Sunday, November 24. 12.30 pm: After Holy Communion:
4.30 pm: We nailed our colours to the mast. The neighbourhood is predominately Plaid Cymru in its support. This’ll put a cat among the pigeons. One of our lunchtime guests, who is in her 90s reflected that, in their youth, few disclosed their political allegiance publicly. It was considered uncouth to do so. Politics, like religion, was a private affair:
Monday, November 25. Today Universities and Colleges Union begins eight days of selective strike action effecting 60 universities. There are two related disputes: one about pensions, the other about working conditions. Some staff in higher education, it’s reported, are working a 17-hour day, 7 days a week. Overwork has become culturally acceptable and a tacit expectation. Indeed, without it, UK universities would cease to function.
9.00 am: Email scrutiny, re-planning, postgraduate admissions overview, timetable adjustment, tea, and more tea. A strange light:
11.00 am: I began putting together a ‘travel document’ for the, now, re-routed Abstraction field trip. On Wednesday, we’ll be visiting Birmingham instead of Cardiff.
After lunch, I set other plans in motion before returning to make further notes on Stephen Chilton’s email correspondence. His letters made me remember incidents from the context of his and my life, and our conversations, around the time they were written. Having read the texts often, I’ve come to understand connections between events and continuities of thought that weren’t evident at first. Stephen was now talking to me from between the lines.
7.30 pm: I maintained an active ear from the remainder of the evening.