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?

Flowers and a farewell to February

Prague was miserable-looking today and I had to get out of the house, so I bought these to cheer myself up:

Oh February, you odd little month.  How we should have been closer friends...  (I was meant to have been born in February, but somehow I was too eager to see the world so I came early.)  I have never quite got used to grey, cloudy days and find them rather hard to embrace but I really tried hard today to think of the advantages of cloud-filled skies.  Maybe there's extra protection from the sun on days like this. (Although beauty pages in magazines always warn that you still need sunscreen if you're out on a beach in Spain somewhere and it's overcast, but that's Spain, not ,,Mitteleuropa".)  There is a sense of being a little bit cocooned on dull grey days.  And maybe that's what I needed.  So it's good.

I even got to sleep until a reasonable hour this morning, which was delightful.  This helped to make up for the fact that I was up at 5.30am yesterday and that there was drilling going on until 11pm that resumed this morning at 8.40am.  I don't know who here is enough of a masochist that they think it's a great idea to fill this building yet again with the screech and squeal, growl and grunt of a drill going into several different parts of a wall after the hell we went through during the renovation work (that only recently - in the last two weeks - stopped) but I wish they'd just STOP.  I think I've heard enough drilling to acquit me of murder, on the basis of insanity-through-noise, so if I were you, drilling enthusiast, I'd watch my back.  Just sayin'...