The autumn cold has snuck back in, which hardly seems fair when summer in Edinburgh only properly started a month ago and has been half-hearted ever since. Along with that, the seasons of the academic year have turned a not-so-young man’s fancy to thoughts of all the coursework he has to finish preparing and dissertations he has to mark in an impossibly short timeframe before next semester starts, while finishing a bunch of other work-related tasks that should have been out of the way long before now.

Meanwhile, on the home front we’re poised to start a major modification to our flat, at least three months after we’d wanted to do it, after spending all spring and summer grappling with architects, council officers, planning permission, building warrants, changed building regulations and so on. We still don’t have an agreed date in the diary for the work, but the pieces are gradually falling into place. I just installed a wall of bookshelves in our hallway to replace (most of) the ones in this second bedroom/study, which is going to become our kids’ bedroom, in anticipation of getting it ready for them at this end of the flat before the other end becomes a building site. So there’s a fair bit of clearing out to do... which probably has to happen this weekend, when I’d also like to spend some time with the kids, who just started school and nursery respectively.

Cue a mad dash to finish any other personal projects I want to have any hope of finishing in 2012, like photo sorting, or catching up on newly released letter ranges at the OEDILF, where I’ve done hardly anything all year. Not to mention the ever-growing list of blog post ideas for here. This was going to be the year I caught up on all the things I meant to post in 2010 and 2011; now it looks like they’re all getting bumped to 2013, with extra stuff from 2012 to join them.

Maybe it’s time to re-read Dave.

31 August 2012 · Journal