Sunday, January 23, 2005
Feeling a bit crappy? This article may explain all...
So, I owe a post-Christmas post. From an academic persective I was rather flattered/surprised/intrigued to receive a request from a company called Librapharm who manage the journal Primary Care Psychiatry. They asked me to review a submitted article for publication and offered to pay me £100 for the efforts! I really enjoyed it, and not only got the £100 payment (which apparently is quite rare), and received feedback about how thorough my review was, but the editor agreed with my recommendations.
So with my review completed, I toddled off to meet Mo , Lynne, and Rachel in our cosy apartment in Praha-1, akaPrague . I won't bore you with blow by blow hours and days. More to the highlights! Given it did involve consuming my entire year's quota of Czech beers...
That aside, I enjoyed wandering about the castle and it's surrounds, particularly the cute wee cottages of Golden Lane. Among these was Franz Kafka's house (number 22), now a book shop where I bought copies of two of his works: Metamorphosis and the Trial.
Another feature of the trip was an exhibit of Alphonse Mucha's postcards. I went a bit crazy and bought up postcards and posters... for my the enjoyment of the drawers in my cupboard at this point. Hope to get my favourite posters framed at some point!
New Year's Eve was fun heading to a local bar and then on to see 2005 in at the Old Town Square. The main aim was to see the show from the Astronomical Clock upon it's reaching midnight... no such luck, it stayed on 11:50 thew whole time we were there?! Ah well, when people started jumping up and down and fireworks were thrown into the crowd and the fire department turned up... we kinda guessed it was 2005... ;)
My first day of 2005 will perhaps be one of my most memorable. I had finished drinking grog early in the evening, so was able to get up and have a gentle jog along the River Vltava. It was a cold, but beautifully sunny and tourist free plod. Collected my three amigas and had a most satisfying brunch at our favourite spot, the Prague Bakery. A great hike up the Petrin Lookout Tower to wear off that burger and fries for magnificent views over the city. In the evening we watched the New Year's Day fireworks from the Rudolfinum concert hall, and then wandered in to take our seats to listen to Lynne's first ever classical concert (not a bad start!!!). The first piece was Ravel's Bolero, then some Tchaikovsky, followed by my favourite of the night, Dvorak's From the New World. I shut my eyes and let Dvorak take me into daydreams of what 2005 might hold...
Goodnight sleepy heads.
So, I owe a post-Christmas post. From an academic persective I was rather flattered/surprised/intrigued to receive a request from a company called Librapharm who manage the journal Primary Care Psychiatry. They asked me to review a submitted article for publication and offered to pay me £100 for the efforts! I really enjoyed it, and not only got the £100 payment (which apparently is quite rare), and received feedback about how thorough my review was, but the editor agreed with my recommendations.
So with my review completed, I toddled off to meet Mo , Lynne, and Rachel in our cosy apartment in Praha-1, aka
That aside, I enjoyed wandering about the castle and it's surrounds, particularly the cute wee cottages of Golden Lane. Among these was Franz Kafka's house (number 22), now a book shop where I bought copies of two of his works: Metamorphosis and the Trial.
Another feature of the trip was an exhibit of Alphonse Mucha's postcards. I went a bit crazy and bought up postcards and posters... for my the enjoyment of the drawers in my cupboard at this point. Hope to get my favourite posters framed at some point!
New Year's Eve was fun heading to a local bar and then on to see 2005 in at the Old Town Square. The main aim was to see the show from the Astronomical Clock upon it's reaching midnight... no such luck, it stayed on 11:50 thew whole time we were there?! Ah well, when people started jumping up and down and fireworks were thrown into the crowd and the fire department turned up... we kinda guessed it was 2005... ;)
My first day of 2005 will perhaps be one of my most memorable. I had finished drinking grog early in the evening, so was able to get up and have a gentle jog along the River Vltava. It was a cold, but beautifully sunny and tourist free plod. Collected my three amigas and had a most satisfying brunch at our favourite spot, the Prague Bakery. A great hike up the Petrin Lookout Tower to wear off that burger and fries for magnificent views over the city. In the evening we watched the New Year's Day fireworks from the Rudolfinum concert hall, and then wandered in to take our seats to listen to Lynne's first ever classical concert (not a bad start!!!). The first piece was Ravel's Bolero, then some Tchaikovsky, followed by my favourite of the night, Dvorak's From the New World. I shut my eyes and let Dvorak take me into daydreams of what 2005 might hold...
Goodnight sleepy heads.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Boy is Christmas SOOOOO over! And without exposing my true Scrooge... thank God for that. The build up of the day and the deflation after the fact is quite exhausting. I know I had a real downer patch leading up to it, and then Ben and Scott followed my act up with their respective post Christmas/NYE blues.
Well, happily, we've all conquered that blip. The Paris marathon has our three entries and we're destined for greatness! Well, Paris any way! It's geed us up to get out in this frickin foul weather of gale force winds and bucketting rain to plod the streets and neighbourhoods of Edinburgh and Falkirk. Ben and I had a top 2 hour run on Sunday out to Gullane beach. Got to be a good 14-15 miles, and what a beauty of a run all the way along the coast with a few sanddunes, scrub and forest trails. Definitely one of my faves.
So anyway, I should get back to the point even though I bah humbugged it... Christmas... Briefly, I had a lovely chilled Christmas Eve with Scott doing our own mini pub crawl and having nice smooches and chat. He thoroughly spoiled me rotten with presents, and in return, he got running shoes! I'm such a pragmatist! Then a little inebriated I managed a cracking run aro9und Arthurs Seat. That's the way to do it ;)
Christmas Day, Ben and I had a really lovely run up the top of Blackford Hill... actually more a plod, I was knackered! But it was so worth it to stop and sit together up on the hill looking out over the City. Edinburgh does shine when the sun's out! Midday, Ben's best mate, Justin came to help prepare the goose and the champagne flowed from then on. Hick! Come 4pm, I was smashed and starving. The boys put on an amazing spread. My brussel sprouts were the least exciting option on the table. Consequently I ate them for four days after that as everyone else felt the same... There were ten at the table, including two delightful little girls that I was so appreciative to have present on the day. They were a joy to play with. So unspoiled, and so happy! Then a gaggle of people came for Christmas cake and bevvies throughout the evening. I'm afraid I took to my bed at 1030... shattered. Got my second wind, thanks to Sue for waking me up and getting me back to life!
Boxing Day Mary and her partner had a bunch of us for .. another dinner... it was lovely and light, and my belly thanked them. I did manage a good burn off with Scott prior to that... erm... run I mean!
I pretended to work for the days between Christmas and New Year...
Caught up with Nicki, one of the five Oz gal pals, and we caught up on great girlie goss.
Then New Years Eve I was in Prague with my dear friend Mo, firewoman Lynne and Miss Rachel. Great foursome we made. I'll pop up some photos of Prague on the Webshots shortly. Or you can log into the webshots website at www.community.webshots.com or something like that and look up my user name of Kelz72...
Ok, I'm knackered and off to my bed... more about Prague and a fun weekend in Glasgow with Scott to come! Hopefully won't be another month before the next entry!
Well, happily, we've all conquered that blip. The Paris marathon has our three entries and we're destined for greatness! Well, Paris any way! It's geed us up to get out in this frickin foul weather of gale force winds and bucketting rain to plod the streets and neighbourhoods of Edinburgh and Falkirk. Ben and I had a top 2 hour run on Sunday out to Gullane beach. Got to be a good 14-15 miles, and what a beauty of a run all the way along the coast with a few sanddunes, scrub and forest trails. Definitely one of my faves.
So anyway, I should get back to the point even though I bah humbugged it... Christmas... Briefly, I had a lovely chilled Christmas Eve with Scott doing our own mini pub crawl and having nice smooches and chat. He thoroughly spoiled me rotten with presents, and in return, he got running shoes! I'm such a pragmatist! Then a little inebriated I managed a cracking run aro9und Arthurs Seat. That's the way to do it ;)
Christmas Day, Ben and I had a really lovely run up the top of Blackford Hill... actually more a plod, I was knackered! But it was so worth it to stop and sit together up on the hill looking out over the City. Edinburgh does shine when the sun's out! Midday, Ben's best mate, Justin came to help prepare the goose and the champagne flowed from then on. Hick! Come 4pm, I was smashed and starving. The boys put on an amazing spread. My brussel sprouts were the least exciting option on the table. Consequently I ate them for four days after that as everyone else felt the same... There were ten at the table, including two delightful little girls that I was so appreciative to have present on the day. They were a joy to play with. So unspoiled, and so happy! Then a gaggle of people came for Christmas cake and bevvies throughout the evening. I'm afraid I took to my bed at 1030... shattered. Got my second wind, thanks to Sue for waking me up and getting me back to life!
Boxing Day Mary and her partner had a bunch of us for .. another dinner... it was lovely and light, and my belly thanked them. I did manage a good burn off with Scott prior to that... erm... run I mean!
I pretended to work for the days between Christmas and New Year...
Caught up with Nicki, one of the five Oz gal pals, and we caught up on great girlie goss.
Then New Years Eve I was in Prague with my dear friend Mo, firewoman Lynne and Miss Rachel. Great foursome we made. I'll pop up some photos of Prague on the Webshots shortly. Or you can log into the webshots website at www.community.webshots.com or something like that and look up my user name of Kelz72...
Ok, I'm knackered and off to my bed... more about Prague and a fun weekend in Glasgow with Scott to come! Hopefully won't be another month before the next entry!
