Still Here, Still Busy

Another week or so has passed and it's not for lack of things to talk about that I have not written. This week it's been all about not being at home so not having any time to do anything really, except sleep. As usual, I'm not exactly thankful when I have such a busy week. I'd rather find a better balance between being busy and having nothing to do. I find when I'm so busy all at once, I don't really enjoy each individual thing as much as I would like to.

This weekend was the first in a few that I have not seen Heathrow. It just wasn't really going to be possible between his schedule and mine. That's okay. I did miss him though.

Friday I had a small adventure and having a glimpse at the fantasy of an alternate life. My friend S has finally completed on a tiny studio flat in Soho. He's been waiting for this thing to be finished for probably six months or more, so it was exciting for him and those that knew him that it was really truly finally happening.

He was due to move on Saturday, so he had to pack and arrange with the man with a van, but he also had two deliveries scheduled for Saturday morning- so being the good friend I am, I offered to stay Friday night in his brand spanking new flat and wait for the deliveries in the morning. This wasn't so bad, as he already had a bed delivered, although it wasn't put together, the mattress was on the floor and that was fine. And so Friday night, I slept in this little (but very high spec) room and had this fleeting image of an entirely different life.

I mean, I thought my Hackney living was urban, but that is nothing, nothing, on what living spitting distance from Piccadilly Circus is like. It's probably the closest thing to New York style living that I've come across in London. That peculiar mix of anonymity and being a local. Knowing your local shop owners and bartenders and corner grocers. For a moment I was sad that it wasn't me moving into this flat (even though my things would never, ever fit in it). But then I like my flat, and I like Hackney. It's not that it isn't 'city' enough for me, but there's city, and then there's city, and I realize I am still a few steps removed from the intensity of the center.

In other events this past week, I managed to get my PhD application all finished and out. First the online portion, and then the paper part as well as coordinating all my references and letters. I hope that I hear something this week, but of course I'm impatient. I don't know how many applications they got, or how long it will take them to sort through them all, still, I can hope I suppose. The deadline was this past Friday, so now it's just a matter of waiting.

The rest of the week was spent seeing people and eating out. Too much eating out actually- living a week of a lifestyle I can no longer afford. That was bad. But I have been good about bringing lunches in to work. I make myself bring lunch two days a week and then allow myself to buy lunch (sushi!) one day a week. When I'm at home, I generally eat at home of course, except this week I'm meeting an ex colleague, D, for lunch.

For this week, I decided I had to do something about breakfast- mainly that if I eat breakfast before I leave for work, I get hungry too early for lunch. So I need to bring something with me to work that I can eat there as breakfast, in order to have less time in between that and lunch. My idea was to make muffins, though I haven't really made muffins much- I'm not a big baker. I looked through one of my recipe books and found a recipe for yogurt dried cherry muffins and I decided to give those a go but made them with dried cranberries instead because I happened to have some. They turned out really good I think though perhaps a bit small so I'll need to take 2 or 3 to work to make a reasonable breakfast, as one just isn't going to cut it. Still, good plan and I'm rather pleased with myself. So much in fact, that I may make a habit out of it.

Other plans in the works are to try and get my RYA sailing certificates so I can go sailing with Heathrow. I've sailed in the past, and growing up my dad had a 30' sailboat, and I've also taught small children to sail once upon a time- so it's hardly a foreign idea, but rather something I haven't pursued the past fifteen years or so. Still, I can't imagine it's something you particularly forget, and I always enjoyed it. Heathrow and I talk about sailing a bit as he's currently doing some. Luckily there's the Stoke Newington reservoir that runs sailing courses, so I cycled up there today to check it out and see what I could learn about the courses, and more specifically getting exempt from them. I'll call a guy tomorrow about it hopefully, but it seems good so far, so that's something to sort of look forward to.

Another thing to look forward to is in two weeks time, the brand new Peer London Rope event. Though I may have slipped up a bit and have invited both my friend T as well as TOC and Heathrow will be there of course so maybe this is not quite the mix of people I want together? Oops. Maybe TOC won't come.

Oh, and the other news of course is now it's only two and a half weeks until I'm away to the States. I have so much to do in preparation for that it isn't even funny. Shit shit shit.