Long Week

Hard to believe that it’s already October.

Hard also to believe that we’ve come through the first busy weeks of our new schedule. We keep shuffling the schedules about, trying to make time for everything, and so far we’re managing, but only just. Monday evenings don’t end until around 8:30, but fortunately most of that is at home working. Tuesday evenings will be occupied until 8:00 taking Beginning German, up at the Uni. Thursday evenings we’re back at Uni, singing with the University Choral Society (and, yes, we practice in the building shown here to the left, and enter via the arches shown to the right). We’re taking German so that D. can perhaps read some of his research articles in the original language, and to possibly cure T.’s horrible pronunciation at Choral Society, as we’re singing Bach’s Weihnachts Oratorium in German, and after two years of college French and two quarters of beginning Spanish, she needs all the help she can get.

D’s coursework, research and teaching duties will be outlined in the next week. D. has met his department, and is trying to balance his worry that he has no idea what he’s doing against the larger issue of being required to do — something fairly soon. He’s being listed as faculty, and has to come up with a picture and short bio on himself, which isn’t a task that’s amusing him just now (T. has cheerfully volunteered to do it… and has been met with a sort of wry expression she just doesn’t understand.) Next week, his peer reviewed articles are due, and he has the first of his meetings with his supervisor. He’s eager — and nervous — to get started.

Meanwhile some frantic writing is going on in T’s half of the living room/office, as she’s realizing that she wants to have another novel complete at least before Christmas if not sooner. It’s apparently possible for some writers to churn out more than one novel a year, and T’s going to give it a shot. (We’ll see if she’s actually sane at the end of this endeavor.) Much to her surprise, the advanced reader’s copies of her next novel have suddenly arrived, giving her the piercing sense of …panic that only a looming deadline can produce. Hopefully creativity will continue.

The weather — cold and clear through the week — is now cold and rainy. We had forgotten what a difference cold makes. It takes so much longer to prepare to leave the house — between the extra lotions to protect the wind-chapped skin and the gloves and scarves and hats one either carries or wears, we are weighed down and always making decisions. Take the umbrella, or will a hat be enough? Take the bus, or risk a drenching and walk? All summer long, we took advantage of our high windows and left the blinds open to catch the first light of morning. Tonight, we closed them, and the temperature in the house rose by eight degrees.

Good old winter. Coming soon to a country near you.

Hope this week has found you all well. It’s been a quiet, busy one for all of us, and though we are far away, we, too, hear the faint rumbles of politics and chaos — scrutinized and analyzed by the UK media, endlessly discussed and hashed over by those around us. At times like these, we miss the hours of the National Geographic Channel and Food TV we used to watch in an effort to avoid the endless babbling of the news. Currently we’re watching our way through the first season of Mission Impossible, 1966 — not quite as much fun as mocking Rachel Ray or Emeril, but close.

– D & T

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