Rabbit angst; washing house; countryside

Lexie has proved a boisterous and destructive lass during her first month’s residence with us, starting off by biting through not only the phone cable but also the cable protector. She appears particularly annoyed by shoes, especially my shoes, regularly picking them up and throwing them about the hallway. Most seriously, certainly in Ruth’s eyes, she has bitten a chunk out of one of the seat cushions of the smart and expensive (though not, in my opinion, especially comfortable) leather sofa in the living room. A three-figure quote for repairing the damage has been obtained, and the living room door is now kept firmly shut during the day. Slightly less seriously, but still mildly annoyingly, she shredded the bejeezus out of this relatively new IKEA catalogue.

When we collected her and Harley from RRR last Sunday after spending the weekend at my parents’, we regaled Sandra in a light-hearted yet mildly barbed fashion with Lexie’s faults, at which she tittered sympathetically before adding chirpily “Sold as seen!”. As we arrived, Sandra's opening sally had been to claim that Harley and Lexie seemed to get on together better than he had with Lola, at which point Lexie aggressively mounted Harley, staying on board as he raced around the enclosure trying to shake her off, and thrusting in a less than ladylike fashion. When Sandra eventually managed to coax/prise her off, poor little Harley had a large sucked patch of wet fur on the back of his neck. As we were leaving, Sandra somewhat shamefacedly thanked us for adopting her.

We attempted to subdue the rabbits one weekend in October by finding a recipe for the rabbit Ruth bought a while ago at Reading Farmers’ Market and shoved in the freezer. Admirably, she did a good job of jointing it after consulting a YouTube video on How To Joint a Rabbit.

Another perturbing snippet (right) recently from the ‘Most Popular’ section of the BBC News homepage. Currently considering my best course of action in light of the impending wine shortage. Secondly, I do own a Dell laptop, but had never noticed that it smells of cat urine. Perhaps it’s a new sales pitch.

Spent a weekend in Milton Keynes towards the end of October to catch up on maths, clean bathroom etc and, somewhat ludicrously, clean the front door, as the report from the latest inspection by the letting agents noted that although the flat/houselet was largely in excellent condition, the front door was grubby. Indeed it was. Here’s a picture of it looking sparkling clean after the brisk scouring and sloshing with water I gave it. On the Sunday I decided to explore some more of the local area and took a bus ride to Stony Stratford, a suburb on the northwestern edge of the town and presumably once a little town in its own right. Took a walk along the high street in increasingly windy weather (it being the day prior to the recent strong – by UK standards – winds) and then turned into Bridge Meadow, where I briefly admired the bridge over the Great Ouse before walking south along the river for a bit and then back to the high street.

Stony Stratford’s website describes it as ‘The Jewel of Milton Keynes’. Indeed it seemed quite nice, though it had a bit of a desolate feel on a Sunday as not much was open though the branch of Costa on the high street was doing a roaring trade. Here’s a time lapse sequence of an afternoon in Bridge Meadow, posted on YouTube. The crazy things some folk do.

As per usual, constructed a modest Halloween display of this candle and munchkin. Ray didn’t make it up this year, unlike the previous two, but we did manage a long telephone conversation, though this didn’t involve too much of a spiritual bent but did include our shared loathing of antique shops, though I can't quite remember how that came up.

Ruth and I had a healthy country walk on 3 November through Caversham Heights, across Caversham Heath golf course and down through Park Wood to Mapledurham, where we poked briefly around the village and the churchyard that adjoins Mapledurham House, before walking back to Caversham along the footpath that eventually emerges onto the end of The Warren. We had, unusually, booked for Sunday lunch at the Griffin, which was very pleasant – I rarely order roasts when eating out but occasionally they have their place. Beef was overcooked, as it more often than not is, but it wasn’t bad.

Came across a weird monument while walking through Park Wood, which must originally have commanded views down to the house but is now pretty overgrown. Haven't been able to find out much about it but this blog entry mentions it.

Day in London last Thursday to attend Ipsos MORI's annual NSS conference, held at the Church House Conference Centre in Westminster. A moderately useful day though some of it is less than relevant to the OU as a distance learning institution. Did derive some amusement from observing that the somewhat irritating speaker from Oxford had misspelled 'Bodleian' on one of his slides.

Progressing reasonably well with Discovering Mathematics, though I believe I am about to encounter surds, and really don’t have a clue what those are.