Thrills and spills in the snow :

It was early morning on Saturday and at about 8am my daughter and I set off to her music lesson. I was concerned about getting there on time and I think my brain didn’t register the frosty conditions on the road. To get back to civilisation,
there is a very steep lane (we call it ‘Fairyland
Lane’ because it looks as if the trees are
dusted with icing sugar) which has a sharp left
 turn at the bottom. I turned, then realised that
 the car was not responding at all... In fact we
were skidding out of control towards the hedge on the
other side of the road ! I just had time to say
‘Ok we’re going to crash !’ before impact...

My daughter hurt her elbow on the seatbelt
lock and I jarred my shoulder. Although we
were otherwise unhurt, our poor car sustained
a cracked bumper.
My Canadian Dad says there are always huge numbers of car accidents accompanying the first snow fall each year, after which the levels tail off throughout the winter season. 
What does that tell us ? Possibly that foolish people like me do not learn from their mistakes ?
We’ll have to wait and see ! 

Pizza keys:
Now here’s a funny thing... Have you ever lost something and have absolutely no explanation as to how it got lost? It happened to me last Friday ! It was a cold, dark night and we had been shopping to Tesco’s (this fact will be important later). We pulled up outside our cottage, I got out, grabbing my house keys and the shopping bags simultaneously. I got to the front door, set my bags down to open it, then realised that the keys had somehow vanished from my hand. I searched everywhere on the ground and turned out the car until my torch batteries died ! Finally I decided to admit defeat and ask my landlord, let’s call him ‘Farmer H’ for the spare set he was very good about it and suggested that perhaps I should check my shopping bags.    
When we got in, my daughter searched the bags, while putting the shopping away (she’s great like that)... and did they turn up ? No ! By Saturday we had given up and got a new set of keys cut. As far as I was concerned the matter was closed... That was until I went to cook a pizza last night ! I opened the pizza box to find... Guess what? The keys had somehow got inside... all very strange !

Goodbye to Research Methods :
It is with a little bit of sadness that I completed my research methods course last week. Here are some of the highlights:

      In the first lecture we found out what Hermeneutical meant – Thanks ‘MJG’

      The endlessly patient lecturer ‘CC’ who endured all sorts of silly questions from yours truly and friend ‘K’ even though we did not need to incorporate any qualitative data in our research projects.

      The sense of humour of ‘E’ thanks for giving us a lot of laughs!

      In the fourth lecture ‘DG’ gave us a useful format for the structure of our projects.

      ‘K’ constructed an excellent pro forma for questioning diatoms and bog men just in case there were any opportunities for qualitative research.

      The many layers of ‘R.’

      The fun we had during our coffee breaks – thanks Pilkington !

      The endlessly surreal input of ‘KJ’ which included ‘Jerushah, now I know how old you are I will have to talk to you in a completely different way!’

      Brave ‘K’ who wore shorts just to honour a bet (see previous blog post)!

      Our statistics lecturer ‘SY’ who was always approachable, even for statistics dummies like me.

      Last, but by no means least ‘PJAB,’ the one who made it all possible!

J’s record of the week :

‘Agua de coco’

by Marcos Valle

Silly me! I had been racking my brain to think of an appropriate song for Christmas this week. After many vacillations, and I might add, questionable suggestions from friend ‘S’ and a not so questionable suggestion from friend ‘N,’  I finally came up with ‘Agua de coco’ by Marcos Valle.
Why did I choose this song? Mainly due to my very poor understanding of the Portuguese language! I thought the title translated as ‘Hot chocolate.’ Great, I thought just the right sort of warming drink for the snowy weather of Christmas week. However it actually means ‘Coconut juice!’
Never mind, it’s a good song and having translated the lyrics I quite like them so I’m going to stick with it anyway. It was released on Marcos Valle’s 2003 album ‘Contrasts,’ though I first discovered it this summer on the ‘Brazilian lounge’ album produced by the Putomayo label.
At least my Portuguese friend ‘E’ will be happy... Natal feliz everyone! Jerushah x