First things first

Why is Miss Marshall grumpy?

This is a key question, and to answer it Miss Marshall must turn to her recent history. After a somewhat unorthodox secondary education, Miss Marshall enrolled at a local university, where she studied English and Screen & Media Studies. This she greatly enjoyed. She was under no illusions as to her prospects, and fully understood that this was not a vocational training course, but she decided to worry about that later. Consequently, when three years of study had been completed, Miss Marshall had no hesitation in embarking on a fourth.

From here on things went downhill. Miss Marshall supported herself during that fourth year by working as a caregiver. This was a good thing--it provided Miss Marshall with access to dementia, industrial linen, and the odd piece of illicit toast--but it didn't exactly pay the bills. By the end of the year Miss Marshall had a BA (Hons) and very little else.

So Miss Marshall put her plans for a fifth year of university on hold and took a job as a teacher aide. This was a good thing. She no longer had to start work at seven in the morning--instead she swanned in from nine to three. People called her Miss Marshall. She got a name badge. There was a lady who came into the office once in a while and sold tubs of red liquorice, Miss Marshall's favourite kind.

This is how it was until the end of that year. We'll talk about the rest another time.