Feels like Friday

Actually, the whole week has felt like Friday, which has been confusing and somewhat disappointing, but I am quietly confident that it will soon really be Friday. Quite soon, in fact.

After a long and hard-fought battle which consumed every non-sleeping minute of the last week, we finished the latest competition with several hours to spare before the post office closed. My part was finished Tuesday evening, with a six hour stretch of Excel, which could have been completed in four hours if the competition organizers had not formatted the tables so ineptly.

Sunrise this morning was around 7:05 (I was dozing, could have been ten minutes either side of that). Autumn is proceeding apace, the chestnuts are as big as golfballs but still hang firmly in the trees; the leaves have not yet started changing colour. There are berries everywhere, of all colours, shapes and sizes. I took some three dozen berry photos while walking the Blauer Weg on Saturday, and will post (some of) them to Flickr later in the week. First I must sort out a problem in the installation CDs for my database, and then that too will be finished - until it starts again.

The weather has also improved, we have had a week of summer (30°C and sunny) after a fortnight of cold and heavy rain. I sat outdoors with Slim at a local Italian restaurant last night until 10:30, and we were warm enough in just short-sleeved shirts. We ended up there by default, our first two choices for al fresco dining were closed (many restaurants and also some swimming pools closed for the season, despairingly assuming that the bad weather would shade directly into winter; most have not managed or bothered to re-open) but it was pleasant enough there. In any case, I always say that the company makes the meal - unless you're going for broke at a three-Michelin-star food-porn temple - and the company was quite nice.

Meanwhile, we are planning an excursion to the Venice Biennale for the end of the month (or the beginning of October), which as always fills me with happy anticipation. Cappucino! Frutto di mare! The Lido! Tramezzini! La Fenice! oh, and some art too. Who could ask for anything more?