Today I have been infected by an ear worm...

Well Hugo appears to be none the worse for his marinading in chilli and yoghurt yesterday and is back to normal today... if you count sleeping on the top of the door and then falling off normal....

It is bitterly cold here (note, I am British, for me bitterly cold is anything below 3 degrees Celsius and it hasn't cracked freezing here today) which means I've spent a great deal of time in front of a heater in one room or other in the house... the warmest room is the study which is doubling as a laundrette as I desperately try to get my work clothes dry for tomorrow...... the coldest room is the downstairs toilet... not a place to linger at present......

At some point early on this morning I picked up an ear worm (repetitive type rather than bloody annoying) and as it's a song that I actually rather like I thought I'd share....

And now alas I must go prepare for Monday and work.....

The Naked Cat & the chilli.....

Oh dear, poor Hugo.....

Earlier on today, in an unusual fit of organisation, I decided to do some cooking to fill up the freezer with easily defrosted and re-heated meals, and to get a head start on some things to take for lunch.... So I made some bulgar wheat salad, potato salad, a load of vegetable & lentil soup and finally put a large Quorn curry into the slow cooker......

(Finally I made a large tub of fruit salad to pick on during the week....... alas said fruit salad was a tricksy thing and at one stage not vegetarian.... until I re-washed the grapes which I'd managed to bleed over when taking them off the stalk... having been viciously attacked by the sharp knife I was using to cut the melon into chunks just before hand)

The Quorn curry has in it fresh ginger, garlic and chilli's..... which were the last thing I cut up and threw into the pot before switching it on..... being as it was then feeding time for the critters I flung wings at the dogs and went up to deal with the demands of the naked ones.....

Deciding to check my e-mails whilst I was upstairs I was swiftly joined by Hugo who insists on clambering all over me, the desk, the keyboard etc.... he's doing it now, I can't actually see the screen as he's stood in front of it tapping on my fingers as I type...  So being an obliging serf to their needs I gave him the obligatory cuddle and he rubbed himself all over my hands.........

I was still pottering about upstairs half an hour later when he gave a very distressed sounding yowl and started shaking his head.... there was saliva frothing at his mouth which he started clawing at.....I thought for a second that he was going to have a fit..... I got hold of him and laid him on a towel just in case but his eyes were normal and he was showing no other signs..... he was just very distressed........ As I was trying to calm him his mother jumped up next to him and went to head-butt my hand, but then sniffed and drew away in disgust..... which was when it twigged.... the poor cat was covered in the residue from the chilli which had transferred to, well, all over him as I'd been stroking him.

So how do you remove chilli from a naked cat's body??...... I ended up basically covering him in plain yoghurt (it was either that or bathing him in milk but I didn't have enough)...... really, seriously messy, as I couldn't keep him still.... thankfully I'd thought first to shut him in the bathroom to do it, but still, it went everywhere....... then I rinsed him off in some very mild kitten shampoo.... Given that it's freezing and he has no coat, I then had dry him off with the hair dryer.... which whilst it appears he likes to come try get under it when I am doing my hair it's a totally different story when it comes to being dried himself.....

He seems to have forgiven me now...... but he's sniffing very carefully at my hands before I am allowed stroke him........ the curry was nice though.....

brain to mouth communication error of the day....

Well, this evening I have managed what turned out to be a fairly amusing (well for me anyway) example of failing to engage my brain before opening my mouth.... I mean seriously, there is a connection, but sometimes it seems to just short circuit on me at the worst moments.  It's a good thing my mother is used to me!!

So what did I do?

Being as it's very cold here at present, and forecast to snow over the weekend, I decided that it would be an excellent time to visit my mother for tea and gossip as after (a) she has heating in her house which I don't and (b) I could stick a load of clothes through the washing machine - after all if I get snowed in the last thing I want is to run out of underwear (well outerwear too I suppose, but the underwear always seems more important somehow)

So, I was sitting at one end of the kitchen table, my mother was at the other end making a batch of meatballs.  In the middle was sat my mother's lodger - I say lodger in the loosest sense of the word.  She's a friend of mum's, who recently sold her own house but hasn't yet found a new place to live - so she's currently living in mum's attic (yep the one with the leaky flat roof)..... she's a retired antiques dealer and, well to be blunt, a complete know it all with extremely definite opinions on everything.  I am hoping she finds somewhere to live soon as she's driving mum up the wall - only mum's far to nice to say anything.

Anyway, there we were, nattering about nothing in particular, as I carried out with my knitting and mum with the cooking.... her friend was holding forth about something when mum suddenly interrupts and says,  "roll into 24 walnut sized balls." There is brief pause and she continues "what sort of size is walnut size?"

Now without thinking or looking up from my knitting (in my defence I was trying to keep my double moss stitch straight at the time) I replied, "the same size as a bloke's prostate gland, a healthy one anyway."

It took about a minute for me to realise the conversation hasn't restarted.  I looked up from my knitting to find them both looking at me, mum's friend is looking totally horrified, like I've said something outrageously rude, but mum, bless her is biting the inside of her cheek and trying not to laugh.  Eventually she managed to say with a completely straight face and dead pan expression, "useful to know, but not exactly helpful when it comes to working out the size of the balls."

Well that cracked me up altogether as my mind went gutter-wise (it is a direction, it's the opposite of heavenwards) at high speed.  Mum managed to hold off laughing until her friend had fled the kitchen to return to her attic

Mum thinks she'll have the downstairs of her house to herself this evening :)

Taking time for myself

Normally I don't make myself promises to do things for me, because, well, at the end of the day, doing things for myself is something that seems to lack importance (as opposed to doing things for other people - which I know has led to me being told on several occasions that I am a doormat, who should only expect to get walked all over.... but I can't help it, it's just me, I like to do things for other people, hells I even like to look after other people, cook for them and stuff .... I don't consider myself a doormat, it's just the way I am).

So anyway, I made some decisions whilst I was off work over Christmas, part of which was that I was going to take time this year to do some things for myself.... the main one being to pluck up courage to go to the UK GLBT fiction meet in July....... as I posted a few days ago, the time off is now booked and I've realised that because I pay my Council Tax over 10 months rather than 12 I have a spare £90 in the budget in February and March..... £90 being the cost of the tickets for both days, but without a stay over (thank goodness it's only in Manchester!)...... So, come pay day at the end of this month (or the end of February if I bottle it) I am going to book myself a place..... and then have a good few months to psych myself up to go (or panic myself until I am completely grey!)..... I am terrible at meeting new groups of people - the last time I was a newbie at a meeting of internet people I managed to get myself into the kitchen to help out and could thankfully hide in there for most of the time on the pretext of being helpful - so not an option this time ....

Other things I am doing for myself include switching off at 4.00 pm when I leave work and trying to put it out my mind till the next day - which I have failed at big time so far.

I am also going to have a couple of evenings a week where I don't answer the phone - unless it's a pre-planned phone call (my counsellor really liked this idea!) or an emergency.

I am going to try and make more of an effort with the house - and look for a gardener that can at least come and tidy things up for me.

I am also going to spend at least three nights a week having a couple of hours playing with yarn, whether at home or when I am out (knitting after all does like to go to the pub and socialise)...... though I suppose this is really only partially for me as I don't knit for myself but love to knit for other people.  I don't like to promise to make things for people (okay so I do have 2 pairs of socks to knit for other people where they've given me the yarn so I must do those) but I like to surprise people with things.... my current project is one of these things.... then there are imminent new arrivals to knit something for....

This is dangerous though, because I find myself surfing Ravelry...... which resulted in me finding the perfect knitting project to do for a friend, as from recent conversation (which primarily involved a mission to the gutters to rescue my now very dented and tarnished halo, and for her to go hunting a pocket demon to train) I think this little chap would like to go live on her desk and help guard her pencils!  I wonder what colour she'd like??

Stone the Gargoyle
(www.devonmonk.com/knitting-gallery)

A weekend with minor excitements.....

Sunday night with work looming over the horizon comes round far far to quickly!

This weekend has been one of doing things.... mainly because I promised myself I wouldn't spend my weekends just reading (well, okay, there might be the odd weekend) and instead I would make myself do something productive.....

Which means that this weekend I have....

- tortured all four of the dogs by savagely maiming them with excruciatingly sharp object so that they are no longer able to walk without severe pain and injury......... or in other words, I cut their nails..... they only thing they can no longer do is making tappy noises on the hard kitchen floor which means that Hope can stealth attack and arrive on my lap without warning......

- cleaned up, trimmed the grass edge and bleached the hell out of the kennel run.... it needed doing and there was a dry day on Saturday so grabbing the opportunity before the next week of rain, or heaven forbid, snow arrives.

- Combed out fully the fur ball known as Gretchen....... by the time I had done I could almost grow a spare spitz out of the undercoat I'd removed from her....... I have plans to do the others, don't tell them!

- Visited mother to carry out daughterly duties (and use the washing machine).... which was quite complicated as I arrived to find her having a complete tizzy because the flat roof in the attic was leaking water into the house..... my mother bless her is a drama queen at times and you'd have thought the world was ending....... when I told her to find her insurance documents and ring them she got quite snappy as apparently when she'd phoned my sister at goodness only knows what time this morning to stress at her about it she'd been told the same thing......I am not sure what else she was expecting from me... possibly to join her in her dramatic moment...... instead she got a small lecture on learning to act proportionately and that a leaking roof was not in fact a life and death situation...... apparently at nearly 75 she feels that if she wishes to be dramatic she will be....... mind you the roof now has a tarp on it and a temporary fix until she can get two quotes for the insurers.

- Unwound and balled up 3 skeins of new and exciting yarn (well these particular ones were new to me, it's one of my favourites to play with) and am now about 1/4 of the way through a new and fun knitting project (erm, which  was actually on my to knit for Christmas list, but hey, you know, surprise gifts throughout the year are welcome I'm sure)

- Had one of those special moments involving melting plastic, glass fragments and flames....... okay, it goes like this.... I have some really nice glass candle holders that sit inside little metal pots on the kitchen window ledge.  On Saturday I had had one alight for a while and as I was sitting at the kitchen table reading (yeah, I did do some of that this weekend too) I caught rather more flame than I would have expected out the corner of my eye.  On closer investigation, namely walking up to it and leaning over the sink to look, I noticed that all the wax residue on the glass holder was burning and the wick itself had burnt out.  On tiptoes I leant further forward to blow it out but it wouldn't go out.  So I picked it up........ which would be my first mistake..... cos the pot it sits in is metal, and was hot, and there were flames, and I dropped it into the plastic washing up bowl in the sink........ where it started to quite happily melt the plastic as I blew at it quite dramatically..... giving up I turned the tap on to put it out..... and the shock of the cold water on hot glass, well, exploded it quite dramatically........ I managed to get the water out the bowl, leave the glass bits in and then carry the whole thing to the outside bin without further incident...... and then went back to run my hand under the tap cos I realised my fingers were a bit warm.........

- and that's about it for my weekend, oh save having only changed the bedding 2 days ago, I now have to go and change the sheets again because Gina has thrown up in the middle of the bed...... why when she has the whole of upstairs to chose from does she always manage to do this just after I've changed the bedding??

Book type stuff....

Having finally done some maths....

Last year in total I read 392 books
Of which 41 were re-reads
2 were non fiction for the purpose of research
the majority of which would fall into the category of M/M romance but with there also being books in the genres YA GLBT, crime, fantasy and historical

On average I read 32 books a month
I have 88 books sitting on my Kindle waiting to be read (around 60% of these were freebies).  3 of these are books I have read and sit on the Kindle all the time as ultimate comfort reading.  I really need to read at least 10 of these a month before I buy any more books!

I still don't review - save for the comments I put on the books read list each month as I still maintain that my opinion is probably not going to be that helpful to the majority of other readers given my own personal slightly warped view of life and books (not to mention I have my personal bugbears concerning transatlantic spelling & grammar)

In reality I have been reading M/M romance for a short time .... but I have some firm favourites author wise who will remain on auto buy (despite the occasional book just not quite being as good as I had hoped). I have no preference between stand alone books and series (though I prefer series with the same MC's rather than those that spin off with new MC's each book).... the completest in me will keep reading a series, even if it seems to have gone off the boil.

I am astounded by the amount of work some authors in the genre are putting out there or have in progress at anyone time...... and I fear it does show in terms of deterioration in quality of plot lines and editing.... I still maintain that one or two good, high quality, well edited and polished plot driven books in a year is really the maximum an author should be looking to publish. I also think there are a fair few publishers that need to take a step back and look at what they are putting out and whether in their push to put out more in volume they are leaving their readers disenchanted and tarnishing their writer's reputations.  With the sudden interest by many of the adult M/M publishers to  have a range dealing with YA GLBT books I am worried that there will be a sudden decrease in the quality of these books given the push to get them out there onto the market.

One of my main issues at the moment appears to be the "ooh, look, a minor character, quick, spin it out longer and give him is own story" even when there isn't really a story for him to tell...... these books tend to be a high sex to storyline ratio and a rush to a happily ever after with virtually no plot.

So, that's some reading thoughts..... as for writing... it was pointed out to me that I haven't got any course work to do any more, so I have no excuse for not getting back into my writing..... a few more books which leave me feeling meh about them and I will probably start thinking that I can actually write but until that happens I will probably stick to reading

In which normality returns.......

Or as near as dammit as we get to normal round here!

Today was back to work day...... which meant last night I went to bed at my normal time...... couldn't sleep so I read for a while.... then tried again..... and again....... and got up at 1.30 am, let the dogs out pottered about a bit, then tried to go to sleep again.... I then managed that fitful kind of sleep where you aren't deep enough asleep and every blessed noise wakes you... by the time I got up at just after 5 am I was wondering why I'd even bothered trying......So after sorting the critters I went back to the sofa thinking I'd just dose until 6.30 am when I had to get up and start getting organised... only to be woken by the alarm out of a very deep sleep feeling totally disorientated!  Such a good start!

Work was, well, work.... I have quite a lot of stuff booked in for the next few weeks.... including a hearing next Monday, which I tried to pass off to one of the advocates in the team only to be told that given I was now qualified I could do it myself .... grrrr...... not impressed!!

To cheer myself up I booked some days off - a couple around Easter weekend and some in July for mum's 75th birthday and for the UK GLBTQ Romance Writers and Readers event... now I have the days off I have to pluck up the courage to sign up for it (though alas only as a day visitor not for the whole weekend) .... and then I have to find the guts to actually go!

On a positive note, I promised myself I would start making much more of an effort with my lunches... rather than grabbing fruit and yoghurt from home and then realising this is not enough and attacking the vending machines.... so today there was cous cous and veggies (tomorrow there is pasta salad)..... I did point out to my team leader who was admiring my lunch and bemoaning her soggy tuna sandwich that she shouldn't get too excited my usual (lack of) organisational skills will probably kick in by the middle of next week!

Hope this evening involved sofa surfing with the Kindle as I had bugger all energy to do anything else.... and now it's nearly bed time....... and I've just discovered the new nightshirt that I got for Christmas has a little breast pocket in it (complete with little purple button)... which begs the question why?  It's only a tiny little pocket, I don't think it could hold much...... suggestions welcome though...

And now I must go, because Gina has just managed to throw her ping pong ball down the stairs to the dogs domain and it needs to be retrieved...... I am such a well trained human!!