How long have I been away?

I thought it was only a couple of weeks but I came back on here tonight (at Jud's insistence, poor girl is in Ibiza with nothing to do but to read my blog apparently) and Blogger is all different. Honestly six years on here and it's hardly changed but tonight when I came on...bam! I didn't know what I was looking at. I couldn't find my dashboard, when I found that I couldn't see where to press to get a new blog. Heck, I even had to pause the DVD so I could concentrate on it. Even now I'm sitting open mouthed at the changes. Sorry if you don't blog and this means nothing to you, but it really is different. I feel like an emigrant arriving back to the old country to find there's a motorway through your father's farmland. It's the same, but it's so not the same.

Anyway, yes three weeks I've been away and 'where have you been?' I hear you cry. Well let me tell you:
1. I marked exam papers.
2. I went to Wimbledon. Yes again! I know!
3. I marked more exam papers.
4. I graduated.
5. I marked even more exam papers.
6. I met up with Clare and the girls from Singapore. Not in Singapore you understand.
7. I marked yet more exam papers.
8. I watched The Kennedys.
9. Yes, you guessed it, I marked more bloody exam papers.
10. I got sucked in and watched some golf. What the what?!

So I think we can skip on past the dullness that is exam papers, until the now annual exam answers post. And Wimbledon will probably be a post on its own, so we'll start at point 4, graduating.

Graduation
Good times. It seems a lifetime ago I graduated with my undergrad and as Queen's robbed us of a graduation for our PGCE, so I enjoyed this one. It was nice to see the girls who were on the course with me, especially after the lonely year of dissertation writing. James Nesbitt was the honourary grad at my BA and it's good to see he's traded that in to become Chancellor of the University now. I, along with every other graduate, got to shake his hand as we walked in front of the stage. After the Arts PhDs, I was the sixth person and I desperately thought of something witty to say in my 0.5 seconds, but instead settled for 'Thank you. Thank you very much' which might have made me sound a bit Elvis. Excellent.

We had front row seats, it gave an opportunity to take a few surreptitious photos. Yes, I'm sure Jimmy didn't notice me at all. 

At the end of the ceremony, we got our Bucks Fizz and so happened to be at the door where our dear Chancellor emerged. To scared to ask for a photo, we (oh yes, more than just me) settled for this instead.

That's me and my friend Jimmy there. He just had to step away for a minute.

Our honorary grad was the Director of Amnesty International UK, Kate Allen and the actress Susan Lynch. Kate Allen made a very nice speech and was clearly there to please the academics, Susan Lynch...well she said thank you and that was about it. Awkward. (Turns out Susan Lynch plays James Nesbitt's wife in Monroe. Wonder who suggested her for this award then?)

A big change I noticed since undergrad was in the hat throwing rules. I think it was the first or second year of the hats when I graduated first time, and it was forbidden to do any sort of American movie style throwing of the hats. Not now. In fact I saw one official photographer expressly ask for it from a group of graduates. If you can't bet 'em, join 'em eh?!

Getting ready for the catch, my face isn't as carefree as it should be.

Clare and the girls
They're getting so big now (I'm talking about the girls here). Fionn is 6! Caoimhe is 8! Clare is much the same I suppose. We went to Carrick Castle and they loved it (again the girls, Clare could probably take or leave it, like most of us I imagine. Makes me miss them. Especially as Fionn as absolutely no memory of me ever being in Singapore. Not even for the return trip in 2009. Sad face.

[At this point I'd put a picture of us, but I haven't imported the photos yet and my camera is all the way upstairs.]

The Kennedys
I had this on Sky+ for ages but hadn't watched it. Then our Sky+ started to die a slow painful death, you know the kind that's hard to watch (believe it or not, no pun intended). But you know what I mean, I was forced to watch them all this week, box set style, in that I nearly ODed on them. If you haven't seen it, I wouldn't bother. It's not brilliant. I can't really put my finger on why; Greg Kinnear is decent, maybe labours the MA 'cah pahk' accent, Katie Holmes is nearly convincing as Jackie, Bobby kind of emerges as the star of it, albeit with some remarkable teeth. So all that considered, it must be the script, it's just a bit...well fake. No wonder the US History channel dropped it.

With our Sky+ dying we're upgrading to HD. We don't have an HD TV but never let that stop you in upgrading to something you don't really need. True to form Sky offered us an engineer a matter of weeks after we phoned up, so in the meantime we've a Sky+ box that only sometimes records programmes set, won't pause or rewind live TV and won't work on half the channels. Good, good. Oh and we daren't turn it off for fear we'd lose even that.

Golf
I'm sorry, I don't know how this happened. I don't even really understand the rules of golf. Well, yes, less hits the better but somehow I've been drawn into it even though I don't even consider a sport. Conclusive proof of this came today when Darren Clarke, leader of the Open, on his third round was caught on camera having a smoke. I'm sorry, any sport where it's acceptable for the leader to be having a smoke part way through is not a sport. Sports need to be physical, get your heart racing a bit (not through nicotine intake) and some degree of physical fitness. They don't even carry they're own bags for pity's sake! That said, something about it has had me watch about eight hours of it today and yesterday. I blame Rory.