Eighty-seven: reflection

Eighty-seven: reflection, originally uploaded by meganknight.

The weather continues to get nicer and nicer, and now that daylight saving is on, I can actually walk home along the canal without have to tackle the treacherous paths in the dark (not actually treacherous, of course, the British would not allow that, but paved with dogshit).

This tree clearly did not get the memo that it's spring, but its time will come, I'm sure.

Still no ducklings or swans, though.

Eighty-six: get your ducks in a row

Eighty-six: get your ducks in a row, originally uploaded by meganknight.

We went to the canal this afternoon, in the hopes of seeing baby ducks and coots, but all we found were drakes and male coots. I assume the females are all sitting on eggs, or at least I hope so.

In any case, these drakes gave us a fine example of synchronised swimming, with a nod to seventies decor as well. What more could you want?

Eighty-five: hair

Eighty-five: hair, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I have a bad relationship with hair stylists (and waxers, and masseurs, and even physiotherapists and dentists - people who do things to my body). I don't dislike having my hair done, but I always feel self-conscious asking for things, and unable to explain what I want, and secretly thinking how much they much hate working on my hair, and who am I fooling, anyway, trying to look nice. Plus, the noise and the trying to make conversation over it, it all adds up to a bad experience for all concerned (or at least for me).

Throughout my life, I have worn my hair two ways - long, straight, unaltered and usually tied back or up, and short, really short. Sometimes, it's been in transition between those two states, but it's usually one or the other, on a kind of five-year cycle. This is about two years into short, and I somehow don't think I'm going back. In fact, I'd like it even shorter, but I suspect I'd look a bit TOO scary. This was done today, and for the first time, I've gone a bit blonder, rather than redder or darker. I'm not sure about it, but there it is, it's just hair.

Eighty-four: lamp

Eighty-four: lamp, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This is one of three little glass lamps I bought in Delhi. One green, one amber and one indigo. I think of these lamps as Arabian, since they were for sale all across Dubai, but I suspect they're common across the region. I love lamps and candles and so on, which is odd, because my usual choice of actual lighting is blinding. I hate not being able to see. I suppose I should say that I love the idea of lamps and candles - probably the dregs of my catholic upbringing coming out.

Eighty-three: Dorper

Eighty-three: Dorper, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This is a black-faced dorper sheep, a particularly South African sheep, bred for the Karoo, mostly. I used to be a vegetarian, and one of the reasons I'm not any more is because in many parts of the world, the terrain is simply not suited to growing crops, and the only way to survive is to find the toughest, hardiest animals you can, and breed them for meat. This is the point of the dorper sheep - very little thrives in the karoo, and one cannot live on prickly pears alone (nice as they are).

Obviously, this is not an actual sheep. I bought her in Johannesburg, and as a piece of beadwork she wasn't cheap, but I was so taken with her curly coat I had to have her.

Eighty-two: shoots

Eighty-two: shoots, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I am really enjoying spring, I must say. It's sunny, it's slightly crisp, but not too cold, things are sprouting, birds are singing. Tomorrow I think I'm going to go to the canal to look for ducklings. I'm starting to understand all that English poetry about the wonders of spring in this country.

Eighty-one: Window

Eighty-one: Window, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Believe it or not, it was a brilliantly clear morning when I took this. The foggy effect is the glare of the sun against the none-too-clean windows. I suppose I should consider washing them, but I think I can safely say I have never once washed the outside windows of a place I lived in. I've lived most of my adult life in flats, and washing the outsides of windows is very much the landlord's job, as far as I'm concerned.

Eighty: I am spring, hear me roar!

Eighty: I am spring, hear me roar!, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This little beastie is borage, I think, that Martin is sprouting on the windowsill. They're all tiny, but such a delicate shade of green, and so cute, I couldn't resist. It is the equinox, after all.

Seventy-nine: tools

Seventy-nine: tools, originally uploaded by meganknight.

There's something so English to me about red brick and rusty tools leaning up against a shed. This isn't a shed - it's a roofless enclosure behind the kitchen that collects crap. It has the remains of a floor and once had a roof and door and I suspect when the house was built it was the toilet. The kitchen and bathroom are clearly new extensions to the house, so this would have been the only plumbing around. I have a friend here, my age, who grew up in a house just down the road with no indoor plumbing. They used to visit her gran for baths. I find this amazing, to be honest.

Seventy-eight: the wallpaper of shame

Seventy-eight: the wallpaper of shame, originally uploaded by meganknight.

No, it's not upside down. This wallpaper is the reason I could never have Chinese friends or colleagues over to visit. Aside from being unbelievably tacky, yes, it's upside down.

I really can't imagine what the people who owned this house were thinking.

Seventy-seven: who?

Seventy-seven: who?, originally uploaded by meganknight.

It was red nose day, when people are encouraged to do silly things to raise funds for charity. These guys were dressed up as Doctor Who and his Dalek and were apparently all over campus, and were interviewed by journalism students glad of a story (we are only half-joking when we tell students that if they can find a story in Preston they can find a story anywhere). I gave them money, but really, they couldn't find a proper bow tie somewhere?

Seventy-six: St Patrick's day

Seventy-six: St Patrick's day, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I don't go out on St Patrick's day as a rule, but it was my friend's birthday, and we went for a drink after work. Apparently, Preston celebrates St Patrick's day like everyone else, drunkenly, and in silly hats. The beer isn't green, though, it's Guiness, sold for a pittance. We left early, before it got too insane.

Seventy-five: Happy New Year!

Seventy-five: Happy New Year!, originally uploaded by meganknight.

No, not China, but Plungington road. I assume this house is inhabited by Chinese students, maintaining the tradition of banners on the door for new year. It's kind of sweet, but also sad - I realised when I saw it how homesick and lost the Chinese students must sometimes be - Preston is different to China.

Seventy-four: Preston sky

Seventy-four: Preston sky, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Home again, to the first signs of spring, and the worst jetlag I've ever had.

The past week kind of vanished in a haze of work and sleeplessness, so not only did the photos I took in China not get uploaded (Flickr was blocked), but I barely took any pictures myself.

Seventy-three: park

Seventy-three: park, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This is Martyr's park in the centre of Guangzhou. It is packed on weekends, although this was early, with people walking, practicing dance and martial arts, playng games, and generally living their lives. This was on the steps facing a courtyard where there were two separate dance classes, a group of young women with swords practicing something that could be fighting or dancing, a class of young boys learning something strenuous from a hard disciplinarian, and a group of young women whose babies wandered freely among all the rest. Still, apparently the newspaper was more interesting to at least one person.

Seventy-two: cosplay

Seventy-two: cosplay, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Paradoxically, Japanese pop culture has a following in China, and cosplay is fairly common. I'd not seen it before in Guangzhou, but on Xiamen island we wandered into the end of a session. The kids were congregating outside the 'excellent toilet' near the restaurant in green wigs and fancy costumes, and coming out in everyday clothes. This group was still performing, though, something that appears to be Hamlet, I think. Unfortunately, Ophelia came off her incredible shoes and tumbled down the stairs. She managed to walk away, though, with some help from Hamlet and the photographer.

Seventy-one: jobless

Seventy-one: jobless, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This is the notice board outside a recruiting agency in Guangzhou on a Saturday morning. The place was packed with people trying to get a glimpse of the notices and hopefully a job. China's economy is still growing, but not fast enough to provide employment for all the young graduates, and cities are full of these scenes - educated young people desperate for a break. In the Middle East, this same circumstance has had spectacular consequences, but not so far in China.

Seventy: Korean

Seventy: Korean, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I eat well when I travel to Guangzhou. The food is cheap, varied and my colleagues there delight in exploring the various options available. Guangzhou is a major international trade city, so the options are considerably more varied than Chinese. In fact, the local food style, Cantonese, is the one I hardly ever eat when I'm there: it tends to the bland and [forgive me] slimy and is heavily reliant on local fish. I've seen that river, and what goes on upstream, I'm not eating things that live in it.

This is Korean food, a new restaurant in the city, and it was excellent - spicy and crunchy and tangy, just to my liking. And no, that's not raw chicken, it's one of the five or six kinds of cabbage we were served.

Sixty-eight: Bicycles

Sixty-eight: Bicycles, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Bicycles are still a major form of transport in China, especially on university campuses, where students can't have cars and staff seldom bother. Every building has a rack of these outside. The favoured bicycle in China is still a traditional beast,upright with a chain guard, a basket and three gears. Some even have a built-in umbrella holder, a useful addition.

Sixty-nine: thought

Sixty-nine: thought, originally uploaded by meganknight.

The campus in Guangzhou has a large number of sculptures - a garden of them, in fact. My colleagues there joke that they got a job lot of socialist memoriabilia - there are several Marxes (Karls, not the brothers), several Maos, a handful of Chinese heroes (Lao Tzu, Confucius, etc). The effect is rather odd. This knockoff of Rodin is not actually in the sculpture garden itself, but slightly away from it.

Sixty-seven: skyline

Sixty-seven: skyline, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Masaka dosas are a staple food in India, and something I miss a lot. They're a rice pancake (the dosa), thin and crisp, wrapped around a spicy potato filling and served with sambar, a spicy lentil soup, and chutneys (especially coconut chutney). I think I had four in the two and a half days I was in Delhi. This was the last one, from idli.com in the airport food court. Yum.

Sixty-six: dosa

Sixty-six: dosa, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Masaka dosas are a staple food in India, and something I miss a lot. They're a rice pancake (the dosa), thin and crisp, wrapped around a spicy potato filling and served with sambar, a spicy lentil soup, and chutneys (especially coconut chutney). I think I had four in the two and a half days I was in Delhi. This was the last one, from idli.com in the airport food court. Yum.

Sixty-five: monolith

Sixty-five: monolith, originally uploaded by meganknight.

India occasionally reminds you that it had a pretty intimate flirtation with communism over the years. I find it hard to believe this object wasn't at least partially inspired by some kind of totalitarian mythos. What is it with the ideologues and sand-blasted concrete anyway?

I have no idea what it is, aside from mind-bogglingly ugly and across the road from my hotel. I'll try to find out tomorrow.

Sixty-four: ubiquitous

Sixty-four: ubiquitous, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Well, Delhi is something of a bust - I've barely taken any pics. Partly it's because I'm not doing any sightseeing, partly it's because I'm self-conscious on my own with a camera on the few occasions I have been sightseeing. I had to take this, though - I'll lighten it when I get home and have a better computer, but it's the sign for a Freemason's hall. Having been to London recently, and seen the incredible edifice that is the Freemason's Hall there, it's hard not to boggle at the contrast.

Sixty-three: the romance of international travel

Sixty-two: the romance of international travel, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Dubai Airport is very shiny. Dubai is very shiny, true, but the airport is REALLY shiny. Of course, nothing is naturally shiny, especially not in a desert, so Dubai has to have an army of people employed to keep things shiny. Not people from Dubai, you realise, but people imported into Dubai from places less shiny and clean and glossy. People who aren't at all shiny themselves, especially not after years of working here. Naturally, being imported, they sometimes need to go home, and like everyone else, they do that via Dubai International Airport, where they annoy the shiny and perfect denizens of the airport by doing things like this. Pretty much everyone who walked past made tutting noises of disgust.

I suppose if Sheikh Mo had his way, he would have a completely different airport for all the migrant workers and slaves, so people wouldn't be reminded of what this place actually cost in human misery. Of course, Sheikh Mo has other problems these days.

Sixty-two: Packing

Sixty-two: Packing, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I'm off. To Delhi and Guangzhou. It's a work trip, and will give me little time for tourism, but still, it's pretty cool. I've been to Guangzhou before, it's a pretty regular trip, Delhi is new.

I'm an efficient packer - it took me about 30 minutes to get everything together, with only two things forgotton (tweezers and a hat).

I'll be in airports for pretty much the rest of the day - I land in Delhi at 9:30 tomorrow morning. Expect picures of airline food and people under flurorescent lights.

Sixty-one: die

Sixty-one: die, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I wanted to like Dungeons and Dragons, I really did. It was cool, lots of my friends played, it incorporated all the things I liked, or kind of liked, and I just never really got into it.

Part of the issue is that when I was in high school, I was never quite the right kind of nerd. I was on the library club, and Reach for the Top, but then I ended up on the yearbook, not the chess club, or math club. I did all the sciences except for biology (I cannot see through a stereoscopic microscope at all, even now with glasses), but not computing science. I missed out on the really formative hardcore nerd stuff.

At university, I joined the Gamesters of Triskelion, but everyone else already played and had characters and knew the games, and I didn't. I also joined the women's centre, and they didn't really understand the appeal of nerds at all (not that the nerds really understood the feminists for their part). Within a few years, Dungeons and Dragons was waning, making way for computer games.

I bough this die recently, a kind of nostalgia for a youth I almost had.

Sixty: Rasta-mon

Sixty: Rasta-mon, originally uploaded by meganknight.

This little dude is only two inches high (and most of that is hair) and made of beads. He has a safety-pin attached to his back, but I've never really worn him.

I just think he's so manic and bright - he sits on my mantelshelf and waves.

Fifty-nine: bark

Fifty-nine: bark, originally uploaded by meganknight.

Late afternoon sunlight and tree bark - I couldn't resist the combination. The light was almost like Johannesburg light, although it was cold. Having lived most of my life at 27 degrees off the Equator, I find the light up here too weak and low, most of the time. This day was an exception.

Fifty-eight: random/homage

Fifty-eight: random, originally uploaded by meganknight.

I was walking home when I spotted this - a pristine Glenn Miller casette tape case, with a casette in it, lying on the patch of earth around a tree stump. There was nothing else around, no other litter or anything, and it looked like it had been placed there deliberately. Very weird.

Postscript - it is apparently Glenn Miller's birthday, so I assume this is an homage.