T'eyla Minh

I swear to God, the next person who decides it's so very hilarious to laugh at me in a sarcastic manner, when I'm struggling through the downpour in stupid shoes and with wet feet, from the comfort and dry of their nice warm car... that person is going to get an umbrella to the face. I'm just saying. (At least nobody used me as target practice today.)

The first layer of Alison's bithday picnic cake is in the oven cooking happily away, and I've washed up all the utensils to make the second one. I should really buy another 20cm cake tin. I shall take a photograph of the limey lime cake of limey doooooom when it's all finished. My lime cake is even lime-coloured. Almost, anyway.

Nothing else to report.

People trying to book their easter / summer leave already has resulted in a massive fuss over nothing.

Last week various people were wandering around checking with the WPO team so they could try and book leave. People have deposits to pay on caravans and holiday cottages which are only available certain times, fair enough. Except unfortunately our line manager is off sick and has been since before Christmas, and apparently nobody is allowed to authorise our leave in her absence.

Actually, it's because they're trying to book EASTER and SUMMER leave, which are notoriously difficult times. Because if it were actually the case that no-one can authorise leave, I wouldn't have come in this morning to discover I can't have the week off in February that I wanted because someone snuck two flex days in when I wasn't looking, thus taking the amount of people off up to three. It's partially my own fault for waiting until this week to book it, but still quite annoying.

As it transpires, I've now had to book it from 9th to 13th March instead, which means that for the entire of March our team is going to be one typist down. Noor is off the first, third and fourth weeks of the month (in the same boat as having lots of leave to use up), and me the second. Hopefully it won't be too horrendously busy and/or stressful, but still, I'd rather not have had to book it off then, as I'd rather have it in February.

It also buggers up the plan I had, which was to book the Sunset Boulevard tickets for 13th February and then have a week off after that (although it was dependent on Paul being able to get the leave also). I need to book the tickets before the end of January to get a special half-price offer, also, so I'd rather the leave situation be sorted first.

The thing which irritates me more, though, is that they're bloody moaning in the first place. I know it must be frustrating when there's only a certain time period in which you can book your precious holiday cottage, but for God's sake, at least you can afford one. I would take whatever days I could damn well get if I could even afford a long sodding weekend somewhere, let alone a whole week. My last proper holiday (by which I mean the hot country, lying on a beach kind) was back when I went to Crete. Annual holidays (even twice a year, in some cases) are a privilege, not a right.

Although if it's this bloody stressful to try and get the time off, it's probably just as well I'm not going anywhere.


In other news, the road through Kings Heath was open and running freely this morning, despite being closed all day yesterday. I imagine they had no choice but to re-open it, or it would cause absolute chaos. Things were bad enough on Saturday, though possibly my experience was somewhat exacerbated by going in and out of Birmingham three times over the course of the day...

Also, I appear to have lost another two pounds, though it's admittedly difficult to tell with our cheap scales. I should really get some digital ones.

Despite bemoaning my failure to keep resolutions, I have a few vaguely achievable plans for this year.

( Which I'm sure you don't care about... )

Gah, it's quiet here today. Just had an email to say our manager is back in tomorrow and will sort the leave out as a matter of urgency, thank goodness. I'm just waiting until it all blows over when it comes to Easter, quite frankly...

I forgot to mention the Rude Woman I encountered in Somerfield over the weekend. She was in front of me in the queue (whilst Paul was getting a lottery ticket at the cigarette counter) and had balanced her basket precariously on the end of the checkout.

She took a heavy item (which was counter-balancing the entire thing) out of one corner of the basket, as a result of which the rest of it started to succumb to gravity. So, being a helpful sort, I reached out to stop it from falling off the checkout and smashing her box of eggs.

Did I receive a 'thank you' for this noble gesture?

Of course I didn't. Merely a silent scowl and her grabbing the basket to put it more firmly on the checkout. How DARE I touch her precious shopping, lest I befoul it with my strange hands!

She was quite well-dressed and buying organic veg, not even remotely chavvy or anything like that, and I would say she was in her 30s (though I'm not good at age-guessing). Absolutely no excuse except sheer bad manners. Snooty cow.

Next time I'll let her basket fall on the floor, eggs and all.

After that, she then proceeded to take bloody ages about packing her stuff, putting her purse away and getting out of the way, as long as it took for all of my stuff to be scanned, which meant I was then also holding up the line packing my shopping.


Can anyone think of a reasonable explanation as to why I've been HUNGRY for three days straight? Like, literally. An hour or so after eating, I'm just starving again. It's really very odd. And in direct comparison to last week, when I was barely hungry at all...

My body is weird.


I posted the fourth and final chapter of the PotC fic last night, having finally managed to end it. *points in a vague FFN-type direction* Now I must get back to that bloody UB fic before it disappears for good.

Tonight I will compile memories to post on phanwank...

So, it was quite good. Not as good, I expect, as the London production, but enjoyable nonetheless. The special effects were pretty awesome. :) It's completely different from the film in that several bits are in different places and there are extra characters. I have no idea how it relates to the original book, though. Even the familiar songs sound unfamiliar because of the way they're arranged. Feed the Birds is still my favourite...

I was confused about where I'd booked our seats, as it turns out, because I thought they were in the stalls and in fact they were in the circle. Quite far back, but the view was okay. I'm not used to being that high up and not being able to see people's faces properly. Thank goodness those tickets only ended up being £20, though, as I think if I'd paid full price for them I would have been a bit pissed off.

Thanks for putting it on right in time for the summer holidays, Birmingham. Srsly. I really wanted to spend good money on tickets to have to strain to hear the entire thing over chattering parents and screaming children. *rolls eyes*

On that note, people and parents of Birmingham, please note the following:

1. When the music starts and the lights go down, that is a cue to STFU. It does not mean "start talking louder to hear each other over the inconvenient orchestra" and nor does it mean "slowly dwindle to silence after about five minutes". It means "be quiet now". Thank you.

2. Please do not fill your children full of sugar when they have to sit through just under three hours of theatre. Whilst it may shut them up temporarily and stop them whinging, it only means they will become hyperactive and jump up and down. Occasionally telling them "shh" every few minutes is not good enough either.

3. Also, seat-kicking is entirely unacceptable in any situation and I have no idea why you haven't yet drilled this into your little brats yet. (Thankfully, we were initially in the wrong row and hence moved away from the seat-kickers.)

4. If your child is too young to communicate in any other way than crying or screaming, they are too young to go to the theatre. Full stop.

Having said that, one small child did provide a moment of amusement at the start. The first thing on stage is a man emerging from a chimney. Said small child shouted "HELLO!" at him. :)

At the same time, though... it's not a pantomime. I'm all for taking your kids to pantos, and I'm all for providing cultural input via the theatre... but please, for the love of anything, teach them the difference between pantomime and musical theatre. When they grow up and go to Rocky Horror they can shout out all they like, but until that point, shut them up. KTHX.

We did go to Pizza Express for dinner, also, though it transpired the voucher had in fact expired on 7th August. I checked the bloody thing loads of times, too, and still got it wrong. It only came to about £10.00 a head anyway... Paul had a Four Seasons pizza and I had a chicken pasta dish containing musrooms, red onion and lots of cheese, with pesto, which was absolutely gorgeous...

Oh, and I forgot to mention - I bought some red pepper pesto houmous from Somerfield the other and it is MANNA FROM HEAVEN, not to mention moreish. (Also, turns out I like chickpeas.)

That will do for now. Tonight we're having some of the pork in a stir fry, and attempting to watch Dan: In Real Life before the end of the night so we can get the DVDs back to Blockbuster in time... I must also edit chapter 1 and post chapter 2 of the PotC fic...

A lovely weekend, all told. The weather has been gorgeous, I've managed to get two large loads of washing done and engaged in non-energetic activities despite the heat...

Mind you, Friday was kind of annoying. I did intend to write about it at the time, but in the end chose not to because most of the annoyances were petty little things (including a ridiculous Air Conditioning Drama at work, Sandra being completely useless again and my having to go and chase her - as a little test later on when I was bored, I copy-typed [and tidied up, putting in paragraphs] what she'd taken about five hours to do, and did so in 30 minutes...) which simply weren't worth worrying about.

( Friday and Saturday )

Sunday was equally unproductive. After Eastenders Paul and I went for a walk in the sunshine, up to Highbury park and through it, then up to Kings Heath park and back that way. In the evening we watched Brazil whilst wilting from the heat, and then went to bed.

Hello, summer! :)

Mind you, when we had that heatwave two years ago, it was about this hot in early June and then kept getting warmer, so this is actually a lot better. This is NORMAL. And our office has air conditioning, so hopefully I won't get ill again...

( Slight TMI, possibly )

Now I just need to Lose Some Weight. And also buy some better scales. I cannot have put on half a stone since I last checked. I just can't. If that's true, I was overweight a stone-and-a-half ago. :(

Aaanyway. That's enough of that. Over and out.

(PS: Note to self - check cinema times for new X-Files movie and post to Facebook for those going...)

So far it hasn't been too bad. I didn't really want to get up this morning due to a late night (we watched Pan's Labyrinth until 11.15) but now I'm in and full of caffeine it's okay. Apparently there was a bit of a kerfuffle last week because the fee earners were panicking and Sandra was being useless, as usual, and also Heather has left so she was finishing everything up before leaving, but other than that it doesn't appear to have been too bad without me. I had to trawl through 115 mostly pointless emails this morning (only three of them were remotely relevant) and somehow managed to do exactly 36.5 hours before I went on leave, so haven't gained any more flex. Meh.

I have become addicted to "Patchworkz" on shockwave.com (it finally works!) which is very mouse-intensive and has given me RSI in my right thumb. I think my mouse is on the way out anyway, so I'll probably plug in the one that came with the new PC. It's a normal type of mouse but at least it's optical.

Still working through putting music on the hard drive. 2.5GB used so far up to F with some exclusions. Some of the CD information online is weirdly wrong. Like, on the De-Lovely soundtrack the information for track 7 is missing, so track 19 (the last one) just... ends up with no name. It's weird. I like the artwork function, though. It's funky, if a little temperamental. So far I'm not hating Vista, also (apart from some backwards-compatibility issues) which is a definite improvement on XP. So much so I haven't even felt the need to turn it into Win 98. ;)

I also ordered the new Alanis album (Flavo[u]rs of Entanglement) which arrived on Saturday. I'm really liking it so far. I think my favourite track is "Not For Us" although the lyrics of the final track (I suck at names) are also striking a chord. On the second bonus CD (I bought the deluxe edition) I also really like "On the Tequila", which disguises itself as a bouncy summer-type song but maintains Alanis's trademark cynicism. I'll post some lyrics later.

Last night I made a sausage casserole from scratch. So here's a recipe, mostly stolen from a google search and modified. I cooked it using the rescued crock pot which was originally under the leaky sink. (I soaked it twice in warm soapy water, before you ask. :P)

( Recipe: Sausage Casserole )

Mm. I like making things from scratch and eliminating the need for jars. I have so far managed to stop buying bolognese sauce and now 'Sausage Tonight' type things. Must learn to make curry. Also 'Chicken Tonight' sauces, as they can't be that difficult to recreate.

Oh, incidentally? The shepherd's pie I cooked for my grandmother was totally delicious, thank you very much, although I served far too much of it. I should really stop praising my own cooking so much, but I'm so used to things going horribly wrong like when I was at school that it constantly surprises me that I can actually cook these days, when I've really only learnt properly the past couple of years or so. The key is confidence, experimentation and basic knowledge.

I have my PDR at some point when Marie's finished with Ann, so should probably get this posted. Longest entry in a while... you can tell I'm back at work. :P

That was quite pleasant.

Due to the nice weather on Satuday we decided to go out for the day. This was after an excursion to the butcher to stock up on meat (and also goose fat as it was better value that Somerfield), and to pick up some plug unblocker and washing liquid. There seems to be an epidemic of supermarkets no longer diong their own brand of washing liquid... I'm not paying £4.50 for a bottle of Persil when I can get two massive bottles of Somerfield's own for £4.00. It does the job.

The bath is now draining smoothly, thankfully. Our pipes are set up stupidly but I suspect it's because of having converted the house into flats. There is obviously a down-pipe from the bathroom as it has always been a bathroom, but subsequently the kitchen and bathroom sinks also join the same pipe from the bath so when you drain either of them it comes up into the bath. Nice. Anyway, I poured Mr Muscle down all three plugholes and have also now flushed it in both directions, which seems to have dislodged whatever was in there. Loooovely. (The downside is that the bathroom smells RANK when you pour dishwater down the kitchen sink. Obviously.)

After that, anyway, we wandered down to the Nature Centre at Cannon Hill Park as neither of us had been for years. A lot of the animals are either not there or being moved so some of the displays were empty, but it was pleasant nonetheless. Otters are cute, but I've always thought so... and so are meerkats, for that matter. :)

We had a bit of a wander around the park and the funfair (Paul won a snake on the hook-a-duck, which was SO EXPENSIVE. Gah.), and we were going to have a go in one of the rowing boats, except two selfish men decided to take the last two, thus scuppering our plans. So we wandered over to the other boating lake to go in a pedelo, except they were closing in three minutes. Bah.

I managed to navigate us back to Moseley on the 1 (which we waited ages for; clearly spoiled with the 50 these days) and we played half an hour of pool (which came to a grand total of £2.00) in Rileys. My brain was not willing to cooperate by that point...

Of the evening we watched the finales of I'd Do Anything (my hatred for the general public has increased. Jessie was CLEARLY the superior candidate...) and Britain's Got Talent (hatred for public somewhat declining, although meh to Escala* not even being in the top three...) and not much else...

Sunday was the usual, with the added excitement of a fox wandering into our back garden for a nap. No, really. It was totally surreal. He stayed there for about 15 minutes and then wandered off again through the fence. There are some photographs on Paul's phone which need to be uploaded. For a moment I was worried he'd just come into our garden to die, as he was very still. Very bizarre.

Also, we started watching Jack and the Beanstalk last night on Sci-Fi. Whilst it is very much appreciated that they're showing these mini-series, it would be better if they weren't trying to cram each one into three weeks instead of their allotted six. Tin Man was hard enough to follow without there being just under two hours of it each week, and Jack is almost as bad...

I think that's everything. Foxy pictures coming later...

*Okay. I am convinced that Escala once released an album and I can quite distinctly remember them playing their 'signature' tune a few years back on some talent show or another. This is about 5-6 years ago now. I also have it in my brain from somewhere that at least one of them went to my school - specifically the violin player. From a quick google search, I am informed that her name is Izzy Johnstone, and her age would place her either the year below me or two years below, depending on when her birthday is. Can any Old Edwardians remember her? She's horribly familiar and it's driving me mad...

(In this picture she's the one on the far left...)

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.

...and about 25 more years, and I could be Norma Desmond.



(Sorry about the blurriness; I couldn't be bothered to mess with the digital camera so I used the webcam.  It could do with a bit of exercise anyway. :P)

There was going to be a longish rant here about idiots in cars who think it's funny/cute to beep their horn at you.  But since having a shower has mellowed me out, it'll be slightly shorter.

I was beeped at whilst walking up the main road after work earlier.  This is annoying at the best of times, since my instinct is to look and then realise they're beeping at someone else entirely - except this time, I was confronted by some idiot gawping at me and waving.  No, I didn't know them.  I was wearing tight-ish jeans (not by choice; my arse has expanded) and was the only female on the pavement, but that's no excuse.  The male argument at this point would be "You should be flattered" - screw that, thank you very much.  My argument is that blokes who beep their car horns at women on the street should have said car horns wired into their privates so they get a similar shock when they decide to beep at said women.  Negative conditioning and all that.

Because, y'see, when I've just left work, am listening to my MP3-er and am also tired and grumpy, when I get a sudden shock like a loud noise, my first instinct is to lash out and kill things.  In which case, the idiot waving at me should be very glad he was safely behind the protective body of the car, and that he wasn't stuck in traffic.

Also annoying was the fact that I had to wait for the next train because the 5.35ish, peak time train from Snow Hill to Stourbridge Junction was two carriages long, so by the time it'd even left bloody Snow Hill it was rammed.  I suspect it may also have been late, as the next one turned up a lot sooner than I was expecting.  That one wasn't much better, either, being only three carriages long, but that one carriage makes a hell of a difference.  Whose bright bloody idea was that, anyway?  Yes, encourage people to use public transport, but make sure it's unreliable, uncomfortable, and generally unpredictable before you do so.  I wish I was that clever.  Really.

Er, yes.  Despite this, all is now well in the world, as we're having exotic-sounding sausages and mash for tea (some of them have cheese in!) and if I'm not exhausted tomorrow I'll be going to see butterflyburn's band, Sinistra, at Scruffy Murphy's tomorrow.  In which case, I apologise in advance if I don't make it...

Message end.

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. :)