26.09
It´s a sunny, warm day with a blue clear sky and The Lake is sparkeling. Outside garderners work on overtime and lushy bushes are appearing. I bet they will finish the ground before the beginning of term, it´s fun to watch. I slept really late, cleaned my flat (a huge vacuum cleaner for this little flat and works beautifully, I whish I had one like that back home), but the flat gets more homely with the minute.I did change my sofa position so I can use my skype more confortably.
Friday seems a day for cleaning up all around, in the flat opposite mine where I can spy, the pizza boxes have dissapeared and on the widow sill is an arrangement of empty beerbottles, sorted by type and colour, mostly green and it looks quite funky.
The sunshine draw me out of the house and I discovered a shortcut to the train station – and the university as it is – a lushy green walkway under big trees away from the traffic. I got my BP 20 back for the faulty inkpatrons, bought me a banana for breakfast, a very good banana by the way, sweeter than I am used to and launched onto the train to Birmingham center, about 15 minutes, one station in between. Nice the good old days when there was a person who sold you the tickets, you just stated your destination and got the right ticket for the right amount. Now you stare at coin machines, two there and one out of order so there was a long queue, once again, and not only I had trouble talking to the coin machine. First thing in Birmingham center trainstation I went to apply for my senior bus pass: “But you don´t look it!” I like to hear that. But that was not as small a deal as I thought so I will go there once again today with all the stuff they need and will get it send within a month. Then I can ride busses and trains for free outside the rush hours and that is fine for me.
Straight out, connected to the railway station is a mall and I didn´t get further than to Woolworths and am now the proud owner of following new items: A fluffy bathtowel, two dishes, a bowl and a cup, two table lamps (without light yet as I forgot to buy the right bulbs), a very pink beanseat, diverse small stuff and, last not least, a tiny coffemachine which looks like a toy but makes coffee and so I had my first cup of icelandic Braga coffe back home, see, it´s getting home. As my back is killing me, which I try to ignore, I bought me a little “shopping on wheels” which was a splendid idea to get all my things home and still had a huge plastic bag and my pink beanseat in the other hand. That was not heavy but took a lot of space on the train and me bumping into people all the time.
The evening had me skyping with family and friends and then I looked, while knitting, at the movie “The Winter Guest”, a very “deep” movie about relationships which I got at the university library. The thing that made me most happy at that point, was that my little computer can handle things like that. Still, I should look for sound boxes, the sound is not really enjoyable. Oh, I nearly forgot, on my new little pan I cooked my first “real” dinner, improvising with sissors for a knife. It was a saturating experience and I got this really great fan over the oven so I can smoke a cigarette under it from time to time, no smell whatsoever. Strange to use these really small kitchen utensiles, being used to my big family with huge everything.
Outside there are still more plants, but they saw the grass, don´t roll it out like home, so it will take a while to become green. I am quite curious to follow that progress.