however have to go in on the bus, as the OH is off to Leeds that day for a meeting and will be absent until Thursday. Because my meeting is at one and will last an hour I will miss the 2.20 bus, thereby falling foul of the infamous School Bus Gap, which means I will not be able to get a bus back before 4.40. This is a Nuisance and Annoyance of the First Order as it means I will be out of the house most of the day, which will miff the cats and possibly mean that the fire goes out, but I am telling myself that at least I have a home to come back to, and I should be grateful for both that and the fact that I can afford to heat it.

In happier news we are off in about half an hour to catch the late afternoon ferry for a trip to Glasgow. This is going to be even madder than our usual quick trips to Glasgow as we won't get there until very late tonight, we will be running round all day tomorrow while there and then getting up at the crack of dawn to return to Orkney on Friday. To be fair it is is not all our own fault as our usual ferry is in dry dock  and the alternative one runs a very reduced service in winter. So it was very early morning, or late afternoon. Again I should be thankful that the weather is calm and the ferry will run.

As for what we're doing; it's the Scottish Opera Emerging Artist January Recital, and I hope we will have more luck with the EAs than in December , when one was away and one had knocked herself out the previous day and couldn't appear so that the program had been subject to a lot of change. After that its the 'getting to know them' lunch, which, judging by previous years will be long, noisy and delicious, and in the evening we're going to the ballet. This is a rare thing for us, and I'm looking forward to it. It's the very festive Cinderella and will, in my mind, finally close Christmas. And once we're back, I'll be down the rabbit hole again, accompanying my  poet to North Africa during WW2. (Or, as the MLA style guide would have it, World War Two)