This last week has been somewhat disjointed, and I don't really know how to approach it really. First, there was the tiring weekend - bathrooming, cooking and then cleaning the H-D mansion. Then what do you know but bollocks! it's Monday again and it feels like we've achieved nothing for yet another weekend! An amazingly good start to the week at work, which was suddenly tripped up by yet another mutated version of a cold (of course!) that left noses dribbling, beating headaches and dizziness. Cue drugs and disgustingly tasting remedies that knock you for six and which Granny would have been proud of. Let's face it - anything that tastes that bad probably has the ground up reminants of stouts and weasels bits mixed in a dash of drugs and a slice of lemon on taste decoy patrol.

However, the major part of this week has been The Aussie. My cuz received bad news from home on Monday night which, in fairness he was dealing with for the most part. Worried but dealing with. But then late on Wednesday night, more news came back which has basically floored and devastated him. I won't talk about it here - I had never met the person involved but all I can say is that they must have been one hell of an individual to have made such a deep affect on cuz.

Because of events, Talkative Sis has gone for the mothering measure - clucking after him, taking him around with her avec les rugrats to keep him buzy. Which does admittedly take his minds off things, but this tactic's also infected him with the aforementioned mutant cold, which on high emotions, hockey games and lack of sleep has not gone down too well. Cue Sim with hot doped lemon toddies which taste far far superior to those other granny remendies and can use up all those disgusting alcohols that you've been meaning to drain into the next party punch. As you can see, I've adopted the slightly offset you know I'm here if you want to talk kinda thing but in the meanwhile, let's watch funnies like A Bears Tail or even Team America with it's ridiculous but rather hilarious puppet sex which is bound to have you slightly wetting your pants or covering your eyes approach. And while he may not laugh as deep or heartily as usual, the fact that he does occassionally laugh a little gives an inkling of bit of slow healing hope. And hopefully, he knows that I'm here if he needs me.

Apparently there's been thunderstorms and torrential rain over the west country this weekend. Not that I really noticed - I was either a) too shattered b) too busy or c) to tiddly to notice. I even ignored the hailstones that were raining down on Saturday afternoon as I and Talkative Sis's rugrats played buidling castles and kicking them down.

So imagine my surprise when walking into work and unlocking the office door today to find it all in shambles. And a window missing. There was a splinter of wood, holding on for dear life and scrape marks down the roof where no doubt the window had made it's flight for freedom, which had ended in the courtyard garden, smashed on the ground. The wind had blown all of the confidential student papers around the room, and the rain had smeared all the inked signatures. And then it started. The sneezing as we waited for two hours for some little handyman to come along and fix it. In the end, three little handymen turned up, and whilst I chased my tissue box around the room, I wondered how many it took for them to change a light bulb?

Custard cat has been off in sorts of late. I say off in sorts. I mean the cow has had her true affections subverted and has been snuggling into the lower regions (legs!) of The Aussie, traitorous bloody animal! But two days ago, I had notice that she had a big lump under her right chin and a thick lip. So, needless to say, I had thought that she was either hunting again, or sorting her patch out with her new collar bling. But with that big lump, of course, the mummy cat worried and so organised an enjoyable day trip out to the vet hospital.

Imagine my heart sinking to the ground when Mister Vet told me it wasn't fighting. Nor catching herself. All sorts of bloody images ran through my mind as I tried to fathom out what was wrong, thinking of the worst as he rechecked her history. But nay - all wasn't as dire as I had thought. In fact, her big lump and clingyness was due to more. My poor cat, Custard the mouse juggler, Custard the brave, Custard the Robin Murderer, Custard the hunter, Custard the slim*

is allergic to mice.

Really! I ask you...!!??

Only I could own that cat...

* Custard (the Slim) was according to the vet, fat with a bloody big belly. So I don't know which cat he was really examining. Maybe Rhubarb switched with her before we took her. Even so, if Custard is fat, it does mean that basically Rhubarb is on an even more stringent diet....

Admittedly, like couple of the bloggers I read daily, I've been neglecting my little corner for the last month or so, with sporadic postings, but then with holding down a job, trying to build a bathroom, trying to sort out surprise parties for father-in-laws and what it being a little over a month since The Aussie came to stay with us, it's been a tad hectic, but then I do think that during that time, we've learnt alot.

The job has learnt that I rarely wear jeans, make a mean cup of tea and will charge money for potty mouths with no exceptions. Father has learnt that there should be an established colour scheme to a bathroom (7 colours simply will not do!) and that if we were to stay in St Ives overnight again, that we will call ahead and book a hotel.

Meanwhile, the Aussie has learnt that we bolt lock the door every night, unless he's out - but then that has on occassion confused him, usually when he's drunk and only has shrapnel in his pocket ;) Girlpants however, has learnt that you can't really answer the door in a dressing gown that barely covers the family jewels as the postie may not appreciate it. And that also that three people do make a bit of a clutter, so it wasn't just me creating that mess in the house.

As for me, I've learnt to take it a little bit more easier. Or to bawl my eyes out when it gets a little too much and then Girlpants swirls on his cape and comes to the rescue, usually with a double G&T in tow to calm the nearves. Either that, or he snaps, which just makes for an ackward five minutes. I've also learnt that no matter how much I season or cook to British perfection, you can be guarenteed that unless it's a spicy Chinese or Italian, the Aussie will add some type of condiment. In the past four weeks, amongst other meals, I have created such spectacular crusine such as roasti topped luxery fish pie (tomato ketchup), Argentinian rump steak (smoothered in 0.5cm of tomato ketchup), white wine chicken casserole (sweet chilli sauce) and ye olde classic of roast chicken with trimmings and lashings of gravy (mayo).

Just goes to show that those home economic lessions and Delia books have gone to good use!! Either that, or Australian males can become pregnant.

I've also learnt not to mention the Ashes - it will be an interesting couple of days ahead...

Woke up on Tuesday morning, feeling worse than a badgers arse and sneezing my way through a packet of mansized. Even worse, I woke up thinking that it was Thursday. Boy - was that a disappointment.

Given that I wasn't suffering from the feared man flu (which some non-female journalist from that a well known bloke mag has claimed is true - any excuse I say!), I dragged my sorry arse into work so that the pennies could keep rolling in. Having said all this and with the double whammy of the disappointment of it being a whole two days earlier than thought, my emotions were running high, tiredness kicked in as did the drugs, and all in all, it became a bit of a roller coaster where I was either on top of the world or close to tears. Either way, the data was blurring as I swayed between the two.

This entire week was summed up rather humouriously by Vernon Kay whilst interviewing a sex therapist come murder mystery actress on a rather well known radio station today, talking about why women say no to late night amour, whilst trying to cope in todays world:

Sex Therapist - The main problem is that women these days have to wear too many hats - that of mother, colleague, wife, daughter...

Vernon - Women should never wear too many hats - it would prolong the strip tease process

After watching my father drag his 40+ year old bathroom from furnished and usable to barely stripped bare, Girlpants and I decided to take over. Mother was ushered out of the house, father was placed on bacon butty duties and we started to work - Girlpants in YMCA overalls and me in fashionable cords.

Sledgehammers and mallets at the ready, we got het up, ready for action. No holds barred, I also used the opportuntiy to advise my father of his clear inability to colour co-ordinate and style a room (whoever has heard of geometric patterned carpet in a bathroom??). So whilst my father went back downstairs to grill the bacon and lick his wounds, both of us attacked the old steel bathtub. Which refused to move. An inch. The thin chisel didn't help. A barrage of blows from the mallet just bounced off the surface, and the sledge hammer just put a bit of a ding in the side panel. Forty years of establishing itslef as the major centrepeice of the bathroom and years of fathers over enthusiastic grouting and tiling had clearly cemented the bath to the wall. Fast forward four hours later, and we had finally managed to pry it away from the wall which comically ended with my falling on my rear end, only to discover that the draft I had felt in the bathroom as a child was due to a builders inability to correctly build a solid wall without leaving gaping holes in the side. Slowly, as we starting pulling muscles that had never before existed as we carried the steel bath down the stairs and out into the back garden, I began to realise that maybe we weren't going to fit the entire bathroom in one weekend.