The title of this entry may in part be
influenced by our having rediscovered David Attenborough’s autobiography, ‘Life
on Air’, in audio format (narrated by DA himself) on our home computer. He’s been chatting on about his life’s work
for the last week or so, giving us solace in the face of our persistent lack of
internet connection, but I'm still not sure I've heard all the contents.
Matt bought the audio version of the book when
we were still in Scotland because of my insomnia. We’re both great fans of Attenborough’s
natural history programmes on TV but I have found that despite my interest in
what he had to say, his soothing voice always lulled me into a bit of a snooze.
Even when he uttered those fateful words:
“a calf being separated from its mother” – a sure sign that said calf is about
to be felled and hideously disembowelled by a pack of wolves or similar – I would
frequently find myself nodding off comfortably.
Being one who often struggles to sleep when
everyone else is, and who has found this struggle distressing at times, Matt
thought the David Attenborough effect was worth exploring as a possible
cure. His motives were not purely
altruistic, it has to be said. Infuriatingly, he has absolutely no trouble
sleeping, except when his wife persistently nudges him with urgent whispers,
such as “are you asleep?”, and if there is no answer: “how about now?”. If he gives an answer, this – in my view –
constitutes licence to discuss the thing we forgot to do or need to do
tomorrow, or speculate aloud about the source of any unidentified noises. Matt has taken to answering “yes” when I ask
if he’s asleep. Sometimes I mash it up a
bit and ask if he’s awake. If he’s even
half asleep there’s a good chance he’ll fall back on the default answer of
“yes” before realising what the question was.
Thus, a poor, long-suffering husband is separated from his sleep…
Anyway, during a particularly bad patch of
insomnia (I think it was back in Glasgow during Ramadan, when the entire Muslim
community in the city would spill out of the mosque opposite our house at 11.30
pm and chew the fat for an hour or so), Matt suggested we try it out. It worked a treat to the point where I never
got to the end of an anecdote from the autobiography. Listening again while pottering about in the
house has provided me with a form of closure I didn't know I needed.
However - we now have internet. FINALLY!
A whopping 7 mbps in off-peak time along ancient copper wires, but still. I can’t believe how dependent I have become
on an internet connection. Part of the
reason for my blog silence of late has been because I haven’t been able to
access Blogger from the data supply on my phone, but there are no excuses now.
Settling in has been fun, but also
overwhelming. We have so much to get for the house and so many decisions to
make, coupled with limited supply of funds – at least initially – that we’re in
a kind of holding pattern until we have a few more salary slips behind our
belts. Matt has been pursuing job
opportunities down here and things are looking relatively positive but he’s yet
to sign on the dotted line of a contract.
Until then, the things we can do to settle in are limited. Over the last few weeks, we've slowly been building up stores of
crockery and kitchen equipment that we didn't bring with us.
On arriving back from a shopping expedition
for some of this stuff, one of our neighbours pointedly mentioned that he’d
kindly just mown the patch of grass in front of our house for us. Thinking that
might have been a nudge to get our act together in the garden, I suggested that
Matt go out and attack the grass in the rest of the yard with the hodder-didder
from the garage (cf. E Izzard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KDoxevZgTU),
while I did the indoor chores.
He was out there for quite some time and on
his return, reported that he’d just spent the last hour hacking down the vine
which had been growing over the fence from the neighbour’s yard, which he
asserted was a complete disgrace. His
ferocity was such that I began to worry about our decision to move to the
‘burbs. What if my beloved husband
turned into one of those suburban grumps?
What if we ended up on one of those TV shows about neighbour disputes?
All I can say
is: Thank The Lord for the eventual arrival
of the internet! Now we can go back to taking
all our aggression out via Team Fortress 2.
