As you may know I am studying Chinese and Hindi, and at some point I also want to branch out into Urdu as it is similar to the latter. Chinese is surprisingly more easy than Hindi as Hindi involves lots of complicated grammar. But then I could also say, in opposition to my own opinion, that Hindi is easier as there is an alphabet of a few dozen letters versus Chinese’s several thousand characters.

I was studying Chinese today and re-learning characters that I’d forgotten during a long sojourn. Notice my usage of “sojourn”, a neglected word - it’s relevant. It’s relevant because I’ve also been reading today and, as is often the case, had to pull out my ever-growing list of English words I’ve never come across before because you’ve guessed it, I’d found another English word I’ve never come across before.

This list is flipping long! I feel like I must’ve missed numerous classes at school for all the space in my notebook words are taking up. Due to my currently devouring books quite a few have popped up more than once so I’ve learned their meanings now, but the vast majority are just… there… staring back at me in all their daunting and literally incomprehensible glory. I look at this list and think, “me, an English speaker?” Clearly I’ve to go back to the drawing board and put Urdu on the back burner; I must learn English first.

I present to you some of my woes, for your literary pleasure (or is that in order for me to share the pain - I’m hoping; no doubt you’ll all say “been there, done that”). Because of course you really needed this on a Tuesday.

Acerbic, bellicosity, contumacious, eclat, ebullient, modicum, parsimonious, roiling, recalcitrant, schism, simulacrum, uxorious, unguent.

Give me supercalifragilisticexpialidocious any day.

Our dog, bless her little cotton socks (my sister bought them for her birthday), is one of a kind, and I’m not referring to genetics. Our dog thinks she’s a cat. She’s a dog, but if you were to hear solely of her actions and not her race I’d bet you’d not guess correctly until you’d gone through rabbits and water dragons as plausible options first.

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My hands are often dry, especially as it’s cold. I like to keep them clean but not enough for an OCD to develop so my conclusion is that it comes from my mum whose hands used to be so bad that out of all the memories I could have as a child, this is the one that remains. So every now and then, because I forget and because I know it takes a while to soak in, I’ll use hand cream.

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What is it about spicy food that makes us crave it?

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Does one ever have a need to introduce Austen? I would say not. But I will say that for once I am damned proud to be English.

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On the Wednesday before Valentine’s (10th February) the boyfriend suggested we go away for the weekend - but we had left it too late and everywhere was full in the place we’d chosen. We both started freaking out, my particular way of freaking out was to mentally list every place I’d been that I’d liked even if getting there would be more difficult. I had misjudged the boyfriend’s words and thought that’s what he wanted. Three hours later, after he’d moaned at me for being too impulsive in my choices, I realised I’d got it wrong. That didn’t help the situation however and by Saturday morning we still hadn’t found anywhere, indeed it was now far too late to travel. We ended up staying in a hotel nearer home.

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I can’t say it’s snowing here like it is for you guys in the US as we’ve had some sun and the days are getting longer (minimally, but still, it’s happening) but it is freezing! I went out to do some last minute shopping - in other words it’s Valentine’s and finding the perfect card is difficult - and it was chilly. Not too cold, but chilly. As I neared home however it suddenly changed and I closed the door on a ten minutes that had left my face almost cracking from the icy winds. So cold it was that even now, an hour later, I’ve still got a bit of a headache, a tingling in my cheeks and my leg feels as though it’s got an ice pack strapped to it.

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