Weekend away

Having spent the last couple of weeks redecorating the room martin had been renting we went away for a long weekend to the Dales. There might be "before" and "after" photos of the bedroom soonish.


We went away on Friday afternoon, and stopped off on the way near Caton to go for a walk along the River Lune. Olly took some nice photos. We did a circular walk along the river bank and an old railway line that is now a cycle path. From an early bit of the riverbank footpath, we noticed some translucent looking boulders on a rock promontory. We went down to have a look and it turned out that they were glass boulders attached to the rock! They looked a lovely translucent green colour. Very unusual, but very cool!

We stayed at the usual caving hut, and saved £5 quid for volunteering to be duty hut wardens for the weekend which was nice (it usually costs £2.50 a night).

We went cave surveying on the Saturday which was fun, but got a bit cold as it was so slow. On Sunday we went for a walk from the caving hut to Easegill Beck GPSing a few useful points for the cave survey. Again Olly took some nice photos.

On Monday Olly wasn't feeling up to caving, so we set off home, stopping at Morecambe to go for a walk along the seafront. I have never been to Morecambe before - it has amazing views towards the Yorkshire Dales and across Morecambe bay to the Lakes. All in all, a nice weekend, though we didn't do as much caving as I had hoped for.

It is Spring!

Helped Martin-the-lodger mover out this morning. He wont be totally moved out until next weekend, but wont be staying here till Thursday night, and has moved lots of his stuff out. Soon there will be a whole new room to paint :)

I went for a run this afternoon, round Stanley Park. It felt really spring like, lots of daffodils and the sun was really warm, even though the air was a bit chilly. There were "Thin Ice" signs on the trees round the lake which seemed a bit incongruous on such a warm day! I saw a squirrel, swans, ducks, ducklings (I think, they were the other side of the lake). and what I think are coots. Not bad for a city!

My knee hurt a bit (first time since skiing), so I had to have two 1 minute walking bits in the run. First time I have walked in the middle for a run for over a year. Hopefully my knee is just a bit sore from helping Martin-the-Lodger carry his stuff up lots of stairs this morning, and will recover soon.

Back From Skiing

We actually got back 2 weeks ago, I was just too lazy to post anything until today. Today I am planning to re-plaster a crack in the kitchen wall, and procrastinating because plastering is scary.

The skiing was really good, and I was silly being stressed about it beforehand. Although it didn't snow while we were there, the conditions were much better than I expected, and we even managed to do a reasonable amount of off-piste skiing the first half of the week. As ever, I wish I could ski faster and better. I am getting a bit faster I think, but nowhere near as fast as Olly and Howard. The Three Valleys is HUGE with loads of skiing to do, I would like to go back there one day, but there are also lots of other ski resorts I would like to visit.

Today I have been gloss painting stuff, mainly the skirting board in the bathroom, and a few other bits and pieces. I hate gloss paint: it smells bad, takes an age to dry, and is harder than emulsion to use. I *think* that this time there aren't any runs, but you can see the brush strokes still. I am hoping that they will go as it dries. Fingers crossed!

Skiing

Been really busy the last couple of days. We are going skiing in France tomorrow (to a chalet in Reberty, between Val Thorens and Les Menuires in the Three Valleys). So partly been busy packing, partly been busy stressing and partly been busy finishing off kitchen painting type jobs, so it isn't too half-finished while we are away. The photo to "set the scene" is of me skiing in Canada.

I realised that the last two times we have been on holiday I have been stressed beforehand - worrying that we don't have the time/money to go away, and that I wont enjoy it. The last two holidays were great (even with the dreaded PhD hanging over me). This one should be better, because the PhD is finished. Oddly I have been more stressed not less, which is just silly.

Packing and all the other jobs are very nearly done, so I am feeling a lot happier and starting to look forward to it. I wish I didn't let myself get so wound up and stressed about stupid things though.

Weirdly I have had Oh Come All Ye Faithful in my head all day, definitely the wrong time of year!

Ceiling painted

Finally painted the kitchen ceiling, it looks a lot brighter. It took two days to clean it fully - it wasn't especially dirty, except above the cooker, but with the thin layer of dirt came the top layer of paint, leaving behind a dirtier layer. Once that was cleaned the remaining coat of white paint was fairly minimal and you could see grey underneath, so it looked pretty bad... At least that made it easy to see what bits I had been painted :)

Two coats of white paint and it is done. My neck is really achy now, from looking up all the time, I guess I need a floor to paint now to counteract it!

Things I have learnt:
1) Expensive sand paper is worth the money (you use less and it is quicker)
2) A roller on a long pole makes ceiling painting much easier
3) Cheap crap paint brushes should be thrown away

Kitchen Painting

My current project is doing up our kitchen. We are probably going to get a new kitchen after Martin-the-lodger moves out. So far we have been fixing the walls and painting. There was a section of wall I had re-plastered, and fortunately it looks pretty good once it is painted :)

I think we will get the units from Ikea - the Arlig Beech effect ones, and a medium or dark grey worktop from somewhere else. Ikea seems to be the best place for the units, but not the extractor hood, worktop or taps.

The first photos shows what it did look like, and what the new kitchen may look like (using the Ikea Kitchen Planner, and then Gimp for the paint and tile colour). Currently it is somewhere between the two photos!

Thesis Submitted!

I realised that I hadn't updated this in ages and ages. When we came back to Liverpool at New Year time, our internet was dead, and by the time we had it fixed I was really busy finishing off my PhD and going skiing and such like.

I finally got the changes to my thesis done, and then the changes to the changes that Richard wanted. It is now printed out, bound, and submitted! The final word count came in at a bit over 49,000 words, significantly higher than my initial prediction of around 30,000!

Except for filling in the graduation form next month, I have done everything I need to do to become Dr Jenny. It doesn't seem very real yet, I guess when I have the actual certificate it might.