science!

More here. I thought Sherlock would like these and probably some of you will too. 

I had a dream last night that I'd asked L to marry me and he said yes, and then I woke up and I had to wake him up to make sure it wasn't just a dream...very peculiar. 

Mrs Holmes rang me today to congratulate us and offer to send us to Antartica for our honeymoon. It's sometimes quite difficult to tell when she's joking. 

Did you know they make wood wedding bands? I didn't know that until today. 

Nicky - I don't think I ever answered your comment on L's blog, and I'm sorry. I thought my answer very hard at you, which I realise I've been doing more and more lately. (Note to self: telepathy still doesn't work.) Thank you. You and your family have been so kind and welcoming to me and Mycroft and Sherlock right from the beginning, and it means a lot to all of us. I hope we'll see all of you at Christmas. 

Right, I am off to do the shopping and to pick Sherlock up from school. L, let me know if you have anything to add to the following list contributed to by Mrs Hudson, various elderly neighbours, and security:

odd things you think about

Lestrade posted in the comments of his blog about thinking when he was a kid that the sensation of his heart beating was caused by it swinging back and forth on a pendulum. It made me think about some of the strange notions we get when we're young.

L posted a picture of me long ago, in a post far, far away (that I cannot find). I was four or five, I think, and wearing a suit for my great uncle's funeral. I barely knew him and wasn't too upset about it, but I absolutely refused to go up and see him in the coffin with my parents and Harry. They all thought it was because he was dead, but that part didn't bother me. I wouldn't go because I was convinced he would be naked.

No idea where I came up with that. I suppose it makes sense in an odd way that you'd be buried in the same state in which you were born, and I wasn't old enough to realise that his friends and family would not want to see that. I would tell my parents why either, because I thought they'd say something along the lines of, 'Well of course he's naked! That's just the way it is, come along.' And then I'd have to go. So I wouldn't explain and instead, I seem to remember, hid under a table.

amazeballs

The post's title is Carla's reaction when we told Nicky and her family the news. I think that sums up my reaction pretty well, too. If you haven't heard, go and check L's blog.

No, I mean it, go. He tells it better than I do.

on the way

Lestrade's driving. Mycroft and Sherlock are glaring at each other in the back seat. Sherlock spent ten minutes poking Mycroft, and I didn't notice until Mycroft finally lost his calm and stuck a wad of gum to Sherlock's forehead.

Gum has been removed and Sherlock has been told to keep his hands to himself. I'm having flashbacks to car trips with my parents and Harry. Except Harry stuck the gum to the top of my head, and I ended up with almost no hair after mum was done cutting it.

I think we'd better stop and eat soon. Food always helps in these situations, and those two are meant to be sharing a tent tonight. A tent room. I'm still not used to tents having rooms. When did that start happening anyway? At what point did some tent designer say to themselves, you know, I think this tent needs to be more like a house? Let's add a kitchen and some statuary. Impractical? Oh, maybe just another room then. 

fully equipped

We now have enough cold weather gear to launch an expedition to the North Pole, although Sherlock has pointed out that we should wait until we've baked biscuits because when we get to the North Pole, we'll want them to celebrate with. I told him I didn't think they'd last that long. He said he'd make extra. I also got a hoodie, so I can test it vs jumpers and prove L wrong.

I know it hasn't been that long, but I feel sure Mycroft has grown since the last time we saw him. Lestrade was joking about him being taller than I am, but honestly it's not going to be that much longer.  He's far more grown up and dignified than I was at fourteen. We got sushi today, and he uses chopsticks like he's been doing it his whole life. That sounds silly when I write it out, but at the time all I could think was that he's growing up so fast.

 He's brought home a computer game called Minecraft where you build things out of blocks, which makes it sound like a game for small children, but you can build literally anything you can think of and there's some sort of wiring system and...I'm really not sure. He thinks he can make a computer in it. And he's helping Sherlock build his boat virtually before building it in reality.

We're now awaiting L's presence for biscuit creation, and I'm simmering the beef and broccoli thing, which ought to be done by the time the biscuits are. 

enormous jacket

Since L has said he doesn't mind... 

I like it because he looks so happy. Thanks, Nicky. 

Sherlock's class are building boats to sail on the pond - one or two at a time, I presume, or there are going to be shipwrecks. They're meant to choose a historical or fictional boat/ship and do a report on it in addition to the actual building. Sherlock already has a list of about ten. 

Got the following text from Anthea today: will be taking time off whenever you madmen are going camping in the freezing cold, so let me know. It's going to be fun though, honestly! 

leaves

I think someone asked if Sherlock's half term dates are the same as Mycroft's and I never answered, but they are. Sherlock's plans are becoming ever wilder. If it were left entirely up to him, I think we'd be climbing Everest over the weekend, followed by a short jaunt to the Amazon basin in the week. I'm not sure we'll be going anywhere at all, but I'm sure we'll have fun. It'll be great having him home.

Lestrade brought me home flowers last night because he's the sweetest man alive. White roses and green chrysanthemums, the kind with the extra long petals. There's probably a name for them, but you'd have to ask Greg the florist. They're lovely, and sitting in a slightly wonky vase on the table. It's white and chipped, and I don't actually know where it came from. Maybe it's Mrs Hudson's. The only vase we had whose origin I was certain of is the one I got cracked over the head with.

It's funny how things just appear like that. Not something I'm used to, like having a fixed address and more than two pairs of shoes.

Lestrade, let me know if you want to get lunch or something? And then I've been advised that I'm not too old to jump in piles of leaves in the park with Sherlock, so I expect we'll be doing that after school. 

normality, or something similar

Lestrade's at work. There wasn't enough time to cook dinner before he had to go so we sent him off with sandwiches and spider biscuits, and now Sherlock and I are making breakfast-dinner, with eggs and pancakes and bacon. It'll be good if I don't burn anything. Sherlock says he'll keep an eye on me. The spider biscuits will keep eight eyes on me.

L and I had a long walk around the park and a talk, during which neither of us cried in public, though it was a close thing once or twice. I'll leave him to tell what he said if he wants to, later. I don't think anyone here will be particularly surprised to learn that I feel responsible for not stopping what happened to him, for not getting him back sooner. I know that makes no sense. Knowing it doesn't help.

More than that though, I could feel this distance between us when he got back, and that was... I didn't know how to fix it, or change it at all, didn't understand why it was there, and all I could think was what if it got worse and I somehow lost him over this even after we got him back. So that was terrifying.

I think we're moving past that now though. At least I hope so. Still trying to work out how it happened, and I think it's at least partly the assumptions we make about each other. I think a lot of the time L expects I won't want to talk and tries to respect that and I assume he'll do the talking when he's ready and...yeah. Turns into a bit of a mess.

He said in one of the comments on my last post that he didn't mean to make me feel like his way of coping is better than mine, but I think pretty much the entire world and certainly all mental health professionals prefer talking to silence. I need to do better there.

And now if you'll excuse me, I think my bacon may be smoking. 

sleep's dull knife

Dire sounding subject line is actually from the most cheerful-insomnia related poem I know:

Cut if you will with sleep's dull knife
each day to half its length, my friend. 
The years that time takes off my life
he'll take from the other end! 

It's either Edna St Vincent Millay or Dorothy Parker. I can't remember. Also, accuracy not guaranteed, it's very late.

I was already up and getting some water when Sherlock came and found me in the kitchen. He'd had a nightmare about giant skeletons clattering up the stairs, and he said the worst part was that they never got there, they just kept coming up forever and he had to wait for them. I can sympathise.

I made him some warm milk, which he declared acceptable but not as good as Lestrade's, and stayed with him until he fell asleep again. He didn't ask to come back to bed with us, which I hope is a good sign. Might let him stay home again tomorrow if he wants to, we'll see. I think he's ready for school again though.

Work, thankfully, is not yet ready for Lestrade. I hope not for at least a few more days. He might be all right to go back, but I'm not sure I am. 

bad news

We got another envelope. It had the same bug stickers as the one from Sherlock's 'birthday card' did. This one was hand delivered. Not, I think, by the person who took the photos. Just a kid, maybe sixteen or seventeen. I asked him to wait because we'd had trouble with a stalker, and he said he thought the man who gave him the envelope was 'kinda creeptastic' but that he'd given him twenty quid.

I thought it would just be more photos, and there were photos - the three of us at the zoo. There was also a note. It said to enjoy the pictures since it was the last we'd see of Lestrade. I can't get him on the phone or by email or text. I've called Sally, and Anthea's bringing Mycroft home.

I...don't know what else to say. 

latibulize

From the list of words that wolf-were provided:

Latibulize v.

To hibernate. Function of a teenager during that part of the morning when papers are being brought in, cats being fed, garbage cans put out, digital clocks being reset after overnight power failures, etc., etc.

Also what Lestrade and I did briefly today after dropping Sherlock off at school, going for a run, etc. That's et cetera as in 'and so on' not as in anything else. We went back to bed, and I went back to sleep, which must've been fairly boring for Lestrade, but he took it well. No reflection on you, L. The past few nights haven't gone well, that's all. Maybe I should switch to decaf too.

I wonder if the last part of the above definition will ever apply to Sherlock. It seems incredibly unlikely, but surely it must happen to everyone? I've never known a teenager who springs out of bed at five in the morning unless the alternative is being discovered by their girlfriend/boyfriend's parents.

I wonder how large a part that played in the creation of boarding schools. 'Let's put them all together where they can't get into so much trouble!' Except, having known boys who went to boarding schools, I'm well aware that they can and do.

Speaking of which - the schools, not the trouble - Mycroft texted to say we could come and visit on Saturday if we wanted to, which of course we do, so that'll be nice. We can bring him the leftover biscuits and scones from tea, of which I imagine there will be several thousand. 

after school special

Mrs N asked to speak to me when I picked Sherlock up today. She's coming to tea on Friday. Sherlock has apparently promised her baked Alaska, which I don't think is going to happen, but I imagine we can at least provide brownies or chocolate swirl biscuits or something.

He was a chimpanzee on the way home. On the whole I prefer elephants, since they very rarely try to climb up you while you're waiting for the light to change.

Sherlock: Chimpanzees fling poo.

Me: No.

Sherlock: They do, I saw them!

Me: I mean, no, your chimpanzee impression does not need that level of verisimilitude.

There is no more reliable way to distract him than with new words, but I'm going to run out eventually.