matrimonial

It was our wedding anniversary earlier in the week.

It's been four years since we - heh - joined together. (Click advisedly! Image may give creeps).
Things I have learned about being married since then = .2, feels like. Recently it's been up and down, to put it mildly. The miscarriage still haunts us, (not surprisingly) making me hypersensitive and the JB as angry as a wet hen. You can see how these two states of mind might collide and cause a small nuclear explosion, and they do.
 

[Mansize tissues. Someone has to explain that to me.]

I do understand it is the grief. But I need to remember  I understand it, at the crucial moment. Poor old JB. It's really hard. Then, just as quickly, it's over and we're rational again and jokey with relief at having dodged the bullet.

STAND BY, LONDON
My cousin, who is from London, is marrying her partner of 15 years. To be together all that time, and really know each other, and stick together through all the life crap, and still want to get married, and be together till the end - I think that's really something. And so, as is proper, The Pearl tribe will converge on the hapless, unprepared capital for the celebrations next weekend. Oh, the EXCITEMENT. My sister (not) in-law (they are actually not married. Is there a term for her relation to me? There should be, she's brilliant. A pastry chef too! Sister-in-cake?)'s sister is lending us her (FANCY!) flat in central London, and we are going to have FUN, and poke around, go to shows, cafes, and squabble over A-Z's in Leh-cess-ter Square!

(If any one of my England-residing blog comrades is terribly terribly terribly bored at a very very loose end has some free time to meet next week, drop an email, (I can shake off the rellies, and point the JB in the direction of a war museum or something) I'd be so pleased to offer you a beverage of your choice in a cafe of your choice. However I do understand you are busy and have proper jobs and such like, (Employment.  The horror.) so do not worry if you can't. Another time will present itself in the future. There is to be no worrying! I AM ON MY HOLIERS!)


Ooh!
T

tales of the unexpected

1. OUT OF BODY

Yesterday my body was possessed by house proud aliens or the spirit of Martha Stewart or... something. Something sinister, yet hygienic. For someone, or something - some uncanny Force for Order - cleaned out all the cupboards in the kitchen, (rearranging pots and pans logically, according to frequency of use), did two loads of laundry plus associated ironing, booked tickets, paid entry fees, hung art, mopped kitchen floor, went shopping for food, made proper dinner and dessert, and fashioned a slug-repellant barrier for a plant out of a picture frame and some copper tape.

Exhibit A.

This person, not being me, did not stop for endless tea breaks, feel the need to rest her eyes "for a minute", nor spend minutes on end gazing into the middle distance, wondering what she had forgotten to do today, but bustled about the place in a methodical way, moving from one task to the next smoothly, with no need for some biscuits "for energy".

(Not me).

When I came to, I was sitting in the kitchen with an apron on, feeling bemused.

INTERLUDE
Maybe a baby animal would be the thing now. Or this tarsier. They always look quite freaked out, a state of mind I understand perfectly:

2. THE WRONG ASS
I received a text message on my mobile a few days ago, here quoted word for word:
HEY SWEETHEART HEADIN INTO LATER U OWE ME A DRINK SO GET UR SEXY ASS TO THE MILL :-) JAMIE xx

I texted him/her back, having decided my "ass" was not the one referred to in the text, and that I would not be bringing it to any "MILL".

Uh-oh! You got the wrong number. Sorry! Would hate to stand in the way of true love. Hope you find each other.

I am still a romantic, apparently. How about you?


Twangy

Fermanagh seems like a dream to me now

We went into rural Fermanagh, and stayed in a crooked little thatched cottage (I thought of you, our unbroken friend) with no television. We like vernacular architecture. It's all quaint and tongue-and-groovy! Lovingly restored! The floor was charmingly sloping! I could only just stand up straight in the kitchen!

And we could entertain ourselves with.. with.. conversation!

We visited the Marble Arch cave system near there, and saw some stalagtites/mites that have been forming since before the Pyramids. I did try to draw them, but they looked vaguely obscene.  Maybe it's just me, but these things look a bit rude:

(It's just me, isn't it.)

KDid (JB's father) can't understand why anyone in their right mind would leave her comfortable home to spend money to stay in a tiny leaky cottage, this being far too close to his real experience of growing up in Kerry. Why, because I am modern and a bit silly, of course! And therefore I feel we must indulge my received notions of Ye Olde Tymes.

Hmm. Ah well. Home again!

We had an meeting with the adoption agency on Friday. It was fine, I think. The social worker clarified some things about my health history. Weirdly enough, they are fixated, not on the miscarriage, but on the shoulder. The shoulder! The shoulder? (In December last year, I had a Manipulation under Anaesthetic to defrost my frozen shoulder. No big deal.) I have to fill out another consent form so they can get more details from the surgeon. More delays. SIGH.

I need another holiday for right-on, modern types. How about you?
T

seven things that maketh me to smile

Several aeons ago, the lovely May tagged me for this meme. Thank you, May. I love this sort of thing. I have been wading glumly through the drear the past week or so, not helped by further dreams in which I die, so it seems high time I did it.
 
(Obviously I don't believe that superstition that says if you die in your sleep you die in your bed, as I am still alive, and have thus disproved it. Hurray. However, I may have to revise opinion if I do in fact die. Un-hurray? I will update you from beyond the grave, in that case. Something for us all to look forward to!)

It's not easy to confine myself to seven.
 




1. Our local park, which has a walk up a slope underneath big old chestnuts, a foot-bridge over a high river, and, occasionally, bonus ducklings.


2. My bed, especially when freshly made with clean sheets. I have always loved my bed, since long ago when I was a baby and my Grandmother inquired: Does that child ever get up?

3. Being silly. When we were addicted to watching The West Wing on DVD, for instance, I used to sing along with the theme tune, as tunelessly as possible. Very therapeutic, I tell you. Somehow that lunatic habit, embarrassing enough in this early manifestation, mushroomed as if it had a life of its own into the JB leaping to his feet at the beginning of the show and doing interpretative dances to the theme of ER, complete with punch to the air, along with Dr Benton. Don't ask me how that happened.
It was a slippery slope. Oh dear, I am a bit morto now.

But one day, I'll youtube him, and the world will be united in laughter.

4. Free-wheeling down a hill on my purple bike.

5. Coffee - which my system mistakes for a Class A drug - especially with friends. Oh, coffee-time!  So much fun!

6. Internet radio - listening to the world, through a magic black box. I love the intimacy of radio - the way it becomes a soothing soundtrack to your daily life, filtering in the sounds of all across the planet.

7. Making stuff. Fixing stuff. Growing stuff. And the ping that you hope for when you put the stuff out there, in the world, of course. Life would be meaningless without the ping.

And for my taggees I choose.. you. I can't possibly restrict myself to seven of my blog comrades. Sophie's Choice! Ce n'est pas possible! Non, non, the very thought is making me speak bastardised French. So you, reader, are enjoined to share your seven. Please?

Your alive and kicking, or at least twitching slightly,
T