on pleasure bent again

We're headed South again. Nothing new there I suppose; what with Easter coming it's expected we visit family and friends.

The difference is that this Tuesday will be a thoroughly indulgent day.

The day will begin at iKnit - i won't be spending any money here but with its being so close to waterloo station it'd be rude not to call by - then I'll make my way to London Bridge, where I've arranged to meet the girls for lunch. After which it's over to Liberty for bits of tana lawn and finally Fortnum & Mason to buy Easter eggs for them and teas for me :)

I don't miss living in London really. I'm very happy in my medium sized town in the north. But Liberty and Fortnum & Mason are places that draw me back time and again. Those, and the V&A, which unfortunately won't fit into Tuesday.

Ah, the V & A. You must allow me to tell you of my love affair with the V & A someday.

it's all about york

Last week was an emotional one. The dream house was sold. And at the risk of sounding like I'm crying over spilt milk, I don't believe the transaction was totally aboveboard. Enough about that. Another one will come along in time. Says she, with rather less conviction.

To lift our spirits we spent Sunday in the

The time had come to "do" the city properly. We saw the Minster,

walked the precarious city walls

saw Clifford's Tower

In the evening we dined at a lovely family run restaurant before returning home thoroughly exhausted and a little less sad about losing the dream house.

It turns out that roughly 36% of house sales fall through.

strange week

this week i experienced a number of (fill in the gap) moments:

a lot more people (than usual) said, "hi" to little ol' me.

many held doors open for me - slightly embarrassing as more than once I found myself running so as not to keep them waiting.

and someone touched me.

touched my hand to be precise.

it was the weirdest sensation. shocking. so much so, i flinched. then apologised. and felt weird about it for a while.

funny how it's possible for one to interact with so many in the course of a day yet never feel the touch of another.

today i found the place i wish to spend the next few years of my life: a smelly, half gutted, wood-panelled/pink-walled with red, gold & black carpeting complete with a blue bathroom suite!

what more could one ask for in a house? nothing! I love it just the way it is.

well, maybe excepting the smell. the carpeting. the wood. the pink walls. the rendering. the bathroom. oh, and the fact it has no kitchen.

other than which it's perfect.

say hello to my li'l friend

this (or her siblings) is what I see when I draw my curtains at the start of most days. However, this morning, with sunlight streaming into my room accompanied by a crisp, cool breeze; i couldn't resist a quick photo.

But, i think it rude of the ladybird to leave me its crap!

At 11:50a.m. i received an e-mail which began thus,

"I regret to advise that you were not shortlisted for interview...".

Funnily enough, it wasn't as crushing as I dreaded. To be totally honest, my immediate reaction was relief. Lately, I've been feeling overwhelmed by choices I have to make. After a few hours spent reflecting on it, I concluded that the closing of this door might be the opening of another window. Practical, no? It might yet come crashing down on me tomorrow.

To alleviate the tinge of disappointment, I baked a shortbread round and brownie. Yes, last week's brownies were so good, I had to make sure it wasn't a fluke....

... it wasn't; tastes every bit as good as I remember.

Shortbread rounds is something I haven't baked in a long time. When first I tried my hand at baking, I couldn't believe how easy it was to satiate my sweet tooth, not to talk of how satisfying I found it all.

Since Purl Pixie's open house a month ago, I've had shortbread on the brain and today, I made a special little shortbread round.

Tonight I climb back in the saddle for tomorrow is another day.

knitting and brownies

the past two days have been such a dream. i ate, slept and knit. my featherweight cardigan is done.

ta da!

i never really understood why certain projects seemed to take some people so long to knit. now i do. LIFE. it's been getting in the way of my knitting lately.

last thursday i baked the most delicious brownie. i probably should have followed the recipe to the letter. i should probably also have remembered that silicon bakeware requires a longer baking time just not as long as I'm tempted to leave things baking.

these days i have a hard time finding recipes that work. don't even get me started on cook books! all those pretty pictures, their use of words like: scrumptious, delightful, delicious, divine, devilishly good...hmmph!

anyway, for the brownies i went old school. yeah people, i went all the way back to my days as a dinner lady (one of many jobs I held whilst an under-grad). the cook books that chefs used back then were from the 60's. you know? the ones where dishes contained enough lard to induce an instant coronary in the healthiest of men. Those books didn't assume the user was a graduate of le cordon bleau, it was straight up, "what you see is what you get", "mmmmm, this reminds me of my nan's cooking!" food, so good yet so bad.

back to the brownies. they were good. all gone within 24 hours. this most certainly was not a "jumble sale" cake. (that's what S calls my home baked goods). i don't mind what he calls them, he relishes every last crumb. but me being me, can't leave well enough alone, will be playing with the recipe. and might even share it with you.

if you ask nicely.

moving forward

For a while now I've been stuck in one spot. Moving forward but not by much - two steps forward, one step back. And this "progress" pervades all facets of my life at present. Creative projects languish half-completed, essays half-done, ideas half-realised...echoes of life half-lived.

I've been doing some soul searching and what I see is not entirely encouraging. I've been so caught up on scoring high marks but have done so at the expense of understanding in depth a number of my subjects. Highlighted when twice I could not clearly explain my thought process. The unfortunate thing is that I would not have cared how poorly I expressed myself had I not lost marks. I used to be conscientious, now I'm not. I'm just a marks hog! I've been told these feelings are shared by many a mature grad student.

When one makes a decision to return to academia, the opportunity cost is very difficult to ignore. With age the stakes are so much higher and answers to certain questions have to be sought: can we manage on little more than a single income?; how long can we put off starting our family?; can I juggle a family and post-graduate studies?; am I doing the right thing, or just being selfish?...and the questions go on.

For now, I'm doing what feels right. Even with, the doubt and feelings of inadequacy, this is the most rewarding experience I have had in a long time and I wouldn't swap it for anything.

In other news, I am:

• back to working out regularly at the gym
• eating healthy food and maintaining smaller portions
• studying hard and regularly - the rule is to not take more than two days off in a row
• knitting again (yay!)
• a much better person.