We have had the most frustrating day today, move-wise (although to be honest, it’s in stiff competition with most of the days last week). We’ve been trying to push for an exchange of contracts asap and a completion date before the end of June (after that there is a very high chance of the chain collapsing above us and we’ll lose the house we want to buy).

Our buyer phoned up our estate agent today and told us that “she will not be pushed” and as a result her solicitor was going to be as difficult as possible (you mean, he was easy before?!). She was going to demand a survey after all (she hasn’t wanted one up to now), wasn’t committing to exchange in the near future (therefore scuppering any hopes of us getting a bridging loan out of desperation not to lose the chain above us) and didn’t intend moving until the end of July at the earliest. Now, bear in mind she initially put in her offer in March – I don’t think 3 months to exchange is putting the pressure on, especially when she was told at the time that we were hoping for a quick move, please correct me if I’m wrong.

This really has been the last straw after a long line of what we suspected was delaying tactics from her Arrogant Bastard solicitor (henceforth to be referred to as AB). I was all for telling her “right, fuck off then” but the ever-diplomatic Akra managed to negotiate a survey on Monday at the latest, an exchange date on the Wednesday at the latest, and completion date on 9th July. At any point these conditions are failed to be met, our house will be re-marketed.

The thing is, after today’s little stunt, even though we called her bluff, I just don’t trust her anymore. Actually, it’s her solicitor I don’t trust. I think anything in the survey is going to be used just to delay more, or to put in a lower offer now we’re a “captive audience”, and I’m just not prepared to take the crap. AB was unspeakably rude to our solicitor last week and when it was pointed out the paperwork he was demanding was unnecessary, AB basically said “my client will believe what I tell her to believe” and slammed the phone down on him. It was later proved categorically he was wasting everyone’s time, and I’m convinced he’s now being deliberately vindictive as a point-scoring exercise. Even at best case scenario, he is being highly unprofessional.

Thing is, at what point do you admit to yourself that you’re getting nowhere, and just say, “enough is enough”?

I’ve been a bit bored in the evenings recently. I’m not in a television mood (in fact, I rarely am, Buffy and Angel notwithstanding) and only want to read in the last hour before bed. All my computer games have lost their allure – even Morrowind isn’t holding my attention as much as it used to. I know strictly I shouldn’t be buying anything at the moment, finances as they are, but I needed something shiny and new – otherwise I was going to go noisily insane (ignore those people who say they are going quietly insane – it’s far more fun to be loud about it).

Enter Zoo Tycoon. I love Sim-type games and Role Playing games for much the same reasons – I enjoy the open endedness, the ability to play how ever you damn well want without any particular goal, yet still having a feeling of achievement after a few hours play. This one is a real gem.

There’s enough complexity in getting the habitats for each creature just right without it becoming tedious, and even better, if you run out of money you don’t get completely stuck (which I always do in these sorts of games – I gave up with the Rollercoaster Tycoons for that reason). Just hit SHIFT-4 and another $10,000 is deposited in your account. No, it’s not cheating. There’s a catch. A random bit of fence is destroyed in your zoo and you then have a race to find it and repair it before all hell breaks loose. Or alternatively, you could just watch the lions maul all your guests. That’s fun too.

I’m developing a real child-like excitement over my exhibits. I’m only on the beginning levels but I’ve already got all bouncy over the first baby camel born in my zoo. Very cute it is. I haven’t even touched the expansion packs that came in the bundle yet (Dinosaur Digs and Marine Mania – I SOOO want a T-Rex).

The only disadvantage is, I just can’t (under any circumstances) let Akra Jr see this game. He’ll get all loopy over the “Aminals” (yes, that’s what he calls them, bless) and then I’ll never get a look-in again!

… thank you to Miel for her kind words on The Weblog Review.

I’m writing a second entry, because the first sounded like I’d been feeling a bit depressed and morbid today, yet nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t have any negative connotations with Father’s Day at all (I just can’t choose Father’s Day presents to save my life – I’m so looking forward to when Akra Jr can choose his own). Akra got given a card that Akra Jr made at nursery and a chocolate “card” from Thorntons.

As part of our Father’s Day celebrations, we went to have lunch at Coombe Lodge (an Out & Out restaurant – a sort of upmarket Beefeater type place). I have to say this is probably one of the nicest restaurants in the Croydon area – food is lovely and well presented, and Akra Jr is genuinely really welcome in there. They provide proper childrens cutlery, even smaller child portions for the under-5s (and most of the options don’t automatically come with chips – yay!), and (as we found out today) provide antiseptic wipes and plasters for toddlers who trip up and scrape their knee to bits on the way there!

It was a lovely relaxed meal. Akra Jr told me that I was “gorgeous” in my dress (yes, I know it’s rare, and I’m sure my readers who have met me in real life won’t believe that I actually wore a dress, but it’s true). We played “I-Spy” with colours and peekaboo while we waited for our food, but really Akra Jr was an angel and didn’t need excess distractions in order to behave. I was really proud of him today.

Oh, and Akra enjoyed his day too, *grin*.

Today was Father’s Day. I didn’t send mine a card.

No, I’m not evil or vindictive (at least not in that) – he passed away just under seven years ago. I never really knew what to get him on Father’s Day. Always ended up getting him something pretty useless as there was nothing he really needed or wanted. It’s not that he had everything, just that “things” weren’t really important to him.

There’s no grave for me to visit. Probably just as well as I’d only end up feeling guilty that I didn’t visit it or if it was overgrown. His ashes are spread over the waters of a bay somewhere in Wales (there’s a funny story about that, basically involving the fact that my mum forgot waves flowed back towards the shore…) so no visiting opportunities there, but that’s okay.

It’s hard to explain, but I saw his body shortly after he died, and I can categorically say that by that point he wasn’t really there any more, it wasn’t him. Whatever “essence” that made him Daddy had left – the phrase “dearly departed” makes more sense to me – because that’s exactly it… they’re departed.

So. Happy Father’s Day, Daddy. You haven’t missed much – I’d have only got you a crappy card and maybe a bottle of plonk from the nearest offy…

It’s funny how in periods of extreme stress most people seem to have one particular recurring theme in their dreams, it may be dreams about falling, about losing someone they love, or walking down the high street stark naked.

Me, I’ve always had a good memory for my dreams so maybe I’m more aware of these patterns than most, or it’s just most people don’t talk about their bizzare dream lives. My repeat dream is a classic: the sitting of an exam where you haven’t studied and don’t know any of the answers. I think the reason this particular dream is embedded in my psyche is because it’s actually happened to me in real life too.

I won’t tell you what my degree subject was (it just has too much potential for mirth) but it was soon pretty clear that I had no interest in the subject anymore by the time I’d reached university level. I did particularly appallingly in my first year exams and if I’d have had any sense I’d have switched courses to something that did interest me – only it never occurred to me that it was possible.

I did try to work hard and generally succeeded except I never really caught up in understanding the basics taught in the first year which was always going to be a disadvantage. In the third year, I got a grip and worked really hard, but then the easter holiday before my finals, my granddad got sick and I wasn’t allowed to see him in hospital. It was clear he was dying and he didn’t want me to see him like that. Sitting at home while my parents visited and trying to study… the text books could have been written in Greek (and no, it wasn’t Greek that I was supposed to be studying).

Then shortly after the term started I came down with some mystery virus (probably stress related) that completely wiped me out. For some reason (probably a case of write this prescription then she’ll feel like we know what we’re doing), the doctor prescribed me antibiotics (because we all know how effective antibiotics are against viruses… NOT). This was when I found out I was violently allergic to erythromyacin as well as penicillin… let’s just say it was not a good time.

So there I was, sitting in my finals, staring at exam papers and knowing that I wouldn’t be able to answer the questions.

Of course, I took a doctor’s note to my tutors but despite getting good marks in my dissertation and final year project, they preferred to compare my performance in the previous two years work before deciding not to change my grade, which I suppose was fair enough. I still scraped through with an honours degree. It’s just a good job that I value the life experience of going to university far more than the bit of paper they give you at the end.

Utterly fed up
Solicitors are bastards
Will we ever move?!

It’s a job that’s needed doing for a while now: defrosting the fridge/freezer. Being such a pita of a job doesn’t help with the motivation much though, so it’s been left until it could be ignored no longer. When you can no longer move the ice tray because it’s completely frozen in and only a small amount of food can be crammed into the ice-laden shelves, you know that time has come.

Honestly, I’d begun to feel like Shackleton every time I went to get the fishfingers out. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that in some places the ice was greater than 3 inches thick.

So, Akra Jr being at nursery, I figured today would be a good day for this particular cleaning project – and how much easier life was going to be on moving day with a completely defrosted fridge/freezer! (Yes, I was feeling dangerously optimistic, so sue me). It started off okay – I carefully wrapped all the food in newspaper and packed it neatly into a cool box and the oven (don’t look at me like that – the oven was off and it’s a good insulator you know!), fridge/freezer was unplugged and I got out my canister of freezer de-icer that had cost a small fortune from a certain home distribution catalogue company.

I emptied the entire canister in there, waited a while for it to take effect and … nothing. Not a drip. So I go for the bowl of boiling water trick and leave it there for half an hour. This time I get a few drips but it finally sinks in that this is going to take awhile.

So there I am, throughout the day, popping in every half hour to change the water in the bowl for fresh boiled and waving a hairdryer around inside for ten minutes or so while trying to avoid getting electrocuted.

*Crack* I run in to find a huge lump of ice has broken off and run out of the base of the freezer on a newly formed lake forming in the utility room. No, I haven’t put anything down to stop the water flow – you’re supposed to use the still wedged solid ice cube tray in the bottom of the freezer to act as a catch to divert the water. Besides, our utility room has a drain in the floor. Very useful.

Now things were progressing a little more quickly which was good. By then I was wearing shoes and half expecting to see little penguins jumping from ice flow to ice flow puddling around my feet.

Anyway, moving swiftly onwards before I run out of antartic jokes or you throttle me. The fridge/freezer is cleaned and switched back on only half an hour before I have to pick up Akra Jr from nursery – it’s amazing how quickly my days off go and how rarely I actually do give myself the day off. Food hasn’t been put back in yet – just how long are you supposed to wait for it to cool down in there anyway?! Might just stick a bottle of Archers Aqua in there and leave the rest until later…

Next time I’m buying a frost free model.

I don’t know if you have a look at my links on the left hand side at all, but if you have time it’s really worth dropping in on Sylvia’s Fotolog. She’s started to pair some of her mini short stories with a photographic “illustration” of the story. It works really well as the photograph tells the story as well as the story giving a new dimension to the photograph.

Sylvia is a talented writer and the site is well worth a visit. I know her in real life, and I know she reads my blog and I’m sure she’ll think I’m just saying all this because I feel I ought to. I’m not. Go see for yourself.

Dear Akra Jr,

It seems very strange to be writing an apology letter to you when you can’t read it or even understand the explanations. When you’re older, hopefully all this will be forgotten and a letter like this will just confuse. However, this letter is being written because I need to write it – this is for me, even though it’s addressed to you.

These last three days have not been our best really, have they? The stress with trying to move house has spiralled out of all control and doesn’t look like it’s going to reduce in the near future. You’ve been very unhappy and as a result become willful and stroppy. I’ve responded by becoming more and more short-tempered towards you. Battle lines have been drawn. The look of confusion and distress in your eyes when I burst into tears after a telephone conversation relating another delay to exchange made me feel like the worst kind of scum for putting you through all this.

I wish I could explain to you that it’s all temporary. Thing is, I know logically that it’s only a short-term thing, but it doesn’t feel like that. We’ve been trying to move since November now – that’s over a quarter of your life! If I can’t believe in my heart that all this is transient and it’s going to get better, how on earth can I relate that to you?

I can’t apologise enough for the last few days. I shouldn’t be taking out my stress on you, I should be shielding you from it. I’m supposed to be the adult, the protector, the nurturer and all those other cool skills they seemed to forget to hand out to me at Mummy School.

I’m going to try to do better. I can’t promise much more than that.

I Love You,
Mummy.