I seem to be being terribly oversensitive at the moment. Not a good trait. It drives others up the wall, making them feel as though they tiptoe round. I suspect that I am due a bit more of a holiday than a day or so here, and there. One that doesn’t involve going overseas to a conference. Or taking other peoples’ children away. We are booked to escape London during the Olympics, to go and wander round Penrith, to pretend we’re Withnail & I, to climb Ben Nevis, to potter round Chatsworth (there’s been a sight too many trips to Derbyshire where there’s not been the opportunity to go to Chatsworth, but there’s been plenty of opportunity to drive straight past).

Anyhow. Back to the oversensitivity. I recognise this. I shall do something about it. It’s not helpful, it’s fairly destructive and it doesn’t make anyone happy. Please, bear with me gently while I sort myself out. Remind me when I’m being oversensitive, point out when I’m taking on too much (I may not necessarily listen) and help me down from the ceiling of argh-mad-panic.

My Mother reports that Flossie the duck has been pecking my Father’s arm in a bid to get attention and more food. She’s getting terribly tame with my parents, for a wild duck. Ferdinand isn’t quite so rude… neither of them were feeling photogenic while I was there last week.

Meanwhile, I’m going to enjoy having a rare evening with the flat to myself, and watch some total rubbish on the TV and knit (and sew buttons onto Eff’s baby’s clothes set #1. Yes. I know. Normally, I don’t knit until the babe’s arrived, but I’m a bit excited, and I want my Goddaughter to know that she’s loved, and wanted, regardless of anything that might happen. And one of the ways I show love is through knitting).

xxx

Oh yes. On Brownie camp. Or preparing for Brownie camp. Or recovering from Brownie camp.

I’m still recovering from Brownie camp. And I’ve rather stupidly agreed to be Div Comissioner for the next 3, or is it 5 years? Heck. I dunno. The last two haven’t stayed the full course, I’ve been Guiding 9 years, so I think it’s 5 years. Drat.  It’s OK. I’ve already been given a thorough telling off by my father about it all.

Brownie camp was damp, noisy, trying, and occasionally rewarding. But I do wish parents would send their children with wellie boots that don’t require a ten minute wrestling session to apply because the dratted things are too small. I am glad that almost all arrived with waterproofs (which may, or may not, have actually been on the list). And I’m pleased that one parent has actually managed to put a thank you into writing, because, I can tell you, the verbal thanks that were given at the train station didn’t make it to me until I had an entire meltdown on twitter and threw several items round the kitchen and expended a LOT of energy on some extremely vigorous tidying up approximately 24 hours later when I realised that not one single parent had thanked me. And you know, as a volunteer, being thanked is a Pretty Enormous Deal. Because, frankly, that’s the only reward we actually get.

N’s on his way over. He forgot the tickets for the theatre tomorrow, and had to go home to get them. Faced with an evening in on my own, I got all excited at the prospect of downtime – there’s been Too Many People this week, and now I can’t wait for him to get here, because I’m not liking this being on my tod malarkey. Contrary? Me? Oh yes.

xxx

The May photo-a-day challenge. I’ve missed 5th May, bird, completely. So sue me.

The rest? Here.

xxx

I’m working from home, waiting for our Disaster Recovery session to be ready for me. I’m cold, I’m about to put the heating on, re-locate my sheepskin slippers (honestly, I feel those were the only good thing to come out of last year’s relationship with P, which seems terribly mercenary of me, but they really are a godsend when my toes get So Very Cold), and apply my typing wristwarmers, a pair of slightly fluffy mitteny things, rescued from the newly tidied yarn stash.

For, you see, I had a moth problem. I probably still do. And the odd moth was flying out of the stash. And, on Saturday, with various friends round, I took drastic action. They quilted. I cleaned out the entire thing. I have rid myself of three bags of assorted yarn, if not more (some went home with friends – that’s the total that went to the charity shop). The stash now sits tidily in three Ikea boxes and a bag that is supposed to squash down but I haven’t managed to persuade it yet. All of the yarn is in ziplock bags, bar two skeins that are in the freezer. One had moth poo on it, the other had a caterpillar. A handful of skeins were binned, as being both mothy and not worth saving (or, rather, I had no idea what to do with it, and life’s too short). Everything is now corralled into plastic ziplocks to ensure that any further mothyness is contained. There will be some more mothballs, as the lavender was failing to repel anything. The bedroom was also showing signs of moths, and I mothballed it about, and I’ve not seen another since. Mind you, the bedroom is generally cooler than the sitting room.

Anyhow. Tearing apart the entire yarn stash works better with people than without, particularly when you’re mired in the middle of it, and losing both the sellotape, the bag for spare sock yarn, and the will to live. I’m slightly ashamed of what loveliness I have, and am not knitting up. However, it all has a plan (apart from one batch of teal Debbie Bliss Cathay, which is waiting for the ultimate cardigan pattern), and No More shall be bought, except as souvenir yarn, until I’ve got the smallest box emptied.

N remarked on how much tidier it all was. My next job is to re-corrall the circular needles. I think I need a thingy to corrall them into, as I keep losing various packets and thus have no idea how many of which size I possess. Other items on the agenda include sewing badges onto Guidey Blankets, and also finishing the crochet flower brooch started about 4 years ago for Mum, and recently re-found.

Oh yeah. And Brownie Camp. And Brownies generally. We shall draw a discrete veil over the lying sixers (A “well, B caused this to happen to C”. B, with a look as though butter wouldn’t melt, “I don’t know anything about that happening to C” C was in tears…. and Brown Owl couldn’t prove anything so she confiscated both Sixers’ badges). We shall, however, have a discussion next week about what makes a Good Brownie and a Good Sixer.  Brownie camp is in the final “Must print this, laminate that, and make a list of the other to take with us” point of affairs. Plus acquiring glue (or not), torches and more laminating pouches. I think I might sort out my packing tonight, as then it’s done, and I won’t forget my waterproof/pillow/wellies/knickers that way. It’ll just be a case of adding in the medications.  Each year, taking them away gets a little easier – one realises that they don’t need entertaining every single minute of every day, and that, actually, just being out of London with some countryside hedges to explore is, from their point of view, really quite exciting and interesting. I forget this. There were hedges to explore just five minutes from my childhood home. It was not novel to be in a field. For some of these girls, it is.

I came all over asthma-y yesterday. I don’t like to admit it, but it seems I’m now sensitive to rollup cigarettes, which will make socialising a little trickier. Coughing mid-morris dance is not fun. More perturbing, no-one was to hand to sub-in for me, so I had to keep going to the end. Fortunately, it didn’t get much worse than coughing and an inordinate quantity of Ventolin plus the associated shakes. Today has been slightly phlegmy as a result, but nothing green. This is good. I do not have time to be ill until 5th June, then I can be as ill as I like.

Other lovely things that have happened recently: a trip to “Close the Coalhouse” door with K&L, a stormingly lovely musical about miners and their unionisation in the 19th and 20th centuries. Curry and a trip to “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” with N. Flowers from N. Cuddles and cups of tea from N when I’m cold and fed up with morris dancing. Why yes, I am all loved up. And, you know what? It’s wonderful, and it’s been long enough coming, so I reserve the right to occasional squee. I can’t see that I’d ever care more about anyone except, possibly, my own child. Which is a different sort of love.

In between mundane work tasks, this blog was written. And now? Disaster Recovery are ready for me.

xxx

1. Sir in his Fair Isle. Finally.

2. April Photo A Day (Some days missing…)

Back from San Diego, this time, and I probably ought to think about heading bed-wards, in a vague attempt to sort out my body clock (which wants to stay awake all night wheeee!). There will be no more transatlantic gallivanting about for a while, which is just as well. I don’t think I can face seeing yet another chicken Caesar salad, my default edible while away in the USA (sans croutons).  N & I had a lovely time, solved several IT problems and acquired a taste for Cheetos. San Diego still looks lovely, but I forgot my camera, and the phone just doesn’t do it justice.

Hmmm. Perhaps some hot chocolate should be on the agenda? There probably should be some more Brownie-min at some point in the reasonably near future. I feel a little vague about a couple of the planned activities for camp… however, I did manage to get the accounts to balance once I’d shifted £25 out of the subs tin into the camp tin. It all added up at that point.

xxx

There I was, idly depilating my legs, when a funny noise occurs. A sort of blustery bobbly noise. And I looked up, and a pigeon was sitting on the bookcase looking down at me.

So, naturally, I screamed, and ran from the room, and phoned N (who was in the shower) and then my parents (who weren’t, but I can’t exactly say that my Father was sympathetic), and then steeled myself to go back in, where it was flapping about, fortunately not pooing, close the door, open the window, hold the fairy lights aside, and encourage it out again. All the time praying that the second pigeon on the windowsill wasn’t actually going to fly in while the first pigeon was flying out.

It went. The other one also went.

I then drank a very stiff gin and tonic. And all this before noon.

Now. Part of me rationalises that it was only a pigeon in my bedroom. And the other half is screaming, yes, but it was a PIGEON. In my BEDROOM.

It had managed to get in through a less than 4 inch gap. We’re getting some netting to pin over the part of the window which I like to keep open all year round (unless it’s snowing or below freezing or something equally annoying weather-wise).

If you want some photos from the recent rugby tour, see here. I dealt with an awful lot of scraped knees in West Virginia last week. Also with blisters, and encouraging the application of sunscreen and aftersun. Only one chap went to hospital – he needed stitches in an eyebrow. There were no broken bones, no torn tendons, no dislocations. This was very weird, and made for a rather peaceful end to my career as a rugby first aider. For, I am now done. I’m not going back. I want my weekends back again. Six years is quite long enough to volunteer to do first aid, and they gave me a gorgeous hip flask to say thank you. I also got to look after the trophy we won for coming fifth. It got dropped while in my custody. Edited highlights of tour?

• meeting up with a friend in South Carolina. Being on the receiving end of Southern Hospitality.
• Driving up to West Virginia, and getting to stop off at Hillsborough Yarns a second time, as the chaps fancied Mexican.
• Watching two of them successfully eat 6lb (yes, you did read that correctly) burritos. It took the first chap 25 minutes, the second chap 39 minutes. It was very good Mexican food.
• Getting some gluten free tortillas
• Watching the chaps skipping about during warmup
• Coming 5th in the tournament (one of the better results in the past six years)
• 50 rugby players serenading me with “You’ve lost that lovin’ feeling” while I laughed, cried, and mopped up
• A rather good picnic lunch
• Sunshine
• Collecting lots of State Quarters (I have 41 out of the 100…. please save them for me!)
• Stonecold’s seersucker suit.

Here. Have some random photos.

xxx

Well. Almost. I decided to join in fatmumslim’s March and April photo-a-day challenges, and the results can be seen here (March) and here (April). It’s tricky. I keep managing to miss days, and have to go back, and catch up. I’m still to do yesterday’s picture (inside my wallet) as well as today’s (younger you). And, since @greekphysique pointed out that a picture post without pictures is boring:

Howsoever, I’m liking the slight discipline. I’m liking that this is making me think about how I’m looking at the world around me. And, since N is doing the same thing (yes, there are more photos for April, but no, he’s not yet uploaded them – I’ve just seen them on his iPhone), I’m happily seeing the world the way he does too. This too I am enjoying immensely.  Having a prompt for the day incites thought, and imagination, and this really does make things easier in one way, and harder in another “How do I represent ‘tiny’?” “Take a picture of F’s toes….” and so I did.

F is Tom’s daughter (now, I would link to his blog, but it’s several years out of date at this point, so I shall merely make encouraging noises about an update), and she is utterly lovely. A very satisfactory lunchtime was spent cuddling her, and feeding her and pulling faces, and squeaking back and forth over tea and salad and bubble and squeak. She’s about 6 months old now, and incredibly pretty, with intense blue eyes, and the longest darkest eyelashes to frame them. 

Since then I’ve been home to my parents for Easter. The Service on Sunday was an absolute epic, around an hour and a half for 80 people to take communion. The vicar likes theatre – there’s a brazier lit out the front from which the Paschal Candle is lit each year, a cross made from last year’s Christmas Tree to which we attach daffodils (I invariably manage to knock someone else’s daffodil out while putting my daffodil in), and at the end we all trouped out to the churchyard a second time for the dedication of some headstones for the memorial garden where ashes are interred. There was also something involving holy water and hyssop (those in the centre aisle looked as though they ratehr wished they were wearing sou’westers while the water was being splashed about), and a sermon that got a bit lost on the way. Two small boys in the next pew over were very entertaining. Aged about 2 and 3, the younger was inclined to comment “He said rich food! Daddy, he said rich food! Daddy, why did he say rich food? Daddy, talk to me! Talk to me Daddy! Why won’t you talk to me?” At which point, despite the best efforts of the vicar to pull funny faces and make the small boy smile, his bottom lip started to wobble and he had to be carried out in tears, which wasn’t really a problem, but the vicar did hope that no-one else would require such treatment. The elder boy could wink. I caught his eye, and winked, and was rewarded with a very excellent wink back.  At that age, I had a tendency to accost my Mum, and blink at her several times, very quickly, saying “Am I winking Mummy?”

And now, I really need to pack ready for the Duke MBA Rugby Tour next week. We’ve just spent 15 minutes searching for the correct sized bag (Duke 2010 vintage, as it’s more waterproof), as I am unable to fit both my kit and the first aid kit into the bag. It was hiding in one of Jo’s suitcases, which is entirely weird.

First, though, I think some tea. And catching up on my photos.

xxxx

A girl sometimes gets lucky enough to go on a weekend away. She gets lucky enough to spend time with just her boy, and she gets lucky enough to go up the Eiffel Tower on her Birthday (the lifts are terrifying, the view is terrific) and to eat Creme Brulee in Amelie’s cafe the day or so after.

It was a lovely birthday. Quite the loveliest birthday. And I spent it with N.

Since then, I’ve been bucketing about the place like a lunatic, dealing with an insane quantity of Brownie Admin. Because, you know, if I get it done, then I can settle down to enjoy myself.

The silly thing is, I never seem to get the time to enjoy myself unless I make the time in front of all the admin….and that seems terribly wrong (and that attitude is why I ended up squeezing three days of work into two days at work last week, and exhausted myself in the process).

Oooh, and I managed another 10k race at the weekend. N got a PB. I was 30 seconds off mine. However, I’d got a vague idea that all I wanted to do was get round in under an hour, so that was quite the achievement in and of itself. Naturally, I have replaced the calories with chocolate several times over since.

xxx

This morning, I ran 10km, in 52mins 15 seconds, which may be a personal best. I think it is. Anyhow. The sub 8:30min mile is definitely in my grasp. It felt quite easy to get this pace, I didn’t do a mad sprint finish, and I recovered really quickly.

(goes to check race results).

Yup. A PB. Rock on.

Last night, I went to the annual rugby club alumni dinner. I left just as they were getting a bit boorish with alcohol. I was very, very sober. Well. No. I was silly sober, which is quite fun. And, unlike last year, I do not have the hangover from hell, and therefore I am much happier than I was this time last year. I may actually achieve things this time round. Heck. I’ve already achieved a run. I also need to achieve some baking for a cake sale at work tomorrow, to try and raise a little more money for the Half Marathon next weekend (and yes, haven’t I been lovely not blatting on about the half marathon all the time on my blog? This is because twitter got the brunt of it!). Next up is to go to the supermarket, get some baking on the way, and then deal with a whole heap o’ Brownies related admin.

I seem to have done a lot of Brownies recently. We had our Division Meeting on Tuesday, and we got through the entire (HUGE) agenda in an hour and a half. We also had a woman come in and talk about wildlife and conservation and how we could encourage our Brownies, and, hopefully, we leaders will get some sort of training about pond dipping and beetle hunting. We have Hampstead Heath near enough to us for visits, and there’s all sorts of habitats there, we just need to know where to look. Beetles are important, after all. We had a good meeting on Friday night, too, with almost a full complement of children, and they learned some knots, and how to address envelopes, and were interviewed for the BBC by a couple of former Brownies. Grand fun.

So now, the list. As is standard.

• Division Admin Seems to have involved half a ream of paper being printed. Also, why is my Cyan not printing?
• Region Admin
• Brownies Admin
• Accounts
• New Brownie
• Pack Holiday lists Ongoing, but coming into shape.
• First Aid cheque
• Address postcard from Our Chalet for former leader
• Upload photos to flickr, print some (which can then go in to hideously belated letter to Japanese Mummy)
• Book flights to San Diego
• Change the sheets
• Tidy sitting room and bedroom
• Get Good Luck Card for Jo (exam tomorrow. Big exam tomorrow. Right now she’s calm, but it’s not always been quite the case in the last couple of weeks).
• Pack up Dom’s birthday present
• Start Mum’s mother’s day knitting
• Bake Brownies, flapjacks and cookies

Done already

• Rugby
• Sew badges onto blanket
• 10km
• Email rugby club about lost stuff
• Email PH location about equipment

xxx

xxxx

One of my friends in Illinois has made the most fantastic blackberry jam. Mailed it over in a foam-padded box, and Oh, my, it is the most wonderful stuff. Rich, and juicy, and tasting of autumn.  I’ve had it on toast, with some President butter (yes, I am a French butter snob on occasion). I am wondering why I waited three weeks to eat the stuff. I’m also wondering if it would be superbly greedy to eat a third slice. Maybe for breakfast.

I’m working. It’s 9pm on Friday night, and I’m working. I’ve been performing a virtual de-frag of the log files of some of our more important databases. This, I hope, will improve performance. Or, more likely, will rule out another cause of the slow running import.  It’s reasonably simple. I wrote a script so that I didn’t make any mistakes or click the wrong button. I’m doing one database at a time, so that if it errors (and because test isn’t identical to live, I have to allow for these things), it’s easy to fix.

Then, I’m going to cast off the shoulders of the fair isle, read another batch of articles on steeking, and steek it. Actually. I read Eunny Jang’s articles on the subject, and decided that would do the trick. I really do miss her blogging. It was awesome. Still, I have this to knit when I’m done with Sir’s Fair Isle. And this. Not complaining.  I’m thinking that I’ve got a lot more Fair Isle in me yet.

Ooh look. All done.

xxx