The beaver is a proud and noble animal

Haven't updated in a while, so here's a long rambly one.

Katy and I spent the weekend in Leicester. It was a fairly relaxed one. Ate too much, slept a lot, broke her beg (again). The usual.

We went to visit her gran on Friday and she looked… old. I hadn't seen her in a while and it really hit me. She's still a tough old bird, but that day, she looked tired and old… she couldn't suck tea up through a straw and her voice was gone. That was rough on Katy. I didn't go on Saturday because there wasn't enough room in the car so I'd offered to cook dinner, but apparently she was in better spirits. She has good days and bad days, and all she wants to do right now is go home. I can't say that I blame her because hospitals suck the big ass.

We made marinated gammon slices for lunch. The marinade was simple yet effective: lemon juice, lime juice, olice oil, salt, pepper, coriander, ginger and chilies. Really really nice, I'll have to remember that one.

I bought myself a new toy: an iPod shuffle. Since I'm going to be doing a lot of travelling in the next little while, I managed to justify the expense of it to myself – though it was an agonizing process. It's cute, it's uber-lightweight and the sound isn't bad. I can hold 120 songs and it has a 12 hour battery life. That should be more than enough for me :) I had the occasion to try it on Saturday when Katy met Rita for coffee at Starbucks. I offered to let them have their drinks alone so that they could have a decent chat. Besides, Katy was still feeling a bit blue, so I went off to buy her something red so that she could be purple. (That makes perfect sense to the both of us, don't worry about it). I found her a cute oriental box made out of red fabric at the Pier, so I scored a trifecta: it's red, it's from the Pier and it's a box – all good things :) I also managed to finish the last of the work I needed to do for the office. I'll post a link to the finished poster when it's done and printed out.

The curries were nice and spicy without being too hot. Katy's mom gave me a hand with the mix, and I now feel confident that I can make them by myself, even though I don't have half the spices I need to make them at home. I need to get some asafoedita, because it tastes nice and is a kick-ass word in its own right. I'd also made some guacamole, which went really well with the tangy salad Katy's mom made. I'm a happy bunny because I found a brand of ice cream I can eat here. I ♥ Walls. Magnums rule!

Sunday started out with pig. Hmmm, pig. And eggs. Hmmm, eggs. Then we lounged around while I went through the Argos catalog suggesting xmas gift ideas I could buy Katy's dad. He wants an 18'x20' shed. I offered him instead a make-up kit, a hair clipper or a winnie-the-pooh piglet bakckpack. All of those were shot down, though the piglet bag was a close call. I still need to figure out what I'm going to get them… Had a huuuuuuuuge sunday dinner – you gotta love a plate where veggies pile up and over everything. *drools* and then headed out to Cambridge.

That is all, we now resume our usual programming.

I just woke up. This, in and of itself, isn't really newsworthy. The fact that I went to bed at 7pm last night is though. I had a pisser of a headache, and advil just wasn't cutting it, so I went for a shower and what I thought would be a short nap… Hell, I vaguely remember Katy coming to bed last night, but that's about it. At least my headache is gone.