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| Entrance to 'Dry Dock'. |
The
past couple of weeks since getting my Nokia have been something of a blur.
First of all, I managed to injure my knee on Thursday 26 July,
while hastening homeward from a ‘Mapping Place and Faith Conference’ at St. Martin’s House, 9:30AM to
3:30PM. It happened right outside of ‘Very Bazaar’ on Silver Street. I’m not
actually sure how it happened. Based upon visual examination of the damage to
my shoe, I suspect I tripped upon a loose cobble. Anyway, one moment I was
upright and the next I was decelerating a potentially fatal fall to the
pavement by dropping my left knee and rolling. Normally I’d come through
something like this relatively unscathed; growing up notoriously accident prone, I eventually learned how
to take fall and pick myself back up again with the least damage possible.
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| Snakes and Ladders game outside of 'Dry Dock'. |
For whatever reason this particular turn took me entirely
off guard. My knee received the brunt of a fall that was probable meant to
split my skull. As it happened however my skull was fine while the knee was swollen to
twice its size by the time I’d made my way home and I wasn’t able to walk on it
for about three days. I was advised to keep off it for a couple of weeks but
after resting it for one, the knee seemed much improved. ‘Feeling fine’
I went to Caribbean Carnival (great day out with friends and loved ones)—my knee did 'flare up' a bit (became swollen) the day
after. After that little practice effort with Carnival, I let the knee rest and
exercised it again after a couple of days.
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| Inside 'Dry Dock' (quiz night on Wednesdays from 7PM). |
I did another walkabout/test excursion with ‘The Family Dunn’. Again
the knee again became swollen a bit but certainly not as much as the previous
exertion had caused. The gammy knee has been improving steadily ever since. Now,
I realise that for the rugby and football players of this world, there is
nothing very special about a little scuff to the knee and so, ‘apologies’ to be
tedious with the details of my recovery but yes, I am a wimp and yes, I’ve not
had a physical injury akin to this since I was about 13! This whole injury
process, including the formation of amazingly itch scab-wounds is strange and
new (and I hope completely novel).
Many thanks to a passing family and to the
shopkeepers of ‘Very Bazaar’—all of whom came rushing over to lend what help
they could! I was reminded at that moment what an amazing place to live
Leicester is—full of good and caring people.
Of greater interest than my health woes however is
that I have a new computer as well as a new phone! For the past week, the
majority of my time has been spent troubleshooting the new Mac, learning new versions
of Windows office apps, iWork apps, learning about interconnectivity through
Social media with mobile phone, discovering the uses of iCloud and Skydrive and
more recently discovering how to coordinate between calendars--namely between
iCal, Google and Windows Live. I also set up alerts, and sorted home office
space.
For
the past couple of days I have been reviewing my previous notes from
‘Lines’ by Ingold. I have been reconsidering the concept of display and museum
practice in terms of reconstitution of tradition and shared narrative. I updated
my training record (which I need to send to the University graduate office
soon).
The evenings have been a balance of doing simple,
soothing things like laundry, making soup and watching old episodes of
Hancock’s Half Hour. I have also been listening to ‘Tame Impala’ and to ‘Opossom’.
Yesterday, Wednesday 8 August was a good day of research and then in the evening, Paul and I had
dinner at a place called ‘The Dry Dock’ then went to see ‘Ted’ at the Odeon. Reviewed
previous notes from ‘Lines’ by Ingold. Reconsidered
the concept of reconstitution in terms of ‘lines’ –as differing interpretations
of space—as suggested by Ingold’s discussion of variable approaches to
impressing ideas (in writing) onto blank page; Ingold suggests that some of the
basic intentionality in the expression of words upon a page may include seeing
the blank page as a landscape for a journey, colonization, surface of a body,
or (probably almost always a) mirror of a mind.
Oh, one more thing about ‘Dry Dock’—if you go, beware of
the gum stuck under the tables. Paul and I found seats on tall stools at a
bar-height table under the centre skylight area of ‘the hold’. I had my ‘gammy
knee’ propped over my other to leg to elevate it a bit. As it happened, this
configuration pushed the top of my leg right up to the underside of the table
where a nauseating, humongous glob of gum lie in wait . . . I have since
managed to remove most of it but some of it is still stuck to the surface
fabric of my skirt, like a strange, polymer haze . . . half inundating the
fibers. Any ideas how to launder gum out of cotton-polyester fabric?
What else, what else . . . have I mentioned that
Kindle download for Mac is brilliant? Great to be able to get a book
immediately, highlight on the screen, add notes, search the document . . . just
brilliant! Among other resources, I downloaded/purchased the Kindle version of
‘Lines’ by Ingold –one of the books that I’ve been using to support my thesis
argument. Quite useful to be able to start keeping better track all of my
research in one general storage arena—all accessible from this one laptop!
Friday 10 August
I updated the Orovoco ‘Research Pillow Book’ blog, wrote emails, read articles.
Weekend: 11
& 12 August Birthday BBQ and housewarming at the Grace family’s
new home. Their new place is lovely and everyone seemed to have a great time
(so good in fact, that I think many of us were glad of that there was a ‘quiet
Sunday’ buffering between the BBQ and Monday).
