So I haven't written anything for a while because there is really only so much you can write about a) aching joints and b) arcane permutations of the Education For All field without boring everyone else to death. So I didn't.

At least this is my official excuse. My unofficial excuses, in this order, go:

DF
University Libraries (although this is also official but I keep reading non-related books!)
Facebook (most particularly Scrabulous, Scramble, and Packrat).

And also being a member of a public library again.

But sometimes I think "Oh I should blog that," and then I don't, but this morning was one of those particular rare moments, where I woke Ian up and asked him when he was planning to make me breakfast.

"I had a dream about you!" was his version of a morning greeting. "I dreamt you had a baby and I put it in a jar and pickled it!"

And after that I went right off the thought of breakfast. Instead he took me down the pub and bought me lunch and suffered through the rugby. I ate lunch, did the Sudoku and spent most of the rest of the time going gooey-eyed over the 13-day old baby on its first outing to the pub, while Ian glowered and went "It's only a baby stop staring at it there is rugby on!"

I am possibly only making this post because Packrat is down and I'm waiting for other people to make their Scrabble moves. Just so you know.

* posted by nat 11:24 PM

Sunday, November 04, 2007

I can hear all manner of fireworks going off outside, but I can't actually see any of them. However, I'm staying indoors. We went out yesterday and spent a lovely day in Greenwich, eating and drinking too much and spending the afternoon inbetween up at the Observatory, which had a lovely man in the courtyard allgot up in costume recounting the history of the observatory and measuring longitude which was great fun. Afterwards we went to the new galleries in the new planetarium which are all very interactive and lots of fun, and played around with sending probes smashing into comets and other fun stuff.

We had dinner at Mogul and then joined the throngs on their way up the hill to Blackheath and managed to stand in just about a perfect position for the fireworks, which were almost half an hour of non-stop joy. Afterwards we met up with People and Vanessa fed us Parkin and lethal toffee, and we went on a long walk down through Lewisham to have drinks before Ian and I headed home, which took forever and we've been crashed out for most of today, but it was definitely worth it!

* posted by nat 6:49 PM

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

The Institute is a blast. Currently I'm having a complete academic crisis of confidence, but seeing as everyone else seems to be having one too, I am happy to be in the collective! I've got hold of Save the Children reports, lunched with people who teach refugees, or work on the Poppy Project, or who want to teach music in Zambia; if I want to find someone to talk the feasibility of public-private school partnership programs in Africa, or Foucauldian power relations in an educational context, or deconstruct Friere with, I can; there are conferences in India and books coming into the libraries and papers online and my supervisor asked for my comments in a middle of a departmental seminar as if I'm suddenly the expert on the global women's movement and I made the really insightful comment of nodding my head, and when it became clear this wasn't going to be enough, saying "Er, yes." Thought of good comment half an hour later. Drat.

But books and papers are good and the people is good and we are still all in that initial buzz of yay! Finally a whole buildingful of people who understand me and are interested in my weird research topic! And there is much happy glowing and grinning still. Until the moments like yesterday where I wrote a short paper and presented it and no-one understood it. Oh well! On Tuesday I went to a lecture by Judith Butler and I didn't understand half of what she said, so it's all relative. (It was at LSE, Kameni phoned at 5.15 to say "I got here early and there's a huge queue so get down here!" I picked up Chen and Ryoko and we hurtled down Kingsway, discovered an enormous queue, and cleverly managed to insinuate ourselves in the queue beside Kameni, which was lucky, as we ended up in the front row on the balcony once the downstairs auditorium was full. Several people did not get in (and did not even get in to the overflow room, apparently) - Judith Butler has too many fangirls. And boys, but, obviously, mostly girls. That's gender studies for you.

Ian arrived home on Sunday night and is adjusting to the fact that he is now the one providing dinner in the evenings as I haven't come home before 9pm yet since he's been back. Still Saturday is our second anniversary (Second!) so we have booked each other for a trip to Greenwich which coincides nicely with the fireworks in the evening on Blackheath at which half our known acquaintances shall attempt to congregate - as well as the rest of the known world, most likely. Yay!

* posted by nat 10:38 PM

Thursday, October 11, 2007

I'm just bouncing! Tired, but bouncing!

Classes are very exciting. (Apart from Quant 1 coming up this evening, that is - shudder, shudder). But the best are of course my electives, how can they not be? I have Gender, Ed and Development on Wednesday evenings, which is just a fab mixed bunch of people (there's 20 of us; the largest nationality grouping in the class is Ghanian) - as I said, I'm doing it backwards, having written my MA dissertation and only now taking the class, but it's brilliant already. And Tuesday morning is Learning, Education and Development, which despite involving mostly economics in the initial class still managed to be a whole bunch of wonderfulness. I need a bigger margin for my lecture notes; I write as many questions as notes. Woohoo!

In both of these classes there is a wonderful Pakistani man who has worked in the Ministry of Education in Pakistan, and we escaped for lunch after class on Tuesday and dissected girls' education in Pakistan, as well as cultural and religious barriers, which turned into more of a discussion into women in Islam, and the history of Islam anyway, and it has been a while since I have had these types of conversations and it was just wonderful. I think he had initially meant to ask me about opening a bank account, but we talked for two hours without ever getting around to that!

Have to get up slowly, the parents are here again and we are going for brunch in Giraffe. Whee!

* posted by nat 8:12 AM

Sunday, October 07, 2007

So I don't feel any different; if anything better than I had for some time (perhaps I have uni and a decent sense of purpose to thank for that!) But I have also had the best weekend evar and that was just what I needed too!

Mother turned up on Thursday going "I'm not old enough to have a thirty year old daughter!" (Pointed out that I wasn't, yet, thanks!), wailed about having forgotten my birthday card and candles, presented apple cake, and then we finally got out of the door into the sunshine (which was also another good present after all the nasty evil rain that meant I couldn't wear my New Boots of Infinite Awesomeness - "knee-high boots solve problems!") and into Kew Gardens, where we wandered around the Moore sculptures, found the pond with all the ducks and geese - lots of egyptian geese getting their beaks covered in algae, bar-headed geese, plenty of swans and big cygnets trying to attack a water-rat, and the water was so clear that when the tufted ducks dived, I could watch them swimming in figures of eight below the surface.

We went down out of the Lion Gate and walked into Richmond to have a scrumptious three-course-meal with expensive wine (and dessert wine!) at the fish restaurant - a heap of smoked salmon to start, then a swordfish steak covered in Moroccan spices (read: cumin, coriander - oh, it was delicious!) with a fennel salad, and then a to-die-for creme brulee to finish. Bussed home, had a long, bubbly bath in some parma-violety-bath bomb, and then watched Casino Royale, which Vanessa had thoughtfully left for us to watch. Fabulous!

Friday, then. Post strike so no post, boo hiss. Ian was sneaky, and having sent me a cuddly glyptodon (not life-size though!) and a mole a couple of days before, also arranged for an enormous bunch of a dozen roses (8 white, 4 red, which is good because I like white ones better anyway) to turn up at the door around the time I was starting to panic about getting out of it on time. Bounced up and down a little; took photos; wibbled about leaving them, and then went up, via more admin at the institute and ULU freshers' fair (at which I did my usual yearly "Oooh, fencing club!" to which I will never go...) to Stoke Newington. Mo greeted me with a large gin and tonic and a vegetable curry and all was well! We managed to just about cram everything into the car "Let's take the guitar! And the violin! And the mandolin! And the keyboard..." with just enough room for me, in the back, to nest in the duvet. And apart from getting stuck in a traffic jam at the start of the M1 for over an hour, and making it to Derby late, it was all good. And what was even better was that I slept like a log!

Poor Nic, pregnant and "less morning sickness, more all-day sickness really" decided she'd come up with us anyway, so I went on in the car with her in the morning. We drove up past all the mills, got stuck in a traffic jam in Matlock, drove through the grounds of Chatsworth and made it up to Castleton eventually. Could we find the farm? No! But a phone call helped with directions, and up through Winnats Pass and through a farm gate and down a track and there it was. Sheep, a rather mental horse, a few tents, and a caravan. Got out the car, inhaled - it's always a shock to the lungs to get fresh, clean air - and basked in the silence.

The caravan turned out to have just about everything we could ever think of, including a TV, DVD player, complete with DVDs (free ones from the papers, and Balamory!), CD player, a gas fire (v. imp.) and, excellently, a sandwich toaster. We filled the place up with our junk, drove back down to town, found a lovely cosy pub with proper beer and ate too much. I proposed a walk up Mam Tor. Nic proposed a walk to, say, the end of the farm gate.

We went up Mam Tor, by dint of getting to the farm gate and then sneakily keeping going - it really wasn't that far! - via little brown cows and large fluffy sheep, and a few too many steps; but there wasn't much wind, even if there wasn't much sun either. Not that this seemed to be stopping the people hiking huge rucksacks up to the top of the hill, unfolding them to make a paraglider, and then walking off the edge.

The evening consisted of toasting in the caravan with many cheese toasties, bottles of Cava, cake of various varieties with candles (El succeeds where my mother does not), various games and random questionable musicality. Couldn't really have done better. Occassionally we went outside and shone the torch at the sheep in the field, not really for any good reason. It was cloudy, unfortunately, so there were no stars.

We bought fresh eggs from the farmhouse in the morning and ate them with baked beans and - you've guessed it - more cheese toasties! El wrote in the guestbook "We came, we saw, we conquered Mam Tor!" And we mooted coming back next weekend/not leaving/how much the caravan would cost for six months. The sun threatened to come out so we went for another walk over some of the farmland - more sheep, etc. - before going down to town to find a nice place to eat lunch, and I tried a couple of shops because I wanted a Blue John bracelet, although I didn't find one that screamed Buy Me!, so that will have to be done another time. Nic, who had managed to not throw up the entire weekend (result!) then went home, and El, Mo and I went down the Speedwell Cavern before heading back via Chatsworth grounds, cows on the road, and evil M1 traffic.

And now I am back on my own in the flat, and I haven't done my reading for tomorrow... start as I mean to go on, I suppose! The roses have survived wonderfully, though, and still look fresh. Ian's message "All the way from Singapore" only slightly marred by coming in a little envelope from the flower shop that said "Station Road, Kew."!

* posted by nat 11:48 PM

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

So this is the sort-out-admin and register week, not that I'll get everything done. It helps having done this before and knowing the Institute at least a little; I don't feel like I'm floundering.

I went up to meet my supervisor on Tuesday, who I knew was nice, but it turns out she is not merely nice, but in fact a complete and utter star. Anyone who starts off a first meeting with "I'm so really glad you decided to come in the end, you must be excited!" is obviously fabulous, but then to go on with "How is your health at the moment," and then "Explain to me exactly what's going on with you and how I can help," caught me so off-guard I'm not sure I explained myself very well! But I tried, and she tried, and it's just impossible to ask for better. And then we talked work, and courses, and she made some suggestions which were along the lines of what I had been thinking anyway; it's good to agree!

So I bounced out of there quite happily, met Alice in the foyer and went for a drink in the union. Which turned into two drinks, meeting a couple of other people and the impromptu formation of a team for Quiz night, which despite some awful, unforgivable errors which I blame the state of my brain for (or perhaps the fact that I was on Appletiser and not anything stronger!) - we still managed to win, and got a bottle of vodka. Not bad! Just a pity that the way my timetable works out I'm unlikely to be around much on Tuesday evenings, but maybe that's for the best!

Today was a little more chasing up the odd bit of paper, doing jobs, and then the doctoral faculty meeting, which had free food and free wine (limited myself to one), and more people to meet - Alice, Helen and I ventured up there as a group, and met a few other people, including a Thai girl called Amp who is doing something similar to what I am doing but with adult learners. I inflicted a few words of Thai on her.

"Wow!" she said, so I explained, you know, aunt is from Thailand blah blah blah name drop.

She gave a little fangirlish squeak, declared she had read all their books, and had to sit down!

* posted by nat 10:36 PM

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Oh, for my sins, I am a student again.

Actually I am now rather excited!

Today was Doctoral School induction, which was frightening at first to turn up and be faced with all these thirty, forty year olds. But the Dean of the school gave a lovely welcoming speech and then divvied us up into DEd, MPhil/PhD and MRes - the latter being my group, which consisted of all the younger people in the room, and very happy we all were to see each other too! I had a slightly traumatic moment when, in our group, we were asked to introduce ourselves and say our school and research topic - and guess who got pointed at and asked to go first? We're virtually all teachers, so everyone knew we were all bluffing anyway. "Err, I'm Nat, I'm from London, I think I'm in the school of Policy, help, and I'm interested in girls' education in developing countries." - You can tell I've been speaking to laymen too long. Down the other end of the room, someone else sniffily introduced their area as "gender and international development" - yeah, that's what I was meant to say!

Never mind, met nice people to have lunch with and it all degenerated into staffroom talk in no time at all; life is good, even if some people have a chip on their shoulder about MRes not sounding as good as MPhil. The year will be fun! I have a library card and an email address and I've changed networks on Facebook (yes, it's all important!). Head of library services gave the best talk: "Here are the rules of the library: be nice to librarians and don't steal books." Must get my Athens account set up. Whee!

* posted by nat 11:46 PM

Friday, September 14, 2007

Ian has gone off to Singapore - after packing trauma, the sudden need to go out and eat a full english breakfast in Giraffe trauma, and, yesterday, deer-stalking in Richmond Park trauma followed by spending several hours driving across London to see El and Mo trauma (the driving and the traffic, that is. Seeing El and Mo is obviously very far from traumatic).

Erin and I saw Ian and Ben off at the airport and then got the tube out together. And I rushed home to continue with my gin and tonics, and to continue with some fine RP. Which I am currently continuing with!

* posted by nat 11:44 PM

Sunday, September 02, 2007

It's only taken nearly two years, but Ian and I finally achieved what almost counts as a proper holiday with a week in France. We met up in Bordeaux; Ian came via a weekend home, and so bussed down and flew from Dublin, and I trekked across to Luton. Bordeauz turned out to be 36C and I was instantly very happy - even if it didn't last. We did beaches, swimming in the sea, wave-jumping, swimming in the lake, aerodromes, a seaplane museum (Biscarrosse is very interesting) vineyards in the pouring rain, Bordeaux, the zoo at La Palmyre, more swimming in the sea, and the Ile d'Oleron with more swimming in the sea. The week involved, also, a lot of salmon pizza.

And Ian and I are now on more of an even keel again, which is good. He is not the world's most spontaneous man, but on the evening we walked all the way up the beach to Royan, and after eating takeaway pizza followed by churros on the seafront, Ian turned to me and said, "Right. Now I am going to win you something." So we circled the grab-a-toy machines, and, failing to find frogs, I set my heart on a parrot, and two euros later, Ian delivered. (He nearly delivered two, but these grabbers are fickle things.)

* posted by nat 2:21 PM

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Suddenly I am busy! I went to meet Ian at Heathrow early on Friday and we crawled for a little around the M25, but generally the driving wasn't too bad and we made it up to Cambridge. I'd booked a pretty little B&B which we had minor trouble getting to, because the road on the directions was dug up, but we drove around a bit and found it in the end! It was worth it - lovely plush room and the woman running it photocopied us a page out of the A to Z and highlighted the route we had to walk to get to Kat's.

So that's where we went, and had a very alcohol-fuelled evening. Well, everyone else did. I had two mojitos and then decided best to be safe rather than sorry.

Saturday we had a lovely breakfast - with a huge fruit salad - sat on these really interesting chairs with huge tall wooden backs, still half like a tree, that we were told came from Thailand. After that we moseyed gently into central Cambridge, had coffee and read the paper on the lawn in the sun, and then Kat, Toby and Tom came along and we got a punt and went up towards Grantchester.

Ian, this time, finally cracked punting; he's not as professional as Toby but he's much better than me! Tom and Toby went for a swim; Ian was thrown a frisbee from another punt - I don't think punt frisbee is somehow going to take off! I did a little bit of punting, and a little bit was enough!

Back to the car via ice-cream and then Ian and I drove off to see the Sinclairs. Ian was somewhat worried, "Are they old? Are we going to be drinking tea all evening?" To which my reply was: Do you not know my family by now? We arrived no trouble and Ian was given a cold lager and chatted with Rodney and David, and Patrecia and I went through several G&Ts and yakked a lot in the kitchen. Ian was his natural charming self and the evening went by very fast, and very well-fed.

On Sunday we left after breakfast and went up for a walk by Rutland Water and watched all the little boats out sailing. Ian got friendly with some sheep. We went home via Northampton, as Ian felt the need to drive past the ward we both were born on - and then as we'd got that far I went and showed him the house we lived in when I was little. It is being all extended!

And now I think a lazy week is in order.

* posted by nat 8:25 PM

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Owwwwwwwwwwwwww!

* posted by nat 1:47 PM

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Perhaps it was not a good idea to walk to Sarka.

For some reason, I had got it into my head that it wouldn't be very far; only one or two bus stops from Dejvicka, after all, even if it was up a hill! So I had a raspberry croissant and read Dnes outside the little cafe, and due to sitting in the sun I was sunburnt almost before I started.

Perhaps the strappy top was not a good idea, either. But it was such a lovely day!

So off I trekked up the hill. And realised after, oh, half an hour, that two bus stops don't mean very much when the bus doesn't really start stopping until after the end of the tram line. So it was twelve tram stops in the sun - the glorious, hot, sun - and by the time I got there I was baked like a lobster. So good to see trees!

Sarka is pretty - the rock outcrop, the stream, the woods. I walked all the way round, and apart from the summer sunbathing complex which was packed, saw hundreds more butterflies than people. It was lovely. Except I was red.

At the weekend, Katka and I packed up ropes and sleeping bags and went and stood on the motorway slip road until Jana and her boyfriend Mira came and picked us up. Then we collected a Zdenka a little furhter up the road, and another man up in Usti, and went up to Labske piskovce, which are a wonderful set of rock formations just on the border, where people go to go rock-climbing. Or most people, anyway. I went to sit on the floor in the sun and watch the others rock-climbing. There were nice walks. Butterflies. Cheese shoelaces. And wild blueberries carpeting the woodland floor, so I was perfectly happy. We also found wild raspberries, and plenty of well-laden blackberrry bushes, so hunter-gathering went well. On Saturday evening we stayed in the pub with all the other climbers and drank good beer - and then piled out into a field and slept in the long grass under the stars, waking up in the morning all warmed up in the sun, with plenty of time to forage for more handfuls of blackberries for breakfast, washed down with red wine. And then it was back to more climbing - or sunbathing and book reading, for me - before we went for a swim in a small lake in a village called Ostrov, and had ice-cream before driving back to Prague.

Tomorrow I am going to meet Bara!

* posted by nat 9:58 AM

Friday, August 03, 2007

This is my 1000th post, and here I am in Prague!

It is very pleasant to be back in a country that does 25C and above! The other bits of arrival were less fun, discovering that a bus ticket is now 20kc, that Ruzyně airport has grown a whole new terminal (although there was a long lost bastion of Communism working in the transport office who gave me looks of pure evil when I bought said 20kc ticket with a 1000kc note - also I was confusing him with my constant failure at Czech grammar. Not to worry!

I took the bus to Dejvická going ooh new airport, new main road, new hypermarket, ew! and slummed up the road to Katkaś flat, feeling more comfortable in the buildings of neglected grey, aging vomit-yellow and disagreeable pink, only there was nobody in so I had a frappé and a makový šnek at a little cafe and sat in the sun and read Dnes while everybody smoked all over me and I did not care. After ploughing through the newspaper, I tried the flat again.

Aha, the buzzer was not working.

I gave up and walked up the hill to Hradčany. On the way I collected two Brazilian tourists and dumped them on the right road on the other side of the hill. Several places have had new coats of paint, and the castle gardens are suddenly open - although that may be that I haven´t been here in summer for a while, but I am sure they were never open before - and when I got to looking out at the view across Prague, there are whole new areas of building going on, and some skyscrapers that I am sure were not there before. And there were a lot less people.

The candle shop is still there: the soap shop has gone. Malá Strana is more put-back-together although there are still a few houses on the main drag up to the castle that are covered in scaffolding. Beer prices seemed frightening even allowing for being in the tourist area. I avoided the boat tour people and dived over Karlův Most and turned north up to the Rudolfinum to avoid the tourist route.

One thing Prague does seem so far is a little cleaner. And a lot quieter. I even got a seat straightaway in the courtyard in Literární Kavárna without having to wait. Not that many tourists make it in there, but still.

Katka rolled in twenty minutes late in a little dress and high heels and wondered why she was putting herself through the law firm jobs of hell. And then, in an attempt to pretend we are not grown up - we are good at this - we fought over who would pay the bill, wandered across Staroměstké Náměstí in fits of giggles, and rode black two stops on the tram so we didn´t have to climb back up the hill. We sat on the floor up in the penthouse - okay, top floor! - apartment and shared rolls with cheese and not-quite-ripe plums, getting home just before the thunder came on and the heavens opened, and Katka spent twenty minutes freaked about how her computer power cord had stopped working before we thought to check that actually, it was not plugged in.

The room is very Katka-style: the desk is a wonderful old sewing machine rescued from the attic, two mattresses on the floor, and a clothes rail from Ikea "which I hate actually, it is like an institution", and has climbing rope looped over one end. There are three large sunflowers in a huge jar, and an ice-pick on the floor that has not yet found a home. At least one quarter of the floor space is covered in papers and folders, overflowing from another attic-find, a set of shelves cleaned up and painted. There is a glass goldfish bowl with pretty pebbles but no fish. The apartment is all huge rooms and lovely wooden floors but as is typical, the only sink is the one in the bathroom, which means the bathroom doubles up as a scullery. The windows look straight onto the gutter, good to sit in the sun, but not so much of a view.

And as the sun is out, and I have until seven-thirty when we shall meet, as Prague people do, at the horse, I am off out! I have a week of galleries, sun, and walking to do, and several hundred kavárny to work my way around. Mmm, food.

Although, as I said to Katka, I am not sure knedlíky really work any more, if thereś no gravy to mop them in.

Oh god, said Katka, you are still suffering from the effects of that famous zabíjačka!

* posted by nat 9:38 AM

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

What is it with this job that invariably the evening before I go away someone dumps a load of last minute work on me?

Argh!

I do not care!

Off to Prague tomorrow - I haven't been in over five years. Spent today looking at exchange rates going "What has happened?!" Apparently there are a lot of changes. Gosh.

*Slinks off without doing work. Ha!*

* posted by nat 5:37 PM

Monday, July 16, 2007

Yesterday we ticked another box of 'things that you have to do to prove you are in a serious relationship' - we had a fight in Ikea!

Also Ian manhandled onto a trolley, got in the car to come home, and put together a bookcase for me in the study. Yay for capable boyfriends! But boo for their putting air fresheners in the car to which I am allergic. Sneeze splutter.

Today I am at work. Dull - though the sun has come out for five minutes so I think an early lunchtime is called for. It cost £2.50 to take the tube in from Kew and half the carriage was reading the Telegraph!!! Oyster is officially the most confusing thing ever - I got from Deptford to Heathrow for £1.50, for crying out loud! It might be time to go back to travelcards...

Kew however is fabulous. There is an organic supermarket by the station that has about 150 kinds of soya and three different kinds of yoghurt I can eat, not to mention all four flavours of soya ice-cream. In fact it contains just about all the food I could ever want to eat. Hurrah! And a little organic cafe has just opened up as well, so we don't have to go to Starbucks. Double yay! And did I mention the pub has the best proper veggie burgers ever and Weissbier on tap? Quadruple woot!

Of course the rent is so much I can't afford to actually frequent any of these places, but I'm just going to pretend I can for a week or two.

* posted by nat 11:21 AM