...beside the seaside, beside the sea.

Preamble: This was actually written yesterday afternoon.

This is nice.

Today is nominally the SeeByte outing, to the watersports centre at Elie, east of Fife. Most of the crew are wetsuited up and out on the water in one way or another, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to have a bit of a wander around. The sight of a light house on a small peninsula drew me in and so here I am: sitting in the shade* of what from a distance appeared to be a derelict lookout and taking a bit of time to record my thoughts. These cheifly revolve around:

The sounds of the sea really is very calming. On another day I might have jumped at the chance to have another go at windsurfing (the last time I tried it did not end well) or get hurled into the sea at high speed from the back of a banana boat. Today I am content to wander around, look and listen. Of course it helps that this might be the most gorgeous day we've had all year. It's also very nice to be surrounded by space and alone with my thoughts for a while. Living in the city I often forget how enjoyable this can be.

I'm thinking more and more that I might find myself in America somewhere down the line.

Random aside: two extremely posh ladies of a certain age just entered the lookout. Listening to their conversation is quite enjoyable. Apparently this is a castle, not a lookout. Silly me. I should also point out that on closer inspection it turned out to be not that derelict at all, really.

Back on point: It seems I'm not geared to the dating culture here. I keep asking girls if they'd like to get a cup of coffee. Apparently this is the American way and not the British. The British way amounts more to asking “Would you like to get completely wasted, shag, get together out of shear politeness and embarrassment, and then hope for the best?” and I hate this. Really not my style. I'd prefer to start with the coffee and conversation. Perhaps I'll go to California, or Phoenix, Arizona and some other such place. 

I want my PhD done and out of the way (I have been saying this for some time now). It's crippled my chat, because I always feel that I should be thinking about it and nothing else, and especially not that my grant has stopped I'm starting to tangibly feel the stress.

But hey, the sea is so damn pretty today. I think perhaps I'll walk around the bay to the other side.

*Nope, the screen on the AA1 does not cope well with sunlight.

Epilogue: I went on the speedboat for a while.