paris, mainly in the rain

Paris! I actually only have pictures of the Eiffel Tower right now...and to be honest most of the photos we've taken have been of ourselves making ridiculous faces in front of various monuments to send to the boys. Got one back from Mycroft standing solemnly in front of the shop where he works holding an ice cream just out of Sherlock's reach. 

We climbed all of the Eiffel Tower that you can climb... 

I'm quite glad you can't climb all of it. This is from the second tier:

And from the third...

I think we did better than we would have before we started the half marathon training though. Today...rain. Hiding in a church from the raining. Getting briefly naked together as we changed clothes in a church in the rain... And Giverny, very briefly, in between the rain. We'll be home in time for dinner! Probably. Unless we get washed away.

Yesterday, among other things, we did this...

You can see ours a bit to the left of the pink ones. Hopefully it'll be there for many years to come, but part of the Ponte des Artes collapsed earlier this year under the weight, so who knows... 

The other things we did yesterday included a lot of walking and talking and eating, all of which we do at home, but it's different. I've been to Paris before and honestly not liked it all that much - not that I disliked it, but compared to other places it seemed a bit grey. Being here with L makes it seem like an entirely different city. I really can't describe how lovely this trip has been. 

here

Well, we're here! We've been here a little while, actually, but we were a bit busy for blog updates. This is where we're staying: 

It's a beautiful place. There was champagne in the room when we got there, and there's also this:

And it's really just...lovely and quiet and peaceful. It's so nice to spend time alone with my husband and not have to worry about homework or bedtimes or who ate all of whose chocolates without telling who or what the dogs might or might not have eaten (they can't possibly have eaten an entire scarf, can they? It was five feet long...). And just have time to talk and lie about and leave dinner until the last minute because there's only us to organise.

In other news, I've been asked to start doing two shifts a week at work after the new year. I'm not sure it's fair to Mrs Hudson, or to Sherlock. It's not so bad when they're at night, or on L's days off...but then I don't get to see him on his days off, and I know he hates it when I work nights. Just not sure it's worth it, but I'm still thinking about it. 

fireworks forever

Sherlock's mum took him out for the day on Saturday, and I was on call. I'm still not quite sure about everything they did because he told me all of it at top speed when my brain was only functioning at half speed, but I understand there were toffee apples, ice cream, dinner out somewhere 'with tablecloths' (not a huge distinguishing feature, but it does let out a few places), and FIREWORKS. He said it in all caps, trust me.

I didn't have nearly as good a time. FME works rarely features ice cream or fireworks, although there was a tablecloth involved at one point, and a small cat with very sharp claws. The cat is fine. The tablecloth and the officer involved, less so. I was out from about eight to eight, and L made me a lovely dinner when he got home, even though he'd been working just as long as I had.

At some point, I took this:

bats and pumpkins

As it turned out, there was no sanctioned dressing up at school today. Sherlock just wanted to be a bat. We told him no. Or, Greg told him no. I was going to say yes because what could it hurt, but it was pointed out that if one boy showed up dressed as a bat and no one else got to have costumes, it might be a tiny bit disruptive. Sometimes I forget things like this. 

He was a pretend (sulky) bat all the way to school nevertheless, but Mrs N said he didn't give her any trouble once he got there. After school, he was an improvised bat, with dark trousers and a large, flappy black hoodie of L's. 

And then...pumpkin carving. Enormous knives, flailing limbs, potential loss of life or eyeballs. Sherlock and L carved, and I started sorting the seeds from the pumpkin guts, which is genuinely one of the most disgusting things I've ever done and I should've worn gloves. It's the way your skin gets afterwards when it starts to dry on you, like it's sucked all the moisture from your fingers and coated them in an impenetrable shield of water repellent so you can't wash it off. 

But in the end, triumph: 

long gone

I can't believe how fast the week went, and I seem to mean that literally, the way I keep checking to make sure it's really Saturday. Apart from the bike place, we didn't do anything that exciting - mostly long wandering walks, cooking, talking, hottubbing (I'm sorry, Mycroft, I know how you feel about verbing nouns...), and keeping clear of the wild fowl watching us ominously from the pond.

Yesterday from picking up Sherlock to bedtime, I don't think he stopped talking once - clearly he had a much more exciting time than we did! No one burned down the city. L's back to work tomorrow, and I'm back to work tomorrow night and Tuesday daytime, so that'll be interesting.

Here's Sherlock's chocolate spider (which really looks like half an egg in a Halloween costume if you ask me...)

in the electric dusk

Here, have a small frog. The pond at Sherlock's school is full of them, in varying sizes from about half the size of this one to two or three times his size. Or her size. I have no idea how to tell male frogs from female frogs.

happy birthday, lestrade!

The other one I was looking at said 'you may feel old, but you're still the youngest person I had sex with this year.' But I went with the more topical one. Besides, I would've had to amend it to say 'or last year, or the year before… Or for quite a while, really'. And then some of the humor is lost. So I decided on the royal foetus, because I know you didn't get enough of that at work. :-)

pitch drop part 2 and invitations

Remember this post, where I talked about the pitch drop experiment? Well, it's dropped. Thanks to Pip for pointing it out in the comments, and you can read about it here or just stare at the gif below for far too long.

And wedding invitations! Time and place blacked out for obvious reasons, but we will tell you when it's going to happen. Just...not yet. 

They were both red initially and I was concerned it looked to much like blood. Sherlock thinks they don't look nearly enough like blood and at once point suggested they should actually be blood (no). They are our actual fingerprints though. I really like how they came out. And they've got magnets on the back so you can stick them to the fridge. Or anything else metal you would like to stick them to. 

The t-shirt making went well, and we watched Sherlock get his platinum award for...well, this is his comment from L's blog; I'll let him describe it:

I've done better than I even had to in everything like reading and maths and writing and also I was helpful and also I didn't have to go to the thinking corner more than three times all year.

He really has done amazingly well this year, and I'm so proud of him. 

two good things

1. Murray won - barely, he was two sets down against Verdasco of all people, not that he's bad, just that he hasn't historically be this good at Wimbledon. Anyhow, Murray's through the semis.

2. Our rings arrived today! I waited (again, barely) until L got home to open the parcel, even with Sherlock circling it like a shark eyeing an unwary swimmer with a bleeding head wound. He doesn't like unopened parcels, even when he knows for a fact that they have nothing exciting inside, and of course this one had something very exciting inside. Mycroft was very helpful in distracting him, although I caught him eyeing the box too. We were all pleased when L got home.

They look amazing. Well. They look pretty plain, I suppose, compared to some. But I love them, and of course it's impossible to see them objectively. I see them for what they mean rather than what they are, and yeah...amazing. 

wimbledon

This morning started as usual - L went to work, I took Sherlock to school. Mycroft came along for the walk and seemed...unusually amused when I said I needed to do some serious cleaning that morning and he might want to shut himself in his room before I drafted him into helping. I found out why he was so amused when we got back home.

L was back as well, waiting for us...with Centre Court tickets to Wimbledon. I honestly don't know what I said. There may have been unseemly noises. And overly enthusiastic hugging.

The whole thing still seems unreal. We saw both Murray and Djokovic play - Murray won (good), Djokovic won (unfortunate). Also saw parts of a few matches out on the smaller courts, including Li Na's and Fernando Verdasco's, both of whom are going on to the quarterfinals (good! - in my opinion at least, especially Li Na). And we wandered about a lot and had strawberries and L was extremely patient while I told him basically everything I know about Wimbledon and tennis (don't worry, I don't expect you to remember it all; it was enough that you listened!).

It was just...amazing. And I am still overwhelmed and happy and so grateful to him and Mrs H both. 

rings

Last night, we bought wedding bands. I'm not sure which version that's linking to, but we got the platinum ones. I really like them - nice and simple. And the thing I like best about them is that we've actually bought them and they're on their way here. It makes it seem more real - even more so than picking the place, somehow, for me at least.

Mycroft approves. Sherlock thinks they should be more sparkly, but then he reconsidered, because we both have to wear gloves for work a lot, and sparkly things might rip the gloves. Very practical.

Today was lovely. Really peaceful. Nice long walk, lunch in the park, more than usually successful attempts to distract L from the paperwork he knows is piling up while he's away...

And here is some amazing origami:

sherlock wishes his skull could do this

It's made out of paper. Doesn't look like it though, does it? Sort of mind bending to watch.

Sherlock took the fox skull that L gave him into school today. I gather it was a big hit, although Mrs N did ask me afterwards if it was all right that he had it. Apparently Sherlock said it was from a crime scene, and she wanted to make sure that he hadn't been making off with evidence. One of the girls liked it a lot and promised to bring her mouse skull to show Sherlock. He seemed pleased and even said later that she might like to see his model human skull with the removable teeth (he miraculously still has all of them).

It's my second shift tonight, starting at seven. I don't know whether to hope for a quiet night or not, but, being Friday, I expect I'll get at least one call if not more. Following some of the advice in the comments (sort of), L and I have a logbook now that we're supposed to write in if we have to go out after Sherlock's asleep. Hopefully it'll make him feel more secure and only make us feel very slightly as if we're out after curfew and likely to get told off by our housemaster. 

on the road again

Sherlock is at school, L is not at work, and his bike is calling him so loudly I think even I can hear it. We're off soon for a nice long ride to nowhere in particular. Portchester Castle possibly? Pretty long ride, but I think we could manage. It looks nicely deserted in those pictures. I always think historic sites would be better viewed without everyone else viewing them with you - of course, everyone else is probably thinking the same thing. Anyway, we'll come up with something. Or we won't, and we'll just ride until we get somewhere, which is nice too.

Oh, and I did make the text smaller, if you're thinking that. It's not your imagination, or your eyes going. Although I had a fun time switching it back and forth really quickly while L reloaded the page to show me the bigger text...which suddenly wasn't there. He got back at me, don't worry.

I'm just killing time right now really. L's been in our room changing for so long I suspect he might want some help with that... I'd better go and check, right? 

cupcakes

L crunched himself into some odd position at work today, as you've probably seen in his comments. As a result, I took his (my) bike home, and Sherlock took him home...via cupcakes and pizza. He's just said they have 12 cupcakes. Probably of all different icing and cake combinations. I think they spent at least half an hour in the shop debating.

I went to work in the allotment for a bit today, watering and pulling weeds and so on. The French beans have grown enormously:

Nothing else was that impressive, so no pictures. I texted the beans to L, and he suggested they were giant mutant city-eating beans. If this were a film, each individual bean in its pod would be an egg and hatch into something face-eating and horrible, but since it's not I think we'll probably just have beans more quickly than I expected. (Note: not more quickly than other people expected; I just had no idea how fast beans grow.) 

My interview is Wednesday. I'm sure I won't know anything definite for some time afterward, but hopefully they won't take too long about it. I'm foolishly (and uselessly) nervous about it. Be glad when it's over. 

eurovision, cake, suits

This is the chocolate and peanut butter monstrosity L and Sherlock made for Jo and Lisa's Eurovision party tonight. Sherlock said I should help, so I stood nearby and ate bits of it when they weren't looking. I think that counts. (It's delicious.) The marshmallow coating is Sherlock's doing. He was sad we only had two colours. 

And we went suit shopping. With Sherlock. I always semi-expect him to be bored by clothes, but no. He has opinions and he wants to share them. I tried on many terrifying shirts today and bought one that I will probably never wear. It's not bad, really; it's just much brighter than I'm used to. I also got a couple that I will wear and a grey suit. 

Learned about this place from someone in the shop, which custom makes suits (and shirts) online. You send them your measurements, and they send you clothes that fit. Sounds like a brilliant idea to me. Except, of course, then I wouldn't be buying them with L, which is certainly a better experience than I've ever had buying them on my own. 

And soon we'll have cake to eat and Eurovision to mock. Hope you're all having a good day too. 

like spring

It was freakishly sunny and warm today, as if it were actually spring or something. Amazing. Sherlock and I went to the park after school and were pirates for a while - sword fights with sticks, sailing leaf boats on tiny bodies of water, that sort of thing. Sherlock has learned nothing from his broken arm and will still climb everything in sight given half a chance. He was halfway up a statue today before I stopped him.

Murray joined us for a bit, and for ice cream. He says he's not going back and might be leaving the Army too. He's thinking about looking for A&E work in London. I don't know what that job market's like, but he could hardly be better qualified. I told him there was babysitting in his future. He looked worryingly pleased. It's possible I shouldn't leave him and Sherlock alone together without someone else to babysit both of them.

I'm...relieved, I suppose. Sad, too, in a way. It feels like having both of us done with all that is a more permanent end to it than when it was just me, somehow. But I'm quite glad he won't be getting shot at anymore, obviously. And I'm glad it was his choice.

Anyway, as you probably saw in the comments of L's post, we're letting Sherlock pick out eggs from here to grow into a butterfly (or moth) and then release at the allotment. He is wildly excited, and I'm pretty excited too. We'll let you know what he decides on. My money's on the death's head moth...  

roses and invisible fish

Transparent fish:

No reason. Just because I liked them. More about them here.

Beautiful day. Chilly, but sunny. L had to work, unfortunately, but Sherlock and I had breakfast with him before he left (both of us, perhaps cruelly, still in our pyjamas...). Got the flat tidied (because if this isn't done on a daily basis, it devolves into complete chaos almost immediately) and then we went to get some plants. Not, as Sherlock would've preferred, all the plants they had, but possibly still too many.

Highlights include a blueberry bush in a pot (which I'm told we should get a few berries from late this year but which should do much better next year), tomato seeds, two roses, delphiniums, and sweet peas. And nasturtium seeds. And some other things. Also extremely small gardening gloves for Sherlock with bugs printed all over them. He showed them to everyone at the allotment...and then took them off and put them aside so they wouldn't get dirty.

We planted things and positioned and repositioned the blueberry bush and dug enormous holes for the roses to fill with compost and things roses like. Late in the afternoon, an amazingly handsome man pulled up on a motorbike and became the talk of the allotments by kissing me and then shortly afterwards taking his top off... All in all, quite a good day. 

baggage handling

After lunch, L took me on a mystery tour of London. He said we were going to pick up one of my birthday presents...somewhere. I was surprised he didn't want me on the back of his bike so he wouldn't have to give me directions, but as it turned out, my bike was a necessary part of the proceedings, because I was getting real, rain-proof, lockable luggage for it: 

Obviously it looks better on my bike (because it's my bike), but this gives you a general idea. It's all somehow coded (magnetically? Electronically? Magically?) to open with my ignition key, which is amazing - how do criminals get by these days? Stealing things must be much more complicated - and it all fits perfectly. It's made by BMW so they ought to know how to put things on their own bikes. It'll be perfect for the FME job; I can keep all my things in it and not worry about someone wandering off with them if I turn my back for a minute, and there'll be conferences and so on I'll need to travel for (and Spider fits, I checked, although she does take up almost an entire bag on her own). It's a wonderfully thoughtful gift, and I have an amazing fiancé. 

-

On a completely different note, here's the story Sherlock wrote for school a little while ago. He asked me to post it here. 

-

home alone

L and I had a very nice day (helped along by the fact that England won the rugby). I lazed about, he cooked, neither of us got much accomplished. We rang our mums, which went all right. We ate, watched the match, I dozed on him... Perfect, really.

Mrs Holmes picked up the boys this morning fairly early. Sherlock had a giant sparkly card for her, and Mycroft had a less sparkly one, and they had their respective instruments because they'd planned a duet for her on guitar and violin. L got a text from Mycroft saying it went well, and I got seven from Sherlock - a sort of play by play.

She's taking Mycroft back to school tonight, and Sherlock's staying the night with her. L's just been called out. I am, for once, alone - although not really, because Mrs Hudson is downstairs, and there's someone down in security all the time now I think since we had that break in. And, of course, two enormous hounds, to be picked up by Anthea tomorrow and return to Harrow with her. And two degus, who I need to feed, and a partridge in a pear tree (no, Sherlock, no partridges. or pear trees). And to think now that's my definition of alone...

I prefer it this way though. I think part of what disconcerted me so much about being out of the army was going from four in a room (or 30 in a tent) to just me, not even a plant. I'm glad it's not like that for most people when they come home.

birmingham

Want to help name Pluto's moons? (Who wouldn't want to help name Pluto's moons?)

Anyway, I'm in Birmingham. This is the picture I sent Sherlock and L last night of my hotel room.

Unexciting hotel room