Plus a few other odds and ends, new GAST threads and so on. They won't arrive for a while obviously, but it will be fun looking forward to them, which is good, because there isn't much fun around lately, just a lot of snow.

It snowed all weekend, more or less, and was down to minus 15 on Saturday, with a very cold wind. I went out for about an hour, but that was enough. The only other person from our project who was here at the weekend was Sasha, and he didn't set foot outside his hotel, he told me. We are the only two in our room today, and for the rest of the week, which may make it a better week than last week. Snowflake and her cronies made so much noise all week that I went home with a headache every night. I have to say that their normal conversation is like something out of a teen soapie, I try to tune it out, but the volume can be horrific.

We also unfortunately have a guy back who was here temporarily last year - although, thank goodness, he is on the other project now, not on ours - the one who used to yap on all the time about football or cellphone operating systems and other equally fascinating subjects. At least I don't have to be in the same room as he is this time, although he did come and sit at the same table one lunchtime last week and he is on the bus home in the evenings. Even if he sits at the other end, I can still hear him droning on at whoever is sitting next to him. He told me once that, if he is on a plane at night and the person next to him is asleep, he goes and talks to the flight attendants - poor things, they can't pretend to be asleep, I bet they wish they could!

I also haven't heard anything about what I am doing after Tallinn, so that is mildly stressful, but I am trying not to think about it, as there is nothing I can do about it at all. I have been watching Winter Olympics and Tartu Ski Marathon as a way of keeping my mind off things, and that is relatively successful.