where have I been? the answer will SHOCK you

That's my first attempt at clickbait. Sorry, Little Ms D spends a lot of time watching crap on YouTube! How am I doing?

Anyway, it's obvious that things have been quiet 'round here. And as I write this I'm waiting for my next Tysabri infusion to start. So strap in for a long post. 

TL;DR we're moving house.  

To start I'll transport you to a simpler, more innocent time: December 2019. Did we realise how happy we were? Such innocence. 

At this point our landlady informed us that she wanted to sell the house we were living in. 

If you remember even further back, we needed to move into this house after a series of non-physical confrontations with our wanker neighbours. It was quite galling that we were forced to step off the property ladder but, seeing as I was fired/let go/made redundant from my job a couple of years later, this "temporary" move actually worked out ok for us. 

So we understood why our landlady wanted to sell up. And she did get us out of a hole when we needed to move quickly. 

But then 2020 happened! And the housing market stopped, so she wasn't in a rush to do anything. 

So we basically spent all of that year trying to either buy the house or persuade someone else to buy it so we could continue renting. We weren't able to get a mortgage because my business had only been going for a couple of months by this point. 

However, in January of this year, after a number of near-misses, we had to admit defeat. So since then we've been looking for somewhere else to live. And, as I'm sure you can understand, it has been pretty stressful and all-encompassing. 

It hasn't helped that the rental market has gone bananas. We've seen houses and while we've been waiting to arrange viewings, someone has swooped in and got it based on photos. Which isn't an option that is open to us, considering my access requirements. 

But we have managed to find somewhere to live. And it's another short move! Let's look at our past movements:

Mr, Mrs and Ms D - relocation, relocation, relocation

• living in a flat with arsehole late-night DJs, to...
• three-storey townhouse - then moving SIX DOORS to...
• purchase another three-storey townhouse, with arsehole neighbours either side - brief relocation to...
• move-in with my in-laws - moving ACROSS AND SLIGHTLY UP THE ROAD to...
• temporarily (*coughs* seven years) rent

And now we're going ACROSS THE ROAD and SLIGHTLY FURTHER-ER UP. 

Now this should be a really, GENUINELY temporary move before Little Ms D moves up to big school. By which time, we'll hopefully be in a position to buy a house. 

So that's where I've been. Are you as shocked as my title hinted?

loosely-coordinated drowning-avoidance... the return

Earlier this week I went swimming for the first time since February 2020. I think I bought a pass to get a discount. And then the world shut down. 

What with the end of the world as we knew it, adding to my fairly well-established suspicion of people, I wasn't exactly rushing to go there. So instead, I thought I'd wait until the week before BoJo's mass herd-immunity experiment and forthcoming reliance on "good old-fashioned British common sense" (see my earlier point about suspicion of people).

Smooth move, right?

Anyway, I got my bag organised the night before and pre-booked my slot. It was actually pretty good because by looking online I was able to work out which time was going to be the least busy.

So the next morning, I woke up, went to the bathroom FOUR TIMES and got myself down for my 8 am slot. And in a lot of ways, it was much more pleasant than before.

For a start, people are now asked to turn up with their swimwear under their clothes - you removed your outer layers by the side of the pool, so no one had to go into the changing rooms (and run the risk of coming face-to-face - or should that be face-to-arse / face-to-cock? - with some old exhibitionist's unmentionables).

The pool was also divided into three lanes, for fast, medium and slow swimmers. This meant that the lanes were a lot wider than the six I remember from the Before Time.

Some things never change, however. For a start, there was - as usual - some bloke who thought he was Michael Phelps bombing up and down the slow lane. And also, as before, I was the slowest swimmer in that lane.

But that was ok. I'm not going for speed - and I'm certainly not going for distance, particularly. A bad swim is still better than no swim, I've always been told. But one of the old guys in the slow lane asked me if I was ok after one of my first lengths, and then told me I was doing really well.

In the past that would've really wound me up. But this time? I just thought it was actually quite nice.

The day after my mother-in-law asked me if I'd enjoyed myself and did I feel better. "Well," I said, "they're two entirely separate questions."

Because I in no way enjoyed myself but I did feel better afterwards. 

I only hope I get a chance to return before everything shuts down again!

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Yes, I know that it has been two months since I last wrote anything, and ordinarily, my first blog back would involve a lot of excuses and explanations. But that will be coming next time. Maybe.