Come on Over

A World Full of Kate

Three Things

Hello.

Changes are afoot, and you will find out more later.

For now:

1) I had a lovely time in Cardiff watching my sister graduate.
2) Some silly bint did a Hamilton on us yesterday (ran into the back of us at a red light) and now my neck feels funny.
3) We have won £10 in each of the last three lottery draws - all with my line of numbers.

F1 in my head

I was going to have a lie-in this morning...unfortunately I had a nightmare and so I'm up early.

The nightmare was a strange one...I was at work, at Christmas, and attempting to merchandise the charts - with ten Lewis Hamilton hardbacks and twenty Lewis Hamilton paperbacks...

The thing is, last Christmas there were 7 biographies of him, plus his official autobiography. But if he actually wins the championship this year then my nightmare might become real!

I think this dream was a delayed reaction to the broadcasting bias of the British Grand Prix last Sunday.

Don't get me wrong, I loved watching it. It was the first race this year that I've watched with Emily and Brychan (which always makes it better), plus the fact it was a wet race meant that lots of people spun off in humorous ways (most of them near to Sebastian Bourdais - I think he has his own gravitational field that was throwing people off).

The problem with it was actually the same problem that has plagued all the races this year - ITV and James Allen having multiple orgasms over Lewis' ability to "race".

James decided to compare Lewis' race to Senna's race at Donington, which made Anthony hit the roof.
Let's just go into that shall we... Lewis was second on the first corner, and took five laps to pass his team mate (who rather obviously moved off the racing line) - Senna was fifth on the first corner, and first by the end of the first lap having passed Schumacher, Wendlinger, Hill and Prost (that will be passing his three championship rivals and another driver for good measure).

I think that if James Allen compares Lewis to Ayrton one more time, Anthony will track him down and follow Coulthard's lead.

Now, don't get me wrong, when Lewis started racing last year I was looking forward to seeing a British driver racing for the championship. But after ITV have declared him the "People's Champion", decided that every single track guide lap should be one of Lewis', interviewed his dad rather than show an interview with the race winner (on the numerous occasions the winner has not been Lewis)...

Plus Lewis himself has changed from a guy who was very eager to push himself as a normal home-loving guy, British first, black second; into a guy who has *moved* to Switzerland "to avoid the media scrum", who has a celebrity girlfriend and lots of new celebrity friends (like P Diddy, who did a Black Power salute when Lewis won at Monaco), who cites Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King as his two biggest heroes (but then muddled up a MLK quote in his press conference).

*breathe*

I shall stop ranting now, but this fabulous cartoon sums up the Hamilton hype quite nicely.

Frock

Frock2
Originally uploaded by Petronella Rose.

Pictures

Michelle has just done a lovely picture meme and so here is mine.



1. a lovely evening cruise, 2. eye candy!, 3. wyrdwoods_MC_03, 4. Mom's dried roses, 5. Jared Leto, 6. Cactus Club Cafe bellini, 7. I want to be where the Sun warms the sky, 8. Yes....oh....YESS, 9. Best little book store in the world, 10. bookshelf spectrum, revisited, 11. Bookish creature, 12. Petronella de la Court’s Dutch Cabinet

Here’s how you play:
type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr search.
using only the first page, choose an image.
copy and paste each of the URL’s into the mosaic maker over at FD’s image maker.

The questions:

1. What is your first name?

2. What is your favourite food?

3. What high school did you attend?

4. What is your favourite colour?

5. Who is your celebrity crush?

6. Favourite drink?

7. Dream vacation?

8. Favourite dessert?

9. What do you want to be when you grow up?

10. What do you love most in life?

11. One word to describe you.

12. Your flickr name.

Cattitude Problem

Esme doesn't like it when I clean or tidy. She'll sit there and watch me and then wander off and express her displeasure.

Sometimes this is by waiting until I have a full black bag and then chewing a hole in the bottom of it. Sometimes she will knock over the big pile of books that I have just collected from all over the house (a very common occurrence).

Usually she just goes and wees in the bath.

Today however she found a new way of expressing herself.

Because I was cleaning the bathroom the bath was full of bleach so she decided to wee somewhere else.

She chose the washing basket.

When I'm doing a load of washing I leave the basket on the floor in front of the machine so that I can just pull it out straight into it, luckily I was using the white basket so I noticed the next time I went into the kitchen. (I'm oh so very glad it wasn't the red one...)

Esme is now sulking in the armchair, the washing has been hung out (after being put in the red basket) and the white basket is full of hot water and bleach and sitting in my nice clean bath.

I must also confess that while my first reaction was Bloody cat!, my second reaction was that of a small child... Look at all that wee! *giggle*.

House of Many Ways - Nom Nom Nom Nom

After reading Caroline's post about shopping for books and seeing her mention Garden Spells at the end, I decided to read it again.

So I took it to work with me this morning, and read the first chapter or so while waiting for our morning meeting to start (and then delayed the meeting slightly by raving about it when Bod asked me if it was any good (having sold one to Jo after I'd recommended it to her))... anyways, so I planned to read it again today.

Then all my plans went out the window when Donal phoned up from Goods In to tell me that House of Many Ways had just arrived. So naturally I read that instead.

Once again, Diana Wynne Jones has written a brilliant book. Now it's "A chaotically magical sequel to Howl's Moving Castle" so I was very much looking forward to reading a little more about Sophie and Howl (and Calcifer) - and I wasn't disappointed. One of the things I loved was the dog called Waif. Now in the film (that Scott Pack prefers) there is a dog called Heen that is small, scruffy and very wheezy. Heen doesn't appear in the book, the dog in the book is the combination of Wizard Suliman and Prince Justin that the Witch creates (another bit dropped/mixed up from the film, read about him here and discover the whole point of the scarecrow turning into Prince Justin (something Richie Fingers asked me about)).

Ahem.

Anyways, Waif is basically Heen, but with a new name and new purpose. I love the fact that she's taken this film character and transplanted it into a new book!

Now if none of that makes any sense, I do apologise - basically I recommend it!
(and I've now seen the American cover and may just have to buy that edition too...)

Sunday Reading

A few weeks ago I was tidying the kids table at work and picked up a book called Stoneheart. Now I'd been picking this up and looking at it for a while. I liked the cover and loved the first part of the back cover blurb...

Deep in the City something had been woken, something so old and so ordinary that people had been walking past it for centuries without giving it a second look...

So I opened it up and read the first couple of pages. Then I walked over to the shelf and picked up the second book Iron Hand. Then I put them on our reservations shelf until lunchtime when I bought them both (as well as the new Sarah Dessen book, Lock and Key).
I read all of Stoneheart in my lunch break then I polished off Iron Hand at home that evening. Then I read them both again a week later.

Now I read a lot of kids books, I read a lot of books full-stop, but these... It was like the first time I read The Hobbit/Howl's Moving Castle/Saffy's Angel/I Capture The Castle. Just oh-my-god-that's-so-good!

Someone else loves them too.

I now have to wait until September for the third book Silvertongue - I may just explode with impatience before then.

One of the reasons I found these books so amazing was the way that while I was reading I was in London. There is a wonderful passage where the Raven has been sent to fetch the Minotaur...

In a direct line between him and the gherkin, about half a mile in front of it, was the eastern edge of a massive complex of concrete and glass, like a fortress assembled from ziggurats and thin spiky towers. Inside the boundaries of this futuristic urban citadel there were fountains and walkways on different levels, and there was more concrete. The Raven knew that below the surface of the southern end of this sprawl had once run the ancient city wall. And he could remember when the dwarfed white church marooned in a startling patch of green within the cement bastion had been the tallest building in the area.

Now as soon as I read that, I knew it was the Barbican. I've been there enough times to know it, I'd just not necessarily have described it like that, but it's a perfect description.

These books have meant that my much wanted trip to London will now be featuring a tour of the statues mentioned in the books. I've managed to find some photos of a couple of them, The Sphinx and The Royal Artillery Memorial, but I want to see all of them. I want to see the Grid Man, the clock where they hide, the statue of Icarus and the lair of the Minotaur.

If these books had been published twenty years ago, I would have been taking that tour with my dad as he'd have loved these books. Instead I shall take my camera and Anthony (bribed with a visit to the F1 shop and the Imperial War Museum) and make it my third reason for my trip to London.

Bad Girl

I know I'm a crap blogger at the moment, I just can't seem to get anything to stick together enough to write it down.

But I did photograph my new shoes for you, even if I have not written about looking for them and asking the salesgirl for "impossible shoes really. Cream sandals, must have an ankle strap, preferably a kitten heel that's no more than an inch" - "Yup, they're impossible shoes" she said, and sold me those instead. Well I say sold me, sold Anthony actually. But he picked them out and I'm going to wear them at two separate parties in the next month so that justifies the price (which Emily would say is not a lot for shoes but I think they were expensive). (Oh, I wrote about it...w00t!)

Go and play the first line guessing game on Michelle's blog instead and I shall go and play some more WoW and make notes whenever I think of something I could possibly blog about.

New Cream Shoes

CreamShoes2
Originally uploaded by Petronella Rose.

New Cream Shoes

CreamShoes1
Originally uploaded by Petronella Rose.

My own Moving Castle.

After my discovery of a cardboard Moving Castle earlier (now sadly unavailable unless it appears on eBay) I have got the book to read in bed tonight and put the film on to watch while I eat/play WoW.

Watching the film does make me go "Nooooo, that's so not right!" every five minutes or so although I do like the way old/young Sophie blend every now and again), a bit like LOTR really. But I do like Billy Crystal as Calcifer's voice. To honour the film I have been playing one of my alternate characters on WoW - my Blood Elf hunter Sophee and her pet lynx Calcifer.

I have also managed to find this lovely link to a downloadable model of the Moving Castle.

Now all I need is a printer...

Itchy Fingers

When I was at home over the weekend I was looking through a few of the photo albums and in one of the Christmas pictures I spotted a craft book that I remembered very well.

It was one for making gift boxes, and the book had in it all these cut-out shapes that you used to make the boxes. I can remember spending hours making those things, I loved doing it. Another year I had a dragon book and made 9-10 different dragon mobiles, and another time I had an Escher book where you could make these shapes that rotated to show off the tessalating designs.

I bought my two copies of the Unseen University Cut Out Book but I'm nervous about starting the thing when I haven't made anything for such a long while. (The Escher things are the last I can remember making and that was in early 1995).

So I thought I'd have a pootle about on t'interweb but while I've found lots of printable templates for things that I don't really like the look of anyway, I've found next to no books (barring all the Usborne ones).

But I did just find this and I'm now deeply in love with it. Despite the fact it's not the proper castle (the one from the book), I still like the film and would still like to make the thing.
(Scott Pack has just finished reading the book and is being told just how wrong his opinion of it is.)

Prepare yourself for the possibility of more paper model related posts, and if I manage to track down anything I want (and can afford) then there might have to be pictures of work in progress.

Gah.

I am wet. Some twat of a boy racer decided that it would be funny to slow down as though he was going to let me cross the road, and then to zoom past through a huge puddle as I stepped off the kerb. But I was a very good girl and didn't make an obscene gesture at him (mainly cos this is Wolverhampton and he'd probably have shot me).

So being very soggy I have broken my new habit of not sitting down at the computer until 7pm. This was a very new habit as I only started it yesterday, but in that computer-less hour yesterday I managed to make my dining room look like a dining room - you can see the table top! If I can keep the habit up (I do have tomorrow off so I'll do an extra hour then) I should have a tidy(ish) house in no time.

Since my dress post - and thank you for all the lovely comments and hello to the new people - I have been back to Essex for the weekend and I took it with me. I didn't wear it, but my mother likes it and suggested I wear it to my old friend Jodie's 30th birthday party in July. Depending on the weather... I might. I still have not found any shoes to go with it, although I haven't really looked too hard. I shall have to prod my shoe guru and see what she can find me. I'm thinking cream, open-toe, low kitten heel.

In other shoe related news, I have ordered these lovely things to wear to work instead of my CAT boots. I ordered them in an 8 which were too small so I'm just waiting for a pair of 9's to arrive. But today I realised that Jo (who is back working for us again) was wearing a pair of the things too! She agrees that they are very comfortable but that the silly rubberband-round-button fastening is not the best.

Edit: My Shoe Guru is my sister Emily, who just commented to me (on the phone) that she wasn't sure if I meant her or "some weird bit of your brain". It's now going to be one of her summer projects, although since I need them by the 4th of July it had better not take her all summer.

Girlishness - I don't really have it.

My gene for face masks, shoes, earrings, gossip magazines and dresses seems to have been mostly taken over by the one for Warcraft, football, motor racing and CAT boots.

However, I think it's planning a comeback.

As well as that footstool I just mentioned, I also ordered a dress from Additions.

It's from the Trinny & Susannah collection which very much put me off at first as I really quite dislike that pair. They're just a bit too mean for me and I'll stick with the lovely Gok.
But this here dress has changed my mind a little.

I liked it on the page, so I thought I'd order it and if it's crap I can just send it back.

Oh. My. God.

It's beautiful. Not quite as nice as the sexiest-dress-in-the-world but it comes very close. It's not as dressy as that dress which is the main reason (men everywhere will be puzzled by that sentence).

This dress is lighter and floatier, and also much more forgiving.

But the real reason I think it awoke my girly gene...I tried it on and thought:

"I'm gonna need some new shoes to go with this."










(What's that? You want to SEE the dress... sorry. Here it is)

This week I has been mostly...

...squeezing gunk into my eye.

My eye flared up again on Tuesday and off I trotted to the eye infirmary to get them to sort it out. Verdict - possibly an allergic reaction, possibly due to pollen. POSSIBLY bloody nothing, if you don't know what the fuck it is then say so!

Ahem.

Anyways, more gunk for another week and more only being able to see out of my left eye, so yet more pirate jokes from Anthony and more pokes in the ribs from Rich D.

Meh.

------------------

Today however I have been attempting to do some housework. (I hate that word). Washing up and laundry, yawn. But I am also a happy bunny. The other day I ordered a lovely Moroccan Footstool from Additions. I love the look of the things but have never had the cash. Now I have one and it was pretty damn cheap. Ok, so it's not truly perfect, and it doesn't smell of leather (mmmm) but hey, it does the job I need it too and fits with my style.

I was also thinking about my "style" the other day. When we were round at Angie's (my ex-next-door-neighbour) her other half Paul (who'd just driven me and A to and from the eye infirmary) described my style as Swedish something-or-other (I will find out exactly what he called it and put it here). It's what he also described Angie's taste as. He was saying that the number of times he's seen something and thought she'd like it, and then she's seen it and said how much I'd like it is just ridiculous.

Eclectic is how I tend to think of it I guess. I like shabby chic - but not all the floral. I like the New England type of style, lots of white and blue. But at the same time I love the dark wood of my dining table, and long to upgrade my bookcases to the Leksvik ones (which Angie just happens to have too). So my footstool doesn't really fit with the shabby chic/New England bit of my style, it goes in with the jewelled cushions and exotic side.

I think partly my dislike for florals is cos I'm just not that girly (as discussed before). But I do like some florals, in fact I adore my Cath Kidston writing paper - I just don't really want my sofas covered in it. I think it's a case of less is more, I might have some of her napkins but only with a plain white tablecloth (which would be very impractical in this house).

I am rambling now and losing my thread.

Still feeling pants, so here's some more books

My eye is getting better, but is pissing me off. I'm not good at waiting for things, and also not good at squeezing goop into my eye. So having to apply goop four times a day is very annoying and it feels like I've been doing it forever rather than just since Monday. I'm getting used to only being able to really see out of one eye though (due to the wearing of only one lens). Unfortunately my partial blindness means that Rich D can sneak up on me (from the right) and jab me in the ribs...

Bookwise I actually went to the library today, it's been ages since I went (according to my library 'tag' it was Oct) although I have been dutifully renewing my books.

This time I went with a little bit of a list made up by browsing the tables at work for things that I quite want to read but that are very low down on my buying list.
So I have...

Wicked, Gregory Maguire - because Emily will be shocked that I haven't read it yet.
The House of Lost Souls, F.G. Cottam - spotted at work.
French Women for all Seasons, Mireille Guiliano - I have (and like) the first book and spotted this on my way to the desk so though it was worth grabbing.
A Tangled Summer, Caroline Kington - spotted while looking for something else and I liked the cover.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon - I loved Kavalier & Clay and have been resisting this at work with difficulty.

A book I would like to whole-heartedly recommend is Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. I got my hands on a copy of this yesterday and read it all in a gulp. Very very much like Alice Hoffman I think, certainly the setting of the story if not so much of the descriptiveness (is that actually a word?) Anyway, it's fab. Go and grab a copy and read it sitting in a sunny spot.
I didn't get to read it in a sunny spot as I only get to see the sun on my trudge home. I have the weekend off, just as the weather is supposed to turn...meh.

Feeling pants, so here's some books.

I've just spent two hours standing in the waiting room of our local emergency doctors.
My right eye has been sore for a week and last night it started in with shooting pains whenever I looked at light. So this morning we phoned NHS Direct, then went to the centre, then went to the eye infirmary. I haven't got any scratches or anything but it might be an infection...so I have to go back tomorrow for a swab. Since I'm working tomorrow I have to be there at 9 or they can't see me. This Bank Holiday is being a bit crap.

It was also a life changing day. It's the first time I've worn my glasses out of the house since 1997. Seriously. The only reason I did back then was cos I'd lost a lens and had a driving lesson. Even when we went to Spain I put my lenses in to go from the room to the pool, and walked round the water park half-blind.

Before I get evicted to the sofa (where I can't read or sew according to Anthony) here is something I stole from Michelle.

The Top 106 Books Most Often Marked As “Unread” By LibraryThing’s Users.

Strike-through books you’ve read before.
Italicize books you’ve read before but haven’t finished.
Copy and paste on your blog to see how “pretentious” you are.


Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Aeneid
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Total: read 28, unfinished 7. Michelle got a percentage but I can't be bothered trying to sort it out. Basically this list tells me that I try to finish books and that I don't read things "just because I should" - I don't even own things because I should!

Healed...

...by Phish Food.

Ahem.

I followed the lead of wonderful Caroline when on my day off yesterday by adding Google Reader. I spent a happy half hour or so adding blogs to it and then getting it set up to my satisfaction. The only problem with the bloody thing is that when I'm trying to fill in time by reading blogs...it cuts this time right down.

Luckily Michelle is discovering some new ones for me!

Hopefully once my sister gets into RADA (not trying to jinx you, doing the positive thinking thing) then she will blog more (even if it will all be about technical lighting stuff etc).

Now I'm back off to Outland and then early to bed.

Happy happy, joy joy.

So you've had a bit of a pants day but you're being good and not just eating crap when you get in.

Then your mother phones, she asks how you are, you tell her, she tells you not to moan to her...and then moans to you.

Pizza and beer for tea then.

Meh.

(I love my mother really, I really do. But sometimes, just no.)

Productive and relaxing, in turns.

I'm having a lovely holiday week so far. Apart from the fact that it seems to be going by much too fast (helped by the fact I was at work on Sat/Sun and that Anthony was here on Monday) it's been going well.

I've got 13 ticks against my 20 item to-do list, although I still have to tackle the boxes upstairs that need both sorting out and then breaking up for recycling.

Today however has been less productive. I woke up feeling miserable (partly due to scary dreams about dentists) and opened the curtains to a dark sky that promptly opened up and rained so hard that it freaked the cats out. I overdid it on the pc yesterday (as well as earning 7 ticks) so couldn't even get excited about playing some WoW.

What's a girl to do?

Well in this case she gets lots of cushions on the sofa, organises herself a nice drink (of Whittard's Blackcurrant and Elderflower Tea) and gets her sewing out. Then she puts on a film...

When I say a film, I mean a few films, in fact I mean the extended editions of LOTR. I've seen the first two and have Return of the King to watch tomorrow (as I think 8 hours of film is enough for today).

I adore the book, and I love the films almost as much. I hate the bits they cut from the story, the same bits they always cut - Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Wights, and I'm still bugged by them pretending to kill Aragorn off in that whole Warg battle scene.

But I do love the bit when Aragorn tells Eowyn that he's 87...looks damn good for his age that man. Wonder if he'd have looked as good at 6500 as Elrond does though.

I love my sister

She's just phoned me to apologise.

"I'm really sorry Kate."

"What?"

"I've just gone into Waterstone's and they didn't have the other book that I wanted, so I left the Marian Keyes book that I was holding in the Sci-Fi and Fantasy section and now I've gone into Borders."

"Oh Emily. You don't need to apologise for going into Borders. Leaving a Marian Keyes book in Sci-Fi though..."

"I know, I know."

"Hang on a sec, where are you phoning from?"

"Erm...Borders."

"So you're apologising for leaving a book in the wrong place by phoning me from inside a bookshop?"

"Erm...sorry."

Borders didn't have what she was after either so she's gone to Forbidden Planet just in case, and then her last resort will be WH Smiths.

Friday Night

Friday Night
Originally uploaded by Petronella Rose.

In my posh dress, as taken by Miss Katie of W on her phone (which is why it's blurry, but I like that!)

How old am I supposed to feel anyway?

I went out with Miss Katie of W on Friday night (Campbelli was going to come too but then had to work the late shift *sob* *sniff*). I'd told her about my dressed-up evening last week so she decided I had to get dressed up in it again and then we'd go out and paint the town red.

At least that was the plan.

In reality when she arrived at my house she zipped through my wardrobe (and the piles on the floor...) and decided that I should wear the sexiest dress in the world instead. I protested in vain. It's a summer dress I said. I'll look like an idiot wearing that in the pub I said. Nope, no weakening from her so I put it on (with my red shoes) and off we went.

The Royal wasn't too bad, felt pretty good in there. The Hogshead was a bit strange though as it's a very chavvy pub. But the strangest place was where we ended up.

Now when I go out dancing I want dancy music. Now that doesn't mean dance music, it means things like *whispers* (Abba). Instead Jess took us off to the Light Bar...where they play what I would call indie music. Nice to listen to, difficult to dance to when I'm not completely pissed.

Now don't get me wrong, it was a nice place and I had a good time, I just felt old. Not because I felt I stuck out in the dress, but because the only songs that I knew well enough were either classics - My Generation - or were things that came out the first time round - like Blur and Pulp.

Pulp was the killer one though. I was singing along to Disco 2000 and remembering Stimpy inventing some crazy dance to it back in 6th form...and then I realised that pretty much everyone else in the room would have been in primary school when that came out. Ow.

Yeah, so I'm old. But I very rarely feel like I'm gonna be 30 this year, which is a good thing. (and Katie's friend Jo refused to believe I was older than 26 which helps). But at the same time I feel like I should feel older, like I should be more sensible and responsible by now...

Hmmm.

You'd think that I should do by now. I'm gonna go and fill in some of my divorce paperwork (whoooooooooooooo) and hope that helps.

(Katie has tagged some pics of me on FaceBook and I couldn't remember when they were taken, until I went back to that red shoes post and realised it must have been that night!)

Random Dad Fact #4

Many many years ago (ok, 1992) Dad wandered into my bedroom one evening and re tuned my radio from Radio One to...well, to birdsong!

He'd heard that they were testing the frequency that Classic FM was going to be broadcast on by playing (among other things) a recording of birdsong from someones countryside garden. I used to listen to it when I could, taping it when possible and then playing the tape at night as I went to sleep. I even had a kind of meditation that went with it (not that I thought of it as a meditation, it was just me daydreaming).

Then today I was watching Breakfast on BBC1 and they started playing the birdsong again.

The story about it is here.

I shall be listening as much as possible, just wish I had a way of taping it again.

All dressed up and no place to go...

Anthony is on nights at the moment.

I hate it when he works nights.

Ok, so it's better than the 5-1 shift cos I can at least talk to him in the evenings and we can play WoW together.

But I still hate it.

I miss him too much.

Silly Kate.

So I am cheering myself up by reading ALL of the Stephanie Plum books. I am up to book 10 which means I have 3 more to go and then a gap as book 14 is not published until June. Have no fear, I have lined up all the Rachel Morgan books (by Kim Harrison) and all of Kelley Armstrong's books to follow on with.

But at the moment I want to be a bounty hunter and hang out with Lula and flirt with Morelli and daydream (and get nervous about) Ranger.

The books have definitely made me feel more kick-ass and chirpy though. So chirpy in fact that on Wednesday when I had overslept and felt a bit pants and so had cherry coke and M&M's for lunch - a customer gave me his mobile number.

Another side effect is that I want to dress up a bit. So I am sitting here in my nice black kitten heels and a sexy black frock. Unfortunately I have no Bucks Fizz (to drink from a pink champagne glass) so I am making do with a litre bottle of Stella instead.

This explains why my typing is like this...and also why I think I just scared the milkman when I opened the door holding my drink, oops!

Drinking and Random Dad Fact #3

It was Jo's leaving do on Saturday night, and after a quick stop in The Litten Tree (packed full of Wolves fans watching their team get thrashed, Man U fans watching their team win and various chavs) we dashed through the rain to The Combermere Arms.
Matt had randomly appeared at work during the day (the new Lee Child book is out) and so he was there too.
Poor Matt felt a little young for once I think (makes a change from me feeling old) since the next youngest person was Jo, and she's only five days younger than me.
But we chatted and gossiped and nattered and talked about porn so it was really the same old kind of work do, rude and fun.

We were in the front room with the jukebox and quiz machine (on the right as you go in, bear in mind this pub was a house and is weeny small indoors) so of course I had to put music on, and Liz very kindly covered for my evil cunning plan by asking to hear the David Hasselhoff song that was on there!

A very good night was had by all really, and I'm glad that although Jo has finished working with us (*sob*) she hasn't actually taken off for the other side of the world yet and so we can go to the pub with her again!

----------------

Random Dad Fact #3

While I was putting bad music on the jukebox, Anthony had a go on the quiz machine. Now he's rather good at these things and only occasionally asks me for an answer.

This time it was a good one.

Anthony - Ohhhh...do you know this one babe?

I look at the machine...

Q: Which instrument was Bix Beiderbecke famous for playing?

1. Trumpet.
2. Saxophone.
3. Double Bass.

In the interests of being a pedantic bitch I would like to point out that none of these is right, he actually played the cornet, but for the purposes of the machine trumpet was the correct answer.

I know this because of watching The Beiderbecke Affair and its sequels far too many times after being introduced to them by Dad.

It's not the only "Jazz Fact" that I know, but it comes close...

Center Parcs

IMG_3426
Originally uploaded by EmLah.

Slightly tipsy on red wine and suffering from the giggles. (Anthony is trying very hard to ignore Emily...)

Home Again

I am back after a week away, mostly spent at Center Parcs with a couple of days in Essex.

I am over the moon at Michelle's news.

I am also rather pleased about the Grand Prix result this morning.

I am also a sleepy bunny.

That is all.

Time for bed

It's nice to hear the British national anthem...but I have to confess that when it comes to the Grand Prix I'd sooner hear the Finnish and Italian ones.

And now, I'm going back to bed. I shall wake Anthony up and put the race video on for him and I shall doze and tell him to "watch this bit, Coulthard swears!".

G'night/G'morning folks.

Bollocks.

Kimi is broken. He's parked himself just inside the pit lane.

ITV are praising Lewis for his driving today, we've seen about 30 seconds of him since he's just got out the front and stayed there.

Bourdais is out too...his engine just packed in.

He's gonna get some points though, SEVEN drivers left out of twenty-two.

-------------------

It's all over.

Hamilton
Heidfeld
Rosberg
Alonso
Kovalainen
Barrichello
Nakajima

and that's it...

------

They think Barrichello will be disqualified, which means that Kimi will get a point after all.

(and Emily just answered me, Hello crazy sibling)

*They're saying it's a "marvellous victory" for Lewis, bollocks it is, all he had to do was keep it on the road.

We've lost another one. Kubica is out after a shunt with Nakajima, Nakajima needed to change his nose but came back out again.

Looks like almost every driver that finishes is going to get points today, can't remember the last time this happened.

Kimi's Ferrari sounds very very sick...

Kimi goes backward into Turn 3. He really doesn't like that corner.

Eleven...no...ten drivers left. As I typed eleven, Timo Glock managed to dismantle his Toyota at Turn Twelve. Hit the kerb, bounced a bit, hit another kerb and shot into the air and smashed his suspension on landing.

Barrichello has just left the pits and tried to take his refueller with him, owch.

Bunch of cars going round in circles, yes. Boring, no!

Crap, Kimi in the gravel...

But he keeps it going, avoids the wall and he's back out again. Don't do this to me boy!

(Emily appears to be asleep as she hasn't answered my text, she's so much more sensible than me)

Massa's car is being towed away, and there's a Renault empty and parked...not Alonso, bugger.

Coulthard would "like to kick three bells of shit out of the little bastard".

Bet they don't broadcast THAT this afternoon.

That's just one of the reasons I get up this early folks.

Massa and Coulthard have just collided... the Ferrari seems to be ok, but Coulthard has lost his left front and right rear, the rear from hitting Massa, the front went as he went sideways into the gravel. That's a rather broken car.

Poor Dave. One British driver left, and he's in the lead.

So we're down to 14 runners if Massa stays in.

Kimi has got past Barrichello at last, and promptly sticks in a new fastest lap time.
Come on Kimi!

And Trulli's in the pit lane and is getting out of his car in a bit of a strop.

Webber, Button, Davidson, Vettel and Fisichella are the poor buggers whose race is over.

Red Bull are working on Webber's car, but he's got out and given up. Poor sod never has any luck at home.

Now we just need something to happen to Lewis and Kimi to win.

First crash of the season...

Massa put himself into the wall. Behind him Fisichella nearly got turned upside-down into the gravel after being picked up on someones nose.

Fisi is being craned off. Massa needs a new nose. Button looks like his back left wheel is about to fall off.

Kimi's moved up to 8th, Piquet to 12th and the safety car is out.

Four cars out...

Good Grief

Am I insane?

Why do I put myself through this time and again.

Yes folks, it's the Australian Grand Prix and I'm up to watch it.

That's with the evil zombie flu that I seem to be starting (Anthony's got it too, nosebleeds and all).

Anyways...I'm not the only one...BBC F1 Live

Douze Points

Yes I know I know I know.

7. I've finished reading The Margarets which was very good if slightly confusing at times. So of course I have started rereading, starting with The Fresco.

8. My mother's present has hit a brick wall at the moment...



...it's just too big and I have burn-out.

9. So I have started doing one of these Art Deco ones. They are small and therefore quick, and I've decided to do them on card which is a nice change.

The set. (with the cover of The Margarets visible on the right)



Daffodils in progress.



It's very satisfying doing the black outlines and then filling them in.

10. I've read two more S&A's books, We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea and Secret Water

11. I've been really enjoying the Worlds of Fantasy series on BBC4. This weeks one had both Pratchett and WoW in it, and last weeks was talking about LOTR and Gormenghast. I realised I'd never actually read Gormenghast so sent Emily a text...

Kate to Emily - Have you got Gormenghast? Can I borrow it?
E to K - The BBC series or my play?
K to E - The book...
E to K - LOL, yes, will bring next week.

This is because we'd sold our copy at work (which I'd been going to buy) to a guy who was buying it cos he'd seen the Worlds of Fantasy programme and decided to read it...

12. Other nice work coincidences include the fact that a bloke wanted a copy of The Children of Green Knowe on the same day that I'd had a conversation with Anthony about kids names. Apparently Toseland can't be used as a first name...(we were trying to find a first name that will go with Ayrton as a middle name...)

13. The above conversation also included the fact that we have to name one of the boys (in our undecided number of future children) Jack Daniel, "because if we don't do it you know your bloody sister will!".

14. Work has been quiet as Gavin had a few days holiday, also RichieFingers and Chris have both been suffering from evil zombie plague (named by Gavin) which turns its sufferers into the walking dead. The fact it's just been affecting the men is obviously just a Midlands thing as mum has been dealing with the Southern version. I just hope I don't get it for next week - I'm on holiday!

15. I've finally bought the brilliant Michael Rosen's Sad Book. On days when I need a little help this works wonders. It makes me cry my eyes out at the same time as consoling me that feeling like this is allowed.

16. I'm feeling very sorry for poor Kimi, as this (16) is his starting slot for tomorrow mornings GP. I will be getting up to watch it, hopefully with more success than my attempt at watching the qualifying this morning when I slept straight through my (very noisy) alarm. Thanks to the video, I am watching it now though.

17. Every now and again I buy myself the Cross Country Stitching magazine. I have discovered that I love that kind of stuff (although I draw the line at the religious/USA is the best ones). My Welcome Birdhouse cross-stitch is very much in that style.

18. Phew! (I was struggling). I'm on holiday for a week or so now and will be away from the internet for a good chunk of that. It's making me sad as I don't want to miss any news from Michelle <--- the baby's due any day now!!!

There's your 18 things Jen, even though I cheated a little sorry.

If I'm awake enough I shall do some liveblogging during the GP tomorrow morning, nice race start time of 4.30am...

First Six

Bless me Reader for I have sinned, it has been 18 days since my last post and yesterday I got thoroughly told off by my colleague Jen for not having posted meaning that every time she checked my blog she had to read about Rich D and his penchant for porn. (Hey Rich, hope you feel better today (he had a dodgy curry on Friday)).

Last night I tried to think of some intelligent things to write that might appease her, but instead gave up and drank cider, stitched and watched French Kiss and Amelie.

This morning I decided that I should try and write down 18 things I have done in those 18 days...

First Six.

1. I've read the first six Swallows and Amazons books. (because despite the fact I intended to start them in Feb, I didn't).

2. I've also read Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot, and part of The Margarets the new Sheri S. Tepper book which I am enjoying hugely (and which means of course that I will start rereading her other books shortly).

3. The lovely Anthony took me to Argos and we purchased a DVD tower, cheval mirror and a bookcase. The tower is nearly full up, the mirror is slightly scary as I haven't had a full length mirror since the other one fell off the wall, and the bookcase is full.



4. I went to the pub the other Friday (the 29th) for a quick celebratory drink after work (you may have noticed my divorce countdown has vanished...). This "quick drink" with Jo and Liz (and Liz's bloke Steve who turned up later) meant that I got home at 1.30am. Now that's a proper quick drink after work, haven't had one of those for ages!

5. This meant that Alf and Mick didn't come round the following night (as I was mostly asleep) but they did come round on Sunday to go to the computer fair at the racecourse. They went off and I stayed home and waited for them to get back. Waited, and waited, and waited. I not only managed to level up Tanara in that time, but I proved once again that I should not be left alone at home with nails and a hammer.




6. We also had a lovely takeaway curry from Cafe Champagne one night. Although I made a small mistake and didn't order enough naan bread. I had what they call a Fusion, where you get two different curries. When I'd had it in the restaurant it was very nice, I just underestimated the portions slightly when it came to the takeaway...



...I only had 1 & 1/2 naan breads to mop up all that sauce!

(and now Anthony is home after a night out carting so you shall get the next six later...probably).

Lunchtime

I'm sitting in the staffroom talking to Gavin and Rich D about various things including Monty Python. Rich gets up and goes to go out for a fag but suddenly turns round and comes back.

Rich - "I've just had this totally random thought. If me and Gav were sex toys, I'd be like this huge dildo and Gav would be this little butt plug."

Gavin and Kate - "..."

Rich - "I think I watched too much porn last night."

------------------

Who says lunchtimes are boring.

Brychan wins...

DSC05321
Originally uploaded by EmLah.

Why my boyfriend is a sneaky bastard...

As I said before, Anthony is working 5-1 this week. So I was aware that Valentine's Day was going to be a non-starter and then we agreed we'd go out for a really nice meal at the weekend instead.

But I come home today and the hall light is on. This made me think I was going barmy as I couldn't remember turning it on this morning, then I went into the living room.

I've got my champagne marmite (bought by myself on his behalf), flowers (now being nibbled on by Foley), champagne and the new tv is here too, plus a lovely card.

He is a sneaky git sometimes.

The only problem...it means that he knows I've done no washing-up this week and my plan to do it all tomorrow has been foiled.

Hope youu've all had a great day! (I know David has, congrats Dave!)

Valentine
By John Fuller

The things about you I appreciate
May seem indelicate:
I'd like to find you in the shower
And chase the soap for half an hour.
I'd like to have you in my power
And see your eyes dilate.
I'd like to have your back to scour
And other parts to lubricate.
Sometimes I feel it is my fate
To chase you screaming up a tower
Or make you cower
By asking you to differentiate
Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
I'd like successfully to guess your weight
And win you at a fete.
I'd like to offer you a flower.

I like the hair upon your shoulders,
Falling like water over boulders.
I like the shoulders, too: they are essential.
Your collar-bones have great potential
(I'd like all your particulars in folders
Marked Confidential).

I like your cheeks, I like your nose,
I like the way your lips disclose
The neat arrangement of your teeth
(Half above and half beneath)
In rows.

I like your eyes, I like their fringes.
The way they focus on me gives me twinges.
Your upper arms drive me berserk.
I like the way your elbows work,
On hinges.

I like your wrists, I like your glands,
I like the fingers on your hands.
I'd like to teach them how to count,
And certain things we might exchange,
Something familiar for something strange.
I'd like to give you just the right amount
And get some change.

I like it when you tilt your cheek up.
I like the way you nod and hold a teacup.
I like your legs when you unwind them.
Even in trousers I don't mind them.
I like each softly-moulded kneecap.
I like the little crease behind them.
I'd always know, without recap,
Where to find them.

I like the sculpture of your ears.
I like the way your profile disappears
Whenever you decide to turn and face me.
I'd like to cross two hemispheres
And have you chase me.
I'd like to smuggle you across frontiers
Or sail with you at night into Tangiers.
I'd like you to embrace me.

I'd like to see you ironing your skirt
And cancelling other dates.
I'd like to button up your shirt.
I like the way your chest inflates.
I'd like to soothe you when you're hurt
Or frightened senseless by invertebrates.

I'd like you even if you were malign
And had a yen for sudden homicide.
I'd let you put insecticide
Into my wine.
I'd even like you if you were the Bride of Frankenstein
Or something ghoulish out of Mamoulian's Jekyll and Hyde.
I'd even like you as my Julian
Of Norwich or Cathleen ni Houlihan.
How melodramatic
If you were something muttering in attics
Like Mrs Rochester or a student of Boolean mathematics.

You are the end of self-abuse.
You are the eternal feminine.
I'd like to find a good excuse
To call on you and find you in.
I'd like to put my hand beneath your chin.
And see you grin.
I'd like to taste your Charlotte Russe,
I'd like to feel my lips upon your skin,
I'd like to make you reproduce.

I'd like you in my confidence.
I'd like to be your second look.
I'd like to let you try the French Defence
And mate you with my rook.
I'd like to be your preference
And hence
I'd like to be around when you unhook.
I'd like to be your only audience,
The final name in your appointment book,
Your future tense.

Four Things

I had this as an email from both my mother and sister, and now FatBoyFat has tagged me with it to distract me from my woes. (I feel much better today by the way.)

Four jobs I've held:

Telephone Interviewer.
Qualified Sales Advisor at Holland & Barrett.
Christmas Temp at New Look.
Bookseller.

Four movies I've watched over and over again:

French Kiss - love this film.
Serendipity - just fab.
The Care Bears Movie - because Emily was addicted to this film as a small child.
Scream - because one of my housemates at uni hated it, and if I was watching it she wouldn't stay in the living room, thus leaving me in peace!

Four places I've been:

France.
Lloret De Mar.
Bath.
Wiesbaden.

Four places I've lived:

Awali, Bahrain.
Stroud, Gloucestershire.
Istead Rise, Kent.
Canterbury, Kent.

Four TV shows I watch:

CSI.
Numb3rs.
Ashes to Ashes (I loved Life on Mars)
E.R.

Four radio shows I listen to:

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
The Shipping Forecast.
The Archers.
The Goon Show (on BBC7)


Four things I look forward to:

Summer - with sunshine this year please.
Center Parcs at Easter - especially the massage I'm booking myself!
Getting divorced.
Moving house.

Four favourite foods:

Chocolate.
Spag Bol.
Steak sandwiches in french bread.
Subway Italian BMT (footlong, herb and cheese bread, extra cheese, green pepper, honey mustard sauce)

Four places I'd rather be:

Anywhere warm.
Summer 1996.
In bed with Anthony.
Shattrath City.

Four people I e-mail regularly:

Emily.
Mum.
Angela.
Anthony.

Four people I've tagged:

Caroline.
Michelle.
Keris.
David.

Sunflower Cross-Stitch

Sun1302
Originally uploaded by Petronella Rose.

It's coming along!

Ranty Ranty Stress Stress

I don't have a coping mechanism at the moment. That might sound strange so let me explain. When I was in my early teens and stressed about school I had a surefire way of releasing all that stress and feeling better, what Wikipedia refers to as "Self Injury". (the motives bit explains it perfectly.) When in the Upper Sixth and at uni, vodka was my cushion between me and the real world. Now however I don't have the ability to do either. Ability is the wrong word really, but I promised myself a very long time ago that the cutting had to be out and it never even crosses my mind when I get stressed (except when I'm thinking about it like this) and the vodka is very much not an option as apart from anything else I don't have the money to drink the way I used to!

But just writing all that has helped.

Today I had one job to do at work. Admittedly a big job, but easily doable in a day even with breaks to serve customers. I didn't get it done, mainly because one of my coworkers kept interrupting me to complain about the fact that they kept getting interrupted and couldn't finish what they were trying to do. So RichieFingers listened to me rant about that which helped, and I shall finish my task tomorrow!

Anthony is working 5-1 this week which is adding to my general grumpiness. I won't be seeing him til Saturday (at about 2am) and I miss him, and not just because he cooks me lovely food...

In other news my kitchen is still looking pretty good after my ex-next-door-neighbour Angela came round last Wednesday and organised me and did my washing-up. She'd popped in on Tues to ask when my day off was and if I wanted to do anything, but on Wed I was more than a little bit meh so she came round and made me feel lots better. Thankyou Angela!

I got to speak to Campbelli today who is still enjoying herself in her new job, and still enjoying the novelty of living with her lovely Jamie, although she is unimpressed with housework...

Gavin has been keeping us all entertained at work with his general Indiana Jonesness, although the cheeky bugger is having a long weekend so isn't hanging out for the whole of our Monday-Friday slog this week.

Other Happy Things
1) Mum's cross stitch is really coming along. (I shall post a picture).
2) I really enjoyed the new Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever (even though I wasn't sure how it would affect me) and have reread Just Listen.
3) The new Formula One season guide is out (I'm ignoring Hamilton all over the cover - that's a rant all of its own! Although they have changed it to include a small pic of Kimi, the ACTUAL champion!)
4) Caroline went to Malta!
5) I have been reading David's blog and thinking about philosphical things I haven't thought about in years.
6) The puzzled looks on Liz and Gavin's faces this morning when I said "Last night I got myself a new top and some trousers...and a lovely dagger" - In Warcraft that would be.
7) Anthony has got his hands on seasons 2,3 and 4 of Charmed.
8) I had a £40 Virgin Wine voucher arrive in the post.
9) It's only 17 days until I can get divorced!

Random Dad Fact #2

I spoke to my sister today.

The play she is currently working on involves lots of scaffolding. Therefore she has been sensible and bought herself some steel-toe capped boots. (Apparently they are beautiful).

She finally found them in Schuh after trying all sorts of other places.

Random Dad Fact = You need to have a special license to sell steel-toe capped boots/shoes.

Distracted again

I'm a bit discombobulated at the moment (oooh, I love that word).

I keep wanting to do things and then either talking myself out of them or just getting distracted. They're not big things, just little bits of stuff usually, but I don't seem to be able to get anywhere doing them.

(Even this blog post, it was all making sense in my head til I started typing...)

This is why I have been flaking I guess. Saturday was a very relaxed day - 7 episodes of E.R. and lots and lots of stitching. Sunday was shopping and WoW. I guess it just feels like I'm doing nothing with my time and that I should be doing more, but when I do I get stressed and snappy and generally am not fit to be out in public.

I've been vaguely thinking (again) about doing an OU course, but agin I don't know which course, I don't want to pick one and then hate it and feel like it was a waste of money, I don't want to sign up and then not do it "because I've got no time" even though I so have.

It's all just a bit meh.

On the bright side:

1) Mum's stitching is really coming along.
2) I've got Anthony hooked on Charmed.
3) I'd forgotten just how much I loved George Clooney as Doug Ross.
4) We're going shopping for a BIG shiny tv in a minute.
5) My 42 games game just arrived so I have something other than Sudoku to do on the DS.
6) I got the new Sarah Dessen proof today.
7) After spending three whole days doing "related product" (cards/notebooks/giftwrap) last week it's all done and I can get back to doing book stuff.
8) I got Tanara up to level 60 and Crimsone up to 40 on WoW. (and bought Crimsone a big red emu bird as a mount)
9) I've discovered a Mornington Crescent game on Facebook!

Cadburys Flake...

...or actually not.

I have been flakier this week than the last couple, mainly because I am doing this again. I did it back in the summer and it worked well, but for some reason I never managed to go back onto it after coming back from holiday...

This week has been bloody hard work but as Anthony has kept saying to me "If you can do it this week, you can do it anytime!". I have cheated slightly though, I've been drinking a little milk which is verboten. I've been doing this after nearly fainting a couple of times at work, low blood sugar + running about at work = not good.

I'm feeling good about it today though, even though it's day 5. I have lunch in front of me: lovely deli ham, strong cheddar cheese, pickled onions, celery and pate (the pate goes on the celery). M&S have been helping me out by having an offer on pre-prepared chicken tikka (the sort you can add to salads etc) which has been lovely for work lunch on days I don't fancy smoked salmon. Breakfast is the difficult meal as I have to eat it but always feel sick eating in the morning. Safest solution so far has been a whey protein shake which also makes me feel sick...

I have done some cooking this week, an attempt at Beef Stroganoff on Monday and Spag Bol last night (but no Spag for me).

Otherwise I have been doing much the same things as last week apart from eating Creme Eggs!

Yes I'm boring, go read Caroline's blog instead - she has been doing amazing things!

Assorted Assortments

My keyboard feels funny...this is because we just popped all the keys off, hoovered all the cat hair out of it, wiped it down and then stuck all the keys back in again. This means that some of them now feel worse than they did before, of course.

I had several things I wanted to post about this week, and then by the time I got home from work I was too tired to do anything except quickly check my email and other folks blogs and then flake out on the sofa. My sofa flaking was ably assisted by Anthony fetching me drinks, the cats being fuzzy and cuddly and the new series' of CSI and ER starting. Next week is Torchwood too!

We went to see Leyton Orient play at Nottingham Forest yesterday as a late birthday present for me. (we went to visit Anthony's sister too). I wore both my Orient tops (my black top with glitter logo underneath the team strip), tights under my jeans, my lovely scarf from mum and my big Christmas coat...and I was still freezing! But it didn't rain which was appreciated.
The score was 4-0 to Forest. Bugger. But hey, we beat them 4-0 at Forest last season so it's just karma (and we were bottom of the league at the time, they were in the top three). Best chants of the match have to be "one nil to the famous team", "you're not famous anymore" and "you're not famous anyway", attributed to Forest, Orient and Forest fans respectively.
Now I just have to persuade Anthony that going to the Walsall match in a couple of weeks is a good idea...

I spoke to Miss Campbelli the other day and she told me I had to blog so she'd know what I was doing. So just for Campbelli.

This week I have been mostly...

...taking Nytol so that I can go to sleep at a sensible time.
...watching ER on DVD.
...trying to decide how to decorate the drawer unit I got from Ikea. I like this one. (Mine is the version with two big drawers at the bottom).
...finding myself in fiction.
...ooohing over this book at work.
...trying to help Anthony choose whether to buy a lap-top, or a big TV that he can connect a tower to so that we can play WoW together at my house.*
...working on the sunflower cross-stitch.
...thinking about which cross-stitch I might do next!
...eating Creme Eggs.

*The WoW thing may sound more than a little bit geekish, but we like it.

New Years Resolutions

I went back to last year to look for my resolutions to see if I'd actually managed to keep any...and I didn't make any! I did a meme thing that Keris had done but that was it.
This confused me.
But I decided to put the Stuff in my sidebar, I thought. I wrote something about stitching too, I thought.

Well I did, but not in Jan 2007...in Jan 2006!

It's this here post that talks about it all. Quite apt really. It mentions the cross-stitch projects as:

Oranges & Lemons design - finished.

Stained Glass Footstool - abandoned, why continue making a present for your exes granny?

Desperate/Domestic Zero/Hero - there's a funny story about these...

(They link to Flickr where it says how long it took to turn #2 into #3)

Yes...well...they ARE quick to stitch, I've just been doing other things!

I don't really have any New Year Resolutions, other than the Stuff in the sidebar which will be continuing. The 2008 goal was kindly supplied by my old neighbour Angela who also took me to Ikea yesterday and helped me buy useful things (including two beautiful plates that I must photograph).

I would like to not be drinking on my 30th birthday (I know, I may have only turned 29 seven days ago, but I will be 30 this year and 31 next year!) for a couple of reasons, I would like to have my divorce go through quick and easy without having to have any contact with the Yeti, I would like to be able to afford to buy a house when I move in June (oooh, a flying pig!). I think this year there are lots of "I'd like" things but not that many "I will" things.

I shall do a little more thinking on it, and probably eat one of those Creme Eggs while I take the Christmas tree down.

Happy New Year Folks.

Happy New Year!