Germs

Time to re-open for business me thinks. So as per my last post, I went off in search of snow & mischief and found myself a good fresh 2 meters of the first and whole bundle of the latter in the form this wee 'un:

-Cute Bundle of Mischief (click to enlarge)-

For the first time since handing in the full thesis draft, I felt like I was on a proper break. Quite naturally my body took this as a cue to finally release all the pent up tiredness & stress and by day 4, I was back in bed with a high fever, feeling utterly miserable.
Ironically, Dr.Jim had left a comment to my last post reminding me to make my way back home in time for his impending visit. That in itself turned out to be no mean feat. By Sunday the fever had gone down only a little bit, but thanks to some expert Austrian care and the provision of countless hot brews, nutricious meals and lots of skilful TLC, I at least felt a whole lot less miserable. So I packed myself into my wee Polo with lots of meds and audiobooks and whizzed my way back to Belgium via a 1200km trip of sheer delirium.

I feel compelled to add: Hurray for German efficiency. 800kms of no legal speed limit, and toilets every five minutes. It was a true blessing ;-)

I made it home in one piece and headed straight for bed with a high dose of painkillers. By the time Dr.Jim and his Miss Lou arrived, I was feeling and looking a lot worse for wear. To allow them time to recover from the shock of having landed in such an extremely flat weird li'l land, and to give myself an extra night of recuperation, we decided to start off the visit with an early night. But if you think 4 days of meds and an early night would have cured me, you'da thunk wrong. When I woke up on Tuesday morning I had entirely lost my voice. My unfortunate (?) guests thus spent the remaining four days in the presence of an excitedly squeaking/whispering host. I did, however, carry a bright orange referee whistle with me at all times, should there have been a need to draw attention to myself where my voice couldn't ;-)

For a full and perhaps more coherent account of the visit, I suggest you await the next edition of LeScientist, but for now, I would just like to mention Dr.Jim's highly amusing tipsy endeavours to consume as much Tierentyn Mustard as humanly possible in one go, without spontaneously combusting. I think he's established that small inputs yield high returns. As for Miss Lou, I would first like to appologise for the fact that one of my walls attacked her in the middle of her sleep. It shall duly be removed. And second, I'd like to thank her for proving that it is physically possible to touch/pick up/evaluate every item of clothing in a store within the space of an hour. I was well impressed and may pull a copy-cat when the spring-shop-bug finally hits.

We've established that pink is a definite no no, confirmed that the brits have trouble adjusting to belgian pub opening hours and that guiness tastes different in flatland. We decided that concepts matter, agreed that bosses who ignore clever ideas ought to be dumped, discovered that all belgians wear trousers of leg-size 36 (male&female) and have proven that is in fact possible to drink a Kwak without spilling it, if you simply skilfully keep turning it round whilst you drink. A very good haul for a 5-day visit, I think you'd agree ;-)

-Dr.Jim and Miss Lou (click to enlarge)-