Highlights of a day in an endless winter

Dear Reader,

I know that things are not as good as they could be. I know that I should leave asap if only for the sake of giving the cowboy a fresh start in time to still have children, but I still cannot find a definitive plan to move on and indeed move away. So we still  try to look after each other as best we can and enjoy today. One day at a time.

On the way here I provided the entertainment by being a sort of living juke box. I sang for about an hour somehow, on and off, with a limited variety of songs that work accapella that I could actually remember and start to sing in roughly the right key. I think the 'setlist' went something like:

'Caught A Lite Sneeze' Tori Amos

'A Sort of Fairytale' Tori Amos

'Get Outta My Way' Kylie Minogue

'Timebomb' Kylie Minogue

'Fine Day' Opus II

'The Fear' Lily Allen

'Den Andra Dagen I Mai' Idde Schulz

'Little Digger' Liz Phair

'Army Dreamers' Kate Bush

'Fuck and Run' Liz Phair

'Help Me Mary' Liz Phair

'Divorce Song' Liz Phair

'Smells Like Teen Spirit' Nirvana

'Extraordinary' Liz Phair

Not a great deal of variety of artists, I'll grant you, but it must have been entertaining enough because the cowboy didn't put the radio on again. And when we got to the flat, I somehow felt I'd just been warming up for a gig and felt a little deflated at having to be quiet now, in this sleepy little tiny town.

Ironically, today, the day the clocks went forward to summer time, it's been even more like winter than when we arrived. It snowed overnight and continued today. I had disturbing dreams and really didn't sleep well at all. Lots of memories from the past that I really could do without right now. And a dream about searching for a Muppets mug before leaving the UK. What the hell was that all about? I think a gremlin lives in my head. A Muppets-loving gremlin, of course.

We went for a walk in the snow and I wore so many layers I felt like a small, fat michellin man. But thankfully we didn't walk for too long and it was nice enough to enjoy walking in the snow, scrunching and crunching about without my toes being wet and cold for too long. 

I just don't move well in 6 layers, that's all, and I'd rather leap about to Kylie Minogue as exercise than traipse through the snow while it gathers in my eyes and on my scarf and my nose runs so that I frequently have to take my gloves off to blow my nose.

But when we got in we treated ourselves to a strange kind of cake in the shape of a ram (they were everywhere in the supermarket, so the cowboy bought one) 

and had a cup of tea. And I did get an egg for Easter. Though it wasn't a chocolate one. It was a big plastic one with a bag of m&ms inside, which was lovely really. 

I'm quite happy to have some m&ms to munch on from time to time, and it reminds me of the snacks we had with us in the car when we went on our road trip across the US. Hard to believe it was nearly a full year ago now.

I guess that's all I had to say.

I've still got tummy ache which doesn't seem to have gone away since yesterday. I think it's an underlying feeling that this has got to stop soon. I have got to formulate a plot, an exit strategy, a way to move onwards and upwards.

Fond Easter wishes,

Ms. Platform Edge.XXX

Prague-life

So time has been getting the better of me and not allowing me a moment to do anything creative and instead I've been caught up with learning, researching, adapting and implementing things online as well as dullidy-dull stuff like washing and, today's joy of joys - defrosting the fridge.  There is of course, never a good time to defrost the fridge, but if you're planning on taking almost a month off to go travelling in the US and you've run your supplies of food down to a bare minimum (not just due to trying not to have too much food leftover, but also due to running out of money) I guess, now's as good a time as any.

And so it is that I am purposely taking a moment to recall the little things I've been able to get up to over the last few weeks, because I felt a pang of homesickness as I walked back from Tesco today that I'll be leaving my little Prague life behind for quite a while.

Let's see...

There was the weekend I had tonnes of stuff to do but the architect and I managed to nip out into the centre for a couple of hours on a gloomy Saturday so we walked and walked and took in these sights:

And he laughed at me for taking photos because it was such a tourist thing to do.  But when there's this kind of weird stuff around, how can you NOT take a photo?

Then we had a couple of weeks of it starting to look like spring and there was this distinct change in the light in my kitchen that I had to just capture:

And that summer-yness carried on for a little while, just long enough to remind me how hard it'll be to conduct meetings in my hot little flat, and that at 4pm it's necessary to put the blinds down or the sun on my back will surely burn my skin.  And the Russian Countess came to visit and she took photos of me with my parasol and then we went out for dinner in the evening and sat in the company of a fish, because that was part of the décor:

(That is a fish in there - honest!)

And then, there were the lost days of periodness I mentioned in a previous post, with my emotional turmoil over watching 'Outnumbered' and feeling a bit nostalgic, followed by the last week or so of frantic organising.  Plus, there was the day I had my last stupid o'clock meeting on Vaclávské náměstí  so I took a photo of the big Europa Hotel as I left the building and headed to the street:

And then there was all the present-buying to do at the Easter market:

And now I'm into the 'packing and wrapping up presents' endgame that seems endless and far too much effort for the calibre of Easter presents bought.  

I received my own Easter present ahead of time in the post today and I must say I am enormously blessed:

What elegance!  What extravagance!  What yumminess....

And the other day I got a present of lovely yellow tulips, which brought the thought of spring that helped with the fact that the temperatures had gone back down to normal for spring and the clouds had come to hide the sun.

So all that remains now is to do aerobics, (to keep me fit and strong to cope with the stress of the long day of flying and hanging around in airports that awaits) finish my packing and attempt to make the most of my keyboard while I'm still here.  I actually got out the old Tori Amos sheet music last night and for the first time in my life got quite involved (and quite good at, I might, brazenly add) playing "Silent All These Years".  Which I suppose is quite appropriate seeing as I haven't written a proper full song in about two years now.  But I haven't exactly been 'silent' though, have I?