School's out...For ever

Yesterday, I signed off on what will almost certainly be the last academic thing that I do in my life. Most people walk away from school or college with a big smile on their face and I'm not saying that I'm unduly saddened to leave it all behind. It's just that I've been doing it for so long that it's kind of become a part of what I am, and letting go of a part of your identity is a different matter entirely. At the moment, I'm still an External Examiner for Huddersfield Uni, but yesterday was the last exam board that I need to attend. The report's written and emailed, hands have been shaken and students and lecturers congratulated or chastised accordingly. Job done. Now I'm left to reflect on the fact that it's been 26 years since I first walked into a university and now (apart from (hopefully) my kids' graduations) I have no real reason to go back through the doors of those cosy ivory towers and I think I'm going to miss it.

It seems like only yesterday that I was wandering round Oxford with Nick after an entrance interview, trying my best to have my socialist principles appalled by every hooray I met. Or going up north with Chris, when the snow made my train 3 hours late into Durham and I slid on my arse in my best suit and pitched up like a drowned rat. They still made me an offer though.

For the record, I've had the genuine pleasure of attending 5 universities. York, Lancaster, Durham, Hull and Huddersfield. In that order. I've finished triumphantly and barely, wasted my time and been wasted, packed it in and struggled on through undergraduate degrees, diplomas and certificates, masters, M Phils and PhDs. Tasted the chalk dust, man and boy, for 25 years. I've examined and been examined, all the vivas and dissertations, the essays and presentations, the notes cards and late nights have all been and gone. I've had papers published and experienced the arcane thrill of being made a Research Fellow; there's something fantastically old-school about being a 'fellow' of anything. I think it makes you think of 'for he's a jolly good, etc...' And now, like Mr. Chips, I can see the hundreds of faces file past me through the mist. Unlike Mr. Chips, most of those faces come with bad 80s hairdos and drug-addled and bloodshot eyes.

Looking back, what do I think? Was it all worth it? No-brainer. Of course it was. I wouldn't have missed any of it for a minute, even the crappy stuff. Because deep down, I have always believed that the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is an important and beautiful thing. Sitting around destroying your braincells with like-minded and interesting people is also an important and beautiful thing. All those who can, should. But they should have the chance to do it the way it was back in the day. Before all the fee-paying and the 'Mrs. Thatcher's-brave-new-world-self-development-for-money-and-career-status' rubbish that students have to put up with nowadays. I do like being around students, they're a breath of fresh air and a reminder of what it was like. Lynn can't stand them though and never could. She thinks they're all feckless and need a dose of work to sort them out. That reminds me. Alicia, have you tidied your room up yet?

It's odd at SCUBA-school

I have a new obsessive hobby. Those of you who know me well will have seen all of this before. You'll recognise all the signs of the usual cycle of the autistically obsessed. I have read 2 textbooks (exhausting Swinton library), I have enrolled on a training course and now I'm already contemplating the necessary research before I make my first (all-important) equipment purchase. The focus of this new romance? SCUBA diving.

It started with Lynn and I looking for a holiday that would give Bob something to do while he was tagging along on holiday with us. SCUBA seemed a great choice, because Bob and I have done a fair bit of snorkeling together in different seas around the world. So we were all good to go (to the Maldives as a matter of fact) when Bob decided he didn't want to come! Turned us down flat and prefers to stay in sunny Swinton with his mates and tool about on BMXs for his 10 week summer holiday. I know, it doesn't make any sense to me either, but there's no point in trying to interpret the workings of the 16-year-old male's brain; from what I can remember it's all driven by the promise of girls and illicit drinking and not even the Indian Ocean can compete with that heady mix. So instead, Lynn and I will go it alone, to be pampered in adult luxury in Crete. The trouble is, having thought about becoming a SCUBA diver, I can't shake the idea from my head. The upshot is that the Cretan holiday will involve some diving, at a PADI diving school in the hotel grounds. And to make sure I squeeze the most out of it, I have enrolled at my local diving school, where I have already passed some theory exams and had my first lesson. If you've never done it, I can heartily recommend it as a genuinely weird way to pass an hour or two. Maybe the weirdness was caused by the fact that I was discovering the fabulous underwater world that is Chapeltown swimming baths. Fairly short on sharks and coral is Chapeltown.

I can't wait to be exploring the wrecks and sunken Minoan cities of the southern Med. I still can't believe that Bob's not wanting to get into something this technical and ripe with the opportunity to spend hours browsing online equipment stores. Just like his old man, Bob loves to spend a day price-comparing top-end-specification nonsense to satisfy his latest obsession. At the moment, Bob's obsession is BMX frames and pedal cranks. Way to go, son. Now, where did I put that wetsuit brochure?

Getting there

It's been a really big fortnight down at Plot 28. I don't know how many hours I've put in to sculpting the land during the last two weeks, but if I'm expecting to be repaid in vegetables, then it will take years of produce-stuffed laziness to offset the effort I've expended. And I haven't toiled alone; Lynn and Mike have both done their share of the graft too, so the theoretical wages bill really is stacking up. None of this griping matters though, because a tremendous thing has happened. I have eaten my own home-grown food for the first time. Spinach. Fabulous spinach, (Compania to be exact), and no spinach ever tasted so good. I can safely assert that it was the smuggest salad ever consumed. Everything is growing beautifully and it won't be long before my spinach-based diet will have a little more variety. I say everything is growing, but I have had my one (and so far only) failure this month. My butternut squash has given up the ghost on being planted out. Despite the tenderest care in hardening it off in the coldframe, it has withered and died. In life, isn't it always the ones that crave the most attention that prove the biggest disappointment in the end? In future I shall treat 'em mean and keep 'em keen.

Plot 28 now has significant infrastructure. A greenhouse and a shed have been lovingly erected and now I have somewhere to store all the useless rubbish that people shower on me nowadays ('because it will come in useful for something at the allotment') and my tools. I can't wait for it to rain, just so that I can hide in my hut and not have to stand out in the deluge like some 50s dissident sent to the Gulag. The shed is 'recycled'; that means it is old and fairly ramshackle, but it oozes authenticity and integrity and I wouldn't have it any other way. The shed and the railway sleepers on which it stands were given to me by my mates down at the allotment. They have also found guttering and a water butt and they reaffirm my faith in my community every time I meet them. The greenhouse has been designed and hand crafted from wood and transparent corrugated plastic sheet and (if I say so myself) looks the b****cks! Mike and I built it on my deck in the back garden, before disassembling it and re-erecting it at Plot 28 over three days in the pouring rain. Poor Mike. I'm going to have to feed him up on produce just to get his strength back. It is already stocked with 16 tomato plants, 8 peppers (all grown from seed)and 2 bought aubergines plants. I have to go to open the greenhouse door at 6.00 am, before the gym each morning, and go back to water and close up each night. It's a real commitment this allotmenteering lark! Still, more than worth it though. More spinach anyone?