minavox

Today I visited a friend (and colleague) who's into crafting jewellery - I repaired some chains which were broken, Crumpet crafted some (beautifully, I might add, he really has an eye for design), then we went to pick up Precious who preferred staying at the grandparents to crafting, then I got thoroughly plastered to celebrate the new year by my inlaws, then Grouch picked us up returning from his teaching gig (in Saxonia of all counties), we got more plastered, now - after much banter from everyone - I'm sitting on my sofa listening to Grouch singing Garageland by The Clash (horribly) as a good night song.

And tomorrow the clock will ring at 6:30 a.m. and we will all be so hang over, even those who didn't drink any alcohol.

Isn't life wonderful? (Despite everything.) Happy New Year to all of you!

I just got the whole Cabin Pressure as a birthday pressure - jippieh! And thanks so much!

Even though it looks like a bit of fishy timing to receive a series about demented flight personel just now... but that's coincidence for you. I just say: Cabin Pressure! All mine!

# The most astonishing thing about our week in a mountain resort certainly was that we reached it at all. After just 6 hours of hiking. The signs said 4, but they don't account for short legs.

# Rock-climbing is a rather uncomfortable hobby, for you have to heave what feels like a ton of metal hooks and nooks and thingies 4 hours upwards, too. Thank heavens for boyfriends who could moonlight as sherpas.

# Having roughly 90 beds and only 2 toilets per gender is a rather bold take on the concept of this is a high alpine shelter, not a spa.

# Rainy days at 1600 m can get very long when you carry wool up the mountain, but forget the knitting needles.

# Luckily, there are other sensations, like snails (lovingly and totally creatively called Snaily and Slimy) and mountain newts (which Precious caught in his bare hands, bless his reflexes).

# You get to question your motherly instincts, when you hear yourself say things to your children like "attention now, the next part of the path is a bit exposed" - meaning there's a crumbly rockface on the one hand, a bit of rubble to treat on, and an imposing number of meters of sheer gaping downfall on the other... luckily we made it back and again with the same number of members to our party. (And luckily Crumpet did his Ack, there's a giant spider climbing up my leg!!!!-dance on the spot. Phew.)

# Precious desperately wants to become a farmer and awaits the day when his legs are long enough so that he can drive the tractor on his own. For now, he has to rely on the 12-year-old nephew of our host. Well, together they are legal.

# Crumpet has bought a Lego figurine of Frodo. Frodo vanished from the face of the earth some days ago, only to turn up again yesterday in the middle of our room at a spot we couldn't possible have missed while searching earlier. Guess I now have to look for a tiny golden Ring.

# And now for more fun in rural Bavaria! Have a nice time, too!

Biggest topic on next week's to-do-list: finally throwing out the baby stuff. I mean, we surely WILL NOT HAVE another kid (nice as they are - sometimes - it's hard enough to fit your life around two of them) - so it would be nice to use the apartment for living and not for storing romper suits and sleeping bags for newborns.

So I just thought to ask: anyone (or friends of yours) here just starting on the baby thing? Need really cute, tried and tested clothes for just every situation you can get into with a kid? Well, there aren't diving suits, but apart from that the stuff I have to give away should easily cover most of the first three years. Well, except you expect a daughter - then you have to stock up on mandatory pink stuff on your own. But we even have cloth diapers, if you want to try on your own just how impractical they are. :)

I've been given most of the stuff from friends myself, and for baby clothes second hand is brilliant (because any harmful residues in the cloth have quite literally gone down the drain millions of washes ago, and you don't have to tear your hair because a growth spurt makes short work of the one really expensive designer piece in size 68 you splurged on in a case of parental hormonal disorder).

Long story short: if you're interested or have friends who are - just say so! I'd be happy to give the stuff to people I care about, and you can tell your elderly aunt that you got this awesome pirate body from someone you discussed male on male porn stories on the internet with... (I've no interest in selling the stuff, we could talk shipping costs.)

Post is public, comments are screened (so that you don't need to announce a pregnancy to the whole of my extensive flist...).

ETA: obviously I'm too stupid to screen comments - so drop me a mail at the gmx-account on my profile page if you're interested.

Went jogging for the first time in.... about 3 years? 4? Am dead now. A dead tomato. Not sure about the promised benefits.

Need I say more??? Topped a brilliant day (Paintings! Book shopping! Indonesian cuisine!) with Skyfall. And I totally approve of the new Q - actually the moment I first saw him on screen in exactly the same museum we left some 7 hours ago. And ipomoeaborealis beside me murmured "I can hook you up with the necessary fanfiction as soon as we're out of here." Which she did.

( Cut for spoilers just for the unlikely case someone lives under the same rock as me, cinema-wise. )

Otherwise bought my weight in books (I love bookshops where they have essays on the spirituality of fantasy on display without one having to order them) and spent hours at the Tate, admiring beautiful (Millais painting Ariel with a "cape ringed with vegetable bats") and a bit overdone (smouldering Rosetti beauties and deeply mainingful women with snakes staring off vacantly by Burne-Jones) paintings. Social life chez Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood must have been eventful, to say the least...