![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Well, I'm back, he said
Sep. 8th, 2006 12:34 pmI have some brain space available again for blogging. My thesis is in, bar some corrections. I don't get to graduate this year, but I get a letter to say that I've fulfilled the requirements of the job.
So, what have I done with my time otherwise?
I've finished a short ghost story.
I'm pleased with that because it's not often that I finish stories. Like most people who want to be writers, I have notebooks full of ideas. Like most people who aren't writers yet, I haven't mastered the skill of, as Gary Gibson puts it, putting a hundred thousand consecutive words down on paper. Or even five thousand. Now I have some breathing space, I'm managing to write a couple of times a week. Must do better.
I moved house.
This was a real pain in the neck - the owner of the place I was renting decided that she could make more money by renting it to her husband's company, and refused to renew the lease when it was up. I got to know this the week before I was due to take a couple of weeks off on holiday. So the letting company found me a bigger place in a more convenient location, at the same rent, with the added bonus that the place has beautiful original antique fireplaces in each room and a range in the kitchen. I've come out ahead, but I could have done without the disruption.
I got a bit of a holiday.
In between packing boxes I went to Tobermory for the day and took a trip on a sailing ship (and when I reached Jamaica ... no) to see the local wildlife. There was a porpoise and some seals, lots of sea birds and three hours on a beautiful little ketch called the 'Solais Na Mara'. I also met a very nice lady called Sass whom I doubt I'll ever see again.
I've gone back to dancing.
Some years ago I had a girlfriend who loved to dance and who dragged me along to jive classes and ballroom dancing. Later I went to a Ceroc club when I was in Dundee; Ceroc is a franchise teaching le roc, the way people dance in France and most of Europe. Unlike the ballroom stuff, you can get away with dancing le roc style in a club and actually look good doing it. So, I've gone back to the local Ceroc club to get some exercise, get out of the house and expand my social life. For that last, read 'meet women'; almost all of my female friends are attached or otherwise uninterested.
And work has gone nuts.
I'm down to London a couple of times a month and it's otherwise very busy. I'm getting to do sustainable development on large construction projects and we just advised $big_client on green technology for making their (huge) property portfolio more resource and energy efficient. My advice - switch stuff off when you're not using it. It's like the helpdesk joke - have you plugged it in? All the gee-whizzery in the world is not going to help you if you haven't taken care of basics. That said, there are also lots of nice toys to play with; wind turbines from 1.5kW on up, solar electric and solar thermal roof tiles, ground source heat pumps, combined heat and power boilers. There are also lots of nice designs for passive ventilation and thermal efficiency in your buildings, and so on. It's all looking very interesting, and it's difficult to get an obsessive personality like mine off the topic once I'm on it... I'll stop now, though and get back to work (I'm at lunch).
So, what have I done with my time otherwise?
I've finished a short ghost story.
I'm pleased with that because it's not often that I finish stories. Like most people who want to be writers, I have notebooks full of ideas. Like most people who aren't writers yet, I haven't mastered the skill of, as Gary Gibson puts it, putting a hundred thousand consecutive words down on paper. Or even five thousand. Now I have some breathing space, I'm managing to write a couple of times a week. Must do better.
I moved house.
This was a real pain in the neck - the owner of the place I was renting decided that she could make more money by renting it to her husband's company, and refused to renew the lease when it was up. I got to know this the week before I was due to take a couple of weeks off on holiday. So the letting company found me a bigger place in a more convenient location, at the same rent, with the added bonus that the place has beautiful original antique fireplaces in each room and a range in the kitchen. I've come out ahead, but I could have done without the disruption.
I got a bit of a holiday.
In between packing boxes I went to Tobermory for the day and took a trip on a sailing ship (and when I reached Jamaica ... no) to see the local wildlife. There was a porpoise and some seals, lots of sea birds and three hours on a beautiful little ketch called the 'Solais Na Mara'. I also met a very nice lady called Sass whom I doubt I'll ever see again.
I've gone back to dancing.
Some years ago I had a girlfriend who loved to dance and who dragged me along to jive classes and ballroom dancing. Later I went to a Ceroc club when I was in Dundee; Ceroc is a franchise teaching le roc, the way people dance in France and most of Europe. Unlike the ballroom stuff, you can get away with dancing le roc style in a club and actually look good doing it. So, I've gone back to the local Ceroc club to get some exercise, get out of the house and expand my social life. For that last, read 'meet women'; almost all of my female friends are attached or otherwise uninterested.
And work has gone nuts.
I'm down to London a couple of times a month and it's otherwise very busy. I'm getting to do sustainable development on large construction projects and we just advised $big_client on green technology for making their (huge) property portfolio more resource and energy efficient. My advice - switch stuff off when you're not using it. It's like the helpdesk joke - have you plugged it in? All the gee-whizzery in the world is not going to help you if you haven't taken care of basics. That said, there are also lots of nice toys to play with; wind turbines from 1.5kW on up, solar electric and solar thermal roof tiles, ground source heat pumps, combined heat and power boilers. There are also lots of nice designs for passive ventilation and thermal efficiency in your buildings, and so on. It's all looking very interesting, and it's difficult to get an obsessive personality like mine off the topic once I'm on it... I'll stop now, though and get back to work (I'm at lunch).
