Hitch, weeding and smeg

I've just spent a pleasant half hour reading some of Christopher Hitchens' notes on Facebook. Man, the guy can WRITE. Planet-sized intellect notwithstanding, it's just such fabulously constructed stuff. Even if the content is not something I would ordinarily read, not being the most political of animals, his writing makes it all much more stimulating than it would ever be otherwise. Hitch, you rock.And that's before you get started on the pope, or Mel Gibson.

And now back to our normal programming: that is to say, some sort of hellish cross between Farmer's Weekly and How To Be an IT Manager in 10 Steps You Thought Were Easy But Turned Out To Be A Bit Tricksy.

This weekend it's all been about weeding. Lots and lots of weeding. It got to the stage where, when I closed my eyes, all I could see was a snapshot of the little tendrilly fuckers sprawling out across the pasture. No wonder the grass was struggling to break through with all that going on. I was at it for hours and managed to clear a quarter of the smallest (but most affected) paddock, a feat which translated to roughly four barrows full of weeds, a number of thistle-related minor injuries, a bite from something nasty and some moderately sore triceps. It's addictive though and I find myself eyeing up the remaining insurgents with something approaching desperation, in spite of the fact that my hands are bleeding and I can barely move a muscle. We've got a wedding to go to at the end of the week so I'm a little more conscious of the state of my hands than I otherwise would be, and slapping on a bit of hand cream at the end of the evening doesn't really cut it when said hands would give a badger's arse a run for its money in the roughness stakes and there are layers of good, honest dirt embedded at a cellular level in the knuckles of my left hand. I noticed that today while sat in a meeting next to the second most senior person in the institution, discussing what to do about teaching rooms.

It was an interesting dichotomy between him, the resplendent professional with his nice suit and his clean nails and general impeccable presentation, and my with my knuckles, my second hand Next suit off ebay and mare smeg under my nails. I have learned from Sid that there are certain types of people who pay attention to these things; professional types, mostly, so as a result I spent the rest of the meeting with my left hand either under the desk or curled into a fist to disguise the filth, while giving thanks to all that is holy that the right hand was pretty much ok and resolving to buy a nail brush at the earliest possible opportunity. It's not like I hadn't tried to get the smeg off, it's just that it was particularly resilient. French smeg, then, sitting there, arms folded, going "Non".

Meanwhile Xacra has enjoyed her first head rub and is learning that there might be a point to humans after all.
F-2 days. Not looking hopeful for the farrier, unless we throw her and truss her, but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't do the slow build up of trust any good.