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.

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.

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!

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!)

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

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).

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.

One more Sunday before Christmas...

...no really, only one more to go. One more at work for me anyway, and it'll be the 23rd...

...I will be a gibbering wreck before then.

To be fair, we didn't have any customers today like yesterdays. Thank God. There would have been blood up the walls.

I was a lot more relaxed today than I thought I would be after yesterday. This was partly due to the romantic film-fest last night (While You Were Sleeping and Practical Magic - I was in a Sandra Bullock mood) and partly due to the fact that when left alone yesterday Anthony went out and spent money. Some of this money was spent on secret Christmas things, but some was spent on a storage unit for the bathroom (so the cardboard box that's been in there since we moved in here in May can go) and some was spent on an electric blanket.

It was soooooooooooooo nice getting into a warm bed last night, it's impossible to describe the amount of tension that eased out of my body when it didn't have to deal with icy bedding. The hot water bottles are now redundant and I shall not have to buy so much Deep Heat (think Withnail).

I have a day off tomorrow and shall spend it doing nice domestic things like arranging things in my bathroom, and emptying the litter trays...



Mum's cross-stitch is coming along.


I've had to shift it all about in the frame as it's too big for it to fit on all in one go. I could have stitched it sideways but figured that would drive me barmy! All of the green bits on the right were done during the films last night.

Snowy Sunday

It's snowing!!! What's more...it's settling!!!

*ahem*

I had a little too much wine last night. Well the wine was fine, it was the couple of bottles of beer I had after the wine that did the damage. We ate the lovely French Moroccan Lamb Tomato thing and played Trivial Pursuit (an edition from 1983). It was girls (me, Angie and Jo) against boys (Anthony, Paul, Joe and Dave). The boys won but since they had an extra player we may have to have a fairer rematch.

We nattered about all sorts of things including Nick Drake, Neil Young and romantic films (like French Kiss, Practical Magic and Love Actually). It was a very good evening. I'm gonna have to practice my cooking so I can have them round here and not poison anybody.

In my fragile state I managed to sleep through Anthony doing all the washing-up, he's a star that man. I also got to watch Order of the Phoenix which was rather good, I liked the way it was condensed in just the right way.

Now it's time for bed, and vast quantities of hot water bottles as this house just won't get warm. The thermostat is set at 21, sometimes it actually reaches 18, thank heavens for the beautiful halogen heater that Foley insists on sleeping in front of.