Smiley. (And with a cat sitting on me, although that is not connected.)

I am feeling rather warm and glowy.

The dynamic and dramatic bobo (I still haven't worked out how to do his special squiggles) has written a post about what each of his blogroll means to him.

(What a lovely idea.)

And I am feeling all affirmed and pleased and also a little bit bashful.

But mostly pleased.

Very pleased.

It is so nice when people are nice. And also when they are open and generous and giving and authentically ace.

Y'know?

In other news, I am considering the purchase of a piece of art which claims that "Tea revives you" (do not all rush there and buy it, for there might be none left for me!)

And also, I am quite damp.

And thirdly, have I ever told you the story of how hub and I met? (I could not remember, and my tagging system is entirely not a system at all.)

Finally, hoorah!

New flat, same old cat.

Shall I let her out of the bag, shall I?

Buses.

I am in Birmigham, in the home of the parentals, awaiting both aforementioned parentals and also travelling sister, who is no longer travelling and who I will see for the first time in about nine months.

Littlest sister will be joining us later and together we are spending this weekend in the family home for the last time. It is not only me who is moving next week, it is also mum and dad. The home that we grew up in, we are saying goodbye to.

Things are all change.

Just before I stepped into the Tickle-mobile to putter up to the Midlands, I received a letter. A letter which informed me that I have been accepted onto the counselling course.

All change, move along the bus please.

And on Monday I move with my lovely hub and our lovely weird cat to our lovely new flat (I am still fretting about where the litter tray will go...)

Ding ding!

I am apprehensive and excited and a little full of loss. Doors are closing and opening. Buses are arriving at their destinations and new buses are departing.

And this would be an appropriate place for some sort of journey-type metaphor.

Blimey.

Blimey.

I had an interview

And I do not know how it went.

There is no funny story, no tripping over of any kind, or accidentally saying "willy" at any point.

Which I think is good.

But lots of hard questions.

(It was an interview to get onto a diploma in psychodynamic counselling. The hard questions were things like "What would your nightmare client be?" and "How would I know if you were angry?")

Also, I have a cold. And my voice sounds like a powered down version of Mariella Frostrup.

Also, I have a cyst! It is on my chest and looks as thought someone has hidden a small golf ball under my skin. Yesterday, people stared at me as if I were a freak of some sort! It hurts a lot. I have antibiotics to make it not-inflamed. They have upset my tummy.

I'm rather surprised I managed to attend the interview at all.

I will find out in a week.

Sitting on the bus on the way home I thought of all the things I should have said, all the words that had eluded me while I was grappling to express myself. And then the sun shone on my knee, the sea came into view and a teenage boy swore in a brilliant and hilarious way at the bus driver. Then I didn't mind so much anymore.

It is good living by the seaside. I highly recommend it.

There is no coherency to this post.

We've only gone and got a bloody flat.

We are waiting for the references to go through so it's not, like, totally definite, but it is, like, some definite which I think is better than no definite at all.

So woo! And stuff.

It is just down the road from where we are now, and it has a little front garden and a little back patio and it allows the Weird Cat, which is obviously serenely important.

On the down side it doesn't have a freezer (we shall buy one!) or a bath.

(It does have a shower.)

So we just thought that whenever we go somewhere that has a bath, we'll just have one. And that way it will be like a special treat for every now and then.

Beware if we come to dinner.

ALSO, this morning there was a man on the radio talking about the earthquake, and he talked about its "epic-centre".

I think this is glorious (not the earthquake, that would be dreadful) and we should all immediately start a campaign to replace the original, vastly inferior word.

Who's with me?

Insuring the Weird Cat

Our pet insurance automatically renews itself every year, like an alien being (or some alien beings I suspect). This year, we noticed, not only did it renew itself, but it also cleverly doubled itself.

So I went out into the wilds of the interweb hunting for new and better insurance.

And primarily, y'know, cheaper.

I found some, you'll be pleased to know. But in the course of getting it, I had to answer these three questions:

Has your pet been used for commercial guard, security or racing? Yes No
Has your pet previously shown aggressive tendencies? Yes No
Has your pet any pending third party prosecution(s)? Yes No

And now I can't stop thinking about the possibility of racing the Weird Cat.

I think the idea has legs.

Which was not intended as a terrible nearly-pun.

I would like to buy her a sweatband. And train her. Lord knows she could do with losing a few pounds (I am thinking of changing her name to "The Big Fatty" or just "Lard".)

Cat-racing. It could be a thing.

LOLcat. I have one.

And she is weird. (But good. Obviously.)

Stupid fucking angry.

I feel angry.

Really properly fucking angry.

We waited for two days for an estate agent to get back to us about whether a landlord would allow the weird cat or not.

TWO DAYS.

And the answer was no. Which I found out at two minutes to six yesterday evening.

So I phoned the other estate agents straight away about the second flat we liked - the one we said we would take if the first one didn't allow cats. They were closed. I left a message saying we wanted to take it and could someone ring me in the morning to tell me how much we needed to put down as a holding deposit and I would come straight there.

I called them again at nine this morning and she said a woman had put a deposit down this morning. She said it was first come first serve.

I left a fucking message!

I am angry with them, angry with the first agent for not getting back to us sooner, and really bloody angry with myself for not being clever enough to just go to the estate agent first thing this morning and JUST FUCKING DO IT.

I have had enough of this stupid trying to find somewhere to live business.

But no choice about stopping.

I wish I could just stop and be sorted and settled and know what the fuck is going on in my life.

Stupid bloody everything.

GRRRRRRRRRR.