I am currently in great demand, as my law essay provisional mark is a distinction, and so everyone is busy printing out copies. I think they will be sadly disappointed as there's not likely to be an exam question on the Kurds.

But on the other hand, this being the 5000 word essy I wrote in about 24 hours at the beginning of March... W00T!

My parents have chosen this week to come round to the house and wallpaper the ceiling, invite round cousins, and generally get in the way and make a mess. But they do also go and do the shopping and pick me up from the station, so it can't be all bad.

Kaoru and I are off to class now!

* posted by nat 5:53 PM

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Um, yes. So it's April and I haven't posted much this month at all. Perhaps you might think this is because I am revising hard for my exams given that the first one is on the 8th of May. This is exactly what I am doing, as long as revising consists of 'talking to other people about how much revision I have not done', 'rearranging books', 'playing backgammon', 'phoning other people to angst about the amount of revision we have not done', 'still trying to work out what exactly will be in the exam anyway', 'eating chocolate' and 'watching Doctor Who'.

I haven't even made a revision timetable yet. I am that far behind. Oh well.

Anyhow, last week I made simnel cake, because it was Easter and thus it had to be simnel cake. Ian is developing a good male sense for appearing in the kitchen at opportune moments - ie. when I opened the packet of glace cherries. He got more than the cake did. I rolled the marzipan out with a jar of jam that had been in the fridge and that just about worked. The amusing part came when I put the cake under the grill to brown the marzipan, started the washing up at the same time and said to Ian, "Just watch how that's doing." To which he replied "It's on fire, is it meant to do that?" To which I decided he was joking until I turned round and saw the smoke coming out of the grill. So yes. Slightly overcaramelised marzipan. Still, it tastes absolutely fine - I've nearly finished it!

On Monday, after being taken for a drive around his new airport (I am bored of airports now), I finally decided to purchase a digital radio and now I can get BBC 6 and 7 and the world service downstairs without having to trail my laptop around the house. Because I'm lazy like that.

The spring rash of flowers has been and gone and the flowers are dying off in the garden already, still they were nice while they were there. The grass has gone beserk and is now about a foot high in the front garden. The dandelions have also arrived there with a vengeance. It's quite nice really but doens't really go with the neatly trimmed lawn of next door.

Last night I went to see The Wolves in the Walls at the Lyric Hammersmith, which is a musical adaption of a scary children's book by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. The way it's done is to make it almost more children's-bookish than the book is itself - and the self-conscious repitition of so many lines lends itself to songs very well. It was wonderful fun, scary and silly and wonderfully staged, and the children in front of me were hooked from beginning to end, as were the adults they were with. As was I.

* posted by nat 10:32 PM

Sunday, April 16, 2006

CHOCOLATE!

* posted by nat 10:58 AM

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

I forgot to say that the rheumatologist told me it was quite all right to take paracetamol again - hurrah! - and Ian has been trying to get me to overdose on the stuff ever since. I am holding off as yet.

Exciting discovery of the day - Jarek Nohavica songs from some January concerts up for download from his site! Hurrah!

I went into uni today to discover that the library was three-quarters full. Did a quick round to check how many people from my course were actually there. Answer: two. Felt better and went to chat with them in the corridor. Then phoned half a dozen others while printing off half a treeload of articles. Just about had time to read three or four chapters of a book before Ian turned up. He had wanted to come earlier but obviously if he had I would have got nothing done, so I told him to wait a bit and he went and bought up half of H&M instead. He is now offering to buy me clothes. I am not quite sure whether this is just because he has bought all the clothes he can fit in his drawers, or he just wants to dress me in stuff that looks vaguely smart instead of my scaffy student look. Tried to convince him that I always look slightly scaffy. I got the unimpressed look from him. He'll find out...

Had coffee, dinner in Chinatown and then went for a drink at the Porcupine. Tourist at our table asked how to get to Oxford Circus, at which point Ian said "Oooh, are you French?" and then we had about a two hour conversation in French between the three of us. Started with football, went on to French riots, then the problems in the Middle East, and finished up with the Foreign Legion. As you do.

* posted by nat 11:57 PM

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

I have finally got my hands on Doctor Who and have spent the best part of the last two days rationing myself steadily, as I wouldn't want to run out of Nine too much before Easter Saturday and Ten. Who is yummy. Anyway, moving on... or back...

On Friday I spent about two hours in the new, shiny, utterly annoying UCL hospital. Got prodded about by an Australian rheumatologist who wanted to take x-rays of my hips (I said no) and mentioned Prednisone (I said over my dead body), and a few other possible ways of drugging me up, but generally treated me like a capable and knowledgeable human being and let me look at my records on the hospital computer (I like these exchange doctors!). Also, he was rather sexy, which probably explains why his office was packed with female students 'observing' (or should that be 'staring'?) Anyway, I'm going back in June for more leeching and all the usual stuff. I went to Planet Organic after that and treated myself to a vanilla soya latte and rice pudding (all Lent_OK - I love Planet Organic). Meanwhile, Ian spent about 5 hours shopping in Bluewater. Every time I phoned him he was in a different changing room.

Got back home and died for a bit before packing and being whisked off down to Ian's for dinner and an early night. Got up early in the morning and off down the motorway, getting into Bournemouth for around eleven, because Ian was feeling the need to show me round the airport from all angles (it's where he trained and did his flying at). Ian suggested maybe flying to France in a Cessna sometime. I suggested maybe going on the train instead. However, there were plenty of little birds around to watch and I also learnt (and saw!) that the Sultan of Brunei keeps a 747 parked at Bournemouth Airport. He also told me the story of how he took off once and another plane crashed right behind him. Then he wonders why I don't want to get in a small plane ever...

Anyway, then went through Bournemouth and out round to get stuck in an enormous traffic jam on the way to Corfe, so after about twenty minutes we changed plans and went round the other way instead. Stopped for lunch in Tolpuddle at the obviously-named Martyrs Inn, which had very good food (I had kedgeree! Delicious!), and afterwards we went for a wander in the village and found one of the Tolpuddle Martyrs' graves in the churchyard. Then navigated some back roads, stopping at Athelhampton House on the way - so pretty, but closed at the weekend for weddings ("Let's get married then," suggested Ian, before insisting at length that this was not a proposal!) and then up through the low rolling hills to Cerne Abbas and went for a very muddy - and steep - walk all the way round the giant. Huge buzzards on the top of the hill diving, presumably for rabbits - and enormous furry bumblebees being blown around by the wind.

Then we went into Dorchester and checked into the hotel, which was nice and bright and the shower was fabulous and the bed so comfortable. Got out of muddy clothes and left Ian behind for a snooze while I went for a wander round Dorchester. Luckily all the shops were just closing as there were some fabulous shoe shops. Last time I was in Dorchester I was about 10 or 11, and wasn't remembering any of it. Not that this bothered me!

Went back and grabbed Ian and we drove out of town, up to the Hardy monument (it said do not park in gateway. I made Ian park in the gateway as I wasn't walking any more than I had to!) and we went and looked at the views and tried not to get blown over. Then it was down to Chesil Beach in the evening sunshine, watching the fisherman and the waves and finding the odd shell amongst the pebbles. After that we drove to Portland and watched the sun set, went round and saw Portland Bill in the twilight murk and then back up the road to Dorchester to discover that all the restaurants in town were booked out, but we managed to have dinner at the hotel, which was very nice, and then drinks in the bar by the fire afterwards.

Managed to get up relatively early on Sunday morning and stuffed ourselves at breakfast. Went for a walk over Maiden Castle (an Iron-Age hill fort) to try and feel less stuffed. The wind was ridiculously strong but I was all wrapped up anyway, so I managed. At least the sun was out much of the time, so there were wonderful shadows cast in the ditches. I explained to Ian about the defences and then how the Romans came along and captured it even so. "Ah," said Ian, "Like in Age of Empires?" I pointed out that the Romans were around a long time before the levels in Age of Empires. This did not seem to get me anywhere. Got muddy again.

After more inspired navigation with a map on the back of a leaflet, we got through the back roads down to Lulworth Cove just in time to catch a Sea King helicopter taking off. Lulworth is great geological fun and Ian played with the clay while I wibbled on about strata. Then I insisted we climb up the coastal path to see over to Durdle Door. Ian thought this was a bad idea given the amount of walking I'd already done. I thought it was a bad idea too, but I did it anyway, and the views from the top were tremendous, so it was worth a little pit of pain and a lot of huffing and puffing.

Getting down was a lot harder. But all I had to do after that was sit in the car while we drove through the army land, complete with exciting signs such as "Sudden gunfire!" and "Tanks crossing!", until we hit a bit of traffic getting through Wareham and landed up at Corfe Castle, found a good parking spot right outside the castle, went and hung over the barriers and looked at it, then repaired to the pub for a much needed late lunch. After that we had a quick wander round the town and then headed home.

So we have survived each other for a weekend away. Can't be bad going! We've survived each other for five months now. Not bad going at all!

* posted by nat 9:05 PM

Sunday, April 02, 2006

I am very behind. Part of this can be attributed to having written so much over the course of the past few weeks, that I now take the chance to rebel and not write anything at all. And the other part is due to not being near a computer much.

So let's talk about Lithuania for starters, otherwise known as "the place we went to chill out" (chill being the operative part of that sentence).

Ian took me to the airport on Saturday morning and were soon joined by Kat and Vanessa who finally got to meet him. He used his clever I-work-at-this-airport type badge go get as far as the departure gate with me, which was rather nice. Unfortunately Rosie's flight was cancelled from Moscow and so she was unable to join us. We did wonder briefly why we weren't going to Spain in that case, but by then it was too late!

We flew in over Klaipeda and the lake behind the spit was frozen which looked fabulous from the air (I was, and still am, cameraless, not counting the one on my mobile phone which obviously cannot be used from a plane, so you will just have to take my word for it). And there was plenty of snow but also a lot of sun once we landed.

We turned our noses up at the taxi driver wanting exorbitant fares to town and telling us that there was no bus to the centre of town, and then took the bus that pulled in just behind him which went, strangely enough, to the centre of town. We walked down the main street seriously damaging the Lithuanian-chic-ness of said street, and discovered that the apartment we had rented was about fifty metres from the main cathedral. And it was lovely and snug in there, but obviously we had to get out and explore! We went on a very long and convoluted walk to discover a supermarket, which sold all kinds of good things I remembered from Poland such as raspberry jaffa cakes, and discovered in the process that Lithuania has a lot more available shades of paint than 7 years ago, which is when I was last there (how time flies - eek!) and so instead of every building being yellowy-cream or nasty-pink there was now blue, and green, and rebuilt brick, and modern glassy stuff. Also, there were little stalls with people selling amber. So we started buying stuff.

I passed out straight after dinner and slept for a ridiculous amount of time. We'd been planning to go and see something at the Opera House but we were beginning to work out that plans on this holiday were an utter waste of time. We got up late, ate porridge, and ventured out to the castle, which was fab primarily becuase there was a little funicular to get us up the hill. Good! So we had lovely sunny views over the city and Kat and Vanessa climbed up the tower, and I sat and watched them. We popped round the archaeology museum and then, after a small snowball fight, spent time walking our names into the snow.



We spent the next couple of days drinking vast amounts of tea, having quality giggle time, and shopping. Mostly window shopping, but also buying Lithuanian country music (not for us, we pointed out. They all say that, said the man in the shop. Yes, we said, but we mean it!), wooden toys, other things made out of wood, amber, amber and more amber, etcetera. We visited churches, and Vanessa and Kat climbed up the hill of three crosses while I spent down time in the flat drinking tea and watching Polish TV. I was slightly overexhausted from over-essaying, so it was a very gentle holiday for me.

The weather got progressively worse and on Tuesday I left my umbrella in the taxi we took to the airport, although it had served its purpose by keeping me dry on our little vodka-buying expedition. We eventurally discovered that they had cancelled our flight home (I turned on my phone to text Ian I was going to be late and he had already texted me to let me know he knew this! Typical!) Instead we all got transferred onto Air Baltic, so we did at least get home. Ian picked me up and made me dinner and took me home, because he's good like that, and at some point that evening we decided we needed to go away at least for the weekend*, and thus I have just returned from Dorset, and I shall write about that tomorrow (or at some point), because it was lovely and I need to sleep.

*We were supposed to go to Spain, but Ian has been moved to having rights to see me off from the gate at a different airport (he starts tomorrow), so between that, Lithuania, and me going to rheumatology on Friday we only had the weekend left. So we went to Dorset.

* posted by nat 10:25 PM