March Madness - 4th March 2007

March already? What happened to February? Well, we had better get you up to speed.

During January Shaun returned to Hull from his British odyssey. We enjoyed some of the local Thai cuisine together before seeing him off to the airport in the wee small hours of the morning.

Australia day was celebrated in Hull with overwhelming indifference. We celebrated by wearing our wallabies shirts to work and then heading to the ‘Old Grey Mare’ with our friend Cath for a couple of pints. They did have kangaroo steaks on the menu, which was a nice touch.

February heralded a shopping spree that netted us a house of furniture. We received our first dual paycheque since arriving in Hull and boy did we go to town. Grimsby town to be precise, with a transit van and a hankering for furniture. We came back with a sofa and armchair, a coffee table and hifi cabinet, a hifi for the said cabinet, and a spare bed which a workmate of Maria’s was giving away. So now if you come to stay with us, you can admire the spare bed. You can’t sleep in it since we don’t have a mattress and thus haven’t bothered to put it together, but you can admire it.

I managed to catch my first dose of the dreaded lurgy in February and actually took the unprecedented step of taking a few days off work. My flu matured nicely into a sinus infection which I still haven’t completely shrugged off three weeks later, although I’m back at work and am almost back to 100%. I really wanted to get back to work as I don’t want the University to get the idea that they can function without me! Talking of work, my studio completion date has been pushed back until mid April due to a stuff up with the ventilation system. I can’t wait to finally have my studio.

Maria has settled nicely into her new job, so much so that they have made her a project manager for some rather major government initiatives in the region. Our plans for world domination progress…

Toward the end of February a new member of the family came to live with us (in the corner of the kitchen to be precise). His name is currently Domino, though if he decides he prefers an alternative cognomen I’m sure he’ll let us know. He is a five year old domestic shorthair, almost identical in colouring to Ratty or Pushkina (for those whom knew either of them). We invited him to stay with us after he had been staying at a hotel for cats named ‘Caring for Cats’ in a town called Market Weighton not far from Hull. He is very nervous and currently lives in a little padded igloo that Cath originally bought for her cat Victor (which Victor completely ignored of course). He comes out and sits on the window sill at night and we can hear him eating his biscuits and using the litter tray, though he doesn’t come out of his igloo when we are in the kitchen. Given time I’m sure he will become more sociable. He has only been with us for a week, and he is less nervy now than when he first arrived.

We also had a visit from a thing called a ‘Tad’. He came down from Newcastle for the night and we had a good time confiscating all of the Australian wine from the shelves of the local off license. Tad stayed over at Cath’s house, and the two of them came over for a healthy breakfast (of sausages, bacon, eggs, hash browns, beans and toast). Both of them were looking decidedly green around the gills, but a hearty dose of cholesterol and about three plungers of coffee soon put them right.

And so we venture forth. By the end of the month we will be back on daylight saving time. The weekend before Easter we are planning on visiting my cousin Jacqui in Bologna and our friends Stefano and Leanne in Milan, and we are really looking forward to that. We hope you are all enjoying life, and we shall try write more regularly in future.

Fletch's tips for new employees
Never admit to having the flu to women. For some reason they seem to think its funny. If you have to ring in sick, tell them that your ears have shrunk to embarrassingly small proportions or that you have had a nasty accident involving the cat, the washing machine and your eyebrows. This will confuse them.