Now here's a good thing about DST: I wake at a decent time to go swimming, that is, about 20 after 5 with time to think a bit and get into the pool at 6. It's better than 20 after 4 because then I have to putter, with my brain if not with my body. SOW, of brains, that is, is anyone into Lumosity? I have a friend who received it as a gift, no idea whether it was a finite length of time or a general course or a specific focus. She described a bit of it and it didn't sound like fun. The ads say it's like games. Not. I'm still plugging away at Icelandic. Our teacher says we know more than we think we know. I hope so. I read that learning a new language in later life is terrific exercise for the brain, wakes up all your synapses. Again, I hope so. I started university when I was 15 and I was studying Latin and Greek, the Greek for the first time. I could look at a page of verbs, vocabulary or conjugations, and I'd have it. All but one, the past pluperfect, I think it was. I set it to music and I can still sing it: "luthesomai". I can't seem to do that with Icelandic. But I still like it better than Lumosity. I use a lot of lateral thinking and associations. Take Reykjavik, the capital city of Iceland. It means "smoky bay", so named because the first travellers who looked at it from the sea saw what they thought was smoke rising from the water in the harbour. It was steam, actually, but I'm not getting into thermal activity right now. Anyway, the word they used was reyk, smoke. My Spelcheck just tried to correct that to reek and it's right on. You know the Scottish expression, "Lang may your lum reek"? that is, "Long may your chimney smoke?" - a good wish for well-being in your home. Reek is like reyk - smoke, an easy association.

Now that's fun.