Must limbs go too?, originally uploaded by bitful.

The Officers Club in Shepherd's Bush is closing, everything must go,
up to 70% off.

Gone into administration, or unable to keep up with the huge new
shopping centre across the road (Westfield)?

I have also noticed that Stuart knows many of these words already. So why can't he speak? I thought he needed vocabulary, but I might not be headed in the right direction by posting a word a day here (and then asking him to repeat it to me several times a week).

Well at least it will expand his vocabulary. I have just asked him today's word and he came up with l'homme (in French), signore (Italian for gentleman, sir), donna (just to prove to me that he knows how to say woman), and ragazzo (boy).

But today's word is uomo, which means man.

Thank you for all your cards, originally uploaded by bitful.

We have just reclaimed most of the flat from the work that was being
done on the floor and the walls.

Because of that, we had no Christmas decorations up this year. Even
the cards we received spent the holidays piled up in a corner.

Yesterday Stuart put them all out on the dining table. We got so many!

Thanks to all those who sent them, and to friends who sent in a kind
holiday wish via email and text this year. We are lucky to have so
many friends.

I had trained hard for it because it is a longer distance than my usual runs. I followed a sensible plan, running distances that were 10% longer every week, and even went running on Christmas morning (a necessity really, as damage control for the upcoming lunch).

Then after my longest run, on December 28th, my right foot started aching. I have no idea what I've done wrong, but it still hurts and as I limp a bit, my dodgy left knee is getting a battering too. I might have to go see a doctor.

I obviously skipped yesterday's race. I am gutted but I am still proud of the way I trained towards this goal because it's all about the journey, not the destination.

Today's Italian word is delusione, which means disappointment.

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We had seen one we liked at DFS in Nottingham, and we found out this morning that the sale it was in ended at 5pm today.

So we quickly booked a Streetcar and went to order it. We then bumped into a friend in the shop, so sat with her on the sofa along with her sister and her mother, and it was so nice to chat for a bit that we were thus convinced that it was the sofa for us.

And it only took us two years and seven months since we moved into our current flat to replace the settees we kept from the previous one.

Today's Italian word is divano, which means sofa. But you can also say sofà, just make sure that you place the accent at the end of the word to pronounce it the Italian way.

Sofa trials with newspaper, originally uploaded by bitful.

Yesterday I bought a newspaper for the first time in, I don't know, probably
six of seven years. The Guardian, if you must know.

I have not even looked through it (although I am sure that I have read many
of its articles online) but cellotaped pages together and then cut out the
exact dimentions of a sofa cornet unit, armchair and footstool that we
wanted to buy.

Stuart and I wanted to make sure that they fit our living room. They do.

One day I shall have to tackle this, originally uploaded by bitful.

We recently got a brilliant new tv stand. It was our Christmas present
to each other and I was hoping that the fact that it is a home theatre
system as well meant that there would be no more cables.

Very wrong. Yes, the amplifier and speakers are no longer there, but
the back is now a tangled mess of HDMI connections.

So now it's still temporary, and I'm putting off the moment when I
will sit on the floor and tame those cables with plastic ties and
Velcro strips.

It looked good (although it made the bed look enormous, and our bedroom is not large). After the first night, however, I was told to get rid of it because the man I share my bed with could not stand the woven bits. I can sleep through thunderstorms. He is kept awake by thread count. So now it's on eBay. The duvet cover, not the boyfriend, of course.

Today's Italian word is vendere, which means to sell.