The slow thaw

The weather improved dramatically-- mostly clear skies and temperatures close to 40F.

The photo to the right is from our kitchen. If you look carefully, you can actually see a couple drops of water descending in midair... I wish I could take credit for spectacular photography but it's much more an indication of the rapidity of the melt and the volume of water coming down.

The temps are supposed to stay warmish for the weekend, which probably means a lot of wet shoes and dirty cuffs :)

The kids' Hanukkah presents finally arrived (well, some of them), having been delayed well over a week in the Edinburgh depot (hurrah for sophisticated tracking systems that can tell you exactly where and for how long your packages have been delayed). But they're here, and you can probably tell from their expressions how excited they are-- they are thanking their Grandma Maris via iChat, which is why they are managing to stare fixedly at the iMac while tightly holding their presents.


On the down side, Taran's drama class and play were cancelled, though we're not sure if that was weather related or not. The Stockbridge Christmas Fair was cancelled, apparently because the city wasn't sure it would be safe or warm enough-- again, we're not clear on the details.

I was very excited this week to get a small travel grant that will help pay the costs of flying back and forth to the US to collect some of the data I need. The journal resubmission is in, and there's nothing to do on that but wait and see. In the meantime, I'm grinding away on possible submissions to AoM, which I now appreciate as both a deadline to work towards and an opportunity for free feedback that I definitely need.

The ramp up to teaching has been relatively jerky-- stops and starts and lots of uncertainty. If I can get through next week's training sessions, I'll have relative calm and quiet to sort it all out. Perhaps I'll even be able to set up the project management system I keep envisioning but somehow don't have time for.

The kids are asleep-- Lynn's gone over to a friend's flat for a chat, and I'm going to call it a night soon. Cheers!