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Our cats…

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It would seem that the cats are taking well to the new environment. They were in and out all everning, part of the night and most of this morning. They’ve discovered, much to their chagrin I would imagine, that our neighbours have a dog :)

I snapped this with my camera phone last night. I have no idea how she climbed up there but Reenie spend a large part of the evening on the roof of our shed and our neighbours. Later that evening, I heard the dog bark and saw Tolstoy magically appear on top of the party wall fence :) I’m sure they’ll get used to it.

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Tiredness, and stress. And more tiredness.

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I have repainted the whole of the upstairs of the Hinxton house. All the floors have been vacuumed to within inches of their lives (Katy has the blisters to prove it). We’ve done all that we’ve humanly could to make the house clean and tidy. The house is in a *much* better state than we’ve left it in. And still, it would seem that the powers that be aren’t happy. I fear for our deposit. We need that money, and it’s not an inconsiderable sum. If it’s less than 1K, I’ll have to look at our legal recourses. I am not happy. I don’t need this shit right now.

In other news, we gave in and let the cats go out this morning. For the past two weeks, they’ve been cooped up in the house and have turned into unbridled bundles of energy. Even Tolstoy was poinging everywhere and playing with random shit. We’d planned on letting them out this weekend but had to relent because they were spending their nights chasing each other all over and house and up and down the stairs for hours on end. It sounded like a herd of rampaging elephants. This is not conductive for a good night’s sleep. It also doesn’t help that BenBen has decided that 5am is a good time to wake up. As such, I am currently exhausted.

And stressed.

I do not like this situation.

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back online!

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going to bed now. it took two hours to get the wi-fi up and running. this is much more time than it should have required. must give props to a really helpful scottish lass on tech support who was actually a) knowledgeable b) helpful and c) a pleasure to deal with. i told her all of this. kudos must be given when warranted.

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So much has happened in the last two weeks, I don’t even know where to begin

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So, a quick bullet point recap:

  • we bought a house
  • we painted it top to bottom
  • we re-wired large chunks of it
  • we installed a shower that still doesn’t work
  • we moved
  • In a stunning display of cleverness, I managed to lock the shed keys in the shed, requiring a visit from our friendly neighbourhood locksmith
  • we re-painted the whole upstairs floor of our old house
  • I went to Scotland for a business trip
  • we are all completely exhausted and I think I gave myself a bad case of carpal in the process

Notable events during this time:

  • the mouse, that damned mouse, stowed away and is now living somewhere behind our cupboards. Our cats are useless.
  • said cats are driving us nuts by destroying the house and running rampant all night
  • the boy is on solids and is discovering the joys of carrots and sweet potato
  • I managed to go to Scotland and not eat a single deep-fried, battered food item
  • the Scottish tried to kill me many times with food, but I have to give mad props to a Spanish tapas bar that catered with much success to my multiple allergies.
  • we bought a new bed and a new mattress. This is a source of joy, and debt.
  • we should have internet access at home shortly

More on all these when I can spare the time. In the meantime, know that I am still alive and tired as sin.

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It might be a loooooong few days

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BenBen’s sleeping patterns have been fractious these past few days. He seems to wake up coughing every night. It used to be only once a night, but these past few, it’s been two or three times. The good news is that he’s still able to settle himself back down to sleep, but it has started to take its toll. He’s not sleeping as well, so he’s not getting as much rest and he’s getting grumpy in the day. On a brighter side, he has regained his appetite back so we are happy about that. The bad news though is that his irregular nighttime sleeping patterns has started to affect his daytime naps. He used to go down for hour- or two-hour long naps during the day. These past few, he’s been restless and doesn’t go down as quickly or as deeply. He cries a lot, and we haven’t heard that in a while. It harkens back to the bad old days.

We had to go to the house this afternoon to wait for BT man. The situation was promising. BenBen had just been fed and it was time for his nap. He did not feel the same way. He cried, no make that hollered, the whole time we were there. Considering that we’re going to be there all weekend and most of next week painting, DIYing and cleaning, this fills me with anxious dread. I don’t like hearing him cry. He’s generally such a good baby that when he is being difficult or inconsolable, it seems that much more difficult.

They say that buying a house and having a baby are the two most stressful things you can do in your life. We’re doing both in a very short timespan. Hopefully things will settle down soon and we can start enjoying life and stop worrying about everything. The cynical voice in my head tells me that there’ll always be something to worry about. Still, we just want a little bit of us time. Of family time. Of time where we don’t have to worry about a dozen things at once.

Health-wise, the BenBen is fine. We go to the doctors enough to ensure that :) His chest is clear. His weight is stable. When he’s in a good mood, he’s bright eyed and bushy-tailed. I’m sure that we’re anxious about things that we don’t need to be worried about. It’s just easier said than done to not worry about all the work that needs doing in short order and having a crying baby thrown in for good measure does not help.

We can only hope it goes ok.

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Quote of the day

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I have come to the realization over the last few months that in the reign of enlightened despotism so graciously bestowed upon us by our glorious superiors, information does not trickle down to us peons as we clearly lack the higher cognitive ability to process this super-high-strategic level information. We just do the monkey work. It is a happy place.

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Houdini has left the building

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That danged mouse managed to escape. Again! Katy and I were talking about releasing her back into the wild because we’re not really interacting with her as a pet and the situation is only going to get more hectic in the coming weeks. So, last night, I took her aquarium down from the shelf where it’s been for the past few days and – after much poking around in the sawdust and some head scratching – we realized that she’d buggered off! She managed to gnaw a hole in the aquarium lid and high-tailed it out of there. She’s probably hiding somewhere in the house. That’s it though. She’ll have to take her chances with the pussycats (big lumps that they are).

But still, you have to give it to the rodent. She did not want to be kept :)

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It’s not broken, don’t fix it.

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Top Gear may be forced to hire new presenters as part of a government push to make the show more gender and ethnically balanced. This week the Equality Bill was introduced into Britain which encourages employers to take “positive action” to widen diversity in the public sector workforce. Top Gear, along with a number of shows funded by the BBC, now fall under the Bill.

There has been pressure on the boys who review their mechanical toys to change, with a leading academic earlier this month saying that the BBC should employ more women to help make shows such as Top Gear “female-friendly”, reports London’s Daily Mail.

Dr Louise Livesey, tutor in sociology and women’s studies at Oxford, accused Top Gear of “entrenched, institutional sexism”. As well as being hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, the car show has a “boys’ club” production team and fewer female than male guests, it was claimed.

But Top Gear executive producer Andy Wilman claimed it was “utter drivel” to suggest that the show excluded women, saying: “If the show is allegedly female-unfriendly, why is almost half the audience female? Secondly, if we are to have a female presenter just to represent the sexes, then by that logic Loose Women needs a bloke in the line-up pretty sharpish. I actually believe these sorts of mandates are patronising to women viewers, because they assume that women can’t enjoy a show’s presenters on merit, but can only appreciate a program if spoken to by one of their own sex.”

Top Gear is one of the most successful and popular shows on the Beeb. It’s not broken. The formula works. Leave it the hell alone.

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