The great news: we have no leak and we are due a little money back from Anglian Water! Yay! Turns out one the ladies I spoke to had misheard me when I gave my readings and thought we were haemorrhaging. Once we cleared it up, it seems we were perfectly average in our water usage1.
The good news: I am well, Plate is well and FBB is well. We are all WELL. No one is sniffling, coughing, throwing up, bellyaching, or hunched over a toilet. Just in time for FBB's Disco Picnic!2 Fingers crossed that we all remain in rudest health for a wee while.
The not so good news: we have a solid offer, albeit a lowish one. It's not what we had hoped, but we think it's the best we're going to get in the time that we have. Wish us luck that we now get a mortgage to buy.
The randomness:
- Plate is learning new words at an astonishing rate! When she's hungry, she now says, "Mum-mum3?" and makes the sign for food. Other words: hi, hat, cat, daddy, teddy, hot, cold, ssh! Ironically, her first word was, "Bye!"
- Finished 1Q84 by Murakami at last. Very surreal but very good. Apart from one brief moment that jarred -- one of the characters swore using the words, "Darn it!". If the original swearing had no English equivalent, I certainly would have preferred that it had been left in Japanese. As it was, it was quite strange. Then again, maybe it was intentional. It would've been in keeping with the social class of the character swearing.
- It reached 35 degrees Celsius today. In England! FBB forgot to put sunscreen on and has driver's tan. It's currently a shocking pink, looks a lot like first degree burns. Ugh. Lots of after sun lotion with soothing aloe vera was slathered on.
- Finished Timeless by Gail Carriger very shortly after - an excellent series. I am looking forward to reading it again! Have now started The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Beautifully designed books are a pleasure and this is a delight in black and white. Electronic books just don't cut it for me. A physical book has weight (think about how one a tome, a notebook, a paperback feels in your hand), texture (hard / soft covers, coarse / smooth, heavy / light, embossed, die-cut), smell (ink, paper, age, wood), sound (the soft snick as you turn a page or loud crackle!), beauty (cover art, layout, the choice of type) - it's a multi-sensory experience that is part of the joy of reading. To me, the whole package can be sensual delight. Plus, you just need a light to enjoy. No other source of power required. So, join a library today and discover the world of books!
On that note, I bid you bonne nuit.
1 Or wastage as the case might be. The average Anglian Water household apparently uses 1 cubic metre a week per adult. That's 1000 litres of water, which is about 143 litres a day. Looking at the stats from www.waterfootprint.org, we're not too bad compared to the US or Australia.
2 He will be 40 years old. True story: his mum had serious doubts that he would live to see 21. Here's a hint: by the time he was 20, he had had several injuries through, uh, misadventure, including a broken arm and a fractured clavicle and crashed a car or three. Someone once observed of his tales, "You've been to some f****d up parties, man."
3 I grew up with that word and, I hang my head in shame at this, no, I don't know what language it is. If you know, please enlighten!
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