Blog 4.0

As mentioned in my last post , we stayed at a friend's place for the past week, up in Wales. And honestly, it was one of the nicest holidays I've had in a while. It's rare that I get to switch off so completely - when I visit my mother I still have to think about her wants and needs as a priority, and when I just have time off at home, I still have all the usual everyday considerations to keep track of - how much food is in the fridge, whether it's time to do laundry etc. This past week I truly didn't have to think about any of that; we just did the bare minimum of planning (e.g. when going to a shop together, we'd talk about what food we'd want to buy) and I went for hours without even looking at the clock. It was so nice. We weren't completely lazy either - though most days were quite chill, we went to the beach more than once, visited Cardiff Castle and watched the solar eclipse together. Our friend had thoughtfully ordered a bunch of special eclips...

Late in the evening, my husband decides to open a Christmas card we found on our doorstep that day. He suggests that the handwriting looks like that of his best friend, who was best man at our wedding five years ago. As he pulls the card out of its envelope, it reveals a cutesy drawing of a cat and the words "Meowy Christmas" - oh yes, that's definitely from him (he has a cat and is quite a cat lover). When my husband opens the card, it starts playing a song... several slightly out of tune voices singing a Christmas carol, but every word is "meow" . We spend several minutes laughing as it gets louder and louder and more voices join the chorus. Eventually, it finishes and starts over. He folds the card and puts it back down, but... it doesn't stop. Slight panic sets in as we try to figure out what's wrong. Did we not close it properly? Is there a tab you need to pull to make it stop? Is it just broken? As the loud meowing continues, my husband declares th...