The Wild Ewt of the Plains of Canada

I'm not sure how my sewing scissors got nicks in them as I've been very careful not to use them for anything other than fabric. I may have to replace them; I'll try sharpening first but it may be a lost cause. Argh. Those things are expensive, and having ones that are in good order is pretty much essential to doing any sewing without going insane.

Also, I have wanted to get pinking shears for ages and ahve been putting it off and this just puts it off further. Bah.

Unrelatedly, if anyone knows the whereabouts of my toenail clippers, please inform me at your earliest possible convenience.

The shower here has something that almost resembles actual water pressure.

The bath is not longer than I am, but it is long enough that I can sit in it with my legs fully extended and neither end of me touching the ends of it.

And I'm wondering if there's a water softener, or if I itch less for psychosomatic reasons, or because I put a tonne of aloe vera gel on earlier today and then used amla oil for shaving. Can't tell. Don't much care.

Of course, I'm now going to travel across London, which will mean getting filthy again. Such is life...

I have a cold, I think. My everything hurts. But I have Olbas and somewehre I even have painkillers, so there's hope for hte day yet.

Going to see if the greasy spoon will give me some brekky, then get my sorry arse into Trinty and try to get some practising done. I have a lesson later.

Schedule this week looks something like ( this ).

If you're available I could use help on Tuesday afternoon to evening and Wednesday mid-morning to evening. This will consist mostly of putting together IKEA furniture, so if that stresses you out or if you're going to get argue-y about it, don't bother. (I am fine with furniture construction; if I get argue-y about it, it's because of general stress levels. But I am physically not very strong and so putting furniture together takes me a very long time on my own, longer than I've really got. I still want to try to complete the move by Wednesday night, because then it will be well over with before classes start on the 14th. Maybe this is unrealistic but aiming high never hurt me yet.) If you like problem-solving and making fun of IKEA instructions then you are most welcome.

Someone to accompany me to IKEA and make sure I don't a) buy all the shiny (just some of it) and b) kill myself trying to lug stuff up the stairs at this end would also be good. Though I think I want to find building manager and wring their neck, because NOW there is a sign on the door that says "Lift broken, use other entrance", and this implies that a) there is another entrance I could use to get here and b) it has a lift. Um. One that works. Arse thorns. Sincere and profuse apologies to everyone who helped lug stuff up stairs on Saturday...

Also, pplfichi, can I borrow your drill again? Would be good. I don't know yet if I actually need it this time but you know how it was with the bed last time? It might be like that with the shelves this time, or the wardrobe.

Right, this is turning into longer than it should. I gotta go. Brekky and at least a good solid warm-up before my lesson later...

It's snowing in London. I imagine that it isn't very MUCH snow, because it generally isn't in Britain, but I'm not there so I can't really say; the Met Office website is somewhat helpful but not quite specific enough about how much snow has actually fallen. Anyway, the English can't deal wiht more than about 1cm of snow sensibly, so anything more than that is Lots Of Snow for all practical purposes.

This means our flight to Heathrow has been cancelled, and we will fly out tomorrow morning at 9am local time, arriving in London 11am-ish GMT.

This is interesting as I am meant to be teaching in Finchley at 08.30GMT... and, well, I don't have my phone.

Thankfully there is internets here and BA have arranged to pay for my use of long-distance phone from the hotel room to re-schedule tomorrow's teaching...

Hopefully most of my students will be able to re-schedule for Monday. That would be simplest all 'round and gives me a chance tomorrow to try and find a cheep PAYG sim and borrow or buy a handset from someone.

Further updates as events warrant, and whoever says "What else could possibly go wrong?" will be hung, drawn and quartered. Twice.

I'm here with hairyears for a very brief time to visit livredor.

It's been quite some time since I went away for a weekend (or indeed any period of time) just to visit people, (or at least, just to visit people who are not my family), and the opportunity was there.

Back in Lodnon on Saturday night, for I teach all day on Jesus On A Stick Day Easter Sunday.

It isn't dark here any more, and I found that I DID put my gloves in my backpack after all. :)

Saw an ASUS Eee PC in the Dixon's at Heathrow, WANT. Did not get, because don't have £213 (which is the cost in airports). Having seen the thing, I'm still seriously tempted. It would be no good for composition stuff but as a general keeping-in-touch and life-organisation tool it has great potential.

More useful in the shorter term would be a USB stick that is actually small enough that I will put it on my keys and leave it there. All the ones I have had previously have been cheap-ass ones that end up getting lost, with the result that I ended up using a CD-R to transfer my assignment from laptop to Trinty computer yesterday morning... waste of a CD for an assignment less than 100K. Ordinarily I would just e-mail it, but with no internet access at home that isn't going to work, and the free wireless I used to be able to get in the Trinty caff seems to have evaporated (it wasn't provided by Trinty, so can't really complain at them about it).

Breakfast now. Starving!

Didn't get as much done last night as I've had liked, but I'm on track to hand the thing in on time, anyway (or rather, 2 hours early so I can get to Finchley on time).

Off to do some practising, as it's time I had a break.

I think that I would quite like to attend this.

Because, hey, chamber music FTW.

Need to write to them over the weekend and make a case for a scholarship, and also find out what they mean by 'young' musicians, since they don't say. Sometimes that means under-30, sometimes it means under-25. I fit in the former but not the latter... but they may be desperate enough for horn players to take me anyway.

Got my arranging assignment back.

80%. Again. As in, "we can't give you a higher grade than this because if we do, it messes up our curve."

Many positive and useful comments.

This is such welcome news today; I've been feeling a bit low and frustrated. This is almost as good as free kitten snuggles! And it won't pee on my lap!

Any highly-skilled Mac geniuses out there? My horn teacher's home computer doesn't go.

I can probably get more detail out of him than that but don't want to bother him with it if it isn't going to be much help...