Well, the New Year is here.

Our dinner is in the oven, and I am playing Baldur’s Gate III. aunty_marion is helping with suggestions.

I discovered on Tuesday that there is such a thing as prescription toothpaste. I have been struggling with pain in a tooth on my lower left jaw and the dentist says he doesn’t know what’s causing it as the ‘tooth’ is actually a crown, and should have no nerve. So he’s prescribed special toothpaste to treat the gum by reducing the pain. I have to clean my teeth with this stuff, and then spread it on the gum. But I’m not supposed to swallow it. How you can do both of these things, I’m not sure.

aunty_marion went home on Tuesday, which was a particularly rainy and windy day. We had a lovely few weeks over Christmas and New Year, eating lots and watching exciting things on TV. We watched both lots of Gilbert and Sullivan (as previously posted) and action movies.

We washed Smokey’s fluffy pink bed because we thought it unbecoming a handsome cat, and since then she’s used it exactly twice even though I sprayed it liberally with catnip. I don’t think she likes a clean bed, she liked it all catty and grungy.

Encouraged by aunty_marion I also bought some shelves for my kitchen from Ikea, which should arrive tomorrow and will be built and installed hopefully on Monday. I had asked for Saturday, but Taskrabbit couldn’t accommodate Saturday. They are more hopeful for Monday. In the meantime I’ve asked my local handyman if he can help, just in case they let me down again.

Yesterday I went to Llandudno to the hospital there. I’ve been waiting nervously for a dermatology appointment, but they first wanted to send me to Glan Clwyd, which is along the coast near Rhyl. I said ‘think again’ because Rhyl is about 40 minutes away by train and I don’t think the hospital is near the station.

Then they call me and offer my Llandudno General, which is closer. Even so, it takes four lots of taxis and a train – home to the station, train to Llandudno Junction, Llandudno Junction station to Llandudno hospital then reverse the process. I could, in theory, go by bus, but that would involve a lot of walking from the bus stops in Llandudno to the hospital which I can’t do these days.

The weird thing on my face was diagnosed as a wart (I knew I was turning into a witch!) and the dermatologist used a cold thingy containing freezing nitrogen to freeze it off. So I travelled home feeling as if I’d been kicked in the face by a buffalo. That pain seems to have passed off today. I’m told it will turn into a scab and drop off.

So that’s my news.

I want my friends and family to visit, but they all seem a bit wary. I can understand that, but it doesn’t make the desire go away.

Good news: the guys who are installing my stair lift have been in touch and they will be carrying out the changes to the stairs next week. Go me! Go them! When they’ll install the stair lift, I don’t know.

In other good news, I have been fighting the good fight to get Hive Heating installed. I bought it in January, and while I could understand that from January to May, installation was not going to happen because of Covid, I’ve been trying since May to get an installation date. This week I gave up and tried their chat thingy. The first three people couldn’t help, but the final one gave me a phone number. The first two of the people on the phone couldn’t help, but I finally got someone who knew what the were doing. So I have an installation date: 24 August. Modified rapture. And I’m leery about that date, but we’ll see what happens.

Smokey is a good kitty and at the moment is ignoring her dinner. Strange cat.

Well, the builders have not finished the first tranche of the work. Ho hum.

Smokey spent the last few days at gloria1’s house in the peace and quiet. It took her a day or so to settle in, but once she had she was stealing gloria1’s seat with the abandon with which she steals mine. I missed her dreadfully, but it was better that she was out of the noise and disruption.

Disruption continues – my stuff is around me in boxes and I have three outfits which I’m swapping into as and when two get dirty and have to be washed, which is going to make Christmas interesting and memorable. On the other hand, the fridge is stuffed with food, which will make it tasty and fun.

The builders start again on the 27th. Yippee.

The bad news is that the wardrobes aren’t going to be delivered until the 6th of January, meaning that they won’t be installed until the 8th or so. I’ve arranged for my old cleaner, Niki, to come and spend six hours with me on the 9th Jan putting my clothes away and preparing the living room for the work. Once that’s done, on the 10th, Smokey goes back to gloria1’s to stay with her while the floors are done and the living room is renovated. It should all be done (!) by the 31st. Hm. We’ll see.

The second tranche of work starts properly on the 11 Jan, and that’s also the day my new fiction writing course starts. I hope they won’t want printouts, because my printer will be put away until the second tranche has finished.

I will be putting pressure on the builders to have it finished before the 13th of Feb, because I have a get-together to play Call of Cthulhu that day and as I’ve had to cancel the one on the 9th of Jan, I don’t want to cancel the second one.

Still, Happy Christmas or whichever holidays you’re celebrating this weekend, and cuddles to everyone’s kitties and doggies.

I am back from visiting a friend in Sunderland - have I missed anything important or interesting?

Smokey was very pleased to see me and purred and purred, even letting me pick her up and cuddle her, so I was very honoured as she doesn't usually allow that.

My London-fu is failing me - can anyone suggest somewhere that will do afternoon tea that's within easy reach of the British Museum?

Preferably this should be somewhere that doesn't need days and days of notice as the plan is for next Tuesday (so not the Ritz or the Savoy).

A friend is coming from Germany and she suggested afternoon tea, and (like a fool) I thought she had somewhere in mind, but now she's emailed and she doesn't. She's asked me. But the only two places I can think of would be too expensive and probably a bit far from where we're meeting.

I’ve been spending the last few days catching up with my sleep, and getting to grips with a new mobile phone.

An old friend from my university days did come over yesterday and he and I went out for lunch to the local Wetherspoons, where much good food was consumed. He’s not on LJ, but he is on Facebook, so I won’t mention his name here. I did there, which gives him some minor fame.

I’ve almost finished the current pair of socks I’m knitting, but I don’t think I did a very good job. Something went horribly wrong with my counting of stitches with the first one and the second one I cocked up the heel. So they won’t be given to anyone as they’re not up to any kind of standard.

I’ve got the ‘Chicks with Sticks’ guide to knitting, which is very interesting in some ways, there are some techniques there I’d like to use, but I’ve got limited interest in the projects. I particularly struggle with felting – I don’t like how it looks. I don’t care if it’s interesting to do.

News about the phone…I’ve changed to an Android phone having decided to finally sign up for a deal. The phone itself is a Samsung Galaxy Europa, which isn’t quite as bad as the reviews on Amazon would lead one to assume. It’s just not as good as a Galaxy Ace or (obviously) one of the S series. However, it came free with the deal I’ve signed up for, which is in other ways as cheap as what I was paying for PAYG phone fees.

The irritating thing is that I had to move my number from Orange to Three. So I got a PAC. That part was no problem. Sent Three my PAC and all the rest of the details. Three took their own sweet time accepting they’d been instructed to change, and then more of their own sweet time to change the numbers over. Even now, my phone is accepting calls on the ‘proper’ (previous) number, but seems to think it has the original Three number according to its ‘phone details’ screen. Which is weird, and I mean to phone Three and ask them “wtf” tomorrow.

I’ve even tried taking the phone apart and putting it back together again, which, as I’ve found in the past, solves a lot of problems with phones. It’s a bit like a hard reboot.

As I said, in other news, I’ve been asleep a lot. I’m rather dreading the time when I have to go back to work and must stop getting up at midday.

In an unusual attempt at having a social life I went with clare_nce to the theatre last night to see a play called "Our Boys", starring Laurence Fox and a wide variety of other people who've been in genre shows but whose names escape me.

It was rather good.

The basis premise was that of a group of young men in an army hospital for a variety of reasons at a date in the 1980s have nothing but time to kill. Very slowly, the audience learns the reasons why they're there and finds out what happens to them. ( Spoilers beyond this point. I really mean this; I give away the end of the play. )

So, yes, I recommend this play if you can still get a ticket.

Irrelevant observation: I noticed that the group of theatres of which the Duchess forms a part is called "Nimax", which made me think it some kind of theatre-related Dr Who monster. Perhaps an impresario with extra horns.

London is a frustrating place to be right now. I met some friends for dinner and a catch-up yesterday and found that just getting from my workplace to the place we were meeting (three streets away) was an exercise in itself.

Firstly, all the buses running down Victoria Street and up Whitehall were delayed by who-knows-what event at Trafalgar Square, and then when I got off the bus in Whitehall I discovered that the reason the driver had let me off in the middle of the street rather than at a stop was because the bus stop I wanted was closed for the Olympics.

So was the crossing where I wanted to cross the road to the pub.* So I had to dodge between the traffic to get to the side of the road I needed, and if you know me, given my speed and level of surety of foot, 'dodging' isn't something I'm all that good at. Years ago, when I was a young, slimmer civil servant who didn't have knackered knees, I could dodge. Now, not so much.

Then when I came out of the pub later I noticed that sections of the road are blocked off so that people needing to use the bus have to walk out across the road to get on. Not what I'd prefer, frankly.

Luckily, I should be avoiding most of this, because I've arranged to work from home during much of the Olympics, only coming in to the office once a week. It does mean that any union related meetings will have to take place during the little time I'm physically in the Dull Grey Tower, but I hope that should be enough time. The rest I'll have to do by phone.

I wish everybody taking part in the Olympics well, I hope it keeps fine for them and I hope everyone who finds that sort of thing enjoyable enjoys it. But I wish it was happening somewhere else.



* Or rather, newly gentrified gastro-pub. The food is very good, don't get me wrong, but the prices are twice what they used to be when it was a dark and poky hole.


ETA: Scotland has announced that they're bringing in gay marriage in the face of whipped up objections from the usual suspects. Well done, Scotland.

The boss is back – which means the new head honcho's attention is no longer fixed on me like an Exocet missile. Hurrah! On the other hand, work has become unexpectedly rather busy, which we could have done without.

In other news

There is no other news, except that clare_nce, gloria1 and I are getting together over the weekend to watch SGA, which should be brilliant. I'm looking forward to it very much. SGA and me is an odd one – I love the show, but don't ever read the fic.

As for reading, I'm still reading ebooks from Fictionwise - I choose them because they allow you to pay by PayPal and have the books in a wide variety of formats, including for the Sony ebook reader that I've got.

I've been reading a lot of gay mysteries; I think we're up to four gay PI's now. I didn't know it was such a trope.

Write what I want to read, damn you!

I've noticed that it seems like about a third of all gay ebooks seem to be about (one or more of): vampires, shapeshifters, ghosts/about ghosts, paranormals of one variety or another, or werewolves. What is it with that? None of the above do anything for me at all, though there are so many of them I assume they sell well. Write more gay Regency stories! Neckcloths are where it's at.