Pretty Things

I can't seem to find a lot to say.

Scholar has found a new girlfriend. He didn't have the courtesy to tell me. She looks a little like me, but no doubt she'll be able to give him whatever I couldn't. As he said, once, 'one day he'll find someone who doesn't want to share him'. I don't think he ever really understood the idea of polyamory. I wanted to share my life with him forever, for real, and for as long as he wanted. Well, he's lost that now. I don't think I could ever trust him again, even if he wanted something with me. How can you trust someone who claims to love you so much that he wants you to leave your partner...and then just...not? I don't get it. I can't turn my feelings on and off like that.

Anyway...

Our house is now nearly ready for us to move in! Woohoo! We slept overnight there last night and christened one of the rooms. I spent all day in bed today though because I felt like total shite. I think I must be a bit run down...

...which explains why I was in such a stupid amount of pain when I had my latest lot of tattooing.

Cue giant picture of my arse. Why, don't mind if I do.

As you can see, I totally failed to sit through the whole colouring. However, I did manage three hours even if most of it was totally agonizing. It's lovely though and I am very pleased. I like the black and white picture because the shading on the flower shows up so well. My next session is in six weeks, when I will get it finished, I swear.

Winter Is Coming...Again.

Nope, this is not about Game of Thrones.

Instead, it's just a comment on the horrifying torrents of sleety rain currently sloshing over my very cold and desolate city.

I've been suffering with a bit of cold-weather malaise today. I'd got a little too used to the glorious English springtime and being able to sit out in the garden and bask in the sunshine whilst playing with the lovely cat who may or not be a stray (I want to call her Shadow, the Man says that's a stupid name for a cat. Bastard). Now the nasty rain stuff is coming down so hard that the lamp post across the road looks like it's going to snap in half and alarms keep going off as the rain hits them. This doesn't bode well for getting to my tattoo appointment tomorrow, but I am sure it will be fine. A little snow never stopped British Rail, right? Right? Oh...

Still, it's terribly exciting to be getting my ink finished tomorrow, I really can't wait.

On the other hand, it may have been miserably cold and horrid today but I have been productive. Yay! My mother gave us a mirror from her house as a little present for Chez Kitten which is rather lovely, but featured a rather...obnoxious...stained frame. I stripped it down to the natural wood (although it turned out to be rather uninspiring pine) using the little hand held sander (a slight case of vibration white finger only!) and then finished it with two different grades of sandpaper by hand, and followed it with two coats of beeswax. It looks lush. Pictures will follow eventually.

I also made a very tasty dinner; risotto with turkey and leek. The recipe is:

1.5 cups of arborio rice.
2 turkey breast slice thingies. Not the ones in crumb!
A large leek.
A medium red onion.
1 litre of chicken stock. I cheat and use a cube.
3 cloves of garlic. Or less, if you like.
Garlic and herb Philadelphia.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Fry the onion and garlic in some olive oil until the onion softens but doesn't colour. Add the rice. Stir until the liquor is absorbed. Add a cup or so of the stock. Stir until absorbed. Repeat until the rice is squishy and you've used the stock.

Slice the leeks. Sweat in a little butter and stock. Add to rice. Stir together. Add a generous dollop of Philly. Stir some more.

Slice and fry off the turkey in some pepper.

Dollop some risotto on a plate, top with the turkey. I also had some lovely sliced red pepper on it and it was NOM!

Home, home on the Range!

Things are really coming together at Chez Kitten! We've now got the carpets down in the two upstairs rooms, and the tiles have gone up in the bathroom. It's beginning to look like a place we can actually live, not just a shell we come to every day with no conceivable end in sight. The internet people are coming in only just more than a week to connect the cable, which means we really will be able to move in any time! The only thing left to do is the kitchen, which hopefully should be purchased from Ikea and constructed by my lovely Beardy Man and his father in the next two weeks...and that will be it! Home and dry and ready for the start of at least a little bit of a new life.

I've made some vows to myself with this house. We've both worked really hard on getting it done and getting it to the kind of state where we want to live in it, and I want it to stay like that: we both do. So I vow the following things:

1. I will put my dirty laundry in the laundry basket immediately.
2. I will take my washing up into the kitchen as soon as I am done with it.
3. I will not let my sewing stuff explode all over the study.

They're simple vows, but pretty necessary, because I'm not the neatest person in the world and I know it drives Mr Beard dappy. I shall take hints from an awesome new blog I found (athriftymrs. Google her.) and if not become a domestic goddess then certainly become a domesticated human.