Catching up with the wind

Work hit me around the head with a shovel and dragged me into the barn, not letting me out until I had sheared all the sheep and dealt with a crazy yokel or twelve. I might be taking this slightly bizarre metaphor a bit too far...

Anyway, a week on holiday followed by a trip abroad with work, followed by a trip to visit friends, followed by a bank holiday leads to not enough time for the really important things in life, like sleeping and blogging. On the other hand, it does feed the soul. Or the nasty corners of the mind with fodder that can be used for the blogging. I have a lot I want to talk about, but the secret nature of this venture means I can only do it at home (I don't want work to be able to trace this - I'm not exactly complimentary about some of my colleagues), and I don't want anyone I know to find out about it. Tom has to be out before I will log in. And recently, he has been here. A lot. Which is lovely. It just means I don't get an awful lot done.

Nosy cow, but not very good at it

Skippy: Ooh, what's in your bag?!

Anna: My lunchbox... Why?

Skippy: It looked really exciting.

Anna: ???

Please note, the bag in question was open, and the lunchbox was CLEARLY visible.

Sensory overload

Ermentrude, for the love of God and the good of humanity TONE DOWN THE LAVENDER. The smell is making me nauseous, and I'm not even pregnant.

How to...

...make me want to elbow you in the kidneys with as much force as I can muster:

Wriggle every 10 seconds in increasingly outlandish ways when I'm trying to get to sleep. If you're that uncomfortable, GET UP!

Ambitions

1. Live in Italy, preferably Siena or Firenze
2. Write a novel
   
3. Have children
4. Own a big red squishy sofa
5. Explore Egypt
6. Knit a jumper for everyone in my family
   

Book of the month

The Post-Birthday World - Lionel Shriver

Bittersweet view of both outcomes from a tricky situation. The claustrophobic atmosphere of a stale relationship is captured adeptly, and it makes you wonder about all the choices you didn't make.

Biological clock

Two opposing reactions to the same natural phenomenon.

Poppy: Yes, I can hear you. Yup, tick tock, tick tock. Why are you so loud? I'm not even 30! Getting the message, loud and clear! Come on, isn't there a fucking snooze button on this thing?! PLEASE SHUT UP!

Tom: Biological clock, you say? An evolutionary mechanism innate in all living organisms to prompt reproduction so as to ensure the future of the species? I'm sorry, I'm just not familiar with the concept!

Love

Today is a day to celebrate love, especially the love that binds my family together.

Happy wedding anniversary, Mum and Dad.

So true...

April Fresh Apocalypse

Following a 40 minute conversation about washing and ironing with the female members of Tom's family, it turns out that they are trying to bring about the utter collapse of the environment purely through the medium of laundry. How can a 3 person household generate 3 loads of washing a day?!

Tom's family

Mother: black belt in the little-known martial art of 'Hospitality'. Will never knowingly allow you to have an empty plate or glass on her watch! Even if you don't want anything! Does not believe in depression, thinks they shouldn't let gay people on the TV (though quite frankly the amount of time she spends watching it you'd think she'd welcome any excuse to turn it off for a while. Or even just 5 minutes).

Father: permanently absent, even though he still lives with Tom's mother. Incapable of showing affection. Always in one of four places - bed, watching TV by himself, pub, work.

Older sister: thinks being a parent means letting her mother bring up her children.

Younger sister: quiet, usually. Sweet, but spoilt, as her family can only show affection through the application of fat wads of cash.

Nephews: no concentration span due to aforementioned part-time parenting.

Grandfather: interesting jewellery (as in, big, gold and brash).

Grandmother: repeats the last word you say when in conversation. Most off-putting.

If you're into it

Summer of love

We didn't get married immediately, it took us another 6 years before we ended up in front of the altar, but we did move in together. When exams finished, I cranked up the hours in my part-time job so that I could afford to stay in London, and rented a room in halls over the summer. Double rooms were easier to come by, as fewer people wanted to share, so I suggested to Tom that he could also get a job in the same office as me, and we could share the room to halve the rent. He readily agreed, though before we could happily shack up, he had to lose the girlfriend back home.

This was easier said than done. She was still in the middle of her A levels, and he didn't want to be responsible for messing up her future by dumping her before they were over. Unfortunately, the day after they were finished, he was due to go on holiday with her, her family, and worst of all his family too. There was no way he could dump her before the holiday, it would be unbearable. I understood where he was coming from, and decided to let him just get on with it. If he came back and decided he wanted to be with her, fair enough, if he came back and jumped straight on a train back to me to tell me how awful it had been, so much the better.

It didn't work out quite like this though. First of all, he got really bad food poisoning, so really wasn't up to travelling so soon after getting back. Then, her grandma died. This all seemed rather farcical, but I had made up my mind not to get too worried. In my heart, I had already decided that we were always going to be together. But, just in case I was wrong, I protected myself by kissing someone else. This might seem like an interesting strategy to keep the man I had fallen in love with, but firstly, I was 19 and not entirely logical, and secondly, he was on holiday with someone else. I wasn't going to have sex with anyone, but some kissing, to keep me from getting lonely didn't seem too wrong. Especially as it was very good kissing.

In those rather strange days, disconnected from everything I was used to, becoming increasingly nocturnal (I only worked 20 hours a week, and not at fixed times), it seemed perfectly normal to know that the man I was kissing at night was not the one I had chosen as my forever. I knew that if it went further than kissing, things would become very complicated in my head, and it would be really unfair for my kissing partner, who was completely informed about the situation. And while, I'm very glad that Tom did eventually arrive (having dispatched his newly bereaved girlfriend - oh the guilt!), on sultry nights like tonight I do remember the illicit kissing, and wonder about what might have been...

Hot = fast?

I came out of a meeting in a sweltering room fanning myself with my notebook, and sat back at my desk.

Poppy: That was the hottest meeting ever!

Ermentrude (with puzzlement in her bovine eyes): Do you mean it went quickly? You were in there half an hour!

Poppy: ?????! No, I mean it was very warm.

First...

• Memory - running down a hill with my mum, having to reach up to hold her hand
• Pet - guinea pig. It died.
• Crush - James somebody from class 10. I don't remember anything about him other than he had dark hair.
• Best friend - Catherine, from play group. She came to my wedding, but that was the first time I had seen her in years.
• Film - Bambi.
• Kiss - a surprise that I hadn't seen coming. Not entirely pleasant or welcome.
  
• Flight - to Finland. Lots of lakes.
  
• Car - VW Polo
  
• Sex - in a tent. It needed practice.
• Flat - (post-uni) ex-council in South London.
• Plant - African violet.
• Love - boy from school. I treated him badly, but only right at the end. I didn't have the maturity or experience to handle it differently.
• Ambition - to be a teacher, like Ma and Pa.
  

How to...

...make me scream silently:

Even though I mention the title of the document I'm talking about 4 or 5 times, still think I'm talking about something totally different. How did you manage to get a PhD? Or finish primary school, for that matter...