Things I discovered this week: The Sequel

Consider this the second in the series of "The Retired Bridgeburner buys a house and gets thoroughly frustrated with everything to do with being a grown up and is now considering coming back as a cat."


1. Conveyancing solicitors are bad for your blood pressure, spoon levels and just about everything else. 

I will be brutally honest and say that I don't think there's a single more frustrating process on the planet than that of conveyancing. I say this knowing full well that as we're a sole purchase it could be a great deal worse were we selling or indeed doing both at once. I cannot adequately describe the sheer number of spoons I would expend dropping our conveyancer from a great height. Repeatedly. I'd make the scene from Sherlock look gentle. The rollercoaster of skidding from "What the hell are they even doing?" to "Everything is under control" roughly once a week is becoming both tiring and boring. Can I just have my house now please?

Mr solicitor, consider yourself weighed, measured and found wanting.

(So much. Image from wifflegiffle.com)

2. My brain does not do "shades".

Specifically shades of wood. My brain was crafted to do many things indeed, but accurately judging furniture in a shop against furniture I already own and have spent many years being in the vicinity thereof for matches of colour seems to have been missed of the list. When purchasing a wardrobe, I was convinced the bed I've slept in for the last eighteen months was *not* that shade (oak, apparently) at all, only to come home with the catalogue, hold the list of shades up to the bed and find that in fact it is that shade, has always been that shade and will likely remain so short of some sort of painting accident.

It would help tremendously if pine, beech, oak and the like meant the same thing across shops - whcih they resolutely do not. I mean honestly, how do people do this? Is this a gift from the magical land of Adult that hasn't arrived yet?

(It's totally this. Image found on Tumblr, original animation from Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame)

3. My partner and I have absolutely no self-discipline to speak of. 

I have already stated on here before that we are getting a cat when we move. If we were reasonable adult beings with an ounce of discipline between us we would not be looking at rescue centre websites and waxing lyrical about how gorgeous one cat or another is, and Alex would not be planning an army of cats. Alas, we are not and therefore we keep sneaking a look and fervently hoping one cat after another is still about when we've moved in.

The upside of course is that I'm sure the cats who aren't will have gone to good homes, which is the thing that matters. Still, we're allowed to mourn all the wonderful Miniature Giant Space Cat pun opportunities a little grey cat called Boo would have allowed us.

(Fellow Baldur's Gate players, take a biscuit on the way out. Image from giantbomb.com)

4. Choosing a dining room set based on the fact the table extends because you're going to start playing Dungeons and Dragons is a perfectly legitimate reason. 

It's a nice table and chair set as well, but that was somewhat secondary to "Oh look, there's an extendable panel in the middle!" in the list of reactions.

Our starter pack for Fifth Edition arrived last week. We've never played it before, so to test it out I killed the same goblin at least three times, whilst he killed me at least six. I used a pre-made character sheet for a Lorekeeper of Oghma (adventuring librarian at your service!) which stated I was something of an insufferable know it all. This flimsy justification for arguing technicalities did not stop the trainee-DM (Alex) dropping three dragons on me when he got fed up of me explaining oxen wouldn't be scared of the sight of dead horses in the road, but they would certainly be scared of the smell of blood.

What? It's called roleplaying, children.

(So excited to get started! Image from greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com)

5. I am apparently not allowed to sing the packing song from Disney's Sword in the Stone whilst packing. 

There has been an embargo placed on my "unique" taste in packing music. No Higitus Figitus for me.

I maintain however that "Books are always first you know..." is perfectly sound packing and unpacking advice.

Altogether now! "Hockety pockety wockety whack, odds and ends and bric a brac...."

(Merlin, a wizard who has his priorities straight. Image from cokieblume.wordpress.com)

Watch this space, as the next date will hopefully be when we've moved in to the Upside Down house! And yes, I'm going to sing the packing song anyway.

Wishing you all many spoons xxx