shall i manage your expectations for you sir?

I've been busy. I know that's unoriginal, but then, so is everything else at the moment so tough. Crap poetry and stolen jokes do not a decent update make. I would promise to do better, but I would not want to raise expectations. Expectation is really one of those words you just run into at work, isn't it? In my personal experience, when anyone in management mentions "managing expectations" one should make oneself scarce, or bring protection.

However, I am now
a) alone and
b) on holiday
so perhaps the situation will improve. Once you add in
c) I'm supposed to be using this time to read, study, decide and research my essay topic for my class and generally catch up on life the universe and everything that has been happening since I've been spending what seems like 22 hours each and every day either in Manchester on the project or in a class at Birkbeck - a transition that is most definitely not yet seamless - then you can bet that I'll be displacing activity on a massive scale, hence, more blog posts. Isn't the human mind wonderful?

Yes, N has gone up to visit his uncle in Cheltenham and will be enjoying long British walks in the Cotswalds, cozy pubs, and the unadulterated joy of listening to Uncle L who sounds just like Wallace in Wallace and Grommet. But in a good way. I am holding the fort. Thankfully, Humph, our OCD rescue greyhound, has given up the bi-minutely routine - pace, stare, jump on sofa to look out window, sigh, look reproachfully at me, settle, repeat - for the time being and is now employing sad eyes (tm) from his bed in the corner interspersed with manic paw licking. There can be no mistaking the glaring reality of being considered second rate. Obviously dogs really are man's best friend.