Finally!

Finally my tutor has returned the results of my first eTMA.  I sent it in on Dec 2nd, so it's taken him ten days.  Could be worse, some other tutor groups are still waiting for theirs.  74% a good pass.  I'm pleased with that, although it could have been better.  We need 85% for an excellent pass!

While I've been waiting I've completed Block Three and done enough of Block Four to allow me to write answers to our second tutorial task.  That came as a nasty shock.  I wasn't expecting to have the second tutorial set on the same day that our eTMA was due.  But everything is completed now.

I've caught up with my present making too!!

Now I can relax.

I've finished Block Two and posted everything on the forum.  I've also finished my first eTMA! 

Cut off date is not until late next week, so I shan't send it yet.  Nice to know I have a bit of breathing space.

I shall spend some time catching up on my present making.  The knitting and sewing have been a bit neglected in recent weeks.  I have embroidered cards half finished and bits of knitting to be sewn up. 

When I've done all those I can start on something a bit more challenging.

Two things completed.

Our sale of the house has now been completed.  Keys have been handed over to the new owner.  Nothing more to do, except look back and wonder if I could have done more for my parents.
Answer, yes.  Technically you could always do more.  Practically though it's not that simple.

Also completed is Block One of my OU course.  Now I've moved on to Block Two.  I posted my first assignments up on the forum today.  I've finished a couple more, but I'm not ready to show them to the world yet.

End in sight.

Today we exchanged contracts on my Mum & Dad's house.  Everything will be completed on Monday and then the new owner can move in.
It's taken two months of hard slog to arrive at this point.  Starting on the day they became residents in a nursing home.  We live forty miles away from my parents, so the logistics of dealing with estate agents and solicitors local to them was a nightmare in itself. 
I've almost lost count of the number of days spent boxing and bagging all their bits and pieces to go to whichever charity shop would take them.  One thing I'm very sure of is that I'll sort out and sling every piece of rubbish in our home well before my son has to take over and sell it.  I don't want him to go through what we've had to do in the past few weeks.
You have a whole different view of your mother once you've had to sort through her bottom drawers!

Progress

Bonfire night last night.  A disappointing number of fireworks seen around.  Do people not send rockets up from their own backyards anymore?  Is 'light the blue touchpaper and retire' a dying art among new generations of families?

I've now reached the end of the first block of my OU course.  There are to be five in total. 
I worked through most of the assignments and posted a selection in the forum for discussion, so I feel I've kept up with the spirit of the thing.

Yesterday we were given a tutorial task to complete. It's not as bad as I had feared.  I had expected some naff group thing where we might all be asked to contribute to one project.  Instead we've been told to produce an individual piece of work to be commented on by other members of the group.  That's OK.  I can cope with that.
We've also been asked to critique a piece of our tutor's work.  I sense pitfalls ahead!

Coincidentally

I've had a Greek up on my roof today.  Thankfully my one has turned out to be a lot more useful than those 'all over the TV' euro-zone ones.

He's been splitting the signal from my TV aerial so that I can plug in a TV upstairs, as well as down.  This has been made necessary by my mother kindly donating us her fairly new, flat screen TV when she moved in to a nursing home some weeks ago.

With our new high-gain aerial, low-loss cable, two-way splitter and two hour's labour, her generosity has cost us a three digit sum.

Coincidentally, almost the same sum that we had to pay removal men a few months ago when my mother-in-law died leaving us her piano.  Said instrument was very old, very frail and way to big to fit into any of our rooms.  She must have known this!  Luckily we were able to find a good home for it with a family whose daughter had just started to learn.  They were very grateful to receive it.  Unfortunately not quite grateful enough to pay the removal fees. 

Can't rely on anyone these days!

Halloween yesterday.

 

A bit of a nightmare day.  We drove to my parent's house, yet again, hoping to have Sue Ryder collect all the furniture.  1pm came and went.  2pm came and went.  At 2.15 we decided to phone.  One driver sick, another on holiday, so no collection today!  My response unprintable!

Husband, bless him, rallied round and organised delivery of all our carefully packed china and bagged up clothes, to the charity shop over the Green.  They were very pleased to receive it.  Manageress snaffled the cake plate straight out of its wrappings, said her mince pies would look great on there.

 

Two young lads, helping out after school, did a sterling job of ferrying everything from our car to their 'warehouse' at the back of the arcade.

 

We are further forward than we were at the start of the day, but not as far as we had hoped to be.

A 174

Clocks changed this morning and my OU course started yesterday.  Officially started, that is, we were sent course work some weeks ago, so I've been dabbling a bit for several days.
Listened to parts of the Audio CD and read bits of the Anthology.  Not good!  Most of the authors on the CD I'd never heard of, much less read and the extracts I found in the Anthology were not at all to my taste.  Still, early days!

It's an online course and finding a way around the website was quite a challenge, there are useful things hidden away in little side alleys where students may not chance to look.
I received an email from someone called Josie Cuffe, inviting me to take part in a "shared activity". This person is not part of my tutor group and there are no posts under that name in the Student Cafe, so I've decided it must be a wind up from some kind of spam merchant.  I shall ignore it.

In other news ... my Mum has suddenly decided she can't cope anymore at home, so she and Dad have moved in to a nursing home leaving me to sell her house and clear out their lifetime's accumulation of odds and ends.