Ain't nobody got time for that

It's a Friday afternoon, and I left my Danish class 1.5 hours early to attend a meeting about opening a small business in Denmark. The chain came off the bike and I was going to arrive late, with hands and a bright pink rain coat and a beautiful wool scarf all covered in thick black bike grease. So you know what I did? I locked my bike up, walked to the library and spent 5 minutes cleansing my hands of grease. I will reschedule the meeting.

Ain't nobody got time for that.

The sun is still shining! Summer Solstice, museums and weekends

It's gone from long beautiful sunny day to long beautiful sunny days interspersed with torrential rainfall. I can't count on one hand the number of times I've unwittingly ventured out wearing just a tshirt and leggings in +20c just to arrive home half an hour later like a drowned rat. I'm so grateful for the last few weeks (months?!) of gorgeous weather, but part of me isn't ready for it to end yet. I'm spending all of July in Ireland, and that will be a surprise to the system, I'm pretty sure.

It's the Midsummer celebrations tonight so we're going to a local park to watch a bonfire and eat strawberries. It's rained a lot today, so let's hope it lets up until tomorrow. I love both the Winter and Summer Solstice. There's something magical about those times of the year, it's so unique. 

This weekend I wasn't working very much (actually, I did a two hour shift and that was it), so I've been switching off the 'worry, you need money' side of my brain and enjoying long cycles outside, trips to museums, free coffee and snacks at my friend's café, a trip to see Only God Forgives (oh God, so bloody, so violent), and thinking a lot, as usual, about the future.

Was very impressed by this coffee, was not impressed by the pretentious coffee snobbery of the baristas

OMG! Collection of Oddities at the Geological Museum

Stuff in jars e'er day

Best balcony

Cake Making the week before last

Sheer Concentration

A work of art

What's that? A section about Foucauldian theory in an art book? Ok, cool!

Weekend

 Leo has been away all week, so I've been having a grand old time all on my lonesome. Actually, it's amazing doing exactly what I want, when I want. When you live in a tiny space there's a lot of compromise involved. I've been Skyping, texting, interneting, knitting, downloading, Pushing Daisies watching, flute playing, painting, listing, tidying, furniture re-arranging and friend-meeting all to my heart's content. And it has been sweet.

My teacher lent me his general (very thorough) introduction to woodwork text book to, ahem, skim through over the weekend. I also picked up knitting needles and this obnoxious pink wool to see if my hand-eye co-ordination has improved since I began carpentry. It has! Exponentially! So I'm going to buy a proper ball of wool tomorrow, and knit me a pair of socks or something simple. I can't believe I'm able to do this now, it's really incredible.

I'm counting down the days to summer holidays; no work (a sore subject at the moment), long days in Ireland walking through the fields, running in and out of the freezing Atlantic ocean, baking, seeing long-missed friends and playing with my cats. My eyes are welling up just thinking about how much I'm looking forward to it all.

Here's some things I've been reading up on this fine day:

-A great article about internet surveillance. Why the argument 'I have nothing to hide anyway' shouldn't be the end of the discussion.
-A number of articles about the Workfare initiative. Grossly unfair and exploitative, this is something I feel very strongly about, and if I lived in London still would not hesitate to get involved with. Read about personal experiences here and here and visit the Boycott Workfare website.
-An article about how supermarkets steal your data.
-And finally, for the fluff segment, a Twitter account that is, for once, actually funny, titled 'Very British Problems'. I'm not British, but I did spend a year and a half living among these incredibly self-inhibited individuals, so this is honestly the funniest thing I've read all week (it's been a slow week, mind). My favourites are 'The anxious bewilderment when clocking the stranger deciding to join the queue at your side rather than behind you' and 'Being incapable of entering a lift without whispering "sorry"'.

Have a great weekend, you're lovely and deserve it.

This Week

It's the weekend, and the end of my third week of carpentry. This week, myself and one other guy made a bench to go at a table we're going to put in our workshop to eat lunch at. I'll post pictures and descriptions at another time.

I brought my bike to to the shop I bought it from, and experienced some ingrained sexism on the part of the shop guy. It gets really old, and I expected better from Denmark, but I guess that was too much to ask of the bike world.

It's finally stopped snowing (actually, I slightly take that back since I wrote this yesterday, it snowed a bit lat night and it's sleeting big time now) so when I wake up there isn't a thick blanket of snow covering the streets. It's getting easier to cycle to school, getting warmer overall, and some little flowers are peeking their heads out of the ground in anticipation of Spring.

Leo found one of the teachers making sourdough and a lamb stew out here. Amazing.

I made a tiny bunting

Did you know you can simply buy chamomile flowers which costs about 1/10 of when it comes in tea bag form? Life-altering realitsation

Leo and August with the table. Next to follow-pictures of the bench I made

This weekend was spent lounging, cycling, talking to my new boss about my new job, eating, and going to a lovely cinema to see The Master. What a strange, strange film. The cinema was beautiful, very art deco with black and white tiled floors. We got a coffee and cookie before, the seats were very comfortable, the whole experience was incredibly hygge.

This morning I discussed Christmas with Leo, and how much I love it, as a concept and in actuality. He told me I was being immature and that Christmas is a commodified joke. I told him I don't care. In protest I'm going to watch Elf later on and think about cinammon and nutmeg. I will not be censored.

Life is good, but it's once again time to reassess everything, and I'm thinking that I need to start planning what to do once this short course is over (it's only 6-7 months, and we're starting the 4th week). I need to plan a potential apprenticeship, an area to relocate to, lots of stuff to be thinking about.

Snowy Saturday

It's my first real weekend day off in what feels like absolutely months, where I have nothing to plan, I amn't feeling guilty about taking time off work, and Leo isn't sitting at home on his lonesome like a big saddo. It's been snowing non-stop all morning, and I had perhaps the healthiest breakfast of my life.

Naturally, I have a cold. The shift in temperature from London's mild weather, and long walks to school early in the morning has messed with me a bit. I always get this viral chest infection, I hope what I have now doesn't turn into it.  I just want to sleep and stay in my really toasty room, but I want to make the most of my first weekend here so I'm going out cycling on my brand new shiny beautiful bike and later I'm going to listen to some folk music.

I've been listening to Kingdom a lot since I got here. Heathers are such a good...band(?), duo(?). Saw their first proper gig and it's amazing how much they've progressed.

I've got some Heinz tomato soup and lots of coffee to get me through the next couple of hours. It would be nice to be asleep. Good day to you.