Stealing away

A splash of colour for a grey October day

Last night, I stole a coat. Actually, two coats. And an umbrella.

Before you have me arrested, I hasten to assure you that these items belonged to us in the first place — but at the time, they were held captive in a cloakroom. A cloakroom in a theatre showing a play that had turned out to be a bit (well, actually a lot) too trashy for our tastes. When we snuck out at intermission, the cloakroom was abandoned and we were faced with the choice between potential embarrassment upon being caught “stealing” and definite awkwardness upon hunting around for the cloakroom attendant and drawing the attention of the small theatre staff to the fact that we didn’t enjoy the performance.

I thought it was an easy choice. The Husband dithered a bit and then opted for: “Will you do it?”

Afterwards, we rushed down the stairs, giggling like a couple of teenagers skipping school. Then we went to a pub that I like to frequent mainly because I spent a lot of time in it during my university years. The staff used to leave my friends and me alone, even though we usually just ordered a milk coffee or a tea and then hung out there for hours, doing homework and discussing life, the universe and everything. I like to think that spending money there now is repaying them a bit long after the fact. And it’s nice that the place hasn’t changed one bit in all the intervening years, unlike pretty much everything else.

Then we went home, snuggled up in bed with the cat and watched an old Hitchcock movie. Not exactly painting the town red, perhaps, but a great Friday night in my book.

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Thursday laugh

It’s a grey and rainy day here, so I thought I’d share this laugh. I’m editing a translation where the translator consistently confused the verb “roam” with “roar”, so there is a lot of roaring going on in the German text as compared to the more quiet English version.

BUT now I’ve finally understood the concept of roaming fees for cell phones. When you’re phoning from abroad, you do have to roar louder.

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Red Admiral in the Ivy

The Husband and I snuck off and went diving yesterday, so today we were pretty much chained to our desks to make up for it. But there was, of course, time for a couple of walks with Isla (she wouldn’t let me get away without those!) and this cellphone snapshot of one of the many guests in the ivy. I love the heavy honey-smell of ivy blossoms and the bees and butterflies clearly agree.

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