T'eyla Minh

Here is a long overdue real life update, now that real life has resumed. (Although I do have a few brief thoughts to write-up about the Last Watch documentary about GoT season 8, now that I've seen it, but I'll do that in a separate entry later.)

( House Move / Family Stuff )

Obviously, I will update about both of these things as and when more is happening - the former probably sooner than the latter...

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. ;)

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

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. :)

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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...