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Apart from a miscommunication and confusion in the early afternoon, today was totally lovely. Leeds is a warm and friendly conference, full of very interesting folks. One of those very interesting folks was the supervisor of my first PhD, who came to hear my paper. Apparently he wrote to me earlier in the year and the letter went astray.

The paper elicited lots of good questions and I had to be forcibly dragged away to get to my next thing (owlfishes are indomitable - also very supportive). There are a few people working on projects related to mine and we did much business card swapping and planning. I'll let you know what eventuates when it does. I love it that I now have an international peer group in both my main fields. It's a magical thing!

Also magical is the food historian at work. I saw a real food historian in action (not a part-time one like me) and it was fascinating. I saw her kitchen and we talked for a while and yes, we swapped business cards and talked possibilities.

I have bought cider and been bought cider and talked about institutions (since there are some people here from various of my previous universities) and discussed political systems and the wonders of Italian tax records and rare texts and life dreams and chips.

I should have been asleep two hours ago. I started wending sleepwards three hours ago, but saw someone over whom lurked a question and so I barged into the bar and asked her and a series of conversations began and I only just realised the time. This isn't as intense as the masterclass, but and the nature of its awesomeness is different, but it is still altogether awesome. it really helps, though, having a couple of friends who I could sit with quietly at lunchtime and ... just sit. Friends make changing realities possible, I think, and not so intimidating.

Health is just holding up. I have very early nights planned for the first two days at York, since there was always the possibility that the IMC would be a physical strain. I'm eating more and doing less exercise and it's working.

I have so much more to report, but instead I'm going to sleep. It's already tomorrow, here.

(no subject)

I'm having a quiet moment in my room before braving throngs again. The second panel I wanted to go to today was cancelled at the last minute, but Caroline Yeldman and I were talking food and related histories, so we simply adjourned our discussion to where the coffee was and continued from there. It was a fabulous conversation and I suspect we need to continue it via email. The only thing that caused it to stop was the sad fact that we had booked lunches in quite different corners of the IMC.

I'm still getting feedback from my paper (two people today) which means it really did go well. I need to stop being insecure! I also need to think about writing it up for a journal, though, as of this moment, I don't know which journal would suit it.

Today is the last day of Congress proper for me, because tomorrow I'm off with a busload of Medievalists to spend the day in Lincoln. Friday I go to York and lose the wifi. If you need to say anything to me that I do not already know, tonight and tomorrow are good times to email. If I don't hear from you and I'm seeing you, I'll assume that our previous arrangements stand.

What else do you need to know? That Leeds in summer is about the same as Canberra in early September? That it's just as well I saw the Leeds Armouries my first day, because since then there has been time even to ring people I meant to see (but who hadn't got round to arranging anything in advance)? That I spend breakfast times (becuase I am not sociable at that hour) analysing the plates of others and working out where they come from by their choice of breakfast? The only thing I have worked out for certain is that if there are 3 or more carbs on a plate, then the diner is American. Not all American congress-goers each this way, but everyone who does has both a US university on their tag and a US accent. Drinkers of black coffee are most likely to be French, Spanish or Israeli. Israelis and Spanish are, by the way, blithely assured that no-one will understand them. My Hebrew andSpanish are definitely improving. Alas, my breakfast neighbours said nothing interesting. My spoken capacity in these languages (especially Hebrew) is rather embarrassing, so I just sit and eat or just sit (when it's on the bus). It's odd however that in a large crowd of people who have a tendency to languages that any group should assume they will not be understood.

I have, BTW, discovered why I have had minimalist conversations with a couple of people. The Australian accent totally defeats a small minority of those for whom English is not a native language, but they're too polite to say so. They blame their langauge skils rather than my accent. My accent is sometimes Canberra and sometimes Melbourne, which is giving me an identity issue. I hope it settles down soon.