Bouldering motivation

I have been bouldering, inside an actual gym, TWICE this week. I am so healthy. Also, the bouldering room is home to a collection of Fit Bouldering Guys exhibiting their nice forearms. I love a good forearm. And luckily, I've heard there's nothing men find more attractive than short ginger ladies awkwardly clambering up a pretend wall, then jumping off because they're too lazy for climb down properly, then lying on the floor groaning and weeping for a bit, all the while never making eye contact with them because that would be terrifying and might lead to conversation.
I must not focus only on the Fit Bouldering Guys. I must find one who is vegetarian and speaks a collection of interesting dialects.
My dress of hope and wonder came today, but I only tried it on really quickly before bouldering. It did not go well. I felt all frumpy and wrong. I am not trying it on again today because I'm too tired to go upstairs again (it's a hard life), but here's a picture of my albatross wearing it:

It accentuates his curves

In addition, I'm not looking in mirrors at the moment because I've developed a random scratch below my left eye that makes it look a BIT like I've been in a fight. ROUGH.
I've been thinking more properly about returning to education at some point in the future. It won't be this year. It might be one of the other years. I couldn't sleep last night because I was in a foul mood and started thinking about Plattdeutsch to cheer myself up, because Plattdeutsch is my favourite thing. And I used to know so much about it and think about it all the time, and now I mostly think about what washing powder to use or whether I can escape Alnwick at the weekend or whether I'm running out of kitchen towel. I used to know actual stuff and now I've forgotten quite a bit of Platt. I was conversationally fluent (with the odd bit of code-switching) when I was living in Oldenburg but now I could barely complete a sentence, although obvs I can still understand quite a bit, just as any speaker of German and Dutch could. I want to learn and research so many more things. I think I'm scared that whatever I end up doing will turn out like my awful first and only semester of my MA in Germany, of which learning Plattdeutsch was the sole high point.
I'm (fairly) content here for the next year or so, but for various reasons (see yesterday's post for those who have the Power), I kind of think that nothing is forever. Or at least not this, perhaps. I want to keep translating because I loves it, but if there was a way to combine studying and translation, it'd also help solve the 'lol how do I afford this all' problem.
Also I'm still obsessing over the tragic misplacement of my Thermos flask, meaning I've only had one small cup of coffee today and none at all at work. I have no idea where it can have gone. I think this is going to tip me over the edge of sanity.

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Strooplet junior

I know there is little more tedious than hearing about other people's dreams, but well, the risk of causing tedium rarely stops me from sharing any information. A main side-effect of my sanity snacks is that I remember my dreams a lot more than before, and the dreams I have tend to be very, very vivid. For instance, I once had a dream that I was a Polish WW2 fighter pilot, and the dream was epic, spanning from when I started out, all wide-eyed and innocent, to when I finally stopped at the end of the war and received an award from the queen but was really cynical because all my comrades had died. It was like every war film ever made.
This time my epic dream spanned from the final few months of my (non-actual) pregnancy to when my (also non-actual) baby was about a year old. The dream also included labour, about which I won't go into detail, but like the rest of the dream, it was very realistic. I was going to name the baby Owain Joseph, but my mum didn't like the repeated 'o' sound, so I called him Ciaran Joseph instead. These are all names that I would strongly consider naming my son*. He was both chubby and clever, and when I woke up, it took me several minutes to understand that I don't actually have a baby. I woke up actually wondering where he'd gone and feeling guilty for forgetting about him. My mind scares me sometimes. I probably should have a baby at some point, perhaps when I've figured out how to tolerate other people and manage in a relationship like a normal person.

*I have a whole list. Most of them are Celtic names. My maternal granddad's called Joseph and I think it is an excellent name, so that's a strong possibility too.

Dimblebabies

I finally made a decision on the dress (the third from the left in the picture in my last post- pale green). I'm hoping that the dress will convey this scene that exists only in my head:

Thor and Dimbleby are EXCELLENT names for my future babies. If I have future babies. I didn't think it was possible to be even more broody, but I suppose there's still time. I probably only feel old because part of me aspires to be a 1940s housewife, and that's confusing, from a remembering-how-old-you-are point of view.
I did some 'socialising' on Friday evening.

Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln…

…and contrary to what all the below might suggest, things are fine. I was going to write 'all good' but that would not be accurate, and 'things are 80% good' isn't an established saying in the English language even though it should be. Paradox Interactive released another expansion pack to one of my favourite computer games, Crusader Kings II, the other day. It's called the Old Gods and you get to play as a PAGAN VIKING. You can do human sacrifices. I bought the game even though I have very little money left at the end of this month. Luckily I get paid tomorrow. I am considering how socially acceptable it would be to exclusively play this game, and not talk to anyone, until I am bored of it. Probably not very.
I also ordered some extra heads for my tin whistle (none of that sentence was intended as innuendo). I'm a bit concerned because they do not fit entirely well and my tin whistle sounds all different now, and also I can't manage to play it as a piccolo flute using the flute head like you're supposed to, but I think it's just a question of getting used to it. I've had the tin whistle in its unaltered form for about 8 years now, so it's probably natural that I freak out a bit when it changes.
I haven't done anything whatsoever about driving lessons. I am burying my head in the sand.
Swedish-learning-wise, I can now say things like TA ETT ÄPPLE. This will come in handy when I start a market stall and shout at people. As soon as I am paid, I am also purchasing various Swedish books from a kind Facebook contact. This should aid me in my studies.
Dress-wise, something miraculous (nearly) happened. I'd become obsessed with a range of flowery dresses and had found them for sale on eBay. I looked at the eBay shop description and where are they based? *drumroll* ALNWICK! Yes, they're down the road, so on Saturday I'm going to go on an expedition. The excuse for buying this dress is my parent's party in July. WHICH DRESS CAN I TAAAAAKE?

Being scared of phones, a.k.a What do I tell the doctor?

This is the latest step in my lunacy, and it's one that's hard to explain to people. "Sorry I couldn't answer your calls. For three weeks. You see, whenever the phone rings or I get a text message, I assume with absolute certainty that somebody I love has died and am thus too afraid to answer".
It is not a normal thing to think, and oddly, I don't get it with emails or letters or Facebook messages, etc. I think maybe because I had a long-standing dislike of phones that has now turned into an irrational fear. Avoiding the phone calls doesn't work, I've discovered, because not only does it worry your relatives or friends who are frantically trying to call you and are wondering where you've gone, it also makes me more paranoid, because not only are they worried about me, I assume I've then added to their already high levels of stress, which are high because somebody has died. Except that nobody has.
On the one hand it's a bit funny, because I know how irrational it is, but on the other, it's not, because in my mind, it's real, and the sense of relief I get when I answer the phone and nobody has died is also real. I wish, a lot of the time, that I could tell someone about all these things in person without worrying about people thinking I'm insane, even though I am a bit insane. I'd like to be able to tell my family and for them to gently tease me about it. However, if I tell people this, then maybe they will feel bad about contacting me by phone, even though that's not an unreasonable thing to do at all. I don't want people to stop contacting me by phone because I've developing yet another psychological quirk.
I've also developed night terrors aaaalll the time. Well, all the time that's at night. These range from waking up feeling certain that people are climbing the walls of my house, and like last night, waking up terrifying that I'd forgotten my sandwiches for the second day running. There is a lot that's absurd and quite funny about being a mentalist. My dreams, too, have gone from being very vivid (a side-effect of Citalopram) but amusing and banal to being disturbing- in the last week I've dreamt about cannibalism and [potential trigger warning]

A pleasant weekend

I should come back for the weekend more often. The journey's long and horrific (I'm not looking forward to my 7-hour train trip later today. On the way here I was ejected from my seat by a group of Brummies who insisted that they'd reserved it, even though there was no evidence to suggest this) but it's pleasant to step outside Northumberland once in a while to return home. I thrilled my family with my holiday pictures, and my nan in particular (to the right of the picture above, accompanied by me and little Cerys) was enamoured of Lund. For she is wise.
I managed to order new parts for my tin whistle after I mistakenly knelt on it. This is one thing to cross off my to-do list. I must now sort out driving lessons, which I've been putting off and ignoring like an expert, returning to the GP, which I've been fretting about like you wouldn't believe, and what to do about night terrors, which appear to be my New Thing.
I am to return in early July, o gaudete.

Gulpington

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Bleurgh

EURGH ever since I tried to go to sleep last night, I've been feeling like I did on the fateful Copenhagen-Oslo ferry. Is it possible to be seasick, but on land? I feel like I'm being punished for surviving the boat trip yesterday without feeling at all ill.
I made champ with veggie sausages though. Not the most MEGA-perfect dish for the backside-reduction programme, but perfect for when one is feeling as dizzy and tired as I.
My purse turned up. I'd left it at work, as I thought. I am a moron.
Also I stalked almost all of Sweden on Google Street View today, like a lunatic fan.
Tomorrow I am going bouldering, if I am no longer feeling like this.