Writings and ramblings

( Well, the good news first )

( then the bad )

( Dancing and Newcastle )

( Me at Grey's Monument, Newcastle city centre )

In other news, I'm very happy to see the daffodils up at last; they make me very happy. See new icon for the ones that have sprung up in our barrel in the back garden, and these two pictures under the cut: ( Daffodils from barrel )

My orchid has also completely blossomed now, and I love it to pieces (probably the purple colour, but also the fact that following my horticulturist neighbours advice has worked!)( Three pictures of my orchid )

And also, if you ever wonder what happens to potatoes if you leave them in the cupboard for ages...( wonder no more )

That was an interesting thing to pull out of the pantry today!

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In terms of blogging stuff, I'm itching to do an update of what turned out to be a busy first three months of 2010, which I may do after I've eaten dinner which is in the oven right now. Have happily though as a result of this post deleted a few drafts I've made as a result of attempting to blog. Makes the whole journal feel a bit 'cleaner' if you will.

At any rate, I'd like to do this before heading off to Madrid to see my sister for Easter. She has the net over there so I'll hopefully update on being there whilst I'm there, though from 8-12 April I'll be visiting a friend, K, in the French Alps, where he tells me the net is rather sparse. But I think I can cope without it for a little while. ;)

It was a glorious morning as I set out for my work-related course today, and the sun has still decided to linger despite the few clouds that have set in. I went to a place just outside the town centre. Last I was there it started to snow on the way back, while today I happily noted the snowdrops and crocus in bloom or on the verge of doing so.

Why am I in such a good mood? Well, partly because the frantic month of February is behind me, but also because the weather and the season is exactly as it was when I arrived in the UK one year ago. From tomorrow I will have been here for a whole year. Wow.

I feel...settled now. Which is great. I spent last year figuring a few things out, how this new life was going to work, what I wanted to get out being in the UK, Cambridge in particular, what this 'actually being a writer rather than just wanting to write' thing meant. I'm still working through it all, and probably always will be - the constant need to assess and reassess one's life I suppose never goes away. But now I think I've found something of a place here, and I'm glad for that.

The Ball on Saturday night went extremely well. The club president did a great job in getting it all together and keeping us on track for the behind-the-scenes preparation, and the demo was really a lot of fun. I particularly liked seeing dancers who were, well...younger than the usual set of SCD people. ;) Next year it's on Oxford, which will be a good excuse for me to go over and see it, I think.

Yesterday I crawled out of bed and managed to get my writing done - catch up from the day before as well, and I do have to say the prose I got out was pretty garbled - some pretensions to coherency, but not much! It's probably because I'm getting into parts of the novel that I only have vague ideas about, so I think it's going to feel much more like Nanowrimo-esque writing for the next little while.

After that I trotted out for my first ladies' step dancing class which was an interesting challenge, requiring more concentration than I'm used to needing for dancing - at a regular SCD class I'm usually physically worrying about my footwork as opposed to which step, which direction. It was a lot of fun though, so I'll be heading back to it when I can.

So, March...what will this month, and indeed, this year, have install for me?