Getting ready to move off

We're all wearing false moustaches. As you can see.

My little brother had raided my facebook and made ten masks of ME in a REALLY ATTRACTIVE POSE (my "dee face")

Departing for a date with destiny! (by which i mean "alcohol poisoning"

My diamond necklace went missing.

It was on the mantelpiece, Lali jumped up there last night, and this afternoon, after I'd unknowingly vacuumed the living room shaggy-rug in prep for Mum's visit tomorrow, the damned necklace was nowhere. Clearly it had been kicked off the mantelpiece onto the shaggy-rug, sucked up in the hoover, and the uber-delicate chain must have been destroyed in the cleaner. There was zero chance of finding the stone on its own. Nonetheless, I went through the contents of the cleaner, fibre by fibre, wearing marigolds and plucking at the dust and fluff with a pair of chopsticks at arm's length on the basis that last week I sucked up two enormous black spiders and unexpected physical contact with a severed leg or chelicera would have disconcerted me.

You probably need to know this if you're planning to come 'round to my place for noodles any time soon.

Anyway, I was on the phone to webofevil this evening, talking about something else entirely^[1], and was digging around the fireplace as we nattered and to my delight I discovered the necklace resting in the bottom of my orchid vase.

webo kindly reprised the situation and pointed out that the worst point of my day was when my oriental cat kicked my diamond necklace into the orchid vase.

On reflection, I have to concede that my life is perfect.

^[1] I can't justify this other than to restate what you already know: that I am a button-headed little idiot - but a couple of days ago I discovered that for a number of years I have been misreading the letters "QNI" in your posts. I now know that they mean "Quiet Night In". But all this time, in my head, they have meant "Quite Nice Indeed", and have served as a gentle commentary on the quality of your day. I am aware that "quite nice indeed" isn't even a sentence. It doesn't even make sense. It's rubbish. But I've friended a number of you on the basis that you pepper your posts with QNI, and given my interpretation of those three letters I have rested in the comfortable belief that you are all a bunch of tea-drinking, cricket-watching Englishers, probably dressed in a natty trilby, doubtless with pipe, spaniel and walking stick; or, if you are of the lady persuasion, in something classically understated, some decent pearls, and a chignon. In fact it turns out you're probably a bunch of chardonnay-swilling pizza-orderers, slumped in front of The Bill with your feet on the coffee table, and if I find out that this is the case I shall be most disappointed in you.

The warning beacons have been lit.

London prepares for OPERATION MINDFUCK!

If anyone's coming out to the stag night tomorrow and doesn't have my number yet, comment here!

Oh wow, jalapeño lemonade! (The homemade one, of course!)

This sounds like it would go really well with tequila, or perhaps a blended light whiskey in colder weather.

If any of you is looking for a cat right now, the Oriental Cat Association has some that are in desperate need of a loving home.

It's not just mogs who lose their owners through sad circumstances, so if you were thinking of getting an affectionate, beautiful companion, let me point you at this webpage. Val, who runs the rescue association has just put the call out saying she's swamped right now - these aren't cats in some big charity-funded rescue centre, they're being cared for by Val, at her own cost (vet's bills, feeding and so on), which is pretty amazing of her, I think.

My four are typical of the breed - kind, clownish and very loving.

Aww, John Barrowman's eyes go all werewolfy, like mine, when he cries.

Can any of you London Goths repierce my ear for me? Through the same place it was pierced before (I let it grow over while Corben was young).

I assume that given the innacuracy of piercing guns, I'm better off with a goth and a needle than a hairdressah called sharon and a piercing gun?

ANSWER ME NOW, GOTHS.

ta! :) X

I made baked beans today: pancetta, tomatoes, onions (SOM), garlic, thyme from the garden, plenty of flageolet beans and a little seasoning. Really, really good.

The top patio's cleared and I've moved that bloody lion twice, and three of the enormous buxus-es. There are occasions when one craves a helpful boyfriend: this was not one of them. I am actively seeking out things I can do that are physically difficult, at the moment. I want to get better, and I'm not going to get better by magic, I'm going to get better by work. That lion might find himself relocated with monotonous regularity, until I'm up for something heavier.

This garden's not perfect. There's no destination, with a garden. It's all journey.

( Come on, then. )

I hate it when mice get their revenge by dying under the kitchen floorboards during the hottest time of the year