no (no! no! no!)

 I haven't been around the old blog much lately even though I feel like so much has been going on.  Of course, the biggest news in Scotland is last week's referendum.  I know I had been quite public about my yes stance, but I had no idea how much I had wanted independence until we didn't get it.  Honestly, I've been absolutely gutted all week.  What a wasted opportunity.  I keep imagining this parallel universe where the vote went the other way and every day that inaccessible parallel universe keeps moving further and further away from the real universe, getting better and better and better.  Gah, I guess it was not to be.  Look at wee Dulcie up there.  I'm so mad on her behalf, not at individuals who voted no for reasons they really believed were good, but at people who were sucked in or scared or stuck in their ways (or, while we're on an S theme, sectarian).

The atmosphere on the day of the vote was so positive and buzzy and amazing and it really felt like something good was going to happen.  Look how hopeful we were back then.  Sigh...

I guess we all just have to pick ourselves up and move on and think of the positives, of which there are some.  The run-up to the vote got nearly everyone thinking and talking and engaging in ways they never really had before, myself included.  I'm hoping that won't stop now and that maybe we'll all feel change is possible and worth striving for, that we'll be willing and able to protest if things in the UK go in directions we feel are wrong.  It's not everything I hoped for, but hopefully it will be better than it would have been had we not had the referendum at all.  I guess there are other parallel universes worse than the real one, as well as the one that's so much better.  Onwards and upwards?

Anyway, other than the referendum, September has mostly involved germs - multiple stomach bugs, one of them seriously hardcore and more public than I would have liked (picture me covered in Dulcie's vomit two miles from home one day, puking my own guts up at a bus stop the next) as well as a pesky cold that is lingering on almost a month after the fact.  It's been one of those spells where you lose all your mojo and routines, forget how you normally live and have empty cupboards and a messy house and a general lack of get-up-and-go.  I haven't been swimming in ages (stomach bugs and swimming pools do not mix) and am way behind in my Channel challenge, but am hoping to rectify that soon.  We've had lots of visitors (from Graham's side of the family), been to Berlin (amazing, but more on that in a separate post) and spent almost all our free time in soft play at Dulcie's request.  I've been taking driving lessons and discovering that nine years away from the wheel is not long enough to forget how to drive - hooray!

So, I think that takes us kind of up to date.  Hopefully I'll be back in the bloggy game (and all the other day-to-day games) from now on.