They've just moved my Spanish class to Woodlane Campus without telling me, so I now have a free lunch hour in which to amuse myself. It's kind of a pity, but since the other 8 students were based at Woodlane, and are moreover the main constituency for the class, I can't complain. But I shall miss the conversations with Liliane, the lively Columbian ( Read more... )

No thunderstorms as yet! Yesterday was gorgeous (my officially overused word of the day), so we went to Praa Sands where the waves were just the wrong size for both me and Doug (i.e. too big for swimming, too short for body-boarding) and lying on the beach was like lying in a sandstorm thanks to the wind. But on the plus side the local bar served ( Read more... )

Apparently University College Falmouth will be teaching young students how to write formulaic fantasy. According to the blurb from our new English with Creative Writing course: "Writing Fantasy demonstrates how to build worlds and populate them with heroes and villains who operate within the politics of magic." I look forward to seeing the full ( Read more... )

...but starting to feel better. Let's hope that a visit from evil cocktail meister Hewison will not cause a relapse!

The outcome of the car problems was that on Wednesday I bought a new car. The salesman kept saying: "You could drive it all the way to Scotland." Thanks, mate, but I've only just been there.

Back from Worldcon to discover that we had missed a sweltering weekend in Falmouth. All the plants needed emergency watering! Also, plane delayed (after getting up for it early, dammit!), car very poorly (needs new oil pump, allegedly), so had to drive back very very slowly. Also, someone had turned off the gas supply to our house! Otherwise, all ( Read more... )

The Minack theatre is one of the holy trinity of Cornish experiences alongside the Eden Centre and the Lost Gardens of Heligan. It’s an outdoor arena on a clifftop near Lands End. We’d never been, but when Debbi from Leeds said she’d be at the Minack to work backstage on the Ilkley Players performance of Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters I decided to ( Read more... )

Last night I was running round the house emptying waste paper bins in preparation for an imminent visit by my parents, and managed to trip over and twist my right foot. This morning it was really painful to walk on, so after crawling around a bit, and complaining to Doug, I decided to phone in sick to work. I've since covered it in tubigrip and can ( Read more... )

Finally! This is the kind of week I moved down to Falmouth for! I've been swimming on the beach every day since Saturday. I'm sure we never had the weather for it last year. I've been going down to the beach around low tide every day (did I mention I had several days of leave booked for this week? I was going to do some writing, but who really ( Read more... )

No-one needs to hear about the manifest unfairness of a week of perfect weather that breaks as soon as the weekend hoves into view. That's just the way of life. But it has been a particularly lovely week - the most consistently clear and beautiful day being spent on the train to Exeter and back, but never mind. If you have to spend a sunny day on ( Read more... )

It's so long since I lasted posted that the seagulls have finished nesting and the patter of tiny winged vermin is audible on the rooftop opposite (not on ours, since we seem to have the world's most inefficient seagulls. We keep finding bits and pieces of failed nest scattered around the garden ( Read more... )