The witching hour? Mai time to shiiine.

So 1am Kate responds to a slightly saucy-toned message with

'O you want me to show you how to make a house of cards out of paper doilies?', with not a hint of irony.

That, my friends, is why I'm single.

In other news, however, I've seen the same security guard walk up those steps twice in one hour. Something must be occurin'. O MY GOD the view from my laptop is so boring - the only way out of this library is by clawing through my essay, which is a less physical, more traumatic version of the Great Escape, which I had wanted to re - watch, but now feel like I've experienced it myself, whilst being entrapped in a sausage encased pair of tights.

Aces!

Just swapped my uncomfortable plastic library chair for a double padded swivel beauty. + 1 for essay writing. -1 for STILL being in the library. Having a little hilarious holiday in my head imagining my friend Emma in her amazing role of Meg in Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party doing really mundane things like buying courgettes and getting on the bus. Must mention it to her.

Hm.

What if world - wide arguments weren't solved through people dying? Its odd how we have accepted that wars happen. I remember growing up in the '90s and seeing a jet plane shooting across the horizon, and asking my mum what it was doing, and she replied that "it was going to war". I remember even then being astonished that wars were being fought when I felt so comfortable, driving in a car through some woods to go and have lunch with my Nana. In England, if we get to the lowest low, we still can bank on the fact that we're alive; that we have a life and we exist. So many people around the world aren't so fortunate.

An anally retentive, and surprisingly boring, list of things that surprisingly surprise me

When someone who is really rugged is really meticulous about their nail maintenance.
How much people care about their mobile phones.
What my shoulder blades look like from the back.
What my hair looks like from the back.
That I'm an actual person like the people that I see through my eyes as opposed to a walking talking thinking voice.
Graffiti in unexpected places.
Genuine accounts where people make really solid judgements on superficial or superfluous things.
Seeing a butterfly or moth really really close up when it's drinking nectar. Surely thats a sight that only cameras get to see?
People my age getting married, having children, having mortgages, infact anyone who is able to talk about mortgages and credit rating and money with understanding and without total mindmelt astounds me..!
When cafes give free water.
An uncalculated step on the stairs.
When people just don't care about something, or genuinely don't believe that any input that they give will make a positive difference.
Even though I've been doing this for 20 years (discounting the 6 months where I was gummy faced) how good brushing my teeth STILL feels.
That I can run, and it feels good.
How quickly I get bored with skipping.
That people don't know that Norwich exists.
That people are surprised that I don't drive, and that suddenly its this skill that everybody just assumes that everybody can and wants to do.
How different people spread butter.
How boring this list is because I thought it was going to be really exciting...

Intergalactic word vomit. plus this computer rattles!

ciao bellesimo pisa, firenze e venizzia and dober dan slovenia.

 this keyboard im using is really funny and no postcards have been sent as stamps in italy cost one good sized kidney-which frankly im rather attatched to! i have been writing them to all you lovelies, looking quite like a squirrell with ink! the z is next to the t and the u-i dont think you can make the word typewriter out of the top line! i am so humbled at how lovely and friendly slovenians are-im just here in ljubjana until monday mid-day and got here at about half 3 last night on THE most surreal sleeper train in my life! there were some really wonderful people-a texan couple who have invited me (after i semi invited myself...!) to come look after horses on their ranch! but then i got chatting to these two chaps who were on the erasmus scheme from UCL staying in bologna. i thought they were really cool and the first 2 hours were really funny and it was odd to be hanging out with people from britain as ive been travelling with this amazing canadian called simone for the past 3 days and we both didnt realise how big the culteral differences were-so fun to chat about. but then as one of them studies classics and the other linguistics, they spent like 3 hours declining latin, having mini competitions to see who could find the origins of words! interesting perhaps in a different context but not when i was nearly weeing myself with excitement that we were crossing the border into slovenia on my first onland international transfer!

loveee you, lovveee me, looovin life :D


p.s i realise this has not even given a snippet of how i am in my head, what ive been doing, but i have taken 3000 photos in 5 days and had to buy a new diary, so everything will be explained and shared when i get back. also no worries on the rape and mugged front as the worst thing thats happened so far is screaming at simone coming back from the toilet as i thought she was a rapist. she wasnt, i didnt get raped, but the whole campsite woke up. ciaooo!

I'm vegetarian but I've certainly got worms in my tummy.

I know eventually everything will be tickity-boo and I'll bounce over the sunset with a grin on my face but my head is like a kaliedscope of ideas and lists and un-organisation!

I've just seen and read loads of photos and info about Bulgaria having loads of cats. I really hope we can have a bit of a cuddle and they won't be diseased cats.

I'm mega excited. And tremendously inarticulate at this point, plus I have a thousand things to do today aswell as be uncertain and unorganised. So I better get serious about my day. Alsoo I had 10 hours sleep last night-my body has LITERALLY no idea whats going on-I fell asleep with my head on a book and a glass of wine to my right hand side, so I guess it was good training for being a student.

My hair is doing a 'woohoo' thing on one side...I think it's a sign that things are changing.

Living in Devon is something that I completely underestimate. Being in the hub of a civilisation that centres itself on the regularity of crop rotation and 'livin' off o' da fat o' tha land' (if anyone ever studied 'Of Mice and Men' that should be a knee-jerk recognition!) makes me realise how fragile and changable everything is. I never realise that in a city the seasons don't make such an impact-here in winter the hills are a parched grey, or spread with snow, which melts and the green becomes richer and lusher. Then the speckled shapes of animals canter down the hillside, and produce more bundles of energy, and petals of coloured silk erupt from the ground and then the sun bakes your skin and the evenings become longer and lazier. There is a comfort in knowing what to expect from the seasons, and whilst they happen every 3 months, because we are always learning about ourselves, i find something new about myself and the world each time they come around. I've always pulled away from coming from Devon; yet I feel that the county's reliance on nature reflects how I feel about learning; constantly testing myself and responding to my surroundings. I've always felt slightly unstable, but I am finding a garden of soil to rest some roots in.