It's been raining nonstop in Leeds, but it's been a really lovely weekend anyway. We spent a lot of time just hanging out downtown, which was really fun, and taking Nika for big hikes in the rain, which were wet but good. I also wrote the first six pages of Chapter Twenty-Three of Masks and Shadows, spurred on by a serendipitous piece of historical information sent to me by one of my brothers. I love it when history dovetails so neatly and unexpectedly with my fictional imaginings!

We're also getting ready for lots of traveling. We're off to Bristol for a long Easter weekend, starting Thursday, and then I'm leaving for Vienna two weeks from tomorrow. Woohoo! And--oh my God how did I manage to forget so much German in the past year and a half?! Ulp. With luck, I'll follow past patterns and remember it all again within a day or two of arriving in Vienna. (The scent of the coffee, the taste of the strudel...the panicky feeling of being an alien and needing to somehow figure out how to communicate with everyone around me...it usually all works out somehow.)

I also just found out that I'm getting a digital camera as an early birthday present--yippee! So I may end up putting up some photos of Vienna and (if I'm really lucky) Eszterhaza on this page or my homepage after I get back, if anybody's actually interested....

The rain seems to be taking a break, and the pasta cooking in the kitchen smells heavenly. Time to off-line and enjoy our Sunday evening, I think.

Happy week, everybody...