… and you’re probably right. The pressure is obviously too much strain on my addled mind.

I’ve started to wonder if The House itself is sabotaging this move because it doesn’t want to be sold.

Yes, I knew you’d think I was crazy. I don’t really believe it. I’m just wondering if I should act as if I believe it, just in case. Is that somehow worse?

As we’ve been getting closer to potential sale (don’t laugh, it could happen), little things have started to go wrong. The waste disposal in the kitchen has started to have an intermittent fault. The drains backed up and dynorod was called out. Curtains have decided to fling themselves off the rails and get jammed just to annoy me. Surely any right minded individual would assume that The House is trying to get rid of us rather than keep us? No, you’ve got it all wrong. The House is cross with me.

This wasn’t the house I wanted to buy. It had too many things wrong with it, it desperately needed a new kitchen and bathroom, the windows needed replacing urgently, the roof didn’t have much life left, it had too much decorating to do, and had basically been let out and neglected for quite a while. However, it’s lovely light, big rooms and a wonderful vibe that I couldn’t quite put my finger on made us meant to be. It ruthlessly seduced me.

It’s done all right out of us really. It got its shiny new bathroom it wanted, and nice new double-glazed windows. It’s had a lick of paint inside and out, and it’s generally enjoyed having a loving family living in it who takes care of it. I’ve even been caught affectionately patting one of its walls from time to time, although I’ll vehemently deny it if you ask me outright, okay? I don’t think it wants to let us go and who could blame it?

For all you skeptics out there, I know what I’m talking about. You see, while I was growing up we had a car – a bright orange polo (all the better for finding when you were too lazy to make a note of where you parked). Every time we thought about selling it, some mystery fault would occur that we could never quite trace. The very second we’d changed our minds (due to finances or whatever) the fault would disappear, and it would purr along in its self-satisfied sewing machine engine kind of way that we loved so much. The House has obviously cottoned on to the family weakness for blackmail by inanimate objects.

Things came to a head today, being the day of the survey. Our buyer has had 3 months to arrange a survey but only recently decided that she would go ahead and have one. Last night it rained. It rained heavily. Sheer volume of water couldn’t quite go down the drain fast enough, so it went a different direction – straight into our utility room. Also, the drains decided to offer up a particularly offending odour into all outlets of our home: bathrooms and kitchen primarily. This was a new tactic by The House. Even the dining room decided to emit a musty damp smell, and it never has done before in all the time we’ve lived here. So there I was, mopping up the utility room and drying it off with paper kitchen towels, running around every room with a plughole or toilet pouring bleach down it, and opening every window in sight to get some air in.

I managed to leave the house at 9am with a dry utility room floor, and a very bleachy smelling house (hopefully surveyor was fooled into thinking I just went mad cleaning, but somehow I doubt it – I guess we’ll find out soon). I had words with The House on the way out. While I appreciate its love for us, the time has come for us to go our separate ways… I hope… sometime soon… please God.

I am proud to announce that the long-awaited About Me section is now up and ready for viewing. The 4th photo won the vote, but I didn’t like that one as much so I used my powers of veto. That left the 1st and 2nd photos in joint second place, so I put up the 2nd one only to find it didn’t look right so used the 1st instead. There, hope that makes sense. Don’t you just love the democratic process?

If you can think of any more questions that need to be up there, you know where to park your comments.

… with Virtual Painter – aren’t the light and colours in this picture of Akra Jr playing in his tent great?!

Okay, finally getting off my bottom to set up an About Me section on here. I haven’t got very far with it, but I have spent a good while playing around with Virtual Painter filters to mess around with a picture of me. (No, a plain photo of me on the site is *not* an option… *shudder* … I couldn’t inflict you like that).

Can’t decide which one I like best and which would suit the look and feel of the site more so I thought I’d put it to vote. I’m veering towards the one that looks like a crayon drawing at the moment (the first one).

Hmm… bit Andy Warhol all this, isn’t it?!

I hesitate to do this and lay full responsibility on Sylvia’s Fotolog for giving me the idea to inflict this on all of you, but I’m stuck on this story. It’s a silly little story, something I thought of maybe writing for Akra Jr when he’s a little bit older. In true Pewari style, it has as many bad puns as I could think of shoved in it, then it has been cruelly abandoned to other equally as naff projects. Stick suggested plot ideas/insults in the comments section please.

Fred the frog let out a satisfying belch and settled back on his lilypad. It was a great life being a frog, resting in the rushes and watching the comings and goings on the pond. It just couldn’t get much better than this, he thought, snaking out his tongue and snatching another fly out of the air.

Just then he noticed a despondent looking shape lurking in the rushes. It was Doris the Duck.

“What’s up, Doris?” asked Fred, noticing a tear slowly dribble out of her right eye.

“Oh, hi Fred” said Doris. “I’m just so very lonely. No-one on the pond wants to make friends with me.” Another tear dropped into the water with a splosh.

“Why’s that?” asked Fred in surprise, he’d always thought ducks were quite sociable little creatures and didn’t want for company.

“Dunno” said Doris, and would have shrugged if ducks were able to shrug.

“Okay, what makes you think no-one wants to make friends with you? Who have you talked to recently?” Fred looked very puzzled.

“Well I tried talking to the swan, but he just ignored me… he didn’t say a thing at all.” The memory of this brought fresh sobs to the little waterfowl.

“Um… Doris?”

“Yes… *sniffle* … Fred?”

“Swans don’t talk, love. They’re mute.”

“Mute?”

“Yes, mute. That means that they can’t make any noise at all.”

Now it was Doris’ turn to look puzzled, “so how come their song is famous then? I’m forever hearing about Swan Song and how beautiful it is!”

“Ah… that’s a special type of song. Folks say that swans sing a wonderful song just before they die. Not that I’ve ever heard it, of course.”

Doris got a wicked glint in her eye, “you mean they sing it just before they croak, Fred?”

Fred glared, “watch it, Doris, that wasn’t funny. Right, who else have you talked to recently?”

… to be continued…

Yes, I am blogging at an incredibly stupid time of the night/morning/whatever.

I was a bit jumpy tonight anyway, for some reason only my brain really knows, but then this god awful noise started in the house. I managed to steel myself to leave my bedroom haven to prowl the house looking for the source and found the showerhead in the bathroom was the guilty party.

It’s making a burbly sort of phut-phut noise and it’s really really loud. A bit concerned, I tried to turn on a tap – no water. I phone Thames Water and apparently it’s nothing to worry about – they’re just doing leakage testing. Oh, that’s nice. Couldn’t they have warned me?!

I wonder if people who have their washing machines and dishwashers on a timer to get off peak electricity are going to have their loads ruined… or just not very clean. Will they notice? Does this sort of thing happen often?

According to the nice Thames Water lady, I have another 45 minutes to go before testing is complete. Joy.

Then what you need is the ultimate in condensed books:

Book-A-Minute.

Many thanks to Wintermute for the link.

I’m petite.

Slim, skinny, stick insect, thin, whatever you want to call it, I’m not a big person. I’m 5ft 4, hover around the 7 stone 7 mark and am a UK size 8. This is me. I have a reasonably healthy (if small) appetite, have all the energy I need to do what I want to do (except on days when my toddler runs me ragged), am healthy within moderation. I don’t particularly love my body, but I don’t have a particularly poor body image either. I am not actually underweight – according to my doctor, I have a perfectly healthy body mass index, whatever that might mean.

So what is people’s problem?!

Honestly, the sort of comments I get if they were reversed and directed at a larger person would be completely unacceptable. No, I am not anorexic, never have been. No, I don’t need feeding up, thank you very much. Yes, from time to time I do forget to eat if I’m busy, but I usually more than make up for it the next day. Yes, there *is* actually something of me, are you completely blind?

It’s enough to *make* you paranoid about your own body. The most inappropriate comment I’ve ever had was a woman (a complete stranger to me) commenting about my shape while we were getting changed for swimming. For the men in the audience, commenting about someone else’s appearance in the women’s changing rooms I would imagine is on a par to someone commenting on your size while you’re lined up by the urinals. It’s just not done if you have any sense of self-preservation. But by far the worst are elderly ladies who seem to take it as a personal affront if you don’t let them take you home and feed you up RIGHT NOW.

Then there’s the backhanded compliments. “I hate you, you’re so slim!”. Really? Why? Should I hate you because you have some rather luscious curves going for you?! “You’re so lucky to be able to eat what you want!” Well, within reason – I don’t eat chips everyday just like you don’t, but no not because of the weight thing, more of the health/balanced diet thing. I need my five portions of fruit and veg just the same you know (well, okay… I tend to cheat and dose up with vitamins just in case, but the principle is there). Most of the time, I take it in the good naturedness that it’s meant, nod and smile and say “yes I am lucky” or “well, it isn’t all plain sailing – it’s easy to lose when you’re ill or stressed and just as hard for me to put weight on again as it is for you to lose it”, but sometimes I find myself being apologetic for being the size I am and then I think – why the hell should I be?!

It probably doesn’t help that the media (as usual) are completely schizophrenic and hypocritical about the subject. Browse any health section and you’ll find the news that there’s a real problem with obesity in children due to poor diet and lack of exercise. Next week they’ll be complaining that there are increased incidences of eating disorders and young children on unnecessary diets due to unrealistic expectations of magazine models. I’m sorry – you can’t have it both ways. Either we’re all overweight or we’re all underweight, please make up your mind!

As a society, we’re all too hung up about weight anyway. I love the section in Nigella Lawson’s book How To Eat where she talks about a study comparing a group of health conscious Californians with a group of ‘typical’ French. The health conscious group watched everything they ate, didn’t drink alcohol, etc while the French carried on eating food with rich sauces and washing it down with copious amounts of wine. The French group lived longer (bet they enjoyed their life more too). Apparently the study concluded that it was a property of red wine that made the difference. Nigella’s conclusion (and mine) is that it was due to the different levels of worry. The healthy group spent so much time worrying about what they ate while the French just got on with living. I tell you, stress is a killer.

So, my theory is we should all live and let live. We all have our own ideal body shape that our bodies seem to know far better than us as it keeps returning us to that state regardless of how hard we try to push it in a different direction. Sure, encourage healthy (in moderation) living but just get on with the process of enjoying life and leave other people to get on with theirs too.

Oh, and drop the Kate Moss jokes, okay?

This is just one of those photos I had to share. Okay, it’s slightly out of focus, but somehow it adds to Akra Jr’s whimsical expression (or maybe that’s just Mummy Bias kicking in).

Akra Jr loves stickers. They’re a great little reward system (a.k.a. bribe) as they don’t involve teeth rotting sugar as most of the other really good rewards have a tendency to do. We don’t have anything as complicated as a sticker chart (where if you get x number of stickers in a day/week you get a treat) – Akra Jr is still into the immediacy of the bribe (*cough* … reward) and it never ceases to amaze me that a sticker is enough – nay, it’s met with sheer rapturous toddler delight.

So, what’s better than being given a sticker? Being given lots of stickers, that’s what! Even more fun is sticking them all over your face and then giggling at yourself in a mirror … apparently. Hey, I don’t get the appeal myself, but anything to keep my boy happy.

Now if only the rest of the world was as easy to please. Sticker anyone?

Warning: this is a female readership biased entry!

I found this site on mooncups while wandering around the web. I’m torn between “ew” and “I wonder if they actually work”…

… anyone feeling brave enough to tell me if they’ve used them?

Updated 22 Dec 05: Changed the link to point to the right page in the newly designed Mooncup site.