Random Musings

Well and so. About 9.30 this evening I realised that I'd been getting increasingly grumpy, tired and bad tempered. The polite term is 'out of sorts.' Then I realised that I hadn't had dinner yet, and that I'd been eating exceedingly poorly for most of the week. One beefsteak with savoury stuffing plus Real Vegetables (TM) later, and I feel a lot better. Aaaaah...

The electronic course catalogue for next year has come out and I've been spending some time thinking about courses. My number 1 first choices are theoretically possible, but would mean swallowing some extremely unpalatable timetable combinations, so I've been having a bit of a rethink. Still undecided, however.

What the...?

Well and so. I'm sitting at home writing a comparative essay on a bunch of English Renaissance texts, and alternately reading a Georgette Heyer novel to take my mind off things.

The essay is ... getting there. Right now I'm about to start a paragraph on feminine chastity and how it's a real fascination of these texts, and need to find some way to make it link in with the ideal of nobility, which is what the essay is officially about.

On the other hand, the novel is getting weird. (Georgette Heyer, Lady of Quality, (London: Arrow Books, 2005).) The female lead has fallen in love with the male lead, the male lead has fallen in love with the female lead, and he's just proposed to her! There's nearly 70 pages left to go! What is she thinking! I should add that in Heyer's world it isn't at all unusual for the proposal, or even marriage, to happen very early in the piece, but the complication there is the marriage of convenience, and the need for both partners to realise that they're actually in love with their spouses. Here, there is no such complication.

I'm so confused...

EDIT: A bunch of people got the flu. I say again: What the...?
EDIT2: Essay going well. Just managed to squeeze in a gratuitous reference to Volpone which we haven't even been studying, because the Celia subplot fit in well with the whole chastity thing. 1200 words down, another 1800 to go. Well, that's the upper limit, anyway. I need to come up with at least another 1300 to be legal. I've never had to write an essay of this length before. It's interesting having all that extra room to move around in.

Baking

Tomorrow, the draft writing samples that I handed in last Monday get worked over by my writing workshop. It has become a group tradition to sweeten the other members with a nice afternoon tea when it's your turn to get comments, so I did some baking with intent to impress.
The chocolate cake went well - it's hard to go wrong with cake mix.
The gingernuts were more problematical. Overall, they were overcooked and not rolled out thinly enough, so are destined for the rubbish bin. The reason for that was the mixture not being sticky enough, which is probably because the golden syrup was added last, instead of creamed in with the butter and sugar. The reason for that, is because I was loth to use the only source of golden syrup in the house, and only added it as a last resort.

Me: So, you're absolutely definitely sure that this is golden syrup.
Norman: That's right, golden syrup and food colouring.
Me: And you're not secretly a vampire or anything?
Norman: No, no. Of course not.
[Some time later]
Me: Would you like to try the first biscuit?
[Checks for growth of fangs]

I had to dip into Norman's fake blood supply. It's very disturbing rolling biscuits out of red dough. Also, it stains your hands, which is even more disturbing.

Come to think of it, I used baking powder instead of baking soda, which might have been bad, also.

From The City To The Sea...

Well and so. Today, I bused down to the Beehive, met up with repton_infinity and walked home. Most of this was off-road, as someone in the Wellington City Council has percipiently observed that many of the parks in the central city are closely connected, and cannily provided a map to the walking tracks of same. (And put up some handy posts with mysterious looking yellow arrows as markers.)

And now I'm home. Phew, that was a long walk. Interestingly, I'm tired and sore, but not as much as I expected. I wonder how stiff I'll be tomorrow. Also, repton_infinity, who is lovely, has gone to collect fish & chips for dinner. Bliss.

For those who are interested in statistics:
Total time: 3 hours 18 minutes
Total distance: ~ 9km
Time to Te Aro: 1 hour 10 minutes
Distance to Te Aro: ~ 4.25 km
Time to Home: 1 hour 48 minutes
Distance to Home: ~ 4.75 km
Max Elevation: 130m (Top of the Botanical Gardens)
Secondary Max Elevations: 100m (Central Park and Macalister Park/Kingston)
Points of Interest: Beehive, Bolton St Cemetery, Botanical Gardens, Kelburn Park & University, Mount St Cemetery, Tanera Park, Central Park, Prince of Wales Park, Scottish Harrier's Hall, what looked like a sports stadium but neither of us were sure what it's called (EDIT: it turns out that it's boringly named Rugby League Park), Macalister Park, My House.
Point Where We Got Lost: The Scottish Harrier's Hall where the sign was a little misleading and we ended up on the road near Pearce St. Fortunately there was another track down the hill to Hutchison Road and we matched up again.
The Bit We Didn't Do: From My House to Island Bay. We've actually done that walk before, finding that one can do rather a lot of walking from just down the hill below My House to just up the hill from My House.
The Walk John Wants To Do Next: The Skyline Walk, ~ 15km.
The Walk I Want To Do Next: From John's House to the Brooklyn Windmill, estimated time ~ 1 hour
The Thing John Hasn't Noticed Yet: My hair is 8 inches shorter than the last time he saw me.

Dinner is here! Must go...

I Can Always Tell That Spring Is Here

Because I start to wake up earlier than usual from all the extra light in the mornings. Daylight Savings is on its way.

Sleeplessly yours,

Stephanie