Don't Believe in Pickles

Well a lot's happened. And I'm going to skip all of it and progress to yesterday at about 6pm.

Mum yelled at me from downstairs that Pickle might be dead. Not waiting to hear the rest I plummeted downstairs to try to save my beloved niece. I reached the landing to find that she wasn't even here (I'd only just woke up from a nap and pickle had been here when I fell asleep). Elise had just called and said that Pickle had fallen down the stairs and that her neck was twisted. Panicked we searched for the car keys so that me and mum could go and lend assistance as soon as possible. Not finding them we soon gave up and set about walking up the hill.

I tried to force myself into the reality of the situation; that a baby couldn't survive a broken neck and that my 'ickle pickle, whom I had only taken shopping that morning to buy a new sippy cup, was dead. That we'd arrive to find a mother in morning, a child crying and an infant lying still and silent.

Half way up the hill is where the pavement of the hill meets the foot path that leads almost directly to their house. We just made to climb it (while skipping parts of the winding path) when a car tooted, urgently behind us. It was Elise, Stav and the kids. Pickle was strapped into her chair and, aside from a few tears that were nearly dry, she was smiling and happy. I kissed her cheek and moved back so mum could do the same and broke down and cried.

Apparently it was not her neck that was twisted into the wrong angle but her leg. And even that seemed to be fine.

Mum and I squeezed into the back, which wasn't comfortable as we're both rather large people and I was wedged in between mum and a baby seat and Bink was on my lap. Bink cheerfully told the tale of what had happened; that his little sister had fallen down the stairs "very fast" and had cried. They didn't take us home (which, at that point, would have been less than an minute away. I assumed they were giving us a lift because of mum's walking disability). It turned out that we were heading to hospital of the next town. I'm still not exactly sure why.

I could barely look at Pickle. She was wearing a white kind of furry coat and a pink summer dress and the sun glistened in her Blond ringlets and her eyes were bluer than they normally seemed (as, for a while, they've been becoming less and less blue). She seemed absolutely perfect.

I broke down into crying again. Both Bink and Pickle found this very funny, particularly Bink (I don't know if pickle was laughing because her brother was or because of the way my face seemed to contorting itself in a way beyond my control or both).

The thing is... I couldn't believe it was real. I had become convinced they my Pickle was dead, killed by negligence.

I don't know what's real and what's not. Was she alive, as my senses told me? Or was my mind creating a situation that I could cope with so that I didn't have to live with the alternative? A hysterical mother, coupled with a bad line would be hard enough to understand and "leg" could easily sound like "neck". But this was something I'd already considered and that could be the fantasy my mind had chosen to enact for me. The people around me were talking and discussing the situation as it 'seemed' but even their words could have been my imagination. Maybe what heard bore no similarity to what was really said, maybe we all sat in silence for the entire journey.

Maybe the whole trip was a lie, maybe we arrived at Elise's house to find police and an ambulance and her little body was taken away.

When we got their Elise didn't want to wait for the elevator and took pickle down the stairs (but this, too, could have been something I made up as I discovered the other day that pickle doesn't like lifts and cries when the doors shut. Apparently she's a little claustrophobic). Stav was parking the car so it was just me, Mum and Bink going down the lift and I told mum what was going through my head).

We went to the ward for children's minor injuries. There was a room with lots of toys at which pickle was particularly excited. She ran in and out with some new, interesting toy she'd found and handed them all to me before running back in to see what else she could find.

I couldn't bear it.

I couldn't face the possibility that the illusion might be shattered at any moment and that I'd have to face a bitter reality.

I went out and lay on the car's bonnet until Stav came out to get something and then continued to lay there until everybody was ready to leave. Mum sat in the front, this time, and Elise sat in the back with me, which was slightly more comfortable. (Well, not for Elise, but I didn't really give a damn about how she felt).

Elise and Stav argued a lot on the way whom, assigning blame for the fall to oneanother; Stav shouting and her for not being attentive enough; that just letting your eyes off a child of that age for a moment (which she had; she was moving laundry from one room to another) was a moment too long. She, in turn, shouted at him for not putting up the baby gates which were strewn across their house and yard (several of which are largely used for keeping their dogs from fucking). Of course the were both right and should both have something bad happen to them. (I'd quite like to be the one to perform said badness). This made him exceedingly angry and he continued to shout and I tried to tune them out. My interest was rekindled when Elise took her turn to rebuke him by telling her about police procedures and how, if anything serious had happened, the police would take the time to question the neighbours about the family and how Stavross constantly shouts and is abusive to both her and the children. He was quieter after this, but according to mum he was still steaming in his shell for the rest of the trip.

As we re-entered the town boundaries we nearly passed their old car, one they were still trying to sell. (A horrible little convertible). It was on a grassy corner on the drive-way to an industrial estate where I'm quite certain parking isn't allowed. Stavross pulled up here and got out, took Bink off my lap and went to the other car.

Elise took Pickle with her, deciding that she was taking her to a larger hospital for further checks as there have been so many cases of unnoticed child injuries in the press, this last couple of years ('Baby P' being the only example they could name, who had a broken spine that the doctors they took him to completely missed, somehow).

I wanted to be alone, so (after taking some painkillers for a headache brought on by travel sickness) I slipped unnoticed into a spare bedroom (one with no available beds, as it's recently become little more than mum's wardrobe, as she has an addiction to eBay she can't contain) where I lay on the floor between clothing wracks.

I lay there for an hour or 2 before anybody found me. Mum turned the light on and asked if I was ok and I told her I wanted to be alone, so she turned it off again and left.

At some point I fell asleep. I don't know what time it was. The painkillers must have knocked me out (the only ones I could find were memtid, which are something of an 'Overkill' for a travel sickness headache) because it was still quite early for me as I'd had a nap in the early afternoon and I was very uncomfortable.

I woke up with some parts of my body in cramp and others were numb. It was about 11.30. Mum and Jeff were already downstairs. Apparently I had a dinner in the oven. It was chips and a burger. Everything was still very unreal to me. I don't know what time Elise arrived but I hadn't quite finished eating at the time. Mum took the baby to bed and I took some milk up, after.

I still didn't want to face Pickle this morning. I realised why, later.

This morning, after feeding her and either before or after I bathed her, she was playing with a pot of sudocrem (cream for babies' bottoms) which I took off her, causing her to bump the back of her head on the table. And she cried, and cried hard and I couldn't bring myself to comfort her.

She got up and cried on her feet and asked to be picked up and leaned on the front of the sofa when I didn't and rubbed her tears away with little fists and came back to me and hugged my legs. I wanted to pick her up and give her all the love she wanted until the pain went away but I knew that if I did and the illusion shattered I'd fall twice as hard and might be irreparably broken when I landed. When I still couldn't pick her up she went to the sofa again and repeated and came back and hugged my legs. It was heart breaking.

I did pick her up this time but I couldn't hug her, which she clearly didn't understand. I took her up to her grandmother. I would have asked her to give pickle the love she needed but she'd stop crying. Apparently, after that long, just being held was enough, even if it wasn't particularly affectionate. I tried to explain to mum what my problem was but I couldn't. It's been very hard to explain to anybody.

I even went to the doctor to try and get referred to a therapist.

He said it was most likely brought on by stress and prescribed me something mild to take the edge off for a few days and said that if I still had the same problem after then that I should come back and he'd make the referral. (Actually I'm not sure if he said he'd definitely make the referral, but he did say that I should come back if the problem persisted).

We went shopping then. What was promised to be 'just a few things for dinner tonight' turned into things for dinner tomorrow, things for dinner tomorrow and things to be eaten over the course of the week. I had prevented mum from getting the deepest size of trolley and was forced to regret that with the amount of things she got.

On the way home we 'called in' to 'check' on pickle, who was promptly strapped into the baby seat. I still couldn't face her. I walked home.

That pretty much brings me up to speed. I've been home for hours but I get distracted easily while writing these things.

Prizes Withdrawn

I slept quite well although I was woken earlier than I would have liked in order to get Charles out of bed. In doing so I woke Dave up. (I'm not a morning person). He decided to wake Chug instead, so I went back to bed.

Tony has fallen out with us. He's refusing to come out and Mum and Jeff reckon it might be for good this time. (Yeah; right...)

Tony has said he'll babysit at Elise's place but Elise isn't willing to have him there. I understand where she's coming from, after all; I'm not willing to have him here. I would babysit myself but when I heard that tony was OK doing there I assumed that mum had already spoken with Elise and that she was OK with first. It's not OK for her to go sticking her nose where it doesn't belong, especially if that means inviting to Tony to watch Elise's children at a house that's not hers.

I've put my foot down. There is absolutely no reason why she can't have tony there. Well, there's the Stavros thing. (A few weeks ago he and the bitch had some kind of argument, she came here and he followed some time after to get his son. He was screaming his head off and the babies were scared so Tony held Dylan back where the scouse prick couldn't get him and he went screaming up the hill, still perfectly audible from here, shouting some pretty horrible things. Something similar happened a few days ago, only this time in the middle of the day and there were more people about at whom he could scream directly. I wish the retarded fucker would just go back to Liverpool so we can bomb the place). Stavros doesn't like Tony. Nobody likes either Stavros or Tony but Stav has, in the past, said he doesn't mind if Tony is there to babysit his children. And I'd quite like to see the results of that, to be frank.

So she might have a good reason, I just don't happen to think it's good enough. It seems that mum fails to see Elise's biggest problem with a scenario that involves having Tony at her place; it means that she'll have both children there and the self centered bitch can't handle that.

Mum has agreed to have Pickle for the day (which means that pickle is asleep in mum's bed and I'll have to take over the moment she wakes up).

Melodrama

So it's nearly a week since I've updated this thing. It's not that nothing of interest has happened so much as the fact that by the time I get to the computer I just can't be bothered to type it up or I've forgotten most of the details of that day.

About 2 days after Chug's birthday he received a text which, since he wasn't around, I read. (I didn't think it would be anything more interesting than an alert to say that he had a missed call).

I was wrong; it was a very melodramatic message from Laura, saying that she was worried about where their relationship was going, how disinterested he seemed the last time she was at our place (apparently she felt the impression that he wanted her to leave), how she felt their relationship was worth fighting for and that she loved him. (I realised early on in the message that it wasn't something that I should be reading but I couldn't look away. It's like seeing a disaster; no matter how horrifying it is you can't tear your eyes away). I felt like screaming at her "You're 12, for fucks sake, you have no idea what love is!" (and even if she did know, what she and Chug feel for oneanother doesn't nearly resemble love). It also mentioned something about how he didn't text her as much as he used to, which seemed especially odd as he'd only had a phone for a few days.

Reading this I felt a brotherly responsibility to try and advise or educate Chuggle. Chug, however, was annoyed that I had read his text message and was certain that he didn't need my help, evidenced by a pretty volatile reaction to my very presence. I think he may have even attempted violence.

When it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to help by discussing things with him I thought I would turn to Laura, thought I had no other means of talking with her other than leaving a message on her facebook, saying that if she wanted advice regarding Chuggle she should feel free to call me.

When she said she didn't have an credit I agreed to meet her at club on the following day and we could discuss matters there. I hadn't actually been planning to go but I saw no reason why I couldn't just stop by for a few minutes and then pop home.

As I was getting read to go to Club, the next day, I got a call from Steve, our church branch president. He was calling to remind me that I'd agreed to go home teaching that night and to see if I was still up for it. I told him that I was indeed still willing to participate. I didn't mind; I didn't really fancy club to begin with so I could simply pop to Ego and have a quick natter with Laura with anything that was on her mind.

I took Chug (for some reason I had to take the baby with me in her push chair), got some money from the cash point for mum and asked Laura if she still wanted to talk. Apparently she didn't, it was either all sorted or she felt too self conscious as we couldn't really find a private spot while I had the baby to attend to in her pram.

I returned home. I have no idea what I did to pass the time before Steve came to take me along. First we went to see the Hughes. I could hardly breathe for the smoke. I mostly said nothing as Glynn and I don't really get along too well. Not that there's any animosity between us, we just don't clique on any level. Well, I clique with hardly anybody, but Glynn's one of those few people with whom I have so little to say that the silences and forced conversation is awkward to the point of discomfort. At some point the conversation turned to dogs. I was asked if I liked dogs and I said 'no', informing them that if I was given a dog I'd give it back in a jar. They asked about 'that big dog' i used to have, and I told them he was now in a jar. I later realised that none of them really got the joke, that the jars in question were urns in which one puts a cremated... well, in this case; a cremated dog, even though they'd all laughed. Maybe it was just the idea of putting a fully grown dog into a jar, the latter of which tend to be quite small.

While there I got a strong impression that I was supposed to ask the Hughes' to pray more. I didn't ask them, feeling that Glynn would turn his nose up at me (as he has done in the past), however Steve had apparently had the same impulse and I was highly surprised when he asked them to pray instead of me, without a word on the subject mentioned from me.

Next we went to see James Blondel (I don't know if that's the correct spelling of his surname) and had a nice long chat with him. He seemed in good enough spirits, but he's still rather down that he can't find a job, and it seems pretty unlikely that he might find one soon, given the economic situation. I think this is especially depressing as he's engaged to a young lady who is about to join the American air force.

We didn't get time to see the other people we were assigned to visit as it was after 9 before we left James' place.

---

I was going to add some of the highlights of events that happened in the rest of the time between then and now but most of it is the melodramatic love life of Chug and Laura. I don't think I'll actually go into any details as I was planning to. It's not that I'm trying to respect their privacy (which I would if they asked me to) but rather that I don't want to paint a picture of Chug being a worse person than he actually is.

It's now wednesday the 4th.

And that's all I can think of to say.

Curry Night

So... It's Sunday now. Nothing interesting has really happened yet so I'll start at Thursday night/Friday. But I'll be brief about that day.

Thursday, 8pm; I fall asleep, fully dressed.
Friday, 00:00; I wake up, just as dressed and have pulled my bed sheets over me in my sleep, as I do. I was hot, sticky and uncomfortable. And, having slept for 4 hours I didn't fancy my chances of nodding off again. Failing to get off I go online and do... Fuck all for a while. María was actually online for a few minutes but the amount of chat between us wasn't even enough to be classed as 'small talk'.
02:30; Nothing else to do I go back to bed. I lay there for hours before I fell asleep.
08:00; Elise arrives to dump one or more children on me. I'm so tired I can't actually process how many I have.
12:00; Tony arrives. I go back to bed.
5 something; I'm woken up because we're going to some church thing. I'm annoyed that I wasn't really given enough time to shower but I do so anyway, since everybody else who was going to has apparently already done so. (That doesn't count Chug. He bathes for no man).
19:30; We set off at the time the social event was set to begin. This has essentially become a standard household practise. If it isn't Tony holding us up it's Chug, which was the case that night. And it's mental because he went dressed in whatever he was wearing when he woke up; all he had done was added shoes and socks.

I had already been told that it was a 'curry night' but I decided to go anyway; curry is something that the British are incapable of screwing up, it's as if it's ingrained in our genes. Obviously it isn't because it's not a British thing; we've only actually had it for 1 or 2 hundred years. And I don't think it was amazingly popular until sometime quite recently.

When I realised that it was Glynn Hughes who was cooking I was somewhat disheartened as this is a man who has gone to great lengths to avoid providing food for any church events, even when all he's been asked to do was sandwiches. I do recall him having words with some of the relief society when they'd asked him to do so and he'd said that he'd happily 'provide the drinks' (as he often did, as it required no more effort than buying a few bottles of the cheapest pop or squash that he could get his hands on) .

We arrived to find everybody was playing DVD Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The hall was divided into 3 teams, as the game is apparently set up for a multi-player mode of play. (Apparently not as many players as we had in attendance, therefore my team answered questions for 'player 1', the next for 'player 2', and so forth). All teams lost at £1000. Chug refused to participate in the game completely.

I went and offered to help Glynn with the cooking but he refused point blank. I tasted some and suggested he should add some spices but he said that 'not everybody likes it spicy'. I tried to explain that I didn't mean peppers or anything that would make it hot but Glynn just kept saying 'some people don't like it spicy', refusing to understand the difference between spices (such as cinnamon or musala) and peppers (chili peppers, etc). Looking I might have come across as a little condescending but I had no way to tell and no way of finding out retrospectively. I'd call and ask but I'm afraid I might be stirring a hornet's nest of some kind as trying to understand humans is something best left to other people.

I seem to recall that we had some mexican themed lunch after church one time and mum made a enchiladas (ie; I made enchiladas) and a mild chili. Glynn refused to try either of these on the grounds that he didn't eat hot foods. However they were both extremely mild and I can't see how he could qualify them as hot without trying them for himself. Everybody assured him it was mild.

Chuggle refused to participe in this, too; not only would he not have any of the food (which I admit that I completely understand) but he wouldn't even sit at the table with everybody else; he sat on a lone chair facing away from everybody. After a while Steve went and sat next to him for a chat. He must have ammused the boy in some way or other but it didn't seem to improve his attitude on the whole because he was back to his gloomy self as soon as Steve went to attend to other things.

Ultimately the food was edible though rather bland.

I spent most of the night talking to Lauren Thorley. I had previously assumed that her real name was 'Eden Ivy Lee', and that she had adopted 'Lauren' as a pseudonym because doesn't stand out so much, however she clarified that she'd changed it to Eden by deed poll some years ago. She seemed to be in good spirits, hard as it is for me to tell with people, though I think something might have been on her mind. She never seemed too cheerful when I first joined the church so I don't have much to compare her mood of that night. She thought I seemed miserable.

At one point she asked me what I had planned for the weekend and I honestly did not know what to day. I consider myself an introvert (though my friends and family find this hilarious) because I don't go out or socialise in general. My answer was "I don't know. Get screwed over by my sister and probably watch some cartoons" or something very similar. She smiled and said "You mean get stuck babysitting?". I was tempted to make a joke about incest but I decided not to bother. (I'd told the one about the 2 Jewish assassins who were hired to take out Hitler, earlier, and it had gone down badly).

(In the event that I have any new readers I would just like to clarify that I have never engaged in incestual relations. I hope that nobody took any implication that I might, but I have this dry sense of humour that some people tend to take seriously).

Her daughter, Hally, has grown as an almost surprising rate, but then I do tend to forget how much time tends to pass between the instances I see her mother and it's rarer still to see her. She must be 6 or 7 now. I meant to ask and I have no idea why I didn't do so.

I got home about 9:30 or so and eventually went to sleep at around midnight which I wasn't expecting given the amount of sleep I had already had that day.

If anything particularly interesting happened the following day I can't remember it.

Shrewsbury

I've logged on to this with the intention of writing up yesterday but here I am; just staring at the screen.

Elise dropped off Pickle at around 8am, which was thoughtless because she knew Mum was going to the Shrewsbury hospital in today and we had to be on the road by 10. But she told her that we had until we set off.

So this meant calling Tony to take over while we were gone. We generally have to tell Tony appointments are way earlier than they are because by the time he actually turns up there's almost no time to actually make our destination. We told him the appointment was at 10 so, naturally, he didn't arrive until after 10.40 when the journey takes 45 minutes if there's little or no traffic. He even made a joke about how there was no point in setting off in the time left. His tone suggested that he either wanted her to be late or that he knew she wasn't telling the truth about when her appointment was. (She only started lying about it when she had 2 appointments on the same day a few months ago and only had time to attend the second. I suspect Tony didn't believe she had the first and is now playing mind games).

It's nice to drive with people since car travel means that everybodys eyes have to face forward and, for me at least, conversation becomes more natural.

I sat in on her consultation rather than be left with nothing to do in the waiting room and I'm glad I did as, although a lot of it was pretty gross, there was also some very humorous terms thrown about (such as something that sounded like a 'Pretzel Enima').

I then accompanied her to have a blood sample taken. I picked us up a couple of drinks from a hospital shop on the way (apparently they have more shops, now, all of which seem to sell snacks and soft drinks). I got mum a diet coke and I tried a carrot and orange juice thing which was surprisingly nice. (I don't like carrots, but I don't mind when stuff I drink comes with its juice in it. Mum said carrots tend to go well in things or make things taste better. I said, 'like what?' and she gave a couple of examples that included carrot cake. I pointed out that I did like carrot cake, especially for the cinnamon, but when I make carrot cake I tend to leave out the carrot cake and if anybody approaches my carrot cake mix with wallnuts I get very annoyed).

We then went to check out cinema times for Saturday, ready for Chug's little date. You see, Cineworld has the most annoying phone system ever. It's much worse than "if you want to blow your brains out; press 1. If you want to be annoyed; press 2. If you want to be put through to another annoying list of things that don't sounds like they apply to you; press 3!". These guys have a voice recognition system, which means you can't talk to other people while on the line to discuss the options or anything because the computer can mistake what you're trying to say for the various options. And you can't just stay on the line for an operator because it'll just keep reading out the same list over and over. The web site was little better, either. Neither the phone line or the web site had listings specifically for the 14th, and those films which I worked out to be actually showing on the 14th made up a pretty dismal selection of about 3 and there's no way a multiplex is just showing 3 movies on valentines day.

The cinema, however, was closed. (And it was after 1pm). There was a notice in one of the windows saying that it would be opening 30 minutes prior to the first film but didn't mention when that would be. (Over the week I even tried looking up details for listings at the Odeon, the nearest one of those being another 30 miles away, however their website was just as useless. I ruled out going to that one because I don't know how to get to the cinema from the train station in that town, or even how to get to the bus stop... or the address of the cinema to know which bus to get on. Actually I don't think I know what the address of the Shrewsbury cinema, either, and it's been a while so I don't know if they've changed the bus routes or anything so I'll have to take a look at that, too).

It appears the customer relations for Cineworld are pretty non-existent. The phone message actually gives the web address of the people who created the voice recognition software. I don't know if I should really complain to them, it's not their fault that the company who hired their product didn't add a way to speak to be put through to a human.

I would still like to send a strongly worded letter to somebody or other.

We then went to the catering warehouse and picked up a few needful things and one or 2 slightly more frivolous ones.

I don't remember much of what happened after going home. Or I might do, but I'm too lazy to access those memories because I've been typing almost since I woke up (except for the usual distractions, and the usually unusual ones) and haven't had a drink this morning so I'm getting a headache which I'll need to do something about soon.

I do remember that Dave and I watched 'Night Watch', one of the DVDs I picked up at ego last week or the week before, before he decided to go to bed and he even managed to stay awake all the way through which was good because he normally doesn't last that long if we watch something that late at night. It was a good film, I wasn't expecting it to be Russian (I guess I didn't do enough research on it) but being foreign isn't something that would usually stop me from watching a film. In spite of the way they were clearly going for a 'Blockbuster' it wasn't too cheesy.

And there I'll stop to get some painkillers, a drink and maybe even some kind of snack to have by way of breakfast.

Eye Contact

Well... What's happened? Fuck all. I wasn't even going to make a post today, but if nothing has happened then whatever I do report will at least be quite short.

Errr...

Hmmm...

OK, well yesterday, sometime after chug got home he was on the phone to Laura. Or, at least, she was on the phone to him. He had the phone squeezed between his face and his ear while playing Star Wars; Knights of the Old Republic intently, saying absolutely nothing and probably not listening, either. So I came in to tease him, as any older brother should. And, for some reason, she had him put the phone on to me after a while.

So we chatted for a while and whenever Chuggle came up I would deliberately mention him loudly as well as whatever context in which we were talking about him, mostly to annoy him. It's hysterical to watch him give me dirty looks (ie; an angry expression, for anybody who isn't familiar with the term). Then she said we'd being talking for around 45 minutes which I said was impossible, she was apparently looking at some timer on her phone. I continued to dispute this but she wouldn't believe me so I told her what I was doing exactly 45 minutes ago; I had been looking at the clock in the dining room and was told to go and make dinner by my mother. I wasn't cooking anything special but it still took me 15 to 30 minutes to so, and I think she may have conceded or at least humoured me. She also told me that we were having what was possibly the first 'real' conversation she'd ever had, including with her Dad.

I wasn't sure if I should believe her or not, it seems unlikely to reach that age without having one at some point, but then again I rarely converse with people myself, due to Aspergers. Plus her dad isn't much of a talker (and, from meeting him, possibly not much of a thinker, either). I have heard that she doesn't have any friends she hangs around with at school (from the guys at club) or from outside it. Plus her Mum lives somewhere in South Wales. All I could think of was of how sad that much be. Not just to be lonely, but not even getting a degree of conversation. Then again, I think it's something I know well, and most people must go through it at some point or another. She said that her 'conversations' with Chug is usually her talking and him not saying anything and then, after 5 minutes.

So I gave the phone back to him and kicked him off his PC, going on there instead. He fussed and argued and told me, repeatedly, to let him back on it but, from my perspective, if I was on the PC and he was on the phone he was far more likely to talk. And if I was there to tease him there would be something to provoke some conversation.

And it worked. He claimed that all the did was argue while he was on the phone but I suppose they're both too young to know (and Chug is both young and autistic) that it was a very flirtatious argument, if it could be called an argument at all. They hung up on each other, they pressed buttons to make noises in attempts to bother each other (something of a phone war it was) and generally bickered. Then there was the smug tone of heir voices which is generally considered to be flirtatious. I'll have to explain it to him at some point later.

I've reached the conclusion that I'm going to have to sit him down and start giving him the 'girl talks', or whatever you'd like to call it. I'm not talking about "the birds and the bees" mechanics of sex, I'm talking about much more basic stuff. And I mean VERY basic, starting with things like Eye Contact. Besides, I'm almost sure he knows the basic mechanics of sex. Most kids do, these days. I had an encyclopedia with some interesting diagrams long before I reached his age. More complex stuff, things such as condoms, STDs and such can wait until he's 14 or 15. (Not that I'm expecting him to be 'getting any' at that age, but I'd rather he know and not do it than do it but not know. I don't want to have any extra nieces and nephews to look after from him before he's ready).

Though, come to think of it, I don't know how much about it he does know. I really hope that "the mechanics" not one of the things I'd have to explain to him.

Not much to say about today, either. I looked after Bink for a little while this morning while chatting with a close friend online. A while later I swapped babies with Tony, who was downstairs; he had Bink and I had the Piglet. And a few more hours still Elise picked up Bink, Tony had Piglet and I got to watch the rest of Iron Man with Dave. It was far better than I expected it to be, not only because it's based on a Marvel comic (I don't know what age I went off marvel, but at some point I decided that all the costumes and pseudonyms were silly, especially considering that the marvel and DC universe had thousands of costumed heroes between them, most of them with super powers. And you know they're running out of ideas for new powers and silly names for them). It made me realise that, in a lot of ways, Iron man was possible Marvel's answer to DC's Batman. (Playboy millionaire sinks millions into creating cool crime fighting gadgets. There's probably a bat man/iron man crossover out there, somewhere I should get my hands on...) Though the Iron Man movie wasn't nearly as good as either of the recent Batman movies I would certainly watch the sequal.

Elise came to take Piglet home surprisingly early, today, around 5:45. Apparently Piglet is having her first swimming 'lesson' tomorrow (I don't know if you can call it a lesson when you're only 10 months old. Then again, she tends to call everything "wblwblw" or "Aggahh!!" or "Hmhmm", so she may have a word for it). I find the idea of the precious little girl splashing away in the pool adorable, I just hope Elise takes a camera or something.

With no baby to watch Tony went home, I went to pick up a few things from the super market and then I made dinner. (I say "Made", what I really did was take some pies out of some boxes and put them in the oven, took some chips out of a packet and put them on to fry, as well as a few other things. The only real 'cooking' i did was to make to chop some chicken breast and cook it in a mushroom sauce. She didn't ask but I added some port and Cognac and a little salt and pepper. I had a taste of it when she was done and severely regretted not adding garlic). I only went to the market for chips, but I also picked up some Cadbury's Mini Eggs (childhood favourite) and a big box of Thornton's Chocolate for Chug to give to Laura.

I'd put the first items in the oven and then I went to give the box to Chug. As I said, I've come to realise that I'm going to have to be the one to give him those 'fatherly' talks. These are talks I never had, unless you count a few conversations with CP in my youth. But I don't really think the advice of mum's ex-husband are things that I should be striving to apply to my life, especially when you consider that he's a special forces trained ex-mercenary who has a track record as a rapist (though never charged with anything). (CP is Chug's biological father. Though Chug is kind of aggressive he's quite unlike his 'old man' in a lot of ways, and we hope he's going to continue being unlike him).

I had him pause his game and come and sit next to me and tried to make him make eye contact with me as we spoke. (This is something that doesn't really come naturally to us Aspergics, but it can be learned, however I've found that when I'm with somebody I'm close to for a prolonged period I will tend to forget to make eye contact completely. I don't know if there's any etiquette to this I can read up on, as far as I can tell it's all natural behaviour learned or almost from birth for humans). If he could do it with me (make I contact) then he could do the same with Laura. He refused to make eye contact with me on the grounds that he hated me which, to be fair, wasn't a particularly good reason not to make eye contact with somebody. I know that we often avoid it with people we feel hateful of but it's hard to do when having an argument with them, especially a heated one.

My argument got more heated when he declared our talk to be 'over' and that he was going to go back on his PC. I pointed out that I was right next to his power socket and could turn off all of his electrical appliances with one movement. I think he came close to calling my bluff, though I wasn't bluffing and I think he saw that. He stormed off to tell mum and I followed so that I could reasonably explain things. (I think that Chug has finally realised that, if I follow him when he runs off to mum after I tell him off, punish him or simply "lay down the law", as I had just done, it means I'm going to explain things to her and she'll probably come down on my side). Mum did agree with me, though she wasn't certain, but Chug still wasn't having it. I'll try again tomorrow, but I'll try harder not to back down this time as I'll only have 1 more day before I take he and Laura to the cinema.

I went down to finish cooking and we all ate.

Dave and I later watched some Doctor Who (episodes 5 + 6 of the 2005 season) before he went to bed at about 9 and I started typing this. (It generally takes me several hours to write all of my entries as I happily allow myself to be distracted. For example, at about the same time as I started writing this I started browsing some shoes that I had been meaning to buy for a while).

These are what I ordered; Like them? Want to know why I like them? They're PUMPS!! (Plimsolls) or as close as you can probably get without a time machine. We used to have to wear these indoors, back in primary school; they were our "indoor shoes". They don't make these, anymore. I don't know why, they were worn by children in schools all over the damn country and they were the most comfortable shoe you could possibly buy (after you broke them in). I first saw them in one of Dave's "Rollersnakes" catalogues. I couldn't find the specific shoes I fancied online (I think the ones I wanted had some sort of iron maiden motif) Anyway, I book marked the page (I had to do something, I suppose) and more or less forgot about it until today.

I wanted something dominantly black that I could wear in public without people jumping to conclusions about my tastes or personality (as most of my first picks had skulls on them) but ever so slightly ostentatious and I thought the checkered pattern would cover this. They're still pretty conservative in my opinion.

This is what I was originally going to get from the rollersnakes site. I still might, tbh. The ones I did order were on amazon but this design isn't on there as far as I can tell. I like the colours, I like the design... They look a little like carpet slippers but that's forgivable. And there probably will be times when I want to advertise my tastes, if not my personality (I don't see how footwear can prove this, but they do say women look at your shoes before anything else. If this is true then it shoots the 'girls are smarter than boys' argument out of the water. Besides, in my experience they tend to look at your package before anything else)

I'm looking at them now and I'm seriously reconsidering them. They don't seem to 'ostentatious' now, but if I actually put them on and went out they might. Since I don't normally give a damn about what people think of me or how I dress, I shouldn't let it get to me. (Especially since I don't care how I dress either, most days).

After ordering the black and grey checkered shoes above I continued browsing Amazon and found this pair, shown on the right...

Had I seen these first I don't think I'd have bothered with anything else. Possibly the least subtle of anything I looked at today and yet probably the pair in which I most saw myself. (I know that one of the figures appears to have cleavage and therefore women's but you'll look closely you'll see that one is a queen but the other is a king. You know, from playing cards... I think I'd have preferred a Joker motif but you can't have everything... Though I may yet find some with such a design. If I can't find some with Jokers I'll get this pair, next). You, the casual reader (and I imagine most of you exist primarily in my imagination) probably wouldn't like them, but that's ok.

I was still browsing shoes when my good friend came back online (whom I will henceforth refer to as Gydha) and I must confess I continued to do so for a while as we chatted. I did write more about our conversation, giving no particularly specific details but when I logged on today she said that she was 'aggressive'. She said it was because of the housework she had to do but I thought I would delete this small segment just to be more respectful, just in case.

And, as should be obvious, I continued to type. I don't think I've ever written so much about stuff I did while I was writing the very account of that stuff. I think there's a paradox in there, somewhere, but that's cool because when you look at things from a metaphysical point of view being caught in certain paradoxes give you some measure of immortality.

And you can't really complain about that, can you?

Stupid Cupid...

Cupid's stupid for a number of reasons, today.

Chug's girlfriend has a crush on me. They spent hours on the phone with each other and every so often she would find an excuse for him to put her on to me. She finds excuses to stand around with me when she's here, if I'm cooking or something (neutral territory; she hasn't actually set foot on my floor, let alone me room) and apparently she was asking my mother how old I was and if I had a girlfriend. Mum said I hadn't, but that I was 26. I'm actually 25, I don't know why she said that or how 1 year makes a difference; if I was a year or 2 older then her then it would be fine, but every year of difference after that makes it more and more questionable. She's 13 years younger than me, I don't think 14 would be that much more of a turn off.

(In any case, I'm not into 12 year olds so if she was to come on to me I would let her down gently).

In some of the instances of the excuses she took to speak with me she asked me for advice about Chug, why he's such a recluse etc. I tried to explain about Asperger's syndrome and how it affects us socially and how we sometimes didn't even know our own feelings, even as we're having them, until it's too late, giving personal examples such as how I sometimes blush without actually feeling the emotion of embarrassment or how I don't realise I'm stressed until my mouth and throat have broken out with ulcers.

Later I took him to her place. A minute or so after I turned back home I remembered that I hadn't told him to ask her or her father about the cinema next week and that he'd probably forget even if I did ask him to do so.

The walk home, alone, seems so much faster than the walk there while accompanied by Chuggle. Every few minutes I had to stop for him to catch up or go back and move him onward at more haste with my arm behind him. He was complaining about the distance when we'd got as far as the town library which is less than 10 minutes away. Laura lives about a mile away, give or take. He seemed to complain more about the walk than he did last time, as that time we didn't know about the foot path which would have allowed us to get to her place without going up hill at all.

Part of me actually wishes he attends the local high school, hell as it is with no facilities for people with AS. At least he'd walk 2 miles a day, like I did, and wouldn't be such a pussy about a little walk where he actually got to see his girlfriend at the end of it, something which should be more than worth it if he got the opportunity to kiss her for the first time or put his hand down her top (and, naturally, get slapped for it). But, then, I'm not even sure if chug is actually interested in sex. I've never known him to pay close attention to women in skimpy outfits or, unintentionally, find his eyes gravitating towards breasts while talking to somebody with large ones and let them, still unintentionally, linger there longer than they should. I haven't noticed him drooling over any men, either.

Plus there's still Juhela on my mind, but I said spoke of her yesterday and the whole thing that happened there hasn't really weighed on me any heavier today.

Then today (today; today) one of my exes logged on and we spoke a little. María. María lives in Venezuela and we've never actually met but we had this long term, long distance relationship going on. At first I didn't really feel anything for her, it was pretty much just an infatuation and part of me knew it, but then we had this moment when it seemed like she was going to split up with me and for less than a day I was miserable... And one of the worst things about the way I felt that way is because I had this feeling that, sooner or later, I was just going to shrug it off and say that I didn't care; that I didn't feel the way I thought I felt about her. Then, after a day of forcing myself not to, I just let her go. That night she logged on and I told her but she had decided that she wanted me after all and begged me to continue with whatever it was we had for a relationship. And I agreed; I had gone through an emotional roller coaster with a girl I hadn't met for over a year at the time and she'd put up with me in the same way... I realised that there must have been something there. Then a year or 2 after that she dumped me for some guy with bipolar depression who lashed out in his low times. Only this time I think I really had fallen for her and losing her hit me hard. She left him, too, and that was probably far harder for her.

Well, that's the abridged version of how our 'relationship' went. Naturally there were many more details and a lot more complexity to it but I can't really illustrate the entire story here. It'd take ages, for one thing.

We didn't say much, other than that she was studying at the time and I told her about Chug's first date coming up.

There were things I wanted to say. For example, I sent her an email about 2 years ago which I never got a reply to. You can't just bring something like that up in conversation, it would sound as if I've been obsessing over this why she hadn't replied. I'd also learned she had a new address and as I don't know how long she had that I don't know if her old one was still active when I sent it. But then, when I found out she had a new one (about a couple of months ago, when I added her to facebook, on a whim) I sent her an email there, too, and never got a response.

And I couldn't mention that email for the same reason. To be thinking about an email sent 2 months ago with no response might not seem as bad as thinking about one sent 2 years ago but I still didn't know how to bring it up without seeming like a freak.

Looking at the last couple of paragraphs it does sound kind of like I've been obsessing, but it's genuinely been something that's been at the back of my mind since I sent them.

We more or less made small talk until she logged off.

Then, of course, there's my Norwegian fantasy lady...

Laurence and Charlotte

Yesterday (Friday) was a good day. Well, it was better than most. I managed to sleep through until after 1pm without anybody waking me to look after somebody's baby. (It's not the babysitting I object to, it's the fact I do this almost every day; apparently without choice and certainly without pay).

Elise did come around after 3 with both children, I had one and Tony had the other. I did make it clear before she even arrived that I was going to club with Chug.

TBH I'm not really going to club for my own benefit, anymore, as I don't play WoW (though nobody there really plays it anymore either) as the average age of its attendees, these days, has to be at least 10 years under me. (When I started going they were about 2 years younger, on average). The main reason I've been going, lately, is because Chug has started seeing one of the other attendees, Laura, outside of club on a regular basis. They spend ours on the phone with each other on weekday evenings, she comes to visit him here on snow days and he goes to her place on saturdays and sundays. I take every possible opportunity to tease them, and those opportunities never seem to end. I'm a cruel bastard.

For example, it's been a running joke for a couple of months that Laura is a boy. (Ofc she's not). I think I might have even started that. It was certainly me who gave her the name 'Lawrence'. When she and Chug became and item he became 'Charlotte'.

I went on a bit of a spending spree while I was there; before I even went on a computer I had purchased 4 DVDs (on offer, 4 for £10. I Am Legend, Drop Dead Fred, A Scanner Darkly and Night Watch. Night Watch is the only one among them I haven't seen, I probably picked it as I needed 1 more to get 4 for £10. Thinking about it now I would have spent less than £9 if I just got 3 of them, but I can console myself that Andy warned me that Night Watch was pretty fucked up, so I will look forward to it). I also tried out SimCity Societies while I was there (everybody else at club tends to play FPS games, which I love but can't play because they make me nauseous on consoles and give me migraines on PCs). It's been at least 10 years (though probably more) since I last played a SimCity game. (I don't remember what console that was for, though it certainly wasn't for the PC. I had rented it and it came without a manual and, as I recall, there was no tutorial level. I had no idea what I was doing and my city sucked ass).

I spent a lot of time there trying to discern what's on at the nearest multiplex on the 14th, as I'm going to see about taking Chug and Laura to see a movie. (Part of me wants to sit a few rows behind the young love birds to spy on them, but somehow I think I'll be watching another screen room).

I ended up buying the game; it was "pre-owned" but the last guy had took it home, unwrapped it then brought it back claiming there was a scratch. So I got it brand new for half price :D

I don't really remember much of last night other than that.

I know mum had Piglet, last night, which meant I had her all day today. (Tony calls Saterday his 'Day Off', but almost every week he gets bored and comes up anyway. He didn't, today. Which was a mixed blessing).

Piglet was especially awkward today. As she's getting older she's getting much more lively and inclined to exploration... And she already a handful before she could crawl, diving in every direction. Now she's clinging to objects so she can walk with them side on. It's important to let her have a degree of freedom on the floor now (though there are certain people, such as Dave and Jeff, who disagree. Neither of them have nearly the amount of child care experience as I have, so I don't see how their opinions matter, though Dave will bitch a little if he sees her on the floor).

Laura was here for most of the day, today, down in Chug's room. Naturally I took the piss whenever the opportunity arose.

Obviously I don't want them having sex or anything but I have noticed that most of my teasing tends to be about whether or not they've kissed yet. At the very worst I'll say something about how they have to "use protection" if a situation arises where protection is needed. (Chuggle is, as yet, far too shy to even try to kiss here. And, from some of the responses to my teasing, I really think that Laura might be a little bothered by this. Of course I can't be certain about it, due to my condition, but I like to remind myself that my aspergers might negate any ability to read body language or vocal inflections but does improve my deductive reasoning and lateral thinking generally make up for it).

Actually, thinking about it, the worst I've ever teased them was probably telling "Lawrence" that if "my sister got pregnant" I'd know it was her.

I felt obligated to ask if she was staying for dinner, unsure as to whether we could accommodate her. I made diced chicken, baked in a creamy mushroom, mustard and port/cognac sauce. (My own recipe. Sadly it's something I tend to cook when we have nothing else, can think of nothing else or can't be bothered to make anything else). Apparently she said 'it was the best curry she ever had. I found this amusing :)

She went home around 9ish (several hours later than she as supposed to, as I had to make several outings while I was cooking; first to pick up some frozen chips (not washing, peeling and chopping my own in a meal of convenience, then to get some egg fried rice from the Chinese take-away at the end of the street (tried making my own in the past but I always seem to get it wrong) and then taking the Piglet home).

(Stavross was supposed to take her home, but when he arrived half an our previously his daughter was asleep, so he said he didn't want to wake her and that we should call him when he is awake. 20 minutes later, when she did wake up, his phone had been conveniently switched off).

I dozed off on my bed, fully dressed, until Dave started yelling at me that he'd won one of the best axes in the game. I wasn't too impressed on being woke up like that, but the joke was on him when he took a portal back to Dalaran and had to spend an hour or so trying to get back on to that character. Well, that joke was really on both of us, as I spent most of that time sitting in the arm chair waiting for him to get on, get his stuff enchanted and finish.

Having recently discovered that we can plug my portable hard drive into the PS3 to watch videos, listen to music or look at pictures downloaded to it I spent a lot of the time through the miscellaneous content of that hard drive. I also spent some time looking at film and game trailers while trying to find some final fantasy trailer, which I wasn't even sure was a new film or a new game. Eventually I found myself gravitating towards pictures of my ex wife and re opening some old wounds in the process. (Definitely not a good idea this close to valentines day).

However I can compartmentalise pretty well. Though I don't know how true that is... Sometimes it might seem that the emotions I feel are a shadow of the real thing, that my palette might be missing a few essential colours, lately I've come to suspect that my brain or my body doesn't know how to interpret them. For example, I can't really gauge how stressed I am at all until I start breaking out in mouth and throat ulcers in the least convenient places. Sometimes I'll blush in a situation when I should be embarrassed, however while my body is telling me how embarrassed I am my I can't feel the embarrassment that's supposed to come internally, if that makes sense.

(I used the same word far too often in that last sentence. The tell tale sign of a poor imagination)

It's another mixed blessing.

When Dave finally got off the PC he went for a smoke and had me decide what we were going to watch. I eventually decided on something we'd already seen before; Starship Troopers, as I'd be able to play on the PC while still following the story. It's actually better than I remember. Those bits I remember as cheesy don't quite so bad, now.

I didn't play any games, obviously, choosing to write this instead.

And that's about it, I guess.

Stinking Cold

I guess I could feel this cold coming on a day or 2 before it did but I just thought it was going to be a case of the sniffles.

I remember having a conversation with mum a few weeks ago about how I had managed to escape from the cold, this year, which is something rare and this reminder her about an article she had read which said that, this year, the cold had some how been covered by the flu shot. (I'm entitled to one because I have asthma).

Then, the night before last, it just went from the sniffles into full blown nausea, sinus pain, runny noses and streaming eyes, on top of the usual sneezing fits. Normally when I get a cold it's just runny noses, sneezing and maybe one night of coughing and then back to business as usual. I'm not normally one of those people who treat a cold like they're dying (ladies; just so you know I'm also willing to stop and ask for directions when I'm lost and will except the blame for my actions ;-) ); I'm willing to get on with house work and things but I still don't like exposing my bugs to other people when I can avoid it.

So anyway, when it got late, yesterday, and I realised that we not only had both of my sister's children but that nobody had come to pick them up I had to ask the question I already knew the answer to. "Do we have the kids tonight?"

Not only had my sister dropped off the other child while I was occupied but she had told mum and Tony that she had already cleared it with me.

I really wish people would check these details with me before assuming that Elise is telling the truth, for a change. Maybe it's the fact that we don't spend so much time with her, these days... She isn't here to lie to us so much but all people seem to have registered is that she isn't spouting as much bull shit as usual. Maybe, subconsciously, people are just assuming she's being more honest lately; at least as honest as a normal person.

I'm not sure if I'd have babysat, last night, given the choice. I mean, I suspect it's one of the babies' who cave me the cold in the first place but all either of them seems to have is the sniffles. I'm not particularly sure it's the same thing; it could be that they're just much better at fighting infections than I am. But if they're not and their sniffles aren't the same strain of virus as my cold then I have probably given them what I had.

Anyway, what I was getting about way above, concerning what mum read about flu vaccines immunising people against the cold, it kind of tells me that the cold and flu could be the same thing but when your body fights it more easily we call it a cold and when we feel like death we call it flu. (This could also explain why men complain about colds more than women do, as females generally have better immune systems than men do. With the exception of my mother). Since I get flu shots it could be that I'm fighting a slightly mutated strain of the flu, making it seem like a severe cold.

At about 6.30 or so this morning I couldn't stay awake any longer. I climbed in next to Bink, who had done a good job of keeping the bed warm for me.

He woke up at about 10, maybe 10:30 with an extremely weighty nappy and we had none his size for me to change him into. As soon as mum was sure I was up she gave me Georgia to look after until Tony arrived. We actually had ones her size, though. When Tony got here I was to hand him a tenner and send him back out for nappies. When he came back he bathed Dylan and I went on up.

Around 30 minutes later still, after I had checked my emails and web comics, etc, I had just got in bed, so naturally this was the moment mum chose to shout for me. She wanted me to watch Georgia for an hour. This meant that Tony wanted to go out, somewhere. (I don't mean to treat him like a servant but the guy grates on my nerves then rubs salt on them). I called back that I had just taken a bunch of melatonin, which was true, and she let me stay in bed. Normally I'd have gone to do whatever was asked for me, I'm generally the kind of guy who let's people walk all over me (or so various people tell me) but if there was an occasion when I needed to have some rest it was this morning.

I slept until nearly 6pm and did what I normally do; stayed in my bed room and went out of my way to let nobody know I was awake. Dave came home and told me he was going to a raid in 9 minutes (he don't remember him asking if he could use the PC to do so, this time, so there was a bit of a cheek in that, though I didn't really mind). I logged on for him and informed them that he had only just got home and had gone for a quick smoke. His whole timing was off, as I had finally decided to download season 2 of Sam & max and was going through the payment details, which meant updating my card on pay pal.

I sent chug down to get my card from my coat pocket but he couldn't seem to find it, so I went down.

(Both babies had been picked up which was highly surprising. Tony, however, was still there. He had asked to stay for dinner which is fine; he does deserve something for his efforts... Putting up with his constant whining and complaining doesn't really constitute as payment).

I finished the details and payed for the remainder of the season (I had downloaded episode one a year ago) and started downloading the first file (episode 2) as Dave started gathering consumables for his raid. He was on in Orgrimmar for a long time so I saw nothing wrong with watching over his shoulder and downloading the other episodes as they finished, seeing as they all came down so quickly. Then I went to help with dinner.

The potatoes had burned. Well, some of them had burned. Others were just slightly coloured because they were in the same water as the burned ones, so we were able to fish them out and put them in another pan for mashing. The tasted fine, though were a little tough to mash. The lamb was the best I've had in.... Actually I don't remember when I last had lamb that nice, though I don't doubt that it would have been minted lamb shanks from Langfords in Welshpool.

Then I went to lie down because I was still feeling a little nauseous. I think I may have dozed off, but no more than for 5 or 10 minutes according to the PC and mum called me down to help tidy the living room. Oddly enough I think that few minutes of sleep might have done a lot of good for my cold, who knows how much better I would be feeling now if I had been left to sleep. I got up and felt extremely groggy, which is how I tend to feel after 5-10 minutes of sleep, and went to see what I could do for them. I just was not with it, though, barely registering anything anybody said. At least Tony was gone, though.

Jeff was extremely stressed. Being completely out-of-it I thought this was due to the mess he was attempting to clean. Apparently it turned out that, after I had gone to bed, Tony went off on one of his rants at them again.

It was especially hard to concentrate on anything that was going on because Die Had 4.0 was on. Although this is the cheesiest of the Die Hard films it's still hard not to become engrossed by it. When I had finished everything I had been asked to do and the instructions seemed to end I sat down to watch the end. Then I came up, kicked Chug off the PS3 and Dave, who had finished his raid at this point, logged off and went to bed. He didn't feel like watching anything, but I knew it was a long shot just to ask, as it was already 11pm and he has work tomorrow.

It turned out the girl who had requested to be my friend on facebook was Lauren Thorley... It also turns out that Eden Ivy Lee IS her real name. I wander how she acquired the name Lauren, if that isn't her real... I replied to the last message she sent to me through Facebook and I started updating my blog and we ended up sending messaged back and forth through face book as I did so. One of the last messages I sent was asking if she had MSN or Yahoo IM but I don't think she got it, as she replied to the one I had sent previously and that appeared to be the end of it.

I also took the time to check out my friend Kirvil's blog; http://noeullent.typepad.com/. I don't speak any Norwegian, however when I run through it through a translator it's still pretty damn hard to read and I grasp pretty much none of it. Hopefully there's a better translator out there...

That would apparently bring us to the here and now.

I'm long over due for a shower but I'm probably going to play some games first. Even though I really want to get into Sam and Max I think I'll play the sims a little, as I want to make the latter last as long as possible, as there are a few games that come out in February that I'm really looking forward to. Plus there are several games that came out last year I'm interested in yet I don't seem to have got my hands on, yet.

There is no life A.F.K.

I named this blog as I did because, at the time, I was playing a lot of World of Warcraft. Actually, my time on that game dropped dramatically as my sister had a baby boy, Dylan, 6 months prior to the first post I made (the only real post before this) and she didn't seem to want to spend any time with him. And she went on to spend virtually no time with him until he was nearly 2 years old; she would drop him off at our place soon after he woke, usually between 9am and 10 am, and wouldn't come to pick him up until after 9pm.

At some point during this time my play time on WoW and any other games dropped even further and yet I still seemed to have no life of my own.

When her son was around 18 months old she had a Daughter, Georgia-May, just as adorable as he is. We frequently took care of both children for a few months, but as her son was now able to walk unaided and speaking in full sentences (no thanks to her) she started taking much more of an interest and we don't get to see him as much, these days.

(Elise isn't actually employed and nobody is completely certain why she can't watch both children, or why she couldn't look after Dylan when he was an only child).

We now baby sit her as much as we did Dylan, if not more as Elise tends to drop her off after 8am, some time, and will rarely come for her before 10pm. She seems to have less interest than she had for Dylan, and I thought her treatment of him was pretty deplorable. Realistically I know George is getting treated better than he was, or at least changed more frequently. Though this could be because she's spending more time with us during the day, although Dylan probably spent more time here as we had him for far more nights.

Most days a guy called Tony Quigg comes and babysits for us. I don't think I can really explain the way this man makes those around him feel and do justice while accurately explaining the feelings he evokes in us. He does it for free and he's not exactly affluent. This, you would think, must make him some kind of saint. This is what I would think. However I think that if you, my imaginary reader, got to know him for a few weeks, then eventually you'd want to be payed to endure his continued company. There's no end to the amount of personal comments and cutting remarks he makes. He has no problems telling people what he thinks about their personal habits, especially my poor step father who has several medical conditions which prevent him from leading a hygienic lifestyle. I think about killing Tony at least once a day, which is still much more merciful of the amount of homicidal fantasies my mother has of him.

I don't even think he babysits out of the goodness of his heart, I think it's more to do with some perverse way he see's my sister, who has to be 40 years his junior. (He claims to be about 50 or so, though I wouldn't be surprised if this was true and life has simply aged him a little prematurely).

Even though he's babysitting my sister's children she won't let him do it at her house because he keeps complaining her house stinks of weed (she denies this repeatedly, but I think this is one area where we might actually agree with Tony. Though, thinking about it, I couldn't smell weed when me and mum popped by for a few minutes earlier), that her boyfriend is a twat (one of the few other things we agree on. Even Elise has a hard time rebuking this) or anything else that comes to mind. She also suspects that she snoops around her house, in places where he doesn't belong, and opens her mail. She doesn't mind the idea of him doing that here.

Today he told mum "wasn't fit to look after the baby" (he's ill) this morning, however I pointed out to her that he's not fit to look after her full stop.

So I had her all day, not that I really minded. A few months ago (it might have been about 6 months ago, it was summer) we had a huge blow out and I wouldn't let mum have him around for a month. This was the longest we've been rid of the anal bastard since the birth of her first child. I knew that, as soon as I started backing down and letting him come infrequently it wouldn't be long before he was here almost every day of the week.

Mum had a dentist appointment today, needed to make a trip to Welshpool and had a weight-watchers meeting. I was supposed to accompany her to Welshpool, but we both agreed it was unfair to take a baby out in the car in this weather when we don't have to. I still didn't like letting her go along but I didn't see any other choice.

George took 2 short naps in the middle of the day, the later one lasted for the better part of an hour, most of which I spent trying to revive Chug's yahoo email account. For some reason it won't accept (what we believed) to be the old password or let us change it to anything new. I didn't manage to do this while she slept. I even tried starting a new yahoo account, however I kept getting messages saying I couldn't open an account for anybody below 18 years old without parental or guardian consent and required a parent or guardian to log in to give it. I don't know my mother's password (which I'm a little surprised about, truth be told, as I know the entire household's passwords for their online services except for mum's email. And I swear I used to know it).

I don't remember what I did until after 4, when Charles came home, and I don't really remember what I did until around 6, when I watched the episode 1 of 'Psych' on my computer, as he never saw much of the first season.

George was asleep at the time, this time sleeping for at least 80 minutes. After Psych I took fer down to change her nappy and make dinner for family. Although "making" dinner seems wrong, mum got a cooked chicken from the supermarket and some pork stuffing and meatloaf, which I warmed and fried some pre-sliced chips. (Actually, it's been so long since I've had anything other than pre-cut chips that I don't remember what home sliced ones even taste like. This isn't because I prefer them or even because I don't like the hassle of cutting chips (I don't, but this is beside the point) but because, years ago, I found the McCain's Home Fries were better than any other chip I'd ever tasted from anywhere. They're not nearly as good since they made them into oven chips, but they'd become too habitual by then).

I stayed downstairs until it was time to take Georgia home. She was very talkative in this time, though she doesn't know any 'actual' words, unless you count 'mumumum' (which I suspect we do), and possibly bababa. (She also make a sound which I don't think I know how to repeat, let alone spell, which seems to combine a 'W' and a 'B' sound. You can try to imagine it but I don't think you could possibly understand the noise without hearing it first). I watched a little Q.I with Chuggle.

Stavros, my sister's loser boyfriend, had taken their car to Liverpool for whatever reason (I wouldn't like to think about his reasons, let alone speculate about them as publicly as this). When we got there Mum had to pop inside "for 5 minutes" to top up my sister's mobile phone credit. We ended up staying for far longer, but this was to be expected.

We arrived to find her playing that memory game with the cards where you flip a pair and if the pictures don't match you have to flip them back. Dylan apparently had some trouble understanding the rules. But he's 2, so I let that slide, especially as he played so enthusiastically.

He cried when we left, which was pretty heart breaking. He was pretty excited that we were there, as we rarely make the visit to her place (in my case it's mostly because I don't like my sister) and I think he wanted us to spend the night.

It's not fair to have to take care of them so much, but it still hurts to see the little buggers go. I've bonded so much with both of them it's almost a maternal thing, which is more than can be said for their mother.

On our way home mum said she wanted to have a look around town (which she does sometimes, and so do I, occasionally), not that there was anything to say by that time (especially on wednesday). I reminded her that I was the only one who hadn't eaten yet (as I was looking after the baby while others ate, as they were nice enough to watch her while I 'cooked'), but that I didn't mind as my dinner was, no doubt, already cold. We didn't spend long going through town (my sister lives 5 minutes away by car so any stops made between her house and ours are detours).

I warmed my dinner a little and ate it with some buttered bread and watched Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. (It started off pretty hard hitting, but trailed into more of a court room drama, like the original show. Actually, it one I'd seen before, where the woman from the D.A's office comes out of witness protection). Then I came up here, checked my messages and finally got around to updating my blog after 2 years.

I think I may go and have a mug of Rooibos before I actually go to bed, though.