Sauntering Vaguely Downward

This week so far, I've been in Germany for a workshop. On attempting to get a regional train from Darmstadt to Frankfurt, I learned two things:

1) If you observe everyone standing on the main concourse rather than waiting on the platforms for trains, there's probably a good reason.

2) The reason is that the train to the destination you want is likely to appear on a platform for which it is not advertised on any display boards, and at a departure time that is not listed.

Conclusion: There is a German train controller somewhere cackling satanically whilst stroking a long-haired white cat and watching the commuter lemmings scurry down several flights of stairs, via the security cameras.

[Image: kitten inside the engine block of an old Yaris.]



Our Saturday morning started rather more stressfully than we would have liked. After waking me up at 5:30 AM with the usual assault on my toes, one of the kittens vanished before I could blearily rouse myself and head downstairs for the gooshy food distribution.



We tried not to panic, searching every room methodically with torches and opening all the cupboards, boxes and drawers, but it soon became evident that Astro was no longer in the house. Cue a flurry of activity: adults flinging on clothes and trying to calm the distraught Humuhumu so she could join the search outside, Keiki channeling his anxiety into mass producing "help, lost black kitten" posters with many enthusiastic but questionably accurate renderings of Astro.



After an hour or so of walking up and down and around the house shaking a packet of Dreamies, and its environs, enlisting the help of most of our neighbours, who are all early risers and / or dog walkers, I heard an angry mewing quite close to the house. At first I thought it came from the hedgerow. Cue a furious battle with wildflowers and stinging nettles, to no avail. I was certain the irregular mewing was coming from inside the car, a suspicion finally confirmed the second time the bonnet was lifted and a pair of yellow eyes stared at us from the beneath a tangle of pipes.



The next hour was spent trying to convince him to either pop enough of himself out through the pipes to be grabbed, or make his way out the opening underneath the car which he'd obviously used to get there in the first place. Efforts failed until suddenly the bloke remembered the magic power of tuna. The kittens had never had tuna (or Dreamies, for that matter) so we weren't certain it would work. But I ran in and opened a tin, spooned some into a bowl and placed it strategically offset from where we thought the secret entrance was.



It worked. The little darling trotted to the back of the engine block and squeezed out. He was caught before he could eat any tuna, which probably didn't improve his mood. He forgot all about his grump and his misadventure once he was safely back indoors and the tuna reappeared. The same could not be said for his humans, whose nerves continued to jangle for several hours afterwards.






Butter wouldn't melt.

Spot the ammonite! (Keiki found this.)


Niece babysat one night, so the grown-ups got to go out and have a drink or three. This is a White Russian with some Christmassy spices in it. It was *very* nice.


Seagull in the guest house bathroom.

From left to right: Fangy, Vampy, Pumpy, and George.



These were meant to be Oogie Boogie lemon meringue cupcakes from the "Nightmare Before Christmas" recipe book I got from sister-out-law for my birthday. However, due to the (non)availability of certain ingredients, they turned out to be ghost grapefruit meringue cupcakes with very dodgily piped icing. They were delicious anyway.

- After at least 20 years of service (it belonged to the bloke’s parents before moving in with us in 2008), our microwave disintegrated dramatically this afternoon. The plastic around the glass door window crumbled into bits, like a wet biscuit.

+ This gave me an excuse to spend what is not a very nice day outside browsing the internet for a new microwave. I very nearly bought a fire engine red one, to match the toaster, kettle, bread bin, and Kitchen Aid stand mixer. In the end, I went for the sensible option: the white one with the biggest volume that was on sale at Curry’s.

- I had to go out to buy a cat flap for the extension window. It was my first time driving in over eight weeks and the first time I’d left the house for anything other than a family walk. I went the long way, to try to make sure I got a little bit of extra time behind the wheel. At first I went far too slowly, and then when I realised I was doing all of 25 mph in a 40 zone, I went too fast. It took a couple of minutes to recalibrate my road sense. Thankfully there still isn't much traffic in our area. I don’t love driving, but acknowledge it’s a necessary skill.

+ I forgot how pleasant our car is to drive. And how nice it is to have the phone Bluetoothed in so I can play music. Also, I filled up the tank the day before lockdown started. It’s still ⅞ full.

- The car park was crazy busy and the queues for the shops were long. Once inside, I noticed very few people making much attempt at maintaining social distancing. The cashiers also clearly hate the Plexiglass screens at the tills, because they keep leaning around them to talk to customers. None of the employees working on the shop floor had any PPE. I found this depressing, because as we all know, customers are arseholes (see below).

+ The person who helped me find the cat flap was ridiculously grateful about my determination to stay away from him. (As opposed to the customer who tried to slip behind him while he was fishing out the one I wanted, bumped into him, put his hands on his shoulders, and said “Oh, sorry, mate.” -.-)

- The builders are on site for the bank holiday weekend. Since we’re trying to social distance, we can’t use the garden and are trapped inside.

+ The builders are back on site! Progress is being made! Soon, we can haz roof on the extension.

- Keiki is not going back to school on 1 June. Our primary school is only opening to (more) children of key workers, and vulnerable children, not the whole of Years R and 1. He won’t get to see his buddies any time soon. He’s a very sociable creature, and he was looking forward to being with his friends again.

+ Keiki is not going back to school on 1 June. This is, if not positive, at least not completely negative. He’s making noticeably swifter progress with homeschooling than he was at school. It’s tough to parse how much of this is down to his new glasses and how much to the one-on-one attention he didn’t get at school. Also, Humuhumu would have been very sad if he’d gone and she didn’t.

- We will have to move out next month so that the builders can rip out all of the downstairs rooms, including plaster, carpet and ceilings, and gut the kitchen. Living upstairs nine hours a day with intermittent power and water supplies for four weeks whilst trying to maintain social distance from the builders, and also work and home-school: not feasible.

+ The new metal shed is arriving next week to sit on the slightly wonky concrete plinth we built for it. So we have somewhere to stuff the contents of those rooms.

+ On Thursday, 21 May, I wore makeup for the first time since 20 March.

- It took me ages to apply the makeup. Once I had, I forgot I had black eyeshadow on within five minutes and gave my eyes a good rub, thus rendering myself a panda for the rest of the day.

+ Fortunately the video quality on Zoom is so poor that no one noticed.

+ It is Caturday (see photo for winner of the Best Nose category in our house).