(‘Bits and bats’ comes from my ex-supervisor. Do you know, it’s been over two weeks and the knowledge that he is now my ex-supervisor still hasn’t quite sunk in. It is just too fantastic to be true.

Anyhoo.)

I’ve started redrafting some of my archives from the ol’ blog, so cunningly back-dated posts will be appearing in the archive list here too, making me feel less fly-by-night here. It’s funny, reading back over things I wrote over four years ago, and I was sorry not to have my back story, as it were, when I moved blogs, so in a way, the demise of Journalspace has resolved one or two things for me, I suppose; I hadn’t wanted to get rid of my presence there after I’d moved because I thought it would make it pretty obvious that I’d moved elsewhere, when what I wanted was for anyone reading to think that I might just have stopped. Or is that just my twisted psychology? Anyway, rhetoric, rhetoric. I’m particularly glad, in a sort of masochistic, pokey-stick-in-eye way, that reposting things is giving me the opportunity to use categories for things like recipes; most of the time, I’m quite happy posting in a completely unstructured chaos of tripe-like witterings free-flowing manner which scorns the restrictions of style and the petty boundaries of organisation, but it has dawned on me from a few questions people kindly left after I moved blogs that it would be handy to be able to lay my hands on certain entries without having to remember which sodding keyword works best in the as-yet-untried search box in the sidebar. (The JS one was surprisingly good, but I haven’t had chance to fiddle with the WordPress one yet.) It also means that you, gentle reader, are in the much improved situation of not needing to know how my tortured soul works when it comes to retrieving something you might have found interesting – you can just click on the ‘Provender’ thingy, and baddabing! there it will be. (Or not. I am not 100% on remembering to add the sodding category, now that I’ve got them there, all shiny and new and organised. See? It’s clearly an EBSAC error. Also known as ‘error between seat and computer’. Just no accounting for it.)

In other bits and bats, the new chooks are settling well. As soon as I complete my highly technical camera repair (i.e. the bit of blu-tack holding the lens cover open needs rewedging), I shall take some pics of them. We have plumped for Nightshade and Cobweb. Did I already tell you that? Possibly.

In still other news, Quercus and I spent about ten days around Chrimbly feeling really grim – we succumbed to a rather unpleasant ‘flu-like thing within twenty-four hours of each other, allowing just enough time for me to endure the hell of pre-Christmas ‘quick! a year-long siege is about to take place! pile your trolley high because NOTHING WILL BE LEFT! and the shops will never re-open!’ supermarket shopping with the witchling in tow – my, how we laughed. The good bit was that the witchling didn’t catch it, despite us both hacking all over the place around her. We washed hands every other second, and generally tried not to breathe on her, but still, my hopes weren’t high, so I was delighted that she managed to remain in rude health. (Did I mention that her current reaction to the sight of her grandmother is to raspberry, before chortling in the manner of Sid James?) The decidedly unfunny part of this tale is that we have now shaken said evil ‘flu-like thing off (and to an extent I can’t really complain: this is the first evil ‘flu-like thing (shall we go to EF-LT now, for ease of typing?) we’ve had for four years, though its timing, which, I think you’ll grant, was rather regrettable, does get it extra points, I feel) only to find that, just as the cough begins to wheeze its last, Quercus has developed a new and just as exciting version for Round II. He is now languishing in bed. Quercus does not do Man ‘Flu, either – he is disgustingly healthy, generally, and laughs in the face of coughs and colds which would floor your average chap. If I wasn’t married to him, I would find this level of health positively affronting; as it is, I merely thank the gods that it means we don’t catch every single thing which makes its way through his colleagues. But if he’s got it, I think, sadly, that we’re in the countdown to me getting it. I am making Desperation Soup now, just in case.