Wednesday 4 November 2009

So I’m settling into the new job. Well, it isn’t actually very settled – very much oscillating between panic and boredom at the moment – but I’ve started to learn InDesign, the program the architects use for putting together brochures and other documents and which did NOT come at all intuitively to me. As one of my new team mates pointed out, progress is being made – I started out disliking it, then moved to ambivalence, and have now reached a “mehh” sort of shrugging, hand-waggling stage.

Other than that, things have been pretty calm. The weather has changed. Though it still isn’t cold, it definitely isn’t summer anymore. I haven’t been in the back garden for any length of time in weeks. In one sense, we’re already settling in for the winter, getting used to coming home in the dark, eating dinner and snuggling on the sofa under a blanket. I can certainly think of worse ways to pass the time…

But on the other hand, we’ve been doing quite a bit. In the last month, we’ve visited Long Melford, the village where Matthew’s grandmother lived in retirement (very charming, full of antique shops) and been to the theatre (to see War Horse, which was genuinely very impressive), a birthday party that featured food, billiards and karaoke, and, since the screening season has started in earnest, at least one film a week. We’ve got several concerts coming up, and my graduation from Westminster. The ceremony will be held at the Barbican Centre, widely considered a Brutalist masterpiece and, in my experience, very difficult to find your way around. One of my classmates joked that maybe the final test is actually finding your way to the ceremony - if you can do it, they'll give you the degree and if not, you've just wasted a year of your life. (I think that last point may be debatable, even if we find the auditorium, but spilt milk, right?) So fingers crossed on that one...



After graduation, I’m going to Edinburgh to visit my friends the Bednars. I’m looking forward to several days of pretty much non-stop chat, interspersed with thrift-shopping and eating. I feel a little bad to realise that their younger daughter Josie is almost a year old and I still haven't met her, but if her Halloween photos are any indication, she is a very cute little piggie. I mean, girl.