Herself went to a “Higher Options” online conference today from the comfort of her own bedroom. In previous years it has been in physical form and the various third level institutions manned stalls for hordes of 6th year students to descend on and ask questions. The online version appeared to be entirely non-interactive. “No interaction at all?” I asked. “No,” she said, “except for the school group chat which is hopping as we all feel we’ve been scammed out of a tenner.” It subsequently transpired that there was a chat function which had been overwhelmed by bored sixth years typing in the letter T. You’d think they might have ensured against that.
More generally she is quite pleased with herself as she applied for a writing mentorship scheme and has been accepted.
I was off work today for various logistical domestic reasons and was able to greet the boys as they came in the door from school. They were both in great form having had excellent days in school. Very pleasing.
For those of you following filtered permeability updates, our bollards have been replaced by planters with trees. The street whatsapp group was largely very pleased. We’re all basically incomers, even the people who moved here 40 years ago. The one woman who was born and bred on the street (75 and very active) and remembers it before trees were planted at all (the first gentrifiers starting the rot 40 years ago) was a bit less positive than the rest of us welcoming the trees with the following: “Ah Jesus, they can’t look after the ones that are here.” As she is regularly out clearing the storm drains of leaves, I do see where she is coming from but I, for one, welcome our leafy overlords.
And finally, the weather has turned and it is cold enough to turn on the Aga. Thrills.