lurgy

I have a 21-month-old nephew. He lives a hundred-odd miles away, and seems like every time I visit, I come home sick. This time, it's worse than usual - I have lost my voice, which I don't remember ever happening to me before - but I forgive him, because he was pretty miserable with it while I was there.

Also because he is adorable.

I wear glasses, and when I took them off to clean them, he started saying, "oh dear, oh dear," until I put them back on again, and he said, "yeah!"

When he wanted through a door/baby gate (to get to mummy both times, iirc), he came over to where I was sitting, grabbed me round the thumb and towed me over to open it for him. He can close the baby gates, btw, occasionally even getting them to fasten; he will say, "bye-bye," and close the gate behind himself.

When we played the microwave game - setting it to ~20 seconds, counting down to the beep - he clapped and said, "yay!" after it beeped. Actually, he's getting better at the counting down; it used to be pretty random noises, now it's "deh, nigh, eh, dede, dih, fie, foe, ee, ooh, ah, bee-bee! bee-bee!"

He's amazingly confident on the climbing frame - some of the steps are practically waist-high on him, and he's up and down them, no problem. He goes wandering off quite happily: at the playground he was heading for the carpark, in Homebase he was off down the aisles. Also in Homebase, he climbed into one of the display boxes and sat in there, like he was on sale for £16.99.

He'll bring a book over for me to read, and climb up in my lap.

He calls me 'oof'. "Ni' ni', oof."

If you sing him, "uggy uggy oggy," he will sing back, "doo doo dee." (It's the song from Baby Jake - I have seen way too much Cbeebies lately.) And if you sing, "the horn on the bus goes," he replies, "bee-bee-bee, bee-bee-bee, bee-bee-bee," "the horn on the bus goes," "bee-bee-bee, aw day on."

When I said bye-bye at the train station, he started crying. I feel kind of pleased about that, and guilty about being pleased.

back

It took a couple weeks for me to get round to putting the shelves in place, and I still haven't entirely filled them up, but it's progressing, which is good.

The chess set is on pause as I have finished all the black pieces, except for a couple of finishing flourishes.

The improvised cardigan was stalled - I realised it was because I had an appointment to talk about getting a breast reduction, so, if that happened, there was no point struggling to make a fitted cardi for my ridiculous boobs, but appointment happened and operation will not, until I lose some weight and possibly get less crazy.

So cardi has the round-waist section done and I've started on the back piece, but I need to figure out how far up the armholes go, and then do the terrifying front shaping.

Also been doing a bit of experimenting for a scarf design based on the archway round the door of a local church. Don't know if it'll work, but ideas. And I was sitting knitting that during the breaks at the Eddie Izzard show at the SECC, which was pretty cool. Knitting there, I mean, the show was Super Awesome Fabulous. As is Eddie.

Glad I went to that, even though the day after I slept through my alarm and didn't go to my volunteer thing.

Um. Stuff. Yeah.

Geoguessr now lets you set a timer, which is really useful if you're, well, me.

time suck

http://geoguessr.com/?v=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

I can stop playing now, right?

I mean, I didn't quite beat my sister's score, but I've pretty well got the hang of it. And one of those was in Russia, which means three tabs of research - transliterate the Cyrillic, translate it, and then, if it's a place name, try and find it. And, and...

No, no more. If I play it again I will set a time limit or something, because that game did literally take hours. Now I need to go to sleep.

ETA: I slept, I woke, I played some more. I brag: http://geoguessr.com/?v=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

ETA: 9th June: 32390 points in only an hour and a half - http://geoguessr.com/?v=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%3D