in a ditch...

So the running's progressing, though the advice my mum always gave me ("keep looking straight ahead, don't deviate, don't wander" - though in a more succinct and wholly less poetic Polish way) didn't pan out so well for me this time. You see, in my opinion, and this is just me, when you encounter a closed gate on your route, you're not entirely sure if the short cut you know leads anywhere (safe), it's getting dark, you're getting quite tired, and you're in a shadowy, heavily vegetated, poorly-populated area in the murder capital of England, it's best to turn and backtrack along the main paths to where you know there's a permanently open gate than to plough on through your (heavily overgrown) "shortcut" and hope for the best.

Well, I know that now.

After snagging most of my clothing and uncovered legs on brambles and getting enough nettlage along my shins and calves to keep me awake for two-fifths of the night with the sensation of acid running through my veins, not to mention almost scalping myself running blindly, hunched over down a low tunnel through the trees, I got to the narrow river I knew I was alongside and upon losing the path ahead of me to a complete overgrowth of brambles and nettles, I decided that it would be better to jump the river now than later, where it gets wider, forgetting that if I ploughed on I would actually eventually bypass the need to jump it altogether. I won't make it across in one go, but that's fine, the mud I'll hit is at most a couple of inches deep. Ok, 3..2..oh just jump!

*schrwgthschlick* Hmm. Interesting. It's knee-deep. Eeeen-teresting. Right leg...*UP*... no wait, shoe? ok, point toe and g_e_n_t_l_y u_p... place foot on more secure mud and... ok, down again, more squelch. Try upper body strength. It's like getting out of a swimming pool. Of treacle. Can anyone see me? no. good. ok. *Hungrhhhhhhh.....AH!* Whoo! freedom! ok. run, don't look down, ignore looks, get home, take photo, laugh, shower, shower longer, scrub, scrub again, dry, eat, and sleep. sleep? SLEEP. no? ok, put cream on legs and... sleep. sleep? hmm. eye up tiger balm. definitely a bad idea.


And these are white shoes I'm wearing.

So go on, that story's totally worth sponsoring me! http://www.justgiving.com/runninglydia

In other news, I've been to Pinewood studios! whoo! Nick was doing some filming there the weekend before last and I tagged along, wide eyed and bushy-tailed (that's another story). It was amazing. Too cool for words, save to say I saw the giant chess pieces used in Harry Potter discarded alongside a mini statue of liberty (minus flame and head). And frolicked on the set of the new Gulliver's Travels - in Lilliput (see above, Nick's photo). Whoo!

trailer princess?

The running is going well, I haven't fully injured myself yet, though I'm starting to get random twinges here and there. I've been hugely spurred on by the wonderful donations I've been receiving here, and by the inspirational teamwork that resulted in a friend completing the Great North Run on Sunday with a time of 3.5 hours, owing to him sticking with his trainng partner who had developed stress fractures and had to walk a large chunk of it. heart-warming. and painful-sounding.

This weekend I will mostly be hanging around Pinewood Studios, as Nick is filming there with Backyard Productions, who are currently doing a trailer shoot for their new project, Cinders. Fun fun fun!

Run woman, run!

Isn't Eddie Izzard inspirational?

It's coming up to 9 months since I last ran, what with a knee injury and being a wimp when it comes to running in the heat of summer, but the knee has felt fine for a long time now, the weather is rapidly chilling and I've run out of excuses.

So I've given myself a goal - The Turkey Trot - a half marathon just south of Nottingham on December 13th. An undulating course that scares me. But I won't be alone, I'll be whimpering up the hill behind Helene who also did the only other race I've been in - a 10km race over a year ago, and for that I'm ever-grateful.

I also have another motivator - I'm running this for Cancer Research UK, which makes not doing it not an option. All donations very VERY gratefully received, and you can sponsor me at www.justgiving.com/runninglydia

Started running again on Monday and so far, so ok. I've found my speed limits and am devastated at how rubbish my form has become, and how hard I'm finding it, but I guess it gives me something to improve on... And I'm sure the woman in the park thinks I'm stalking her, having not run around that lake before, suddenly I've passed her in the opposite direction 5 times in 2 days and if I get out of work at a reasonable hour I'll do the same again today. Woot!

dawnlight baking

The last couple of months have been a bit relentless at work, but the 7am starts have some fantastic advantages, one being that if (and it's a big IF) I finish my experiment at a reasonable time I actually get out for the last half hour or daylight, but the main one is that I get to see some pretty spectacular sunrises.

Always makes me smile.

A couple of weeks ago saw thanksgiving, something I've been involved with for 5 years now owing to a variety of American friends, and non-Americans who like to eat. This year, as every year, I attempted to contribute in some way to the food, with pie. sweet pie. mmmmmpie.

I've made a few savory pies in my time but not sweet. Apparantly, it turned out ok. Here is is.


mmm, pumpkin pie.

Although I've come to the conclusion that I don't actually like pumpkin pie.

I do, however, like grapefruit marmalade, and after searching some recipes, I had a go at making my own, which was fun, but hasn't come out exactly as I had been hoping. Turns out that leaving the pith on the fruit makes the marmalade quite bitter. I now have 3.5 jars of bitter marmalade. Anyone?


Thought not.

But you're right, all this baking and making stuff can mean only one thing. Other than my usual baking addiction - I have new kitchen equipment! A mini food processor (small unit as opposed to for small food), which, worryingly, some ebay advertisers claim these to be "perfect for babies". As Rachel said, "everyone KNOWS babies go in the meat grinder...". hmm. Maybe not perfect for babies but it does the trick on pastry, as demonstrated by these mince pies...


They keep me happy during my early starts :)

a record breaker!

Oh yes, as one of 1227 thriller-dancing zombies, I, at 1700hrs on friday October 31st 2008, helped to break a world record :)

It was lovely. At 2 o'clock in some surprising sunshine, we queued for only about 10 of 15 minutes to be made up lightning speed, and register, before going to eat at pizza hut. Some people were surprised, not quite knowing what was going on, but it's a fact, zombies need feeding too, and brains get a little... samey from time to time.


The atmosphere was wonderful, everyone was friendly and laid-back, the police presence seemed unneccesary, and the warm-up man seemed to take enough verbal abuse from people he pestered in the crowd to keep all the chavs happy. Not that there were that many, it seemed, oddly enough, to be more of a goth/emo gathering.

There were some fantastic (and what must have been fantastically cold) costumes, including a guy dressed in head to toe only in bandages, which while looked amazing, left me worrying slightly as to what would happen should one of his friends, as no doubt they did later in the night, decide to start unravelling him. I'm not entirely sure he was wearing anything underneath.

At 4, a very small lady came on stage (to the verbal cries of "so small") to teach us the moves to Michael Jackson's (well, who else WOULD you emulate at halloween?) "Thriller", and an hour later we had it pegged, and were slightly sick of it. nb, I'll admit I used to like "disturbia" as sung by some random pop princess, but that is no more. Dancing the "Thriller" moves to it 4 or 5 time in an hour filled by craving quota for that one for at least a month.

But it was worth it. Just before half past five the official count came in at 1,227 zombies, smashing the previous record of 1,029 (or 1,124 depending on your source). woot!

So it's been awhile...

...what can I say, blogging while trying to do everything else isn't my strong point!

But guess what? Tomorrow I'm taking part in a world-record-breaking attempt - oh yes! Nottingham is trying to break the world record for largest collection of "zombies" (I HOPE I need the apostrophes there), in the market square, from 2pm. The supervisor has given the go-ahead (in a roundabout way, I have a half-day off but I'm not sure she realises nor cares what I'll be doing with it), the friends are in place and ready for a make-over, and the pen is all a-quiver in my hand, waiting for the sign up that will send me into the record books. One of the 101 things to do before you die apparantly. check!

I've never been part of a record breaking attempt before, or an organised mass gathering (I don't count festivals or standing outside paperchase/mcdonalds as the bells strike midnight on new years day as organised mass gatherings) so I don't quite know what to expect. Should I get my elbows at the ready, or would a pokey finger fare me better? Might it even be that a smile and a cool, calm exterior would be the best approach of all? I doubt it, friday of half-term in a chav/goth split town centre. Elbows it is.

I'm drawing to the end of another long, busy week filled with 6am starts that leave me wondering on what critical day I'll oversleep. Well, I need wonder no more, that day was today. But it seems not to have impacted too much on my general "doingness", which makes me wonder more - why do I bother?

Only time will tell.

photo splurge!

And here's some of the other amazing stuff we saw...

Munchables of Vienna

Two things I was urged to try while in Vienna was the Sachertorte, and the sausages.

The Sachertorte is a cake that was commissioned for some royal and was invented by Mr. Sacher. It's ingredients have remailed a secret but essentially it's a chocolate sponge with a smooth chocolate frosting and an apricot jam filling. The guide books enthuse that is should be the first cake tried in Vienna, and so, purely for quality control purposes, I tried two. One at an uber fancy cafe in the butterfly house, a glasshouse with palm trees, and one at Aida Konditorei, a chain of Austrian coffee equivalents to Cafe Nero, where the cake turnover is bound to be higher and thus the cake fresher.

And much to my surprise I've found that I don't like Sachertorte. It's essentially a dry, flavourless chocolate sponge with a barely-there flavour (but no moistness) of apricot, only around the area of spread jam, and an icing coating that varies from wax-like to a more sugary, crispy coating. Not very inspiring.

I can, however, heartily recommend Mozart cake. A cake, like so many sweet items of an edible nature in Vienna, named after famous people. Like mozart balls (chocolates), Mozart cake is a moist blend of chocolate, marzipan and pistachio, with a thick filling of hazlenut mousse. The Mozart balls aren't as amazing as the cake (if chocolates are your thing I'd recommend the Sissi chocolates, named after Elizabeth of Bavaria, the wife of emperor Franz Jozef, murdered with a stab to the heart with a needle file by an anarchist, in an act of "propaganda of the deed". Her last words were "what happenned to me?". Sissi chocolates are a dark chocolate round filled with a liquor truffle filling), but they are worth it for the amusement value.

For another real treat, pretzels are definitely the way to go. Best served warmed, with mulled wine, from a stall at a german easter market :)

The world over, I have found that Starbucks offers regional and seasonal variations of cakes available, some more successful then others. In Switzerland around autumn time there crops up many chestnut-creme themed cakes, and much to my dismay, at around the same time it becomes impossible to buy any sort of cake item that doesn't have the chestnuts in them, in some form or another.

In Japan, also around autumn, appear succulent doughnut twists topped with a caramel icing that later in the year comfortably chased away the winter blues and themselves were chased away by spring, to be replaced with red bean paste ghastliness.

It is into a Starbucks that here I guiltily (though I have found this the one public space I can comfortably sit back and write in) step in, to find not much that I can consider a regional specialty. The only thing I haven't seen before is a lump chocolate cake that appears to have a massive amount of filling. In fact, the fudge spead between layers of chocolate sponge appears to have taken place of the sponge. A rather sticky headache inducing richness.

Viennese coffee is fairly standard by European coffee standards, though the Viennese do seem to have a misplaced pride in the range of coffee available, supposedly reflecting the very particular nature of the Viennese. In reality I haven't seen anything that isn't a standard option in any average Starbucks, but a close look at the guidebook shows a very perculiar way of taking ones coffee exists here, and that would be with a shot of rum and one egg yolk on the side. Having got chatting with a local in a rather funky bar playing "the Birds" the night before, it transpires that the rum and egg yolk are poured into the coffee and mixed well, but that it is very rarely ever seen to be ordered. Determined to try some, I find that it is very rarely seen at all, I can't see it on any menus and I don't particularly want to ask after it but rest assured, if I don't find it here I'll be trying it in the comfort and secrecy of my own home at some point.

A better recommendation it has to be said, was the sausage. After my late night sliced bratwurst with Rye bread experience, I was eager to try one of the many other types on offer, in a bun. The ultimate in convenience food, a fresh long bread roll like a baguette only shorter and with a much softer (but still crispy) crust is pierced to make a hole the width of a sausage down it's length, avoiding piercing the other end. This is then given a squirting of either mustard of ketchup and then the sausage is slid in. One-hand-edible, no mess food that is flavourfull and in no way healthy.

With smoked sausage options of plain, white, tomato, spicy or cheese, I opted for the spicy, with an accompaniment of mustard. And it was sublime - the perfect level of spice - a good kick but not enough to overwhelm the flavour, and was perfectly enhanced by the soft yet crispy bread, and maintained its flavour right to the last, satisfying mouthful. If I don't get the chance to try another type then I'll be happy knowing that I have had the best. The kiosk outside Schwedenplatz underground station is the place to go.


I guess the last food and drink item I'll venture into is the alcohol. Having started with some rather impressively light yet sweet beer we looked into some of the harder spirits - the schnapps and the liqeurs. Unlike at home, the schnapps are not mixed but rather drunk alone. There exist a great many more flavours than one would consider normal or advisable, including pine come and bluebell (tasting like jagermeister with a touch of listerine, and aloe vera, respectively), Admittedly, one would not drink these commonly, as they are used rather more mecicinally than for pleasure. The liquours are a safer bet, particularly those in the Mozart range, including milk, chocolate, and orange.

Austria is also a producer of fine wines, often finding a place at the top of a connoisseur's list. At 80% white production and 20% red, the emphases is certainly on the generally sweeter of the two colours. A great (and expensive) specialty is ice wine, made from grapes harvested only after they have been hit by frost, concentrating the sugars and resulting in a far more intense, sweeter wine. I opted for a ""half ice wine", wine made from grapes harvested after a spell at a maximum of 7 degrees C (as I understand it), and found it to be amazingly smooth, displaying none of the sharpness that leaves me face-contorting in the way that other wines have been known to. There are a variety of grades of ice wine, depending on age of grape at time of frost, and the temperature their environment plummetted to, and I'm hoping that the UK will have some available for my continued ice wine education. mmm. sweet, sweet ice wine.


And of course, after all the excesses, who wouldn't want to weigh themselves on the street?!!

The Toilets of Vienna

The Viennese are into their classical music and especially their opera, bit it did come as a bit of a surprise to find an "Opera Toilet" underground!

With red crushed velvet wall panels bordered with gold something, this public toiled has toilet paper to give the appearance of looking out into the opera house auditorium and has music playing.
Once the fee had been paid however, the inside was just a normal loo. No singing, no wall paper, no red crushed velvet.

Clean and themed on the outside, but dissappointingly normal on the inside... 3/5

Hundertwasser house is a residential building with crazy style. Bedecked outside in mosaics and painted brightly with various colours, it draws visitors in to the area so much so that in 1990 a Hundertwasser village housing a cafe and numerous souvenir shops was built. And the toilet of modern art.

Mimicking the Hundertwasser style, the toilets have a fountain and are tiled in the mosaic style which is maintained well beyond the payment barriers and into the cubicles themselves. Welcoming, wacky and consistent... 5/5

clean snow in jumbo flowers

We landed in Vienna a fair bit later than expected, and when the doors were opened we weren't at all surprised to feel how cold it was. In all fairness the weather was actually superb, a crisp sunshine shimmering off the oh-so-clean pavements and buildings.


Immediately it made me think of Switzerland - I think the trains are run by the same company and if not, the colour schemes are. The trains are efficient, quiet, comfortable and clean, and within 30 minutes we're in the centre of Vienna, and thinking about attending the accordion festival.

A quote in one of my diaries read: "If you're comparing one place to another, you've been to too many places", and that's certainly a problem for me here - it all seems so...Swiss. The pristine, impressive and austere buildings, similar in the feelings they invoke to Swiss and Istanbulic buildings, the efficiency of the people so very German, the language - German but not, the bank machines, are the same bank machines. Even the sun shines in that perculiar European crisp air, making a cold sunshine welcoming and inspiring, much like one in the UK is capable of doing, but in a very different way.


Another large similarity is the penchant for public art. Basel has amazing fountains and sculptures scatteres outside theatres, hospitals and pubs. Here, the modern art museum had large-scale models of berries and flowers outside it - look!

The people are genuinely friendly, not just helpful, which is something I'm surprised to see in a city that has become so tourist infused. Though there are exceptions to this, most notably when we decided to seek entertainment in a blues pub in the evening, and walked in to find a small, smoky room packed with German 40-something rockers turn to stare at us, and maintain glaring at us as we stood hopefully at the bar, waiting to be served.


After getting some really very nice beer (Weisenburger beier), the band (Rockingbirds) started playing and it was definitely worth grinning through the staring of the rockers and the obvious killer (denim and a lumber jacket shirt, cowboy boots, chains, a greasy mullet and the most interesting of interesting facial hair arrangements possible) in the crowds to hear. There was a solid repertoire of old blues classics such as "It Ain't", and the drum solos were beyond incredible. At one point she was tapping out a rhythm on an ashtray, and playing on a washboard. It was that impressive. The bar itself reminded me a lot of the pub in the "reverse" episode of reRed Dwarf, the grungy barmad interaction with the perculiarly germanly eclectic mix of burly patrons, drinking a mixture of syrup flavoured beer, plain beer, and coffee.


When I first moved to Japan and started studying the language I had real problems with speaking it - I could think of the nouns and verbs in what I wanted to communicate in the correct language, but all the in between linking stuff that actually makes a communication make sense was coming out in German. I am now finding the same happenning in reverse, easily coming up with the correct German nouns and verbs but the rest in Japanese. I'm not really surprised that "Trinkgeld wa wieviel desu ka?" doesn't really get understood.


The food you buy at 2 in the morning after a night out is always something I look forward to trying out. In Japan it was piping hot bowls of ramen or udon noodles, in the UK we steal other nation's food - kebabs and pizzas on top of our own chips, and here? Sausages! A wide variety of sausages are available with bread, in a bun, with ketchup, or a specific mild mustard that in Polish is knowwn as "Sarepska". Tonight was bratwurst, much like kielbasa. Tomorrow night I may well go for the white sausage or the sausage infused with cheese, and I may well haave it with ketchup in a bun.


While hunting for our evening's entertainment we came across an underground mall filled with the city's scary people - the chavs, the drunks and large amounts of the drugged. We got a few funny looks but came out unscathed. On the whole I've found the people here are more considerate to their surroundings that Brits, there is no litter on the floor, the underground transport ticketing works on a trust system rather than on barriers, and people turn the lights off when they leave pub toilets. The level of friendliness and consideration of the people makes me think of seriously considering moving back to a German - speaking country after my PhD is done, along with the serious considerations about Canada, but then again, isn't this just the honeymoon phase of experiencing a new city, especially as I'm so disgruntled with my current one?