work stuff
Apr. 10th, 2012 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
llywelaWe're having our kitchen and common room in work refurbished this week, which means we've got a lovely soundtrack of sawing and banging and crashing to work along to.
We also got to have a lot of fun and games last week, packing up the contents of the kitchen ready for the work, which meant sorting through a hell of a lot of junk - it's always the same with communal areas, isn't it? Because everyone is responsible for them, no one takes responsibility for them, so they become a dumping ground for all kinds of stuff. In the back of one cupboard, we found a broken glass in a tupperware box and a tub of pepper that expired in 1999. In the fridge, all wrapped up and still sealed in its packaging, was a steak pastie dated August last year - it was green and furry! Horrible! People can be such pigs.
Also last week, our Dutch masterpiece was removed from the common room. And when I say masterpiece, I do mean masterpiece - this is an original oil painting by one of the Dutch masters (Vermeer, I think), 400 years old and last valued at something like £15,000. And it's just been languishing in a grotty little common room in our grotty little IT department for years now. The University owns a lot of valuable paintings, and likes to display them around the various Schools and Directorates, but this really wasn't an appropriate location for this one. The painting was far too big for the room, was bang opposite a window, which couldn't have been good for it, and was just dark and dingy and dirty and in need of love. So it has gone away to be cleaned and restored and will then be re-homed in a proper gallery over in the School of Psychology. But we will have visitation rights, so we can see what it looks like when it's clean and properly displayed!
We also got to have a lot of fun and games last week, packing up the contents of the kitchen ready for the work, which meant sorting through a hell of a lot of junk - it's always the same with communal areas, isn't it? Because everyone is responsible for them, no one takes responsibility for them, so they become a dumping ground for all kinds of stuff. In the back of one cupboard, we found a broken glass in a tupperware box and a tub of pepper that expired in 1999. In the fridge, all wrapped up and still sealed in its packaging, was a steak pastie dated August last year - it was green and furry! Horrible! People can be such pigs.
Also last week, our Dutch masterpiece was removed from the common room. And when I say masterpiece, I do mean masterpiece - this is an original oil painting by one of the Dutch masters (Vermeer, I think), 400 years old and last valued at something like £15,000. And it's just been languishing in a grotty little common room in our grotty little IT department for years now. The University owns a lot of valuable paintings, and likes to display them around the various Schools and Directorates, but this really wasn't an appropriate location for this one. The painting was far too big for the room, was bang opposite a window, which couldn't have been good for it, and was just dark and dingy and dirty and in need of love. So it has gone away to be cleaned and restored and will then be re-homed in a proper gallery over in the School of Psychology. But we will have visitation rights, so we can see what it looks like when it's clean and properly displayed!
