In which the hamster escapes the tyranny of language policy and mulitlingual nation states by going to Brussels

I went back into Oxford on Thursday (for some reason I said in my last post I went to Brussels the next day - it wasn't true) to get my boots reheeled and then had to hang around and wait for them, which was a fantastic piece of work-avoidance. I ended up traipsing round the cooking sections in both Boswells and Debenhams and fantasising about, at some point in the future, having a large, well-equipped kitchen where I could make soup and jam and all those other things. Sigh. I bought a hand blender for a tenner and made stilton soup, as Nik's mum had kindly given me approximately 200g of strong stilton on the verge of going mouldy that went out of date about two days afterwards. There was an exciting Mozart concert on Radio 3 and I sat and listened to it and pondered at what point I had turned into the kind of person who rated buying a kitchen gadget as the high point of their day. Then I listened to Choral Evensong and packed and then got up early on Friday and went to Brussels.

Firstly, the Eurostar is fantastic. Even including the Oxford Tube journey, getting the tube to Waterloo and checking in and waiting for the Eurostar, I still got from Oxford to Brussels in the same time as it takes to get from Oxford to Newcastle. Madness! Even more madly, I got in before Livvy and waited around, reading, in the station (my bag being too heavy to permit much window-shopping) and then met her off the train. Heehee. We went back to her house and drank a pint of tea in the new mugs I'd got her and then went to the supermarket to get olives and pizza and salad and wine and came back and made dinner. Then we drank a pint of coffee and stayed up until 3 a.m. talking, amongst other things, about how annoying it is having a boyfriend who doesn't appreciate Radio 4.

We had made such great plans for Saturday, but, after the exuberant conversational exertions of the night before, overslept rather dramatically, so (with further encouragement from the rain) decided against the lengthy but scenic walk into the centre of Brussels. We fare-dodged on the tram and took a perfunctory look at the Grande Place, then went and had coffee (which came with free chocolate mousse!!) in a pretty shopping arcade with lots of funky small boutiques with beautiful shoes and bags and gloves and suchlike. Livvy then urgently needed my opinion on a pair of boots, so we went to Zara, lost each other in the seething mass of undignified humanity that was trying on jumpers and leaving them in untidy piles so no-one can find a V-neck, proceeded to H&M and forgot to go to the musical instruments museum. We had lunch in an earthy, whole-foody type place, though my eyes proved bigger than my stomach and I ate my tuna and wheat salad on the train the next day, and were torn between excitement that someone had left an English newspaper and disappointment that it was the Daily Mail. We read it anyway and felt dirty and angry afterwards. Hissss. My personal favourite article was: 'Why joining the EU has led to the loss of civil liberties, the decline of British values and a glut of immigrants taking our jobs!' Livvy enjoyed the expose about Lembit Opik and the Cheeky Girl's sex life.

Having abandoned any hope of being cultured and touristy, we carried on looking at shoes until it was time for live jazz at an exciting bar. We sat upstairs and had coffee, and then Livvy had another coffee and I had a cocktail (cos I was tired and needed the sugar rush) until we got too hungry and restless to be assuaged by free peanuts and went to the supermarket and bought chicken for dinner. We ate it with the world's finest chips and, as Nik had requested any present "as long as it's worth millions" and had only agreed to me bringing beer on condition that the bottle was encrusted with diamonds and rubies, I spent the evening sticking nail decorations onto a beer bottle to create said effect on my shoestring budget. (He had also stipulated it was to be brewed with liquid gold, but the only beer claiming to have anything to do with gold had a nasty plastic top, while the one I chose had a funky wooden cork and had already been approved of by Jon and Rob.) Then we watched 'Coupling' on YouTube (which was annoying cos the clips only last 10 mins and we had to keep changing them), cackled extensively, and then, again, talked until far too late about philosophy and politics and history and linguistics and literature and culture, or at least insofar as they relate to sex. Oh, and we tried to decide what we'd take on Desert Island Discs. I entered into the spirit of this rather too enthusiastically, imagining I really was going to be abandoned on a desert island and therefore choosing a wide variety of long things with good tunes so I wouldn't get bored, until I remembered it was really a sort of musical 'This is Your Life' and Livvy suggested I follow the more general tactic of choosing either my favourite things* or things that reminded me of certain points in my life. Ahem. Yes. Of course. We both agreed choosing one book was the hardest part of the whole endeavour. Livvy wanted to take a piano and limitless supply of music. I can't decide if my luxury would be unlimited paper and pens or an espresso machine.

Ooh, ooh, yesterday I bought a stovetop espresso maker with 2 porcelain cups and saucers with a pretty pattern on them for an extremely bargainous price in the Boswells sale AND made successful espresso (minor spillage incident, probably design flaw, kitchen otherwise unscathed). On the strength of this, the cafetiere and the new teapot, I am going for the title of Aldate's hot beverage queen HT07. Must now resist utterly pointless urge to buy more mugs and a mug tree in complete denial of proximity to overdraft even before paying battels.

On Sunday, we again overslept, though less dramatically, and went for a brief wander through the market (fresh vegetables! cheese!) and had a brief but chocolatey pain au chocolat to curb my hunger cravings. I wish I weren't grouchy and prone to dizziness until I've had breakfast. It seems very indelicate. Then I got the train home, and again it was fast, clean, cheap, efficient, environmentally friendly and pleasant. I was sitting next to someone from SOAS, but I decided against plunging into conversation with him as 'Ooh, I nearly went there for my degree but decided I'd rather do linguistics than Chinese and went to Oxford instead, and then I nearly went there again for postgrad, but then I decided I wanted to do literature, and then I thought this would be damaging to my writing, so I've decided not to do postgrad, at least not yet, but I have no interest or aptitude for anything else, so... - what do you think I should do with my life?' was not an opening gambit conducive to other people's high estimation of my sanity.

I got home and felt tired so I went to sleep in the afternoon, woke up grouchy and was too bored to cook and sent Nik out in the rain to get a kebab with our meagre cash. Classy. I was speaking to my mother while he was out and told her he'd gone to get a take-away. She asked me what we were having. "Err... I don't know - it's a surprise!" I said. Then we watched excessive amounts of 'Coupling' and yesterday I finished a book and started another and we went for dinner with Rami and people in the evening. Yay.

Gaah, I have a seminar in two days and I've read one book and 50 pages of another out of the whole reading list. Where did the vac go??? Why am I in bed, writing this, instead of working??? I keep telling myself I need a break, in a calm-before-the-storm sort of way, heedless of the fact that the storm would be calmer if the calm was a bit stormier. Balance. Moderation. Being sensible. New Year's Resolution anyone? My tutor sent me an email asking if I could come to a meeting on Thursday about teaching arrangements. I replied, saying I would be in said seminar. I received this:

Do you mean that teaching is already beginning this coming Thursday, in Oth Week, before term has begun??

I was tempted to reply simply by saying 'Yes'. I haven't yet come up with a more elaborate response, so it's still sitting in my drafts folder.

Anyway, I'm hungry. I will go and have some soup and read like a wee beastie, as Catherine would have said in first year, until Nik gets home. Which will be in about two hours. Hmm.


*"These are a few of..."