this day

For anyone who didn't see it in the comments, Bryan was arrested on a drugs charge today...and called L for help. Help was obviously not forthcoming. I don't even know what he thought Greg could do.

Anyhow. Sherlock's blisteringly angry about it and thinks Bryan should be boiled in oil at the very least. Getting him to settle down for bed was basically impossible, and he sat between us on the sofa until he drifted off around eleven.

L took him upstairs and then we talked for a while. I'm also angry. Obviously. Trying not to suggest he should be boiled in oil or anything similar. It wouldn't help, and Sherlock doesn't need the encouragement.

We went to bed. I'm reading Some Buried Caesar again and read some of it to L. Possibly not the book for him as it put him right to sleep. Although, really, it was midnight by then, and he hadn't had the easiest day, so.

And I'm still awake. Shoulder hurts, leg hurts, brain hurts. Oh, and I worked today. Got one call where a fourteen year old kid had been arrested for attacking his grandmother. So there's that as well.

I don't know if writing this down has helped or not. Going to read some more I think.

underground sofa

I ordered the sofa today/yesterday...after much debate from all sides. I think Sherlock would've preferred it to have sequins, and Mycroft would've preferred one solid colour including cushions. L and I mainly wanted it to be comfortable and not show too much dirt. Or dog hair. Brown was definitely the way to go there, I think.

This is the sofa:

And this is the colour scheme, because I could not for the life of me work out how to make their website display the sofa in those colours:

Also, have some pictures of the early days of the London underground. I like 8 and 10 the best, I think. The complaints poster is wonderful.

Underground Sofa would be a good band name.

And I'm awake again. As you may have noticed. Think I will wake L up this time and try not to be such an idiot. Good night. 

the last one

Well...Lestrade's off to Italy tomorrow/today/in a few hours, to pick up a serial rapist and bring him back here (London, not our flat). Sherlock hid his passport and various other items in an attempt to stop him. He's not at all happy about it, despite the fact that I have been given instructions on how to make pancakes tomorrow morning, which should at the very least give him some entertainment. We got him into bed and then us in to bed eventually. Lestrade has to be in early tomorrow. He's asleep. I was asleep.

I haven't had a really bad dream about Afghanistan for months now. It's always tempting to think I've had the last one, even though, logically, it'll probably never be the last one. Until I'm dead, obviously. Assuming you don't dream after you're dead, which I suppose isn't really a foregone conclusion. I'm probably not making much sense at this point.

We're going to pick up Mycroft tomorrow, which will be great, and barring any major travel issues, L will be home for dinner. Maybe the three of us (or Mycroft with two sous chefs) can put something together for  him.

So I need to try sleeping again. Might just go for a walk first.

I was looking at this too:
http://www.virginmoneylondonmarathon.com/training-centre/training-advice/training-plans/intermediate-17-week-training-plan/

Doesn't sound too unreasonable. 

fallen

Sherlock and I found some good trees today. Here's one:

And Mycroft sent me this site where you can help piece back together an engraved Pictish stone: 

http://pictishpuzzle.co.uk/

I might need more time or patience than I actually have to make any progress, but I like the idea.

Today included laundry, shopping, hot chocolate with Sherlock who helped me fold a multitude of socks afterward, and a pumpkin delivery. Reg brought over the one he'd promised Sherlock in person, and Mrs H gave him tea. We were not invited. ;)

While looking for fallen trees, we also saw a set of three pumpkins stacked up like a snowman, with a stick arm holding a pumpkin head with the guts trailing out of it to the ground. Should've got a picture. 

unexpectedly exciting

L's been sent off to interview someone at HMP Frankland, which is much too far away. He'll spend the night there (not at the prison, in a hotel nearby). So will Sherlock. He was begging to go along, L and I were saying no, because where would he stay while L was doing the interview? Sherlock insisted he was old enough to stay in the hotel alone (no), and then one of the security people said his mum lived up there and he hadn't sent her an Easter card and he could go along and look after Sherlock for a few hours while L was doing the interview...

And suddenly, I was packing Sherlock an overnight bag and they were off to the train station. Sherlock was wildly excited, and there were multiple updates from the train, including one about how he could fit into the luggage rack... They're at the hotel now and asleep - at least Sherlock is, and I hope L is by now.

I think Mycroft and I are going to the Soane Museum tomorrow and maybe out to breakfast beforehand - despite having been instructed that we're not to do anything fun while Sherlock's away. It's the house he built for his family to live in but there's also a sort of fake monk's cell and yard:

Soane pretended that he had discovered the remains when digging the foundations of his new house: in medieval times, he explained, this had been the hermitage of a monk named Padre Giovanni. In fact had had assembled the ruin from pieces he had salvaged in his role as architect to the old Houses of Parliament. 

Also:

The tomb itself is is inscribed 'Alas  Poor Fanny!' as if Padre Giovanni had withdrawn into seclusion because of a broken heart. But Fanny was Mrs Soane's beloved pet dog, and its tiny coffin still lies in the Monk's Grave.

(both quotes from In Ruins, by Christopher Woodward)

He sounds like an interesting man... 

off the map

Disused tube stations:

There's not all that much information about them at the site (it seems mostly to be an art project), but still interesting. Here's some more on St Mary's, with pictures. 

And a tour of the station:

I find it fascinating, the things that people build and then forget about, brick up, or pave over, like repressed memories in London's brain.

super powers

Someone asked in the comments of L's blog what his preferred super power would be. Pretty sure mine would be sleep. Just...sleeping through the night, no nightmares, no waking up and wandering around and worrying. The ability to nap instantly anywhere would be great too. I used to be able to do that. Doesn't seem to work very well anymore. 

shipping forecast

This will be short because I should be asleep...but I startled myself awake by falling out of bed, hitting the floor...and then trying to hit the floor. It hit me first. So I'm up for a while. Cleaned up a bit more glitter.

And then I remembered a long ago blog conversation about the shipping forecast and wondered if it were on youtube. It is.

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. 

caught in this isthmus of a middle state

Paralympics women's doubles medal ceremony:

Esther Vergeer's record is just amazing. I think she's got over 20 slam titles, and a few years ago she topped 400 straight wins. (I know this is late, but a lot of the tennis I'm just watching now.)

Also, there's this. I think they're fantastic, and I wish I'd had anything like that amount of determination when I got home.

Anyway, life goes on. L's told me a little about his case, which is...not good. Some of the cases he works are fairly ordinary, if murder can ever be said to be ordinary, and some, like this, leave me wondering how things like this can happen, how anyone can do these things.

Sherlock asked me what the point of life was today, which was a more complex question than I was expecting to have to answer while making cheese sandwiches on four hours of sleep. I'm afraid I didn't have a satisfactory answer for him. 

let's rewind

I think Lestrade mentioned some of these, but...

Things Sherlock tried to pack on Sunday, for your entertainment:

A smaller bag inside his bag, so that he could bring 'nearly twice as many things!' back with him as he took with him.

Spoons.

A dog.

Mycroft.

The attempt to pack his brother was mainly in retaliation for Mycroft working out how to put books in collections in the Kindle before he did. There is, at the moment, only one Kindle, because Sherlock went unexpectedly Luddite on us and declared that he only liked real books. Of course, now that we're here, and Mycroft has unlimited book access and he doesn't, he wants one desperately.

Oh, and I didn't fall asleep in the airport, whatever L says. Don't listen to him. I think I did sleep on him  for most of the flight though.

And now we're here, and it's...honestly one of the nicest places I've ever been. It's strange. I'm still not used to being able to afford proper grown up holidays that don't involve sleeping on someone's sofa. I know I ought to be; I'm certainly old enough, but it still seems faintly unreal.

I'm writing this next to the pool. You can hear wind ruffling the leaves, hear the waves rolling in, smell the salt. Just woke up from a bloody awful dream, but I don't even care as long as I don't wake up from this. Trying to decide whether L would be cranky if I woke him up for a very late night swim... 

minor suns

Back to normal, I suppose, at least until L gets his time off settled and we can get away for a while. Mrs Holmes thinks it's a good plan as well and might even join us for part of it. I don't think we'll be saying anywhere public where we're going, except that it'll have sun (fingers crossed) and hopefully a beach.

L has already painted a vivid picture of himself in (bright) yellow (short) shorts playing air guitar on a pair of jeans - I suppose not actually air guitar, but perhaps laundry guitar? Denim guitar? - when Mrs Hudson brought Laura up to see us.

I wasn't there to witness it, sadly, but L's shriek summoned me fairly quickly, so I got to see his outfit and Laura's reaction to it at least. Or I should say Laura and Mrs Hudson's reactions to it, since Mrs H seemed suitably impressed and told him his shorts fit very nicely (they do).

For those of you not of a mind to keep up with my exes, Laura is the one, as L put it, who has a tiny dog and got me arrested in Egypt. The tiny dog, Biscuit, has since passed on, but she has another now named Vespasian. She gets them from a breeder named, no joke, Mrs Strange. She is, too; I've met her.

L streaked off to put some clothes on, I made tea and introduced her to Sherlock and Mycroft, and we all talked for a while. Or four out of five of us talked, once L returned, and Sherlock glared. Later on in the evening he said she couldn't have me back, which explained the glaring. She kindly refrained from saying she wouldn't want me back, but I know it's true - neither of us would've known what to do with each other in any sort of long term romantic arrangement.

L said he was going to hold my hand possessively on the way to the restaurant, and did so, which I suppose means Sherlock wasn't the only one who was worried, though I hope L knew he had nothing to worry about. Though I'd probably feel the same if his exes showed up out of the blue as mine now seem inclined to do.

Over dinner, Laura told everyone a bit about how we met and kindly left out the fact that I couldn't pay for dinner because I'd lost nearly everything I had in a card game in some bloke's basement. That was an interesting night.

So...there was pizza and ice cream, and Sherlock was won over by garlic bread the the promise of camel riding if we ever go to Egypt. We all stayed up far too late and had a lovely time. I might see her for lunch before she goes back, but I think she's leaving fairly soon, so maybe not.

And now back to bed for hopefully an hour or so before Sherlock's up. It's been a long couple of days. I think I want to just be in bed with L more than I want to actually sleep. 

late nights

I've been waking up every half hour or so, or maybe not sleeping at all. Just drifting. Thinking, for some reason, of all the friends I've lost, one way or another. I suppose sometimes one just has nights like that. I can't say what brought it on.

I never wrote anything about visiting my parents so I thought I'd try that now, at least a bit.

It wasn't bad. If anything, it went better than I expected. They liked Mycroft, said he was a very polite and well brought up young man. They liked Lestrade. My mother said he seemed very steady and would be a good influence on me.

They were less certain about Sherlock, but they don't like a lot of noise and chaos, and Sherlock is 50% noise and 50% chaos - in the best way, of course, but they weren't seeing that. And I think Sherlock was predisposed not to be overly fond of them because he knew I was reluctant to see them. That's my fault, and I wish I could've done something differently there.

They're good people. I'm not even sure I can explain why I find it so difficult to be around them. It's...a restrained atmosphere. And I know I'm not a champion discusser of feelings, but there's a difference between not saying things and feeling you can't say them. I remember that feeling so strongly, starting with my very first memories, the undercurrent of belief that if anyone said what they were actually thinking that our world would collapse. And it was never anything that horrible, but lacking the ability to acknowledge it made every tiny thing loom over us.

Well. This is accomplishing nothing. I'm going back to bed, either to sleep or talk to L if sleep fails. Good night. Almost good morning. 

yellow car

DW posted this in the comments ages ago and I didn't see it until just now. I think I must've been on my phone, which isn't happy about playing videos, and then forgot to look when I got home. Anyway, it's the ideal thing to watch at almost five in the morning. Going to try sleeping again now. 

another day

I still have pictures of Kew, so I'll talk about that because I don't know how to talk about Red. It's not the first time I've lost a good friend this way, but it is the first time since I got home. It feels different.

Anyway. Sherlock's enormous goldfish:

poetry for insomnia

A sleepy degu that Sherlock put in my lap earlier. I think it's Argon, but I'm not sure; I had them both at one point. 

Despite the title, I was asleep for a while, and I think I will be again. You get more poetry anyway though. This is from memory because I can't find it on google, which means it's probably a bit wrong (and the punctuation is all wrong). I imagine someone with more skill than I have can find the correct version.

I am a shepherd of those sheep that climb a wall by night
One by one, until I sleep, or the black pain goes white.
Because of which I cannot see a flock upon a hill
But doubts come tittering up to me that should by day be still,
And childish griefs I have outgrown into my eyes are thrust,
Till my dull tears go dropping down like lead into the dust.

Edna St Vincent Millay again.

Sounds actually rather depressing when I write it down, but it tends to cheer me up on bad nights. Which this is not one of, oddly. L and I had a good talk earlier, and...well, that's enough, really. He gives me hope. 

song about nothing, song about sheep

I had things to post about, but I can't remember any of them right now. Irritating.

L's been asleep most of the night, thankfully, though I think I hear him moving about now. Sherlock was up briefly, but I put him back to bed and stayed with him for a while. Nightmares all round tonight, apparently. Part of it was Mycroft going back to school with things so unsettled here I think. Neither of them were happy about it.

His nightmare was about a vampire in the living room. Coffin on the floor by the sofa. He said it was just lying in there with its eyes closed looking dead. And he made sure I knew he wasn't even frightened of vampires because they're not real.

Mine, predictably, was about Afghanistan. At what point exactly do I get to go back to having nightmares about...oh, giant potatoes crushing me, or clams, or boots with teeth? You know, normal things. 

irrational is relative

RR wanted to know: John--have you any irrational fears?


I thought of this after the discussion about Orwell's books on L's blog. I never read Animal Farm, but I did read 1984 when I was eleven and afterward I gained a fairly irrational fear of rats eating my face off. Not that, if it was about to happen, I wouldn't be justified in being completely terrified, but it's not exactly likely, is it? Given I don't live in a dystopia and I'm not trying to overthrow a totalitarian regime, I feel fairly safe from being abducted off the street and fed to rats. So it was a bit silly.

And actually when I picture it now (and I can picture it more accurately than I could then, unfortunately) I find it still leaves me a little queasy.

Also bees, sort of. I'm not phobic and I can cope with them with no outward signs of distress, but I dislike them a lot more than is justifiable considering all they can do is sting me a bit. But yeah, mainly rats eating my face off. Thanks, George Orwell.

Though I should say I've read others by him (without face eating) that I quite liked. Down and Out in Paris and London and Keep the Aspidistra Flying are two of my favourite books.

leather daddy

As in the father of one of Sherlock's classmates, wearing leather, because he showed up on his bike. Nice man. He pulled up this morning to drop his son off and recognised and we chatted a bit. I think we met him briefly at Sherlock's sports day a few months ago, but the bike is new (and I suspect inspired by Lestrade's). Who knows, maybe Mrs T will be next...

I've been walking since I dropped Sherlock off, more or less. Stopping in parks and cafes and so on. Might just stay out until it's time to pick him up. L - you want to get lunch at any point? 

incomprehensible tennis blather

It's the US Open, though I've managed to miss a lot of it. I saw Federer play today, and I've no idea what was going on with some of those shots he was hitting - not just into the net, but completely wild. Really appalling. He pulled it together to win anyway.

Dolgopolov, whom I've mentioned once before, beat Karlovic, after a bit of a struggle. Pretty good match. As is the one I'm watching now - Tsonga vs Verdasco. Verdasco just hit it so hard it looked as if it knocked Tsonga right over when it his his racquet, though I imagine he was off balance already. Tsonga just won the second set though, and I expect he'll win the match. That's good, it'll make things more interesting later on.

Tomorrow...Andy Murray is playing Feliciano Lopez. Who will Judy Murray be pulling for I wonder?

Anyhow. Day out tomorrow, Sherlock back to school Monday, Mycroft off to Harrow Tuesday. It'll be...strange.