where have i been...

I'm not sure really, but I have been quite busy. I finished with my therapist last week after seeing her twice a week for six years. She is leaving the country to start a new life abroad, or at least that's what she told me. That has been a bit of a shock for me. I guess the most shocking bit about it all for me is that I'm still not cured. The good bit is that we will have an extra £350 a month to spend, which will come in handy what with the new addition to the McMuffin household.

Speaking of which, I have been quietly suffering the hormonal tides of Mrs McMuffin's pregnancy. Fortunately, it is all beginning to take a turn for the better. That has taken up a lot of my time and energy.

I guess mostly I have been working, and, surprisingly, enjoying myself at work. In truth I'm not really sure if enjoyment is the right word, but at least I am not complaining about it. The team is very nice, my managers are very nice, the workload is manageable...everything is just nice. So nice, in fact, I think I might stay here for a while. I have applied for a job managing the out of hours service, and I have got an interview. I only sent in my application on Monday, five days late, of course, but I had a telephone call yesterday inviting me to interview today. I had to turn it down because I need some time to think about the job and to do some reading around it.

The other big job I have been doing is working on music for the wedding of the year. I went through my entire music collection and selected around 400 songs. It took me hours and I now have RSI in my little finger from all that leaning on it as I clicked around iTunes. I can still feel a slight pins and needle-ly tingle in it. Anyway, Ms Gypsy Tart and Mr Rock Cake wanted the music that people could dance to but it had to have rawk sensibility. It sounds easy, but it's been a much bigger job than I expected. Mrs McMuffin told me yesterday that she would have sat down for a couple of hours and picked some music. What does she know? Designing the perfect mix is an artform. I have used three different applications to help me do it. iTunes, of course, then the music was passed to MusicMagic Mixer which analyses the music and selects playlists based on the songs sonic similarities. A very, very clever bit of programming, by the way, and well worth checking out. Finally, I had to be sure that all the songs played at the same volume, so I passed it through iVolume, which is a little application that alters the volume of each song to a perceived volume. I set it to 90db, which sounds fine. Surpringly, some of the songs had to be altered by as much as 50%.

I printed off a list and we sat down with the lovely couple last night and over a glass of wine, they decimated the wonderful list. I have to admit it was a bit of an effort not to storm off in a huff, after all they were dissing my music. Fortunately, I was able to rein in the 16 year old in me, and remember that it's their wedding. Even so, how could anyone not like Mandinka by Sinead O'Connor, or Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode. These people just have no taste. The worse crime Mr Rock Cake committed was to say that Son of a Preacher Man by Dusty Springfield is crap. I don't know...it's true, you can take a horse to water...

I have now whittled the list down to a mere 335 songs, which may not seem a lot in the grand scheme of things, but bare in mind we will probably only have time to listen to about 80 of them, at most. I burnt them all to disc for the lovely couple to review over the next couple of weeks and printed off the playlist. In fact, you can have a look at the Wedding Music Mix if you want. This is just the louder middle period music, I still have to prepare the beginning music and the ending music. I just know that some people will not be able to resist commenting on the choice of music, so I will make it easier for you, Steve, and invite comments.

I must get on now. I am supposed to be working at home this morning, and I wanted to get an early start. So far, I have spent the last 90 minutes burning discs and writing this post. No, I really must get on now.

guess what i've done...

I've just received confirmation that my Bulldog broadband and telephone service will be activated next Wednesday. That's 8Mb (400kb upload) broadband and all local and national calls for the special fee of £40 a month for the first six months and then it goes up to £52 a month. It still works out cheaper than the BT deal, and that's only for 2Mb broadband. I just can't imagine what 8Mb broadband will be like. Will it be instantaneous? Does anyone else have this, and what is it like?

crazy on the weekend

Yes, it is the hen night of Gypsy Tart tomorrow, and women will be arriving from all over the British Isles to converge on Single Cookie's beautiful flat, in the murder capital of South East London. Actually, that's what a friend of Mr McMuffin's calls it, but why should we listen to him? He's just jealous because he lives in Sydenham and not in Single Cookie's stomping ground. She has planned a wonderful time for us and poor Gypsy Tart is being driven mad by our secrecy. I can't say any more as she's probably checking the blog for clues, but of course it involves a shopping trolley and printed t-shirts and devil horns, honest, Gypsy Tart, would I lie to you?

So I'm pleased to have something nice to look forward to after a curate's egg of a week. I've made a little list of the good and bad things, to remind myself of the nice things and unfortunately the people I am going to take my revenge on at a later stage.

Good things:
The bairn has a healthy sounding heartbeat.
My team's performance is better than the other team's and considerably better than comparable teams in other areas.
I am gradually noticing that feeling nauseous is the exception rather than the rule, the fatigue is lessening and Mr McMuffin is not as annoying as he was.
The rain has helped the grass look less like straw.
Slinky has developed a passion for Ms Ginger Cake's banana cake and goes nuts for the crumbs. This is good news because it is really funny, well at until he starts vomiting, obviously.

Bad things:
I have to go and see a cardiologist to establish that the heart murmur I've had all my life, is as benign as I thought it was. This has upset me a bit, even though I'm sure I'll be fine, as I never considered that I might not be ok until the consultant suggested it on Wednesday.

I am suffering with hayfever, sinusitis and headache as I haven't got any drugs I can take and am off work (I so wanted to go in wearing jeans today). Mr McMuffin has gone to speak with a pharmacist on my behalf and hopefully will return with paracetomol and pregnancy compatible antihistamines. This is good news.
My maternity notes are full of errors, including an apparent history of depression which presumably refers to the four sessions of counselling I had twelve years ago after being assaulted at work. Wankers.

I am still unable to stop ranting in public.

i have been vicious...

I'm still on about the music for Ms Gypsy Tart and Mr Rock Cake's wedding. I have now viciously culled the playlist down from a massive 335 songs to 107. The first list was just too varied and it was so big that it meant that they might not hear some of their favourite songs during the night. The list is now a fairly eclectic trawl through the last 40 years of pop music. It seems to work surprisingly well, I think. Here is the new list. What do you think?

i can't remember the last time...

I got goosebumps while I was listening to music. Well, I was listening to Radio 4 the other day and they had a feature about Jean Sibelius and his Symphony No. 5 in E Flat and they played the allegro molto bit. I'd never heard this before, but apparently it's really famous. I was listening to the beginning bit, and then suddenly from out of nowhere came the theme and it was goosebump time. Of course, it is lovely music and all that, but I think what got me was the way it just seemed to slide out of the background noise. I'm sure some of you already know this stuff, but for the others here is the heavily edited good bit.

the raveonettes

I've just discovered The Raveonettes. They've released three albums since 2002. Their music is a kind of twisted 50s pop. Their first couple of albums are interesting, but the latest one Pretty in Black is a thing of beauty. The earlier stuff reminds me a lot of Jesus and Mary Chain, lots of distorting feedback hiding pretty little pop songs. However, with Pretty in Black they seem to have found their sound. Here is a little taster for you.

i can hardly contain myself

I'm sitting here killing time, waiting for that wretched programme, America's Next Top Model to finish. Mrs McMuffin has subjected me to this rubbish for about 15 years. This has got to be the longest running series in the history of television, and each season last about 5 years. If that Tara I used to be a famous model but now I am a rounded human being in touch with my feelings woman says one more word, I'm not sure if I will be able to stop myself from smashing the TV. It's probably just as well that I usually leave the room before the bile rises too high. Anyway, this post was supposed to let everyone know that I am sitting here, while typing with one hand, fondling the new season of 24 on DVD. I can't wait to immerse myself in its thrilling silliness. I'm not sure if I am going to go to bed tonight.

yap yap yap

So much for all his big talk, Mr McMuffin couldn't stay up late and was in bed by 11pm. We did watch an episode and I have to say I find myself slightly bored with Mr Bauer. I can't believe his character has a girlfriend, as you'd have to have a death wish to mate with this man and in any case he just has the most objectionable little nose in the world. While I may forgive a great deal of physical imperfection (and Mr McMuffin is grateful for my generosity) I could not bear to have that little nose within a radius of three feet of me, it's almost as scarily repulsive as Gene Wilder's hair.

I'm not really complaining about Mr McMuffin's early night, as I have just about recovered from the hen party. Thank goodness I can't drink or I'd still be recuperating now. Single Cookie is an organiser beyond compare and the whole day and night were perfectly planned. I went home in the end and have fond memories of getting lost in Peckham at 4.45 am, to add to the whole experience. All I can say in my defence is that I am the kind of person who hates turning round when they know they've taken the wrong turning, as I'm sure I'll get back on track at some point. This is not a good strategy in the dark, in Nunhead. Still it was just a brief diversion and I had the satisfaction of coming home at dawn for the first time in many years. I was pleased to feel like a dirty stop out and a whole decade younger.

we're back

We had a little trouble yesterday with the Mac and have had to reload everything. Mr McMuffin was in my bad books for having two external hard drives and the inability to back anything up more than once every couple of months, oh, except for his music, of course. Ms Victoria Sponge came over to assist, while Ms Ginger Cake and I helpfully suggested that evil pixies had probably got in the computer through the internet and done bad things. It was as good an explanation as any others we heard. So I am a bit pissed off that we've probably lost some photos (unless we forgot to delete them from the camera and we're both too frightened to check) and Mr McMuffin is pissed off that he lost some work. Let's hope we'll learn good housekeeping from this little episode.

We've had a bit of a garden improvement weekend and thanks to Rock Cake and Gypsy Tart's hard work, we have been able to do some of the bigger jobs that have always seemed a bit much for the two of us. We are all shattered, except for Rock Cake, who is outside in the rain beavering away. So all we've got the energy for now is a hot bath, food and a few episodes of 24.

bulldog...

My dearest reader

Bulldog is okay, but I wasn't terribly impressed with the helpline fella who refused to give me the settings I need and who insisted that I tell him what settings I have and he would tell if they were correct. It turned out that they had emailed me the settings anyway, although I couldn't get to them because I didn't have a connection to the internet. Clever, eh? I was then told that my username was "incorrect" and my password was "incorrect" too. Both of which were given to me by Bulldog only a couple of days ago. It was all a bit like a Monty Python sketch. The good news is that with a tiny bit of fiddling, we now have some full-on broadband. It doesn't reach anything like the dizzy speeds of "8 Megs" as they would claim, but it does move along very nicely somewhere between 2.5-6Mb which is the fastest connection that I've ever had. Even my 2Mb connection from BT rarely went beyond 1.5Mb. So, it's very fast, but...it ain't 8Mb. I will be complaining, of course. I've already looked even more closely at their site and, bless 'em, they have a forum where users complain like buggery about the service. I like that. It turns out that the small print says quite clearly that the connection will be up to 8Mb. I also found out something interesting, apparently some routers have a 4Mb restriction on them. So I updated my firmware, and suffered a couple of minutes of panic as I thought I had well and truly messed it all up.

God, this is even boring me as I write it...I'll stop now. Hope you are all well and having a wonderful weekend. I'll write again soon. Until then, take care...

With fondest regards, yours

Mr McMuffin

director of the night...

I have been busy over the last couple of days preparing for an interview, which I had yesterday. Unfortunately, the interview went really badly. In fact, it was probably the worse interview that I have given in a long time. I refused to accept the telephone call last night from the chair of the interview panel because I just needed some time to get over the disappointment of not getting the job. Anyway, she phoned me today to tell me that I had got the job! I said to her that I was really surprised about that, and she said, you should be, you were really borderline. I met with her this afternoon for some feedback on the interview and for her to make sure that I would be prepared to allow her to manage me! I will now put all of that behind me. I am now the director of the night, or rather I am manager of the night time social work service for the London borough that I work in, which is nice. I must admit that I prefer to be known as the manager with a touch of the night about him. The best bit about the job is that I am now responsible for reviewing the service over the next six months and helping to decide the shape of the service for probably the next 10 or 15 years. Exciting, eh? The only thing I have to get past is the old people in the team leaving before I am ready to sack them, leaving me to manage the lot by myself. I'll keep you updated on that one.

countdown

No, not the show with Carol Vorderman, but the countdown to the wedding of the year. It is now eight days away and there is still so much to do. We shall probably be even quieter over the next week, or seek respite through prodigious levels of blogging. Either way it's going to be a dull ride ahead, but for anyone out there who is interested, I bought a lovely dress from Monsoon for the occasion. It was reduced by two thirds and fits over the bump just lovely, without being one of those vile maternity dresses that are designed for the week before you drop stage. Bless Monsoon for providing for the stage where the casual onlooker still has to wonder for a second if you have a flabby midriff. I still have to find a pair of shoes and a wrap/shrug type thing, but I'm just chuffed to have a dress.

stuff...

Mr Rock Cake has been obsessing about the leaking pipe in our garden. He has come up with a cunning plan to cap it off, saving us nearly £500 having it fixed by the robbing b*stards that are Thames Water. Did I mention that they have a fixed fee for sorting this sort of thing, and they want the money to be paid up front. B*stards! Anyway, Mr Rock Cake has a cunning plan. It worked too...almost. The only problem is that the plastic pipe that he used, which had to be flexible enough so that he could expand it enough, using boiling water, to fit over the old lead pipe, is just a little bit too flexible. It has almost doubled in size under the constant pressure. It looks fantastic though. Never fear, Mr Rock Cake has another cunning plan, which involves using some sort of reinforced piping. I am getting just a little bit worried about him though. I had him knocking on my door at 8am the other morning with a screwdriver in hand because he had been worrying about whether he had fastened the jubilee clips tight enough.

Mostly this morning, I have been trying to salvage some of the stuff that I lost last week when my beloved Mac gave up the ghost and I had to reload everything. I've found this great little app called filesalvage which can find files on your hard drive even after it has been reformatted. So far it has retreived 37,000 files. I'm sure most of it is rubbish but if I only find the food shopping list for the wedding of the year I'll be very happy.

I've been playing at being a handyman too. I've taken the frame out from around the glass panel in the door and measured it all up in preparation for replacing it with a new piece of glass. We haven't had any glass in the door for about two years. I broke the little panel of glass one day when I locked myself out, and we managed to convince ourselves that we would just leave it because we were going to get a new door. Hopefully it will be good as new by the end of the morning.

knocking up muck...

I am exhausted and every muscle in my body aches. I spent the day yesterday helping Mr Rock Cake lay concrete and doing other manly things to our garden. I now know how to knock up some muck. It took a little while for me to get the hang of this. I kept saying make up some muck which just showed my inexperience. By the end of the day, however, I was knocking up muck like I was born to it. The irony of it all is that I spent the whole day establishing my manly credentials only to end up weak as a kitten. At the end of the day, Ms Ginger Cake nipped home to make us all dinner. She made us her fantastic pesto lasagna with a potato and tomato salad and garlic and rosemary bread. It was just what the doctor ordered. Then we all got a little bit drunk and ended up playing Articulate. All in all it was a good day. Productive and fun. I just never want to have another one like it.

no wonder i'm exhausted

According to The Daily Mail (Satan's own tabloid) teams like mine all over the country are busy snatching children from parents who can care adequately for them. Let's not even get into how these maverick Social Workers persuade judges, overcome concerns raised by barristers (even QC's on occasion) and fly in the face of evidence, the Mail says it, so it must be true. Fortunately The Guardian represent the voice of reason, here's the response. Bless them. I must actually buy the paper now and then to show my support for them.

Please show your support for Gypsy Tart and Rock Cake and send requests to the powers that be for pleasant weather on Saturday. If it's as bad as it was today, we're going to have 80 people crammed into the house to escape the wind and the rain. McMuffin mansions may be a big house for two people, but let me tell you, it is not thatbig.

five day forecast

Confident as I am in your abilities to send good vibes and sacrifice small animals for good weather on Saturday, I have still become addicted to the BBC Five Day Forecast. I check it all the time and since this morning, Saturday has become completely sunny and a whole degree warmer. I am sure it will be practically tropical by the end of the week.

I have been working like a mad thing today and indeed, am almost half crazed by the need to clean and tidy. I have spent all day working on the kitchen and bathroom alone and although there is hardly any difference to the untrained eye, I know that it is deep down clean. Gypsy Tart lent a hand and did a marvellous job of calming my frenzy-I can't help wondering why she is so bloody calm and how she does it. I shall keep a close watch on her from now on, I suspect drugs!

My Mum and Dad came over today and poor Dad got a bit confused when he made reference to his grandson to be and I told him he was going to have another granddaughter. He looked absolutely delighted and I realised that far from understanding that I was commenting on his annoying gender preference, he honestly thought I was telling him that I am having a girl! I had to disappoint him and tell him that I don't know and we'll find out next week. In the meantime, he's gone back to wanting a Grandson, as he's always been keen to have a few more males in the family, having spawned so many girls of his own.

I have become a bit more in awe of the whole baby growing process recently, as I've been feeling the baby move for a little while now. I wasn't sure at first, as at this stage I should have the sensation of the baby's movements like bubbles gently bursting apparently, instead I'm getting a good old bash. I can't help wondering if it's displaying its incredible dancing skills, or it's actually completely fed up with me and trying to tell me so. Perhaps I've been worrying about the wrong thing, wondering if I'll love my child, when the real question is, has it already taken agin me?

we must be very wicked...

...because there's no rest for us. I can't believe we offered our home, garden, bedrooms for guests and to co-cater the whole event. We are bloody stupid. I can't even begin to describe how much work there is left to do. We're just about to eat and sit down for the first time since 7am. Simple pleasures.

preamble

A wonderful day with lots of hard work from (in no particular order): The Carrot Cakes, Single Cookie and their parents. Ms Ginger Cake, my sister and entire family, Mr and Mrs Best Man and of course, Mr McMuffin. Rock Cake and Gypsy Tart had a wonderful day and we shall share some pics and say a little more as we get our energy levels back up to normal. In the meantime, Mr McMuffin and I plan to leave our clean, tidy and people-free home and catch a film. We shall then return for food, watch a little telly and then sleep for as long as we can, before we go back to work tomorrow.

PS The weather was a little cloudy, but warm with no rain. Well done, people.