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I’m excited about a few things this week.

First: I’ve lost a Stone:-D Little victories. It feels really good but I didn’t think the consequences through – my clothes are falling off of me, and my wedding ring is getting increasingly slack. Since I have at least another stone and a half to lose there’s no way I’m going to get away with keeping the clothes and the wedding ring. The ring will be lost – it’s already slipping down to my knuckle; I went into the shop we got the rings from, it can’t be shrunk but they still make the rings so I should be able to get a replacement. As for the clothes - at best I’ll look like a child waiting to grow into my clothes, at worst I’ll lose my trousers regularly - they’re already starting to make embarrassing bids for freedom.

Second: Nanci’s (Nanci Griffith) new album rocks. I’d strongly recommend it. Of course I’m probably the most biased person in the world when it comes to Nanci Griffith, but if it helps it’s been getting rave reviews from more evenly balanced music journalists and bloggers. For the Nanci educated it’s a real return to her folky routes, so much so that she bought the engineer from ‘Last of The True Believers’ in - she wanted it to have that album’s vibe (this is exciting, ‘Last of the True Believers’ is a masterpiece). She’s really got something going with this one, sound and writing wise. The sound is tight and organic – a small group of acoustic musicians just jamming, but really working together – they pull of some really lush stuff. Lyric wise I really like a new approach she seems to have taken, most of the songs are lyrically sparse, leading you to places but not taking you all the way. I’m only just listening to it second time through, but man it’s making me happy:-D

Third: we’re in the house! We got the keys yesterday. I had to wait six hours longer than Raine to get in there. I had my intensive Bible and Culture class, which goes on for five and a half hours. It was worth the wait, though. It’s such a great house. It’s really beautiful. Loads of character, the soul hasn’t been ripped out, leaving a homogenous shell that hopes to match every other house in the world. It’s creaky and colourful, old and new. We’re slowly moving ourselves in; we’re only using our car at the moment. We kind of like moving in slowly, it gives us time to unpack without feeling overloaded with boxes; it lets us think of what we really want to bring next. It’s a good process, we love the house so much, it’s somewhere we’re growing into and that’s growing around us, I think that’s going to be an ongoing process...I feel really positive here! We’re having a house warming a week on Saturday, it should be a lot of fun; I really hope the weather holds out because we’re planning a BBQ.

We’ve seen a few films lately. If, like us, you really want to go to the cinema but the only thing that seems passable is ‘Terminator: Salvation’, let me tell you – find something, anything, else to do. A truly, truly awful film. ‘Star Trek’ was better - it fulfilled its role as an action film. On the other hand, ‘Milk’ is a truly, truly excellent film – go see! We finally saw ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’, it was ok, but I think it was way too long, and the short story’s a million times better, the film cuts the soul out of the short story.