Having Kittens

Of course, when you mention that you're getting married, the conversation will turn, sooner or later, to having children, especially when that conversation is with the Special One's mother (sample quote: 'I'm not the kind of grandmother to put pressure on anybody'). Well, we had a bit of a scare last night...

The Special One rang me at about midnight - just when I've my nose to the grindstone to try and make the last tube - in a wild panic (an ex used to do this to me too, but she thought there were monsters in the attic...). In an early introduction to the endless worry about harm coming to your children that is parenting, she could hear our little baby boy/full-grown cat (delete as appropriate) squalling and meowling a couple of back gardens away, and refusing to come when called. My assertions that: 1) cats don't come when they're called, especially when they've important business to attend to; 2) I've heard him out there at it on plenty of other occasions, and 3) that scrapping and shagging is what cats his age do, were of cold comfort.

When I got home, he was stretched out on the couch, looking as content as a cat can look, so obviously he either won, got laid or both. Even a 7mm tear vertically down the tip of his left ear didn't seem to be bothering him ('when yeh win, nuttin' hurts!'). While the Special One was still concerned for him, I was secretly proud - my boy's a winner. The way I see it, you can't stop them going to the other side of the world and throwing themselves off cliffs with nothing but a bit of elastic band for safety, or getting little bits of metal rammed through sensitive parts, or muscling in on an older, wiser cat's turf, so you've just got to enjoy the fact that they come back in almost one piece.

The Nothing Is Coming

Well, I was going to tell you all how beautiful the weather is, and how we're all sitting out getting tans (in the case of Omega, one of the Special One's friends - one is a student nurse, one is a funeral director, hence Alpha and Omega - lobster red, the kind of sunburn that requires desperate measures such as ice-cold baths and natural yoghurt poultices), but thing have taken a turn for the worse, the sinister even.

Sure, it's still hot as hell - the tube was difficult for the first time today - but now clouds for which the only word is 'lour' have arrived, hanging very low over the city and mingling with the smog and the dust of a blisteringly hot week. Walking from the tube to work, the rain started - you know the kind, rain with attitude, falling exactly vertically, rain with a game-plan to soak you as hard as it can - and the thunder rolled. Normally visible landmarks - church spires, office blocks - had disappeared into the gloaming. If you remember 'The Never-Ending Story', it was like the Nothing that rumbles through the land because children don't believe in magic or fairies or fiction or whatever it was. Looking out the office window at 4.30pm, it looked like night had fallen.

Which brings us, quite neatly to the reason I hadn't blogged in a while, as promised previously. Doney Casanova and the Scholar were coming over for a weekend, and we wanted to tell them our big news face to face. At least one of them either does read or has read the blog, so I couldn't write about it until they were here, and it was hard to think about anything else with that on my mind. Anyways, they arrived, the Special One met them in the pub (Doney Casanova's local, which, amazingly, didn't fold after his departure), bursting to tell them but unable to because even she agreed we'd do it together. Hours later, I arrive from work, and we break the news to them. There are hugs and congratulations and toasts all round. I get the feeling, though, that they're not as excited as they should be, and that they're holding something back. Turns out my sister, the talented and charming LuluPop, had blurted it out the weekend before, before returning half an hour later, shame-facedly muttering: 'I'm not sure I was supposed to tell you that.' So Doney Casanova and the Scholar had a good chortle at the Special One's thunder being stolen, we had a few drinks and went home.

Quick synopsis of the night after: Doney Casanova, the Scholar and I went to the Special One's pub for a pint, then to the local, then out to a club in Camden til 2am, then back to the local (passing a heavy-duty police operation - vans, dogs, machine guns, etc - that looked like it was just packing up after a no-show of whichever ne'er-do-well they were hunting). We met the Special One and she and the Scholar bailed, while Doney Casanova soldiered on. At 6am, we went with one of the bar staff to a weird house party where everyone had to be quiet while the cult leader played his guitar. I went back to the local at 10am, Doney Casanova went and hassled Omega into joining us at lunchtime. We manfully soldiered on until 2pm, by which time our poor little heads were nodding onto the bar and the Special One and the Scholar arrived. For some reason, unclear to us, they had been concerned as to our whereabouts, whereupon we all agreed they were squares. Our story ends with us poor little lambs heading back home (Doney Casanova to Omega's) for a little nap to spruce up for the night ahead.

Oh, what was the big news, I hear you ask? well, I'm sure it comes as a surprise to none of my small coterie of readers: the Special One and I have set a date. Or, rather, the Special One and I told her mother we were thinking of setting a date; within two days it was set. She's a woman of action, no doubt.

Long time, no blog

Right. My parents are telling me off for not blogging for a while. Well, first of all, my two fellow bloggers friends haven't blogged in ages, so nyah, and I've had a perfectly good reason for not blogging.

Sulky teenager doesn't come across very well on t'internet, does it?

Anyway, to keep you ticking over, some things I have seen and done in the last couple of weeks:

1: I've been listening to Goldie Lookin' Chain a lot. Scuzzy Welsh rappers who take the piss out of the American rap scene with songs like 'Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do'.

Guns don't kill people rappers do,
I seen it in a documentary on BBC2,
Shot to death outside Hyper Value,
Guns blazin like Michael Caine in Zulu

2: I saw three builder types in their builder-type white van, one of them covered in blood gushing from a head wound, presumably on their way to the Royal Free Hospital (Doney Casanova, here's looking at you, kid) . They were chatting and laughing; obviously it had been a hilarious accident.

3: I've been trying to block out the realisation that England have quite a reasonable chance of winning the World Cup this year. I've also been trying to stop the Special One finding out that the World Cup semi-finals and final will be on while we're in Sicily.

4: Did I mention, the Special One and I are going to Sicily for a week? We're staying in Palermo, staying in the Marrakesh room of this hippy guesthouse, we'll be visiting Corleone and watching the World Cup final. Wouldn't England v Italy be fun?

5: Waiting for my bus (come on, did you think there wasn't going to be a bus story?), I looked up and, from a lit second story window, a woman was staring down. She kept looking at me and flicking her hair. I, being the kind to mind my own business, stared back. This went on for several minutes. My bus came. It occurred to me later that it was probably a brothel.

6: After several false starts, the summer has finally arrived. While the tube is fine, buses are begining to get a little uncomfortable. August will be hellish.