puzzlewood

We went to Puzzlewood. Here are some photos which are definitely not ours - they're much too good.

It's really...I feel like the word magical gets overused a lot, but it seems apt in this case. Even shared with a load of other people with children to entertain over half term, it was pretty amazing. Makes you wonder what it would be like to come upon it unexpectedly, alone, like walking into A Midsummer Night's Dream.

That's my opinion, anyway. Sherlock had his own ideas: i.e. it was a very large, green pirate ship, particularly the bridges. Well, obviously, right? There was a lot of stick fencing, primarily between Sherlock and the air, but at one point he called Mycroft's dogs (not present to defend themselves) blackguards, and there was a duel. Invisible flintlock pistols at (nowhere near) dawn, fairly tame piratey insults exchanged...

S: Your mum's...a hopeless landlubber!
M: She gets a bit seasick, that's all. I think that's uncalled for.

I sent the video to Mrs H. She firmly denies getting seasick at all, ever.

a few things

Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman, has been done as a radio drama, and first episode is available. It actually says it will be available soon, but it was available a few hours ago, because I listened to it. So, not sure what's going on, but I imagine it'll be back shortly. It has that guy from Cabin Pressure in it, and Christopher Lee, Bernard Cribbins, Tony Head, and a number of other impressive people.

I thought this was really nice, and practical:

whitstable

L has the day off tomorrow. I asked where he wanted to go, and he said how about Whitstable, and now we both have this song stuck in our heads. Maybe forever.




We will be buying vegetables while we're there, obviously.

marriage of true brains

Interesting photos from a professor of neuroscience, Eran Gilat.
Found while googling ice brains with Sherlock.

We had lunch with Jo and Lisa today. They seem to have every detail of their wedding firmly under control. Lisa said she started thinking about it two years ago. Lestrade and I are planning to get married this spring or summer, and we haven't even started. The more I think about it, the more it starts turning into a mental game of 'who can I afford to offend by not inviting them?'

Well...that's overstating it. Obviously, I don't want to offend anyone, and it's possible my parents may not even want to come. It's a long trip for them, and they're getting older. But once you get outside immediate family, any hypothetical guest list seems to grow exponentially until you're inviting your cousin's dentist, and there's tulle draped over everything, and ice sculptures of zombies eating ice brains.

I told Harry I thought twenty people would be more than enough, and she laughed at me until I was forced to hang up on her. But Harry's wedding was enormous, and she probably would've invited our cousin's dentist, if we had cousins. She might be right to laugh though. When I count up the people I consider immediate family these days, there's already 11 of them, and that's not counting me and Lestrade.

Texts, after I hung up on her.

Harry: you should run away and get married in vegas
Harry: by elvis
Harry: wearing elvis costumes
Harry: WHILE SKYDIVING

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. 

unpacking, a drama of innumerable parts

We left yesterday morning (Spain, as I think most of you probably guess) and got back to London yesterday afternoon. Mycroft's leaving for school this evening, so not much happened yesterday apart from travel, tantrums about leaving, laundry, un/packing, and consolation brownies. They didn't really make up for not being in Spain anymore, but they helped.

Today: more laundry, more un/packing, the realisation that there are more laundry labels to sew into Mycroft's new shirts, acquiring food one way or another, etc etc.

Sherlock brought Mrs Hudson home a stone he found that has a hole through the centre of it. He's been fascinated this trip with the way water smooths things out and wears them down. He would've brought home every piece of beach glass he found if he'd had his way.

We'll probably do another pan of brownies so Mycroft can take them to school for his friends, or, as he insists they be referred to, the people he knows there. I suppose he has a point. My mum would refer to anyone I knew from school as my friend, even people I considered my mortal enemies. Drove me mad.

I'm using my how to infuriate monkeys tag retroactively for the Gibraltar incident. 

from my phone

This is a very brief post to say that L is as amazing as you all suspected. I don't think I've ever been so surprised, despite knowing there was some sort of trip coming, and so touched that he'd go to this much trouble.

Have just herded Sherlock and Mycroft down off the roof again, with some regret. Mycroft was lying down looking at the stars, and Sherlock was playing 'star songs' on his violin. A lovely image, but a bit screechy to the ears with other people trying to sleep.

We're all back in bed now. Goodnight, everyone. 

revenge of the eighties

This is the exact face I made when I saw the shirt he's wearing in this picture.

the night before

Wednesday night: ostensibly a night like any other night.

The boys got their homework done. Lestrade got home in time for dinner. We all ate together - rather quickly in the boys' case, since Lestrade had brought along his guitar case and they were a lot more interested in that than in pasta.

He also had a box with him. A flat, white box. It filled my heart with dread, for I could guess what it contained. (And whose fault it was, Elizabeth. I won't be forgetting any time soon [this post, first comment].)

covered in bees

It's our last day here, and it's doing what it's been doing since the night I committed gross acts of bagpipery.  I feel it's some sort of judgement on me. Deb insists it's her grandfather weeping for joy at seeing (hearing) his son come home.

Mycroft is sulking in his room with Ovid, Homer, and Aeschylus (all in Greek, of course). Sherlock stuck it out with him for a while (he's learning the Greek alphabet; not sure whether to be pleased or concerned at the prospect of them sharing a common language I haven't a hope of understanding), but as ever there's only so long he can sit still.

We've been to see the bees.