T'eyla Minh

Here's a bit of an update. And by a bit, I mean a lot, though much of it has no substance. (Also, I am no longer on my period, but I rarely get to use this icon...)

Looks like the summer is officially over. Britain has once again done its usual trick of going from one extreme to the other; I've been freezing for the past two weeks but steadfastly refusing to put the heating on because it's frelling August, not that you'd believe it from the temperatures lately. (Having said that, today it seems to have brightened up a bit...)

Earlier this month I googled to find out when the Birmingham International Food Fair would be taking place this year, then misread a whole bunch of anomalous results about last year's dates and thought they were for 2014. This resulted in us (Paul, my mum, David and I) going into town on Sunday to enjoy said Food Fair, only to arrive at the usually designated area and become utterly confused.

Thankfully there was stil a load of free entertainment happening around Southside (by the Hippodrome / Arcadian) so we sat and enjoyed that instead, but TBH I was mostly pre-menstrual and felt rubbish about my failure to read properly. It seems to be the case that the International Food Fair isn't on this year at all, which is a shame as it's always really popular despite BCC's complete failure to advertise it. My inner cynic suspects it may never come back now; it's often hailed as being the "sister market" to the Frankfurt Christmas Market, but I've always got the impression that BCC grudgingly allowed it to happen and weren't that invested in it. (Whereas the stupid Christmas market will be advertised several months in advance and doubtless get EVEN BIGGER now that space at the front of the library has opened up.)

My PMT came to a head with a godawful migraine on the Sunday, which I think was partially caused by having to squint in the sunlight. We had been planning on eating at the Food Fair so instead ended up going to Big Wok (or getting a baguette, in Paul's case, as on the evening he went off to help Darren with his Two Towers beer festival). Big Wok was nice enough, but I'd been looking forward to the lovely French food. :( On the plus side, we couldn't really afford the Food Fair so we did at least save ourselves some money... but then, we couldn't afford to go last year either, and if it's never coming back I've missed my last opportunity now to get some lovely cheeses and whatnot. Best. Gruyere. Ever.

My PMT also (AGAIN) ruined my enjoyment of seeing Wicked for Lorna's birthday at the Hippodrome on 21st August. It didn't particularly help that we were at the subtitled version, as that just kept distracting me out of the action on stage. Nevertheless, here is something resembling a review.

( Thoughts on Wicked. )

On Monday, thanks to period pains and awful weather, I did absolutely bugger all except sit on the laptop all day.

( Except for this... )

Anyway. On Tuesday we are going to Brighton, staying for two nights and returning via London with an eight-hour stopover, as it's been far too long since we had a good old wander abaht. With any luck the weather will clear up by then...

Also: I still have this sodding UTI or whatever it is. Just finished my two-week course of antibiotics and it's still hanging around - after a brief period where I thought it had gone away - so I think I might just take myself to A&E this weekend as I suspect the GP will still not actually do anything about it. I could go after we get back from Brighton but I don't want my entire fortnight of leave to be a write-off of trying to sort out health problems.

( Just realised I forgot to recount the GP fail from my last visit... )

I'm struggling to remember any point this year where I've actually been healthy. :(

That was a bit of a moan again. It doesn't help that work is a massive ball of stress at the moment due to continued breakdowns in communication; last week I likened it to our team being under an umbrella in a rainstorm of information, i.e. nothing actually gets through to us. Things change literally week on week (sometimes day on day) and everything we do know is through hearsay. It's frustrating and disheartening, and every single day is a battle of not understanding, not being able to help people and not knowing where we stand. But at least everyone is similarly afflicted, and it's not just me. :P

Hopefully next time I update it will be with something more positive, i.e. a Brighton write-up.

This weekend was mostly spent being a massive geek. ( Apart from this bit which wasn't. )

Anyway, after that wasted morning and early afternoon, we decided to investigate downloading games onto the Wii. ( Here comes the geekage )

On a final note, I will re-post these details here in case anyone missed them on Facebook:-

30th Birthday Drinks

Saturday, 15th October at 7.00pm at the Kings Head Pub in Bearwood (formerly the Quantum), which is on the corner of Hagley Road and Lordswood Road. If coming by bus you can get the 9, 126 or 140 from Colmore Row (they go from the same stop), all of which stop opposite Bearwood Bus Station (on Hagley Road). Alternatively, if you live on the route, the 11 goes past it. The 11C stops right outside or the 11A on the other side of the road, both on Lordswood Road. It's a pretty massive pub so you shouldn't be able to miss it. :P

If Bearwood is too far away for people then I'm also having post-work drinks at about 4.30ish on the Friday, starting at Colmore Bar & Grill, which is near Pij and part of the new(ish) Premier Inn. Currently there's only two or three definite attendees from my work lot, plus myself and Paul, because... yeah, I'm so popular. :P Caryn is one of the definites and will be slightly late as it's her birthday a day before mine so she's going for a massage (fair enough!) but she assures me people will congregate on the afternoon... clearly she has more confidence in them than me. The other two are Gaynor and Marvin. Hopefully other people will come. :|

Also the time on Friday may be subject to change as inevitably, last minute stuff will crop up... As to Saturday, I'm having a family meal beforehand at 5.00pm and hopefully we'll be done in two hours, but if you arrive and can't see us just send me a text to say you're there and I'll find you afterwards. It's a very nice pub and also very big so hopefully space won't be an issue...

I think that's everything. Work has been annoying as ever, but nothing so horrendous that I've felt the need to blog about it... Tonight I need to unpack some more stuff before I waste my evening on fandom stuff. Oh, adulthood, you great bore...

I know that writing off a year before it's properly begun is generally a bad idea. But seriously, 2011, you need to start bucking your ideas up already.

Eni, when you said you wanted me to update more often, I'm fairly sure you didn't want daily rants. :P

( Choir Rant )

It's especially annoying because there are a couple of old choir-type friends on Facebook who I'd like to invite to the open rehearsal next week, but I've already moaned about this in a status update and that would look a bit weird, to have complained about it in one breath and recommended it in another. Besides which, anyone who does turn up to the open rehearsal next week is not guaranteed to remain in their chosen part if they do pass their audition!

I am also annoyed that my 'cheaper option' for my latest glasses prescription actually isn't cheaper. SpecSavers are now charging a £39 "reglazing" fee (i.e. putting new lenses in old frames) on top of the cost of the lenses. Which makes their reduction on said lenses completely bloody pointless, as it still cost me £79 to do one pair. By the time I've done the second pair next month it'll have cost me just under £160 to reglaze my perfectly functional frames, which means it would have been cheaper to actually buy new frames. Said reglazing cost also doesn't guarantee against damage caused to the frames during the process, for which the customer is liable. I imagine this is to cover any frames brought in from other providers, but both my frames are the "Osiris" range, which are only sold at SpecSavers. Plus, you know, the glazers are presumably trained in their chosen profession, so WTF are they doing wrong if they manage to damage your frames?

Odd year syndrome, indeed. Maybe I should stop making plans now, before they get crushed by a boulder.

Unfortunately, given that one of those idiots is me... I doubt there's any escape for the foreseeable. I should probably update about what I've been doing with my time off (answer: not much) but instead you'll have to make do with this rant...

( Part the First )

TL;DR: Virgin Mobile suck.

( Part the Second )

TL;DR: work are stupid sometimes.

( Part the Third )

TL;DR: GP surgery fail.

Anyway. I shall re-read my application thingy, find a smart-looking shirt that still bloody well fits, and hopefully by venting all of this stress it will go away.

Things are looking up today, as Paul has an interview this afternoon (at 1.00pm) for a job at Auchinleck House on Broad Street. His agency rang yesterday to let him know. I'm crossing all my fingers and toes and would ask everyone else nicely to do the same.

I hadn't even been at work an hour this morning when my chair decided to break. I wasn't even doing anything! Just sitting there happily typing away when the left front corner of it suddenly dropped a couple of inches. It's been quite wobbly for a while, admittedly, but yeah. I'm not taking any chances. I borrowed a spare chair (Adults Team use it to sit by the filing cabinet, it would seem) and have since been brought a different and somewhat more comfortable spare from downstairs. There might be a brand new one in the innings if it's approved, as they need to order another one for someone else.

( Some brief work annoyance. )

The other annoying thing was trying to order food last night. Firstly we tried one of the many new southern-fried chicken places which sprang up in Kings Heath in the wake of KFC. We attempted to order from them shortly after they'd first opened, only to have their phone ring through to voicemail; assuming that was just an early opening glitch, we tried again last night - same result. So we won't be trying them again.

Then we tried another chip shop which had put a leaflet through the door advertising free delivery (we are lazy, you see), only to have them tell us they don't deliver. Er... okay then.

Eventually we went back to our usual delivering chippy, which we probably should have used in the first place. That or gotten off our backsides and walked ten minutes down the road. ;)

I got soaked on the way to work this morning. Was that the summer, then?

It still amuses me how much Britain panics when we have any extreme of weather; I mean, we had a proper extended heatwave in 2006 (i.e. that one which made me ill) and then we get one in 2009 for about two weeks and the warnings start being issued by the Met Office. ;)

Which reminds me, I think I forgot to mention that we caught the majority of Michael Moore's Sicko the other week. Conclusion? Move to France. They have things good over there.

Nowt else to report, except that I'm hungry and about to have my lunch...

Edit, 16.23: Paul thinks the interview went well; they'll let him know tomorrow.

In other news, we're going to try out the new griddle pan tonight on some steaks. I should not be so excited about this. :)

Okay, so I've just spent about an HOUR trying to find out ticket availability for Sunset for August, for my mum's birthday, to be thwarted at every turn by broken links. I find about six million articles about the extended run, all of which sound incredibly promising.

And then I find this.

Despite announcing an extended run until September, they've actually closed it in May as initally planned.

I... just... there are no words. None.

God damn you, universe.

Just when I finally get my fandom mojo back after who knows how many months, this happens. It's not fair.

I really wanted my mum to see this production, I wanted to see it again a couple more times, and all that aside, it was a sell-out run. I hope to God nobody tried to book any tickets as soon as the extension was announced; and if so, I hope the theatre / ticket company have had the good grace to give out refunds.

There are days when I wish I'd never discovered Sunset, and this is one of those days. At least if I was ignorant of its existence or its briliance, this wouldn't sting quite so badly. I'm so angry about this. Angry and despondent and just... completely numb. I'm so fed up of my fandoms being crushed like this. According to one random link I spied in my travels this afternoon, it seems the new movie version is planned for next year, and after Phantom... I can't take any more disappointment. I really wish I didn't have this fandom-orientated brain, or care so passionately about relatively unimportant things. I hate especially that I should be made to feel like that by something so trivial.

I'm going to live under a rock. See you in about 30 years.

This rant has been a VERY long time coming, but as it came almost completely to fruition in my brain on the way home, I might as well just write it and get it out of my system.

( LONG AND FULL OF RAGE )

I need to stop now, because my hands are freezing. The heating was broken at work today and I've had cold hands since I got in, so that hasn't helped with the aggravation in the slightest. Sometimes, I just think all these gigantic companies - the NHS, Birmingham City Council, whatever - need to be taken apart, examined on a deeply molecular level, and put back together again by someone who knows what they're doing, someone with a fresh perspective and who lives in the fucking 21st century. FFS, give me a sledgehammer and I'll do it myself.

I apologise for the length, but these things just make me so frustrated and angry, and in the absence of being able to do anything about it, all you get is the verbosity. Meh.

That actually went surprisingly well...

For once, aside from the markers in the front row, the seating arrangements were a free-for-all within the sections, so I wasn't stuck at the back. As for the performance itself, the majority seemed to go very well indeed. Someone felt the end of the Carmen was a bit lack-lustre but personally I thought the first act went brilliantly. I did miss one entrance in the Gerschwin, that I can remember, but it was the last note anyway so hopefully nobody noticed...

The two female soloists were both brilliant, the baritone less so although his voice was okay. (Our other bloke couldn't do it, but at least we didn't have to copy insane adlibbing in "It Ain't Necessarily So", as that would undoubtedly have ended up messy...)

Afterwards we went to a pub to try and get a drink with Jade in tow... which obviously didn't work as she's 4-foot-nothing and barely even looks her age (16), let alone 18... Paul and I wandered back there after seeing off Jade and his mum and went home ourselves via the chippy.

Chippies in Kings Heath are annoying. The best (and closest to us) is Oceanna. They close at 10.30, even at weekends. Considering they're right opposite the Hare and Hounds pub, I'm surprised they don't stay open later as they'd do an awful lot of business from the local drunkards.

Further down the road are Hi Tide (chips are okay, haven't tried anything else) and King Kebab, which everyone raves about but the only decent thing there is the chicken kebab meat. The reason its so popular is it's open late and opposite the Goose (horrible pub). Hi Tide and King Kebab are directly opposite each other and both stay open until silly o'clock in the morning.

A new chippy has now opened up our end of the High Street (Deeno's), which we were going to try on Saturday. Unfortunately, they have also not figured out (despite being a few yards up from the local Wetherspoon's) that they need to stay open later than 11.00pm. So: chippies in Kings Heath are annoying.

We ended up walking all the way up to King Kebab and it wasn't even that nice, in the end. They charge half the price of Oceanna for a reason, clearly...

Aaanyway, that was about it for Saturday. On Sunday we played seven games of Scrabble, went out to buy the majority of ingredients for our roast chicken dinner, and I watched 'Stenders. With the chicken, we tried to marinate it in some honey-and-mustard salad dressing (the theory being it was oil based) which succeeded in browning the skin but only infused the chicken vaguely with flavour. Still, I'll try it again with skinned chicken next time... We also had some roast baby button mushrooms and mmmm... lovely.

This morning I am cleaning the washing machine with a dose of white vinegar and lemon juice, as it's starting to smell again...

It's bloody freezing in here. Stupid weather. They had the heating ON whilst we had that brief heatwave last week and it's off this morning as a result and subsquently chilly. My fingers hurt. :(

In other news, I've just signed up for Lloyds TSB's "Save the Change" scheme, where every debit card purchase is rounded up to the nearest pound and the difference put into a savings account, since I use my debit card frequently and copiously. My plan is also to then round up the money in the savings account to the next £10 at the end of each month so it's easier to see at a glance how much is in there...

(My plan for credit card repayage is to take whatever they ask me to pay, round up to the nearest £10 and double it...)

I have also booked a week off from 16 to 20 June, although I fear this may immediately result in the weather conspiring against me. Who knows, maybe I'll put curtains up or redecorate or something. ;)

Almost forgot: the physiotherapy rant.

They sent me a letter, finally, asking me to ring up and make an appointment. Which is fine, except I have to ring on Monday to Friday between 9.30 to 12.30.

Yeah, possibly you could make yourselves slightly more employment-friendly? I meant to ring up on Tuesday but was so busy I forgot, and if I don't ring within three weeks they'll assume I don't want the physio.

Just... for God's sake, allocate me an appointment. If you're willing to disrupt my morning my making me phone you, you might as well go the whole hog and disrupt my entire workng life. I suppose it's to make sure it's convenient for me, but it's not ever going to be that convenient, is it?

Not only that, I have to traipse all the way over to Kings Norton, for some reason, rather than Selly Oak. I can only hope the appointments end up being late enough in the afternoon that I can go straight home afterwards, otherwise it's a bit of a jaunt.

Hm. I suppose I'd better at least check the Centro site to find out how to get there...

I am still alive...

I haven't done an LJ entry in over a week, but mostly because I haven't done very much... Usually my 'not doing very much' equates to 'lurking about online', it's too damned cold to sit in the corridor on the computer... So, anyway, here's what I've been up to in my week/s off...

On Thursday I did my usual fare of nothing. The other reason I've not been spending too much time on the PC is because the monitor is too high (due to this one being a desktop rather than a tower) and it gives me a crick in my neck... and if I adjust the chair my legs won't fit under the keyboard tray. Inconvenient, but at least the bloody thing turns on...

I believe most of Friday was quite similar... Of the evening we went out with Paul's mate, Tor (who announced she was pregnant), because the going-out for Jen and Dave's pre-wedding get-together didn't happen due to illness... I don't think I could have coped with another night out after last week, though...

On Saturday it was falling_softly's birthday, which was actually mostly quite sedate... The only downside was the Drunken Twat at the table near us who was offended by our very presence, but thankfully he left after an hour or so. Mostly the clientelle of the Briar Rose is okay, but unfortunately the combination of cheap booze and (now, alas) television screens showing the rugby brings in a lower denomination of human life, like the aforesaid Drunken Twat.

Other than that it was a plesant evening. Denise and I watched the boys playing two silly drunken games ("Fizzbuzz" and "I Have Never", the latter of which I loathe and detest), which was possibly more amusing than actually playing. Paul got a little bit annoying on the way home but at least realised that and calmed down again. I think our *ahem* screaming row a few weeks ago helped to clear the air and made me perhaps a little more tolerant. As much as the rows themselves aren't particularly pleasant, they are useful for getting stuff out into the open...

Sunday was lazy...

On Monday I cleaned the kitchen cupboards and rearranged them a bit so we can find things... also made a bit more room in the process, but only just. The rest of the week has involved doing nothing whatsoever except watching my usual fare of Rubbish Daytime Television (This Morning right through to Jeremy Kyle... I know, I know...)

Oh, on Tuesday morning I traipsed up to Selly Oak Hospital to the Dermatology Department regarding the mole on my stomach. The doctor there recommended that I didn't get it removed because the scar that would be left would be more irritating and quite possibly bigger than the mole itself. Not what I wanted to hear... obviously I didn't bring up that I wanted to get a tattoo over it anyway, as he would probably have recommended not doing that, either. He also said that most GP surgeries are quite happy to remove moles themselves once they're happy that Dermatology have cleared them, but, well, my GP surgery doesn't have the facilities to do that, which is why I had the referral to the hospital in the first place. *SIGH*

It was incredibly frustrating and I spent the rest of the day feeling mildly annoyed, to the extent that I didn't bother going to choir. Just, the thought of having to go out again when I was already cold (I had the fire on from about 2.00pm...) and having to keep repeating stuff because it wasn't right... it didn't appeal. We have next week off for good behaviour for Easter, also... Instead, Paul and I went to the pub for tea (local Ember Inns), which was nice. I've been feeling a bit meh since Saturday, to be honest... Mostly I attribute this to the fact that Ali and I haven't been swimming for two weeks for a number of reasons and my endorphine levels are low, but there is also a Certain Issue I'm trying to work through which wasn't helped by Saturday.

Subsequently my productivity thus far this week has been to almost finish my rose embroidery. I should get that done today and then I can finally frame and hang the thing, then work on getting another one started... I find embroidery quite therapeutic, somehow...

(And last night I joined geneandalex, an Ashes to Ashes shipper community, and read lots of fanfic. The Inner Shipper requires feeding, and the Ugly Betty section on FFN has been a bit sparse lately...)

On today's to-do list is to go through the boxes in the attic, but BLOODY HELL, it's cold. Where's spring gone?