200 days!

A couple of weeks ago, while suffering from the heat in Milan, I decided to purchase tickets to come visit clovis_t in Edinburgh. The thought was that even with people to visit, the cooler temperatures in Scotland would give me more energy for work, and I'd accomplish more than I would if I stayed in Italy. I arrived on Wednesday, and have certainly had far more energy here! However, my work progress report consists of managing as much as three hours uni work on a single day, which isn't really better than I was managing in the heat of Milan. But oh, the quality of the distractions! I haven't even been making time to post to LJ I've been having so much fun.

My first couple of days here my focus was on housework. Please understand that I *love* to rearrange furniture and do the associated deep cleaning that goes with it. Some of my happiest childhood memories involve deciding that I wasn't happy with the mess that was my room and that I wanted to rearrange things followed by a couple of hours of moving furniture around, putting all of my toys and books neatly into their new places (finding a place for everything), and then proudly going to find mom to give her a tour of the new, improved, room. Some of my happiest adult memories involve looking around a room, seeing a vision of how much better it could be if this was over here, that was over there, and these things up there, then making it so. Knowing this about myself, it came as no surprise when I arrived at the flat that clovis_t is sharing with some flatmates and the first thing I wanted to do was clean, organize, and re-arrange it. Cleaning was necessary--this place is occupied by bachelors, and the others have been living here far too long to notice what has built up over the years.

In addition to the fun with housecleaning I also had some baking adventures. The oven here is quite old (though no where near as old as the apartment itself). It is gas, and has no markings whatsoever on the dial, nor did it have an oven thermometer. Baking that first loaf of bread was a challenge as I had to just guess, and then keep adjusting the dial up and down trying to find a decent temperature. The next day I purchased an oven thermometer, and since then have successfully baked oat cakes, more bread, and a cake (none of which lasted long).

Thursday I took a break from housework to go meet sismith42 for lunch. Her place of work is about a 30 minute walk from clovis_t's flat, so I got a bit of exercise, and noted as I did that there are *far* fewer people smoking on the streets of Edinburgh than one sees in Milan. Friday was more housework and errands with clovis_t, picking up lots of little things that he needs now that he lives here, so I got plenty of more exercise wandering around town and then to Hollyrood Park in the evening.

Saturday I worked more on a job-application in progress and actually did some real uni work, and in the evening met an old friend at the train station. I hadn't seen him for about a decade, as he moved to York before I moved to Tasmania. He's back in California now, but came to the UK for a friend's wedding on Monday, and decided to come up to visit while he was in the country. I'm glad he did, it has been fun to see him.

Sunday he, clovis_t, sismith42, and I went out to Linlithgow Palace for an afternoon of dancing to the beautiful music of Gaïta. What a fun day--beautiful site, beautiful music, fun dancing! Since we were part of the entertainment we didn't even need to pay the admission fee. Afterwards we stopped back by home to pick up the bread dough which was rising in the fridge and then went out to sismith42 to bake pizza for dinner. We would have done that at clovis_t's house, but wound up deciding that since her daughter needs to go to bed sometime between 7 and 8pm it would be easy to do the party at her place. It was a delightful evening, but I never even turned on the computer or tried to work all day. I did, however, remember to read my 1000 words of geologic literature, and am now up to 200 days in a row of reading since the last time I forgot!

200 days!

A couple of weeks ago, while suffering from the heat in Milan, I decided to purchase tickets to come visit clovis_t in Edinburgh. The thought was that even with people to visit, the cooler temperatures in Scotland would give me more energy for work, and I'd accomplish more than I would if I stayed in Italy. I arrived on Wednesday, and have certainly had far more energy here! However, my work progress report consists of managing as much as three hours uni work on a single day, which isn't really better than I was managing in the heat of Milan. But oh, the quality of the distractions! I haven't even been making time to post to LJ I've been having so much fun.

My first couple of days here my focus was on housework. Please understand that I *love* to rearrange furniture and do the associated deep cleaning that goes with it. Some of my happiest childhood memories involve deciding that I wasn't happy with the mess that was my room and that I wanted to rearrange things followed by a couple of hours of moving furniture around, putting all of my toys and books neatly into their new places (finding a place for everything), and then proudly going to find mom to give her a tour of the new, improved, room. Some of my happiest adult memories involve looking around a room, seeing a vision of how much better it could be if this was over here, that was over there, and these things up there, then making it so. Knowing this about myself, it came as no surprise when I arrived at the flat that clovis_t is sharing with some flatmates and the first thing I wanted to do was clean, organize, and re-arrange it. Cleaning was necessary--this place is occupied by bachelors, and the others have been living here far too long to notice what has built up over the years.

In addition to the fun with housecleaning I also had some baking adventures. The oven here is quite old (though no where near as old as the apartment itself). It is gas, and has no markings whatsoever on the dial, nor did it have an oven thermometer. Baking that first loaf of bread was a challenge as I had to just guess, and then keep adjusting the dial up and down trying to find a decent temperature. The next day I purchased an oven thermometer, and since then have successfully baked oat cakes, more bread, and a cake (none of which lasted long).

Thursday I took a break from housework to go meet sismith42 for lunch. Her place of work is about a 30 minute walk from clovis_t's flat, so I got a bit of exercise, and noted as I did that there are *far* fewer people smoking on the streets of Edinburgh than one sees in Milan. Friday was more housework and errands with clovis_t, picking up lots of little things that he needs now that he lives here, so I got plenty of more exercise wandering around town and then to Hollyrood Park in the evening.

Saturday I worked more on a job-application in progress and actually did some real uni work, and in the evening met an old friend at the train station. I hadn't seen him for about a decade, as he moved to York before I moved to Tasmania. He's back in California now, but came to the UK for a friend's wedding on Monday, and decided to come up to visit while he was in the country. I'm glad he did, it has been fun to see him.

Sunday he, clovis_t, sismith42, and I went out to Linlithgow Palace for an afternoon of dancing to the beautiful music of Gaïta. What a fun day--beautiful site, beautiful music, fun dancing! Since we were part of the entertainment we didn't even need to pay the admission fee. Afterwards we stopped back by home to pick up the bread dough which was rising in the fridge and then went out to sismith42 to bake pizza for dinner. We would have done that at clovis_t's house, but wound up deciding that since her daughter needs to go to bed sometime between 7 and 8pm it would be easy to do the party at her place. It was a delightful evening, but I never even turned on the computer or tried to work all day. I did, however, remember to read my 1000 words of geologic literature, and am now up to 200 days in a row of reading since the last time I forgot!