I've block booked 14 meeting rooms. She'll never find us.

It has been a really disjointed week for me. Nic is in America at a conference, and I have been at home, in rainy Northern Ireland. Extremely, extraordinarily rainy. The little weather gadget on my BBC NI homepage always seems to show it raining, it has become a running joke between Nic and I, and that is what it was like. I loved it, though. I spent my time at home just passing the time in the house with my family, playing with the dog, reading and learning a few new crochet stitches. It was indolent, and surprisingly tiring, and just what I needed.

I enjoy my own company and I look forward to having time to myself to read, or daydream, or knit or crochet or whatever, but I don't think I am much good at being on my own for long periods of time. It might be because I grew up in a big family so I've never really spent great amounts of time alone, I don't know. I spent a fair amount of my time at home on my own, and that was good, but it was so comforting to know that my mum was somewhere in the house, or that the dog was asleep on my feet. I miss Nic a great deal, and, having time to think, I have been wondering this evening if I am too dependent on his company and his love, and too dependent generally on having people around me. I'm sure that if I was faced with long periods alone I would be fine, and I would find interesting ways to spend that time, I'm just not all that good at it right now.

All of this has been greatly exacerbated by the fact that I have spent today reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Yes, I know, it is about 5 years after everyone else, but I resisted reading it for such a long time (the snob in me. I don't read books that are consistently recommended to me by people I don't like. But then two people who I love and respect recommended it to me, and I cracked.) Now, it wasn't the ideal book for me to read today because a) saying goodbye to my parents at the airport is always very hard and b)I miss Nic. I couldn't put it down, read the entire book in about 4 hours, and it destroyed me. I cried reading it, I cried when I was telling Nic about reading it. I'm pretty lame, but it really hit a nerve. I'd like to read it again when I'm not feeling so sensitive to thinking about love, loss, loneliness and longing. In the novel, Clare spends so much of her time waiting for Henry, and longing for him. One of her friends tells her that she has to move on and stop waiting, but it's what her life is about. And I often feel like I'm always waiting for something, wishing my life away - I suppose it just feels more pronounced now. I'm waiting for Nic to come home, I'm waiting for it to be christmas so I can go home again, I'm waiting for my new job to start. I'm not dissatisfied with the present, and I love my life, so I don't know why I feel so impatient. Well, I know I'm feeling impatient because I want Nic to come home so I can give him a big cuddle. And I think that I'll have to find something a bit more cheerful to read on the train tomorrow!

And on that cheerful thought, here is a picture of my clever, cafe-owning sister with her Hallowe'en cakes: