Fun and Frolics and Fun and Frolics and Fabness and Frivolity and Fun

So, this coming weekend will see my last Mancunian trip of 2006. Not my last trip to England, you understand, as Chelmsford beckons -- and I hope Deefor and the Guinea Fowl are looking forward to meeting me - but my last to my second city.

Gosh, bizarre to write that. Still, I spent five years there, so what do you expect?

Anyway, it's going to be a busy trip. Not busy in a bad way, just in a mad way. If I do everything I'd like to do, and that'll be impossible, I'll manage to attend a seminar on Roman battle narratives followed by a meal and a drink; I'll have a hopefully productive supervision, before assisting at mass at the Hidden Gem, Friday being the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, perhaps hanging around for a lunchtime carol service before catching up with Becca for lunch and then doing some shopping.

I suspect I shall have to forego the Chaplaincy Christmas party to catch up with my cousins, and I have no idea what'll happen on Saturday, as that could involve meeting Renate and Birgitta for lunch and a stroll around the Weihnachtsmarkt, possibly attending choral evensong in the Anglican Cathedral, and maybe even going to the University's Choir and Orchestral Society concert there that night. Or I might go to the wind concert at the RNCM. Or else to see Cyrano de Bergerac at the Exchange - that's a must for this trip, the only questions being when I see it, and with whom.

And then Sunday and Monday will depend on how the previous couple of days have gone, and where I stay on Saturday evening, and whether people reply to my e-mails, but there'll be mass again, of course, and perhaps drinks with Seb or chaplaincy people, and work, and I'd assume a departmental lunch, and maybe Cyrano then, or maybe an end-of-term Prison Break finale, though I think a coming exam will bar that. It all depends. It'll be fun, whatever happens - and there's room in there for coffee, for meals, for drinks, for simply strolling around. There are people I particularly want to see, of course, and I can find ways -- there are always ways, especially when you're as flexible and downright resourceful as mé féin -- so the balls are in their courts.

And then home on Tuesday, to place that shoulder firmly against the wheel, while somehow putting my nose to the grindstone. I'm not sure if that's ergonomically possible, but I'll give it a shot. First, though, we have a departmental Christmas dinner that night, organised by the postgrads.

Bizarre to think ten years have gone by since Claire and Alison masterminded that first night in The Front Lounge, Da Pino, Eamon Doran's, Cats, and Fiona's. Hell, bizarre to think that it's ten years since I first met Lucy, Heinrich, Daron, Fiona, Betty, Georgia, Susan, Charlotte, and Llewelyn.

I must see if I can scan in any photos from that night... they're just floating around HQ, after all.