Tuesday, May 6

Naa and I got up at 7:10 and, just before we left, Irma leapt up to wish me a happy birthday. Today we were in reasonable time for the bus, which meant that we made it without running or hoping the bus was late.

I spent the morning with the CMS group, who are in the final week of the course. I had decided to switch from aftvsandbox.org, where ftp access still does not work properly and I am at a loss as to know what else to do from this end, other than switch away from HostMonster. Instead we set up Xampp on usb sticks and all the problems we used to have with Xampp came flodding back to me. Eventually two things happened. Almost all the groups had local installations working, and I vowed to make administrating Xampp a core part of one of the introductory courses next year.

At midday Tiina invited me to watch the movie I had played a part in a few weeks ago, and I invited Jutta, Malin and Michaela to join me, since they were hanging round with nothing to do for ten minutes. To my surprise, the whole first year class was there and they sang “Happy Birthday” as I walked in. We then watched the movie, and Jutta decided that we should upload it to YouTube and try to make it go viral. It was my first starring role and watching it made me chuckle.

In the afternoon Maria, who had foolishly announced that she understood the M2 finance system at the last team meeting, helped me upload all my expenses from Odense. Even with her help it took half an hour.

Now I am on my way home. The sun is bright and the bushes are making very painterly shadows on the road.

Naa will arrive from her photography class at 19:00 and I will receive birthday presents from Irma, Naa and Auo. I will get a cardigan, a Finnair voucher, some travelling cutlery, and a book by PG Wodehouse. Irma will have made card in the style of Auo and signed it on her behalf. It will come with a genuine card from a few years ago.

We will have slices of the world’s richest chocolate cake, and Irma will show me a bottle of wine she bought but is now too sad to drink. It will be a strange and sad evening because Auo’s presence will be sorely missed. It will be one of those occasions where it is quite obvious that the three of us are sometimes much less than 75% of what the four of us used to be.

We will finish the evening watching a standalone episode of Criminal Minds.