Today I watched lots of tennis and shelled peas all over the floor.

Ooh, and found Ben and Jerry's (amazingly, in a supermarket freezer. Who'd've thunk?). I had better go consume.

* posted by nat 10:15 PM

... And I forgot about the breaking of my toenail in spectacular fashion! This will go nicely with the new set of stigmata from my new pair of sandals on the top of my feet, the fact that when I got back to London and peeled my trainers off the backs of both my heels came off too, and then on Saturday night I somehow tore half my toenail off and had to sit it in some dettol and watch it bleed happily all over the place.

Soon, my feet will just fall off completely. I should go to the doctors and go, "Hi, I fell over last Septemeber and hurt my ankle. I don't know what I did to it, but it still swells up quite nicely if I walk more than about 2km in one go...", but they will probably just take one look at them and recommend amputation!

This morning, I wake up to find that a digger is tearing up the drive of no.2 opposite. This is annoying, because I want to slob in the lounge in my dressing gown and watch Wimbledon all day (if it's not raining, that is), but if there are going to be men walking around outside half the time it's not going to be so enjoyable.

Still no telex from Moscow. Must find Ben and Jerry's. Hmmm.

* posted by nat 12:33 PM

Sunday, June 29, 2003

So here I am back home in S'bridge. I've been here for about 2 hours, so I'm not doing too badly so far. It's been busy, but then again I'm on holiday, so I have to go manic, at least for a short while.

Paris was fabulous; Katka grows more wonderfully insane with every passing year and Adelka, who joined us on Saturday from Utrecht, slightly dizzier. Cheap bottles of red wine abounded (Pont des Arts and the steps outside Sacre-Coeur being beautiful places to sit and pass the bottle around), as did every possible excuse to get inside a boulangerie and buy whatever I laid my eyes on. Then there was the da Vinci exhibition at the Louvre, the Villa Savoye in Poissy, Versailles, the bottom of the Eiffel Tower and the top of the Musee d'Orsay, shopping in Le Marais, an evening at Opera Garnier, the Illustrations for childrens Books at the Institute du Monde Arabe, several other things I've probably forgotten, and far and away above everything else, the Musee du Moyen Age, which I got lost inside for several hours, poring over tapestries and wonderful illustrations and a whole host of other things.

I also met CdM, who accumulated lots and lots of brownie points for buying me sorbet. Even if I did choose to have the Chantilly on top which was gorgeous at the time but not so much fun later. No brownie points for the Chantilly, then.

Then there was London, with a divine text from Ness "Do you remember where I live?" - meetings-up with a ton and a half of people, and inbetween, sitting in various parks and Caffe Neros and reading Harry Potter. And without trying to give too much away: Lots of lovely Sirius/Lupin subtext - at least, I can, and will, twist it that way. And although it's fun to read, and managed to freak me out on several occassions (because it's depressingly dark), I just felt so terribly let down by the whole denouement, and I was getting seriously annoyed... by the number of passages... with the total overuse of... ellipses...

* posted by nat 11:37 PM

Sunday, June 15, 2003

What to say that would not be an understatement? Starting on Thursday lunchtime, when we all found out that we have to be out of our flat by the end of the month (!) through a mad visit (Go Red Team! I am so Red Team it's untrue) from Vanessa, Rosie, two of Rosie's friends from the Moscow Embassy, an Australian we met in the hostel, and meeting another of Rosie's friends who was in Moscow but is now here; Sultanahmet as hellish as ever, too much apple tea, trying to sort out which apartment to move my things into, trauma at the dentist's, trauma on the phone between the dentist and the hospital, giving in and buying an Evil Eye bracelet - something's GOT to work! - expensive dinners in Nevizade, missing Ben at every opportunity, and trying to talk to about half a dozen YL co-ordinators in other schools, arranging (or to be more accurate, NOT arranging) to meet people in various places...

I now have to finish up at school, go home and pack everything up, then tomorrow morning, in this order, I am: moving house, having two meetings at school, going to the dentist, and catching the 1pm Sea Bus - although the timetable changed over this weekend so I should really go and check if there's going to actually be a 1pm Sea Bus - and making it to a flight home. If anyone wanted anything brought back from Turkey, I am really really sorrry, but unless I can buy it in the airport, you're not getting it...

* posted by nat 11:37 AM

Wednesday, June 11, 2003

More panicking.
1. Went the long and convoluted route to get out of taking Conversation Class on Saturday afternoon, only to discover that I cannot get out of it after all. Oh well. Extra Conversation. I love it really. Mumble.
2. Ben wants me to be YL Co-ordinator next year. I pointed out we have a teacher here who has 5 years of Secondary Education experience, and me with one year of playing games with 9 year olds and learning the names of all the Beyblade characters (even though I still refuse to become au fait with Pokemon, even if I can probably tell you about half of the special powers of the critters). Also that I have the organisational skills of a flea (case in point: my locker). Was told to "go away and think about it." I have a nasty suspicion this means I'm supposed to say yes. It also apparently comes with a reduction in teaching hours. This means ADMIN. *shudder* It probably also means I'll get 2 YL classes next year but this is such a given anyway I feel it's not worth demanding it.
3. I have really chronic period pain. Life is so unfair. I am overdosing on Metro Bars. In fact I think I shall go upstairs now and put a few more in the fridge. Then maybe I'll watch a tennis match as I'm too busy stropping to actually achieve anything, and I can't get more than about 2 pages worth of the first half of DV13 to load up. I hate the internet.

* posted by nat 2:32 PM

Well. Given I'm teaching tonight, Rosie and Vanessa are arriving tomorrow, going on Sunday, and I'm off on Monday...

*looks mournfully at long list of Things To Do*

Time to panic! Argh!

* posted by nat 11:43 AM

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

Pop Quiz! If you received a text message saying "Call me between 8-9pm BST" would you a) call between 8-9pm BST or b) call between 8-9pm Istanbul time, and then go "But I thought you meant your time!"

BST = Bosphorus Standard Time, obviously.

* posted by nat 1:26 PM

Monday, June 09, 2003

I am feeling better today. Yesterday was just all that is bad and horrible about the end the latest long, slow descent into fits of paranoia, but this morning I seem to be feeling a lot better.

That is, of course, because it is all about me, and probably has plenty to do with the fact that I had a bar of chocolate for breakfast on the grounds that I should burn off the calories by dinnertime, trawling the net for publishers details... sigh. Standby is dull, dull, dull.

* posted by nat 12:45 PM

Things that should not be done include too much raki at dinner, which led to disastrous consequences for our non-alcoholic at 3 in the morning, nearly falling into the Aegean because you're climbing over some rocks to dip your toes in what is rather deep water and having waves come up and crash over your legs, trying to throw yourself off the top of the hill by the temple of Athene because there's great big hole in the rock of fall through proportions that you didn't notice, trying to become an extra on a column of the temple and nearly toppling said column, and getting sunburnt despite slathering vast amounts of this strange cinnamon-smelling suncream on, and getting my ankles eaten by mozzies because I've forgotten the repellent... but other than that, it was a lovely three day trip, even if two of them were spent in the car. We had a nice quick detour over the other side of the Gelibolu peninsula, and a five minute peek at Acıburnu (Anzac Cove), which is very, very pretty, if an entirely unsuitable place to land an army.

* posted by nat 12:37 PM

Sunday, June 08, 2003

There are things in this life that simply should be done. Such as sitting in the ruins of an ampthitheatre high up on the hillside near midnight, looking out over the Aegean Sea, with a few lights over on the island of Lesvos, but no other light to be seen at all, looking up at the millions of stars, seeing a shooting star or two...

Heather said, "What shapes do you see?"
Kevin said, "I can see eternity."
I said, "I can see a duck."

* posted by nat 8:02 AM

Wednesday, June 04, 2003

Off to cross the Hellespont. Back soon.

* posted by nat 8:56 AM

Tuesday, June 03, 2003

There's a certain slant of light - on summer afternoons -
That falls through the blinds and invariably brings me out in a rash. Joy!

Also, finally got it to load, and so:

Will


Which 'The Dark Is Rising' Sequence Main Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
... of course!

* posted by nat 3:07 PM

I have spent most of today and yesterday desperately trying to send emails but to no avail, either it doesn't go or it goes and doesn't get there, as Rosie pointed out when she sent me back my nice blank email. Which is a bit useless when I'm trying to email other schools about work stuff. Ew.

On the other hand, I have finally got into Eurostar and booked myself a ticket, so I'm off to Paris on the 18th until the 24th. That's one thing semi-sorted, then! And after a great deal of faffing around, we should be off to Assos tomorrow, back on Friday so that I can go to the dentist again...

She's a very nice dentist but she doesn't quite understand that I'm scared of dentists. I think she was a bit non-plussed, actually, to find me standing on her doorstep shaking like a leaf. And she kept saying, "Don't worry, it won't hurt." It didn't, but that's not the point! She's given me a few pills for next time to make me drowsy, she thinks that might be better. (Ha, ha, ha...)

Last night we discovered that Fife had never seen The Jungle Book. So we watched it.

* posted by nat 9:33 AM

Monday, June 02, 2003

ARGH! ARGH! ARGH! ARGH! ARGH!

Extremely bad hair day. In fact, just bad day in general. Too much going on. Cannot cope. Off to dentist's...

ARGH!

* posted by nat 3:05 PM

Sunday, June 01, 2003

Mert and Borga said at quarter to five today, when I said, "Have a good summer!" - "WHAT?! Last lesson?! Noooo teacher, we like it here!" Probably because I spent today's lesson revising food with them with the computer programme, then taught them how to play Beggar my Neighbour, then let them watch a bit more of Chamber of Secrets.

I shooed them out and said "Don't come back until October!"

They looked rather downcast. They probably got over it by the time they got to the bottom of the stairs, though.

Right, off to the pub to celebrate the fact I will be doing no teaching at all next week. Muahahahaha!

* posted by nat 3:17 PM