mayhap's friends

Posted by NevilleMorley

https://thesphinxblog.com/2025/12/01/zwolf-tage-im-jahr-27ten-dezember-2025/

http://thesphinxblog.com/2025/12/01/zwolf-tage-im-jahr-27ten-dezember-2025/

Woke suddenly out of a deep sleep; the only thing I remember is dreaming that Hector’s wound, the source of much anxiety over the last week or so (apparently the result of being burned by heated pads when he was coming round at the vet after a dental operation – and then the idiot licked off the nice scab to leave it raw and horrible), is much better. Happy to confirm later in the day that this is actually the case, even if he’s going to be wearing the cone of shame for a while yet. Realised that I’d left my music, specifically my Relaxing Evening Jazz (specially chosen for being acceptable to A) playlist, playing on endless shuffle all night. Realised then that it was barely 4 am; not what I want after a week of broken and limited sleep.

Try to doze but can’t stop brain starting to obsess about things, notably about a proposal for changing the form of assessment in core ancient history modules to accommodate the university’s exciting new list of skills. Students should demonstrate professional online profile and employment readiness – at the beginning of their first year? Somehow to be both developed and assessed through a co-written group blog post? Come off it. I start to imagine how much time and effort will be required to explain to two hundred teenagers what a blog is… DAMN IT! Not only am I exhausted, and on research leave, but I’m on a trip abroad for a conference, and need to be bright and alert to get my German back into gear… Turn the music back on, do a quick sudoku, and miraculously manage to drift off for another couple of hours.

This being Austria (Innsbruck, despite the influx of international ski tourists every winter, is no exception to the rule), the room of course has no kettle or other tea-making facilities (unusually, though, the bed is quite comfortable to sit up in). Further, my luggage was too full of presents that need to be posted to continental friends (it’s not smuggling if you do it to avoid exorbitant UK postal charges rather than random customs duties when you don’t owe any but they try to charge them anyway…) to have space for the collapsible travel kettle we bought after our last trip abroad. So, usual scan of headlines and completion of morning sudoku puzzles without benefit of tea, waiting for hotel breakfast service to start.

Exchange of messages with A, who has taken over parent-sitting duties from my little brother and has had to take Hector with her to make sure he gets his drugs and doesn’t lick his wound. After a nightmare journey down to Surrey via Heathrow yesterday, she now has to ferry my mother to one hospital for yet more tests and then drive her over to another hospital to visit my father before coming home to cook food. And hope that Hector hasn’t broken out of his room in the meantime to maraud around the house – he took out a historic Llanelli Pottery jug the day before we left, due to the combination of angry jumping around and the fact that he’s got a big cloth ruff around his neck so is wider than he realises (or cares), and my parents’ house has an awful lot more lovely valuable things to destroy – or get into fights with Minou, my parents’ cat, who is definitely not used to stroppy Siamese invading her territory.

Down for breakfast: not the best (bread a little stale, though a good variety) and certainly not the worst (some nice cheese, and excellent coffee). Back to compose a lengthy rant to the relevant departmental colleagues about assessment methods and skills – I mean, to be fair (1) I have experience of trying to get students to write joint blog posts, a decade or so ago when blogs were actually a thing, and (2) I’m going to have to manage and assess the bloody things, and deal with the fallout – in the hope of getting the issue out of my head for a bit. Yes, my brain will simply find something else to obsess about… Outside it’s grey and damp again, and presumably cold, but there is a glimpse of a snow-covered mountain (or at least foothill) at the bottom of the street, and the forecast is decent.

The conference doesn’t start until this evening; today I have an extensive private to-do list, besides just enjoying being back in Innsbruck. First up is a visit to the post office, to buy postage cartons, assemble them (with the help of a very amiable young assistant; I’m obviously getting to the age when people start volunteering assistance) and pack presents, then pay to send them and Christmas cards. Down the street to the University, and up to the sixth floor of the Agnes-Heller-Haus to leave some homemade vegan shortbread in the common room of the classical philologists – one of the many nice things about being a guest there last year was the way people would bring in cakes and biscuits, homemade or not, for everyone to share. Had been hoping to see a few people, but there was hardly anyone around (I did get a lovely thank-you email later, however); had a brief chat with one colleague, and then bumped into one of the students from my brief seminar series last year, who immediately recognised me and wanted to talk – really touching.

Onwards to the Markthalle, to scope out presents for youngest brother and for the neighbour who’s looking after the other two cats at the moment, and to buy rose water for A. from the Bulgarian stall – out of luck with the latter, as the stall was closed, so I’ll have to find time to come back tomorrow. Into the centre of the city to buy socks for A, ink cartridges, and a connector for the iPad which is refusing to charge; on to the Hörtnagel delicatessen to buy fancy Mozartkugeln for brother, and venture into the main Christkindlmarkt – not yet completely overrun with tourist parties – to get some beeswax candles from the local beekeeping cooperative.

I’ve arranged to meet a younger ancient history colleague for an early lunch, at an Indian restaurant he introduced me to last year. I manage to get the street wrong, having been totally confident that I knew exactly where to go, but after I’ve walked halfway down it to establish that I’m definitely not in the right place, it turns out that I’m just in the parallel street so not too far away and not too late. Curry not as good as last year, but the Mittagsrenner is always a decent bargain (can’t complain about a two-course lunch for €10!), and Austrian curry is always better than German, perhaps because of the long culinary tradition of vaguely hot things (paprika, horseradish) rather than complete aversion to any trace of spiciness. Conversation – getting my German into a fit state for the conference – covers differences between German and Austrian words for things (I can never get it into my head that it’s Kren rather than Meerrettich, perhaps because the latter is such a good word), his family, my parents, his current application for a research project, the attitude of employment offices towards academics who are between positions. On to a café that I haven’t visited before for espresso, where we find his partner by chance at the end of her break, the first time I’ve met her. He then heads off to collect children from various activities, and I continue with shopping – including buying panettone from my favourite Innsbruck cafe, where I am wholly unable to resist the temptation of a cup of coffee and a slice of their chestnut cream cake.

Messages from A to say that mother’s test results were all fine – this had been in serious doubt – but she’s now hangry, as her food had to be taken up at midnight and she wasn’t allowed tea in the morning, and so A is now getting on with lunch. News from the other hospital is that father is due to be shifted – unexpectedly early – out of the ward to a rehab unit for a while, before he’ll be judged well enough to come home, which is a huge relief as it will give us time to get the house (from which they should have moved ten years ago, or at least made some sensible modifications). Further exchange of messages with youngest brother to report this and also check what variety of schnaps he wants for Christmas. Back to the Markthalle to buy said Schnaps plus chocolate; stopped on the way home for a pack of herbal teabags (the only ones I really like are apparently unobtainable outside Austria, so making the most of the opportunity within the limits of suitcase capacity), back to the hotel room to lie down for an hour or so, as I’m feeling thoroughly wiped.

Further exchanges of messages: to one of the conference organisers to absent myself from the official walk around the city later, in order to get a bit more down time, leavening this with offer to offer sage advice and encouragement on her PhD project; with A, who is busy supporting/enduring my mother and trying to find time to make a fuss of Hector; with Innsbruck colleague who wrote to acknowledge the shortbread; and with brothers about different aspects of future management of father, assuming at best slow recovery. And it’s also time to do a bit of homework for the conference, making notes on the speakers I have to introduce tomorrow (is it fair to mention that someone was once described in a newspaper article as “der wahre Indiana Jones”? I’m inclined to think not) and reading up on the Markomannenkriege, not hitherto one of my specialist topics, in order to have a sense of what issues we might be debating and how I can swing the discussion round towards things I actually know about.

When A tells me that she’s back from shopping with my mother, always a draining experience, I take the opportunity to phone for a brief chat, to allow her to let off steam and, let’s be honest, to get some purrs from Hector (who is now roaming the house, to the visible disdain of Minou). My mother can be heard on the main phone in the background, trying to find out exactly where my father has been sent so they can visit the rehab unit tomorrow – so I can’t get the full low-down from A on quite how infuriating it is to go shopping with her if you don’t have eighteen years of conditioning just to accept her eccentricities. But it’s really good to hear A’s voice (and Hector’s purrs).

Doze for a while listening to music, and then start scribbling a blog post on the inexplicable plague of AI-generated enquiries about Masters research projects. I’ve just finished and posted this when the bomb drops: call from A that I need to call brothers immediately, as my father is just being dropped off at the house by an ambulance. This is insane; it’s questionable whether he’s fit even to leave hospital (levels of infection in his blood samples still high, apparently), but he’s certainly not fit to come home, especially as home isn’t yet remotely fit to receive him, and especially not with zero warning when we’d previously been told that he would be properly and sensibly discharged into a halfway house. This is of a piece with the nurse who gaily mentioned in passing on Saturday that he would be moved to the discharge ward later that day, putting my mother into a panic, which turned out to be due to confusion between different patients. We are heading into serious “the NHS is broken and useless” territory; if I were a Torygraph columnist I’d get months of material out of this; as it is, I suddenly understand the truth of the “NHS as secular religion” jibe, as it does feel as if a taken-for-granted naive faith is suddenly being trampled upon.

Phone middle brother, who as a GP is best placed to know the right person to yell at; thankfully he picks up immediately. Fingers crossed that he can sort this; can you refuse to accept delivery of someone, as you do with a parcel, and they have to return to sender? Probably too late, anyway. This is not putting me in the mood for casual networking with fellow academics. Tell A that brother will be phoning; inform other brother. Feeling very helpless; I knew it was a mistake to come on this trip in the circumstances. And now need to stop beating myself up performatively about this, as that is no help to anyone; I just need to buy A more socks and rose water. In the meantime, put on boots, coat and hat and set out for the city centre, ten minute’s walk the other side of the river from the hotel.

It is in fact a hugely enjoyable evening; good beer (local Naturtrüb), good food (having had excellent Kalbsleber at the same establishment last year, I hummed and hawed about trying something else, and then went for Kalbsleber again, which was again excellent), and gave my German a thorough workout in some very interesting conversations. I now know more about the intricacies of German academic careers, especially as they have changed (the shift from Habilitation to Junior Professor – with the result that lots of people were advised to stick with Habilitation rather than new-fangled nonsense, and ended up doing both), and a lot more about wine production in Slovakia (much more extensive than one might think), and enjoyed a duo rant with a Düsseldorf colleague about the state of public historical understanding. Explained to my neighbours why I was checking the phone every ten minutes or so, and didn’t stay too long.

Brisk walk in crisp cold air back to hotel, with Christmas lights everywhere – the main Christkindlmarkt is heaving, but there’s a very sweet little local one just down the street from the hotel, still with its own brass quartet playing seasonal melodies. News from home – brief, more or less telegraphic messages – less than great, as neither parent is being reasonable; feeling very relieved that A is there, as, miserable as it must be for her, there’s no one in the family with her combination of experience, empathy and common sense. Catch up on world news, and writing notes for this diary entry, and then get ready for bed. Desperately need a decent night, and really don’t think it’s very likely; this is just so absurd and infuriating, precisely the sort of ‘vast uncaring bureaucracy does stupid things without thought for consequences’ story that one normally tries to put down to right-wing agitprop. All the positives of my mother learning within an hour or so this morning that despite substantial fears the tests indicate she doesn’t appear to have a serious illness, wiped about by the negatives of a succession of major mistakes and/or miscommunication and/or not caring.

There are days when far too much is going on.

https://thesphinxblog.com/2025/12/01/zwolf-tage-im-jahr-27ten-dezember-2025/

http://thesphinxblog.com/2025/12/01/zwolf-tage-im-jahr-27ten-dezember-2025/