The end is in Sight

This return to college is catching up with me, my initial enthusiasm remains but the getting out of bed and facing rush hour traffic is starting to pall slightly - I've never been a morning person and at 7.00 in the morning as the mornings grow chillier and darker I can find more and more excuses to stay warm and cosy under the duvet!!

So today was a late start but eventually quite productive as I struggle on with the ever on going dissertation scenario. No one will be as pleased as me to see it reaching its conclusion and almost final word count of words that have some semblance of usefulness and the feeling I have something worth handing in. Its not going to be a nobel prize winner and its not making any amazing discoveries but it will do the job and allow me freedom to place my energies into the rest of my creative work.

Don't get me wrong I have mostly enjoyed some of the dissertation experience, mainly the reading. I am a voracious reader but its mainly for relaxation and centres a lot around fiction and so its been really interesting to find some enjoyable academic reading material.

Over reading has been my mistake! I have found so much interesting material that I have totally without shame digressed miles away from anything remotely useful to my actual subject leaving my head full of interesting but pointless facts and stories which cloud my judgement about what I should be writing about... not so much clouding but totally eclipsing and leaving me a bit dazed and confused. Its taken a lot of reigning in to get back to the point and make the essay relevant. but I feel its there or mostly so - I have a supervision next week and may be disappointed with feedback but I'm sure its heading in the right direction!!

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Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty b...

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