blondefish.blogspot.com: February 2012

Once every four years

It's not often we get a February 29th - once every four years in fact. I wonder how many babies will be born today or women propose? Anyway, one extra day to write up my PhD :)

Development Impact

Those of you interested in finding out what does and does not work when it comes to alleviating poverty might like this link.

There are many disadvantages to being a student: no cash, writing a literature review, no cash. But one definite advantage for me is being able to plan my day, and particularly when I get up. Frequently I get up only at 9 and can still be found in my jammies approaching lunchtime (breaks up the day to get dressed ;-)).

Today I returned to the work of the professional (or parent) when my alarm went off a 6 and all those memories of pre-dawn wake-ups and scooter rides came flooding back. This time it is to lend a hand for some urgent babysitting.

Oh I forgot. Reduced cinema tickets too!

What the Dog Saw

For the past week or so I've been woken by dogs barking around 06h30. It was becoming so routine that I was starting to make myself believe it was my lodger's choice of alarm ring.

Until today, when I was actually up at 06h30 (see other post).

Two black and straining pitbulls were chained to the iron bars of my wall, barking at anything that moved, including the wind. Now I know how weak those iron bars are as I had to get them fixed last year. The dogs certainly seemed to object to me advancing more than about 1m from my front door, so it's from there that I yelled at the owner as he returned from the bakery next door, politely asking him to chain them elsewhere at that time of the morning.

He clearly couldn't control them and certainly couldn't get them to shut up, which only reinforced my point about them waking me up etc etc.

Well, let's see what happens tomorrow.

Carbon Fast: Day 4

Grow something you can eat!

I've got three sprigs of parsley straining towards the morning sunshine. Little sunshine = lots of straining.

Ratio of WP to TW

Wedding Planning vs Thesis Writing:

5:1

Carbon Fast: Day 3

Tell someone else about the carbon fast!

The Carbon Fast: Day 2

Try putting nutrients from food into the soil, not bins.

The Carbon Fast: Day 1

Remove one lightbulb from your house and live without it during Lent as a reminder of what you are doing.

An Impromptu Gig

Black Eyed Peas (okay, okay, a tribute band) playing in the Paris metro.

Guess that French city

Hint: it's got a TGV (train) line passing close by...and a river that runs through it....

The Lent Appeal

Lent starts in one week (22 February).

For all donations made here between 17 February and 17 May, the UK government will double your dosh.

Love

Place me like a seal over your heart,

Like a seal on your arm;

For love is as strong as death,

Its jealousy unyielding as the grave.

It burns like a blazing fire,

Like a mighty flame.

Many waters cannot quench love;

Rivers cannot wash it away.

Meet the Parents

It was Meet the Parents time in Brest this weekend, which is also known as Eat and Drink too Much time or Talk About the Wedding all the Time time. You can't beat F2F (face to face) for making decisions and multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-meal arrangements are advancing well, aided by the 7 bottles of wine we had to get through in order to decide on our WWs (Wedding Wines).

Funnily enough, it was Paris that caused the concern with recurrent snowfall. Snowy northern France below, having left a mild Scotland.

Brittany was more like Scotland, with clear skies and bright sunshine.

It's a cat's life...indoors in the sun:

And although it was sunny outside, it was still pretty chilly:

Still beautiful, even in the cold.

And for those of you counting, that's 13 flights this year so far and 1 free page but 4 more years left on my passport. Thankfully there's a name change coming ;-)

Award Season

It's Award Season (Grammys, Golden Globes, Oscars etc), so in this spirit, the best Best Engagement Present Award goes to....

SSTLT! Thank you! I'm loving it right now (slurp slurp).

The Long Way Round

"Do y'all see much of Will and Kate?" the lady with the poofy hair asked me.

Who? I asked, racking my brains for someone called Will or Kate.

She tried again. "Do y'all you know, see much of Will and Kate? You know, WillandKate?"

The penny dropped.

Ah right, well, ahem, er, so, no, not really...they kinda live quite far from me. About the same distance as Midland to Dallas.

The eyebrows shot up to meet the vertical poof. "Oh riiiiiight. Cos we all love them so here"

Yeeeah.

"I've heard you Brits aren't quite so partial".

...some of us....

"Well y'all have a nice flight then"

Thanks. Have a good day.

"Oo I do so love your accent."

Bye.

I tripped off then to the windows at the end of the terminal building and waved forlornly to a passing maroon-coloured car that I sort of hope was the adorable family and not randoms. I think it was them. Oh I love them so. They go back to their life of blue skiies, forgotten ballet slippers, swimming, school and siestas, while I grapple with one shocker of a PhD. And some sort of wedding thing.

Attention. Oil field below.

But first I had to get there.

Dallas/Fort Worth. was. busy. As in there are 15 different planes in the sky all criss-crossing each other at different heights and different directions. We ended up stopping between two runways and then nipped across after one had landed and while another was bearing down. And then for some reason we went and did it again. We actually did a loop, sped down the runway, off at the same exit again, same taxi way round and then turned right instead of turning left for a third circuit. Out of about 20 people on the flight, at least half had onward connections to various parts of the US (Florida, Conneticut, Vegas). London seemed to be the only international one and we were duly told which gate to go to. And then I spotted him. The person with the exact same luggage tag as me. Not just any ol' luggage tag but a very particular one, that a friend got me. Who lives in Mexico. Not a run of the mill luggage tag. And there it was. Snap. I had to have a McDonalds to recover. When in Rome...

A guy in US Army fatigues with a leg in plaster and carrying crutches was driven past in one of those airport-car things. Behind him I saw my departure gate and being somewhat paranoid about US exit procedures, I asked the attendant when the fiddly piece of paper stuck into my passport would be removed? When you show your passport to board, she said, which made sense. But then she added, 'well I can just take that for y'all now if you prefer seeing as you are stood here'. Even more sense. I'd hardly started to walk away before they announced that boarding would start. First they started with a long spiel about who them were, what there jobs were, and that they would be boarding me tonight. Huh? Then they thanked us for being there. Then they started boarding the elite passengers, those in business class, or first class, World Club Traveller Plus passengers, also those with children, and of course those requiring special assistance, and then they started on Group 1, 2, 3 and then....finally, me. No passport presentation. They actually announced "No need to show your passports. Just hold them in your hands so we can see you have one". Yeah and what about the innocent foreigners who transfer from an internal flight and therefore never go through passport control but still require to be stamped OUT of the US or they LOSE their right to use the Visa Waiver Scheme in the future? Eh? EH?

For all that boarding hierarchy, the plane was e-m-p-t-y. Of course the last guy on the plane was the guy who sat beside me (and followed me all the way to Edinburgh), but there were so many double seats available that I moved instead. If I'd been smarter, faster and braver, I should have nabbed a free row of 5.

"So where are you going now?" I heard the guy behind me ask his neighbour.

Er, London.

"Is that your last stop?"

No. Pause. Africa. Pause. Djibouti.

*silence*

"Is that...West coast?"

No.

"Ah, near........?"

Somalia.

"Ah, I've been to Tanz-A-nia once.

U-huh.

Silence.

Well, it turns out I need more than 2 seats, 3 pillows, 3 blankets and a silent, dark cabin to sleep. I couldn't even catch one wink. And there are no movies on demand. I ended up working. Desperate. Heathrow was as ridiculously busy as Dallas had been. Planes flying left in holding patterns, others going right, some passing right through the middle, and others following us in with less than a minute to spare between them all. But at least where in America they leave you to make your own mistakes ("can't you see the sign saying No Shoes going through Security?" No. Oh. No Shoes"), in Heathrow they start yelling at you the minute you enter the terminal. I had to show my stupid plastic bag for liquids 3 times to various security staff standing around barking orders before I even got to security. Then they still asked whether I had any more. And yet, I bet, someone, somewhere, does, and that's why we all have to go through this hullabaloo. Having put my liquids in the correct sized plastic bag (spare ones sitting about for the uninitiated in plastic bag etiquette), I was abruptly stopped from going any further by the security man who said 'please wait ma'am' as I tried to go through the metal detector. Why? "Well, because this woman here is responsible for patting down women who beep and as she is patting down someone right no, she is not willing to take the risk that you might beep". Er, what? What if I don't beep? Then I can go through, get my stuff and catch my flight, and so can the other 20 people lining up behind me. And, say, if one of them DOES beep, then, well, I guess, SHE CAN PAT THEM DOWN THEN.

Anyway, it was lovely to finally return to the sheltered wings of British Airways after American Airlines, where the captains tell you lots of additional information as you zoom over the snowy earth. And at least this time I got to finish my novel.

Thanks y'all