At the York Castle Museum.
The weekend was great - cheers for your suggestions!

Recently we were sitting in the car out the front of my dear in-law's house. We were running late as usual, so Gareth had to write on the Mother's Day card before we went inside.

GARETH:  Sorry we're late.
MOTHER-IN-LAW-MARY:  Is everything alright!?
G:  Yes?
MILM:  Are you sure!?
G:  Yes!
MILM:  But you were just sitting there the car for ages! Were you two having a fight?
G:  No!
MILM: You were fighting, weren't you?
G:  Nooo! I was writing on your card!
MILM:  Are you sure you weren't fighting!?

I was somewhat miffed that we've reached a point of togetherness where if we sit in a car for a long time, people assume we're having an argument. As opposed to assuming we're desperately feeling each other up, just one more time before the soup is on the table.

Meanwhile, we're still fixing up the bloody flat. Gareth has spent all weekend painting the doors and skirting boards in the bedroom. My efforts with the gloss were crooked and shite, despite holding my breath. And I really tried hard, as I'm sort of bristling from that incident in January 1998 that I've only mentioned 72 times when The Mothership and Rhi were re-upholstering a chair and I asked could I bang in a few nails and The Mothership said No and I said Why not and she paused and said, Because you don't have practical skills.

Oh yeah? Then how did I come up with the Russian Remote Hat? I brought this fuzzy wonder back from Moscow for Gareth but the Scottish winter has never been cold enough for it. Now thanks to my Practical Skills it has found a noble purpose.

In other developments, my brain went fuzzy. It happened on 2 October when I began my New Job or perhaps it was as far back as 18 June when I handed in the book manuscript. All the clarity and zest absconded and I've been unable to focus ever since. New Job is almost six months old but I still call it New Job as that makes the constant panic still seem appropriate, and nothing to do with any rubbishness on my part. I've also done a lot of writing and talking to pimp Dietgirl and I don't know how I got through that without drooling on anyone. It's been a really mad, wonderful ride and I wanted to bore you with the details, all eleven of you. But whenever I've sat down at the screen I couldn't concentrate so I ended up Facebooking or twitting on Twitter. Result: brain cells further eroded. Witold wrote recently, Oh boy, there are so many places on the web now to say almost nothing in so many ways.

It feels like I'm trapped inside something, maybe a giant plastic ball. It's opaque so I can sort of see the world outside but not clearly and I'm poking and prodding the curvy walls, wanting to shout about my predicament but not being able to find the words. I think maybe I'm a little burned out, as much as I hate to use such a wanky phrase. But overall life is great, just really freaky busy; so sometimes it's hard to figure out what's important and what's to be done. Right now I am reading lots of books, to remind me that words are good and sexy and nice to be around. I hope to form proper sentences soon!