mini-Bertha

Hi, here we are in October. October! How did that happen? I guess the summer just went unnoticed because it wasn't, well, summery. At all. Instead of enjoying the record-breaking Indian summer we're now experiencing (and, incidentally, have you noticed that in the UK we're all in a perpetual state of surprise about the weather: it hasn't been this hot in October since Edward the Confessor; the last time it was this rainy was when Boudicea was in power, etc.) because I'm just resentful that it wasn't like this in August when we were camping indefinitely on a windswept Dorset cliff top.
Anyway, weather-related resentment aside, I'm jolly happy because I have finally got my robotic hoover. My inner Bertha is jumping for joy - the house will be so much cleaner. I thought I wasn't going to get one because just as I was on the brink of ordering it, the washing machine broke down, so I had to buy a new one, of those,  and then felt that we really couldn't justify the robot hoover...but then, our old hoover broke too (and it broke when Hubby was using it, which was a relief, because he couldn't blame me of sabotage). As the hoover drone stopped, and Hubby's voice rang out with expletives, my heart leapt. However, it was a bit of a roller coaster of emotions, because he then tried to make me buy a normal hoover. Nooooo! He said that a robotic hoover won't clean under or behind things. I said that as neither will I (and neither did Meena, for that matter), it makes no difference, and in any case you promised me this when you found out you were off to Afghanistan. He reluctantly agreed, and I pounced on the laptop and got on Amazon (putting thoughts of gargantuan credit card bill to the back of my mind - surely the kids won't mind if we cancel christmas this year?). So mini-Bertha is now sat on her charging station and will be ready to tackle the house in just sixteen short hours. I already love her almost as much as I love my children and certainly more than I love the dog.
I start being a student 'for real life' (as the twins would say) tomorrow, which is pretty exciting. We won't be having lectures, we'll be 'workshopping' tomorrow afternoon for three hours. I'm a tiny bit daunted, especially as I'm the only one in the group from a non-English Lit background, and we'll be discussing an extract from Flaubert's Madam Bovary and a short story by Chekhov (I'm guessing Joanna Trollope is not on the syllabus....). Universities are very different places these days, let me tell you. Even the process of going to the library is somewhat intimidating. A very nice librarian who was trying so hard not to be patronising showed me how to loan a book today (they have a self scan system, like the tills that nobody uses in Tesco). Then I had to zip to the doctor's to get antibiotics for my spotty chin. The doctor was very nice and called it 'peri-oral dermatitis'; however basically I look like a spotty fresher, but with the addition of wrinkles - nice combo, as you can imagine. Its good to know that even my skin and hormones are getting in the swing of being a student.