Things can only get better

I just realised it's the solstice today. To all down south, happy longest day! To the rest of us, yay! the worst is over! There shall be light!

Oh yes. Of course they do.

For no particular reason, yesterday morning I was thinking about talking to strangers, and how (it seemed to me) these conversations can be divided into roughly two camps.

On one hand, there is the bonding conversation, in which you focus on what you have in common. ("You like chocolate? ME TOO!") These chats may be shallow (of course they aren't always) but they serve a valuable purpose in establishing a warm fuzzy feeling towards each other, and allowing a potential friendship to develop.

On the other hand, there is the mind-broadening conversation, in which you explore how different you are. ("You don't like chocolate? How fascinating, I didn't know that was possible. Please, explain.") This can be a bit harder than the bonding conversation, because you need to exercise more imagination and empathy to keep things moving forward, rather than just shutting down with "I don't understand you At All." But it can also be more rewarding, as it gives you new ways to think about things.

What had not occurred to me, though, in my idle ponderings, was what happens when an apparent bonding conversation goes suddenly a bit off the rails. I suppose there's really no reason it can't, properly managed, become a successful mind-broadening conversation; but the dislocation is jarring. This happened last night, at a Christmas party. I was exchanging desultory small talk with a chap, and we touched on the perennial favourite of how hard it is to maintain your social life in London, because seeing people requires hours and hours of travel.

"I mean it was all right when I was younger," he said. "At around 20, 21, I could just walk over to most of my friends, because everybody lives in Kensington & Chelsea."

I just nodded.

A SAD state of affairs

Y'know, I thought I was basically done with getting worn down by the miserable English winters, but apparently not. It's just so dark. And gloomy. And cold. And really there's nothing to be done in weather like this but hide under the duvet, right? Right. So it's not so much that I'm depressed, as just moochy, and struggling to get anything done. It does seem to be worse this year than usual... I blame hormones. Am so very jealous of everyone heading south for the winter. (Although when that results in Milo slabs for me, well, it's not so bad.)

Well I swear

Gentle reader, it has been brought to my attention of late that I am perhaps... well... a bit of a pottymouth.

Last night Beloved and I had a fight. It wasn't any big deal, only with the pregnancy hormones and all, it did get entertainingly noisy. (Very entertaining, apparently, as around the time I was yelling and sobbing, he was laughing helplessly. Apparently my tantrums are "adorable" and I look "like a little girl who's lost her lollipop". Now, it's probably a good thing that he finds all this endearing rather than, y'know, horrible and unlovable, and the laughter was accompanied by hugs, but still, I'm not sure how I feel about it. Anyway.) So afterwards, he mentioned hesitantly: "...you do swear quite a lot when you're angry."

Well really. Isn't that the whole point of swearing? Shouldn't I be entitled to access the full range of human expression in moments of extremity?

But then I started thinking about my good friend Vivaldifan, whose employer has enlisted a rather stern spam-blocking service that puts all emails containing certain questionable vocabulary in quarantine. Apparently the profanitybot has taken a particularly strong dislike to me. I casually asked t'other day which of his friends got caught in spammy limbo most often. His answer: "Totally you, sailor."

Fancy that! I always thought that the reason people sometimes looked, well, a bit startled at my more colourful imprecations was that they didn't expect anything remotely earthy from someone looking quite so pre-Raphaelite. ("Sweetness and light and daisies" is apparently the impression I give, as long as I don't open that delicate mouth.) But maybe it's not just the exciting contrast that gives pause. Maybe I should actually try to be a little bit more ladylike in my discourse.

What do you think? Should I swear off the swearing? I mean, not entirely, that would never work. But as a creative challenge. I dunno. Do I really cuss that much?

Huh.

Briefly interrupting pregnancy-free blogging to say

...lady, I realise that your intentions are honourable, but sending a slew of diet-and-exercise-for-pregnant-ladies and plus-sized-and-pregnant links - after commenting on how I am getting rather "round about the hips" - is really not the way to keep me away from the cookie jar, okay?

Grrr.

Sorry about that. The problem with limiting all sprog blogging to the sprog blog is that, well, the sprog blog is open to the public. Meaning, the in-laws. Meaning, the offending party.

Who just spent 2 weeks as our houseguest, doing most of the cooking, and doing it with vast - VAST - amounts of bacon and double cream, just by the way. Not that I'm complaining. Well, not about the cooking.

Goodbye Harvey.

My handsome boy got sick.



Then he seemed to be getting better. Then he got sicker again.



Turns out, he was only faking. He's been doing a pretty good impression of a healthy cat, but it was only an impression. Eventually, time came for his kidneys to pack it in entirely. So we took him off to the vet yesterday and sent him to that happy mouse hunting ground in the sky... or maybe, this being Harvey, to that giant cushy lap, where he is forever being hand-fed delicious terrine of free-range Patagonian mouse livers. Or something.



My lap will be a much colder place now.

Smelly cat, sicky cat...

Harvey is Not Well.

He recently stopped eating his regular k/d (kidney diet) crunchies. Stopped. Completely. Starved himself for a few days (we did our best to tempt him with tuna etc until we could get him to the vet; naturally he chose the worst possible time) and lost a truly shocking amount of weight.

Now, those of you who've met Harvey are probably finding this hard to imagine. "What was there left to lose?" you are thinking. Well. Trust me on this. He got even skinnier. Also, he started hobbling around on wobbly old-man legs the way he did when we first adopted him - before getting him on the miracle k/d food and turning him into a real live cat, doing a good job of pretending to be healthy.

So the vet (who turned out to be a long-lost schoolfriend of Beloved's, as it happens) said he'd gotten hisself hopelessly dehydrated and needed to go on drip. He went into hospital. He stayed on drip for two days. (Jemima, meanwhile, wandered around the house looking a bit freaked out. She always knew there was a danger of not coming home from That Place.) Vet told me he was then doing sooo much better, totally ready to come home, he was eating tons (dry and wet food), enzymes were down (up? whichever is the good one when you're testing for kidney failure), all great. Harvey came home.

Harvey continued to refuse to eat dry food. Okay... we give him wet food. He's lapping that up, more or less (less, really, but doing pretty well for Harvey). But he's still limping around like a very old, sick man. His legs are all wobbly. He doesn't purr. And he's got diarrhoea. And the vet keeps saying ominous things like "it's a bit touch and go" and "there's not much point in giving him his shots now".

[Insert sad face here.]

Some random notes on expo prep.

1. Price guns are fun.

2. Nothing else about expo prep is fun.

3. No, it's not a good idea to have any other commitments immediately before or after a show, even if you think it'll be fine because after all there's the weekend, etc, etc, etc.

4. I appear to be constitutionally incapable of getting ready in time. By "in time" we mean anything not involving (a) significant loss of sleep, (b) leaving home within 2 hours of the time we planned to leave home, or (c) total panic and chaos up to at least half an hour after the show's official opening time.

5. Unexpected Good Thing about having a bebeh: very good excuse not to do this again next year. Or, possibly, ever.

Arg.

My PC seems to be on a mission to convince me to buy a Mac. Yes yes, I'm sure there will be lots of enthusiastic support for that idea, but really I wasn't planning on buying a new computer less than three years after this one. Especially not in my present position as a pregnant freelancer. Is annoying. I could probably sort out most of the problems, with a lot of research and effort and purging and reinstalling and such, but man, I don't have time for this crap. The screen is slowly but surely flaking out. Excel is flaking out. (Sharing violations. Anyone know anything about these? Google delivers lots of results, none of which are terribly helpful.) iTunes has totally flaked out. (Thank gods for last.fm, because I can NOT work without Choons.) It's all just very annoying.

Also, it's cold and dark and miserable and my head hurts.

Also, I have to do the big Ally Pally show this week, which is a frankly terrifying prospect.

Mind you, I did get to go to Andrew&Iza's very good housewarming last night, and they had laid on ginger ale *and* Appletiser for me, which I thought was extremely cool. Thanks chaps! The desserts were also particularly fine. Mmmm lemon meringue...

Because I haven't bragged enough

It's barely possible that some of you might not have yet heard my excited squealing from whatever farflung corners of the earth you inhabit, so just for you:

I'm a cover girl. And a designer. Twofer!

"That's right, the dog ate the weapon"

I can't work out whether he was trying to make some kind of homophobic statement, or was overcome with repressed longing, or was just batshit crazy.

No, wait. I'm pretty sure it's the batshit crazy answer.

Burglar rubs victims with spices, sausage, runs away in underwear without his wallet.

Eyes open. Semi-upright position accomplished. Now how to stand up...

Yesterday was iKnit Day - a lovely fest of knitting type fun, organised by London's coolest yarn shop, and featuring such exciting stallholders as Purlescence (natch) and such attractions as a talk and book signing by the fabled Yarn Harlot.

Good things about the day:
1. Bunches of fun. A chance to meet other yarny shop owners, dyers etc, and many of my customers. A great vibe. Lots happening. Yeah, fun.
2. Yarn Harlot!
3. Making lots of money. Based on last year's show, which was smaller (and I wasn't yet selling any yarn), I knew it would be a good day. It was an outstandingly good day. Woo yay capitalist joy!

Bad things about the day:
1. Being too busy (see 3. above) to actually take part in the day's pleasures. Or to go round and talk to other stallholders. Or to take part in the fashion show (yeah, I was asked! Such glamour!).
2. Missing the Harlot's speech, because, well, that busy thing. Armin was working with me, but you think he was going to man the fort for an hour and a half while I sloped off to enjoy myself? Not a chance. (Seriously, wouldn't have worked. Nope.) But I did get to queue-jump for a signed book, and she claimed to have heard great things about Purlescence (though I suspect she was thinking of the Californian shop of the same name), so, I guess that's something.
3. Being pregnant. Working a show is exhausting at the best of times. This is not the best of times. Not. At. All.

So today is not great. I am so unbelievably knackered. And I have so, so, so much work to do. And I have had a headache since halfway through yesterday. (This is a very bad thing for a pregnant woman to have, as most painkillers are off limits.) And I feel awful all round. And did I mention the huge pile of work?

*sigh*

How many blogs can one person reasonably run, anyway

FYI: Beloved and I have started a joint blog to murble about Teh Bebeh and that. Hopefully this will keep the preggers stuff to a minimum over here, but still allow me to indulge my hopeless fascination with the state of my waistline and digestion, plus feed the curiosity of those who really want to know, gods help them.

This will also be the place to look for pictures (occasionally), baby gift requests, etc.

As you were.

So wrong in so many ways

You have GOT to be kidding.

I wish I were a panda

Because this just looks soooo much easier than what I have to look forward to.
(Although, clearly even momma pandas get annoyed by their squalling babies. You'll note she tries to put it back at the end there.)

Also, I bet pandas don't get morning sickness. And if they get fat, who can tell? Who'd even care?

Spam o' the day

"Britney Spears Vagina Uninjured in Car Crash"
"Paris Hilton in Crack-in-Arse Scandal"

Am I just easily amused, or are those really funny?

The update, updated

For tedious and tiresome and sadly unfightable reasons, the 9 days I thought I had to make permit happen turn out to be only 4 days. Which cannot by any stretch of the imagination be made to resemble 5-10 days, even with begging letter. So I give. I surrender. The universe does not wish for me to be in Cape Town this year. Fine. I won't be.

If anyone out there knows any good curses, please direct them at whatever idiots thought it would be a good idea to outsource all visa functions to the private sector. I thank you.

Bureaucracy, the update

Oh it just gets more and more exciting. This whole "apply for entry clearance while in SA" thing? They need "5-10 working days" to process. Which is interesting, considering I'm only in SA for... 9 working days, including arrival and departure. Huh.

"You can include a cover letter asking them to speed things up and giving your reasons," I am helpfully told. Obviously, based on past experience, I do not have a whole lot of confidence in that. I imagine that the 5-10 day time is not because they actually require 10 days to ponder the merits of my application, but rather, because applications arrive and get dumped on the bottom of a large pile of other applications. They work their way through the pile, and reach mine when they reach it. Say, 15-45 days after submission. "Oh lookee," they will say. "She wants urgent consideration. Aw bless."

So the ulcer-inducing panic continues. (This can't be good for The Bebeh.) I fully expect to be stuck in Cape Town longer than expected. While some of my Capetonian readers may rejoice at this news, I do NOT, for reasons of (a) cost of new plane ticket (pretty sure mine doesn't allow changes) and (b) obligations back in London. Cancelling a few shifts would be annoying enough, relying on my freelance income as I do, but it's worse than that: Saturday 6 September is iKnit day. Big ol' knitting expo that I'm exhibiting at. Really not okay to skip it. Really not viable for Beloved to do it without me.

Arg.

We can haz passports!

So let's review. Me: two letters, two faxes, and about three phone calls, all resulting in vague assurances.

Beloved: one phone call, resulting in immediate return of passports.

I'm really trying not to take this personally...

FYI

The Home Office has a surprisingly tenuous relationship with the truth. Oh, they say "allow 10 working days for us to process your request", but they MEAN "...and then allow an extra 10-30 working days, depending on the tides and planetary alignments, and whether or not we like your face, for us to mock you with our pretence at helping."

Also, someone may tell you "you don't really need this piece of paper, but you can get one if you like", but what they MEAN is "...of course if you don't have it, you better not plan on ever travelling anywhere, ever."

What all this means is, if someone in Liverpool is having a good day, I might get to Cape Town and back this month. If someone in Liverpool has run out of coffee, I might get to Cape Town, and then spend my holiday fighting with the British High Commission to be allowed back into the UK. If someone in Liverpool has run out of coffee, is on a diet and lost a parking spot this morning, I might not be able to leave the country at all for a few more months.

It's a nailbiting ride.

Losing amusement value fast

Are spammers getting smarter, or are my filters getting dumber? Anybody else noticing this? It's emails, and also Movable Type comments. Hundreds of both a day.

Grrr.

Mah genius recognised!

Ooh, this is exciting, I made Post of the Week! (With a "judgely huddle" including Glitterforbrains, who is hilarious, by the way.) Gosh. I do like this. It's been a long time since I put much into this blog, so I don't really feel I deserve it, but I'm totally chuffed that some people felt I had something interesting to say. Thanks chaps.

Caution: spiders inside

You know when you think you know something and then years later you find out you had it all wrong? And that's really annoying and sometimes embarrassing? Well, I had one of those moments yesterday, except instead of being embarrassing it was DISGUSTING and totally FREAKED ME OUT.

It's like this.

Cape Town is home to these wonderful things called rain spiders, also frequently called baboon spiders. They are huge (like, saucer sized), ugly, common, and revolting. And harmless. So you encounter them, you deal with them, you take a really long shower and tell everyone about your gross spider experience, and that's that.

In my case, sometimes you encounter them, you get your non-arachnophobic mother to deal with them, and then you suffer while she plays practical jokes on you involving letting the spider loose again and not telling you where, because ha ha, aren't you a wimp, they're so harmless and actually quite cool.

Through bloggity chance yesterday, however, I found myself doing a little fact checking online. Huh.

Turns out, rain spiders look like this.


Which is odd, because the ones I've so frequently encountered - and been tormented with - look like this.



They are in fact baboon spiders. Which, common usage notwithstanding, are a different sort of beast entirely. And maybe not quite harmless. Not lethal... but "aggressive". They jump, people tell me. And bite. And make you sick.

Some conclusions:
1. My mother is an EVIL COW.

2. I am unusually unlucky to have always, always encountered the nastier kind of spider, while everyone else I've spoken to since discovering this confusion had the correct idea about rain spiders all along.

3. I suppose I should really be very grateful that I didn't know my mistake at those times when I was dealing with the bloody things. That time when one fell out of my trousers just as I was about to put them on, for instance, landing between me and the door. Or the time when I woke up and saw one on the ceiling directly above me, and there was no one else in the house to deal with it. Yup... just as well I didn't know then that they were aggressive, jumpy, and venomous.

PS. Beloved has been so rude as to doubt my story. He has never seen a baboon spider in Cape Town, therefore he believes my memory is at fault. He is, of course, completely wrong, and this article backs me up - baboon spiders a-plenty in Cape Town. This article also points out, casually, that outside Africa, these little treasures are known as TARANTULAS.

I've seen food from both sides now

Okay, bear with me, this is sort of a pregnancy post. Sorry. But not really. This is actually about how this alien parasite has enabled me to see something from the other side. And it's fascinating. (To me.) So I'm going to tell you all about it. Read it, don't read it...

You may recall my little fattypuffs vs thinifers rant. A precis: I believe that chubsters have a fundamentally different experience of food to skinnies, and as a result skinnies are incapable of understanding why it is that we should have such trouble dieting, etc. Now I believe I have Incontrovertible Proof! that it is so. Because the alien parasite is making me, temporarily and sadly invisibly, a thinifer.

It's like this. Hormones, not-just-morning sickness, yada yada - I will try not to bore you with too many details, but you see, I've lost my appetite. That's only partly because of the nausea; some of the time, like most of today, I don't actually feel sick. But I still don't want to eat. It's not just that I'm not hungry; something has switched off. Food has lost the fun factor. And no, it doesn't taste different. (Apparently for lots of pregnant women, tastes do change, but so far, not for me.) Everything still tastes fine, I am capable of thinking in a detached sort of way that something tastes good and is quite enjoyable... but something is missing. Look, consider this: I don't want chocolate. Do you begin to comprehend the vastness of this change? Yesterday I found myself thinking I wanted a chocolate, while at the same time I was perfectly aware that I didn't really, I wouldn't enjoy it if I had one. What I wanted was the satisfaction which I normally get from chocolate, but which is now gone. (Try to imagine the horror.)

And that's what got me thinking. I suspect, for thinifers... every day is like this. Less extreme, because of the total lack of nausea and the presence of hunger, but with that same disconnect between food-as-fuel and food-as-fun. If this were my normal state, I too would hotly deny any accusations that I "just don't understand", because after all, I still have tastebuds! Mmmm, yummy pizza! I get that - but I can stop! Why would you want another piece when you're not hungry any more?

It really is completely different, and it really must be a body chemistry thing. Living like this, you would eat when you're hungry (and mildly enjoy it); you would even sometimes eat when you're not really hungry, on social occasions, or because chocolates really are delicious. But you wouldn't experience the desire to do that very often, because frankly, putting food in your mouth when you don't want it is pretty damn repellent.*

Like this, food is like taking a shower. You need it regularly, and yes, it's really enjoyable, and sometimes you might indulge in an extra-long shower just because it feels so nice; but nobody was ever in danger of overshowering.

The way I used to be - and hope I will be again - food is much more like sex. Not literally. I don't gasp and moan over chocolate brownies (well, not often). But it definitely pushes some or other pleasure buttons in the limbic centre that right now are out of reach. It satisfies something that has nothing to do with hunger, and frankly, although it makes me happy, in itself it has nothing to do with psychological comfort seeking either.

Fattypuffs get pleasure out of food. Thinifers merely get enjoyment. It's a physical difference, and you know? Now I really feel sorry for thinifers. Because they're missing so much.

PS With this in mind - I've just stumbled across the Shangri La Diet, and putting aside for now (PLEASE) all questions of whether or not it works, is healthy, etc, the question is: would I want it to work? It sounds an awful lot like it might just have the same effect as what I've described above - not so much reducing appetite, as taking away that pleasure response. Would I want to be naturally thin and healthy and still enjoy food... but not enjoy it the way I am used to? I honestly can't say.

_____
* Nature has a mean sense of humour. The best way to stave off all-day sickness is to snack constantly. The last thing you want to do.

Creativity in unexpected places

I love spam. I may have mentioned this before. I hate spammers, especially those that "borrow" my email address to send their odious missives, but I am enormously entertained by spam itself. Spam is FUNNY. And it's getting funnier. I seem to be getting an awful lot of subject lines that combine two completely different attention triggers: (1) straight news (or the impression of same), and (2) hot chicks (famous if possible). Thus, today alone:
"Hot White Chick Dies in Tsunami" (which, to be fair, is a more honest version of a hell of a lot of natural disaster news coverage)
and
"Old Man Dies Inside Paris Hilton"

Funny! Right? Right?

Aw, shucks, you guys!

Thanks for all the good wishes, folks. They freak me out a bit* but I really appreciate it.

Some answers, to questions both asked (here and elsewhere) and unasked.
1. Yes, we really are happy, despite the footnote.
2. No, we didn't exactly expect this. At least not right now. I have been duped by the media! That whole "trying" lark is a total myth!
3. See 1.
4. March. It's very new. No, I haven't been keeping secrets (not for more than a week anyway).
5. There is no such thing as too many knitted baby things.
6. More than one test to go on? You'd be surprised. The doctor laughed at me when I begged her to confirm. "No no!" she said. "The tests we use are just the same! No more accurate! You say you're pregnant and I believe you!" I mean REALLY what is the NHS coming to? Taking a patient's word for it? Ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous. The tests the doctors use are better because they are DONE BY DOCTORS. I don't know how to do a test! Ludicrous.
7. ...My body still seems to think it might be pregnant, though, so we're assuming the worst. I mean best. Assuming the best.
8. No, I haven't forgotten my long-held belief that babies are alien parasites, nor have I changed my mind. It's *my* alien parasite though.
9. No morning sickness** so far, but apparently the hormonal stupidity*** is already kicking in. See 8.
10. I didn't do it for the knitting (that's just a bonus). I did it for the cuteness of the skiing toddler. Man, that's enough reason all on its own.
11. I really, really, really don't plan to turn this into a pregnancy blog.

Ok that's all the questions dealt with. Just one more thing: thank you all, again, very much. I'm pretty terrified. And pretty scared of drifting apart from some of my very lovely friends. It would be very nice if that didn't have to happen. Please thank you.

_____
* I still don't really understand why I'm happy about this, why should you be? What's the big deal about babies anyway? They smell, they're noisy, and the world has enough of them. I mean, obviously my genes are great and all - Beloved's too - but is that enough reason to get excited about my spawn? You're weird.
** Which is reportedly a misnomer as it can strike any time of day, but usually when you've not eaten for a while. As Lucy said, "That explains why you're not getting it."
*** To those who've already sprogged: I am applying a very specific definition of "stupidity". Hormonally induced brain impairment is the only possible explanation for the fact that people have been known to have more than one baby, despite having gone through pregnancy/childbirth and knowing what it entails. Doesn't affect brain function in any other area, though.

Well, this is different.

Tired now.

So I ran the British 10k this morning, and I did it in 67min, which is really quite slow but better than I was doing on my training runs, so I'll take it thankewverymuch, and anyway I'm just chuffed (still) that I'm actually able to run 10 WHOLE KILOMETRES. Which is more than the distance from Cape Town train station to my gran's place in Newlands. I'm just saying. 'Sfar.

Last time I did this particular race (it was also the first time I'd run a 10k), I had to walk most of the last 2km. This time was much easier. It helps that rather than running in sweltering 30-degree heat, it was a cool 20 degrees or so (with occasional rain). Rain is better than sun. Fact. It also helps that I had Choons. Yes! I took great care in assembling a playlist for the event. Now, playlist assemblage, for running, purposes of, is a fine art. You can't just stick a bunch of bouncy songs together, nonono. You need to predict your levels of energy at each point and choose the Choons accordingly. For me, the perfect playlist has 3 clear phases:

1. Aggro beginning. Gotta get off on the right foot, as it were, pounding the pavement like you really mean it. Lots of drums are recommended. The right sort of beat is vv NB: need to establish a pace. It should be quite fast, because after all you *can* go fast at this stage, but not so fast that you wear yourself out right away. My choices?
Stomp, Ripper Sole (the fab bit from Tank Girl where the rippers are all boogieing down)
Bjork, Army of Me (hey, it follows Ripper Sole in the soundtrack and that works for me)
Fleetwood Mac, Tusk (possibly the best running song ever)
Blondie, Call Me
Because we Can Can from Moulin Rouge

2. Middle maintenance. By now you've established a rhythm, so it's really more about entertainment. Pick Choons that will divert and distract you, and that have approximately the right pace. Defiant lyrics are good here. Some of my favourites:
Ini Kamoze, Here Comes the Hotstepper
Aretha Franklin, Son of a Preacher Man
Ice-T, Big Gun (yes, more Tank Girl, you gotta problem with that?)
Blondie, Rapture
Grand National, Playing in the Distance ("We're not caving in... we're not caving in...")
A fabulous mash-up of Nirvana and The Supermen Lovers, as recommended by top bloggers everywhere

3. Final stages. You might be flagging, so you need relentlessly perky songs to cheer you up and keep you going. If that should happen to be disco, well, there's no shame in that. NO THERE ISN'T SO THERE.
Scissor Sisters, Laura
Gloria Gaynor, I Will Survive,
Blondie, One Way or Another
Goldfrapp, Train

4. Finish line treat. Well, I guess this one's optional, but personally I really like having something totally delightful and maybe a little bit loony come on just as I'm patting myself on the back because OH MY GOD I JUST RAN ALL THAT WAY! Something like, say, the Langley Schools Project version of You're so Good to Me. Yes. Something just like that.

Of course, if you've gone to all the trouble of setting up the playlist, then you really want to listen to it all the way through. So do try to make sure your player doesn't mysteriously conk out just before the 7km mark, all right? Because, trust me. That would be really... really... really disappointing.

*fretfretfret*

Esteemed Father called me a week ago. Now, I am told that it's always immediately apparent when I'm talking to him, because my side of the conversation inevitably goes: "Oh no... oh dear... how awful... oh, no..." etc. On this occasion one of the dramas (there are always multiple dramas) involved important travel documents. Viz:

He has recently had to apply for right to remain in the UK. He has been awarded said right. Hurrah! But in returning his application, the Home Office appears to have lost his and his partner's passports. They sent back a checklist of included documents, which featured "2 x passports". There were no passports. But the checklist does not lie, says Home Office! So here begins a fun bureaucratic loop:
To issue a new or temporary passpot, SA Home Affairs want a police report that the old one was lost.
To issue a report, the police want a letter from the UK Home Office that they lost it.
Home Office say no! We did not lose it! The checklist Does Not Lie!

Oh no, oh dear, how awful, etc.

Plus, enter worrying thought stage left: hm, the Home Office have had my own and Beloved's passports for a while now (applying for EEA right to remain thingy). Better check up on that. Sposed to be travelling in August and all.

Turns out, the Home Office processing times have slowed down dramatically since last time I dealt with them. They refuse to give progress reports, or even acknowledge receipt of your application, until 14 weeks after submission. (Which is at least two weeks too late for my travel plans.) Applications *may* take up to 6 months. If you need your passport urgently, you're allowed to call and ask for it (assuming you can get through - it's one of those always-busy numbers where they don't actually let you hold, you either get through or you don't), which may take up to 10 working days.

I would feel a lot better if I at least had proof they'd received my application. Which I should have, since I handed it to Beloved to post via special delivery. And I am sure he did send it special delivery. However, I don't seem to have the tracking slip. I might have noticed this sooner if it weren't for the fact that I do quite a lot of posting (that's ironic understatement, there) and have quite a lot of tracking slips. Just not the really vital one.

So, as a back-up plan, I look at SA Home Affairs to see how they feel about temporary passports and the like. And I notice two things.

1) "DUE TO CURRENT REGULATION BY UK AUTHORITIES, NO TEMPORARY PASSPORT WILL BE ISSUED TO SA CITIZENS FOR ENTRY PURPOSES TO THE UK. TEMPORARY PASSPORTS WILL BE ISSUED ONLY TO HOLDERS OF DUAL CITIZENSHIP."
Wow. Brutal.

2) Requirements include "2X certified copy of valid British Visa." Huh. Given that visas tend to be stamped into one's passport, how exactly is one supposed to provide this if one's passport has been lost, damaged or destroyed, which are the usual grounds for seeking a temporary passport?

It's all academic anyway. A more pertinent requirement is that police report, which I'm not going to get on grounds of "the Home Office has my passport I think but they won't tell me". So I must just wait patiently 3 more weeks and then write to them demanding my passport back. Oh this is going to be such fun.

A good night.

Freshlyground. Dudes. Have you seen them? The albums are great, but live, they're phenomenal.



Course you've missed them now, if you're in London, at least till the next tour. They'll be all over Europe, though. And then of course back in Cape Town. Hey, maybe you're in Cape Town. Maybe you could catch them locally.

*sigh*

I miss Cape Town.

(Hey, you know the best part? Well maybe not the best part. But a really good part. The sound. It was excellent. I don't watch a lot of live music, and partly that's because almost without exception, the sound quality sucks, you can't really hear the actual songs, just noise. (I have particularly lousy hearing; I realise this might not be the case for everyone.) But whether thanks to the venue - Cargo in Shoreditch, very nice - or Freshlyground's own awesome sound engineering, this time, they sounded perfect. Yay for actually hearing the music you're there to hear!)

Some things I can do

Stand still without falling over.
See straight.
Talk without slurring (at least up till my second or third cocktail).
Walk unassisted.
Expect to live for more than another 7 years.

Turns out, my friend Lucy's father can no longer say the same, thanks to progressive supranuclear palsy. Which is why our team for the British 10k is running in aid of the PSP Association. Lucy says they have been a big help to her family.

I'm not really very comfortable with fundraising, for all sorts of not very good reasons. Usually when I race, I do it for me, and I don't ask for sponsorship. But now I'm asking. I bet you've never heard of PSP before, and I bet you'd be really glad this association existed if someone close to you was diagnosed with it. So this is for Lucy. I would really appreciate it if you would sling a couple of quid into the pot. Thank you.

Now that's a club I want to belong to

Although to be fair, I already have more than my fair share of sloth.

*blink*

What kind of idiot stays up until after half past four to work on something that nobody has asked for, that will earn only a tiny amount of money (if any), and be rewarded primarily in highly dubious "glory"?

I'm not bloody finished, either.

Oh dear lord and it's actually getting light outside. This is nuts.

The difference between boys and girls...

...is that this can be marketed as a stress ball. Observe.



How can this not be a CAUSE of stress? IT'S DISGUSTING!

In a curiously compulsive way.

ETA: If you want one of these for yourself, they can apparently be acquired here. Googled with the impressively straightforward "stress balls gross". Thanks bumpycat!

Parcelfarce, the petition

Another angry customer - villainously angry, even - is petitioning the PM to make Parcelforce accountable to its customers. Now, I'm no great believer in the power of petitions, but I am very impressed that he's making the effort to pursue the bastards. I too am very angry, and I would really like to believe that it might be possible to change things through the power of Righteous Wrath.

Please, if you live in the UK, go and sign this. Even if through some miracle you haven't had the appalling experiences that so many Parcelforce customers victims have had. We're just asking for accountability - I'm sure you can agree that should be a given. But it's not, since Parcelforce - despite being a branch of Royal Mail Group - is "not a licensed operator" and so not accountable to Postcomm. Or, apparently, anyone.

Is Tom Cruise behind this?

I mean, seriously?!

I am deeply in love with my cat right now.

Jemima is a sweet little thing, but the sweet is mixed with a liberal dash of crazy. That crazy has in the past led her to traumatise herself, and to leave me scarred (quite literally), but these days it seems to be making her utterly, pathetically, endearingly devoted to me.

Since we moved, she has hardly dared set foot outside. When we leave the doors to the garden open, she sits on the doorstep and looks out with big, round eyes at the strange new world out there. But she doesn't dare actually cross the threshold. Once or twice she has - very bravely - ventured out, but she keeps a close eye on the door, and if a person should make the tiniest move towards it, she shoots inside as fast as she can. (Running, on one occasion, straight into the glass door, bouncing off (ouch! forehead!), and circling back without slowing down.) Because clearly we are doing our damndest to trick her into going outside, so that we can lock her out and abandon her FOREVER.

Silly muppet.

This is, of course, the same cat who used to go stir crazy if locked inside for more than 12 hours; the same cat who occasionally disappeared for 24 hours or more at a stretch, causing extreme anxiety in housesitters. But that was before. Now, we've moved, and everything's different. Did I mentioned she traumatised herself, back in her yoof? Yes. The crazy is coming back to haunt her.

Anyway, so besides her sudden fear of the great outdoors, she's also developed an enormous crush on me. Bad things will happen if I am ever in a room without Jemima in it! Ever! So she follows me around, making tiny little birdlike noises, and once she's established what it is that I'm doing and how long I'm likely to be there, settling down to purr wherever she can make herself comfortable.

Like, you know. The handbasin.

Yes, I know she always did like the basin. But then, it was about finding a comfy spot to be alone in. Now, it's about protecting me while I brush my teeth. The second the toothpaste comes out, there she is. Purr, purr, purr. Curling up in a way you'd swear wasn't possible on a hard surface. Purrrrrrr.

Crazy.

London, being a large and diverse city that rather fancies itself, is frequently home to unique and surprising events. But this one takes the trifle.

Observe the list of attractions: "Late bar. Booming sound. Entasis. Jelly wrestling. Theory."

And, dear lord, performers in jelly costumes.

(Picture by Greta Ilieva, stolen from the festival website.)

[A loud, long, lingering scream, echoing into the void] goes here

Parcelforce.

Parcelforceparcelforceparcelforce.

*sob*

Edit: Mirabile dictu! Parcelforce has delivered to me, quite unexpectedly, the very same box that they still claim is sitting in their Coventry hub with "address problems" (since 30 April), and that they assured me they couldn't possibly do anything about without a query being raised by the US sender. Of course, they had previously lied to the USPS and told them the package was delivered on 1 May, so the sender was unable to raise a query. Oh what a tangled web they weave. Seriously, the delivery of this box in no way absolves them of their previous screw-ups - in fact it adds an interesting new layer of deceit and incompetence - but hey: I have my box. I don't have to take it all quite so personally any more.

In other news, apparently Parcelforce is "not a licensed postal operator" and hence doesn't fall under Postwatch's remit. How does that work? Parcelforce is the national carrier, inasmuch as they work hand-in-glove with Royal Mail and the Post Office, their websites and call centres are closely interlinked, and, well, when you post a package overseas using your country's national carrier, it gets handed over to Parcelforce on arrival in the UK. How can it not be a licensed operator? It seems we have the worst of both worlds: the inefficiency of a monopoly, with the lack of accountability of a private company.

Science, a force for good!

I do love to see brainpower applied to making the world a better place. And what better way than through ice cream therapy?

Observations

1. Running at 8.30am is much nicer than running at 11.30am.
2. Except for the hordes of schoolboys.
3. Some of whom appear to think I'm quite fit. That's really funny, for any sense of the word "fit".
4. I have almost three weeks of almost free (as in, not subbing, mostly) time ahead of me.
5. I have A Lot of things I want to accomplish in these three weeks.
6. I'm off to a slow start.
7. I'm starting to wonder whether books like 7 Habits of Highly Annoying People might actually have something to teach me.

It's a lifestyle choice

Science marches ever forward.

Camera dump

Sometimes I forget that the point of taking pictures is to actually remove them from camera and look at them.

In town on my birthday:
A flock of pigeons in Leicester Square. Sort of. They were actually folded leaflets promoting some or other Chinese festival. Very beautiful in that setting.


Alien landing in Wardour Street?


Jemima quite liked this basket of yarn stash. So much that she tipped it over for improved cave access.


Awwww. I don't know how I got this effect. No idea. (It was the camera, not Photoshop, and it wasn't on purpose.)

The great thing about moving 5 minutes down the road is that we're now 5 minutes closer to Osterley Park. Which means my 25 minute run can now take in a little bit of almost countryside.

Communication, part deux

Another evening Chez Scroob. Another bout of concentration interrupted by a ringing telephone. Repeatedly.

rrrrring...*
"Can you send me a test email? I'm not sure this alias is working."

rrrrring...
"How big is your mailing list?"

rrrrring...
"Maybe if this ringtone weren't so annoying, you wouldn't mind the interruptions."

rrrrring...
"Love me?"

rrrrring...
"I think I made the hot chocolate too weak."

rrrrring...
"You know, I really enjoy these silly conversations of ours you've been uploading."
"...Uploading?!"
"Er - writing! Writing! Er, crafting into finely honed internet humour! Er... Hey, don't blog that!"

_____
* Only instead of "rrrrrring", it's actually more like "bloopy-beepy-bloop!bloop!" But that's harder to type.

Parcelforce just almost made me cry...

...from which we can deduce two things.

1. The world still turns, gravity is still operational, chocolate is still fattening and Parcelforce is still The Devil.

2. I am either premenstrual or getting a cold. Possibly both.

Meanwhile, in a part of the internet that I love very, very much, bad things are happening. Which is making trouble for the incredibly cool people who made this incredibly cool site, and is sullying the incredible coolness. (Not an awful lot. Just a bit. But still.) Which also makes me want to cry, a bit, although I am not personally involved in the spat. (Although I could be if I wanted to, and do have very strong opinions on the matter.)

I think I need to go and get me some hot chocolate and other adiposity enhancers. It's the only way.

It's like comedy only not

Two things that aren't funny:

1. On-stage harassment

2. Esteemed Father being out of a job again, again

Meanwhile, how do you suppose one determines whether one is becoming a walking cliche? I ask completely hypothetically, while sipping my organic fairtrade decaf. And knitting a hemp blanket.

Okay, I'm totally kidding about the hemp blanket.

Context is everything

Conversation:

"I mean, what kind of person are you if you HAVEN'T done drugs?"
"Right! ...So what does that make me?"
"Well, have you gone out of your way to not take drugs?"
"No."
"That's okay then."

...
"No I totally DID go to a strip club! They took their clothes off and everything!"

Possibly not the kind of earnestly defensive protestation most men make to their wives...

Communication is so important in a relationship.

Moving from a flat to a three-storey townhouse takes quite a bit of adjusting. Not least in learning that if you need to talk to your beloved, yelling from the top floor to the kitchen *might* not be the best way to carry on a conversation.

Fortunately, technology is on our side. We have installed a set of cordless phones, which function well as an internal communication device. Beloved was initially dead set on walkie talkies but has accepted these as a compromise. It helps that he'd long since formed the habit of texting me from bed to let me know that he'd woken up and wouldn't mind some attention.*

So every so often the peace of my study is disturbed by a ringing phone, as Beloved requires my urgent attention to matters of great consequence. This afternoon, for instance.

Ring ring.
[Completely absorbed in my very demanding brain work,** it takes me a second to surface, place a mental bookmark and find the receiver.]
"No I'm not cooking yet!" I say.***
"Isn't the rain great?" he says.
"Oh. Yes. It is."
"I just wanted to say that."

It was, though.

Note to Greg: actually, I don't think the magic is because I'm not out in the rain. I get a very similar pleasure from heavy rain even when I am out in it, at least sometimes. Don't you?

_____
* This was back in the flat. Distance from his bed to my desk: oh, maybe 5 or 6 metres?
** Researching pattern support for new yarns. What? Ravelry is totally work!
*** Luckily, there's a different ring to let me know when the call is coming from outside the house, and should be answered more politely.

Good lord.

Must watch video that reminds me to ask why we poor souls in exile STILL haven't seen the evidence of what happened to a certain porcelain bunny? Huh? Huh? YOU know who you are and what you've done.

Mmmm...

What is it about rain slamming hard against a window that is so very enjoyable?

Mmmmm.

Geeked out

Conversation:*

"So are you doing anything fun this weekend?"

"Actually, I am. Tomorrow I'm being interviewed for a knitting podcast (fame at last!) and on Monday I'm meeting some blogfriends who are visiting from the US. Wow, putting those together makes for a pretty geeky weekend."

"That makes you practically a Dalek, actually."

"See, now I feel cool again."

_____
* Which took place over email. Does that increase the geek factor or not? I think not. Email is way too commonplace to be geeky.

Comic interlude

An Engineer's Guide to Cats.

With yodelling.

Heptacrap

Which means "crappy week". (Well, it does now.) Nasty lingering cold. Rude customers. Too much work. Internet dramas. Parcelforce. Bitchfight over our tenancy deposit (we're not getting most of it). Eh.

In between all of which I kept thinking fascinating thoughts that I was positively desperate to commit to blog, all of which now escape me. Eh.

Hm. Seriously. There must be something...?

My dad's about to arrive with a couple of trees to stick in the ground for us. Well, that was the idea, but as it's now pissing down I rather think it'll be a couple of trees to leave for us to stick in the ground. Which is fine and all, although I don't have a shovel. (I will shortly have a small garden hand tool set, though. My packaging supplier, always liberal with the free gifts, has suddenly taken to making those free gifts worth having. Last time it was a toolkit. A really rather nice toolkit. It makes me quite suspiciously happy.)

Anyway. We've almost settled into the new house. The Ikea drama had a surprise twist in the tale: the arrival of the online order included those bloody cupboards that we had hysterics over not finding in the store (and then found, and brought home at great personal stress, not to mention certain Streetcar penalties, but never mind that). Beloved thinks it's all my fault, because they're my cupboards. I think it's both our fault, because we did the shopping together and we discussed the online order together, but secretly I think it's a little bit more his fault, because he placed the bloody online order.) So it's Still Not Over. On the other hand, my Art is now hanging decoratively on the walls.

...

Parental visit now passed, the garden is... well. It has some things in the ground. It also has some things not yet in the ground, and an awful lot of ground lying around where it shouldn't be (including on the lounge floor), and general mess galore. Hm.

Better go clean up now.

Poor subconscious, so confused

Interesting twist last night on the usual can't-find-my-classroom/ haven't-done-my-homework/ haven't-prepared-for-the-exam anxiety dream. Indeed I *hadn't* done my homework, but that was because I had been working so hard on Purlescence. Huh. Apparently my subconscious is making some feeble effort to get up to date on what causes me stress, a mere 16 years after leaving all that school crap behind me.

Cold, smelly and unhappy

Reasons not to move into a brand-new development-slash-construction site (#1 of a possibly lengthy series):

Mid-shower, with a head full of shampoo, is not the *best* time to run out of water.

Stockholm syndrome

Who wants to hear a thrilling tale of desire, loss, betrayal and despair?

Excellent. Let me tell you about my recent experiences in Ikea.

Expedition the first.

We set out boldly, full of hope. We had a Detailed List, and a not so detailed list, combining things like "Leksvik bookcase, 192cm high, 2x" with "lounge stuff" and "bedroom stuff". But I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted. And we had schematics of our home, with measurements and everything.

The big challenge, really, was just going to be finding a shelving solution for my second stockroom. Lots of options. Lots of separate parts required. But I had some ideas, and did I mention schematics? And we had all night. We could do this.

Having had some prior experience of Ikea,* we decided to fortify ourselves with a quick meal first. We got food, we sat down, we mildly enjoyed ourselves, indulging Beloved's inexplicable fondness for muzak, and my very explicable fondness for those delicious little chocolatey-spicey-cakey things. Then we headed in.

"Would-you-like-an-Ikea-card, get-five-percent-off-your-purchases-today?" said a rather forceful woman at the entrance. Ooh, we thought, 5% off our entire house full of goodies - sofa, bed, shelving system - yeah, that's worthwhile. Sign us up!

So Beloved got a card, and we worked our way through the store. We sat on sofas. We debated the merits of the fabulous red corduroy (cat hair attracting) versus the dull beige canvas (non-cat hair attracting), and the even more fabulous textured turquoise cotton thing (cat hair attracting and non-removable). We considered the corner unit, the 3-seater, the footstool, the sofa bed, the corner sofa bed and the chaise longue. We looked at coffee tables and sideboards. We mused over chests of drawers and bedside tables. We checked our schematics. We mused some more. We compared wood and wood-like finishes. We investigated shelving solutions. We admired mirrors. We picked up this and that. Eventually, we left the market hall** with a trolley full of The Small Stuff and a packing list for The Big Stuff. Most of it, anyway.

It was well after 11pm. We were Quite Tired. Since we were clearly not going to be able to fit everything (sofa, anyone?) into the car anyway, we decided to make a break for it and come back. We really wanted to collect a dining table and chairs, but the one we wanted was sold out. "We're getting more tomorrow," we were told. We really wanted a catalogue, so that we could make further decisions from the comfort of our own internet-less home, but they were out of that too. "We're getting more tomorrow." Clearly tomorrow was going to be a big day. Who knew what joys would be delivered tomorrow!

Well, our next visit would, clearly, be a piece of piss, since we now had all these great notes. So we exited, claiming our 5% off vouchers... which of course came to a princely £10, since we'd left all the big stuff for next time. Naturally, this only occurred to me later.

Two days later: Expedition the second.
[NB: This took place after a separate trip to Warren Evans, during which we resolved our bedroom situation. This meant a whole room less to furnish at Ikea. Really, what was left? Nothing! This would be FINE!]

We ventured back, notes at the ready. We had a pretty specific plan for what we needed to buy, although some decisions still had to be made, some pick-up locations still needed to be identified. Clearly, we'd be out of there in an hour and a half at the outside, right?

Well.

We made it out... eventually. Having made some shrewd calculations as to what would need to be ordered online later. Our dining table set was still unavailable. "Come back tomorrow." Well, bugger all that. Is it online? Great. How about the sofa? Excellent. Bookcases? No problem. The shelving solution - well, no, that I needed to buy in person. So that was what we'd get. That and a few other small things. Let's go. Having now applied for my own Ikea card, specifically in order to get more damn vouchers - AHAHAHAAAA! - this time I was able to claim a princely... £30. Oh well. Time to pack the car.

Now, picture the scene.
EXT CAR PARK, NIGHT.

CAR PARK ATTENDANT: You want some help loading the car?
BELOVED: No thanks, we're fine here.

[Commence packing. It is hard. The car is small. The boxes are many, and large.]

PASSING VAN MAN: [unintelligible, but probably something like "you need a delivery service?"
BELOVED: No thanks, we're fine here.

[Recommence packing. The car is still small. The boxes are still large.]

BELOVED: This is like one of those religious stories, where God keeps sending you help and you turn it down...
ME: Then it's a good thing you don't believe in God.
BELOVED: Right.

[Recommence packing.]

CAR PARK ATTENDANT: You know, if I were doing this, we'd be done already.
BELOVED: Well okay then.

[They pack. They are indeed done very quickly. The boxes are still large, but so is the car park attendant.]

BELOVED: That's great. Thank you. Really, thanks a lot. Okay then.
ME: [sotto voce] You don't think we should tip him?
BELOVED: [equally sotto voce] I don't have any money.
ME: *sigh* Here, something for your trouble. Thanks a lot. Good night.

[We climb into the car. In my case, this involves quite startling contortions, as my seat is largely occupied by boxes.]

BELOVED: You all right there?
ME: Sure, as long as I don't have to navigate, since I can't lift my head.
BELOVED: But you do have to navigate.
ME: Um... okay. Sure. Whatever.

[Beloved starts the car.]

BELOVED: I can't drive.
ME: ...???...
BELOVED: I shouldn't drive. This isn't safe. I can't see.
ME: ...Okay.

So we unloaded those big damn boxes (the car park attendant could see us, but had clearly decided we were crazy and to be avoided) and went back in to find the delivery service. At which point we realised that, since the delivery charges were banded according to total order value, we could go back and do *more shopping* to get the most value out of our damn delivery charge. Hooray for sofas! And gi-huge mirrors that we could never have gotten in our car! And stuff! Apart from a few things that were out of stock and would so need to be sorted out online, we now had everything! Yay us! No more Ikea!

Interlude.

Beloved made use of his work internet to place an online order. We will apparently have a dining table set delivered on April Fool's Day. I am trying not to see this as an omen.

The delivery arrived. It included four really, really, really heavy boxes that needed to be taken to the top floor and assembled there. We lugged the boxes up the stairs. Beloved was at pains to point out to me that when we leave this house, he will Not Be Helping with taking these shelves down again. I opened the boxes to start assembling shelves.

They were the wrong damn colour.

Also, Beloved took fright at the enormous size and weight of the mirror and decided he Will Not Hang It, for fear of making the entire house collapse.

Just like in Lost, season four... We have to go back.

Expedition the third.

We decided, this time, to go to the Croydon store, instead of Wembley. It is really bloody far away, and I had no idea how to drive to Croydon, but it's a much nicer store - and more to the point, it had various items In Stock.

We still had to figure out how to get the boxes into the car. The boxes and mirror that, last time around, were simply too damn big. No problem, said Beloved, I Can Has Rope!

We loaded the car. In the rain. And the hail. And the snow. And, freakishly, the sun. (I'd like to say that all this weather was happening at the exact same time, but that would be a lie. Almost two whole minutes separated the sun-and-hail from the snow-and-rain.) Eventually, an exciting cat's-cradle affair was constructed to hold the boxes in the open boot, while we drove to Croydon. In subzero temperatures. With an open boot.

We got to Croydon in quite a chilly state, but hey, we made it, and had no trouble returning the goods. We went in. We are really rather sick of Ikea by now. The traditional fortifying supper failed to quite ameliorate the misery. But hey - we didn't have much to get, right? And we knew exactly what it all was. We'd be done quickly.

Inexplicably, Beloved decided to dawdle in the lighting department. And everywhere else. "But I'm tiiiiiiired!" I whined. "But we need to get this right!" he insisted. Still, I did finally succeed in dragging him out of the market hall, and we found the locations for the shelves we needed (right colours and everything).

They were not there.

The blasted shelves, that cannot be bought online and cannot be found at Wembley, were not there. I opened my mouth and drew breath.

In a split-second act of pure desperation, Beloved moved to avoid my tantrum by asking a passing minion if there weren't maybe some more of these shelves hiding somewhere PLEASE GOD LET THERE BE SHELVES.

There were shelves!

Unbelievable.

We got the shelves (after only half an hour or so of standing around waiting). We bought the shelves (even remembering, only just, to pay for them using our assorted discount and refund vouchers). We packed the car, again, with more cat's cradles, still in the freezing cold, and drove all the way back from Croydon without having them fall out of the car. We got them home, and up the damn stairs. We were hit with a £50 fine for late return of the streetcar, making those thrice-cursed shelves rather more expensive than they should have been, but that's another story. I opened the box. They were the right colour! Hurrah! I built some shelves, noting as I did so that one piece was quite significantly (if only cosmetically) damaged and really shouldn't be accepted, but at this stage there's no way in hell we're going back to Ikea, so I'll just deal with it. I covered a wall of the spare room/second stockroom in shelving.

And you know what?

Those are some damn ugly shelves.

_____
* Note for South Africans and Martians: Ikea is a huge, warehouse-style repository of cheap flat-pack (i.e. to be assembled by you, at home) furniture. It is theoretically possible to entirely furnish a small flat for less than £1,000 with Ikea's entry-level stuff. (Whether or not such a flat would be worth living in, I leave to the reader as a philosophical exercise.) It is also theoretically possible to find some rather nicer, but still very cheap, solid wood furniture, not to mention a vast array of Storage Options.

Ikea is Swedish, and there is a cafeteria-style restaurant attached, as well as a hot dog stand and a little shop full of Swedish foodstuffs. This seemed utterly bizarre to me until the end of my first Ikea trip, when I realised that I had been there for three or four rather stressful hours, and it was no longer ludicrous to consider sitting down and eating something in that pit of despair.

All you really need to know about Ikea is that the words "I've just been to Ikea," or indeed "I have to go to Ikea," are likely to elicit a heartfelt response of "Oh you poor thing!", in tones usually reserved for condolences on a great personal loss.

And yet, we go back. In some cases, we go back... and back... and back.

**The three circles of hell: the showroom, where you can consider furniture styles, bedroom layouts etc, and make notes of where to collect the actual furniture; the market hall, where you can pick up smaller items; and the "self-service area", where you can are meant to find the boxes that will eventually become furniture.

When the internet's away...

...this is some of what Scroobious has been doing (in no particular order):

1. Unpacking
2. Going to Ikea
3. Unpacking
4. Going to Ikea
5. Going to Warren Evans
6. Unpacking
7. Going to John Lewis
8. Unpacking
9. Taking deliveries
10. Taking more deliveries
11. Playing with her robot*
12. Still unpacking, DEAR LORD WILL IT NEVER END.
13. Trying to figure out the heating.
14. Battling The Devil.**
15. Feeling astonishingly grown up at having bought a bed and a sofa, both for pretty much the first time in my life.***
16. Loving my new space.
17. Wishing the furnishings for the new space were coming together just a leeeetle bit faster.
18. Tripping over boxes, both full and empty.
19. Assembling furniture. I built my own desk! And some other stuff. Yay furniture assembly! It is FUN.
20. Really, really, really missing the internet.
21. Constantly thinking "Oh, I must blog that when our broadband is up."
22. Completely forgetting what it was I meant to blog.
23. Buying ART! How grown-up is that!
24. Being chided for leaving "that hedge stuff" up on the blog for so long without new content, asifihadanychoice. Didn't anybody like the hedges? I liked the hedges. Oh well. No accounting for tastes.
25. Rediscovering Helene Hanff, who floated to the top of the to-be-unpacked boxes and trapped me on the couch for a few delicious hours.
26. Um... some other stuff. Probably. I forget.

__________
* Yes it's safe for work. *rolls eyes* ...Oh god I just looked at that site a bit more than I usually do. My robot is cousin to military robots. Suddenly I don't like it as much. But, okay. It doesn't deliver bombs, it disarms them. All right. That's better. Um. Hm.
** As regular readers will know, that would be Parcelforce.
*** I am not counting the random acquisition of furniture being offloaded by other people and adopted by me on an "all right then, have a few pennies for it" basis. This is real purchasing, of the proper choosing from a range of options variety.

I LOVE YOU, INTERNET!

*sniff*
Don't ever leave me again.

Who else would give me things like this?

Hedges: without them, we'd be no better than the damn French (and plus they'd beat us up)

[More from Estates Gazette, 1884]

The British hedgerow is a national institution. Without it, or its equivalent in stonewall countries, an English landscape might, for any difference striking enough to catch the passing eye, be a Belgian or a French one. The peculiar golden green of flax crops, the snowy expanses of beck wheat, and the red broad veins of the tobacco leaf may occur, it is true, less often, or not at all, in English acres to diversify the agricultural outlook from a railway car. But these are details. Whereas the presence of hedgerows trailing one after another past the carriage windows is full, to the Englishman returning from his travels, of wakening reminiscences of home-life in England, nowhere else. The national idea of comfort and secluded cosiness as the equivalent for happiness has been traced from time to time to many things, but a philosophic mind should see no difficulty in digging up the roots of the national sentiment from the bottom of the quick-set hedges that shelter each homestead from blasting winds and peering strangers.

Take an English cottage, with its little garden surrounded by an hedge, a cornfield on one side surrounded by a hedge, a pasture on the other surrounded by a hedge, an orchard at the back surrounded by a hedge, and a highway in front hedged in on both sides, and we have ample ground for supposing that cosiness, homeliness, and all the domestic virtues could not fail to take root and flourish in such a pot. Take away the hedges, and we have only a solitary cottage standing prominently out to the public gaze in a wide plain by the side of a public road. At once we can understand how the inhabitants of such a homestead, feeling that their every action is more or less performed in public, that their houses can be criticised from roof to basement by each curious passerby, and here at once we have the ground-work of the Continental weakness for out-of-door display and showy publicity. When, further, it is remembered that the two classes of dwelling have been for ages characteristic of whole countries, we can imagine how the instincts thus engendered have developed into national features more marked than any other, though only a few miles of sea may separate the owners…

Another argument, too, should not be forgotten. Patriotism, it is true, is getting out of date, but a famous English general has said, and it was greatly to his credit, that no invading army, battles of Dorking and Guildford notwithstanding, could ever reach London in the face of our volunteers and our hedges. Each highway, each orchard, each potato field would have to be sown thick with corpses and ploughed deep with cannon shot before the enemy could pass. Now, just when the Channel Tunnel scheme, scotched, but not killed, is recovering strength in secret to rear its head again in public, is a bad time to speak of abolishing what, next to the seas around these islands, is the main protection of our island home.

Speaking out against the bridge and tunnel crowd

[From Estates Gazette, 1883]

We rejoice that the Channel Tunnel scheme has been rejected. The people in England would indeed be idiots to in any way injure or destroy our insular position.

Without doubt we should have been overwhelmed by the continental armies if we had not that natural fortification of that "little silver belt" round us. We should thank God for such a safeguard and let well alone.

Some highly gifted man has proposed a bridge over the channel! What next?

Things that are Wrong with this week

1) Beloved is on night shift. That's just always Wrong. (And messes with my own sleep patterns.)

2) I had to get up at 6.30am yesterday to pack orders. Again, Wrong. I'm not complaining about the orders themselves, obv - they are coming in thick and fast and if they weren't I'd be in trouble - but still... that is a Wrong time of day.

3) On Monday, I undertook my first ever business trip. Now, I've always wanted to have a job that required me to travel. I know that it frequently sucks, involving Wrong times of day and so on, but it also takes you to see cool places for free, right? Well. My first business trip. And it was (a) to Birmingham, (b) paid for by me, and (c) did I mention to *Birmingham*? Actually, not even that. It was to the NEC. Which is basically An Airport (even though I got there by train) and could have been anywhere in the whole world as long as that somewhere is depressing.

I did make a point of travelling into town proper, though, because I'm sad enough to want to see the snakeskin spaceship, as absolutely nobody calls it. (Selfridges, I mean.)

Anyway. Spending £60 of my own money and hours of my own time - with a cold - to go to Birmingham. Wrong.

4. It's past midnight and I'm not in bed yet. Because I haven't quite got around to going to bed. Because then I'll just go to sleep and wake up and have to do far too much work again, just like every other day. Wrong. Of me. Very, very, very stupid. Well.

5. Having completed the entire back and side front of a jacket I'm knitting, I decided I'd got the size completely wrong and must start again. Because I just have sooo much time to knit, it's fun to waste it doing everything Wrong.

6. On telling Beloved the above, he said: "That's why you never get anywhere. You keep on doing everything wrong and starting again." He was on the other end of a phone line so I couldn't hit him. WRONG.

On the other hand. Have a little comic relief.

Would you take driving lessons...

...from the Impact Group?

How about booking a trip with Impact Coach Hire?

Perhaps appropriately, I can't link to this very real company because Google is warning me that "this site may harm your computer".

*sigh*

We can haz house!

It is Not Right that lolcats has infiltrated my speech patterns. Just Not Right.

Be that as it may, we appear to have successfully bamboozled one of London's All-Powerful Networks of Evil* into giving us a house. (Well, not so much giving, more extorting spare kidneys for, but whatev.) If you believe the marketing guff, it is in fact a "luxury villa" in "fine surroundings", but then if you believe the marketing guff...

Natheless. Four bedrooms, people. I shall be selling SO MUCH WOOL. (I'll have to, to pay for the damn thing.) Also, that leaves room for guests. This Means You! (Probably.) Also, and more importantly, there will be a housewarming. Yay!

Carry on having a fine weekend, then. I know I will.

_____
* Lettings agencies

I'm not alcoholic, just well informed

88%DRUNKARD

Mmmmm booze.

Oh dear.

No good will come of this.

The darling buds of January

I seem have a habit of accumulating pictures on my phone for weeks at a stretch, before I finally take the time to download them, and then it may be even longer before I actually get around to using them in some way.

So it is that by the time I post this - which I took on a very cold morning, amazed at the optimism of this hedge - fresh buds and leaves are seriously old news. Ah well. It's still pretty.

Conquering the Jakobshorn (by Scroobious Mountain Tamer)*

Day One. We arrive at our destination in fine weather. The Jakobshorn looms proudly over Davos: Fear Me, she seems to warn. I Will Not Bow to You. I remember my last encounter with her; an arduous climb in the heat of summer. I succeeded that time. Will she remember? Will she respect me?

Having stowed our provisions, my Gurkha and I venture onto the foothills in an exploratory excursion. I am pleased to discover that my practice a year ago has not been entirely forgotten. I retire basking in the confidence that I am well placed to launch this fresh onslaught.


Day Two. We wake to a veritable blizzard. There will be no attack on the Witch of Davos today. Instead we go in search of equipment (I am lucky enough to find a local merchant willing to part with some old and some new goods at a most advantageous price) and devise a battle plan. At twilight, we stroll up the Schatzalp, opposite our target, and gaze upon her. She disdains to acknowledge our regard. Ha! You will regret your vanity, Witch!

Day Three. The day starts well; the first phase, down in the foothills, passes off very successfully. The Gurkha is impressed with my progress, unpractised as I am, and patiently teaches me new skill. My new equipment is performing well. Emboldened, we ascend to the higher slopes.


The problems start almost immediately. The new boots are suddenly crippling. The skis are too long. The slopes are too high, too long, too steep. I can feel how the Jakobshorn is bending her dark powers to destroy me - how, till now, she has merely been mocking us, allowing us foolishly to imagine her unprepared for battle - and I am not strong enough to withstand her. I weep.


At midnight, our final companion arrives. Pippa Snow Glider is sobered to hear of our inglorious misadventures of the day, but still hopeful. "Did you not kick back?" she asks, when I relate how the Witch kicked me that day. I am speechless. Has she not observed that the mountain is bigger than me?

But ultimately, I confess, I am cheered by her encouragement, and by the addition to our numbers.

Day Four. We spend the day in the foothills again, honing our skills. I have realised at last the dangers of hubris. Pip and I practise with our minds jointly focused on one task: we must build our strength. We must perfect our skill. We must defeat the Jakobshorn.


The Snow Glider's greater experience is most helpful. I take comfort in her courage and optimism - and in the continuing patience and encouragement of our most noble Gurkha. Intimately familiar as he is with the ways of the mountain, I know we can trust him. Even if we do not succeed this time in conquering the Jakobshorn, I am sure that she will not finally defeat us.


Day Five. We have progressed well, and decide the time has come to broach the upper slopes. No attack today - we will merely aim to better acquaint ourselves with the territory. Our respectful approach seems to calm the Jakobshorn, and she refrains from wreaking dark havoc on us this day. This is an excellent outcome. We retire at last greatly cheered, and prepare for the final day's challenges.

Day Six. Today is our last opportunity to defeat the Witch of Davos, but it is vital not to overreach ourselves. We spend the first part of the day in the same way as before: in careful practice and mastery of our skill. At last, when the day is almost done, the time has come.

The Snow Glider chooses not to stand beside me for the final onslaught; she recognises that this fight is mine alone. My faithful Gurkha, of course, is with me. We drink a ceremonial rumpunsch, and as the slopes empty in the early sunset light, we join battle.


Our strength is truly much greater now, and the initial phases go well. I take a few blows, but am not slowed. As the light slowly fades, I revel in my power and mastery over the mountain. Further we strike - and further. The battle is almost won, I am certain, when the Witch launches one last attack: the blackest of slopes is suddenly before me. And in perfectly witchy manner, it is reached just as the last gondola is preparing to descend from the halfway station of Ischalp. Pistenkontrolle, the Witch's familiar, stands beside me. Will you continue in this foolishness? he asks. Or will you accept defeat gracefully?

No! I will succeed or perish!

And so we descend - painfully, taking blow after blow from this treacherous slope, as the Witch throws her all at us. But this week has hardened my resolve to tempered steel, and I will not be turned from my purpose.

At last we make it through this final barrier - and victory is in sight. Yet I cannot rest. The Witch is bloodied and beaten; she knows she is defeated, but I have to finish it. The last stage of the battle is agonising; no more blows descend on me, but my body is screaming with the pain of those that came before, and most of all with exhaustion. I hear behind me the ominous hiss of Pistenkontrolle, his resentment of his mistress's humbling. It is unnerving, but he can do nothing to me now.


And so at last we reach the bottom. I gaze upon the once-proud visage of the Jakobshorn. Once I climbed all the way from the very bottom to the very top; today, I skied right from the peak to the valley. No more can she be called the Witch of Davos...

...from now on, the Jakobshorn is my bitch.

_____
* It's possible that none of this will make sense to anyone who wasn't actually with me last week. I hope that it will at least ring a bell or two with anyone who's ever been a beginner skier.