Cold wind's a blowin'

It's been so, so cold. The weather's turned - from the mediocre, nothing to write home about, to icy winds, frost and snow. Not what we usually get in October - it's meant to be raining. I think it rained itself out during the summer, now it's decided winter should come early. It's not so bad, it's better than the rain, except occasionally the cold sun is punctuated with heavy, icy, showers - and by heavy showers we're talking inches and inches of rain, which flood unsuspecting towns.

We're very excited about the upcoming American election. I'm planning a marathon night, watching it all, until Obama is crowned by the will of the people. I stayed up on the night of the Bush vs Gore election, and cried when it seemed Bush has gotten in (of course it eventually took days for the final confirmation, but I fell asleep when it seemed he'd won). I wish, 8 years later, I could say I was wrong to cry - a silly 17 year old, but as we all know there's more the cry about now, more than anything I was imagining then. Of course we're impotent here, and it's terrifying to think it might all be snatched away, but I think history's going to be made, in the right way.

I'm still below my massive pile of books, but my MA is good, I'm still loving it - even more than I thought I would. Raine's job's going ok, and we're able to plan trips, and generally have a life! We're off to London in December, and I have an idea in the back of my head, about making it to Texas for a week over the first 5 days of the Kerrville Festival, but we'll see. Belfast in February, for the Belfast Nashville Festival, is something I've promised my dad - he's taken us for the last two years, so this is going to be our treat for him.

I've found a wonderful local produce supermarket, it's just opened in a re-designed local garden centre. Tonight I'm making a casserole, with their stuff - it's ages since I've made a casserole, because I just couldn't find decent meat. I've make red wine sauce from scratch for the first time, I'm hoping it'll be a hell of a lot nice than the ready made stuff, and it uses some of the mountain of wine we were given at the wedding! After tea I'm taking Raine up to University, there's a 'Cider Festival' at Grad Bar, and she has long suffered through my Real Ale Festivals (she doesn't like Real Ale, but loves cider, especially strange cider - she recently found Toffee Apple Cider).

Honeymoons, jobs and studies

I'm shamefully bad at posting, aren't I!? Well, we're now hitched, and struggle to think of how to introduce each other - 'wife' gets strange looks, 'partner' is just a bit icky, and 'girlfriend' doesn't indicate that we're now each other's ball and chain;-) The wedding ceremony was really lovely - the guy who conducted it was really cool - all laid back and funny. The reception was wonderful - exactly what we wanted (except it had to be moved in doors because the weather had been so bad the ground was water logged, so it was BBQ food, rather than BBQ'd food!), but the food was excellent, and we had just the right mix of people.

The honeymoon was brilliant, we were really glad we went to Newquay - it's always good to go back there, and it's such a big part of our history together. We really picked up the surfing bug, Raine was great - she managed to stand up and everything. We're going to go back a couple of times next year, try and get surfing mastered. We had some great meals out, at all our favourite places. We visited St. Ives, Truro and The Eden Project. Our hotel was brilliant, we were on the top floor of Abreakaway's Space Pod complex - we got our own fridge and microwave in the room, which came in really handy. I was the only driver throughout the holiday, because we hired a car, and the driver had to be over 25; I became famous for my 'granny' driving, because I didn't want to loose the £100 excess. Then, midway through the week we came out to the hotel car park, and in the night someone had stolen our wing mirror - it'd been clean broken off! One theory is that I became so insane with the ultra safe driving I sleep walked out and broke it off myself.

When we got back from the honeymoon we were involved in a serious car crash. In the process of saving my life poor little Austin was totally written off:-( Miraculously Raine walked away with just one cut - where her belt had dug into her. As the passenger (the other car hit the passenger side) I took the bulk of the impact, I used up some major luck, by walking away with just a broken nose, some cuts and some major brusing. Four weeks later I'm still sore, but I feel so lucky. We now have a VW Polo, it's red, of course - all my cars are red (not because I'll only buy red cars, but because the right car, at the right time, is always red)...he's a reliable, sturdy chap, who we've named Claus, he speaks only German. We're about to embark on building a model Austin Mini, in which Austin's soul will live in.

My MA course started last week. It's brilliant - I'm really enjoying the courses, and talks, it's great being part of the department as a Postgraduate - it's a great environment. The course is majorly intense, I have work and reading coming out of my ear's, but it's all good.

Raine also started her new job last week. It's a standard office job, but it's going well, and it's nice to know where the next meal's coming from, and how we're going to pay the bills! We have evenings and weekends together, and much of them have been spent playing on our new Wii - i.e. dancing round the bedroom like mad persons, 'playing' sports, or raiding tombs. We're saving up for a Wii Fit, so we might expand our potential for bedroom prancing.

Tomorrow is the end of an era - The Tache, the rock club in Blackpool that Raine and I both went to when we were younger (before we met each other, but at the same time) is closing down. It's the oldest club in Blackpool, it was there when our parents went out (though my parents were too hip, and mainstream, to ever darken its door!). It's being forced to close because of redevelopment in the area, and to be fair it is an eyesaw (inside and out). There are so many rumours about the exact closing date, if it's not tomororw it's very soon, so for us it'll be our final night there - we're off to take pictures, and say goodbye. I doubt we'll go to the new incarnation, it's one of those places you go to as a disaffected kid (and if you don't grow out of it, as some people we know haven't, there's something wrong with you!), but we want to say goodbye.

Next Monday we'll also be saying goodbye to my uncle Bert, who passed away on Sunday. He was a wonderful man, with the most amazing stories - he waterproofed tanks for the Dunkirk landing, and then rode a motorbike across the beach at Dunkirk, with enemies firing at him. At the end of the war he rode through Germany, and into Concentration Camps as they were being opened. He wrote a book on his experiences: From 'Lorry Wheels to Tank Tracks', and he would never forgive me if I didn't say that you should contact me if you'd like a copy - at £3.