Power cut disrupting the teaching

Storm Doris was on her way. I knew there was an amber weather warning for Thursday. Not very nice for driving to Blaenau in order to go underground, but well, I bought my car in stormy days so from day one I have practiced driving it sideways. I had to drive into work, as I had to leave for Blaenau straight after my 4-5PM lecture.

It was very windy indeed when I woke up. I drove to work and got going. Fairly soon the power failed! And came back on. But not too much later it failed again. And stayed off.

I had a small chat with David and then decided to wait it out in comfort. I had a (printed out) paper on my desk I wanted to read. And I figured the water in the boiler in the kitchen would still be hot! So I got myself a coffee and read the paper. While I was doing that, my neighbour Andy came in to say the power wasn't due back on until 2PM. Hm! Not so comfortable. I figured I'd drive back up for lunch, as we would probably be out of hot water by now, and I didn't want to have a lunch of cold rice with cold water. A bit over the top, driving home, but well, what can one do.

Then I heard Dei. I wanted to discuss some teaching matter with him. While we were engaged in that activity some students knocked on the door. They were in my module! They informed us the power wouldn't be back on until 6PM, and the buses weren't running, and one of the students had walked over the bridge and didn't recommend it to anyone. It looked like the lectures were off... and then an email came through form high management: all lectures for the rest of the day were indeed suspended. That settled it then! My day had changed again.

I decided to tidy my desk. It's a somewhat boring job without a radio to keep your mind entertained, but well, generally I have more urgent things to do than this, so this would have to be the moment.

I had several piles of articles lying around I had used for lecture preparation, and for my PGCertHE, and for several other things. It was about time I put them in my article drawer, in alphabetical order. And I had lots of loose bits of paper. I went through lots of it. Suddenly everything looked so much tidier! I also wiped the desk; it had quite some tea stains and dust and whatnot everywhere.

By the time that was done I was hungry. Time to go home for lunch! And then try to do more there. I had a book at home James had used in tutorials. It probably had lots of interesting stuff in it! And at least I could now on drive off for Blaenau in more practical clothes than my smart teaching outfit!