teylaminh | Entries tagged with family

Two posts in one day!

Before I get caught up in another new X-Files recap, here is a life update...

( In Which 2015 Did Not Go Down Without A Fight )

I suspect I have missed quite a lot out of that because so much has happened over the past eight weeks or so, but hopefully 2016 will start to improve, now it's got all the Awesome Celebrity deaths out of the way.

We have things to look forward to, in any case: a colleague's 40th birthday party in March, Sunset Boulevard in April, and of course five more brand shiny new episodes of The X-Files - and a like-minded colleague to squee over it with. ;)

Current Mood: accomplished

Doubtless the next entry I do will be the traditional new year meme, if I can even remember that far back. :P In the meantime, here is something resembling an update, so I can at least use a Christmas icon whilst it's still the season.

( Cut for Length, Probably )

Well, at least it's nearly Christmas. I am actually not working on Christmas Eve for the first time in ages, in for two days, off New Year's Eve and then returning on 11th January. I need about six months off, mind you. :P

All of my good intentions of being organised were scuppered by work being poo, and having no energy. I started out quite well and then it all kind of collapsed. Still, cards are made if not written, I have my concert on Saturday, will do my post run on Monday.

Maybe this time next year I will be healthier and slightly less poor.

Over and out, and Merry Christmas.

Current Mood: frustrated

This is long-overdue, as ever...

( Health )

( Family Stuff )

And finally...

( Work Stuff )

Right, I think that about covers it. I keep promising to update more often and that always turns out to be a lie, so... I will endeavour to update before Christmas. At the very least, I still haven't posted the latest embroidery updates. :P

Current Mood: exhausted

Trying to stick to the Updating At Least Once A Month rule.

( Easter Weekend )

In health news, I have another kidney infection, and I'm still waiting on my hospital appointment. They're not as regular as they were prior to November but I suspect that's merely because I've gotten used to them and my pain threshold is through the roof. (Except for when the kidney decides to give me a kicking, of course; I am convinced Naproxen is magic.)

Nothing much else to say. I have a week off next week as it's our anniversary on the Thursday (ten years!) and even though we were hoping to get away somewhere, it's simply not possible, so instead we have a vague plan of having a day of haircuts and new tattoos. In my case this will hopefully be my long-overdue ouroborous / lightning bolt combination if I can throw a design together by then.

Also, if my hospital appointment comes through prior to the summer then we can always try to get a late deal for September, assuming we manage not to spend the money in the savings account by then. :P (At this rate I'll be happy to get some kind of result this year; as of the end of next month I'll have been plagued by kidney infections for a whole year.)

I am determined to get back to the gym some point this month; I'd like to think I'll manage it whilst I'm off but in all likelihood that won't happen, though I will definitely attempt to go swimming up the road at the very least. There's simply no excuse when it's only 5 minutes away. :P

Anyway. Next entry will be an embroidery update, and then hopefully tattoo pictures. :)

Current Mood: tired

I drafted most of this entry on 20th March but then ran out of time to finish it, then was too busy on the weekend and forgot about it. 20th March seemed like as good a day as any to update, given there was a solar eclipse that morning. :) I am trying to get into the habit of updating at least once a month.

So, yes, there was a solar eclipse. Not 100% in Birmingham - I think we had maybe 90% but can't be certain - but it was very exciting nonetheless. Here in the office we worked out that the best way of viewing it was through the blinds, although there were a fair amount of people in the car park with pinhole cameras, too.

It was fab, actually - there was an air of tangible excitement at around 9.15 as everyone realised it was getting darker. (I imagine if I were still at Woodcock Street this momentous event would be greeted with disinterest and/or stupidity from my ex-colleagues...) My line manager was equally as excited as I was, so I felt somewhat less guilty for not doing any work for about half an hour. :D

The last time we had a solar eclipse visible in the UK was 11th August 1999. I remember because it was my mum's birthday. She was at work, but I can remember watching it out of the living room window, via a reflection in the roof of a car that was parked on the drive. Bizarrely, it was a red car, and for about an hour it didn't occur to me that it wasn't my mum's car (because she was at work) but someone else's. I remember that there were no shadows, the birds stopped singing - it was really eerie.

Not quite as eerie this time around, as there was more sun still visible, but as the sun re-emerged there were really pretty tree-branch patterns on the blinds.

Anyway, it cheered me up after a godawful journey on the bus that morning (the 120 was late so it was absolutely rammed, and since I have such a short journey to Bearwood it always makes me unnecessarily anxious when the bus is crowded...), although it did make the headache I woke up with worse.

In any case, last week was infinitely better than the previous one.

( Cut for length... )

Some of the stress had also come about because we’re trying to get away for a long weekend in April as it’s our tenth anniversary, but everything is conspiring against us as usual by being too bloody expensive. Hotels and flights or whatever are doable, but it’s the bloody public transport costs ramping everything up. Hopefully we can manage to get a late deal of some description.

We also had a vague plan of having a proper holiday in September, but the last time we went away in April and September (in 2012 when we went to Tenby and Corfu respectively) it essentially bankrupted us. (It also didn’t help that we booked up to see the Killers in the November, which ate the final few dregs of the tax rebate I got.) Seeing as I am now waiting on my non-urgent hospital admission for a procedure under general anaesthetic, though, I don’t want to book anything for September in case it delays things. And also because I’ve been too ill / tired to make it to the gym since last May (meh) so don’t particularly want to go away in any case…

Anyway, March is nearly over (just three more birthdays to go!) and this weekend I actually managed to get a few hours to myself to put a dent in my EastEnders backlog and do some embroidery now that it’s warmed up enough to do so. Once I get through this week there are two four-day weeks courtesy of the Easter bank holidays, and then I have a week off, THANK GOODNESS.

Also, after finishing the POTOver story for Eni just in time for her birthday, I was working on the epilogue until the end of February, but lacked energy to carry on once the impetus to finish the main story had burned out – I will actually try and finish that soon both for her benefit and that of

cloudsinvenice (who is beta’ing it for me), as whilst the story ended itself in a most satisfactory manner, there are a few parts that need proper closure.

I have a couple of embroidery updates to post as well (once I’ve figured out where I got to) so I’ll do those later. I reckon within 4-5 sessions it should be finished, and then I can start on my next one. :)

Current Mood: relieved
Current Music: the humming of the server room...

Just realised I haven't updated since August, and that was a Jonathan Creek post. (Rewatch is still on hiatus; hopefully back on track in the new year at some point!)

I'll do the traditional Year in Review meme tomorrow but for now, here's a month-by-month account (from what my shoddy short-term memory can provide) of what's happened since then...

( September )

( October )

( November )

( December )

So there we go - four months in fast-forward.

I'm thankfully on leave tomorrow, and we're going to Lloyd's for bad movies. Paul's birthday on Wednesday, so I need to get curry any outstanding ingredients before then - I'm planning on doing filo-wrapped Brie for starter, and lamb curry for main, as I've not yet had chance to use the new pestle-and-mortar my mum got me for my birthday (it's a huge Jasper Conran granite one and very sexy). Back at work Thursday and Friday and then a week off, thank goodness.

Work wise I'm quiet today - hence the entry - because all I have is eight sets of outstanding minutes awaiting signature from one particular Chair who never.signs.anything - she has minutes in her draft folder from October (we're supposed to send them out within 20 working days!). No meetings for me this week either as there's only three in the diary. Next week apparently it's insane so obviously I picked the wrong (or right?) time to be off. ;)

Okay, I think that's quite long enough. New Year Meme tomorrow, as well as trying to finish the already belated Christmas JC fic I promised Denise, which ground to a standstill in mid-December when my brain decided to give me voracious unrelated plot bunnies. I just need one final push to finish it.

Over and out!

Current Mood: rushed

I'm at work today (and yesterday), along with three other WPO's (should be four but Demoted is off sick), and apart from a brief flurry yesterday of urgents from Spellathon, presumably in protest over the fact she couldn't come into the office over Christmas - seriously, rather than appreciating the free days off, last year she felt the need to moan about the fact that she didn't celebrate Christmas so shouldn't be expected to have a day off (WTF??) - it's now gone very quiet. So here's an update.

( Christmas, etc. )

Back at work Thursday, but I have next week off. My mission ~~should I choose to accept it~~ is to learn to make bread. I have a couple of bread-related books now - the new Mary Berry and a WI book that we were bought last Christmas. I really want to try and make focacia, but I know it's really difficult so might start with rolls or a basic white loaf. First I have to oil the big wooden board I bought from Ikea last year, as it's going to become my bread-making board. It's too bloody big to use for anything else (seemed like a good idea at the time), I don't have enough counter space for bread-making anywhere else, and the board can sit nicely on the kitchen table instead. ;)

I managed to post a photograph of our cream tea (because I'd laid everything out all pretty on the table) but have so far failed to take pictures of anything else. I think I'll charge the camera up and start doing so - next year I want to start taking more photographs again. I really need to get a new camera but I need to justify to myself that I take enough pictures to warrant a big SLR-type thing rather than another point-and-shoot...

Oh yes. Perhaps more important than any of this is the update on the new job situation. I'm sure most people have heard via Facebook already, but in any case: I had the interview on 17th December. I woke up with a headache, of course. I already know my migraines are stress-related, so it wasn't that surprising. I've been wibbling quite a lot over the test and interview, but it's been a very different sort of wibbling to any of the Legal jobs I've gone for - less "OMG BIG SCARY CHANGE" and more "OMG POTENTIALLY IMPORTANT CHANGE". I'm taking being nervous about the interview - rather than the life-changing upheaval - as a very good sign that I made the right decision in applying. Not that I had any doubt; once that decision was made it was very satisfying, not umming-and-erring like I normally would.

So yes, I had a headache. I cannot remember a single thing about the interview or even really what I said, except that they didn't ask the Equal Opportunities question and that's my best answer. :P I couldn't tell if it had gone well or horrendously or averagely, not that one ever really can, mostly because as soon as I'd left the building and started walking towards the Squeg to meet Paul, my head started pounding like a thousand elephants were doing Riverdance in my brain.

I was planning on going back into work. We went for lunch at the newly-opened Boston Tea Party on Corporation Street, as it's midway to my office (Paul had the day off to finish the Christmas shopping anyway), but by that point the migraine was making me nauseous as well, so I phoned in sick. I subsequently spent the day on the sofa watching EastEnders, and was well and truly monged on Migraleve by the time they rang me up about the job.

Long story short, I got it. :) It took me a while to process that because of the migraine, but when it finally clicked I was incredibly relieved and pleased. We actually went to see The Hobbit on the evening up at Giant Screen but I can barely remember anything about that either, except that it was quite pretty.

It's still conditional, as they need to do references and CRB / medical checks, so I haven't handed in my notice as yet. The reference request came in on Friday (21st December), which David bizarrely forwarded on to me to fill out myself (apparently this is quite common in Legal Services), so I threw something together. I don't think he had time to look at it, though, and as he's now on leave until 7th January I suspect I shan't be handing in my notice until mid-January. In which case, my estimate of mid-February for potentially starting really wasn't far off the mark. ;)

I'll fill out that Year in Review meme this weekend (well, it's traditional now) but 2012 has been a very strange year, all told - so many ups and downs I lost count. Work has been rubbish and soul-destroying on several occasions, but there have been so many amazing, wonderful things to counteract it. (I already suspect the meme may be too constraining to summarise the year.) I dunno, maybe when the eyes of the world are staring at your country for so much of the year (the Jubilee, the Olympics and Paralympics), it makes you think about your own contribution and the changes you need to make.

2013 is going to be better. Or at the very least, it feels like it might be the start of something. BRING IT, BIYATCH.

If I don't manage to update before January: HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

Current Mood: relieved

The last two weeks have been rather insane. I'll do a separate post later about this morning's work-related idiocy.

( Gigs and parties. )

So, that's that. The Killers gig has basically made me go a bit crazy fangirl, repeatedly listening to Battle Born and appreciating it even more than before the concert. It's my favourite album by far - as addictive as Day and Age and Hot Fuss, but less hit and miss, with just as many potential classics. As a result, I want to get the album's logo - a lightning bolt - tattoed on my person. I already have plans for an ouroboros on my right inner forearm / wrist, and I want to get the lightning bolt underneath it. Paul has not helped by suggesting we should both get matching lightning bolts.

It would be much more than just a Killers reference, however: it would be a memory of the gig, a sneaky reference to Rocky Horror, and a symbol of my love of thunderstorms. The ouroboros is a symbol of rebirth; the lightning bolt is for battle born, the wording of which is taken from the Nevada state flag (I want to visit Las Vegas; in fact I want to honeymoon there). I love the sentiment of the two together, a brand to mark the turning point I seem to have reached in my life at the moment. Also, they're one of the only bands Paul and I both like (though we like different songs and different albums: in his head there is nothing to top Hot Fuss, in mine they just keep on getting better) and the first Proper Gig we've both been to, so it would be nice to commemorate that experience as well.

Not sure when I will get them done, but hopefully soon. I'm feeling the desire for new ink really badly right now: mostly to get the ideas in situ before they fizzle out on me, but also craving the pain/adrenaline to reaffirm my own aliveness.

In that vein: I totally need some Killers icons.

Next entry: fee earners waste our time with pointless tasks out of paranoia that could have been avoided in the first place by not being skinflints.

Over and out.

Current Mood: indescribable

So, I had a week off work. In that week, I turned 31, had family over for a very nice meal cooked by Paul (chicken liver pate, slow-cooked chicken tikka masala, chocolate and cinnamon cake), went back to Derby with Vicky, went to Alton Towers, met up with Eni, and then went to my mum's.

( Cut for length )

Actually, I was going to include the events of this week in this entry, but as it will have to be friends-only I think I'll post them separately. This is long enough already.

Current Mood: content

Those three days were productive and lazy, in equal measure.

We have a tenant inspection on Wednesday. They're supposed to be every three months but this is only our second, as the first time the bloke didn't turn up, and then it took them another month to sort it out. Anyway, seeing as last time they were shocked and appalled that there were boxes in the spare room (OH NOES!) we decided to try and sort out the office if nothing else.

( Weekend )

Last choir rehearsal tonight pre-concert on Saturday, which has inconveniently timed itself with the opening weekend of Dark Shadows, but that doesn't matter because we're going to see it on Friday night at the Giant Screen (formerly IMAX). :) I feel entirely unprepared for this concert, which is stupid considering I only missed one week of rehearsal, but we'll see how it goes on the day. We're doing Mozart's Regina Coeli, which is pretty, Bach's Mass in D (I think), which is horrendous, and Schumann's Requiem, which is okay. We're singing in annoying "Germanic" Latin again as a result. I have my re-audition in a few weeks so we'll see how that goes.

In other news, the gym and salad-eating is slowly working. I am nearly able to get back into my skinny jeans, which if they were stretchy would actually fit me now. I can't quite get back into the rest of my jeans yet, but it's definitely progress. I don't think I'll be quite at the stage I want to be by September, but the fat is moving around at the moment and I think I'm gaining better shape if nothing else, so we need to get back on track with twice-weekly gym attendance and actually start going swimming like we're supposed to, as we still haven't managed it. By the time we get to the weekend we're too bloody tired, but the past couple of weeks have been a bit up-and-down anyway as Paul's had a cold. I went on my own on Thursday out of sheer determination, and anticipate I will not manage to go at all during my week off. :P MOAR SALAD is now the way forward. (I have been experiencing the alien sensation of craving fruit lately, as my lunch has been comprising either sandwiches or a salad, with a yogurt, an apple, a clementine and a box of grapes for afterwards.)

Current Mood: accomplished

Saturday was quite busy this week, as it was Jade's 20th yesterday (1st April) and one of Paul's colleague's 30th, so we had two separate sets of things to go to. We went to Jade's in the early evening, drank and watched TV and laughed at her hyperactive dog, got delayed an hour waiting for our taxi (we ordered three, the first two turned up and the third went AWOL) and then went to the Vaults for an hour or so. It was a bit noisy in the bar, but I definitely want to go back and try the restaurant as the building itself is very cool - though the cocktails are hideously expensive.

Yesterday we were going to do a ghost walk with Darren and family but we were much too tired and had things to do. Operation Salad Lunches is in full swing now so we went to Bearwood to get supplies (more salad, couscous, plus some bits for tea - we somehow still managed to spend £50), and then I spent much of the day doing washing as the weather was nice. (Our garden gets the sun pretty much all day, so is great for drying things.) We had a leg of lamb from Aldi for dinner with roasted veg and minted potatoes, and then Paul fell asleep watching Anchorman and refused to go to bed. :P

I've purposely left the beginning of this entry quite sparse as I have a lot to say about the other thing I did on Saturday, which was to have a girly afternoon with my mum watching Love Never Dies, the Phantom sequel, on Blu-Ray on the shiny LED TV. So of course I have quite a lot to say. ;)

( Love Never Dies Review - contains massive spoilers! )

Hmm. Yes. I suppose I expected LND to bring some of these feelings out again, but despite all that, it has a few nice moments. I might buy the soundtrack at some point, and I will probably watch it again now that I'm not going in "cold", but I think I'm going to have to look at it like a big-budget fanvid or it'll make me crazy.

Right, I think that is quite long and boring enough. I actually went looking for LND fanfic last night and for some reason had not anticipated that the majority would be missing scenes for "Beneath a Moonless Sky". (Like the badfic authors needed any more excuses.)

I wrote this at work today to get it out of my brain and subsequently was not exactly productive. Oh well. :P After the gym today Paul and I met up with Lloyd and Denise at Las Iguanas and had lovely Mexican food, so that was nice. I basically had fish and chips but the chips were sweet potato, which I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed, so I will definitely be buying more in future. :)

Right, that's it. I shall post this and probably go to bed. :P

Current Mood: thoughtful

It's quiet today, so here's an update of my weekend...

( Saturday )

( Sunday )

Okay, I think this entry is more than long enough. Thankfully this weekend will be a quiet one. I had a migraine yesterday at work so left a half-three, then we both had a nap at about five o'clock. I'm getting much too old for all this. :P

Current Mood: satisfied

Here is a recipe. Paul's new favourite thing is spaghetti carbonara, ever since he tried it at Bella Italia and it wasn't rammed full of four different cheeses and five tons of cream. So I had a bash last night using a Jamie Oliver recipe that I saw him make on TV (I think it was on his 30 minute meals but I can't remember now).

( Recipe: Spaghetti alla Carbonara )

Last night I attempted to synch the laptop with the printer upstairs, which failed because the desktop PC crashed the first time. I have now uninstalled the troublesome Virgin Media protection software (it shouted at me when it updated because we weren't with Virgin any more for internet access, still loaded but ate resources and periodically made everything freeze) and installed the free, resource-light Webroot software that we got free from e-buyer when we bought the laptop. So now I think I can print from the laptop to the printer upstairs, though I haven't tested it yet. ;)

Also I forgot to mention this amusing thing that happened a few weeks ago when we took David to Carluccio's for his birthday meal. My mum picked us up from the house and we drove into Birmingham. For some reason City Road was backed up with traffic (on a Sunday afternoon) so she turned around and headed down a side street towards Hagley Road instead. We accidentally went speeding over a hump-back bridge that she hadn't realised was there, resulting in several minutes of hysterical giggling as the car was suddenly airborne. :D

Okay, that's about it. Over and out.

Current Mood: okay

Right, since the transcription nonsense the other week, I've been trying to keep my head down, and other than a few minor irritations (the same old story of people not reading / paying attention to the emails I send for informative purposes) things haven't been too bad. On the Monday after the event, I emailed Senior with my observations of what occurred in respect of the transcription, including Demoted's refusal to undertake the work and my worry that it might be perceived that I was 'avoiding' the work in Winscribe, and she responded in fairly reasonable terms that indeed, it is not my place to sort out Demoted when she's being difficult, and thanking me for trying to sort things out in her absence.

( Boring work stuff - not moaning! )

So last week was rather uneventful other than the above, though nonetheless I only managed to spend one evening actually at home. Monday we went to the pub with Lloyd and Denise, Tuesday (obviously) I had choir, Wednesday was Noel's birthday so we went to Paul's mum's, Thursday GLORIOUS NOTHING (read: catching up with household chores like laundry) and Friday we went back to the flat for Lisa's birthday and enjoyed a very tasty curry. Graham (the new tenant) popped down to join us and it we got to know him a bit better; it transpires he's a complete lightweight when it comes to booze.

It just took me about ten minutes to remember what we did on Friday; this month is so insane that my short-term memory is frelled. I did, however, enjoy my quiet weekend, as this week is also going to be insanely busy. On Saturday we finally went through the freezer and filled out the whiteboard, realising the insane amount of food we had bought but not eaten. If we are actually organised we won't have to go shopping for at least another month. (Ah, it's so scintellating being a grown-up, innit?)

So, this week:-

Monday (yesterday) was meant to be a gym day but neither of us really fancied it, so instead we went to Bella Italia. Oops.

Tuesday (today) - last rehearsal before Equinox.

Wednesday - going to Spring Hill Tesco to pick up chicken livers and various other ingredients in advance of Mother's Day

Thursday - spare shopping day in case Tesco have no chicken livers, also getting cards/gifts.

Friday - leaving work at half-three to get home and bake cake.

Saturday - rehearsal at 11.00am, concert at 7.30pm, out of house all day, Paul going out to get meat and Guinness for main course and whatever else is left to buy.

Sunday - up early to make pate and whatever else needs making, tidy and clean lower floor of house, rest for a bit, family arriving at 6.00pm, eat, drink, sleep.

The week after that is mostly uneventful except for seeing Oliver! on Wednesday. :)

On Sunday we went out for a pub lunch at the Kings Head, walking to Bearwood and trying out the Abbey for a quick drink. Seemed okay on the Sunday but I wouldn't want to go there of a Friday evening.

Roll on April and our week off; even if we can't book anywhere to go it will be nice not to be at work. :P

Oh, and talking of which, we've finally booked our holiday for September. 11 nights in Corfu. :) I've booked off an extra two days (18th and 19th September) in addition to the two weeks I already had as we arrive back at 6.30am on the 16th and I'll need more than a day to recover. :P

Okay, that's more than long enough. Over and out.

Current Mood: busy

Just a quick update to say that I am still breathing (just), but have been AWOL thanks to going off sick from work for a fortnight with gastric flu or something similar... Essentially, I was already feeling horribly run down on the Friday (28th October) and then thanks to a dodgy takeaway managed to give myself food poisoning, which saw an opening in my already knackered immune system and pounced. I actually only anticipated being off for a week, but it came back for a second round over the weekend.

To top that off, once I'd finally recovered from the gastro-enteritis, on Thursday (10th November), I slipped on a wet patch of floor whilst doing the washing up and fell flat on my arse, horribly winding myself and catching my arm on the cupboard door on the way down. I now have a lovely bruise and a very sore tailbone (I've had to bring a cushion into work as my chair is rubbish at the best of times)...

On the plus side, thanks to not eating anything / not keeping anything down for more than five minutes, I have managed to lose about half a stone. :P Unfortunately, I have also lost two Christmas shopping weeks in which I would ordinarily have bought wrapping paper, cards, tags, etc., and gym attendance is on hold until the new year because I'm insanely busy from now until January.

Also, in order to actually afford Christmas this year (the trip to Paris ate all our savings and most of my spare cash, and my salary increase back-payment got mostly eaten by tax/NI/pension), I have had to get a loan from the bank. The APR wasn't too bad in the end (and cheaper than they offered Paul), but the plan now is to use most of it to pay off the credit card and save the rest. We will both be paying it off, and in any case the repayments are less than the minimum payments on the credit card since they jacked the APR on that from 11.9% to 19.9%! Anyway, we can now use the credit card to pay for Christmas (presents/food) and have a bit more spare cash, and my account will be out of the red again at least.

I very much like online banking - none of that hassle of actually talking to someone and the loan was sorted in five minutes.

Oh, in other news, on Saturday we had the traditional fireworks-for-Paul's-mum's-birthday at our house because our garden is mahoosive, except we didn't manage to build a bonfire. We got a huge box of fireworks (by the skin of our teeth as the bloke at the shop was actually closing up on Saturday) for £40 and there are still some left for New Year's Eve. :D Paul was going to smash up the garden table on the patio that we thought was broken, except it turns out not to be broken at all, just requiring some bolts to assemble it. That will now save us some money as we only have to buy chairs for the summer... Paul also discovered a trampoline behind the shed!! If it's still in good condition then I'm totally using it. :D

Fireworks were quite fun; David got very excited about it and volunteered to light nearly all of them. Jade and Louis decided to buy a bottle of Cactus Jack's apple sour stuff (after three shots it tastes disgusting), and Patrick got to light his first firework with his uncle Paul. At one point David and Louis became Dangerous Dickenson and his Fearless Assistant, which was quite amusing. Less amusing were the failing rockets and the catherine wheel which decided to fall off the shed and chase us, but it's become a tradition to have some life-threatening danger...

I haven't been at choir for two weeks (and had to miss the 90th birthday concert thanks to sickenss) and because we're now doing entirely new stuff it feels like I've been off for months. Weird. Anyway, time to get organised and into Christmas mode now.

Current Mood: sore

Last week was horribly stressful for no apparent reason, Friday especially so. I started writing a review of Black Swan, which we saw on Wednesday, but I couldn't finish it thanks to being busy and on reading it back it sounds horribly pretentious, so now I can't be bothered. In any case, it was a truly brilliant film and the highlight of my week.

( It can only get worse, unfortunately. )

The WPO's are meant to be moving to the 2nd floor this week. I am dreading this more than you can imagine, and still have seven weeks to get through before my leave in April. If things get exponentially worse I am seriously considering getting myself signed off with stress, if only to poke management into some kind of action - when the inevitable question is asked, I won't hesitate to say what's stressing me out.

On the plus side, we tried out the Wii Fit this weekend and it's knackering. Paul's Wii Fit Age came out as 51, mine was 31. ;) Also my centre of gravity is almost completely central, which was nice to know. We tried some of the balance games and some yoga stuff (half moon is painful!) and if the aches I am suffering today are any indication, it must be doing something. Also I weighed myself twice by moving the board to a different bit of carpet, and the weight came out the same both times, so at least I have some functional scales now - at least until I live somewhere with even floors.

On Sunday we went to my mum's for lunch - quail wrapped in Parma ham to start (mm, tastes like a slightly gamey chicken), followed by one of Jamie's 30-minute-meals, which took an hour. :P It was pork loin with catherine-wheel sausage, celeriac mash and a sauce made of smoked bacon, chicken livers, rosemary and cream. Amazing. I was a bit wary of the celeriac mash because my mum said it tasted like celery, but it was actually surprisingly nice... So that's something I can add to my list of potato alternatives, anyway.

(Oh, and on Saturday I decided to use up the muffins in the fridge by having eggs benedict - Paul poached the eggs and cooked the bacon and I made the Hollandaise sauce, which for a first attempt wasn't bad at all. Mmmm, lovely.)

We had a go on Wii Sports Resort (obviously) and demonstrated Mario Galaxy and Epic Mickey. In the morning we also swapped our duff second-hand controller for another one (which works this time), and also the duff DS game for another Wii game, which looks quite pretty. I will probably have a go at it tonight.

Anyway, that's about it. Work is poo and I'm trying to get through the day-to-day without killing anyone, and I don't think it's going to change... There is good stuff, but it's hard to focus on that when I'm constantly exhausted.

If I don't post for ages, that's why. The fandom meme will resume when I have the energy. It annoys me that I only lasted two weeks before giving up on it, and that's making me even less inclined to finish it, but yeah. We'll see.

Current Mood: apathetic

RIGHT THEN. Now that I've finally managed to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 all the way through without interruption from ignorant pissheads, I shall provide a review / thoughts... I intended to post this last night, but obviously our internet was down again. I swear Virgin Media just know when I have stuff I want to do…

( HP7pt1 - probably contains spoilers )

So yes, that was quite enjoyable. As for trailers, Mars Needs Moms looks quite cool. In terms of upcoming films, I really want to see Black Swan, and The King's Speech to a lesser degree. It's Oscar season so a lot of good films are coming out. :)

Before HP7, incidentally, we went to Darren & Andrea's on Saturday afternoon / evening, as Andrea was building Paul a website for his and Richie's weekly acoustic night, Broken Amp. We had a go on their XBox Kinect, which is the weirdest thing ever... I think I still prefer the Wii, as you need even more bloody room for the Kinect and it's exhausting. AND TERRIFYING, as it watches you. Darren made us chilli and then we played four rounds of Scrabble and watched a bit of the run-up to the Comedy Awards before heading home. It was a pleasant, sedate evening.

On Sunday evening we invited Lisa up to share our roast dinner, as we had a gigantic pork shoulder joint from Asda. It was £7.00 for just under 6lb of meat!! It was quite possibly the best pork joint I've ever done: the scratching was lovely (apparently!) and actually crisped up, and the meat was just falling off the bone and coming off in those lovely tender stringy bits like you get on hog roasts. OM NOM. Obviously there's still loads of it left. I'm going to make some soup tonight to take to work, and will probably have some more nomalicious pork for tea. :)

( Embroidery Stuff )

So, as I say, I meant to post this last night, but had no internet. Which was especially annoying because I didn’t actually sit down at the PC until I’d done the washing up, put washing in, made soup for work and eaten my dinner, which was about 7.30pm. So instead I uploaded the embroidery photographs to post later, and finally got around to installing Sims 3.

( Oh, dearie me... )

I have some work annoyances to post, but I'll do them in a separate entry, as this is quite long enough...

Current Mood: thoughtful

Christmas doth approach, and my next two weeks are going to be ridiculously busy, having to cram in seeing various people, finishing my shopping for Paul, doing the food shop and wrapping / handing over presents. I don't have time for any more socialising unless it's at the pub on Christmas Eve with the usual suspects, as Christmas is now just under two weeks away and I'm literally running out of hours. :P

Anyway, ( the weekend.. )

Okay, well, this entry was a result of the fact that this morning Winscribe was unresponsive. They were doing work on the server on Sunday and obviously hadn't got it up and running again by the time people were back in work today... In which case, I think this is more than long enough, so I shall sign off.

I'm hoping to get Christmas cards and presents in the post this week, so really need to start wrapping things soon...

Current Mood: rushed

I have no idea when I last updated or what it was about, but here is what I've been up to...

( Birthday Stuffs )

After that Paul and I both had a week off work. The beginning of the week mostly involved doing nothing, going to Aldi, and watching Duckula, in my case anyway. I've got through the first two discs so far.

On Thursday we headed off to London for a couple of days. ( London Stuffs )

In other, more positive news, TAX REFUND, BABY!!! Apparently for 2008-2009 I overpaid over a grand in tax! Considering I had to extend my overdraft again last month just in case I spent too much money in London, this little windfall is very much appreciated. In addition, I achieved my pay increment at work and should be getting a chunk of backpay tomorrow in my wages, which initially I was going to spend on an eye test and new lenses. Instead I'm going to use the tax refund to pay a chunk off the credit card and pay for the eye test, and hopefully spend the backpayment on something NICE for a change. :)

I anticipate something horrible will happen to me in due course when Fate realises she made a horrible error in judgement. But in the meantime, it's nice to have a bit of luck for once.

Also, I started watching Damages on Monday night and I'm about nine episodes in. Quite enjoying it, though I can't decide if Patty Hewes is pure genius or pure evil... Whichever it is, Glenn Close is sheer awesomeness incarnate, but we already knew that. :)

I think that'll do. :)

Current Mood: calm

It's my mum's birthday today, so we're going over later for some food. We also went out on Saturday night to Strada (the one in the ICC), which was amazing. Everything from the wine to the dessert was faultless. OMNOM.

Monday at work was annoying. I have mellowed since and was too bloody tired to update about it at the time, but suffice it to say, it was to do with yet more colleague fail. I was on tape rota (I see how this works; I get lumbered with all of the previous week's backlog and whoever does Tuesday gets an easy ride) but seeing as on Friday night I was accosted (AGAIN) whilst trying to leave about an urgent, I decided to do that when I got in first thing instead. At around 10.00am (I think), Forgetful came downstairs to deliver some work and said, in an accusing tone:

"I thought you were doing tapes today."

Yes, but there are urgents, so I was helping. Her response was that "Normally whoever's on tapes just lets everyone else do the urgents". Pardon me for being remotely useful, then.

So pretty much from that point onwards I was waiting for hometime. Also my voice had packed up for some reason so I didn't really talk much all day, which everyone noticed (I'm not that talkative, honest!) and wondered why. Meh. Probably for the best, actually, or I would have shouted the odds to whoever was listening.

In other news, Arsey is apparently talking to me again. So I suppose I should change his alias. :) Maybe he was embarrassed about his conduct on the Day of the Move and decided ignoring me was better than apologising? That would explain his lack of eye contact in the lift the other day. Anyway, I was doing the rounds earlier with Noor's get-well-soon card and he was chatty and normal and actually initiating a conversation...

I'm very glad it's blown over, actually, as I was starting to worry there'd be an atmosphere, and as he's a locum there is every chance that he might end up working for South at some point (he already has once) and I didn't want it to continue if that was the case.

Nowt else to report. Hopefully I'll have time to post the music-meme entry later, though I have the majority of the other options written down on paper so as to make things quicker. It was just that first one which I found tricky, all the others were fine. :P

So, it's 2010. Thank frell for that. Good riddance to 2009 and all its associated crapness.

Apparently my last proper update was on 14th December. I will therefore try not to ramble on excessively as I update about Christmas...

( W/C 14th December )

( Christmas concert )

( W/C 21st December )

( CHRISTMAS! )

( New Year, etc )

And that brings us to yesterday. I overslept somewhat and didn't get up until midday... In the evening I cooked for Lisa and her new bloke, Pete, and we watched Feast and the onset of Celebrity BB before bed.

And today I'm back at work. Obviously. :)

I think that's more than enough. :P

Current Mood: accomplished

So, despite the start of yesterday, my shopping day didn't turn out as bad as anticipated.

( Cut for length )

I have also finally allocated which of the gifts I've bought are for Paul's birthday and which for Christmas, so I could figure out his spend limit on me. I've spent FAR too much money on his birthday (especially considering last year was his 30th...) but I'm hopeful he'll like everything I've chosen. Bloody men are impossible to buy for. ;)

The remainder of December looks like this:

Saturday 12th - meal at Jen and Dave's.
Monday 13th - get stuff in post / hand out cards.
Wednesday 16th - support team lunch
Thursday 17th - visiting grandmother after work
Friday 18th - south team lunch (I'm going to be fat by the end of the month)
Sunday 20th - Christmas concert
Tuesday 22nd - Asda shop
Wednesday 23rd - pick up turkey, family over
Thursday 24th - at work until 2.30 (amount of work pending) and then pubbage
Friday 25th - CHRISTMAS! Off until January!! YAY!

*checks* Nope. Amazingly... still not stressed. Aside from that little glitch yesterday, anyway.

Right, that's QUITE long enough. *stops rambling*

Current Mood: optimistic

Before I update about that, though, here's a random health update.

All of last week I was feeling horrendously tired and somewhat fuzzy-headed, with several separate incidents of miniature black-outs / almost collapsing. Thankfully most of these were at home, with only one that I can remember being at work. I was begining to wonder what was wrong, as it didn't seem to matter how much sleep I got and I was totally lacking in energy by the time I got home (Paul has done all the cooking this week). For a moment the tiredness was starting to feel horribly familiar and I attributed it to being stressed about Paul not having a job...

On Saturday I mentioned it to Lisa in passing, and she said that it might very well have been a bug. A weird bug, but a bug nonetheless. A couple of her work colleagues have had very similar symptoms, also without realising they were ill, and on Paul chatting to his mum later it turns out his brother, Darren, has had the same thing. He even went to his GP for testing to rule out something like diabetes (I was beginning to worry about that myself at one point last week) and it transpired to be nothing.

So, if anyone else starts to feel exceptionally tired (in my case I was just more tired than usual :P), woozy or fuzzy-headed, or feels like they're going to black out or something - don't worry, it's a bug. I have now probably given it to most of my office due to not realising I was ill, but it didn't warrant being off work... It also didn't help that last week we had nothing to do for most of Tuesday to Thursday, so the day dragged to a conclusion. In retrospect, I might as well not have been there. :P

I feel somewhat better this morning, though the fuzzy-headedness has come back. I don't feel as horrendously tired as last week, but that might just be because I'm on my own here today and there's plenty of work, as opposed to bugger all...

Oh, interesting thing for

803am to note, assuming she watched X-Factor this weekend: Paul's sister-in-law's nephew, Dominic, is through to boot camp again, and in the backstage section you can see Paul's brother (Darren), sister-in-law (Andrea) and nephew (Patrick), as well as Dom's brother (Blair) and his mum, whose name I've forgotten. It's incredibly odd seeing people you know in real life on television. ;) (I will find a YouTube clip later to screencap...)

Anyway, here's a proper update...

( Weekend. )

In the evening Paul went out to the Adam & Eve (and only had three drinks - very impressive) and I watched The Beach on Film Four, which would have been more enjoyable had Virgin Media not been made of FAIL. The image kept fritzing and halting every few seconds pretty much for the last hour of the film. Thank anything, we don't pay for Film Four any more (though I preferred it that way - at least we didn't have ad breaks), but Virgin have been rather consistently rubbish lately...

Oh, if anyone is interested, Persepolis is on tonight on Film Four at 9.00pm. They're also showing This is England at some point this week...

Right, I do believe that's everything.

Current Mood: pleased

I should have Fridays off more often. :)

Initially, I had booked Friday off in the event that my mum had some form of hen party / event / get-together. It was supposed to happen last week (because David's office people stag thing was happening on the 11th) but most of her office people were on holiday, and then it ended up being somewhat cancelled due to lack of interest. Booo, office people.

So instead, my mum popped over with my wedding outfit and wrist-corsage and fascinator, and Paul's button hole flower, and the traditional present-from-the-groom-to-the-bridesmaid to me from David, which is a lovely necklace and earrings set that matches the design of the jacket I'm wearing.

It then transpired that David had forgotten his keys so we drove to my mum's to let him in (arriving just as he was ambling down the road, luckily), and since everyone was too tired to go out again, we ordered in a selection of Thai starters / dim sum and gorged ourselves silly. Also plenty left for me and Paul to take home for our tea on Saturday.

We watched Derren Brown's first 'Event' programme ("How to Win the Lottery"), which was... really quite bizarre, and then a bit of the David Blaine "What is Magic?" show (I much prefer his street magic to his Crazy Endurance Stunts) and then got a taxi home.

Oh, yes, during the course of the day I got around to watching Order of the Phoenix, which was pleasant. ( I'm probably the only person left on the planet who hadn't seen it until now, but I'll cut for spoilers nonetheless... )

We then proceeded to go nowhere and do almost nothing all weekend. Bliss! I've FINALLY started up doing some embroidery again as I wasn't too knackered to attempt it, though unfortunately I may end up having to stitch photographs of it together rather than scans, as since installing the new printer there's no room to scan it on the frame, and I'm not taking it off the thing every time I want to scan it. We'll see how it goes; if photographs fail, I'll just have to scan the whole thing when it's finished instead, though that does rather destroy the point of the scans... we shall see.

In the evening we watched Hancock. ( Comments / Spoilers )

Sunday was very much of the same. The reason I should have Fridays off more often is that for the first time in ages I woke up on Sunday and didn't feel like crap, thus enabling me not only to cook Paul a proper full breakfast (literally the first time in absolutely ages) as well as my own (bacon and cream cheese on toasted bagel, yum), but tea later on. More of this, please, and less of the crippling headaches / stomach cramps, mmkay?

For tea on Sunday we had some burgers which my mum had picked up for us from Asda when they were on offer (£3.00 down to £1.00), with sun-dried tomatoes in them. OMG delicious. And there are two left. :D

Back at work today and it's somewhat quiet. Hopefully most people are now back off leave so it might pick up for the rest of the week. It's bad enough having to stay late Tuesdays, without having to endure the extra hour without any work to do...

Meh, I shall post this and flee. Will NOT have pasta for lunch, as I think three days in a row is rather excessive, even if it IS delicious from the new pasta place.

Current Mood: awake

Well, I intended to have a tidying blitz this weekend, but instead we ended up doing something a lot more pleasant. Lisa texted us both at about 9.45 or so to ask if we wanted to go to a place called Earlswood, as she'd found it on the map and it looked interesting, so that effectively forced me out of bed. I put some washing in (and subsequently out) before we left and we headed off at about 11.30am.

Earlswood is located near Solihull, as it turns out, about 20 minutes away from Kings Heath. There are two large lakes there (apparently man-made so the Victorians would have somewhere to go walking) and a craft centre including lots of little shops and a maze made out of maize. It is in fact the self-same Maize Maze I visited with my mum about six years ago, though obviously they've re-grown it since then...

We parked at a nearby pub (The Reservoir) and then followed a footpath which led to an uncrossable brook, so then wandered down the road for a bit until we reached the two lakes, following which we stumbled upon the footpath again. I have no idea how far we walked but may well post a Googlemaps image later just so you can see the scale. We look lots of pretty pictures of greenery and such, and were accosted by a very friendly dog along the way.

The footpath led conveniently to the craft centre, where we wandered around the shops for a bit. Paul and I came away with a cats-eye ring (for "wealth and abundance", apparently - it's too big to wear as a ring so I've threaded it onto a brown suede lace that came with some present or another, to wear as a necklace - he's going to wear it at his Kelly's session later... well, you never know), a happiness stone (it's heart-shaped; I liked the pattern), a celtic-style ring (for Paul) and some lavendar and aloe-vera soap. There was a shop selling thousands and thousands of beads, loads of interesting little shops - if I could get there by bus I would take

jackiesjottings there next time. ;)

After that we finished the circuit of the lakes and walked back to the pub for lunch. Very nice it was, too, though the drinks were horribly expensive. Then we drove back to the craft centre because Lisa wanted to buy some beads, and Paul and I attempted the Maize maze... You're supposed to exit it over the bridge, but by the time we'd found ourselves back at the entrance twice we gave up and went out that way. It's seven acres, apparently. I think we were in there a good hour or so.

Then we drove home and did nothing for the rest of the evening. A thoroughly pleasant day. There are photographs on Flickr, though for some reason it chose to upload them in the wrong order...

On Sunday we were fairly lazy, other than a trip to Aldi for tea stuff. We had half-planned to go to

herringprincess's barbecue but after the knackering Saturday eventually decided against it. And I totally forgot to text her and apologise, for which I suck.

Of the evening I got around to re-watching Rent, having listened to the soundtrack most of the way to London the other week. I think I had more to say but it fell out of my brain.

As anticipated this morning, now that Noor is back off leave, there is not enough work to sustain both of us, whereas last week I was drowning on my own. Typical.

( Follow-up to last (f'locked) post )

That's that. I need to tackle this long piece of dictation before lunch, so I'll post this and get on with it...

Current Mood: guilty

Okay, so on Thursday afternoon I had booked flex leave, which meant that I spent most of Thursday morning typing like the clappers to get the pile down to a manageable level, sending copious emails, hiding my stationery, etc.

I left work shortly before 1.00pm and went to get my hair cut, then went back via Wilkinson to pick up some bits, and some lunch from Greggs. The rest of the afternoon was spent doing various household stuff and dying my hair, which is now black again. :)

On Friday, we got up at 7.15 in order to catch a coach to London, arriving just after 12.20 and immediately tube-hopping to the O2, where we were going to see ( Gunther von Hagans' Bodyworlds Exhibition )

After that we had loads of time to kill so wandered around Soho for a bit (firstly getting lost - it all looks different in daylight!) to find the bistro we always go to. Lovely food, as ever. We had a couple of drinks in some pubs, and passed a liquor shop selling two rather exciting things: a bottle of Absolut vodka ensconced inside a red, besequinned jacket, advertised as "100% gay vodka!"; and, apparently, some fizzy vodka. Paul spotted this, though I didn't see it, however I made sure to inform Sharn at work this morning, who was suitably impressed. ;)

We also accidentally stumbld upon L'Escargot, Marco Pierre White's restaurant, down a back street in Soho. I literally double-taked and was like, "Is that the real L'Escargot?", and we wandered over to have a look at their prices. Surprisingly, they're no more expensive than some of the high-end of independent restaurants in Moseley...

Coach back was at 8.30 and I dozed off and on all the way back, which at least made the journey pass a bit quicker.

On Saturday I was knackered and slept in until around 11.00, before heading out to meet my mum and David to see We Will Rock You at the Hippodrome. ( OMG SO AMAZING )

In the evening we met up again to go out for a meal at La Fibule, which is where Paul and I went on Valentine's Day. It's quite pricey, but the food is absolutely amazing. For starters, Paul and my mum both had the three-cheese salad, David had... damn, can't remember, and I had the falafel, which was nice, if a bit dry. For mains, Paul had the king prawn skewers, David had the fish stew (which was a GIANT PILE OF SEAFOOD in sauce, amazing), mum had the Poulet Khaddra (which I had on Valentine's Day) and I tried the Tagine D'Agneu D'Asilah, which was lamb cooked in yoghurt, sage and mint. OMG so delicious. There was far too much, so alas I couldn't finish it, but it was so creamy and amazing. Wow. If it wasn't so expensive I would eat there more often.

It was baking hot in there, also, which given it's Moroccan makes for an authentic dining experience.

Sunday, thankfully, was lazy - I put washing out, watched EastEnders, had a shower, the usual.

Back at work this morning to find a note on my desk from Gaynor, apologising for the fact none of the work had been done in my absence (Noor is also on leave). Apparently one of the seniors in Central Team had decreed one particular fee earner's work to all be urgent, because they were holiday cover notes, thus effectively depriving us of one typist; another typist got lumbered with the three-taper off Lisa which was needed for Monday morning, which I had hoped to get done before leaving but had deprioritised to get through everything else, and after she'd finished that managd one other thing after lunch before swanning off at 3.30.

So this morning I had to do the 1.5-tape from Lisa (also needed for Monday, as above), plus the remainder of Thursday afternoon's work AND all of Friday's. By the time I left this afternon at 4.45, I had just caught up to the stuff from this morning.

I don't know why I bother trying to be organised. Meh.

Okay, that's enough for this entry. I should have done the WWRY review straight afterwards, but I was bloody knackered from all the rocking. \m/

Over and out.

Current Mood: thirsty

At the moment it feels like my creativity and productivity are being sapped from every direction by apathy and total exhaustion, which kind of sucks. Also, this weather = depressing. I'm moving to France. I'm pretty sure the shock of being able to get a train in the snow would wear off eventually. :P

We went to Matalan last night to get Paul some work stuff - shirts and trousers - and ended up spending £93. Admittedly, £15 of that was on a proper set of Cole & Mason salt / pepper grinders, as the ones we got from TK Maxx some time ago are rubbish, and I got two tops I probably shouldn't have done, but they are very funky - one is bright electric blue and asymmetrical (I'm very much loving the 1980s revival right now) and one is in shades of brown and orange, asymmetrical panels and Oriental-like. The rest was three shirts, two pairs of trousers (a bit too small so will have to go back - we didn't have time for Paul to try them on) and three ties, so really not too bad. I wasn't expecting to spend that much so it's gone on the credit card. Meh. So much for paying it off before Christmas. :(

Also at around 6.45 I found a voicemail on my phone from - AGAIN - the bank. The usual spiel of "We really do need to talk to you". I'm not even going to bother ringing them back. I've had two sodding account reviews in almost as many months - I had one in June and another one back in about April or May, and I know full well they're just going to call me in, sit me down, say everything's fine and then proceed to try and sell me a loan to pay off the credit card. If it's that desperate they'll ring me again at some point, and the last time I 'forgot' to ring them back it took about a month for them to try again. So, yes, it's clearly OMG SO IMPORTANT that they had to speak to me.

FFS, I didn't have this bloody trouble when I was a student. They didn't even bug me when I went over my overdraft. Now I'm in gainful employment they want to talk to me all the time. Just... bugger off, bank.

( Aforesaid Small Drama )

Anyway, hopefully all of that will blow over eventually...

It's still busy at work but I'm just not in the mood. I'm basically stuck in this endless cycle of grey, rainy days, trudging through the working week so I can enjoy the weekend purely because I don't have to get up early or go outside. :(

PS: The man just came to fit the part for our half-broken printer. Bear in mind it took a month to produce an invoice asking us to pay £25 before they could even order the part, which was the little pick-up roller on the paper tray which grabs onto the paper to feed it through. So. £25 to clip a small plastic device onto an axle. I'm in the wrong job. Seriously.

Current Mood: moody

Away Day yesterday was okay; not as bad as some years. We had a toxicologist come in to talk to us about hair strand testing and what its used for / how it works, which was interesting, and also one of the high up Judges gave a talk at the end about what the Court expects of the Local Authority and stuff, including (quite gratifyingly) correct spelling and grammar. :P

I did not win an award but was nominated along with three others. It's quite suspect that all of the people who won were part of the same team, i.e. the biggest one. Myself and a fellow nominated colleague later on decided we should have a ballot box / election format and force everyone to vote, just to make it fairer.

As usual, things overran - in the morning by 15 minutes, then by 20 minutes in the afternoon, despite cutting our lunch short to get back on time. Instead of going home I went back to the office to make a dent in the workload and didn't leave work until 6.00pm.

We went out for food, mostly because I was too knackered to cook and also because Paul has (a) a new job starting today (the one he was interviewed for on Tuesday) and (b) an interview for a proper job in Solihull next week. Obviously he would much prefer the proper job to the temp job, but it'll do for now. As a result of the tiredness I didn't even manage to stay up for Ugly Betty (stupid 10.00pm timeslot) and instead sloped off to bed to watch some more X-Files and gain glorious sleep. I'm still bloody tired today. Can't win either way.

Am meeting my mum after work for a Secret Purpose which I am not yet inclined to tell people about, and they're both also coming over on Saturday for a barbecue or a meal if rain calls it off, and so David can screw things to the walls for us.

Oh, in realising I forgot, I went back and added the answers to my lyrics meme entry. The only participant, and hence the winner, was obviously Eni. I generally try to avoid that pervading sense of "why-do-I-bother?", but sometimes it's a little hard to fend off. :(

This week has gone quite fast, but I'm losing the will to live today already. I had a nice-looking bacon and sausage turnover from the pasty shop for breakfast, but it was so horrendously salty I just couldn't finish it... and Pret have stopped doing their dangerously good chocolate popcorn... meh.

Current Mood: meh

There's not much to do here (again!) so be warned in advance that this will probably be long... again. Sorry, I seem to be in a particularly superfluous mood lately.

( MOAR SUNSET. Because, you know, there can never be too much Sunset. )

Yesterday afternoon I finally finished Chapter Three of the JC-fic, which is now officially titled "A Lot to Answer For". It needs going over again but at least it's done. Damn these characters who never talk to each other properly. :P I think I need to put together some kind of actual chapter plan for this story before it runs away of its own volition.

Might be a busy weekend - Paul is working Saturday and I have to go into Moseley to get a funky Mother's Day card, and then it's Paul's turn to cook the Mother's Day Lunch on Sunday. Must also get flowers to put on the table, tidy up so the place looks presentable - I mean, I'm sure they KNOW we're lazy slobs, but it's nice to keep up appearances (:P) - and figure out what to get as a present... which I should probably do tonight, actually. Hm, trip to the Pier, maybe.

I need to get my hair cut, but as I'm manning the typing on my own until April it's been quite difficult to get away early. Excellent for flex, obviously, but somewhat knackering.

Anyway. At some point I promise to write an entry which isn't about Sunset Boulevard or Jonathan Creek. Or X-Files for that matter. :P Fandom is infinitely more interesting than real life; go figure.

Current Mood: (just about...)

I am suffering from my third Lurgy Attack this winter, which has got to be something of a record. I normally get away with one full-blown cold and the occasional sniffle, so this is getting mildly ridiculous. I have no idea where it specifically came from - Paul and I met up with a lurgified

herringprincess on Saturday, and Lisa has had something as well - but I'm pretty sure the weather hasn't helped in the slightest, and nor have my grandmother's dogs. I think the same cold is getting passed around this winter and is mutating at every stage, coming back to re-infect people.

On Friday night we pretty much finished our Christmas shopping, with the exception of David's stuff, which I'm getting off Amazon hopefully tonight. He might have to get his on Sunday rather than Thursday, though, given their delivery times lately. (I'm hoping, as Paul is off tomorrow except for a couple of things in town, that if I ask for next-day delivery it'll actually turn up...) Halfway to Wagamama we were stopped by an Amnesty International man trying to make his quota of names for the night, who read us some poetry he'd written on the bus. It was quite good, actually. After Wagamama the walk to the bus stop was in driving wind and freezing rain, so I imagine that didn't help my health much either.

Saturday involved seeing an amateur production of Sweeney Todd with

herringprincess, which was hastily booked earlier in the week on a whim because there were a few tickets left for the matinee. Paul reckoned it was a rather ambitious venture for an amateur group, but they actually did really well. The two leads had good voices - actually, pretty much everyone did, though I thought Johanna could have been a little softer. I've had bits of the songs in my head all weekend as a result, though. I really need to get that movie soundtrack... or listen to the Broadway highlights CD some more. :)

On Sunday we trekked to Cradley Heath to visit my grandmother, which wasn't as bearable as last year's effort purely because I was simply not well enough to cope with her usual fawning. She relates the same nostalgia to me every single time I see her, to the point that now Paul knows the bloody stories by heart as well and I've reached the point where I'm not sure if I actually remember these things or I'm merely creating them from my imagination because I've heard them so often. It didn't help that one of her bloody stupid dogs absolutely hates me and barks obnxiously whenever I sneeze, cough, or blow my nose. Given I'm usually allergic to them and was sneezing anyway thanks to the cold, you can imagine the fun created there...

The food was nice, though, and my father didn't repeat his trick from last year of putting a card through the door and buggering off. My grandmother only mentioned him a couple of times, and the baby once. Apparently he (the baby) is now wearing leg braces. "Will he ever walk?" she asked me. GAH, I DON'T KNOW! I'm not a fount of all knowledge...

I was very glad to leave, especially seeing as she's coming to the concert on Sunday and will be annoyingly fawning at that, too...

I was off sick yesterday with this bloody cold, partially because I felt awful and partially so I didn't spread it around. Still had to go out to get my prescription, unfortunately, but it wasn't as cold as it had been at the weekend... I'm back in work again this morning but losing the will to live already. I actually felt okay this morning but - of course - felt awful halfway to work and now want to sleep. :( I might slope off at lunchtime...

Current Mood: (AGAIN!)

Quite busy this weekend. I was out most of Saturday due to rehearsal and concert, and then Paul went to a house party after the concert and didn't return until 5.00am...

The concert went okay, I think. The audience turn out wasn't quite as bad as expected, and apart from the tenor soloist coming in early a couple of times (we had to rehearse that bit about four times and it still didn't work) it actually sounded okay. Have to do it all again in two weeks' time in Bristol, but at least now the rehearsals are going to be Messiah and Christmas-focussed, which is always a joy. Now if the German Market would just bugger off I might be able to enjoy Christmas for once. (I've booked off 3rd December as my now-traditional Shopping Day, and this year I'm going to take the shopping trolley with me...)

As for the rest of Saturday: I walked back to the city centre with Paul and one of his friends, Sonja, as they were going off to Mara's birthday party together, and we parted ways at Pij. I was utterly soaked by the time I got home. On getting back I put washing to dry upstairs (this was at about 10.30) and then slobbed about online for a bit without really achieving anything except a Deep and Meaningful email conversation with Eni. I went to bed around 2.00am after another episode of X-Files (now at the end of season 2), until I couldn't keep my eyes open. These days I'm not very good at sleeping alone (I don't count Lisa being in as being not alone), especially in a creaky old house with neighbours who don't seem to sleep, so it's best if I just tire myself out before I attempt to sleep.

Anyway, as a result, I woke up purely by chance at 5.00am needing to cough, only to have Paul go "Hello?" at me in the dark, which was vaguely terrifying...

The other bizarre thing was another bloke called Paul who rang up wanting to speak to Lisa and ended up with me answering the phone. This occurred at 12.30am (yes, that's after midnight) so I was probably not exactly completely awake, and as a result when he introduced himself I thought it was someone at Mara's party taking the piss, having stolen my Paul's phone. Other Paul attempted to prove he was who he said he was with some nonsensical (to me, anyway) anecdote, and then it transpired I was not Lisa. I had no idea if she was in, but nevertheless, even if she was, I imagine she would be in bed at 12.30am anyway. After that I shut the living room door so as not to hear the phone (meh...) and ended up making myself some pasta at around the same time because I was hungry. It was a bit of a strange night, all told.

On Sunday, of course, we slept in. Went out to Sainsbury's to get breakfast stuff and then watched telly for a bit until going over to Paul's mum's for the Firework Extravaganza which didn't happen last week. We arrived first and tried to get the bonfire started, which lasted for a while but burnt the wood a little too quickly and kept going out, unfortunately. Still got some interesting picture of it, nonetheless. Darren and Andrea and kids arrived at about 6.00pm and we set off a few fireworks, though it all ended a bit suddenly due to some Familial Angst on their side. In any case, Paul and I stayed and the remaining four of us set off what was left of the fireworks. This involved a lot of ducking and covering because the damn things kept dropping to earth practically on top of our heads: either the wooden stalks of the rockets or the orange plastic tops, which promptly hit the roof and shattered everywhere. Oh, and then there was the rocket which failed to take off, rose three inches in the air and then landed in the garden before exploding, which was... well, perhaps 'exciting' is the wrong word, but by that point everyone was a bit drunk and found it vaguely hilarious in an almost-losing-an-eye way...

We ended the night watching the start of I'm A Celebrity... before heading home and going straight to bed. I'll upload the photographs later, though most of them aren't very good. I think I need to go to a professional firework display one of these days to test out the firework function better, as my timing was basically crap. Pretty fire photos, though...

Thankfully, it's a quiet one next weekend, though it's going to get considerably busier as Christmas approaches. I'll just be glad when the second Beethoven concert is out of the way. I mean, it sounded frelling amazing, but my word, it's tiring to sing. We get to sit down for a bit after the "Credo" section, but that section is about 15 minutes long, mostly in the upper range of the voice and incredibly fast... absolutely mad. Beethoven was a sadist, clearly.

Oh, and I forgot to mention Adrian's amusing comment to inspire the tenors:

"When you're singing this, imagine Beethoven going ' I vill write zis part for ze tenors and keeeel zem!'..."

Dunno if it worked, but just about summed up the piece in general, really. :D

As ever, I didn't intend this to be so long... can't be bothered to cut, though, sorry. :P

Current Mood: satisfied

I'm so glad I decided to book the rest of this week off instead of just Thursday and Friday. The thought of having to go into work for the first three days was filling me with exhausted dread, and I spent the majority of last week feeling deathly tired.

I was vaguely productive yesterday. Went out for some bits of shopping and to get picture frames and interfacing (going to attempt to make curtain tie-backs this week at some point), and have to go out today to get more. I got three picture frames - needed four - and two rings for the end of the tie backs - need four of those, too. :P Temporary brain freeze. Anyway, I framed and put up three of the prints - some I bought from that "Earth from the Air" thing when it was still around, so they're YEARS old - and that was about it.

On Sunday my mum and David took us to Stratford for the day. The weather was absolutely amazing, considering what we've had so far. Warm enough to walk around in just a t-shirt! We didn't do very much there and also forgot to bring a camera, but did manage to get some Christmas presents in Past Times, since the one in Birmingham has closed down. We had lunch in Cox's Yard, a pub on the river, and most of the day was just spent wandering around the shops. Quite pleasant.

The rest of this week is alternatively quiet and tiring. Tonight I have choir (not too tired at long bloody last) and then tomorrow we're going to visit Tor and the new baby, Thursday and Friday Paul and I are both off. Meal at Cafe Rouge on Thursday night and then nothing on Friday, I think, and going to see Sound of Music on Saturday with a meeting with Eni beforehand. Sunday = sleep, as the last train back from London doesn't get back until midnight.

Now that's done, I shall go and watch some Housewife Telly. I need my Jeremy Kyle fix. :P

Current Mood: relieved

We popped down to visit Paul's mum yesterday, as it had been a while, and also because the weather had finally cleared up enough to go and get the bike. So, off we went, equipped with a bicycle pump.

Quite a pleasant afternoon. We watched telly (including X-Factor and nattered a bit about films we'd seen, and then left around 8.30. Unfortunately, one of the cats, Tricksy, came to sit next to me and my right eye flared up horribly, despite taking antihistamines before leaving (for once). I suspect the cold tablets I'd also taken dampened the effects or something. It's even still swollen a little this morning; I look like I've been punched in the face. :(

I rode the bike back from the top of Vicarage Road (not up Fordhouse Lane because it was a hill) and despite an incident of the chain falling off when I dropped into first gear (meh), it wasn't too painful. About three-quarters of a mile, I think it was. My legs felt a bit wobbly afterwards, but a bath fixed that right up. This morning I feel okay except for my arse, which feels a bit bruised from the seat. Afterwards I was hyper and full of adrenaline, but it's been a while since I did any proper exercise.

My plan is (after I put the chain back, as it fell off a second time halfway down our road) to try and go out on it for about half an hour every couple of days until I get back into the flow of it, and then as often as possible, with some trips out at weekends to the park or something. When me and

herringprincess start swimming again I will probably even try and cycle to swimming. :)

It's just annoying the summer has been a complete write-off, or I could have started cycling about a month ago.

Current Mood: pleased
Current Music: Title Theme from Dracula (from X-Themes collection)

Hangover + being at work = OW.

We went out last night for my mum's birthday. Generally a very pleasant evening, with the downside of the weather conspiring against me just for kicks. I decided to get the 1 from Moseley because we were meeting at the Figure of Eight on Broad Street, except the first bus which came along was a 1E, which only goes as far as Five Ways, so I had to walk from there. The exact moment I stepped off the bus, the heavens opened. I did consider standing in the underpass until it stopped, but I'd already got mostly soaked trying to get my bearings from the bus stop, so I just risked it. Whilst waiting to cross the road, a man in a car decided, because I must have looked so amusingly like a drowned rat, that waving at me in an obnoxious, "I'm in a car and dry, haha" fashion was hilariously funny and witty. If my hands hadn't been full, he would have received a less than kind gesture in return. Honestly, why are some drivers such complete bastards?

Anyway, we were going to go to Jimmy Spices, but instead went over the road to Foggs: Around the World in 80 Dishes, which turned out to sound more exotic than it actually was. It was pretty much exactly like Jimmy Spices: a buffet format with the focus on Indian / Chinese food and some vague attempt at Italian with some lasagne and pasta salads, although the food itself was a lot nicer than Jimmy's, I thought - not as overwhelmingly spicy and better choice for the starters. It took three attempts and four different servers to actually get our drinks brought to the table, though, and said drinks were quite expensive (£16.95 for a bottle of rosé, with a grand total of two to choose from, no less).

Afterwards we went back to the Figure of Eight for more drinks and random conversation, and then home. The wine finished me off... I think I fell asleep quite quickly, but woke up at 4.00am, dehydrated and too hot, so had to open the window despite the rain.

It's not a particularly bad hangover, but I'd still rather be in bed. :P I've been feeding it coffee, water and cocodamol in an effort to fight it off.

(Two hours later: feeling much better, though hungry. Nearly lunchtime, hurrah.)

Oh, and at the weekend I watched far too many films: most of Chaplin and then The Mummy on ITV1 on Saturday (they're showing The Mummy Returns this week) and Pirates 2 and 3 on Sunday evening, with a break in the middle to cook dinner. ;) I really like the third film, actually, despite the plotdump...

Tonight's chores to-do list, which nobody is interested in, but otherwise I'll forget:

~ put clean towels away
~ put in black load (the bad weather has made me very disinclined to do laundry)
~ tidy living room
~ do washing up
~ tidy bedroom.

In no particular order.

Right. Will post, and then carry on doing work.

Current Mood: hungry

See subject. Meh.

I had an early night last night and appear to have had too much sleep instead of too little, as I'm exhausted... Although, having said that, because I've been on my own at work this week (both Sandra and Noor are off) I've been doing full days every day instead of being able to leave early on Mondays and Wednesday as usual. Thankfully it hasn't been too insanely busy (no panic dictation) but I suppose the full days may account for the tiredness.

I've had some coffee and now I'm all jittery. I attribute this to the fact I've been trying to cut down on morning coffee and now my body is all OMGYAYCAFFEINE! Oddly, I feel kind of... drunk. The combination of half-asleepness and too-quick coffee consumption. I can remember feeling like this on the Mocha Crawl of Ultimate Random in Manchester with Eni allll that time ago, but that was after about three mochas... Hrm.

REALLY strange dream this morning (filtered post), vaguely Phantom-related. I've been re-reading the original novel, so I suppose it's at least vaguely sensible...

I phoned Centro about my travelcard yesterday. Both times this has happened they have failed to offer an apology, merely a confirmation that they haven't sent it... which I would have thought was blatantly obvious, but anyway. At least this time the woman on the phone offered to send it first class, rather than saying it would either be with me in a week or I'd have to go and pick it up... Hopefully it should turn up tomorrow. I also cancelled it whilst I was on the phone so will get this month's payment refunded (I think), and I need to get some photos done this weekend to apply for a normal bus pass again. (Note to self: check pricing online.)

Thank anything, we have a quiet weekend. I'm vaguely hoping for some half-decent weather so I can put some washing out (bed linen, specifically), but given the miserable weather this week, I doubt it will happen. Typical British summer: one week of sweltering heat, then the Weather Gods realise their mistake and dump buckets of water on us. :( And not even any thunder to make it interesting, either.

It's my mum's birthday on Monday. I've got her something from Pier already but will have a look down Poplar Road on Saturday to see what else I can find. We're going to Jimmy Spices on Monday evening for a meal, which should be nice...

Anyway. Best sign this one off...

Current Mood: jittery

Another fairly sociable weekend, which seemed to invole an awful lot of films... I have rambled an awful lot in this one, so I've cut where appropriate.

I don't think I've updated in a while, so: on Thursday I made a seafood risotto using a recipe I got online by Jamie Oliver, which was actually as easy as he said it was. I decided to cook the prawns, salmon and scallops separately in a frying pan so as not to confuse things, which meant the risotto was as stodgy as a brick. Also, the recipe called for an amount of grated parmesan, but as our parmesan is powdered (it's generic 'Italian hard cheese' from Asda, in a plastic box) it ended up being ridiculously cheesy... Nevertheless, despite the fact you could build a house with it and my pans SUCK, it was actually very tasty.

Friday night was quite sedate for me, although Paul went out for drinks after work, came home (we had some more of the risotto and I still had to throw a little bit away - I think I'll halve the recipe next time...), and then went out again. I wasn't best pleased about this because I basically saw him (sober) for all of twenty minutes, but I did get the PC to myself for the evening. :P I had a play around on DOSBox and managed to get Simon the Sorcerer to work from the CD, though I am failing to get the Puzzle Pack to work because it was designed for Win 95/98 and will not install on XP or Vista, but is too advanced for DOSBox. (Although I think it might work with the SCUMMvm emulator, will have to investigate...) Got quite a way through it by remembering what I did last time but am now at a dead end again.

Paul rang me up at quarter to midnight to say he was waiting for a taxi, after which he talked bollocks at me for a while. Came home utterly plastered and hence broke his promise. :P

Saturday, we got up earlyish and went for brekkie at Wetherspoons, pottered around the house for a bit and then left for my mum's. I aimed to get there for 2.30 but hadn't banked on Hagley Road traffic (going through town is probably still bloody quicker than waiting for the 11 to turn up) and got there around 2.45. David was playing a Queen DVD and seemed to have convinced himself that Queen (circa 1985) were influenced by the Phantom movie (2004). Er, no, David. ;) Freddie was already dead by the time the movie was made, although I'm pretty sure the original musical and Queen influenced each other back and forth, judging by some of the videos...

( Random Phantom-esque theory... )

Aaanyway, at around 3.45 we headed off for the Barbecue of Doom at Quinton Church. The horrible thought did occur that my grandmother might have invited my father and not told anyone as a 'well-meaning' surprise, but then I remembered that even if she had, he would only have refused and/or had a strop when she didn't want him to bring Annabelle... So obviously, he wasn't there, thank anything. Nevertheless, the BBQ wasn't as bad as I think my mother was anticipating. The food was good (if cold, to David's chagrin) and there were some sane people at our table, not too many screaming children, and the weather was okay (at least it didn't rain...) We won a pack of playing cards in the raffle as by the time our number was drawn, the good prizes had gone. It was either cards or a set of golf tees. ;)

Back at my mum's, we spent a good hour or so arguing over what DVD to watch, before eventually settling on 300. ( STABBITY! )

After that we argued a bit more over what to watch next, despite it being midnight and everyone being tired. My mum, Paul and I all agreed on Harvey, which David then denied they even had, despite Paul suggesting it because it was on the rack. Meh. In the end we watched the beginning of Eddie Izzard's Glorious but gave up at around 12.30 and went to bed. David also wanted to watch the first 10 minutes (the opening sequence, basically) of the POTO movie, which prompted Paul to want to see the rest of it... I grudgingly agreed we could watch it on Sunday. ;)

In the morning, my mum cooked us breakfast and we went through the pile of car-bootable DVDs in the office, taking home a bagful, and there's also a pile in the living room of stuff I want copying... I forget now what we picked up, but I do now have a full set of Pirates DVDs, including the "lost disc" version of the first one.

Does anyone want a copy of the 2-disc Special Edition of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (that's the first one)? Because I now have two. I'm not sure if Lisa ever bought herself a copy, though, so will ask her as well. It's free, as ever, to a good home.

I've also borrowed a selection of DS games (Tetris, Brain Training, 42-games-in-one, and Barnyard on GB Advance) from my mum, as I'm bored of Pirates 2 and Monkey Ball. ;) Had a go at Tetris and Barnyard last night, but at least I have some entertainment for a bit. :)

On the way home we stopped at the cinema to see WALL-E. ( Review / Spoilers )

Sorry, I went on a bit, there. I was very impressed with this one. I need to make a list of stuff to see over the coming weeks, though. X-Files is out on 1 August and I also want to see The Mist and Hancock and Dark Knight - hopefully at IMAX if it's not too expensive... Also Mamma Mia. ABBA FTW, and Meryl Streep makes everything she's in brilliant. ;)

The rest of Sunday was relaxed. 'Stenders of the afternoon, and we did watch POTO of the evening. I think my hatred of the majority of it has mellowed since its release (this was only the second time I've seen it, for that reason) and whilst the same things still irk me (casting, majoritarily, and the fact that they moved the chandelier incident to somewhere completely different, for no apparent reason) I will admit that the visuals are mostly stunning. I already reviewed it the first time and mostly my opinions haven't changed. ;) You can find it in my December 04 backposts if you're desperate. :P But as a result I started to re-read the original novel, so yay. We got halfway through the insanely long documentary on the second disc before giving up at midnight, so will watch the rest of that tonight. Phantom documentaries never get old, even when they regurgitate information. The origins fascinate me.

And that, finally, is that. I apologise for the longness. Must remember to update more often, or actually do stuff in smaller batches. ;)

Current Mood: impressed

And also not quite as insanely busy as anticipated...

On Friday night, Paul went out to see a gig at the Station. Around 9.30 he texted to say he was going back to Richie's afterwards, and I killed time by finding Day of the Tentacle to try out on DOSBox. I can't remember what time I went to bed, but in any event woke up at 2.30am to find him still not back. And, being somewhat half-awake, phoned him up and demanded he come home because I hadn't anticipated him staying out quite so late. Which resulted in a less than pleasant discussion a few minutes later, obviously, and some awkwardness the next morning as well, but at least the air had cleared by the afternoon.

Of the evening Paul was supposed to be going to a house party in Stoke, which was apparently meant to have a barbecue, except I suspect the rain called off play. He didn't go in the end, as it transpired, due to toothache. Also, I'd put some washing out to try in the frankly glorious weather that morning, only to have to rush it back inside when the heavens opened three hours later. *shakes fist* Curse you, weather god!

last_dance came over that evening (by bike, which was incredibly impressive), whereupon I fed her bolognese and we watched Sweeney Todd, followed by The Never-Ending Story II, as Naomi had also come along so I could return her copy of the novel, having borrowed it about four years ago... Paul joined us for the second film and wow. SO CONFUSING. It's like they took a few random elements of the book and attempted to force a plot out of them. Plus they missed out my favourite bit about the 'Many-Coloured Death' and when Bastian wishes himself to be King of the Night Forest, which I felt was a bit of a cop-out because I was looking forward to seeing how it translated to film. Meh.

It was very odd, though. We couldn't make any sense at all of what was happening. Yes - three reasonably intelligent adults failed to decipher a children's film.

Sunday was mostly sedate, with the afternoon taken up with a surprise party for Paul's brother Darren, who has recently achieved his Doctorate. So that was quite nice. Afterwards Paul and I decamped to his mum's house for a bit, half-watching the A Bit of Fry & Laurie marathon that Noel had already started, before getting a taxi back around 11.00, and then ordering in a take-away.

Unfortunately, thanks to a combination of buffet food, the two smoothies I had and the two bottles of flavoured perry, my IBS has returned with a vengeance today. I haven't had proper fibre intake for a few days, too, so the 'diet' must start properly again this week. I'm going to have the bike off Paul's mum but need to get a bicycle pump before I can ride it, so need to pop down there one of the days to bring it home. We were going to take it last night but didn't think it would fit in the taxi...

Anyway. I'm feeding my stomach probiotic yoghurt and dried cranberries in the hope of flusing the badness out. Yay.

PS: Now that I have a functional PC / DVD drive again, I need to make some Tim Burton-themed icons. Ohyes.

Current Mood: okay

Okay, so the weather today has been nothing short of lovely, which was very much appreciated. Subsequently, the kitchen window has been open all day. Just before sitting down to get on the 'puter, I got Paul to shut said window and happened to be gazing around the kitchen.

Only to find, sitting on the wall over the cooker, a daddylonglegs.

GAH.

For Christ's sake, it's not even summer yet! Why are the bugs out? And why do they always pick my living space to invade? GAH.

I now have insect-paranoia. It might be dead, but I've shut the kitchen door nonetheless....

Aside from that portion of horribleness, today's been mostly sedate. I got up this morning to go down to the post depot to pick up my perfume from ebay (note to self: leave feedback for seller), but having woken up with a headache I was a little out of sorts until at least 3.00pm. I got halfway to the depot before realising I needed to draw money out to pay the customs charge, so had to walk back again, and then forgot to get Paul's cigarettes when I was in Sainsbury's later.

So, haven't really done very much. Listened to music and done my puzzle book and put up a new washing line and that's it.

Last night we were at Paul's niece (Jade's) 16th birthday party at some random working men's club in Stirchley - or at least the function room upstairs. Her parents spared no expense (apparently it cost just under a grand!) and the whole affair was very impressive, if a little depressing... I mean, we were in the Old Fogies corner all night, surrounded by nubile young things with boundless energy, whilst I could barely keep my eyes open and just watching them was exhausting. I can still remember my 16th birthday party. It was a Hallowe'en party and had four guests, only two of whom stayed overnight. I didn't have that many friends.

Also met Paul's dad, which was an interesting experience given everything he's told me about him.

So, aside from feeling frelling ancient all night, I was also reminded of my own teenage years and how vastly different they were. My own life, in fact. I can hardly begrudge a 16-year-old when I was that age 10 years ago (meh...) but still, you know... kind of difficult to avoid comparing.

Also, if that's what 16-year-olds are wearing these days, it's no wonder half of them are pregnant. Jesus.

There were a couple of random amusements, though: Patrick (nephew) having a power nap for all of ten minutes before suddenly finding energy from somewhere again, and Paul deciding to inhale helium. Which really shouldn't have been so funny, but totally was. :)

Today we were hoping to catch Grindhouse at the Electric (which has finally redeemed itself for that reason) except because we only found out about it yesterday, naturally it was all sold out. There is apparently a showing at the Odeon on a Tuesday in May, which obviously rules itself out because of choir commitments, or it'll be on at stupid o'clock in the afternoon when most people have to work (these things always are, I find). Pretty annoying that we have to wait for a tour to see the films as they were intended thanks to a bunch of dumb Americans, but apparently there's going to be a 6-DVD set when it's released. It's especially annoying because I wouldn't ordinarily see either of the films individually and only want to see it because of the double-bill concept and the fake trailers, so, yeah - thanks, USA, for ruining that for us. You suck big donkey balls.

Anyway, this was meant to be a short entry. I am overly cranky thanks to suffering with a headache all day. I shall now sign this off.

Current Mood: cranky

My long Easter leave officially begins today, and so far I have done blissful nothing except go out for toilet roll, eat breakfast and read fic. Ahhh. This is the life.

Yesterday was a long day. We had to leave for London at 8.00 and it was probably just as well we did as it took over three hours to get to the O2 arena thanks to traffic because of the high winds, road closures and works on the motorway. I'm not enirely sure how the O2 arena (nee Millennium Dome) is meant to inspire awe, as I still think it's an ugly blot on the landscape, but at least now it's being used for something rather than just sitting there. Y'know, it was kind of hard for us Great British public to be proud of something completely useless. Anyway, we got there with an hour and a half to spare before entering the exhibition, so decided to have a drink. We went to 'ha ha' (bar and grill place) where they sat us down to take our drinks orders rather than letting us order them at the bar. I ordered a smoothie so it took them 15 minutes to bring the drinks...

We had decided to try and eat before going into the exhibition, hence getting there earlier than we needed, but considering how slow the service was, we decided to wait until afterwards. After the first round of drinks we moved to the Newt and Cucumber a little further down 'Entertainment Avenue' (a little Disney, perhaps, O2?) where there was apparently going to be another 15 minute wait on food (which was also horrendously expensive, as was everywhere else), so we just had another drink in there. I tried a new Apple and Blueberry J2O, which was quite nice.

The 'avenue' bit of the arena was really cold, also, but at least the bars and restaurants were heated, as was the exhibition itself. I was dreading the presence of a few school trips that were milling around, but luckily most of the kids there weren't too annoying. There were also no toilets for the duration of the 2-hour trek around the exhibition, and depsite going to loo in the pub not five minutes before going in, for the last half-hour or so I was absolutely bursting, which somewhat ruined my enjoyment of it. It's a tad difficult to concentrate or hold your interest in history, even if it's history you're actually really interested in, if you're trying not to wet yourself - and I have exceptional bladder control, so that's how bad it was. That was a little annoying.

The exhibition itself was good. SO MANY PEOPLE, but luckily the information on the exhibits was repeated inside the cases and on all four sides of them, so you could at least read about stuff even if you couldn't see it straight away. There were some pretty amazing artefacts in there. ( Spoilers in case anyone else is going to see it )

After that we went back to the car and headed home again, getting stuck in yet more traffic and motorway works and finally getting back to Kings Heath at around 7.45pm. We had tea in the Red Lion (local Ember Inns pub) - so much for the nice lunch in London, also, though it would have been horrendously expensive - and then home.

Next week I will make a start on my list of chores for this period of leave. It's not all relaxing and fun, you know...

clean cupboard under sink (again)
clean corner cupboard
find somewhere to put board games
sort through boxes in attic
possibly move furniture

That'll do. All this is assuming my back doesn't play merry hell with me as usual, as it's taken until today to calm down since flaring up on Sunday... STUPID BODY.

Current Mood: blah

Apart from the Hangover of Doom, the weekend was mostly sedate - or possibly because of the Hangover of Doom...

On Friday night we went to see Paul's mum and brother as it was Noel's birthday, which was quite pleasant. (I had a bottle of Bulmer's Pear Cider, which was okay, but not as good as Weston's...) We came home with a bin liner full of various board games (including some of Paul's geeky war games) so we now at least have Monopoly, which is always good for killing a day or so. ;) Just need to fix the base of the sideboard so there's somewhere to keep them.

We got a taxi back and then walked up to the chippy (thankfully the best, nearest and earliest-closing one, Oceanna, was still open) to get tea, and watched the end of the usual Friday night television fare: Law of the Playground and the repeat of Big Bang Theory.

Saturday was... well, as described, really.

The rest of Sunday involved watching Clueless on E4, as I'd never seen it before. I realise this means I am a wholly unsuitably teenager of the nineties, but anyway, I have now seen it, so all is well.

I was supposed to make an Easter cake for work on Sunday but that plan was effectively thwarted by DYING for the majority of the day. I will make one during my time off and bring it to work after the Bank Holiday, which would make a little more sense, to be honest...

I am very busy for the next few weeks: Alison and I are (hopefully) going swimming on Wednesday instead so I may try and get some more hours in tonight as I need to build flex for next week. Tomorrow Paul is meeting me after choir so we can go to my mum's and stay the night in preparation for driving to London for the Tutankhaum exhibition - as we are there reasonably early I'm hoping I'll get back in time for swimming as it's not until 8.00 at Cocks Moors Wood. *crosses fingers*

Then it's Easter, and I have several chores lined up for my two weeks off... I wanted to start decorating, but will at least maybe try and move some furniture instead so we can put the PC in the bedroom and make a start on our 'book corner' on the landing.

Then I'm back at work on 26th March for three days, leaving early on 31st to go to Derby to see Derren Brown, then on 7th April I'm at a wedding, and then it's our anniversary on 16th April, and then I'm free until August. ;) There are also several birthdays in the midst of this, including Paul's niece's 16th on 1st April.

I can has money?

(Oh, and Goldfish refused me a credit card, but will charge me £2.00 if I want to know why. I'm fairly sure I fit all the criteria on their website, so God only knows why. I'll have to try a different one, I suppose. Bit of an arse, because I wanted to get a new camera and my holiday with Vicky is in January and I currently have no way of paying for it. Although hopefully her dad will just accept a cheque at the time like before, which would make things slightly easier...)

AND, this morning I found the mysterious leak. It's on the landing right outside the bedroom door... I put a bowl under it but from the looks of things that may not be enough. We have a LOT to ~~moan at~~ inform Trevor about... (The light pull fitting in the bathroom is also coming away from the ceiling...)

Anyway, that's that. I shall type this document and then go on lunch.

Current Mood: busy

I hope any mothers on my f-list (I can't think of many...) had a nice Mother's Day yesterday. :) And for the rest of you, I hope you made your mothers feel loved and appreciated. :)

Sunday was nice. In the early afternoon we helped Jenny fold napkins for her wedding in April, which didn't take as long as expected. Paul and I did the folding whilst Jen and Lisa did the ribbon-tying. I procured a box from the attic to put them in and managed to cut my hand with the scissors in the process of taping it back together. Cue big eye roll, but at least it wasn't a deep cut.

Later that evening our mothers came around and I cooked them the dish I made Paul for Valentine's Day, which seemed to go down well. As anticipated, there was loads of it left. Also did some garlic bread for a starter. And had to swap the gorgonzola for brie at the last minute because I forgot David doesn't like any blue cheese... We bought some cream to provide a dessert (with the mounds of fruit in the fridge) but the pasta was clearly too filling. ;)

A nice evening, anyway.

Here is the recipe for the pasta dish, as far as I can remember it. This will serve 4-6 people depending on appetite and hunger. ;)

( Chicken, Mushroom and Gorgonzola Pasta )

I can assure you that it tastes exactly as good as it sounds. ;) Also suitable for veggies if chicken is substituted for that Quorn fake-chicken stuff, I imagine.

Current Mood: peaceful

So, yeah, last night was interesting, to say the least...

As ever, things gang up on me and then one other unrelated thing kicks me over the edge. End result: I take it out on Paul, which was horribly unfair given his own circumstances right now, and yeah. I am an emotional retard and should just... STFU, or something. Not over-react. Whatever. Just be glad I wasn't online last night or there would be an entry consisting of my brain's diarrhoea. I was so tired afterwards I didn't even pick up my diary either, but to be honest I'd already spent most of my useful emotion into bawling like a small child, so it wouldn't have been any more coherent.

ANYWAY. I'll be glad when things blow over and we can carry on as normal. Stop being rubbish, 2008. I warned you once already. *shakey fist*

As a result, I am tired today and looking forward to Kiwi's drinks a lot less than I should be... which is a shame, but hopefully we won't be out for too long. I seem to be regaining some semblance of enjoyment for things I should be enjoying, rather than cold dread, which bodes well for actually enjoying them when they roll around, instead of sitting there feeling nothing at all. Despite bemoaning last night that I am still partially crazy and it keeps rolling around every now and then to remind me of that fact, things are so much better than they were. I was starting to reach a point of being positively hermit-like, but yeah, actually, people aren't that bad. Not really. They're just hard work sometimes, and mostly I don't have the patience or inclination or whatever to make the effort required. I'm trying. I'm getting better. If the crazy could just leave me alone, it would really make things easier. Also, if the bloody paranoia could just bugger off now, that would be nice.

On the other side of things, at least David has a job now, starting on 3rd March, so less for my mum to worry about and hence less for me to worry about, too. (Aside from his daughter's issues, but that's a different water-boiling article of piscine things).

Team meeting earlier was unproductive, but at least we now know about the PLO stuff, which is good as we will inevitably end up typing things for it. At least there were no arguments this time. I am very hungry and will go on lunch in half an hour. Yes. Today is a tuna baguette day, I think.

Current Mood: tired

I've been offline for the Christmas period due to the computer being an absolute arse all weekend, so we turned it off at the wall for a couple of days... Seemed to be fine yesterday. Obviously The Beast wanted a break, too.

So, a lowdown:

( Friday )

( Saturday )

( Sunday )

( Christmas Eve )

( Christmas Day )

And finally, yesterday was lazy and fun. I've watched far too much Eastenders than is good for me (by the way, BBC? Stop forgetting to put Friday's instalment on Replay, 'kay? Thx.) purely because Christmas = East End Angst, not to mention a hideous amount of Disney / Pixar movies (Finding Nemo on Christmas Day, plus Home on the Range and Monsters Inc. yesterday...)

So, all the stress was kind of worth it, as was getting everything done a day early so Christmas Eve wasn't a similar stress-fest like last year.

I am in work today, but off tomorrow, thankfully. We going to my mum's for dinner tomorrow, as there wasn't time to organise it before Christmas.

Ah well. It's all over for another year.

Current Mood: cheerful

The past two days were most enjoyable...

On Saturday we did very little indeed except go out to the pub for dinner (mostly because it was such a nice day), ending up a little bit further afield than usual at the Kings Arms (I think), a local Amber Inn pub. I had a chicken madras with a side of potato and spinach, and Paul had a sort of mushroomy peppercorn sauce thing which was apparently very nice...

Then Paul headed off to

shabe's birthday / house-warming party and I went home to mess about online for a bit.

I've done a bit of work on my newest Phantom fic, entitled "Whisper" and based on Katie Melua's I Cried For You. I'm currently writing two bits of it at the same time, though not intentionally. I started it somewhat in the middle and then decided to go from the beginning, so hopefully at some point the two bits will meet up... So far, quite pretentious. A beta (or at least a read-through) would be much appreciated just to see if any of it makes sense.

Yesterday was also lovely. We went to my mum's in a taxi, whereupon we had an impromptu barbecue. When the sun was out it was very warm, but the wind was blooy freezing. We battled it nonetheless and the food was very nice indeed.

David had bought mum a mini chocolate fountain so we tried to use that outside... and soon gave up when the chocolate ended up over most of the garden because of the gale. So that was amusing.

David then invited over Blanche and Chloe from next door to help us finish off the chocolate. Apparently David has befriended our previous neighbours-from-Hell as 'damage limitation' - it's Blanche's other, older daughter (Kim) and Kim's brats (Shannon and Courtney - chavalicious!) who are the problem, as they're over there constantly despite having somewhere to live of their own. Hence, David's plan is to try and get Blanche on our side so she can maybe stand up to Kim and make her bugger off to her own home.

In nine years of living at that house, it's the first time Blanche has set foot inside the front door, which I hadn't even realised... She is the self-confessed "neighbour from 'Ell from next doower" (you try and phonetically spell Yammish and see how far you get. :P) but seems to be otherwise pleasant.

Going 'home' always reminds me how much I love the accent. There's something quite comforting about it, something more lilting than Brummie.

Anyway. David got slightly drunk and decided to pay our taxi fare home (he gave the driver moer than enough to cover it, apparently) and I am slightly hungover this morning but at least I can leave early and things haven't been too annoying.

We're going to see Cats on Wednesday night, so that'll be nice... if only because these days, "Jellicle Cats" doesn't make me want to throw myself under a bus. The UK tour ain't London, but it's better than never seeing it again...

Current Mood: content

At least the weekend was nice.

On Friday, Paul and I went to Tori's for drinking and conversation, which was pleasant. We got sat on by their Staffs. terrier, Stella, ignored by their cat, and drank far too much wine. As a result, I have discovered that Paul Masson wine makes me incredibly hungover, which is a shame, because it's nice.

In the afternoon, I'd met him in Pij before heading back to his house, where we thoroughly confused the cashier in HMV by trying to swap an unwanted item for three wanted items that came to 2p less...

On Saturday we went into town and spent most of the afternoon in the Yard of Ale, playing - as usual - on their ItBox. I think we got more games out of it than our money's worth, though. The theory is if we play the damneded thing long enough, we'll learn the answers to all of the questions.

After that we... went to the cinema, I think, but the only thing vaguely worth watching at the Odeon (the two decent cinemas being bloody miles away, obviously) was Scary Movie 4, and that didn't start for 20 minutes, so we went to the Briar instead and played on their ItBox.

Back to mine after a detour to Tesco to get some more wine (we had a very alcoholic weekend), where we watched Constantine with my mum and David. Quite visually good, but you need a Hell of a lot of prior knowledge in theology to even begin to follow the plot...

Sunday, we all took my grandmother out for a birthday lunch (her birthday's actually today) at the Old House At Home (six meals for the price of three, woo!), where we had - you guessed it - another bottle of wine between us, and I had half a starter, a steak, and a dessert. Far too much food, but very nice anyway.

After that and after my grandmother and Robin had left, we played Scrabble and Mousetrap - the latter of which is far more entertaining when you're 5, apparently - and more Scrabble, whilst half-watching the Ricky Gervais episode of The Simpsons and knocking wine all over the carpet. I'm a clumsy drunk when I'm tired and full of food... I also suck horribly at Scrabble for the same reason, which is annoying considering I kicked Paul's arse at it last week.

We also failed to win the lottery for the 15th week in a row, or thereabouts...

And this morning? This morning, after my lovely week off work, I came in to find an enormous backlog, in addition to the new task I have to implement next week of chasing up the transfers from SHAO, and the board not done, even though Cynthia said she'd do it on Friday as I was off. Yeah, great. Also, I can't access my email because mail servers 01-05 are dead as a dodo, and, whilst I was leaving Vel and Natasha's office carrying a file, Sandra arrived and ploughed straight through me without even an 'excuse me', let alone a' good morning'.

Seriously, the sooner one of us leaves, the better. I'm sure Tina H is getting as sick of my moaning as I am.

Current Mood: busy

I realise of late that my journal is entirely comprising write-ups of increasingly similar weekends, but, well, I don't do anything. In which case, I apologise for the tedium.

And in true form, here's another one.

On Friday, Paul was meant to be seeing some old friends for drinks, so I stayed in and... didn't do very much, as I recall. I don't even remember what I did, but it probably involved sitting on my arse in front of the computer. Oh, that was it, I downloaded Luxor (because the online version consitently refuses to load) and played that, with a break in between to watch My Name Is Earl - which I really enjoyed, for some reason. The series has the potential to go on forever - assuming, that is, that it doesn't get axed in its prime, like all good American shows these days.

America - kindly stop being stupid, so the TV execs can stop cancelling all the intelligent shows. Thank you.*

Er, yes. Saturday morning, my mother and I traversed to West Bromwich to buy plumbing bits for the new sink, and various other things. I got some Nytol that I'll try tonight to see if it works. I'm currently stuffing myself full of various different pills and tablets... though admittedly, most of them are herbal. ( Possibly TMI. ) Nytol is also herbal so shouldn't do any damage to me. I love the instructions, though. "Overdose: No cases known. Users may become over-sedated." :D

Anyway, after that, we had lunch (egg mayonnaise + crispy bacon rolls... mmm) and settled down to watch The Corpse Bride, because my mum hadn't seen it and I was in a bad mood when i saw it at the cinema. We got interrupted twice by phone calls - both off David - but eventually watched the whole thing. I think I appreciated the prettiness a lot more this time around, at least. I'll watch the extras at another time. We were playing around with the stereo settings on David's DVD player and settled on "Hall", which makes it all echoey like you're in a concert hall. :D

After that we did our own thing for a bit, and I packed a bag to go to Paul's. This is when things started getting annoying.

He was in Moseley having drinks with Mike, Laura and some others, and I'd already said I didn't want to have a drink or go to the pub. Eventually I told him 'maybe' to shut him up. I phoned him just as I was about to leave the house (about 6.00ish) and he said he'd meet me in Moseley. I've only been to Moseley on my own on the bus about twice, and that was months ago, so I wasn't entirely enamoured with this prospect. First he said they'd all gone to O'Neill's for food and I didn't have a clue where that was and wasn't in the mood to try and find it, so I asked him just to go home so I'd meet him there - if only to save myself going into Birmingham and out again, since I could get off the 126 at Bearwood and get the 11, as normal.

No, he said he'd meet me in Moseley, mostly because he wanted to convince me to have drinks, even though I was adamant that when I got there I'd just drag his ass back to Stirchley anyway.

So, I got to town, got on the 50, and phoned him to say I was on the way. At which point, he tells me that he's in Kings bloody Heath and I should meet him at his house. Luckily enough, the 50 hadn't pulled off yet, so I got off it and headed off to the 35 stop on Corporation Street.

I got on a 47, as it transpired, and texted him to say so. He rang me when he got home and said that his mate Alex was also coming around for some reason (which I also wasn't pleased about, but that's neither here nor there) and I refused to tell him why I was annoyed over the phone.

I finally got there - running into Alex as he was leaving, luckily enough - and spent the next 15 minutes shouting at Paul. Which was probably slightly unfair, but I'd just been all the way into bloody Birmingham and back again for no reason, and after he'd refused to take up my suggestion of going home, he then did exactly that. Apparently, that was Alex's fault, as he'd phoned him while he was still in Moseley and made him go home. But nevertheless, I was cold and hungry and tired, and I needed to vent. Also, he was very slightly drunk, which didn't help matters.

After that, the weekend was far more pleasant. Saturday night was spent watching television. We moved the Freeview box upstairs to finish watching The 100 Greatest Actors (at least until no. 46) in bed.

Sunday was spent in a similarly laid back fashion, watching EastEnders (woo, the drama!). I got bored early in the evening, so we trekked off into town to go to the Yard of Ale to play their ItBox. Hex Factor is bloody brilliant, if frustrating, and the Ant & Dec game also seems to pay out well. We got more games out of it than our money's worth, anyway.

The original plan was to get food in town, but we spent so long gambling ~~our~~ my money away that we lost track of time. The minimarket on Pershore Road was shut (because it was Sunday, duh) so we had pork chops and cheesy mash for tea, at about 10.45 in the evening. Then we watched Scary Movie 3 on video, and went to bed.

Today was the usual level of tedious. Tomorrow night I will work on the application form, as well as asking Natasha if I can put her down as a reference, since it's a typist position and she'll be the best person to give a good reference for me - she's done it completely off her own bat before now when I first threatened to leave/when they were threatening to get rid of the temps, so I'm sure she'll be glad to. Plus Tina H, of course, who is currently off sick so I'll have to drop her an email to warn her, again, that someone might be phoning/writing for a reference.

On Wednesday we're staying at Paul's brother's house, as they're on holiday for two weeks, so that'll be nice.

This ended up rather longer than I intended. I think I'll use up my final minutes of Luxor before bed...

*No offence to any Americans on my f-list - you're on there because you're not stupid. :)

Current Mood: exanimate

I found this job this afternoon. I seem to recall typists in Legal were paid much more than that last year, but maybe that was just because I was a temp at the time. Either way, I probalby stand more chance of getting an interview for that one than I did the other. I haven't heard anything so I'm not holding out much hope. Ah, well.

After the invites incident yesterday, I also discovered that Sandra is a hypocrite. Remember the Biscuit Saga? Well, Natasha came in after her Conference in search of chocolate because she wanted a sugar rush, and made a beeline to Sandra, since she's always stuffing her face with junk food. She's a bloody stick insect as well, the bitch. But anyway, she offered Nat a chocolate-covered biscuit bar thing, which Natasha gratefully took. And as she was walking off?

"Don't check the date on that, whatever you do..."

Maybe I should have shouted out something about food poisoning...

Really, this upcoming possible job opportunity couldn't have come at a better time. Plus it's in the city centre, which is far easier for me. Next to the Odeon cinema, if memory serves.

I haven't mentioned the flat recently, but that's only because it hasn't completely gone away and I'm trying not to get my hopes up. Jen seems really keen for us to have it when she moves out and has promised to text Paul the landlord's number so we can have a chat with him. She reckons her deposit was £270, plus the month's rent... which is precisely where the problem lies. We don't have £270.

But after a conversation last night over dinner (very nice pepper steak at The Old House at Home due to the kitchen being between sinks and a shambles) both my mother and/or David have offered to pay the deposit for us. Which I didn't want to have to resort to - I'm trying to prove my independence here, y'know? - but is very much appreciated nonetheless. I'm also apparently taking the piano with me when/if I move out, assuming Robin can dismantle it enough to move the bloody thing. The action's the heavy bit, but the casing is awkward and non-manoeuvrable. Or however that's spelt.

So, yeah. It's looking vaguely more plausible, again, but we definitely need to talk to the landlord and establish how much the deposit is, whether we can pay it in bits, all that nice stuff. Apparently he's really good about things like that, though. We'll see. Also need to properly do some calculations. I reckon we could afford it, especially if Paul gets the pay rise his supervisor's been talking about... if we had another flatmate, even more so.

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Hopes remaining at sensible level. Yes. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't... we might be able to afford a similarly sized flat in about 20 years.

Anyway. Weekend, woo. Happy Birthday to

flatline2010 for... yesterday? I think. Can't remember. LJ told me and then I forgot. But either way, congratulations.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: KT Tunstall - Other Side Of The World

That was more eventful than I anticipated...

On Friday, as promised, I took the biscuits home with me. More on that shortly.

Friday night, we ate curry, cooked rice for the first time evar (and it worked - a bit chewy, but otherwise okay) and sat watching Fawlty Towers, 8 out of 10 Cats and My Name Is Earl with Noel whilst drinking wine before bed.

I spent most of Saturday then nursing a hangover, because I was very very tired for some reason... We were intending on spending a quiet night in, when Paul's other brother, Darren, rang to say they were having a party to watch the Stars In Their Eyes Kids live final - because a family member (Paul's sister-in-law's nephew, I think) was in it, as Lemar.

He came third, incidentally. 7-year-old George Formby-alike came first... So that was quite nice, though the children were giving me a headache for a while...

Got back and attempted to watch some of Gimme Gimme Gimme, but gave up. We'd also watched High Fidelity (I think) at some point on Saturday as well.

Sunday was quiet and mostly spent watching 'Stenders...

I spent the entire weekend breathing carefully and relegating Paul to the kitchen for his cigarettes due to managing to leave my Salbutamol at home. So we went back to mine on Sunday night... after a quick trip to the offy, we managed to miss the 126 and decided that, rather than waiting 20 minutes for another one, we'd just walk.

As it turned out, we'd only have saved ourselves five minutes and less exercise by waiting for the next bus. It's only about a half-hour walk from Bearwood, really, so not too bad. I've walked further than that in Derby, I'm sure.

So, yes, that was that. We cooked when we got in (Chicken Tonight mushroom sauce with spaghetti. Mmmm.) and then watched The Hole before bedtime. I'd forgotten how freaky that film is... sort of claustrophobic and horrible. Saw really reminded me of it, actually...

I had a freaky and horrible dream this morning. Will post that later.

This morning I've been running around doing photocopying, mostly. It's just me and Sandra in (the beauty of this time of year is that everyone's trying to use up their annual leave - I'm off Wednesday to Friday, Cynthia's off Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and Amanda's off today and tomorrow) and Val, who's covering Liz H's diary until she goes on maternity leave mid-April. So of course, Sandra's doing as little work as possible, eating all of the chocolates that Shafiq brought in, and talking on the phone. Marvellous.

She's doing minutes right now, so I don't have to listen to her...

Also? Ye Bifcuit Faga continued this morning, with the following conversation.

Sandra: What did you do with those biscuits, then? Did you chuck them?
Me: No, I just took them home. We drink lots of coffee so they'll be used up. [they're sold as 'dunkables'.] Besides, they still taste okay.
Sandra: But they were stale. I didn't eat any of them, though.

So, how in the Hell would you know??

Gah. Fine. You got what you wanted - the biscuits are no longer in the office to offend your senses. LEAVE IT THE HELL ALONE.

Anyway. That's it. It's nearly time for lunch.

Current Mood: bitchy

Something of a write-up, I suppose. This weekend has been mostly spent avoiding the kitchen whilst David lays the new floor, which looks very good, and discovering that if I don't take my St John's Wort I become a moody cow after about three days. I didn't take it for that long because a) in the process of floor-laying it got hidden in the kitchen and b) it tastes foul and I got fed up of gagging every morning.

So, yeah, that was fun. I'd almost forgotten what it was like feeling as though my brain was two sizes too big for my skull. Not fun.

It also meant that little things were annoying me more than they should've done, and I'm looking back on what were entirely logical thought processes at the time with amused eye rolling. For example, when we wandered downstairs on Sunday to make some lunch, David told us to go away until they'd finished tidying up... although I was perfectly happy to work around them (they were on the other side of the counter as it was) and was also quite hungry. And this annoyed me because we'd been told to bugger off in the morning as well so couldn't have a nice breaksfast.

My 'logical' thought process therefore went something like, "So you couldn't wait an extra 10 minutes before starting so we could eat something, but I'm expected to wait another 10 minutes before I can eat something?" which was understandably quite irritating and upsetting.

I seemed to have recovered again by the evening, though.

We watched five episodes of Farscape and that seemed to be about it, though I'm sure there was something else. Also watched the Greatest Actors thing on Sunday night, and was very surprised by Johnny Depp coming second, which I definitely wasn't expecting. He does strike me as being an 'actor's actor', though, purely because he's so diverse. I suspect a public vote, rather than an actors' vote, would have warranted very different results... or at least, for very different reasons.

Yesterday was rubbish and annoying because I was tired, couldn't do the work I had to do because things had gone missing, and because I got blamed for something I shouldn't have had to deal with in the first place.

Today is looking to be a long day, too. We have a team lunch today (which means I can claim half an hour instead of 2 hours :D) and I have supervision this afternoon, so I need to make a list of stuff to discuss, as it's been six weeks. Also need to average what I've typed since then.

Sandra is in a good mood, but she's being irritating with it. I swear, she's the loudest woman ever, and she can't do anything quietly, whether that's laughing or putting down a mug/phone/pen. I've brought in some biscuits in a big box, which are now sitting on top of the printer out of the way of the kettle (I'd put them in front of it in the only available space), and rather than a "thanks for the biscuits", I get "who put that box on top of the printer, by the way?" Well, it wasn't me, it was Amanda, so hard cheese - you can't complain at me.

Also, "is that just an empty box or does it have chocolate in it?". Er, yes, Sandra, it's obviously an empty box. Sealed with sellotape. And, er, why the fuck would I bring an empty biscuit box to work? *rolls eyes*

Anyway, I should probably sign this one off and do some work. My hands are bloody freezing because I'm sitting in a draught (draft?) as per frelling usual. It's a good job I can type with gloves on.

Current Mood: cold

Stolen off

joetimewaster.

( Four things )

No tagging.

So, I got up today at my usual time of 7.00, but because I had to get the bus the whole way I didn't get in until 9.00. Why is it that as soon as there's the slightest hint of bad weather, the public transport in this bloody city just goes wrong and starts being idiotic? Bah.

I didn't get a chance to look at the application last night so will have to rush through it on Thursday. We went out for drinks and Thai food last night, which was nice. Spent much of the time at the pub talking about my counselling and mental state, which was sort of vaguely cathartic because I haven't really been involving the household in it for not wanting to worry them.

I was also reminded of the shop I saw about two years ago on the way to the NEC. It was a company that basically took the photographs of food that they use in menus and restaurants, but the sign was worded very strangely indeed. Something like "beautiful food photographs". Unfortunately, the shop has apparently gone again so I can't find it and can't take a photograph of it... but it conjured up images of people on diets going to the shop to view photographs of food they weren't allowed to have. There'd be a seedy little man behind the counter, and a couple of grubby viewing booths, and he'd say, "D'you want to see some... *shifty expression* cakes? I got some new chips in this morning... lovely, greasy chips."

It would make a very good short film...

Anyway, on that slightly surreal note, I shall sign off.