(before anyone accuses me of not being able to spell, I do mean the plural of chrysalis; there are two of us you know!)

(I have been reliably informed that the plural of chrysalis is chrysalises…well, I’m leaving it as-is anyway!)

We’ve got a kitchen again.

Any by that I mean a relatively complete kitchen – not just an oven (as had been the case for a few weeks) but one with a hob and sinks (sinks! no wash-up in the bath any more!) as well. The luxury of it all!

I’ve not posted anything for almost the last two months because, although not as indeterminately-stressful as the previous situation was, at a certain point one becomes a) less enamored of posting about an ordeal and b) tired of living vicariously through an ordeal. So while everything was progressing at a reasonable pace, that pace was always inevitably too slow (i.e. about 6 months later than expected) and it was just a matter of getting to the end of it so that normal life could resume. Anyway, hello, I’m back.

I had some carried over vacation days that I had to use before the end of March; my manager was good enough to allow me to use them in April instead, once the house was done. The first of those was today, and I spent the entire day getting myself re-acquainted with how to cook.

Erin has been understanding enough to allow me to order a silly amount of new/replacement/long-desired equipment and supplies for the kitchen over the last week or so. Pots, pans, knives, storage boxes, various sundries. To be fair a lot of it had been stuff on long-term to-buy lists that we’d decided to postpone until after the new kitchen was done, but some of them are really just pure luxury (although usually not super-epxensive) desired items like a mandolin that I just really wanted to own. Thanks Erin.

Erin has been sick and off work today, unfortunately, so instead of going out to have dinner at friends’ tonight I’ve instead combined some wining with the second half of my cooking day. Not quite as good, but I wanted to mention it just in case my written words were in any way slur-y!

Anyway, re-acquaint myself (slowly) I did! It’ll take a while to figure out where everything is now stored – and a lot of that is in flux anyway – and in general it just felt like I wasn’t ‘flowing’ like I used to, but it was all-in-all a very satisfying day.

I’ll quote a WhatsApp message I sent to Erin this evening:

[16:34, 8/4/2016] : Cooking, my future!
[16:34, 8/4/2016] : Kitchen, my (second!) , love!

Well indeed. I get slightly more emotional when I’ve been drinking.

Our re-house-warming is next Saturday 16th. I’ve got Wednesday-Friday off work to cook for the event. While there are bits of things left to have done on the house (flooring repairs, still pending a worktop, cleaners) we’re definitely feeling pretty positive about everything now. The ordeal is (almost) over and we’re about to turn into butterflies.

To do another quote, this is from an email regarding the upcoming re-house-warming that I think might impart at least some of what my current feelings are:

We (well, OK, I – Erin’s more sensible…) decided to slightly convert this event to be much more food-focused (but still with cocktails!). Basically, I was getting strong urges to show a lot of love to the so-close-almost-there-now new kitchen, and give it the chance to caress me in return, so I’m taking Wednesday-Friday off in the run-up to the house-warming to spend some quality time with my new darling (sorry Erin). There’s going to be an awful lot of juicy loving going on in that kitchen over those few days, let me tell you. Maybe some cooking, too. (And right before my birthday; best birthday present ever!)

Life, it returns.