St Paul and Vence

Today we took advantage of the sun and went to Vence. Which wasn't deeply fascinating, so soon after that, we went down to the medieval village of St Paul, which is famous for its art, I gather. Certainly there were lots of art galleries, clothes shops and jewellery shops. Not to mention sculpture dotted around.

We had a fabulous lunch in a restaurant overlooking the valley - it's still warm enough to eat outside here, so we ate on the terrace. (I know, you're so happy for me. I can hear it all the way over here...)

So, photos from Vence first of all:














And some flowers:



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Dissertation results

Today's the day my MA results come out. It's been a very, very long morning. But the results are finally up - I passed! With 80% on my dissertation!!

I am now a Master (Mistress?) of Art. I feel I should get a small cauldron, or something.

Just in case any of you were wondering - I know some of you haven't heard me shut up about it recently...

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Virgin Mary arrives in Nice

It's been like Christmas chez nous this morning. I had not one, but two packages to collect this morning - from two different post offices, of course. And as I was coming back from that, the postman came down our stairs and asked if I knew who Hill was - when I indicated I did, he gave me two more packages!

So, Paul has two mysterious packages sitting next to me on the sofa and the prize for Most Difficult Package in the World to Open goes to the one from my parents (Thank you Mum and Dad! It arrived safely!) - I weep for the bubble wrap trees slaughtered to ensure its safe arrival across the miles of wildest countryside between here and there.

The prize for Tackiest Religious Souvenir ever goes to Fran's present to us. The Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, accompanied by Saint Bernadette, lovingly cast in glittery plaster of paris. Fantastic. It's decorating our telly table, now and for ever more. (Unfortunately, Glitter Mary broke off her plaster of paris grotto base in transit - I'll superglue her back together, it won't detract at all from the effect. Also, we now have Holy Glitter everywhere.) And, almost as excitingly, accompanying the Virgin Mary on her long journey, I also have a copy of the Guardian Weekend magazine, with a promise of more. Thank you Fran!!

Mary and Bernadette, in full glittery glory:



In their new home, next to the telly:



Darkened, to highlight the glitter:

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Sunday roundup

18,017 words and I'm rapidly running out of outline. Hopefully inspiration will strike soon, because otherwise the last 30k words are going to be very, very slow going...

Today we went for a Sunday roast at something pretending to be an English pub just back from Monaco. Venue left something to be desired, but the food was good - I was too full to have sticky toffee pudding. This is a tragedy. I weep for my lack of sticky toffee pudding. I shall have to go back, one day.

Since it's grey and cloudy here today (I weep some more, extra-theatrically) I don't have any nice scenery photos to show you - you can have pictures of my last pieces of jewellery instead.



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NaNo update

Up to 14,578 words. Longer than my dissertation - this is now the longest piece of writing I have ever done. I don't know whether that's sad or inspirational.

I've also decided pregnancy is horribly dangerous and no one should ever have babies. I had to look up something that would tragically kill off one of my female characters who was having a baby - do you *know* how many things can kill you during childbirth? < Shudders at the thought >

I went with a uterine rupture, in case you're interested. Killed the mother and baby, both, sending the father into a mad spiral of grief and depression that will ultimately kill him. They're all minor characters anyway, so you don't need to feel too bad for them, though I do, kind of, feel bad that I had to kill them. I haven't had any deaths up til now, and I quite liked Pieter and Elyse and their soon-to-be-baby. Til they all died.

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Mid-November, and the sun is shining...



I was planning a day doing useful things, like making jewellery and writing more of my story. But a friend rang me up and suggested lunch, which sounded much more fun. I did manage to do laundry before completely abdicating my responsibilities to go and sit in the sun, eating Australian food - kangaroo (which was nice), shark (which was nice) and emu (which probably would have been nice if it had been cooked more - not a fan of rare meat).

Some photos of Nice in the November sunshine - how many of the rest of you could have sat outside in t-shirts today?






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Sunset

Today's achievements:

- washing-up done
- chicken chopped up and marinating. I hate raw chicken. I may go vegetarian, to avoid dealing with it.
- up to 13, 300 words on the story

So far, the promised Dutch rain has not appeared (the weather forecast made it sound like we should all be out building Arks before the downpour...). It did look cloudy for a while this afternoon, though the cloud cleared in time for what was probably a gorgeous sunset. I only saw it reflected in the clouds:



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Lunchtime

So far today I have:

- Cancelled a credit card with a £9000 limit. God knows why I ever had one in the first place. (15 minutes on hold, for a 30 second conversation. Well done, MBNA.)
- Got my word count up to 8756.
- Done the shopping.
- Put the laundry on.
- Drunk 2 cups of coffee.
- Hoovered.



(See? clean floor. And sunshine. It's lovely and sunny here. The credit card cancelling man tells me it's not very sunny in the UK today. That's a shame.)

More sunshine and blue sky:



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Reverend Me.

Someone, I can't remember who, was asking me recently about my online ordination, with some scepticism. I grant that I may not be the *most* religious person you will ever meet. But I am a minister with the Universal Life Church and I even have a certificate to prove it!



This doesn't mean much, I think, except that I could - if I could keep a straight face - apparently legitimately use the title Reverend, conduct weddings and funerals in the US (though the US might require you to be American to do that, as well as a Reverend Me. Picky people.) and, well, not a lot else. But maybe I could schism with the Church and found my own version... Maybe I can baptise people. Who'd like to be my first baptism?

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Progress!

NaNovel is going swimmingly. Why wasn't my dissertation this easy to write? Ah, yes, actual facts and things were necessary. (2 weeks til I get the results. Keep your fingers crossed for me.)



UPDATE: 7pm

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Copyright Nicole Hill, 2009-2010

All photos and text are mine - ask me *before* you use them elsewhere. Don't just copy them and hope I won't notice, it's theft.

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