Better than a kick in the knickers with a winklepicker

So then well then now then now then now then.

You may recall a plaintive post back in January about my surprise 30th Birthday Weekend away having to be cancelled due to the snow. ( Well, fuck me sideways into a canal, I finally got to have it! )
(apologies for hugeness of pic)

Unfortunately, the Great British Weather decided to thwart our 'Oooh, having it in May will mean we'll be able to have BBQs and sip beers outside and whatnot' plans by creating 48 solid hours of drizzle for our stay, but in the end that didn't really matter. We also ended up at the wonky (but awesome) old farmhouse next door to the trendy converted barn we were originally going to be in due to it being booked for all eternity. When we got there, the landlord announced that this was because it was being used all year by the same guest - this guest being Kerry Katona of Atomic Kitten/Massive public breakdown fame. We never actually saw the weight-fluctuating wonder, and I'm still cynical about whether it might have just been a weird wind-up, but blaming Kerry Katona for everything became an instant and hilarious running gag. It didn't help that the landlord had obviously just acquired the place and was on the flaky side - getting a new fridge delivered just as we arrived, hiding the already rather random kitchen utensils in odd places, providing us with a tapedeck instead of a CD player (seriously, what part of the 1980s had he expected us to have sprung from), rambling that 'the boiler is usually off at this time of day' when we wanted to have mid-morning showers on Saturday - etc etc. He'd also managed to provide us with many board games with crucial parts missing, a pile of videos with no video player and a selection of DVDs with no DVD player. When I asked if we could please have an actual DVD player, he apologised for the sparsity of the equipment and explained that 'we haven't been renting the farmhouse for a little while, and you know we've had a celebrity in the other place for some time... a lot of the electrical things have gone over to her.'

And lo, our weekend break was given its own catchphrase. And the catchphrase was; 'Kerry Katona Stole My DVD Player'.

As I mentioned earlier, the drizzle was fairly constant, and apart from a brief and very muddy football/frisbee extravaganza on Saturday morning, and trips to the worst planned Tesco in the world for dinner supplies, the party group stayed mostly either in clumps in the kitchen, talking mainly about how gravity would work on a perfectly cubic planet, or in the large living room/parlour which took up one massive side of the ground floor. Many games happened there - German anti-Jenga game Bausack was a hit, although not with me. I also played a round of Mahjong, and am still non the wiser. Pictionary is more my level, and once we bought some dry-wipe markers to replace the ones that were missing from the box, we had jolly good fun with it. We also brought a PS3 and Wii, although our cables weren't compatible with the ONE technologically advanced piece of equipment - the HD TV. (It also had a Sky Box but no Sky - not even Freeview channels. Seriously - it was HILARIOUS how little around the house actually did what a sane person would expect it to do) We were able to play the games... only they were all in staticky black & white. It was like playing games in the video from Ring. Or, as most of us pointed out on seeing it, a 1950s telly.

Mum & Sis were back in Canters looking after the kids for the weekend, so we were utterly without responsibility, save for the odd bit of washing up (since friends Kitty & Al kindly cooked for everyone all weekend). Kinda odd being without them and, although we really missed them, kinda wonderful too. It's been a very long time since we've been able to spend so much Quality Time with our friends just chatting, larking about and generally having the barrel of laughs that made us such good chums all those years ago. One resolution was passed as we got ready to leave - we HAVE to do this again next year!

Yowza. What a week it's been. Hubs has been working very long hours, Alex is still teething (but the teeth still aren't cutting) and is therefore sleeping terribly, and throughout the whole time we've had the shadow hanging over us of my Father in Law suddenly nosediving in health. As some of you know, he'd had Parkinsons from before I met him and was in a residential home with dementia for many years. He suddenly lost a lot of weight a few weeks ago though, and seemed to have pretty much given up on living. We went to Hastings on Sunday when Hubs visited him in hospital, then Hubs went to see him again on Tuesday, and first thing on Friday morning he found out that his Dad had died in the night.

Hubs is taking it on the chin at the moment - he's not one of life's mopers, and a very practical person - dementia means you slowly lose the person you loved anyway, and I think having been prepared for this for a long time and the element of relief that his Dad's suffering has ended has softened the blow somewhat. We're carrying on with our plans this weekend - seeing friends and all (except me and Alex since he's too little) going to the big bonfire night tonight. I think he'd actually find it much harder just sitting around.

Other big news is that I'm afraid I've decided it's time to let www.randomscribbles.co.uk die. It served me well over the years, but it's so easy to post writing online for free these days it's not worth me shelling out yearly for a fiction website. I'll soon be posting all the content that was on there either on this journal, or more likely I'll set up a second LJ account as a fic depository. The website will go down on the 10th, apparently. So it goes. So it goes.

Ha! I am such a hypocrite! After being all 'I really, REALLY hate people who slag off other peoples' fanfic behind their back I had a very fun hour or so with my friend presidentalgo on Twitter this evening introducing him to the worst fanfic I've ever attempted to read. Although in my defense the fact that the author reacted to the one negative review already on her fic by going absolutely fucking apeshit both on the reviews page and on her profile, then added about 4 'anonymous' reviews all praising her to high heaven - all exactly in her very turgid and inaccessible writing style - frankly put me off leaving any helpful concrit (namely 'Oh sweet Christ, use a word that is less than five syllables long every once in a while, and don't be afraid of sentences that run for less than seven lines of text!'). There's badfic, which I don't actually mind, and then there's the self-indulgent Badfic of the egotistical thesaurus-swallowing looney (and Algo trod where I feared to tread and quickly discovered new levels to her looneydom) which is a different kettle of fish.

And now I'm going to post more Rollercoaster. Hypocrisy, thy name is Scribbles!

Nobody tell Friend Claire, but she's getting a massive box of Vi's 12-24 month clothes as her welcome-to-mummyhood prezzie! Tried to include plenty of basics as well as the pretty-pretty. Got all nostalgic packing it up. Alas, couldn't find the Monsoon Summer Trousers or purple hat o'cutery. Hey ho.

Vi's in a bit of a rotten mood today, *but* so far she hasn't complained that her teeth hurt at all - first time she's gone this long without needing Calpol since she bashed them in.

Thank you so much for replies re my last post - especially those with the Horror Stories who helped me get some bloody perspective. It seems you can pick your friends & pick your nose but you can't pick your family. I shan't dwell on it again - the PregnoRage (TM) has subsided for now, anyway.

In lighter news, my friend Vicky from University has recently announced the greatest business plan ever - she is now the proprietor of a Knitted Beard Shop called Wife of Brian, and made her first sale today! She doesn't just do beards - she'll knit all kinds of facial hair. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7433117 It makes me very happy that a, there's a knitted beard shop in existence and b, I know the person who brought it into being.

New school term = the tots get to rule the roost at Playgym again instead of being pushed around by the bigger kids. Vi was able to have a really good scamper about this morning, and we saw our friends who moved away! These are the twins who are pretty much the same age as Vi - their mum told me the sweetest thing as they were playing... not only do the twins share Vi's current favourite book ('Night Pirates' - I really recommend it BTW, mums of little 'uns) but they call the Pirate Captain 'Violet' because she's got loads of curly hair. How cute is that?!? Then Vi and the twins did some Pirate Noises for us. It was ace. We hope to meet up with them on Fri for lunch before they head back.

Violet looks fantastic today, BTW. I put her in a bright flowery summer dress that I've been waiting for it to be warm enough to warrant putting her in for ages. we don't really have any tights that go with it, however, so she's ended up in red-and-pink striped tights. I thought if she was going to clash she might as well just go the whole hog.

Oh, and I dreamt about Rerun last night/this morning! I'd given birth to him at Sacred Heart hospital (and why yes, we had watched four episodes in a row the evening before). He looked like a boy version of Violet, and was wonderful. He could already hold his head up, which I remember dreaming probably wasn't that likely for a newborn. I was in love the second I saw him. We named him Elliot. It's made me feel really positive about his upcoming arrival today.

In even duller domestic type news, we're finally getting someone in to poke our outside drain. It's yucky and keeps overflowing. All of Hubs' attempts to clear it have failed. Very annoying going through several pages of Yellow Pages ads for companies with absolutely no idea of who to go for or what to expect. Getting a big national company to give us a quote because a, I've heard of them and b, they don't charge per 1/2 hour - I know how that game works! Still, I think it's going to be pricey. Got to do it, though - it's in our letting contract as one of the things we've got to sort out if it goes wrong.

Not entirely sure how this is 'news' as such in 2009. This is me. This is so very, very me, and has been me for over 2 years now.

You definitely don't need a penis to work your way around blogging and social networking sites - LJ in particular seems to be almost exclusively female. I don't see how having a blog makes you a 'geek'... I am a massive geek, but not because I have LJ, Facefuck and Twitter accounts.

Being a SAHM can be very, very isolating indeed. I've made some nice friends at my happy-clappy playgroup, but before I found that and there was only the Elitist Sing & Sign and Playgym where you never get chance to talk to anybody, I felt incredibly lonely during the day if I were to factor out my online whiffling. Even with my playgroup chums, I'm very aware that we have not much in common except that we're all parents to toddlers. Online is where I can have a lengthy conversation without mentioning parenthood once, where I can swear and make sexual innuendo as much as I please, where I can be my old, shameless, nerdy self. Whether you're a RL Friend who takes the time to have rambling email/PM conversations with me, or someone I only know online but is happy to blither on about absolutely fuck all while I'm avoiding the washing up and/or Grandpa In My Fucking Pocket, youse kids should know how much I appreciate you keeping me sane.

Ta.

First of all - thank you very much for my Family Reunion review, Elektra! I was pretty pleased with the resolution to the Eric-and-his-Daddy story arc. So that's one unresolved issue down, only about 20 more to go!

Second of all, Rollercoaster now has 85 motherfucking reviews! EIGHTY FIVE!!! Come on, triple figures!
Yes. I really am so shallow that I give a crap about review numbers. Obviously, that's not the be all and end all, but it's bloody nice to have so much attention :DDD Also, today I learned from one of my reviewers that Americans call Hair Grips 'Kirby Grips'. Who knew? Apart from Americans, of course. When she referred to 'the surprising, sensual Kirby Grip moment' at first I thought it was some sort of bizarre sexual position I'd alluded to. Je suis une div.

Third of all, my friend Swoo came down for a visit today, which was nice. We went to a tea shop and discussed The Hotness Of Obama which turned into an upsetting game of Would You Rather, in which we tried to work out who would be the least sickening to have sex with out of Gordon Brown and David Cameron. A man who looks like a spare testicle or a man who looks like he's coated head to toe in a thin layer of sticky ooze. Decisions, decisions...
Violet very much enjoyed having somebody to show off to as well, and spent some time showing Swoo her Doll's House.

Fourth of all, in not at all important news, some of you might be vaguely aware that them Yanks got themselves a new Prezzydint today. And he's not a drawling idiot with the vacant glazed expression of a sedated tortoise. And his foreign policy doesn't appear to be an A4 sheet with 'bomb it, steal it, sell it, burn it, rape it, nuke it, bed' written on in crayon. With all the 'e's back to front. And scrawled stick figure illustrations of burning Iraqis and drowning eskimos next to the text.

And you know what's a really wild coincidence...? That Israel decided to stop pounding the living shit out of Gaza just before George 'if there's Muslims involved in a conflict it's automatically their fault and did I mention that Israel can do no wrong never EVER' Bush left. I mean, talk about good timing, guys. Bra-fucking-vo.

Yay! In the end, i_just_hide and me did go to a tea shop after all - Ferns, which is above the tourist office, overlooking the Christ Church gate. We sat in a window seat with pots of tea and cake (purchased by Claire - I began protesting that we go Dutch, but had to withdraw when I realised I had about 30p in my purse... I think that means I'm obliged to sleep with her now), watching the Scary Jesus, the buskers (who appeared to be on some sort of shift rotation) and the hoards of Bloody Tourists. I thought that such levels of tweeness were pretty typical of The Canterbury Experience. We swapped tales of Attended Weddings From Hell. Hers (dog mauls toddler, child almost loses eye, dog has to be put down) beat mine (horses bolt while carring bride to reception, leaving sad, smashed carriage remains on hard shoulder). Both had animals going crazy, but hers involved facial injuries and was therefore worse.

I then showed her the Wonky Shop, at her request. Not that there was anything about it bar its wonkiness since it's empty these days, but there you go.

It was very pleasant to get a mummy-break, since Hubs is off work this week and so had a daddy-daughter afternoon with Milady.

There are no words for quite how much fun I had on Saturday afternoon - certainly enough to make the 4-and-a-half-hour round trip to Smokey and back, and braving the London Underground on a weekend very much worth it. I probably behaved like a complete arse - I spent the whole meet-up in various darkened corners, giggling manically about bums, fannies, a Chinese guy called Ray Ping... generally just being loud, brash and filthy, like a hyperactive 8-year-old. Part of it was that I was a bit giddy at having a Mummy-break, a lot of it was that my fellow meetees were as loud and filthy as myself. Ate two pizzas in one day, annoyed waiters, observed what I believed to be an Al-Fresco performance of Waiting For Godot on a War Memorial, was admonished for my taste in cider, generally laughed my ass off. And those of you who have seen the size of my ass will know that that is no small task.

Yesterday evening was a bit of a nightmare, mind - there were three protest vomits. Three. *Sigh*. I did a lorra lorra laundry last night. Let's see what tonight brings...

Ooh, and my Ma & Stepdad went to see *that* Shakespeare play the other day - really enjoyed it (although she did wonder why there were so many teenaged girls there - hee!) I expect the big David Tennant and Patrick Stewart fans on my FList will have already seen copies of the programme, but if anyone wants me to get her to bring it down when she visits this weekend and scan it, let me know.