I, the metereopatica

London came and went. I had a brilliant time - thank you to all of you who did fun stuff with me, cried and laughed with me, and a special thank you to those of you who offered me a place to sleep! Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me so I can't show you any photos, but I can tell you the city has changed so much even in just the 12 months since my last visit. Everything is being spruced up for the Olympics, I nearly didn't even recognize my old hood in East London.

I did a ton of stuff; Sunday morning started with a Classical Coffee Morning concert at Royal Albert hall. It's basically a cup of tea/coffee, a pastry and some live music. My friend introduced me to this thing about a year ago (thank you!) when I last went to London and I'm glad it's still going on because it's a really nice way to start a Sunday.  After that we had a little stroll around the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is currently hosting an exhibition on Postmodernism. The grand finale of my week was an out-of-control shopping spree that lasted a good two days - I literally went to a bar (or several of them) with all my shopping bags, miraculously not losing anything, and continued shopping the next day as soon as I managed to get myself moving again.

The school observation at the East Barnet School was really interesting and I enjoyed my week probably more than I expected. There are some interesting differences in the school systems as far as I can see, but I think that is something I will not get into in this post. Maybe I'll write a whole post dedicated to it at some point.

Autumn has definitely arrived in Italy now. For the past couple of days it has been raining a lot and I have learned a new word metereopatica meaning a person whose mood is heavily affected by the weather. I have self-diagnosed myself as such a person. These rainy days leave me feeling blue, full of regrets and feeling - even more than normally - like I've lost a huge part of myself. I don't how to overcome this sadness and to be quite honest maybe I'm not yet ready to do so either. However, it's not all doom and gloom and tears; there are days and moments when things seem a little lighter and easier than even a month ago.

On Sunday I visited the local IKEA and went a little crazy with all the wonderful Christmas things they already had on display. It's high time too! Those of you who have worked with me before I moved to Italy, know that I would gladly start listening to Christmas carols and decorate everything already in October. That said, it is hardly a surprise that I ended up buying gingerbread smelling tea lights, a Christmas-red rug, glögi and some gingerbread to bring home. Now I can organise a pikkujoulu (a very Finnish pre-Christmas party) for me and my flatmates! I love coming home from work in the evening and opening my door. I put some tea lights on top of the radiators so that as I open the door and step on my christmassy rug, I can already smell gingerbread even before lighting the candles.

I'm wishing you all warm woolen socks and hot cups of tea for these autumn evenings.

Image: pixtawan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image: think4photop / FreeDigitalPhotos.net