A while ago I wrote excitedly about the fact that Chris’ brother and sister-in-law were going to have a baby, due sometime in May.

What month is it? May. What am I? AN UNCLE! Woo! Yay me, on doing absolutely nothing and being related by marriage to a child that has been born. I think I deserve quite a pat on the back.

The baby, Oliver, was born on Friday, only a tiny bit early (a week), and a decent 6lb 4oz. Mother and baby are doing well and they were allowed to go home on Saturday, which I assume means they are both fine healthwise and there was nothing the hospital was worried about.

I’m really pleased, and particularly relieved because his parents had been a bit anxious during the pregnancy and hadn’t wanted to assume everything was going to be alright just in case it wasn’t. They needn’t have worried, because compared to lots of people I know it seems to have gone without a hitch, and Helen seemed quite hale and hearty throughout.

I won’t get to see the baby for a couple of weeks, because as I mentioned before they live a few hours away in Wiltshire. Chris’ Mum and Dad are going this week, and we’ll hopefully go during half term at the start of June. Although that’s a little bit longer to wait than I’d have liked, it will at least give me time to shop for awesome outfits for him, such as this which I just found on a website:

He’s going to be the best dressed baby there ever was. I can totally see myself spending a lot of money on this boy during his life.

My Mum was pleased to hear all the baby news, but naturally had a bit of a wail about her never having grandchildren of her own. Not surprising at all – most things seem to relate back to her. My brother has apparently talked a little bit again about when he might have children, but it’s still a far-off ‘some day’ kind of proposal, so it sounds like she’s going to have to wait for a bit longer before she gets any, if at all. But at least I’ve got my first nephew now, whichever side of the family he’s on, and that’s all I really care about anyway!

I went to a wedding on Saturday, and it was the first time I’ve been to someone’s second wedding after having previously attended their first wedding. It was an odd experience.

Normally when I go to weddings I feel really pleased that someone has found the person they want to spend their life with, and feel excited for them to be making such a big commitment. I know how nervous they’ll be feeling about the day going well, and I get a bit choked up when they say their vows and declare their love for one another.

None of that was absent from this wedding – I’m sure the happy couple were just as nervous and excited and meant what they were saying – but I couldn’t help thinking it all sounded a little bit hollow when I’d watched one of them make the same solemn vows before. It couldn’t have the same gravitas to hear them say they’d remain faithful and loving for the rest of their lives, even though they no doubt meant it wholeheartedly, when a little voice in my head kept muttering “Yeah but you said all this before, and then decided you’d had enough of them after four years”.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think people should stay together if they aren’t happy, and it’s perfectly possible to fall out of love with someone. But I don’t see how a second wedding can ever have the same impact as the first one.

I also had to keep biting my tongue when talking to the bride, because I don’t know her all that well, and my natural response when making conversation is to latch onto the experiences I’ve shared with them. And in context that meant her first wedding, and saying things like “You didn’t want a harpist this time then?” Which is sort of a fair comment, because it was true, but there was an unspoken rule that no one should mention that she’d been married before and everyone had to act like it had never happened. So I found that a bit stupid, and all the more so when she was still using the surname from her first marriage up until she signed the register.

The wedding itself was OK. A bit cramped at times, as they’d chosen a small venue, and rather too cold to be eating outside so everyone was shivering a bit (especially the girls in summer dresses) and then fled inside as soon as the meal was over. They had karaoke in the evening, which was a bit unusual maybe, and lots of people didn’t want to do it in front of so many other guests they didn’t know. Chris and I waded in anyway and gave them awesome renditions of Cher – If I Could Turn Back Time and then Billy Joel – Piano Man. We were clearly the best singers (in my head).

Then on Sunday we had lunch at Chris’ Mum’s house with his family, and unfortunately we both came away feeling quite annoyed. Neither of us really cares for his aunt and uncle, and nor do Chris’ brother and sister-in-law. So the four of us are generally a bit reticent to spend time with them. Chris’ Mum though has as thing about Everyone Getting Along and basically tricked us into lunch with them this weekend.

The four of us were sleeping at her house on Saturday night after the wedding (as it wasn’t far away), and she had said “Oh I’ll do some lunch for us on Sunday before you go back, shall I?” to which we’d all agreed, imagining it meant just us lot. At some point along the way, this transformed into lunch for 12 people, which she deliberately kept from us until we couldn’t get out of it. You just have to endure family lunches, of course, so the four of us had a whispered “she did that on purpose” conversation but knew we’d just have to deal with it.

The meal was alright, the same as ever really, but I got really annoyed and actually quite offended by his uncle this time. He made several gay jokes, including saying Chris’ new car was a ‘gaymobile’, that it should have a pink stripe down the side, and when we mentioned we’d been baking recently over dinner he said “Let me guess – FAIRY CAKES! laughlaughlaugh”

And it just wasn’t very funny. It made me very self conscious and quite uncomfortable, and I just thought fuck off, I don’t know you well enough for you to make jokes like that. It wasn’t his intention to offend, I’m sure of that – he thinks he’s showing he’s OK with it – but he did it too much, and I didn’t like my sexuality being his primary topic of humour for the day.  There are certain words in particular I really don’t like being called – and queen and fairy are my top two. I could call him a bald retarded alcoholic with a trout for a wife, but I wouldn’t because it’s insensitive.

Chris’ Mum is flapping now because she knows we got pissed off, and her enforced socialising sort of backfired on her. So now she’s trying to repair the situation, even though she didn’t do anything wrong herself really, and telling us she’s sure he was only joking. Well fine, he no doubt was, but if anyone else came into her house and made offensive jokes at us, she’d probably get really cross with them herself.

So anyway, it was a bit annoying. On the upside, we can use it as a reason why we don’t want to have lunch with him again for a while, and she’ll probably lay off trying to force the issue.

I am sitting at home today waiting for our new washing machine to arrive. About a week ago our old one went kaput, and as usually happens with washing machines it helpfully waited until it had got a full load of clothes soaking wet before deciding nah fuck it, I’m not finishing this lot, I’m just going to sit here not moving and making a little clicking sound every few seconds. I tried cajoling it, I tried kicking it (worth a shot), I tried restarting it on a different programme, but no. It was dead.

It was the washing machine that was here when we moved in, and so I don’t mind that much replacing it. It’s quite manky looking, and for the first couple of weeks I didn’t like touching it because I knew it had had someone else’s pants and disgusting dog blankets and things in. So I sort of wanted a new one anyway, but the timing has turned out to be a bit unfortunate as we’ve just spent all of our (Chris’) money on a car.

The sparkly new one is due to arrive today between 8am and 6pm. So naturally I’m six hours into the wait and there’s no sign of it so far. It’s a shame that we have all integrated appliances in the kitchen really – because although they look nice hidden away behind cupboard doors, they’re a lot more annoying to replace. They cost more for a start, as evidently making things slightly narrower must be cripplingly expensive for the manufacturer, and then the old ones are also wedged right fucking in there and won’t come out. I was worried it wouldn’t come out at all in fact, to the point that we’ve actually disconnected the old one and dragged it out completely, just to be sure that it would be possible. So we’ve done half the installation man’s work for him; he better be grateful.

Anyway, this wasn’t meant to be a post about washing machines. I’m waiting for a washing machine; it’s boring; I have a week’s worth of clothes to wash; hurry up Mr Washing Machine Man.

Apart from washing machine-related tribulations, I have had an OK if manically busy week. I have settled into my new job in Marketing a bit more now, and got a bit better at managing the workload between my two roles. I’ve done about five weeks there now, so that’s 10 days in total, and I’m starting to feel a bit more comfortable when I’m there. So far I have worked on two mobile web projects for them: building a mobile version of our courses database (which was like building a mini mobile website from scratch), and then optimising the main university website so that it displays a bit better and is more usable on a mobile device. I’ve never done anything like either of those before, so it has been a good learning experience for me, and I’ve been quite pleased with how both of them have turned out. The work on the main website was probably harder, because it was essentially trying to make a website structured and designed for a desktop browser display properly in a very different environment without touching any of the content code. I’ve still got a bit of work to do on it, but it turned out well enough to put the main parts of it live. I also got a nice email from the director of marketing saying how well I’d done it, so that was nice.

The rest of my week has mostly been spent on trains. I had to spend five hours getting the train to Canterbury and back on Thursday for a two hour meeting, which was pointless and expensive and long. And then on Friday I got the train up to London to see Mum (a bit early) for Mothers’ Day. I just stayed the one night and then escaped at dinner time on Saturday.

The visit was okaaaay, but as always happens I spent about three hours sat upstairs on my own ‘sorting out Mum’s computer’. Which just means doing stupid things like updating programs and drivers and sorting out error messages. I don’t mind doing it, but it’s every time I go home, and then I hardly see Mum and Dad because I’m sat in the bedroom the whole time.

Dad has outdone himself by adding to his driving woes by receiving a fixed penalty notice from the council for turning right into a turning you’re not allowed to. He got caught on camera doing it (it looks like they had a special camera set up for just that reason), so he can’t exactly deny it, but he does protest that the signage was unclear and seemed to refer to the previous turning not the one he turned into. He can protest all he likes: it’s still cost him £65, incurred the wrath of mother once again, and made me wonder if he really should be driving any more. How many things does he have to have happen before we acknowledge that, at least in terms of his working life, he should give up on driving and do something else? He’d say he doesn’t have any other skills, but really I’m not sure he has this skill any more…

He still hasn’t heard from the police about his accident, and he’s had no luck finding a job. Poor Dad. He has done six week course aimed at helping people get Olympic jobs which means he’s got certificates now in health and safety, food safety, customer service and manual handling. So that’s something. And he’s going to try to do some voluntary work he’s found on Wednesdays, so I think that looks good in terms of him being proactive and using his time while he’s unemployed instead of just sitting around. God knows if it’ll help though.

It’s 2.45pm now and still no washing machine. HURRY UP YOU BASTARDS. They’re not getting a cup of tea now. Unless they’re hot, then they’re allowed tea. But only if they turn up in the next 20 minutes.

I have had another rubbish month for blogging, to the point where I have actually received complaints about it. Who actually wants to read this stuff?? Well apparently you do, so you’ve brought it on yourself and I have no sympathy.

I have been crap at writing on here because I’m insanely busy with work, and trying to do my normal job in three days a week plus a new job in the other two days is seemingly a bit ambitious. I’ve managed to get back on top of things this week, but it is hard going. I’ve also had quite a lot happening at home, so there has just been no time for anything, and blogging got pushed out.

My main news from the last month is that we (well, Chris) have bought a new car! This is him, and his name is Thunderbolt:

Chris has wanted a convertible for aaages, and he’s earning pretty well now so he decided just to buy one. Our old car (dear old Columbo, who I’m going to miss terribly) was on his way out a bit, so we knew he needed replacing soon, and in a bit of a whirlwind of activity Chris found Thunderbolt online, we saw him the next day, and test drove and then bought him the day after that.

It all seemed to happen REALLY fast, and even though he’s second hand and wasn’t all that much money, and Chris was paying out of his savings so it wasn’t even my money, I found that the whole process made me insanely anxious and stressed. I was worried we’d get ripped off, that the car would have a major fault, that the garage wouldn’t do the work they’d promised to do on it before we picked it up, that it wouldn’t be ready on the day we were supposed to pick it up, that they wouldn’t take Columbo in part exchange once they had a closer look at him, ALL sorts of things. I don’t really know what’s happened to me in the last few years, but I have completely lost the ability to cope with change and my anxiety levels have gone through the roof. Buying a house, starting this new job, and buying a car have all been a nightmare, and I’ve worried myself to the point of feeling sick all the time. I really don’t want to be that person (effectively my Mum but not so haughty) and I need to find a way of nipping it in the bud now while I hopefully still can. I’m not sure what to do about it though. I’ve got a book on anxiety at home somewhere that I need to try to dig out, and there are various types of therapy I could try. When I’m in between big stressful events though I don’t feel especially anxious about things, so I end up not doing anything about it, and then something else big happens and I wish I had. Hmm.

Anyway, that was an interesting (boring) diversion about my anxiety issues. Thunderbolt seems fine so far, touch wood, and we’ve had him nearly a week. The weather has unfortunately not been nice enough to have the roof down, but he is very big and comfy and Chris seems to enjoy driving him. I always refer to our cars as him, by the way. I hope everything stays fine and his big end doesn’t go after a fortnight or anything. What the hell is a big end anyway, and where does it go? Can’t they just fix them in place more securely? I might have to look into that.

Other than that I have just been drinking too much, not getting enough sleep (while drinking), and thinking I really must cut down on my drinking. I don’t get wasted all the time or anything, but I had started to drink out of habit in the evenings a couple of weeks ago. It was just a cocktail or a glass of wine, so not loads, but it wasn’t very good. So now I’m cutting down a bit and only drinking when I’m actually socialising or for a treat.

Mum is hmmm OK, not great. That’s about as good as it gets with her. Their gypsy curse this week has included: the downstairs phone breaking; the battery going on her car so it wouldn’t start and she had to get the AA out; a blind falling off the wall when she pulled it; and my Dad fainting for no reason and banging his head on the dining table. So pretty much par for the course with them really. Dad has been to the doctors already and been told he has low blood pressure, and now he’s having some tests done. I’m not too worried about him as yet, but I’m glad he is getting checked out.

It’s just bizarre that they have so many stupid things happen to them though, it’s non-stop. He’s still waiting to hear from the police about his accident thing that he lost his job over and that he might get prosecuted for. If I wrote down all the unfortunate things that have happened to them over the last year I think it would make me want to shoot myself (or them, as an act of kindness). But it does at least make me realise, anxiety issues or not, I have a comparatively good and easy life and so I should be grateful.

I seem to have had a really busy month, and although it only feels like 1 February was yesterday, suddenly the month is almost over. I haven’t blogged for two weeks (fail), so I’ll have to try to catch up with one of my summary posts and then get back on the wagon from next week.

I have started the new bit of my job, working two days a week in the central web team to try to give me a bit more variety and to have some harder work to do. I’ve done four days with them so far, and it’s been fine. I don’t love it yet, but I’m never that good at change (see the blog posts when we moved house), and I’m hoping I’ll settle in more as time goes on.

I’ve been working on making a mobile version of part of our website, which is quite an interesting project and is stretching me a bit as I have never coded for mobile devices before. So that’s a good thing, but at the same time it has meant working for four days on a single thing without really talking to anyone else, just staring at the same three files of code. I’ve found that a bit dry and it’s hard to focus by the end of each day. But once I get given a few more things to do I’ll hopefully be able to switch between projects a bit so it’ll be more varied.

I’ve also had the last week off work as it has been Chris’ half term. I very rarely have a full week off in one go, so it’s been nice to have a good long rest. We’ve done a few good jobs around the flat too, so although we didn’t go on a trip anywhere like we’d hoped I don’t feel like we’ve wasted the week.

We had our dangerous old gas fire removed, and have cleaned out the fireplace and made a nice feature of it with candles and pebbles.

Just getting the fire removed ended up being a bit of trial. We hired a proper Gas Safe engineer to do it, from a gas fire installation company, so we thought fine he’ll know what he’s doing and it’ll be all safe and hunky dory. He did seem to too, until the last stage where he cut a live electric cable with his clippers. There was a MASSIVE blue flash and a bang, and all the electrics in the building went off. He was fine, fortunately, because he was using appropriate clippers for working with electricity that had rubber handles. Otherwise I’m sure he would have killed himself. I don’t know why he didn’t realise the cable was live, he “thought he’d disconnected it”, and obviously he wouldn’t have cut it and risked his life if he’d been unsure. But he still got it totally wrong, it took us ages to get the electricity back on (a breaker upstairs had kicked in and we had to find it and switch it back on), and it felt like this was exactly the kind of thing we’d hired a professional to avoid.

But anyway, it’s done now and the fire is gone and we’re happy with our pretty candles. We were going to buy a new gas fire, but it was just too expensive and too much of a faff with listed building consent and getting the flue swept all the way to the top. So we did this instead and saved about £800, which is pretty good.

The other exciting thing we’ve done this week is buy a piano. I’ve wanted a piano for years and years, but I only ever had a keyboard as a child, and then I never had the money or anywhere to put one after I left home. I used to have piano lessons before I went to university, but then I stopped when I moved away and I’ve only played very occasionally over the last 13 years. I can still remember the pieces I knew a bit, and I’ve still got the sheet music, so I’ve started relearning them. I’m currently working on Michael Nyman’s The Heart Asks Pleasure First, the theme from the film The Piano, which is really hard but I’ve always loved it.

The piano is a nice digital one, not a very fancy or expensive one, but it looks really swish and the keys feel nice. We’ve had to put it in the hall because it didn’t really fit anywhere else, which is a bit of a shame as it’s a funny place for it, and it looks a bit out of place there. But I’m prepared to live with that for the sake of having a piano, and if we rearrange the furniture in our living room at some point we might be able to squidge it in somewhere. Chris paid for most of it as a treat, so I need to make sure I play it lots and look suitably grateful. And if he’s good I might let him have a go on it once in a while.

I’m back to work tomorrow, and I’m sure it’ll be a bit of a pain trying to catch up on a week’s work when I’ve only got three days a week in the office now. But busy is good I suppose and at least I won’t have time to be bored! Roll on March, because then it will be spring and this freezing cold weather can fuck off.