that's why we don't hug kale

At the supermarket a few days ago, I saw a little girl and her mother. The girl, about four, was helping unload things. Her mother handed her some kale, and she hugged it, which was rather sweet, but caused it to slip out of its plastic bag and land on the floor. Her mum helped her get it back in the bag, and then said, And that's why we don't hug kale.

I have a feeling some of the conversations around their house may rival ours for oddness.

Caves full of massive crystals, near Chihuahua, Mexico

Sherlock brought his bloodstain pattern book to school today, which in retrospect was perhaps not the best idea. I didn't even think of it this morning when he asked, but Mrs N had words with me after school. Though apparently the problem was more that the kids found it fascinating than that anyone was upset by it. Some of their parents may not appreciate it.

His parents evening is tomorrow, and while it won't go quite as smoothly as Mycroft's, I don't think we have any unpleasant surprises in store. It does make me feel slightly sorry for my own parents though, thinking of them going to these things for Harry and I. Getting told Harry was smoking or leaving school after lunch and not coming back, or that I was starting fights again (which wasn't true, I never started them). It's like Judgement Day.

I've also got another interview coming up, speaking of judgement. Wish me luck. 

wedding day

We're just back from Jo and Lisa's wedding. Sherlock fell asleep while we were still there and has been put to bed without waking enough to do more than grumble that he wasn't tired at all before dropping off again. Mycroft has retired to his room to be alone and hopefully get some sleep as well. He was, as always, a perfect gentleman, and must've danced with at least five little girls under the age of six, which takes fortitude.

I got to dance with L, which was lovely, and gave me some hope for our wedding, since I managed not to trip over either his feet or my own. Didn't even feel like I would, which I'll give him the credit for.

During the course of the evening, L managed to balance on my head a veil, a flower from the cake (the cake was delicious, by the way), and a button someone had lost. That's just the things I know about, of course. I dread to think what he'll manage for our own wedding.

And of course we got to hear him play. It was beautiful, no other word for it. Such a depth of feeling, too. I wish you could've heard it. I was, and am, ridiculously proud of him, and I know it made Jo and Lisa very happy, you could see it all over their faces.

victory, of a sort

Sodium acetate crystals.




But I suppose everyone's more interested in an explanation of the picture of me that L posted...

L was closest with his guess about it being in Egypt. I'd gone to see Laura and she was out at some event for the museum, so I was wandering around Al Azhar park. Met this guy who worked at the US Embassy, we had dinner, met up with some of his friends, played poker. Played some more poker. Played more poker than was advisable, especially after I ran out of money, which didn't take long.

I lost the watch my parents gave me when I graduated from medical school, and that was about it for things of any value I had on me. It wasn't too bad though, considering one of the other guys lost his fancy gold cuff links, and the third lost his car. I still think our host was cheating, but at least he was a good sport about it. He said he'd let us bet our clothes against what we'd lost...and gave us dresses out of his wife's wardrobe to wear so we could ante up. I suppose the entertainment value made up for the lack of monetary value. Maybe? It seemed logical at three in the morning. I won my watch back, the other guy won his car back, but the cuff links stayed with our host.

And then we watched videotapes of old American football matches while they tried to explain the rules to me...until I fell asleep. It didn't take long.

The picture is from the next morning when Laura came to fetch me. I was only slightly hungover and still triumphant about getting my watch back. I put my own clothes back on shortly thereafter, but not in time to avoid being seen the owner of the dress. Luckily for me (and her husband) she had a good sense of humour. Laughed so hard her orange juice came out her nose. 

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... 

hot air

Remember when Sherlock was so keen to tie himself to a bunch of balloons and become airborne? Mythbusters proved it would take more balloons than any reasonable person would want to inflate just to float a toddler, but I saw this today...

Half that desk is supported by balloons. Ones that, according to the article, "were genuinely air-tight and would never degrade, and Caltech were called upon to supply a Heluim/Hydrogen hybrid gas with an atomic weight 150 times lighter than Helium alone." 

Not that we could get any, but that is pretty amazing.

previously on the moor

Mycroft and I had tea and an interesting conversation about people willingly giving up their privacy in exchange for the opportunity to vent to strangers all over the internet. At the time, I didn't think that applied to me at all...

Right, let's see...Baskerville Hall, excellent tea, bruised shins, what happened next? Oh yes. Sherlock came back just before dinner, I sent him upstairs to clean himself up, and he never came back. I had dinner with Mycroft, and then spent the entire bloody night looking for him, with no success. 

That house is massive, and I never did manage to search the whole place. If I'd had any sense I would've just waited in the kitchen with Mrs Hudson. As it turned out, he'd been in to get a sandwich from her and then took off out to the moor again. She gave me breakfast and also the paper, in which I read that something was killing people out there. 

I followed Sherlock, obviously. Slowly. Found him near one of the big tors. I think he may have kicked me again, can't quite remember. It started pouring, we shared his sandwich, and then we fell asleep in an alcove in the rock. 

It was dark when we woke up. Went outside. Sherlock said he saw something and took off. I saw it too. Didn't know what it was, just that it was glowing and growling and looked like something that had been on its way straight to Hell and took a slight detour to terrorise Dartmoor. I think I caught up to Sherlock and grabbed him just about the same time Anthea showed up out of nowhere and took a shot at the thing. It ran off. 

After that, it was a long and thankfully unexciting walk back to the house. Sherlock fell asleep. I didn't know it at the time, but I'd left my cane at the tor, which I would come to regret in the morning. That night I was just grateful to be in a bed and was certain the next day would go far more smoothly. [insert the hollow laughter of hindsight here]

snow forever

It did not snow forever, despite Sherlock's hopes. His plan was that Mycroft would have to stay home tomorrow because he couldn't get back to Harrow, L wouldn't be able to get in to work, and we would build a massive snow fort in the middle of the road.

Mycroft is, sadly, back at school now, along with Anthea and the hounds, but we all had a nice day at the park, with snow balls, peculiar snow sculptures, snow angels, and a particular DI who clearly wanted me to tackle him into the snow or he wouldn't have stuffed a handful of icy slush down my shirt while he was kissing me. There wasn't really enough for an entire snowman, but Sherlock did attempt a snow pancreas. It wasn't bad, considering the limitations of his medium. He fed it to the dogs when he was done.

Mycroft and I watched bits of the England vs Scotland match yesterday. England won, first time at Murrayfield in years, so I'm pleased, my father is probably cranky about it, and my grandfather would be livid. Mycroft, I think, doesn't quite see the point of team sports, and Sherlock said it was more interesting when L and I were playing, which I took as a compliment until I remembered how keen he was to see a broken bone up close.

Back to normal tomorrow for everyone. 

this is going to be weird

A little over a year ago, Mrs Holmes picked me up in a black car for the strangest job interview I've ever had. I keep putting off writing about it, and what happened after, because...well, I don't quite know how. The whole thing seems like a film, or a very odd dream.

She sent me a contract that night. I signed it. A car picked me up the next day and drove me to Devon, to Baskerville Hall. It's large. Really large. Composed mainly of stone, spookiness, and charming crenellation through which people can shoot arrows at you if they so choose. The staff turned out to meet me - Mrs Hudson, her husband, and Anthea, who was posing as a maid at the time.

Mycroft welcomed me, shook my hand, asked Mr Hudson to take my bag upstairs. Beginning a tradition, Sherlock kicked me sharply in the shin and ran off.

I worried, obviously. Five year olds shouldn't be allowed to run off into man-eating swamps. But my leg was a lot worse then than it is now; I used a cane all the time, and I didn't have a prayer of catching him. I had enough trouble with the stairs.

Mycroft and I had tea and an interesting conversation about people willingly giving up their privacy in exchange for the opportunity to vent to strangers all over the internet. At the time, I didn't think that applied to me at all...

*

Anyway. More another time, if I remember, or if you have questions.

In other news, I found out from his teacher today that Sherlock wants to boycott the school Christmas show because, shockingly, some of the children don't quite sing on key... This should be interesting. 

history

I imagine you've read or inferred most of this, but I'm hoping it'll get clearer in my head if I write it out.

I got a call from Mycroft's school a little before two. When I got there, Mycroft's housemaster talked to me for a while before they'd let me see him. I wasn't really listening at that point. They'd already said he 'wasn't badly hurt' which meant he was hurt, and... I might've been a little rude.

He and the other boy involved were in the headmaster's office, sitting as far apart from each other as they could get. Mycroft: black eye, bruised knuckles, cut on his cheek, not deep, probably from something on the ground. The other boy: bloody nose, split lip, likewise bruised knuckles. They were outside, between classes, when it happened. The other boy said something unpleasant about L and I. It escalated. Mycroft hit him.

Mycroft wouldn't tell me what he said. When I pushed it, he told me I didn't need to know. I think he was trying to protect me.

corner gas

That show I linked to yesterday and how I know it exists:

About two years ago, five Canadians and I accidentally spent Thanksgiving (Canadian version) at FOB Delaram. It used to be a Soviet base, and there's a tower they built that we spent a good part of the night in, instead of the beds that had been scrounged up for us. Why? Because someone had vodka, and where else do you drink vodka?

Things that had also been scrounged for my edification: pasta with cheese and gravy (chips were unavailable), small packets of fake maple syrup that got mixed with the vodka after we'd drunk enough to think that was a good idea (it wasn't), and fossilised nanaimo bars from someone's mum.  The pasta was actually not bad. I liked it better than poutine. You may all make horrified faces at me now.

And someone had Corner Gas on a USB drive. I have very hazy memories of watching most of series one that night, passing the USB drive from laptop to laptop as batteries surrendered under the onslaught of  Brent being hilarious, Wanda being frighteningly smart, and Hank being...Hank. It was quite an experience.

The next day they went on their way, and I went on to Bastion, and googled Corner Gas. It was conveniently on youtube, and a good thing too, because I don't think they ever made region 2 DVDs of it. There you go. Happy belated Thanksgiving, Canada. 

celebrity

RR wanted to know about any celebrity encounters I might've had, and Random Anon Lurker wanted teenage celebrity crushes (although that might've been meant just for L, but I'm answering anyway).

Last one first: Humphrey Bogart, Katherine Hepburn, Robin Sparkles (shut it), Angelina Jolie, DeForest Kelley...and I don't know if fictional characters count, but if they do, then Archie Goodwin and Lily Rowan, both from the Nero Wolfe mysteries. It's an odd collection, I know.

I don't know what else to say about the crushes - I certainly have no explanation for them - but if you have specific questions, you're welcome to ask.

Celebrity encounters... Well, there was one with someone you've never heard of, but for an Army surgeon, he was a celebrity. He'd been around forever, gone just about everywhere, awarded the George Cross for retrieving five injured soldiers from a mine field all on his own, nearly died of his wounds afterward. Basically, he was who I wanted to be when I grew up.

He was with us briefly in Kosovo, pre-haunted-mental-hospital. They'd sent him to do a report on medicine in modern warfare. That was about the time they were finally making adjustments in procedure for the fact that we were treating as many local civilian casualties as military - if not more.

He was very quiet. Barely there, really. It was funny, because the stories I'd heard about him made him seem like the sort of person who could fill up a room just by walking into it, if you know what I mean. He seemed very old to me at the time - in fact, I think he was about five years older than I am now. He watched everything, listened to everyone. I think I ended up telling him a lot more about myself than I meant to, almost certainly more than he wanted to hear.

I don't know if I'd call him kind, exactly, but he was very present. Mrs Holmes reminds me a bit of him actually, in that respect. I'm still honoured to have met him. 

fast track

Not a requested topic, but you're going to hear about my first bike riding lesson anyway. We went to Hendon, where Lestrade got his police training, and he convinced them to let us borrow their training track for a bit.

He went round a few times first, to take advantage of the lack of a speed limit show me how it was done. No wheelies, though. Mycroft's Housemaster clearly made an impression.

Then there was the lecture portion of the outing, with each point repeated several times and a Very Serious Expression. I'm relatively sure he was more worried about me than the bike. Probably.

And then I got to have a go.

It was brilliant. I want to go back. And then I want my own.

Maybe next time L will make fewer anxious and horrified faces. I wasn't going that fast. 

ft. zinderpillow

L's still asleep. In a last ditch effort to keep Sherlock from waking him, I suggested we build a pillow fort. Sherlock needed the concept explained to him, and then he got this look of wonder on his face and I knew I was in trouble.

An hour later, all the furniture is pushed round to serve as walls, every pillow in the flat is employed as either floor or interior dividing walls except the ones L is currently sleeping on, and all manner of blankets, sleeping bags, rugs, things... Lots of things. Everything, possibly. It's like a tornado went through a soft furnishings shop and dumped it all here.

Only it was a very careful tornado and seems to have laid everything out in a maze. I know Sherlock and Mycroft are in here with me somewhere. But where? 

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.

it owns you

Mycroft put AIM on Lestrade's laptop. He messaged me from work today and the result is below. Sometimes I think we really should try to act more like adults.

lestrade
I JUST HEARD AN AD FOR A CAR CALLED THE RC Z
lestrade
IT SOUNDS LIKE ARSEY Z