the honest sausage

We went to get Mycroft's school things today, as planned. Anthea drove, Mrs H and Mycroft chatted on the way, and I tried to deflect Sherlock's attempts to ask her if we could have ice cream every five minutes. At the shop, Mrs H handled everything while I hung back and attempted to look as if I hadn't put on a ridiculously posh accent last time I was there. I'm pretty sure he recognised me anyway, but maybe he looks at everyone like that.

We got...everything. And picked up the laundry labels, which we ordered a while back. Mrs H said she could get someone else to sew them on, and I declined because...I'm an idiot? Sort of regretting it now, but not entirely.

like a very small boss

Mycroft's out with the dogs, Sherlock's drawing, and I think L's seriously considering a trip to the Yard to fetch more paperwork. Carla and Mycroft hugged each other goodbye, which was very sweet; Mycroft is not generally a hugger. Sherlock gave Paul a sheet of paper with notes on...something. If it was a stink bomb, I'm very very sorry, Nicky.

I'm going to Tesco soon, because we have literally nothing in the fridge except condiments, and even Lestrade can't make a meal out of jam, mustard, and siracha. First, the substance of what Sherlock said to L's mum. L said he didn't mind if I shared it.

It started with Nicky explaining to Paul and Carla that their grandmother wasn't feeling very well, to which Sherlock's response was, "She smells like alcohol. Lestrade said if you drink alcohol a lot it makes you sick and Harry said it makes you throw up, is she going to throw up?"

off again

Writing this from bed while L delivers his paperwork back to the Yard, though I may end up posting it later if he's back soon. Mycroft's still asleep. Pretty sure he was up till all hours playing with the new computer. Sherlock woke up when L left, got in bed with me, and fell back asleep. He's a very small lump under the covers. I suspect L will sleep most of the way to Nicky's. It's going to be a sleepy day.

It'll be lovely to see Nicky and everyone again and to meet L's mum. Speaking of which - thanks, Harry, for making meeting our family sound so dire in that comment last night. I'm sure it won't be that bad.

Hm. What else. Oh, corset beat Dorset - not really surprised, given how enthusiastic some of you seem to be about corsets. I'm having a hard time thinking up the next poll. Any ideas? General themes? Also, sorry I haven't been answering comments so much lately, I'll try to do better once this little bit of madness is over. 

official

So, to sum up: Lestrade's moving in with us, officially, and letting out his flat, which is wonderful, and I get what I suspect is a really stupid grin whenever I think about it.

We had a very nice holiday, full of sand and sea and stars, but mainly, I've discovered in doing the wash today, sand. Phobos and Deimos keep looking mournfully at Mycroft, as if to ask why he moved the sea and all those convenient strangers they could terrify into giving them bits of sandwich.

Mycroft's off to school on the 6th, which is suddenly very very soon, so we're starting to get organised for that. His mum sent him the new computer he wanted. Here's a picture with a tea mug for scale:

head on

I never thought I was over the nightmares. Just thought I might be able to depend on my subconscious to save the screaming ones for home. Where I have...walls and things. And there aren't other campers quite nearby to wake up and require an explanation of who's just been bloodily murdered.

No, no, nothing to worry about, ladies and gentlemen. Just me and my permanently buggered psyche.

Everyone was very kind, of course. My three in particular. Sherlock made sure I had Spider, and Mycroft offered me one of his dogs, and Lestrade was...Lestrade. Solid and reassuring and doing his best to look be calm, which I imagine was fairly difficult, given how he'd been woken up.

I ought to be back in the tent with him now. I will be soon. Just needed some air. And apparently to unload on the internet re: current utter self loathing. But it's actually really chilly and I'm not wearing shoes, so. Off I go. 

postcards from the edge (of dorset)

Swimming was freezing and wonderful, both. Had to haul Sherlock out eventually or he would've stayed in till he turned blue. He and Mycroft are looking for wildlife now. I'm hoping Mycroft's sense of self preservation will make him stop Sherlock from loading his pockets with whatever they find, since it'll be in their part of the tent until we leave.

The dogs love it. They may abandon us and stay here to swim (they don't seem to notice the cold) and run and beg strangers for bits of their picnic lunches. They're usually far too well mannered to bother strangers at home, but they seem to know we're on holiday, so all bets are off. Mycroft kept having to call them back and apologize. Deimos in particular seems to forget he's actually rather large and threatening even when he wags his tail and tries to sit in people's laps. Maybe especially then.

Heading back for dinner soon. It's early, but there's something about the sheer volume of fresh air that really brings on an appetite. 

in trouble again

I'll start with the bad news - Lestrade's flat was broken into tonight. They took about what you'd expect them to take, electronics and so on. The place is a mess, things tossed about, but not too bad apart from that. We sat around and ate takeaway while it was dusted extremely thoroughly for fingerprints, and now we're all home again. L's asleep already, and the boys are now too.

Going back one day...as Lestrade said, we won the match, had a great time afterward in the pub, right up until it was time to go when Sherlock decided it would be a great idea to throw a fit over whether he got to sleep in the fort or not. Which was...

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? 

practice makes...embarrassment

Rugby practice went all right. On the whole. I'll just quote Lestrade to start with:

Picture the scene - 20 odd cops, practising rugby...

Sherlock swinging around, holding hands with Sal, wearing shorts, t shirt...and his wings. And in a quiet moment he chooses to shout 'when are you all going to KISS, like John and Lestrade do when they play with each other in the park??'

Most of the time I don't think twice about the things he says and it takes L to remind me that it would really be better if he didn't say a lot of them quite so loudly and in public. This one...I was fortunate to have a coating of mud that probably disguised the colours I was turning. Except for the tips of my ears, Mycroft informed me. Thanks, Mycroft. 

L was, of course, also covered in mud, but it looked good on him. (Wait, he'll now accuse me of harbouring secret mud wrestling desires.) 

Anyway, I'm glad, in a way, because it was odd not having anyone but Sally know we were together, and they certainly do now. Now I suspect they're wondering where L was hiding Mycroft and Sherlock all those years. And, according to one conversation I overheard, if Sherlock is a boy or a girl. 

I was going to say more but I forget what it was and also L's both commented and texted to tell me to go to sleep, so I'll give it another go. I have Alice the Spider to keep me company of course, but it's not quite the same. 

waiting

Lestrade's out in the madness that's currently Croydon. The boys were asleep before he left. Small blessings. I'm not, obviously. Nor likely to be. He said to call if I was worried, which is clearly absurd since I'd be calling every five minutes.

I don't know. There's nothing else to say really. I suppose I should at least try to sleep. Watching the news footage certainly isn't doing any good. 

malmaison

Just a short post before we leave, with some pictures.

This is where we stayed. It used to be a prison and does still look like one from the outside, but it's much nicer inside now, as the pictures on their site show and mine mostly don't. However, here is the shower, which is very nice indeed:

birthday dinner

Happy birthday, Gregory Martin Finchley Lestrade. I love you, and I'm so lucky to have met you.

Even if you did think I was a serial killer at the time.

rugby

All right, so...I still like it, but rugby at 40 is significantly different than rugby at 25, which is the last time I played with any kind of regularity. Still, with Sally in charge, I feel like we'll have a decent chance. Definitely need to be more regular with the running though. And possibly other things.

...But not until Sunday, because right now I feel like I've been stepped on by something large. I think his name was Ian.

After that, the park, Sherlock and Mycroft running around and trying out newly acquired rugby skills on each other while I lay very still in the grass. Ice cream. Mycroft got vanilla and chocolate, Sherlock got mint and chocolate, and I got something called goji berry...I don't know, it was pink and nicely tangy.

And then we came home. And, I know you'll all be shocked to learn, I cooked actual food. 

the four horsemen ride to victory

It was close, but the four horsemen of the apocalypse are apparently going to win the NSY vs City rugby match, according to you lot. I hope you all realise you'll be next. I mean, I don't think they're going to stop at one match. At the very least they'll go for the Six Nations Championship, and then it'll all be rains of toads, plagues of locusts, and general doom.

We went to visit Eton today. Because of the reschedule, we were the only ones being shown around, not that there weren't enough of us to fully occupy our poor tour guides, especially when Sherlock started asking about the quantity and quality of their dead things in jars vs Harrow's dead things in jars. The consensus was that their dead things in jars were of roughly equal scientific interest, but Sherlock's still declared his intention to go to Eton because he's "not going to Mycroft's stupid school."

combine harvester

For L's entertainment, more Greg the Florist. He won't talk about the case he's working on at all, so it must be pretty bad. Hope this manages to cheer him up a bit...

As they walked up the road, towards Greg's flat, above the shop, Greg turned to John. "So, before you gave in to your life long urge to be a florist, what did you fill your time doing?"

"I repaired farm machinery."

"What, really? Threshers and--"

"Combine harvesters, yes, don't sing the song."

due to some confusion

Explanations:

1) In the poll, NSY = New Scotland Yard (i.e. Lestrade & Co.). City of London is the City police force. The four horsemen are, of course, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, but they're only reserve players.

2) Innie asked on L's post yesterday if I had any tattoos, and I admitted that I had, once, but it was small, and then I got shot, and what now remains is a scar and maybe a fleck or two of black ink. L guessed what it was (eventually, with some help). A target, a bullseye. To which everyone's natural response was, "Seriously?" Yeah. What can I say? That's the way my life works.

I said I'd explain how that happened.

harvey the fish

Hi this is Sherlock again. I said I would draw Harvey the fish's sarcophagus so here it is. It has Isis on it and the other parts are mostly from Tutankhamun's mummy case, the inside one with the colours, not the just gold one, even though Harvey wasn't a pharaoh or even a king.

muffins vs cupcakes

The muffins vs cupcakes poll came out very nearly even, 56 to 57. Cupcakes won by a hair. Must be the icing. I should hope the outcome of the new poll is a forgone conclusion, if not the outcome of the actual match, but as always, vote early, vote often.

To those being confused by the comments on L's post, Blogger's comment limit for one page is 200, and we've reached it over there. You can see the new comments by clicking through to page two of them.

Mycroft's school visits have been rescheduled due his mum being...somewhere. I thought she said Antarctica, but that seems unlikely. Anyway, Harrow's on Friday now, and I'm not sure about Eton.

For once L's asleep on me instead of me on him. Nice. We ought to work it like this more often. And I have at least another hour before anyone jumps on me. Probably. So, back to sleep. 

summer

Yesterday was the first official day of the summer holidays. Weekends don't count, of course. Already I understand why my mother was so relieved when Harry and I went back to school. It's not that I don't like having them around, but a forty year old trying to keep up with a five year old is just an unfair contest. I thought I had things structured pretty well, but clearly I was wrong.

I resorted to letting them play dog bowling indoors.

another guest post

Hello. This is Mycroft. I can't sleep, and I don't want to wake anyone up, so I thought I'd talk to the internet. Why not? Everyone else is doing it.

I wanted to say something anyway. Thank you. You've all been really kind to me, and generous in speaking about your own experiences at school, and I haven't replied, mostly. Because I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say a lot of the time.

It helps, to hear so many people agree that things will improve eventually, even if I'm not sure I believe it.

It's five now. Sherlock will probably wake up soon, so I'm not sure there's any point in trying to go back to sleep. We're going to go to the motorcycle shop today, where John got his protective clothing, so that I can get some too. I didn't think I'd ever ride a motorcycle in my life, so I suppose some things can change. I'm going to go downstairs now and make tea and wait for everyone else to wake up.


I probably won't know what to say to the responses to this post either. But anyway, thank you.

sports day pt 2

Right, I believe with left off with L publicly groping me, I mean patting my bum. The groping came later.

He was extremely popular with the mums - all of them, not just Y. I don't think he noticed, which was really quite sweet. That was no doubt partly due to the focus with which he was pushing his own agenda...

A: John tells us you're a police inspector. Tell the truth, is that how you two met? Were you arresting him?*
L: Oh, that's a long, long story.
B: We've got time!
L: Nah, really, I think I have to go get tied to Danger** here. But I'll tell you all about it later. You'll be there when we dig the frog pond, right?

They all agreed they would. We'll see who actually shows up.

sports day pt 1

Today was sports day at Sherlock's school, and a good time was had by all, despite the rain. The kids were there from the usual time in the morning, though Sherlock says they didn't manage much in the way of lessons. More running around excitedly and hindering the older children who were helping the teachers set up, I suspect.

Mycroft and I got there about ten minutes late. In those ten minutes Sherlock had consumed, by stealth and cunning, a quantity of cake that Mrs T found so alarming that the first words out of her mouth when she saw me were, "He mustn't have any more!" A variety of things Sherlock potentially shouldn't have any more of flashed through my mind, so I was actually quite relieved when she explained.

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.

home

None of us slept especially well last night, which meant a lot of lazing around in pyjamas this morning. It also meant that, when L called to say he was back and just unsticking his knee so he could get off the bike, the boys were dozing on the sofa, and I, when I went down to help him with that, was still in my jimjams. Just the bottoms, all right? And a perfectly normal t-shirt, such as anyone might wear in public. Possibly slippers as well. They're very sturdy slippers, almost like shoes.

Anyway. We've got him back now, along with rather more of his native accent then we're used to hearing. Not sure if that just happened or if he was trying to sound less...London-y. He got about five seconds of peace between coming in the door and Sherlock waking up, and I don't think Sherlock's stopped talking since. L's on the sofa between them now with an arm around each of them, and it doesn't look like he minds in the least.

this is sherlock

Hi I'm writing this instead of John because John is talking to the fridge man. We put all the vegetables in Mrs Hudson's fridge yesterday but the ice cream wouldn't fit in her freezer because of all the things she has in there, mainly biscuits but also other things that aren't as good, but Lestrade always wonders how she has so many biscuits, so that's how.

Also Kira asked if my school was doing a show or anything for the end of the year and we're not, which is good, there wouldn't be any time, we don't even really have enough time to mummify Harvey the fish properly because there are lots of rituals and it takes a month but I think it's okay to do it faster because he's much smaller than a person although it's sad we didn't get to pull his brains out with a hook. Do you think maybe next year we could do a whole person? John told me some people get frozen when they die, or turned into diamonds, so there must be someone who wants to get mummified and we'd be really good at it after we practice on Harvey.

We are having a day with races and things where the parents come to watch, except I don't know if Mummy's coming, but John will and I hope Lestrade will too and Mycroft said he'd do the three legged race with me although I had to ask him for days and days before he said yes. There is also one where you carry eggs on spoons and one where you toss pancakes over strings and I think Lestrade would be really good at that one, he's a good tosser, but I don't know if the grow ups are allowed to do it.

John is shouting at the fridge man now. Not really shouting, but John can shout without being loud. The fridge man said he couldn't fix it until Monday but I think he's going to fix it now. And then we can buy more ice cream! I want chocolate and strawberry and also maybe the kind with fudge swirled in it.

And I just saw in Lestrade's post that he got the murderer so I hope he's coming home today, I'm going to tell John!

sanity: trace amounts

None of us are [is] (thank you, Mycroft) [my tag still says I'm 12] (...I'll see what I can do about that) happy Lestrade is away, obviously. Only one of us rang his superintendent and explained very carefully why he shouldn't be sent away again, or, if he was, that we should go with him. Especially if there were wolves. Three guesses who it was, and the first two don't count.

back to the polls

Right, I still have nothing to say, really, but I'm tired of that last post staring at me from the top of the list.

91 people voted for the Oxford comma. 94 voted again. All of you who voted against, why? It isn't always necessary, but I can't think of an instance where it's actively detrimental to the sentence, so why not just stick it in there? You must have your reasons, so please explain.

Sad roses, abandoned in the park.

on the run

Mycroft's lessons started late today, as one of his tutors is in Tokyo for...some conference. Mycroft told me, and I forgot. The Annual Gathering of Extremely Smart People Who Like Maths. Something along those lines.

I was going running again, and he wanted to come, so we did that. He kept up pretty well. We did about two miles, maybe a third to a half of it actually running, the rest walking. I feel much less dire afterward than I did yesterday. We stopped in the park on the way home to stretch and visit the tadpoles (they're frogs now and too quick for me to get a picture), and he asked me again about the self defense lessons.

miscalculations in scale

There have been an awful lot of brownies recently. Good points of that situation include how excellent they taste, the fact that everyone in our house (even me) can cook something, at least, and their extreme usefulness in keeping Sherlock occupied. I've seldom seen him concentrate as hard as when he's measuring flour.

Downsides include...well, the usual downsides of eating too many sweets. Lestrade and Sherlock tend to run it off without much of a problem, Mycroft has the ice skating and is growing besides, and I...have put on over a stone since I got out of hospital. Some of which was necessary, and some of which really wasn't.

pride

Awake, briefly. So, a round up of the weekend, before I go back to sleep.


Saturday
We had an amazing time at Pride on Saturday. I thought the boys wouldn't want to come, but Sherlock was tempted by ice cream, and Mycroft said he thought it would be interesting. I was a little worried he'd find the whole thing mildly traumatizing, but he actually enjoyed it.

We talked to a lot of people, because that's what happens when you have a very inquisitive five year old with you, even if you have had a talk with him beforehand about not interrogating people.

with less vegetal innuendo

Previously on Greg the Florist...

"Thank you. Thank you so much. I seriously would have been sunk without your help. Now, the very least I can do is buy you dinner and a pint down the road at The Cock Inn. If you're up for it, of course."


John smiled, and said…


"Love to."