The saving grace of solitaire.

I'm playing lots of solitaire. It means I'm doing something, while at the same time I'm not. My mind is busy on one level but free to think on others.

Today I have been playing solitaire and listening to this and crying a bit (ok, a lot).

I had stopped crying. It was like my body had dried out. The main problem is that my brain is still not convinced that all of this is real. As my mum said this morning, it's like it happened two days ago but also two months ago.

Dad is going to be buried in the fabulously lovely Herongate Wood next week. He'd left no instructions about wheres and hows (bloody typical) so we've got him a plot by the pond where there are moorhens in spring. As the homepage says there's no need for hearses and limos and very rushed half-hour slots at the crem all of which he hated. The funny thing is until mum found the place, we had no idea it was there although we've driven along that road hundreds of times. That's rather the point I think.

We're also probably going to get him a bench in the local park. On our Saturday library trips to Chelmsford we'd park near Chelmsford Park and then walk through (therefore avoiding the multi-storey car parks which he disliked). There is a bench that we'd walk past with a plaque on it that says "In Loving Memory of Ted and Cis". Now we have no idea who Ted and Cis were, but every time we'd walk past it he'd go "Oh, I remember!". So a bench for other people to make that joke about is sodding perfect.

Everything seems to happening very fast but also very slowly. Presumably time will return itself to normal at some point. Probably when I get back to work and have just five minutes to go before my lunch break...

Darkness

I'm rather confused at the moment.

When the world ends everything's supposed to stop right? Things aren't supposed to just carry on. At the very least there should be a moment when everything stops.

All I got was the TV blowing up.

Spain was lovely, got sunburnt and relaxed a lot and then got back to England at 3am yesterday morning. Crashed at Anthony's for a few hours, went to Tesco for food, went to Waterstone's for the new Pratchett and then came home just as the phone rang.

It was my mother ringing to tell me that my dad was in hospital. That he'd gone in on Thurs/Fri with a bit of a pain and that then all of a sudden she had a phonecall on Sunday to say that instead of thinking about him coming home on Monday, she should get there as soon as possible.

Unfortunately there was no point in me trying to get there as soon as possible. Instead we did sensible things like putting the food in the freezer and putting a load of washing on and feeding the cats treats.

Then we put the British Superbikes on to distract me. Then the TV went "buh-dooooooo" and stopped working. Then mum phoned about ten minutes later to say that dad had died about ten minutes before.

Bastard took my TV with him.

I think we are going to have to be careful with the family sense of humour. It is dark at the best of times but at the moment is very very black and leads to hysterical laughter followed by flooding.

Like the fact that my mother can now watch exactly what she wants on TV and has claimed possession of the "preciouses" (remotes) but then got all shaky when thinking about the copy of the Radio Times next to his chair with all the programmes he wanted to watch this week circled.

We are all over the place at the moment, literally. I'm in Wolves and Emily is in Cardiff. She went back yesterday morning when everything was still ok.

Anthony has had to go to work which is one of the reasons I'm up so bloody early. I don't have to even think about work until I have to ring RichieFingers towards the end of the week. Poor Richie, he was so very unintentionally funny on the phone yesterday when I phoned to say I probably would not be in today. He was all "Oh. What? No! What? What? No! WHAT?" Darling boy.

I spoke to my cousin Richard last night as mum couldn't face ringing my Aunt Sylv and so I rang Richard to ask him for her number. But he was also a star and said he would tell her (and his dad) and then pass on my number.

No one even knew he was in hospital cos everything happened so fast. But fast is good in a way as I wouldn't have wanted him hanging on and on for days. He would have hated it too, partly cos it's £3.50 a day for the TVs in Basildon Hospital. He was whinging about this, but then enjoying watching the football results.

Bloody Orient lost their first game of the season too. And he never got his birthday present - the programme for Leyton Orient.v.Arsenal in the FA Cup Semi-Final game from Saturday 8th April 1978. The game prior to this was the one that led to me being born.

I will be here for a few days and then will go home. Mum wants to be on her own for a little bit as it will make things easier afterwards. Emily is stuck in Cardiff until Thursday as she has to enrol on Wednesday (essential for student loan). I am worried about my baby sister. I am ALWAYS worried about my baby sister, but I am extra worried at the moment. Being worried about her is helpful cos then I am not thinking.

I will be spending a lot of time on the computer trying not to think. Thinking's overrated.

It also means I shall be doing lots of work on the cross-stitch for my mother.

And contributing to global warming by using acres of tissues.

Strangely satisfying

I just changed the countdown code for the Grand Prix from Italy to Belgium...then I realised with satisfaction that I will be on holiday when I watch the Belgian one, so I have added the code for Japan underneath. Possibly a little bit geeky, but satisfying.

In other news we went shopping for holiday clothes yesterday, and after being disappointed by Matalan (the Wolverhampton one is a clearance one) and buying me a fluffysoft new fleece in Next (very suitable for Spain I'm sure) we hit a successful run in Merry Hell.

Ok, so Anthony got lucky first, seriously, in the first hour all we found was stuff for him. But then we found some nice things in Peacocks (that phrase just sounds so wrong), got me a beautiful new t-shirt in New Look, and bought me THE sexiest dress in the world in West One.

Parents warned of additives link

Well durr!!!

My mother could have told you this 23 years ago when I wasn't allowed orange squash due to the fact it made me uncontrollable.

(and I've had a much better day today)

To Do List

1. Wake up to Foley purring in my ear.
2. Have fairly productive morning at work.
3. Have horribly frustrating and unproductive afternoon at work.
4. Walk Campbelli to her car and share rants about work.
5. Get home to letter from bank informing me that because I have gone £30 over my overdraft (due to a £30 charge they did not inform me about), they will be charging me £30.
6. Throw boots across room in frustration and burst into tears.
7. Put on "Mr Brightside" very loudly and sing along.
8. Make delicious Black Russian.
9. Sing along loudly to "Fat Bottomed Girls", then turn music down as remember that double-glazing is pants and if I can hear the "brothers" sitting on the wall outside, they can hear me.
10. Blog.
11. Check email/blogs/FaceBook.
12. Put on pizza for tea.
13. Make another delicious Black Russian.
14. Earn 90 gold on Warcraft. while eating pizza, watching CSI and making more Black Russians when required.
15. Buy flying mount.
16. Go to bed feeling better.

Selection from Thursday's To-Do List.

1. Buy more vodka and Tia Maria for making Black Russians.
2. Go to bank.
3. Have better day at work.

Haircuts and other girlish things

Now we all know I'm not that good at being girlish, in fact I sometimes think that Emily got all those genes - and jeans come to that as I only have one pair of girls jeans and the rest are mens ones, cos they are long enough in the leg!

One of the things she is good at and I'm not is haircuts. She always has beautiful hair and what's more she knows how to DO things with it. When my hair was long I would stick it in a ponytail, now it's short I wash, add wax and then go. No fuss. But this does mean that I tend to neglect my hair and only ever get it cut once in a blue moon.

It was a blue moon today.

Anthony was a darling and sent me off to T&G so it would be nice and short and under control for our holiday (in 12 days, but I'm not counting) as I hadn't had it cut for a few months and it was getting more than a little unkempt.

I did start to worry when after explaining to the guy that I wanted choppy layers, looking a bit like lovely Meg Ryan if he could manage it, he announced that he was thinking more Victoria Beckham and that I needed to be more feminine. So he washes my hair (always pure bliss) and then starts chopping away while I sit there with my eyes shut, only partly cos of getting hair in my eyes.

When he'd finished I was unsure, then I went over the road to work (T&G's is across and then three shops down) and realised again why I love my workmates.

Faye said "Wow" and that she nearly didn't recognise me, Chris gave me a thumbs up and said it looked good (extra kudos to him for noticing despite being male), Fiona saw me coming up the stairs to see Campbelli and said "Wow, here comes Kate looking gorgeous" and then Little Miss Campbelli told me that it looks fab. (Aren't they all so so wonderful).

So I am now feeling better about my hair, although I still don't know who it will behave once it has been washed and styled by me instead of Ruan (who was saying how my hair seems quite straight and under control naturally - afraid he got that VERY wrong), but we shall see.

Here we are then...



















Suitable for a week on the Costa Brava?