Winter sunrise

The rain's beating really heavily at the windows, so heavily that it sounds like hail (I suppose it could be), and the wind is really gusting. Since I didn't have to go anywhere today, and probably won't have to go anywhere tomorrow, I'm quite enjoying it- it makes me feel cosy being inside, and it sounds interesting and dramatic.

A couple of days ago I woke up at 8:30*, and opened my eyes to a bright orange glow. It took a few seconds before I was out of sleep enough to realise that it was the sun, rising behind the trees I can see from my window. It was beautiful, and provided the incentive to stay awake for a whole 30 seconds or so before going back to sleep. It somehow just epitomised this time of year (it would have been even better on the morning of the 21st, as it's kind of what the winter solstice is all about), and I wanted to see it again, so I set my alarm for 8.25 this morning (since the sun is gradually rising earlier again now, and I didn't want to miss it). But I don't know whether it was the weather, or if I was too early or too late, but though it was light I didn't see the sun at all. So I went back to sleep again. And didn't manage to wake up till quarter to one, when Mum called.

Work is going, though I wouldn't say it was going exceptionally well**. I'm just taking a break to write this, but I hope to have the political composition of all the councils entered before I go to bed tonight. Which just leaves three more variables (which hopefully shouldn't take so long) before I can actually get started on the statistics. If I can get to that point by the end of tomorrow, I'll only be 1 day behind schedule, I think- the original plan was to have all the information entered before Christmas, and I was going to visit Ginger between Christmas and New Year, and with that and the visit to my grandparents, only get started on the project again after New Year. But then I found out the visit to Ginger didn't have to be before New Year, and in fact it will now have to be after. Which transfers some of the work on the project from after New Year to before. However, my mental calendar was a bit hazy about how many days December had, so when I stopped to think about it and realised that it has 31, that was one day of work before New Year even under the original schedule, and an extra day under the new one. And then I thought that even if Ginger offers to have me for 2 nights (which is what's happened when I've gone to stay with her before), I'll say I can only do one (much as I'd like to do two) because of the project. So that's one extra day. Thus, allowing for visiting the grandparents on the 27th, that gives the 28th and 29th, ie today and yesterday, to get to the point I should have reached before Christmas. And so if I get there tomorrow I'll be just one day behind. Since I was quite generous in the original plan with the amount of time set aside to write the thing up, and since the plan is to get it done by the 8th when in fact the deadline is the 15th (though the week between the 8th and the 15th is the first week of term so I probably won't have that much time after the 8th), I'm hoping that I'm in fact not too far off track.

I can't wait to get all this data in- the next bit may be quite scary in terms of figuring out what to do, but there's no doubt it's the most interesting part.

*I didn't stay up, of course

**Too many interesting books for Christmas