Friday, October 26, 2007

cough

MC came round late last night with what I can only describe as whooping cough. If I didn't know better I would swear he'd spent 20 years working down a coal mine. So I made him soup, did his washing and generally soothed him, and wondered exactly when I turned into his mother. Mind you I was so tired by the time we went to bed that at least I slept through the snoring, if there was any. Still, I was sad to leave him in my nice warm bed while I went off to work this morning - although I'm not missing the spluttering. Can a person get cotton lung from working on a website?

Thursday, October 25, 2007

working from home

I could get used to this. I've managed to get so much done with so little interruption. It felt quite weird ringing up the Mayor of London's press office for an official comment knowing that I was clad in a satin nightie and MC's boxer shorts, but hey, I could never have got away with that in the office. I only got dressed about an hour ago when somebody came round in my father's car, much to my confusion.

Last weekend dad's car disappeared. I got back to my family home after dropping my mother at the airport to find that where his green Landrover had been when we left, a mysterious blue Renault Scenic now sat instead. I actually thought I'd come to the wrong house at first. Very strange. Stranger still though, is that today, it came back. I looked out of the window and saw it parked in the road. A little crop of blond hair was peeping out of it so I went downstairs to investigate. Turns out the battery had gone flat and my mother had asked this incredibly looking chap (well done mum) to sort it out.

I am quite sure it doesn't take five days to charge a battery but he was so beautiful, I don't care what he was doing with it. I just wished I'd bothered to do my hair this morning. Apparently we've met before but I am quite, quite sure I wouldn't have forgotten a face like that.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

can't get no sleep

Sleep has not been very high on my agenda this week. I am currently house sitting as my remaining family members have sodded off to respective sunnier climes leaving me and the cat (Caviar, see below) to keep things ticking over while they're away. Caviar has already figured out that if she looks at me pathetically enough I'll cave in and give her turkey or smoked salmon from the fridge rather than crack open a foul-smelling tin of cat food. My mother is going to kill me.

The reasons for my fatigue are:

1. I have to get up so bloody early. The family fortress is a long way from work. This morning I awoke at 6.30am in order to get into town for an 8.30am meeting at which, by the way, I was presented with a highly unsatisfactory breakfast. My pain au chocolat was the size of a raisin - and less filling. For that I got up at the crack of dawn?

2. On Monday night, MC took pity on my hellish day at work (a 13 hour shift, oh joy), came to meet me and escorted me home. While no nookie ensued (I am secretly concerned about the durability of the bed in my old room), we talked for hours and then, just as we were drifting off, he started snoring. I have been conned on this front. When we first got together he told me he was snoring temporarily because he had a cold. The cold has long gone but the snoring remains. Hmm.

3. Last night my dear friend Wine Lover came round to keep me company. This obviously involved a lot of wine, a takeaway and a gossip which lasted into the early hours (see point 1).

4. I am currently reading Belle de Jour's diary so what little sleep I do get is filled with deliciously dirty yet annoyingly stimulating dreams.

5. I am utterly surrounded by memories of dad. Every single item in the house has a connection to him. It's a constant and at times overwhelming reminder of what I have lost.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

a visit from the hangover fairy

We're talking sitting at work sweating wine, being unable to sit still or stand up, feeling sick but starving at the same time, trying without much success to string a sentence together and having the attention span of a gnat's arsehole. All while attempting to provide intelligent coverage of a story about the BBC having to lose 2000 staff (I can't bring myself to go through it all again here so all I'll do is quote Jeremy Paxman who, back in August, said it was 'something of a mystery' to him that there could be a 'budget crisis in an organisation with an assured income of £3.5bn'. Quite). Oh and then there's been the other meeja tale of pesky ITV making £18m out of fake tv competitions and votes. Tsk. But honestly, who is stupid enough to ring these shows anyway?

That pretty much sums up both my mood and my day. I haven't had a hangover this bad in ages. It's like all the hangovers I've ever managed to escape have returned to haunt me at once. Just my luck that this has to occur on the busiest working day I've had in ages. Thank you, God Beadle.

PS MC and I have a new toy. I never knew cock rings could be such fun...

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

tired and emotional

I'm averaging 10 hours sleep each night at the moment and still I'm permanently exhausted. Either I've acquired an exciting new sleeping disorder or I'm mentally preparing for hibernation. I have always been a big fan of the whole idea of sleeping through the winter. I think life would be a lot more pleasurable if I was only awake for half of it.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Stalkbook

Before he met me Monte Cristo had a fling with a girl who I'll call Jane. It was, according to MC, one of those liaisons that you spend most of the time trying to escape from. They split up (if you can call it that) about 3 weeks before we got together. Essentially, he says, he just wasn't that into her, although she was by all accounts very into him. I'm inclined to believe him - within a week of meeting me he suggested that we change our Facebook statuses accordingly (the joys of modern life) whereas I know that he wasn't listed as being in a relationship at the time he was seeing J, because we were Facebook friends by then although we hadn't actually met (see above).

Anyway. On Wednesday I noticed that she had written a 'hi, how are you' type note on his Facebook wall. Irrationally, it made me fume. So I did the decent thing and checked out her profile. I wish I hadn't but of course I couldn't help it. She's younger and thinner than me (gasp) but, in the words of my lovely colleague, she's also a 'gopper'. I'm not sure what that means but it doesn't sound very flattering which is fine by me.

Additionally she sounds like a manic depressive (hmm, not sure about MC's taste in women!). So now while I'm cross with her for contacting my boyfriend, I'm simultaneously concerned that if he doesn't reply (and he says he doesn't want to), she'll do something stupid. I guess it can't have been easy for her. Imagine seeing someone for a couple of months who expresses no interest whatsoever in a relationship. Then within 4 weeks of being dumped you see them proclaiming to the world that they have a new girlfriend. But would you then get in touch with them? I'd like to think that, even if I wanted to, my friends wouldn't let me.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

animal magic

At my family home there were two pets in residence. Both cats. Let's call them Champagne and Caviar (because hell, that's what I'd call them now). Champagne was my cat - a stray tabby who turned up on the doorstep when I was about ten years old, and won my heart. Caviar was brought for my sister A as a kitten and immediately adopted her as its new mother. They were inseparable.

Before Caviar arrived on the scene, A, being quite small at the time, tried to bond with Champagne too by showering it with the typical affectionate gestures of a five year old - pulling its tail and occasionally trying to eat it. Champagne, being a bit of a cool cat at the best of times, was not impressed. But Caviar never seemed to mind A's occasionally clumsy but always well-intentioned adoration.

Just as Champagne and Caviar studiously ignored each other at all times (they would both turn their heads away on the rare occasions that they walked past each other in the house), so Caviar and I also had a relationship based on mutual avoidance. She didn't bother me, I didn't bother her, and it suited us both fine. Our parents, while professing to like neither pet, were often to be found cuddling up to them and were always their best hope for a breakfast bowl of Whiskas (other pet foods are available).

Sadly Champagne left us for the great cattery in the sky a couple of years ago. And with A away at university Caviar rattled around the house with mum and dad. At that point, much to everyone's surprise, she bonded with dad. She slept on his bed, and while he complained that she would nibble his toes in the night, he never kicked her out and always left his door ajar for her. He would often scoop her up and stroke her and while she wriggled half heartedly she never jumped out of his arms. They were, in a strange way, like an old married couple. Caviar and I however, continued as we always had whenever I was home, by not acknowledging each other at all.

We think she misses dad. For the first few days I swear she wandered around looking for him. But what's really strange is that suddenly she's all over me. On Sunday afternoon I sat in the garden on my own and got a little bit tearful. Suddenly Caviar shot all the way up the garden from the garden behind and jumped onto my lap. She has never, ever done that before. Earlier, when I'd gone up to use the bathroom, she followed me up the stairs and waited for me before following me back down again. Mum thinks she can sense that I'm somehow connected to Dad. Funny how she never noticed before though eh?

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

where is everybody?

Damn, I just wrote a whole post and it disappeared. Maybe that's why half of my blog friends seem to have shut up blog and disappeared since I went away. Please come back. There's virtual tumbleweed blowing through blogger.com.

Cornwall was beautiful and Monte Cristo was divine. With the exception of one drunken argument (aren't they always) we got on scarily well - we just really seem to click. Oh and we shared a rather spectacular night of passion in the four poster bed of a hotel room overlooking the sea. It was my bodice-ripping-heroine-in-romantic-novel moment. MC really knows how to make me weak at the knees.

Now that we're back though, real life has begun to bite. The ugly issue of money has raised its head and it's a much bigger deal than I thought it would be. Basically there's a difference in income (with me on top) which bothers him far more than it bothers me. I do of course understand that. But I don't know what the solution is, apart from to nudge him gently in the direction of various job ads. It frustrates him and, I think, makes him feel emasculated - he said the other day that he's scared he'll lose me over it. I reassured him but to be honest I feel frustrated too - I'm not a rich bitch but I earn enough to live comfortably and fund my wine habit, which suits me fine. I don't really want to change my lifestyle but I don't want to leave him out of it either. Its a no-win.