Moving out, moving in, but moving on?

I made it.  I actually got all of my stuff out of my former flat, cleaned the whole flat on the Friday following the final box-exodus and even went to Šumava for the weekend, just to do what the cowboy wanted to do after a long period of him having to help me with tedious stuff.  But I'll have to make up for being utterly useless that weekend because I had period pain of epic proportions and had to stay in bed, drugged up to the eyeballs on painkillers just to survive, by going there again this weekend and being a good Czech-girlfriend substitute and going on a long walk in the mountains.  And then I'm done.  

Then, universe, let it be known, I need a big change.  I need enough income to flood in that I can realistically look for a new flat.  I need enough income to cover getting an iPad because I need access to publications and books without having to rely on the incompetent Czech postal system, which is fractionally worse than the UK postal system.  But only fractionally, and I've been away from the UK now for so long that in the meantime, for all I know, the UK postal system could have become even more incompetent.  Maybe there aren't Saturday deliveries anymore?  If there are, that's the one thing that makes the UK postal system that tiny bit better than it is here.  That's all.

On a lighter note, I've so far survived being in the depths of suburbia out of a sense of novelty, I suppose, although the cowboy is currently in his teenager mode of pointing out how this is what marriage is, boring and hum-drum and pointless.  And he's right.  If it's with someone you don't have enough in common with and if you live together in a flat you both don't particularly like.  But I never expected this to be anything but hum-drum and mildly, if not spectacularly, irritating for all concerned.

I know not to expect sweet little post-it notes left for me, nor random acts of kindness such as  a cup of tea brought to me on a day when I have to wake up early.  The cowboy seems not to appreciate things like this even when they do happen, though.  He didn't even see the little note I left stuck to the lock on the door yesterday.  Which is hard to believe.  But I guess he just shut the door behind him and didn't look in the direction of his hand as he was doing so.

I imagine this is exactly what marriage is like if you marry someone you don't love with a passion.  And it's clear that the cowboy and I have affection for each other, and even at times, a deep connection with regard to our backgrounds and the things we've been through but we don't have enough in common to enjoy each other's company for any great length of time, nor for day-to-day comings and goings.  

Here's a list of ways in which we do not match:

1) I hate watching TV without knowing what programme it is that I want to watch.  Most of it is rubbish anyway, and here it's rubbish dubbed into Czech, which has some small entertainment value and is fun when watching something like 'The Simpsons' but beyond that, I can totally do without the background drone of a TV.  The cowboy, however, always has the TV on.

2) I have two parts to my morning/breakfast routine.  First, a cup of tea and cereal.  Then, after showering and getting dressed, I like to have a cup of coffee and a croissant or pain au chocolat or just a yoghurt and fruit.  The coffee bit is essential though.  The cowboy scoffs down any breakfast all in one go, and doesn't like coffee.

3) I like reading.  Books, magazines, newspapers.  The cowboy hates reading anything except the National Geographic and a plethora of car magazines.

4) I like taking care of my own fitness routine and being disciplined about sticking to it, doing it on my own, in the privacy of my own home preferably.  The cowboy never gets round to planning an exercise routine, yet complains about having developed rather a big tummy and moans about the idea of going on walks in the woods on his own because, "people in the Czech Republic don't go for walks on their own."

5) I like to eat a few squares of a bar of chocolate in one go, then put it back in the fridge for another day.  The cowboy prefers to eat it all in one sitting, in big bites.

This does not bode well, obviously, for a future together.  

On the other hand, here are some important things we do have in common:

1) We both hate corruption and the politicians who make a living telling poor people they need to work harder, while keeping quiet about the bribe they just took.

2) We both know what it's like to grow up in scuzzy working class / communist (very similar, believe me) accommodation with thin walls you can hear everything through, eating cheap food that has never come across the word Mediterranean or, in my case even, 'garlic'. 

3) We both like action films for a laugh and a bit of welcome distraction from the bureaucracy of day-to-day living.

4) We both have an innate perception of others and sensitivity to people's feelings to the point of being able to predict what they're thinking.  We both also need to be careful not to take this too far and start telling people what they think, because that's robbing people of their own opinion.  (I'm working hard to get rid of this bad habit.  The cowboy is not.)

5) We both like nature documentaries.  Especially ones about the wildlife in parks like Yosemite and Yellowstone.

So, there you have it.  Is that a relationship?  Of sorts, I suppose.  Isn't it statistically researched that men benefit more from marriage and/or cohabitation than women?  So why is the cowboy moaning about how bad this temporary set-up is?  Especially as I've just done the washing up.  Again.

Weekend away and a starry, starry night

Like all good Czech people do, we left the city on Friday night and ran away to Šumava.  Where the mountains and forests are.  And a river called 'Vydra'. [Otter]

It turned super-hot for Saturday, and the morning in particular was breathtakingly hot.  Even sitting in my favourite spot on the balcony in the shade, I was so hot that I had to come inside after a while because I was wilting.  It was a lovely place to have breakfast though and I was so glad I'd bought a pain au chocolat from Paul's bakery the day before, as it made for a luxurious breakfast.  All that was missing were the Saturday papers, but as my Czech still isn't up to much and you won't get any foreign papers here except German ones, which might have caused offence anyway, I skipped all the contemporary stuff and opted for trying to catch up on my San Francisco-related research, reading Armistead Maupin's 'Tales from the City' novel instead.

Try as we might, the cowboy and I can't entirely reconcile each other's differing preferences.  He likes to get up and watch TV straightaway in the mornings and has a big breakfast all in one go, whereas I prefer a slower approach.  Tea first, maybe with a yoghurt and some cereal and then later a bit of reading with some coffee and a pain au chocolat or croissant.  I need two phases of waking up ideally, but yesterday I settled for one and mixed things up a bit with a cup of tea and a pain au chocolat in one go.  It was my fault - I'd forgotten to bring some coffee because I thought I'd left some there anyway.

Oh the silly pre-occupations of the holiday-flat owning elite...It's amazing we even made it this far, considering I was convinced when we first looked around this flat, that by the time he'd bought it, he'd be with someone else.  It turns out we aren't the only (temporary) occupants though.  I just spotted a couple of swallows who seem to have made the gap under the drain piping on the roof their home. I think they were eyeing me with great curiosity earlier, as if to say, "What's she doing hanging around our house?"  At least they didn't decide I was too close and take to dive-bombing me.

Last night we came out on the balcony just to look at the stars, which were amazing.  There were so many.  I don't normally get to see clear sky like that but we're out in the country here so this is the kind of reward you get.  I couldn't make out even one pattern or cluster of stars among the whole wealth of constellations we could see.  There must be some kind of 'landmark' (or sky mark) star that helps you locate the other ones, but I'm not an astronomer, so I don't know which one it is.  

We had come back from a stroll around the 'town', tiny though it is, after eating a huge meal at the local pizzeria.  I had had the seafood pizza this time, and was rather amused and delighted by the tiny little octopus legs in it.  I must be truly evil though because the cowboy took one look at these half-baby octopi and said, "chudák" (i.e. "poor thing") and I hadn't really thought like that. (My reaction had been, "yum!") I'm clearly a seafood fiend. The pizza was delicious.  And the walk around town afterwards was truly romantic.  How gorgeous the church looks in the twilight...