Drama, She Wrote

Firstly, my husband is officially REALLY REALLY OLD today. He is now 30 years old. I know this isn’t really ‘old’, but it amuses me to take the piss, though it must be said he is taking it all rather well. After the depression last year when he turned 29, I thought I’d be prising him away from the gin and paracetamol today, but he’s grand and rather amused at it all. However, the age gap between us suddenly seems HUGE. Different decades, again!

So happy birthday hubby, and also? It is totally your fault you have a hangover right now. You did drink a pink of wine, remember? (Actually, you probably don’t).

To celebrate Paul’s turning of the years, we’re going to… the NHS drop-in clinic in Loughborough! This is because I have, once again, had an attack of THE MAD ITCHING AND SCRATCHING and have removed half the skin off the top of my foot. I get these desperate attacks to scratch, scratch, scratch every few months, and boy, do I scratch. Skin peeling away doesn’t stop me, blood gushing out doesn’t stop me; all I know is it feels so damn good and even though I know it is going to result in the most painful wound in the world, I keep doing it, even in my sleep. This isn’t a self-harm thing - I LOVE doing it, though perhaps not the results.

This latest bout started a couple of nights ago. We’d settled in for the night and I found myself wanting to scratch. Knowing the damage I’ve previously caused (and also, having the scars to remind me) I managed to stop myself. However, it then became apparent than Austin wasn’t in the flat and neither of us could remember him going out.

Not usually a cause for concern. Austin goes out for hours at a time but generally returns when called and is a happy, healthy, smart big lad, so he’s trusted. But we prefer to have all three of them in when we go to bed, and suddenly, it was like ‘where is he? Is he okay?’ and the panic set in. We did the usual talking-ourselves-better which didn’t work one jot and in the end turned the light on and set up a vigil. It occured to me, during this vigil, that perhaps if I did cause damage to myself via the scratching, it would be some kind of cosmic exchange for the return of the Moody-Murphy. Now this makes me sound like teh mad, but I had been watching a programme about Hindu sacrifices to the Gods, and it had clearly made an impression. Before I knew it, the scratching had begun.

In the end, I called out for Austin and, like the well behaved fella he is, he came sprinting toward the window from across the (silent) road and prompty came back in. He’s more like a dog, really. After being smothered in hugs, we put him in the living rooms with the idiot twins and settled back to sleep, deducing he’d probably been out for all of 45 minutes and we had totally overreacted. But by then, the scratching had begun, and I couldn’t stop.

Yesterday morning, the wounds were clear to see. And let me tell you, even by my standards, this is a cracker. I smothered the wound in plasters and found I could drive on it, even if walking was a tad painful. Okay, really painful. And that was kinda it until about an hour ago, when I just started rubbing the area lightly against the mattress. It hurt, but it felt so bloody good, I carried on. When I looked down to inspect the damage, I was bleeding again and there’s a two-inch circle of raw, exposed flesh, which is going to get infected, and I still couldn’t stop. After a quick discussion with Paul, I knew a trip to a nurse was needed, if anything just to get something to STOP IT ITCHING.

So yeah, party for Paul’s birthday! Don’t worry, we’ll get suitably drunk tonight to make up for it.

In other news, I’m still sleeping really badly, but I have had a THING for a week now and I think that’s a fair exchange. I’m finally able to eat normally though I do fill up pretty quickly, but nothing like the original withdrawal nausea, which was ever present. I seem to have finally stopped shaking, as well. I think the drug is now totally out of my system and although I’m only averaging four hours sleep a night, I don’t feel too bad on it. My sleeping pattern will, I hope, eventually recover itself and I’ll be sleeping naturally for the first time in years.

We’re also overloaded with business at the moment, which can only be a good thing, though thankfully Paul hasn’t got to do a class on his birthday. The business needs a bigger, more expansive website though as we’re now dealing with corporate customers too (who are paying us a fortune; it’s quite alarming, really), but that’s my deal, so I’ll do it when the heat is less oppressive. Seriously, Britain, this sucks. Stop it.

It’s fair to say that coming off Quetiapine has been both good and bad.

The good has involved me not having any of the THINGS for two entire nights. I have overcome my associated feeling of terror of the bedroom, which is now more of a room to me than a den of torture (God, that sounds very S&M, doesn’t it?).

So that’s the good. The bad is a little more problematic. I seem to be constantly feeling sick, which is something I don’t really know how to handle. Some people don’t like headaches, or toothache, or whatever… everyone has a certain type of illness that bothers them more than anything. For me, it’s stomach issues - I am absolutely terrified of vomit, so if I feel even a teeny bit queasy I freeze and deep breathe until I feel better.

But, er, it’s pretty much been a case of “nausea all the way!”, so unless I want to be still and deep-breathing 24/7, I’ve had to think of new ways to handle it. Which haven’t been that effective, in truth. And just when I thought the nausea was going to drive me officially insane, it stopped. To be replaced not five minutes later with stomach cramps so severe I actually found myself whimpering involunatarily.

Of course, I expected side effects. I’ve stopped taking a drug I had been on for three and a half years, an incredibly powerful drug that I was on the maximum dose of. And I’ve quit it cold turkey; no scaling down for me, just a complete stop. I just didn’t realise I’d feel this fecking lousy. Both Paul and I have done some reading on the internet and it’s all completely expected - it’s actually called Quetiapine Discontinuation Syndrome - but that doesn’t make me feel any better, does it? (Though it does stop my OCD shouting “STOMACH CANCER!” at me, a bit).

The other thing is my sleep, as expected, is terrible. I haven’t actually felt tired for three days, which sounds great, but my body is tired and my mind isn’t. When I do sleep, it’s not deep, more of trance, and I don’t feel rested. The only way I know I have slept is when I see time has passed, and even then it’s an hour at a time at the most. I wish I could say this not-feeling-tired lark has left me with endless energy, but it hasn’t; I’m lethargic as hell.

The only thing getting me through is when Paul throws his arms around me and tells me how proud he is of me. And the fact that I know this won’t last forever, and if I have to go through the physical unpleasantness it is not even a millionth of a percent of how horrific the THINGS used to make me feel. But it looks like we were spot on when we self-diagnosed Quetiapine as being the main cause of the THINGS, so go us, amateur psychiatrists!

In other more normal news, we had a bit of a scary moment when we went to Asda earlier. All of a sudden, the car wouldn’t accelerate in fifth gear. I pumped it a few times, got nothing. Shifted to fourth. The engine started spluttering and before I knew it, it seemed like every light on the dash was flashing at me. I had to shift right down to second to get the car to even respond and before long it ground to a staggering halt, though I did manage to get off the bloody MOTORWAY ROUNDABOUT I was on at the time (!)

In the midst of thinking “but Sammy! My lovely new car! Is SHIT!” I realised erm… not much petrol. In fact, not any petrol at all. The light had been on, but in my old car the light meant I had almost sixty miles of petrol left. And erm, I didn’t bother to check what was left when the light came on in a Mondeo… and it had run out of petrol. Safe to say I now know that when the light flashes, I have a lot less than sixty miles left.

Miracle of miracles, a petrol station was right by, and after a moment I got the car re-started and managed to coast across three lanes of traffic (thank God for traffic lights) and onto the forecourt. Of course if the car had died again while crossing that traffic it would have been ’see ya Antonia and Paul!’, but it didn’t, petrol was put in, and all way fine.

All this went on while my stomach was cramping so much I wanted to cry, so… I’ve had better days. But no THING for two days - I’m declaring this a success, and one day I will look back and say, “God, remember how awful coming off Quetiapine made me felt?” and that’ll be the extent of my recollection.

Apart from this blog post.

Erm…

This seems to be doing the LiveJournal and blog rounds at the moment. It’s a list of the ‘Greatest Ever Novels’ and you’re meant to:

Look at the list and:
1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) [Bracket] the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list on your own blog.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of The Rings - JRR Tolkein
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 [Harry Potter series - JK Rowling]
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (is that not just the Chronicles of Narnia?)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 [Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden]
40 Winnie-the-Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 [The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown]
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 [The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins]
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 MISSING
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 [A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth]
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 [The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon]
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 [The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold]
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 [Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding]
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (tried and failed many times)
70 Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 [Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson]
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - A. S. Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Pretty much all of that comes from a “proper literature” phase I had when I was about 16. Yeah, moved on from THAT pretty darn quick. The amount of those I actually enjoyed? See the brackets, the answer is: precious few…

I’m not going to mess about here and joke about things, because although I try to make this blog as lighthearted as possible (if you don’t believe me, please see my LiveJournal circa 2005 - now that is miserable!), sometimes, life isn’t lighthearted. It has been noticed that I haven’t been blogging: that is because I have been ill. Mentally, of course.

I’ve blogged before about problems I have with depression at night. Well, I say ‘depression’ in truth, I don’t know what the hell they are, but I know they make me want to kill myself. This isn’t said lightly; my husband is a diagnosed clinical depressive, I know how serious depression is, and I don’t say ’suicidal thoughts’ flippantly. But seriously when these THINGS (as I will now refer to them) descend, I want to die.

This is odd for me, because I’ve always been absolutely desperate to live. I know that might sound dumb, but, even more than most people - I want to live. I was about five when I started being terrified about the idea of dying, of not existing anymore. I used to tell myself “well, easy, I’ll never die” - and believe it or not, that worked for me right up until I was 18, and my OCD hit, and I realised I am going to die. And that utterly terrifies me and I have always been so desperate to live - it is probably why my OCD thoughts about cancer are so potent.

But when the THINGS hit, I want to die. I just want it to stop. They hit late at night, when I’m in bed trying to get to sleep. It starts with a feeling of cold spreading through me; my first warning. Then the thoughts hit: death, destruction, my death, Paul’s death, the cats deaths. Horror. Images flash before my eyes and I ache so much - physically hurt - that I feel like I can’t breathe. The only thing that stops the THINGS is eventually getting off to sleep.

So recently, the THINGS became more regular. So regular, I spent the majority of the days terrified at having to go to sleep. I’d stay up later and later, past the point of exhaustion, desperate not to have to sleep. But no matter what, when I went into the bedroom and lay down to sleep, they hit. And they were draining my will out of me.

Some time ago, I made the link between the THINGS and Quetiapine. I was first prescribed Quetiapine three and a half years ago in a bid to help my OCD; it is actually classed as an anti-psychotic and is a powerful sedative. It has never done anything for my thoughts, but over time I became convinced I couldn’t sleep without it and became, in essence, addicted to it. Several psychiatrists have tried to take me off it because I clearly only use it as a sedative, but I’ve always point blank refused. And I was so addicted, even when I made the connection between it and the THINGS (a slow burn realisation that I never got the THINGS until I’d taken Quetiapine), I still wouldn’t give it up.

But things have been so horrific recently, I have decided to quit it. I took out all of the tablets, those precious tablets I have been so enthralled with for the past three years, and soaked them in water and crushed them. No temptation. The THINGS were so bad, I’d try anything. The decision equally horrified and thrilled me, but after the events of 72 hours ago, I had to do something.

I don’t really want to go into detail, but two nights in a row, I was in hell. Mental hell, that is. I cried, I sobbed, I flailed, I begged Paul to let me die. I think the THINGS, as well as no Clomipramine (my OCD miracle drug) and the anniversary of the murder of my friend Selina - things just got too much. I self harmed, something I have never, ever really done - I’ve done the occasional scrape when my OCD has been at it’s worse, just to see if it helps - but something I felt compelled to do.

There is something about self harming that is addictive and seductive. I smashed a plate and dragged it across my arm. I sat and watched the blood well up and trickle down my arm, absolutely mesmerised by it. I stared at it as if in a trance. It didn’t help - it never does - but it did distract me. For awhile. Then the pain came back, and emotional pain is so much worse than physical pain (after shattering my left leg into four different pieces, I think I’m qualified to say that!).

And eventually, when the nights passed - the THINGS never happen in daytime - I knew something had to change. The anniversary of Selina’s murder arrived, and I cried so hard I didn’t think I’d ever stop. This was coupled with a banking error which left us with no money, no tobacco, no food - it all became too much. The next morning, I vowed things would change, and that’s when the Quetiapine quite literally bit the dust.

So last night was my first night without it. I expected no sleep whatsoever; I actually got around eight hours. Clean sleep, my first non-medicated sleep in such a long time. Today, I feel unbelievable - there was no THING, no depression, just sleep in the arms of my husband, a forgotten joy. I feel quite shaky and very… light… like I’m made of air, which is clearly because I don’t have a sedative in my system for the first time in three and a half years. I feel fragile physically but emotionally strong. A sense of quiet determination has replaced my air of terror at the prospect of the next THING. And Selina’s day has passed.

I hope this is a new start, a return to previous joys. The odd thing is, I’m happier now in my life situation than I have ever been before - but now is when the THINGS were at their worst. Further evidence that my own mind is out to screw me, but hey, Quetiapine helped it a lot. I’m also joining an OCD support group for the first time, a terrifying yet interesting prospect, but I think it’s about time Paul didn’t have to deal with this on his own.

A note to my husband: I would not have survived the past few days without you. You have been so, so wonderful, a pillar of strength in a time of crisis. Thank you.

So not the usual type of post, but perhaps a reminder that I am still mentally ill. I don’t want to be emo or anything, I just wanted to lay the facts down. I feel no shame: mental illness is horrific and until you’ve been there you’ll never know. What I have been through these past few weeks very nearly beat me, but I’m determined, with the help of my husband, my family and my cats, things have just taken a turn for the better.

Just a quick note to say I am still alive, just not much feeling like blogging. I know I should, but then again I also know I should probably tidy the front room, but I haven’t.

Things are well here. Paul’s landed his first business client so we now officially have loadsofmoney. Or we will when they pay, anyway… Also, I just ate a load of chicken while thinking “hmmm, this isn’t very nice” and assuming it was just some different method of cooking on Paul’s behalf. However, when he tasted it, he announced it was very seriously off and I shouldn’t eat anymore.

I ate a lot. I’m going to get sick, aren’t I?

This is why I get people to drink milk/taste food etc, because I am completely incapable of telling if something is off or not. I don’t know if this is a common affliction, but it’s a troublesome one, as I always dismiss things as just tasting a bit odd when they are in fact a week past their sell by date.

Also, I have just finished reading Kate Mosse’s Sepulchre and have decided never to read any books ever again* as they will never be THAT GOOD.

Also also, the cats are now allowed out again as Donncha and Austin love it. Darcy, she of the 20-hours missing, is not allowed out. Ever again in her tiny little life.

In other news, my husband is blogging rather a lot (and being stalked by a Richard Barnbrook fanatic) over at Impotent Fury. Go read his blog; it’s much better than mine.

*Not actually true, but worth considering.

It seems I am stuck in a middle. The ‘middle’ to which I refer is two types of women, of which I am neither, that magazines tend to be aimed at.

In magazines most people my age read, such as Marie Claire or Cosmopolitan, there are inevitably articles (and lots of them) about finding a man/being single/dating tips etc. And every time I come across these articles, I get a bit pissy, especially if the article is ‘we don’t need a man!’.

I’ve often felt that, as I got married at 20, I somehow have let my generation down. I mean, aren’t we all supposed to be high-powered career women? I mean hey, I don’t need a ring around my finger to make me feel complete, or so say the Pussycat Dolls. It’s almost like it’s wrong to want to find your soulmate, have a nice wedding and live happily ever after nowadays. I’ve certainly felt it.

So what magazines do I read instead? I once decided to plump for Zest, which by the way if you’re ever thinking of doing, don’t. But I hoped that Zest and friends would be a nice stop gap between the man-hunting magazines and the knitting-pattern-and-arthritis-helping-tips magazines. But of course, I was immediately excluded from the popular clique of Zest readers - because I don’t have children.

So here I am, stuck in the middle. Too old-fashioned for some, but not old-fashioned enough for others.

When Paul and I announced we were getting married, we did so six weeks before we actually did so. The idea of being the ’star’ of a big wedding simply terrified me, so we’d planned to have a small, intimate gathering, which didn’t need months of planning, so we didn’t see the point in setting a date years away. We were engaged, and we decided to get married in six weeks. And pretty much everyone in the entire world thought I was pregnant. The amount of times it was “hello Antonia! I heard the news! *eyes slide to stomach*”. I naively assumed that because we were already engaged people wouldn’t think a quickly planned wedding was due to pregnancy, but I was very, very wrong. I also got a lot of ‘polite’ phone calls in the July and August after we got married in the December, expecting news. I had no news. I wasn’t pregnant. And I wasn’t getting married to get pregnant.

I have often wondered why Paul and I felt the need to get married, considering we don’t really ever intend to procreate. I also didn’t want a big do; I have such admiration for those brides that do, I personally could not cope. I also saw the effects of the huge wedding scenario when I was Maid of Honour one of my best friends, Mel. I was there when, three days before the big day, she was drinking gin and crying and crying and crying about the stress of it all. She later told me the marriage wasn’t consummated for a week because both she and her new husband, Craig, were so exhausted from it all.

So why get married? I don’t even really know. I can’t really remember the thinking behind it. Paul never proposed. It seems odd to say I can’t remember the exact details of how and why we got married, but I genuinely can’t. It’s like Paul and I never officially moved in together; it just sort of… happened. There was no big “we should co-habit” discussion, nor was there a “get wed” discussion. Somehow I ended up with a ring (I have no recollection of how) and six months later I was signing my name Antonia Kelly. Odd really, considering two previous boyfriends had accused me of being a commitment phobe.

But the thing is, despite the woolly beginning, I absolutely adore being married. And that is really what this post is about. Despite everything - the pregnancy suspicion, the not really fitting into any particular clique, the apparent disappointment of some of my peers by my choice to wed - I am absolutely blissfully happy to be married. I love saying ‘husband’. Nearly three years on, I get a bit of a kick when I see Paul’s wedding ring on his finger.

Of course, it helps that I’m happily married. Paul and I believe we have the best marriage in the world, but then perhaps so does everyone. I genuinely absolutely adore him. We laugh, we talk about everything (even gross things)…

- I’d just like to stop here and tell you what has just transpired. I turned around and Paul was fiddling with his hair.

Me: “What are you doing?”
Paul: “I’m tying a bottle opener into my hair.”
Me: “………………. Right.”

Who wouldn’t want to be married to him?! -

Yes anyway, Paul and I share everything. I read stories in Love It (ashamedly, my favourite magazine) about women who keep secrets, like debts, from their husband, and I Just Don’t Get It. I tell my husband everything. He knows my PIN and security codes. He knows my email passwords. Sometimes, when we’re discussing bodily functions (too much information, I know, but I do have a point…) I think “are we too open?”, but I think it’s better to be like that than not open enough. And I would also like to state that while Paul and I are psychotically close, we do not use the bathroom in front of one another. That’s just nasty. It’s pretty much the only taboo we have, mind…

Marriage suits me. I have never felt claustrophobic in my marriage. I have never wistfully wondered what it would be like to be single again. And that, at the end of the day, is all that matters. That is why I got married; because the idea of spending the rest of my life with Paul is really, really appealing. And you just don’t need anything else.

I know I sound sappy, but my marriage is the thing I am proudest of in the world. And I wanted to post about that, because sometimes you should be serious and express things properly. It’s not easy being 23 and married, it really isn’t, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dearest, Darlingest Austin;

Today, you are eight years old. EIGHT! It’s hard to believe I’ve had you for so long, especially with you still looking all young and sexy.

It’s often said between Paul (or ‘Ginger’ as you like to call him) and I (or ‘T-Kel’ as you like to call me) that you are the glue that holds our little family together. You are the sensible one, the intelligent one, the first to comfort anyone when they’re down. When you first came to live with Paul and I, after years in the garage due to my evil stepmother, you weren’t a nice cat - you bit us, you attacked us, you hid from people, you were nervous.

It’s hard to believe that Austin is the same cat as the one before me today. Now, you’re loving, ridiculously affectionate and friendly, and adored by everyone. We really feel like you appreciate the life you have now, because you had it so rough before, and we’re so proud that you’ve become some a kind, caring cat.

As you’re probably aware, you’re very big. Giant, as Paul likes to call you. Much bigger than the twins. We love you for your panther-esque size but never fail to notice how you have the smallest appetite of the three cats. You are beautifully low maintenance. And of course, you’re ever so handsome.

It is a true honour to own you and know you. You’re a funny sod, always partial to the odd burp, and you also snore when you’re asleep - which may just be the cutest thing ever. You’re reassuringly large and solid and quite partial to a cuddle, though your favourite thing in the world is the chin love, which makes you go ever so silly. You can be so straight and sensible, then you’ll lose it and go mad with the twins, both of whom love and adore you, and we know you love them, too. No denying it, Big Lad, we’ve seen the cuddles!

Paul and I like to joke about your quest for world domination and perhaps your best effort yet, the infamous sinking of the Kursk, which we know was down to you. We also hope that the salmon we regularly feed you means we’ll be allowed to survive come The Revolution.

So Austin, our gorgeous eight-year-old panther, you are a pleasure and a privilege, and we all love you desperately. Now go and get some sleep; we want another eight years out of you, Moody-Burp.

Love always,

Toni, Paul, Darcy and Donncha

(aka T-Kell, Ginger and the idiot twins).

Beings as I can’t be bothered to put together any ‘real’ posts at the moment, have a… odd… post. Paul directed me to History Orb, where you can type in your birth day and see what events happened in history on that day. I did so, expecting to find nothing of note, but actually… it’s not bad and, sometimes, oddly apposite. Here’s some:

25/05/1895 - Oscar Wilde sentenced to two years hard labour for being a sodomite.
I’m not sure what to make of this…!

25/05/1961 - JFK sets the goal of putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade.
I’m ridiculously familiar with the speech, which I call in my head the “We choose to go to the moon” speech. As an Apollo missions obsessive, I was delighted to discover this little factoid. The speech is as follows (the crux of it, anyway): “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things - not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” I’ve heard it so many times that even in my head I pronounce “decade” the American way; “de-cade” instead of “dec-ade”. I’m really pathetic, by the way. Proof positive: I wrote that from memory.

25/05/1967 - Celtic wins 12th Europe Cup 1 in Lisbon
Celtic’s most famous victory. Paul, a Celtic obsessive (”fan” just doesn’t cover his level of commitment) thought I was the coolest wife ever when he heard this.

I share May 25th as a birthdate with: Ian McKellen, Sally Jesse Raphael and Jonny Wilkinson (didn’t get that from the site, just knew it). Which is a pretty crappy showing, don’t you think?

No one significant has died on May 25th.

Still, the Apollo speech… I’m happy.

I think the urge to blog comes in fits and starts. Sometimes I feel like I have so much to say one blog can’t manage it. On the other side of the coin, sometimes I don’t blog for nigh on two weeks and even when I do eventually blog it’s about not wanting to blog. Odd, really.

It’s not really that I don’t have anything to say. Things have happened that, in normal circumstances, I could get six or seven posts out of. Like the two accidents I had last week; smacking my head on the car and having fainting fits and agony headaches for the next 72 hours, and standing on a deodorant can lid so hard a massive bruise appeared on the sole of my foot (do you know how hard it is to bruise the soles of your feet? Do you? It’s like the most resilient part of the body…). Normally I could spin a “omigod I’m so stupid” post or two out of these happenings, but instead, I leave it to my husband.

I’ve also been continuing my wranglings with Leicester City Council, who owe me money. I like money. I want money. SEND ME MONEY. They owe something like £900 because they can’t calculate council tax right er, EVER, but despite a million phone calls I keep getting different answers. On Monday I was told the cheque was in the post. Tuesday, cheque no arrive. Call again. Cheque was never sent, apparently, as I’m owed nothing! Called again on Thursday, told cheque has been sent. No cheque. Call again, it’s a bank transfer this time! Call Lloyds, no money. Call again…

It’s horrifically dull. Then, eventually, on Friday I screamed and I screamed until I got to speak to someone in authority who swore blind the money would be paid by Wednesday. I finally relaxed and started mentally spending all the money, then this morning, got a letter say we’re not owed any money. This letter was sent on Wednesday, two days before I spoke to the supervisor, so I’m hoping the supervisor is right, but naturally it’s Saturday so I can’t call the flipping council for verification of this… not that I’d believe them anyway. I think I’ll believe them when the cashpoint spurts out notes, and not a moment before.

I really hope it does happen, because there’s so much stuff I want to buy. During our disastrously rushed house move, my make up got left at the old place - my entire make up collection, that is, worth around £500 (and that’s a conservative estimate; I have a long-standing love affair with the deluxe side of the make up counter). And while I have since managed to purchase mineral foundation, mascara and eyeliner, I have nothing else. And I ain’t got a face pretty enough for no make up, you know?

Also, I found second-hand air conditioning units on eBay in Leicester for £30, and beings as this flat is a heat trap, I want one so much I could cry. As it is, I keep checking the listing to see if they’re still available, which at present they are, but still available on Wednesday? I doubt it.

Apart from hours on the phone to the council, I’ve mostly been lounging around reading, watching My Lovely Roger (TM) at Wimbledon and eating chips. And I’m still getting horrible headaches from the head injury. I know I should go to A&E but my old friend, Laziness, is in residence and besides, I think if something really serious was wrong I’d… you know… be dead by now.

See, a kind of blog. A rambling, crappy blog. But a blog nevertheless… I promise to try and be more eloquent next time.

Hello there.  Antonia cannot be arsed blogging this evening, so she has asked me to step into her shoes.  That’s me in the corner (that’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion).  That’s actually me in 2005, my looks have deteriorated hugely since then.

So, what’s been going on?  Well, firstly, on Sunday we made the short journey to Tesco to buy some food and redeem some prescriptions.  The journey was made all the more harrowing by a banging accident sustained to Toni’s skull as she entered the car.  As a seasoned clumsy bastard, I treated the incident in a cavalier manner, but it did lead to a golf-ball sized bump on her cranium and periods of nausea as well as a fainting fit which put the shits right up me, I don’t mind telling you.  The skull is mending nicely, although Toni does still experience moments of agony when she forgets herself and brushes her fringe out of her eyes, only to thump the affected area.  When asked if she had sustained any memory loss as a result, Toni responded “No, nothing like that.  I have lost my memory though.”

Then in the evening, Donncha took the unpopular decision to relieve himself on the bed.  Ones AND Twos :0  Not a choice that won favour with the human contingent in the flat who changed the sheets and sent Donncha to Coventry for a full day.  As well as this, we ignored him for a while.  (Ba-doom-tssch.  I’m here all week.  Try the veal).  Darcy reacted to the situation with a show of sisterly solidarity which included nuzzling the humans and nibbling their fingers in a manner so cute that we changed the details on the tenancy agreement to put the flat in her name.  Donncha is out of the naughty corner at the time of writing, but chances are he will do something else stupid before too long, because let’s face it, he’s Donncha.

It’s been an accident-filled week and no mistake.  The incident to which we now refer as Bang-Head-Ow-Gate was only the latest in a string of unfortunate events which this week also included the stepping on of a deodorant can lid by Toni, the bruise from which made walking and driving excessively painful for some time.  As I was on the phone to my mother at the time of the incident, Toni kept herself from swearing - an impressive show of restraint which was, of course, wholly unnecessary given that my mother, like myself, is Irish.  The digital camera has batteries in, but we bought them from the local discount store so they don’t work.  This is a shame, as at this point I would like to furnish you the reader with photographs of the bruise.  It is a mighty injury, and when I look closely at it I can see the face of Jesus.

Anyway, I’ve bored you all for too long and shall now depart.  There’s so much that I haven’t had time for.  For instance, I’ve somehow managed to convert Toni to the wonders of football.  Even, somehow, to the delights of Celtic F.C.  We played “Don’t Forget The Lyrics” (or our own version of it) earlier, and it reinforced my belief that Toni is the most competitive person alive.  I’m not wholly convinced she wouldn’t stab me in the eye for £100.  Which may sound bad, but as I am psychotically passive we actually make a kick-arse team.  I just wouldn’t recommend that you play online Scrabble with her without tooling yourself up first.

If Toni can’t be bothered blogging again tomorrow, I’ll get Austin to do it.