Katie and her mental meanderings

We are having a relaxing Christmas, so far – we’re in London with Mr. Spouse’s mother, in our (mainly lovely) flat (although the bathroom windowsill has basically given up on being painted so Mr. Spouse had to do some emergency tiling, and we haven’t found a way to hang our nice new picture yet). Went to St. Paul’s this afteroon, and I saw “Porgy and Bess” with my mother yesterday, followed by a really nice Indonesian meal and an attempt (curtailed by us all being knackered) at playing a new game I bought, where you build a new set of underground lines.

When you’re spending Christmas somewhere other than home, you have to be reasonably restrained on the food front – it’s eat it or take it home – you can’t just say “oh, we’ll eat it next week”. We aren’t doing to well on that unfortunately – the close proximity of Waitrose is a bit of a difficulty.

Oh, and thanks, cal, for letting the cat out of the bag by saying to my mother in law “so, you’re going to see Sound of Music on Boxing Day, then?”

who is now back in the country – but I had such a rotten internet connection while I was overseas that I didn’t bother posting.

2 weeks in Indonesia was just what the doctor ordered. A 48 hour trip there and a 36 hour trip back (the difference was just the stopover time in Singapore), however, was not – I’m just about back on UK time now, thanks to melatonin (all hail melatonin!).

My student has been out there for a few months setting up her fieldwork and trying to work out ways to test children whose mothers were given vitamin and mineral supplements during pregnancy. We are very mean and give them hard things to do. Such as putting a biscuit in a 3-year-old’s hand and telling them not to eat it.

I was staying with her and the first week I was there she was living in a very small (but clean and nice – apart from the very low water pressure and the rats in the ceiling) house and then we moved to a luxurious palace with an air-conditioned TV room and a daily cleaner and a lovely view of the mountains… Did I mention it was hot? And beautiful? And the food was gorgeous? And we went to the beach and went swimming and snorkeling (well, I went snorkeling. She wisely didn’t – I destroyed my feet and hands on the coral getting out.

There were also lots of massages – it’s a good place for massages. And facials. OK, only one of them.

The planes going over there were pretty empty but coming back it was packed. The couple sitting next to me were from Australia, flying via Amsterdam. They asked me where I’d been and on hearing it was Indonesia said “oh, we’d NEVER go there, because of the bombs’. Oh yes, I asked, so where are you going for Christmas then? (thinking, London). ‘Madrid’.

Ohkaaaay….

Pictures will appear when I have a moment/can find them on whichever computer they are on.