In the past, people have called me a little neurotic about leaving the house. I like to leave an hour early, even though it takes about 30 minutes on the bus, or 40 if you walk. If I’m catching a train or coach from Victoria/Paddington, I’m so nervous about it that I leave about four hours early and have to wait around three and a half before I actually leave.

Well, this morning was a classic moment of exactly why I do this. I left the house just a bit late – about 8.05 am. I was wearing heels and we had an introductory lecture to a course at 9 am – so I decided to play it safe and get the bus. This was theoretically fine, except I hadn’t factored in STUPID LONDON TRAFFIC. At twenty to nine I was still sitting at West Brompton station…which is about a 15 minute walk from our house, and about twenty from college. Also, I was on a 74, which would have had to go all the way round Earl’s Court and onto Cromwell Road. I decided not to risk it again, hopped off, and went into the tube station.

By ten to, not a single train had gone past that I could squeeze onto. They were all packed. I eventually managed to get on, and arrived in South Ken at 9 am. I managed to get to the lecture a couple of minutes after he had started, because he started late. But I broke so many of my rules.

1. (Most important): never be late for lectures.
2. Walk into college.
3. Never get the tube into college.
4. Don’t ever wear high heels if you think you might have to run/walk quickly.

My day didn’t start great, as you can see. To make it better, I’m going to go to Argos and buy a toilet seat for our stupid broken toilet which likes to tip you off when you try sit down. Amusing when the boys start squawking because they don’t expect it to happen, but not so great when you need the loo yourself!

This is the fourth time I’ve tried to type out this post. This is largely because my laptop has a dead battery which dies everytime the power is pulled out, and I’m on a Mac – which means the power is very easy to detach. If anyone has ideas about how to stop this without forking out £97.00 on a new battery (Chris, I’m talking to you), please share.

Fireworks above Burgh Island 01/01/10

My last post left a vague plan for New Year which was either ‘partying’ or ‘beach’. After a day spent inside revising (on Tom’s part) and (finally) doing some coursework on mine, we decided on beach. This also had a lot to do with a text from the only person we really wanted to see, saying he wouldn’t be at the party – the two hour round trip would have been a bit pointless. So midnight on New Year’s Eve found Tom and I huddled together leaning against the bonnet of my car in the freezing weather, watching a surprise firework display. We’d decided to go to Bigbury-on-Sea, one of the most popular beaches around, which has Burgh Island just off it. This is where one of Agatha Christie’s books was written/set (I can never remember which) and it has quite a big hotel. The fireworks were unexpected, but lovely. I even managed to transfer a photo across! I didn’t get any shots of the best bits cos I’d put my dogs in the boot, and decided I probably ought to crawl in and sit with them while the loud banging noises were going on.

New Year’s Day found me waking Tom up at 8 am to go downstairs and carry on working. We did this for much of the day again, stopping only to walk the dogs and enjoy the frosty conditions. Tom’s parents picked him up in the evening, and I found myself in bed at 7 pm.

Digger and Jet in 'the meadow'

This morning I woke up after twelve glorious hours of sleeping, to find a 1 mm covering of snow over Modbury! You may think this means nothing, the whole of the UK has had snow blah blah…Modbury never gets snow. Ever. My room was so cold – it was this that actually woke me up. Mum and I spent the day turning one of the sheds at the bottom of the garden into an African themed boudoir – photos will follow in the montage I talked about in some other post. I received the best email ever from John. The title was ‘cake’, and it was about…cake. Take that, spam! We then decided to go see Avatar in 3D, talked dad into it, and went off.

It was pretty amazing, I have to say. I thought it must be a lot of hype, everyone just going on about James Cameron because Titanic was pretty epic, and it wouldn’t actually be that good. Boy was I wrong. This will be one of the iconic films of the 21st Century, and will influence 3D film like the Matrix influenced the rest of cinema. If you haven’t seen it, go. If you haven’t seen it in 3D, but have in 2D, go again.

Plan for tomorrow: finally doing that coursework…

So I thought I’d give everyone an idea of how it is to go home after a term of hell, and still have three pieces of coursework to do, and a terms worth of notes to revise/write-up/go over.

Since Christmas day I have woken up early (ie before 10 am) once, and spent a large amount of time talking to my family. I ventured out of the house on Boxing Day to go for an hour long dog walk with the family, and the next day went for an hour and a half long dog walk. I then went to Tom’s house in an epic race across Devon to get there half an hour after I said I would, in order to have dinner with a very large, very loud family who used to be their neighbours. I’ve also been to the opposite end of Devon to visit my gran in her new house.

Up to this moment in time:

Pieces of coursework written = 1/2 (that’s a half).
Number of lectures gone over = 0.
Nightmares and sleepless nights over the amount of work I still have to do = 3.
Christmas dinners eaten = 1.
Number of meals involving turkey = 4.
Meals involving Christmas gammon = 3.
Amount of chocolate eaten = immeasurable.

If I keep up this way, I will reach the end of the holiday fat, tired and stressed out. Who said relaxing is easy?