When not studying Sue seems to be spending most of her time monitoring her cactus, parking, or at the dentist in a respectful silence...

My Christmas cactus seems to still be on British Summer Time. It's flowering already. It will have peaked by the time Christmas gets here, which actually if the shops are anything to go by is tomorrow, so it might just make it after all. It takes the fun out of things when it all starts too early. There's even a Christmas tree in my hairdressers, yet we have only just had Halloween and bonfire night. My Marxist colleagues would of course put this down to capitalist free market influences, whereas I just think overexposure dulls the senses and people will largely ignore the trappings until they are good and ready to get in the zone and not a minute before.

Warwick student Sue is using a lawn mower to build up her evidence against the noisy neighbours, while nursing a sick chameleon back to health and working on the beginnings of a dissertation...

The hot weather we have been experiencing up until recently, made the grass grow at an alarming rate, so whilst my other half was incapacitated with man flu or whatever ailed him, I decided to mow the lawn. This is the first time I have used the new lawn mower, and it will be my last. It made neither music of the future nor music of the past, but rather a deafening crunch. I gave the power lead an impatient flick, and succeeded in decapitating the begonias and lassoing the bird bath all in one swift smooth movement, so that bowl detached from pedestal and was sent hurtling to the ground, splashing water all up the backs of my newly painstakingly painted  tanned legs.

The results are in, resident mature student Sue is disappointed with her exam marks but there's always the risk of an oozing hip to distract her, shin gouging or a big clear out on the down low...

My mum's hernia surgery was scheduled for 1st July but was cancelled at the eleventh hour because of the discovery of a potential liver problem she has. Naturally we are all glad of the intervention but wish we could have been alerted sooner than 12 hrs before surgery was due to take place. My sister had flown over from Spain, and I had endured a 5 hour sit in on the M25 only to be diverted off onto the M11, the A406 which is the lovely lovely North Circular Road, and then onto the A13. Rather selfishly my first concern was not for the poor souls involved in the awful pile up, but for my weak bladder and the thought of having to pop a squat on the hard shoulder.

They grow up so quickly, it seems like only yesterday Squeamish Sue was working away on herAccess course and attending Warwick university seemed an unreachable dream. Now she's finished her second year as a mature student in Sociology at Warwick and appears to be their new mature mascot...Even though we found her first. 

Well, that's second year done! In addition to eight hours of exams I also had four pieces of assessed work to submit, comprising two 3000 word essays and two 5000 word research projects. Feedback and marks for the exams won't be in until all are complete. Feedback and marks on assessed work is all now in.

Uni is almost out for summer now and Squeamish Sue, our resident mature student, will not be spending her freedom watching the World Cup, instead she will be trying to get an accurate recording of her neighbours...

Exams are almost over, three down and one to go and then I will have finished my second year. We have already had to attempt a subject choice so a mentor can be assigned to us, and in the first week of the September term we have to hand in a literature review, so that means a lot of work over the summer break.

Now, it might look like resident mature student Sue hasn't been doing much studying, more hot tubbing. But she assures us her research is all copy and pasted onto the clipboard...

I have a strange and incredibly irritating rash on my leg which at night drives me to distraction and back. How can something itch so much? And when I eventually succumb and scratch it, the relief is wonderful but sadly short lived. The whole process of "I won't scratch it" sounds loudly in my head; the whole spiral repeats itself in a continuous nightmare of cooling it with ice, wearing gloves, reciting the alphabet backwards as a distraction, until I can stand it no longer and give in to the inevitable once again.

During a break from her studies at Warwick University our resident mature student Squeamish Sue has been causing power outages with alcohol and a gazebo. She's also been on the radio - though not because of the gazebo incident, just a bit of work experience in case the degree doesn't come off. 

This week the Student Beans website is offering me free driving test theory software and free condoms. An odd combination, though I guess it gives a whole new meaning to hazard perception.

I took time out from studies to visit mum midweek because she discovered a lump, and you so hold your breath in these circumstances don’t you? You think, but you don’t want to voice that niggle as you belt down the motorway at break neck speed.  

This evening is the first time since I started back at uni in September, that I have not been racing to finish to meet a deadline. Packed into these few short weeks have been a comparative seminar presentation on social welfare in Europe pre 1914, a survey design which first had to be piloted,  an evaluation of how I will go about a 5000 research essay on race and the inclusive society, a 2500 word essay on Health and Illness, a 2500 word essay on the political impact of social welfare around the Franco-Prussian war and finally, my share of a group presentation to be delivered next week on whether ageing is all about decline and disadvantage. Right now I think it might be! And exactly none of our lectures and seminars is in the Sociology building; they are scattered to the four corners of campus and to get from one venue to another you have to be sharp about it thank you very much.

Summer is nearly over now for Sue, did she spend it student style? Half cut with her thong on show? Sort of...

I took my mum to Bournemouth for a few days; Spain is far too hot for her at this time of year. I booked our rooms via laterooms.com, and when we arrived I feared they had mistaken my booking for a stint in an old people's home. I was the youngest guest there! Reception was only manned until 7pm, thereafter any requirements had to be directed via the night porter. Breakfast stopped being served at 9am, and dinner was from 6 - 8.30pm sharp.

The speed with which the meals were delivered defied belief. I pictured a drink in the bar, a leisurely dinner, coffee in the lounge and then retiring for the night at the end of the evening.

Exam time is over for Squeamish Sue! And, although her sneaky plan to do her second year reading done in advance has been thwarted, she managed to attend a course on Trans* issues at Warwick. Next door's cat is so proud he's left her a present. 

Several of my peers and contemporaries in recent weeks have reached that magic age that is the new 50, and my son played and sang for some of them at various venues around and about. It's a demonstration of how word gets around; he is pretty good at what he does and it has had a knock on effect, as more and more people have asked him to play.

This has encouraged him to try open mic sessions a bit further afield, spurred on by a friend who has an entrepreneurial eye and ear for what's out there. It's all very well his mummy saying he's good, but I doubt that carries much weight as I might be considered just a touch biased!