Sunday 21 June 2009

I wish Basil could come with us

Thanks to everyone that contacted me on blog or off with ideas about housesitting: we've got the very best possible person in the world lined up to do it. With just about anyone else I'd certainly be worried, at some point while we're away, about managing and putting up with three cats, but this person won't have the slightest problem with that.

So we're leaving in two weeks' time: first to England for a fortnight, then to Amsterdam for a few days, then Paris likewise, then Venice for the rest, getting home on a Sunday and off to work on the Monday for me. Dorian's got a couple more days off.

Nearly all the travel and accommodation is booked now and we've booked or put in the diary a heap of excellent things to do. I'm going to try to blog it as we go. I've got an iphone and I think I can work out how to make it blog from afar.

Meanwhile I need to finish my marking which is as usual taking far longer than it should, finish getting two subjects ready to roll, write and prerecord the first two lectures, do the next phase of my dance/costume research, with luck squeeze in a book review, fix up my conference paper, clean the inside of the microwave and pack my bags.

I've already put two things into my bag: perhaps a trifle optimistically one of them is a floppy sunhat. The other is A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book. Bit of a brick but in every other way just right for a travelling companion.

8 comments:

Mindy said...

How exciting. If you are too busy to blog I guess you could always blame the iphone.

Ann ODyne said...

I have been house-PET-sitting constantly for 2 years and every owner weeps when they walk away from their critters. grown men with teary cheeks hugging cats goodbye.

be ready for this.

lucy tartan said...

It's like that every morning here.

Ann ODyne said...

of course.

and I feel the same way when I leave Basil here on this blog, and go to Basil-less Blogs.

Did you have time to view that Austen piece I saw on The Age banner?
(you could have written it of course - I got no further than the banner)

Venice - oh good on youse!

Ampersand Duck said...

The Children's Book is a perfect travelling companion, especially since you'll be visiting some of the places in the book with any luck.

There's a Janeite article in the Canberra Times for Saturday: proliferation of JA fanfic, experts warring over JA meaningfulnesses, etc. Would you like it clipped?

Lucytartan said...

Could it be the same one Ann mentioned? I didn't see that either.

Things like this make me anxious I'm missing a boat somewhere which is a feeling that makes me hate the academic ratrace. It's so venal.

That and essay marking

Oh god essay marking

BwcaBrownie said...

The australian press on JA this weekend may be a reflection of OPRAH choosing this one

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith (Quirk, $12.95). The classic retold with "ultraviolent zombie mayhem."

and before the Oprah Effect, it's already on the NYT Best 10 list.

lucy tartan said...

oh, god. That's....



no, speechless.