Before I go any further, let me just offer this:

Don’t get me wrong. I, personally, do not hate sandcastles. I quite like them. I also like this kid. The thing I find funny about it is that, after I laughed at his expression, I then noticed that it looks like he’s been eating sand. I don’t think he really hates sandcastles, I think he loves them, but in a culinary sense. Perhaps his hatred is a front, an excuse for the destruction, then afterwards he’s like, “well, it’s ruined, you won’t mind if I take a piece. Nomnomnom.”

So anyway, on with what I actually meant to say… Tim is on his way home as I type this! YAY! I think he won’t be in the best of moods when he gets in, because his plane from LA to Sydney was delayed by about two hours, so he’s going to miss his connecting flight from Sydney to Brisbane. He had caught an earlier flight from New York to LA, because he was worried about making his LA to Sydney flight. LAX can be a real bitch for connections, because they’re so pedantic and annoying. Plus it’s just a stupid airport (so I’ve heard, from several different people). So I know he’ll be tired and fed up, but I’m just going to be so happy to have him home.

A slight deviation – If you are doing an image search, check out this site: Flickr Related Tag Browser

So, this has been Tim’s journey:

Brisbane -> Tokyo -> Singapore ->London -> Frankfurt -> Paris -> London -> Boston -> New Hampshire -> Boston -> New York -> Philadelphia -> New York -> LA -> Sydney -> Brisbane

All that in three weeks. I think that list is right… It’s just the side trips I’m not 100% sure of.

Chris came over this afternoon and hung out for a while. We watched Little People, Big World (there was a weekend marathon of LPBW on) and talked about things. Then, Noelle arrived and we had to stop talking about her and talk about something else. Just kidding. We still talked about her. Not. Ok. I’m going to stop that doubletalk now. It was a lot of fun hanging out with Chris and Noelle, and Po. We watched the Pilot episode of “Dead Like Me”, and then Chris went home to his Doon but Noelle and I kept watching episode after episode of Dead Like Me. I really like it. The girl looks like she’s about 15, but she has weird, grown-up hands. They’re creepy, but it really fits in with the whole grim reaper theme. It reminds me of one of the radio shows of Ricky, Karl and Steve when they were talking about how they had watched that interview with Michael Jackson, where that guy followed him around and you got to see what his life consisted of. When they asked Karl’s opinion on Michael Jackson, he said, “‘e’s got big ‘ands, ain’t ‘e?” (substitute the extra apostrophes for ‘h’ in case you’re not familiar with his accent). Ricky and Steve laughed at Karl, just one more in a long line of extreme non-sequiturs. I can’t listen to the podcasts without laughing out loud. Sometimes I have to stop what I’m doing so that I can concentrate on not laughing too loud, because when I’m listening to the shows I am at work. It’s my escape from the daily grind (like Gloria Jeans wants to be, but we have a coffee machine in the lunch room at work so why would I go all the way to Gloria Jeans to escape the daily grind, there’s not even one near my work.)

I’m really tired. Here is another funny picture (I find it funny. Actually, I find it hilarious. I’m not sure why. Don’t get mad at me if you don’t find it as amusing as I did):

I think I really like that the thing behind it is so ugly, and the text is small and plain, and you could sort of imagine that kitten saying that. If you’re great at anthropomorphising like I am. Not as great as Karl Pilkington, who apparently saw a bee have a heart attack (because London is so stressful and all). Karl also said that ginger cats are always fat (you never see a skinny ginger cat, according to Karl) because life’s more stressful for them than other cats, because they would get picked on for being ginger. He also said they always look ‘fed up’.

Lauren and Nathan are coming over tomorrow morning to hang out before we go get Tim from the airport. Yay!

Noelle and I went to see Trina last Wednesday at Flight Centre Stones Corner (PLUG! – Trina is THE bestest travel agent in the entire UNIVERSE!) and we got a tentative itinerary, and here it is:!!!!

1st Nov 08 – Brisbane -> Singapore
2nd Nov 08 – Singapore -> Barcelona
3rd Nov 08 – Barcelona
4th Nov 08 – Barcelona
5th Nov 08 – Barcelona
6th Nov 08 – Barcelona
7th Nov 08 – Barcelona -> London
8th Nov 08 – London
9th Nov 08 – London
10th Nov 08 – London
11th Nov 08 – London
12th Nov 08 – London -> Amsterdam
13th Nov 08 – Amsterdam
14th Nov 08 – Amsterdam
15th Nov 08 – Amsterdam (also Noelle’s birthday!)
16th Nov 08 – Amsterdam
17th Nov 08 – Amsterdam -> Munich
18th Nov 08 – Munich
19th Nov 08 – Munich
20th Nov 08 – Munich
21st Nov 08 – Munich -> Zurich
22nd Nov 08 – Zurich -> Singapore
23rd Nov 08 – Singapore – Brisbane

So that’s the deal so far. A couple of changes from the original vague plan we’d made to go to Denmark and Ireland. Trina said that Denmark is one of the most expensive countries in Europe, but I was still set on going to a country that I’d never been to before, so Barcelona was suggested. The more I think about it, the better an idea it seems, as I keep hearing that there’s no place in the world like Barcelona. I love Germany also, so going back there is going to be awesome. We didn’t get much time in Munich last time we were there (we spent quite a bit of time at Dachau concentration camp while we were in Munich). I’m especially looking forward to visiting the Hofbrauhaus again. This is what happened last time:

I wish I had a better picture of me with the stein of beer. You can hardly tell that it’s me. So I guess I can grant my own wish in a few months time, because we will be going there!

Lauren and Nathan got back from their five-week overseas honeymoon last night. We were at the airport to meet them. They said that they got stopped in customs and almost got arrested because of the present that they got for Tim. I still don’t know what it is, but they’re coming over tomorrow so I guess we’ll find out then. We also might be going out for Yum Cha beforehand.

I’m so psyched about this overseas trip. I have so many things to look forward to. If I look forward to the end of the year, and going to Europe, then I have to think, “but wait a minute, I’m going overseas in May!” and then I have to think about that for a while, and look forward to that as well.

YAY!

Here is something beneficial to those of you not in the know – Rosie is in the infectious diseases ward at the hospital suffering from a case of meningococcal infection.

There are two types of meningococcal infection – meningitis and septicaemia. Rosie had septicaemia. Or rather, she HAS septicaemia. She’s still pretty sick. Septicaemia is when the meningococcal bacteria infect the bloodstream, and travel all around the body causing the immune system to react with a scary-looking dark red rash.

Rosie was taken to the Emergency Department of the RBWH on Thursday afternoon, about 2:00pm, by her housemate, Jenna. We are all lucky that Jenna was home that day, as she was supposed to be out with her mother, but she slept in and so didn’t end up going out. Rosie had been sick from the early hours of the morning, with vomiting and fever. Rosie had told Jenna she didn’t want to go to the hospital, but by the afternoon Jenna insisted. When she saw the rash on the side of Rosie’s abdomen, she was even more adamant.

By the time Rosie was in the Emergency Room, and being seen by doctors, her temperature was extremely high, her blood pressure extremely low, and she was delirious. I, meanwhile, had been told by Lauren that Jenna was taking Rosie to hospital. Lauren was at work and unable to go anywhere – she was waiting for her boss (and father-in-law) to get back, and for her mother-in-law to get there so she could get a lift over to the hospital. I was at home cooking – Tim’s brother, Matt, was coming over for dinner that night. As soon as I heard about Rosie’s symptoms, part of my mind brought up all the fractured knowledge I had of meningococcal – which wasn’t much. I called a taxi straight away, however, the taxi I ordered never showed, despite assurances from the taxi call-centre that he was “on his way, just five k’s away”. Apparently he wasn’t, because half an hour later, they were sending a new cab my way, with me now in tears at my inability to do anything get over to the hospital any faster. A drivers licence would have been really useful.

I managed to get to the hospital by about 3:30pm. I was told by the triage admin person that Rosie was still waiting in the corridor, and had yet to be seen. I was more than a bit agitated by this news, but it seemed the admin person didn’t know what they were talking about – the minute the doctor had seen Rosie, and had seen the rash, they were treating it as if it were meningococcal, which is the safest course of action. The admin person told me to sit down and wait, and someone would be out to see me soon.

One of the E.R. doctors came out to get me, and once we were in the corridor of the Emergency Room and out of the waiting area, she turned to me and very gravely advised that they suspected Rosie had meningococcal disease. This was the first point at which I had heard any professional opinion on Rosie’s situation. Up until then, I had been hoping that my lack of knowledge of all other possibilities would see my theoretical diagnosis of meningococcal as an over-the-top paranoid presumption. Having my fears confirmed made everything seem that much worse. Images of random nightmares I’d had over the years, where Rosie was hurt, kidnapped, trapped etc, and I was unable to do anything to help her, flashed into my mind. Some of these I had forgotten about. I also remembered I had shared a drink with Rosie the day before, when we had been to a movie together at Garden City. I asked the doctor if that would put me at risk. Not too much, apparently. Still, when I was finally allowed behind the curtain secluding Rosie from the rest of the Emergency Room, I was the only one not wearing a mask (they figured I’d already been exposed to the bacteria, if that was what it was).

When they let me in to see Rosie, I felt prickly hot & cold, seeing her laying in the bed fidgeting and moaning in pain. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she stared at me blankly with glassy eyes. She looked confused and angry. As the blood pressure cuff on her arm started to inflate to measure the faint pressure of blood being pumped from her heart, she became agitated and started to shout at the doctors and nurses around her. “Take it off! Get it off me! I can’t have this on! Get it off!”

I sat quietly beside her, not sure of what to say to calm her, wanting to comfort her and make her feel better, help her feel not so scared, not so angry, not in so much pain. I smoothed the hair back from her forehead, and she told me angrily to stop. I held her hand, at the nurses request, so that she didn’t bend the arm that had a drip in it. She didn’t take her hand from mine, except to swipe at the blood pressure cuff as it inflated again. The doctors and nurses asked her questions, to test how aware she was, how conscious of her surroundings:

“What day is it today, Rosie-anna?” (I’m surprised she answered them at all, considering the amount of times they stuffed up her name). Rosie answered, “Friday.” I wasn’t sure if this was right, because I wasn’t sure what day it was either.
“Who is this sitting beside you, Rosie-anna?” asked a nurse called Palla. Rosie turned and looked at me, and turned back to Palla and mumbled, “my sister”.
“And what’s her name?”
“Cassie.”
“And is she older or younger than you?”
“Older.”
“By how many years?”
“Five.”

The nurse turned to me to confirm this was correct. I nodded, and she smiled. I was relieved that Rosie was still mostly aware of what was happening around her. She knew where she was, after the doctors had told her, she answered each question of, “Do you know where you are, Rosie-anna?” with a quiet and impatient, “RBH”. This was a good sign. Many meningococcal patients fall into comas, and this can lead to brain damage and all sorts of other problems.

The nurses told me Rosie was going to have a catheter put in, to enable them to monitor everything happening in her body. They ushered me out of the room, and I stood in the corridor, against a wall, feeling numb. Various medical staff approached and questioned me on any allergies Rosie might have, has she been overseas recently, has she been around anyone else sick, is she a smoker, does she use drugs, could she have injected herself with anything recently… I was overwhelmed with everything, and so answered the questions slowly, most of the time with a useless, “I don’t know… I’m not sure… maybe?” I was terrified this information meant the difference between life and death, and I couldn’t be any help at all.

Sometime between when I arrived, and when Rosie had the catheter put in (I can’t recall events in sequence), Tim arrived, and some time after Tim, Lauren and Nathan arrived. We were shown to a family room by a brusque nurse, and told that we would be collected by someone when we were able to go back into the curtain room to see Rosie again.

To Be Continued…

I am lucky.

Luck is not measured by that which others believe we should be thankful for, but rather the things that make us feel fulfilled. The things in our life which bring contentment. Sometimes they can be that which you would expect someone to feel fortunate for having – a roof over their head, food in their stomach, money in the bank. Sometimes it’s smaller things, such as getting a new video game you’ve been waiting weeks for, or coming home to find someone has cooked you your favourite meal for dinner.

I don’t think of luck as in singular moments – “I got lucky on the pokies!”, but rather a series of events and states of existence that lead you to feel life is not always a difficult, up-hill climb.

Some things that I feel lucky for:

* Living in a place where we can paint the walls if we want to, or put in picture hooks, or rip out the spiky plants in the garden, because we own it!

* Being in love with someone who is in love with me

* Tim’s family – his quiet, thoughtful father; his caring, protective mother; his vibrant, beautiful sister; his funny, skilful brother; their gorgeous, aloof, fluffy cat.

* Having a positive outcome from my spinal surgery

* Having an awesome, weird & wonderful family

* Owning a Napoleon cat, and before him, my wonderful Dinnacat. RIP, Dinna.

* Having a place to go home to in Yamba, our family home, with my amazing mother now living there and enjoying the peace and tranquillity

* Having tickets to San Francisco next May (woohoo!)

* Being able to watch and be part of the process of my beautiful older sister getting married to the love of her life

* Having a seriously cool brother-in-law

* Seeing Rosie making her way in the world (I’m very proud!)

* Having dreams of study, and people who believe in me

* Having Chris as a friend, someone who has known me since I was about 5 years old, and therefore understands a lot about the way I think and feel! I’m so happy for Chris that he has found a Doon, and that they are happy

I have so many other things I could write, but for now I will bask in the warm glow cast by all these thoughts.

Life wasn’t always this good, but it’s worth the pain in the end.

What? It’s not summer yet? How come I have to put up with this unbearable heat then?

What? You say it’s not unbearably hot? Yes, it is. GOSH.

It’s too early for me to think of decent things to post, but the “Press it! I stole the internets!” button keeps looking at me whenever I go into my Bookmarks, and so it has become a duty that I can’t ignore. Don’t get me wrong – I love posting blogs as much as the next person writing overly long and pointless blog posts, but not having the internet for a week made me apprehensive about the amount of posts I would have to do to catch up.

Stuff it, I’m extremely effusive, and who cares what I say on here anyway? Well, I guess Suncorp used to care, but not so much any more because I’m no longer associated with them. If I had a bad experience in one of their branches or with their internet banking or phone banking or whatever, I’m more than entitled to post the facts here. It’s free speech. So get lost, censors.

Yesterday was Noelle’s birthday. We had drinks and tapas at Jorge on George, and then made our way down to Parliament House. We had been planning on hanging out in the bar at Parliament House, but it turned out that pretty much everyone had left by the time we got there, the teetotallers. We visited Helen’s mum in her Office, and she shared a really nice Queensland red from the Granite Belt with us. I had to leave in the middle of our quite interesting conversation to go home (Tim, who wins the Best Boyfriend Award, picked me up out the front of Parliament House to make sure I got home safely). I had a really good time with Noelle, Brea, Helen & Renaye.

The new house r0×0rs, btw. As does our new lounge. Check it out (These photos are from a few days ago, when we had first moved in, so our new lounge isn’t in them, and all the boxes and stuff are still everywhere. Plus it’s still messy. I’ll take some new photos today of our nice, clean, tidy new house, and our awesome new lounge):

So, the last few days have been pretty hectic.

Thursday I spent the day at mum’s place packing the final miscellaneous items that I had left behind without realising it (I actually just didn’t pay that much attention to the contents of the cupboards & drawers in my room when I moved out). On our way home, on Kelvin Grove Road, we were involved in a car accident. Nothing too serious, no one hurt (as far as we could tell). The damage to Tim’s car is minimal, but the car behind us and the car behind the car behind us wasn’t that lucky. Well, I guess being that he was the one who caused the accident his damage should be more, but that could just be me being ignorant to cause & effect with relation to car accidents. Needless to say, I suppose, by the end of the day I was in considerable pain, and muscle spasms in my back and leg prevented me from getting to sleep when we got home.

Friday we had settlement of our new house (which we now own! For real!) at 2:15pm, then a dinner at mum’s place as a small farewell to my cousin Hugh, who jet-setted off to Heathrow last night at 11:45pm, and also to transport some furniture from mum’s to our new place. Rosie, Lauren & Nathan were there, and Trevor up from Yamba, Helen & Tony down from Townsville, Cherie, Reg, Georgia, and a couple of Hugh’s friends up from Lismore, so it ended up being a pretty fun little gathering. After dinner, we loaded up the truck with the furniture for our new place, and headed over. So far we’ve got the spare fridge in the garage, and a couple of mum’s paintings on the walls in the living area. So far it looks awesome . Next weekend, Tim and I will probably get a new lounge for our new house.

Today, Tim and I were up bright and early to help mum load the two hire trucks with her furniture and other belongings. Physically, I wasn’t able to help at all (which I never know how not to feel bad about – see if you can make sense of that sentence!) but I did hang around and try to provide comic relief (which probably wasn’t all that welcome in the end anyway…) and also indirectly berate the new owners of the house for trying to make mum feel bad about not paying extra to get the carpets machine-cleaned. The vacuum cleaner is a machine, isn’t it? Grow a brain, and buy a skirt that at least covers your ass! (Quite a few people who saw her thought she was wearing little short-shorts, but when it’s at that point I could say “what’s the difference?”) And also I would have loved to tell her that her face wouldn’t look like it was melting if she didn’t wear so much heavy foundation in such hot, humid weather.

I’m so catty at the moment, not sure why… it could just be that I feel very protective of mum. Yo momma jokes are all fine and dandy, but if anyone ever hassles my mum, they got me to deal with! Probably not that daunting in my current crippled state, but I could still go a couple of rounds of a walking stick challenge.

*Whew!* back on track, tonight we had Thomas & Seona over for dinner. The menu was a bit last-minute, because I only decided on what I was cooking just before we went shopping for the ingredients at lunchtime today. I ended up making lamb steaks baked with rosemary & garlic potatoes, and served with honey carrots, spicy fresh green beans, and a mint & whole seed mustard sauce. Thomas and Seona brought a pavlova for dessert, with fresh fruit and ice cream. Then we played Texas Hold ‘em poker, and I lost all my money. At least I would have were we playing for real moneys. I’d never played before, by the way.

Now I’m going to sleep! Or something. Maybe I’ll watch TV or whatever.

I’m currently at mum’s place (which is soon to be vacant – this weekend!) sorting through piles of old papers and other things in my old room. At the moment, I’m taking a break (me being an opportunist, I waited until mum had gone to drop Rosie back home before I had a rest).

Even though I’m not lifting or carrying anything, the sifting through old bank statements and birthday cards does get tiring. I find it takes a long time simply because whenever I come across something of interest I stop, read through it, then place it carefully on the ever-building pile of papers to be stored and then sifted through at some unknown time in the future (whenever I get around to it again). I’d love to have a real filing system.

I came across a few interesting things – old photographs from when Lauren, Ruth & I lived in Balmoral, when People and Dinna were just kittens; old christmas cards from people I’m not even in contact with anymore (not deliberately, just through time and continually moving house and workplaces etc); old notebooks (lots of these) with the beginnings of stories in them, old poetry from my angsty days as an angsty teenager…

Probably not interesting to anyone but me I guess.

Settlement is tomorrow!!!!!

I’ll write more later. There are lots of things I need to do an update on – my time off work (over 3 months now), my walking stick, the operation, the process of buying a house…. lots of things!

Tim gets back from New Zealand tonight. I’m looking forward to seeing him, because even though he’s only been gone for one night (two days), I still miss him.

I was a little apprehensive about Tim going to New Zealand in the first place, as the last two times he’s gone something bad has happened. First time was when I was assaulted by a cab driver (incidentally, QLD Police actually literally suck when it comes to protecting females from predatory males. Seriously, they don’t give a fuck). The second time he went away was when this pain from the prolapsed discs all began. So I thought it might be “third time’s the charm”, or something like that. But so far nothing too bad has happened. I did wake up last night unable to breathe from the stomach acid in my throat (caused by one of the painkillers I am on), and had to stand in the bathroom, coughing into the sink for about half an hour, but that’s happened at least three times before anyway. Granted, it was a little worse this time, but I dealt with it okay.

So anyway, it is our (Tim&Me) six-month anniversary on Tuesday 25th September – next week. Because I don’t have much money, I’m making something for him. It’s going to be a surprise so I won’t give away any details here as I know that he does read my blog sometimes. I’m sure he’s pondering the problem of what to get me, but I can’t give him any suggestions because he doesn’t want them – he wants to give me something he’s thought of himself. And fair enough, too. I would prefer it that way.

Since Tim is not here at the moment, it’s just been me & Napoleon in the apartment. When Tim is here, Napoleon doesn’t do too many naughty things. He’s quickly learned since moving in that he is not allowed up on the bench, or the dining table, or near any cords. Also, he is not allowed to walk on the beside tables. This is more just because he has a habit of batting things around with his paws, and pushing things off edges and onto the ground.

However, when Tim isn’t here (such as during workdays), Napoleon seems to slip back into his old bad-habity ways. I sleep much more soundly than Tim does – hardly anything can wake me up – so if Napoleon is out in the living room pushing things off tables and knocking things over while I am asleep, I generally won’t know about it until I wake up. This morning I came out to find that Napoleon had knocked over the glass of water in the kitchen which we have some flowers sitting in. The water spread over the bench, but thankfully didn’t drip over the edges onto the floor. It also, thankfully, didn’t touch any of Tim’s things, which were further up the other end of the bench. However, Napoleon had batted Tim’s train ticket onto the ground… I don’t think this is a huge deal because he didn’t ruin it, and it’s almost time for a new train ticket anyway.

It’s just like in a real family, where the dad is the disciplinarian, and the mother is the mild one. Good cop/bad cop type thing. I’m not trying to be weak and let Po walk all over me, but he’s just so cute and I hate shouting at him. Lucky that Tim is there to pick up the slack, and Napoleon doesn’t seem to love him any less.

Maybe it’s a boy thing.

This is one of my new favourite sites: Strapya. They specialise in mobile phone charms and straps, but there are a few other cool Japanese gadgets there. A couple of my favourites are the things for summer: -40 degree aircon in a spraycan, and a little personal fan that has a function where you can program a message to be displayed when the fan is on. Awesome!

For sooth! The precipitation hath foiled our intent for an excursion of merriment and mirth in the parklands of Roma Street! That’s okay, because we’ll just to go Russell & Glynis’ house for lunch.

Tonight I’m going to cook things for us to have at Krity’s birthday lunch tomorrow. I’ll need to go grocery shopping some time today. And also, I will be speaking to Tim tonight (yay!) so I want to make sure I am home for that. I have been far lazier this weekend than I intended, but I’ve done some laundry, changed the bed linen, and tidied things up a bit. Last week I remembered to buy more coathangers, so I was finally able to put all of my clothes away. I’m so domesticated! I wish I had more things to iron – that’s my favourite of all household chores.

We might have gone to the movies this weekend, but I had my movie fix from watcing fullmetal jacket (which I hadn’t seen before). It was good.

I don’t like the second scar on my wrist (on the underneath side). The first one, on top, healed up so well. But the other one still looks stupid. I suppose because the skin is paler there it’s going to be more obvious, but also, scars formed from where the stitches were, so the whole thing looks like a big row of divide-by signs (not the forward slash ones, the ones which are a little horizontal line with a dot on either side). But I guess that’s what you get for being a daredevil! NB. for those joining the story now – I did not slash my wrists. GOSH. What do you think I am? Some kind of depressed, suicidal person? I’m so not even going there right now.

Here are some video games:

Chip’s Challenge. I first played this on a computer that we got second-hand from the Catholic Education Committee (my mum was the representative for our region). This is a puzzle game. You are chip, a little blonde person in blue overalls, and you have to figure out the puzzle in order to get all the chips and step into a vortex which takes you to the next level. I ruined it for myself by looking up the passwords to the levels on the internet (when the internet became available in Wooloweyah).

Dangerous Dave. This was another game from back in the days of Windows for Workgroups (3.1 or something). Not run through Windows, but through a separate start-up screen from which you could access other functions and applications. Basically (for anyone who doesn’t remember or has never played the game) you are Dave. You collect various jewels and pretty things, and you have to get a golden cup in order to go through the door and finish the level. There are bonus levels as well, with lots of jewels to collect if you can find the portal to them. Pretty exciting stuff.

Time to go get ready for Mother’s Day luncheon. More on this later! (maybe!)

I have gone on a blog posting spree. I don’t feel well tonight, I have a killer headache and feel nauseous, plus my shoulders and neck are really tense. Boo fricken hoo, right?

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. We’re going on a picnic with Nathan’s family (minus Simone, of course, as she lives in Reading). Hi Napoleon! He just came in through my window. I bet he sits on my computer chair and goes to sleep in a circle shape.

Tim gets back next Saturday morning at 6:30. Mum is driving me out to the airport so that we can pick him up. I’m going to give him the biggest hug in the history of the world. He’ll be going to Glendalough either today or tomorrow, which is cool because Lauren, Noelle and I went there when we were in Ireland last year. It was freezing! I didn’t wear socks with my boots, because I’m an idiot, and my toes froze, and then the rest of me froze. We visited the monastic settlement, and had lunch by the big lake. I wrote my name in the frost on one of the picnic tables. Ireland is beautiful, one of my favourite places in the world.

I really don’t have that much to write about. The temperature is lovely tonight. J’adore quand il fait froid. I wish that it got cold enough to snow here. Even with the disgusting grey snow and slush that forms on the pathways, and the patches of slippery, refrozen ice, it’s still worth it. There’s still an almost magical quality to snow, for me. I’m sure that those who deal with snow all the time probably get tired of it, but in my mind it’s always pure and soft and cold and white and clean and makes the best sounds when you walk on it. A very satisfying “crnnnch” as the ice compacts beneath the soles of your shoes. And I still haven’t built a snowman! Very disappointing. Or had a real snowball fight for that matter.

Anyway, rather than stay up and have to take a panadol, I’m going to sleep.

Bon nuit!