Cat Scratches

"Mum, I'm stuck! Shall I jump?"

"Sorry, look I be cute and fuzzy and make your back feel better."

Anthony reckons they're the worst scratches I've had so far so they had to be recorded for posterity. The blood has all washed out of my white top though.

Lazy Holiday

I have very deliberately not done a lot so far this week. I've slept until I wake up naturally (usually about 10am) or if woken by a cat at 6am (Esme) then I doze in bed until I want to get up. I've been going to bed at night when I feel tired (about 1am) and yesterday I had a nice little nap on the sofa when Henman got rained off.

I've been tatting about with photos on Flickr and got myself a pro account on there at last so I can load what I like. I've even set up a blog just for Foley (Esme will be on there occasionally too) to highlight the fact that she is in fact completely barmy.

Foley has both honoured and disgraced herself this morning. She fought and defeated an evil spider-in-the-bath and brought it to me as a trophy.

Then she alerted me to the fact that when I'd put the washing machine on I hadn't moved the hose and so the kitchen was getting a little wet. (Nothing got horribly soaked luckily).



However she let herself down completely when she jumped up onto the hatstand. Instead of meowing like mad until I stood up and let her jump onto my shoulder, she took a flying leap to land on my back where I'm sitting at the computer...in just a vest top. I sense I will not be wearing one of my new back-revealing tops on Friday night, as I fear people will think I've got too close to a tiger! (The bleeding did stop eventually).

Apart from being clawed to death and flooding the kitchen I have also moved all the stuff that was piled up in the back room, painted the piggy bank I got for Xmas, finished listening to The Last Continent on audio, read several books, connected up the Wii (although I can't actually make it work and will have to reorganise the scart leads once Henman has played), eaten lots of cheese on toast, read lots of random blogs and gone ding (leveled up) quite a lot on WoW. I've also created two new characters (Undead Warlock and Tauren Shaman) to get myself away from my Alliance bias.

I did find something funny when I was sorting out pictures onto Flickr. In my collection of old information posters (photographed from a diary my mother gave me and now cut out to go up on the stairs) I found this <---- picture. Now that is when I've got my holiday this year, I've been daring and actually taken two weeks off together now, and then I've got a week in September (only partly cos when I went to book holiday July and August had already been snaffled by Campbelli, Fingers and Ian). This time of year has always been different. Last year, rain and sun, year before sunny, year before that I got sun burnt one day and then nearly drowned the next. This year I decided to be optimistic and buy some sun lotion...so naturally the weather is terrible, and I'm starting a cold! I have high hopes for the end of next week though. As an aside, I do think that those information posters should be revived. Think about it, we saw those growing up and so know not to drop litter, how to cross roads etc. Today's "hoodies" are just exposed to adverts for things they should aspire to own rather than ways to behave. Maybe they should be brought back by our new PM?

The cheese in the fridge is calling me...

Bookness

With my nice back-pay that I got on Wednesday I decided to treat myself to a few books that I've had my eyes on for a while.

So I now need to add the following to LibraryThing:

• Chocolate Cakes - in an attempt to actually bake...


• Jarrold Short Walks in Birmingham and the Heart of England - to burn off the effects of the baking!


• The Unseen University Cut-Out Book - my second copy of this so I might start work on it in my holiday-time over the next two weeks.


• The Ankh-Morpork Post Office Handbook - I'd had this stashed for about 6 months so thought I'd better buy it!


• Moomin - Totally beautiful book. Read about it on our intranet and ordered it for a look and then decided I had to add it to my Moomin/Tove Jansson collection.


• Nobody Does It Better... - I love French food, and I love the idea that I could actually cook some of it. Ok, so we've covered why when I think of cooking I think of it as a hassle, but I want to get past that and cook lovely things and enjoy it!


• The Good Fairies of New York - this is another one I saw recommended on the work intranet a long while ago and I'd ordered one for stock. When tidying Sci-Fi/Fantasy I found it and added it to my haul.


• Stranger in a Strange Land - I read this years and years ago and have wanted my own copy for a while (another one of my dad's books). Another one found on my trawl through Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and then promptly moved to the front 342 table.


• Casino Royale , Live and Let Die and Moonraker - I've always loved James Bond and when these sexy new/old covers came out I figured it was time to invest.

I know that these won't keep me going for the whole two weeks so I shall be visiting the library again next week (that way I get a lift as Anthony is on holiday then too) and try again to pick up some stuff that I wouldn't normally read.

Truths

Matt is very good at pool. Anthony and Katie W are pretty good at pool. I am not as good at pool as I was when at uni, but I still think I am until I start playing.

Contrary to a belief I have held for a long time, I CAN walk and dance in shoes like these without breaking an ankle. (although my calves are killing me this morning).



(For me, that is a very big heel!)

No matter how good Campbellis sexy pizza was, I refuse to believe it could be nicer than my BMT from SubWay.

Black Russians are still a very nice drink. Having them made of Kahlua, vodka and Pepsi instead of Tia Maria, vodka and Coke was something I thought would make them less nice, I was happily proved wrong.

The Quadrant is a nice place to have cocktails but the music is too loud for sensible conversation. This is why we spend most of our time in there stroking Campbellis legs.

Campbelli looks bloody gorgeous in a dress!

The Royal London has a chandelier that I may have to steal. Although I'll pass on decorating my loo with a collage of Barbie pictures.

One Barbie picture was a colouring page that said "Theresa has come over for a sleepover. Brighten up our night with your pens" Naturally someone had added an i to that last word.

Anthony is still asleep and snoring, this is possibly because he is trying to avoid the fact that we either have to go to Ikea today or next Sunday and he's trying to forget that fact.

We are going to Ikea to get a frame for my sexy picture that he bought me when we went to see the BTCC. (It's the one in the middle of the top row here.)

My sister is at Le Mans this weekend and I am very slightly jealous. I have been promised that if she enjoys herself I get to go next year!

I am going to wake up Anthony and remind him of Ikea...

Happy things for Campbelli

A collection of nice happy things has to be kicked off with It Is Just You, Everything's Not Shit which always has something on there to make me smile.

Heard of lolcats? I LOVE lolcats. I can only cope with them in small doses though as otherwise my incorrext spelling gene kicks in. I love going to I Can Has Cheezburger? for a daily dose.

Miss Campbelli has the most beautiful umbrella that has blue skies and clouds on the underneath of it. I've never seen another one anywhere but this one comes close to it. Pretty!

Another happy thing (but unlinkable really) is the fact that among the other things I did today at work, I removed 31 copies of a book that was cluttering up her children's section!

Love you Campbelli! xxx

Curry and Lyrics

Curry:
I am going to be eating a fantastically nice curry in a minute.
We bought it from Asda the other day, Limited Edition Buttered Chicken Marsala. I had it on Thursday night along with three naan breads and a large glass of shandy. It was bloody lovely. So lovely in fact that we went back to Asda tonight after I finished work so I could get another one. Anthony is just dishing it up now... YUMMY!

Lyrics:
It's not just Green Day that suffer from me mishearing the lyrics. Everyone knows that ABBA sing the line "When I saw you last night in Tesco", but have you ever heard of the Yappy, Yam and Yead songs?

John Denver sang the first one "Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy". Yes if you get all proper and sound your haitches then it's fine, but when you're singing it mutates into "Sunshine on my shoulders makes me yappy". This is what I used to sing when I was little and later led to the second song...
Take That and Million Love Songs - "A million love songs later, here I am". This one was pointed out by my dad when they came on TOTP and he said "Not that bloody yam song again!"
The Yed song is a relatively recent addition. Sung by Blink 182 it talks about the fact that "you're just a voice inside my head", again with the haitches!

(Pause to eat some curry)

I really do mishear lyrics all the time. The most famous example is a song my parents have that apparently talks about Alan being an Elfchild. Not to me. To me Alan will be forever an Eldron, whatever one of those might be.

Classic.

I just googled for the song, and got the lyrics below. No Alan mentioned! So the line I have always sang as "Alan was an Eldron, Eldron, Eldron. Alan was an Eldron down beneath the sea".... was not even close!

Ok, I think I need to stop now!


Steeleye Span - Elf Call Lyrics


i heard a bonny cow low, cow low, cow low,
i heard a bonny cow low over the lea.
and it was an elf-call, elf-call, elf-call,
and it was an elf-call calling unto me.
and the little elf-call, elf-call, elf-call,
and the little elf-call said unto me:

“come and nurse an elf child, elf child, elf child,
come and nurse an elf child down beneath the sea.
come and nurse an elf child, elf child, elf child,
come and nurse an elf child down beneath the sea.”

“what do you moan for, moan for, moan for,
what do you moan for?” the elf king said to me.
“i'm moaning for my own child, own child, own child,
i'm moaning for my own child far across the sea.”
then the little elf king, elf king, elf king,
then the little elf king said unto me:

“come and nurse an elf child, elf child, elf child,
come and nurse an elf child down beneath the sea.
come and nurse an elf child, elf child, elf child,
come and nurse an elf child down beneath the sea.”

i heard a bonny cow low, cow low, cow low,
i heard a bonny cow low over the lea.
and it was an elf-call, elf-call, elf-call,
and it was an elf-call calling unto me.
and the little elf-call, elf-call, elf-call,
and the little elf-call said unto me:

“come and nurse an elf child, elf child, elf child,
come and nurse an elf child down beneath the sea.
come and nurse an elf child, elf child, elf child,
come and nurse an elf child down beneath the sea.”

“come and nurse an elf child, elf child, elf child,
come and nurse an elf child down beneath the sea.
come and nurse an elf child, elf child, elf child,
come and nurse an elf child down beneath the sea.”

Looking for the Moomins

Today I made a promise to Campbelli that I would write a blog tonight, one on Saturday, one on Sunday and one on Monday because she wanted something interesting and strange to read. It would probably have been better if I had some vague ideas of things to write about before vowing to do this, but then again if I'd HAD ideas for stuff to write about I would have blogged it anyway.

My head seems strangely empty at the moment. It's like my internal dialogue has turned itself off. I don't know if this has anything to do with my mother telling me that she worried herself when she did something silly and the little voice inside her head said "Now we both know that you didn't want to do that." Both!?!

Anyways, my head seems mostly vacant. It might be because my life has changed completely since I moved house. Not in a "I've had a stroke and have to learn to talk again" kind of a way, just in a "I've pretty much stopped watching TV and now spend my evenings attempting to unpack boxes and then giving up and going to play WoW" kind of a way. Surely this should mean that my head has more time to do its own thing without trying to figure out who did what in CSI, but this seems not to be the case.

I've also developed even wonkier eating and sleeping patterns than normal! This is something I'm working very hard to sort out as it's quite annoying spending mornings at work like a zombie and then being bouncingly awake until 1am. I've even started trying to eat breakfast again. Ok, so it's either a SlimFast cereal bar or shake, but it's breakfast! (and a bit more nutritious than a Mars bought on the walk to work). I've even cut down on the alcohol. Again, it's mainly cos I've got a taste for bitter shandy at the moment so I'm drinking that rather than Kronenbourg but it's an improvement.

I've taken to listening to my iPod when I go to bed in an attempt to switch my mind into sleep mode. A nice dose of Pratchett audio while I play solitaire and the light dims down. I just have to try getting to bed earlier. I did try playing music instead of the books but that wakes me up too much so I shall just have to hang onto my Audible subscription for a little longer.

(I'm rambling now and have lost all direction in this post, can you tell)

Right. The title for this post came from the fact I was listening to Green Day on the walk home and discovered that in When I Come Around he does sing "I'm just looking for the Moomins" at one point. I thought that this would be a good title for a blog post in which I could ramble on about the music I've been listening to lately. But it's too late and I shall do that tomorrow instead!!!