Window pain

Every day the same buildings watch me go past, and sometimes they turn their heads aside from weariness. "Didn't that church have a spire, a sign, some stained glass?" I think to myself, "at least, something has changed," but the moment passes, and my face too turns away.

The building's eyes remain closed. Tomorrow it will look the same as yesterday, or the same as today, and we'll pass each other unnoticed, our façades newly-painted.

My goodness, my gracious

I want to buy a couple of small items from Goodness Direct, but feel that paying £6 in delivery charges postage for approx. £10 of shopping is a bit foolish. You need to spend more than £35 to get free postage, so I wondered if I could combine orders with anybody else.

So, Cambridge people, do any of you want anything from this site? If so, please email me and let me know.

Look at the pictures and the cutlery

Yesterday I intended to use my day off to: take delivery of a piano; remind myself how to play it; ship a car-load of stuff from the old house to the new house; catch up on some boring paperwork; tidy the house a bit; and still have time to enjoy a cup of tea and a book. It was all so plausible.

Still, I suppose making it as far as point three on one's to-do list counts as some kind of a success.

After about 6 hours of packing and ferrying, I think all my belongings are now in the house where I live, with the exception of: a dining table, a double bed, a 'spinner'-style shop display unit, a sofa-bed, a set of three nested tables, a filing cabinet, an ironing board, an uplighter, and a bookcase full of sheet music.

When I finally got home and got all the stuff inside the house, I took one look at the heaps of junk and cried, and we gave up and went to the pub. It was all still there when we got back, but I closed my eyes and pretended I couldn't see it. There are two swords on the piano-stool, and half a dozen boxes on the spare bed, and at least one monitor on the landing, and I can't see any of the surfaces for putting things on or sitting on any more. This morning I had to climb over a heap of computers which looked like some kind of national monument to technical obsolescence, just to get to my work bag.

It's not so much that this influx of stuff is totally unexpected, as that I didn't expect to have to deal with it all so quickly. But S's girlfriend has decided she's sick of seeing the filthy pawprints of his Evil Ex all over their house, and I was getting sick of the guilt-trips anyway, so I suppose it's for the best. And my parents have kindly offered to store some of the stuff in their house (bigger than our house, though smaller than S's house) until I have the time/energy to sort it all out. They may even have room for the dining table and sofa-bed in their garage.

This morning I woke up at 6am and couldn't hear next-door's baby yelling. Maybe I just wake up at that time anyway (and it's a complete coincidence that I can usually hear the kid screaming when I do) because for some reason my body has decided that it would prefer to be exhausted and headachey all the time? I've got an river of tiredness running constantly behind my eyes, a sluggish brown river full of burnt-out cars and old shopping trolleys and used needles, and it's been there for about a decade, and it doesn't go away.

As for the admin, I suppose there's always the Easter weekend. That's quite soon now, isn't it? Please say it's soon.

It has shown no intention of going away

Well, I whinged publicly (and in so doing unwittingly caused an outbreak of gothjournal), so I guess it's only fair to apologise publicly too. The thing is, knowing that something's irrational and unreasonable doesn't always stop it feeling like a big wave of miserable hopelessness.

For the record, though, it's definitely not sion_a's fault that I have a houseful of junk, and it's entirely reasonable that he wants it all out of his house. Also, I really am glad that he and I— are happy together; if removing some old BBCs from the computer room increases that happiness, then that's great; and if taking the dining table away too will make them both happier still, then I will try to do it as soon as possible.

Now I'm off to tidy the house so my parents can get through the door on Sunday. It's getting there, slowly, and a setback now doesn't mean a failure forever.