The Nutcracker

was brilliant. We loved the Snowflakes, although we were rather disappointed by the Sugar Plum Fairy. In my humble opinion she should have had some more power and all she did was execute a number of highly skilful and admirable but still – poses. Oh well. It still was great.
What was not so great was the way out of there – it took us almost an hour just to get out of the car park! And there was this bastard who went through the ‘no exit’ lane and pushed his way into the queue right in front of us! Seriously, just because you have a landrover, it doesn’t mean you’re exempt from queuing like everybody else! And the British are supposed to be the masters of the art of queuing! And Naomi didn’t even use the horn on him, I suppose cause we were still in the car park. But she did use it on some other bastards trying to force their way through on Broad Street, which was fun. As was singing along to Tina while queuing. It could have been a fairly entertaining queuing if it hadn’t been for the bastard in the landrover (who gave a whole new meaning to ‘nutcracker’ I guess). Oh well. Sleep now!

Everybody happy

You can’t make everyone happy. It’s a sweet thing to try, but it just doesn’t work. Usually you make yourself unhappy in the process and most of the time someone else ends up upset or pissed off as well. I’ve learnt it the hard way, but I have. Now it looks that I’m going to have to deal with the problem from the other side.
There are a few really good Polish expressions that would sum up the situation perfectly, unfortunately none of them translate properly to English. Like ‘masz babo placek’. Or, even better, ‘widziały gały co brały’.
Oh well. I suppose I’ll just have to live with it.
Unfortunately living with it at this particular moment is not the easiest thing as high doses of antibiotics mess up my system, making me feel tired and sick all the time (as if dealing with the lack of sunlight wasn’t enough on its own).
Enough moaning though, am going to see the Nutcracker with Naomi tonight. Should take my mind off things.

Happy Friday!

It was a good week, a seriously good week. I have done loads of translating and the editing work on my PhD is finally progressing properly too, this to a great extent thanks to Naomi, who talked me into buying A.S. Byatt’s ‘Possession’ during our hunt for the perfect dress a couple of months ago. I started reading it only this week and it puts me into a proper academic mode, so exactly where I need to be right now.
The big news of the week is however that it is official now: we’re going to Aix. The tickets are bought and we shall arrive to the land of wine, cheese and sun in the last week of October. I am so excited that I’ve had trouble falling asleep for a couple of days, as my brain is in a full planning mode now. Can’t wait!
And now it’s Friday, I have a proper sense of achievement and Paul will be here in a few hours. The bookcase will get assembled, the light bulb changed, friends will be seen and maybe we’ll even have time to finally fly that kite?

On Shiny Saxophones

As I walked towards the Symphony Hall yesterday, I somehow knew that the One with the Shiny Saxophone would be playing. And sure enough, he was. We exchanged hello’s as the band was setting up and then he caught up with me at the bar. I have to say, we ran out of conversation pretty quickly, probably because I was not making an effort to keep one going at all.
And then once the gig started, he would take his eyes off me only when playing a solo, which both Naomi and I found highly amusing. Men are funny creatures indeed.

“I had not noticed how short he is”, I told Naomi, explaining that one of the things I liked about Paul was that I had to get up on my toes to kiss him, which I found refreshing after four years spent in a country of little people. “They’re like hobbits” said Naomi sending both of us in uncontrollable fit of giggles in the middle of a very fervent saxophone solo, which was probably intended to trigger a completely different reaction.

Photo of an undetermined amount of time

Here’s a pic I took before Easter and somehow failed to post. I took it with my phone camera, so the quality leaves to desire, but that's not the most important.
Location: Victoria Square, Birmingham.

It was empty, it looked appealing, so she took a spin. And it made her happy. Here's to making the most of life!

'I'm so going to take it home and play with it'

I was all set for pretending I have a life last night. Plans were made, body was forced into a state of hyperactivity guaranteeing that it would not give in to an overwhelming tiredness and general desire of pillow and Dog. Shower was taken, face was put on, teaching gear was left home as was the teaching persona. I was determined to forget about being a teacher for one night and make the most of it.
Unfortunately, The One Up There (also known as TOUT, the ones among you speaking French will appreciate the implications of the acronym) had decided otherwise.
The Friday Rush Hour Blues has as much to do with jazz as I have with molecular biology. The guitarist looked as if he was in a carefully maintained state of suffering for his art, which could be explained – at least to some extent – by the fact that his guitar was something like two sizes too big for him. Must have been heavy, bless the poor little lad. Michael and Bill (Shakespeare, no, I’m not kidding), two nice gentleman befriended at the Symphony Hall over discussing the fairness of saving seats for others and promises to keep an eye on their walking sticks, retreated gracefully in the middle of a piece and half way through their pints claiming that they’d had ‘enough of that’.
Afterwards I was supposed to go for a curry with a Potentially Shaggable Friend of a Friend but the said PSFF cancelled on me because of stomach problems. So I went home, not so much disappointed as glad I could go to bed. At 8 pm. How sad is that.
Yet, once home, I was faced with Tone (my flatmate and landlord) and a visiting friend of his in a very advanced state of drunkenness – they were very cute in it, bless them, if you don’t count the visiting friend peeing all over the downstairs loo and insisting on sleeping in my bed (‘I will knock on your door when we come back’). He didn’t (from what I understood he met some bird when they were out and didn’t sleep here at all) so I did get a good night’s sleep but once again – how sad is that: there was a part of me that was sort of disappointed.
Then, to crown my sorry attempts on having a life this weekend, I overslept for ski jumping.
And now it’s time to start working again. Oh well.
But before I do – here’s the highlight of last night:
‘I’m so going to take it home and play with it’
said Naomi about her carefully assembled Kinder Surprise toy shark.