so so cold

So I've been waiting in all afternoon in the freezing cold, wearing x2 jumpers waiting for the gas man to arrive and at 19.14, he's still not here.

When does it become OK to start crying tears of despair?

I am also due off my month of not boozing this weekend. I start tonight as soon as the gas man cometh (don't want to be pissed when he gets here, would be like a dreadful porno "oh, Dave, although you can tell I'M really cold, the temperature doesn't seem to affect you at all" - or am I being kind to the script writers there?)

We can shower at the gym during the weekend, so it's not the end of the world, but it's so mo fo cold, man.

Have been tweeting mad today. How much am I loving twitter? a lot that much, am going to find all my pals so we never really talk to each other ever again! horrah!

The house drama continues, BTW. After an amazing (in the true sense of the word - fantastical) offer of £1 less than asking that fell through in 2 days (the couple claimed they split up - BLATant liars), I'm trying to push through an offer of £10k less than asking which is still ace. However hit a snag in the fact the buyers surveyor has valued the property at a stonking £25k less than the offer was made for.

SIGH.

Obv the buyers (well I say buyer) mortgage company are refusing to give him a mortgage for the amount he's offered on the flat, so the estate agents are currently giving me a load of guff about how they're "working hard" to move this forward. Whatever. It's all reasonably stressful and depressing. EOP monday is my cut off point to freak out and demand the nonsense to stop in a hysterical voice and get them to just find tenents to rent the bugger too.

Oh roll on living in someone elses flat, not caring about the vin rogue on the carpet and over loading the washing machine.

boiler issues

OH FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE.

Crap day at work yesterday, so went for (soft - still not drinking, round of applause please) drink after work before gym.  missed trasin i wanted to get by about 3 minutes, so sacked of gym.  THANK THE LORD I DID, dear reader, for when i returned to the love nest, noticed the radiators weren't on, two minutes of peering into the boiler later revealed that my pilot light had gone out and the pressure had dropped to MINUS 1? WHAT? how is this possible? I have minus pressure? what does that mean? am I going to start being sucked into a vortex behind the boiler? is the reverse pressure going to start pulling my kitchen table and chairs towards the wall?

What quantum physic larks!

Anyhoo - have called british gas and the earliest they first claimed they could come was monday. MONDAY?!?!  So I'd have 4 days of no hot water and heating? if i was an old person, I'd be DEAD by Monday! 

Needless to say I kicked off on the telephone and they're coming today so working from home.  

The New Seekers are on BBC Breakfast.  I'm being sucked into a black hole behind my boiler while being serenaded by "I'd like the teach the wrold to sing" - I have clearely disappeared into a paralles universe.

Right, off to gym to use the showers.  Urgh.  Will go for run first to delay the development of foot rot from the changing room floors.

I WANT MORE PETS!

I must tel you about our time share cat, Spider.

He's awesome.  Eight years old, with a titanium hip (now please say "we can rebuild him" in bionic man voice over way, thank you), a dodgy jaw and a toungue that doesn't go back in his mouth after eating and drinking so it looks like he's poking his tongue out at you half the time.  Very cuddly and squeaky. An all round excellent cat.

Sweetheart and I were going to adopt him from Sweetheart's sister as she had become super alergic over the past few months and wasn't enjoying having him around any more.  So he comes to visit.  I love him, Sweetheart loves him, but after 24 hours, Sweetheart's eyes start swelling up and going bloodshot and his snoring gets even louder and more sleep disruptive.  Yes, clever reader, Sweethart is also traumatically allergic.

Bum holes.

So we have Spider on a bit of a timeshare.  We have him for a little bit, Sweetheart's sister takes him home after we've spoilt him rotten, we have him for xmas, he goes home chubby and full of smoked salmon.

The cat is basicaly turning into some kind of ancient Chinese emperor god cat, given everything he wants because we all want him to love us the best and miss us when he's staying at the other household.

I imagine his demands to get more and more outrageous until Sweetheart and I are sleeping on the floor in the bedroom and he's asleep stretched out on the bed, mewling at us until we put the electric blanket on.

Death in the family

I had 6 goldfish this time last week, but sadly, lost one of the little slippery critters in the past few days.

He / she (i have no idea how you can tell, i don't want to look for little fishy pee-pee sticks.  gross) developed a swollen tummy, I am now reliably informed, partly from feeding at the surface and gulping in too much air and partly from poor tank hygene (oops).

However, the trauma of discovering the little golden floater paled into insignificance when I returned home to the distressing scene to find that sweetheart had been in for more than 45 minutes watching the tele DIRECTLY ABOVE THE FISH TANK and not noticed.

*deep troubled sigh*

This is the SECOND goldfish misdemeanor.  The first made angry for weeks.  When I first got the fish (my own stupid pet owning zeal.  I agreed to the task of taking them before researching how ridiculous they are to house.  I got the frigging fish for free, but had to spend about £150 on the tank and all the mo fo accessories), I had 6 little zippy baby ones and inherited Big Boy, a SEVEN YEAR OLD big bastard about the size of my hand.  Big Boy had been my company goldfish for those seven years and had survived tank moves, bad fish husbandy from a series of bored and testy PR Assistants who had only just graduated and wanted to be talking to national journalists and celebrities, not cleaning up fish shit.  Anyhoot.  So I get him home, in the new tank and everything's dandy.

Then sweetheart wants to install V+.  Not a problem, he'll even get time off work to meet the  (he won't take any time off to do anything important, oh no, but if we need all 2million sky sports channels, then show him the holiday form and he'll sign his bloody life away - anyway I digress...)  So, sweethart gets his V+ installed.  

That night, the tank starts looking a bit manky - but I'm home from work late (quelle surprise) and knackered so promise the fish I'll sort them out the next night.  Next night rolls around, I get home and the tank is pretty much all bright green and BIG BOY IS STIFF AS A BOARD AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TANK! Terrible scenes. He's a big fish, it's VILE.

Not only that, but sweethart has been WATCHING THE FOOTBALL ON THE TELE DIRECTLY ABOVE THE TANK WITHOUT NOTICING FOR AN HOUR.

Even worse, he GETS IN A MASSIVE MOOD WHEN I FREAK OUT AND START RESCUING THE OTHER FISHIES from the green mire because I'm getting in the way of Manchester United.

Even, even worse, when I start cleaning the tank out.  I realise THAT SWEETHART HAD UNPLGGED THE FUCKING FILTER TO PLUG IN HIS V+ .

Jesus wept, dear reader.  It was a tense night in the love nest, I can tell you.  Sweetheart it still paying for it as his office is near an aquarium shop, so everytime I need anything new, it's his job to go to the aquarium shop to find it and pay for it.  Even so, he got off pretty lightly for cold blooded selfish MURDER.

the reason we were in Brighton in the first place....

Was obv to house hunt (see first ever post - um only 4 posts ago...)

Well we found one and we love it.  2 bedrooms, over 4 floors (no need for a stairmaster - oh no dear reader - i have REAL STAIRS!), sea view, etc, etc.  Basically lushness wrapped in lushness.

We were super excited and celebrated the night we found it (see previous post) and then I went to work all smug, but also starting to get the fear re: the commute.  Showed girls at work and blow me down if one of work pals doesn't recognise the house from the pictures on the estate agent website!

Amazing and brilliant, but noticed she only started recognising the house when we got to pictures OF THE BOUDOIR.  Ha! one of my firneds has shagged in my bedroom and I'm not even living there yet.  That's how cutting edge we are.

buckled under pressure of celebrating in Brighton

Oh bum - so I broke my duck after 2 weeks and had a drink in what turned into a bit of an eventful weekend - but more of that later...

drinks i had:

friday night - x2 remy brandies (as i am well posh and enjoying digestifes now i am old)

saturday night - x2 glasses house (horrible, so forced down the second) champagne, half a bottle of v nice vin rougue, x1 double brandy (enjoying digestife-ness again) x1 double rum (realised i was being a wanker so went back on the usual)

So not MASSIVELY ridiculous and happily, even though i hadn't had a drink for 17 days, i had no hangover on the sunday.

However, sweetheart had a few issues....

Mum had booked us into a realy nice little posh hotel in Brighton as a xmas pressie to help us find a new gaff.  Hotel v nice, rooms lovely and comfortable, but a bit small, so to get over space issue, the room we stayed in had black tassled curtain instead of door to en suite.  Not a problem, quite fun and made us giggle on night one.  

Night two however, different story.  

So adhering to NTR(esolution) am not eating meat, so we had very different meals in the restaurant of the hotel on saturday night.  Mine was delishus and fine, sweethearts also delishus.  Until about 4am the next morning when it became violently obvious that sweetheart had been poisoned by his food.  VERY BADLY.

Imagine this dear reader, sweetheart projectile from both ends - upsetting anyway as no one likes to see a darling heart in distress, but in a small hotel room with a tassled ruddy curtain instead of a door? Also very fucking loud.  I swear to god, I felt dreadful for sweetheart but all the retching, coughing, moaning and splattering made me feel quite faint.  I had to escape at 9am for an early morning stroll "to get some first aid stuff".

However, returned at 11ish with plain bagels (as sweetheart had basically voided approximately 4 days worth of food in as many hours), more sicky and pooh-pooh pills than you can shake a shitty (pah! pardon the pun) stick at.  It was touch and go for several hours, but we made it home to SE London in the fastest time ever.  1.5 hours door to door.  Not bad.  It's amazing the urgency a screaming arsehole dictates to a situation.

(ho ho - someone on the tele has just said "that's a nasty gash" fnaarrr!)

so i still haven't had a drink yet!

hip hip horrah! I still haven't had a drink yet.

OK, yes I'm cheating again, it's actually only been about 2 minutes since my last post.  But I have loads of wine in the kitchen which is only about 5 feet away, so i think I'm beiong quite restrained when the bloody football is on (Man U lost to Derby. ha ha ha!).

Am making most of my dry month, by the way, by making loads of plans at the weekend.

This saturday I'm meeting a pal for lunch then going to a gallery afterwards.  Check my style.  Oh yes.  As I said on text while organising said date (of course one doesn't talk to friends inbetween meeting up, we communicate by self delusional 'quicker' and 'easier' means.  Indeed, trying to text a whole conversation and sending it in 15 messsages is loads easier than a 2 minute conversation)... am excited, this must be how real adults socialise.  

Am then on sunday, meeting another chum (I know, my cup runneth over with friends, huh? TWO in TWO DAYS?!?!) for a stroll around several east london markets.  Am steeling self to resist spend on cheap tat that i will never wear.  I will use my 2 cm thick hand sewn brown leather, stencil embossed, over shoulder bag purchased from another said east london market, as a spending shield.  Must remember CREDIT CRUNCH.

Yikes, watching news - Viyella is in administrations.  GOOD RIDDANCE - VILE SKIRTS.  

However, have you noticed how the star of the economics commentors on BBC News is in ascendance? Lummy.  If I was war correspondant who was shot to shit in Iraq and still can't stand without a zimmer frame, I would be quietly polishing up my CV and swotting up on Barack or something.  His day in the sun is O. Ver.

let's start at the very beginning.....

A very good place to start, indeed, dear reader.

So, I've been watching Anne Frank and quite frankly, if a bloody 13 yr old, with quite DREADFUL hair can do a good diary about living in an attic for ages that people having been 'raving' about for years then a 3@ yr old with a much better barnet (on a good day) and a front door I can walk out of every day, should be able to manage it.

Um, is that offensive? Larks knows, but anyhoot...

It's 7th of January 2009 (jesus, when did this happen, shouldn't we all be wearing moonboots to work and holidaying at the bottom of the sea by now? I'm sure I saw that on Tomorrow's World ages ago), so it's resolution time.  Urgh.

However, in spirit of keeping up with those communist womens' magazines who tell you not to diet and "love youself as you are" then try and flog you backstreet boob jobs and fanny tucks from page 112 onwards, I have constructed a small and hopefully manageable list:

January is official NO BOOZING month

This is TOTALLY DO-ABLE.  I did it last year.  Well, got to about the 16th then buckled over a glass of vin rougue.  BUT made up for it, by then self flagelating and not drinking to 16th of Feb to set an example of myself.  

I will stop eating meat for good

Also EASY.  As only have meat when drunk now.  Unfortunately, this usually takes the form of something rank from one of those salmonella vans on street corners, or pretend Unlucky Fried Kitten shops that litter South London that is actually deep fried knee caps, when i do eat meat is SUPER BAD.  So this must stop.  I say a firm, but polite 'no thank you' to horrid meat takeaways from now on.

I will do 10k under 1 hour

aha, aha, ahahahahahahahahahahaha!!

no, i will.  That tall thin famous wee-wee (but i wish it had been a pooh really) by the side of the road lady ran with a broken bloody leg.  Surely I can do a paltry 6 miles in 60 minutes? Hmm, we'll revisit this one in a few weeks.......

I will move myself and my sweetheart to Brighton

OK, I'm cheating now.  The flat is already up to let.  It's really nice if you're interested.  Garden and everything.......

Keep up this blogging lark

I am not a secret prostitute, a massive shagging slag (i mean, honestly - her PARENTS would have read that) or do anything particularly interesting, but have meant to do one for years, before it was mainstream (that tells you how behind the curve I am) and I've got to get on this bloody bandwaggon before it's discovered I'm not really using Twitter yet either.