Coming home from work via a 5 mile run with a colleague, and then a cycle ride, and scarfing down figs straight from the tree before going out to morris practice.  Licking my lips and enjoying the mix of the sweet tang of the fig and the saltiness from all that exercise.

A very late night Mars bar.

Finding food leftover from the Welshman cooking on Monday night, and eating it on Tuesday night.

A wink on the internet dating site.

Getting the chain back onto my bicycle within a minute of realising it had fallen off. Pumping up my bicycle tyres.

Not needing to go to a late night call on Friday night for the last night of the proms.

Three potential new Brownies.

Clean sheets.

Unjamming the printer with the help of a knitting needle.

Hugs from the Welshman

Gavin and Stacey on DVD.

Discovering 'Train'.  Sharing with another colleague.

Putting my foot down about sysadmin rights.

Hot baths.

Knitting and knitted socks.

Morris dancing.

Cooking rice without it sticking to the saucepan. With stew served alongside.

xxx

It has been a lovely, exhausting sort of a day. So exhausting that I needed a little nap.  Well. It has been quite the week. The August Bank Holiday? Towersey.  Wet, cold, windy, muddy - and excellent dancing, singing, crafting and pink hair.  I enjoyed.  The tent didn't leak (I love my little tent - it's been lovely to use it again), I had four blankets, which seemed to be the perfect quantity, and a slight sinus infection (ongoing - meanders between feeling like a stuffed up sinus and toothache).

Yesterday and today have involved an inordinate quantity of tidying Brownie and Guide Stuff. The cupboard at Brownies has had a good eight bin bags of stuff either identified for disposal, or actual disposal.  The tents/gas lamps/washing up bowls/mallets/gazebos/first aid stuff/spare clothing and so on that has been cluttering up my back garden and my shed and outdoor cupboard have finally made it into the Guide Loft.  I can manoeuvre my bike easily under the lean-to again.

Then there was a nicely boozy lunch (pink wine) and good company, and I got more and more and more tired, and came home, and slept for an hour. This helped.  Masses. I don't think I slept enough at Towersey, and I certainly haven't slept properly in the last week. Late nights, early mornings for running, and grand ponderings about what it is with married men... I mean. Really. Another one. This time, at work. He started, by sending a picture of sunflowers "could I not cheer up the server." Then a picture of a red rose. Then music, a mix CD.  Thursday's song was "Brown Eyed Girl"... and then I did some serious Google-Stalking.  He's got an unusual name. There can't be two of them, bicycle obsessed, living in that area: and when he sent a link from a favourite bicycle site in that area, with his age on, well...  Mid life crises.  Gah.

I refuse to be the object of anyone else's mid-life crisis.  It's not hard. I want a lovely, funny, clever, intelligent man who only has eyes for me, and doesn't have eyes for anyone else.  And who will put up with me.  OK.  Maybe that bit's the hard part.

Tomorrow morning I have a 10km race, so bed beckons.  However, before that, I need a list.

• Pack up dolly for Story
• Sew up hat for Felicity, and block, along with booties for Sophia.
• Find cards suitable for Felicity and Sophia
• Burn CDs M, pack up along with hat and silly toy and other CD
• Mail CD P (he was on the radio, and a friend was able to record it for me, which is good, as P was overseas at the crucial moment).  Cut all ties thereafter.
• Shift stuff into shed
• Pick the last of the figs I had one straight off the tree. Will save the other two for tomorrow night when the Welshman is supposedly cooking dinner.
• Kit some more on Sir's Fair Isle.
• Take stuff to charity shop Left that a tad late for this weekend. Deferred.
• Change Sheets Started, so will be finished.
• Brownies Accounts
• Laundry
• Transfer interrailling cash.

xxx

OK. So the last time I tried posting from email, I had no formatting. So,
this time, I'm going to put in a line break html tag.
Then I might try a paragraph tag.

After that, well, this should be italic, and this should be
bold and this oughta be underlined.
That was another break.

New paragraph, but can I manage a list?

• Item 1
• Item 2

Or an ordered list?

1. Item 1
2. Item 2

Well. It can only go horribly wrong, right?!

xxxxx

To keep you occupied, I give you: the return from Berlin.... which was a Sunday or so ago. I've been doing masses of running since then, and I'm just too tired to blog.  However, this is an extract from the email to P (I was trying to make him feel bad. I think I succeeded).  It's a shame: had I had energy, you'd have hadsome blogs. Oh well.  Photos will go up when it's not after 11pm.

I got on the s-bahn, changed at Bornholmer Strasse, and waited for the S9.  And waited. And waited. And then the indicator flicked over to the train after the S9 was due.  Which was weird.  A nice old lady said, "Oh, it's just late".  Then "Oh, it's cancelled. But I'm going to Schonfeld, come with me". So, I did.  We went to the next station along (no idea what). Changed to the 42. Then realised we actually needed the 41... changed back again after an 8 minute wait, got all the way round to somewhere like Schonhauser Allee, and then had to de-train and get onto a bus. The bus went as far as Ostkreuz, by which point I started finding out when the next flight was (and wondering if I could break into the chocolate), and then I had to get back on the Sbahn, go to Treptower Park, and change onto the S9.  It started raining somewhere around the station where we realised we were going in the wrong direction. By the time we were at Schonhauser Allee, it was pouring. I managed to post the postcards, and heard all about the lady, her son, her English lessons at school, that it was raining, that her son had the car because she was going into hospital on Wednesday (that was a conversation stopper if ever there was one...) and then she de-bussed two or three stops before me, telling me I had to change at Ostkreuz.

xxx

We collected Josephine from the RSPCA when I was 13: she was very little, and she was called Napolian at that point, which was a silly name for a little girl. So we renamed her. She had a soft green collar for her first few years, and a green food bowl, and green litter tray. She lived indoors and outdoors, and was always on the wrong side of the door.

She hated eating - well, she would eat if she liked it. Maybe.  Mum used to sit patiently while she licked a morsel of food off her finger, and, eventually, after half an hour, she'd manage a meal.  Being a picky eater didn't stop her hunting - baby birds, pigeons as big as she was, the odd squirrel. It also didn't stop her eating grass and being ick.  She'd come running for some dried fishy things, bit like sprats.  And crunchy food. She was a crunchy food kitten, rather than a gushy food kitten.

She used to love sitting and watching running water. Not touching it. Ooh no. Not water.  She was very unimpressed at having her feet washed. But she had just been wandering through some gloss paint, so it was a bit necessary. You know. To remove the paint remover.  She'd prefer drinking from the bird bath, and, when my parents moved, she much preferred the river water.

She used to play chase with Mum while Mum gardened. Or lounge around in the green house. She'd climb the highest walls, and occasionally get stuck: until the ladder came out, at which point, she'd bound down. 

She'd try and climb up the chimney, or leap from the top of the bannisters onto the hall light.  If the door opened, she'd be through it like a shot, into the interesting corners of the cellar, or to find a new spot under a bed.  We spent a lot of time retrieving her.

She'd snuggle on Daddy's lap every night, and purr. My goodness, she could purr. Incredibly loudly.  She hated having her tummy groomed, and would growl and stick out a paw.  As she got older, her purr got quieter - but it was still there.  She'd sleep with her paw sticking out, hanging over the edge of the cat's cradle.  Just so.  Or, nose under paws, all wrapped up tight.

She went blind, and deaf. She still ate a little, but lost weight, and lost weight.  She drank heaps, and spent most of the day asleep. She'd meander off for a sniff, then come back, and get lost in the kitchen or the dining room.  She didn't really want to sit on a lap.  She didn't mind being cuddled so much, though, as long as you didn't try to stroke her head.  And, oh, she still purred.  And, on Monday, I said goodbye, and on Tuesday, Mum stayed with her, as the vet hugged our little sweetie, and told her she was a sweetheart, and we made a great big hole.

Funny how someone so little leaves such a big hole.

xxx

I've been on my holidays... Berlin, Munich, Rome and Paris. With a batch of enthusiastic, occasionally rowdy, intelligent, questioning, fun, mad teens.  No, you don't get pictures of them. I can't remember which are under 16. Also, the camera died in Paris, so no pictures from there (well, other than one random tomb).  Shame, as I spent a lovely couple of hours, in peaceful solitude (and, believe me, we were all annoying each other by seven days in each other's company on cramped trains and in various hostels) wandering round Pere Lachaise Cemetery leaving stones on tombs. And it was a lovely sunny day for that too.  The album is here.  Just before we left, I split up with P: realising that, if I cannot tell when he's making a joke (and I never can, so I just lose my temper if I am stressed), and he cannot grasp that it makes life simpler if you do the boring organisational stuff first and then have fun, then it's just not going to work in the longer term.  I must say, I am much less stressed now.  Part of the reduction in stress is not organising Guiding things - and not having someone constantly complaining about how much time is being spent organising Guiding things and, crucially, not listening when I say that this is a particularly bad period for organising Guiding things and it is not usually this busy.

Holocaust Memorial, Berlin

Three Girls and a Boy. M fell into the small pond that was about 3" deep just behind where I was standing while she tried to get a better shot. Squelchy.

Noisy clock tower thing that has marionettes and glockenspiels playing at 11am, noon and 5pm. The music goes on and on, and, just as you think it's stopped, it starts again.

Colosseum.  Had fun talking about lions, tigers, elephants and BLOOD here.

Nuns with gelato. A high speed snap near the Vatican.

Then I came back to chaos at work (yes, I appreciate you couldn't have fixed it. However, not mentioning it wasn't really acceptable, nor was not doing *anything about it*). The forums on the website came within a gnat's breath of going down. I had Monday off to recover from the trip, and spent the morning putting a contingency plan in place so business could continue. On the plus side, Time Off In Lieu.  Monday did not improve: I had to say good bye to the cat, Josephine. There will be a post about her later (I'm fighting the photo uploader).  Mum misses Josephine dreadfully - the little cat has been a constant for the past 19 years, so it's hardly surprising. I keep getting randomly blindsided by tears if I'm not careful.  She was a lovely little funny affectionate kitten for most of her life, then she slowed down very rapidly in the past year.

P and I are supposed to go to Berlin next weekend, for the 50th Anniversary of the rising of the Berlin Wall. We still do not have anywhere booked - had we booked the hostel when I wanted to book it, we would have somewhere to sleep. If he doesn't get this sorted out by Sunday night, when I'm back from the prom, then I shall go and book the darn thing anyhow.  As it is, there's only space in the shared dormitories and one single room, so it won't be a restful couple of nights. However, I must sleep *somewhere*. If I am really lucky, the single room will still be available...

Oh, and I've run 14 miles this week, and have a 10km race tomorrow.

List

• Laundry
• Email Brownies accounts to Dad
• Find graph paper, plot Sir's Fair Isle
• Clear out Brownies Trunk in sitting room
• Prom
• Race
• Collect stuff from church ready for Towersey
• Glory box
• Sequins
• beads
• scissors 
• needles
• Tidy sitting room
• Tidy bedroom
• Take cheque book to proms for K to sign
• Having unravelled the sock to the ankle, and found some spare sock yarn, knit paternal sock
• Collect prescriptions
• Clean handbag

xxx

Oh yes. Getting ready for a busy weekend.  What I hadn't managed to factor in was that I'd be ill, and thus also feel anxious about, well, everything.

There. I've said it. I've got it out in the open. I am an Anxious sort of person. We shall move on. I don't want to go into pettyfogging details.

I do want to show you what I made, with Franklin.  A Tomten, small enough to fit Norman Bear (aged over 100).  Knit Nation was awesome - the Bohus film was amusing and interesting, and class with Franklin was an absolute blast.  I love the jacquard garter technique (I can't wait to see the sock pattern), I loved the knitted on i-cord (I love that it's much simpler than I thought it was, and that I could use it to make button loops if I wanted to), and I loved the way we looked at the evolution of the pattern, from multiples of 7 to multiples of 8. I like a little maths to spice things up.  It was a very warm classroom - apparently they turn the aircon off in the building over the weekend, and this did not work well with a burgeoning lurgy, or with a semi-solid yarn (at one point, I was convinced I was starting a migraine).  I revived in the evening though.

I went sightseeing.  In London. Specifically, I went to see Lucia's London House.  We got lucky - the rain had stopped falling, and there was that marvellous light that you get when bright sunshine is bouncing off deep, grey, threatening clouds.  Over the other side of the square, directly opposite, we found Olga's house.  It looks like it's been recently refurbished, ready for rental - I have never seen such a shiny front door!  And the steps, spoilt with polished granite. No patina at all.  I do like London when the sun comes out just after the rain - the last picture of the set, of nothing in particular, captures it perfectly.

After which, there was curry, and giggling, and Peter Wimsey, and an in depth debate of how awesome Captain Jack and Gwen Cooper are, and some really rather gorgeous blue yarn (Lorna's Laces, Honor, in Fjord. I love it. It's a semi solid, and the colour changes as it moves under the light).  And a hidjously long journey home, and an interrupted night's sleep and I do have a list, but I wrote it on paper.

xxx

Tomorrow, we're going to walk the London Bridges, @frogspawn21, @ciorstaidh84 and I as Guiders, and get badges (squee!), and then I shall have a barbecue with a heap of friends.  There will be Pimms.

Tomorrow, P will be flying to Australia for a fortnight.  So he can't come to the barbecue, and he can't meet people.  I'm hoping that a zombie might arrive for breakfast on 23rd June - better than him trying to navigate the train system.

Tomorrow marks two years since Em died.

I think we can say that my attitude to tomorrow involves mingled emotions. At best.

xxx

However, I've forgotten....

xxx

We took 40 Brownies away (OK, 39, one had a meltdown at a crucial moment, and had to be hauled off the coach in a manner reminiscent of drunken passengers being removed from planes, and then she came along later), brought 35 home (5 went home early), appear to have avoided drowning and trenchfoot (it rained. A lot) and passed our licences (rah).

The worst bit was at 1am on Saturday, when I was finally assembling my bed. The second worst bit between 1 am and 5 am when the night was interrupted by the sound of thundering feet in wellies (why are they so loud) as children careered from tent to loo and back. It stopped only when it rained, so the night was interrupted by the sound of water on canvas.  The third worst bit was at 5am, when the tent dwellers woke up and started raising hell.  At 6am, I decided I could ignore it no longer and got them up.

The other worst bit was a muddle with the forms, which I shan't go into here, but, my God, why can't people keep their data up to date. I need a hair dye job.

I'm now sulking at home with a cold.  Well.  In all honesty, it's more exhaustion than a cold.  Add in that P and I have been having one of those long, in depth, discussions about how much Guiding I do. Yes, I know I do too much.  No, you can't expect me to drop it all instantly, but I will cut back. Yes, I do realise if I have children that I will have to cut back. No, I'm not going to worry about that until I actually have children.  I'm knackered, stop getting bolshy about it, I will only get bolshy back and that won't help anyone.  You sound like my MOTHER!

Other than that, I feel like I've been going out with him for months, and it's only been three weeks.  There are disadvantages to having a man who lives 80-odd miles away.  It makes for a very uneven relationship.  I think, though, I'm getting this one right.  If there is such a thing as getting a relationship right.  Certainly, there's more communication going on in this relationship than any other I've had.  And useful communication. Not just noise.  I wouldn't say I'm madly in love with him at this point. I do miss him when he's not here. We never seem to have enough time with each other.  I am enjoying being wanted.

Inner nineteen year old is still happy.  Outer 32 year old is giggling over the indescribable flag she was given as a present from Berlin.  I seem to have, de facto, turned into a collector of East German Youth Memoribilia.  I'll have to take photos.  Suffice it to say that blue satin with gold fringing and some really rather far out embroidery ("Fur Freiden und Sozialismus" anyone?) is hanging from my standard lamp in a manner similar to the Union Flag in Withnail & I.  I'm knitting him a scarf, with ideas of moving onto a hat.  Wednesday night, I started reading his latest book (is it dreadful of me to want to Tippex out the part of the acknowledgements that refer to his ex?  I don't think I'm going to, but, oh, the temptation).  I got a bit distracted as I couldn't for the life of me remember the difference between GDR, FDR (or FRG) and DDR so I checked my stamp collection.  This made it simpler, but I got totally distracted and ended up soaking a lot of stamps off envelopes.  Australian Airmail Stamps are the very devil to remove.

I'm also knitting socks for my Daddy.  With a sort of a jogless spiral join.  As Grumperina explains.  I also intend to do an afterthought heel, à la Elizabeth Zimmerman.  This is mostly because I don't know how much of the second colour I have, so it seems sensible to just knit that up in a toe up stripey manner, and then see what happens...

List

• Pack Holiday Accounts, Evidence for Qualification and report for Henry Smith Charity
• Tax Return as far as possible
• Collect clobber from parents Parents, bless them, delivering clobber as Mum wants to go to John Lewis' sale
• Stick stamps into stamp album
• Knit
• Rest
• Brownies accounts
• Maybe go for a short run On the basis that I was knackered half way through the walk to Brownies, this will be Sunday
• Supermarket Shop
• Laundry ongoing
• P Sunday evening
• Potter and tidy
• Buy Dad's birthday present
• Take iPad to be mended
• Sort out Friday's Brownies just need to find circular templates... which I have put somewhere safe after PH.  Bother.

Rather more achievable than the last list, really.  Although, I would like to point out that the 50 item to-do list was completed, to time, with minimal tears.

xxx