Rainy season

Perhaps it is time to figure out how to use the dryer that we bought from E, and which is just sitting in the middle of the living room collecting magazines and dust. Dust, anyone? Dust? It appears to be time to do some linen wash...


It is now back to the time of year when it is completely dark dark at 4.30pm. This is fine, although it inspires hibernative qualities in myself. Esp. when a certain kitty happens to come to my window and mew pitifully to come inside for shelter from the rainy season. We have to hide this from Diana...


Really ought to have written more recently as life has involved such excitement as: knitting, seeing Dawny, going to lectures, a large mold patch growing on my wall, tutoring online English students from Korea (am now up to four students! Hoorah!), listening to Christmas music, introducing Wirish persons to The Chipmunks (this web site, though, annoys me, because this is the new, modern Chipmunks. NOT the same...), interpreting the lyric: '...thister Thusie thittin' on a thisthle...', knitting, venison dinners (this was the basic spawning of the idea, although there was no cherry sauce and some further additives were included in the marinade -- gin and organic whisky -- and an absolutely perfect mushroom sauce was created), planning Thanksgiving with Katharine, watching Steffi make penguins for a clever Advent Calendar for Alex (they are made out of loo rolls and will be living on an iceberg), knitting, venturing to the BIG Tesco with the great unwashed, surviving this (it is rawther like going to Wal-Mart at 2.30 in the afternoon on Memorial Day Saturday-- not to be undertaken by anyone with a short temper or an aversion to people acting like milling sheep.), taking a native Cardiffian to Riverside Real Food Market when that person had never been dragged there before, and, oh, knitting.



Very proud to have a new sign to share. This is from journey to BigTesco. HAHAHAHA! Someone calm the poor door down. (I whined and begged and stamped my foot until E took the picture for me with his phone; this had the effect of making him look very touristy instead of me, as is usually the case. I didn't really stamp my foot. Thank you, Eamonn.)

Excellent chat and coffee during Dawn's mid-semester visit from Hudders. Georgia the Greek has a new haircut and it is charming; she is on a health kick and I feel like a slothy sloth right now. Katharine is becoming frustrated with job search, although a remarkable chocolate pecan pie is planned for Turkey Day! Dawn is amazed at how it is like being on a different planet in Yorkshire; she can't understand what people say and everything is just foreign. She feels like perhaps she knows a bit of what it was like for Katharine and myself to move 5000 miles away from our homes last year, and she is only 5 hours away.


Culture shock is a cool and totally unanticipatable phenomenon, even if it is anticipated. It is cool in the way that your brain has to make all of these slight adjustments and actually manages to do this. Everybody finds a different way to cope or else they hate life and the new culture and everyone they meet, except other whingers. But if you are open, your brain is so adaptable and allows you to survive without going mad -- even if you feel you might cross over at any moment. That moment, too, shall pass. For the first three months, I felt in a total daze, although mostly a confused, happy one. It was just like things were just really bizarre like in a film when they put that lens on that makes the edges go fuzzy (no idea what this is called, though am sure that someone techy in my acquaintance does know this and can leave a comment for us all to learn something.). Then one day, it was like life started to be real again, maybe Christmas or Lisa and Ben's visit, and everything was normal and had edges again. And then I began my dissertation -- hahahaha.


Okay. Must now stop introverted analysis of self.
And get back to knitting!!!!


(Oh, and guess what! Since Google has meshed interface -- or whatever. I know I am failing to sound clued in. -- with Blogger, it seems to allow pictures to be posted. Hoorah! AND, there is a handy-dandy link to my blog login from my Google page, thereby saving crucial kilocalories and needless key strokes.)