I’ve been having a nice, quiet time lately. Got most of Christmas off work, as the name-out-of-hat elves were on my side this year. All the Christmas cake/pudding/sprouts has had its usual good effects on my sluggish constitution, and so, really, all is right with the world.
Had a jolly surprising Christmas morning. Was at Mum’s with Batman, the Sister, the Brorinlaw and the sister’s Bumpette (for verily, I am going to be an Auntie, whoo hoo). Batman had been crakeing for three months for an Xbox, but to no avail, because I’m afraid it’ll stop him doing the housework he has been a bold boy this year. Not really, he has been an absolute star as far as looking after his hardworking missus, and being very hardworking himself. So the surprise was that I got the Xbox. I composed my features into pretend gratefulness, ’cause I couldn’t manage festive joy, and muttered my thanks through gritted teeth. Man, did I feel bad when Bats told me to open the box, and inside was a rather festive iPad. I don’t need it, I cant justify having it, but, ooh, I do love it. (Although the wordpress app crashed last night, and I lost the most hilarious post ever, truly. Yeah. )
Anyway. I do hate it, when eating a pear, that one accidentally takes a hunk out of the spiny core. Just an aside to make you think that I’m a healthy fruit-eater. Although I have eaten two pieces of fruit today, which means either that two a day will do for a Resolution (I try to avoid making any unless I have a head-start on them), or else that’ll do until next January (much more likely).
In other news, I have definitely ended up with the right man. How do I know. Well, remember how I love the geeks? I was having breakfast with Bats on New Year’s Day, when I remarked that it was 1.1.11, which must be something in binary. “Yep,” he said, momentarily furrowing his brow, mid-cornflake, “Fifteen”. He’s a keeper.
Except that he is making me watch PredatoryAliensySomethingDeeDooDah, and it’s not the greatest film ever. I’m going to bed, to dream of fruit.

We are blanketed, swathed, enrobed in delicious snow. It’s delicious because (a) I love it and (b) I am not trying to get anywhere. I appreciate that not all the Dear Readers may feel the same about it.

I do love snow, though. It was snowing very hard on Thursday night, and Batman and I got wellied up at 11pm and went for a walk. I caught snowflakes on my tongue and felt blissful. I have new wellies. They are blue with pink flowers, and would provoke justified howls of laughter in the turf mountain, but they are quite the thing amongst people who never do any work that requires the wearing of wellies. On the way home, Batman decided to build a snowman, and made a large body in no time at all. I made the head, and we arranged a rather smashing snowman on the wide pavement outside our house. We called him Fred. He was rotundly wonderful.

Of course, we stayed up much too late, and enjoyed ourselves far too much. We fell into bed with that fuzzy glow of childhood, noses numb and fingers stiff with cold. Then I got up and Friday really sucked. It sucked more when I came home in the late morning to find that some unknown foot had kicked Fred’s head off. Later on, four hoodied youffs came along and jumped on his corpulent body until it broke apart. I hate Astro City, and all who sail in her, and I hope that all Hoodies get smallpox.*

* Disclaimer: I have a hoodie, but it is pink, fleecy and non-threatening. I have also never kicked apart anyone’s snowman.

It has been a bit quiet in Casa Bat lately. Batman has been working very hard at his cover job, and I have been humouring my bosses, but only partly successfully. I even got one of them shouted at by his wife today. I have never met his wife, and it was not my fault that the list finished early, and he sneaked off for a nice, quiet, Thai lunch but then didn’t answer his mobile when we needed him urgently. One of the other chaps phoned his house in case he was there (as I was up to my elbows at the time), so his wife then phoned his mobile and asked where was he when he had said he would be late in theatre today? Lunch? *Shouting wife* He was very shamefaced when he came back to the hospital and confessed what had happened. He hadn’t got to eat his lunch, and didn’t expect to be getting much in the dinner line either.

I wish I had so much power over my man. I don’t cook much anyway during the week, so I can hardly withdraw feeding from Batman. In the very early flush of married life, I threatened that if he kept putting his socks into the laundry basket inside-out, then I’d throw them out instead of washing them. He snorted and said that he’d wash them himself, then, and, to be fair, he does most of the laundry now as well as the cooking. I am a useless housewife, and a slattern. I have had a tiring day, what with all the humouring. I am going to bed.

Oh, and he’s after bringing me a slice of toast. I could lend him out for the day if there are any takers. He is worth his weight in some precious metal.

Ooh, I love school holidays. Batman and I are having a week off, and it’s been thoroughly hectic so far. Spent Saturday working on the rota, as I have now officially handed on to the next poor sod; came down to Mum’s on Saturday evening and are going back to Astro City shortly. Have seen lots of relatives, some delicious babies, gone to Town for some important messages (and to wind up my favourite wool-shop owner). Have also written 500 not so great words for the travel writing competition, and sent it off to one of the better publications. Who knows?

I am trying to think of interesting post titles, when, in fact, life is currently quite full of work. Happily, I am working on the rota for the last time, as the Powers Wot Rule Me have deemed that I have done enuff, and are passing it on to the next poor sap in line. I am also trying to write 500 words for a travel writing competition, and it’s not going very well. Toodlepip.

I have had a nice evening. Home early from work, after two hours of teaching on the subject of Dodgy Gentlemen’s Bits (riveting), and half an hour of a meeting about the rota (ditto). I am on call for the weekend (Sat/Sun), and anyway, I have retired from domestic drudgery since I acquired a husband, so Batman and I went out for a very nice dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. I popped in to see my sister, who is in her sickbed but was going to rally to go to a concert. She’s an enormous fan of TherapyQuestionMark, as they are known in our house, and was off to bang her head and thrash her metal like she was 18 again.

Bats and I ate far too much, retired across the street to a bar we used to frequent when we were poor students and he loved me from afar, then sauntered along the street where we met. We were near-neighbours, and he house-shared with a schoolfriend of mine.  A delicious, nostalgic evening. And now to iron his drawers. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s romantic being married to a superhero.

I know that I’m supposed to be a hard-nosed, surgical trainee, with a sceptical mind and an ever-questioning bent, but I really have been feeling very run-down. So I am back on the magical multi-vitamin tonic, the name of which I can’t reveal in the interests of not appearing to make a professional endorsement. All I can say is that I took it last year, and I think it saved my life; certainly my sanity and probably my marriage. All that, and it tastes almost exactly like vomit. The man in the Health Food Shap recommended it, disbelieving me having been dragged by the ear, by the Mammy, in response to my apathetic resignation to the end being nigh. He spoke almost evangelically about its many benefits, and the Mammy bought me a bottle of the terrifyingly orange mixture. Later in the year, I got another, and it was the out-of-date tail-end of this that I found, and took on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, with quite fabulous results. I thought during the course of work on Tuesday that melting me down for glue might be the only reasonable plan. But the miraculous elixir seems to have me back on the straight and narrowish. I got a new bottle today, and came straight home for 30mls of the stuff. I am feeling so perky now that I might even wash my hair. And it’s not even Saturday.

Right, I think I’m on the mend. I was starting to think there was something wrong with me, and had even, albeit fleetingly, considered visiting a real doctor. You know I must have been ill. But enough of this! Time to get back to normal. I even washed the dishes last night. Whilst tidying up, the kitchen door swung slowly open. I startle easily (comically so), and squealed in fright as Batman’s little face appeared around the door. “I live here!” he said, but I’d just forgotten for a minute that he did. You know how it is.

It is a grey day. Yesterday’s much-anticipated interesting theatre list fell apart on Monday evening, as the main patient wasn’t fit for a haircut, let alone an entertaining operation. So I spent the day clearing up emergencies, which sounds awfully exciting, but isn’t really. Happily, it has afforded a little hiding time today so I am going to work on the blasted rota. What fun.

You know, I still grin to myself when I ask for a “fresh blade” in theatre. And yes, I know that is a little bit sad.

In the last six weeks I have had:

1. Two stinky cold sores.
2. Shingles.
3. A snottery head cold (ongoing).

I cannot recommend the shingles to anyone. There are many worse things in life, but at least I can avoid some of them by not drinking and driving. I got shingles over a two-minute period, one Monday morning.

Speaking of drinking, I have had a haircut so bad that it couldn’t have been worse if my hairdresser had got loaded up drunk, blindfolded himself, and hegged at my hair with garden shears. Came home to Batman’s aghast expression (for I also had a traumatic haircolouring incident, and a very dodgy fringe), and the comment, ” You look like Suzi Quatro!” This is an exaggeration, as I have checked Google images in the hope of linking to an example, and Suzi Q has never had hair as bad as mine.

In other news, I unearthed my spuds today. Five pounds of scabby, yet decent-sized, and two pounds of titchy ones. Not a roaring success, I think – and my onions are tragic.

Today we:
1. Visited the largest aquarium in the world…
which is inside…
2. The largest shopping mall in the world…
and then we…
3. Took the fastest elevator in the world…
up the…
4. Tallest building in the world!

(Batman also reckons we had the most expensive couple of drinks in the world. Not quite, but close!)