Excerpts from a family reunion

After five years away, I am back in Ireland.

My mother gives me instructions for the bus from the airport, twice. She is unsure I will remember where my grandparents' house is. To be honest, I am too, but as the bus approaches their housing estate I recognise, with a child's heart, the walls and the curve of the roads. My mother tries to meet me at the bus stop with my grandmother, but is delayed because my grandmother spends too much time putting on lipstick. I find my way to the house through a hole in the wall, which I find by muscle memory.

We're preparing party food for a family reunion. My family has taken two shopping trips, multiple phone calls and two days of discussion to organise making a single bowl of guacamole. My fingers are raw under the nailbeds from de-heading four punnets of strawberries.

I ask my grandmother if she has any tights I could borrow. She hands me a pair, which I put on and thank her for. She then hands me an entire ball of tights, perhaps six or seven pairs, and asks if I would like these as well.

I am full, to the point of delirium, with milky tea.

My aunt wants to put chives in the guacamole. My stepdad suggests chili and garlic. My aunt is confused.

The World Cup is on television. I am deeply troubled by how attractive Gary Lineker is these days, as is my mother. My great-uncle is getting on in years; he speculates on the sexuality of the French football team whenever they hug each other. When the party is over, all of us stuffed with food, my grandmother inexplicably brings in piled-up slices of sultana loaf.

My family recounts the entire history of the estate over breakfast (oily sausages, bacon, eggs, buttered toast leaving crumbs in the wrinkles of the tablecloth). My grandmother is keen to point out that almost everyone who used to live there is dead now. My grandparents seem to have a general tendency to point out when people are dead, in the same way that cats have a general tendency to push objects off the edges of tables; not in a joyful way but more with a sense of obligation.

I try and find the spot in the garden where I spilled a paint-can as a child, but it's gone now, for whatever reason.

Today was a really good day.

Nothing special happened today, I just had a really productive day. I got all my work done, when I didn't expect to. I cleaned up the place. I went to the gym and, whereas I usually run for fifteen minutes, I ran for longer. I ate healthily. That's all. I think it's nice to make a note when you have a good day! Maybe you should do it too.

Pictures! Nature!

Brussels Week 4-6 - ART/FLOWERS

First point of discussion on the agenda: April is the month of cutting all your hair off. Do it now. I did it. It's great. I keep touching the back of my head where the remaining inch or so of hair feels all sharp and fluffy. I can see more of my face. Paradoxically, I actually feel like I have *more* hair, because it looks thicker and more defined. So, turns out cutting off all your hair is a good thing. Let's all cut off our hair. Hair is a scam. Hair is banned now.

In other news: Brussels is moving into spring/summer transition with elegance and dignity. It turns out that Brussels has a lot of cherry blossoms lining its streets, and they are giving a magnificent performance right now. Their burst into colour has transformed the streets nearly overnight, from grey and functional to exquisitely pleasant. The petals are luminously pink, and range in intensity of colour, from a delicate champagne to the vibrant Barbie pink of a ten year old girl's backpack. They're just starting to fall right now, resting in the gutters like the aftermath of a party. You can pick them up in fistfuls and feel their softness in the folds of your fingers.

(I'll say this very quietly - they're much better than the ones in Japan.)


I will be sad to see them go.

Some other, more minor points of information:

• I started making soups again. The place where I live has quite a bit of kitchen equipment, including a soupy stick. You know, a blendy thing. The soupy blendy.

One of these!

So far I've been pretty unadventurous, sticking to French onion and tomato varieties, but I've got an interesting-looking recipe for broccoli and peanut butter waiting in the wings. I've actually done pretty well in Brussels in terms of not living solely on chips and beer, and I've even lost a couple of kilos. I walk a lot, and eat fruit. You can see me at the gym, using the two machines I know how to correctly use.

• I found this bar at the bottom of the road where I work. It specialises in gin cocktails. This one has raw egg white in it and it wasn't even disgusting. There's a lot of green light in this bar. I like it.

• Some friends and I spent last week at this forest just outside the city. It's a small spot famous for its bluebells. Look how nice:

• Brussels has a Magritte museum. Magritte, as it turns out, is really really good. His work is really striking in its use of colour and shape, he messes with perceptions of society and gender and interaction, and he also made this cartoon that I find really funny. I know it's about philosophy of language and ontology and stuff, but it's also a cartoon of a man pointing at a horse and saying 'horse', which is inherently funny. I highly approve of this 'Art' thing and would like to see more of it in future. I predict big things for 'Art'.

• I have been trying to meditate. It is not going well. Meditation makes me intensely uncomfortable. Every time I am reminded to focus on my breathing, I remember that my body is essentially a sack of meat and sinew kept conscious by constant consumption and expulsion of gas, which is unpleasant. I've no idea why people find it relaxing. On the other hand, if I push myself through it (I can manage two or three minutes, max), I do find that I feel more focused for a little while afterwards. Still a bit unnerved by the whole meat-bag thing though.

That's it for this week. Bye

Brussels - Week 2/3 - From Ducks, to Cats, to Humans

It’s spring!

Belgium is blooming. And by blooming, I mean ‘it was slightly warmer for one day’.

If you recall my last post, it was at the end of my first week, and I had made friends with some ducks in my local park. Well, I’m now easing my way into my fourth week, and slowly moving up the evolutionary chain of friendmaking. Last Thursday I visited a cat café near my office, and had a beer with a new acquaintance:

(The drink was only okay, sadly – a rather unmemorable Radler. Mind you, literally the only beverage I’ve had so far that wasn’t fantastic).

At Easter weekend – only a three-day holiday here, which is unconscionable – I decided it was time to start making human friendships, humans being much less adorable but slightly better at sophisticated conversation. I attended farewell drinks for a colleague after work on Friday night, during which someone said the word “shots!” and I, in some kind of Pavlovian reaction, also said the word “shots!”, so we ended up doing shots. This is, as far as I can tell, the only way that anyone ever does shots. No-one actually wants to do shots. The word ‘shots’ just gets…said, somehow, and at a certain point in the night, you assent to doing the shots. I mean, someone said the word, so you have to do them. That’s how it works. Obviously, by the end of the night I’d ended up in a kebab shop, requesting falafel and garlic sauce in appalling French. They clearly knew I was British, because they put chips in my falafel wrap. Angels.

Saturday I recovered; Sunday I went out to meet people. There’s always an aspect of artificiality to making new friends after moving, but the awkwardness tends to be dispelled if you just embrace it – be honest that you’re looking to meet people, ask questions, be open to new experiences. I went to brunch with some other foreign girls in a florist-slash-café (apparently this is a thing) and then went on to a writer’s meetup in the centre of town. We introduced ourselves briefly, and then wrote in silence. I’ve never written with other people before, but I found it helped me to focus (and to feel guilty whenever I got distracted). I worked on some short-story stuff, which I haven’t done for some time, and which I might eventually publish on the blog if I’m not too embarrassed by it.

On Monday I rounded out the Easter weekend with a massive walk around my sleepy, wooded neighbourhood. It was actually warm enough to take off my coat (for a bit), and at one point I saw an exhausted dad asleep in a hammock, which pleased me. More nice spring weather, please. I would like to see more dads in hammocks.

So concludes my first month in Brussels.

Brussels - Week 1 - Making Friends With Ducks

So, I live in Belgium now.

 

Let’s catch up: three weeks ago, I accepted an offer to work for a large international organisation in Brussels. I’ll be here until I go back to university in September, working in publishing reports on international politics, which is very much my jam.

 

Work is fun, people are nice, there’s a proper coffee machine with a milk-foamer, and I have a lovely view from the office. I am learning a lot of things. So far I have learnt that if you look at a page of text, and think it looks fine, you’re wrong. The text looks terrible. You need to move the text. There’s too many spaces between the characters. Or maybe not enough. The text is ‘loose’. This means something, apparently. I have started calling text ‘loose’ a lot, and I’m pretty sure if I keep using it I’ll eventually figure out what it means.

 

I have also learnt WAY more than I ever thought I would about the ups and downs of local conflicts in Tajikistan. Don’t even get me started on Tajikistan, we’ll be here for weeks.

 

The work offer happened pretty last-minute, so I didn’t even have time to find a place to rent. Fortunately, I stumbled arse-backwards into a housesitting position in a wooded, quiet suburb on the edge of Brussels, and will be here for the next few weeks until I find somewhere more permanent. I like it here, but I’m looking forward to moving somewhere a bit more central. I’m sure it’s a lovely place to raise small children, but the height of excitement here is going to Burger King.

 

Having said that, living in the middle of nowhere - and when I say ‘middle of nowhere’, I mean ‘a convenient thirty-minute tram ride to the city centre’ – does have its perks. I’ve lived in city centres for most of my adult life, and while you can’t deny the benefits of always being within walking distance of everything you need, it does get a bit tiring. Last weekend, I took a midday stroll through the MASSIVE local park, smiled at the many cheerful dog-walkers, and made friends with ducks. (I’ve only been here a week, I don’t have many other friends here yet). I’m also near the Flanders border, where mainly Francophone Brussels drifts into Dutch-speaking territory, so it’s fun to hear Dutch become more and more common the further east you walk. (Also, as it turns out, those ten years I spent learning French weren’t a total waste of time! Who knew!)

 

I can’t say I ever had desperate childhood dreams of living in Belgium, but now I’m here, I’ve been surprised by how much I like it. I’m aware that six months can sound like a lot but be very short in practice, so I’m going to try and make the best use of that time that I can. ‘Best use of my time’ here means speaking French, going to museums, and drinking large amounts of beer. My god, the beer. I had my first a few days ago, picked at random, and it smelled like a bouquet of fresh fruit and flowers.

 

Here’s to many more.

Calm The Shit Down About Free Speech on College Campuses

The furore around “free speech on college campuses” is the dullest, most inconsequential political topic of the last five years and I would rather put kebab skewers in my eyes than listen to another discussion about it.

Young students – people who have just come out of school, are still discovering politics and their place in the world, and whose brains are still not even fully developed yet – sometimes do politics in a way that is counterproductive, or overzealous, or crude. This is not new. This has been the stereotype of students since students have existed. If anything, the ‘overreaching’ activism seen on today’s campuses is utterly mild compared to previous decades – go look at how much bombing, rioting and property damage happened on college campuses in the early 70s. In the 1920s, the Klan tried to hold a rally in a mainly Catholic college town and the students responded by beating the crap out of them en masse and ripping the clothes off them. In comparison, inventing a couple of new pronouns and yelling at the occasional demagogue is really nothing to be shocked about.

Even if you don’t agree with every decision made by every young political group, this is the normal process of becoming politically aware; you are pretty much guaranteed not to get it right first time. This is the double-edged sword of youth radicalism; it has its ups and downs, its good ideas (which stick around) and its bad ideas (which fall out of favour)…and twenty years down the line it generally turns out they were ahead of the curve and right on 90% of whatever they were on about, even if they were ridiculed by the ‘sensible’ media of their day. To act as though the students of today are some new threat – and not just a new threat, but the hot topic that we apparently have to discuss over and over again – suggests an ignorance of history and a cheap intellectual laziness. The more I think about it, the more I become convinced it's nothing more than the regularly scheduled moral panic about young people we are required to have every generation. 'Kids these days' dressed in the language of Sensible Discourse.

Honestly, I just wish certain media outlets could find another hobby horse and talk about one of the fifty other issues that matters more at the moment. Even for those whose pet issue is free speech, there are so many other free speech issues – prisoners’ voting rights, anti-protest laws, restrictions on the speech of non-citizens, libel laws, kettling, anti-union measures, protection for whistleblowers, government clampdowns on criticisms, elevation of marginalised voices – that never get a look-in, because people would rather talk about the 19-year-old pink-haired boogeyman. I am very, very bored of it and would like to move on to the new Thing, please.

What your favourite public intellectual says about you

What your favourite public intellectual says about you:

Michael Foucault – you smoked three cigarettes before breakfast this morning. When people encourage you to quit, you tell them that being healthy is reactionary. You unironically own a beret.

Noam Chomsky – if you are unsure of whose side to take in an international conflict, you argue for the opposite of whatever your dad thinks. You have at least two self-diagnosed anxiety disorders. You are secretly terrified that your leftist friends will catch you in a Starbucks one day.

Jordan Peterson - you consider yourself ‘somewhat of an intellectual’ because you have read Nineteen Eighty Four, a book that is often assigned to ninth-graders. The message you got from the book is that socialism sucks; when a friend points out to you that Orwell was a proud socialist, you get embarrassed, then write an extended rant about them on Reddit the following evening. You have no idea what postmodernism is, but it’s definitely the reason your life is bad.

Slavoj Zizek – you once had an extended argument with your friends where you insisted you could win a fight with a gorilla. You have never combed your hair.

Richard Dawkins – you have, at some point, called a good 60-80% of your immediate family “sheep”. You may also have made baa-ing noises at them. You’re not quite sure why people seem to dislike you.

Neil deGrasse Tyson – you correct people on their use of the word ‘literally’. Your social media feed is entirely made up of reposted material from “SCIENCE IS MUTHAFUCKIN AWESOME” and recipes that feature “epic” amounts of bacon. You have never gone longer than nine hours without making a derogatory comment about the social sciences.

Germaine Greer – all your relationships ended because your partner didn’t rub your feet enough. You tried to be a lesbian but could only manage the above-the-waist stuff.

Sam Harris – you call yourself a ‘sapiosexual’ in your Tinder bio. You sincerely believe that sapiosexuals are the most oppressed sexuality there is, and have considered taking a case to the Supreme Court about it.

Trevor Noah/John Oliver – you are incapable of reposting a video without adding a comment such as “This is so important”, or possibly something involving the handclap emoji. You are passionate about politics, just not to the extent that you would attend a protest, or sign a petition, or anything more involved than watching a Netflix documentary. You have a folder full of gifs of sassy black women, which you post automatically in response to any Trump tweet.

Pope Francis – you are a Catholic. That’s all.

The Hedge: Week 6 - The Essay Is The Ultimate Form of Self-Hatred

In my final year of my undergraduate degree, I had a 5000 word research paper to write. This was supposed to take about seven months.

Today I'm working on a 4000 word research paper, which is supposed to take about a week and a half. This should give you some clue as to the difference in workload between the two programmes.

Right now I have twenty tabs open on my browser. Only one of them is something other than an academic article (if you're curious, it's a delicious-looking recipe for a rustic sausage and cider stew). Words are blending together in front of my eyes and slowly starting to lose any real meaning. I keep clicking from one journal to the next, as if this were some valuable work in itself and not a pathetic attempt to delay having to do any more reading. I maintained enthusiasm for my research topic right up until I finished my outline, at which point I immediately hated it. Every sentence I complete is the worst sentence I've ever written; a symbol of my utter paucity of talent. I expect to continue to hate everything I write, right up until it's finished. Then, inexplicably, I'll read through it and decide it's actually good.

This is pretty standard essay-writing procedure for me, or at least one part of it. The other parts vary, but usually involve some combination of poor sleeping patterns, junk food, innumerable cups of tea, and listening to the national anthems of former Soviet states in an attempt to rouse my spirits. (I'm not a Stalinist, by the way. They just have the best national anthems. This is not up for debate.)

There is, thankfully, a silver lining to all this: I've noticed how much easier it is now than it was four years ago. The hardest part of these kind of projects is getting started, sticking to a plan, and simply having the self-confidence to know you are capable of reaching the finish line. When I did my final-year research paper at the undergraduate level, I still felt like I had no clue what I was doing. That, in itself, was enough to make me put off the work for far too long, agonising over how to even start rather than actually starting, and left me panicking and rushing in the final weeks. Today, I still have no clue what I'm doing, but I at least believe I can...figure it out somehow. And if I don't, I can at least pretend I know what I'm talking about, present my professors with something that looks a bit like I know what I'm talking about, and who knows, maybe even convince them that I do. I'm pretty sure that's how PhD students do it.

Will update again when the stupid essay is over. Now, back to the Kazakhstan national anthem.

The Hedge: Week 1

In my last update, I was freaking out about the stresses of moving house, moving countries, and leaving my job to start a degree in the Netherlands.

Fortunately, since that last update I have sorted everything out and become a calmer, newer, more organised me.

For example: last weekend I went to a talk by a UN official and managed not to be late, even though I'd just woken up twenty minutes before. I was dressed way too scruffily but I cleverly sat in a way which hid the hole in my jeans. I inexplicably had a satsuma in my pocket, which meant I didn't need to worry about breakfast.  I didn't spill any coffee on myself. I managed not to ask the very important UN guy any stupid questions. And even though on my way home I got the wrong tram three times, it DID lead me to walk home, which meant I got plenty of exercise. (In the rain.) And on the walk I found a very nice cafe. (Which protected me from the rain.)

So as you can see, I am entirely put-together in my new life.

***

Let's back up: three weeks ago, I was pushing a very heavy suitcase down a suburban road in The Hague - my new hometown. A woman started giving me a stern telling-off because, as it turned out, I was walking in the cycle lane.

It had not been a good morning.

I'd been up since 5am and hadn't even had anything to eat or drink. (I'd bought a scalding cup of tea at Gatwick but after twenty minutes it was still hot enough to burn my tongue, and I ended up having to leave it behind.) I'd had to pay an excess charge to easyJet for my big fat overweight suitcase, I'd almost lost my laptop at security, and the electronic passport readers at Amsterdam's airport were broken, leading to a massive queue of customers all as grumpy as I was. And now a woman was chastising me for not knowing appropriate lane etiquette. In my travel-induced delirium, I was starting to wonder what on earth I was even doing here.

Fortunately, things got a little better after I'd had some lunch, a nap, and met some of my fellow students on our orientation programme. Everyone was very nice and made me feel thoroughly ashamed of my language abilities, since despite being from all around the world, they could all speak English better than I could. With two weeks of free time until classes started, I had a little bit of space to get my bearings, download all the necessary apps, figure out how trains work (the answer is: better than back home) and all the other little necessary things. The feeling of "what on earth am I doing here" didn't entirely subside, but it did get noticeably quieter.


***

I'm typing this on Sunday night, as my First Official Week As A Masters Student draws to a close. (I notice *none* of you have sent me a card or a balloon, but don't worry, I'll get over it.) I'm feeling a lot more settled in now - I have an apartment, I have a vague sense of how to get to my classes, and I can order coffee in Dutch if the server is patient and doesn't ask any questions. I also have an essay due ALREADY, but I'm actually working on it rather than leaving it to the last hour, as I would have done five years ago. Progress!

I'll let you know how things go.

I'm writing this on my phone because my screen is cracked

I've come home from a long day at work and opened up my laptop to find the screen cracked. Fortunately this was ten minutes before my nearest reputable repair shop closed, so I was able to bolt down there and I should have it back tomorrow. But quite frankly, it was not what I needed. Planning one move is hell, let alone two (I have to move from my flat this week - the flat which, as it happens, just had its roof burst open - and then move countries at the end of the month). I have no university housing and looking online from another country is a minefield. I'm at the point of considering living in a hostel or airbnb for my first month of study, and just hoping to God I find somewhere. Moving out of my flat is stressful. Getting rid of furniture is stressful. Wondering why your university hasn't been in touch to confirm you are actually on the course is stressful. The various other emotional stressors going on are stressful. I am in a constant state of mild panic, even when asleep. And yet I've just returned from eight hours of dealing with people who are in much worse situations than I am, and feel guilty even taking up digital space.

Don't bother reading this. Just...argh.

Panic

You would think that I would remember that I'm supposed to move out of my flat in two weeks. And that I'm moving out of the country three weeks after that. But this morning, in the shower, I suddenly remembered: I'm moving next weekend. Not some indeterminate time in the future. Not a couple of months from now. Next weekend. Everything has to be packed into boxes, furniture disassembled, rubbish thrown out, skirting boards dusted. Freezer defrosted. Next weekend.

Somehow, I'd forgotten about this. Of course I knew in the abstract, but it wasn't in the forefront of my mind. I've been getting on with work and projects and dealing with various things that have cropped up. So I've sort of surprised myself. You have masses to do and you aren't prepared at all! SURPRISE!

There's also the small matter of not having anywhere to live when I get to the Netherlands. The university very kindly offered to set me up with housing, and then very unkindly retracted that offer. I've been handed the unfortunate task of having to flat-hunt online, without ever getting to see the place in question, and wondering if a) I'm ever going to find somewhere and b) if, when I finally get the flat, it's going to smell of cigarettes and sulphur, and have a floor that's actually just painted dirt. You never know until you see somewhere in person, do you?

So, yes. I am panicking. Just a little.

Please watch Samurai Gourmet

If you have Netflix, you need to be watching Samurai Gourmet.

If you don't know what this show is, I will explain the premise. A Japanese man retires and doesn't know what to do with his life. He spends his time going to restaurants. He eats the food and enjoys it. Sometimes it reminds him of some food he ate a long time ago. Sometimes, someone in the restaurant is obnoxious, and he fantasizes that a samurai will come and threaten them. He is perpetually socially anxious and amazed at the fact that he has free time now and can go to restaurants and drink beer whenever he wants. Then he goes home to his wife. This is literally the entire show.

It is my favourite thing right now.

It combines two stalwarts of Japanese television culture: food, and low-stakes appreciation. There is no need to think about destruction, or fear, or difficult decisions. There are no explosions, and not really much in the way of belly-laughs either. Instead, you are treated to twenty minutes of the protagonist musing on the minutiae of life, etiquette and enjoyment. A lunchtime beer is savoured; its colour in the sunlight, the thickness of the foam (naturally, being a Japanese beer, it is served with a head that would get the barman glassed in England). A simple plate of spaghetti or grilled chicken triggers a pleasant memory, and makes him wonder briefly about people and establishments from his youth. This is all the tension you need to make you keep watching. I think it's telling that I'm more addicted to this than to the new season of Orange is the New Black, which features a prison riot, and yet doesn't have half the power to draw me in as Samurai Gourmet.

I would implore you to give it a go.

An update.

Hey all. I have quite a bit on my plate right now (although not literally - haven't had dinner yet and I'm suuuuuper-hungry).

To be honest, I've been letting myself get a little drained and not taking as good care of myself as I'd like. I recently took up some extra hours and responsibilities at work, which is good for paying bills but has put on a bit of additional stress. I now have one less hour of free time per day, which doesn't sound like much but I'm feeling the effects. In addition, knowing I'll be moving soon means a) there's a bunch of extra stuff I have to do, and b) I'm feeling the pressure to enjoy living where I am right now, see all the things I haven't seen, eat where I haven't eaten etc. Instead of letting myself relax, I've responded by putting even more pressure on myself, which in retrospect might not be the correct decision. Squeezing everything I want to do into my week is taking a toll, which I've especially noticed the past few days. This weekend, I completely crashed and slept a total of about 27 hours over the two days.

I'm hoping to get back to normal service soon. In the meantime, I think I need to get back to basics: go for walks, take pleasure in books, cook simple and familiar meals. Follow my instincts on what will make me happy.

To start with, let's get dinner. I have halloumi, bacon and bagels, which basically means I'll be eating a shaker's worth of salt. But it'll be comforting and delicious, which is the important thing right now.

Chat to you later.

Exciting things happened.

So, just as I'm settling down in my flat, I'm getting ready to leave again.

Some context might be relevant: This time four years ago, I was cobbling together mind-maps and flowcharts for my final university exams, sellotaping notes to the walls of my damp-ridden room, memorising pre-planned essays, and quietly putting to the back of my mind the fact that I wasn't quite sure what relevance any of it might have to my future. 

Three years and nine months ago, I stepped down from a stage in an echoey hall, holding my diploma in my sweaty hand, letting it awkwardly flap between my hands as I applauded the next person behind me and wondered if they had any more clue than I did.

Three years ago I moved abroad, and for the first time discovered the joy of speaking languages, of communicating across barriers, of learning the similarities and differences between cultures, and navigating politics, economics and manners in a totally new environment.

 Two years ago I Googled "international relations masters degree".

Six months ago I narrowed down a list of about twenty universities down to four, and emailed my old professors to ask: did they remember the girl with the ever-changing hair colours? and would they mind writing her a reference?

Three months ago I was agonising over the wording of the final draft of my personal statement. Is the word "passion" clichéd? Did I spend too many sentences on hobbies?

One week ago, I got the last of the responses from my four chosen programmes. I'd been accepted to three of them, and waitlisted at one (the result of wasting too much time fussing about with the minutiae of the application essay, and getting it in a month later than planned as a result. Don't do this.) 

Today I chose one of those programmes, and sent in my acceptance form. 

This September, I will be moving to The Hague for two years, for an MSc in International Relations and Diplomacy.

Guess I'd better start learning Dutch.

Exciting things are happening

News coming soon...

Weekend Frolics Photodiary: Glasgow

A couple of weeks ago, I ended up on an impromptu 24-hour trip to Glasgow. The city's been on my radar for some time now - I've been to Edinburgh a couple of times, but I've heard Glasgow is often considered the better option for museums, arts and character. I'm not sure if I would have got round to visiting if not for various coincidences, but I'm glad I ended up there, if only for a day. I don't feel like I got enough exploration in to make any extended comments on the place, but I thought I'd share some photos and a few thoughts! That's all.

The Pot Still - local pub famous for its massive whisky collection. I'm not a big whisky drinker, but the beautiful range on offer just begs you to try it. I ended up with something smoky and...mossy? I don't know how to describe things.

Botanical gardens. Featuring a fun carnivorous plant section (did not get to see anyone be eaten by plants). 

Hillhead Bookclub - a bar/cafe/vintage shop in the West End. Mouthwatering menu. Just on the right side of hipster.

Kelvingrove Museum - beautiful lobby (where we managed to catch a free organ concert), some interesting niches of local and international art.

Hanging from the roof of the museum. Good for photo ops.

Very important Scottish cultural product. Not a proper trip without. 

First thing that happened when I got out of the airport was a guy at the taxi rank cracking a joke at me. Last thing I saw before I went back to the airport was this. Apart from the wideness of the roads and the colour of the stone, the humour is probably the thing that sticks with you the most.

See you for another frolic soon!

My 2017 Cooking Challenge

Everything is basically a muscle. Your heart is a muscle. Your legs are a muscle. That table over there is a muscle...

No, I've lost what I was trying to say here.

Let's start again. As far as I can tell, everything is a muscle, in that you have to practice again and again, and the more you practice, the easier it gets to work it. I've found this to be true with learning Japanese, making sure I read every day, and of course working out....unfortunately, not all of these are things I've continued to do. It takes so much time to make the habit, which eventually becomes easy and natural - but allow yourself to fall out of the habit and it's suddenly as hard as it was at the beginning. It's like sweating and puffing your way through climbing up a mountain, and then sliding all the way back down on your arse.

Cooking is one of these habits for me. While living in Japan I got very used to cooking frequently, especially in bulk. But moving into a new flat with a tiny kitchen, with no radiator, in the middle of January, does not exactly inspire me. I want to be curled up in my bed with takeout, not huddled over a stove in a hoodie. Moving to a new city with loads of cutesy restaurants doesn't really help either. I've become more reliant on cafes for food - especially lunches - and it's having a bearing on my wallet and my waistline.

With that in mind, I've set myself a challenge. I will select 10 new recipes to try every month. I thought about making all these recipes healthy, but to be honest it's not my priority right now. My priority is to find joy in cooking and eating homemade food again. I'd also like to improve my basic skills - I'm not a bad cook by any means, but I could just get a little bit cleaner and more efficient with things like knife skills.

For the record, here's my first recipe. It's sort-of based on fettucine alfredo but mainly based on the fact that I love pasta and nutmeg. It was simple but went very well, and will definitely be a staple in my future comfort-eating regimen. It also turned out to be one of those recipes that gets better the day after you make it - the sauce thickens overnight and clings to the pasta all the more. Not diet-friendly, but very definitely me-friendly. I made it just before going to bed, so I will name it:

Delicious Creamy Midnight Pasta

Ingredients:
200g pasta
400ml tub of single cream
A big ol' slice of butter (50-100g)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
A generous knob of parmesan
Salt and pepper to taste

1) Boil the pasta in one saucepan, melt the butter at a medium-low heat in another.

2) Add cream, and nutmeg, grate in parmesan. Cook the sauce for the same time as the pasta, stirring frequently, and adding salt, pepper and more of the nutmeg and parmesan to taste.

3) Oh...that's it. Enjoy hot or cold.

I will endeavour to update in May with how the cooking challenge is going, and showing you my favourite recipes of the month. Maybe some of them will even be healthy!

Skinny Windows

I don't appreciate the English countryside enough. That's one of the lessons I took with me when I came back from Japan - along with 'cold canned coffee tastes like cigarette butts and, like an Epipen, is only to be used when you might die otherwise'. Many, many times, when I told people I was English in Japan, they would begin to gush about how beautiful England was, how much they wished to go there, how quaint the villages, how green the hills. (And that was just the Americans.) People showed me tourist brochures they carried around with them like a good luck totem. And I just took it for granted a lot of the time.

My patch.

I was not at all outdoorsy growing up - why are things crawling on me? why is there a leaf in my face? why mud? - so appreciating the countryside is something that I've only learned to do in the last few years. And even now, I often don't like to venture out for long hikes unless it's properly warm, so the English countryside is out of the question for at least three quarters of the year. Still, I've recently become aware of how little I've explored the countryside, in my own native Sussex and also further afield. I've never been to the Lake District, the Peak District, Cornwall or the New Forest. I know that on this small island there's a surprising variety of palettes - move from region to region and watch the changes in shade and softness of stone, darkness of tree, stubbornness of chimney, curve of street, moodiness of cloud. And so much of it I have yet to see.

A couple of weeks ago I tried to rectify my ignorance by spending a weekend in Norfolk. The first thing I noticed: all the buildings have skinny windows. Second thing I noticed: the ground is low, and chewy underfoot.

Like this.

After a warm, cosy evening in a pub, I spent a grey Sunday morning treading across marsh, along the squishy fringe of the East Anglia coast. The edges of Norfolk are quite alien. I sometimes wonder if they could have filmed Tarkovsky's Stalker there. It is not hard to imagine the ground simply dragging your foot in and taking you out to sea. Down south, land and sea are two separate things. In Norfolk, I have learned, there is a lot of grey area. None of this bothers the dogs. I have also learned that every single person in Norfolk seems to have a dog.

I'm not sure if I liked the place or not. There is a kind of brackish, earthy beauty to it I suppose. Very brown. Perhaps I would have liked it better if I hadn't wandered onto an A-road with no pavement and been forced to take a detour through a cabbage patch that probably belonged to a farmer with a shotgun.

A few miles down the road, I whiled away the afternoon in a seaside village called Cromer, which was much more familiar territory to me. (If you grow up in a town with a pier, going to any other town with a pier just feels like going to the Bizarro World version of your town.)

 Cromer's beaches are sandy, which is a change for a Sussex girl. I must admit being a little jealous, though I'm tempted to cover it up with scornful comments about how sand is for wusses and real beaches are made of pebble. There are also pristine cobblestone streets, leading up to a massive church. Like, a really massive church.

This picture does not show you how massive this church is.

Couple of hours around Cromer, fish and chips, a train back to Norwich, and a National Express home. Not a huge adventure I'll admit, but a new way to spend a weekend.

Would I come back to Norfolk? I think so. There's a few more place on my bucket list first. But I'm happy to have taken some shy, sandy first steps to discovering more of my own country.

25 Things I Learned By The Age of 25

Technically, I won't be 25 for another twelve hours, but officially it's been my birthday for an hour and forty minutes. I don't feel much wiser yet, although I do have a strange urge to yell at the damn kids mucking about in my garden (despite the fact that I don't have a garden and there are no kids). I feel like I haven't learned much thus far in life. But in case anyone wants to know my pearls of wisdom, here are 25 things I've learned before turning 25:

1) Avoiding thinking about a problem doesn't make it go away.
2) Don't buy clothes that are slightly ill-fitting, or slightly broken, or slightly weird, on the grounds that "oh, but it's *almost* perfect!" You will never wear them. Ever.
3) Make your bed every day. It will make you feel approximately 20% more like a successful person.
4) Be aware and honest about your weaknesses.
5) Remember that being aware and honest about your weaknesses isn't the same thing as working on them.
6) Discovery brand guacamole is terrible.
7) Don't turn down opportunities just out of fear they won't pan out as well as you hope.
8) It's okay to not look perfect every day.
9) If you heat leftover pizza in a frying pan, it gives the crust a freshness and crunch. Microwaves are rarely the best option for reheating.
10) It's not the end of the world if you're not good at something right away. Not being good at something and persisting anyway is called discipline. You need more of it.
11) Walking is nice, and healthy, and cheap. Walk everywhere.
12) Putting effort into organising yourself well is the best way to achieve your goals.
13) You will not achieve all your goals. That's okay, some of your goals are stupid. You are not going to design the world's first personal mini-submarine.
14) Write as much as possible, even if you're not planning on showing it to anyone.
15) People are too busy worrying about how they look to other people to think too much about how you look to them.
16) Showing a little bit of extra appreciation to someone, or paying them a compliment, can really make their day.
17) Always carry mints.
18) If you know you're going to regret something, but think about doing it anyway, maybe don't do that thing. I am surprised this something it took several years to learn but apparently it did.
19) Trying new things will (mostly) not kill you.
20) Learn languages, and then maintain them. You will lose them faster than you think.
21) Water parks are actually fun and not that terrifying.
22) The best day to do something is the day you decide to do it. I actually got this one from a Japanese t-shirt.
23) You can get a lot of useful life advice from Japanese t-shirts.
24) A few people are awful. A few people are the nicest, most genuine, wonderful people. Most people are all right.
25) You are actually all right.