Tuesday, June 20

 

 

Summer seems to have developed a one-day-on, one-day-off pattern. Today it had its day off. I woke feeling cold and listening to the sound of heavy rain.

I walked to the 97V in what felt like a monsoon, umbrella held high. My travel card expired last Friday and so I used the money I had preloaded into it. I realised I should check how much I had on it, which I don’t know how to do on the new ticket machines.

The monsoon continued for the entire journey and I arrived at Arcada feeling as though I should stop to buy some samosas before starting work.

I spent the first part of the morning booking rooms for my teaching next academic year. This always proves tricky but this year proved easier than most. Only Media Masters ended up causing problems, and they stemmed from the fact that Mats had failed to activate next year’s courses. I booked the rooms, using a workaround, but had to make a note to rebook them in August in order to attach the rooms to the course.

I then updated some calendar entries, based on mails people had sent me.

At lunch I ate cheese sandwiches and bananas, whiile catching up with Doctor Who. This has become the strongest series I can remember, with no weak episodes at all so far, and an intriguing arc-long narrative about Missy and her relationship to the Doctor. This will either fizzle out in the remaining two episodes or turn into something that redefines the storyworld in some way. Personally I hope for the latter (which seems increasingly likely given that the Master appeared in the trailer for the next episode and, thus far, Missy has appeared as the next regeneration of The Master – so if the two turn out to co-exist…)

I spend most of the afternoon updating aspects of the online summer course, and guest-starring in various discussion forums. At 15:55 I look out of the window and noticed that the rain has stopped. I decide I have done enough, and put my shoes on ready to leave. I hear a noise and look out of the window. The monsoon has returned in an instant. I reopen my computer and back up files for thirty minutes until the rain stops again as suddenly as it started. I race for the tram.

At home I will iron a load of sheets, looking forward to the moment in the not-too-distant future when Naa will get her own washing machine, iron and ironing board. We have promised to help her choose one and we will do this before she starts university.

Later, when the rain has given up for the day, I will take my bike onto the terrace and put a new inner-tube onto the rear wheel. I will discover that the one that lasted a week or less does not have a puncture. Rather the seam around the nozzle has come unsealed. I can think of two possible reasons for this: it had a flaw when I bought it, or I pumped it up too much and the seam came undone when I went over a kerb.

It will take me an hour or so and I will finish by not pumping the tyre up as much.