Friday, October 25, 2013

Good Idea, Bad Idea

Good Idea:

Giving your woefully sex-deprived husband a 30-minute, chocolate-covered blow job.

Bad Idea:

Using so much chocolate fudge sauce that 2 minutes in, instead of looking like a wanton, buxom porn-star, you realize you look remarkably like Augustus Gloop in a Cadbury factory at Easter. 

(Not. Sexy.)

Sunday, October 20, 2013

We have moved!

No longer stuck in the over-crowded, over-priced, overly-competitive middle class slum that is southwest London, Pirate and I are back in the west country. Woot! 

We lived in a neighborhood that was so sought-after, small 3-bed victorian semis with a meagre rear garden and none in front and no garage or off-street parking regularly sold for £750k.  And this in a neighborhood where you couldn't get your kid into anything anyway becasuse the waiting lists for nurseries, swim lessons, and everything else was 18-24 months long. AND the traffic sucked.  AND the trains sucked.

Before, I had to listen to the 11-year-old kid in the house behind us play with his drum kit. (His parents had the sense to put the drums in the garden shed, rather than in the house, so it was quieter for them but noisier for all the neighbors. Clever people!) Now, I have owls.

Before, I had a tiny back garden with no grass, no light, and a short gate that the Pirette could open, so it wasn't at all secure.  Also, becasue our living room and kitchen were on the first floor, I couldn't see into the back garden while inside the house.  So I couldn't let her play there. 

Now, I have an enormous garden carpeted with grass, leading back to a woodland of 60-ft-plus mature hardwood trees.  The garden is secure, we are not overlooked, and the view is stunning.  And there are owls.

Before, I had a galley kitchen that was so small you had to step outside to change your mind.

Now, I have a nice big kitchen (still too small for a breakfast table, but that's good, becasue I don't want all my dreams to come true at once) with a view into aforementioned enormous garden, twice the cupboard space and thrice the worktop space as before, AND a utility room for the pantry, cleaning crap, and appliances.  Haaaaa-lleluja!

Before, the only wildlife we got were pigeons, foxes, magpies, and feral parakeets.  Now we've wildlife coming out our asses.  And owls.  Did I mention the owls?

Previously, no one would make eye contact or smile as we walked down the street. Fucking urban anonymity.  And it took more than a year to meet our neighbors.  Now? We walk down the street and complete strangers smile, say hello, strike up a conversation, introduce themselves, talk about their kids, and invite us to birthday parties. (This actually happened, 4 days after we moved in.)


I took the Pirette today for an explore through the woods (she LOVES that), and we saw (get ready for this)... pinecones! and conkers! and acorns! and mushrooms!  And all sorts of amazing things she'd never seen before, because she was being brought up in a concrete jungle.  And she doesn't even miss the playgrounds.  She's just as happy climbing logs and tree stumps.  Finally I can give the kid a real childhood.

And all this (plus a microscopic fourth bedroom) in a house worth less than half of what the previous one was worth on the open market.  Madness.  I maintain, there isn't a single thing you can get in London that you can't get elsewhere for half the money (or less), and servede with a smile. Why anyone would actually want to live in London is genuinely beyond me. 

Now if only the west country could do something about the vericose veins in my beef curtains and get the Pirate home from his oversees assignment, life would be near perfect.  (Minus the breakfast table, of course.)

Sunday, September 22, 2013

I'm not ignoring you, I swear!

After trying very hard to get back into the regular swing of posting, my computer blew up and rendered me webless for 2 weeks.  Grrr.  So here I am, starting over again.

We are moving house in 1 week.  Pirate gets the keys on Thursday, and Pirette and me arrive on Saturday, just 6 days away.  YAY!!!  I can't wait.  The house we currently inhabit sucks dead donkey dicks and has been a daily misery for 2 years.  I am looking forward to going about my day-to-day existence without a veil of constant anger and resentment shrouding my every thought, whilst I curse the very walls around me.

Pirette is excited, too.  She is eager to see the "brown door house" (which is the only interesting feature she could discern from Google street view), and understands that she will have a bigger room, it will be painted yellow and green, and all her toys are coming with her.  She has seen photos of the back garden as well and is very pleased.  She doesn't, of course, grasp the permanence of it all.  I hope 3 months is enough time for her to settle in and be comfortable before I launch her baby sister.

The only thing I dread is the moment that will probably come about a week after we've been in, when she looks at me and says "I want to go home now, mama." or "I want to go to nursery."  That's when I'll really have to explain that we're never going back to the old house or her old nursery.  Q the tears.

Saturday, September 07, 2013

My fantasy:

a space hopper with 3 handles.

Think about it.



(Mind, at the moment I look like I'm becoming a space hopper.  Or possibly have just eaten one.)

Friday, August 30, 2013

Phoetus, or tapeworm?

Symptoms of pregnancy include:
  • nausea and vomitting
  • insomnia
  • fatigue
  • insatiable hunger
  • or loss of appetite
  • anemia
  • tummy bump
Symptoms of tapeworm include:
  • nausea and vomitting
  • insomnia
  • fatigue
  • insatiable hunger
  • or loss of appetite
  • anemia (from drop in B12 in the blood)
  • bloated tummy

Something is sucking the life out of me.  The question is, is it a vertebrate?

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Pastry Porn

It's Bake-off Day!

Tonight the 2nd episode in the 4th (?) series of The Great British Bake-off will air on BBC 2.*

Pirate and I are properly addicted.  I even applied to be on the 2nd season, and very nearly made it.  They phoned me up the very day I submitted my application and spent almost an hour asking me questions.  (Now whenever I watch it I think, I coulda been... a contender.)

Did you read yesterday's post, about Pirate baking sourdough bread?  Well, in honor of Bake-off day, here is a photo of the bread.

Eat yer heart out, Mary Berry.


*I think it's on BBC2, I'm not really sure.  I watch it on iPlayer.

Monday, August 26, 2013

A Note on Identity

Some of you (ha! I haven't had a hit for ages!) may be wondering if I, Moominmama, am the same person as Chaucer's Bitch, aka Mrs Chaucer's Pirate, and if so, why change?

Firstly, yes, I am.

Secondly, well, the old moniker just didn't fit me any more.  Pirate and I are still very much together, but the whole Chaucer thing is feeling more and more like a past life.  It just doesn't feel as relevant, or certainly not as dominant in my life any more. 

And it occurred to me, maybe that's why I've found it so difficult to blog ever since getting married.  Marriage was a massive life change for both of us, and I just couldn't squeeze myself back into my old avatar anymore, as it were.

Recently I've been struggling emotionally.  The NHS has been surprisingly deft and supportive (maybe they take depressed people more seriously if they are pregnant, I dunno), but Pirate suggested that a return to blogging and hence, writing, would be therapeutic.  He's not wrong.

But to start again I needed to start over, just a bit.   I didn't change URL or site name, becasue that would feel like jettisoning my old life, which is not what I want.  All the old posts are still there, becasuse all the old stories are still a part of me, and I treasure them.

Just the look, layout, and pseudonym are new.

So, why Moominmama?  She's my idol.  I adore Moominmama; she is (almost) everthing to which I aspire.  And I don't think that's aiming low, so please don't sit there thinking, "Oh Christ, another intelligent, ambitious woman who let her brain turn to porridge just becasue she had kids."  No. No no no no no no.

My brain is still here, and it still works (mostly), my priorities and the rhythm of my life have changed for a while.  Motherhood is a full time occupation, period.  If it doesn't consume your life, you're doing something wrong, frankly.  I sill have ambitions, but they are on hold until the kids are a bit more independent and, quite honestly, in school full time.  Until then, this is who I am.

I will try not to turn this into a baby blog, becasue one of the things I need and crave is to think about something other than babies and potty training now and again.  So there will be thougths of a politial and philosophical nature appearing now and again.

That said, I am pregnant, and come the New Year, there will be a small(ish), squirming, pink, hungy, pongy parasite to deal with, so a few baby-related posts are inevitable.  I will try to be funny.  I make no guarantees.

Do, please, visit often and leave your retorts in the comments box, becasue they make me feel loved. No, really.