It’s been a busy month since last I put pen to blog.
We had a party! People came! There are pictures, but I don’t have them here, so you’ll just have to trust me. Unless you’re one of the people who came, in which case you can trust your memory. And if you’re not one of the people you came, then frankly you disgust me. Unless I didn’t invite you, in which case, er, sorry.
Amongst the gifts that were bestowed upon us was a photo frame wot’s designed with the intention of people signing it, so young nephew Thomas took it round and got everyone to. Almost everyone. He missed a few. Then all we needed was a good photo to put in it, and as luck would have it a passing Leicestershire photographer offered to add to our pile of gifts with a free sitting. Only metaphorically - he wasn’t proposing that we actually sit on the pile of gifts. They’d have got squashed. So that’s going to be happening shortly, and fans of the aforementioned photographer in Loughborough can look out for the result on this very blog.
Lots of other things are going to be happening shortly too. I reckon the only person who’s got a more hectic Christmas than us looks good in red and rides a sleigh. Tomorrow - and it is tomorrow as I write this, though it will be today by the time I’ve finished - we’re going to Leeds for a three course meal at my sister’s house cooked by a proper chef and everything. I’m imagining the guy from the Muppets, but it might not be like that, though I’ll be disappointed if it isn’t. The next day is Jess’s brothers’ birthday (that wasn’t apostrophe misuse - they’re twins), so we’ll be heading to Lancashire for that. It’s back to my sister’s on Christmas Eve, then back to Jess’s mum’s house on Christmas Day, to her auntie’s on Boxing Day, to Leicesecesester on the 27th, something secret on the 28th that I can’t talk about here because it’s a birthday present for someone who might conceivably read this, and before you know it it will be New Year’s Eve, which happens to also be Jess’s 21st.
With all that going on, arrangements had to be made for the chinchillas, so this afternoon a nice lady came to collect them. Unfortunately their cage wouldn’t fit in her car, so we had to follow her home, and the snow made what should have been a quick trip a much much longer one, and the driving experience much more like bumper cars, though by some miracle without any actual collisions.
And as if all that’s not enough, guess what we’re doing in the new year? Go on, guess. Nope, not even close. We’re moving! “But that’s crazy,” you may be thinking. “Jess finishes her degree in six months, then you’ll be leaving York for adventures elsewhere. What’s the point in relocating now?” Well the thing is that she wants to do an MSc next, which she can’t do at York, but all the places she can do it insist on already having the results of your first degree before you apply, which means she’s got to have a year out. And since we’re happy in York, we figured we might as well spend that year here. But where we live now is out in the middle of nowhere, so we decided to move somewhere closer to the action.
So we looked at a few places and found one we loved and said “We’ll take it!” and put down a deposit. Then we realised we’d misunderstood the terms of our current tenancy, and we’re not actually allowed to leave with a month’s notice like we’d thought, so for a while it seemed we might not after all be able to move to the place we’d fallen in love with. Luckily our current landlady’s doing her best to accommodate us and find a new tenant. We’ll probably end up paying rent twice in January, but given the deposit we’d lose if we backed out, going ahead regardless isn’t as financially reckless as it may appear.
And did I mention that it’s nearly Christmas? You might have already known that. I’m excited!
