The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
Hi Self, it’s me.
You’re a reasonably smart man, and you’ve been around the block a few times, so you really, really should know better by now that staying up reading a book until past 3am, however good it is, is not a smart thing to do when you have to wake up the next morning to go do work.
So please, do us both a favour and stop being a prat.
Best regards,
Yourself.
I’ve been updating the Xmas 2011 album this weekend, and there are some really good pictures of the Bean.
My two current favourites are:
All pictures are here: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/xmas_2011/
Bean’s cough tends to be worse at night, when he kicks off all his blankets and gets cold. I went in to cover him up and put a bigger blanket on him to keep him warm and, as I was leaving his room, I heard a small sleepy voice saying “daddy, want big kiss”.
As much as I want to throttle him, those little moments make up for it.
Between organising the group xmas paella, the EBI xmas party and various other events and cabs and mugs and groceries and presents and booze and whatnots, I’m getting a bit frazzled and I’m really looking forward to the holiday break.
The group paella is this weekend, the EBI xmas party is the week after that, and then I’m on holiday from the week after that still. And then it’s xmas, woohoo!
Still, we’ve managed to get a few bits of pre-xmas cheer already. Katy, Bean and I went to see the Victorian Christmas at Audley End house last weekend. Bean got to see Santa (again) and see real life reindeer, and a few not-so-real ones! The stable yard was really cool, because it had a Victorian market recreation, with people dressed up in period costume hawking period wares. There was a gentleman selling a miracle tonic who was simply hilarious.
Best quotes:
See that greyhound? It was a whippet before having some of my elixir!
See that hirsute man with the huge beard over there? He was bald before taking but a spoonful of my elixir! Now, he’s stuffed more than 12 cushions with his excess hair!
hehe :)
We also went to Leicester to see a Bill Bailey doing his Dandelion Mind show at De Montfort Hall. We’d seen in before in London but it changed quite a bit, and he’s always fun to see live. He completely lost the plot a few times when his microphone went batshit (hey! let’s disconnect the Hippie!) and when he tripped doing his Gary Newman “Cars” rendition on the honk organ. His cover of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” was brilliant though.
We also discovered some really cool (but stupidly expensive!) prints from Doug Hyde in a gallery in Leicester. We fell in love with one, but sadly, we didn’t have the £700 to buy it (it’s cheap, considering that the original is going for about £20,000). Still, dang.
When attending a meeting with dignitaries from all the countries that make up the ruling body of your employer in a room that might prove very warm and stuffy, it might be wise to not wear a t-shirt of an insanity prawn yelling ANUS! under your long-sleeved top.
Bean’s been feeling under the weather for the past few days, running a fever and generally being uber feeble. He seemed to perk up yesterday after we thought his fever broke in the previous night but there’s still something there. We haven’t had an unbroken night’s sleep in 3 days – last night being the worst. Between the 3am total meltdown and the 4am cat freakout(*), followed by waking up every other hour, it’s been a looooong night. I now have a tired, grumpy child and an exhausted, grumpy wife. Might be a long day as well…
(*) The neighbour’s cat has started coming in the house again. Bastard.
It was Bean’s birthday this weekend and we were in Leicester. We went to Twycross Zoo for the day on Saturday, where Bean saw Santa and lots of animals.
When we got back to the old fogeys’ home, uncle Stu, uncle Michael, auntie Minal, Jeminie and Sonal came over for dinner and fireworks. Was a good evening :) The train cake was well received. We were up until the wee hours of Saturday decorating the thing, but it was worth it.
All pictures here:
http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/ben_birthday_2011/
This is how much the EBI has grown and staff have moved on in recent years. I’ve been selling tickets to the Xmas party and I hardly know any of the people who are buying tickets…
Katy finally convinced me to watch “She’s just not that into you”. I admit that it was a fun movie, but it just reaffirms my deep conviction that all women are nuts.
Case and point: I hadn’t bought Katy flowers in a long time, so I decided to do so when we went shopping at Tesco. We’d been thinking of doing the Toffee Popcorn Bark for a while and I finally got organised and did it. Katy had mentioned earlier in the day that she wanted a big glass of wine (because it’s been a trying week with Bean), so we opened a bottle of Bordeau.
After all of this, she comes out with this gem:
Flowers, chocolate and wine, all in one day. Are you having an affair?
I love my wife, but she’s a woman, and therefore nuts.
