I love it when a plan comes together

The Sous Chef and I just got back from a cycling trip in Brittany (but sans cycle computer so we have no idea how many miles we did). The Sous Chef proved worthy of his name, as we cooked some excellent dishes on our new primus optima stove (including spaghetti carbonara, risotto, fried bananas) which is no mean feat with limited ingredient options and only one heat source. We’re planning to take the stove with us on our round the world cycle tour, as it burns on anything (even petrol if necessary).  Since we’re carting all our provisions around on bikes and up every hill it means packing very lightly and being smart when it comes to what foods to carry and when to buy. As it turned out, we cooked out every night except twice.

Although I’m a bit of a polyglot, French is not really in my repertoire. I realised that I can say more useful things in Russian than I can in French and I don’t consider myself a competent Russian-speaker by any means (about the level of the average person’s French or Spanish, I’d say). Still, we managed somehow and people never snubbed our pathetic attempts at pronunciation and were always extremely nice to us.

My linguistic skills did come in handy on our second restaurant meal on the last evening in St Malo, though. We found a Restaurant Javanaise. Within a minute I noticed that the staff all spoke Indonesian so rather than struggle with French we communicated in Indonesian. Easy! The food was excellent (if you go there, have the Rendang Padang Asli, it certainly tasted ‘asli’ (authentic) to me which is more than I can say for any other Rendang I’ve had since leaving Indonesia). It was great to be able to communicate freely for a change.

I got my essay back that was driving me crazy for its vague question and my inability to tie it all together into a coherent piece of writing. I expected a not so terrific mark (maybe 60%) but was amazed at the 78% I got. I’ve reread it and still don’t think it deserves that much, but then I’ve had essays I think are better than their received mark too so I guess it evens out somehow.

I’ ve also now got the materials for my next course which runs concurrently with this one for a while (so I’ll be revising for an exam AND doing an assignment for the other due on the same day as my exam. Eeeep!!) but once that course is done, I’ll have finished my degree.

And here’s the perfect timing. My final piece of work to submit for my degree will be sent on 24th November. After that, no more uni work to do. I’ll be free. Meanwhile, the Sous Chef is to be made redundant and we’ve been waiting for the official notification of timescales for when he’d be actually unemployed. There’ve been some changes and it seems he’ll be free as of December. This means I finish sooner than expected (I thought it’d be January) and he gets paid for longer than expected (we though it’d be October) and we both achieve the freedom we need to travel at about the same time. Whoop!!!

All we have to do now is figure out how to rent the house out, where to keep up our stuff, buy the equipment we need, plan our route around the world (hmm South America or New Zealand start…) plan the visas and organise the finances. Easy  (and all while revising. Oh God)

burglars

Has anyone here been burgled? What’s worse tha being burgled? Confronting a burglar has to be, I reckon. Better to be out of the way when it was happening.

Last night, The Sous Chef went out for a drink with his pal and since I had an essay to write (it’s making me miserable. Really) I stayed at home to carry on procrastinating.

At about 11pm I heard a noise downstairs. I left my youtube video tutorial on making buttercream roses (these things are vital to research in depth when an essay is due) and shut down the computer and went toward the bedroom (which has a view of the stairs. Anyone coming up them would have to turn around to see you).

I figured it must The Sous Chef back from the pub downstairs so started to get ready for bed (I was half-planning to put pin curls in for the night, started to brush my hair, getting the pins ready).

“He’s taking a long time” I thought. I stood in the doorway looked along the landing and even though I was sure I’d left the hallway light on (there is a switch upstairs and a dimmer switch downstairs) for the Sous Chef, it was now off. Strange. I hit the switch again and nothing happened. Someone must have put the dimmer down to zero downstairs. I could hear movement down there. At first I thought it must be the The Sous Chef, but why was he staying down there so long? I wondered whether I was mistaken about the light and Iwas actually hearing noises from next door.

I strained to listen but the sounds of someone moving about where definitely in the house and I really was sure about the light.  It was ages and The Sous Chef would have come upstairs by now or seen the light on and said something. He usually gets in and comes straight upstairs or might have a glass of water from the tap but there was just movement downstairs and no attempt at water or stair climbing.

My heart in my mouth I looked around the room for a suitable weapon in case whoever was downstairs would come upstairs. Nothing. I wondered whether to stay absolutely quiet so as not to disturb the burglar or to make noise hoping the burglar would prefer to get away with loot than have a confrontation. I know that generally burglars would rather get out then get violent. I was hoping this was true this time. I wondered whether I could climb out of the window if I had to.

From the doorway I stood silent and had a good view of the stairs. I assumed any burglar would not venture upstairs and from the bedroom doorway I could see the stairs and potentially the back of the head of anyone coming up them, except the light was off,with just a bit streaming across the landing from the bedroom.

Then, my knees trembled as I was sure I could see a pale shape coming up the stairs and the back of someone’s head. After a few seconds I recognised The Sous Chef’s shirt and then his head turned round, he saw me and laughed.

I wasn’t laughing. I was so relieved I burst into tears. He’d really frightened me. He was (drunkenly) doing his ’stealthy ninja moves’ up the stairs. I have no idea why he thought that was a good idea. The bedroom lights had been on and curtains wide open when he got home so he should have known I was up.  If he thought I was asleep there was no need to turn the dimmer switch to zero downstairs and why was he taking so damn long to start climbing the stairs?  I had thought it was him at first but when the movement stayed confined to downstairs for so long I figured it couldn’t be him. He was very apologetic and expressed a heartfelt relief that this is not America and we don’t have guns in the house (not that I’d buy one if we could).

With hindsight I should have hidden under the bed. A burglar wouldn’t look there for any valuables and if it turned out to be the Sous Chef I could have frightened him back. Next time, next time…