too much time on my hands

Scandanavia

Just back from a weekend in Denmark.

The Little Mermaid is probably the most famous tourist spot of the town. Lots of Hans Christian Anderson things about but this one is *the* postcard picture.Unfortunately we forgot to put the 128mb card back into the camera and had to make do with 16mb....

The harbour area is very pretty and another postcard destination.

One of the highlights of our weekend was taking a day trip over to Sweden!

It's half an hour on the train over the Oresund and being travel junkies, we had to nip over to say we'd been.

I particularly liked looking round the Swedish Design shop and wishing I just had that spare few thousand Kroner to buy something really special to bring home.

In Denmark we hired bikes to look round the city, visited the extortionate Tivoli, admired the amber on sale everywhere, ate collossal breakfasts in our very pleasant hotel, walked miles around the city taking in the architecture and ate out in some cool restaurants.

In Sweden we spent our time in Malmo looking at the new area with its 'Turning Torso' building, ate apple and cinnamon ice cream in the sun on the Western Harbour, wandered in the old town taking pictures and window shopping Swedish Design, looked round St Peter's Church and sent some postcards.

Got to the airport on Sunday afternoon with lots of time to kill before our flight. Drank freely and played backgammon.

Our travel advice: Take the train to Sweden. Buy a Copenhagen card. Go without teenagers.

Lilla Torg (Little Square)

Lilla Torg (Little Square)
Originally uploaded by kumquat7.

The family on a day trip to Sweden

loss

3 days, 3 pounds.

confession session

A friend of mine admitted on his blog that he had spent 3 hours over the Easter weekend making a spreadsheet collating the information of all the book reviews in the nationals. It brought to mind a sordid little nugget of information I feel brave enough to confess now. I responded thus to his blog:

I'm delighted to hear about your entirely geeky 3 hours spent making a
spreadsheet on book reviews! It gives me the confidence to admit that I once
made a power point presentation on Ruskin just for the fun of collecting the
information and creating a teaching aid. I only ever told two other people. One
smiled nicely and the other laughed me out of town and teased me for months
after.

Has anyone else out there done anything geeky they'd like to admit to?

Bank Holiday

What did you do on your bank holiday? I spent mine at Huntingdon Racecourse giving away my money to the nice lady at the Tote stall.

Christ is risen...

...Happy Yeaster.


Just back from church and hoping that isn't blasphemous.

As you know, I'm on holiday now for 2 glorious weeks. I am going to use this time to become half the woman I was. Yes, in two weeks I am going to have lost TWO STONE. Essentially that means losing 2 pounds per day...and I have a 12 hour party to go to later this afternoon.

comfy

feeling a darn sight comfier than i did 14 years ago.

i'm on 2 weeks holiday now and not a moment too soon. haven't stopped rushing for months and months. even our wonderful holiday last month was wall to wall activity. i plan to see some ppl i haven't spent enough time with in ages, get the jumble sale looking like a house again and catch up on lots of important things like sleep, gardening, watching films, reading books, tidying up and did i mention sleeping?

oh and at least one interview that i know about.

how on earth did that happen?

My son turns 14 tomorrow.

A picture by Digger :)

tagged!

I was tagged several days ago and I've only just worked out what it means - duh! Anyway, here are the answers 'FeedthePony' wants me to answer and which the rest of you just have to put up with!

What were you doing 10 years ago?

1996...hmmm, I was working in a crummy sandwich bar which for the most part I quite enjoyed. I had been married for a year and was living in a housing association rabbit hutch with a number of cats and a lovely garden.

What were you doing 5 years ago?

2001..hmm, I graduated from DMU in English. Got the result I wanted to treated myself to a tattoo of a lizard. By then we had got a house of our own, two cats and it was also the year I had some major surgery

What were you doing 1 year ago?
2005 hmmm...(checks the diary), oh blimey, glad i checked back to last april 12, it's a mates birthday i'd completely forgotten about... I went for a run, picked up some pottery I was having fired, watched 'The Big Blue and looked at the photos I'd taken the previous day at the zoo.

5 Bad habits you have
biting my nails, leaving things to the last minute, always being 10 minutes late, letting our house become untidy and eating muffins when I know I'll feel guilty and fat the minute I've shoved the last delicious crumb into my mouth. (i've given them up for lent, though I fear not for reasons of religious abstemiousness rather any excuse to reduce my fat intake)

5 People you would like to do this: Anyone who reads my blog please.

24

Have spent the last 24 hours being sick and sweating. (ha, my cultured friends i bet i get more response to vomit than bernini!) Headaches, dizziness, nausea,exhaustion. So I'm up for the first time in 24 hours and enjoying the simple delights of a shower and sitting upright for more than 2 minutes without feeling that a green gremlin is sitting on my head and tightening the screws of a gigantic vice.
Sadly I missed the regional meeting which would have enabled me to garner all sorts of juicy gossip which at least two other non-attendees have quizzed me for!
If you feel in need of reminding of the reason for life and what's so great about where you live...sit in a darkened room for a day and when you get out you'll be amazed at how beautiful clouds are and grateful that the sun's still shining.

bernini touche

040319 bernini touche
Originally uploaded by jw_nyc.

isn't that amazing?

after the walk

an hour's walk round the woods beyond deadman's cross and I have two flaked out pups!

prior to execution

a painting to view before execution

love is...

...having friends over who look at the dinner you've given them, tell you that it looks like someone has coughed up an asbestos poisoned lung with blood clots onto their plate, and you still like them.

thank goodness for pens and paper

two fab days cramming my head and notebook full of info at a 2 day training session for work. unspeakably dull subject matter for anyone not doing my job, somehow made alive by interesting people and an opportunity for me to learn new stuff, for which i will do almost anything.

pizza out with mary and zak in angel. fabulous crust! how did that second bottle of wine arrive? when will i meet a white russian next? and of course i sat on the seat of fame. yes, i sat on a settee as sat on by peter jackson at my mates house. it's gratuitous bragging and repetitious if you read my blog regularly but....yes, derek jarman lived there once. (mole, it's angel and therefore the chapel market)

and now i'm going to bed because i have an evil sore throat that won't go away and it's making me miserable. hmph.

another time i might tell you about the goats in the machine.






maybe.

getoutmore

getoutmore
Originally uploaded by kumquat7.

Brian Houston

Went to see Brian Houston play

March 31st, 2006 Bedford,

The ent. Shed Gordon Arms,

Castle Rd.

last night. First time I'd seen him / heard of him but was dragged along by my sis-in-law. Glad I went! Liked him a lot. Quite a loveable scruffbag.

Take a look if you like. www.brianhouston.com She told me he was a bit Bob Dylan sounding. Sometimes he sounds a bit too country for my liking but others of his tracks are pretty rocky and very likeable. A lot of the songs have a pretty sad, solemn content (drunk fathers, getting life threatening news, betrayal) but between songs he's hilarious, stopping to tell funny anecdotes and banter with the audience. Shame there weren't more people there.

I'm Not Scared.

Buy this!!! 99p at Waterstones and a better value read you won't find anywhere for a long time. This story is amazing! My boss told me to read it so I could explain the ending to him. It's the 2nd Italian author book in a row as recommended by him and I was wary as the first title was a bit pap. (Camilleri) Wow, I started this morning and could not put it down. The protaganist is an 8 or 9 year old boy living out in the countryside of Italy. Cycling out in the stifling heat of the summer of '78, he makes a startling discovery out in the woods playing forfeits with a gang of mates. I'm not telling you anything else but it's page turning, evocatively written, suspenseful and touching. READ IT!!

idle words!

Managed to have a conversation with my boss back at my home branch yesterday in which the old order was established. Me being rude to him and him being rude back. It was strangely comforting.

me: it's you who likes camilleri as a writer isn't it?
him: yeah, brilliant stuff
me: no it isn't. the prose is piss poor
him: no it's not
me: bang, a shot rang out
him: it's not like that
me: it's rubbish
him: well it's a good story
me: yeah that's what they said about the da vinci code

laughter

(final point to kumquat methinks)

So I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and will finish it. So far it's horrible stereotypes, repeated hyperbole and too many long winded sentences talking about the brother of the person who isn't actually at this conversation but would have been if it hadn't been for the sister of the inspectors...... zzzzzzz.

Still, I'm only on page 52 (!) and I have ridiculed many a good book at this stage only to end up loving it. At least I have a train journey tomorrow to kill. It's never going to rival the Palahniuk I read the book before last. Top flight american-quirky-weirdness. Fab.

~0~

So anyway, I can't believe I haven't told you about me smashing up my car. Darling Maddy has a scrumpled up bonnet and smashed lights on the driver side. I'm gutted. Also they can't mend her til 11th April. Traffic on the A1 backed up in front and a momentary lapse in concentration prevented me from stopping quite in time. I felt rather a fool but thankfully the owner of the car I went into went into was very nice about it. Just a bind. Something else to contend with this week.

~0~

Tomorrow should be fun. Regional AM mtg in London where I get to meet lots of my lovely friends and hopefully go out for drinks after we've humoured the senior staff by nodding in the right places. Right Phillie?

Oh that reminds me Phillie, you have to ask me about your latest member of staff arriving from the branch known as 'exile'. I have insider information. heh heh.

nuffield visit

ok well the news is not awful. basically we got option 'b'. the tumour has not grown which is of course, great news. the consultant maintains that it has been there for a long time. we now have to decide whether to leave it alone and just check up on it from time to time or go ahead with radiotherapy and shrink it. i know what i would do but esentially it's not my decision (also my opinion hasn't been asked yet!) The next step will be an appointment with the oncologist at Addenbrookes to talk through the process of treatment that will give us more of an idea of what we're accepting or turning down. One further meeting with the consultant after that and we'll be ready to make a final decision.

thank you so much for your interest and concern. it's been a pretty trying time and we both still feel a bit up in the air about what's going on just because it's hard to turn off those months-long feelings of waiting and wondering.

and now i'm going to write a post more light hearted things so you're not greeted with news about brain tumours the second you log on here!!

watch this space

FAO all you lovely people out there who for one reason or another seem to give a damn about us, Mr K has an appointment to see the consultant this Wednesday. This is the biggy. We're expecting to find out if his tumour has; grown (requiring a biopsy, radiotherapy and who knows what outcome), stayed the same size and therefore is not cancerous but may need further monitoring or if God has healed him and the tumour has disappeared...?!?!?! Being a woman of not enormous faith in the healing department I'm expecting moderately good news ie option 'b'. However we are surrounded by friends and family all over the world who have been praying for months for him to be healed. My take on this, as a Christian, is that God is under no obligation to do as we tell him - you know, him being big and us being small (!) - but divine intervention kablamo style isn't something I'd turn down.

Whatever happens, the next couple of days are going to be somewhat stressful as we try and brace ourselves for the possibility of our world being held upside down and shaken a bit til all the loose change falls out of our pockets and we appreciate your thoughts, friendship and prayers.

blog highlights

Here are a few extracts from friends blogs for your interest and delectation. Also it's nice to plug a friends efforts once in a while.

http://blog.jodidodds.com/

If my condo is worth $500,000 by then, it will just cost me $1,000,000 for a house. I suppose it only makes a difference if one sells and moves to a less expensive area. But then - interesting cities are expensive for a reason. People want to live in them, and they are willing to pay for such exciting and amazing lives.

To which I agreed that although our repossession house had quadrupled in price since we bought it, we'd have to move into a caravan if we wanted to see any of the cash!

http://feedthepony.blogspot.com/

Movie Haiku - V For Vendetta
He keeps his mask on
wants anarchy in UK
big bang for Big Ben

Clever friend who haikuus recent films to help you decide whether to go and see it.

More next time.

Timber!

For those of you lucky enough to know the phenomenon that is Monty, I bring you Monty supercharged. She goes by the name of Timber and we're looking after her for a few days. She's like an elastic ball bouncing off the walls. I've been trying for 2 days to get a picture of her face but so far she's not kept still long enough. This is the best you're going to get. She's having her spring break chez kumquat while her kennel is being built in the meantime, she and Monty have had to bed down together.

We love her to bits!

A pleasant night over in London while on my course.

No matter how good your camera, nothing can reproduce the grandeur of actually being on the edge of a precipice in the alps.

We had an amazing time, spoilt with brilliant sunshine and cloudless skies the entire time we were away. Above is one of my favourite red runs. (Direction Oz?) During the week I did the longest black piste run in Europe; 16k and one of the most difficult black runs in Europe: the tunnel run. Seasoned skiers think twice and three times before hanging their feet over the edge and manoeuvring the moguls.

It's very peculiar to be skiing in blazing sunshine but still see enormous icicles (some up to 20 ft) and snowdrifts everywhere.

I've come back with Panda eyes from tanning with sunglasses, attempted harder runs than last year, made a few jumps and raced with the blokes!

The scenery is stunning, the sport is breath taking and the company was brilliant. It's the perfect holiday if you have a kid who is always on the move and two adults who don't quite know when enough is enough.

brief interlude

today

tomorrow

see you when i get back

if anyone wants a postcard, send me your request by this evening.

xxx

and two days ago...

we had a woman in the store wearing a gasmask.

my how the darth vader jokes went on after she'd left.

okaaaay...

"if i've seen a book i want, am i allowed to take it off the shelf or do i have to come to the desk?"

word for word. quaint how there are still people in the C21st who haven't grasped the concept of shopping. heaven help her at tesco.

couple of days ago a customer rang up to say her book was damaged and she only noticed when she'd got home, would i pay for her parking to come back in and get a replacement?

ponies!

never before in the history of all things culinary has a finer crust and rice pudding been sampled.

Now to work on the clanger liberation front.

'Moo' and 'baaa' say we for the dark grey turkeys.

lords of dogtown

love to hate

got a fwd but I liked this quote:

Inside me lives a skinny woman crying to get out. But I can usually shut the bitch up with cookies.

in good company!

received news today of people thinking about Mr K at the moment and wrote: we light a candle at breakfast every day for you all-and Norman Kember. Not sure how I feel about being included in such illustrious company but very touched.

half and half

another day of flitting between two different branches and not really enjoying the dizzying effects of hurtling round hertfordshire. well, it makes the working day go quicker i guess.

overheard at work today: "that book's awful. i read the first few pages but it was so bad i had to throw it across the room." It happened to be the book I'm reading at the moment and finding really interesting!

day off

lay in til 930 when i realised i had an appointment in an hours time, half an hour away. made it by 1035.

the appointment went like this. brrr. clump clump clump. crunch crunch. click-clunk, click-clunk, ting-ting-ting of the poma, swooooosh.

got home. went and had me nails done.

got home. washed up. sat and watched 'bagdad cafe' that i got free with the guardian a few months ago. really liked it. the setting was just the kind of colours and backdrop to a lot of books i like reading. decided i really like that beat up old american middle of nowhere type of scene, especially in novels.

got pizza in. had friend round. put world to rights. got late birthday present from her after her trip to syria; groovy ingredients for middle eastern cooking (saffron, undefined but delicious smelling spice, dried lemons which remind me of the shrunken heads in the pitts river which i haven't seen so therefore can't technically be reminded of them but still are rather how i picture a shrunken head, only more aromatic, hopefully) Also got a stunning tablecloth made of woven reds, golds and blacks from Syria. Reminded me a lot of the traditional Palestinian patterns on other things I have.

just read someone else's blog who says lots of tremendously charming things about me. obviously someone who doesn't know me terribly well but i'm not complaining.

i might even link it!

http://newyorktrilogy.livejournal.com/

what the heck.

quite simply splendid

what a top notch day. down to Londonium to sit around in a meeting for work, seeing lots of lovely peeps I consider good friends since starting the fasttrack course. A trip round my mate's store where he is the A.M (almighty master). Coffee out with said chap. Giggles about our 100 word writing challenge and promises to quaff alcohol together again soon.

Wandered down to the National Theatre where I saw a stunning display of post-Tsunami photos put up by Oxfam. I do think Oxfam are completely fab.

Got intercepted just as I was heading for Tate Modern by a text from another rather charming mate who told me to hot foot it back to Covent Garden's 'Food for Thought' restaurant to meet him for lunch. Don't mind if I do! Had one of my favourite foods ever - pasta and pesto. Kicks foodie butt. A groovy little broom cupboard of an establishment. Talked shop for a while then moved on to the pub to put the worlds to right.

Trained back home in time for tea prepared by the MIL and am now about to drop into my pit for a few hours.

protecting the guilty

persons a, b, c, d and e have been lax recently and rather unfeeling despite my having taken an unspecified action. Person f has outclassed him/herself in being a prize chump and left me and person g unhappy. People at location A have helped and a number at location B also. On another matter I am spending less time at location C which is not a bad thing but location D is not a perfect place to be always. In particular individual x can be hard work and makes me think how easy it was to be with person y. Person z continues to be intermittently annoying with occassional flashes of personability. Overall the situation with (i) is looking positive and situation (ii) has an end in sight.

But now I must go down to person g and have lunch!

what's the matter with you people?

i haven't had a post from anyone since 11th Feb. Come on, get it together people!

Had my 2nd day at my 6 week (ish) secondment store today. Think I might survive it. Seemed a lot better today than my first afternoon which left me feeling apprehensive. The front of the store is beautiful with those big thick glass curved windows that make me think of Victorian Christmases for some reason - probably all those festive pictures of sentimentality. Had a thrilling afternoon taking the staff on a white knuckle ride into virgin territory of cluster reports and genre bestseller lists. I mask my nerdish nature with faux cynicism.

in which a first is discovered and alcohol is a recurrent theme

to date i've not had the experience that many people have of waking up the next morning and remembering nothing after a drinking binge. until this evening when i discovered that i had been fed a bowl of miso soup between being dressed in someone else's pyjamas and lying down in a bed in derek jarman's old house. each of the latter i remember perfectly but not the miso soup. how freaked out was i when i found out this evening? this was virgin territory for me and felt really odd finding out.oh woe is me for i am not omniscient springs to mind for some incomprehensible reason. having learnt about renaissance man's ambition to know everything i've never been quite the same again. so anyway, i discovered this over my 2nd large (thank you NY3) glass of red.

found out interesting things like a good mate of mine, who for purposes of anonymity we'll call Mary, is friends with Peter Jackson and has his home number and has been to his house in NZ .

oh and i went to a management training day for work. i knew there was a reason i wound up at the blue posts!

party hair

Went to an engagement party this evening. Some mates of Mr K I didn't know very well. I wore a very expensive skirt and made up some party hair for the occassion. It turned out to be a very exciting party if you knew everyone there. I knew Mr K and mini-me. Plus a handful of other acquaintances. After a couple of hours of playing invisible drawing games on the paper table cloths with mini-me we ordered a taxi home. AND what do you think happens the moment the taxi arrives? They start up a chocolate fountain. Sorry but all sensibilites went out the window at that point. I was front of the queue slurping up chocolate and marshmallows while carrying out a somewhat muffled-mouth-ful conversation with Mr K. -The taxi's here - I know - the taxi's here - yeah but have you seen - yes i know but the taxi... - yeah yeah look, can we have one of these? - no, the taxi's here - scoffscoffscoff.

out there

essentially the great outdoors ain't a place for this girl but this afternoon i did this cool thing with masonry nails and wire in the back garden so my new passiflora can have somewhere to climb. sometime soon i'll get round to doing the same on the other wall so the purple droopy headed clematis can do the same thing.

chocbug

chocbug
Originally uploaded by kumquat7.

A Christmas present from my sister that I finally allowed myself to eat today.

networking

HELLO PALIMPSEST!!!
have just found out about kickRSS so have subtly themed this post for you all! hee hee.

14 FEB

i got a flower for my bud pot!! plucked by my own fair hand off ebay and paid for by the fair hand of mr k :)

olney wine bar

is a good place to while away a couple of hours with an old mate you haven't seen since uni.

My best mate, alimal, is flying to Syria tomorrow!http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/
country_profiles/801669.stm
So this evening we ate indian take away together and played a silly board game. I lost. Very silly. She's off to see her sis and bro in law who live there. Very exciting. Wish I was accompanying her. But which sane person would give up the chance to sit on the M1 morning and evening in favour of flying to Arabia?
I'm going to miss her a lot even though she's only gone for 2 weeks.

logs

logs
Originally uploaded by JodyDigger.

How cool is this picture by Digger? Just thought I'd nick it from her and promote her flickr site at the same time.

Clever girl.

second second ment

looks like i's gunna be chucked outta the nest again for 6 weeks to help another branch. this is of course top secret so i've only potentially told the whole world by blogging it! soon as i'm allowed to talk about my life without fear i will fill in the details.

so the 2 days of fasttrack was fun and made me feel like thursday was monday. now i have a whole weekend off to veg out and read. rushdie's going well but i keep buying new things to read. another graphic novel by sacco, 'stuart: a life backwards' just because i happened to walk past the author and so i took the opportunity of getting him to write in the book for me and he drew a cute picture too.

bored of typing now. am going to celebrate weekend off by staying up late, after watching dr. strangelove with mini-me, to play inane computer games online.

tarra.

positively ancient

it's my birthday...oh actually, it just ended 18 minutes ago. drat.

anyway i had a super dooper time at a workshop on finance today. what better way to celebrate?

thankfully i had drinks out with one set of friends in london (where some rash confessions were made to me in front of lots of people by someone who i hope will wake up tomorrow morning and cringe with embarrassment).

then i had drinks out with a 2nd set of friends back home where they'd brought in a chocolate cake to the pub and had candles and all!!

lots more to say like a storm porch full of flowers and clay monsters but my birthday ended 21 minutes ago and i have another early train to catch in the morning. off to set my alarm for 6:15.

night night.

tuesday evening

mole & JJ, if you were still thinking of coming down to london tomorrow evening....change of plan. hr can't get me a hotel so it's not going to happen. soz....

race for life

http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/am_i_crazy

Took 'Berts out for her first driving lesson today. A completely new experience for me having a learner drive my car round the Oasis car park! She loved it and was really excited to be actually driving!

That's definitely not me on the far right in pink pringle socks and a flowery pringle blouse. Nor is that Mr K next to me in genuine plus fours, diamond cut socks and brylcreemed hair!!
Secretly I thought, while everyone else was laughing at him, that he looked pretty darned dashing, like a pre-war gent as seen on all those period dramas.

If you don't know the rules of pub golf they amount to drinking lots, fast. Honestly pub crawls do nothing for me but we had such a crack last night. I ducked out around midnight 'cos we had people coming over today and I needed to be marginally sociable...or at least sober! Mr K and a mate who was sleeping over rolled in around half three, singing and talking absolute rubbish for 45 minutes.

It was a close run thing but we managed to get the house looking like we're a normal regular family by the time our friends arrived for dinner and not, in fact, like a bunch of crazys who have friends crashing over and singing Ramstein as they lie on the top landing and discussing molluscs and walruses.

pub golf

i was the first to woos out. pictures to follow. i was rather proud of my pleated skirt and pringles blouse and socks though!

considering i'm not really an out on the town getting bladdered kind of girl, i had a really good laugh with a big group being raucous and merry.

brunch

Had brunch out this morning with some folks. I would say the 4 day old baby stole the show but unfortunately Alimal just had to get in there and make it more memorable by standing in cold scrambled egg and having the cat run up and start licking it from the sole of her socks. D'you see how this post looks like a fried egg?!

"mmm, nice."

Went out for Jazz and wine on Thursday night. (blogged it the same night but it disappeared.)
Fresco's coffee shop turns into a wine bar once a month in the evenings and I've been meaning to book up for ages.
Mr K had a hideous migraine, throwing up in a bucket and getting pins and needles but still insisted I went out. Being the cold blooded creature that I am and also knowing that he just needed to sleep and the best I could do was empty sick buckets, I did as I was told.
The wine was excellent. Something red and Argentinian. I should remember the names so I can drop them like I always drink posh stuff. The served food as well. I think all the dishes were cheese of some sort so I went for mozzarella, avocado, tomato and basil. Very good.
The music wasn't bad. Didn't knock me sideways but it was pleasant and unobtrusive so I got to chat with my mates, Mole and JJ.
I might have heard more of the music if JJ hadn't been singing that much loved classic 'We love big bananas' and the tune to Rhubarb and Custard with such gusto. Thank goodness Mole was there to reign her in with sensible comments like 'You tell [Mr K] him to stop playing up the brain tumour and show a bit of committment to his mates next time.' hahahahaha. (even mr k, feeling like his head was in a clamp, laughed at that when i told him.)

Must repeat soon when Mr K isn't being a big girl's blouse ;)

all cool

mini me and his girl parted company this evening. all very amicable. no real reason given (i am an old aged parent after all), they just wanted to be friends now. very civilised.

as i was daydreaming on my way home from work on the evening of our anniversary i thought about what gift i would get when i got home.(one had been promised).I decided that the best thing he actually could do would be to install that bloody shower that's been sat in its box for over 2 years gathering dust. that would really show he'd thought about how he could make me happy rather than buying me some little token gift. ha! what are the chances of that eh? i mean, he's a darling but there's only so much you can expect.

got home and the shower was installed.

got home tonight and a shower screen was installed.

what a star :o)

346896000

...seconds me and mr K have been together as of yesterday, our anniversary!

although my maths is awful.

no wind up

No kidding, this book is incredible.

I've just had 3 days off work on the trot which is very rare and very welcome. I have slept, eaten and read. It's been absolute bliss. I'm over half way through Murakami's 'The Wind-up Bird Chronicle' and it's incredible.

I love my job, I really do but right now I'm feeling pretty cross that I have to spend my time working tomorrow when I could be sitting down and spending more hours with Toru Okada, Creta, Malta, May, the odious Noboru and Kumiko.

Let's be frank here. I've eaten Miso soup for the last two days because Murakami characters seem to be endlessly consuming the stuff. Yeah, that's pretty sad but it tastes great with enoki mushrooms and scallions dropped in!

Some crazy guys turned up and started sawing chunks out of my house!

Not a loft conversion I'm afraid, just a bit of extra light for mini me when he drums. One day we might get round to making it a proper room.

a picture paints...

Is it any wonder our true crime section is so well shopped?!?!

March of the Penguins

A really beautiful film.

Incredible photography, humour and a jaw-dropping

fight against the odds. Just gorgeous.

news

so there goes another 'have i got news for you' participant down into the mires of ignominy.

brainiac update

news in brief:

he has to have another scan in feb to see if the tumor has grown. nothing was said about if it hadn't grown but if it has, he'll have to go for a biopsy and then maybe radiotherapy. if he has to have a biopsy, he won't be able to drive for 2 years afterwards nor will he be allowed to fly. something of a problem as he drives all the time for work. however if it hasn't grown then i'm guessing that nothing will be done apart from intermittent scans to monitor its structure but that's conjecture on my part.

for those of you who've read mcewan's 'saturday', the neurosurgeon we saw today was just like Perowne! exactly the kind of look and demeanor his character i had in mind as i read :)

smooooth

this has to be the best christmas present i got.

i have just smoothied up a banana, four rings of pineapple and a splash of milk. i feel as full as an egg and as guilty as if i'd eaten cake for breakfast but it was just fruit and semi skimmed milk.

2005-2006

Had a fab party at Mole's house. They hadn't invited anyone according to mrs mole and yet the place was heaving with people. that's what happens when you're fab company. x's to you all.
afternoon!!
You have a lovely bunch of friends Mole. One of them said to me; "Alone at last" when we were momentarily in the kitchen with no-one else about. Guess who!!Another guest described me as a 'delicious creature' and insisted on kissing me twice!! Guess who!! Someone else I've never spoken to said "You've got a blog haven't you?" Guess who!
I got to have a good talk with a load of folks I've met in passing and the home-made quiche and potato salad was outstandingly good. I think you should have parties more often!!

A very happy new year to you and the small critters upstairs who slept through our pandemonium!

3112

so mole, what time are we expected to your low key, sober little get together on saturday evening?

mini me will not be with us as he has gone bunburying.

a bientot

Buy the lil' blighter a tree and give him a tenner to decorate it, thinking, you're not messing with my decorations mate and what does he go and do?

outclass us with subtlty.

a tree full of nothing but white lights and birds.

festive grub

can't believe i didn't get round to telling you about the mince pies.

the centre were giving out mince pies all christmas eve and ended up with a box full that they couldn't distribute by the time they had to leave. for some reason they decided they'd dump them in our staff room. at the end of the day no-one else was prepared to take more than 1 or 2 individual mince pies so i took them all home. waste not want not etc etc. now i have 100 frozen mince pies. anyone hungry??

Buddy

Monty meets cousin Buddy for Christmas and

belts round a field like a loopy lurcher.

prior chaos

It's very weird having random strangers come in and rip out your windows then throw them onto your front garden. Grr. Thankfully I had Mr K there to remind me that my jungle of dearly tended flora might look like waste ground to the untrained eye. hmph.




They caused mayhem of course when they installed but it's suddenly warm. The motorbike that runs for half an hour every morning from 6 a.m doesn't wake us anymore and we have window sills which we didn't have before! Of course it's a bit of a drag that the dog bust the 50 quid cat flap in the new back door and now we have a door with a great big hole in it. Hey ho!

mmm

new windows