Slither

Offsprog 2 has done well in her exams: maybe now she will stop shouting at me!
Or maybe not.
Meanwhile, I've been to Docklands to collect the marking I have to do, the work students have resubmitted.
What a dry old task! On the way back in the car, I imagine Soft Play Day for lecturers. We are given a mug of hot chocolate on the way in, and offered a free reflexology session. Our marking is handed to us in specially-made wicker baskets, around the handles of which are entwined fragrant pale pink roses and strands of ivy.
Merrily we skip back to our jolly old bangers, which backfire cheekily as we pootle back home to our cosy nests to settle down for the evening with a Red Pen and a slice of chocolate cake, wearing expressions of benign tolerance and contentment.
Instead, the scripts come to us in specially-made shiny plastic pockets, polished to such a degree that it's impossible to carry more than two of them without them slipping out of your arms in opposite directions, normally waiting till you reach the car park with its gusty Docklands breeze that whips them all over the tarmac, so you have to frantically chase them and hope that one of them hasn't lodged forever under the mudgard of somebody's VW Golf.
Every door in the building has either a key, a keypad or a special device that you fruitlessly slide your ID card in praying that the door will open. The teetering scripts slither hither and thither, threatening to sabotage you at every micro-movement.
And the University of the East specialises in making coffee from a mixture of tar, water and sand, an interesting drinking experience if ever there was one.
Never Mind! It's fun to write about, if not to experience, and has actually brought an air of normality in its wake this week of mortgage charges, assertive estate agents and pathetic dribbles of eBay income.
Thank heavens for good and constant friends, for good family and for music! And of course, the poor cats, trying so desperately to be supportive by sitting on my computer keyboard and giving me encouraging looks.
Thank heavens for them too.