Eh-HEM...

Deni-o, the post you are looking for [or should be looking for, tsk], missus, is down there ↓↓↓ a bit...

's entitled "Stupid January...", so I'll not brook any excuses for missing it.

Now get thee a-scrollin'!

* Anon

As mentioned in that there last post before I had a bit of an episode, myself and Himself were away on holliers recently. We decided to head off for a week in the sun as our 2007 Valo's Day thang... so we went from 04^th - 11^th Feb. As you do. One of the other lads in Himself's office was going skiing the week of Valo's so we went the week before - the week after it would have been mid-term break and sure everywhere would just have been full of childer, no good at all.

Anyways, we wanted a bit of sun and a break from culture [I'm still working on the Rome post... one of these days!], somewhere that there'd be no pressure to go trekking around looking at historic or iconic buildings and sites, somewhere that we could just completely chillax and just arse around without feeling that we were missing out on anything as a result.

Somewhere, we decided, was Lanzarote.

When asked by colleagues and friends where we were off to for the week, I said we were going to: Lanzagrotty.

I blame the Holiday Snob that I work with for that: you know the type, she only ever goes to the back arse of Calcutta or Nigeria for her hols and seems to think that it’s just not a holiday unless there’s a risk of cholera/malaria/whatever you’re having yourself. She’s a bad influence, I tells ya! Anyway, I feel just terrible about it now. I mean, Lanzarote is actually (a) very clean and (b) very beautiful once you get away from the neon lights of the Puerto del Carmen strip. Even just turning your back on the tack-fabulous shops and looking out to sea across the beach is a start.

We hired a convertible for three of the days we were there [an Antigua - or "blue" - Opel Tigra Twin Top, ooooooooooeeeeeeeeoooooww] and drove all around the island which was loooovely loooovely and fortuitously afforded me the opportunity to be a total poser in my biggest sunglasses with the top down. I also got to practise my Spanish on the peeps in teeny remote villages. They kept trying to engage us in conversation with their fluent English but I was having none of it.

The weather was great, roastingly hot and sunny - so much so that I treated myself to two days of just lying in the sun catching up with all the scandal in gossip mags. It was a great holiday, practically child-free and so relaxing... aaaaand then we arrived into Dublin Airport where we* had to hunt for the car at half one in the morning in the freeze-y rain and the howling wind. Surely one of these days we will be so on time for our outbound flight that we will actually have a split second to notice where the hell we've abandoned the motor! Maybe the same day that I finally finish the post about Rome...

* i.e. Himself - I was, obviouslement, ensconced in the shuttle bus shelter ;)

Stupid January...

Sweet merciful hour, am I glad that the cesspool of a month that is January is over. I am now solvent again [well, just about, but Eddie would be so proud], the overhanging credit card debt has been banished, and all is financially right with the world.

'course, I still have to pay Himself back for the hol* and organise some form of a savings scheme, but I'm adopting the "la la la la laaaaaaa, Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii caaaaaaaan't heeeeeeeear youuuuu!" approach to these matters. Working well so far.

Now, I know that I was not alone in feeling the pinch in January. I am well used to listening to all and sundry cursing the month and all the money-related horrors it brings with it, but I actually to stick up for January, feeling that it was much maligned ["clearly it's a great month, sure wasn't I born in it?" / "it's not January's fault people went mad overspending and buying 'just incase' presents for Christmas, is it?" were the rationale behind my defense.]

Then this year, January apparently decided it didn't need my help ta very muchly, and went and killed my dog. So it can sh*g right off now, birthday or no.

Her name was Coco, and she was a *really* pretty, vay independent Pomeranian. She actually had the prettiest face of any Pom I've ever come across, and I've met quite a few - just between my family and immediate friends, I've known about ten of them. She would have been 16 on 16^th February just gone, and the next person to say "Well, she was, like, 110 in dog years" will get a slap. A really hard one. I mean, you don't go telling people who've had a bereavement in the family that "sure, he had a good innings." [Although there are no doubt some etiquette-free zones who would wonder what could possibly be wrong with that.]

She had epilepsy and apparently this is just hal-arious. A dog with epilepsy?! Ho ho ho. I've been getting that a lot when people ask what happened to her. I'm not quite as annoyed about it when it's coming from someone who doesn't have a dog or maybe never had as much as a terrapin as a kid: they don't really get pets and pet owners. But I find it pretty offensive when it's the response of a fellow dog owner. Would they be so quick to laugh in my face if she had been hit by a car? Or riddled with cancer? Or poisoned? Beg, borrow or steal a little decorum, people.

* more of which anon