Into Autumn Overnight
8 November

Well, we went from a late, mild summer to a cold, dark autumn overnight.

Saturday 30 October was a warm, bright day. I gardened in light clothes and Ross and I had our lunch on the waterfront looking at the Welsh hills. Come Sunday morning it was November and the rain clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped. This week, it's been below 10°C overnight for the first time since the summer and we've had chill days as well.

Instantly, we've amended the timings on the central heating. We've done incredibly well to get this far into the year on only an hour of heating in the morning and evening but now it's time for a little more. I can immediately tell that we've crossed a tipping point by the way that I can no longer stand in my bare feet on the cold tiles in the kitchen area making a cup of tea. In the summertime, they are fine; in spring and autumn, they are just bearable. We are now at the point when the cold is too intense to be borne.

It's also noticeable that the time it takes for our kettle to boil first thing in the morning has increased perceptibly as well. Presumably this is to do with the water from the tap being colder, the metal of the kettle being colder and the ambient temperature being colder. Everything has just gone that little bit colder.

So, the winter duvet is now a necessity. The winter warmers are out of the cupboard. The scarves and gloves and woolly hats are on the hatstand. The winter vitamin tablets have become a morning ritual. The heating system in the car warns of possible ice. I've got the car lights on for both drive-time journeys.

One other small thing to mention which is a great sadness. The card shop on College Road which Ross and I have been using for nearly a decade now has closed. Presumably a lease was nearing its end or a rental period was up and due for an increase. Anyhow, the owner has decided that the profit margins are too small and the rewards no longer justify the effort. There has been a ripple of shock in the community as it has been somewhere to look for sensible traditional greetings cards sold by people who are happy for a chat. More of those Old Botswana ways (NB a reference to The No1 Ladies' Detective Agency) which are falling by the wayside.

Work is less and less endurable. We now have a decision about our move. It will happen in January and we shall move to a site in central Liverpool. All of this is very good. However, with a larger room taking up to 30 students with no break out area, it will be impossible for me to do most of the interesting work which keeps my attention - for example, the interview sessions and the Duplo session.

Added to that, we already know that central funding for our main work will cease next year and that our last intake will therefore be sometime in May. There is no sense therefore in lashing out a lot of time on re-purposing the current materials as they will only be used a coupe of times more. And we also know that the central funding for this sort of work will be severely curtailed for any subsequent projects to the point where it becomes untenable for an organisation such as our own. And there's an article on the front page of today's Observer saying that finding for youth training will be halved in 2011.

Furthermore, the move is now so close that every planning decision is being taken in an atmosphere of panic. I just keep my head down and get on with what I can do. This is all in dramatic contrast to the Primary School at which I am working. They have secured funding for building works in two years' time. The management committee, on which Ross sits as one of the governors, is already drawing up the plans as to how the school will minimise disruption.

Elsewhere in the organisation, my talents are being required by a number of different people. As well as my trips to Walsall, London, Manchester and Buxton to deliver top end commercial training, I offer services as an Internal Verifier for the British Computer Society's ITQ - an NVQ in IT usage by any other name - and I have been asked to put my PTLLS training to good use by writing a course that Connect can deliver itself. If you add all of that to the technical training that I deliver to the unemployed group alongside the soft skills training that I deliver within that programme and you can see how I feel that, should I leave, they will need some three or four specialists to replace me.

We've also had a difficulty in the training room that we have never had to face before. Two of our current crop of unemployed trainees have politically specific wallpapers on their desktops. The specific party is the BNP. And of course, since that party's appearance on BBC's Question Time, we have to acknowledge its legitimacy even if we don't agree with the policies.

My point to Jill has been that, whatever the political party, it is inappropriate in the workplace for anyone to promote a specific political agenda. I'm afraid that I have been less than impressed with her response. She's really gone on hoping that, if she dithers long enough, the issue will go away. It hasn't and so, once again, I have provided a solution. She's accepted it because it takes the heat off the current moment but we'll see how we go on when she has to enforce the new ruling of standard desktops.

I am out of sorts with attending Quaker meeting for the moment also. The lack of any real progress to sorting out the organisation of children's meeting and the background turbulence to do with our area meeting and the lack of people willing to stand for official positions.

In among all of this, however, there has been another bright spot. Following on from the course I attended back in June on the subject of Godly Play, there will be a follow up weekend residential course in January. Not only have I been asked to attend but it would appear that they would also like to use the story that I wrote around the biblical narrative of The Feeding of the Five Thousand as the basis for one of the sessions. I am much honoured and slightly daunted but it feels like the sort of challenge that I should step up to.

I got to an RLPO Sunday matinée the other week. Mr Petrenko took us through an all Sibelius programme. He was at his best in Finlandia. I heard it played twice on the piano, in Sibelius's own transcription, during our Baltic cruise back in 2006, first at sea and then during a concert near his home outside Helsinki. It sounded much better with full orchestral weight behind it. The violin concerto sounded very good and Baiba Skride was an excellent soloist. However, I don't think that Vassily has got the measure of Sibelius yet. It was immediately apparent in Sibelius's 2nd Symphony which Ross and I heard together in 2007. What I heard were lots of beautifully crafted moments but they were all held in isolation. Sibelius to me is all about organic growth and interconnectedness. And it's this that Vassily does not yet do that well. Very good playing from the orchestral members but not a very good concert.

I've had a bit of a glut on Radio 4 factual series.

A couple of years ago in July 2007, I listened to James Naughtie's series on The Making of Music 1 an was entranced. I've now got the CDs and have been re-acquainting myself. It is still excellent listening.

The first series followed the course of Western classical music from the mid-12 Century to the mid-19th Century - some 700 years. The Making of Music 2 took up the story and spent the same number of episodes on the following 150 years. I found it enjoyable but less successful. Frankly, it was thinner in its presentation of the material but still good.

From there, it was on to Cosmic Quest which took up that tale of astronomy from Greek and Roman times to the present and this was quite fascinating. Again more time was spent on the 20th century than any of the previous centuries but this time there was a reason since most of the major developments have come through the technologies which have been developed in that period. This was a very good series.

Disappointing in the extreme (because expectations had been raised) was The Making of Modern Medicine. Similar format - a trip through 2,000 years of Western history through the perspective of a specific focus of knowledge - but the presenter was so blinkered as to any other traditions as to make the whole far less satisfactory. In comparison with the other series it was only reasonably successful.

But I've left the best to the last. The Invention of Childhood is quite superb. Of course, it touches many of the interests that I have at the moment but I couldn't leave it alone. In fact, I've listened to it through twice now and may well try a third time before the end of the year.