Guess what I got in the mail today? A very well-wrapped box full of mac and cheese packets. Thank you, Andi! I can't wait for lunch!

Today The Girl and I have been together for five years. (It really doesn't feel that long.) I would just like to say how unbelievably lucky I am to have a Girl who has stuck by me through thick, thin, mental and physical health issues, wheelchairs and walking aids, searches for accessible housing, job losses, benefits applications, cancelled wedding plans, laziness, grouchiness and demands to remove spiders. (We expect to have wedding vows in which we say "in sickness and in sickness; for poorer and for poorer...") I shall be repeating that all over the internet today. Sorry for boring anyone.

Seska posted this a couple days ago, but I just wanted to repeat it because it's a beautiful way of saying something very important.

Thank you! It's been on my mind a lot since I met up with the friend.

Happy belated to Aims!

I'm sorry about Maggie, Debet.

Dude, you're allowed to cry at a funeral. I rather doubt Tim loves you because of your stoicism.

This. And I hope the funeral and other related things go as well as these things can.

Congrats on five years together Seska!

G and I don't really have an anniversary - neither of us can remember the first time we met, or the dates of the first times we did anything else that other people might mark. We sort of use 'around Christmas' as a marker just by default. We're very lazy people.

Gnargh. Stupid fucking British visa people can suck my limp dick. They have had our passports since February, ‘processing’ G’s visa to stay in the country.

We’re going on holidays in ten days and really need them back. So G calls and asks can they send them or we can pick them up “I’m sorry we don’t have anyone by that name on file.”

I’m sorry whatthefuck? She says we need a reference number, G says that every other time he’s called his name and date of birth were fine. Person on phone is an idiot so G hangs up and calls again and gets someone else, who at least can find G’s file.

However, new guy says that both of us need to call to request our passports back, even though it’s G’s application and until now my only input has been sending in our marriage licence and my passport to prove my citizenship. Also, that it will probably take ten days for them to send our passports back. Not for us to receive them, for them to send them. So now I have to go out at lunch to meet G to call these gobshites to get my goddamn passport back so I can go on goddamn holidays which I really need because of their fucking arseshiteing incompetence.

Eek, Jars - that does sound like dreadful incompetence. (You're not alone - The Girl had her passport stolen a few days ago and they won't give her a new one without documents she doesn't have in this country.) I hope you can get them back in time for the holiday.

I hope you can get them back in time for the holiday.

Grrr, me too. Me too.

That sucks that the girl had hers stolen! And that bureaucracy is punishing her for it! Stupid bureaucracy.

Jars, how maddening.

Guess what I got in the mail today? A very well-wrapped box full of mac and cheese packets. Thank you, Andi! I can't wait for lunch!

Hee! You are welcome! And congratulations on your anniversary!

That sucks that the girl had hers stolen! And that bureaucracy is punishing her for it! Stupid bureaucracy.

In her case it's the Irish embassy's bureaucracy, not British, that's screwing her over. It sucks. Apparently having a father with cancer isn't enough of a reason to give you an emergency passport. Good to know the whole of Europe is equally drowning in maddening bureaucracy, though. Or not good.

In her case it's the Irish embassy's bureaucracy, not British, that's screwing her over.

Oh Irish bureaucracy wins at incompetence every time.

G has already tried the sick relative route, which while not strictly true, is a bit. It didn't help apparently, and also now if someone does get really sick, it will be karma for saying it.

Makes you wonder exactly what does get you pushed up the queue for a passport. If anything at all.

Makes you wonder exactly what does get you pushed up the queue for a passport. If anything at all.

Oh well in Ireland it would be knowing someone who worked in the passport office, or knowing a politician. Either of those would get you a passport in a day. Ireland: Corruption, it's what we do.