TheLionRampant.net

Weather
Spring fools me all the time in this country. I think it really must be the Californian in me. Granted, I have changed my internal thermostat a bit — i.e., when the temp reads 60F and is sunny that is very good news, as in that’s close to summer high temps here. But what I tend to forget during spring sunny skies is that the weather can change in an instant and still accomplish what Edinburgh is known for at times — having all four seasons in one day. Recall if you will the day last year where it decided to hail with all the force of who-knows-what, completely out of the blue. Bryce and I were walking from our flat to Blackwell’s to get a bookchair and had to dash for cover while the skies poured down their fury and ice chunks flowed down the Royal Mile. Yesterday, I awoke to clear bright blue skies with a forecast of mid-50s, I donned my sundress, jean jacket and clogs. By 3.30 I was sitting on a grass field (while Bryce played football) shivering in some icky haar-like rain with wet spots all over my glasses. Grr. Then I got lost on the way to Lupe Pinto’s. Of course after shopping, the sun came out again and my walk home was just fine.

NLS insanity
The National Library of Scotland, affectionately shorthanded to NLS for me, is a marvelous place; in fact, I tend to get a lot of really good reading done there. Last fall I spent most every day there reading emigrant guides to America. It’s a place of utter silence with scholarly types (of the old tweed three-piece suit variety as well as the jeans and t-shirt student variety), where when a (forbidden!) mobile rings, everyone looks up in utter shock and horror. Even when you have a quick conversation with a friend there at a severely quiet whispering range, people look up. I’m just happy my Mac has a quiet keyboard so I don’t make loud typing noises. But it’s great — it’s silent so you can do loads of work (provided you don’t nod off too much — which is always a challenge), they have massive book chairs so you don’t strain your neck and comfy chairs. And they bring the books to you when you request them – right to your chair.

Last term when I was a frequent NLS-er, I found I had an hour or two of stir-craziness where I just wanted to stand up and shout and run out of the quiet place. But then, once I got past that phase (without acting on my inclinations of course), I could buckle down and plow through the material. Lately, I’ve been reading a number of books there instead of checking them out of the library and carting them up four flights of stairs to my office. But the 1-2 hour marker has been sufficiently longer so that I can only stay put for about 3 hours before needing to go outside to eat my lunch and after returning, you’d think I’d have settled down enough for an afternoon of reading and thinking. But no. Just more head-bobbing and chair-creaking, shifting uncomfortably with a pile of books surrounding my computer ready to be skimmed, dissected and amalgamated into some grand master plan that will be my PhD. Last week, when I bolted about an hour or two after my lunch break, I went to Starbucks and got a tea and sat around for an hour or so just thinking and writing. Good stuff. Noise. Tea. Chairs to curl up in.

This entry was posted by Ashley on Saturday, May 7th, 2005 at 6:21 pm. . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.