The Way of the Wombat

My husband, speakr2customrs, bought an extremely smart, navy blue, suit for our daughter's wedding;



As he has had nothing to wear it for since, he decided to wear it for the christening on Sunday.

When he got up he pottered around and then went up to put his suit on just as we were about to leave. As he came down I remember thinking that his suit looked a bit crumpled, I thought he would have had it hung up better. As I thought this he said he was a surprised to find it was a touch tighter than he remembered, whereas if anything he had lost a kilo or two in weight, he thought.

Neither of us really thought about the suit again, went to church, had lunch... and when we came home he went upstairs to take his suit off.

At this point I hear a loud expletive from upstairs, and wonder what has happened.

He had just realised, as he took the suit off, that it was not the new one, but the older one that the 'wedding suit' had been bought to replace! No wonder it didn't look as smart as I had expected. No wonder, either, that it had felt a bit tight; he bought the new one in part because is old one was so tight it would no longer fasten!

So the good news is that he has most certainly lost weight since the new one was bought in January 2020!

But the funniest part of all this? For some reason it had not occurred to either of us that the suit he was wearing on Sunday was the wrong colour - it was mid-grey! 😄😄😄

I feel like Lucy in my icon. I am fed up with winter now, I would like spring. If we can't have spring can we at least have a week without winds gusting to 70mph - which are due tonight and tomorrow again? At the moment it is just beginning to blow a hooley again, but at least I don't have to go out any more today, so that's of the good, I guess.

Poor S2C has hurt his back. It was improving, and he'd even walked down to the shops before he went to bed for the afternoon. But he must have moved awkwardly in his sleep or something, as it is very sore again.

I know this because I heard him yelling at me from the landing. I went as soon as I heard him, only for him to berate me because he had, apparently, been calling for me to help him out of bed - but the bedroom door was shut, I had the living room door pushed to because the tumble drier is on, and I was listening to the rugby on the TV, which had a lot of crowd cheering, whilst also concentrating on what I was doing on the computer.

But, it seems, he believes firmly that I had heard him and was ignoring him... So he's crabby too.

As for what I was concentrating on on the computer...AAAARGH! D-d and I are going up to Skye in early May to meet up with dougalsservant and another friend from my uni days. It should be straightforward to organise. After all, 1,200 years ago there was regular traffic between her island and ours. But these days it takes 2 days.

First attempt was to leave here on a Saturday morning, go to Heysham by sea, then train to Glasgow, stay overnight and get a train from Glasgow to Mallaig on Sunday morning, and a boat from Mallaig to Skye. Except that the morning train doesn't run on Sundays, and the afternoon one only gives 10 minutes to get the boat at Mallaig. If the train is late you are stuck at Mallaig overnight.

dougalsservant came up with a fix involving hiring a car at Fort William, rather than once we got to Skye.

Then we find the train from Heysham/Lancaster to Glasgow is not running on the Saturday because of track works. There is a detour which adds 5 hours to the journey.

D-d manages to get an extra day off work, we bring everything forward by a day and it all looks smooth. The lady at the car hire place says it is fine to have the car for an extra day, so the only thing to do is change the hotel booking made for the Saturday night in Glasgow, before we found out about the train problem. Finally got this organised this afternoon. Good job I did, as it seem the hotel website had assumed that when I booked a room for the return journey, just after booking for the one on the outward journey - that it was instead of the first one, not as well as it... WTF?

However, hotel all organised now, tickets all bought for the travelling, everything is fine. Except that now they have changed our boat times between home and Heysham... The big boat is going into dock, despite it being a bank holiday weekend, and the fastcraft is doing the route instead; so we can only hope for good weather. And then D-d and I will be stuck in Lancaster, with our luggage, for about 3.5 hours because our Lancaster-> Glasgow tickets are non transferable. Don't ask about the trip home.

However - we will get there, come hell or high water! And at least I am in the house, warm and dry, and have comfort food - toast with black cherry jam. And hopefully S2C's back will be better when he wakes up. But I still feel crabby...

Remember back on October 4th I said that D-d's birthday gift to her Dad had not arrived for his birthday although she had ordered it about 8 days before?

Well when it hadn't arrived by almost a week later she contacted the supplier in York who then e-mailed her an apology; their carrier had taken it as usually and then, 7 days later, returned it as they didn't deliver to 'the highlands and islands'.

So they then sent it by Parcel2Go, and gave her the tracking number. On 17th of October she asked me had it arrived, as the tracking info showed it being delivered... to an address in York. But not the supplier's address. At this stage, S2C knew the supplier was York Armouries and so that it was likely to be a replica weapon - and decided it was probably a boomerang!

Finally, on Wednesday, which was October 23rd of course, it was delivered about 4.30pm. So it took about 26 or 27 days to travel the 120 or so miles between York and our house.

And what was it?

( Read more... )

Traditionally the church children have a special service in July to celebrate the end of term as we do not have children's lessons over the summer, so many of them are off-island, and it gives the teachers a chance to charge our own batteries.

This service was on Sunday - and our theme was sheep! We looked at a number of the times sheep occur in the Bible a few weeks ago - and then we made sheep! Lots of sheep. And rehearsed a story, and made more sheep...

I took some pictures -

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In other news - it is definitely summer today - S2C has taken his jumper off. And even his sweatshirt for an hour or two!

Actually the temperature was about 25C today - and I met one of my patients who has a small son, about 18 months old. She said he was a bit fretful in the heat - but then it occurred to us that it has never been as warm as this at any time in his life - no wonder he was making strange!

S2C made it to work last night - he slipped, slid, and staggered down the steep slope of our street to the main road, where there was no sign of any buses - but a taxi was trying, and failing, to go up the next street to ours.

When the driver gave up, and the passenger got out to walk the rest of the way, S2C flagged the taxi and was, therefore, able to get down to town to work.

There were no buses this morning either - however, a colleague who got in by car for 8am finally gave him a lift up to the village about 9am when it was clear that he was stuck down in Douglas. (The bus problem is caused by us all living on steep slopes - the bus routes, naturally, are through the housing estates which soon become impassable!)

So - he got there, and home, and by tonight, we hope, he will be able to take our car down.

The west of the island is cut off from the rest of us, though, as they have had the worst snow - and with the high winds the drifting has been a big problem.

This is the webcam picture of the seafront at Peel - so at sea level, and with the heavy salt spray effect...



Pretty - but chilly. Parts of the west of the island are without electricity - high winds coupled with snow and ice on the powerlines - and may be until Monday. I really don't envy them.

S2C has seen the eye specialist, had some tests done, and now has eye drops and ointment to use regularly - it seems as if the surface damage to his eyes is, at least in part, caused by them having become too dry. So far they seem to be helping - with his new glasses, once his drops are in, his sight is better than it was a month or two ago. So, so far, so good.

In other news, winter is icumen in... last night it was below freezing for the first time this winter - this morning I needed to scrape the ice off the car - and tonight looks as if it will be much the same.

It really should make me feel festive and all ready to prepare for Christmas - and I am trying. I am ready to go into church on Saturday morning and decorate the Advent ring; I have bought D-d an Advent Calendar, and one for the Sunday Schoolers; I have some craft stuff ready for Messy Christmas at church...

But as for making cards and so on - I fear I haven't done any. You might get bought ones this year...

Just come in from an excellent Chinese meal eaten to celebrate S2C's birthday. We used to go to a Chinese restaurant called the Water Margin, but it closed about a year ago. Tonight we went to the new one which has opened in the old building - new name, new décor, new menu - and it is even better than the old version - very, very good. He says the sea-bass with ginger and spring onion is one of the nicest things he has ever eaten.

And those of you who are fans of his writing will be pleased to hear that his gift from me was a new ergonomic keyboard, as the old one died a few months ago and he has been using a bog-standard one. The new one seems to be a hit and he reckons he can type faster, for longer, with it and so can get chapters done more quickly....

D-d bought him tickets to go to see Milton Jones in a couple of weeks time - I'm pretty sure he would reckon it a good birthday. Oh - and these was cake...

Firstly a cat update. Shake is a little stronger and the vet is pleased with his progress. However his lifespan may be seriously curtailed if he continues to consider my handbag as a suitable alternative to outdoors or a litter tray... Fortunately I noticed in time!

Now some silliness - S2C has been deep in a place where Éomer is to be coronated, Eldarion is known as dead, and poor Merry suffers a setback as he recoups from the Black Breath. Yes - he is perusing the summaries in the Lord of the Rings section of Fanfic.net.

We have just been considering which is the most expendable letter in the word Legolas. The letter most likely to be missed out in a summary is the 'o'.

We feel there should, perhaps, be a whole genre devoted to 'Leglas' the elf - whose brother or sister is doubtless called 'Wide-eyed'. If the doyens of the new genre can spell that, of course.

However all these oddities pale into insignificance beside the one he has mentioned on his own journal...

I am copying his entry here for my LotR friends who aren't also his LJ friends.

Alyssa jumped up wide awake her dagger, which she had placed under her pillow, drawn when she heard it; The Screeching whale of the Nazgul...

This is, presumably, from the version of Lord of the Rings where the Council of Elrond decides that the Fellowship shall include Legolas, representing the Elves, Gimli son of Glóin, representing the Dwarves, and Queequeg, representing the Harpooners.

Call me Ishmael Baggins...

It is worth also going over to his journal for some of the comments.

I'm tired. I've been hectic at work all day and think I need an early night. Especially as we will have to be up early in the morning, to get down to the boat to check in, as we are off to The Event!

In other words we are off to Coventry for WriterConUK. Yes, I know, it doesn't start until Friday evening, but as one of the three person committee I want to be there to greet everyone as they arrive. (We'll be in the bar to the left of the front door...)

Poor old S2C is even more tired than I as he was at work last night and has then been awake all day.

So - the plan is that I put a lot of stuff in a suitcase (I get T-shirts dirty very quickly!), he adds a spare T shirt and his undies and socks - and then he looks after the suitcase so that I can bring my proper laptop as it has useful things like the accounts on it...

He's a good husband!

Looking forward to seeing everyone who is coming - I'll report back about it all.

Calling those of you interested in the debacle over the LordoftheRingsFanfiction site - well actually for those of you with even a working knowledge of LotR, or Winnie the Pooh, or how fanfic works -

My husband has issued a challenge to Keith Manders to prove that he's not just a rapacious money-grubber trying to loot fandom after the style of the late and unlamented Fanlib:

Sadly Keith Mander is unlikely to read S2C's journal to respond - but we'd certainly read it if he did...

Oh - and why Winnie the Pooh? The guy already has a Winnie the Pooh fan site - no kidding! He has also bought a Twilight archive to see if he can make money out of it, too - but not even S2C is cruel enough to make use of that!!