Just when you think you have the hang of things...... the facts intervene. I thought matters would be very straightforward, but the university has passwords not just for the students but the tutors also, so I next had to learn how the system worked, then I had to provide a brief introduction, plus a quick resume of myself, then discovered that the existing texts for the course were something like 5 years out of date, and I had to update them all....

When I took early retirement at the age of 56, I thought life would get simpler. One should be so lucky! I am on our church vestry, and tomorrow am running a booksale in aid of church building funds, and I am a local branch official for a  political party, and I write articles for genealogical societies' journals, and run my own small research service, and assist with transcribing an OPR  for FREEREG, and ..... I can go on, but I won't. I don't want to appear ungrateful, for I enjoy my life in semi-retirement. That's the trick - how to enjoy life, and it seems to boil down to being busy, always having something to do, something to look forward to, something to participate in, networking of some kind. I contribute to the discussions in about a dozen newsgroups. Just keeping up is an effort, especially as my doctor insists I need to go for a half-mile walk every day.[I skip this on bad days, but try to do a longer walk on better days, to compensate].

I wonder how this course will go? It is as new to me as to the students; I just know all the answers, or think I do. In the North Highland Archive today I suddenly realised I did not know the difference in meaning between "had a natural child" and "had a child in fornication": I suspect the fornication one means one party is married, just not to the other person, but I am not certain - I hate that!