Nik's Saga

I have just been astonished by tea.

Yes, tea. Milk, no sugar. Not on me, but on Mum. Mum is what you might call a 'chain-drinker'; the teapot is seldom empty or cold. I imagine that tea is one of the things she really misses about being in hostpital and on a ventilator. We were talking about this to the nurse, who came up with the idea to swab Mum's mouth out with tea rather than water, just to give her a bit of a taste.

Mum woke up just as we were about to leave last night, so we stayed a while and went for the tea swab. The effect was astonishing. Mum immediately became more active - practically sucking the liquid out of the swab - and her blood pressure rocketed from 105/55 to 140/70. Now I know that tea has caffeine in it, but I had no idea it had that strong an effect. We were, to say the least, gobsmacked.

This tea swab is likely to be repeated.
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Today is Fred Dibnah day on UK History.

This is, in my opinion, a wonderful thing. A whole six hours of industrial history that I haven't seen for a number of years, carefully timed so that I saw the first half between hospital visits and the other half when I got back this evening. It's been full of all sorts of wonders, from several ways to build tunnels, how to build castles, canal building for beginners, and the joys of suspension bridges.

Yes, I know I'm sad. I'm a scientist/engineer with an interest in history, so what do you expect? It all goes with the really interesting Backyard Ballistics book I acquired recently. First build your castle. Then knock it down. :)
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There are some definite disadvantages to having long straight hair.

One of them is that it's very difficult to keep some hair doobries, such as banana combs, in place. They just slide out along those long straight smooth fibres until any semblance of style is lost. In order to prevent this you have to fasten them so close to your head that you end up with your scalp pulled tightly enough to give you a headache. It gives me one anyway.

So I am left with a problem: do I leave my hair loose, blowing about and tangling like a plate of demented spaghetti, or do I tie it back in some manner of bunch that looks equally, if differently, awful? It's a tough one, and one I haven't managed to answer yet. I did once find a really useful pair of fan-shaped cpiky combs that you just push up on each side of your head until they interlink. Unfortunately I only ever found them in one place once, and plastic does have a tendancy to break after a while. One of my on-going quests is to find more of these wondrous things.

In the meantime the bunch is winning.
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After yesterday's delight at Mum waking up and opening her eyes, today she is being rushed back for an urgent abdominal scan.

One of her wound drains is producing a lot of unpleasant fluid. I have been very wary of optimism, because I understand just how ill Mum actually is. Yesterday, though, I thought that she might finally be coming out of the other side. How fickle and dangerous a thing hope is.
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Mum woke up and opened her eyes this morning.

She's a bit fuzzy, but she's definitely still in there. Not only that, but the ITU doctor says she's much better than she was over the weekend and needs far less mechanical support. They did a brain CT scan today to see why she hadn't woken up... but she woke up when I arrived and started talking to her, making it a bit redundant. I can handle that kind of redundancy, I think. For the first time since I got back to the UK I am cautiously optimistic.
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Today it was a dozen or so tearful scallies and a trio of policemen. I'm not really up to date on local news - I surrepticiously added Classic FM to the presets on the car radio - so the first I knew of the Big Gun Story was when I discovered that the relatives room for ITU contained a number of what can only be described as scallies, sitting there tearfully talking about their friend in the ward. At least one of them was present when the subject of all the interest had managed to shoot himself with a .22 air pistol 3 times while messing about with it.

It was all over the evening news (well - page two anyway, pushed back a page by the death of one of the old Everton greats). A 20-year-old had turned up at someone's door with three wounds to the head. He was rushed into the Royal, accompanied by three police officers just in case it was about to turn into a murder enquiry (they sat in the corridor outside the main ward). He didn't survive.
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Well... maybe not all of them, but certainly quite a few of them in ITU seem to be from the western side of the Irish Sea.

Over the past couple of days Mum has been watched over by a tall, thin bespectacled Ulsterman who reminded me of Gonz and an older Irish sister who reminded me of the older Irish sister in Casualty (not Duffy, the Irish one).

In other news, I made it back to Aberkan to get a heat doobry for embossing stamps onto cards, together with the gold and silver embossing powder to go with it. I think I need some fairly generic stamps - butterflies, flowers, that sort of thing - to use in decoupage cards. And I really must try to get a couple of those big medallion stamps for similar reasons.
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On this day, eleven years ago, my Nana died. I really couldn't handle losing Mum on the same date. A couple of hours to go, and she's still very poorly but holding on. As am I.
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Still here, although not really up to writing anything long. Mum woke up briefly several times today, although this was counter-balanced by several heart and breathing problems. In many ways it's even more difficult to watch her shifting uncomfortably than to see her lying unconscious. Dad and Kayte believe she's getting much better. I'm not at all convinced.
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Starting with Boots still make strawberry lipsalve.

Now this may now sound particularly exciting to most people, but I suspect that down in Naples Rebecca is very happy. Boots at Heathrow told me that they'd stopped making it, but Boots in Liverpool city centre had large numbers of them. Several will be winging their way to Italy soon. :)

I also got to Aberkan, although I only bought a couple of alphabet embossing stencils and some really wild triangular card blanks. They didn't have the new stamp set I was looking for, but that was OK as I popped into the Paper Shop near Boots and they had a host of wondrous things including said stamps. I'll almost certainly have to go back for another visit before I go back, particularly as they had the Christmas stamps from the same set (by See-D) for only £1.99. The nice thing about these is that you stick them on a transparent perspex block to stamp them rather than a nasty opaque wooden block upon which the illustration isn't actually lined up with the stamp so that you always end up with you're writing looking crooked.

And I hate it when the 'printed' text looks crooked.

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I am now insured to drive the parental Saab 93.

I'm not quite sure, though, whether I should be trying to invade somewhere in it or perhaps dropping a clutch of children off at school instead in it. And the comfort factor could be quite addictive; it woud be very pleasant to drive it up the motorway to the caravan.

What this means is that I can take the Saab when I go to see Mum in the afternoon rather than deal with buses. Thanks to everyone for the hugs yesterday - today Mum is very poorly but stable. They've stopped the sedative and part of me is just waiting for her to wake up and be her normal self again. The rest of me is far less optimistic. Instead I'm trying to be calm and serene and to translate what the doctors are saying into descriptions that can be forwarded to friends and family.

Right now I'm going to go and have a shower and then hope to get more than a couple of hours sleep.
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Things are not looking good.

I arrived home to an empty house last night and, very shortly afterwards found myself visiting the ICU at the Royal. Mum had been transferred there earlier in the evening. We got back at about 01:00 and I've spent today in the same place. Mum had a second intestinal resection this morning but hasn't really rallied afterwards. When we left this evening they were considering dialysis to clear her blood of all sorts of crap.

The next 48 hours should decide things one way or another, so forgive me if I'm a little irregular posting over the next couple of days.
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Today's travel was so awful I don't even want to talk about it.

On the positive side, though, I did see a beautiful rainbow while heading down the West Coast Main Line, and there were lots of bouncing baby sheepies in the fields - I had completely forgotten that it was spring. Oh yes, I found myself in Troon station, and do not plan to use Hertz for cars ever again. I only used them in the first place because of a fond En Garde! memory involving Gavinand that well-known Dutch gentleman who ran a carriage rental service - Hertz van Hijr.
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This is my mantra for fighting off anxiety and panic attacks.

Which is, unfortunately, quite often at present. More specifically, if I'm in a situation with lots of people I don't know, particularly if I have to speak Icelandic to them. This makes air travel a little bit stressful. Although my 'good evening' to the stewardess was clearly sufficiently well accented this evening that she mistook me for a local and didn't bother to give the normal in-flight announcements in English. It wasn't a problem though, as I'm familiar enough with the spiel and the context that I can make out the most important thing - how long the flight will take. :)

I also surprised the taxi driver. I still can't remember the word for the youth hostel - Farfuglaheimilið - but I do know the road, and the combination of the words 'Youth Hostel' and 'Sundlaugavegur' normally work. It was a silent journey, until I wished him Gléðileg Páska (Happy Easter) as I got out, at which point he cheered up immensely. I've noticed several times over the past couple of weeks that my now-slightly-more-than-pleasantries has been very well received by people. Getting to sign the sheet when I arrive for an internal flight in order to get my IcelandAir Frequent Flyer miles also seems to make them happy too.

As it's a bank holiday here I didn't bother coming down until late this evening. I considered flying down earlier and doing a museum, but I wasn't at all sure that anywhere would be open. So I had plenty of time to wash the dishes, deal with laundry, finish leg wrap number one (which is too short for some reason, given that the warp was almost 4 metres it seems to have come out at about 2 - maybe I stretched it too much while measuring it), have a quick WoW bash, recharge the iPod and the Palm and remember to turn the TV and DVD off.

What I did forget though was to pack my mobile phone, which was recharging on the counter. Still, it would actually make more sense to go back to having a UK one and an Icelandic one, as it costs a fortune both to phone from the UK and to phone me in the UK on the Icelandic one. I know, I used to do this but then lost the card for the UK. This time I'm just going to buy a cheap and cheerful pay-as-you-go and leave it in the spare phone. I really don't feel that I can go to the caravan without a phone this weekend. It's one thing being without the mobile in Iceland for a couple of days - after all, I always have a landline - but not if I'm at the van, where mobiles are the only way to contact me.
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I think it's Sunday.

But only because I checked my computer. This last week has been very confusing. Not going into work on Wednesday, which was a work day, but going in on Thursday (which wasn't) then not going in Friday or Saturday. This morning I had completely lost track of what day it was, given that I'd not been into work for a couple of days and I'm not due to go in today or tomorrow either. Very confusing.

Thinking about it logically, the sound of church bells at 07h30 should really have given the game away. It's the only obvious sign that it's Easter, in that there's no change to TV schedules here and outside it's still snowing. Ah well, it's given me time to continue reading Name of the Rose, a book which I am, I'm afraid, clearly not artistic and cultured enough to appreciate. It's the writing style, I think. It reads like some of the philosophy texts my students were complaining about on the Cognitive Science course - not too surprising, considering Eco's day job as a mediaevalist and philosopher. All the same, I'm determined not to let it beat me, and plan to finish it before going onto something a little more to my normal tastes - potentially Project Star Gate - a history of US military psychic research.

And on that topic, I've decided that it's perfectly okay to class M*A*S*H as science fiction given that for the first seven seasons one of the main characters is quite an accomplished telepath. :)
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... Millions of people across the UK are watching the new series of Dr. Who.

I can imagine them, sitting on the sofa clutching cushions just in case. Or, for a number of my friends, sitting in a large hotel function room watching it on a big screen. I wish I was at Eastercon. *Sigh* Hmm... maybe I should have a look at downloading the new episode later tonight...

At last, I've got Gonz's legwrap things under way. This time I've got the pattern right (i.e. from an extant piece), although I think when I make Roger's set I'll change it slightly just to satisfy my need for a more exact symmetry. I've done about half a metre so far, and I'm wondering if I can actually get one of them finished before I head back to the UK on Monday.

Not a lot to say today, really.
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Even the Icelandic version.

I'm just back after an extremely enjoyable evening with Ásgeir and Björk, respectively a student and colleague of mine at work. Good Friday is a big day for dinner parties over here and they invited me over together with a couple of friends from Reykjavík. We had a quite delicious fish and vegetable bake, together with fish in a curried sauce. Instead of salmon or haddock, the two most common fish varieties here, we had redfish, a fish I've never had before. It wasn't quite as strong as cod but very pleasant.

After dinner we played Trivial Pursuit - the Icelandic version. This proved an excellent chance to practise my spoken (or, more precisely, read) Icelandic. I still have problems with large numbers; in particular I get 19 and 90 mixed up and also keep forgetting that 1998 is 'nineteen hundred ninety eight' not 'nineteen ninety eight'. OK, so I couldn't answer the Icelandocentric questions but I still have the knack for the others... except sport (although that's not so bad as it's now been extended to include non-sports leisure stuff) and literature (not enough science fiction in my opinion).

As the wine shop was closed yesterday I couldn't get a bottle of wine to take with me so instead I decided to make some fudge instead. What I actually ended up making was tablet, which went down very well. I'm going to have to start supplying it more often, it seems.

It started to snow again while I was out; about two inches over four hours. I've seldom been up the fjörd in the evening before, and the snow-covered trees lining the road on the way back were beautiful. Straight off a Christmas card - not bad for Easter.
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Or possibly just mistaken for one.

It was back to work today in spite of the holiday, making up for taking yesterday off. As I walked into the department I got a very strange look from Syed and Davið in the corridor, who wondered if I'd turned goth overnight. I didn't see what all of the fuss was about - I was wearing my normal black trousers, black t-shirt and my calf-length black crochet cardigan thing. It must have been the fact that I left my hair loose today.

Other than that not a lot happened. Most of the shops are closed for the holiday; all of them will be closed tomorrow. Bónus wasn't, thankfully, so I managed to get enough shopping to see me through the weekend.

I've now almost warped up the first of Gonz's leg wraps. Thanks to an inspired idea from Roger it only took me ten minutes to measure out all of the thread with the cards on it. Unfortunately the transfer to the loom didn't work too well and I had to spend an hour and a half untangling everything. Never mind - I have a plan for how to avoid that next time. Clearly this business of dealing with 4m-long warp threads takes a bit of getting used to.
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It is possible to make art using a JCB. More of this later.

Today Roger and I did the tour of northern Iceland. It started off as the normal trip but took a rather interesting turn.

First stop: Ljósvatn. The lake was frozen, as expected, and nothing out of the ordinary. It was clearly lulling us into a sense of false security...

Second stop: Goðafoss. This was very strange, as the snow had quite a thick crust, yet was marked by deep footprints from previous visitors. We walked across the snow, elf-like, leaving no trace across a heavily-trop landscape. It was an exceedingly unusual sensation.

Third stop: Mývatn. The lake was frozen again, although not so heavily as when I was there with the students. As a result, we didn't wander too far onto the lake, but had a good look at the pseudocones on the way. It was great fun driving around a highly volcanic and glacial environment with someone with an interest in physical geography. :)

I was considering going along to the grotto, but the weather conditions were sufficiently unpleasant that the road was actually coned off, which was a shame. This just meant that we got up to the kverir at Námafjall (the blue mud zone) a little earlier. That was when the excitement started. :) Decked out in welliettes and boot-covering plastic bags (vital for the preservation of shoes) we wandered around the mud pots, picking up a number of large lumps of sulphur en route. Nice pure-looking lumps they are too. On the way back to the car park we looked over towards Krafla, the major volcanic area on the other side of the road - one nice, quiet volcano. A couple of minutes later (it was around 15h00) we looked again, only to see dark smoke appearing to rise from the crater.



There are no reports of eruptions yet, so I'm flummoxed as to what it might have been. This excited us enough to try to get closer and drive up to the Krafla car park, but unfortunately the road conditions halted us on the other side of the ridge so we couldn't see anything more. I shall make some investigations over the next couple of days to see if I can find out what was going on.

After all this excitement we had to go soak in the pool at the Nature Baths for a good hour and a half. :) Interestingly enough, the water there is normally much cooler than at the Blue Lagoon, but today it was actually warmer. Everyone was commenting on how hot it was. It was definitely the best I've known it there.

On the way to the pool we passed one of the picnic areas where some folks were doing something strange with a JCB and a large container of some sort.



Very strange, we thought, then realised that they were packing snow into a mould ready to carve it. We'd seen a tall rectangular slab of compacted snow in another picnic spot further back along the lake and had just thought it was something artistic. On the way back we discovered that they'd now carved the block into a rough snowman.



Relaxed and refreshed we headed back east. As we came down towards Ljósvatn the weather cleared briefly and we were shown just how the lake got its name. The sunlight reflecting off the ice was truly spectacular.



Finally, we made a brief detour up to the Pastor's House at Laufas so that Roger could examine the construction methods for a turf-roofed viking house. He's bought himself an area of woodland and is planning to build himself a little shed... possible a turf-roofed shed because it would be fun. I'm all in favour of fun.

Our timing was excellent, and we reached the airport early, early enough that they moved Roger onto the earlier flight (only by half an hour or so). Although this meant he left early, it may have given him a chance to see more of the country from the sky, although the weather may not let him see too much even in the remaining daylight.

It's been really great having Roger here. We've had a couple of adventures over the last couple of days and have also discovered the best way to make pizza (get the frozen dough rather than use pizza bases). He's now planning to see a couple of museums before flying back to the UK on Friday. I, in the meantime, have a very long weekend ahead of me, starting tomorrow.
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This afternoon I went to a workshop at which the minister of industry and business was due to speak. She didn't turn up.

Instead she sent one of her 'political advisors' in her place. As many folks were hoping that she was going to use her opening address to announce that the government was giving money to the town to build a new technology transfer centre, suspicions are rising that her non-presence indicates a non-presence of funding as well. This is particularly interesting to us in computing, as such a centre would pretty much safeguard the future of the IT department - after all, the university would look pretty silly if it tried to say that it was promoting high technology with the centre but no longer offering a degree in computer science.

The meeting was... frustrating. We had two very interesting speakers from the UK (from Coventry University Enterprises, to be exact) but in spite of this the rest of the meeting was entirely in Icelandic. While I understand that 85% of the attendees were Icelanders, it strikes me that inviting non-Icelandic-speaking guests to talk about their experiences and then excluding them from the conversation is not only impolite but also counterproductive.

I eventually escaped to collect my friend Roger, who's come to stay for a couple of days. Unfortunately I have to be in work a bit tomorrow but other than that it's time for another quick dash around northern Iceland. It'll be nice to get away from the politics for a bit.
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For the first time ever I'm itching to find out who's won Drachenwald Crown Tourney.

Normally I would have no interest whatsoever, assuming that it'll be another visiting American (I much prefer it when Europeans or at least Americans who've moved here permanently win) but this year I'm rooting for the most gallant and artful Lord Robert and Lady Genvieve. No news as yet though.

In the meantime I've spent the day tidying and rearranging the flat before Roger arrives. I've reconstructed the futon as a sofa (rather than the woodwork standing propped against the wall and the mattress sitting in the corner) and put it against the far side of the room. OK, so if I get visitors I'll have to pull it forward, but that doesn't happen very often.

I've also finished off the Easter cards and Mum's birthday card. I've discovered that cardmaking is quite a good way of stopping myself from thinking too hard, which is useful right now. Hence the handful of Easter cards that will be in the post tomorrow. Normally I take a photo of each design to remind me what I've done before and to prompt new ideas, but I forgot this time. Never mind, I'll be able to photograph the family ones when I get back to the UK after Easter. Mum's birthday card is a teabag-folded design - multiple unit origami, in effect - which has left me wondering about doing origamis Christmas cards this year. It would be different and not quite as time-consuming as embroidered ones. I will give this more thought.

In the sale in one of the craft shops last week I picked up a new set of Calluzzo templates and a cutter. It took a bit of practise to get the strange rotating knife to work without slicing into the heavy plastic template, but I think I've got it at last. I may have to go back into the shop and acquire a couple more at 30% off; after all, that's down to almost a civilised UK price.
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Today is the day before Palm Sunday, and so the church bells are ringing.

I live not far from Glerárkirkjar - I gauge how heavy the snow or fog is on how well I can see the church from my living room window - so every Sunday morning I get to hear the church bells. Today, I am told, is the most auspicious day for confirmations (so that everyone is ready to take communion at Easter, I imagine) and so the church has been busy today as well.

Glerárkirkjar only has has two bells, tuned a major fourth apart. The two bells are rung concurrently but, as the tenor is a larger bell, the time period between its strikes is about 1.75 that of the time between strikes of the treble. This is audibly frustrating, as although there are times when the sound is a pleasing bing bing bong there are others when the two bells strike sufficiently closely in time that it sounds as if the ringers are trying to strike them at the same time but missing.

Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against church bells. In fact I rather like them. I used to ring at Dundee cathedral and at St. Michael's, Garston in Liverpool and can successfully manage the more simple of the ringing patterns. I find the mathematical structure of peals quite interesting. I know some quite serious bellringers. As a result of this, the bells at Glerárkirkjar sound plain wrong! It's a very English thing, I know, to want church bells to sound nice as well as performing their basic function of calling the faithful to prayer. England took to the idea during the Age of Reason - it was a nice way to show off mathematics - and continues to this day.

But it could be worse. At least the bells in Glerárkirkjar are in tune.
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I've just come back from a very enjoyable evening's dinner and conversation.

Wendy (the wife of one of my colleagues) and I went to Greifinn for dinner this evening. Nothing special, just a burger and chips (although I still can't get used to the Icelandic habit of putting paprika on chips instead of vinegar), but an excellent evening of conversation that ranged from the trials of being an ex-pat to the similarities and differences between the US and UK governmental systems and the advantages of having a concise constitution (which the US has but Europe won't have). We didn't get out until almost eleven and are defininately planning to do this again.

Upon my return I've left the car in the car park for the shopping centre next to the apartment block. Jóhan, my nice, helpful next-door-neighbour popped by last night and suggested that I might want to do this as the current weather is blowing up snowdrifts all over the place. While the 4x4s favoured by some folks around here can handle the winter-rally-like terrain that is the apartment car park, my little car might have problems. He often parks over there and thought that it would make life easier for me too. He's absolutely right - the other car park is not only bigger, but has easy access to the main road which is cleared by the snowplough every day. It's very strange - the road is absolutely clear of snow right now, as the snow has been ploughed into four foot high walls on the roadsides.

More snow is forecast over the weekend and right the way through the week to Easter. Maybe it's time to try building snow bunnies?
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P for Popcorn.

Remember last week I said I like parcels? I got another one today, one that made me go 'sqeeeee' (much to my embarrassment), rush to the DVD player and grab a bucket of popcorn. The wonderful Andrew, aided and abetted by the technological wizardry of Toby, was responsible for the BBC4 play A for Andromeda arriving in my letterbox. And very, very grateful I am too, guys!

Where to start? A long time ago I bought the BBC Space Themes cassette because it had the Blake's Seven theme on it and discovered a very atmospheric piece (The Sadist from the Seven Sinful Men Suite, although sadly I can't remember the composer) which turned out to be from the 1961 series A for Andromeda. Now, 1961 is before even my time, so I had to sigh sadly and accept that I'd never know any more about it. Then a few years ago I came across Fred Hoyle's novelisation of the series in the great second-hand bookshop in Carnforth.

What I read made me regret greatly that the BBC had lost the A for Andromeda tapes with the old Dr Who tapes. It was wonderful in that silver-age science fiction style that concentrated on the plot, never mind the characters or the scenery. I've always had a soft spot for that type of SF. So you can see why today's parcel sent me squealing in delight and excitement to the DVD player and the popcorn.

And I wasn't disappointed. In some ways it reminded me of my favourite BBC drama, Edge of Darkness. I think it's the sparse, nay indeed stark feel to the entire thing, combined with the fact that the General reminded me awfully of Pendleton in EoD. In one way it's a pity that it deviated from the original series in its ending, as I'd be happy to watch their version of the sequel, The Andromeda Breakthrough (which does, I believe, still exist). I like the Things Man Was Not Meant To Know/Do genre, and this fitted it very well. This means that I can now create a special pile of DVDs for it and EoD to watch when I need some catharsis.

Thanks again, guys!
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Making Easter cards before going into work is an excellent way to start your day.

Even if you do have to be in for an 09h00 meeting. :) The only problem was that I have precisely the wrong number of round plastic cabochons in the appropriate colour/size combinations to finish them. More of this tale after work.

Work was, well, workish. Students are in the mad finishing-off stages of group and individual projects and so I'm doing a lot of impromptu consultations on how to structure presentation, reports and the like. I don't mind this, actually. It's a nice opportunity to find out what everyone's been up to. And, as I said to one of them this morning, we have a good bunch of students. That's good as in egg.

After work... I really might as well just move into AB-buðin. The lack of appropriate plastic cabochons sent me into the craft shop for the second time this week. Yesterday I paid the other craft shop a visit too. Today I came out with some white cards and a cutter, having completely failed to find the appropriate bits. Now that I think about it, I picked up the originals in Reykjavík, not up here. Right then. Let's go and see what I can use instead...
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Today was the last lecture for the academic year.

I have a final lab session on Thursday, and that'll be it apart from the marking. It's always a bit weird when teaching ends; it takes me a couple of days to settle into my non-teaching mode and I spend those days almost completely incapable on focussing on anything more more than ten minutes. The same thing happens to a lesser extent when I finish writing a course... and I finished writing the example exam paper for the Data Visualisation module yesterday (the real exam was written weeks ago). When I can't focus I always end up on edge and generally anxious about things (which isn't really helpful at present). Part of this, I think, is that I've written (or at least taught) a new module every semester ever since I returned to academia. Hopefully that'll settle down by the end of the week.

The only other productive stuff I've done today is to book my flights home for this month. I'll be in the UK from the 18th to the 28th and am flying into Glasgow. It was cheaper than flying into London, car hire was cheaper than from London, and it's a lot closer to Liverpool than London. OK, so it's an 07:30 flight (that's probably at least 08:00 in real terms) but it does get me to Liverpool in time to see Mum that afternoon. And I get to escape to the caravan for the weekend in the middle.

It looks like Mum is going to be in hospital for quite a while, recovering from the abdominal surgery before they can do the brain surgery to remove the tumour. If that's the case, I don't think I'll be able to make it to Double Wars after all - I can just about afford to fly out of Iceland once a month but no more, and the timing of exams here is such that I can't do Double Wars and Liverpool in the same trip. Maybe next year.

Something more cheerful: I've acquired a pet in WoW. Somehow I don't think that many of the other players will understand why it's perfectly reasonable to call a killer cat by the name of 'Twinkle'. Now if only it was white, not black... :)
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My tv remote control has gone walkabout.

I've checked the sofa. I've checked the table. I've checked the main table, currently covered in craft stuff. I've even checked the bedroom and the kitchen, but there's still no sign of it. Which is frustrating, even if it's not a world-shaking event.

Today's world-shaking event was the second year group project open day. My group - who are working on a one-handed keyboard using a Nostromo games controller - were even on the evening television news. Word got out that it was open day and RÚV sent along a cameraman to have a look. Clearly our project was the most exciting :) and so this evening Kalli was interviewed on the news talking about it. I must check tomorrow - I wonder if the news realised that we were developing software, or did they think we'd developed the hardware as well? Nonetheless, it's great publicity for the department and the university.

Other than that it's been a frustrating day. I've had problems concentrating on anything for any length of time and am feeling rather stressed out. It's certainly not work, so I suspect it's a byproduct of the Maternal Medical Situation (although things are progressing quite nicely, I'm told). I did do a bit more craft shopping and came back with stuff to make Easter cards, although I couldn't find an egg-shaped stamp or cutter. I really am going to have to buy a Sizzix when I get back to the UK.
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I braved the balcony and took a photo.



Icicles hanging from the roof above the living room window, April 2nd 2006

Impressive, aren't they? My opening the door out onto the balcony snapped several others and I considered trying to retrieve them for photographing but I didn't really fancy digging into the snowdrift. They have a tendency to fall straight down and make long thin holes on the way, you see... not too easy to get them out.

I've now finished the scroll, which was far more nerve-wracking than I thought it would be. I think it's because many more people may see it than the previous ones I've done for local events. The advantage of doing ones for local events is that you have a much smaller audience; if this one is eventually handed out in Court then it's much more public. I suppose it's that I see it with a different set of eyes to anyone else. Still, I'm quite pleased with it (even if I did change the design three times until I was happy); I just hope that the eventual recipient will be as well.
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You could fence with the icicles outside my window.

Honestly, there are at least eight of them that are longer than my Hanwei rapier. A couple are longer than my Darkwoods. The reason for all of these is that I have a corrugated roof in three layers, and each layer seems to create its own row of icicles. It's been quite interesting watching them grow over the last few days, but last night must have been particularly good as while I only had two rapier-sized ones yesterday I had a whole armoury of them by this afternoon. I would go out and photograph them if it wasn't for the snowdrift on the balcony.

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