South West weekend

Mr A and I have had a short holiday, which has refreshed and invigorated us. We went to Devon to visit friends, and then Bristol, which is a city I know of old and where I would be happy to live if I had to. I think I would also be happy in Edinburgh or Cambridge, but Bristol is likely to be generally warmer than either of these two other options.

Before we left, back on Thursday, I received notification that I'd be doing my third clinical placement in a northern location much too far for commuting. This will be for 12 weeks from February to May 2011, so I'll be trying to arrange accommodation for weekdays and most probably coming home at weekends. I've already had a look at the options for weekday badminton up there.

On Friday morning I went to the drop-in session of the local Society for the Blind where I recruited my research volunteers, took a cake to share, and stayed for a while to chat. Then Mr A and I set off for the South-West, and reached our friends in Devon in time for dinner.

We had a lovely evening, and next morning was fun for me too, as I was awake first. I thought I'd just sit in the lounge with a book, but was joined by their two lovely daughters, and we had a sing-along to the DVD of Annie. Thirty-six hours later I have very nearly stopped humming 'Tomorrow, tomorrow, we love ya, tomorrow' which has to be one of the stickiest tunes in the world.

We went to Bristol because as I mentioned before, The Boy has moved there. He wasn't answering his phone at the beginning of the day, though, so we wandered about the town looking in the art gallery, museum, and trying to find our way to the SS Great Britain.

He joined us for coffee later on, and I now understand a bit more about his music, which is a blend of Dubstep, Jungle, Drum 'n Bass and Glitch Hop plus a few other styles I can't remember. So now you know. We stayed in an area called Cotham, which is very nice, and has about thirty restaurants of all sorts next to one another in one or two nearby streets. We chose an informal Thai noodle place where Mr A chose one of the best seafood soups I've ever tasted.

Over the past few days I have also been wildly, unfeasibly, unreasonably excited about our snowboarding holiday in January, in between exams and vivas and the start of my placement. We have a few location options which we are debating between ourselves and a couple of friends whom we hope will come too, and we are gearing up to book some lessons before we go. I am already much too excited about this.