Ok, so I’ve been ridiculously remiss at updating for the past *cough* month *cough*- but I have a good excuse!!  The boy is here, and we’ve been busy gallivanting all over the North east of England- (you can see what he’s been up to here http://summer-abroad.tumblr.com/ if you want :p) As a result, I’ve had relatively little internetty/tumblry time, especially as (the horrrrror!) I’ve also been very busy at work.  However, today I am flatly refusing to go delving into my emails for at least the next hour, so I get a chance to do an update!  Yey!

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This is what I wish I was doing right now.  Middle of nowhere, picnic, good book and luxuriating in the first real warmth of spring.  Mind, I’m not sure 27 degrees (80, for all you Farenheit-ers) can really be classed as warm- I’d need to find shade pretty darn quick or end up lobsterfied!

Late nights and a tedious job make me a grumpy bunny quite frequently.  However, today has been lightened dramatically by arriving to find that a book I ordered last week has miraculously appeared on my desk over the course of the weekend!  After stumbling across several quotes from At Knit’s End by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and remarking on how absolutely accurate they were, I caved and bought the book.

I’m now about 1/4 of the way through, and my morning so far has been a joy of illicit reading under the desk, giggling frequently and filling the pages with sticky notes to remind me to share that page with the boy later- the wonders of good writing about a topic you love should never be underestimated!

One of our researchers has been diligently observing the Hutgirl in her daytime environment this morning.  The following phenomena have been noted;

After an initial flurry of activity where the Hutgirl removed various top layers of clothing, smiled bravely at the Porters she shares an office with and braved the morning teasing, she settled firmly at her desk and spent several hours immersed in various excel/outlook/word manipulations of some sort.  This industriousness was interrupted every so often by the arrival of student-shaped individuals at the front desk, requesting such things as parcels, sickness forms and room maintenence.  There were also several phone calls, whereby the Hutgirl made vaguely pleasing sounds into the headset while trying valiantly to continue with her work. 

About ten minutes ago, the Hutgirl appeared to enter a kind of lull, and facebooking, tumblring and personal emails began to appear on her screens- our researcher assumes the main work for the day is done, and the Hutgirl is entering some form of procrastination phase to tide her over until the social convention of ‘lunchtime’, whereby several members of the staff huddle in the cold and uninviting student bar to consume their midday repast.

One brief moment of excitement occured this morning when a student and the Hutgirl conversed for several moments before the student walked off in a huff- if only we could understand her!