It's been quiet around here hasn't it?

Wocha,

well, I've had an interesting few weeks since Salute. Not really sure where to start and you've got no hope of getting it in chronological (or indeed and kind of logical) order but here goes anyway.

On the home front the wife and I (alright, just the wife really) are looking into renegotiating the mortgage. What a nightmare! You'd think people would be falling over themselves to take a big chunk of wonga off of us each month but no. Apparently a few random scrawling on the back of a fag packet doesn't count as full and accurate accounts for the last three years, who knew. Anyway it seems that the wife, as a student with an average income of six shirt buttons and a student loan is a more attractive financial proposition alone than when sharing the mortgage with an upwardly mobile dynamic and motivated independent businessman. Yes, I do mean me, cheeky. It seems we will be sticking with our current provider so all the faffing about and meetings I have had to go to has been so much wasted time. Just another example of the wifes sense of humour I assume.

Speaking of the wife and financial woes (as I so often do) she has finally been reimbursed for the ID theft back in March. She finally has the £1500 back in her account and so has decided we will go to New York at new year to celebrate the mother in laws **landmark birthday, age withheld to prevent a sound thrashing**. So she books the holiday package (which we really can't afford but who listens to be money wise...) and then there is some kind of website based cock up and suddenly the flights are canceled and the hotel in non refundable. Once again we piss away a butt load of money on phone calls before we get a full refund. I swear that the wife is jinxed. Every time she tries to sort out anything financial it goes screwy. Maybe I should actually get off my arse and contribute to the running of the household? Then again if it was down to me there would be no outrageous expenditures on sure fripperies as holidays. The very idea of it...

Right thats the regular gripe about the wife over and done with. It cleanses the soul you know, especially after unloading another fistfull of cash down at Tiffanys for her anniversary present (two years on Tuesday, who'd've thought we'd make it even this far).

And so to me. Now some of you (quite a few judging by the number of people who asked about it at Partizan last weekend) may have read on the GB website that I had a bit of a shower based incident. For those who care (and so that I don't have to keep telling the oh so embarrassing story) here is the run down.
Whilst enjoying an invigorating shower I had just lathered up my hair and as I stepped in to rinse I missed the shower mat and slipped over. Opening my eyes as I fell (I don't like getting shampoo in my eyes, okay...) I noticed the sink coming towards my head at high speed so naturally I put my hands out to avoid a concussion. Lying now on the bathroom floor, soapy, wet and butt arse naked don't forget, I took stock and realised that I had caught my shins a right crack on the side of the bath as I fell out and for a brief second I thought that was all there was to it. Then I looked down at my hand. Oh. My. God. My right index finger (also known as my sculpting finger) was bent backwards at 90 degrees at the second knuckle. Yeah, that hurt a bit. So there I was all naked and sudsy with a finger pointing in the wrong direction. Not being much of a stortsman I'd never done anything like this before and didn't really know how to react. So I swore very loudly and had a bit of a cry. After my moment of complete wimpyness I decided to get my ass down the hospital. Unfortunately my ass was still naked. And soapy. After possibly the most uncomfortable rinse off and disasterous drying I eventually found something to wear and got myself down to casualty. So it transpired that I has dislocated my finger but luckily not caused any ligament damage or damaged any of the bones. I was sent on my way by an unsympathetic nurse and told not to fiddle with it and leave it strapped up for a week or two.

Four weeks on and everything is pretty much back up and running. Everything bends and gripping is fine (the biggest fear being that I wouldn't be able to hold on to my sculpting tools). I get a bit of a twinge when I put too much weight on it, like carrying racks of figures when setting up the stand at shows or the missionary possition, but all in all I seem to have got away without any lasting effects. Thanks to everyone for their support and kind words during my trauma (drama queen alert!)

As I said I am now back in the saddle and have managed to finish the figures that I started a month ago and even get started on something new. Wanna see? Okay.


And some very early WIPs of upcoming stuff:

I might even try to blog a bit more often now that I can type properly again.

Stay lucky,
Soaps.