Home ... ?

If home really is where the heart is, I often wonder where I live. Ah, Liverpool: I do so much love you. Well okay, it's the people I love - 'my' people, to be precise (sorry, Lyn - I really was pressed for time, but promise to fully make up for it in June!). 

We left Bristol at 7pm, and by 9.30 I was sitting at my sister's breakfast bar all set to drink wine in an amount that Nanny would most definitely NOT approve of (I really must get around to posting my 'Woman and Alcohol' rant soon). I don't know how Mike manages to drive like he does; it never feels like we're dashing down the motorway at an illegal rate. Who cares, anyway - we got there. Saturday afternoon was spent at Ma's house in the company of the Ya Ya Sisterhood (who all brought fizz, yay!); Saturday evening we went back to Vicki's for more Ya Ya, a table weighed down with six kinds of curry, the nieces all grown up with their boyfriends in tow and the grown ups acting like the overgrown teenagers we are, karaoke machine an' all. The stack of chocolate brownies went down a treat ("no really, they're easy, no trouble at all!") (actually they took me two attempts and three hours to make - no wonder Nigella buys them from Carluccio's these days) and I went off to bed, suitably 'tired and emotional', at 3am, only to be visited by a field mouse who attempted to eat a whole, unopened packet of Marlboro Lights that were hidden under the bed an hour later (that's scouse mice for you. It's a wonder it didn't start on the gin ...). 

And then, on Sunday ... we went to get a dog! Well we did, but we didn't. What actually happened was, we visited the Whiston branch of the Dog's Trust (a charity I'd happily volunteer for if my nearest branch wasn't an hour's drive away) (or ten minutes, if Mike's driving) and made friends with loads of abandoned dogs before registering ourselves as 'actively interested' in rehoming. Yes, yes, YES! We're going to be adoptive parents at last. I'm now more obsessed than ever with the very idea - expect to see me taking to the ring at Crufts next year, a hybrid terrier/Alsatian/Chihuaha/ Great Dane cross dangling from the end of a pink velvet lead. It's just as well, really, that I've got such fantasies to cheer me up. Much as I love reuniting with everybody, I always feel a bit down after the inevitable goodbyes. But as I said (Lyn), I'll see everybody again in June. And let's not forget that it's mum's actual birthday today, so Happy Birthday to her - she's fabulous, and I really do hope that, as she says, what's in the cat is in the kitten. Or the puppy. Or the three year old West Highland/Cairn Terrier that I've got my eye (and heart) set on ...

Okay-doke, little catch-up over. I'll be back as soon as the ideas/thoughts/musings that are forming on the subject of birthdays, families, friends, distance and all manner of related esoterical ponderings are formed. Oh, and when I can be bothered to shift my lardy ass from the kitchen computer to the one in the living room, I'll get around to posting the promised rant too. Now do me a favour if you've read this far and leave a little comment, okay? I do love to know who's dancing with me.