Yes, yes, I know, empty promises, but I can explain…..!! In case you hadn’t noticed, I was feeling a tad on the blue side toward the end of last week, progressively getting a bit more navy as the days went by, so I thought for everyone’s sake that I would have a DUVET DAY here at Peachy Hollow. But then on Friday whilst at work, the sound of a distant phone ringing initiated a rather splendid display of acrobatics from my good self and not only did I spin around and thwack the bujeezuz out of my hand on the sticky out corner of a wall, but I also then threw my entire 119lb of bodyweight against said thwaked hand, and crushed a rather nice dent in the back of it. Oooh the pain, I almost passed out! And for some reason I still put more importance on answering the phone than immersing my poor hand in cold water. I must have had hand concussion or something. But to cut a long story short, it hurt and it throbbed, it lost all its strength and being the queen of self diagnosis, I was convinced that I’d done some serious harm. So that kind of spoilt the rest of my day and naturally, typing was out of the question. I considered going to get it x-rayed, but being a Friday night with all the drunken revellers about town it was probably going to be a long wait, and I’d run out of batteries in my Nintendo. It was still sore the next morning, and the WHOLE of that day it poured with rain (the most miserable day of the winter so far, and I’d started the day with a 9am hack, so by 10 I was already sopping and cold) and so I decided to extend my duvet day to 48 hours. Then on Sunday it was the Country House At Christmas display at Netherfield Park and again it bucketed down with rain. Again, not happy, again duvet day extension. Similar story to yesterday. Data suggests that I do not fare well in a British winter

But about that Northern Lights trip! Yes, yes, hopefully I’ll be going! I was checking my facebook account on Thursday night (which I do about every two months because I’m a bad person who neglects my friends) and happened upon an email sent from a really good friend of mine with whom I did my Masters. Oh who am I kidding, she was my best female friend on the course!! But as is too often the case in research, you make a good friend, and then you move halfway around the world for your job and you get so immersed in your new project that you lose touch with people….except the week or two before a big conference and you suddenly get excited that your long-lost friends might be there and emails start flying around about meeting up for lunch. Sometimes it’s not until you get there when there’s the exciting surprise when you bump it somebody you didn’t expect to see at all …..usually in the conference centre loo or something

This week in fact there is a MASSIVE conference for Earth Scientists over in San Francisco- the fall meeting for the American Geophysical Union. When I say massive, I’m talking 15-16,000 delegates from all over the world, all meeting to discuss cutting edge research, bounce ideas of each other, and plan new projects for the coming year ahead. As an indication of how important this meeting is, the keynote speaker last year was Al Gore. Yes, it’s very important. It’s also a lot of fun, and I’m crushingly disappointed that I can’t be there this year….(I could have gone as my immigration paperwork hasn’t even gone in the system yet STILL, but don’t get me started on either of those two topics, this post is already far too long as it is…).

But back to the point, I checked facebook, read the email (which she happened to have sent that very afternoon) and suddenly remembered that she was on Skype. Anyway, a few short clicks of my mouse button later and we were chatting away via the interweb, our voices being beamed across the North Sea between southern England and the northern tip of the northermost part of northern Norway. Upon sharing the news that I wouldn’t be making it to AGU this year, we then decided without any persuasion required whatsoever that I should take advantage of the new direct flights between London and Tromsø and go for a visit! And when she sent me pictures of the Northern Lights, that completely sold me as seeing the Aurora Borealis has been a lifelong ambition. I AM SO COMPLETELY GOING! All that’s stopped me so far is not having a plane ticket! And all I need to do is book one!!

So that was pretty much all the action and excitement over the weekend. Thankfully my hand began to feel a bit better and I regained enough motility to make some progress with Paige’s Holiday Sweater. It’s almost there now…just another arm to do. (Bad photo, I had to use the flash)

Unfortunately I’m still a little behind with my other Christmas knitting, and Project Bedroom (Good Lord, where has all the time gone?) but there’s still another couple of weeks. Plus tomorrow I have the day off, so there will be some progress if all goes to plan My hand still hurts a little bit, but hopefully I’ll be able to get things done.