ta-dah! shameless link-whoring for the people who do nice things for me (oh yeah, and he might be my boyfriend as well) – I present to you the grand opening of i like paper and pens blog – while you’re there, check out the rest of the site cos it’s really rather nice. oh yeah.

I am living the money pit. you know that scene (which is the only scene anyone ever remembers from the film anyway) where the whole floor disintegrates? that is my life. or, more correctly, my house.

so I happen to have a very nice boyfriend who possesses diy skills that I am sorely lacking. in that he can do it and I can’t. and he very kindly volunteers to tart up my room a bit: i.e. turn it into something habitable. cos he is very nice like that. so he tootles off and purchases paint and other gubbins (as well as some extremely cool items such as a completely funky disco diva mirror ball) and some other bits and pieces to make it look all pretty.

now, I won’t list the multifold difficulties encountered in the general scheme of things, but suffuce it to say, anything that could fall apart, did. the most money-pit-like being when trying to put up a curtain rail. tap tap tap, drill, one end in. only then a huge chunk of wall falls off. see, apparently, the plasterboard is completely shot to bits, is structurally unsound, and generally falls to bits. so my boy is stood with a drill in one hand, a chunk of wall on the floor, and can see the outside brick wall from the inside. eek. so being the resourceful chappy that he is, he purchases some filler and fills up the hole. what a nice young man.

only it’s a bit difficult to put curtains up when you know the wall’s going to disintegrate – you’ve got to search for any bit of solid brick you can, and attach it to that. which actually turned out ok, because if your curtains happen to be a bit lopsided (one longer than the other) it’s quite handy that you have to put up the curtain rail on a slope to attach it to brick – presto! your curtains magically level out!

other tidbits we have since found out about casa de kitschbitch (y de los other boys):

• the landlord is in prison. doing a long stretch apparently. nice.
• the electricity may or may not be shot and may or may not need rewiring. according to the agency. gulp.
• there is a takeaway nearby where you can buy £10 kebabs which come complete with extra herbs, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge wink wink.
• the nice man who installed the cable is also quite horticultural, and likes to sell herbs too

ps: congratulations are due to the boy not only for his sterling diy job on the house from hell, but also on getting a call this morning to tell him that’s he’s been appointed marketing controller at palgrave publishing. yay!

being a grown-up really sucks. first of all, you don’t get balloons or crayons in pizza hut anymore. second of all, when you’re being given anaesthesia, you don’t get given magic cream anymore! last time I had this procedure done, I was 15 (still legally a child, yay!) and got the funky patch of nice numby-cream to make it easier to put in the drip thing in your hand. but no! not for grown-ups! no, when you’re 19 you get wheeled into the anaesthesia room-affair: one nurse squeezes the top of your left arm in the fashion of a boa constrictor, while the anaesthetist slaps your hand in a somewhat deranged fashion, muttering phrases such as “hard stick”, before whacking the needle jab thing in, and then sending you off to the land of nod. now, perhaps I’m suffering from peter pan syndrome, being quite content to be little for quite a lot longer than nature intended, but I like being a kid and getting the numby cream patch and being treated as a complete wimp! I don’t want to be treated like a mature adult who can handle a few needle sticks and so forth – I want magic cream, dammit!

(as you can tell, after sleeping off the anaesthetic, I’m back home, out of the rather stunning hospital gown and foxy paper knickers, and lived to tell the tale. hoorah!)

got to be up early tomorrow, to be at the hospital for the ungodly hour of 7:15. strewth! oh well. operation tomorrow, then hopefully a lot less back pain. yay. see you post-op, kids – byee!