More Mooncup

Mooncup in place, and surprisingly I can't feel a thing. I mean, I know you're not supposed to be able to, and I do know that you can't feel tampons, but it's so much bigger than a tampon, that I couldn't quite believe that there wouldn't be some kind of discomfort. It was a little awkward putting it in - I decided to steer clear of the bathroom this time, in case of an unfortunate rebound incident - and I'm not particularly confident about taking it out easily, but I think it's good. Oh, if only it was a different make I'd have said "it's a Keeper"! Ahaha. But then the moon-ocle (retired) wouldn't have worked so well.

I got sterilising tablets for baby bottles - I figured that they would be sufficiently gentle yet cleansing. Plus, it's 60 tablets for 84p, and since it only takes half a tablet to sterilise, that should last me for the next ten years, easily. Except that they're best before 2009. Still.

I am going to tidy my room. I was going to do it last night, but I am definitely going to do it today. At some point. I have In America to watch while I do it, and cookies to eat as a reward for getting to certain points. I think the first milestone might have to be "turn off computer".

Oh, and there are RAW ONIONS in the fridge. Guess what my apples taste of? That's right. On the plus side, I now have cheese again, so I can have pizza-bread, cheese and apples, cheese on toast, cheese on crackers and sprinkled on top of spag bog.

Letter from Florence

While tidying my room (I really did!) I found something my grandfather gave me ages ago. It's a typescript of a letter my great-grandmother (I think that's the right generation) sent to a cousin of hers when she was studying at Reading University in 1910. I like the letter for a number of reasons - firstly, despite being a time when women's participation in higher education was the exception and not the norm, her description of her actions at university are very modern; writing letters in lectures, ridiculing her lecturers and far more interested in the social life. It also has a short description of a Suffragette meeting she attended, which again she doesn't take too seriously, though she agrees with the Cause. The letter also contains some abysmal poems.

( Long letter )

Both sides of my family like to tell me stories about our female ancestors - it's part of their support of my women's studies interest. My grandma told me about her mother (I think) who, in the 1920s, refused to give up her teaching job once she married, and cycled to work every day through a crowd of protestors outside her front gate. In the 1930s, my grandfather won a scholarship to a good boarding school. Although my great-aunt was not as academically minded, her mother insisted that "what you do for the boy in the family, you do for the girl", and so she was sent to a boarding school as well, at greater cost than the boy's education. It must have been quite a sacrifice actually, for they weren't well off. (Well, probably substantially wealthier than the majority of people, but very far from rich.)