Cattitude Problem

Esme doesn't like it when I clean or tidy. She'll sit there and watch me and then wander off and express her displeasure.

Sometimes this is by waiting until I have a full black bag and then chewing a hole in the bottom of it. Sometimes she will knock over the big pile of books that I have just collected from all over the house (a very common occurrence).

Usually she just goes and wees in the bath.

Today however she found a new way of expressing herself.

Because I was cleaning the bathroom the bath was full of bleach so she decided to wee somewhere else.

She chose the washing basket.

When I'm doing a load of washing I leave the basket on the floor in front of the machine so that I can just pull it out straight into it, luckily I was using the white basket so I noticed the next time I went into the kitchen. (I'm oh so very glad it wasn't the red one...)

Esme is now sulking in the armchair, the washing has been hung out (after being put in the red basket) and the white basket is full of hot water and bleach and sitting in my nice clean bath.

I must also confess that while my first reaction was Bloody cat!, my second reaction was that of a small child... Look at all that wee! *giggle*.

Nom Nom Nom Nom

Tonight I did some actual proper cooking.



and it tasted flipping gorgeous!

So I can add Toad in the Hole (or Sausage Toad as my mother calls it) to my very short list of things that I can cook.

I am so very proud of myself I am going for a very hot Lush-filled bath! (and Anthony is going to do the washing-up while I'm in it)

Hell Yeah.

Nothing else needs to be said about this post, it's perfect.

Baths

Holiday!!!

I am on holiday for two and a half weeks now...I go back to work on the 12th of April! The half week is due to Easter Monday and then my day off being the Wed, and having an odd day of holiday to use so taking that Tuesday.

The last time I had two weeks together off work was back in 2003 when I broke my arm, and then before that was Sept/Oct 2002 between moving up here and getting my current job.

It's very odd. Even with a week off there's a certain amount of "must do this today" but I have no feeling of that at all. Yes I only get one week of that with Anthony (since I get a weeks more holiday than him and our holiday years fall differently too) so we have to move all the bookcases this week so I can rearrange to my hearts content next week. Other than that...nothing HAS to be done on any day.

We're actually getting to go away too. My mother is spending this week in Bath where she's rented a flat. She made sure when she rented it that it would be able to fit two errant daughters and one of their blokes. Although Emily possibly isn't coming now, it means we get what is essentially a free holiday.

Yes we'll be taking her out for a slap up meal etc, but we've had assurances that she'd have rented that flat just for herself anyway (especially comforting when Anthony's car went bang on Thursday and we didn't think we'd be going at all.)

So I have a guidebook to all the places there are to go and a man who is happy to go to most of them (although he's not too keen on the Museum of East Asian Art). The only slight downside is that this will be the longest I've been away from t'internet for a while. I shall have to get used to getting my news from papers and the radio, and my entertainment from other things.

That really does make me sound like a sad junkie, I'm not. I'm just used to being able to pull up things as and when (like info on the Poll Tax after we had another political discussion in bed this morning - is it just us who only have discussions on religion and politics in bed?) and not having to wait for info.

So now for a few days of culture and shopping...well certainly shopping anyway!

Is it Thursday?

It's certainly been one of those days today.

It started off ok, not late for work or anything, but the day got crazier as it went on.

Campbelli (who came in when she's supposed to be on holiday) and Fingers were coming up with grand plans for the kids department and none of us noticed the time so the breaks all got a bit late. Then I ended up in a HUGE queue in Boots when I went in for some more Sudafed Max.

A school phoned up needing a list of books that they wanted five minutes ago (if you know what I mean, it's a phrase that's easier to say than write!).

Then just as we thought things had calmed down a bit an old lady came in to sit down as she'd felt a bit faint while in the bus queue and ended up fainting into my arms. I was trying not to drop her and put her down carefully (since she was quite frail) while Fingers tried to track down Rich Daws (our first aider). Then we had ambulances and first aiders turn up and try to convince her to go to hospital while I sat on the floor supporting her for half an hour or so. Despite the ambulance crew trying to convince her to go, she held firm and got a cab home. (I hope I'm that bolshy at 86).

Just as we'd all got back into the swing of the afternoon, Rich Daws announced he could smell burning plastic and we all started hunting round the shop for the source. It turned out to be the sign above the lift, so we turned the light out and hoped it would stop. The smell went away but we're hopefully getting it checked tomorrow...

At least it did a good job of distracting me from the fact that this day last year I spent the day in hospital.

Thanks to the fabulous Tim from Random House I managed to get my mitts on a proof for the new Katie Fforde so I've decided my evening will be well spent by running a hot Lush bath and spending a few hours reading my new book, drinking wine and eating chocolate. That way I should get a good nights sleep to cope with whatever the real Thursday decides to throw at me!

Girly jeans, proofs and the Burning Crusade

Anthony bought me some girls jeans on Sunday. I haven't had any for years. The ones I've been wearing have been blokes ones (good old M&S) as they are so much easier to size. But we went into Dorothy Perkins and I tried on 5 or 6 different pairs until I found a style I liked. Anthony loves them, apparently they give me a "proper girls bottom". (I'm not sure what type of bottom I usually have in that case).
I haven't worn them to work yet as they sit a lot lower than my other jeans and since work is mainly pulling returns at the moment (lots of bending over) I'm not quite ready to reveal quite so much of my nice new short pants to the world.

I've also had a bit of luck (although nothing compared to the jammy git who won himself £26 on a scratchcard and £100 on the Premium Bonds on Mon) in that I managed to find the proof of The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters lurking in Goods In today. I didn't think it would be something I'd be interested in from what I'd heard about it, but we've had some samplers for customers so I had a flick through one and quite liked it. GI Chris had seen a set of the proofs in Goods In but didn't know where they'd gone to. Today I found them and have them sitting on the sofa waiting to be delved into.

I shall have some time to be reading them in this week, as Anthony is working "normal" hours (7-4) and so is monopolising the computer. Since The Burning Crusade expansion pack has just come out I sense that he'll be rather preoccupied with it for a few days/weeks/months (but then again, me too!) so I shall inflict Buffy on him and perhaps actually do some of my sadly neglected cross-stitch.

It's been partly neglected because I've been having lots of baths and showers due to my rediscovered love of hot water - which I dearly missed for the week I was without it. My stash of Lush goodies (32 things) has been taking a hammering, although I've been trying bits of all the solid bubble baths rather than using up all my precious ballistics all in one go.

Right, I'm being evicted...

Breathe out

I have hot water and heating again!

Anthony came round today after his night shift and waiting in for the gasman while I went off to work. The gasman came round, changed the valve, and now my house it starting to get warm again.

I have got all my supplies (2 books, bottle of vin rouge, box of 12 Creme Eggs) and now I'm off to spend the evening in the bath.

Today's Horoscope

You tend to house clean like someone with attention deficit disorder, KATE. You never linger long on any one task. As a result, your bathroom mirrors and counters will get cleaned, but not the floor. Today, make an effort to do a thorough cleaning, one room at a time. Even if you don't get the entire house clean, you will at least receive some satisfaction from knowing that your bedroom and bathroom are both spotless. Now, if you could only figure out how to keep them that way!

*giggle*

That is indeed so true, although I don't think it's as bad a thing as it sounds. I try to do a little every day to keep on top of things. This doesn't always work so I do have cleaning blitzes, like before Christmas.

I 'm actually really antsy to get the washing up done and my kitchen tidy again. I didn't do it yesterday because I couldn't face boiling kettle after kettle of hot water to wash up and wash the floor. But the gasman is back again with a pile of bits and hopefully I shall have hot water aplenty later on.

Although I will be having a long hot bath as my hot water priority!

Still cold pt 3

Well the gasman originally came on New Years Day afternoon, muttered over the boiler for a couple of hours and then had to order a microswitch for today.

Today he came back, with his manager too no less, and fitted the new microswitch.

This then caused something else to overheat.

He's had to order some more parts (at £150 and £180 each) and will be back tomorrow morning.

Now I just have to see if Bod will let me swap my Friday off for a Thursday off and if not I shall have to get Anthony to come here after his nightshift.

Time to start boiling the kettle for the washing up.

(Oh, I'm feeling slightly more human than the other day as when he couldn't fix it on Mon I went and had a long hot bath at Anthony's folks house instead.)

Edit: I don't have to pay for the parts btw. He was saying that the parts bascially equal the cost of the next two years worth of British Gas Homecare that the landlady has. So that's a good thing.

Still cold pt 2

Still got no heating or hot water...for now.

But we got randomly lucky yesterday when I got home from work to find a message from my landlady on my answerphone.

When I phoned her back she'd actually called to ask me to forward a letter to her, but (obviously) I took the chance to mention to her that I was a little cold.

Five minutes later she called me back having contacted British Gas on the emergency call-out system. They should be with us tonight between 6 and 8 so fingers are crossed (as crossed as they can be when I'm trying to type anyway) that I might be able to see in the New Year in my traditional fashion - in a hot Lush-filled bath.

Alf has just come round to entertain us for the evening so I had better go and be sociable for a few minutes.