Catching Up

Dear me, it's been a hectic few weeks. Main thing on the agenda was, of course, my summer project, for which the deadline was last Friday. It went OK, I think, although the general levels of stress and hysteria got a little higher than is strictly healthy. I'll post the report at some point, although I have to wait for confirmation that it contains nothing exploitable or publishable that blogging might thwart -- which, believe me, it really doesn't.

In the midst of that were a few other events, some of which have been represented here pictorially, notably the birth of my niece Sofia Rosa (an altogether smoother business than that of her big brother) and a short trip to Wales including a splendid if sometimes hair-raising ascent of Snowdon.

Notably unblogged until now was my flying visit to Gothenburg to accompany Lesley for some dentistry, mostly duty but still very pretty. I was travelling light and had only my phone camera, so there are few images and those mostly unimpressive, but just for example:

I didn't attempt to photograph the gorgeous Swedish men who were all over the place, but I did spend an awful lot of time staring open-mouthed. Fucking hell. Nifty gene pool they have there, almost all of them effortlessly masculine and lithe and beautiful. Not exclusively the tall blond stereotypes, either -- but even the dark and grungy ones with piercings and tattoos and straggly facial hair manage to look somehow clean cut and freshly scrubbed.

Following the deadline rush, I headed off to the Isle of Wight for another weekend of fun and frolics, notable for revisiting the Tennyson Trail to Freshwater, site of a number of mishaps over the years. A long day, but ultimately pretty nice.

And guess what? I even managed to learn the lesson of so many previous trips and not travel back in the Sunday night goatfuck, taking instead a leisurely and entirely civilised daytime journey back today.

In this summer of relentless rain, the Wales, Gothenburg and Isle of Wight trips have all involved the combination of sunshine and clothing, resulting in a rather marked farmer's tan. I'm actually looking quite healthy on it, just as long as I keep my shirt on.

And now I just have to find/concoct an at least barely tolerable PhD project that I can plausibly commit to for the next 3+ years. Ack.
Posted by matt at September 3, 2007 10:09 PM