Simple pleasures of this February

Sunshine on a winter day.

Getting shot by a tangerine and smelling of citrus for the rest of the day.

Owning Frankentop.

Discovering Tumblr (even if I am a bit foxed by it)

Renner-fetish!

Snowdrops!

Doing some drawing again.

Knowing I am partway through chapter nine of "Gold Hawk" and the revisions are flowing well.

Meeting new interesting people.

Crocuses!

Being able to walk home in daylight.

Remembering crying into my binoculars at “Onegin” last week.

Daffodils!

“The Golden Cat” – finally!

Eviscerating lychees with my tongue.

Getting busier again at work.

Trade Fairs!

Orchids!

I love my life.

Fabulous Frank!

Frankentop arrived yesterday; I think he enjoyed the piano recital (I did, anyway) and when I got home I sat him on the desk and turned him on. 

Perhaps I should drop the anthropomorphism; the above sounds a heck of a lot livelier than it really was. 

Frank is a larger, younger laptop than the previous one, and considerably handsomer, and he has some nice new gadgets (like an entry system for something called a "drop box cloud", which also sounds a bit lively, now I'm thinking that way).  He's not the fastest computer I've met but he works hard, and I will be very happy learning to live with him (aargh, anthropomorphising again. Sorry). 

I also acquired a very lovely new woolly hat; yay.

And this blog is, incredibly, on its 19,999th hit.  Good grief, what?  That's so crazy.  People are actually reading my ramblings - or at least, opening them and then saying "No, that's not what I wanted, that's some rambling Englishwoman with a bum-fetish, Renner-fetish, ballet-fetish dirty mind, I wanted real porn..."

So, anyway, if anyone reads this, I'll go over twenty thousand.  Toot toot!!

Time is of the essence

The Frankenlaptop is due to arrive some time this afternoon.

Being me, I will then take it to hear Freddy Kempf playing Chopin at the Queen Elizabeth Hall this evening.  This is probably the computer equivalent of buying special tummy-phones to play Mozart to your baby in utero, but is due simply to the fact that I need to go straight from work to the Southbank Centre if I'm to have time for some supper before the recital.

Very embarrassed, though, to learn that the poor Dipgeek has got the idea that Time is Of The Essence re delivering the Frankentop.  Time is, of course, but only in my self-absorbed little (or rather, rather large) head.  I really do want to get on with the revising of "Gold Hawk" and now that the new opening scene for Chapter 4 is completed I have nothing else to dawdle over.  But I realise that, in the bigger scheme of things, my writing is about as unimportant as things get.

It's important to me, anyway.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.  If I were to be told I had only six months to live I would quit my job in the blink of an eye, dearly though I love Kew Gardens, and focus on writing.  If money were no object and I could do whatever I wished for the rest of my life, I might not quit work, since I like the place and the people I work with (most of the time - there have been occasions when I have Wanted To Yell at Someone!! - I'm only human after all [and so is the someone]).  But I would cut my hours down even so, and focus on writing.

Oh well, it's not to be, I fear.  Not that I want to be told I have only six months, dear gods forbid; but "money is no object" would be rather nice...

Looking forward to Freddy Kempf's recital; and looking forward to "Onegin" at the Royal Ballet next week - have just discovered that as well as Laura Morera's for-me-perfect Tatiana I should also be getting the wonderful Gary Avis as Prince Gremin (the noble, decent chap Tatiana marries) which is a definite plus as he does a lovely line in noble decency!

But looking forward too to getting the Frankentop home and starting to learn how to animate it.  Even as a "brain in a jar" cannibalised computer it's still going to be a heck of a lot more up-to-date than the Old Lady.  I may find I simply turn it on and go aargh..