Fangs! We have fangs! Aaargh! Snow in NY is grubby.

MOMA NY

More pictures of Venice? Well, if you insist... The first one is the view from the bedroom window

Job shenanigans

I was told last week that the people I work for had chucked their copyrights and permissions person and please could I take up the slack, lots more hours, increased responsibility, my own projects to work on, yadda yadda. Then yesterday husband-boss told me he had been talking to wife-boss and she persuaded him to apologise to the permissions person and beg them to come back, which she has, which means... although I have done a good job on the stuff they asked me to do, my services will no longer be required. I am working on one project but when that's over they have no more work for me. Bummer, non? So I am back in the job market. Sigh. Oh well, this could be an exciting opportunity to get something really high powered and complicated and interesting and earn lots of money. To be honest it was very boring working for Them because they never gave me anything interesting to do. Plus I'm going to New York at the end of February so yay for me.

Well! How exciting.

I just (twenty minutes ago) had someone trying to climb over the fence into the house, looming in at me through the kitchen window as he started to climb over. And when I waved at him he jumped back down so I went outside for a little chat with them, accompanied by Neil. Neil had heard one of them saying "I'm not going to do it", arguing with the other, five minutes before (Neil was smoking a fag in the dark in the garden) and he was coming out to check that they weren't breaking into the car. So I asked the one I saw jumping over the fence why he had done it BUT he was pretending to be on the phone (aah, classic) and the other one got mouthy to Neil. Then the first one got mouthy ("is this your road? I can walk along here if I like" etc etc) and loomed up to Neil, right in his face, with his hands in his pockets (not a good look, as Neil has been stabbed twice by people looming up to him, reaching their hands into their pockets). There was a girl on a bike as well but she didn't get mouthy.
At this point all other houses are being locked up tight as there's a FIGHT in the road (damn right there was, I was pretty grumpy at this point). So I phoned the police as they were threatening to "fuck up" Neil and to do all sorts of nasty things to the dogs. Then I got my camera and took some photos of them and one of them tried to grab the camera out of my hand but just sort of batted it. Thicko. The other apparently kept saying to Neil that he was a gipsy. Good on him. I think the point was that he shouldn't be messed with but HA.
Anyway, we went back inside and then they threw a bike over the wall into the garden. And then the police came and arrested one of them and said that the other wasn't a gipsy (why boast about a fake gipsy heritage?) and the dogs are sleeping on my bed tonight because I'm scared for them and I am all shaky and FULL OF ADRENALIN. Meep. I feel a bit sick. Plus I missed the results for the X Factor. How was your Saturday night?

Hectic time

Hi people, I'm sorry I haven't been posting anything recently or replying to your fabulous emails, but I've been having a total nightmare with the flat. The people who moved in prompty sealed the whole place up - no windows open, no ventilation, nothing - and then proceeded to cook masses of food, dry their laundry in the living room, take showers with the bathroom door open, and so on. In short, after ten days mould started to grow all over one wall and the doors started to swell and stick and the curtains started to go mouldy (really), and then after a MONTH the husband mentioned this to me as a sort of PS in an email when I said I was coming round to inspect the place. So I went round with Neil and there was mould all over my beautiful flat which they'd halfheartedly tried to wipe off, leaving brown smears everywhere, and pools of water on all the windowsills. And it was unbelievibly humid, like some sort of tropical slum. So Neil rang Environmental Health and they said it was definitely condensation, and we came back with a dehumidifier and explained to the wife that the windows need to be opened sometimes and that unfortunately as the damage was caused by the tenants they would have to pay for repainting the wall with antifungicidal paint. Then the husband phoned me that evening and stared yelling at me, so I passed the phone over to Neil and he said to Neil that "trust had been broken" and that it was our fault and that he was getting independent legal advice and that we were trying to rip him off and that he wanted to leave and that he wasn't paying and that we'd intimidated his wife and that we would hear from his solicitor. The whole thing is making me feel sick, even just writing about it. Thank god for Neil, he was so calming and reassuring. I don't want people ruining my beautiful home, it is a horrible feeling. I wrote to him offering to pay a third of the paint costs as a goodwill gesture but the whole thing is making me miserable and I have to go over again this evening to inspect the damage and I'm worried he will be unpleasant and aggressive again. So that's been my week. How are you guys?

The Miracle of Birth

And today I am showing three people round the flat

Because I'm going to rent it out. Oh, and I have been offered a job with www.gresham-books.co.uk.

And I don't know if I mentioned it but I went to France too

I know, I know

I've been rubbish. I'm so sorry Ems that I didn't get to see you before you went! I feel really bad... here are some photos of what I've been up to in the meantime: camping in Cornwall with Rachel!