I managed to get an early start on the Great Tour of Fife, meaning I had to take several trains and buses to take care of 27893 things in St Andrews and Cupar; incredibly important things like eating at my favorite sandwich joint, hugging Rob, and oh, officially matriculating as a postgraduate student at St Andrews. But more on that later.
Many of you have not yet met Nancy despite hearing so many great things about her. First of all, she is a photographer, and she five kinds of fabulous, so before you do anything else you need to go to her website by clicking here.
Moving on, here she is at home, laughing (and "looking like a mutant"):
And here she is on the street, kicking it with her red hot posse [me]:
[Despite appearing to be the height of a small child, she is in fact normal sized. I must have been up on a box, or at least the front step. God, I hope so.]We have had the best time this week and she has been gracious enough to turn a blind eye to the Lauren Tornado which has ripped through her lounge and bedroom. I brought her the Great Gift of golden cowboy boots (pictured above) to soften the blow, so hopefully we can still be friends after this. (Please baby?) She has the most beautiful flat in Edinburgh, and probably anywhere, and here is what it looked like before I emptied the contents of my wardrobe onto it:
Last night after work we went to a charity "TaskForce" auction for Project Scotland. They had 27 various odd lots, like a pasta-making masterclass and a round of golf at St Andrews. We pooled our resources and, well, we bought a man! What can I say, it's slim pickins in Scotland. Kidding. Actually, we paid 30 pounds for a fellow named Ramsay (who works for the charity-- nothing shady!) to come and help us move my things out of her flat and into my new one this weekend. Hilarious. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. The official lot was "ten hours of manpower" -- ideally helping with DIY things like stripping floors and wallpapering. Poor fellow, he never imagined he would be carrying box after box of my shoes up three flights of stairs in Leith.
Needless to say, high on my purchase of a man named Ramsay, I had a pretty fantastic day today. I registered for my postgraduate modules this morning and I'm taking:
AH5083 Giorgione, with Peter Humfrey who you can read about here.
and,
AH4105 British Furniture History 1700-1840 with David Jones. Unfortunately, David isn't teaching his usual Thomas Chippendale course, but since I missed British Furniture last year I'm taking it now. BAM.
I am getting a Masters of Letters which means I have to take four taught modules along with writing my dissertation and from what I gathered at my meeting this morning, St Andrews students are encouraged to take modules outside their dissertation discipline. I find this somewhat bizarre, but the more Italian painting I get to learn about the better, no?
Gwen is coming to Edinburgh tomorrow morning and we are going together to get the keys to my new flat! I am excited about the new digs but rather blue that it is the last time I'll see Gwendolicious for a while. She's been such a regular character on the blog-- and in my life here as it were -- so I can't imagine Scotland without her! She's going back to California to be with her pugs and possibly get a job. She wants to work at Dreamworks, so if you can pull some strings for a fabulous, worldly-yet-sensible and also pretty-amazing-with-left-handed-stick-shift girl let me know. So long, Gwendolegend, I love you forever.
Right. Still struggling to get adjusted from jet lag, so I'm off for now. I will end with this picture of Anne B circa 1973 because it is possibly the greatest photo ever and always makes me laugh:
This is also my way of saying THANK YOU to Annie for having me and Scott over for drinks, laughs, and furious ping pong whilst I was back home. Fabulous.On an unrelated note: the pub downstairs has been playing 'We Will Rock You' on a constant loop the whole time I've been writing this. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.
