I saw my examiner yesterday, and it transpires that I have got to think about Foucauldian discourse. Foucauldian discourse. Oh, the woe of it. I really loathe critical theory, and Foucault is right at the top of my Titanic list. Along with Barthes. I hate Barthes. Bastard. Anyway, I have four main things to do to my wretched thesis (may it burn in hell): sorting out the introduction to include the references to Foucault, revising a section on spiritualism in relation to gender roles in the nineteenth century, inserting a bit about the crossover between magic and theatricality, and getting shot of anything which basically says that the remit of my thesis is not to decide whether or not these phenomena (the magic that I write about) were real, fraudulent, sincere or whatever, because my examiners feel that I don’t need to justify myself in that way provided I set up the Foucauldian discourse bit in the right manner.

Arses.

ARSES.

Anyway. This all relates, of course, to the witchling’s sleep, or lack thereof. I had my viva on September 18; I thought at that point that I would manage the corrections in the next few weeks, yet here I am, two months on, and still going. However, since I last posted here, the new tack that Quercus and I have been trying does appear – fingers crossed, touch wood, go to gaol and don’t pass go (or something) – to have helped. The witchling is asleep as I write this, although having had some immunisations this morning, we are not expecting the easiest of days; last night she slept from 6.30 to about 2.00 without really much of anything – she is teething and dribbly, and woke at about 8.00 briefly, but a quick bout of something herbal seemed to help and she went back to the land of nod. At 2.00, I fed her, and she then slept again until about 5.00, when more herbal teethingness was needed. This is a VAST improvement on recent weeks, especially bearing in mind the teething thing. Of course, the daft thing is that I am all paranoid about not putting her in her own room until she is six months old, which will be December 1, but at the moment she is effectively in her own room already as I am sleeping, har-di-bloody-har, on the floor in her room while she is in ours in her bedside cot, and Quercus is in the attic. So, shortly, I think it might be time for musical beds again. I think if we move her cot into her little room, and have both doors open at night, we might begin the transition back to – gasp! – actually sleeping in our bed – shock! horror! – together, with the witchling in her room. I wouldn’t have minded continuing to co-sleep if we had actually been co-sleeping, you see; as it was, there was only the co- bit, and no sleep, which isn’t quite what I had in mind, to be frank.

So, that’s all good, and I am learning to get past the guilt I feel about not co-sleeping, which is, clearly, quite ridiculous given that it was making us all ratty and generally rather unpleasant. The guilt, that is, not the getting past it.

In other news, it appears that I am quite good at finishing lime plaster off. I shall have to post some pictures shortly; we have rendered one wall at the back of the new extension, and today Quercus is starting to tile the bathroom. This will be Herculean in nature, as we are using those poncy little stone tiles which look like feta cheese; so lovely in a catalogue, yet so dauntingly hellish when you’re surrounded by the little blisters as far as the eye can see, and they are both ridiculously tiny and staggeringly heavy.

Onwards and sideways, or something.