Ok then...

Arg there is a vile smell in this B and B room. It is pretty subtle but ug, it is rancid and we can't find the source! I hope someone isn't buried under the floorboards...

So we are in the B and B for over another week - I am sick to death of b and b life I tell you! Eating sandwiches and restaurant food every day and having nowhere to wash clothes (spent this morning at the launderette) or just make a bowl of soup! I crave simple food! Just some broccoli and pasta, or a jacket potato or some veggies and mash. But it is a lovely b and b and we have very good rates, and it is only up the road from the village we want to move into so that is great. I haven't told my uni friends I am hanging around, I have gone to ground for a while just until we move then I shall invite everyone around for drinks and grub and be normal again. I am still finding it hard to talk to people I haven't seen since my Dad died and like keeping myself to myself really. We are pencilled to move in a week on Saturday. This is very very exciting news and means I can start planning my life. Until this morning we had no idea if it would be one week or five before we get to move in! I cannot express how happy I will be to move into this home. It has the loveliest atmosphere, it is cosy and very warm (yay!), it has a living room that you can shut the door to, so sit and be snug in it (all my other houses have had 'through' living rooms, so they are cold and not snuggy!), it has a door that you have to open to go up the stairs (!! AHH!!), and the bathroom has an enormous corner bath - and heated towel rails. My. Word. And there is a little yard. And it has arhced windows with stained glass flower patterns in. And beams in the bedroom! Beams! And there is a cellar which has a washing machine in it so you don't have to listen to it rattling away in the kitchen! How ace! Gosh it is amazingly lovely. And two seconds from the train station to Uni, from the local corner shop, from the pubs and waaaaaaa, the chippy.

To have my *own* space! My own kitchen! To be able to have people round for wine and cakes! It is my 30th birthday on 21 march (I know, but I am happy to get old so it is a-ok) so I am busy planning what on *earth* to do about it. Now I know we should be moved in and settled I am most pleased and think I will see if my bestest london friends (only two of them around! booo) can come and see me the weekend before, for a wee housewarming and pre-beeday celebration, as DB is off to cornwall for a mate's beeday that weekend and I shall have a boy-free house... DB is adamant that he is planning a surprise for my actual beeday weekend so I am not allowed to plan anything... and the week afterwards we will go and see my family for a birthday dinner. Which will be lovely. Not quite the same as snorkelling in the tropical paradise that is the andaman islands but hey... seeing friends and family will be a boon I say, a BOON.

And work... I am doing some! Huzzahs! I have started reading and have re-organised my chapter outline again. Does anyone else find themselves doing this very often?! I am probably on my fifth 'definite' outline. I am happy with it though, and each time I feel like new ideas have been given space and other naff ones, or ones that aren't as important as once I thought, have less space. I have decided I will go back to India and like it goddamn, but that I will have a niche focus and not get bogged down. I will also have a focus that I like. I am really into the idea of 'aid spaces' at the moment. Yes, I know, yawn yawn.

I have also given up chocolate for Lent. I am not a religious person in any way, but am into the ritual and so have decided this year to do the lent thing and give somethning up, just to be disciplined. And I am getting far to reliant on chocolate for inner cuddles, which in time will only serve to make me look increasingly 'cuddly'. I say no! DB has given up chips, which is evil because it is our favourite food and means I will have to eat them in secret so he doesn't cry all over them.

Nothing else to report. I have no internet access apart from DB's remote jobby so can only use it when he out. So will pop in and out.

Oh, I am going to do some dog walking and baby sitting for extra cash when we are moved in. Will be very easy round these parts and even 20 squids a week would help towards decorating my new lovely housey...

ahhhhh. My house.

Must read about torture! About neo-marxist philosophical appraoches! And Foucault! Ta ra.

x J

Ug, the SMELL.