The obvious explanation behind crop circles

All is well here, although mighty hectic so apologies if I'm not as responsive as usual.

So... as some of you may be aware, I've been accepted on a Master at Kings in Environment, Policy and Globalisation. This is rather exciting.

This means that, come September, Andrzej* and I will be moving to London! This is also rather exciting, but is some what terrifying me as well.

I have no idea where to start looking for somewhere to live, and I'm frankly a little scared after hearing many a housing horror story. So, my dear friends list I was wondering if I could pick your brains.

I will be based at the Strand Campus, so would be looking for some where within about 30 minutes (max) journey of there, ideally closer... and we're looking for some where pretty cheap as I won't be having much of an income. Do you have any advice on areas to look at? What sort of rents you've experienced? Any rental agencies to recommend or avoid? Or, in fact, do you know of any rooms/flats that will be available come mid-September?

Or I'll settle for reassuring comments along the lines of 'it'll be Ok Rachel, we've all moved to London and its wonderful'.

* Who is currently delighting in eating slightly out of date Christmas Pudding from two years ago. I honestly cannot fathom how happy this is making him.

Things are going slow at the moment, but I suppose that's what happens when you book a holiday - time slows down and it seems to take forever to pass. It doesn't help that I've been covering colleagues shifts at Neal's Yard, meaning I've been working 13 days without a break a couple of times recently, and it kind of kills you after about 12 days.

Some interesting things have happened though. I spent quarter of an hour talking to Thom Yorke about massages and moisturiser the other week. He's still short.

I spent some time at home with my family. Watched the Chesterfield vintage hockey team loose badly, but it didn't matter because the away team brought two huge vats of curry with them and fed us all very generously. The curried kidney and liver was glorious, despite my normal dislike for offal.

Yesterday I got chucked in a swimming pool to learn all about how not to drown. Not drowning was suprisingly good fun as it mainly involved floating about in a heated pool, although the course was quite scary in parts, and the tea tasted like sewage water. I also baked Hot Cross Buns, but the oven was up to its dirty tricks and burnt their bottoms. Bah.

Curent favourite inspirations include:

( Snowdrops and Lichen )


( Mr brother is neither my favourite nor an inspiration to me, but he does look a bit like Peter Petrelli, which I suppose is a redeeming feature. )

I mended the motorbike! I also just bought a pair of boots for £40 down from £190. Success x 2.

I've also spent a nice evening re-potting plants and am about to settle under a blanket with some Jasmine, Cardamom and Rosemary tea and watch Orlando. More win?
 

I'm happy its Chinese New Year. Lots of people at work are also happy about it. The EA deals with lots of things, but the two main areas we have responsibility for (as far as I'm concerned) are flooding/flood defences and waste management. Flooding, not such an issue right now, touch wood. Waste management is a massive issue due to the current lack of recycled material processing in the UK and the closing of the Chinese markets after the Olympics, plus the general slow down of production in Asia. Its causing lots of headaches around here as all the recyclable materials have no where to go (the paper is especially problematic as it has a tendency to spontaneously combust when it starts decomposing).

The theory is that the Chinese markets will start opening up again after the New Year celebrations as its generally a time of excess, and thus the Chinese will have used up the stocks left from over-producing before the Olympics.

That's the theory - Obviously we aren't expecting immediate changes, nor large changes realistically... but some let up would be nice. While we're at it, could someone make the river levels fall a little bit, we get nervous when they're high.

I cooked a huge and delicious steak and stilton pie yesterday (with whole shallots and blackbird pie funnel), I baked biscuits, made granola, knitted, watched Being Human, prodded the motorbike in an attempt to stop it short circuiting and wasn't hung over. It was a pretty awesome Sunday. Could do with another one though.

Go to the gym at least twice a week and EITHER get back into yoga, OR try pilates.

I was going to write a boring entry about how dull my life is and how I worry too much and blah blah blah. I realised other people have much worse problems than I do and I should get over myself, so I looked at pretty snowflake photos instead and learnt that there are more snowflakes than 6 pointed dendrites!

See... now thats what I call a mind opening snowflake



Christmasy and Sciencey all in one. Awesome.