I'm home...

Okay, I'm home.

Nikki (very kindly) drove to London and picked me up from my flight, which touched down at 11pm. We didn't get back until 2am. My watch is still on Palmer time, I think it's midnight there...roughly.

I've now been home about 8 hours. I've rung Alaska to let people know I've got home. Oooh, this keyboard feels oddly clunky after using a Mac one for three weeks (I did *choose* this one to feel clunky, but it's also ancient). I've got a list as long as my arm of things I need to do. People to ring, work to do, shopping to do, laundry, people I promised I'd e-mail when I got back, unpacking, clearing (some) of Trey's stuff out of my room.

That was hard. Coming back to the room we shared. Her starfish sat on the tallboy... reminders of us everywhere. No friends, no Alaskan mountains or pusscat to keep me from thinking. It took about 20 minutes for me to get to sleep despite the fact I'd not slept for 31ish hours (ooh, no wonder I feel rough this morning (I've had about 6 hours of sleep)). Just kept cycling through thoughts...

Lauren did something really sweet though, the house is decorated for xmas and has a big WELCOME HOME KATE banner across the lounge. I really feel like just snuggling up in a heap of myself today, but I've got too much to do. Bah. And if I do that it'd be all to easy for me to slide into the depression I've felt since I got on the plane home. That's the problem with coming home. I've got to deal with my life.

I've got a draft post that's been sat here waiting for me to finish it, one of the more personal posts, but I think starting that now would also be a bad idea. I need to settle back into my life a bit. Although I can't hide behind a relationship and whatever, oh, too much to explain here. ANyway, I should shower and eat.

I want the mountains back.

*cough* *cough*

As a welcome home gift my hairdrier (6 years old) attempted to catch fire. I'm not sure if it would have, but I turned it on and the motor which before I left was getting iffy and needing a bit of encouragement limped round a few times, the heater elements glowed red... I clouted it, the normal approach to making it run ('cos it's too cheap to fix, really). They continued to glow red. If anything got redder as the fan continued it's uneven struggle against moving. I switched it off, realising that I'd rather be in control of switching it off than launching a flaming hairdrier out the window. It sat for a second or two and then smoke started to come out. Having cooled down it went in the bin outside.

I've unpacked.



*sigh*

I found strips of paper from 'Things'. Bizzarely they're not all from one round, so I've got *no* idea what they're doing in my suitcase. Fucking weird. Reminds me of Alaska (which helps loads at the moment). My mum's had upsetting news (she wanted to become a buddhist nun, and can't 'cos there's an age-cap in the UK).

Let me share with you some pearls of wisdom
- Getting locked outside your house naked
- Goblins
- One skinny panther, free to good home
- Your dildo
- Wanted: Dominatrix who also washes windows
- Absolute happiness

Yeah. So here I am. I've found my dissertation stuff, cunningly I'd put it in an folder marked 'dissertation'. I'm so sneaky sometimes. I guess I really should eat breakfast and head to the supermarket. Put clothes away. Fashion an e-mail to the people I said I'd e-mail. Not curl up and hide under a rock. Open my post. Blah.

Ugh

The entire house now smells of burning hair(drier); combined with the fresh and lovely scent of 3 week old cocktail sausages/spinnach/cucumber (that was the most revolting thing in the fridge, cuccumber that was so soft I had to get a bag to pick it up with).

I've got breakfast in front of me. Ciccone is playing music to bring me up to a more hopeful mood, breakfast, shopping, make appointments, do stuff. Yay.