Everything's felt a lot better since yesterday afternoon, when Patrick came home early from work to be with me. We went on a massive Nika walk, watched a bunch o' Buffy, and I generally started to feel more and more normal. Today we went into town to get the last lot of pre-travel errands done (and buy me a new cheapo wallet), and I found myself getting super tense as we walked past our normal Starbucks...but hey, thank God for evil international chains, huh? We did our writing in a different Starbucks, three blocks away, and I felt just fine. :)

We also saw possibly the coolest parade ever, going down the Headrow (Leeds' Main Street): a Sikh religious parade, with amazing live music. A whole band of drummers marched in front, while a singer and his back-up musicians sat in a big rolling float, miked, and an enormous crowd paraded after them, shaking various kinds of percussive sticks. It was loud and beautiful and fun, and it reminded me again of how diverse Leeds is (which I sometimes forget, now that we live in our little rural neighborhood....).

We've also continued to play madly with the digital camera (of course), and I've finally posted some photos of Leeds on my homepage. Patrick's put up some photos of me and Nika on his journal. And just for fun, I thought I'd stick two different Leeds photos here:

Patrick writing


and Patrick and Nika in front of the waterfall that inspired Queen of Thorns: