A holiday and a surprisingly acceptable new form of bathing

Salut chaps! Am back in the Bath after a trip to France. The place we stayed is called Seche Boue, which translates as Dry Mud. It lived up to its name despite MASSIVE thunderstorms pretty much every night. Lovely sunshine and lots of cheese and wine and bike rides.

It doesn't look sunny, but it WAS!

 Bf’s parents have a house there and it is pleasingly French. The thing is, what with me being a creature who loves baths, I am put off visiting because it has no bath. And no swimming pool. And no jaccuzi. And is far from the sea. Pas de plage, or whatever. Basically, no way to submerge oneself in water. Submersion in water is totally necessary to enjoy the day and in my opinion, an absolute must-have on holiday.

Bf has tried for some time to convince me that there is no problem, because there is a swimming lake near to the house. The thing is that like many other people, I am a bit wary of swimming in lakes.  They are murky and muddy and gloopy and occasionally a little smelly, but the thing that really gets me is the presence of FISH. And really of any other living creature.  Absolutely can’t stand the thought of them swimming around and brushing against me. EEegh. It was so hot, however, and I had eaten so much cheese, that the thought of exercising somewhere cooler than the land made me venture into the lake. And do you know what? I am quite the convert. For about half an hour I was very wary, especially as my anxieties were compounded by the fact that about a quarter of the lake was for swimming, and the rest for FISHING. Gah. However, apart from some massive scary bubbles in the middle of a calm bit of water, which I gave a wide berth to, had no fishy problems.

A corner of the garden. Isn't it just CRYING OUT for a hot tub/ jaccuzi/ plunge pool?!

 I would like to go back, and take the rubber dinghy and the big rubber rings. And my friend Jason. Jason once lead several of us on a rubber dinghy expedition down a mighty river near Tilford. He always blows up our inflatables with his tenacious lips. He is generally King of all things Joyous on Water, so he must come too.

Whilst we were away, I discovered the most adorable thing about bf. He still has his duvet cover from when he was a little boy! It’s in the house in France. I went into the bedroom after he’d made the bed and he was all tucked up under this:

Red lorry, yellow lorry.. :)

Lots of other things to tell you about France but I will wait til I’ve managed to upload some more photos (these are from my phone – the proper camera requires a cable – needy!).

So for now, we are back to life, back to reality. I took my work to France and got a lot done. However, still have about another fifteen pages of very dense text to write in an unfeasibly short amount of time. Must find myself a warm body of water to make things more bearable.. happily, I live rather close to this place!

Country life II

Just to add to what I was saying before re the benefits of country living:

• Nobody has torched, broken, robbed or injured anything in my street or town.

This is something that I am very grateful for (my house is utterly un-riot-proof) but it is just a matter of chance that we haven't been affected. Had we been at either of our previous two addresses in London this past week we would have been right in the heart of it. My heart goes out to the people who have lost things dear to them over the last week. The UK has enough to deal with without its own people turning on each other.

It must've been terrifying to be in the police this past week. What a fantastic job they and their families have done to stay calm and strong and restore some peace.

The Marcus Diaries: Part III

About two months ago, we had an unfortunate incident where bf was cleaning his favourite thing (the loo) whilst wearing his favourite garment (a brown t-shirt). Bleach flicked at him from the loo brush. Possibly due to his line of work, he does not take well to fluids being flicked at him. He was upset. Particularly upset when he realised that the cleaning of the favourite thing had caused the inadvertent destruction of the favourite garment. Small white bleached spots had appeared all down the front of it.

Now, we are currently saving all the money in the world for things such as wedding rings and honeymoon food. Buying a new favourite brown t-shirt (from bf's favourite - and rather pricey - shop) was not an option. I thought - What Would Marcus Do? And of course I knew, instantly. Even before I had asked the question. Dylon Dylon Dylon.

I went to the hardware store. Lots of watering cans, but no dye. I went to the chemist. Lots of hair bobbles, but no dye. I walked into town. Lots of tourists. Instinctively wanted to go to Woolworths. Sad! Went to a fabric shop. No dye. Went to the market. Dye!! BUT. Bath is a very nice Georgian city. News of the Washing Machine does not appear to have reached the Nice Georgian City. It was therefore Dylon hand dye. I thought: Dylon! How wrong can this go?!

I will tell you later about the Saga of the Hand Dye. When I got to the speckled-water stage above, I had to call Marcus for expert advice.

Country life

I know I live in a city. It does feel very countrified though, compared to Woolwich. I was lying in bed last night thinking about how life has changed since we left London. I have also changed. Am less anxious generally. Pleased about that! Here is a list of things that are different.

• The kitchen has more than one square foot of work surface. We can cook actual meals.
• Seating 10 people round the dining table is achievable and cooking for them does not involve balancing roasting trays on top of dishes on the floor.
• The dining table is a permanent item and does not need to be dragged into the middle of the living room to extend a flap when there are more than three people trying to eat
• Guests sitting at the dining table do not have to sit on piles of cushions on the sofa a la booster seats
• We own two sledges and have enough storage that I do not see them, stub my toe on them and curse them every day
• We own two sledges!
• I am interested in what the weather is doing as this affects what I might want to do
• I have eaten a vegetable from my garden
• I have a garden!
• We went to Glastonbury and got home within 45 minutes
• We went to Glastonbury and left our two front sash windows open about a foot each
• We went to Glastonbury and left our two front sash windows open about a foot each, got home within 45 minutes and NOBODY HAD STOLEN ANYTHING!
• The neighbours know our names
• The neighbours smile at us
• The neighbours do not seem to be selling packets of anything to people who roll up in cars with blacked-out windows
• I see bf a lot more :o)

There are downsides, but there are definate upsides to being in the bath!

Take care chaps

Short Fat Wendy

It has been wet in the Bath recently. Wetter than one would expect, even for a Bath, in June. Due to the inclemency, bf and I have been unable to indulge in our new evening activity of running into the garden, extracting our bikes from the reluctant shed and cycling off to drink cider somewhere leafy. We have watched all of the West Wing DVDs that we own and as such, are now forced to Make our Own Entertainment.

About ten weeks ago, I was seized with an urge to make a fabric bird. I am not sure where this urge came from. I suspect it may have been subliminally implanted as a result of a sewing box that I got for Xmas from bf. The sewing box sits in the corner of the living room (it is frankly too huge to fit in any cupboard) so I see it every day. I think that this seeing it every day germinated some sort of very dormant and very slight creativity.

(Just to go off on a tangent, I am not sure why bf gave me, a person whose previous ‘sewing box’ was a small tin containing two reels of cotton, one black and one white, plus numerous hotel sewing kits, a sewing box big enough to hold two large cats. I am not sure why he gave to me for Christmas but in hindsight I should have recognised this as a Sign. He also gave me slippers and a frilly apron, and two weeks later we were engaged).

To be fair to him, it is quite a brilliant sewing box. I think I have a picture of it. If I do, it will be here:

I didn't have a picture, but Google did.

Anyhow, back from the tangent. The fabric bird-making urge. I googled around a bit and came up with this fantastic Wendy the Bird pattern from the fantastic Lollychops: For those of you who are interested, I decided to make the ‘short wide Wendy’ version.

I had lots of fabric samples left over from when I was panicking about having to buy a sofa/curtains a while back (happily this was averted by renting a house from a man who seemingly upped and left in the middle of the night, leaving practically ALL of his possessions here for us to use..). I found the samples. I opened my massive sewing box. I took out my tiny sewing tin and opened that. I got out my black thread, and pinned the Wendy shapes to the fabric (the massive sewing box pleasingly came ‘complete’ with two massive pins). I tacked it on with giant stitches.

She had me at hello.

Next, I cut around the pattern to make Wendy-shaped bits of fabric. Then I hand-stitched the bits together (using backstitch, remembered from school) apart from a bit by her tail, turned her inside out thru the hole in her tail, and hey presto! floppy wendy!

Next, I ran upstairs and looked for an old cushion that I could decimate in the name of Wendy. I found the one that used to sit on the chair that bf sat on for years to do his revision. He has done all his exams now, so no more revision cushion required! It was also in a pretty bad state to be honest. All tattered and worn. So I chopped it open and pulled out the stuffing, and Wendy sprang to life!

At this stage Wendy was plump but could not see. I had a look in my Granny’s old button tin and found a couple of buttons from an old Topshop top. Really I should’ve looked a bit harder as Wendy’s eyes are slightly crazed. But here she is! Short Fat Wendy (as she is affectionately known)!

Flushed with success, I thought I’d make a Wendy for my Mum. Also made out of curtain samples. This one is called Mandy. Her eyes are more normal:

I can't help thinking Mandy looks rather gormless.

Then, we had an inaugural visit from my friend Steph (her of the my-friend-Steph-who-loves-men-in-historical-costumes fame). Steph spotted Wendy and I gave her a pattern. Steph took the pattern home. Steph’s domestic god boyfriend spotted the pattern. Steph’s socks got sacrificed. I am delighted to introduce Matilda!

Matilda is flying the flag for the rainbow birds.

Matilda is as you can see rather more evolved than either Wendy or Mandy. Wendy and Mandy are flightless due to my lack of patience in attaching wings. Matilda however has the world at her feathertips.

I do hope this has inspired you to have a go at a bird next time it rains. A fabric one I mean. May I suggest teatowels and old pillowcases, if you are not the sort to have bits of fabric lying about the house. It is very satisfying indeed. And if you do make a bird, send me a pic and I will add it to my Hall of Fame (bgarrr!)!

See you soon chaps J

Gratuitous shot of Bath, from a non-rainy bike ride out to the west last week!

Perils of the library

So I used to write this blog whilst on the train. However, I recently discovered a library full of joyous books RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO WHERE I WORK. This means that I am now absorbed in my favourite trashy fiction for the entire journey. The entire should-be-one-hour-but-is-in-reality-1.5h-though-we-don't-admit-it so-you-can't-bring-yourself-to-accept-it journey, thank you First 'Great' Western. I have recently taken to affectionately calling the train company 'First Late Western', and something a little shorter when I'm really angry with them. Anyhow. Gives me more time for reading so that is nice!

The train that I get from the little station where I work is a little tiny train which goes into the main station where I change to get back to Bath. There are some eccentric characters there, and some very smart gentlemen as well. Here is a picture of my train neighbour yesterday; I am sure I don't need to tell you which category he falls into.

I hope you have some good plans for the weekend. We are going cycling with my parents and some of bf's family. A bit like Enid Blyton, possibly. There is a large range of ages and fitness amongst both the people and the bikes so it should be good fun! I will tell you about it after the weekend.

Finally, look, here is a really beautiful plant that I gave to my mum and dad the other day. I had never seen anything like it. Little golden pouches which glowed and swayed in the sunlight and had dustings of red on them. Ahh.

See you soon!

Exam.. done!

Hullo chaps! I have missed you. I was doing a statistics exam. It had questions which contained phrases like 'Suppose that X has a binomial distribution B(100,0) and that a prior for 0 is beta (5,3). State the posterior for o, giving the values of any parameters'.

I kept thinking about things I wanted to write on here, but had to crush them and think about posteriors (distracting) and probability density functions (strange). So I am very pleased the exam is done!

The exam was on Thursday and I was totally exhausted on Friday. Could not concentrate at work so took the work home with me and sat staring at it blankly at home instead. I am happy to report that the exhaustion was temporary and by Friday evening I had written about some bacteria AND made a pavlova and about twenty kebabs for the massive BBQ we had that evening.

I attempted to decorate the table using things I found in the cupboard and the garden. Many of these were the result:

I was moderately pleased. Not quite channelling Westminster Abbey on April 29th but a better job than anything we could have foraged from any of our previous gardens.

Bf prepared for the BBQ by chopping the hedge to make space for people. Hedge was previously unruly in manner of bf's hair so this was a great improvement. Luckily hedge trimming is Manly Activity requiring Power Tool and Safety Goggles so he was quite keen to do it.

Trimmy McPhee

On Saturday we went to the Roman baths. This was very exciting. We had baths in Bath and then went to the baths (bf had a shower actually but that is not quite so pleasing or themed)! SUCH a good day. I last went to the baths with my parents when I was about eight years old. I remember them being ok but a bit smelly and not that fascinating. This time, however, I was enchanted! They have done SUCH a good job with the renovation and really brought them to life. There's a really good audio tour where a learned-sounding lady babbles about the history and archelology, and then Bill Bryson does a 'reflective' bit which basically consists of going 'wow, isn't it old, imagine what it was like, wow, oh, they'd have all been naked, wow'. This is quite nice to listen to as it a) makes you stop and absorb the place and b) if you are already thinking something along the lines of 'wow this place is old', it makes you feel clever for thinking like Bill Bryson.

There are projectors which run videos of Roman people wandering about the baths wrapped in towels (poor Bill), and a reconstruction of what the front of a temple that was on the site would have looked like, using bits of 2000 yr old stone carving that they have dug up, along with lights and projections to add the missing bits and colours. Absolutely incredible.

The most memorable bit was when bf and I just sat down at the side of the biggest bath. It was a slightly chilly day and the breeze wafted the warmth from the water over us. It was very atmospheric. There was also a man who was dressed up like a Roman who said he was a trader from the Germanic Homelands or something, but spoke with a Welsh accent. I think my friend Steph would have liked him, she generally seems to be interested in all types of men in themed costumes.

You can't swim in the baths because they're not very clean. This in itself is interesting. My work is all about bacteria and I was desperate to know what the funny growths in the water were! They were gently gyrating and looked pretty cool.

Little growths under the water. What are you?

Righto, bf has just called and he is on his way home after being on call. I must go and get the meat pie in the oven! Am practicing for being a wife.

See you again soon. I feel a Marcus Diaries coming on...