So yesterday, Nickoli phoned me as he was leaving work to let me know that he was stopping at Aldi on the way home to pick up milk and pasta. “That sounds fine!” I replied, and we hung up. After a second, though, I phoned him back and said, “Actually, how long will it take you to get to Aldi from where you are?”

“Ten or fifteen minutes,” he replied.

“Oh. What about me? How long will it take for me to get to Aldi from where I am?” I’d never been to the Aldi before then.

“Probably ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Shall I meet you there, then?” I offered. He took me up on it, sounding pleased, and I threw on my coat and began walking towards Vicky Road.

I don’t mind walking, exactly – but I prefer it during the summer and definitely during the day. I hate walking very far at night – not sure why. Going for a quiet, thoughtful stroll at night is okay – but having to go somewhere for whatever reason is different. Somehow.

But it was Valentine’s Day, and Nickoli had recently casually mentioned that one thing he missed about some other girl he liked before he met me was how outdoorsy she was. So, although I had nothing to fear as far as her stealing him away from me, I still thought that it would be nice for me to try to make the effort to do something he would have liked me to do, even though I have never been, and probably never will be, an outdoorsy sort of person.

So I was walking, and not thinking about anything in particular, just noticing all the lovely houses on Manor Road, and he phoned me, asking where I was. I described my surroundings, and he said he’d meet me and walk back toward Aldi together. So he did, and when he saw me, he gave me a big hug and a kiss on the forehead, and had a big grin on his face. We walked back, chatting, and came to Aldi, which was very nearly completely empty.

We just sort of walked around for awhile, looking at random stuff and talking – kind of a lame Valentine’s Day date, but we’ve never really celebrated Valentine’s Day anyway, and the best dates we’ve had have been the simple ones – going to Aldi or Starbucks or Costa, sitting and talking.

We picked up a few things, including some caramel chocolates and some red grape juice (which I was really excited about, as I have never found just plain grape juice here before), and walked back home together, Nickoli saying over and over again how pleased he was that I made the effort to meet him when he was going to be coming home anyway.

So I’m going to try to make a better effort to go on walks with him.

Today I had the urge to speak Spanish, for some reason. Nickoli, unfortunately, does not speak Spanish at all, and I’ve forgotten so much of the rules of grammar that I get all self-conscious because I know I’m not saying it right, whatever it is.

So I’ve been studying it online, and I dug out my 501 Spanish Verbs and my Spanish-English dictionary, and then decided to work on translating some of my children’s books into Spanish. I have no idea who I’ll go to in order to get them checked, but I’m doing it, and that’s something, anyway.

Actually, a lot of it’s started coming back to me, and I’ve found with the past tense stuff, I usually use the right tense when I’m really just guessing because it sounds right, which pleases me. I watched Aladdin in Spanish, as well.

I was actually planning on having a Spanish language track marathon, but surprisingly, almost none of the PAL DVDs have Spanish as a language option – the standard languages are French, Dutch, Norsk, and Hindi. It surprised me, anyway.

I found all of my old Hindi flashcards a few months ago, which brought back memories. I told Nickoli about when I was trying to teach myself Hindi from Bollywood movies and actually made a pretty decent job of it, and he was so impressed with me, which I thought was funny – I figured anybody would do that, if they really wanted to. But no, Nickoli assured me that I was a freak in the highest degree.

Lovely.