Outside, leaning against the high wooden fence that surrounds my back garden are four large blocks of timber ready and waiting to have a final coat of protective paint. Later this afternoon when Mr Fox returns from karate, we will spend goodness knows how many hours knocking nails into each “wall” and turning the four pieces (plus additional bits of plywood and felt) into a shed. You can’t get much more “grown up” and suburban than shed building at the weekend; I believe a pipe and slippers are in the mail. To be honest, I don’t care how boring or suburban I may sound – I love my life. I love that we spent yesterday wandering around garden and diy centres with Beepbeep in a huge trolley, choosing lampshades, gardening tools (I have my eye on a huge lopper to sort out the overgrown tree in the garden once and for all) and looking at real wood flooring for the living room and hallway. If you’d asked me five years ago whether I’d be as good as married, a mother and living in a beautiful house in a pretty nice part of the city, I would have laughed in your face. Back then I was working various temp jobs, drinking too much at the weekends, moving from place to place whilst I tried to find somewhere to settle and generally making as much of a mess of myself as possible. I curse myself for wasting so much time (and less importantly, money) on my partypartydrinkdrinkdrink mentality. Any weddings or family parties I went to in that time are lost in the mists and fumes of being too drunk on red wine, stumbling around and being a bit of an idiot. You know what the worst thing is? I wasn’t even having that much fun, certainly no more than if I’d been sober. Idiot.

In November of last year, I stopped drinking. Not for any “oh my, I must stop!” reasoning, but because we started a whole new healthy living plan which involves cutting out dairy products, red meat, alcohol, sugar, excess salt, caffeine and wheat products for a month initially. We’re still following it, and I love it. In all honesty, I’ve never felt better about myself – I’ve dropped twenty pounds, my skin is clear, my hair and eyes shine and I have more energy than I ever felt possible. This isn’t just good news for me, but also for Beepbeep – he now has a mum who plays with him for ages, not just for a few minutes between playing World of Warcraft (urgh) and watching television. We go for walks, visit friends, have started attending playgroup twice a week and he is coming out of his shell, becoming less clingy and more adventurous. The best thing is, I don’t even miss drinking – at New Year I had a couple of glasses of wine with my parents but didn’t enjoy it at all, and the next day I felt miserable (despite only having three small glasses). Sitting in our garage is a wine rack, laden with a bottle of champagne, a bottle of red wine and a huge bottle of Bombay Sapphire; I can’t imagine any of them being touched any time soon.

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In unrelated news, I’m completely in love with John Frusciante’s solo work, particularly one of his collaborations with Josh Klinghoffer, a track called “Omission” (although I also highly recommend downloading “The Past Recedes” too, because it is fantastic).

Here’s a little yousendit.com download for you… John Frusciante – “Omission” from the album “Shadows Collide With People”.

(Tied to his laptop, admittedly, but home nonetheless.)

We’re planning on getting a nice old-looking wooden floor to replace the horrible laminate that we have in the livingroom and hallway. Someone from the flooring company visited yesterday to measure up which took a lot less time than I expected. Don’t get me wrong, our house isn’t huge, but it can’t be easy to measure a floor when there’s an inquisitive almost-16 month old toddler whose latest obsession is anything resembling a tape measure. Thankfully it all went quickly and smoothly, so we may end up going to the shop at some point in the next two days to choose what timber we want. Then it’s a four week wait for the timber to be cut, and only a day for it to be laid, et voila! Nice new hardwearing, beautiful flooring. I can’t wait.

I’m going through a houseproud phase at the moment, I don’t understand why. When I lived with friends I always did my share of the work but I was never really OTT about it. Even since we moved here (over a year ago) I’ve kept the place clean and tidy, but since New Year I’ve really been trying to sort the whole place out. I hung two pictures today, one a gift Mr Fox was given at Christmas, and one that I bought at a market near the Sacre Coeur too many years ago.  I’d go back to Paris in a heartbeat, and have hinted at such to Mr Fox often, but as yet we haven’t made the trip.  Maybe I should save some cash and surprise him, instead of waiting to be surprised myself?