Alone at last!

Thursday afternoon and Paul has been sent off to SE Asia, Sophie (the dog we are looking after) found after a panicked search and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Silver Skull just about finished downloading. The rain has finally come to give relief from the dryness and offers the perfect excuse not to go work, so SuperP has some time to catch up with personal chores.

We have been housesitting an amazingly beautiful octagonal home owned by new friends Coco and Trisha. With the sun only going down around 9:30, we've been enjoying sunset views of the Malaspina Strait while the two kittens (Leo & Quinn) wreak havoc on everything that crosses their path. More than that though we have been loving a bit of privacy. It has been more than 2 years since we've had a place we can call our own and the pressures are starting to get to us.

Time is moving fast again. It is June and the wedding is 2 months away! At the house we have settled for replacing the ladder to the 2nd floor with stairs, but the list of tasks is still long and daunting. Finish siding the house, complete the porch and get the new bathroom up and running. And now Paul has set off and we only half-jokingly wonder if everything will get finished?!?! Oh well, if it doesn't it doesn't. Disappointingly many of the invited friends are living lives of their own and cannot find their ways over the Lund, so we've had to adapt our mindsets. It may not be a huge party, but we plan to make the most of it and stylishly celebrate all night long! At least the Musketiers (Kennedy, Larry, Johan and Charl-Ziets) will all make it, constituting a reunion a decade in the making! And on PrincessC's side it seems like the ladies from her past are going to roll a few surprises out in front of her. Viva!

This Master's degree is getting a bit long in the tooth now and I can see Caila's anxiety and frustrations growing. But I am SUPER proud of her and the way she's taken on this mammoth task. I cannot say that her dedication, creativity and resourcefullness is sexy, but it certainly is admirable. (On a side note, same goes for Mickey D and his MBA - the "admirable" part not the "sexy" part.) That she does manage to remain as smiley, sweet and sympathetic to others simply shows the quality of her character.

Wish I could say the same about my adaptation to Lund-life. After 2 months I finally found my feet and now it almost seems normal to me, but every now and again I still stumble over examples of how this is not the place I grew up in. The rugby helps and more surf trips will serve to soften the xenophobia, but there are days when all I want to do is fly back to SA/Taiwan/Indo/Bali...anywhere really.

And then comes June and a month of having space of our own and summer sports and friendly fun and everything seems ... better ... again. Guess I'd better stop this blogging and go enjoy!

Video of Caila's speech at Martin Rossander's life celebration (22 June 2008).