I should have written first thing in the morning. Of course, not a word on paper yet from my thesis. I was deeply disturbed by what is going on in London and spent the early morning watching BBC Live on my laptop with mum and checked on Facebook with friends if they were ok. Thank God everybody is well.

Yesterday breakfast turned into lunch at mum`s and dad`s. I cycled over to their house in 35C. Hot Hungarian summer! That`s the way I like it! AHA!

Oh, the food was just wonderful: Hungarian chicken soup, egg stew and `finom fozelek` (yummy sauce). Mum is a gourmet cook, there is no doubt about that. I love being back home.It is so good to have the family around, peace and quiet. I feel like a proper student having to concentrate only on my studies without having to rush to work. What a luxury! Since I went to uni in 2005 I had to have a full –time job to be able to finance my studies. It has been the toughest thing I ever had to do. Unfortunately, it had earned me a reputation of being stressed, worried, rude and tired amongst some in the first 3 years. And finally a breakdown from which by the grace of God I have 100% recovered. The irony of all is I am so glad I had suffered a breakdown, because my priorities of life have changed so much and all for good. I became a great encourager and a truly understanding person. As much as I love England to bits I had to realise it is very easy to earn a reputation as a rude individual, all you need to do is to exhaust yourself. I remember in 2^nd year on my BA during the first term (70 days) I didn’t have a day off. Not even a half day off. I remember desperately looked for a couple of hours in my diary to catch up on sleep. I was so exhausted by having to go to either uni or work every day, many times both, and study during the night, that if anybody asked me to meet up for a coffee I felt I had to protect myself from the demand. Most of the time people don’t know the true meaning of exhaustion and don’t understand fatigue. They can take rejection due to lack of time very personally. Severe exhaustion is the type of tiredness when one has absolutely no energy left to give, not even 5 minutes for a cup of tea. Thank God since my illness I have met several students who had to work extreme hours to finance their studies. I was glad to be able to say, I understand what they were going through and encourage them to keep focus on the light at the end of the tunnel. I remember on BA one of the tutors telling me I shouldn’t work, I should just enjoy being a student. The reality of that possibility was equal to 0. So, I just got on with it and resented her for the rest of the course. In fact I resented a lot of people who challenged me over my work – study life. It was a necessary, but most uncomfortable symbiosis, work and study. It would have been good to understand they were not my enemies, just had no clue about my daily struggles.

I got used to answering I was fine thank you for every casual how are you? And then eventually I started to believe my own lies that I was always fine against the exhaustion, lack of time for myself, lack of sleeping and lack of eating. I have developed an I-am-fine-thank-you!-mask. It was a perfectly crated mask, that I could say I-am-fine-thanks! whilst I was screaming inside from exhaustion.

I was thinking today at mum`s as we changed the water on the wool how upset I would have become before the breakdown if I found out 2/3 of the sheep wool was such bad quality, that we had to throw away. But I just said to mum: don’t worry, it should be ok, I figure out something. I know already what to do, am gonna buy some ready washed wool, comb it and make the prototypes from the one we hand washed and documented. Mum should get half of my MA, she has been going around in the village to have my survey filled out, she helped me to make the wool washing soap and now she is there for me once again washing the wool. And of course she cooks the most delicious food to keep me going. Today we had cauliflower soup, `koromporkolt` with pasta and `kovaszos` cucumber. I am a big fan of Hungarian food!

Yesterday evening it daunted on me that I really have to write 25.000 words at least and after I copied out from all my memory sticks the relevant research material for my proposal, I had to take a break and do a bit of gardening. The front garden by the gate suddenly seemed in a desperate need of weeding. I did take my term 1 and term2 research journeys to read upstairs when I went to bed, but got caught on the news from London and this morning a couple of picture frames desperately needed to be filled with pictures. Of course, I had them both for years. I decided I am going to write whatever flows out of my research and will tweak it later. Sensible idea I believe.