the Dalaverse

Yay! I dived today, and I was not squeezed to death by the drysuit! I was really nervous and the rain didn't help, but once I was actually (finally) in the water I got used to the dry suit in about thirty seconds. Don even complimented my ability to adjust my buoyancy in shallow deaths ::beams:: This is really because I am sort of compulsive about stuff when I dive (for example, he had to remove my BCD hose from my hand because I would not stop clutching it out of habit), but it's good when that fades from paranoia into instinct. And my layers were sufficient to keep my from freezing to death (although my rented suit leaked a little, I really wasn't aware of it until I got out and saw that patches of clothing were wet). Must remember to wear a low ponytail next time - I have a sore spot on the back of my head because my mask strap was jamming the ponytail holder into my skull. The visibility was pretty poor and there wasn't much to see in the lake, but we did encounter a largeish eel and some jellyfish. So much better than the uni dive club, for serious.

And then I came back to find one of my neighbors, Aida, cooking a Spanish dinner! She made veggie paella and Spanish omelette for eight of us, and we had a really nice dinnertable conversation about, um, politics. It was a multinational table - the US, the UK, Spain, India, Malysia, South Africa, and Poland. I also talked a lot with Allie, who is doing her PhD about something Roman. And I promised to make Thanksgiving dinner in a few weeks. I'm not going to cook an actual turkey because there is way too much room to fuck that up, but I saw some turkey components in the frozen meat section at Waitrose and that should be sufficient. Then mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce (if I cannot find the proper canned cranberry sauce, I will have to have my parents mail it), green bean casserole (which I won't eat, but am willing to try and make), apple pie - I don't know if I'll be able to find pumpkin, but I'll look. It should be an adventure. We also planned a wine tasting as a pre-Christmas party, which should be fun.

All in all, it was quite a good day. And I needed a good day. I'm going to go to bed truly happy for the first time all week :)

ETA: How come nobody told me they were playing AMERICAN FOOTBALL in Wembley today? DUDE!