September 2, 2009
Home Again, Home Again
The Tuscan holiday was very pleasant, hot, sunny and restful. Sightseeing was kept to a minimum, with priority given instead to eating, drinking, lounging and reading. The neighbourhood was lush and scenic, with plenty of fauna, mostly arthropods. It was the sort of place where you shake out your boots in the morning to evict scorpions -- or would if you were silly enough to wear boots.
On the train back to Rome a young girl popped her hand around the compartment door to drop this poignant note into Ian's lap:
-- then vanished without trace. A particularly low-key, if probably not very profitable, form of begging. As has been variously documented here over the years, I'm a sucker for a sob story, and might have been tempted to give her something had she returned, though I'm sure my companions wouldn't have approved. But I wasn't sorry not to get the opportunity.
Ian had never before been to Rome, so we rounded off the trip with a few hours trekking around; I was gratified to find that I can still find my way about and have no trouble locating such important landmarks as the Giolitti.
I returned just in time to wave off my labmate and personal postdoc Simon, departing for pastures Cantabrigian, and officemate Daniella, off to Tel Aviv. A fine evening of cocktails and Mexican food ensued, which was all good fun but also a little sad. Things will be a lot quieter without them. And my own workload is starting to look a bit heavier...
Saturday brought reasonable weather and my first skate outing since my bruising in the Stroll -- much faded, though there's still some puffiness and swelling even now -- which was fun even if Serpentine Road was all truncated by some random offshoot of the Notting Hill Carnival. And wandering into a random mobile phone shop serendipitously reunited me with Allie and Davide, which was lovely.
On Sunday Ian and I took in Inglourious Basterds, and what a fucking awful piece of crap that turned out to be, boring, shoddy and tasteless. I said wrt Grindhouse that QT probably couldn't make a really bad film if he tried; boy was I wrong.
And now it's back to the grindstone. At least the cells I cultured before going away are looking pretty good. But I've been working on the 'B' rig the last couple of days, which is annoying in all sorts of ways I can't be bothered to describe. Fortunately the newly-adapted stage for the 'A' rig is now back, so tomorrow it'll be time to start getting results! Um...
Posted by matt at September 2, 2009 10:00 PM