Bear blog

A birthday outing to Terracotta. I purposefully wore my shorts with the elasticated waist, just in case. I think I undid the button after my third course. I'm wearing the same shorts today and they're decidedly more uncomfy around the middle. I'm sure there's a lot more gut spilling over the top of them today than there was yesterday. Ah, well!

Lizzy didn't bother coming because she's lazy and ungrateful. And her dad was making a 'special tea'. But it's a good job, because she would have made me part with my uni before I was quite ready to. I don't mind Jon taking it, but I still need time to grieve.

We did see other people though. Steve looked snazzy in his posh specs and arrived promptly, which was nice. Philipp and Camille arrived less promptly but did keep me entertained throughout the meal with banter and humourous eating.

A good night out, to be sure. Although I do rather regret the lateness of the hour that I retired to bed last night. It's just going to make me even more grumpy at BUC. Still, I don't mind putting up with myself. It's everyone else who has to suffer.

We took a spontaneous trip to Ikea last night. Ooh, it was exciting!

Pete and Darren actually wanted to go to Decathalon next door to buy hockey stuff-Zzzzz-but we took a tour round Ikea cause it was there. We found another comfy sofa that was bigger than our house, and I saw a potential office chair that I may get round to buying in the next couple of years.

Then we went into the kids' bedroom section and I got *so* broody over all the little beds and the little tables and the little wardrobes. Sigh. I announced to the shop that I want babies. Darren tried to make me understand that these things take time, and Pete dragged me out into the kitchen section. Pete managed to knock down a display onto the heads of some of our fellow shoppers. They didn't mind very much though.  

We had tea there as well. It was fantastic. The boys had meatballs with cranberry sauce, which I didn't quite approve of. The meatballs were very nice though. I had fish and chips with peas. And we all had sloppy chocolate cheesecake that made me feel blimplike. We should definitely eat out at Ikea more often.

We did quite well for not parting with too much money. It's obviously impossible to leave Ikea without buying something, but we managed to escape with a pack of beakers for Philip and a birthday present for my mum. Very reasonable. Darren bought himself a jar of Russian Wood Butter. Then, before we left, we went round the store bit and looked at all the funny names (Traktor was definitely the best) and then round the food shop bit and found cloudberry jam and dill flavour crisps. Darren bought three weeks' worth of coffee.

And then we went home and slept. This morning, my legs hurt cause we must have walked for miles and miles looking at all the nice things.

Having charged head first into this weekend with the intention of Getting Shit Done, I'm left with an unfortunate sense of utter failure. This being the only free weekend we had for the next month to do those niggly things like sort out our lives, I had actually wanted to get on and do things. I'm now reaffirmed in my underachievement.

We started off well enough. Went to get eye tests and fork out ridiculous amounts of money for new specs. The first spanner in the works was the stupid man who wouldn't let me have the nice red shiny glasses I wanted cause he reckoned they didn't fit me; without asking how they actually felt. If you're interested, I can't remember a time when a pair of glasses fit me so nicely. But there you go. Then he told us both that we couldn't pick up our new specs for a couple of weeks because it's such an arduous and supremely difficult task to put a bloody anti-scratch coating on them. But I didn't really mind till we went back in a couple of hours later to pick up the shades we'd ordered only to find that the man had ignored my specific request for a dark grey tint on the lenses and gone for a slightly bluish-grey tinge which was so pointlessly light that it defeated the point of forking out an additional twelce quid to get them tinted in the first place.

Went to see a car. It wasn't great looking but it worked and it was very cheap. Didn't buy it. Then picked up Lizzy and went for a drive-by of a potentially nice house in Knighton. Looked okayish from the outside, but the kitchen ceiling looked to be falling down. A doer upper.

Then we said 'sod it' and had a bit of a barbeque. And very nice it was too, but not particularly productive. Neither was sitting down in front of Napoleon Dynamite for two hours. Especially since I was the only one who found it in any way funny.

Sunday was good fun. We bundled Lizzy and Darren into the van and went up to Stamford Hall for the VW show there. I was dazzled by it. All that chrome, glinting in the sunshine. All the pretty colours. There were about a hundred Herbies knocking around the place. And all the splitties! Droooool. Also, rather a lot of dog-dogs wearing bandanas and looking hip to the jive. It was nice. We wandered around for hours and ate nice donuts but failed in our purpose of finding an engine. We found a company that could potentially supply us with an engine at extortionate cost, but nothing to take home with us. How infuriating. Bungay is looming ever closer and I know Philip just isn't going to make it there and back in one piece, yet Pete seems terribly fatalistic about the whole thing. It irks me terribly.

The best part of my weekend was undoubtedly weeing in a bush. Lizzy has an awful influence on me.

I'm upset because there's a new cat in the neighbourhood who's looking for love, but I'm not allowed to show him any.

He's a big black tom that looks a lot like Dini, except for having a bushier tail. I've spotted him from the window a few times lazing around in the garden and have run to open the back door for him, thinking that I'd shut Dini out, only to realise that Dini was slormed on the chair and perfectly inside the house.

But last night he decided to appear at the back door and miaow incessently. Dini miaowed back in a slightly aggrieved fashion and I gave him a bit of food because I thought he was needy. But he obviously isn't a stray because I picked him up and cuddled him and he's actually quite chunky around the middle, although about a stone lighter than Dini. Pete didn't like it. He said that we already had one cat and that it wasn't fair on Dini, and that we couldn't afford to keep another cat. Even when I asked whether Black Cat could just be a cat that sat in our house every now and then and didn't get fed Pete said no.

It made me sad, but we shut the back door and told Black Cat to go away. He sat there and miaowed for ages before Pete made me leave the kitchen. And then this morning when I opened the door to let Dini out he was there again and tried to get in and be cuddled. And I had to turn him away again, even though I could see him through the window sat outside the door crying.

Poor Black Cat. I feel bad for him because he just wants to be friends. But I feel bad for Dini too because Black Cat makes him feel insecure and second-best. It's a quandry I'm in, to be sure.

As it's Easter, we get visited by cool people.

That includes our nephew, Leon who's as big as a house and scares Gandini with his big baby eyes and sticky fingers.

Nice looking shirt though. I wonder who bought that for him.

Pete is twenty-seven. And that's old.

To commiserate, we took a pleasant walk around Leicester with my parents, and then we all went out for a slap-up curry down Belgrave Road. It was cool. We went in a taxi that had tinted windows and a telly. It was all terribly bling. Unfortunately, the only thing on was Fiddy Cent singing about lollipops and candy shops. Lizzy was most enthralled.

We went to The Curry Pot. The waiter there was very smiley and nice. He said something to me that noone understood. I just stared at him until he started acting normally again. Lizzy had a sweet lassi that tasted like yoghurt mixed with wet dog. I had a passion fruit J20 which left me deeply unsatisfied so I asked the smiley waiter for a Kingfisher shandy. But then I had a sip of Darren's Cobra and realised it was much nicer than Kingfisher. Bah. At least I'll know better for next time.

The best bit was when Lizzy made a throw-away comment to the waiter about it being Pete's special day. After we'd ordered pudding (crafty buggers) they dimmed the music and brought out a little cake for him and took photos. Pete looked suitably embarrassed when we all started singing. Very nice. They even took his email address so that they could forward the pics to him. Bless.

Then we went for a silly walk into town for a couple of drinks. We went upstairs in the place that used to be Lamplighters and Darren got upset because we weren't sitting together in a nice circle. Then Alan went home because he's old and can't stay out late any more. Everyone else went over to The Basement where they play funkaaaay music. Lizzy danced very well. Darren didn't. Roger saw a woman who wasn't wearing a bra. Apparently he wasn't looking, it's just that they were pointing at him.

My conclusions are that The Curry Pot does nice food, Darren needs to learn how to sway to the beat, and we should all go out for meals more often.

Yey for weekends!

Friday night was spent sat squirming in front of a couple of scary foreign films, including the most gratuitously sick film Takashi Miike has made. It's not something I ever want to think about again, let alone watch. But unfortunately, I think it's with me for life. So well done him.

Saturday was a bit more productive. Roger had made cake for watching with films the night before but we'd forgotten to take it up to Alan's, so I had to eat it for brunch. And it was very nice. Nicer than I had expected. One might even say impressive.

We bought the biggest tent in the world and then gathered on Lizzy's grounds to erect it in the blasting, arctic winds. It was jolly good fun. I waved at Granny and she waved back. Then I nearly got blown away. Then I stood inside the tent as everyone else pegged it down and tied it up, and decided where I was going to put my tea-towels. We didn't do the best job of putting it up, but you got the general idea. And it was still quite homely. Even with all four bedroom bits in, there was still loads of space for the six of us to slob about on the floor. And once we put the porch up properly it'll seem even bigger. I think I'm going to feel a bit self-conscious when we turn up to Bungay with it, but the comfort of it will definitely grow to outway any embarrassment.

Then we ate cake, in celebration, and sat and introduced Darren to The Incredibles. And Lizzy's dad cooked us really nice lasagne and it was turning into a really nice evening until Lizzy shepherded us out in the cold to go and wind the clock, which I admit is cool the first time you do it. But by the third time it gets a bit samey. Darren got scared of the ladder. But I don't blame him. It's long and narrow and hurts your hands.

Sunday I spent sat reading Lizzy's comics. And then Darren came round and we made raspbery ripple ice cream with the ice cream maker Paul and Jennie got us about a million years ago, and we've only used once. It was really nice. So nice, in fact, that I couldn't finish my bowl for fear of dying of cream overload. Definately one to make again though. It's even nicer when you forget how much sugar went into it.

A good weekend, it has to be said.

After faffing around for months with dodgy connections in the stereo and dead batteries lying around the house, not to mention soggy footwells, Bess went in for her MOT yesterday and failed on pretty much everything. Woo!

And, of course, because she's only worth about ten quid, the cost of repairs is really rather more than she's worth. So she's going to the scrappy to be ripped asunder and flogged on to unsuspecting customers. And we're off shopping! Unfortunately, we're on a terribly limited budget cause we're in need of a new engine for Philip, and it's Pete's birthday coming up this month, and we both need new glasses, and next month we're conventioning every weekend.

Bugger.

So keep your eyes open for cheapish VWs that look relatively pretty.

Today is the last day of term. And that means that all the smelly students are bringing their books back before they skip away home to mummy and daddy.

Today is also the day that the staff lift decided to finally break down. So all the thousands of books that were returned today had to be loaded onto trolleys and taken upstairs in the student lift. By me, principally.  

If I have to be party to one more inane conversation about boys or parties or hair or what everyone is doing over the holidays I shall kill someone. With a book.

Just been leafing through the Dictionary of Playground Slang and found that Joey is a slang term circa the 1970s, for condom.

And there was me thinking it just meant ummmer!