No... really.

I have been looking at Lolcats. They are pretty cute.  They have personality.  If you are a responsible pet owner, and don't let your cat out to eat birds and lizards, they are OK, right? 

And, if we are rich, we can have a cat sitter visit our house if we are ever away.  No problem.  Cat hassles sorted! 

The only real problem would be what we would do with Kitteh if we moved back to Australia.  You can't really take cats from England to Australia.  Not without torturing them with months in quarantine.  And, anyway, I imagine that the chances of your cute kitty wreaking havoc on the local wildlife are a little bit higher in Australia than they are in inner city London. 

*sigh*

(Click on the picture so that you can see it full-size.  This silly blog software won't let me mess with layout).

According to the BBC lots of people are not washing their hands after they go to the loo.  And they are spreading their disgusting fecal matter all over public transport.

Ewww. 

And the further North you go, the worse it gets.  Yuck yuck yuck.

Here I was thinking that there is nothing quite as gross as getting sneezed all over when you catch the tube in cold and flu season. 

I can now add 'Norovirus Season' to the list of reasons winter just doesn't work for me.

It must be nearly winter.  My germ phobia has returned. 

Argh.  Who knew weddings involved so much decision making.

Ben's mum has decided that we should have a high quality cake.  And she is the cake organiser... so I am happy to trust her judgment.

I am also right off the pink flowers.  Icky.  Pink.  Yuck - what was I thinking?

Anyway, we are, apparently, going with the previously mentioned 'House of Elegant Cakes'.  And I am supposed to be deciding which of the elegant cakes I would prefer.  Actually, they all look kind of like wedding cakes to me.  Wedding cakes with flowers.  And I don't feel much like having an opinion about wedding cakes today.  It is all reminding me of that 'Coupling' episode where the guy is expected to have an opinion about cushions. 

If anyone has a favorite, let me know. 

Really.  What has my life come to?

Today I got REALLY excited because I spoke to an IBD specialist nurse for the first time, ever.  I told her I was having a mini-flare, and she made USEFUL suggestions!!!

It’s a miracle, I'm telling you.  I didn't have to begin the conversation by explaining what UC is.  She KNEW WHAT IT WAS!!  She understands how to treat it!!  She didn't suggest steroids, or get annoyed with me for being stupid, or anything!

She has advised me to increase the dose of my current medication.  YAY!!  I can't explain how excited I am about this.  But, basically, it is the first time anyone has suggested that it might be possible to control my UC better without steroids.  I always thought I had two choices: put up with occasional flares and belly pain, or move up to the evil drugs.  And since the side effects of steroids are so serious, I had decided to settle for the 'not-so-perfect belly' option.  Since I was sick of doctors who had no idea how to treat me making stupid suggestions... I was also reasonably committed to avoiding medical professionals unless the alternative was actually death.

But now I have found a specialist IBD clinic, with smart doctors who know what they are doing and are nice!  And I can call or email the IBD nurses any time I like.

I am beginning to hope that.. just perhaps... I might not have to go through life constantly sore and tired and not-quite-well.

OK.  I will stop blogging about my belly now.  I do other things with my life, honest.  I just thought that this was worth getting excited about :-)

Ben's mum is in Australia, with Ben's sister - who has just had a very lovely baby.  And Ben and Lucy are still not sure whether they live in London, or Lymington, or somewhere in between - so we have been spending quite a lot of time helping Ben's dad use all of his spare bedrooms and bathrooms.  We are just being generous, really - making sure Ben's dad doesn't feel too guilty about having such a big house all for one person. 

BUT since we've been hanging around, we thought we might as well embrace the whole commune theme and take turns cooking dinner.  It got off to a bit of a slow start - Ben's dad doesn't appear to have cooked since he got married in the early 1970s (he claims that this isn't true... but we have our doubts).  BUT with a few cook books and some persistence, we have managed to get ourselves a little competition going.  The 'whose dinner tastes the nicest' competition.  Ben did baked trout stuffed with Mediterranean rice (and baked chili soy Salmon for himself - he's not a huge fan of trout) the other night.  And it was delicious.  Last night was my turn... so I did vegetarian Mexican: nachos followed by roast vegetable enchiladas.   It wasn't particularly difficult, but quite yummy, I thought.  And it settled the 'yeah, but the problem with not eating meat is that you never feel properly full' argument.  Tonight Ben's dad did Bouliabasse - which was a) really delicious; and b) perfect for me, because last night's Mexican gave me the stomach ache from hell.  Soup was about all I could handle eating.

:-)

OK - I admit it.  Wedding cakes probably aren't that difficult.  Seriously.  You make a cake.  You add some white icing.  You add some flowers.  You stick everything together.  It isn't rocket science - right?  Yes, cake-decorators are skilled craftspeople, and they go to pastry school for a reason.  But we are not talking one of the monstrous fifteen story, intricately piped, hand tinted, Eiffel Tower shaped cakes of the 1980s.  Just a stacked cake with fresh roses and white icing.  With a bit of practice, even I can do that.

BUT I have discovered the rub.  While making a wedding cake may or may not be a big deal... making a wedding cake AND organising the rest of the wedding probably is.  *SIGH*.  There are bridesmaids to giggle with, great Aunts to chat to, grandparents to spend time with, champagne to organise, prams to park, hair to have styled, hair-pieces to sort out, mothers to calm down, a celebrant to satisfy etc. etc. etc.  And all of this is shaping up to be quite exciting - even with a LITTLE wedding.

Somehow, I just don't think that all of this socialising will mix so comfortably with cake icing.  I kind of suspect that finding a whole day or two to mess around with egg whites in the middle of pre-wedding madness just isn't going to happen.  Yeah yeah - I know - you all told me so.  Well - never mind.  At least I am big enough to admit defeat before it all descends into chaos.

The latest re-think involves an inexpensive patiserie and fresh flowers from the florist.  And - I THINK it will PROBABLY end up looking something like this (except with fresh flowers and not quite so pink).  

But because I have now delegated the cake-ordering, it is hard to be sure.

:-)

And, by the way - the picture is from the House of Elegant Cakes which appears to make very elegant cakes. 

This constant state of crisis is doing my head in.  I wish that the media would just shut up - if it is all going to collapse around our ears, can someone just tell me when it has finished collapsing? 

Every single news headline in London for the past month seems to have had something to do with impending doom and the collapse of the financial sector.  I know - its serious - it is going to make everyone's life horrible... it is probably the end of the world as we know it.

BUT SERIOUSLY.  If the average reader isn't in a position to do anything sensible with the information - except panic and withdraw all of their money from the bank so they can hide it under the bed - does it really help to know?  Apparently mass withdrawals don't actually help the banking system.  So could someone just hurry up and fix it all, and feed us some nice propaganda about how wonderful the world is in the meantime??

So - I have my dress - tick.

Tunya is lending me a very lovely veil - tick.

We have ordered flowers - tick.

My only big remaining 'to do' was shoes.  Hmmm... this was a tough one.  The shoes they sell in Bridal shops tend to be kind of ugly.  Or insanely expensive.  And they are almost always cream... which makes it difficult to wear them again after the wedding ... unless you mess around with having them dyed etc.  One of my bridesmaids ordered hers from a website, but my feet seem to be too big for most online shopping sites. 

Anyway, in order to avoid some fairly terrifying alterations to my dress (which has an embroidered hem-line, and would have to be re-built if I wanted the length altered), I needed to find some very high heels.  Preferably in silver.  With or without diamantes.  I managed to find a pair that fit that description today - so shoes - tick.

There is just one tiny problem.  They are STILETTOS.  As in, they have a four inch heel that is about 1mm wide.  And if I don't want to wind up in hospital with two broken legs, I am going to have to figure out how to walk in them.  Without looking like a giraffe. 

Grrrr....

Do you think this is why grooms carry their brides across the threshold? 

I really liked this article in the Australian: 'Complementary medicine has a place'.

It basically points out that Western medicine isn't so good at dealing with chronic illnesses.   Which is why so many people turn to complimentary medicine.  Complimentary medicine often makes people FEEL better - which is often just as important to individuals as whether there is an objective, measurable change in the things that medicine can measure.  There is a big difference between not dropping dead and feeling comfortable and energetic and happy - and many people with chronic illnesses seem reluctant to settle for not dropping dead (although, in a pinch, its probably not the worst option around).  It also suggests that the pharmaceutical lobby has played a large role in preventing complimentary medicine from becoming more widely accepted by the medical community. 

China's healthcare system has problems - but in many hospitals, Traditional Chinese Medicine is seen as playing an important role in patient wellbeing.  Many hospitals have TCM departments and practitioners working with Western trained doctors - looking at ways that massage, acupuncture or reflexology might help to make patients more comfortable or help them to heal faster.  Diet is understood as very important for health by a lot of Chinese people (the whole 'food culture' thing extends to the health-giving benefits of food... not just taste) and many ordinary people see exercise and taking care of themselves as an important part of daily life.  It is less expensive to do tai chi every morning than to pay for drugs to treat your arthritis - and who knows - you might even enjoy it!  Besides, if healthy food tastes nice, and it will help you to live a long and comfortable life, with fewer ailments, then how do you loose?  A major driving factor, I am sure, is that TCM is affordable for most people - and hospitals and pharmaceutical solutions are expensive.  Few people have health insurance, so they are fairly well motivated when it comes to finding inexpensive ways of looking after their health.

But understanding diet, exercise and complimentary therapies as elements of a bigger picture seems sensible to me. 

Wen Chien asked me to explain why I hate doctors.  He has pointed out, he occasionally hates patients, too (especially when they are stupid) - so we are even.

Actually, I have thought about it.  I don't really hate doctors - and certainly not as individuals.  Lots of my loveliest friends or acquaintances are doctors.  I am sure some are idiots - but some members of any group are always idiots.  My problem is with the medical system in a much bigger way.

Basically, I think that Western medicine tells big fat porky pies.  As members of the public, we are given an impression that Western medicine has THE answers to every medical problem.  There is no use taking echinacea or trying acupuncture or homeopathic remedies for our ailments - because they have not been scientifically proven.  Because science doesn't have the evidence for these treatments, they are useless.  And we should rely on doctors and the medical community to tell us about treatments that we can trust - because doctors only use treatments that are supported by evidence.  If the doctors can't fix it, it can't be fixed.

All of that would be fine.  EXCEPT in my experience, most of the things people feel miserable about cannot be fixed by doctors.  You have a cold?  Its a virus, we can't fix it, take some panadol, go away.  You have Influenza (I had influenza last year - it wasn't very nice) - oh, sorry, it is a virus.  We can't fix it.  Take some panadol and go away.  You feel very tired and you have no energy?  It is probably a virus.  We can't fix it.  Anyway, it could be your imagination... we can't tell for sure.  You have an auto-immune condition?  Oh - I'm sorry.  We can't actually fix it.  We can give you uncomfortable tests and drugs with dangerous side effects, but we can't do much about the pain or discomfort or the fact that you will have to live with it for the rest of your life.  You have cancer?  Well... sometimes we can fix it.  But we will have to put you through a lot of pain first.  And then there are no guarantees... sorry about that.  Mental illness?  We aren't very good at actually curing that.  Especially not if it is something really serious that makes your life truly miserable.  But we can give it a go.  No guarantees, mind you.  You will probably have to live with a great deal of pain and we definitely can't fix the suffering.

Having said that, doctors can, in certain circumstances, be very helpful.  Most women survive childbirth these days.  We have access to vaccinations that stop babies from dying of measles or going blind.  If I am ever in a car accident, I hope that a Western trained doctor - not a homeopath - comes to my rescue!  People can have replacement hips and replacement corneas.  Surgeons are able to do wonderful things to improve the quality of life for people with deformities.  I have just discovered that there are some really amazing consultants who know a lot about how to improve the quality of life for people with chronic auto-immune disorders, like IBD.

BUT on the whole I often feel that Western medicine is caught up in a kind of false advertising.  The media declares some 'amazing new discovery' by medical science or drug companies every week... but, actually, this doesn't mean very much for most people suffering from most illnesses.  Patients often feel very disappointed when they cannot be cured.  Doctors often feel very frustrated because, actually, patients need to use their common sense and take more responsibility for their own health.  And when people get sick or die, everyone feels shocked and there is no one to blame... because... in reality... doctors aren't miracle workers and medicine doesn't have all of the answers.  Medicine can never remove sickness or suffering, death or old age from the world.  Medicine isn't even very good at helping people to cope with sickness and suffering, death or old age.   We have to find other ways of coping with those things!

So, what I mean when I say 'I hate doctors' is actually not that I hate doctors.  I hate being sick.  I hate feeling powerless.  I hate being frightened that the people treating me will not do a good job, and may make things worse.  I HATE all of the waiting that is involved in getting the right diagnosis for most people with a serious illness.  I was 'diagnosed' with everything from an active imagination to tummy viruses and parasites before I FINALLY found out what was wrong with me.  And I know a lot of people who have had a similar experience - a slipped disk that turned out to be a fatal melanoma, a urinary tract infection that turned out to be an ovarian tumor, heel spurs that turned out to be Ross River virus etc.  I hate the fact that the media often seems to provide a false image of medicine and its power to heal - when almost everyone has experienced a condition that cannot be fixed by medicine - whether it is a cold or dementia or MS or Motor Neurone Disease or cancer. 

Now - a note to Wen Chien... don't get disheartened.  For all of my whining, I think that my life is, on the whole, better and more comfortable thanks to Western medicine.  Actually, it is a bit unfortunate that doctors have to put up with patients who expect miracles.  And many doctors are deeply compassionate people, who are doing their best to help, even though they are not gods and cannot fix everything, and they have been on their feet for sixteen hours trying to get everything done, and their boss is a dragon, and the last patient was drunk and vomited all over them.  Which is why I decided that I  really should concentrate on the good points of those individuals, rather than the flaws in the whole system. 

Update for less than regular blog followers: I have Ulcerative Colitis - which is a chronic, auto-immune condition that means I am on medication for life and have a frequently sore tummy.  It is a bit like Rheumatoid Arthritis in that it has 'flare' and 'remission' phases, but never goes away completely.

Anyway - when I moved to the UK I left my very lovely Australian gastro behind.  And, having had one or two terrifying encounters with emergency room doctors who had never seen a real live patient with my condition.  This probably doesn't SOUND that terrifying... but these people have drugs.  Big bad scary dangerous drugs: IV steroids.  And they managed to start injecting me with them, without my consent, in very high doses before I could swat them away.  Once they start with IV steroids, you are stuck with steroids for at least six months, because if they stop using them suddenly, patients tend to do annoying things like going into cardiac arrest.  AND they had never even heard of the treatments they SHOULD have been trying out first... slightly higher doses of the non-steroidal drugs, non-steroidal foams, steroidal foams... last.... if absolutely necessary... IV steroids. 

I tried telling my local UK based GP that I was having a flare once... but it was so obvious that she had no idea what UC was or what, exactly, she should do about it, that I more or less gave up. 

The net result was that I had decided that battling my way through the NHS in search of a decent specialist was more trouble than it was worth.  My current medication seems to have been keeping me alive - I get a sore stomach and very tired quite often - but it is probably better to battle through than to risk being treated by doctors who don't understand what is wrong or where to begin and might attack me with nasty drugs with very nasty side effects, right?

ANYWAY - eventually - after much nagging by my nearest and dearest, I decided I was feeling strong and brave and asked the GP I happened to be seeing that day whether he knew of a good specialist.  He did!  And he was sympathetic when I said that I was fussy about doctors.  If I knew more about my condition than they did, then I would be reluctant to let them touch me or mess with my medication. 

Last week I went.  And it was amazing!  My consultant has a PhD in MY DISEASE.  They have a whole clinic that only deals with people with MY CONDITION.  They KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING!!  Not only that, but the consultant understood why I was so terrified of emergency rooms and GPs - and he didn't think that I was neurotic at all.  He explained that his clinic has a special service intended to prevent UC patients from being treated by GPs or emergency department registrars who have no idea what they are doing!  If I am ever sick enough to need to go to an emergency room, one of his specialist team will come and meet me there, and oversee my treatment.  I have a 24 hour number direct to a member of the IBD team, so that if I want advice or am having a flare and am not sure what to do, I can speak to (or email) a consultant directly.  And it gets better.... they have nurse practitioners who are very highly trained in treating IBD.  It is their job to read the latest research and to keep up with all of the relevant developments and to think of ways to make people with IBD more comfortable and better able to work and live happily. 

I have read about specialist IBD nurses... but I have never actually seen one.  They started by doing the most sensible thing ever (it has never been done to me before) they WEIGHED ME AND MEASURED ME!  I have only ever been weighed in hospital when I have stomped my foot and demanded to be weighed, and demanded that a nurse take a note of my weight - so the fact that they didn't even ask me, they did it as part of their normal routine, was very exciting.  It means that they will actually be able to see if my weight is stable or I'm gaining or loosing weight - they won't have to take my word for it.  (For the uninitiated - the first question the specialist asked was 'is your weight stable?'.  Loosing weight = sick Lucy.  Stable weight = relatively healthy Lucy.  Gaining weight = greedy Lucy OR Lucy retaining lots of fluid... I once retained TEN KILOS of fluid when I was really sick).

I think that I may, actually, have stumbled across one of the best IBD services in the world.  100% free and publicly funded. And 100% dedicated to people with Ulcerative Colitis and Crohns.  I think that this service is actually better than the treatment I was recieving in Australia, under the private system - where I had a gastro consultant who was wonderful - but she didn't specialize in UC or IBD.  She treated everything gastro related. 

Phew.  All of this means that, after two years of feeling vaguely miserable about not having a doctor who I trust in the UK, I can relax!   I can even get sick, if I like.  I don't think that this bunch are about to make me sicker or more miserable if I let them treat me - and it is such a relief to think that I probably don't need to second guess everything they do or suggest.

YAY!

I just wrote a perfectly good rant about how much I hate doctors.  But I've deleted it because, actually, some of my nicest friends happen to be members of the medical profession. 

Which doesn't mean that I think that Western medicine and Western medical systems aren't deeply flawed.  It just means that I appreciate that doctors are human, and am willing to concede that many of them try their best to help their patients, using the tools they have available to them.

So, rather than spewing my frustration at the inadequacies of medical science all over my blog, I'm going to practice noticing the good things in the world.  And lovely, compassionate human beings who choose professions that allow them to help other people are a good thing. So I will focus my attention on the positive qualities of these individuals - rather than on the number of times that doctors can't help or don't know or get things wrong. 


*sigh*

Finally, all of that wishing for a pet has paid off.  We have our very own pet fox!  Of course, he doesn't know he's our pet fox.  He thinks it is a wild fox, who just popped in to lie on the driveway, while crazy humans peeked excitedly from the upstairs window. But that's not the point.  The point is that he is  cute and fluffy and very low maintenance :-)

So - riled by the DIY wedding cake doubters and inspired by Tunya's attempts at the swiss butter-cream icing... we decided to give this wedding cake business a go.  Seriously - it isn't THAT hard.

There are tricks (which I found online)...

1. use a reasonably solid cake so it stays together.

2. use drinking straws to keep everything together and to prevent layers from toppling.  We found super long, super strong 'party straws' designed to entertain children and they are perfect for this purpose.

3. brush melted apricot jam over the cake to stop the crumbs from messing up the butter-cream.

We made 2 test cakes in a fun afternoon - we cheated and used packet cake-mix because we were most interested in trying out the icing options and I still think getting the cake itself made would be smart and simple.

BUT the butter-cream icing is easy.  We had to double check the measurements (the original recipe is from the US and an American 'stick' of butter is 130g, but a UK 'stick' of butter is 250g etc).

Considering the cakes we started with were as wonky as they come, I am pretty sure that if we get some pre-made cakes from a cake shop or bakery, which may be a little more symmetrical, and flowers from the florist for decoration, it should be fairly straight forward to whack our meringue-like butter cream on and to get a reasonable finish (I like the rustic not-quite perfectly straight icing look with fresh flowers).  As long as we make tonnes of the icing, it goes on about an inch thick (like Pavlova, but with a cake in the middle) and looks wedding-like.  We filled our cakes with strawberries and butter-cream and jam... just to add to the complete sugar overload - but I am sure we could do something a little different.

We tried the meringue butter cream, and traditional hard icing, just as an experiment.  I like the way the meringue butter cream looks - and it was a lot easier than messing about with rolling the traditional icing (we were bored by the time we got to the traditional icing, so we didn't do a brilliant job).  You need to put frosting under the hard icing, anyway - or the cake tastes too dry. 

The real cake will be bigger, by the way.  And it will have two tiers.  These were just baby test-sized versions. 

All two days of it.

Thank goodness we went to Swanage!

When I was growing up, I really wanted to live somewhere really remote.  We lived in Darwin - and it didn't feel remote.  It was a 'city' of sorts.  Well... it was a town, really - but it had shopping centers and dozens of schools, mains electricity, running water, swimming pools and an airport.  Some of my favorite books were stories like We of the Never Never - which told of the struggle of living in truly remote places.  The Flying Doctors also made outback life look terribly glamorous: conducive to self-reliance, ingenuity, drama and occasional romance.

Our  high school offered boarding - so lots of the kids in our classes came from places like Groote Eyelandt, the Tiwi Islands, Daly River and the NT/Queensland border.  They had to fly in at the beginning of each term on charter flights - and if it had been raining particularly heavily and airstrips were closed, sometimes they wouldn't make it in until weeks after the town kids.  Kids whose parents worked on mines had their boarding paid for by the mining company, and kids who lived more than two hours from the nearest school, or where roads were impassable for more than 3 months a year, had their boarding paid for by the NT Government.  I was so jealous.  I once sat down and worked out that if we declared that our primary residence was the back (swampy) corner of our hobby block, and measured the road the long way around, I might JUST qualify for free boarding.  Sadly, my mum wouldn't go for it - so I stayed a day student for most of my high-school career (although I did spend a semester boarding when my mum was in hospital in Melbourne).

ANYWAY the point is that old age has sobered me up.  When it came time for me to go to uni, I really did have to leave Darwin.  The local university didn't offer the courses I wanted, and the university that did was 2,000km away in Adelaide.  It was heart breaking.  It was cold.  A lot of my friends stayed in Darwin - and my heart ached every time I had to leave people who knew and cared about me to be a broke, anonymous student in a city full of strangers.  Once I'd finished my undergraduate degree, it was time for honours, and once I'd done honours, it was a PhD in another city, and once I'd done a PhD, it was a job in the UK.  All a million miles from my mum and dad and 'home'.  And I don't think I am less homesick now than I was when I was 17.  Ok... perhaps I'm a little bit less homesick... but on rainy English days when I'm stuck on the tube trying not to breathe in flu germs I have serious doubts about whether I have made the best choices in life.

Now, being 'remote' seems like a passport to a lifetime of hard decisions and sacrifices.  Growing up remote means always feeling a little bit sad and a little bit guilty for not giving up an education or a career to be where the people and the places you love are.   Or giving them up, and wondering whether you made the right choice.  For parents, it means watching your kids moving away when they really are still babies.  It means being away from your family and your home and in strange cities if people get sick and your local hospital or health center doesn't have an MRI scanner or the specialists you need.  It means not having decent Internet connections and paying a fortune to an airline every time you have to go 'south'.  Of course, there are up-sides.  People tend to live in remote places because they love them.  And being forced to travel and to step outside your comfort zone means that it (eventually) becomes second nature.  There is much less chance you'll wake up at fifty and think 'oh - I always wanted to travel, but somehow I never quite made it out of the city where I was born.'

Now when I think about the boarders in my high-school class, I wonder whether it was even harder for them to leave their families to come to school. Perhaps I'm just a wimp.

And I also think that the 21st century has, in some ways, made everyone remote.  Jobs are advertised globally.  We stay in contact with friends who have moved to the other side of the planet.  We commute virtually and work digitally.  Global businesses expect staff to be willing to travel.  It is possible to do more and to compete with the best in the world, not just the best in your town.  It takes a very conscious decision to step back and say 'yes, this is an amazing opportunity - but no, thank you.' 

So - we are starting to feel old.  I am, anyway.  We have spent years desperately wanting Australia to get rid of John Howard.  My final few years in high school stood out because I had teachers who cried in frustration over the Liberal victory.  I car-pooled to school listening to Triple J ripping into Pauline Hanson.  And had earnest discussions about whether a tragic plane crash that involved Phillip Ruddock, Amanda Vandstone and Alexander Downer would solve the nation's problems.  When I was allowed to vote, it was with a sense of doom and frustration... no one seemed to be listening and the Liberals got back in, anyway. John Howard definitely wasn't listening when everyone we knew (including us) marched and demanded that Australia shouldn't be involved in the Iraq war.  No one seemed to be listening to the family of David Hicks, or to the people who pointed out the fundamental injustices of detention centers. 

And then, one day - when I was out of the country and not organised enough to cast a postal vote - the governement changed!  And today... we woke up and looked at the BBC and the new government is getting rid of detention centers and the Pacific Solution.  

Its a very odd feeling.  I definitely can't say that my vote made the difference in this election.  And, obviously, it wasn't my whining or writing to newspapers or phoning talk-back radio that did the trick.  Maybe it is just that pendulum phenomenon everyone is always on about. 

But if the pendulum will swing when it swings, whether I have an opinion or not, was I just wasting my breath? 

Hmmm....

Yep.  We really do move house a lot.  It is getting a bit ridiculous - but I am also starting to get used to it.  In some ways its a good thing.  We meet new people, and get to sort of 'spy' on life in different places.  We've lived with the super-rich in Sanbanks (or at least shared a local bar with them) and the determinedly conservative middle class in semi-detached houses in suburban London.  And we've been in dodgy flats and nice flats, with lovely neighbors and some complete nut-cases.  Next, it looks like we will be moving back into London.  This time the North-East, inner London, rather than the North-West, Zone 5.  We went to look at a flat yesterday.  It looked like a complete bargain online... a lovely new kitchen, a small, but very nice bathroom, clean, freshly painted, lots of light... all for just 160 pounds a week (plus council tax etc.)  On the map it was pretty close to my office.  So far, so good.  We are periodically committed to saving whenever we get the chance - so we can buy our own house.  We waver on this.  Sometimes we decide that we are being ridiculous and just need to accept that some costs are fixed, and we should live in a nice place and not be so greedy. 

So, when we got to our 'bargain' flat, we realised that, of course, nothing is ever that perfect.  It is on a super busy main road, next to a petrol station in an area that seemed to made up of housing estate after housing estate after housing estate.  High density housing for people on low incomes.  My inkling that it was a recipe for trouble was confirmed by the notice appealing for information on a recent unsolved murder pasted right outside the front door.  And the shrine to a local stab victim on the park gates.  And the local Gazette which was mourning the area's ninth stabbing this year. 

In its favor, though - it was a nice (tiny) well renovated flat with a single landlord for the entire building.  It has double glazing, good heating and good plumbing.  And the current tenant says that the local orthodox Jewish community are very good at keeping an eye on things, so she has never felt threatened in the time she has been there.  It is a single bus ride to work, and it is only fifteen minutes on the bus from some very funky bits of London.

*SIGH*

What to do what to do what to do?  Pay more and rent in a nice neighborhood, or maintain our low-spending, student-lifestyle for another few years and keep saving every time we get the chance?  

There’s apartheid in our cutlery draw.

Wire trays separate the old from the new, the heavy from the light, the shiny from the dull. 

Order is maintained.  The knives with the round ends lie together.

The spoons with the fan-designs never touch their Asda usurpers.    Mixing is not allowed.

Sometimes I feel sorry for the old cutlery.  I make a point of using it, remembering where it came from, how it has traveled.  I remember how it was loved once, and then put away in a Tupperware box.  It has been treasured on two other continents and in countless cities, wrapped in quilts and shipped in crates.

Ben thinks it’s silly.  He wanted to throw it away.  He wants things to be shiny and neat and ordered and modern, with no mis-matched spoons or peculiar forks.   He would prefer not to have cast-offs from another generation. 

So our compromise is apartheid. 

Ben's Mum and Dad came around for dinner last night.  So, of course, we wound up talking about boats.  Ben's current favorite boat is the 100ft Swan.  Ben's mum wants a Wally.  And I am developing opinions.  Canting Keels are just wrong.  Boats that need electricity for winches to work or sails to go up or down or keels to go left or right are just not right.  If you can sail it by pushing buttons, its not a sailing boat, I say.  ANYWAY I have developed a 'dream boat' plan.  We are going to have to get separate his and hers dream boats if we ever become squillionaires, because I know what MY dream boats will look like, and Ben has very firm opinions about his.  We will just have to own a whole fleet.  There is no other way.

Lucy's sailing philosophy goes something like this: Have a different boat for each boat-purpose... don't try and mix things up.  'All rounders' just mean that everything is not quite perfect.  Instead of one really really big boat that races and cruises, and that is modern and classic at the same time, just get a whole fleet.  And a professional fleet manager.  And lots of paid crew and maintenance people. 

My fleet, I think, will have: 


Boat 1: A really fast boat, just for racing.  This will only ever be used for racing.  It doesn't matter if we don't win... the purpose of this boat is to make sure that Lucy can always find exactly what she needs at exactly the moment she needs it during races.  There will be no removable lockers, no pots and pans that come on and then go off again.  No one will ever move my wet weather gear or steal my sailing boots or forget that they have left something really important in the boot of the car because it was taken off for cruising or anything like that.  Everything will be set up, and it will stay set up.  Full stop, end of story.  If this boat looks a little bit ugly, if it has gaffa tape on things or we need to put black marks on the deck so that jib cars are in the right spot, it won't be a problem.  Everyone will have amazing racing clothing on board.  We will always be comfortable.  And we will go racing with the same crew every single week and have lots of fun and get really good.  This boat might be a TP52... but we would do a little bit of research before we made a final decision.  I might have an all girl crew on my really fast racing boat. 

Boat 2: A classic cruising boat - suitable for sunny days and lazy weeks.  There are some absolutely goregous timber yachts around England.  And because we will have full-time professional crew, I will be able to have a timber boat with a timber mast and a beautiful deck and lots of brass, and someone else will have to deal with the polishing and the varnishing :-)  This boat doesn't need to go super fast, it just needs to be beautiful and classic and comfortable.  We will go out for champagne style cruises on this boat with our friends.  It will need to have a little ladder into the water so that we can go swimming off the back, and a tender so that we can go ashore for lunch if we feel like it.  And it won't have a racing keel, so hopefully we will be able to go and anchor in places that are relatively shallow.  This boat will have good pots and pans and comfy beds and maybe even deck cushions.

Boat 3: A sensible cruising boat - suitable for going medium distances in, quickly and comfortably.  This boat will be for longer sailing holidays.  It will sail beautifully, and will be comfortable, but it will not be our racing boat.  We might sail around the Med in this boat.  Or we might go to Southeast Asia in it.  So far, I think the 60 foot Swan is tempting for this.  I am not sure about going too big.  People might think we were showing off.  :-P