What I Did on my Holidays

I feel strangely like a morning person. Whitney and I have developed a sort of anti-jetlag after coming back from Scotland and shifting five time zones backwards, and are now far more awake and energetic than we ever were before. For the last couple of days we've got up at the break of dawn (or what passes as the break of dawn for a computer scientist, i.e. eight o'clock) and we've had time to have pancakes for breakfast, decide what we're doing with the $200 Amazon gift certificate we got for Christmas, and watch the morning news before I set off for work. This is a huge change from struggling through to the kitchen like a Neanderthal and throwing some sort of American cornflake equivalent into a bowl before grabbing my case and stumbling out the door.

And after a week away from the Internet, it's amazing how much catching up I needed to do in all areas. But as I've learned that no one reads massive journal entries (unless they were written by humphrey_clarke of course), I broke the entire week into a small digest on the way back. I:

• Arrived at my parents' house in Scotland (which with the addition of a dining table and actual use of the dining room is getting a lot more upmarket in preparation for all children moving out to St Andrews) and slept for fourteen hours.


• Went down and stayed in the flat in Cupar. In the morning, I woke up thinking that I was still in Boston. Then the opposite happened, I thought that I had been transported back in time a year and had to drive Whitney to work and get on with my senior honours project.


• Visited St Andrews, confused Andy with my reappearance, and found that someone had moved all the computer science labs around again.


• Completed a life achievement and finally met someone "from the Internet". I had known danbodaxter for about seven years and only actually saw him for the first time last week. Unfortunately I was still tired and jetlagged and my conversation skills weren't up to much, but an entry reading "I met wongchungbang. He's actually really boring." has not yet appeared.


• Travelled the walk through Keithhall that constitutes virtually the only thing to do when visiting Inverurie.


• Saw Clare and Amy again, who refrained from talking about how stupid men are in return for us not talking about semi-conducting tri-phase MOSFET boards (largely due to the absence of Philip).


• Met up with Philip again the very next evening, who now permanently has half a pound of steel in his left foot from breaking it a few months ago because the hospital says there's no point in removing it.


• Rediscovered Masterspy thanks to Jamie's expertise at finding things on the Internet.


• Went along to the Tastie Bite in Inverurie and had a battered haggis supper, which I had developed a strange craving for despite never actually eating them before I left Scotland.


• Discovered that shleeping on the British Airways shoopuff is imposhibubble. (I'm sorry about this item - I promise you that it made sense when I thought it up on the plane, but it may have been the influence of the temazepam that did that. It didn't make me sleep, though. I think I may have developed an immunity to it.)


• Had a Tesco sandwich.


• Came back with a gigantic holdall full of British cereal, biscuits, jam and other essential survival equipment.

No more planes, please.