it eats birds

Sherlock's finished the cover art for The Jungle Boo. As promised, it has a snake. Also a tiger. The titular Boo is a ghost named Fred. 

Me: And what are the tiger and the snake named? 

Sherlock: They don't have names, they're just Tiger and Snake. They can't talk either.

bryan's an enormous wanker

If anyone wants a short summary of how the meeting with Bryan went, see subject line. For a slightly fuller account, read on.

In addition to being an enormous wanker, Bryan's tallish, with sort of scraggly facial hair - you know, like "I haven't shaved recently, but that's because it's far too mundane and I'm much too busy with my art"? I may be reading too much into his stubble. It's possible. Actually, maybe not, because that sentence covers pretty much his entire physical appearance.

I can sum the whole experience of meeting him up in one sentence as well: I like him considerably less than people who have actually tried to kill me.

violence

L got the boys off to school this morning and then stuck around to help me get the dogs and all our stuff moved out of his flat and back to ours, so I'm writing this from the sofa and looking at a flat that's been so thoroughly cleaned that it looks...possibly better than before. L's off to work after lunch for a while and clearly worried about leaving me alone (note: I will be fine). Glad to be home.

Before all this, No was ahead in the poll nearly 2 to 1. Now it's split almost 50/50. Interesting. Related? Or just a bunch of people weighing in late? Well, I say late, but I'm sure most people don't check in on my meanderings every day.

Anyhow. Yesterday. No, the day before, right. Painkillers ate a lot of yesterday.

I was napping on the sofa, which was probably lucky. I'm sure it's why they didn't see me right away. They started smashing stuff, I woke up, they came at me. Which strikes me as a bit stupid - if they've been told to smash the place up and do it when it's empty, surely that implies their boss doesn't want them attacking the people who live there?

disjointed thoughts

I thought I might be the only one voting yes in this poll. Interesting.

Sherlock got a new plaster this morning (Ariel) and a new boss for his bit of the security team - usually I think they switch around more, but Anthea's sticking more with Mycroft since she's going off to school with him in the autumn and seems to be thinking of promoting this other young woman. I don't know for certain of course, as she tells me nothing. It'll be odd to have someone else in charge.

Mycroft and Sherlock are at music lessons this afternoon, I've got the mess from the weekend cleaned up (did not find any frogs, bugs, or assorted rodents in Sherlock's room, only a sad looking violet in a paper cup), and I'm going to read on the sofa and possibly take a nap. It's going to be amazing. And sensible, since I once again got about two hours of sleep last night. If this keeps up, I'm going to have to...do something. I don't know.

For now, absolutely everyone is out (this never happens), and the whole house is quiet. It's almost eerie. I'm tempted to record it for posterity, but I think I'll make tea instead. 

someday i'll stop posting in the middle of the night

Not tonight, however. I did sleep a bit though, and I'm going back to bed right after this.  Promise.

So, today there was this:

The Red Arrows

The boys were both very excited, and there was a lot of talk about flying planes, which degenerated into Sherlock being angry that Mycroft got to steer one once briefly when he was eight. And then we got kites that look like planes, and all differences were resolved.

insomnia

Do everyone's parents mess them up? Is it just inevitable?

Anyway, I've been watching Would I Lie to You? Here's the one with John Barrowman I've just seen, pretty good. What I haven't been doing is sleeping, obviously. At least tomorrow's Saturday, so I can take the boys to the park and let them run me around till I ought to be ready to fall asleep in the grass. That sounds nice actually. Providing it doesn't pour again.

Things are going tolerably well on the chore front. I have to stand over Sherlock to get him to make his bed, but that's in no way surprising and at least he does it. Maybe I can get them in on making a chart for the fridge over the weekend. I know, the excitement never stops, right?

L's working tomorrow, maybe Sunday too.

Maybe I'll ring the boys' mum, ask if she wants to come along with us. 

definition of terms

Recent events have led me to believe this might be helpful.

John Watson to English Dictionary

1. "Minor", adj.
As applied to injuries: highly unlikely to be life threatening; somewhere around a 2 or 3 on a scale of 1 to death. Still carries the usual risks of infection, etc., and should be treated promptly if at all practical.

2. "Fight", n.
What my parents had at odd intervals when I was growing up. A sort of brief cold war of venomous looks and muttered comments, often followed by long nights at the pub (dad) and excessive baking (mum). Excuse me, I just need to get the brownies out of the oven...

the language of flowers

Look what I found this morning (by which I mean afternoon, which is when I had breakfast), tucked behind the toaster. Sneaky bastard.

Greg tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep as he imagined what John might be doing now - sleeping, expression soft, curled warm under a duvet. Pyjamas? Naked. Who dreamed of anyone in pyjamas?

His hand slid downwards, reaching out...

nescafe, wounds

For those wondering what we were talking about in the comments earlier, Anthony Stewart Head (of...well, so many things, but people seem to know him mostly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer now, and from Merlin) in a compilation of Nescafe ads.



I'm just waiting for Sally to drive L home. (Or not. Apparently he's given her the slip.) He wanted to know how one knew, hypothetically, when stitches were necessary. She said he'd cut himself, he implied someone else had done it for him. "Just a bit of a slice," he says. We'll see.

And here I thought the big excitement of my day would be my ex-girlfriend stopping by out of the blue. Possibly more on that subject after I look at L's hand. 

odds and ends

All of these things are unrelated. To start with, here's a peculiar plant Sherlock and I saw on the way to school; no idea what it is:

1. The book poll is over, and The Jungle Boo is the winner. Sherlock says he'll do cover art for it, though he would've preferred to draw three men in a boa, but "this one can still have snakes because it's in a jungle."

an addition to the family

You've heard about the ice cream yesterday from Lestrade, but I need share these pictures before we get on to the exciting news.

As you can see, they keep the little brains on that shelf. They go in the zombie ice cream. 

bad romance

I am putting this whole thing below the cut because none of it is appropriate for work, children, or anyone with a modicum of good taste. But it is hilarious.

a thing you might want to watch

I suppose I'll be offering this one without comment as well, since I can't think of anything useful to say. There are bits of it on youtube, but not the bits I wanted to show you.



-



I don't know if this embedding deal is actually going to work (it's not showing up on post preview), so I'm going to link it as well.

Inside Afghanistan part 1

Inside Afghanistan part 2

also presented without comment

All right, almost without comment. Except to say that he brought it on himself by laughing till I thought he might actually collapse, at the very thought of my moustache. Which was a fine, fine moustache, I'll have you know.

our shopping list

Danger - now you're making the whole Tesco thing sound worse than it could be! I demand examples!

What I will be buying at Tesco today, offered without explanation:

denture cream
lube
honey
marmite
cucumbers (5)
disney princess plasters (Jasmine or Mulan, NOT Ariel Ariel for Lestrade)
clothes pegs

To be fair, the majority of this particular list is not L's fault. 

lighthouse

I love lighthouses. 

All of them. But especially old ones. With those massive Fresnel lenses. 

rainy days

We had storms yesterday that were, in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, like someone was pouring the Atlantic Ocean over us, through a sieve. Just buckets of rain, the kind where it hits so hard it bounces back at you, so if you're out in it, your umbrella does you essentially no good at all since you're getting it from above and below, and it's trying to jump up your trousers as well as run down your collar.

dramatic tadpoles

The tadpoles are growing. This is actually from a few weeks ago, so they're probably much bigger now. I'm still refusing to let Sherlock take one home with him because I'm not at all certain how to keep them alive. Maybe I can get his teacher to do it as a class project.

school daze

Friday. It was a big day. It started, for me, at 3.30am when Sherlock snuck into our room to ask if it was time to go to school yet, and couldn't he just bring Lestrade with him in the morning and then he could stay all day and they could study together? Sherlock would teach him all about Set and Osiris and Anubis and also fish. (It's quite an eclectic course of studies at his school.)

six months

I'm not especially good at keeping track of dates. This one probably would've slipped by me if L hadn't pointed it out, but it has, as you all know by now, been six months since we met. Plus or minus a day or two. Most of my relationships made it to the three month mark and then fizzled out.

A few made it to five. Those tended to explode spectacularly - maybe the pressure of keeping their mouths shut for those extra two months on the subject of everything I was doing wrong? Of course, mainly what I was doing wrong was being in another country and not at home with them.

So I'm pretty happy it's been six months and Lestrade shows no sign of getting sick of me.

just say no

Dear Mrs Hudson and Amy,

I will not be knitting anything at all, thank you! I know how you knitting people are with the peer pressure. You should've seen my grandmother trying to get Harry into it. It was like she was trying to get her to join a cult. No, despite the many jumpers and scarves I could (probably fail to) make, I think I'll steer clear of this particular hobby.

I still think I need a job and somehow I sense that L isn't serious about taking me to work with him - I'd probably just end up doing his paperwork anyway while he went out and did all the fun stuff. Volunteer work. Or maybe I'll write a book.

Although the knitted skeleton is pretty cool.

a flying update

We're still out having more fun than you are (I don't know this for a fact, but I feel pretty confident about it because we're having a lot of fun), but I've been looking for an appropriate ecard on and off for Lestrade, and I think I've finally found the perfect one:

the most trouble

Hi. Sorry about the lack of updating. I'm afraid my brain isn't working properly the past...oh, week or so. As Lestrade has said, Sherlock's been...difficult. I think it's good though. A bit. In a way. At least he feels secure enough to act like a complete brat? And it's not all the time. He was very sweet on the way to school this morning, for no reason I could see. Held my hand and talked about learning to ride a bike in the summer and reminded me when we got to school that he's "the most trouble, right? I am, right?" Heh. I think he's proud of it. 

Anyhow, in poll news, Three Men in a Boa won by a landslide. The new one is up. Sherlock's said he'll do cover art for the one that eventually wins... "If it's a good one and if I feel like it. Maybe." 

more interesting with the final letter knocked off

Some of the book titles people came up with in the comments were so good I thought I'd put them in the poll. There's fifteen (if you did more than one I picked the one I liked best - I know, it's terribly objective and scientific), so I'll do them in three sets of five, and then I suppose the final three to find the ultimate winner. Maybe there could be a prize? I don't know what though. Let me know if you've got any ideas.

I hardly know how to talk about this weekend. Lestrade's been more amazing than usual. He doesn't seem to even realize that most people wouldn't have had that talk with Sherlock, that most people would just about tolerate the boys, if that, much less tell them stories and arrange fake crime scenes for them and try to help them grow up. I'm not sure he even sees there's anything for me to thank him for, and perhaps it's silly to thank him for being who he is, but I am incredibly thankful for that nevertheless.

panda lestrade

Sherlock's artistic talent has struck again. He's done a rendition of Lestrade's current rather unfortunate appearance. The detail is astonishing. This will obviously be going on the fridge as well.

straight on till morning

We were on the beach all night. It was chilly, but there were dogs and children and blankets to keep me warm. Mrs H must be impervious to cold. She kept wandering down the beach barefoot, in and out of the surf, blanket round her shoulders, but that was all.

mystery train

Well, we've had an eventful day. If you want to be completely accurate, it started last night around 23.30 last night with Sherlock's comment re: Mycroft's school and how "stupid" it is. How he got my phone again, I have no idea, but I'm starting to think about getting a lockbox of some sort into which all electronic devices will be placed at bedtime.

I didn't see the comment till this morning, and I wish I had as it would've provided me with some warning of what I was in for. To be honest, I did see this coming - just not so quickly. Even if Sherlock and Mycroft were still busy hating each other, I think Sherlock would be upset to see him go away to school. Lestrade pointed out that Mycroft's been the one constant in Sherlock's life, and he's quite right.

cake or death

So, only two people in the last poll said they were planning to join the crowds for the royal wedding. I meant to ask for a firsthand report, but then Lestrade said they were both him - and obviously he wasn't working after all.

We did watch it, as Lestrade said, with varying amounts of interest. Mrs Hudson was at the top, with special cake and hat, then Mycroft and I, and L and Sherlock at the bottom (though Sherlock's interest in the cake was definitely keen). To be fair, L's interest in anything at that point still wasn't terribly high. A couple of Anthea's minions snuck up to join us briefly as well, though she was up to chase them back down pretty sharply. I've never seen her roll her eyes so hard.

Anyhow, the next poll is for a far more important event - Mycroft's 13th birthday! It's coming right up, May 10th, and of course the final say on cake will be his, but he said I should do the poll anyway. "Ask the internet," were his exact words. It's becoming a popular phrase around here.

tuesday

Everyone goes back to their normal lives tomorrow - L to work, Sherlock to school, and Mycroft is fizzing with quiet joy because Ms P is finally back from South Africa. He's been missing her, or whatever madly advanced astrophysics they're doing, or both. I was going to feel guilty keeping L home today, but he was so wrecked after the swimming yesterday that I think it's completely justified.

It was an uphill battle keeping up with Sherlock. He can move pretty fast, even in bright orange water wings, and we nearly lost him a few times. Once when I caught up with him, he was having a splash fight with two other boys his age (also be-winged, which made him feel a bit better I think).

sturgeon?

Well, he wasn't joking about the nightmares. The latest must've been quite something. He kicked me straight out of bed with a well placed foot to the arse. I woke up halfway down and manage to roll when I hit the ground. More or less. Lestrade sat straight up, said, "Sturgeon!" and went immediately back to sleep. Can't wait to hear him explain that one.

He seemed perfectly peaceful after that, so I left him to it. Myself, I need some tea and bad late night television before I give sleep a second chance. It's nice, actually. The quiet, and the sitting very still. My "brutal cleaning regimen," as Lestrade put it, has been keeping me pretty busy. It was the thought of Sherlock picking this thing up. I think he would've ended up in hospital, apart from being completely miserable of course. I'd worry less about Mycroft, but only slightly.

Lestrade, I have to say, must have the constitution of a horse. Is that a real phrase? Constitution of a horse? Sounds wrong, but I'm not really awake. I hope the other man's doing as well as he is, and that his wife's keeping him in bed. That sounds entirely wrong, but you know what I mean. God, maybe Harry's right and I actually do worry about everyone.

Right, back to bed. I'll say this for his fever - it keeps my feet warm. 

to sally

Hope you see this - whatever they're planning on him doing for the royal wedding, they'd better find someone else to do it. He'll probably feel well enough by then to insist he's fine to work, but he'll be wrong. This sort of thing is really hard on the body. Thought I ought to let you know as soon as possible.