due to some confusion

Explanations:

1) In the poll, NSY = New Scotland Yard (i.e. Lestrade & Co.). City of London is the City police force. The four horsemen are, of course, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, but they're only reserve players.

2) Innie asked on L's post yesterday if I had any tattoos, and I admitted that I had, once, but it was small, and then I got shot, and what now remains is a scar and maybe a fleck or two of black ink. L guessed what it was (eventually, with some help). A target, a bullseye. To which everyone's natural response was, "Seriously?" Yeah. What can I say? That's the way my life works.

I said I'd explain how that happened.

harvey the fish

Hi this is Sherlock again. I said I would draw Harvey the fish's sarcophagus so here it is. It has Isis on it and the other parts are mostly from Tutankhamun's mummy case, the inside one with the colours, not the just gold one, even though Harvey wasn't a pharaoh or even a king.

muffins vs cupcakes

The muffins vs cupcakes poll came out very nearly even, 56 to 57. Cupcakes won by a hair. Must be the icing. I should hope the outcome of the new poll is a forgone conclusion, if not the outcome of the actual match, but as always, vote early, vote often.

To those being confused by the comments on L's post, Blogger's comment limit for one page is 200, and we've reached it over there. You can see the new comments by clicking through to page two of them.

Mycroft's school visits have been rescheduled due his mum being...somewhere. I thought she said Antarctica, but that seems unlikely. Anyway, Harrow's on Friday now, and I'm not sure about Eton.

For once L's asleep on me instead of me on him. Nice. We ought to work it like this more often. And I have at least another hour before anyone jumps on me. Probably. So, back to sleep. 

summer

Yesterday was the first official day of the summer holidays. Weekends don't count, of course. Already I understand why my mother was so relieved when Harry and I went back to school. It's not that I don't like having them around, but a forty year old trying to keep up with a five year old is just an unfair contest. I thought I had things structured pretty well, but clearly I was wrong.

I resorted to letting them play dog bowling indoors.

another guest post

Hello. This is Mycroft. I can't sleep, and I don't want to wake anyone up, so I thought I'd talk to the internet. Why not? Everyone else is doing it.

I wanted to say something anyway. Thank you. You've all been really kind to me, and generous in speaking about your own experiences at school, and I haven't replied, mostly. Because I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say a lot of the time.

It helps, to hear so many people agree that things will improve eventually, even if I'm not sure I believe it.

It's five now. Sherlock will probably wake up soon, so I'm not sure there's any point in trying to go back to sleep. We're going to go to the motorcycle shop today, where John got his protective clothing, so that I can get some too. I didn't think I'd ever ride a motorcycle in my life, so I suppose some things can change. I'm going to go downstairs now and make tea and wait for everyone else to wake up.


I probably won't know what to say to the responses to this post either. But anyway, thank you.

sports day pt 2

Right, I believe with left off with L publicly groping me, I mean patting my bum. The groping came later.

He was extremely popular with the mums - all of them, not just Y. I don't think he noticed, which was really quite sweet. That was no doubt partly due to the focus with which he was pushing his own agenda...

A: John tells us you're a police inspector. Tell the truth, is that how you two met? Were you arresting him?*
L: Oh, that's a long, long story.
B: We've got time!
L: Nah, really, I think I have to go get tied to Danger** here. But I'll tell you all about it later. You'll be there when we dig the frog pond, right?

They all agreed they would. We'll see who actually shows up.

sports day pt 1

Today was sports day at Sherlock's school, and a good time was had by all, despite the rain. The kids were there from the usual time in the morning, though Sherlock says they didn't manage much in the way of lessons. More running around excitedly and hindering the older children who were helping the teachers set up, I suspect.

Mycroft and I got there about ten minutes late. In those ten minutes Sherlock had consumed, by stealth and cunning, a quantity of cake that Mrs T found so alarming that the first words out of her mouth when she saw me were, "He mustn't have any more!" A variety of things Sherlock potentially shouldn't have any more of flashed through my mind, so I was actually quite relieved when she explained.

a man in uniform

We stayed over at L's last night, since Mrs Hudson was...actually quite insistant that she'd be happy to get the boys off to school this morning on her own. Well, almost on her own. Apparently at one point, Sherlock scaled the bookcase in the living room and refused to come down until Anthea came upstairs and gave him a stern looking at. Words are usually unnecessary for her.

Point being, I slept in. Until nearly ten. It was amazing. Well, I got up to see L off and fail to make him lunch because we'd eaten everything we brought over with us and there was no food. But I went back to bed after. And slept. Sleep is a marvellous invention.

Got up, drank coffee, went in search of clean sheets so I could change the bed...and found L's uniform instead. Sort of wadded up at the back of the top shelf. When spread out on the bed, it looked quite nice, apart from the wrinkles and the one small moth that appeared to be living under the collar. So I dropped it off at the cleaners' on the way home. I mean, he might need it, right? You never know.

home

None of us slept especially well last night, which meant a lot of lazing around in pyjamas this morning. It also meant that, when L called to say he was back and just unsticking his knee so he could get off the bike, the boys were dozing on the sofa, and I, when I went down to help him with that, was still in my jimjams. Just the bottoms, all right? And a perfectly normal t-shirt, such as anyone might wear in public. Possibly slippers as well. They're very sturdy slippers, almost like shoes.

Anyway. We've got him back now, along with rather more of his native accent then we're used to hearing. Not sure if that just happened or if he was trying to sound less...London-y. He got about five seconds of peace between coming in the door and Sherlock waking up, and I don't think Sherlock's stopped talking since. L's on the sofa between them now with an arm around each of them, and it doesn't look like he minds in the least.

this is sherlock

Hi I'm writing this instead of John because John is talking to the fridge man. We put all the vegetables in Mrs Hudson's fridge yesterday but the ice cream wouldn't fit in her freezer because of all the things she has in there, mainly biscuits but also other things that aren't as good, but Lestrade always wonders how she has so many biscuits, so that's how.

Also Kira asked if my school was doing a show or anything for the end of the year and we're not, which is good, there wouldn't be any time, we don't even really have enough time to mummify Harvey the fish properly because there are lots of rituals and it takes a month but I think it's okay to do it faster because he's much smaller than a person although it's sad we didn't get to pull his brains out with a hook. Do you think maybe next year we could do a whole person? John told me some people get frozen when they die, or turned into diamonds, so there must be someone who wants to get mummified and we'd be really good at it after we practice on Harvey.

We are having a day with races and things where the parents come to watch, except I don't know if Mummy's coming, but John will and I hope Lestrade will too and Mycroft said he'd do the three legged race with me although I had to ask him for days and days before he said yes. There is also one where you carry eggs on spoons and one where you toss pancakes over strings and I think Lestrade would be really good at that one, he's a good tosser, but I don't know if the grow ups are allowed to do it.

John is shouting at the fridge man now. Not really shouting, but John can shout without being loud. The fridge man said he couldn't fix it until Monday but I think he's going to fix it now. And then we can buy more ice cream! I want chocolate and strawberry and also maybe the kind with fudge swirled in it.

And I just saw in Lestrade's post that he got the murderer so I hope he's coming home today, I'm going to tell John!

sanity: trace amounts

None of us are [is] (thank you, Mycroft) [my tag still says I'm 12] (...I'll see what I can do about that) happy Lestrade is away, obviously. Only one of us rang his superintendent and explained very carefully why he shouldn't be sent away again, or, if he was, that we should go with him. Especially if there were wolves. Three guesses who it was, and the first two don't count.

back to the polls

Right, I still have nothing to say, really, but I'm tired of that last post staring at me from the top of the list.

91 people voted for the Oxford comma. 94 voted again. All of you who voted against, why? It isn't always necessary, but I can't think of an instance where it's actively detrimental to the sentence, so why not just stick it in there? You must have your reasons, so please explain.

Sad roses, abandoned in the park.

on the run

Mycroft's lessons started late today, as one of his tutors is in Tokyo for...some conference. Mycroft told me, and I forgot. The Annual Gathering of Extremely Smart People Who Like Maths. Something along those lines.

I was going running again, and he wanted to come, so we did that. He kept up pretty well. We did about two miles, maybe a third to a half of it actually running, the rest walking. I feel much less dire afterward than I did yesterday. We stopped in the park on the way home to stretch and visit the tadpoles (they're frogs now and too quick for me to get a picture), and he asked me again about the self defense lessons.

miscalculations in scale

There have been an awful lot of brownies recently. Good points of that situation include how excellent they taste, the fact that everyone in our house (even me) can cook something, at least, and their extreme usefulness in keeping Sherlock occupied. I've seldom seen him concentrate as hard as when he's measuring flour.

Downsides include...well, the usual downsides of eating too many sweets. Lestrade and Sherlock tend to run it off without much of a problem, Mycroft has the ice skating and is growing besides, and I...have put on over a stone since I got out of hospital. Some of which was necessary, and some of which really wasn't.

pride

Awake, briefly. So, a round up of the weekend, before I go back to sleep.


Saturday
We had an amazing time at Pride on Saturday. I thought the boys wouldn't want to come, but Sherlock was tempted by ice cream, and Mycroft said he thought it would be interesting. I was a little worried he'd find the whole thing mildly traumatizing, but he actually enjoyed it.

We talked to a lot of people, because that's what happens when you have a very inquisitive five year old with you, even if you have had a talk with him beforehand about not interrogating people.

with less vegetal innuendo

Previously on Greg the Florist...

"Thank you. Thank you so much. I seriously would have been sunk without your help. Now, the very least I can do is buy you dinner and a pint down the road at The Cock Inn. If you're up for it, of course."


John smiled, and said…


"Love to."