Ok, to follow up from the last post that was cut short, what have I been up to?  Settling in/getting paperwork sorted telling the system that I'm back and that Séamus exists, I went to one Spanish meetup where only one other guy showed up and we mostly talked (in English) about his involvement in a weird new rightwing political party (I'm hoping that meetup becomes more popular), I have been looking out for venues where I can try to host my boardgames night, but so far I haven't found one, I've been trying to figure out meals I can cook that can be adapted for the veggies and meat eaters in the house, I've started reading again after not having read anything in ages (I'm reading a book about Haiti and how the international aid effort after the last big earthquake was completely wrongheaded and also for escapism The Black Prism by Brent Weeks), I've started going to a swimming class with Séamus on Wednesdays, writing penpal letters and what else... hmm I had a dream the other night that I was Deadpool.  I wasn't female Deadpool, I had my head on Deadpool's male body.   It was pretty cool.  

I'm planning on trying to grow a few herbs and vegetables once it gets a little warmer.  We are still getting frost most nights here.  It's a lot colder here than it was in London.  What a difference a couple of hundred miles make.

Today I posted a letter, got a house key cut for Mickey, got registered with a doctor and on the way back from the library (where I am again now) I will pick up a bit of shopping.

So I feel generally productive.  I have been starting to feel a bit useless having no job.  All the other women (well, there's only two of them really) I know here with babies work.  But they also have free childcare, which I don't/won't have.   I have no intention of doing a job that pays less than what childcare costs.  That would be pointless.

Now he's awake.  Time to leave library! 

Hello LJ!  I am no longer in London. I am posting from Athlone library.  Yep, I'm am so bereft of technology at the moment, I'm doing my internetting at the library!  It's funny actually, I'm really like someone who has just started using the internet for the first time in the 90s.  I set up a fake name facebook account to try to organise some semblance of a social life here, which necessitated a fake name email address.  So now I have an FB with no friends, an email address that I check but no emails come to, and two boards where I have put up a thread looking for people to play nerd games with me (unanswered) that I check every day.  Haha.

Athlone/living with the in-laws is not so bad so far.  Ahtlone has a population of around 20,000.  I haven't found any equivalent for the types of things I used to do during the day in London.  I have just been doing a lot of walking around the town.  Still, the river is very nice and the baby loves looking at the ducks and swans and boats.

M is moving over for good tomorrow.

Anyway, sorry for the short update.  I was going to say more, but the baby has just woken up so I better get a move on before he started shouting in the library.

Talk soon. 

Hey long time no see!

I'm sorry for being so crap for updating.  It seems I say that in every update these days.

Anyway, my news: after 8 years in London, we are definitely going back to Ireland.  I told my job I'm not coming back to them.   Yay! Scary. Yay! Scary.   We've already booked the van to bring back our stuff at the end of March.   I'm not going with the van because it will be too long of a trip with the baby, but me and him will fly out either the day before or the day after Mickey goes with the van.

I owe work a bit over 4 grand.  That's not so bad.  I'm going to see if I can pay them back a tiny amount per month.  They certainly can't have it from me in a lump sum anyway!

With my second last pay from work I managed to pay off my laser eye surgery, so that's one less thing to worry about.

I need to cancel my phone contract and go onto pay as you go, and then the only debt I need to worry about it what I owe work for leaving.

We're going to live with Mickey's parents for a while, while we find our feet.  My new town is going to be Athlone.  It's really small.  I'm a bit nervous about moving to such a tiny place, but I'm excited too.  It's going to be much nicer for the baby.  There are some things going on there, for example there is a Spanish language meetup, which I'm planning on being the first social thing I do there.  We also have some plans of things we are going to set up ourselves - Mickey is going to put on gigs, and I'm going to start a nerdy boardgames night.  We're also going to try to get fit and do a lot more outdoors things, despite the horrible Irish weather.   If you are a Brit reading this, yes, it IS worse there.  It rains way more and many years there is not a single sunny day for the entire summer.  That's just something we will have to put up with/buy serious boots and jackets for.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about a job when I get back to Ireland.  I do want to get back to work eventually, but I don't think I can afford it at the moment.   I'm not really qualified to do anything that pays more than what childcare costs an hour, and even though we are going to be living with the grandparents at first, I don't think I can expect regular free childcare from them.  For one thing, nana has already agreed to do full time childcare for her other grandchild (and she's not even sure she'll be able to manage that at her age - I might be helping out with that).

I suppose I'll do some sort of course in the hope of finally having a useful, non-lawfirm job when I finally go back to work.  Something in education I suppose (good hours, useful work, not as reviled as a profession in Ireland as it is here, chances of progression...). I know I'm ALWAYS saying I'm going to do this course or that course, but if I'm really not going to be working for a few years, then I'd better use that opportunity now, especially when there is going to be a lot of help in the same house.

So that's the news.  The flat is more than half packed up already.  I hate being surrounded by boxes!  There is a lot of cleaning and tidying to do still so I suppose the move will come up really fast.  I want it to happen as soon as possible though.  Even though I love and will miss London, I feel in limbo right now and want to start my new life!

Oh, and Séamus's birthday is going to happen in the meantime too (7 March).

What else?  Well, me and Mickey bought this and we're looking forward to listening to it*


Since being into swing dancing I've always liked a bit of jazz, but that was mainly fluffy sort of stuff you know, the popmusic of the 20s to 40s.  This is the real deal "intellectual" jazz which I always considered a bit of a snore, but now I feel like it's time to give it a chance.  That particular album there regularly ends up in the lists of best albums ever (in all types of music) so there's got to be something in it.  Yes, a DiAgostini subscription is probably the most shameful way to get into jazz ever, and if I had a lifetime to do it, I would probably eventually pick up all the albums in this collection for next to nothing in the charity shop, but I like the idea of this particular collection.

Not that we're necessarily going to buy the whole collection.  I think most DiAgostini things are a monstrous ripoff. But the price of a regular issue of this one is £15.  I happily pay £20 for a new metal album on vinyl, so I consider that price ok.   Just don't tell any real jazz guys that I'm trying to get into jazz via a magazine collection! 

*The record player is broken and there's no point in fixing it until we move house.

Oh, I also watched the first ep of the New XFiles last night.   I didn't watch the earlier series (I'm not sure why, I maybe saw 3 episodes, I was probably more interested in drinking vodka in graveyards than telly at the time) but Mickey was a huge fan.  I hope it gets good. So far it's pretty cheesy.   So there's a conspiracy of the rich to take over the world?  Isn't that already happening openly? 

I went out to a boardgames meetup for the first time last night.  It was really good.   It was a big group, but I only really got to meet the 3 other people I was in a game with.  That's enough for me though, with my inability to remember people's names.  3 at a time I can manage.  We played Pandemic for our long game (and we managed to beat the game and save the world) and played a couple of short games of Codenames before we finished up.

The guy in our group was the absolute image of Ed Milliband.  My sister and boyfriend both said the same thing when I told them that: "maybe it was him".  Haha.

It was good to get out.  I nearly sabotaged myself with excuses - I have a cold, it's too far away, a weird guy followed my mate home around here when she was walking alone the other night, I'd rather just hang out at home - but in the end I made myself go and I'm glad I did.   Mickey still does everything he used to do before we had a baby.  In fact he goes boxing even more.  And I genuinely don't mind that and I'm glad he does.  But I could imagine that I might become resentful  if I didn't make sure to keep up a social life of my own.

Codenames is really cool.  I think even non-gamer people would like playing it.  I might buy it, but I suppose it's going to be rare enough occasions when we have 4 people to play it.  According to the box you can play it with just two players, but after playing it myself,  I can't imagine how that would work.  4 was a good number for that game.

Did I mention I have a horrible cold?  Bleeeehhhh snoooootttt sniffffff.

Lads, I have MASTITIS!  As well being sore in the boob area, I've also been having bad nausea and a painkiller-resistant headache.   Actually, it's starting to get better now. I think I've had it for about a week, but I was ignoring it because I thought it was something else (gross) that would go away on its own.   I went to the doctor yesterday and she gave me antibiotics.  I don't like taking them, but I will when I have to.  Otherwise, who knows.  My boob would fall off or something.    This is another gross little thing about motherhood.   I never even knew humans got mastitis.  Previously I had only ever heard of it on ads aimed at cow farmers in Ireland.  There would be some sporting star praising the virtues of their product in fending off mastitis, fluke AND liver fluke!   Actually, I must be misremembering that ad.  How would a product work on mastitis and some complaint* of the liver?  It's horrible anyway.  But I would like to see some old Irish farming ads, if I could find them.

Haha, googling around to see if I could find some ads about farmyard mastitis and liver fluke, on the first page I found a post from me on a forum talking about those ads, in November 2006!  That version of me couldn't have imagined that future me would be looking back at her post whilst recovering from mastitis.

*parasite, it turns out. 

You know I went to that open day for the art teacher franchise thing I was interested in last Saturday? I'm not going to detail everything that happened there, because that would be pointless as you will see.  Basically it was about an equal mix of sounding like something good that I might be interested in, and then it all getting a bit corporate-speak and making me feel slightly queasy ("brand values" ugh!).  I came out of it thinking it could be  something I could revisit and consider properly in a few months, when I know where I'll be living and have access to a car and a decent computer (both of which would obviously be essential to taking up the franchise).  However I got an email from the CEO two days later saying that even though they all thought I was "very nice", they felt that the "opportunity wouldn't be suitable for me"!   I feel so weird about it.  I feel offended and like a bit of a useless bum.  Mickey said it was because I was asking non-gogetter questions (haha) but I actually didn't, even though I was thinking them - for example when the various franchisees who were there were talking about flogging art stuff to the mothers at the end of classes I did wonder how important shilling was to their entire income, but I didn't say anything.  I did of course ask one of the staff on the phone whether or not it was actually a job or just a little hobby for women with rich husbands a few weeks back.  Maybe they held that against me. I suspect what it was though, was when the CEO met me intially, I didn't make good enough eye contact with her.  I have the distinct impression of her staring intently at me when we first met, and feeling a bit uncomfortable.  I will have made eye contact with her (I always do) but my eyes probaby slid away (furtively, I'm imaging) when she continued to stare intently.  Oh well.  I suppose I shouldn't feel bad about it.  I DON'T want to espouse brand values, or hard sell stuff to people.  But I feel like something that could possibly have been an option for a flexible, family friendly career for me has been snatched away unfairly.

It's an odd thing.  I was totally not expecting it to be some sort of interview-type affair.  I thought I was interviewing them!

Another thing was the place was miles away from the train station, so on top of my train ticket, I had to pay 15 quid for a cab both ways!  Actually that may have counted against me as well, not arriving in my own car.

I suppose I could ask the CEO person for detailed feedback on what was wrong, but I don't really want to have her tell me things that will probably make me feel bad about myself so I probably won't bother.

The only good thing about it was that I was out of the house from 6.45 to 16.00, and the baby was fine.  It's good to know I can do that.

Siiiigh.  

The latest from her is that she thinks because I'm worried about money I should finish up maternity leave early and go back to work.  She backed this up by saying that she "had to" go back to work when I was a baby and it did me no harm.

1. I am not worried about money.  I don't know where she got the impression that I'm worried.  I have none, which is a different thing.   I expected this.  I am not worried.

2. She didn't "have to" to go back to work when I was born, she was ABLE TO because she had free childcare in the form of my grandmother.

3.  There is no point in me returning to work because my wage will be entirely wiped out by childcare costs.

4. Gahhhh.

I really don't think she understands what things cost in London. She's really bugging me with her interference lately, but to be slightly charitable to her, I suppose it's possible that because she doesn't see that much of me and we don't chat as much as we would if we lived nearby each other, maybe she's saying things that are so "off" and offensive to me just because she's not really in tune with my life and my plans.  She might be throwing out staying in London solutions to me when I don't actually want to stay here.  And I suppose I can't blame her for that since I haven't told her we're definitely going back yet.  Hmm.

I'm off to that franchise open day thing tomorrow.  I'm leaving Séimi here with his da.  I hope he's ok.    I hope he will drink his bottle and not miss the boob too much.  I wouldn't mind phasing out the boob at this stage and getting back into wearing attractive bras and maybe seeing my periods return!  Sorry all, for the tmi.  

I'm decluttering.  Does anyone want the game Animamundi Dark Alchemist?  It's a game in the loose sense of the word, and it's also yaoi in the loose sense of the word.  It one of those interactive novel type things.  It's in Japanese with subtitles (and some very famous voice actors).   I loved it, although I never managed to get to any of the good ends in it, despite having access to walk throughs.  Don't ask me why that was!   Who'd like it?  It's pretty interesting, although I didn't really like the style of the artwork.  My copy is in good condition, with slight sun-fading on the front cover, and the game should be in perfect condition.  It's so old at this stage, I'm pretty sure it will run on any laptop or pc you have, no matter how old.  I don't mind sending it anywhere.  I liked it so much, I've kept it a long time and thought I would play it again some time, but I have very little time now, so I would like it to go a good home if anyone is interested.
 

A couple of months ago I did "the life-changing magic of tidying".  It was great to declutter and I'm mostly glad I did it.  I'm due another clearout now since even though I got rid of about 6 binbags of clothes and 5 shopping bags of books, I still don't appear to have any space.  Anyway, the author promised me I wouldn't regret it, but I do regret one (big) thing.  I got rid of pretty much all my art stuff.  I thought I didn't need it anymore as I wasn't using it at the time.  The only thing out of everything I got rid of that I don't regret was my sets of copics.  I gave them to one of Mickey's mates who's into grafitti, and he uses them for planning his works.  I'm glad they've gone to a good home.  I regret the rest of it though.  What an eejit I was to think I wouldn't need that stuff again!   Well, now I have to rebuy it all.  Today I'm going out to find a cheap sketchbook and some pens, which won't be cheap because there's no point in skimping on those.   Gaaaahhh.  Well, I suppose now that I'm superbroke I will be more careful in what I purchase, and make sure it's stuff I'll actully use.  First thing on the agenda artwise is a collab with that grafitti guy I mentioned.  He did the text and wants me to do the background on a piece.  On paper I should mention!  He stipulated that it should be "mad violent".  I don't draw mad violent things, so he's going to have be content with a stupid/cute background with perhaps a hint of comedy violence.  He draws enough gory stuff anyway; this will be a bit of a novelty for him.

I've also been shopping for party stuff this week.  We're having a "welcome to the world" party for Séamus on Sunday. I know it's a bit late now that he's over 7 months, but better late than never.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do apart from not having a christening, but I did consider having a naming ceremony.  In the end I've decided on just an informal party with food and drinks for our friends, and someone djing a few tunes.  Maybe someone will make a short speech about godparents at some point.  It will be fun!

The baby is asleep now so I better go and do some housework.  Bye!