Dreadful Nonsense

[Note: This post is dedicated to Si, whose demands for new postings has now overtaken Moo’s in their sheer persuadability. I should be studying now, but instead I’m doing this. Hope you’re proud.]

It’s very difficult to write about this long weekend just gone, in the same way that it’s difficult to write about anything on a blog that involves other people. My life, I’m finding recently, is involving entirely too many people. This long weekend in particular involved a great many people, some of whom are very important to me, and some of whom are very important to other people who read this blog. One of the people involved in this long weekend just gone gave birth to one of the very important people to me, and I’m reliably assured that one of the other people involved in this long weekend just gone was also heavily involved in the creation of the pregnancy that resulted in the birth of one of the very important people to me.

(Oh Lord. That’s my way of saying I met my boyfriend’s parents. And you wondered why I was so very afraid of making a bad impression? Wonder no more.)

I had a great many anecdotal jokes lined up about his mother taking me aside and measuring for veils, white dresses, and checking my temperature and saliva levels for optimum conception potentiality. I had even thought of a very elaborate post in which she wandered around the house, variously handing me an antique, today’s newspaper, a half chewed cat toy and a biro, the punchline being – you may have seen this coming – “something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue”. The train journey to and from The In Laws is quite long, you see, and I’m prone to day dreaming.

Thing is though, they’re incredibly nice people who went out of their way to make me feel relaxed and welcome, and I managed not to spit at either of them, neither did I rotate my head 360 degrees and tell them where their parents had gone to in the afterlife and what they’re up to now, and I very much managed to not break anything or kill anyone dear to them. I’m very proud of me, and you all should be too, so no cheap jokes or made up stories.

Sorry.

I am never going to quite get the hang of this flying thing. It’s officially decided. I’m making myself a certificate of failure that will clearly state that I’m never going to get used to it, and that by now I should have learned not to even bother trying. Flying is a very erratic undertaking, and the more I do it, the weirder the flights get.

On Thursday night, I checked in at the Ryan Air desk, where the desk attendant barely raised herself out of a coma and dribbled all over my passport, such was her disinterest in checking me in. I told her that Saddam Hussein had packed my bag for me, and that when I nipped to the toilet I’d asked the IRA to keep an eye on it, but she didn’t seem to care. The boy in front of me took ages to check in, giving me ample time to stare directly at the fascinating scar he had across the entirety of the left hand side of his face. I love staring at scars. Love them. I’ve a fascination with them, and the stories that go with them – the gorier the better. I fixated on this boy’s scar, because other than that, he was very ordinary looking – think the lead singer of Keane, but with a normal sized head.

When we got to the gate, it was announced that our flight would be delayed by about 5 minutes. This, in Ryan Air speak, means there’s a chance the whole thing might be cancelled, but no one seemed to realise, and they all queued up like sheep around the barriers. The longer the delay lasted, the more of the passengers joined the end of the queue, until eventually there was only me and the boy left sitting. Finally, about 40 minutes after our original proposed take off time, we were allowed on to the plane. I was at this stage fairly stoned on the old prescription drugs, having made the mistake of not waiting for the announcement of delay before taking them. I therefore didn’t give one darn about the queuing system, and floated up to the middle of the queue, where everyone very politely didn’t complain. The boy did exactly the same thing, only further up the queue. Round of applause to the boy.

When I boarded, I noted that although almost all the seats were taken and it was a total pain in the bum trying to fight up the aisle to the last remaining ones, people were avoiding the seat beside the boy. I’m assuming this was due to his scarring. People are mean, and also wrong. So I sat beside the boy, and began my pre-take off preparations, which are mainly putting my coat over my head and begging the lord for dear mercy. While going about this, I noticed that the boy seemed to be mumbling too. And rocking forward and backward. And looking very very scared.

The boy was more frightened of flying than I was. This boy was the most terrified person I’ve ever seen on a plane. And I’ve seen me.

It was brilliant. I finally got an insight on what it must be like to sit beside me while flying. He didn’t stop clutching things once, and had only two seated positions the entire flight – sitting with his head right back on the headrest, staring up at the ceiling of the plane, or sitting curled forward, with his forehead resting on the seat in front of him, all the while clutching things – anything.

I was fascinated for the duration. And clean forgot to be freaked out myself. I need that boy as a flying companion from now on. He seems to inhale the fear from all around him and take it upon himself, like the man in The Green Mile, only not retarded.

Huge applause to the boy.

I'm London bound again tomorrow, and this visit is shaping up to be a very special visit, in the same sense that Bobby is very special. I can't go into details here and now, but believe me, details may well be gone into upon my return. If I still have a boyfriend. Which, considering how I carry on without the support of cigarettes but with the delusions of a couple of glasses of wine inside me, I might not.

Flight details, as are now not only traditional but essential:
From Dublin(DUB) to London Stansted(STN)
Thu, 24Mar05
Flight FR298 Depart DUB at 21:45 and arrive STN at 22:55

I will endeavour to blog cryptic messages over the weekend, which will be fleshed out upon my return. Do please wish me luck.

I went back to physiotherapy today, not because I’ve relapsed at all – my health is still as ridiculously good as it’s been since the beginning of the year, touching wood and all that – but because I feel the panicking need to build on this good health in order to sustain the progress I’ve made so far. I’m so determined not to go back down the road I’ve just struggled up from that I’m over compensating slightly, so instead of joining a normal exercise class, I thought I’d double check with My Glorious Physio Who I Love Very Much just to make sure I wasn’t doing badness that could lead to No Good.

When I rang My Glorious Physio Who I Love Very Much last week she said that she does an exercise class every Tuesday in the hospital where I used to go for treatment, and would I like to pop along to that? I immediately said yes, because firstly I’d be able to bask in the glory of the admiration of My Glorious Physio Who I Love Very Much as I’m still making good progress and secondly because chances were I may very well not be the slowest in the class, it being a rehabilitation hospital, with most - no, ALL – people there being a lot worse off than me. It’s not a competitive thing, you understand, but simply the fact that at least they’d all understand if I started wobbling and fell over at some point.

So it was with a happy heart that I tramped up the hospital this morning, tracksuited up to the nines and ready to go. What a glorious bunch we were. You’ve not lived, breathed and thanked your lucky stars until you’ve done an exercise class with people who’ve had strokes, aneurysms, been involved in serious car crashes or swimming accidents, or had bits of them cut off. My Glorious Physio Who I Love Very Much would be yelling “RAISE THOSE ARMS IN THE AIR!” while marching on the spot and half of our class could only raise one, gamely pulling up their paralysed other side. Halfway through, when we were lying on the ground doing crazy things, the lady beside me turned around and introduced herself. I introduced myself back, and she said “I’m sorry, I won’t remember that.” I smiled, and nodded, because what’s the right response to that? “I’ve got short term memory problems,” she continued, “I won’t even remember being here this afternoon!” And with that she laughed. I think I continued smiling and nodding. Because there really is NO response to that.

I found one half of the class ridiculously easy and unchallenging, and the other half almost impossible and scary – I always forget that physio constantly reintroduces me to the fact that there are a lot of things that I still can’t do, and that I’ve still got quite pronounced weakness on my left hand side that freaks me out when I come across it. But these classes are so brilliant and entertaining and awe inspiring that I’m going to keep going back and jumping about for a few weeks yet.

Oh, and I’ve given up smoking. Yes, again. Yes. Shut up.

Last night I was sitting on the floor of the front room, brushing Honey with the dog brush pictured below. She was voicing her approval, by grumbling and groaning as I brushed and swinging her head up from the floor to glare at me if I dared to stop. Bobby was dancing around me because he wanted the brush, presumably to continue chewing it. But he was wary of the brush from the day before, when me and Mum had taken great glee and excitement in firstly washing him in freezing cold water out in the back garden and then when he had dried, brushing him until he was nearly bald. The tiny dog now has the most attractive pink belly, because he’s almost completely lost his puppy fur. (I’d share this vision with the world, or at least the internets, but the connection between computer and camera remains chewed and unreplaced.)

Dad was sitting watching football and commenting occasionally on bits that I’d missed, or encouraging Bobby to go for my throat, something Bobby complete failed to do. Dad had his left arm stretched out to the sofa beside him, where Anarchy was lying.

Anarchy is a direct descendent from one of those obese, lazy and evil Roman dictators that used to lie about wrapped in bedsheets being fed grapes and chicken drumsticks by skinny girls also wrapped in bedsheets. He adopts the same kind of pose while lying on the sofa in the front room, and Dad had his hand across his belly while directing our brushing extravaganza.

It’s important to note at this juncture that Anarchy had also received a thorough brushing earlier on Sunday, as all the pets are in the middle of shedding winter coats and are scruffy and irresponsible about their own up keep. He was therefore a fraction crankier than usual. And he’s usually quite cranky.

I looked up from the brushing for a moment, just to make Honey scrabble up on to her front paws and swing her entire body at me in order to protest the stoppage, because that’s always brilliant. I noticed that Anarchy’s tail was twitching like an epileptic snake and commented to Dad that he was about to be bitten.

“No,” my Dad said with all the authority of a man utterly convinced of what he’s talking about, “he won’t bite me. He knows who’s boss.”

Anarchy took this as the dare that it was and promptly swung around until he was upside down, all four paws wrapped around my Dad’s wrist, and sunk his teeth in.

Dad looked bemused for a moment, until Anarchy loosened his grip and resumed his original position.

Me, Bobby, Honey and Mum laughed for about ten minutes.

Yesterday, I was in quite a bad mood.

I'm sure my sisters will wave their hands in the air, praise the Lord Baby Jesus and testify to the truth of the above statement, seeing as how they had the absolute joy, joy, joy of sharing a car journey home with me while I chain smoked out the back window and demanded that they play the same song over and over again.

The song, you'll be vastly interested to know, is about not painting the sun. "Don't paint the sun anymore", the singer pleads with an unnamed lady. It seems like a reasonable request. Perhaps their house is already covered in paintings of the sun, and he can't bear to look at another one. But the singer has more to say on the matter. "Paint the moon", he continues, and straight away comes up with another demand - "and the stars in an autumn sky." This man means business. His ladyfriend has obviously been painting all the wrong things, obviously majorly based around solar portraits, and this gentleman - this bossy, demanding gentleman - is trying to put her straight. He goes further - "Paint the cool blue waters shades of grey." Up until now I've been with him on all of his painting suggestions - they certainly sounded more interesting than the boring old sun, all yellows and oranges and ovals. But this? I don't like grey, or black and white. I like some colours. Especially cool blue waters. "Just don't let me live my life this way, without you" he finishes, and I see now that this has all been one great big metaphor. She's not a painter at all. He's just got a weird way of saying that she's a bit miffed with him and he's put her in a terror of a mood.

I can't remember how the rest goes, except that we all get the "you" bit of the "without you" refrain wrong, and come in at different times. It's brilliant, because then it sounds like a love song to a train sung by a child, as we all splutter "withou...chu chu..."

ANYWAY. As I was saying, stinker of a mood yesterday. I thought it was through sleep deprivation, because I was sharing a room with Bobby on Wednesday night and he wouldn’t shut up or settle down. But this morning the stinky mood continued, and I got to thinking maybe the wind had changed last night and I was stuck like that forever. I stomped around town in the continuation of my bad mood and was heading in to work muttering and mumbling and wishing everyone dead, and then I stepped out in front of a quite quickly moving car and nearly got run over.

The lady driver of the car quite understandably screeched to a halt, blasted her horn at me, and then pulled alongside (once I’d stepped back up on to the pavement), wound down her window and told me in no uncertain and some profane terms that I had nearly ended up under the wheels of her car. I said I was sorry, she shook her head, wound up her window, and carried on. The rest of Dublin kept pushing past paying no attention, and after a moment I gathered myself and started back towards work.

In, I suddenly realised, a terrifically good mood. Fabulously good. In fact, I was singing to myself, so happy was I.

It’s astonishing, the things it takes to cheer me up.

NEWSFLASH!

There’s been a husky lady sighting on another blog!

This is brilliant. I hadn’t seen her for a couple of days, because I’d been getting different buses at different times (and occasionally treating myself to a Luas if I was in particularly good form) but thankfully today Anna caught a glimpse and nearly sicked on herself, such was her combined excitement and revulsion on being exposed to the Fleecy Husky Abomination.

If I had a camera phone, I’d subtly try to take a photo. But I don’t, because I’m poor and people refuse to give me free money and phones. But look! Right here you’re witnessing the birth of an internet celebrity. Anyone else travelling up and down the Stillorgan Dual Carriageway, please take note and notify us if you catch another glimpse.

What I’m most interested in now is what else she’s got lined up in the wardrobe when the weather gets too warm for fleecy husky goodness. Bring on the summer, that’s what I say.

[Please note: This post was originally supposed to be accompanied by photographic evidence. But Bobby has eaten through the wire that connects the camera to the computer.]

Strange things keep happening in my bedroom.

(And JC, before you start desperately clutching at your belt buckle and bracing yourself for rudes, please rest assured this blog entry is entirely above board and clean cut. So less of the Pollack, please. Many thanks.)

This is a wooden frog that my father brought back for me the last time he was on holiday. Nothing unusual about that: fathers around the world regularly go on holiday, and in the most appropriate and time honoured tradition, bring back to their 28 year old daughters wooden frogs for them to cherish. It's obvious, it's natural, it's a life cycle thing.

No, the strange thing is that the WOODEN FROG IS FACING THE WALL. When I lovingly placed the wooden frog by my television, I had the wooden frog facing out, across the room, so that the wooden frog could enjoy the full panorama of the room with it's wooden eyes. It could even see out the door and in to the hallway, if the door was open, and so pass it's wooden days in my room carefully watching the comings and goings. As it should.

But now, said wooden frog is facing the wall, and all is wrong with this picture.

But this, ladies, gents, Moo, is not the first time this kind of thing has happened in my bedroom.

In front of my book shelf, there are three small ceramic crows dressed as British postmen. Again, nothing strange about that. We've all seen them before. Ceramic delivery crows are as common as the day is long. However, recently the middle cerarmic delivery crow has taken to FACING THE BOOKS and not looking out across the room, as it's other two ceramic chums are.

THIS IS NOT THE WAY I LEFT THEM.

I used to have a line of plastic toys lined up across the top of my television. Taking centre place was a plastic Mr Happy, with his arms stretched out wide, inviting anyone who fancied it to lean in for a hug. It was a lovely Mr Happy, and I enjoyed glancing up at him while watching scary programmes, because he provided a comfort. But Mr Happy was the first toy to start turning around and staring at the wall for no reason, and when his back was turned, Mr Happy did not look invitingly like he was asking for a hug in the most endearing way. No, Mr Happy looked like he was being crucified.

Mr Happy doesn't sit on my television any more.

Why do my perfectly normal, not at all unusual, bedroom decorative accessories keep turning around and facing the wall? Is it a scary Blair Witch thing? I think you'll agree it is. Does anyone have the phone number of a priest willing to come to my bedroom and exorcise the demons?

Unasked / unanswered questions for today:

1. To the woman sitting beside me on the bus on the way in to work: Why did you wave at the Aircoach when it was driving past us in Donnybrook? You started waving when it was pulled up beside us, and continued to wave at it while it pulled out and drove off ahead of us. No one on the coach could see you, because we were sitting downstairs. You were essentially waving at the luggage. But you seemed perfectly happy to continue waving until the bus was two cars ahead of us. Then you settled back down as if nothing had happened. Why did you do that?

2. To the bloke who got off the bus at UCD: Why did you stare in the bus window at me for at least 10 seconds after you got off the bus? I returned your stare for as long as I could stand it (about 4 seconds), looked away (about 3 seconds) and looked back again, and there you were, still standing stock still and staring right at me, your nose barely inches from the window. Did you think you knew me? Because you don’t. Were you trying to freak me out? Because you did.

3. To the woman who got on the bus with me and got off on Leeson Street: Who told you wearing that jacket was a good idea? It’s white – first mistake. It’s cropped – second mistake. You’re old – third mistake. It’s got grey printed pictures of husky dogs on it – fourth mistake. It makes you look a bit mental. That and the way you smoke cigarettes – when no one can see the brown of the filter anymore, the cigarette is being put TOO FAR IN TO YOUR MOUTH. It’s vile, looking at people dribbling down their fags. But the jacket? Has got to go, lady. I know it matches the commemorative plates you order from the back of Sunday newspaper magazines and hang all around the house to frighten your grandchildren, but at least you don’t wear them out in public.

I've been very busy these last few days, entertaining, socialising, watching with increasing frustration as Ireland manage to bugger up their rugby chances by forgetting to win - the usual. It's been hectic, and I'm very tired. So instead, the last few days will be marked by what Bobby has been doing. It's been a busy week for him too, you know. Please refer to the entries below for his news in pictoral form, and normal business will be resumed as soon as I get to work and have a chance to sit quietly and write some back dated entries.

Many thanks.


It's Sunday - God's day - and Bobby rests.

As a celebration for the weekend that's come, and to issue a manly warning to all the neighbourhood dogs, Bobby eats the face off a teddy.

For a traditional, healthy Friday snack, Bobby chows down on the dog brush.

In an ill advised cry for attention, and an almost too successful ploy to incur the Wrath of Dad, Bobby ate the television remote controls. (Please note, the devastation is not wholly clear in this photograph. War was very nearly declared).

"Do you think," she said, staring down at the wine glass clutched in her hands, "that it's possible, actually physically possible, to give up smoking for ever?"

I looked up, startled. This isn't where I'd expected the conversation to be going.

"To just stop one day," she continued, swirling the wine lazily around the glass, spilling some over the edges with the clumsy motion, "and never have another one ever again?"

"Um." I said in response. I thought about it for a bit, and decided to avoid the question completely. "Why? Are you going to give up?"

"No, no, no, no. No. I don't think so, anyway. Well, I mean probably. One day. Soon. Definitely soon. But no. Just, cos I don't know anyone who has, and I'm thinking there might not be a point in trying, because I don't know anyone who has, and maybe it can't be done."

She looked back at her wine glass, noticing for the first time that some of the wine was running down her fingers on to the table cloth. She grabbed the bottle, refilling both of our glasses, and resolutely slammed it back on to the table. I thought about the implications of her statement.

"My parents gave up. They don't smoke any more. So there, you do know people who have." I went to take a celebratory sip, but the glass had been filled too full, and I managed to spill a healthy swig across my wrist and on to the floor. She didn't seem to notice, and I didn't seem to mind.

"They don't count," she responded with great confidence. "They're
adults. Of course they can give up. I mean people like us. People," she continued, waving her arm around the empty room as if to indicate a gathering of likeminded individuals all nodding in agreement with the point she was making, "like us."

I nodded, and this time managed to get glass to lips without spilling a drop. I saw her point and voiced my agreement through the glass. "Mmmm."

We both sat for a moment and thought about the implications of this. I didn't know. It must be possible for some people. Not everyone is as weak willed as we are.

"I don't know," I announced loudly, jolting her out of her revelry, "it must be possible for some people. After all," I continued with confidence, having held her attention for this long, "not everyone is as weak willed as we are."

"YES!" she agreed, startling me in turn. "That's true! We're the last..." And here she paused to make way for the joke that all smokers make at a certain point in the night when they've had a little too much and are feeling invincible. "We're the last of a dying breed." She held out her glass so that we could toast our weaker wills, and our self inflicted deaths.

Cheers.

Rooting through the back of your wardrobe and pulling out clothes long forgotten can be an adventure, and a great money saver if you're like me and have no concept of "seasons" and "changing fashions" or even just "fashion". I make the decisions on the clothes I wear on a daily basis mainly on what I remember I own. So, I end up wearing the same two pairs of jeans, or the same skirt, or the same pair of cords, over and over again until I rediscover something else and that gets added to the rotation.

I've been thinking this over today because I'm chained to the desk at work and don't dare to move. I bought a new pair of boots over the weekend. This isn't something I do lightly. Like many ladies of a certain budget, I visit shoes in shops on a regular basis before actually buying anything. I look around. I make comparisons. But mainly I try on the same pair over and over again until I can think of a good, solid justification for spending that amount on a pair of shoes. These boots I'd been visiting for about a week and a half, which really isn't very long in the grand scheme of things - I've been known to visit the same pair for actual months on end. I couldn't think of any justification for them because they're brown boots, and I need a pair of black boots. Brown boots don't go with as many things. Black boots go with all things. So these boots, with their pretty little flowers and understated heel bit at the back, remained visited but unbought.

Then myself and the mother went to the new Dundrum Shopping Centre, and I took her to visit my boots because a fifth opinion was just what the problem needed, and she pointed out that the beige/white version of the boots would go with black as well as brown as well as green as well as denim and they would be the best ones to get, since black and brown and green and denim are the colour of all my skirts. So those are the ones I got.

Today I debuted them to the world, pairing them with a black skirt I'd discovered at the bottom of my wardrobe and haven't worn since college days. I forgot that this isn't just a black skirt though: it's silver underlining with black lace on top. I also forgot that, when walking in said skirt for any amount of time, the lining tends through static electricity build up to cling to the back of the thighs and expose a teeny bit more flesh than expected or intended. Obviously, this remembrance came flooding back to me as my co-workers were in the starting phase of slagging me off for daring to (a) wear a skirt, (b) expose legs, (c) have new boots and (d) must obviously be out on hot, hot date this evening post working hours. I denied everything and managed to keep composure until noticing said static electricity trick skirt was playing with back of thigh and then all composure collapsed.

The boots are still great, though.

One of the ladies of our sewing circle is leaving us for a brief while to go to re-visit the land of her birth and try to remind herself of what warmth and sunlight and culture feels like having spent too long a time in Dun Laoghaire. We mourned her passing last night in a pub in town, which is the Irish tradition, and got on to the subject of boys, which is our sewing circle tradition.

Oh, sure, we talked politics and literature and had a brief discussion about the latest medical and scientific breakthroughs, and there may even have been mention of Michael Jackson somewhere along the line, but eventually and inevitably our attention was turned to talking about boys. Of our circle, I don't think I'm betraying any confidences if I indicate to you the state of play at beginning of the night: one of us is happily involved with one gentleman, one of us has recently become disengaged from her former gentleman, one of us spent last weekend hurling abuse down the phone to a gentleman and has subsequently had no contact, and one of us is currently juggling the attentions of three gentleman callers (I know. Three. I don't know where she gets the energy from).

The talk turned this way and that, and at one point I have a memory of one of the main players leaning across the table and yelling at a volume not dissimilar to a jumbo jet taking off that "...this stimulates the PROSTATE GLAND you see..." and there was another story involving the fitting of a contraceptive device with talk of stitches and cutting and numbing injections and I never need to hear the phrase "clipping it to the mouth of the cervix" again. The final story of the night that had us all sitting about nodding wisely, rolling eyes and shaking heads (all at the same time) was the recent discovery by one of the circle that her mother had in fact been taking the contraceptive pill the month she was conceived. She was, as she so delicately put it, only present here today thanks to a bout of diarrhoea.

And we look like such nice girls, too.

I just finished my first Open University essay of the new term, this one in ED209: Child Development. A week and a half before it's due in and everything. I'm such an over-achiever. In case you're interested - I know I'm not - it's a case study into "Irish expectations for mastery of developmental tasks in children." I added that "Irish" bit myself because really it's a load of nonsense, and the two freaks participants I used totally threw all the results so nothing made any kind of concludable sense, and I'm hoping that by making it a cultural issue I can confuse whoever marks it into giving me a decent grade.

The important thing to note here, of course, is that the damn thing is finished, and now I can go back to the other course, Exploring The Brain, which I'm currently two chapters behind on and understanding NOTHING about. Although I now suddenly know again what a neuron is. But THAT'S ALL. I'm sensing I've bitten off way more than I can chew, and may still choke to death on this one. Ho hum.

This morning, I was having the best dream in the world. I know this for definite because, when my mother burst into my bedroom at barely half past eight in the morning, my first thoughts were "She's just woken me up from the best dream in the world. This had better be good." I have absolutely no recollection of any details whatsoever of the aforementioned dream, but I would have a strong suspicion that the dream involved being wrapped in a duvet all cosy and warm and FAST ASLEEP unlike the nightmare I was by then living through.

"Yes?", I mumbled foggily at my mother, as she tore across the bedroom floor, Bobby nipping at her ankles in delight at the early and unexpected energy the new day had produced. My mother didn't answer, possibly because she didn't appreciate the tone I was adopting, but then again I'm not famed for my politeness first thing in the morning. I sat up to check the time while Bobby and my mother continued running around my bedroom, and lay back down in shock. Then another someone entered the bedroom, and now we were four and I knew something must be up: it was Butler, and he had brought with him a sock - never a good sign.

I sat up again, and stared at my mother, silently demanding answers. These she provided by opening the curtains just in time for a bright strike of lightning and almost immediate answer of rumbling thunder. "Yes?", I repeated, not sure when my mother confused me for a seven year old child who would be excited by a thunder storm first thing in the morning. She picked Bobby up, threw him on the bed at me, took the sock from Butler's mouth and said "It's snowing as well. That doesn't happen. Snow with thunder doesn't happen."

I'm not sure about you - I'm not sure about most people - but this isn't something that I've ever been worried about one way or another. But announced with such gravitas by my mother, surrounded as I was by panicking dogs and socks and first thing in the morning, I couldn't help but take it all slightly seriously.

"Why doesn't it happen?" My first full sentence of the day, and straight to the point. I'm not one for mucking about when the weather is being discussed. "Because thunder and lightning is produced by hot air and cold air meeting. That's why it rains. Not snows. If it's snowing, it's too cold for thunder and lightning." The thunder and lightning took that opportunity to disagree, and Butler dived for a slipper, upping his protests against the storm conditions. Bobby started yapping furiously. I hit him with a pillow, and we all stared out the window for a bit.

"Right then," I said, "I'm having coffee now."

Today would seem like just the right time to celebrate the glory of the month of March and all its resplendent splendour, and so we'll do that now: March, hurrah. Not only is it the month of St Patrick's Day, Easter, spring time, Comic Relief and Big Brother Derek's birthday (my big brother, that is, not some deluded reality show contestant) - all of them religious holidays in their own right - but it's also the month where my Angel calendar shows Wesley for a full 31 days. That can only be a sign of good things. I expect world peace and an end to hunger will break out in a bit, and then we'll have nothing more to worry about.

That said, I can find nothing to celebrate about today. It's all a bit grey and dull and boring and it's hard to find anything to be either giddy or excited about. Sure, I spent an hour on the phone this morning talking to someone who's just fallen in love with Firefly the television show, and quite rightly feels like I've changed their lives for the better. Certainly, myself and Bobby have reached some kind of break through in our relationship, because when I told him to GET DOWN off the sofa, he immediately did, and then just as immediately stayed down, rather than jumping back up in celebration like he usually does. And of course, there's that lottery win I've just found out about that means that, once the money comes through, I'll never have to work a day in my life again, everyone on earth will be my slaves and I will start to breed a super race that will eventually outnumber earthlings, killing you all and leaving me to rule them with an unsteady and uneven hand and there's nothing you can do about it.

But today. Pah. I don't seem to be able to muster up the energy to celebrate.