Catching up again...

I keep meaning to write shorter more frequent updates here, but then life gets in the way and suddenly it's been a month and a half and so much has happened that I'm never going to capture all of it in detail.

I went on holiday to France which is several posts all in itself. I started with a few days with just atreic and emperor including a trip to St Emilion where we went on the best vineyard tour I've ever been on by some margin, and a day in Lourdes where I stayed reasonably strong in most of the tat shops, but did bring back a pile of incense as a welcome back gift for Mthr Alice. We then journeyed on to Chateau de Lamostonie where we were joined by the rest of the usual suspects for a week packed with readthroughs, singing, and touristing. We went to Mass at the cathedral in Cahors, where the Bishop had kindly given us exceptional permission to receive communion despite not being Roman Catholics. We had a singthrough of The Threepenny Opera, in which I was playing Polly. This didn't exactly fit with my recentish resolution to spend less time doing challenging singing in front of people, but I was pretty pleased with how it went. There were a few wobbles in some of the later songs, but I absolutely fucking nailed Pirate Jenny.

On Thursday night many of us stayed up pretty late watching the election coverage. Like, I imagine, most people reading this, I was pretty happy about the results. I'm delighted by the gains made by the Lib Dems and the Greens, and the collapse of the Tory vote share. I'm cautiously optimistic about the new Labour government, albeit with major reservations in some areas. I'm a bit worried about the potential for Reform to become a more significant political force. After that Friday was a relatively quiet day, though I then stayed up very late again talking to emperor. This might not have been the wisest choice, but it was very good to have a proper conversation about important stuff. I made the journey home with leonato, who stayed with us for a night so as to break his rather longer journey home, and with him too it was good to have a decent chunk of time to talk with just the two of us.

The Monday after we got back I then had a brief trip to Manchester to have my visa interview, which all went fairly smoothly. I was slightly worried, because they warn that it can take up to 90 days to process the application, which would have been too late for the start of the course, although they also say that it generally only takes 3-6 weeks. I was therefore extremely and pleasantly surprised when the visa actually turned up only four days later. This also meant that I could take a quick trip to Brussels towards the end of July to do some flat-hunting. In the end I only managed to view three flats in person, but that has at least given me a better sense of the market, so I now feel in a position to make offers based on video-call viewings. I fell completely in love with the first flat I saw, but sadly didn't get it, so will have to keep looking, but there seem to be a reasonable number of places that fit my requirements and budget, so I'm not too worried. It's possible at this stage that I won't find somewhere that's available before I start, but it won't be the end of the world if I have to find an airBnB or similar for a few weeks.

I was pretty pleased with how my French held up whilst I was flat-hunting. There was even one point when after explaining something to some other potential tenants in English, the agent then turned to me and said the same thing in French. I'm absolutely certain that it's clear from my accent that I'm not a native speaker, but to have reached the point where if I start in French, at least some people in Brussels don't automatically assume I'd prefer to communicate in English feels like a significant step. I've also now finished the Duolingo Dutch course and feel like I've probably reached around A2 level, which is quite pleasing for the amount of work I've put in, but also feels like the point at which it gets a bit tricky to work out what to do next. I've ordered a textbook that's aimed a bridging the gap between A2 and B1, so we'll see how that goes, and I'm also trying to read fairly easy books in Dutch and watch TV/films with subtitles. Once I get to Belgium, the University language centre offers Dutch lessons to it's students at a reduced price, so I'll be able to sign up for them.

Mthr Alice is back at St John's, and I am delighted by this. Everything just feels so much calmer with her there, and despite still being on recorder-playing duty, I feel much more as though I am able to participate in the mass for myself rather than constantly having to be aware of anything I might need to react to to support other people's worship.

I have now mostly finished my paid work (just a couple of days in August to wrap things up and answer any questions that have come up for the rest of the team in my absence) which feels quite luxurious, especially as other than finding a flat, I think I've now done most of the admin for the move, so I've got a few weeks to really relax before throwing myself into the course. Ramesh has his quieter period at work over the summer, so that gives us a decent amount of time to spend together, which feels important to do before I leave, and other than that I'm probably going to be dedicating much of my time to languages and playing my recorder, and catching up with other people, so if you want to see me before I leave and we don't have anything in the diary yet, now is the time to speak up!