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In the varied intricacies that are my daily live, something extraordinary happened today.

As I arrived in Camden Town this morning, as I normally do on Saturdays, I noticed a small commotion in the direct vicinity of our front gate market stall. Further investigation brought to light that a rat (rattus rattus) was sitting in the middle of the walk way, apparently refusing to participate in the activities rats normally do when near representatives of the local human tribe (homo sapiens sapiens a la Camden Townus), that behaviour either being to run, to hide, or any combination thereof.

It just sat there, looking around in what seemed to me as being a rather odd fashion for a rat to be looking around. Then the really strange part came, where the rat suddenly sat still, and slowly fell over onto its side. It then carried on simply lying there and died.

Wild speculation commenced instantaneously as to what might have caused the peculiar morbid demise of the little rat.

The most favoured options where:

1. The rat had obviously overdosed on magic mushrooms it ate while investing the mushroom shop at the bottom of the market, and had chosen this spectacular spot to die to draw attention to the continued discrimination of its species and to demand that rats be included in the Geneva Convention.

2. The rat’s natural time of departure had come and it could not possibly know that the spot it had chosen to die prevented it from being reincarnated as anything other than a cockroach in an especially nasty basement within the confines of Hampstead Heath.

3. The rat had suffered from a cardiac arrest resulting from a lifelong deprivation of fresh food; hence having to feast on the gunk they call food in Camden Town.

I am currently looking at a bright blue sky interluded with some greyish clouds, and sunshine on the panorama outside my window.

A couple of minutes ago it was snowing and arctic winds blowing like hell freezing over.

before that it was raining. Not a lot though, just enough to prevent the subsequent snow from settling, transforming the ground into one wet mush, that I am glad not to have to step out into today.

I guess it would not be Britain, if the weather was slightly more rational.

Sometimes it is just not supposed to happen.

You will remember that I told you I would be back in nothing flat, but here I am now, and I don’t even know how much times passed since my last post.

This is the story:

I moved house. My family and me now live in Gravesend again. It is another 5 stops down the Kent train line, making my trip into London now into an hour-and-a-half journey. When we first moved to Gravesend, we rented a small house nearly in the town centre. The one we moved to now is on the outskirts though, requiring me to either walk for 20 minutes, hitch a hike from my dad, or hire a cab to get to the station. Cabs cost money, which I don’t have, and my father is not always at hand to drive me to the station (more about that later). So I will have to walk most days. I guess that it will do some good for my health.

Speaking of which, I am just recovering from the flu which made me suffer these last days. A blocked nose, a heavy head and eyes that seem to have the desire to pop out of my skull, a bit of fever and a near constant ache all over my body can be a real bitch to have at any one time. Adding to that, my room is not connected to the central heating. I was looking at this as a good thing, considering that I am always feeling warm anyway, but then again, Britain seems to have shifted in both latitude and longitude, bringing Siberian cold weather to these solemn lands. My room might as well be used as a giant fridge. I can see my breathing form condensation clouds as I am typing this. I just hope that it will not turn into a sauna during summer.

Well, as you can clearly see, I have also finally managed to connect to the internet again. Finally. I have really missed all of you, I hope that you also somewhere missed me. By the way, Hugh, it was not the modem as it turned out but a broken data cable, thanks for your help though.

Today I received a letter from my Uni, informing me that my timetable has changed dramatically. I am now due in lectures and seminars on Mondays and Thursdays only. Not a lot, giving me plenty of spare time. However, Mondays and Thursdays have become equally gruesome. Mondays I am in class from 10:00 to 19:30 with two small breaks and Thursday I attend Uni from 11:30 to 17:30 non-stop. I guess I will have to freshen up those sandwich making skills, as there is not even a lunchbreak.

Hm, all in all, I guess, it could be worse. As tomorrow is “one of my days off” I will have a very long lay-in. I will think about you lot, as you struggle to out of bed to go to work or class. I won’t laugh, I promise.

The house still resembles a warehouse with boxes stacked everywhere, so I will invest some of my time into getting some sort of order into my microcosm.

One other rather odd thing happened last week, too. My dad’s car has been making screeching noises for a while now, everytime one starts the engine. Last week he finally got round to bring it to a garage which fixed this. The ventilation fan was in need for some oiling. My father, always caring very much for his car, also told the guys to change the oil and filters. He then went to work. A little later they called him, telling him that it would also be advisable to change the sparkplugs. He sayed, yeah, why not. Since then the engine has not been saying more than a stutter. The plugs are fine, the engine is fine, the car in general is very fine, but all together it simply refuses to work. The garage is without a clue as to what happened, the AA (UK automobile club) has no idea, and I am for the foreseeable future without a ride.

Well, I guess there are plenty of people who would gladly agree to swap their problems with mine, so I will just smillingly refuse and try to have some sweet dreams now.

This will be all for tonight. Sleep well everybody.

Hi guys and girls,

as I might have mentioned before, I am in the process of moving to a new house, and as such any day now the telephone lines will be cut, effectively preventing me to post here for a short time until the lines are connected in the new house.

So please do not be alarmed if there are no news here for a little while. I should be back in less than a flash.

As always happened when I received a new service card from Natwest, about a week later I received a cashcard to replace it.

So who am I to doubt that they would also this time send me a cashcard to replace my service card, even though the account does no longer exist!