A new perspective

Neil and I took a walk along the River Cam on Saturday. This is not unusual since we live so close and it's a lovely walk leading us right to the grocery store. But Saturday we crossed the nearest bridge (we haven't done this in years!) and walked the opposite direction to usual. I don't know if it's up river or down, but on our side of the river we can only walk towards town because to go the other way we would run into a fence and private land quickly. The other side of the river has a gravel path for walkers, cyclists and dogs that leads all the way to Ely supposedly. Saturday we decided to find out just how far we could go. We're not sure where we walked to, and the path continued on, but I decided we should return to Cambridge for a pint at the nearest pub and a study afternoon (well, what was left of it). I love walking in Autumn because you can walk in sunshine without getting sweaty. I especially like when the weather is just cold enough to go walking with a scarf and mittens but not so cold you have to wear a coat. I know, I'm weird. Perhaps next weekend when I've finished my essay and a report (I have two to write) we will attempt the walk again. It's beautiful! (If you come visit I will take you on a walk by the river, even if I still don't know where the path leads.)

Oh, the picture is from our way back. There was an old tree stump jutting out of the hedge as you can see. Although Neil's shoulder was sore he offered to climb up so I could take a photo. It's not that he wanted his photo taken; it's that his inner boy loves to climb on things but his outer man needed an excuse.

juicy floating combo

I comblined the HSMS prompts from yesterday (floating) and today (juicy).

I have an obsession with "crunch factor." I like food that has a crunch (only when appropriate, I do not want crunchy cake). I like my vegetables undercooked rather than risk over cooking them. I add seeds to my salads to ensure a nice crunch in every bite. My favorite salad when I worked at camp was cottage cheese, raisins and sunflower seeds because it was soft, sweet and crunchy! (And it was less frightening than the aging lettuce.) This obsession means I like to float croûtons on my daily bowl of soup. My favorite is Bertolli's Pepite, but today I had generic croûtons that met my crunchy needs.

And peaking out from behind is my answer to today's prompt- juicy. What you just barely see between my bowl of soup and very messy desk is a Pink Lady apple. It is currently my favorite variety of apple. I still enjoy a nice, crisp, tart green apple... but Pink Ladies are reliable - always sweet, always crisp, always juicy. But not as juicy as a pear-- who wants a fruit to be so juicy it dribbles down your chin?

I feel like I should explain why my desk is messy (it's much messier than I let you see in this photo). The truth is that my desk is almost always strewn with papers. Today it was extra messy because I had a complicated bit of forms to fill out and hadn't cleared up the piles of paper already existing on my desk. If there is one thing I have learned about myself it's that I have a natural piling system for filing. Not the most efficient system, but it works. It's something I should work on, but there's not much time to work on it at the moment. Perhaps I will rid myself of that fault one day... or perhaps it will just always be part of who I am. For now it's something I'm not going to worry about.

Blue

So I was supposed to be looking for a 'row' of something today as that is the HS/MS word prompt... but instead I saw this plant with beautiful blue flowers growing next to a rubbish bin and post box. I like how observant this photo prompt thing is making me. Hurray for keeping the eyes open!

It's official

I am now a coffee drinker.

Every morning since last Sunday I have had a cup of coffee (with milk and sweetener). It started because I had no Pepsi Max on Sunday and if I didn't have at least one glass of caffeine I was going to end up with a headache that no tablet would help (unless it was a tablet of caffeine). So I had a very milky and very sweet cup of coffee. It tasted nice. Over the week I have slowly reduced the sweetness - I'm down to two sweeteners now.

Why don't I just deal with the headaches and kick the caffeine addiction? It would be cheaper, it would probably be better for me (although the calories in one cup of coffee each day is manageable) and I my happiness wouldn't be dependent on caffeine anymore. I like flavor. I drink water, but sometimes I crave flavor. So now I'm a coffee drinker.

packet lunch

Each working day, when I get home, my cats are VERY ready for me to feed them. Maegan is waitin' atop the fridge for love and her biscuits whereas Owen greets me at the door with a yell and won't leave me alone until I set down his watery chicken filled bowl. Then I get to sort out my lunch. The last few months, apart from a day here and there when I had leftovers or a purchased sandwich, my lunch has been soup - soup because it fills me up, it's easy to heat up in the steamer and it's easy to count the calories.

Today Maegan had a special treat of wet food for lunch thanks to Ocado's penchant for giving away free stuff - making today a complete packet lunch.

Sweet

So it took a week. But I stood on one of the busiest roads in Cambridge today and snapped this photo, prompted by two things.


1) Today's HS/MS prompt word is sweet.
2) On Saturday Neil pointed out this ad while we were on the bus and I couldn't get a good look at it. He is a complete Cadbury's chocolate addict and was very interested that Cadbury's has a new product out... but we didn't know what it was, he'd just noticed the ad without having a good look. On my walk home today I saw this ad and I'm sorry to report that it's chocolate with bits in it. The cranberry and granola bar looks tasty to me, but Neil is a chocolate bar purist (nothing with bits in it, unless it's a candy bar or a cream egg). Sorry sweetie.

September: outlook optimistic

So today felt really great. Nothing amazing happened, and it was hard to get my bum out of bed - but it was a good day. I think it's because as a kid I was used to September being the 'start of the year' because of school. And perhaps because I still work in academia I feel like it's the start of the year (although our students don't come back for a few more weeks). The start of the year is always good - I always feel like anything (good) can happen.

Today I was also sort of surprised (I knew it was coming, I just hadn't remembered it could be today) by starting my training for a new part of my job. It's a little surreal to be in the same job for 6.5 years but beginning training for something totally new. I joined the ILL (Inter-library loans) team today and spent two hours learning the basics and sending new loan requests to the British Library. I had a bad caffeine withdrawal headache and a case of persistent yawning... but I still totally enjoyed it. I've known that this was coming since June, but I didn't think it would be so organized as to begin precisely on the first day of September.

I also came home to discover that my research problems were fixed and I could get on with an assignment I'm determined to finish by the 20th of September. Determined!

My camera came with me to work today so that I could finally take part in the photo blog that I read regularly. The word prompt was gate though, and caused two problems: 1. I wasn't inspired by any of the many gates I pass on my way home (it's about 37 minutes / 2 miles from work to home). And 2. I was struck by a fear of looking silly if the owner of the gate noticed me or by the traffic. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get over that and be able to take part. I did take a picture of my 'decorative corn' plants... for some reason I'm quite happy with them.