I got home from work this afternoon to find a parcel waiting for me – the results of my glass fusing. I’m very pleased with the three bowls I made.
The first two are pretty much as I had imagined them. The last one, which looked rather unpromising in its raw state, has come out very well I think. My finger’s still numb, but the bowls are worth it!
The glass fusing course was thoroughly enjoyable, but the downside is that it’s very hard on the hands. Last time, I came away with my hands covered with small but surprisingly deep cuts. This time, I was much more diligent about “grozing”, or filing away the very sharp fragments from the cut edges of the glass to make it safe to handle. As a result I managed to avoid getting cut all day, and didn’t have to break into the tutor’s impressive bulk-bought supplies of plasters.
But I didn’t get away entirely without damage. I spent all afternoon cutting class into triangles and rectangles to make up the pattern on my bowls. That meant applying very firm pressure using a glass-cutting tool – basically it looked like a pen with a steel nib and tungsten wheel on the tip. The wheel rolls across the glass, making a scoring line along which the glass then fractures. But you have to apply significant downward pressure to make the score deep enough – to the extent that, being short, I had to stand on a wooden box so that I could get enough weight behind it. My index finger took the brunt of the pressure, and I’ve come away with some form of repetitive strain injury as a result. It’s most peculiar – there’s absolutely nothing to see, but my finger feels numb and as if I have a callous or blister on the end of it. My brother-in-law also had what sounded like exactly the same symptoms, so it’s probably fairly common side-effect of exerting too much pressure over too long a period. Nearly a week later my finger is just beginning to return to normal, but still feels odd.
If I go again, I’ll have to try to lessen the pressure I apply (whilst still trying to cut the glass accurately) or perhaps just be less ambitious in the amount of glass-cutting I attempt. Interestingly, my sister escaped the numb-finger syndrome, perhaps because she was concentrating on using another technique of nibbling the glass into curved shapes using pliers, rather than cutting the glass directly.
Last autumn I spent a very interesting day learning how to make glass bowls at Rainbow Glass studios in North London. My sister and brother-in-law were so interested in my description of it that they decided to go on the same course the following month, with the result that it was glassware all round as Christmas presents! We all enjoyed ourselves so much, that we decided to go there again together – with the difference that this time we weren’t complete beginners, and had an idea of what we wanted to do.
The day we settled on several months ago was last Saturday – which turned out not to be ideal for me. I was running an equipment trial at work most of last week, so was pretty shattered anyway, and when I got to the Malvern train station on Friday afternoon I found that there were no trains at all to Paddington, due to an “incident on the line” at Slough. There was an extremely helpful young man at the ticket office who was determined that I would get to London one way or another, and phoned round several train operators to make sure the ticket he was about to sell me would be accepted on their trains. In the end I was routed via Birmingham Snow Hill to London Marylebone and didn’t get to my sister’s until 10pm, absolutely exhausted.
It was worth the effort though, as the course on Saturday was excellent. There were seven of us on the course – four complete beginners and the three of us second-timers. I decided that this time I’d make fewer but bigger pieces, and made three bowls. Two are variations on a theme of abstract shards of glass, each about 25cm diameter. The third is a slightly smaller bowl, using a technique I’ve not tried before. This involved applying a grey wash of copper oxide sandwiched between two sheets of clear glass. It should come out of the kiln as a turquoise blue wash of little bubbles. I’ve also tried to texture the underside of that bowl by resting it on dots of fibre wadding in a spiral design. I’ve no idea if that will come out well or not, but it’ll be interesting to see.
Next step is for the tutor to fuse the glass in the kiln so that all the layers become one solid piece, but still lie flat. Then he’ll place the flat fused glass on a ceramic mould and heat the kiln to a lower temperature so that the glass only slightly softens, and “slumps” to take up the shape of the mould, but without destroying the pattern or texture that has already been formed. I should get the completed glass bowls through the post in a couple of weeks – I’m looking forward to seeing how they’ve come out.
Last week was the annual Open Day of the Department of Engineering Science at Oxford University. I don’t normally manage to attend, but this year I made the effort. I was invited not only to attend the afternoon lectures and evening drinks reception, but to spend the morning judging the final year projects and recommending which should be awarded prizes. That’s new since my day, but was very interesting. There was a huge range of projects across all branches of engineering, and the winners included a structural analysis of the Great Albert Bridge over the River Tamar, a mobile phone app to identify the spread of disease-carrying mosquitos, real-time 3D image segmentation and reconstruction, and filters for electro-optic protection using switchable liquid crystal cells.
The keynote lecture was on “the Rise of the Machines”, and was a fascinating canter through robotics, automation and Big Data, with an emphasis on automating the mining industry in Australia. The lecturer had been at Oxford in the late eighties and had in fact taught me signal and information processing – a field that I’m still working in.
I was particularly honoured to be invited, by the Head of the Department, to join him, the guest lecturer, and a select handful of industry representatives and Oxford academics at a dinner in Balliol College that evening – my old college in fact. As usual, it’s who you know that counts, and the new Head of the Department was my D.Phil supervisor 25 years ago, so when he realised I would be attending the Open Day he wanted to make sure he got a chance to catch up with me.
I thoroughly enjoyed the dinner, and found my fellow guests – there was only about a dozen of us – very interesting. I’d known one of the industrial guests for well over twenty years, as he was involved in the research collaboration project that Christopher was working on when I first met him! That was a bit of a coincidence – but a bigger one was in store for me.
I was chatting away over dinner to the guest on my left, who was the research lead for “disruptive technologies” for a major blue-chip engineering company, when someone hollered “Hey Gillian!” across the table at me. He was one of the upcoming young ambitious professors from the Engineering Department, who was in fact on my “hit list” of academics whose research complements that of my team, and whom I really want to collaborate more closely with. I looked inquiringly at him, and he asked “Did you teach undergraduates here when you were studying for your doctorate?”. I said that yes, I had tutored Balliol undergrads in maths for four years. “I knew it!” he said, “I was sure I recognised that voice!”. It turns out that I had taught him linear algebra – so I confessed that I was only a few pages ahead of him in the text book at the time, and was getting my own tutoring over the phone from Christopher in the evenings! (Christopher had read mathematics at Oxford so was well able to help me when I got stuck, putting me in a position to be able to teach the 2nd year undergrads……)
That was a really weird coincidence. I’d completely forgotten his name and face, but the dates fitted and my teaching clearly hadn’t scarred him too much given his subsequent meteoric rise through the ranks of academia. And it does mean that I’ve got a personal connection to make use of, should we want to collaborate with his team in the future.
It sounds faintly Victorian and somewhat amusing, but I’ve recently been through an attack of gout and I can assure you it’s no laughing matter! I thought that a full-on migraine was painful, but an episode of gout is right up there in the pain stakes. It was horrible.
It started completely out of the blue when I woke up in the morning with a sore left ankle. It felt like I’d bashed or twisted it, except that I was sure I hadn’t. At that stage there was no redness or swelling, just a tenderness that got worse when I walked on it. By lunchtime, the ankle boots I habitually wear were pressing too hard on the bony bit of my ankle. It was so uncomfortable that I changed into my only pair of lace-up shoes that still gave support but avoided the ankle area. I haven’t worn those shoes for several years, and it soon became apparent why I’d consigned them to the very bottom of the hall cupboard. They avoided pressing on my tender ankle bone, sure, but they also gave me huge blisters on both of my heels! So now I was limping with both feet rather than just one!
During the evening of the first day of the attack, the pain got steadily worse, and the bony lump on my ankle went first pink then red, and started swelling up. Ibuprofen gel did absolutely nothing to help, and in fact it was very painful just trying to rub it in. Socks were now too painful to wear. Oral ibuprofen helped a little bit but not much, and I got virtually no sleep that night. Even the weight of the duvet on my ankle was unbearably painful, and I had to shove a spare pillow down the foot of the bed to make a sort of tent to keep the bedclothes from touching it. Fine until I turned over and accidentally brushed the ankle against the pillow! Ouch…..
By 06:00 on day 2 I was pretty much bed-bound. I couldn’t put any weight on the foot at all, and the pain was excruciating. I swallowed some more ibuprofen, in the hope that might take the edge off the pain. I was pretty sure by now that it was gout that I was dealing with, though I was surprised that it was in my ankle rather than in my big toe joint, which is where you generally hear stories about people getting it.
By mid-morning I thought I’d better get some medical advice on how to deal with it. Searches on the internet had given some general guidance, but I’m always uncertain about the quality of the information out there. I didn’t want to try for an emergency doctor’s appointment, as the surgery is at the far end of town and at that stage I could barely walk so there was no way I could drive. So I decided to call the non-emergency NHS line, 111. I got through to ever such a nice chap, told him I strongly suspected gout, and simply wanted some suggestions on how to deal with it. He insisted on running through the full computer questionnaire, and I must have given the “wrong” answer to one of its questions, because the only advice I got was that I was “very strongly” advised to see my GP within the next two hours! I suppose I was lucky not to be told to go straight to A&E which seems to be the default stock answer if you believe the newspapers.
I thought about ignoring the advice totally, but then thought that there’s no point in phoning the help line if I’m not prepared to listen to what it said. And, though I really didn’t expect to drop dead within the next two hours, it would have been extremely annoying and frustrating if I’d misdiagnosed myself and did in fact have something more serious. So I phoned the receptionist at the surgery, explained what had happened and that I really didn’t want to come in to see the doctor in person, but was there any chance of a telephone appointment? She agreed that was a sensible compromise and that the doctor would call me back.
In the mean time I kept on with the ibuprofen, which took the edge off the pain enough that I could bear to put a cold gel-pack around the offending ankle. That also seemed to help. It was now very pink and definitely swollen, but very localised to just the bony lump on the inside of my ankle. The surgery didn’t phone back until late afternoon, and that was to apologise that the doctor had been run off her feet all day and hadn’t had time to call me. Would I please come in to that evening’s “emergency surgery” so that she could see me in person?
The attack was already easing somewhat by then, and I reckoned I could just about cope with the pain involved in driving to the surgery – which I couldn’t have done a few hours earlier. I did go a different route to normal though, to minimise the number of traffic lights, roundabouts, and (particularly) hill-starts I’d have to do, as changing gear and holding the car on the clutch was very uncomfortable. Socks were still out of the question, but I dug out my sandals and hobbled down to the surgery.
There I got confirmation that I did indeed have gout, and a prescription for some Naproxen, a much stronger NSAID, to treat it. That has done the job, the pain is well under control, and the swelling is going down. I also got some good advice about how to treat it should I get a recurrence.
Take an anti-inflammatory straight away. Ibuprofen if that’s all I’ve got, though I intend to keep a few of the prescription pills to one side just in case.
Gout is nearly as common in the ankle as in the big toe joint. You can also get it in the knees and elbows.
Rest and elevate the offending limb. In fact, that advice is pretty much redundant. It’s so painful that you physically can’t do anything but rest it!
Drink lots of water, to keep really well hydrated. The idea is to stop any more uric acid crystals precipitating out of your blood stream, and hopefully to try to dissolve the ones that have already.
One factor completely out of my control is the weather. Apparently, the doctors expect to see a cluster of gout cases after an unseasonably warm spell!
All in all, it was an exceedingly unpleasant experience, and it bothers me that it appeared overnight out of the blue with no warning signs. A susceptibility to gout does run in my family, but I very much hope this will turn out to be a one-off attack.
Having seen what a big difference it has made having some decent new windows, ideally I’d like to have all the old ones replaced throughout the house, bringing them all up to the standard of the extension. But that’s far too expensive to even contemplate doing in one go – the bedrooms and dining room are all dual-aspect (i.e. two windows each) and there’s a very large and rather complex bay window in the living room. That’s an awful lot of windows to replace! I think it’s going to have to be a long-term project, maybe doing one room per year as and when I have saved up the money.
However, I am in the middle of a bit of a blitz of home improvements at the moment, so when I had the builder round a few months ago to quote for fixing the drive, path and roof, I also got him to quote to replace the window in my en-suite bathroom. Now that the kitchen and utility room windows are fixed, this is the next worst one heading up my wish-list. The secondary double glazing failed completely a few years ago and won’t shut at all, so I effectively only have single glazing anyway – not ideal in a steamy bathroom. If I do manage to force it closed, it stays shut for just a few hours at most, before falling open with a loud crash – usually in the middle of the night, making me jump out of my skin! Plus, the window frame itself has swelled and warped over the years so that it’s very difficult to open. When I needed to ventilate the house after having my drain relined, I had to bash the window open with a rolling pin! And bash it again to close it! That is hardly either safe or convenient – though I suppose that if the window is seized shut, it is at least secure!
Again, I made it a condition of the job that they leave the bathroom tiling intact – I can’t afford to replace that. And the window fittings had again to be sized and positioned so that I could unlock and open the window without stretching or standing on a chair. That’s one of the nice things about getting the window hand-made to order – I can have it exactly how I want with no compromises. I took a day off work last week while it was fitted, and they’ve done another neat job. They’ve left the woodwork primed, and when Rob the painter is back here next month he’ll paint it to match the rest of the house. Then that will be the end of this year’s planned renovations and maintenance – anything else will be due to an emergency or something falling off / going horribly wrong!
I was so pleased with the utility room window, and indeed with the various jobs I’d had this building firm do for me, that two years ago I decided to have the next worst window dealt with. This was a big window in the kitchen, that I’d always hated. It was in fact a double-glazed unit, but must have been a very early example of one. The gap between the two panes of glass was only a millimetre or so, and the seal had failed so there was moisture trapped between the panes and hence it regularly steamed up. The frame itself was made of metal, which conducted the heat far too well and rather negated the point of having double glazing. But worst of all, from my point of view, was that the locks and fittings were placed well out of my reach, so that I could only actually open any of the windows by standing on a chair! That’s really not what you want in a kitchen window – apart from being dangerous it’s extremely inconvenient.
So I got back in touch with the builder / joiner, and asked them to make and fit a new kitchen window. But there were a couple of provisos. I’d recently had the kitchen redecorated, including new tiling around the sink, so it was imperative that they didn’t damage any of the interior decor. Plus, it was a condition of the job that I should be able to unlock and open the casement windows by leaning across the sink – without standing on tiptoe, and definitely without having to stand on a chair! So, given that I’m pretty short, the fixtures had to be much lower down the window frame than usual. Again, I had a bespoke wooden double-glazed unit made, and the fitter was very careful to ensure that I could open the windows comfortably. There was no mess inside at all – the window fitted flush up against the new tiles as if it had always been there.
I still smile to myself whenever I open the kitchen window. If I’d realised what a surprisingly big difference a decent kitchen window made, we’d have done something about it years ago!
Looking back at the state this house was in when we moved in, first we, and latterly I, have done a great deal to improve it. But there always seems to be a never-ending list of things that need doing. Take the windows, for example. In the extension, the windows are all modern, bespoke double-glazed wooden units, easy to open and with minimal draughts and condensation. Just what you want windows to be, in fact. Unfortunately, the same is hardly true of the original part of the house!
The previous owners had clearly suffered with both noise and/or condensation, as they had fitted rather draughty secondary double glazing to almost all the windows. All but one – the exception was a single-glazed window in a tiny little room off the kitchen – probably once the coal hole, but pressed into use as a little office. There was a rather horrible metal and glass porch directly outside, so the window didn’t in fact open onto the outside, and single glazing wasn’t a problem. But when we had the extension built, the porch was one of the first things to be knocked down. We opened up the barely-used little office, and turned it into a very heavily used utility room. But now there was a single glazed window directly next to the washing machine and tumble drier. The condensation was unbelievable!
Clearly, I needed to put a double-glazed window there, but I really didn’t like the idea of a standard PVC replacement window. This cottage isn’t in fact a listed building, but I do think it’s important to make sure that any changes or improvements I make are in keeping with the spirit of the building. And, for me, PVC windows would be too unsympathetic, no matter how convenient and low-maintenance. So I found myself a joiner who specialised in renovations to period properties, and got a surprisingly affordable quote for a new wooden hand-made double-glazed window. I was impressed with how the company took care to match the style of my existing windows, and at the neat job they did of the replacement. The condensation stopped overnight, and I have been very pleased with the results. That was the year after Christopher died, and was the first time I had used the company that have since become my regular builders. They’re not necessarily the cheapest out there, but they do a very thorough job and are extremely reliable.
I had some college friends staying for the Bank Holiday weekend, together with their ten year old daughter, and we all decided to go out for Sunday lunch at the Feathers in Ledbury. I’d really enjoyed lunch there a few weeks ago with my sister and brother-in-law – they do a “proper” roast Sunday lunch and really yummy desserts. However, I knew from last time that the portions are huge and there was no way I could do justice to a full helping. However, the simple solution of ordering one roast beef dinner, a spare plate and an extra portion of chips, meant that I could split my serving more or less equally with the daughter, and we both still had enough room left for a dessert! That was an ideal way round the portion size problem, and the serving staff were very accommodating with the request.
After lunch, my friends introduced me to the concept of “geocaching”. Basically, it’s a crowd-sourced treasure-hunt. I hadn’t come across it before, but then again I don’t have a GPS or a smartphone so am not actually technically equipped for it. People hide “caches” containing a logbook and possibly a low-value toy, and post the GPS location to a website, together with a clue to help you find it. There are caches hidden all over the world, and it turned out that there are several in and around the centre of Ledbury, hidden in plain view. My friends used an app on their iPhone to get within a few metres of the marked location, then we all searched for something that looked like it could be the cache – which was well disguised and hidden. We found two out of the three we searched for, signed the logbooks, and replaced them exactly where we found them for the next people to find.
We must have looked odd, standing on benches, peering into undergrowth and poking around shop fronts, but it was a lot of fun. I can see that it’s a good family activity – what child could resist a genuine treasure hunt? Interesting how modern technology has facilitated completely new variations on an old theme.
Malvern Theatres has been showing The King’s Speech this week – the play of the film which was such a big hit a few years ago. I really wanted to go, but still don’t feel up to a late night out at the moment, and I’m busy this weekend so can’t go for my usual option of a Saturday matinee. However, I’ve got tons of hours in hand, and managed to get my latest milestone report at work finished by lunch-time today, leaving me with an unexpectedly free afternoon. So I decided to phone the Box Office to see if there were any standby tickets available for the mid-week matinee, and if so to take the afternoon off as time off in lieu.
I managed to get a seat about 2/3 the way back in the stalls, for a very good price using my Theatre membership card. I am really glad I made the effort to get to the play, as it was excellent. Jason Donovan played the Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue, and he was superb. I never thought I’d say that about someone I still associate with Neighbours, but he has turned into a very good stage actor. Raymond Coultard played Bertie/King George VI with just the right mix of anger, frustration, unhappiness, dread, and destiny. Queen Elizabeth (the future Queen Mother) was appropriately regal and yet clearly desperate to get her husband the help he needed. The supporting actors were uniformly excellent, with a particularly unpleasant and scheming Archbishop of Canterbury.
The play started rather oddly, with Bertie (then the Duke of York) in his underwear being dressed and given his breakfast and morning newspaper by a phalanx of obsequious courtiers. It really made you realise that here was a man who lived in a completely different world to most people – and a very claustrophobic and stifling world at that. That was pointedly compared with Lionel Logue’s apartment, with washing being dried in front of the fire and books everywhere.
I had really enjoyed the film, which I thought was well deserving of its Oscars. And in its own way, the play was just as good. I knew the story, of course, having seen the film, so the plot wasn’t a surprise. But it was extremely gripping, and the whole audience was willing Bertie to conquer his stammer and give the vital morale-building speech to the nation as the world descended into war. It was an excellent and thoroughly enjoyable production, and I’m very pleased I managed to find a way to get to see it.
