Monday 29th April, 2013        1545

The first day of a three day break. Mercifully the workmen on the floor below never started at eight this morning again but they started sledge hammering and drilling after lunch so a siesta is off the menu.

The promised rain has yet to arrive but is on its way - the late arrival almost certainly ensures that it won’t clear up before midday tomorrow as predicted. So you see, it’s not just the UK that invariably gets rain on a bank holiday weekend! Seeing as tomorrow I will be mostly stuck in the barracks I am leaving changing the bed and pressing trousers until then.

Last night as I sat outside the sweet pork place watching the 29 bus depart at regular intervals it was packed every time and as a result the campus is very sparsely populated now. I went to the shops with the intention of also getting shorn but to my disgust Barry Manilow has taken all three days off so the haircut will have to wait. With so little free time this term it would have been ideal in the break, not least because there are no queues.

Tuesday 1845

The impending rain arrived and no sooner did it do so than we lost all power - not just the school but the surrounding area again. It was particularly annoying as not only had I just put the animal food on but my bread maker was a spit off starting to cook. It has no simply “bake” function so I assumed it would be the same as Kevin’s where it has a ten minute memory and if disconnected for longer just goes back to the beginning. With visions of having to ultimately take the pan and finish off after power came back (I could hardly start from scratch due to the time and the fact it would try to knead the dough all over again) I resigned myself to having to use my oven to complete the job. I settled down with a book and my battery lamp for the two hours it turned out to be off and amazingly the lamp lasted that long although I do have candles for back up.

To my surprise the machine simply picked up where it left off when we had light but of course as it had been so long the dough had risen to ridiculous heights and I had to poke it with my finger to collapse it. That resulted in a loaf at the finish whose top resembled the face of a shar-pei mutt. But nonetheless edible. Having made everyone’s dinner I settled down to watch some BBC telly but stone me if the power didn’t go off again amid a torrential downpour coupled with rather loud reports from thunder. I gave up and went to bed.

Today I have been lazy so I need to rectify that tomorrow. Trousers still need pressing, bed changing etc not to mention some lesson preparation but as I am exhausted due to the workmen resuming work downstairs at a highly antisocial hour this morning I will be sleeping early tonight and should be up early enough to accomplish those before I decide whether to go to town or not.

A couple of hours ago I was sitting near the shops about to text Joanna to say my cheese was a long time coming when she rang as I was composing the message. She had it and was coming. Good stuff and dinner tonight is now cheese on misshapen toast which would have been Welsh rarebit had I not just thrown my tomato away!

She informed me that she and Happy want to stay on campus this summer holiday so I need to ask Kevin if his flat will be free. I hope so as they can look after my animals for me and hopefully negate the need to put Pepsi with the vet. Although they do take dogs for walks I really don’t like the thought of her being cooped up in a cage the rest of the day.

So that’s it for now, a bit of Attenborough’s Blue Planet, food and a very, very early night.