Ramblings and Musings and Wibblings

This is what I wrote on Tuesday.

It's Saturday and it now is more home than it was on Monday. I'm settling in. I went to the local shop on my own, had mail arrive here and met the milkman. I have a new lampshade and a small bedside lamp. There has been rearranging of furniture. My computer's got a place on the desk in the office. I have a laptop.

But more importantly: I now have keys! And they're shiny and pretty and mine and yay.

(I shall not forget the most important thing: I have shiny housemates! There can be daily snugglage!)

And now for the non-shiny bit: I am not available for meets or meeting up until after January 1st at least. Don't ask, you will be disappointed. I want to settle in some more, find my feet, get a job and do all the serious things I need and want to do. Don't show up on the doorstep unannounced.

Currently having my lap used as a pillow. Have a new laptop and it runs linux (which means I get to use the shiny aggregate and substrate screensavers.

Am happy.

Home. Sounds wonderful. Of course it's not yet really home, but it will be.

Getting here took some doing and a lot of travel. We left Nieuw Scheemda at 9 AM and made our way south. We passed through Belgium and France and saw quite a few service stations on the way. We ended up going to the Dunkirk ferry by way of Calais, as we'd wanted to visit a hypermarket to pass the time. Unfortunately we didn't find one, so we doubled back to Dunkirk.

Arrived nearly two hours before the ferry was due to depart and waited. However, we ended up on the ferry that was supposed to have left at 16:30 but was delayed by nearly 90 minutes.

The crossing was wobbly. It was interesting walking around, but I had fun. I would have loved to spend the crossing on the smoking deck, and had I been alone I would've. It was not cold at all. (Of course, this was because of the ferry heading straight into the wind, so the aft deck was shielded by the rest of the ferry.

We arrived in Dover around 19:00 and we made our way to London where we were going to drop off Ruthi at home, spend the night and then make our way up north the next morning. Spent some time talking when we arrived and then crashed.

We said goodbye to Ruthi and her plus-one and made our way up north. The satnav decided we really needed to see certain bits of London. Pol then told me we were going to Oxford to meet up with Arwen and Simon for lunch. This was a lovely surprise and I enjoyed seeing them both. I thought I wasn't going to see her again for a few months, so I was very glad to be mistaken. :)

After lunch, we still had to make our way up to Manchester. This was not as easy as we'd hoped as there was traffic and rain and more traffic and more rain. Also, Pol's cold was knocking him quite hard and the last few hours were far from fun (plus we were both worried about Supermouse's stomach bug) and as we got closer we got more and more sarcastic towards other drivers and the roads. Very cathartic that.

Arrived here around 18:00 with tea waiting for us. Drank tea, unpacked the car, hugged Pol goodbye before sending him off home (another 90 minutes drive. Poor him.). Food was consumed, Futurama was watched and I went to sleep around 22:00. Aaand promptly woke up at six, so I'm going to bed at a sensible time tonight.

We've been having gorgeous weather, and I've spent most of my time outside studying and writing. In fact, I've been so diligent in my studies that I woke up this morning and realised I had done all my work for this week.

So I spent the day reading one of my new books, George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones. Started at 11 and couldn't stop reading. Three pages into the first book, and I was hooked. I was very surprised when Johan came home, because I had no clue it was already past 5. Finished the book around 8, and am now pondering starting on the second part. (It's been a long time since I've disappeared into a book like that. The last time was when I read Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, which is a wonderful book, and I need to get it for myself so I can pimp it at people.)

I always like the feeling when I'm at the start of a series I know I'm going to love, and by the looks of it, I have three more big books to go. *glee*