It was never going to be easy for Gordon Brown, for starters he’s Scottish. Okay maybe that one’s just my opinion, but we all know he’s going to live under Tony Blair’s shadow for a long time to come. In fact, according to news during his first few weeks in office his rating was lower than David Cameron*, the pompous elite Conservative Party’s Shadow to Brown, which encouraged the Tory to challenge him to a General Election (kind of a snap election). Obviously, Brown didn’t bite, which some will see as weakness. Don’t be fooled though, it’s not like there’s any real alternative.

Unfortunately for him, his first few months in office and his government’s immediately rocked by the Northern Rock saga.

Brown’s team decided to loan money to the sick bank and it caused uproar. Up to now they’re still trying to save it. I will not pretend to follow the current events in the UK (or anywhere else), so I do wonder why the UK government’s bothering to save this institution. I mean, shouldn’t they sort out the pensions crisis before saving some private organisation?

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The next sentences I will write gives me deja vu so if I have mentioned this before, please excuse me as I am too lazy to search thru my archive.

A friend has not tasted “luto ng Diyos” in a while. Impertinent as I am, I keep prodding her to find the next hot thing and do the dirty. You know, before “it” heals and close up (cue fave quote from Vagina Monologues: If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it!). So many puns there, don’t know where to start/stop.

She said that her sex drive’s gone awry and she’s not interested anymore. But when I showed her my hot guy’s picture, she backtracked. She now says her sex drive is in the right gear afterall. But there’s a distinct lack of potential mates.

Over in my corner of the world, I’m buried over neck-deep in work and I can’t help feeling a little naughty. Perhaps I’m a escapist, or perhaps I’m really just “makiri“. But I enjoy thinking what it would be like to put my head on his chest esp when we’re standing next to each other & I can smell his clean, clean self.

To be young and free!

When I mentioned this to hubby, all he said was “subukan mo at nang putulan kita“. Such an understanding fellow.

Religion is not a friendly topic — Nanay

I better write this before I get snowed under again. The company that showed the bride kidnapping in Krygyztan, has this segment called Cutting Edge. I manage to catch it’s latest offering called Baby Bible Bashers. If you thought, abducting women and forcing them to marry strangers is a disturbing TV moment, watching a toddler evangelise in front of an abortion clinic is just painful.

The show presented three kids: Samuel, 7, from Mississippi, Terry, 9, from Florida, and Ana from Brazil who started preaching at the age of 3.

All three kids had a common denominator, zealots for parents. Bringing up God-fearing children is something most Christian parents wish to be. But in this case, these parents went and sowed fear in the hearts of their children. These kids carry guilts the size of the world and they are tasked with impossible responsibilities. And all the parents seemed convinced that their kids are the ones who started it all. It’s a common theme, the kid “want to do it”. They feign surprise at how their kids apparent fervour.

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It is Day 2 in our household without central heating. And my body’s aching all over.

The engineer arrived before 11am and tinkered around for 10mins. Made some messy puddles of water. Then looked at me and said some-what-not is broken in the boiler. He doesn’t have the parts with him. Sensing what my follow-up question will be, he said that we wouldn’t have known about the problem until he fixed the first problem he saw yesterday.

Long story short, we will have to wait for another day to sort this out. In the meantime, I am here still in front of our only source of heat - the electric fireplace.

The funny thing is now I know the purpose of that silly night cap. Kelvin and I slept with our wooly hats on.

I also discovered that you cannot use the mousepad if you’re wearing gloves.

Most importantly, in London where almost everything is antiquated, every household should have a portable heater. I already called hubby to buy two on the way home.

Telling my teammates I won’t be in the office tomorrow for the second time is an unpleasant task.

I’ve experienced Australia’s winter. I’ve also experience Fargo’s winter, a town made (in)famous by the film of the same name. But nothing’s greyer and sadder than London’s cold months. Primarily because most of the infrastructure (read: houses and buildings) here are not equipped with modern mod-cons. There are some houses with no central heating. Most of the houses and offices have no air-conditioning. And those who do have them, chances are the A/C can’t be tweaked to the right temp so people tend to “fight” over it.

My current workplace is undergoing refurbishment and we lost heating for almost a week. One of the contractors, who were showing early signs of flu weeks before, called yesterday to say he’s got pneumonia. My back is aching and my hands are stiff. Most of the people are wearing their coats and hats in the office! But it’s okay, no one seemed to really mind. Everyone still turn up for work afterall.

Then Monday 4am, I woke up ala-Sixth Sense. You know? With smoke billowing from my breath? Kelvin was huddled between hubby and I under the duvet, and surprise! he’s not sweating. I touch hubby’s head and his hair was cold. Our boiler broke down!

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Around November-December of last year, Kelvin started telling me and his dad stories about this boy in his nursery. In his halting speech, he would explain that Bamboo hits him or pushes him or smacks him. At first we didn’t want to read too much into it knowing how kids can sometimes play rough and that some toddlers still don’t know how to share. Maybe it’s harmless.

We spoke to his main keyworker and she assured us that they will keep a closer watch on the boys.

2 January, Kelvin was back in nursery and the first thing he told me and his dad after school was “Bamboo hit me again”.  I  have not even asked him how his day was. This time the nursery manager spoke to us to assure us that they are taking this seriously. She felt, like us, it could just be boys you know playing rough.

Then last week I dropped Kelvin off and I was waiting for another mummy when I happened to look inside their room again. What did I see? Kelvin was with 3 other kids from his room and they were laughing then this Bamboo reached out and punched my son on the chest!

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I knew it! I knew that when we seal the deal with our test consultants my work will spike and I will not be able to blog as much. I couldn’t even bloghop. Hirap talaga nang walang maid. Please let me be true to myself and to you. Mahirap po talaga especially if I want to sit down and write instead of cooking til late at night.

Thank you to everyone who left me comments and dropped me emails. Thanks for repeatedly checking for new updates.  And apologies for missing out on so many things that you’ve been writing about.

Sabi ni hubby, magsulat na daw ako dahil baka akalain nang mundo patay na ko. As if the World will really notice.

So what happened? Well all my chilli plants are dead because of the cold season. My daffodils are sprouting up early because Global Warming is here to stay. Kelvin has had cough-cold-ear infection in a vicious cycle since December. Hubby and I are still fighting like adolescents. And my work will lock me up for the rest of the year.

Everything’s just as I expected, except for the fighting-part. But to be honest, I’m too tired to really care. I’m already stressed enough at work when I come home, I just want to chill. So I fry my brain with film after film. I have not gone back to baking, I’m resting my hands. I have not gone back to my exercise regime because most of the time, I’m not home until 8-9pm.

I’m enjoying myself though. It’s real wonder considering I’ve been working in the place for a year now and I’ve barely complained. In fact, just this week I was almost cheek-to-cheek with hot guy and he smelled really nice. You know, just-out-of-the-shower nice? I guess with little perks like those I can ignore my little whinges.

Anyhow,  I’m back & thank God it wasn’t depression that made me stay away. My brain is bursting with topics to write about here and for PMN. So please keep watching this space and I am sure to be more visible in the coming weeks. Salamat uli sa mga paalala at nakaalala.