Oh, Sarah-Rose

Craig: Damn hormones.
Me: … what??
Craig: Hormones.
Me: … oh! I thought you were talking about mormons. And this was about to be a whole ‘nother conversation.

I have been having the worst week.
This is especially not cool as the weather has been amazing recently (save for the rain on Tuesday but … I’ll let that one slide this time London) with clear blue skies and near-freezing temperatures so that this morning I actually broke out a pair of gloves as well as my bright red pashmina scarf.
My gloves were bright pink. Hee.

Anyway. Everything’s just been going a little bit wrong recently. And I don’t know why.
But I’m trying to ride it out and be positive because I think that’s the only thing that can change it.
That and avoiding stepping on cracks when I walk. Yes I’m being serious.

Craig knows about this so gave me my birthday present as soon as it (finally) arrived (I’m looking at you, Royal Mail).
Which sadly meant that I came home on a night where he would be out til 11pm to find it sitting on the bed. It would have been nicer if he’d been there too but I couldn’t be at all mad because the box it came in was very distinctive …

And inside that little blue box was a little blue bag and inside the little blue bag was this …

I can’t help it! I just love it.
I’ve always wanted to get something from Tiffany’s. Merely for the history and the cliché of it, but I’ve never liked the chunky air-hostess so-cal-college-girl bracelets and necklaces.
This is small and discreet and I lovelovelove that it’s Oval. Circle or Heart shaped would have been too obvious.

There is also a teeny teeny tiny Tiffany & co on the chain. But I have to wait for a sunny day and super-macro and the internet to work at home to show you that.

And I told you that story to tell you this story …

Later that night Craig and I were lying in bed discussing something to do with “our money”. Let me preface this by saying that it was late.
Me: Well I was just, you know, running it past you because it’s kind of a frivolous purpose. purchase. purpose. porpoise. hee. porpoise.
Craig: hee! And what is the porpoise of your visit to the United Kingdom?
Me: It’s more of a killer whale actually.
Craig laughs. A lot. A lot.
Me: Oh I am so telling the internet that you laughed at that joke!
Craig: No! Hee. Don’t. Please.

Oops.

I was walking back to my office, snacking on my lunch-time whole-wheat bagel from Salisbury’s and as I was walking past the key-only garden in the square near my work I heard a scritching scrabbling sounds and saw some movement in the bushes.
I looked over, thinking to myself Vagrant? Junkie? Murderer, as, you know, I am wont to do.

Instead I saw 3 squirrels playing chase around the trunk of a tree.
It was so cute it even thawed my cold black heart just a little bit.
Just a little.

I kept walking (after squealing just a little) and I heard a scritching, scrabbling sound on the pavement just behind me.
I paused, and turned.
The squirrel following me froze, splay-legged. It then, very very slowly (I hear humans can only see movement) squirrelled it’s way over to the metal-post fence of the garden. And came a little bit closer to me.
I took two steps before turning to look back.
It froze again, having moved the squirrel-step equivalent of the steps I had just taken.
I stood there, torn shred of bagel forgotten halfway to my mouth as the squirrel rushed out of the garden, around my legs and back again, climbing up to the fence and stretching up to balance on a horizontal fence bar at about my knee height.

The squirrel stood there, looked at me, cocked his (her?) little head, wavered just a bit and reached his (her?) little hands (paws? claws? squirrel fingers?) out for the bagel in my hand.
Seriously.

And that is how I found myself talking to a squirrel in the square near my work.

What do you want? this is my bagel. Bagel, not nuts. Bay-Gel, Not nuts.

Craig and I are walking along Grafton Street (a pedestrian shopping areain Dublin) and I’m gazing off to the left, shops passing by.

Me: (involuntary gasp) eep!
Craig: No.
Me: What?
Craig: You canNOT have a hanging skull in a cage.
Me: How did y- dsmn.
Craig: I saw your eyes light up.

And this is why we work.

p.s. I took manymanymany photos in Dublin. I wonder when I will get to post them.
p.p.s. We looked around 3 churches, 1 distillery and 1 brewery.
p.p.p.s. I had Molly Malone stuck in my head the entire weekend

Craig and I have been in London for 117 days (yes. I counted) and I still get deliriously happy when I realise (yet again) that I live here!.

I think it has something to do with the fact that it has only been the last month that I have truly been living the life I dreamed of as I trudged to work in the cold, wet, early, early mornings.
I leave my adorable flat (modern inside, oldoldold without*) and get a coffee at Starbucks (they know my order!) which I sip as I walk around the Tate Modern and across the Millennium Bridge up to St Paul’s before getting on the tube and walking to my Grade Listed office building. Walking by the Thames in the weekend, hand in hand with Craig, lazy lunches at a market or pub …

So we’re leaving.

Hee. Kidding. We’re just away for the weekend, my Birthday weekend (!) which we’re spending in Dublin.

And while in Dublin, I am under strictest instructions to visit a certain bar and pick up a certain father a t-shirt. Goodness, if only I could remember the name of the bar …

P.s. I have literally Three Hundred and Fifty Eight photos on my camera, waiting to be posted (don’t panic. There are a couple of photo-collage-projects on there as well) and I may cry if the internet doesn’t start working properly. Especially if it is still down in November.
I will be taking photos in Dublin (and of our flat!) but oh, oh poor internet, you may have to wait a while to see them.

P.p.s. See that new button over to the right? the one that says Oh Dear Oh Dear, NaBloPoMo? that means that I am going to try my little heart out to post something every single day in November. Which will be interesting if the internet is still down at my flat. Interesting in a tearing-my-hair-out kind of way.

P.p.p.s. Fiddle dee dee potatoes!

* I love the idea that our building has been standing since before the First and Second World Wars. Craig is sceptical but the building next door was built in 1854 (1852? 1857?) and while ours looks a little more modern & less damaged, it could still be very very old.