Hope those having Thanksgiving are having a good one. Why oh why have all my American friends seen fit to go home, leaving me here in this wasteland where it's just another Thursday and no-one's cooking a Turkey? Why? :)

Received the first Christmas card of the season. From Royal Mail no less. Hahaha, I opened it up expecting it to read "Here you are, suckers, this is the only card you'll be getting this year because we're ON STRIKE!" but actually it said "Merry Christmas from Royal Mail."

I made it.

Went to Dorset for the weekend.  Very pretty county.  A few odd people (and many nice people like my cousins).  I love the seaside, but I love the city more *g*  Glad to be home - we're pretty strange but at least we don't put animal skulls on our garden walls.

( Jurassic cliffs and sea and pirates )

Mmmm, I'm thinking pink bananas mashed up with pink condensed milk or maybe pink custard or maybe chocolate sauce :)

Suddenly realized why my weekend in Derbyshire was so .... amazing and confusing.

It's because I was being Me.  Not mummy, not wifey, not carer.  Me.  And I don't think I've spent much time with Me since ... gawd, must be decades.

Amazing.

Confusing.

(Is not entirely sure Me is up to much)

 

It's my birthday all day today.

Sun's out, final Ashes Test starts later, my kids made their own breakfast, I got chocolate and book tokens, and a parcel just went thump on my doorstep ... Never Far Apart II, what brilliant timing!  As prezzies go this is right up there with Oliver the goldfish who arrived forty years ago today (and departed a year later *g*).

Am hauling my sorry 48 year-old arse back to bed with a cup of tea and a shedload of lads.

I'm sitting here looking over our street from my beloved Mac, like I do.  And today I'm watching the end of something.

Old lady who lived opposite, since the War, has been in a care home for about the last two years.  Her house, an Edwardian semi like ours, has gradually fallen into disrepair, pigeons in the roof, everything falling down and falling in.  She was a neighbour of my great-aunt who lived in our house during the Blitz years (until we came in 1996).  Funny old stick so I believe (well, both of them actually LOL).  But now she's died and The Men have come to rip the house apart.  Last week it was a skip.  Today they're throwing clothes and curtains and things out the windows, loading broken-up bits of old furniture on to a lorry.  They're practically kitted out in full hazmat gear so God knows what the pigeons (and rats) have got up to.  A bit of the Daily Express from 1937 actually blew out the skip the other day!

And soon, I guess, the house will be scaffolded and primped and painted and a nice family with young children will take up residence.  Everything will move on, as it should.

Kind of sad though.  Especially the clothes fluttering down and landing in a heap on the broken-down fence.

I am reflective and mournful because I cannot sleep and the world starts to seem a bit weird after several months of insomnia.

(I think the pigeons are pissed off, too.  They sit on the roof and coo menacingly, just like that Hitchcock film *g*)

Who will bring me sleeping fic?  A snoozing Bodie or a Sammy curled up with his brother?  Lay the Magnificent Seven out in a dormitory if you like, I don't care!  Just please point me to someone who's asleep and give me inspiration ....

ETA: hazmat suits off, tattoos out.  That's more like it.

Hee, how cool.  The Boy (12y) has just finished day one of a film-making course being run by Nick Rae, who was First Assistant Director on a couple of Season One Torchwood eps - 1x03 Ghost Machine and 1x05 Small Worlds apparently.  He seemed like a nice bloke, I may have to go and gab at him after pick-up tomorrow *g*

OK, so manic phase over.  I am in possession of a husband, ejected from Tehran earlier today.  A bit bruised, which freaks me the heck out, but in one piece.  I'm so relieved I came over all wifey ... cleaned the house, nurtured the kids, cooked ... like, dinner!  That you can eat!

So yeah, lucky me.  I am duly thankful.  Many in Iran not so lucky.

Can't stop following events in Iran, mostly on Twitter.  Just amazing to see the numbers of women out on the streets (although not, obviously, at Ahmadinejad supporters' rally).  My husband, bless him, busy falling down drains and cutting his leg while running away from police with batons in Teheran.  He's been "invited" to leave the country ... Iranian friends here totally on tenterhooks and me too. 

"My country, I will build you again, if need be, with bricks made from my life.  I will build columns to support your roof, if need be, with my bones" - Simin Behbahani, Iranian poet.

Also can't stop playing Scrabble on Facebook.   Oh so addictive.  Who knew?

*nervous and manic, can you tell?*