Thursday 22 December 2011

A Year!

Wow - it was a year ago today moved across the park into this house. A year ago it was cold and snowing, the roads were iced over, and I had to rescue the stuck van with handfuls of pelletised chickenshit under the tyres. The house was a mountain of boxes (with a Christmas tree bundled up in a corner). I was so tired and so stressed I can actually hardly remember the day. Today, well, the house still needs new doors (I mean, really, who puts doors with frosted glass on bedrooms?), it needs paint and we have yet to figure out what to do with the back yard - oh, and yeah, we still need art on the walls. But - it's had a new kitchen, a second bathroom, new light fixtures, furniture, a summer's worth of mad flower jungle, several parties, and it's actually becoming home. I still can't believe it's been a year.

So, today, the winter solstice, I got up in the pitch black dark, at 7 and went for a nice run as the sun just peeked over the eastern horizon. (Sunrise/sunset: 8:04am - 3:54pm). It was beautiful and warm this morning - oddly warm - almost like a southern California winter's morning. I felt virtuous out on my morning run (sad, I know). I remember a number of years ago, Dad made a comment about how he really liked being up at stupid o'clock in the morning to take the ferry to Seattle, as this let him see the sun rise. I said something oh so clever like as long as the sun was in the sky when I got up, I knew it would be another day, and I didn't need to get up early just to check! (I also hated the Grape Nuts commercial - "morning is your time"). Well, I'm still a zombie when I get up in the morning - I don't function until after I eat my breakfast (bacon, eggs, beans, milk, orange juice and coffee), but yeah, it's kind of nice to actually see the sun come up. Of course, it's a lot easier in December than it is in June (4:43am - 9:22pm).

Anyway - still working on what I want to do when I grow up. I've come across an MSc programme in Geophysical Hazards at University College London - seems to be designed for GIS-y type people (like me!) who are considering a career shift into hazards, which I am. Definitely worth a look.

That's about it for the moment. I do have lots of pics I need to put up - just need to get off my butt and do so!


Morning pastoral, Hackney style...


Then what such?


As they say here, it was a real tailback... (I know- groan).


Wow - not sure how anyone finds anything in that DIY store!


And for today's bad packaging award...

3 comments:

Katherine Plumer said...

What's the story on the horse photo?

Jan Blawat said...

How can you not have art on your walls? Is that actually possible in your family?

dougzilla said...

Well - the horse photo - I was just on my morning bike ride through town and got stuck in a traffic jam of horses. Don't know where they were going or why, and I was kind of surprised, as it's the middle of a shopping area and not particularly near any palaces or anything. At that point, I was more annoyed b/c they were making me late to work and holding up traffic.

And art - well, my ability to do art is about equal to my ability to draw a stick figure. I somehow completely missed the art gene, and we got rid of pretty much all art when we came over here (and plus, you can't really put up a lot of art when you are renting). So, at this point we are sort of idly looking for art, but it has to be something that just jumps out at us.

These things take time you know... ;-)