Thank you!

But is there a better/more polite way to address her when I meet her for the first time in person? She seems fairly young and informal from her e-mail/church profile.

Oh no, hope Max is OK. ❤️‍🩹

I have a whole alphabet after my name and I still think about it, and I even did another non-degree qualification. However, I must admit that my entire alphabet of qualifications solved absolutely nothing, and also it gets weirder and weirder to be in exam rooms with literal children.

Let me know if you find out! :D

It just struck me as interesting bc of course the revolution was explicitly a class war, and language/accents are often class signifiers. However, I'm not sure many early 20th century recordings would have existed (or survived).

I mean, if you've ever heard Parisians talk about countryside accents... (and vice versa). Probably you wouldn't know, but did the RP change pre/post revolution? Was there a sort of... for the lack of a better word, an imperial, posh Russian accent that was then deprecated?

This is immediately fascinating! Is there a sort of "ruling class" accent, like English RP here, that you might expect to hear from like, leaders and newscasters? I imagine the revolutionary/Leninist history of Russia has an impact on that kind of speech pattern?

Yup :|

I was very seriously googling "soundproofing in [my area]" at midnight, though my understanding is that soundproofing is better for blocking out like, endless TV murmur and not people hitting high decibels of shrieking sporadically.

This is after she and her kids had some kind of meltdown for a full hour between 11:30 and 12:30 last night, which I also had to listen to due to the wonders of 1960s quality party walls. 🫠

I think volunteer work as a possible step towards returning to employment was probably a good start based on how utterly awkward I was today.

I mean, it's not surprising that fully 10 years after I gave up my career to be sick full time, I have not exactly been able to maintain my never-that-great-to-start-with skills but I hoped I still had like, a teaspoon worth of social skill left in me. Ha. 🤦‍♀️

Ooh, that colour is gorgeous! It looks like it's glowing!

They didn't even say happy birthday at the start of the email!!

Seconded! idk who is making you feel old today, but I have to tell you that the first e-mail I opened today was from my private pension that read, no joke: "Now that you are 50, you should be thinking about your money in old age". 💀 💀 💀

Thank you! :D Yesterday was indeed not fun, but I am all better today.

I am not at all envious of them heading off to the sun and warmth, nope.