Hilary's Blog

Stuff about me and my adventures...

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Travels

I hope this blog doesn't give anything away about where I might work.. I don't like to talk about work, it can be quite boring, especially as I don't have the world's most exciting job. So I try to stay clear of it as a subject.

I wonder what the worlds most exciting job is...... Hmm! [pondering]

Anyway, the reason I am going to mention work today is because, for work, I am travelling to Dublin this afternoon.
On Wednesday this years Irish Boat Show begins and I will representing my company. This in itself is not really exciting, but it does mean that I get to spend a week in Dublin.

I have missed Dublin since moving to Southampton. I mean I wouldn't live there again but there are lots of things Dublin has that Southampton doesn't.

The first and most important thing is connectivity. I'm not talking about various types of access to the internet.... I'm talking about all the people in our lives that are in or around Dublin. We've lost the close connection we had to some of these people since moving to England. It will be good to spend a week hanging out, catching up and generally feeling close again...

Other things that I miss is the cafe culture. Lots of little restaurants and cafes that do food at an affordable price in a good atmosphere. You would not believe how much this is lacking in Southampton.

I will have a little friend on this trip (see left). I think he's going to go to a good home in Dublin. I think he looks freaky and may scare his new owner, but everyone who's seen him so far thinks he lovely. His real name in Barnaby but I like to call him Franken-bear.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Books and stuff

I've realised recently how dull and boring my life is. All I talk about is reading...... it seems that that is all I do. I don't mind not havinga telly, but where do all the hours of the day go, if I just sit reading?

I wanted to get back to an earlier blog, where I may have lied a little. It wasn't intentional, it would never be my intention to mislead readers....
I said that the reason I resorted to reading Terry Pratchett books was because there were no other books left in the house. Well that was not quite true, there are lots of books left in the spare room/office/library (make us sound posh if I write it that way :-).

The Kindness of Strangers by Kate Adie. I chose not to read this for a while, as when Jamie was reading it I think he told me all the funniest anecdotes...

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. I got ot page 2 when I realised what a mistake that was, but I feel it's unfair to slag off a book without having read the whole thing first. We will be coming back to this one.

First Light by Geoffrey Wellum.



Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson



Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson



The above are all Jamie books - this is a genuine categorisation in our library. First Light looks interesting but I never seem to be in the mood for reading a "Boy book". I don't think I can read Neal Stephenson books. They're very big books with small writing, and I think it may be quite complicated and sciency - not me at all.

There are also books related to Jamie's PhD which I have no intention of ever reading. So one evening, after finishing the only two pratchett books in the house I found the Dan Brown book. There will be Dan Brown bashing to come....