Tag: slice of life

Waited a lot, mumbled a bit, became British.

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I affirmed a pledge of allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen yesterday and became naturalized as a British citizen. The ceremony was, to be honest, a bit hokey, but the symbolism of it was nice. It would have been a lot better if I hadn’t been in the middle of a nasty migraine. Afterwards, people were complimenting Katy and I on how well behaved the beastie had been. He, of course, was flirting with everything that would smile at him.

The highlight of the day came when we were making our way to the Cambridge City Council offices and ran into Santa Claus in his off-duty summer outfit. Imagine a fat old dude, with a kick-ass white beard, fabulously working flaming, scarlet red trousers and a buttoned shirt of the same colour. Fantabulous!

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Keeping calm and carrying on. Kinda, sorta.

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One week later and I’m walking – well, limping, really – but at least I’m back at work. My ankle is strapped in and I’m wearing my hiking boots (which do nothing for my foot odour) so it’s not too bad. I don’t need to take painkillers any more and the swelling is mostly gone. There is still a kick-ass bruise on both sides of my ankle but it’s now multiple pretty colours and that’s also going away.

We spent the weekend in Leicester. Good news, we have curtains! They cost a damn sight more than we expected them to, but at least we have something that Katy and I can agree on. It should be the last big thing we need to spend on. It needs to be the last big thing we spend on, because we’re broke at the moment and since Katy’s maternity pay is ending next month, our budget will be tight for the next few months. Joy, joy, stress, stress, stress. Really, it’s doable but we’ll need to be frugal – something we’re really, really bad at doing.

We went to see two movies: Coraline and Terminator:Salvation. Coraline is really funky and I’ll be buying it when it comes out on DVD (see? not frugal!) T:S was very meh. Ok, but nothing spectacular. They did manage to tie in nicely into the first and second movie, but… dunno. I wasn’t hanging on the edge of my seat. BTW, when did the movies become so expensive??? Tickets for two adults for a matinee, two medium soft drinks, the smallest popcorn available (which was still bigger than a whole portion of microwave popcorn that I usually share with Katy) and a small ice cream: £30!!! How the hell do teenagers afford that? I mean, shite!

We got our new sofa on Friday. The thing is f’n HUGE! I knew it was big and it knew it would fit, but seeing it in a giant showroom doesn’t do it justice when you imagine how it’s going to look in your living room. I had to ask the delivery men to put the old couch in the back shed because they said that it wouldn’t fit in the office. I think it’s partially that they didn’t want to be arsed to make it fit through the door, but they have planted the seeds of doubt about getting it in its proposed resting place and that doesn’t make me a happy bunny. More to come later when we attempt to pry it in :)

The BenBen was a bit of a handful this weekend. We think his teeth are giving him grief. It’s coming up to the right time and he’s showing some classic signs of it. He’s drooling on everything! And I mean droooooooooling. My clothing gets soggy just looking at him. We’re going to go see a dermatology nurse about his eczema. Hopefully it’s something he’ll grow out of and it’s just being aggravated because of the heat at the moment. We’ll see what she has to say.

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F*CK. Also, ouch!

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In a show of great skill and talent, I have managed to lose the ability to walk in a straight line and have spectacularly wiped out on a walkway at work and have twisted my ankle in the process. I’m currently sitting with my foot elevated and wrapped in ice. Taking advantage of the fact that I’m a walking pharmacy, I’m felling a lot better after taking ibuprofen, paracetamol and codeine. Still, god damn it, I do not need this shit right now.

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Our cats are more random than usual

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Tolstoy has taken to sleeping in the most random places ever in the past few days. Normally, he’s sleeping under the Poang in our bedroom but in the past 3 days, we’ve seen him:

– on the couch (which he never does)
– under BenBen’s cot bed (he’s usually *in* it)
– behind the scratching post we just put upstairs (it’s always fun when he attacks your feet in the middle of the night when you’re not expecting it)

And this morning, we found him sleeping on BenBen’s play mat.

Random animal :)

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Ow!

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Things were productive at casa Richard this weekend. We secured all of the shelves and bookcases to the walls and managed to clear out all the boxes of books and DVDs. I put up a curtain pole in the office and we bought waaaay too many clocks on a random trip to Scottsdales (where we were only supposed to buy a house number and some cat food). The shed is piling up nicely with stuff we won’t need to keep in the house, as sheds are wont to do.

I other news, I managed to brain myself quite efficiently on Saturday. All my tools are in a cupboard under the stairs and, when I went to get some rawl plugs to fix the aforementioned bookcase, I got up a bit too quickly while I was still under the stairs. I’m sure I dented my skull. I was ok for Saturday but I’ve been having a minor headache since Sunday. I think it’s just a big bruise, but the migraine I got this morning really isn’t helping matters. It’ll either go away by itself in a day or two or I’ll be dead from an undiagnosed cerebral hematoma (note to self, do NOT go read stuff on Wikipedia).

Anyway, it was a grand weekend and we got lots done and we ate lots and there was ice cream. If it wasn’t for the ding on my head, it would have been close to a perfect bank holiday weekend.

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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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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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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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The BenBen, he is not feeling well

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Just as his appetite was starting to get better, BenBen’s taken a turn for the worse. He’s been cough-y for a few days now. We’re not sure if it’s just a cold, seasonal allergies, teething or a fun mixture of a bit of everything at once, but he’s been running a fever, has a touch of the runs and is waking himself up at night coughing again. And, of course, he’s being a git to feed and is generally a grumpy boy. Yesterday, he skipped the equivalent of two full feeds. He woke himself up at 4am this morning but managed to get back to sleep around 5am. We know we’re blessed with a good sleeper, so that’s making things bearable. He’s having a nap as I’m writing this. He woke up a while ago in a coughing fit but is either back asleep or chilling in his cotbed. Either way, I’m leaving him alone.

In happier news, we should be getting the house keys today :)

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