I normally spend a ludicrous amount of time in front of my laptop, but the past three weeks have been particularly intense. So much so that I think my eyeballs sinking into my skull, trying to retreat from the screen as a natural defence. Moreover, for the past week I’ve been sitting on the wrong side of the glass of the best weather I’ve seen since September.

I’ve decided to take a last minute, one night vacation, leaving tomorrow, to Bucovina, under the pretence of doing some clean-up research that couldn’t be done when I was there in February, but mostly just to get the cow out of here.

I’m not even driving. Too much stress. I’m taking the train and reading a book the whole damn way.

Of course, to make up for this, I’ll probably cave to self-inflicted pressure and work all weekend.

In other news, bird flu mania is sweeping the nation. Two sections of Bucharest have been quarantined for the past 24 hours. Word is they found, that’s right, a single dead bird – a nearby cat denied any responsibility. They’re spraying everything, which, combined with the first real heat of the year, will undoubtedly be a smell residents won’t soon forget.

If these panicky bird flu shenanigans and media over-reactions keep up, you can kiss this tourism season goodbye and all the people who are jumping on the tourism industry bandwagon this year for the build-up to EU membership are going to eat it. Of course by ‘eat it’, I mean starve to death.