I missed blogging

It sounds like taking a sabbatical leave as it's been nearly 10 months since my last post. Don't know why, but I think I missed blogging, though I don't know if I can find some time - in between thesis writing, job seeking and choral singing - to post a few entries. Anyway, just to say, I am still here.

Herbie

Today is Bank Holiday Monday and the weather is wet, wet and wet. Almosy all people across the UK musy have been disappointed as it is the beginning of the half-term break for students. Anyway, May is the month for spring rains here, I should complain if it would go on like this in June.

It was another busy week, committed wholly to domestic to-do list. On Saturday we at last ordered our sofas, paying almost a fortune! We bought them from an Italian furniture shop (which means, import products!) since the British sofas are extremely soft, thus unhealthy for your back and their sofa-beds are only for occasional use. Anyway, our stain-resistant sofa-bed's name is Herbie, and we think we won't regret having it after a year or so. On the same day, we also ordered our carpets - an unexpected cost for us since we have assumed that it would be the contractors who would deal with fitting the carpets. Except spoiling thousands of pounds and waiting for ages for deliveries (our sofas, for instance, will arrive no earlier than the third week of July), this home furnishing thing is fun! Now, it is the time to order the white goods.

Last week was also the Eurovision week and Mor ve Otesi's live performance was very well indeed. Russia won, eventually, with a nice, but not a winner song. The singer was Dima Bilan, again, who lost to the Finnish band Lordi a couple of years ago, and that year the Russian entry was much better I must say. Anyway, next year ESC is likely to be held in St. Petersburg. But, unless the current system is altered, there seems to be no fair competition. The contender Portugal's 13th place in this regard was the proof.

Countdown

We can now start counting the days for the completion of our house buying. Yesterday, we were invited to the building site for measuring up for the curtains and carpets, etc. That means, it is less than a month left before we move in. The appointment had to be delayed for almost an hour due to some misunderstandings between our representative and the site manager, but we were eventually taken into the apartment. In the meantime, we had a chance to get acquainted with other people waiting for the same thing.

The ground floor has four flats, and six on each of the upper floors. On our floor (which is the first), we have a young British couple across us, a Far Eastern family next to them (with the lucky flat number 8!). Our neighbour next to us wasn't there yesterday. And at the end of the other side, we have a nurse from Spain (a Catalan from Barcelona), and across her flat, another nurse from Spain, a Galician (NW Spain) from Orense. Welcome to London! :-) By the way, the flat looked gorgeous to us. Everything is brand-new and very well thought. It is a mid-size flat, but every bit of it is no waste. We were so excited that although we brought two cameras with us, we forgot to take pics! I can't wait to get packed!

Saturday Night Hayfever

We just overcome another busy period. (Translation, as I am convinced, is one of the most time-absorbing tasks!) Anyway, it is over now and we have four days to enjoy pure blue sky and warming sunshine! The only problem for me is the extremely high-level of pollen count. I take my allergy pills regularly, once a day at 8am, but sometimes even they can't help, making me take a shower twice a day to get rid of the tiny particules inside my hair.

The last few days were spent by dealing with our home PC, which was seriously infected by a spyware. It was like a malicious cancer. We could not delete it as it duplicated itself and within two days we would be unable to switch on our PC as the virus assigned itself as the administrator of the computer! I spent hours on the phone, talking to DELL Customer Services. Whatever we tried, we failed to retrieve our data and all we were left to do was to reboot the PC. After our last conversation, Sevi and I somehow found a way to be able to see our files and we copied them to a memory stick part by part, so we could save all our photos and word documents, including my doctoral files, etc. (Though the latter had many more back-ups...) Then we re-formatted the computer, downloaded everything again, and bought a brand-new Norton 360 2.0 software to protect it from any cyber-attacks. The virus (maxpaynowti.exe) that infected our PC had a Spanish origin, travelling to the UK just within a week, and London is one of the most vulnerable network centres concerning cyber-malice.

Apart from that, we are still waiting for a date to move in to our new flat. I feel like a caged migrant bird with the urge to fly. I simply want to pack things, decorate our rooms... I even have a DIY guidebook and am very determined to deal with any sort of problems!

I started reading fictions again. That is a challenge for me, really! For years, my excuse was lack of time due to academic commitments and I seldom finish a book I start if it is not a page turner. The last book I could finish was "A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian" by Marina Lewycka. Then I tried hard to develop an interest in Vikram Seth's highly-recommended, yet to-me-disappointing "An Equal Music" and left it unfinished. Now I began to read Umberto Eco's debut work, The Name of the Rose and it is getting more and more interesting!

But, old interests hardly die out. At the age of almost 31, I still find myself looking meditatingly (or blankly, if you like) at my world atlas, journeying from place to place. The new weird thing about it is that whenever I look at a particular location for a long time, I go there in my night-dream. Last time it was Toledo in Spain. I don't know if the real Spanish town looks like what I dreamt, though... A sort of Clementine syndrome, I guess, though mine is not as adventurous as hers.

Delayed: "Autumnal vistas"

I found an unpublished post of mine while persuing the list - unpublished probably because I thought I would write more about our Hungarian trip, but I must have then simply abandoned it due to lack of time. At least there are some pictures to share and some great times to recall.

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We have recently had our annual short break - this time to Hungary (as Turkey trips no longer give me the feeling of a good rest). We visited Budapest and nearby towns of Gödöllö (Empress Sisi's summer town) and Esztergom (Canterbury of Hungary - the religious centre of the country thirty mile northwest of Budapest, and of course, the place we know from our history books - Estergon). Lots of things to say, of course. But what fascinated me - apart from the architectural beauties -was the magnificent autumnal vistas. No need the mention how well the Danube beautifies the cities it splits up. Below are some of my favourite pictures:



Erszebet (Elisabeth) Park in Gödöllö



Fishermen's Bastion in Buda Old Town



Sunset on Maria Theresa Bridge (the official border between Hungary and Slovakia) with a background view of Esztergom Basilica and Castle



The Danube embankment with a background view of the Parliament on the Pest side





Enchantment of the colours... Just a couple of pictures to represent the beautiful trees of Margaret Island of the Danube



Ducks swmming in a pond in Budapest, whose surface is fogged due to warm spa water



View of the Danube at night (from the castle)

A year's plan

It is simply unbelievable. We always hope for some leisure time, or somewhat normal pace of life, but something pops up! I know that it is what one should create for himself, but when I look back to the previous year, it is spent mainly by enjoyable, yet rather frequent long- and short-term visits by our relatives, families, friends, etc. and we really did not have intervals in between. Following our week-long trip to Budapest last autumn, I then isolated myself from everything to focus on writing my dissertation. And it was just a couple of weeks before the deadline that we were told about the result of our shared-ownership property application. Currently, we have a translation job which will occupy a whole fortnight. What next? Moving in to the new flat. Followed by my doctoral defence. Then the summer will be spent by revising my dissertation. In the meantime, I will start sending job applications and find a proper job by the end of this year, hopefully.

Well, is it comforting or slightly boring to know how to spend the rest of the year? The matter is that we have to wait, and wait, and wait for something to happen or finish and it sounds longer than usual when you know in advance what is next. Uncertainties create gray clusters in your life and you always yearn for the sunshine and since you know that it will show up eventually, it makes you even more impatient to wait for it. Mother says they are enjoying spring to the bits. Well, divide the temperatures by two or even three, and forget the sunshine, add some frequent showers, that is the good old British weather. :-]

From Prague to Bratislava

Well, OK, this is not what I intended about the continuity of my posts, but academic commitments had to be immediately replaced by much-neglected domestic ones. We are about to complete our house buying and it is hard to describe how puzzling every step of it - reading the legal documents in English as well as comprehending the government's new stamp duty land tax policy, etc. The preliminary report that our solicitor prepared is thicker than the draft version of my dissertation! I think that is enough to explain the scope of the work being done. It is a huge thing here, property business, that is, which makes you pay thousands of pounds to a number of third parties who are dealing with the much-complicated procedures. Anyway, we are almost there. The only thing we want to know is the date for completion!

Meanwhile, having conquered the shopping malls in the city centre area, we started to have additional trips to farther districts of London. The big furniture stores are located in Croydon, and we spent our whole weekend visiting them one by one. And actually, we purchased a whole bedroom suit, bearing the series name "Prague". Timewise, it is tricky to make such bulky purchases here as the usual delivery period is eight weeks after you order! So, we hope we will have moved to the flat within that period, otherwise it will turn out to be another headache.

Secondly, we are still waiting to be allowed to see the actual looking of our flat. Therefore we are unsure about the measurements of the rooms and it won't happen until the last week before the completion. Sevi and I made countless drawings by ourselves relying on the small, yet more or less accurate floor plan in the brochure, and allocated the furniture modules in the two bedrooms accordingly, which led us to discover, for instance, that we need a wardrobe with sliding doors due to lack of space. Then we realised that the suit we fancy has a slightly longer height than the standards, and we could not be sure if it would fit in our new flat. Our solution was awkward, but practical: We went to the site, picked one of our to-be-neighbours in another block (that was already completed) who was having a fag in the balcony and she kindly invited us to her flat to measure the ceiling height as well as the door width. The latter is also a big issue especially for sofas and sofa-beds as some products require wider doors for delivery.

Anyway, that is what we have been doing so far, not interesting for many. At least we did not miss Easter sales, buying what we wanted on the very last day. Besides, this sales thing sounds never ending, they always find a reason to offer another one.

In the meantime, I at last returned to the choir rehearsals. Missed singing a lot! We have a few concerts ahead, including a trip to Slovakia. The concert will be in a small town nearby Bratislava, but our hotel will be in the capital. Sevi will join me as well, and we decided to arrive there a few days earlier just to enjoy the city. After our trips to Vienna and Budapest, this completes the triangle. Prague has to wait for another year, except for the furnitures. :-P

On again, off again

OK, this is it. I have to put a stop to this internet procrastination. No news-reading, no facebooking, no sleeping. I have a week left to submit my dissertation and the material at hand is like joke! This should be my last post until April. Will write again soon, hopefully as a free man!

Eight months later

It seems my blog is sadly deserted by me. It's been almost eight months since my last post, and other than 'facebooking' I still have no time to collect my mind and write a few sensible things. The only mental break was the trip to Budapest where I felt myself again. Thesis-wise, I am left just a couple of weeks ahead before my ultimate deadline. The pressure kills me. In the meantime (cherry on top, it doesn't rain, it pours, choose whichever idiom you like, but) after a successful application thanks to Sevi's efforts, we are in the middle of purchasing a new flat in Greenwich through shared ownership, a government-backed scheme for first-time buyers. A loooong to-do list!

Heavy clouds, and more rain!

I am very unwilling to see my blog being updated on monthly basis. Well, actually it reflects my general mood. I am somehow unable to catch up with things nowadays. O God, what happened my neatly-written to-do lists? I am not happy with my Sibelius writings, it is going rather too slow than I intended. There are other things to finish, such as my Turkey report for the choir, which should have been done weeks before. My cousin will arrive this Saturday for language course, so I need to tidy up my belongings. Moreover, weatherwise, we are having the worst summer of the last fifty years - the inaugural Sun is yet to appear. And, due to our visa expiry date, we had to postpone our intended bargain trip to Tuscany this October, and the Italian Embassy advises for a six-week-notice appointment for application. (By the way, it is pouring down again!) We were planning to stay in Pisa and Florence, and have day out trips to Siena and Lucca - the latter is Puccini's hometown. Anyway, a spring trip would be more reasonable. Perhaps, Budapest could be a nice substitute. (Now, before choosing destination, I first check the relevant embassy's visa page! The Hungarian one seems to be easy-going.)

Last few weeks were busy as usual. Last Saturday, together with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and James and Jeanne Galway as the soloists, we accompanied Andrea Bocelli for his O2 concert. Although the programme consisted of overwhelmingly popular pieces, it was still very enjoyable. (At least, leaving my prejudices aside, I must admit that his voice is very impressive and strong, and his live performance was faultless.) This Wednesday, we will sing in an award ceremony. After that, only one concert is left, the one at Rochester Castle. Then, our busiest summer is over.

This year, we also had the chance to go to Wimbledon, and even managed to find a ticket to Court No. 1 to see the last fourty minutes of Andy Roddick's play. The rain had a few attempts to start, actually it managed to stop the games twice, but it is an inseparable part of the tradition. Lazy, crazy, rainy days of sum-mer...