.... random rants and rambles. no agenda. yet.

I know, I know. I haven't blogged since like, forever. There's even snow on the header photo! But anyway, I'm not going to sit here and write excuses. Who cares, anyway? I know you all care much more about the transformation of our garden. Well, you can always see the transformation of The Boy here.

So, yeah, here it is as it used to be - kind of without agenda and not very practical:

And then we got a landscaper and his Assistant Youth to come and drill through 12 inches of concrete (though the youth also spent a considerable amount of time asleep in their wheelbarrow. For real.) ...

They also put up a fence and railway sleepers, and we faffed around planting things...

Which have grown, and grown, although unfortunately, the fence still hasn't painted itself.

... so if anyone would like to come and paint it, you would be MOST WELCOME.

In other Before And After News, my Dad had the genius idea of having Harrythedog's hair cut, because the poor hound has never had it cut and has always been hot. It was one of those things we wished we'd thought of before. Years ago.

So today, lovely Harrythedog was transformed from this:

To this (much too excited to pose for a photo now):

Instead of looking older and fatter as we predicted, he looks about 5 years younger and 5 pounds slimmer. Ahhh!

And in OTHER Before And After News - wait! there is more! - in a week's time, C, The Boy and I have the very good fortune to be going to Canada. Part work, part play; all exciting and quite unbelieveable.

So, because when we toured Scotland a few years ago (before blogging and Twitter and stuff) I wasted all the photos I took and the notes that I WROTE ON PAPER! WITH A PEN! ...I am not making the same mistake again. If you click here you'll see where I'll be blogging to in Canada, and maybe after. Who knows? I don't.

Why there? For various technical reasons - all of which are boring.

Well, there you go. I blogged. I'm off to lie down now.

Posted by j at 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

4 days and 9 hours ago (around noon on saturday 13th february) ...

well, yeah. you could say that twitter has eaten this blog. let's face it; typing 140 character tweets is really quite undemanding, so when i get round to blogging, i'm totally overwhelmed at the vast amount of SPACE available and the vast amount of THINGS that i could/should/would have said.

youl'll have to forgive my typing - the boy is asleep under my right arm at the mo, which is mostly* a wondrous thing that we never thought possible during the crazy, sleep deprived time we had last night.

* except i need a wee, but we won't dwell on that.

so anyway.

we've all been ill in our house - the boy still is, poor love, which means lots of grumpy and several breathtakingly full nappies - and have descended into a state of utter disarray as a result (which is why i'm blogging; there's not a lot else i can do while trapped on the sofa with only my left arm free).

... and in the present moment ...

Woo, I feel like Dr Who. Yup, the tardis called me so I could not finish the above. I'm not quite sure what happened, except it involved The Boy being diagnosed with gastroenteritis (he's finally recovering, but not QUITE there yet), and lots of rushing around looking after him and doing lots of washing, and working, and quite a few other things in between.

I owe lots of people emails and need to tidy my desk. I have, however, managed to Tweet several times. Of course I've managed to Tweet! Twitter ate my blog.

More soon, maybe. You know where I am in the meantime...

Posted by j at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It's been another week - or should I accept that this is just my life? - of mismatched events, parenting, working, running, domestic stuff and whatever else. So here I am on Saturday morning, blogging after I have been for a run, totally ignoring the fact that I need to go to the recycling centre, tidy the house and have a shower.

Get me and my gay abandon!

On a completely different note, this week I've been getting annoying emails. One thing that REALLY gets on my nerves is people who are full of shit or who bullshit others (not quite the same thing). Surprisingly, Oxfam have fallen into this category. The other day, I got an email from them with the subject header "PM Gordon Brown is waiting for your call."

No he is not! YOU want me to phone Gordon Brown about something political, which is why I've received this email from you - and I received this email because I'm on one of your marketing lists. So please do not insult my intelligence by pretending our Gordy is one of my mates and I know him so well that he's waiting for me to phone him (or rather, send him a text message because I don't do phones).

*Bins message*

And then I got ANOTHER email two days later entitled "The Prime Minister is STILL waiting for your call." I give up.

Yesterday brought about another annoying moment, when I got a bill from TalkTalk, who we've just signed up with for broadband/phone because Eclipse were really, really crap. And expensive, but that's another story.

"Sign up for online billing and save £1.25 a month" the paper bill advised me. So I did that, signing into my account, where I was told that I would have to PAY £1.25 a month if I wanted the priviledge of receiving a paper bill (wasting a few tree branches in the process). See what they did there?!

I won't even mention how we're mysteriously paying TalkTalk £6.49 for something that we didn't ask for, and therefore didn't want, that cannot be identified because I couldn't understand the rambling explanation I was given, and because C isn't going to phone them until Monday because we reckon everyone else will be phoning them at the weekend. Sigh.

The moral of this story? Always read the small print; even when you think you've done so already.

And now! It is the weekend! So I am going off to enjoy it.

Posted by j at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I feel like I've been sucked into a vacuum and have just popped out at the other end, catapulted into the air at high speed, unsure where I'm going to land.

Um, yeah. Something like that, anywyay.

Of course I haven't. In the last 17 days since I updated this blog *gasp* I've almost finished my PGDip portfolio, *double gasp* except for two pieces of evidence *sigh* that are taking forever to arrange, despite the kindness of many people *double sigh*. Like popping out of a vacuum, I'm sure I'll get there in the end.

And apart from being mummies (which involves attending a multitude of baby groups where The Boy loves to shove everything in sight into his mouth and leave trails of drool everywhere - Swine Flu alerts, anyone?), it seems that C and I have been doing just about everything online.

To start with, we've been Freecycling AND eBaying like mad, which involves selling all of our unneccessary items - of which there are MANY - and giving away anything that's too obscure to sell. This means that we've been going back and forth to the post office and weighing random items wrapped in bubble wrap, finding out how much it would cost to post them to France, Germany or the West Midlands. We've also been going back and forth to our front door and handing over debris to locals who value it.

I've also had my head in Twitter and F@cebook (there, I admitted it, but it still drives me nuts and I enjoyed my two weeks off), largely because I set up a F@cebook group and I like counting how many people have joined. It's a double edged sword, though, F@cebook, because some annoying ex-classmate uploaded a pile of old school photos this week too, and it's kind of hard to promote your business at the same time as your name's being dragged through retro mud. Mind you, some of them have been hysterical.

So, when Ce told me she'd bought a travel journal to document her travels in Taiwan, I was kind of amazed.

Me: You mean, a journal, like with paper?

Ce: Yes.

Me: And you're going to be writing in it with ... a pen?

Ce: Yes!

Me: Wow.

C (chipping in): It has been known, you know.

Me: And you're not going to upload any photos to F@cebook, or, maybe even ... a blog.

Ce: No, can't be bothered with all that. I'm fine with my book!

Me (panicking): But how will we know that you're OK?!

Ce: Oh, I might email you. And I might use my journal to help me create a photo DVD later on.

C: See, she's got the right idea!

Me: I'm going to have to blog that.

Andf it must be said; I think Ce has the right idea indeed.

Posted by j at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have invented a new phrase (or at least, I think I have - you never know)... Over Freecycling. This happens when Freecycling gets out of hand.

This happened to us last week when C asked me, "Do we want rainbow coloured curtains and a matching kids' duvet cover?" Usually when C asks me if we want any number of random items on Freecycle, I say "NO" and carry on doing whatever I was doing, but I've got a thing for rainbow stuff, and The Boy has too. So this time, I said yes, thinking they might come in handy at some point.

To cut a long story shorter, C arranged to meet the Rainbow Curtain Lady in the village that evening. However, it wasn't until we were out walking the dog, that we realised that C had forgotten all about it until the last minute, so we'd have to go on foot to meet her rather than taking the car. Ah, more enviromentally friendly and all that. Cool.

Um, no. This is us, remember?

Upon arriving at the meeting place, Rainbow Curtain Lady looked worried. "Don't you have a car?" she said.

"It's OK. We can put the curtains in the pram!" C replied.

THEN we realised they came in two very big bin bags, so we'd have to take The Boy out of his pram and put the bin bags in it instead, along with the bonus Jungle Book suitcase that the Rainbow Curtain Lady made C take too, because C is far too polite to say no, and because the snake on the suitcase lights up when you press the bear's nose, or something.

So we thanked Nice Rainbow Curtain Lady, then UP THE HILL we trudged with our pram laden with huge, heavy bin bags, a bonus suitcase, a dog and a baby. Did I mention that I also needed a wee? Irrelevant, but true.

And then, upon arriving home, we found that the rainbow curtains were not rainbow curtains after all. They were primary colour curtains. Very nice, BUT NOT RAINBOW!

So C took them away again the next day.

But did we keep the bonus Jungle Book suitcase? Of course!

So, that is Over Freecycling - bag lady prams are optional, though.

Mind you, my memory is even worse than C's - this morning I was about to start writing an essay, when I opened a file, thinking it was notes, to find that I had ALREADY WRITTEN IT before The Boy was born, and completely forgotten all about it. The joy!

In other news, Eclipse is doing. our. heads. in. Does anyone have any internet service provider recommendations? Or just tell me what you use and if it's any good? I'd be grateful for any comments in the comment box,(please)!

Posted by j at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It has been 20 days since I last blogged. Forgive me, O Whoever, for my sins.

Did you miss me? I thought not.

I don't know where all the time went, but now it's gone, so all I can do is blog about it. So, yeah, we went to Devon, attended a lovely wedding, then had a nice week walking on beaches and stuff, then came back home again, relatively unscathed, except for the fact that the journey there took 8 hours and 10 hours on the way back (we took a detour to see some friends and then C's parents). If you have ever shared the back seat of a car with a screaming baby, you will know that it is really not fun, and when you arrive at wherever you were headed, you will be so grateful that you could eat your own feet.

So, go to hell, Google Maps. You're doing it all wrong.

In fact, we nearly didn't make it home from Devon at all, because C helpfully hung our car key up with her parents', and her mum accidently took it to a local shop with her that morning and put them all down on the counter while she paid. Then, when she was leaving, the shop assistant held up our car key and asked if it was hers, so of course, she said no.

MUCH frantic searching later, we established this, so then I had to go along to the shop to identify our key, amidst funny looks from whoever was in the shop at the time. Sometimes, life is complicated.

In other news, it certainly seems to be Killer Cat Season at the moment. I AM NOT HAPPY ABOUT THIS. We've worked out that Harrythecat mercilessly likes to kill baby voles and other furry things that are too young and bewildered to know how to escape from his murdering clutches. NOT HAPPY. Also, apparently, Brian likes to eat the remains. DEFINITELY NO HAPPINESS.

All of this is made worse by the fact that the long grass in the field behind our house has been chopped down and made into haystacks, because this means that Harrythecat can find his poor defenceless prey more easily - I know this because I SAW HIM DO IT the other day - and it also makes my hayfever much worse... I had to get up really early this morning because I couldn't stand not being able to breathe and wanting to scratch my eyes out any longer. Sigh.

Mind you, now that the grass is down, C and I saw a fox in the early hours of this morning, far, far away up the hill. From the way that he was scurrying around, you could tell that he was thinking, "Where the f*** have they put my grass?!"

Precisely.

Posted by j at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I haven't updated this blog for a while because the dog ate my homework and then the computer blew up and when I gathered up the pieces I realised there was a bit missing so it didn't work any more. Or something.

Seriously, aside from the usual flurry that is my life, I've been bogged down by hayfever, which has left me feeling as if someone blew pepper in my eyes, sucked out my brain and replaced it with a ball of cotton wool, then filled my nostrils with sandpaper. God. Today, I gave up on the cheap medication that I was taking and went to see our nice local herbalist, who gave me some special tiny tablets that you have to put on your tongue and they dissolve. Oddly, they don't taste of anything, which is probably a good thing. I'm just glad that I feel better already, although there are 450 - yes, 450! - in the box, which I calculate will last me for 36 days because I have to take 12 a day. Weird.

In other news, I have been Hero Mummy twice this week; today by dashing around in the rain (yes, I know, what's that about?!) with the empty pram, cramming it into the car and driving round the corner to pick C and The Boy up, so they didn't get wet, BUT MY FOOT GOT SOAKED. The other heroics were also weather-related, when one night I drove to the 24-hour Tesco to buy a fan because it was too hot for The Boy to sleep. Of course, the 24-hour Tesco HAD NO FANS, but the late-closing Sainsbury's had a vast array of them instead. Phew.

Having cooled down, The Boy is doing great, although he seems to be teething, or at least warming up to it (a health visitor told us "it might just be his teeth moving around in his gums" which makes me feel pale inside), which means he screams more than usual. He doesn't usually scream or cry much, so it's a bit unnerving having a calm baby who suddenly goes purple and wails as if something bad just happened - but we can't see the bad thing, which makes it a bit confusing sometimes.

He did enjoy being pushed on a 2-hour hill walk last Sunday, though. Yes, I know that was a bit insane, but it seemed too hot for slings, so we prammed it up and down the country lanes of Calderdale.

Oh, and Big Brother 10 has started. Maybe this year, I'll like it for more than two days. We'll see!

Posted by j at 8:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

As my lovely hairdresser, Diane, would say (complete with dramatically rolled eyes, backwards tilted head and a grand hand gesture), I've had a week.

Nothing overly dramatic or grand has happened, though; it's just been one of those weeks where there never seemed to be any pockets of nothingness - there was always something to do that had to be done immediately - as if the "play" button got stuck and life became on loop. I am rambling.

Rather frighteningly, since joining Facebook last week, I've somehow acquired 174 "new" friends so far. Even more frighteningly, this required virtually no effort other than me repeatedly clicking my mouse button about 200 times, without thinking about it too much. I also managed to join someone's circle of thingies, then accidently created my own and added people to it, then apologised for the inconvenience because I had no idea what I was doing. Since then, I've just ignored any offers of games, circles or whatever. I'm too old.

In true Diane-week fashion, this week also involved a long, long journey back from Berwick that took 6 and a half hours rather than 3 hours and 15 minutes as the sat nav said it should, because we had to pull into a layby just outside Newcastle to feed The Boy (C) and do some emergency work while connected to a good 3G mobile signal (me), then pull over again because The Boy needed changing twice, and Harrythedog needed to be walked round a car park in the pissing down rain, then we had to take a detour because unfortunately part of the M62 was shut. And then we got a bit lost.

The best part of all of this is that Google Maps tells me that our trip to Devon next month should take "about 5 hours 26 mins". When I told C this, she laughed wildly, as if I'd just suggested we don rucksacks and walk down the motorway with the pram. Google Maps really should take people's variables into account. I can just imagine it now:

Estimated required number of toilet stops per hour? Er, one.
Number of animals in transit? One.
Number of adults? Two.
Number of children? One.
Age of child? Three months.
Is your child prone to random screaming when in transit? Yes.
Does your child have colic? No.
Think yourself lucky then. Estimated journey duration: about 14 hours and 23 mins.

I think that's going to be a journey.

Posted by j at 8:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

ok so i'm under pressure here. i have the boy on my left arm - because he refuses to be elsewhere - while i type and eat toast with my right hand. the dog is salivating by my right elbow, wondering when i am going to give up on the toast and give it all to him.

so you will have to forgive the lower case.

who cares about capitalisation, anyway? lower case is the new black.

and yes, i could be wearing the boy in a sling. in fact, i WAS wearing the boy in a sling, but he decided that he wanted to hijack my arm instead. this means, of course, that the sling is still slung around my body... the swathes of black fabric make me look a bit like a cross between a headmistress and a pirate. sometimes, on days like this, i feel like i'm in fancy dress, swooshing around the house in delight with loose, babyless material trailing after me.

and then the tesco delivery man gives me a funny look and i whip it all off.

but anyway, this isn't a mummyblog. it isn't an anythingblog, actually. so i will move on and discuss the nation's favourite topic. the weather. and BBQs.

for example, our new gas BBQ will be delivered soon, i hope, but probably not in time for this weekend, which is forecast either to be rainy or sunny, depending on where you obsess over your weather information. hmm.

[the fact that we're getting a new gas BBQ stems from how a) we recently realised that our next door neighbour's newish boyfriend is BBQ Man #2, and life would be unbearable if we were unable to copy him; and b) C is our very own BBQ Man, but breastfeeding and lighting BBQs do not go together, so unless we get a gas one, we will never have a BBQ this year. that's why.]

oh, and does anyone agree that those nasty men in the apprentice are only there to make people like me, C, Ce, E and Jacks get mad, throw our shoes at the tv, and keep watching every single week, just in case they get fired?

Posted by j at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Whew, thanks everyone, for the catvice I asked for in my last post. So the answer seems to be; we are powerless and at the mercy of Harrythecat and Brian, who are going to do what they please, no matter what we try or how many combinations we try it in. I had a feeling that would happen.

Still, I think we will try hiding Brian's food from Harrythecat, as per Ce's suggestion. Harrythecat isn't the sharpest cat in the litter tray, bless him, so that might work. Stay tuned!

Life has changed considerably this last week. No, the baby hasn't come yet; I am now focussing on filling my PGDip portfolio before they do*.

*Note to self: That isn't going to happen, you fool!

What this means is that I am now in the middle of two essays, both of which are developing too slowly for my liking, and both of which require unobtainable references (one is in the post as I type, I hope), meaning I've spent hours today stumbling around all over the internet looking though trillions and trillions of journals, forgetting what I'm looking for, then starting new searches, going back to old ones and trailing off on confusing new tangents, over and over again. My head hurts.

I think it's safe to say that academia does not suit my personality. Thankfully, this is short lived, and I should be able to go back to being a normal person again soon. No offence to academics reading this... your jobs are hard.

To counteract all of this, avoid work and stave off doom, I have resurrected my Twitter account, and am now fully up to date on the Digital Spy headlines, plus the minutae of 27 random people's lives. Phew.

Posted by j at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I was about to upload one of the snow photos that I took earlier, when I realised they wouldn't be much good because it's snowed more since then, and now it's dark so I can't take any more today. But there's always my new header (click SHIFT-REFRESH if you can't see it) for the time being.

So anyway, we've got about four inches of snow at the time of typing, as it's snowed most of today and last night, and it doesn't really look like stopping for long. This is quite good, except I am not well (again! yes, I know!) enough to go for a long walk with the dog, much to our disappointment, though I am hoping tomorrow will be better because he's such a snow lover and ahhh, who am I to turn a wee dog down? Of course, the cats hate it more than tuna flavoured Whiskas, which is quite a lot indeed.

At least it got us out of a tour of the local maternity unit with a midwife who speaks in paragraphs rather than sentences - she likes the sound of her own voice, as my parents would say - because she can't get over the hill or back up again, so it's too risky, and having all those pregnant ladies driving about isn't a good idea, and... you get the idea. We will reschedule, but my ill brain is thankful that it doesn't have to be dragged up and down hills and along wards and in and out of rooms by someone who talks in paragraphs tonight.

Tomorrow night is Mary Poppins night, if the roads - and my nasal passages - are clear (sorry if that was a bit too much information). Perhaps we could get a lift with her and her magic flying brolly?

Right, now I have to re-dress myself in my wooly hat and my wellies - Dad, I am turning into you! hooray! - and take the dog for his evening snow fest.

**** End of ill brain emptying. ****

Posted by j at 6:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Ooh, I almost broke my Blog At Least Once Weekly rule there. Again. Not quite sure what's happened, but there's something kind of vacuum-like about 2009. It's almost as if everything was compressed over Christmas and then we all came back to work and the compression was released, so everything shot all over the place and you didn't know where to start.

That makes sense to me anyway. I think what I was trying to say is that 2009 is a bit confusing, and I think everyone's kind of in a trance after so much time off over Christmas, which was apparently the longest break we've had for over 20 years.

In other news, in our GREEN baby's room (what's wrong with all of your monitors?! Even you graphic designers have yours set all WRONG!), we are thinking of having a nice grass and ants theme - you know, with grass along the bottom of the walls and random ants doing their thing amongst it. Maybe some other insects as well, who knows.

Some people might think, "Ants?! They'll scare the baby!" but I have thought about this, and I reckon that kids are conditioned to be scared of things. I don't think it's automatic. So our kid is quite possibly going to grow up to become some kind of botanist or David Bellamy-alike (no, that was not a hint that it's a boy - we still don't know)... or maybe they will just grow up with a fear of fluffy lambs, rabbits and chicks.

Who knows? We'll see.

Posted by j at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

First up, in answer to questions in the comments:

1) The baby's room is green; after mixing the below colour

with some white and another similar shade of green, we got... over 5 litres of a colour that is almost exactly the same as the one above. Uncanny (and please don't make me relive the whole confusing story!).

And no, this is not because we do not know if our offspring is a boy or a girl. It is because we'd like to have a nice, calm green haven in which a purple-faced screaming baby can be brought and lulled into a deep and peaceful sleep. That is the idea, anyway. In practice, it will probably be me who rushes into the nice, calm green haven with a purple face, because it is the only room in the house that is not populated with an animal, or a computer, or another source of purple-facedness. We'll see.

2) I am not allergic to our house, don't worry, Kathy. Unfortunately, I appear to be allergic to being married, but have no plans to stop being married, so I'll just have to stay ill.

It's not all doom and gloom in these parts, of course. This afternoon we skipped off work early - come on, who doesn't have post-Xmas blues? - and went to pick up a pile of Freecycled cloth nappies from a nice lady who lives up the hill. Even further up the hill, we decided to give the dog a quick spin so parked up and clambered up a hilly field. About halfway up, I realised there is nothing you can say to your almost 8 month pregnant companion that won't be annoying, because she is wearing the wrong boots and is not at all impressed by the fact that you have a sore finger after you burnt it on a piece of toast that day, BECAUSE THAT IS BEING FLIPPANT AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO CARRY A BABY AROUND (yet). So anyway, she made me run up the hill (because, ha, I can still run up hills!) and check what was on the other side of the wall, because it wasn't the road that we thought it was, which made her even more annoyed.

Luckily, it was one of those fantastic old walled footpaths that's covered in leaves, with neatly laid cobbled stones along the bottom. Quite fascinatingly, actually, there appeared to be a whole network of these paths hidden away at the top of the random hill that we were on. And all of them were encased by dry stone walls, covered in moss and leaning at weird angles.

They definitely don't make them like that any more... which is kind of the point of me mentioning this: Does anyone know why dry stone walls manage to lean at scary angles and not fall down?! Seriously?

That's enough waffle now. And without further ado, I can reveal the winner of the caption competition which was held an embarrassingly long time ago is SAM, for her caption, "But I wanted to be Rudolph!" which was both Christmassy and funny at the same time. Sam, your prize will arrive soooon.

Posted by j at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

A belated MERRY CHRISTMAS to anyone who happens to be reading this, though if you are reading this mid-January sometime, you probably won't care any more.

So yeah, Christmas '08 has officially been and gone - and a very good one it was, too, involving trips up and down the M1, far too much food and drink and plenty of cheer. The cats have been retrieved from the cattery and since then have been very busy checking that everything is still in the same place as before (it is); if C will be very annoyed if they dig a good few clawsful of wool out of our new carpet (of course); and that the out-through-the-front-door, in-through-the-back-door function still works (it does, every sodding time) ... all's well there, then.

While not tap-dancing on C's bladder, our baby-to-come has acquired and borrowed a large number of items, including a pram-type thing, with another to come from another kind person, because apparently they need more than one for different stages of growth, weather, terrain, occasion and flavour. It is going to be fun to see if they'll all fit in our house.

And Harrythedog is exactly the same as usual, in a very reassuring way indeed.

In other news, click here to read more about what to do if you live around here and can sign, and are at a bit of a loose end on January 10th. I've never been called a sign language enthusiast before - it makes me laugh and think of binoculars and wellies (oh, OK, both of which I happen to own) - but there's something quite cool about it. We've no idea what's going to happen, but it looks like quite a few people will be coming, hopefully. And yes, I will be the one in wellies.

Posted by j at 3:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No, this isn't an announcement of the winner of the caption competition. Brilliant entries so far - thanks ever so - but I want to leave the deadline for a little while so that there's still time for a couple more people to wrench their heads out of Facebook and enter. If they want to.

In fact, this is an announcement about my throat infection. Oh yes, I have one, and am popping ibuprofen and antibiotics and moaning a lot. If I were to translate my doctor's very clear gestural explanation literally, he told me; "You have a lump on your tongue that is the size of an easter egg. This is normal. It will shrink to the size of a golf ball and then disappear and you will be fine. Nothing serious."

I am very fond of my doctor.

It's weird because our health has gone downhill since we got married - C and I have both been ill more in the last two and a half months than in the five and a half years since we've been together (her latest affliction is queasiness and an aversion to food) - is this normal?! Marrieds, please speak out!

At least I've just about finished my Christmas shopping. You know you've bought too much from Amazon when you notice that the delivery man's had his hair cut.

More soon. In the meantime, I have a very painful easter egg golf ball to contend with.

Posted by j at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

If you are reading this today, you are probably sitting somewhere which is minus something in temperature, like me, and you may even have FROST ON YOUR MOBILE PHONE like Ce, who obviously works somewhere with dodgy heating.

So yeah, it is freezing here. We had to hack our way into the car this morning, and could only open the driver's door, so I had to push the front passenger door open with all of my body weight so that C and the dog could get in. Luckily, I remembered to bring the anti freeze into the house in case we're presented with a big ice block with wheels tomorrow morning.

And then when I'd battled my way out of the car again and was walking the dog in Hebden, I passed the police station and saw four geese scuttling out of the forecourt gate, as if one of them had just been released on bail and they were getting the hell away before the cops changed their minds. They then proceeded to waddle across the road, creating a minor traffic jam and attracting a small crowd of amused admirers, including me.

Only in Hebden.

I then realised that I'd seen goose shit in St George's Square the other day, and it dawned on me that they'd been evicted from their regular home by the canal because there's a big sewage works going on at the moment, so they probably have nowhere to go. I guess the cop shop's as good a place as any if you want a peaceful night's sleep (!)

Ahh, the poor geese though. They are fierce and hissy sometimes, but I do feel sorry for them, wandering around rather blindly. So, when I saw them creating yet another traffic jam, I texted C and asked if she thought I should email the local environmental warden and tell him my concerns, but she texted back, "No! He's not Chief Goose Warden!" and I realised she was right - as usual - and if I emailed him, he'd just think I was one of those annoying Victor Meldrew types, if he doesn't already.

But please, if you are driving through Hebden anytime soon, keep your eyes open for a gaggle of geese rushing down the road. Ahhh!

Posted by j at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

OK, so I'm not the world's best blogger and keep breaking my Must Blog At Least Once A Week rule. Sigh. It's been one of those weeks where time just flies at lightning speed and all of a sudden you realise it's Thursday and are surprised and delighted at the same time because that means the weekend is only a day away.

And THEN it's the weekend and you have millions of jobs to do, like go to the tip and empty loads of overdue rotten garden waste into a huge metal container, while trying not to retch, and then you have to dash home fasttttt because your lady wife has forgotten she's Freecycled some stuff to the same earnest local councillor who came round before, but of course the councillor is an hour late - and apologetic - because she was far too busy sorting out councillory things to have remembered herself.

Of course.

So anyway I've been meaning to blog about Prop 8 for ages now, well at least since the day after Obama won (and yes, I know Obama doesn't agree with gay marriage ... the day that an American leader DOES is the day I keel over in astonishment. At least he believes in "equal rights for gays" and civil partnerships, which is something.). Because about 12 hours after Obama won, gays and lesbians in California and three other states lost their right to get married. California is meant to be the gayest state in the USA, for God's sake!

There's something particularly horrible about having your hard-won rights TAKEN AWAY from you. It's quite different to having no rights in the first place, I would imagine - especially if they are voted away by people who know nothing at all about you and your life, and quite often don't even know what they're voting for - they're just doing what all the billboards and religious nutcases have told them to do. Ticking a box takes a second but can have devastating consequences.

Imagine one day you are married and the next you aren't allowed to be, and you have no idea what that's going to mean for your future?! Pure madness. And no, I am not Californian, nor have I ever been there, but gay rights are kind of universal, so it's hard not to feel affected. I don't think we've heard the last of that one yet, though. We gays are strong!

I guess that was one of the more depressing posts I've written of late, so, um, here's a fantastic flash game to cheer you up.

Just. Can't. Stop. Playing. It.

Posted by j at 4:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Although he's always ever so nice and smiley, I'm quite sure our postman hates me at the moment because of the things I keep ordering online from Amazon, which obviously has some kind of clever computer programme that generates specially-targetted marketing at gullible mugs like me. For example, I got a maternity-related email from them the other day, informing me that I could buy a Bump Band for a fiver, so I did, because the other one that C has (which cost insanely more than a fiver) gets used a lot and she could do with another one.

And why, might you ask, do pregnant ladies like wearing oversized headbands around their middles? Good question. Apparently it's something to do with holding up your trousers and filling any gaps and um, looking fashionably layered. Whatever!

Ce would probably not agree with me, but I am constantly amazed, and rather suspicious, at how you can buy something which is discounted by 75% and then have it sent to you to arrive before 1pm the very next day FOR FREE! Yes, I have joined this Amazon Prime trial thingy which sends things, like, 10 minutes after you've ordered them (I know this because I tried to cancel something I'd just bought the other day and it was too late(!)) so that you can get them the next day, whether you want to or not. I do that because it's free, and because it's kind of fascinating, not because C has an urgent need for a brand new Bump Band that she MUST wear TOMORROW.

It makes me feel ever so guilty because I keep imagining all the people in the Amazon warehouse rushing around amongst miles and miles of shelves, locating the right item, rushing to package it, throwing it in a van, which drives to the airport, where it is loaded on a plane, which fliiiiiiiiiiies far, lands, unloads it and then takes it to a depot, where it is loaded into another van, sorted, and ends up in our lovely postman's bag. Then, he walks up our steps in the rain, infallibly smiling, knocks on the door and gives it to me so that I can apologise for the rain and sign for it.

And THEN it gets returned to them because I stupidly ordered the WRONG item, and they have to do all of that over again, but in reverse.

Insane.

In other news, C has joined Freecycle [go on, you know you want to!], which is rather amusing because she's now getting 10,000 emails a minute or something like that and she keeps making lists and saying things like, "But how do you choose who gets it?!" It was also the source of mild embarrassment this morning when I answered the door with crazy hair, wearing my pyjamas and some random items of clothing that I found on the bedroom floor, to find a woman looking at me rather uncertainly.

"Are you C?" she asked.
"No, I'm J!"
[Woman looks confused]
"Have you come for the soil?"
[Woman looks very relieved] "Yes!"

And the moral of the story is; someone always wants your crap, even if you've forgotten they were coming for it.

Posted by j at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

God, it's cold, isn't it?! I am typing this with a freezing nose, under three layers of clothing and a hat. C swears it's "just a cold snap" and things will all get warmer again soon, but I'm not convinced.

We actually had to scrape frost off the car yesterday before it was drivable, and it's way too cold for the cats to desire outside, so they've been pacing around annoying C (not me, of course) by going

Me-ow
me-owwwww
me-ow!
MEOW!

every few minutes or so, until she gets cross, picks up the offending animal and chucks him outside. Then of course, the offending animal will simply get up on the kitchen windowsill and go

Me-ow
me-owwwww
me-ow!
MEOW!

with a furious face, until she gets up and lets him in again, and the whole cycle repeats itself. It's quite hard not to laugh sometimes.

In other news, I'd forgotten how B.O.R.I.N.G. buying a carpet is. Of course, we disagreed over the colour so we ended up buying a slightly more expensive one that C managed to convince me was really just the same price, and the carpet salesman, who looked just like a game show host with a bright red tie and lots of bling, explained that it has some kind of cleanliness guarantee, so, for THE NEXT SEVEN YEARS, we can phone the manufacturer if there's a stain on it and they'll explain how to get rid of the stain, and if that doesn't work, they'll come round to our house and get rid of it themselves. Yes, really.

It was all I could do not to scream "NOOOOO" and run out of the shop. Instead, I said something like "yes, whatever," then paid an obscene amount of money and worried about it for an hour afterwards.

It's hard being an adult sometimes.

And now I'm officially too cold to type, which is probably just as well. Bye!

Posted by j at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I'm not sure if this is "normal" blogging resuming, as I was never a "normal" blogger in the first place, but who knows. At least it means I don't break my Must Blog At Least Once A Week rule two weeks in a row.

Nobody cares, anyway. You're all on Facebook.

I guess if I was on Facebook, I'd have updated my status to "married" by now, or perhaps "married and with child" would be more fitting (but way too smug if you ask me)? Who knows? Unlike the rest of the world, I don't really know how Facebook works, other than the fact that people give away Too Much Information and nudge or poke each other all the time. Tellingly, at a wedding recently, two people told me I HAVE THE RIGHT IDEA by avoiding Facebook.

And no, it wasn't at my wedding, but if you haven't guessed or got a postcard by now, C and I got married - OK, so "civilly partnered" sounds weird - two weeks ago. It was all very simple, with just our parents (and a lovely terp) in attendance, and over within about 10 minutes. Then, my overexcited mother stuffed confetti down C's cleavage, we did the photo thing and went for a slap up luncheon.

We celebrated our first week in wedlock by coming down with the flu, which was so. not. fun. and meant it was just as well we didn't book a honeymoon (look, I said it was simple) or anything like that, or there would have been tears. OK, there were tears anyway, but we didn't need any more.

So that's kind of what I meant in my last post when I said last week was unusual.

We're kind of on the mend now, and even managed a nice trip to Haworth yesterday, where we did irony perfectly by staying in a music themed hotel room (but only because it accepted dogs) and I ate a pizza with asparagus and artichokes on it, which was very tasty but a bit.... wooooo, enough already. Oh, and we went up on the moors and it started to rain when we were right at the top, but we didn't really mind because that kind of made it all the more authentic... after all, Heathcliffe did a lot of rushing around on the moors in the rain and snow, didn't he?

So anyway, yeah. We got married. I've got quite a few photos but haven't sorted them out cos we've been ill and disorganised and whatever.

And if you were wondering if I wore a dress, I ask you this; CAN YOU IMAGINE ME IN A DRESS?

Exactly.

Posted by j at 7:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Maybe this is a weird old Britishism, but there are few things that seem to annoy people more than not being able to park their cars.

I recall a few years ago, my mate lived in a near-constant state of mild paranoia simply because she wanted to park OUTSIDE HER OWN HOUSE, but her neighbours were, well, weird, and very possessive of the small but very important area of tarmac that they believed was theirs, and THEIRS ALONE. Good God.

I didn't understand that then because I couldn't drive, but now that I can, I am getting there.

Me and C are very fortunate to have a small side road running down the side of our house which we can park up (but I can't reverse out because it's soooo steep), as well as a space at the front of our house, which has been taken up by someone else for the last week - we nipped out briefly last Sunday and were rather annoyed to see it squatting in "our" space when we got back.

And it has been there ever since.

I can't think about that too much, otherwise I get mad and remind myself that only crazy people get hung up over parking, and really, there are far more important things to worry about in life. And besides, we're lucky to a) have a car in the first place, and b) have a side road to park it in.

Obviously, the side road would be more useful if I could actually retrieve the car AFTER I have parked it there (i.e. I can drive up it, but not back down again). It would also be good if the nice man opposite didn't have a huge, butch truck type vehicle - which I am secretly a bit jealous of - that needs plenty of space to turn in the road, so we have to keep our car out of the way.

Then, it wouldn't have mattered that I parked my car at a weird angle in front of our house this morning, because a) squatter car was still there, b) I'm going out soon, and c) I really couldn't be bothered to think creatively. As it happened, Truck Man had to drive ever so slowly and carefully past my car, inch by inch, at exactly the right angle. I was quite impressed, and told him I wouldn't do that again.

So squatter car is really quite a pain.

But I am nowhere near as car parking obsessed as all the people in Hebden who write letters to the local paper every single week, arguing about the plans for the new Garden Street development. It's now become a personal slanging match and isn't very nice to read. I think I'll keep out of that one.

Posted by j at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Apparently, this rain is not going to stop ALL WEEKEND. Something to look forward to(!)

It's amazing how we've slipped into autumn and it doesn't feel different, just wetter. Is this a sign of global warming, or is it just... life? Hmm.

I'm not really bothered, although it's making Harrythecat crazy. He likes a good breath of fresh air, he does, so is very unhappy about the rain and keeps making me go for walks around the house with him... but every time I open the front door, he looks furious and refuses to go out.

Brian just sleeps. Brian is zen.

On a completely different note, who's noticed that it's the Big Brother final tonight?! Perhaps the housemates, but no one else? It will be close. I have no idea who'll win because a) I've not been paying much attention this year as it's been a bit crap and my mind's been elsewhere, and b) all of the polls are so close and changeable, no one should bet unless they have money to burn.

Just for the record, these are my predictions, which undoubtably will be wrong:

5th - Darnell
4th - Mikey
3rd - Sara
2nd - Rex
Winner! - Rachel

Who wins? You decide.

Posted by j at 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

OK, great, we got an extra day last weekend and even HAD A BBQ and it didn't rain until 5 minutes AFTER everyone had eaten (at which point we all rushed around moving chairs and food and everything else that wasn't waterproof indoors... and of course it stopped then).

In all irony, however, we are now unable to put the BBQ stuff back into the very shed that we bought largely to put BBQ stuff in. In fact, it was hard enough to get it all out in the first place, due to the ginormous tomato plants that are too huge to stand up by themselves and are only happy when part-collapsed against the shed door, and if you try and move them, they drape themselves wildly over the nearest upright thing (usually you) and so you move them right back in front of the shed in a panic.

I can't wait for the tomatoes to ripen so that we can get into the shed again - other important things like the lawnmower are also being held to ransom by that massive. wonky plant. SO PLEASE, SUN, MAKE OUR TOMATOES RED!

In other, much less annoying news, our first crop of potatoes was ready and we dug up a bagful of fantastic purple spuds at the weekend. In honour of this, they are now on my blog header (press SHIFT-REFRESH if you can't see them), though slightly disappointingly, the purpleness disappears when you boil them.

So anyway, the Bank Holiday was great but everything else in the week that followed it was all crammed together with 20% less working time to do it in. I spent two days without a desk this week because we got two new desks from an office clearance - most unexpectedly - but one of them arrived in two halves (i.e. broken) so I had to put it all back together again using C's genius idea and many, many screws.

Now the office looks way more officey and my colleague (i.e. C) and I are sitting facing each other, divided by a wall of monitors - there are three on my desk, if you count the laptop. That was kind of weird at first because I could only see the top of C's head, which wasn't very useful, so we hitched them along a bit and made a wee "signing gap" to, er, sign through. Problem solved, except now I can see C typing away with a serious face nearly all the time, and I have no idea why she looks so serious, which makes me laugh for some reason.

Because of the above, I am now in Freecycle Mode again and was very pleased to give my old desk to a local councillor, who was very earnest and councillory and arrived with a man who reminded me of Chris Martin from Coldplay. I'm not sure why.

Oh, and Tip of the Week for locals is - book yourself a Green Refurb home assessment and they will come and tell you what's wrong (or right) with your house for £50. That might sound like a lot of money, but consider the fact that we thought we needed our loft insulated and the nice Green Refurb man said it was actually well insulated already, to a level better than the Government's new build building guidelines. Just as well someone told us that, eh?! I was also rather disappointed that we probably wouldn't get planning permission for a wind turbine, but we might, might, might get solar panels sometime in future. We'll see.

So anyway, that was my compressed week that was, and I've not even mentioned my day job, my course and several other random things that are filling my head right now. It's kind of OK to be busy when everything falls under the same theme (like Moving House or Work Stress), but when it isn't, that's when I type a rambling and rather incoherent blog post like this one.

If you read this far, I thank you, and I wish you a happy Bank Holiday-free weekend.

Posted by j at 7:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

That is the question everyone is asking. Did it come for a couple of days and nobody noticed, or didn't it come at all? Certainly, my Project Tuesday evidence shows hardly any blue skies at all - at least not on Tuesdays anyway.

I'm unsure whether I should sulk at the lack of Outdoor Opportunities or carry on crossing my fingers and hoping that they will come... just later than usual. The crossed fingers idea is probably the best one, because unless there are gale force winds and it's chucking it down, me and C are going camping locally at the end of August (just up the road, because that's enough novelty, and we can come back to feed the cats upon whim).

I DEMAND A SUMMER! Just a small one would do! Please.

In competition mania news, I am excited to announce that there are TWO winners:

1) Ce was the nerdiest and emailed me an impressively long list of things that she'd spotted:

1. Cat on wall 2. White post 3. Chair moved (can see sculpture in 2nd pic but not in first) 4. Dry shed! i.e. different colour shed 5. Purple flowers grown 6. Yellow hedge in field 7. Big bush has been moved 8. Small bush has been moved 9. Flowers in next doors garden (top right of 2nd pic) 10. Number of pots have been moved

2) HOWEVER - because there is always a however - Ce is not able to collect the prize this time round because she has already had one, and she did enter at her peril. So this time, E wins, mainly for the best cheating tactics. Hooray!

Oh, and I'd like to point out that the "bushes" in the garden are not bushes! We don't have any bushes! They are tomato and potato plants, which need to be harvested soon or they're going to explode.

Thank you and good day.

Posted by j at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

If you look carefully at the above photo, you will see a huge alsatian filling up the back seat. Or maybe not. But it is there!

And why have I got a photo of an old car with a dog in it on my blog? Good question.

When Ce asked me what I was doing at the weekend, she and A both fell about laughing when I said I might be going to the local vintage car exhibition thingy (blaming it on C, of course) and THEN they said I must blog about it. Must, must, must. Can't get any sense out of some people.

So anyway, I have zero interest in cars, but I am a great fan of weekends being as relaxing and weekend-like as possible. Besides, there's something quite intriguing and cool about old cars, and if something like that was going on in your local town, you might pop along of an afternoon, right? Come on, you would.

And that was what C and I aimed to do today, except our oven managed to conk out last night after playing havoc with our electricity for the last few weeks, so we had to go and get a new one, and by the time we got back it was far too late to go and stand around looking at old cars.

Cutting a long story short, that is why we decided to do a photo walk instead (or rather, I took my camera along when we walked Harrythedog) and captured a few home-bound cars doing what cars do best (pollute the environment!)...

... tomorrow, there will be old fire engines and things. Hooray!

Posted by j at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Apparently, buying a shed - and arguing about where to put it - is a very thirtysomething thing to do. According to A, anyway. So, if A's word is to be taken as law, I am now a proper thirtysomething. Oh joy(!)

To cut a very long and boring story short, on Wednesday, we're having a shed delivered and installed. Oh yes, we are paying double to have it installed by professional shed people rather than getting one from B&Q and figuring it out ourselves. Stupid? Too late.

This is partly because we live far away from our Dads, and when I asked my Dad if he had any advice about installing a shed on a hill, he just looked at me as if I was mad and then laughed loudly and said "DON'T." It is also because whether you are on a hill or not, installing a shed seems to be really complicated and may or may not involve drilling into concrete, and seriously, I don't want to go there. Ever.

So Wednesday is the day I become an official thirtysomething. I just hope they don't think our hill is too hilly and impossible for a shed because sheds are far more complicated than they sound. Trust me.

Plus, our BBQ goodness partly depends on it (if you think we're just getting a shed for a laugh, you'd be mistaken). Would you believe that today is the 7th of JULY and we haven't had a BBQ yet?! I can't either. BBQ Man would be appalled!

Posted by j at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I do not recommend having a lawn.

The problems started when we got home from France and discovered that everything had grown, as I've already said, so we had to do something about it fast. The tomato plants are currently being seized left, right and centre by eager Freecyclers (currently 11 down, 18 to go) which means our spare room will soon look like a spare room again, and maybe sometime people will stop emailing me and proclaiming their love for tomatoes.

But anyway, that's nothing compared to the Lawnmower Fiasco.

As the people around here are very nice indeed and as we don't have a lawnmower, a fact which was highlighted by our waist-high "lawn", we've been offered lawnmowers by our neighbours on either side, AND someone else has offered to come and mow our lawn for us. So anyway, we chose to borrow N&P's lawnmower since we know them best, so yesterday I went round and waited guiltily in the garden while P rummaged around in his shed producing several strimmers and other things - none of which worked - while N alternated between nagging P and laughing her head off with rolled eyes. So far, so good.

I ended up borrowing a lawnmower which hadn't been tested, but which P assured me definitely worked, and then set about with the shears to make the waist-high lawn shorter and more mower-friendly, as N had told me to do. When it was ready - i.e. it looked like someone had let a chainsaw loose on it - me and C switched on the mower and mowed... but it wouldn't work.

With a sigh, we bundled the mower up and decided to go and ask T on the other side if we could take up her offer of a lawnmower and strimmer instead. This time, they both worked, which was a relief, but also an embarrassment, because we then realised that we hadn't pressed the buttons on N&P's mower properly, which meant it was probably NOT BROKEN AT ALL. Whatever! There's a first time for everything, right? Anyway, all was well until we smelled smoke, and realised that T's lawnmower's motor was burning.

Yes, BURNING. With smoke and everything. Agh!

In shock, we realised we'd just blown up our new neighbour's lawnmower the first time - and probably the last - we'd ever borrowed anything from her. Agh!

So I raced upstairs for some quick Googling and was relieved to find that there's a local company that fixes machines and things, until C phoned up and was told that we shouldn't bother having the lawnmower's motor fixed because it would cost about the same to buy a whole new lawnmower, which was probably what we should do instead. Agh!

There was only one thing for it; we were going to have to buy a new one. I mean, you can't just go around blowing up people's lawnmowers, especially not if they live next door and it's the first thing they've ever lent you, can you? So, after more frantic Googling I worked out the model and drove to B&Q.

After explaining to a very nice B&Q assistant who looked like a cross between Robin Williams and C's Dad (who looks nothing like Robin Williams, funnily enough) and who knew EVERYTHING about lawnmowers, we discovered that the model was not in stock. Agh! Much deliberation and discussion later, I opted for a similar one which happened to be a bit cheaper... well, we weren't going to pretend it was the same one, were we?! I thanked Lawnmower Man for saving my life, paid and left.

Because this is me, and because nothing is ever simple, just as I was leaving the car park, C texted me in a panic to tell me she'd broken the strimmer cord and could I buy a new one. Even though I had no idea that a strimmer had "cord" in it, and thereafter what this cord actually did, I agreed, re-parked and went back into the shop to find Lawnmower Man again.

After a lengthly lesson in the correct way to cut grass, the differences in thickness between different kinds of strimmer lines (not cords, as I was told) and several texts between C and myself, Lawnmower Man guffawed and told me that strimmer line is like a washing line and if a bit breaks off you just pull some more out and carry on. This happens all the time. As we apparently had nothing to worry about there because we didn't need to buy anything else, Lawnmower Man could not understand why I was having such a bad day. I said "I am going home NOW!" and left.

Upon arrival - and finding out there was indeed nothing wrong with the strimmer - C somehow managed to explain to T that we'd blown up her lawnmower, we were very sorry and we'd bought her a new one, all without pausing for breath. The expression on T's face was like how people look on the telly when they open the door in their dressing gown and there's a camera crew there to tell them that they've won a competition ... kind of a mixture of extreme surprise and disbelief, along with the fact that they think whoever's at the door is barmy.

But anyway, in the end, everything was fine. T was so pleased with her new lawnmower that she's already been over to finish cutting our grass for us (not an easy job as we live on a hill) and I think she might consider lending us her strimmer again.

N&P, meanwhile, found the whole thing hilarious; especially P, because he's one of those people who always likes to be right and he couldn't find anything wrong with his mower when he tried to fix it.

And that is why I don't recommend having a lawn. They're far too complicated!

Posted by j at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I am back in blogland, and am lucky enough to be able to say that holiday was just what I (and C) needed. So, here I am, like a neatly rolled ball of string, with a respectable suntan and a un-stressed heart.

Will it last? I hope so! Especially the tan.

France, particularly the place where we stayed in Charente Maritime, was magnificent. Both of us would highly recommend it, as long as you like total peace and quiet and don't mind driving along in the middle of nowhere amongst miles of vineyards (C did that for the first time, and she was great!).

What is it with rural French signposts?! They're TINY and can mostly only be seen from one direction - i.e. usually the WRONG direction - so you've driven past them before you realise you needed to turn, and you then have to drive another mile to a farm to turn round and drive back e-v-e-r s-o s-l-o-w-l-y just to make sure that you don't miss it second - or third - time around. What's that about?

But yeah, it was brilliant to get away and just lie around doing nothing much, as well as drive past many signposts in attempts to visit places and stuff. The flight home was rather eventful, however, because there was a large group of hungover rugby players from Bacup on our plane. For some reason, they were all dressed in "traditional" outfits (flat caps, waistcoats, neckties and, er, clogs), and insisted on talking to everyone on the plane... though I was lucky that "my" rugby neighbour only asked me how to sign thank you after I helped him to find his seatbelt.

Anyway, if anyone fancies that place I linked to above, drop me an email and I'll be happy to er, answer questions(!) Right now I'm knackered - I don't even know why I'm blogging. Perhaps it's because I'm too tired to go on MSN and somehow it's easier to talk to oneself than to other people. Er, I don't make a habit of it.

So now I'm home and decidedly un-grumpy and delighted to see the Harrys and Brian and very grateful to KR and Ce for looking after them and hoovering up all the fur that they shed during Prime Moulting Season which happened to be last week. Last week was also The Week That Everything Grew - no, not the Harrys, thankfully (they're actually smaller without all that fur) - I'm still shocked by how LONG the grass is and how BIG the plants are, especially the tomato plants, which have made it look like our spare room is being used for something illegal. It's also at the front of the house, which means we have some emergency gardening to do.

Photos will be on Flickr at some point this century; i.e. as soon as A nags me into submission.

Posted by j at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

What would I say if you asked me if I'd spent all weekend traipsing around a field in the mud, voluntarily picking up rubbish and recycling other people's alcohol-related debris at a camping festival that I'm not even camping at, because they don't allow dogs, and also because we're kind of running a cat B&B at the moment (which is a whole other story for another day)?

I'd say yes. And I'd add that 10am is a particularly horrible time to have stale beer all over your hands.

Heh. It's actually fun, believe it or not, mostly because of the obvious environmental benefits, but also because it's quite a sociable job and C and I have both met loads of lovely people - and nagged them about recycling, of course.

It's also really disgusting. Who knew that baked bean flavour baby food could make so much mess? And also who DIDN'T know that sanitary towels can't be recycled?! Oh, and if the two men who peed drunkenly in the plastics bin outside the main marquee ever tell me it was them, they will live to regret it*. Nuff said!

The weirdest thing we've found so far has to be the pair of gentleman's suit shoes which were placed neatly at the bottom of one of the bins soon after the festival started. All very mysterious!

So. More mud and beer cans beckon tomorrow... just please, no more wee*.

* And yes, I know that was probably all Too Much Information, but, umm, how else am I meant to process such weirdness?

Posted by j at 6:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Am I glad it's the weekend? Very glad. I'm especially glad because me and C spent a lot of last weekend Doing Things, and this weekend the only thing we're doing is going to see this play, which should be quite exciting, partly because I've never seen subtitled theatre before.

I digress. One of the things we Did last weekend was spend a lot of time skidding about in the mud picking up loads of rubbish that stupid people had thrown all over the nice countryside. No, we didn't lose our minds, we joined in our local Clean Up thingy, along with quite a lot of other people who agree that people who throw rubbish all over the countryside are stupid. Me and C were lucky enough (!) to get a whole patch of our own at the bottom of a slope, which looked like this when we started:

Well, actually, that's only about 20% of it all. And that bike was HEAVY, but kind of useful, as I used it as a kind of pick to jam into the ground and hang onto when I was skidding back up the slope again. No idea if that made sense, but it's what I did. Oh, and the speaker (the black box thing in the photo) was EXTRA HEAVY, and kind of fell apart on the way up the slope, taking me back down with it about 3 times.

Which brings me to ask: WHY go to all the bother of dragging a really, really heavy professional DJ's speaker along a countryside path and then pushing it down a slope, where it stays for a few years before some stupid person (i.e. me) comes along and almost breaks her leg dragging it back up and sticking it in a skip? Seriously... why?!

People are weird.

But that's not the weirdest thing we found... there were several bikes, a fridge, a mouldy old dartboard, a cooker, a sewing machine, millions of cans and crisp packets and God knows what else, all strewn across the countryside. And. That. Makes. Me. Mad.

Here's some of the evidence:

And when we had finished our patch, it looked like this:

I can't tell you how satisfying that was. Like I said, people are weird.

Posted by j at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Does anyone out there take echinacea daily to ward off colds? I do, amongst other things, or I did, until I found out that taking it daily might not actually be a good idea because it means your body might just get used to it, so it kind of won't work any more. Oh dear. So I stopped taking it daily, after doing so - and being illness-free - for a few months, and guess what? A day or two later I started to get a sore throat. There was nothing for it but to start taking it again.

I am a slave to herbal remedies. Agh!

When I explained this to C this morning, we agreed that my immune system is a bit unhinged, so I need to be "restored to my factory settings" and go back to my default, echinacea-free self (what kind of conversationalists merge geekisms with herbalisms, I don't know, but it suits us fine and we understand each other!). Does anyone know how long this might take, just out of interest?

Whilst on the subject of factory settings and defaults, my PC tower is due back today, sometime within a 10-hour "I'm afraid we can't confirm what time it will be with you" window. Apparently, "The engineer found "bad sectors" on the hard drive. Which has been replaced." So all of that palaver and chasing of tails and miscommunications and lost ties in gardens was their fault? What a surprise.

And will I get an apology? I doubt it. And by default, this means that the Evil Computer People are going to get a long, annoyed letter from me. When I have a moment, anyway.

Posted by j at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After a long, boring and drawn out series of emails with the Evil Computer People, who of course didn't answer any of my questions or even get my contact details right, this morning my PC tower was taken away to London by a huge man with a blonde mullet, who looked like a cross between a wrestler and an 80s action movie star. I can't decide which.

But anyway, the above is kind of irrelevant (especially the part about the mullet) because the point of this post is to ask for advice, not ramble on about delivery men.

I gave up on my PC weeks and weeks ago, and have been using the laptop since. It's been fine, especially as I added a second monitor to it, which has helped my posture because I have RSI and hate laptops for that reason. The departure of my PC spurred me to pimp up my laptop even more, and today I tried plugging in an extra keyboard. But it wouldn't work. I've tried doing it with 2 different keyboards, both with an USB/PS2 adaptor cable, and both with all the right drivers etc, but it won't work!

So does anyone out there know if I am missing something really obvious, like disabling my laptop keyboard or something else that I can't seem to do?! If so, I would be happy to be embarrassed by your comments in the comments box.

I thank you, and goodnight!

Posted by j at 7:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It's amazing, the amount of crap that people have thrown on the canal to try and break the ice:

Well, it didn't work. Not even this Christmas tree worked (I know, I know)...

To be fair, though, it probably doesn't weigh nearly as much as it used to, seeing as it's so old and shrivelled and crispy now. Poor thing!

In other news, C and I have realised with much fascination that as our house is south-facing and we live on a hill, we're also on "the right side of the valley". This means we get plenty of sun but if we look out of the window over to the other side of the hill (a mile or so away), everything's frozen and freezing and might as well be in another country. Seriously.

And yes, I know - I'm meant to have blogged about the fifth and last Geocache that we found a week ago. So here is photographic evidence:

Doesn't he look proud?! And so he should, because it was hidden in a really-hard-to-find place, in the middle of nowhere, with lots of rocks and bushes and not even a path. Well, we had to get rid of that blasted Mickey Mouse travel bug thingy that we've had for waaay too long... the Geocaching people will not be happy with us! Now we are travel bug-free and relieved (I wouldn't let C pick up either of the two that were in the cache!)

When we'd done that, we went for a walk on the moors and got a bit lost - as we usually do - which was slightly scary* but excellent for the old stress levels, because if all you can see is this...

... what is there to worry about?

* In my view, the scariest things about moors are boggy bits, which must be crossed either by running lightly or walking very slowly and carefully, depending on various things, just in case you sink in the mud or get chased by a spook. Running aimlessly in a blind panic screaming "CLAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIREEEEEE!" is not advised, because it means you'll lose your sense of direction and henceforth your mind.

So yeah. there are some things to worry about on moors. Luckily, that day was bog-free.

Finally, because this is turning into a really long ramble with no aim, if anyone is thinking of going to see I Am Legend [warning: link makes a noise!], I thoroughly recommend it. Me and C went to see it at the local cinema the other day, and it was SCARY. So scary that we both screamed in places, which was a bit embarrassing, especially as there was an old lady there on her own - on her own?! - and stuff. C was freaked out because no-one told her there were flesh eating zombies in it (you've been warned!) and even more freaked out by the fact that I knew, and I still went along and watched it.

I can be brave sometimes.

Posted by j at 6:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, I know another cat-related post. I'm sad like that. But mostly, I'm too tired to finish off my next post about Geocaching and stuff, so this is a lot easier (and by mentioning it now, I HAVE to finish it).

So anyway, this is an appeal for more wise words from my cat fan friends.

Now that we're apparently "proper cat owners" according to A The Mad Cat Lady, we've started feeding another cat. C has decided that he should be called Brian - he's almost definitely a boy because he's ginger - and he's really, really shy. Bless. He's also really, really hungry, definitely the biggest cat eater we've ever seen, and practically wolfs down bowl after bowl of food as if he's a dog, which is kind of worrying but what can we do?

Anyway that wasn't the question. My question is a bit weird: How do you know if cats like each other or not?

I ask because Harrythecat is rarely seen with Pussy, and if he does see her, he doesn't look very happy at all. However, he and Brian like to have staring competitions, which I didn't think was meant to be good, AND they like sitting together in front of the house; a mildly amusing image of much gingerness, which I thought was... good?

So what does that mean? Harrythecat always seems to sit higher up than Brian, which might mean that he's the dominant one? Or maybe it's all part of the mind games masterplan, and, as C says, Harrythecat has sent Brian round to milk us for all we're worth because he's worked out that we're soft and I'm a bit neurotic and also quite stupid because I let him sit on my arms while I'm typing, which sometimes really hurts, like he's doing now.

... or maybe it means nothing at all?

And I know I need to get out more, but I need to know!

Posted by j at 8:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

OK, so Mr Cousin kicked my ass and told me to link to Mrs Cousin's excellent new doula website, so I just did. (And in case you don't know what a doula does, they're like midwives, but nicer. I think. That's not to say midwives aren't nice, of course. I should probably stop here.)

So anyway, I thought I might as well do a complete spring clean of my wayyyyy olddddd links, so if you look to the right of your screen, you will find them. And yes, I know they are rather untidy. I like them like that!

And, for the record, the water has gone down and you can hardly tell there was a flood yesterday, except it's a bit muddy and stuff, and in places it looks like someone threw a huge bucket of water down the road.

Funnily enough, we've been meaning to buy wellies for a while now, seeing as we spend so much time tramping around in the mud with the dog and stuff like that. After yesterday, our need for wellies has become urgent - if you can have a Welly Emergency, we're close to having one - but now all the local shops have sold out. Seriously. Even the "youths" wear them around here... which means we can't be THAT uncool.

In other completely unrelated news, we saw the very good The Golden Compass with subtitles on Sunday, at our local cinema, which is a darn sight better than the ones in Preston (it sells cups of tea! in proper cups! imagine! L and A were thrilled, and C was jealous because she didn't get one)... not to mention nearer. Oh, the irony.

As well as that, this morning, I was very pleased and rather taken aback to find that one of the women who works in the local greengrocer's can sign, and remembered enough to have a conversation, despite not having signed for 10 years.

This place constantly intrigues me.

Posted by j at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hooray, I have finally uploaded my new header (if you can't see it, press SHIFT-REFRESH). While it is unimportant in the face of, er, important things, it was important to me in the name of Tidiness Of The Brain. Thanks must go to R for helping me to realise that ".JPG" should have been ".jpg" - a small but important detail.

ANYWAY. The image you see at the top of this page is of the very fine dry stone wall that is at the end of our back garden... while we don't own this wall, we are apparently 'in charge' of it, whatever that means. I guess we have to make sure it doesn't fall down or something, but there isn't much chance of that as it's as heavy as hell - much respect for the people who built it in the first place - so I'm not too worried.

I'm also less worried about Pussy now that our special new cat shelter arrived this morning (kind of from eBay, yes, T) and is in its rightful place outside. Is it weird to worry so much about a cat that you don't even know?! It's not as if I don't have anything else to worry about - believe me, I do - but anyway, it was important to me, especially as it's freezing here. I'd post a photo of the shelter, but it's really unexciting - kind of like a curved lump of "sandstone" coloured plastic with a hole in it - but as long as it does the job, that's OK with me.

So who'd have thought I'd be scouring the net for cat shelters?! I'm probably just going soft in my old age. Further evidence of this softness/old age is the fact that I am ALLOWING Harrythecat to stand menacingly on my lap as I type this, partially pinning my right arm to the desk and making it very difficult to type indeed. This is something I mercilessly wound A up about for years, before I too succumbed to The Control Of The Cat.

I have to go. He really won't let me type.

Posted by j at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

While it's not quite a storm after the calm, getting back into the swing of things after Christmas always feels weirdly like you've just taken your brain out of a box and popped it back into your skull, doesn't it? Well, it does for me.

After grappling with my email inboxes, I managed to fill one again in about 12 minutes flat after advertising a long list of stuff on Freecycle (go on, you know you want to!) and suddenly becoming the most popular person in Mytholmroyd. Just as well it's a small place.

Notably, one woman was "really chuffed" to find that some of our old plates matched her plates and she now has a full set. Spooky, but cool!

Aside from that, I have had loads and loads of emails from random people who want our old digibox - because we now have Sky - each with their own Very Good Reason, which means one thing; they will all have to be put in a hat, with the winner drawn by Ce, who kindly gave us the digibox in the first place. I hate it when this happens... you never know who is genuine, and you feel like you can't judge, because who are you to judge who "deserves" something more than someone else? So Ce and the hat come in. Phew!

Next thing on today's list of boring things to do was to buy a mobile phone. "Oh, get her!" you may cry, but please bear in mind that I hate buying mobile phones. It's all so complicated! I did try to buy one from a shop, but the assistant was a bored, tuned-out youth who completely lacked a sense of humour, and whose vocabulary consisted mainly of "yeah" and "no" and "oh, I don't know," so I had zero luck. In fact, she was so demotivating that I wanted to wave my existing mobile phone in front of her, crush it into tiny pieces with my heel and ask her to dispose of it for me, just to see if she reacted. Lord.

So I decided to cut out the human whatsoever and buy one online. Cue much late-afternoon surfing by me and C, who is just about as clueless as I, trying desperately not to get bored and go and do something more exciting. Anyway I managed to find one in the end - the best thing about it was the fact that it was described as "simple to use" - but not before surfing through pictures of zillions of phones and having to fill in a long, long form online and then suffering much outrage at the fact that my first TWO user name choices were taken. God.

Who cares, anyway? It's on its way, apparently.

Why I am even blogging all this, I don't know. Perhaps my 2008 brain is full already and thus needs emptying? Fun!

Posted by j at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Can anyone see a dry stone wall at the top of this blog? Let me know if you can, because I can't, and it's supposed to be there because it's my new header. Oh well - it's my own fault for being too lazy to go and get the external hard drive, plug it in and blahhhhhh *snips boring details*

So. Christmas is officially over. Our decorations are down, largely helped by Harry the cat, who (we suspect) knocked over our tree while we were out shopping the other day. This wouldn't have been quite so dramatic if a) the tree hadn't been 7 feet tall; b) it hadn't narrowly missed my new digital photo frame, C's new internet radio and our glass coffee table; and c) it hadn't happened on January 4th, which is the day that decorations are traditionally meant to come down. Spoooooky.

Herewith the dramatic evidence (*note the industrial-sized tin of Quality Street, brought by Ce, as it is an Essential Christmas Item. The tin no longer contains Quality Street. Hooray!):

Angel Number 1 landed flat on her face...

... while Angel Number 2 managed to stay upright, entangled in a mass of Christmas Tree Debris...

The cat rounded off his vandalism spree by throwing his bed halfway across the room and relocating to the dog's bed instead. Quite what was going through his mind, I don't know... maybe it was something to do with the fact that he's only just started to go outside, but it's too wet and cold to be fun, so he's sulking. Whatever.

In other news, me, C and Harry the dog - obviously - have bravely ignored my injured foot and managed to rack up about 10 miles' worth of canal towpath walking in the last couple of weeks. That's actually 20 miles if you consider how we do it on a there-and-back basis... only another 21 miles to Manchester (and a further 21 miles back). Hahahaha.

So anywayyyyyy I have to go and do more useful things, which means I need to make a pile of things to Freecycle because they are being replaced by new items, and because we now have millions of plates all over the place and C is trying patiently to do a jigsaw but there isn't room.

Ah, the trivial side of life. I like it!

Posted by j at 6:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

OK so I accidently broke my must-try-to-blog-1x-week rule, partly because I was busy doing Christmas stuff like eating too much and crawling slowly up and down the M1 in Crazy Festive Traffic (no, I didn't drive) to visit me and C's families... and partly because I have developed a kind of post-work allergy to computers and become strangely drawn to tragic Christmas TV instead.

Wow, that was a long sentence. The last one was much shorter.

But anyway, it all went very well and was enjoyed in all the right places, I am pleased to report. (I hope the same was true for anyone who is reading this!) And now I'm left with a Christmas Belly, a pile of cool pressies including a digital photo frame *yay!*, a permanent, vague hangover and an injured foot.

Yeeees. So our plans to go walking in the new year are now under threat because my foot is black and blue and doesn't work properly. I COULD explain how this happened but I don't think I would manage to do it very well - it was one of those "you had to be there" experiences - but I CAN say it involved the cat sitting in the wrong place, thus giving me a fright and nearly sending me tumbling downstairs, saved only by my foot. And no, I wasn't at all drunk.

Oh yes, the cat was involved. I need say no more. Instead, I'm hobbling downstairs, taking my Christmas Belly with me for more fuel, resolving to fight my new-found computerphobia in 2008 and blog more. Or something.

Posted by j at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Don't you just hate it when everything breaks down just before Christmas, and you feel like "agh" because a) it costs money and b) you don't have time to deal with it because you're already spending your entire life trying to deal with the Pre Christmas Rush at work? Well, I do anyway.

And I know there are other things in the world more blogworthy that I should be moaning about, but I don't have the brainspace to think about them, so here is my list of breakages (in no particular order):

1) The car. Haaaaaa, of course it would be the car, because the car always breaks down just before Christmas every year. This year, not content with sustaining a dent after a youth* used it as - er - a trampoline, the car decided to have a puncture in its wheel too, which meant we had to drive around to no less than four garages this morning, before we found the one that was run by Tyre King, who knows everything there is to know about tyres. Then, while he was looking at it, we took the dog for a walk and almost got trampled by a herd of horses who ran at us (it's true... well, at least the dog almost got trampled). And now, we have to go back again tomorrow because Tyre King says blahhhhhh and blahhhhh and whatever, but mainly because it's the most complicated way of doing things.

*exhales*

2) The TV signal. Contrary to popular belief, living on a hill does not help you to get better TV signals, so tomorrow we are getting Sky TV**, because our electrician (who has been 11 times; we counted) said it's the only way we might actually see subtitles and proper TV channels and everything else that TVs are supposed to show.

3) My computer. Oh yes, siree. The Evil That Is V*sta has finally won the war and - er - done something. Sigh. So now my computer doesn't work without randomly switching itself off when I'm in the middle of the Pre Christmas Rush. Thank god for laptops, is all I can say, and that's strong coming from someone who hates laptops.

4) The dog.*** Who is now banned from under the bed for the rest of his life.

5) The cat. **** More catvice needed please, cat fans: how do you make a cat use his lovely new scratching pole thingy rather than scratching all of our doors and furniture to smithereens?

And that was my Broken Things Rant. Thank you and goodnight!

* - we think.
** - if you're interested in the special Dixons £75 deal and the website says it's sold out, don't be fooled because it isn't, and you can save a further 10% by putting in the code SKY10.
*** and **** - mainly just mentioned to annoy OPD, because she thinks I blog about the Harrys too much. And she is right!

Posted by j at 6:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

I have just fed Pussy*, the neighbourhood stalker cat who keeps scaring me through the kitchen window, for the second day running (and about the 5th or 6th time in total). When I told C this, she just said "Oh good," and carried on talking to her Dad on the phone, as if it was all completely normal.

That's what I want to know... is it normal to feed cats when you've no idea who they are or where they came from, but they're ever so - dare I say it - cute, and you feel really sorry for them and worry that they aren't getting enough to eat? While I'm far from harbouring kittens and becoming a crazy cat woman like A [dodging thump], I need to know. Because if I/we are doing the wrong thing by feeding Pussy and s/he will become over-nourished, if there is such a thing, then I/we will have to stop.

In the meantime, Harry Corbett is smugly sitting in Harry Barker's chair, while Harry Barker pretends not to notice, instead making us feed him bits of toast because he knows we feel The Guilt. Badly.

* - Not his/her real name. Probably.

Posted by j at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

... but you can't take the journo out of the girl.

Yes, I know I have been a terrible blogger of late, partly because I haven't had time and partly because I haven't been in the mood. While this does not actually matter at all, it matters to me because it's my blog, and because I make the mistake of promising to blog about things. And I don't like breaking promises.

So all the Things I Have Been Meaning To Blog About have piled up and become a completely random list for me to get out of my system in one mixed up, incoherent blog post. Which is what I am doing now.

So, this is the part where you start reading something else instead.

First up: The Mystery Object!
OKKKKKKK, fact fans. It was a medieval bee hive. How could you not have known that?! Still, it was fun reading the many confused comments that resulted (and worrying - Ce, I don't think a bee is an animal?!). And in case you don't believe me, Ce dug up these links (cheers!).

RIght. NOW you know.

Secondly, I have another mystery object.
No, really. We got it in the post, and haven't a clue what it is, so decided to stick it on here and see if anyone else does...! Here it is:

It's made of rubber, thus is not what C thought it might be, i.e. something to open cans with (!) Any ideas?! We need to know.

Thirdly, we found the unfindable Geocache the other day.
Yes, we went all the way up that big hill again to find this...

Of course, it contained a travel bug - that's the blurred Mickey Mouse figure you can see on the left - which has come all the way from USA and is now in our kitchen. Thinking of dragging C&J up another big hill to dispose of it (and thus escape the clutches of travel bugs) when they come this weekend, if they let us. And if it isn't snowing!

We were going to do that the other day after finding the above cache, but it was getting dark so we hurried down the hill instead. I did get some nice photos, though, like this:

and this.

Finally, I have too many other things to blog about so I am just going to list some of them here instead (not in any particular order).

* Me and C saw a deer from the kitchen window the other day, running across the field.
* The deer was being chased by a dog.
* We didn't see either of them again, but are sure they are fine.
* We also saw a woodpecker the other day, which makes a change from seeing cats killing things.
* In addition to the sweet grey neighbourhood cat, Pussy, who has adopted us, we might be getting a new cat.
* It's a bit fierce, and has three legs.
* However, we don't know yet.
* If we do, it'll be the third animal we have offered to home in the last week.
* The other two are homed elsewhere. Long story!
* After giving away nearly all of our belongings on Freecycle, we won a breadmaker the other day!
* And this morning I won a nice blue cupboard, which should fit exactly into the empty space in the spare room.
* I don't know what I'll do if it doesn't.
* The electrician is coming soon for the 5th or 6th time in the last month, because the downstairs lights don't work at the moment.
* The electrician is really cool, but I'm sick of seeing him!
* I typed all of this blog post and the other one from my bed because I am not feeling very well at the moment.
* I could use some sympathy.
* I'm sick of making lists so I'll stop now.

... Now that's all out of my system, I can sleep easy. And I probably don't need to blog again for about 7 years. Hooray.

Posted by j at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

(And no, I don't mean you, my lovely blog readers - if you're reading this, you're most probably 'over it' anyway; if you're not, you should be! - it's Stonewall's new campaign to beat homophobic bullying in schools, and very fine, it is too. I was touched to read the many MySpace comments from gay teens... which also made me feel old, but then again, many things do.

So anyway, I was impressed and wanted to share that. After all, under my many layers, I am gay too.)

Also in the spirit of sharing, I'm thinking about ways to become more carbon neutral... and before anyone rolls their eyes and mutters under their breath (that'd be you, KL!), it basically means that I'm thinking about planting some trees. So if you would like a tree for Christmas - instead of a wrapped up pressie - let me know. If you wouldn't, that's fine too.

I've also subscribed to The Nag, which does exactly what it says on the tin, and nags you. More specifically, if you sign up, it will send you emails about being greener (once a month, I think - I've not had mine yet!) which can't hurt, can it?! So if you want to do the lazy thing and have someone tell you what to do, sign up too ... and let me know if you do so that we can compare notes... or should that be nags!?

In other green news, I was delighted and somewhat surprised that Londoners are thinking about copying little old Hebden Bridge and doing away with plastic bags. Now, that would be cool.

I realise this is probably a rather preachy and boring post - I didn't mean it to be, honest, was just clearing my inbox/various crevices of my brain - so if you have made it this far, you are rewarded with this word game link.... kind of a weird idea but I guess it can't do any harm... and it's addictive!

So anyway, have a great weekend. Or, if you read this on Monday morning when you're sitting sleepily at your desk and wishing you weren't, try not to play the rice game alllllll day.

Posted by j at 9:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

While I never quite remember which way round the clocks are meant to be moved (this morning C helpfully reminded me that it's spring forward, fall back, but I will definitely have forgotten again by the time we have to move them forward), I have to say I am very pleased with the extra hour we have been given. What am I going to do with it? Sleep? No, because there is never enough time in the day, and if I have an extra hour, you can be sure that I am going to put it to good use! Not that sleep isn't useful... I just don't want to.

Now I just have to decide what 'good use' means. It will probably mean 'moving half the house around again after the electrician turned it upside down, and doing other things on the neverending Just Moved In-Style Tasks list' sigh.

And which hour is the bonus one anyway?! From 7-8am? Do we have our 7-8am period as usual and then another one after it, so that the time is 6am, 7am, 8am, 7am, 8am, 9am etc? Or is it completely random, with a secret mysterious hour shoved in somewhere between 12.15am and 8.53pm, quietly so that no one notices? Wherever it is, it's all great with me. I like more time!

HOWEVER - for there is nearly always a however to every story - all of this time shifting is a bit of a pain. Darker evenings mean we have to walk the dog earlier, which, erm, interferes with his bowels (although he does get over it, don't worry - and yes, I know that was too much information). Darker evenings also means more electricity and whatever. Darkness also has a weird affect on some people, though thankfully I'm not one of them - I'm just weird.

[Who decides about all of this time saving anyway, does anyone know? OPD, you probably know!]

Am off to use my extra hour now. I think I will use it to eat breakfast. Maybe it can be my secret extra hour, so if I eat too much, it won't count. Nice.

Posted by j at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Anyone who thinks that the hills of West Yorkshire are boring should carry on reading this and hopefully change their mind in the end... not that I am trying to be a tourist information-type person, by the way (!)

On Saturday, we walked up Scout Rock (i.e. the hill in the photo at the top of this blog) and gasped in awe at the major views over Mytholmroyd, later gasping in shock and embarrassment when we realised that our new golden blinds could be seen shining er, goldly, in the sun from where we were, which was about 2 miles away..! Let's just hope they don't distract a pilot or something.

On the way down, we bumped into a couple of other walkers who were chuckling to themselves about the fact that a van had driven down the hill and got stuck after following its sat nav rather too religiously. It was now being pulled out, after spending the night there, so we hurried along to see the drama. It was weird to see; a tractor was pulling a recovery vehicle (!), which in turn was pulling the van, which was bobbing from side to side like a toy, closely followed by an annoyed-stroke-embarassed man and a small, excitable boy. I managed to get some photos without being shouted at:

Would you drive your van down there?!

Needless to say, the van was all beaten up and looked like it had been squeezed through a very small space (which it had) ... As we walked down and down the road-that-was-a-road-ages-ago, C and I were gobsmacked that it had managed to get that far! We also found this:

(a scraped rock)

(bits of van)

Oh dear. Sometimes it is hard not to laugh at other people's misfortune, even if you feel a bit mean doing so.

As if that wasn't enough excitement, on Sunday, we finally gave in to much nagging from A and went geocaching, dragging an amicable Ce along with us. Basically, geocaching is treasure hunting for geeks, where you drag yourself on longggggg, lonnnnnng walks up biiiiiiiiig, bigggggggg hills to look for tupperware boxes full of, er, crap, hidden in gaps in walls and things. And it's fun! Yes, really.

The first one we looked for could not be found, despite checking on our sat nav - ha! - and searching obsessively for ages and ages and ages.

We tried as hard as we could, but there was nothing to be seen, although poor Ce managed to scrape her forehead on a bit of rusty old barbed wire. Sigh. Disappointed, we walked along the top of the hill to see if we could find the 2nd cache, which we did, within about 30 seconds of arriving. Hooray!

And this is what was inside:

(a tea light and stuff)

Not to be outdone, when we got home, C emailed the man who had hidden the first cache that we couldn't find, to tell him that it had probably been stolen by someone for a laugh, or thrown down the hill or something like that, because it definitely wasn't there. The man emailed back to say he'd found 17 caches (hello?! 17?!) yesterday, thus making us feel really, really inadequate. He also helpfully explained exactly where it was, adding "Watch out for the barbed wire that will be above you when you bend down to look!" AAAAAAAAAAAAGH.

So now we have to go back. Hooray!

Posted by j at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

One of the things on the rather long To Do list is to buy a doorbell, so that the flashing thingy will work and I will know when people are at the door, rather than relying on my eyes or C or Harry to tell me someone is knocking. Haven't got round to it yet... today I wished I had!

The saga started when C texted me to say she had finished work early in Preston, and as it was such a nice evening, we agreed that I would walk Harry along the canal towpath and meet her at the station at the other end. However, I was halfway down the hill when she texted me to tell me that her train had broken down and she was stranded in Blackburn for at least 30 minutes. Change of plan: I walk Harry down by the canal and then pick her up in the car later.

It wasn't until I eventually got home that I realised I'd lost the car key. Panic! I frantically looked all over the house (which had suddenly doubled in size) but could not find it, so I turned on MSN and panicked to A instead. After an hour of futile searching, made worse by the fact that I'd spent most of today cleaning the house/unpacking/doing washing/generally moving things around, and the other fact that I couldn't really remember what I was wearing that morning [it was 7.30am when I drove C to the station, alright!?], so basically... The Key Could Be Anywhere.

So off me and Harry went out again, down the hill and along the canal towpath all over again, meeting C halfway and turning around and walking up the hill again. Home. C and me turned the house over for another hour, but did we find the key? No, we did not. HOWEVER, C found the spare key which we don't use because it's broken and I'm very likely to get it stuck in the ignition or something equally stupid, knowing me.

By this time it was getting dark and we'd kind of decided that someone had nicked the key and was waiting for it to get dark so that they could come along and steal the car, and then we wouldn't have a car any more. We have an old steering wheel lock that we thought might be useful, so we decided to go and open the car with the dodgy key and make it more secure. While we were just putting the lock on, our neighbour walked past.

"Did you get it, then?" he asked C.
"Get what?"
"Your key? My kid found it on the path and gave it to the old man next door."

Hooray!

Unfortunately the very nice old man next door didn't know I'm Deaf - he does now! - so he'd been round to ring the doorbell twice already, but we don't have a doorbell, so he'd knocked, and Harry had barked, but I'd just told him to be quiet and stop being so neurotic, like I usually do.

And that is why we need a flashing doorbell... and SOON.

Posted by j at 8:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The above photo shows the reason why I am finding it difficult to concentrate this morning - clouds. Yeaaaah, right. I'm finally losing it!

But seriously, no, I am transfixed by what's outside, which is another Reason We Moved. It makes sense... if you work from home and you're lucky enough to be able to live anywhere you like because you run an internet-based business, why not live somewhere with cool views (and hence never get any work done)? Indeed.

So anyway, this morning's massive 3D art display features rain and clouds, which seem to change every few minutes, and make me gasp in wonderment at the amazingness of nature. Excuse me if I sound like a complete townie, but I'm just not used to seeing things from so high up, alright?!

Another subject of my many obsessions has been recycling. I know me and C have tried to recycle as much as we can over the past few years, but it wasn't until we moved that I realised HOW important it was to me. We don't have our compost bins yet (they've been ordered) and weirdly, the thought of throwing away food makes me feel really sick, so we've created our own temporary system, including for recycling. The other day I realised we have no less than 8 different categories for recycling! Seriously. In case anyone is remotely interested, they are:

Compost
Glass
Plastic
Extra plastic (! see below !)
Paper
Card
Tin/cans/foil
Non-recycleable things for Freecycling

It's hard work at the moment because we've had so many things to Freecycle (you don't want to know!) and recycle, having to categorise things and put them in little piles, taking them to the recycling centre too because we aren't in synch with the local collections yet, etc etc. Am sure it will be easier when we get our new bins!

I moan about the extra work, but I am grateful to live here near the fantastic Ekko Centre, which recycles all the kinds of plastic that cannot normally be recycled (the snag is you have to de-label and wash and dry everything, which is annoying, but hey). The man who works there looked SO HAPPY the other day when me and Ce took him a big box of old mouse plastic bags for his plastic factory, fully easing my feelings of guilt about having bought them in the first place.

[That's another thing, you see. Living in plastic bag-free HB means you're meant to use a cloth bag or the 'bag ladies' will be after you, so moving here with 800+ bags that we weren't going to use because we closed down our business made me feel like The Enemy already. So, thank God for Dave at Ekko.]

Obviously, not wanting the bag ladies to get us, we've been using cloth bags as much as we can, when we remember anyway. Teemed nicely with my new Bid To Shop More Locally - i.e. go to 6 shops for basic groceries, rather than 1 - life is definitely more complicated at the moment. Am sure I'll get used to it all soon!

Do I sound obsessed? Probably. Whatever.

At least I haven't forgotten it's Friday! Hooray! Here's a flash game for your afternoon.

Posted by j at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

... well, they probably are anyway. I wouldn't know!

And what am I doing blogging before 8am on a Saturday morning?! I can't sleep. While I don't exactly do long lie-ins anyway, when I was in Preston I would turn over and force myself to go back to sleep, but now I am here in the place that's hard to spell, I am much more inclined to leap out of bed. I think it's called new-found enthusiasm? It won't last.

[It does seem to be catching, though - when I was letting Harry out for his wee this morning (in my pyjama bottoms and an old t-shirt, shamelessly), I saw three people. While this is really not a very exciting fact, I should remind you that we now live in the middle of nowhere, so three people, is like, a lot.]

So anyway, here I am sitting at our new, huge, white kitchen table. I note its whiteness (a whole other story, which I will explain below). I note how it was part of the Dreaded IKEA Shopping Experience the other day, when C and I stopped being ill for long enough to drag ourselves around IKEA and actually manage to buy SOME of the things on our list and not scream TOO much when the nasty men at the delivery counter looked at us nastily and told us it would cost us £70 to have our stuff delivered, as punishment for carelessly living in the middle of nowhere and having the wrong postcode.

AGH!

Yes, it has been a long week. I'm proud to say that in between sneezing into mountains of tissues, coughing, trying to wade through the masses of bubble wrap in this house, and driving to and from wifi hotspots/the library, we got some work done. Yes, business had to be as usual, or we wouldn't have a business.

Aside from that we have been wandering around a bit dazedly, realising that our new house is quite big and we don't have much furniture - or, indeed, ANY curtains - so we need to fill it with things.

We tried doing the Curtain Challenge first, and went into a tiny curtain shop which was stuffed full of about 7,000 curtain samples, I kid ye not. Very Nice Curtain Shop Woman was very helpful and asked us what we would like, and didn't laugh nastily when I said "I have NO idea. We've just moved into a new house and everything's white," and actually managed to sell us some curtains. However, curtains are more complicated than I ever realised (or ever wanted to even think about), so VNCSW's business partner is going to come and see us to measure and sell us some more, which means that we should be all curtained/blinded-up by October sometime. Seriously.

Everything seems to take so long! Screwing together IKEA flat packs certainly does, as anyone who has ever spent hours trying to work out what the "internationally accessible" instructions are supposed to mean, and where the weirdly shaped metal bits are meant to go, will tell you.

So, you can imagine my horror when C looked at the huge white table that we'd spent ages traipsing through IKEA Hell to find, and then paid £70 so that I could spend more ages screwing together -- and said it was the wrong shade of white. Or more precisely, the CHAIRS were the wrong shade of white. Thus followed a long debate about shades of whiteness, and how important they were (or not) and if we could really face going through The Torture Of IKEA again, especially as we have to go back again ANYWAY because our office is too big for our desks and we have nowhere to put our clothes either?! Oh yes, that is a whole other day's worth of torment.

But after a beer, C decided that the whites matched after all and everything would be fine. Me? If I half close my eyes everything looks white and glowy and vaguely celestial, so whatever is fine with me.

And Harry? He's loving it all. He always does.

Posted by j at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Why does everything always take so long!?

After being told by our solicitor that the contract for the new house should be with us at the beginning of this week, we have just found out that we should get it tomorrow. Hello! As far as I am aware, Thursday is at the end of the week. Yes, I know, it's only a day or two later than anticipated, but it's really annoying how the goalposts keep moving further and and further away, and I am starting to think that we'll be lucky if we move before Christmas.

Inside, I know I am just being an impatient drama queen and should probably calm down and take a deep breath and recognise how this is normal, and buying a house is meant to take 2 or 3 months anyway. It just seems to be taking longer because we work from home so much, and this house isn' t quite big enough.

Whatever. At least I have a roof over my head - many people don't.

[An onlooker: Shut up, J!]

OK *breathes deeply* onto other things; this game drove me mad for several days* before I managed to finish it last night, much to C's (and my) relief! Well worth playing, though please note; if you save your game, you might end up putting in the wrong number, thus resuming play at a completely different stage like I did, and have to start again(!)

* not ALL DAY, just a few minutes of an evening, you understand.

Finally, it is now my turn to be annoying and announce that the result of the caption competition will be announced on Friday, because Harry is busy and doesn't have time to judge the entries until then. So, if you haven't entered yet, now's the time! And IF YOU HAVE ALREADY ENTERED, YOU AREN'T ALLOWED TO ENTER AGAIN!

Posted by j at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have just bought www.shinyhappydeafie.com for another 5 years, in a moment of recklessness. A was rather taken aback by this and pointed out that I will have to be shiny and happy for another 5 years at least. I think I can manage that.

Wonder if I'll still be blogging in 5 years time though, or if I'll have turned this into an online shop, selling useless Deaf-related gifts? You never know. And that isn't such a bad idea either. Or maybe in 5 years time the internet will be SO last year and everyone will have pulled their heads out of F*cebook, and be doing something else that involves getting fresh air. I don't quite think so, and I don't really want to think that far ahead cos thinking into next week is exhausting enough(!)

Was quite worn out at the weekend when I went to C's nephew's christening and met loads more of C's family, including 8 aunties and uncles and several cousins. It was all rather confusing trying to work out who was who and how they all join together, so C's mum helpfully said she will create a chart for me that explains everything. I'm hoping she can do a mini one that's about the size of a credit card so that I can keep it in my pocket and secretly read it under the table to remind me who is who, next time I see them all. Genius idea or what?!

An alternative might be for them all to wear badges that say something like, for example; JAMES: son of Alan, father of William and husband of Jo, etc. All I know is if you're like me and have ONE auntie and ONE uncle, it is much easier to remember their names.

Anyway, the christening itself was quite nice as christenings go, with the most amusing part featuring Christening Boy's elder brother standing in full view of everyone at the top of the church, picking his nose with great enthusiasm. Bless!

Maybe in 5 years time when he is old enough to read this, he will email me and tell me how horrible I am to have embarrassed him in public? Or maybe not.

On a related note, we were a bit confused about how the christening was actually a baptism, but we thought baptisms were Catholic, and the church was C of E. How does that work out?

And on a completely different subject, T has just texted me to tell me the excellent news that plastic bags are to be banned in Hebden Bridge. How cool is that?! That is as good a reason to move as any! I just wish our conveyancers would hurry up and stop going on holiday and taking annual leave and days off every two days, and actually help us to move. Agh!

Posted by j at 6:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hat tip to Joe for this information about why it is not a good idea to join Facebook....they're up there with G00gle, stealing your ID etc. I have enough problems with G00gle to even think about selling my soul to another devil (well, you know what I mean!)...

[Note to Deafies: This is quite interesting for about 2 minutes, and then it gets boring because someone starts waffling in voiceover and there are no subtitles. I know this because nothing seemed to be happening, so I touched the speaker to see if someone was talking instead, and they did seem to be, OK, Joe?! I.E. I am not a secret hearing person - only in your silly wee mind!]

SO, YOU WERE WARNED!

Sigh. This week has seen me grappling with V*sta, as I have mentioned several times (yes this is boring). While it is lovely to have a computer that works faster than my brain, it is also really annoying having to download updates alllllllllllll theeeeeeeeee timeeeeeeeeee and work out how to do everything a different way.

Take 0ffice 2007, for example, which is completely different to other versions. Using Word is a whole new experience(!) Confusingly, everything SEEMS to be far more complicated to do than before, but when you actually re-learn how to do things, you realise it's all a lot easier. I lost patience with it this afternoon though, and just emailed a weirdly formatted document to a very patient colleague, knowing that she has the common sense to work out what goes where.

If that doesn't mess with one's head, I don't know what does.

Also messing with my head is the fact that IE is now my default browser, and I DON'T WANT IT TO BE! It's psychological. It's like someone making me sit at a new desk that's too low, or use a weirdly shaped keyboard. It's unfamiliar and annoying and I don't like it! To be fair, I haven't finished G00gling for a solution - and if anyone beats me to one, I will be very grateful and buy them a drink - but everything I have tried so far doesn't work.

That's Micro$oft for you - control, control, control. "You must use V*sta how we want you to. You must use the browser we want you to use, and we will make it really really difficult for you to rebel and set Opera as your default, in the hope that you will give up and use crappy old IE and catch a virus and be doomed forevermore. Ahahahaha."

OK, so I got carried away there, but you see my point? It so reminds me of a time when I dashed round the Marks and Spencer food hall trying to find ingredients for a meal I wanted to make from scratch, but nothing was there... M&S wanted to sell me a meal *they* had made... it didn't want me to have the freedom to make my own. Agh! I was in the wrong shop(!)

We live in a ready made world, I guess. And sometimes that is useful, like when you can't be bothered to cook... or think. I digress.

There are other annoying things about V*sta, but despite them, I do like it. I would describe it as a pretty and fun way of working, as long as you don't mind being controlled, and having a number of rather useless things in your PC. For example, what is the point of Flip 3D?! Yes, it looks pretty...

... but what is it FOR, apart from making your windows spin round and round, adding considerably to The Confusion That Is The V*sta "Experience"?!

Whatever. It's Friday afternoon, and at least I can actually play Flash games on this computer, unlike my old one!

Have a good weekend if you read this beforehand!

Posted by j at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I haven't blogged this week mainly because I've had Girl Flu (which is the girl version of Man Flu; i.e. a plain and simple COLD, not a life threatening illness). I've been far too busy blowing my nose and sneezing every two minutes and trying to get some work done to think about blogging.

Thinking is hard work enough so it's easier just to play this game instead - but probably not during work hours - I rarely get gripped by a game but couldn't tear myself away from it last night, until C made me come downstairs and watch Brothers and Sisters, which I did with pleasure, partly because Rachel Griffiths is one of my fave actors and I can put up with the boring American politics in it just to pretend that Six Feet Under isn't all in the past now. *wails*

So this post didn't turn out to make much sense in the end - I didn't aim for it to; I didn't aim for anything - now you can SEE what sneezing does to my brain.

In other news, I note how The Rest Of The World is still worshipping at the Church of Facebook. I also revel in amusement how I am not one of them. It's kind of like when I was a kid and we had a Betamax video FIRST and then everyone else got VHS. I can't be bothered to explain my thinking here, but if you're a geek you will get it ;o)

Talking of geekdom, my new computer arrives in 5 days time. Hooray!

Posted by j at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I haven't been able to post this for 3 days because - for once - I didn't know what to say. I still don't really know, but I'll have a go anyway..!

On Saturday, me, C and Ce went to look at the Perfect House and the Triangle House as planned. To cut a long story short, we decided that the Triangle House was cool but not quite right for several reasons, so we went back to the Perfect House, and shook hands with The Man in his kitchen after he agreed to accept our offer.

Eeeeeeeeeek!

So that means the Perfect House could be ours in a few weeks time, as long as all the solicitory things and the surveys go OK, and The Man or the Very Nice Young Couple don't change their minds about anything!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

Is it normal to sell a house one day and then buy a new one three days later?! I don't really care! The scariest part is that we have to move as quickly as possible, so we might be there like, next month.

NEXT MONTH?! Gulp.

So anyway, after all this happened we were in a state of shock and like "OMG!" and whatever. We couldn't quite believe it, so decided to do something to make us feel like we were doing something, if that makes sense... so we decided to clear out the garage to make way for moving boxes and whatever else that's going to come with us as we up sticks and move to the place with a hard-to-spell-name.

If you've ever seen our garage, you'll know that it's full of old junk, but we don't really want to take loads of old junk with us so we decided to be ruthless and sorted things out for a couple of hours. It was... therapeutic. When doing so, we found so much crap to keep, recycle and Freecycle, including the wigs that have taken over my life.

I was completely gobsmacked by the amount of emails I got from enthusiastic Freecyclers who like dressing up for charity / can give wigs a good home / think their son is the next Eddie Izzard (yes, really)... in the space of a few minutes, I was suddenly Preston's premier wig woman, having to keep telling more and more people I was very sorry but the wigs had GONE several hours ago to the first mad woman who claimed them, and a few other things too. What is it with wigs, and why does everyone want one? Did I miss something?!

Jeesh. And that was all in the middle of solicitory, financial, complicated moving-type whatever that goes on too... not to mention my job...!

So anyway, Preston's wig woman and her partner and their dog are HOPEFULLY moving to the-place-that-is-hard-to-spell very soon. Keep your fingers crossed for us please!!

Posted by j at 8:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The above cartoon, drawn by the wonderful Hugh MacLeod (you can buy them here if you want), made me laugh. Indeed, it is true for me - today anyway - because I am sooo pleased with my new browser, Opera. Installed it yesterday after I got fed up with Firefox being slowwww and making my rather elderly computer go funny (I haven't used Internet Explorer for ages as it has security risks that make me nervous). I ranted to A*, as I usually do about these things, and she told me that Joe was a big fan of Opera.

So after looking into it, I asked Joe a few questions and finally installed it. And whoa, is it good or is it good?!

I wouldn't usually rave so happily about an internet browser, of all things, but this really is fab and I do recommend it. It's fast! It has many, many features! Like a speed dial page for your favourite websites, different kinds of weird and wonderful shortcuts, voice control (er, maybe not for me!) and useful widgets! Like Firefox, it lets you change how you want it to look, so I have made mine a nice calm shade of green to reduce my Internet Rage and make me smile more.

Am still learning how to use it, but blimey, it has improved my working day no end! C welcomes the peace, but has been rolling her eyes all day as I have been excitedly telling her how fantastic it is... though funnily enough, the pages seem to freeze whenever she looks at them(!)

Anyway, it is perfect for the (wo)man who geeks to live. And even if you don't, I urge you to get it too! IE is so last century!

* Funnily enough, A also introduced me to Firefox, and to Hugh MacLeod and his words of wisdom, which I read daily via Bloglines, which she also introduced me to(!)

So the moral of the story is: Listen to your friends. And say thank you afterwards... thanks, A and Joe!

Have a good weekend and wish us luck for tomorrow's viewing!

Posted by j at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

This week has been a long one. Many years ago, I was quite able to work every weekend, or spend all my Saturdays in meetings, or travel all over the place or whatever without a break for ages. Now, this is not so! I value my weekends like the most precious thing, and I won't give them up without a fight. Except, at the moment, for my course, which is taught over 6 full weekends a year, including last weekend. Well worth it, but it does wear me out because I'm old.

So anyway, today's Friday Brain Fullness is especially full, and I started losing it at around 4pm, when I gave up attempting to think rationally and started geeking out with A. First, she showed me her TV channel on Ustream, which involved her walking around the house Big Brother style, and we both freaked out when we realised a 3rd person was watching, i.e. A has her very own stalker. A freaked out again when she realised I had screengrabbed her for my own amusement, (and yours, if you click here). Ahahaha.

In other news, one of my neighbours is driving me mad by having a BBQ every day, including at this very moment. Yes, at around 5pm every day for the last 3 days, I have been distracted by the smell of burning burgers being flipped by an overenthusiastic BBQ Man, much to my annoyance. There is a VERY BIG DIFFERENCE between having a BBQ on a Saturday afternoon and having one every night of the week, when your neighbours are trying to work from home. And the summer has just begun! Sigh.

Summer also brings Big Brother, which I am already frothing up in excitement about, and on the first night, Ce, Ric and Jac will be coming over to watch it all start with me and C, so that we can all froth together and scream and disagree with everything and everyone, and put our mobiles down for five minutes. Yes, we are sad, but do you know what? We like being sad.

In housing non-news, Conservatory Man is still worrying about floods, but our other viewer showed some interest, so we still have our fingers crossed. Meanwhile, we have 5 houses to see tomorrow, just in case Perfect House disappears overnight, or something equally cruel. You never know, right?

Have a good weekend with your BBQ (wo)men!

Posted by j at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, I am grumpy.

I think it was the toothache that set it off. Today, I am going to the dentist for something like the 4th time in 3 weeks. For some weird reason, my teeth hurt, but my dentist cannot see anything wrong with them. Anyway, it's starting to keep me awake at night, so this afternoon I am going to make the dentist do something, anything - give me drugs or just pull the darn things out - so that I don't have to see his charmingly smiling face again for another 6 months.

Apart from that, I'm just Generally Grumpy today, too. I don't have 'Hooray It's Friday!'-itis today because I'm on my course all weekend, with no time off before or afterwards. One of the perks of working for yourself (!) Oh well, it could be a lot worse. At least my course is interesting!

On another note, I received this auto-reply email today:

"Dear Sir or Madam

Thank you for your e-mail. Our service standard is to reply to 97% of all correspondence within 10 working days."

Have a happy weekend. Here's a random Flash game recommendation from C, just for fun. Apparently, "you have to help the cute little robot." Enjoy!

Posted by j at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It occurred to me recently that I have never heard anyone say nice things about an estate agent. T, who has just sold her house, sent me an explody email the other week saying things about her estate agent that I really can't repeat, and other mates who sold their house last year were so suspicious of their estate agent that they went and spied on them (long story!).

I'm not going to spy on ours, but I am sure they could be doing more to sell our house. C said they can't MAKE people buy it, which is true, but they said they would sell it quickly and they haven't done. Depends how you define 'quickly', I suppose. For me, 'quickly' means 'in about 3 days time', but for them it seems to mean 'anything within a year will be a bonus'. I am not being very fair, probably, but I am also not known for my patience! HURRY UP AND SELL OUR HOUSE ALREADY!

So anyway, I was thinking that estate agents are probably up there with traffic wardens as some of the Least Liked Workers in the UK, and guess what? I was right! According to a 2002 poll, estate agents were even less popular than MPs! That's a bit harsh, I feel... they aren't THAT bad. Things have probably changed since then anyway because we've had more war crimes and other bad things since 2002.

I digress. What exactly is it about estate agents that annoy us so much? Is it because they wear pink ties and call us 'guys' and bounce around gleefully? Even Linda, my favourite Hebden Bridge estate agent, tried to make me look at information on a house that was WAY out of our budget when I popped in during a brief visit today. I refused to take the information, but she did make me take information on two other houses that don't match our criteria. This is the same woman who said "ooh, I wouldn't live there" about another house, and I pointed out that she was meant to be selling things to me, not putting me off. No wonder people get suspicious and spy on their estate agents(!)

And then there was the one who wrote our names and address on the back of an envelope and said he would get in touch with us. He never did, of course. They never do! Why?! Don't say you'll do something if you aren't going to do it..!

Ah, poor estate agents. They aren't all bad. I guess it's probably quite stressful having to sell about 700 houses at the same time, and having to remember which ones have gardens, and which ones have converted lofts, or sheds outside, or electric ovens. That must cause much brain fullness!

And I am hoping that fate will do something fab right now because a Possibly Fateful Thing happened yesterday, when C and I were sitting in our garden with the lovely G, who was visiting. The doorbell rang, and C went to answer it. G asked me why we didn't have a flashing doorbell - so I explained that there isn't much point because no-one ever rings it anyway. G found this very funny (!) and said "Ooh, you never know, it might be someone wanting to look round your house!" ... "Yeah, maybe," I replied, not really believing it.

But it WAS, and she seemed very keen, so please do touch lots of wood and hope for us (though praying isn't necessary - thanks all the same). I just think it would be so ironic and fitting if she DOES want to buy our house, because we found The House in HB by chance, and she found ours by chance too. Also it would give the world another reason to doubt poor estate agents and bump them up on unpopular polls, etc.

And, even if the random woman does like our house and wants to buy it with no help from our estate agent - except for the FOR SALE sign, which we could have made ourselves pretty easily with a bit of wood - we still have to pay them rather a lot of money indeed.

Maybe that is why?

Posted by j at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I meant to post this afternoon because it was Friday afternoon and therefore I was supposed to be relaxed and winding down and doing useless small jobs in preparation for the weekend. But it didn't work like that - instead, I was scrambling around going to the post office to find out why the mail from our post box didn't arrive this week, and fixing tech problems and whatever. Also this afternoon we found out someone wants to view our house tomorrow. OMG.

Someone wants to view our house tomorrow! A first time buyer! Help! Cue sad feelings about whether we really want to leave Preston or not after all (yes, essentially) and about how someone else might live in our house (yes, eventually) and panicky feelings about having to clean the house (tomorrow morning, because we can't be arsed now) etc.

On a completely different note, I have to mention how last night I went to the theatre, terped by my fave terp, and was gobsmacked to see a sideboard on the stage with loads of 1960s ornaments on it that were owned by my entire family.

Er, well, obviously, the ornaments were props, and they hadn't been stolen from my family - I was just taken aback by how they were exactly the same as the stuff my Nana/Grandma/whoever used to have. Red glass shell shaped horn thing? Got. Giant green wine glass-type thing? Had. Wooden deer ensemble? Check. Wooden elephant family? Yes. Red glass 'abstract' art thing? That too. Several vases? Just the same.

You get the picture? I was transfixed, and was furthermore astonished halfway through the play when I saw a china rose bunch ornament thingy on another shelf, exactly like the one my Nana has. After seeing that, I feel convinced that in the 1960s, people just went to shops and bought a big box of 'miscalleneous ornaments' which were all exactly the same, and distributed them at different places around their houses, mixing and matching and whatever. Well, how else do you explain the fact that ALL of the things on the sideboard on the stage also belonged to my family at one time or another?! My family are not particularly big on hoarding, so it's not like they have millions of wooden deer. Far from it; they had just the same as what was on the stage.

The mind boggles.

In other news, albeit rather late, this is my favourite recent news item! Bless! (We used to have free-flying cockatiels, but that is another story.)

And finally, in a brief-but-calculated act of cruelty, I bring you... Bloons 2! * Enjoy.

* Apologies for the 'obscene nature' of the Bloons 2 link that I posted. I've now changed it to a family-friendly one, after Ce pointed it out and gave me a new URL! (Didn't notice the first time round)

Posted by j at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Warning: v v long blog post coming up!

It would be something of an understatement to say that our lives have been shaken up in the last few hours! In fact, I feel really weird and excited and shaky and unsure what will happen next... here's why:

To cut a long story short, for a while, C and I have been planning to move from Preston to the Hebden Bridge area. There are several reasons for this - nothing sinister - including how, now that we have mouse, we can work from home and live anywhere we want to. And what we want to do really is live in the middle of nowhere with lots of nice fields and green things and PEACE and CALM all around us. The Hebden Bridge area is cool too, so we are aiming to live there next.

Down the road from HB, one mile to be precise, is a lovely, but rather unfortunately-named village called Mytholmroyd. Yes, I know it is probably a bad idea to move somewhere so hard to spell, particularly when having to fingerspell, let alone pronounce. In fact, it took me 2 months to learn how to spell it, but now I can!

So that is why we have been doing up our bathroom and garden [apart from the fact that it's fun] and porch and generally behaving mysteriously recently. We are moving somewhere that is hard to spell. Gulp.

After extensive G00gling and trawling of the net, on Saturday, we looked around 4 houses in the area (two were too small, one was too wrecked, and the other had potential) and last night we were due to view 2 more. As Preston is about an hour away, it is understandable that we were rather annoyed to get a call from the estate agent just after we arrived, to tell us we could only see one house because, for some godforsaken reason, they didn't have the key for the other one, which was the more interesting one, of course.

So anyway, as we were there, we let a 20 year old estate agent (who was wearing a flashy suit with a pink tie, and kept calling us "guys", thus making us feel about 80) show us around the house they DID have a key for. It was, er, how should I put it? Large, but rather unfortunate. It had just been repossessed, so it looked like someone had done a runner - I will refrain from detailing my more personal theories here because they are irrelevant - and they had left a rather bad doggy smell and a kind of sad aura behind.

Me = no.
C (who is rather more optimistic) = maybe.

Sooooooooo anywayyyyyyyy, after bidding Suit Boy and the house goodbye, we decided to drive a different way back, thus passing another house we have lined up for this Saturday, amongst others. But we didn't get that far!

Driving up the hill, we saw a new 'For Sale' sign, which had obviously been handmade by the owner of the house, and had a mobile number on it. As it backed out to the surrounding hills, I said to C, why don't we phone the number? And the conversation went something like this:

C: Hello, we are calling about your house. May we look around?

Man: Err, yes. When were you thinking of?

C: Well, we're outside your house now, so if it's convenient...?

Man: What, now?!

C: If you wouldn't mind?

Man: Oh, I was just watching the footy. Erm, er. My wife hasn't tidied up yet... oh, go on then!

So we got out of the car and waved at a rather confused looking man who had just emerged from the house and was looking up and down the street to see where his new-found stalkers were.

After establishing that we were perfectly sane and wanted to buy a house in the area, The Man explained to us that he had sold his house at around Christmas, but it had fallen through because his buyer's buyer's buyer (or something) had pulled out, so the whole chain had collapsed. He was really upset, because he wants to move to Spain with his wife and 2 kids, and they were all packed up and everything. So, he though "sod the estate agent" and on Tuesday night, he made a 'For Sale' sign and stuck it in the garden in the dark. I don't know why it was dark at the time(!) but he hoped someone would pass by on their way to see another house that was for sale in his street (there are a few), like we were... under 24 hours later!

Anyway we liked the look of the gardens, especially as the back one backs into a hill with many, many fields and green things attached to it, and were very excited to see a footpath right next to it. Trying to keep a poker face was very difficult because when we went inside we could see it was even better, with a big new kitchen, fantastic views and everything else we wanted.

OH MY GOD, WE FOUND OUR PERFECT HOUSE! DON'T SCREAM. BE COOL. NNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG. GRIN INSANELY AND NOD. BREATHE.

The Man wants to sell his house ASAP. That is not a problem, because we both want to live there, like tomorrow. Preferably without The Man, obviously.

So after we had calmed down slightly this morning, we phoned The Man and told him we want to buy his house. He said "oh OK."...!! Now we are trying to sell our house and sort out money things and tidy up ready for viewings and get the conveyancer to do the legal things and try and stay calm and see more houses so that we have a Plan B if it doesn't work and ohmygodineverthoughtiwouldwantahousesomuchbutido.

You cannot buy views like that. Space! Agh!

So if anyone wants to buy a really nice 2-bed house in Preston near the Docks with a garage and a lovely garden, please do let me know ;o)

*Breatheeeeeeees*

Posted by j at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I can't believe I've just broken my Must Try To Blog At Least Once A Week rule, quite by accident. I also can't believe that I can't believe it... I mean, how did I manage to NOT break that rule for like, 2 years?! That's a lot of blogging. I'm pleased with myself.

Anyway, the reason I haven't blogged for over a week is because I've been away, and when I haven't been away, I've been bogged down by many things that fill my brain (that's also why I'm not on MSN right now - nothing against anyone; it's just that my brain is too full of random items to be able to cope with the spontaneous nature of MSN; I need order, with a capital O.) All will be revealed soon, but right now, I like being mysterious.

Enough crap talk. Time for some news with a capital N!

Today, I had a secret, and I kind of liked having it. Made a change(!) Yes, I secretly went along to a secret building and signed in, showed my ID, gave up my mobile phone for security reasons, and sat at a wonky computer (Windows 98!?) and took my driving theory test. I was convinced I'd fail, but thought I'd go along anyway because I was actually meant to do it 2 weeks ago, but bottled it at the last minute cos I was having a hard week. Whatever.

I don't actually mind failing things. It's just that I'm impatient and don't have time to fail, because failing would mean I would have to revise all over again, then be nervous, and have to take time off work to go into town to a secret building, where I'd have to show my ID, give up my mobile phone and sit at a wonky computer and answer questions, all over again. Gah.

But I'm useless at some things and driving theory is one of them, so I was prepared for the worst.

And, as you can imagine, I was rather flabbergasted when it was all over and the nice man at the desk smiled and said "You've passed!" ... so flabbergasted, in fact, that I asked him to repeat it, just in case I'd misunderstood. Nope - he looked pleased all over again and said "You've passed!" then gave me a funny look and told me to go and get my mobile phone out of the security locker before I fell over in surprise.

So there you have it, I am now a half-qualified driver. And, as people keep saying, the easy part is next..!

I can't believe it either.

On another note, I will post some recent photos here soon, and over at Flickr, as an attempt to share things and stop being so lazy.

But now, The Apprentice is on, and I want to watch other people being shouted at. So, bye.

Posted by j at 9:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

... according to Cazz. So here's another game for you! I've not tried it, but C looked absolutely enthralled by it and emailed it to me, so it must be good(!)

In other news, I was rather freaked out this morning to receive something from my old university in the post. While this isn't really a very interesting fact at all, I haven't heard from them for about 10 years or something, and have moved house many times since then, so how the hell did they find me?! It was an invitation to some kind of "postgrad/professional" cheese and wine sort of thing, and I have no idea what they want from me or why they want me there. Anyway, I have no intention of going, and that's final. I just want to know how they know where I live!? Maybe it's cos I'm now on a postgraduate course - at a completely different university - or something like that. I am not impressed!

Weird.

But not as weird as the other thing that someone showed me this week (thanks, S!). I'm not going to go into details but basically I am listed on an online Deaf database which has completely wrong information about me, based on an old magazine interview about my social life in 1995(!) As I can't make the database people take it off, I am now emailing with them to get them to at least change it to something that is true. However, this annoys me too because I don't want to be in someone's stupid database anyway, especially when I don't know about it! Agh!

Sometimes I feel like this world is soooooooo like Big Brother. At least I work from home so I don't get clocked on CCTV 5 million times a day like everyone else. A bleak thought.

And finally, here's a message for OPD: Harry eats very nice dog food and we are quite sure it is fine, BUT we cannot stop him eating all sorts of crap when we go for a walk. He used to be a stray, bless him, and had to fend for himself when he was a wee puppy. We've tried everything but cannot get him to stop, short of sellotaping his mouth shut, poor dog. So, when he farts, it is beyond our control!

So now you know.

Have a happy weekend, all!
xx

Posted by j at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

OK, so it's another Friday night and I'm part of a new social phenomenon once again. Which means: I am not in the pub or in a club; I am not in front of the TV and I am not out for a meal/at the theatre/doing something else of mild cultural importance. Instead, I am very 2007 - I am in front of my computer. Blogging, in fact. As you know.

It's true!

Anyway, the point of this blog post was simply to say that I am now on Flickr (yes, A, finally), and I THINK I can be found here. I'm not sure, but they might move me to my own special page with a clearer URL when I pass the usual Flickr tests and they realise I'm a 'proper' person; i.e. I won't post weird porn photos, or illegal photos of famous people or anything like that. Really, I just take photos of sunsets and trees and things... I'm quite boring and definitely not to be worried about.

[Eventually, I'll probably get one of those widgets with the revolving photos on it to stick on this blog. Probably at around the same time as I get a new skin - i.e. in about 2 years' time. I digress.]

Another reason for this post was to ask, as I must; did anyone see Chaos At The Chateau on telly (Ch4) last night?! If you didn't, you missed something that can only be described as

CAR CRASH, CAR CRASH, CAR CRASHHHHHHH TV!

Jeesh! It featured a couple from Essex who were horrible to everyone, including each other, as they tried to buy a chateau in Slovakia, in order to use it as some kind of hotel or another. C and I sat open-mouthed through the whole thing, wondering at one point if it was all a spoof, because surely people can't be like that in real life, but no, apparently it is real. That is very worrying, but also fantastically entertaining. We'll definitely be watching it again, and you should too!

In the meantime, I am going to have another weekend-type weekend. I hope those of you who are foolish enough to read my drivel have happy weekends too!

Posted by j at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

There's a lot to be said for sleep. Sleep is undervalued. I discovered that at the beginning of this week when I was soooo tired that my brain became mush and I could hardly form a useless thought, never mind a useful one. Then, last night, I finally had a good night's sleep, and when I woke up this morning, everything sparkled. Thank God for that!

I can't tell you how relieved I was not to fall asleep during my driving lesson this morning (8am is a risky time of day to learn to drive).

Anyway, this is turning out to be another of my waffly, incoherent, head-emptying blogs about nothing much at all really. [So if you get bored easily, go and read something else now.] You know when you have too many papers piled up on your desk - or on your second desk, like mine - you kind of forget what's there and what you need to deal with, although you usually manage to get the most important things done? Well, that's what my head feels like at the moment. Full and overflowing. Hence this decluttering post!

I also need to tidy my second desk, but that's not really something I want to blog about(!)

One good thing that has helped me to declutter is Bloglines, I have to admit. A set up my account for me aaaaaaaaaaages ago, but I didn't use it because I'm stupid, and because I fooled myself that I don't really read blogs very much anyway. That's bullshit! I urge everyone who reads more than 3 blogs regularly to get a Bloglines account. They work even better with Firefox tabs - just stick your Bloglines on your tabbed home pages and leave your account open so that you can see when it updates - though some bright spark uber-geek out there is probably going to tell me that there's an even better, more efficient way of being a geek. You're welcome to.

So, today's top tip is to get Bloglines to declutter your blog-related clutter and keep them all in one place.

Today's other top tip is to write long waffly blog posts about nothing much, because it makes you feel like you've unloaded a bit of excess information from your brain, and you can get back to doing whatever it was you were doing before, because now you have room to actually think. In other words, talking crap makes you feel chilled. Works for me, anyway!

And today's final top, topppppp tip is to sleep as much as possible, always. It's good for you!

Posted by j at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I haven't rambled for quite a while, which means my brain is getting a bit too full, so it should be emptied. Thus, in the name of brain health, here goes...

This week me and C invested in pedometers, partly because we want to walk 10,000 steps a day and get fitter, and partly because we're competitive and like winding each other up. No matter what we do, I seem to manage to walk more steps than C does, even if I'm working from home and only going outside to walk Harry twice a day. Maybe it's because I drink too much coffee, so going to and from the kitchen makes me fit..? Niiiiiice. Anyway, all of this is really pleasing for me, and really annoying for C, who will walk round in frantic circles to 'bump up' her steps, swearing under her breath.

For example, today I have managed to walk 9,817 steps so far, but C's pedometer says she's "only" done 7,664, despite the fact we've spent the whole day together. C thinks it's because I go to the loo more than she does(!) I think it's because her legs are longer than mine, and because I fidget so much - I can't keep still - so the pedometer thinks I'm walking and goes into overdrive.

Having said that, I do feel fitter, and we're walking more than before... thank god for Harry, who's enjoying it too (though he doesn't have a pedometer because he'd probably eat it, and if he didn't, he'd lose it underneath a bush or something).

Other news of this week is that I've started thinking about making this blog public. Not a 'snap decision', it's for a number of reasons that I'd rather not go into now, and whatever these reasons may be, it's made me think about things...

Things like this stuff:

* Do people actually read this 'private' blog anyway? I've looked at the visitor statistics, and apparently 792 unique visitors read this stuff last month. I don't know 792 people..! WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU WANT? If you want money, you're in the wrong place.

* OK, so people do read this... fine. Why?! The stats page tells me that people find my blog - quite by accident, I hope - by using search terms like "people annoy me" (COOL!), "evilness quiz" (nice!) and, rather worryingly, "my lover makes no sound" (too bizarre for comment).

* The above is kind of spooky so I'll try not to think about it for too long.

* Do people actually want to know how many steps I take a day, how grumpy I am, and how much my neighbours recycle or not?

* If so, does anyone (including me) really care?

No, I'm not about to have an existential crisis, or any other kind of crisis. It's just that all of the above has made me think about things, and re-evaluate them somehow. I started this blog because I fancied rambling about crap stuff to about 7 friends/family members, and kind of told a few other people from time to time, if they asked how I am or whatever. But I certainly haven't told 792 people, because I don't know 792 people. Does that mean I have something like 700 stalkers? That's fine, cos I read some blogs by people I don't know, but I really can't work out why 700 people want to know how many steps I walk in a day. I'm sure they don't.

I'm sure it's all a mistake.

OK, so it's Saturday night and I've had a good amount of wine, so I'm rambling (because I'm a geek, so I don't get out much, and I've spent all day on my course learning about things like pragmatics, which is really cool (it means you say something like "My, it's cold in here!" when you really mean "Shut the goddamn window right now because I'm freezing my tits off!" and stuff like that)). So I'll shut up now.

But do I go public?

I don't expect 792 comments in my box, but if you have an opinion, please do share it with me, stalker or not.

Posted by j at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I have an announcement to make. As you may have worked out from the picture above, I'm learning to drive.

OK so it's taken me longer to get round to it than most people - i.e. I'm no longer 17 - but there you go. Living in London means you don't need to learn to drive unless you're a bit crazy and like shouting at people who bump into you from behind every five minutes... it's much easier to just get the tube and be squashed up against hundreds of people you've never seen before in your life and will (hopefully) never see again. As well as that, for reasons I don't want to go into, I was too scared to learn to drive until a couple of months ago.

So I don't live in London now and have spent the last few years enjoying the kindness of other people as they've driven me around Because You Need A Car In This Part Of The World. Let's just say I started to feel guilty and decided to learn how to return the favour, amongst other things.

Yes, I know it is weird for some people to think of me being let loose on the roads. It's weird for me too. Best not to think about it for too long eh!

But driving actually isn't that weird or scary or exciting as I first thought... I kept it a secret for a while because I don't really like talking about it... what is there to say, anyway?!

Luckily, S, my driving instructor is great. She turned up for our second lesson with a wee book of sign language! We didn't use it - we made up our own stuff - but that isn't the point. I also like the fact that she's refreshingly honest; "Well, it is easier to teach hearing people, but you drive better than lots of the hearing people I've taught." She also doesn't get my humour:

====

*During the first five minutes of a lesson, I drive around a corner in the wrong lane*

S: You'd fail your driving test for doing that, you know.

Me: Oh we'd better stop now then, not worth carrying on, eh?

S: Oh, no, no... let's just carry on for the experience...

*I look at her, like "duh." S realises, then covers her face..!*

====

Well I am making progress - I no longer scream when I'm steering round a bend and changing gear at the same time - and I haven't done anything scary, unless you count almost driving into the garage door because I forgot to take the car out of first gear when I parked, or having a panic attack when going round a huge roundabout (S did the pedals, worry not, and it wasn't that hard in the end). So not exciting!

Plus my driving lessons are at 8am each Wednesday, so I have excellent clutch control. Apparently.

And that's all I have to say on the matter.

Posted by j at 9:02 PM | Permalink

Apparently, one-lined blog posts don't count, so I have been told to write something longer, preferably another 'cute' library book-style story. Heavensakes.

Well, I can't promise any cuteness(!) but it's Friday after work and it's been a long week, so this post is definitely going to be longer than one line. A lot longer!

By the way, is anyone else really pissed off that Lost has moved to Sky 1?! First they make us wait for ages for the next series, and then when it finally reaches us, it's only for people who have Sky 1! You guessed it; I'm not one of those people. Thanks. Also, I read that only six episodes of Series 3 will be screened at first, then it'll be off-air again until February 2007. That's a lot of viewers lost. Ha.

Rant over now... Sorry, but I don't have any cute stories for people who like them, except to say that I really wish my webcam was plugged in right now because Harry is lying on his back with his legs and one ear in the air, looking a bit like a sunbathing fox who's listening to the radio (that's why it's a shame my webcam isn't plugged in - some things really can't be described in English).

Anyway, so that was the cute part.

I said it was a long week, and indeed it was. It's weird getting up in the dark; that always makes me feel really grumpy and want to refuse to get up, but I can't spend all day in bed so I have to. Sigh. I'd be bored after five minutes anyway.

It's also weird finishing work when it's dark, like the whole day has somehow evaporated, vanished without trace, while I've been sitting in the office working. No matter how slowly it happens, at some point every year, I suddenly realise summer has gone and feel sort of surprised, cheated and stupid all at the same time, like it quietly sneaked away when I wasn't looking. Is this an age thing?

Oh, well. I like snow too!

Meanwhile, mind out in the storms this weekend... have a good one!
xx

Posted by j at 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Ridiculously, I owe the uni library £2.80 for a book I've borrowed and keep forgetting to return. I say this is ridiculous because I've renewed the book six times so far.

The first sentence in the above paragraph will annoy C very much because she hates any kind of fine, especially parking fines, which I always pray she won't get and am thankful it doesn't happen very often, because when it does she goes red and doesn't talk for a very long time. So anyway, when C reads this blog post she'll probably come charging into the office and demand to know WHERE THE BOOK IS SO THAT SHE CAN TAKE IT BACK HERSELF TOMORROW, JUST TO BE COMPLETELY SURE THAT I WON'T HAVE TO PAY ANY MORE STUPID FINES. The second sentence in the above paragraph will probably annoy the other people on my course, but I'm not too worried about that because there are other copies, and they don't read this blog anyway (well, at least I don't think they do *worried cheesy grin*).

In my defence, I keep meaning to read it - well, I have read it but not all of it - and I'm too busy/lazy (there is a fine line between those two words) to take it back to the library. Anyway I've renewed it again so I have seven more days to worry about it, which also gives me plenty of time to re-read the bit I need to read for my assignment.

All of the above reminds me of what happened when I was about six years old. My Dad always used to take me to the library, which was fab. One time I took a book out, and for some reason, we didn't go back again for ages. I'm not sure what happened but I managed to hang onto that book for years and years. As the years rolled on, I got more and more worried about the book, because inside my head, I could see the fine going UP AND UP AND UP AND UP UNTIL I OWED THE LIBRARY £1,000,000,000. Well, that's how you think when you're six.

By the time I was about nine, I realised that I didn't have £1,000,000,000 so I would have to ask my Dad instead (though I don't think he had that much either)... so I told him what happened and expected him to shout a lot because he doesn't like fines either. Funnily enough, he didn't - instead, he just drove me to the library and took the book in for me because I was too scared to do it myself.

I still remember sitting in the car imagining my Dad writing a cheque out for £1,000,000,000 and having to remortgage the house or whatever it was adults did to get money in those days. When he came out of the library he just laughed a small laugh and refused to tell me how much he'd had to pay, but it was nothing to worry about, he said.

I still have no idea what happened that day, but thanks again, Dad ;o)

Posted by j at 9:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

... And on the Seventh Day, the kitchen table became out of bounds, while hundreds of dark pieces of Mona were scattered all over it. C stood patiently with all the pieces around her, trying to fit them into their rightful places. The hair over Mona's right ear had just been filled in, but she remained empty and bald on her left.

And dull brained after a late night, I am sitting next to the banished table, writing one of my stupid blogs about nothing much at all really. There's something very calming about this whole jigsaw thing.

At the same time, I've no idea how someone could ever have the patience to compare tiny pieces of puzzle that all look the same, and spot the tiny differences in them, fitting them all together... over the space of a few days! I am impressed.

For some reason, that reminds me of the person who slowly and carefully made the world's smallest bible. Imagine that! Why would anyone want to rewrite the whole entire bible in the first place, never mind on a tiny piece of crystal? Why?! That's dedication for you.

I have trouble finishing off a game of Mahjong, myself!

Hats off to the patient people of the world. I salute you and your calm.

Posted by j at 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

K is staying with us this weekend, and it's really good to see her. Being a Londoner, she hasn't been here for about 5 years, and she's acting as if she's in another country, bringing a thick coat for the 'northern weather' and remarking how peaceful it is here in the 'countryside' (I live in the suburbs of Preston, which, incidently, is a city - though not a proper one in my view)..!

K also grumbled that because she is here, she can't do her Saturday morning routine, which involves reading my blog. God knows why. So here I am typing a special Saturday morning blog for her while she is in the shower. In fact, I made her go in the shower after she annoyed me by accidently telling me a very important thing that will happen in the L Word series 3 which we haven't seen yet, and I didn't want to know, and now it is all spoilt and I know what's gonna happen and there isn't much point in me even watching it, or probably even being alive (OK, so that last part was an exaggeration).

BUT I'M NOT TELLING ANYONE WHAT IT IS BECAUSE I'M NICE.

Instead I will tell you that 15 people will be leaving Coronation Street this year, and I know what else will happen, and I might accidently tell K by accident at some point this weekend. Hahaha.

Or maybe not.

Or maybe I will.

But I'll probably forget anyway!

Bye.

Posted by j at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I know I haven't blogged properly for a while (well, uploading photos of Harry in coats doesn't really count) and as I haven't blogged, my head has become steadily full. So, I guess it is time for some brain emptying, which will be much worse today because it is Friday afternoon, and we all know how Friday afternoon brain emptying involves the recycling of crap that has been gathered all week. And what a week it has been...

This week, I learned:

1) Several new technical facts, which are making my head hurt just thinking about them, so I have stopped thinking and started blogging instead. This is all fine and well, although it is difficult when people ask me what I do. I usually just look at them in confusion and say 'it's kind of hard to explain...', which makes them look at me funny. So, I've discovered that it's easier to say 'I'm a translator', which makes them smile and say 'oh, how lovely' even if they don't really know what I mean.

2) Purple hair dye doesn't last that long, even if you try to wash your hair less. It is also really difficult to find in the shops, especially when you're having a Bleach Emergency.

3) If you make a documentary about your class reunion, it is wise to pretend you can't copy it onto DVD, so your technophobic ex-classmates *have to* learn how to use a filesend facility instead.

4) If you make a documentary about your class reunion, you really, really are a geek.

5) There's no escaping the above fact.

6) There's apparently a need for a Miss Deaf UK competition, according to my self-named Annoying MSN Friend, who sulked until I a) said I would blog and b) said I would mention her. Happy now, Annoying MSN Friend?!

7) When I was an innocent freelancer I used to take Friday afternoons off. Now I look back at those days with an open mouth and wonder how I managed it. These days I'm usually full brained and chained to my desk on a Friday until it is dark and everyone else has gone home. Granted, some of the time I'm playing Gorillaz Mahjong, but at least I'm not in the pub...!

These are happy days indeed.

- It is probably best to stop now -

Happy weekends all round! x

Posted by j at 4:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

My head is really full tonight. Really, really full. Mostly full of useless information that I so need to get rid of - after all, my blog is meant to be a place to empty my head - so here goes. Take cover!

Erm.

*breathes*

... OK, so tonight's random head stuff goes like this:

- This week I learned what MX records were, and I amended mine and everything, and it's been bothering me ever since. Can I just stop here and ask; "At which point in my life did I officially become a geek?" That question is directed at A, btw.

- I also realised that, at the age of 31, working an 11-hour day becomes a big thing and wears me out. It wears me out even more if I do it four days in a row, and makes me really grumpy and everything. The question here is: "How did I ever manage to work 14 hour-days for 10 days in a row, and was I even grumpier when I did that all those years ago?"

- The other question is; "did anyone even notice the above..?"

- This week was also the week that the Barky Dog Neighbours left and were replaced by the Sports Car Neighbours. The Toxic Waste Neighbours have also been replaced, by the Even More Toxic Wasteful Neighbours, a week or two ago. This brings me to wonder; "why am I noticing my neighbours, and furthermore, why am I concerning myself with their (non) recycling habits?!" It's nothing to do with me, even though it affects the entire planet.

Scary thought.

I guess the conclusion to the above random thoughts - I could add more, but I won't, because C is watching something obscure on TV and I think I should go and join her- is simply that I am getting old.

Any answers to questions should preferably be non-sarcastic (that rules you out, Joe).

Happy bank holiday! xx

Posted by j at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

At the weekend, me, C and Harry went camping in the Lakes, revisiting a really cool campsite in Chapel Stile. The site is basically a farm with several fields, containing tents and sheep (mostly separate, but sometimes together, much to Harry's delight), surrounded by magnificient works of natural art, i.e. pikes ... i.e. really big hills, to those who don't do countrysideness.

It was fantastic to get away and chill out for a change. Reminded me that the simple things in life are really the most important; like you might pack five t-shirts but only wear two, because you only need two, or you use the same mug to drink different things out of.

That reminds me, last year we travelled round Scotland, spending a few very happy days at the also-magnificent Badrallach, where we decided to take a break from tents and midges, thus stayed in the bothy, which is like a hut. It also had a kitchen, which was shared by all the campers, and so we met quite a few people during our stay (including a group of mad Italians who didn't have a saucepan, and a mad Scottish couple who fed us whisky).

Anyway, I am drifting off the subject now. The point was, when we were relaxing at Badrallach, a woman who had been washing her dishes came out of the kitchen with blood pouring from her hand, asking if we had a plaster. I went and got her one, and she explained that she'd cut herself - not for the first time - because her husband insisted on drinking wine out of wine glasses, and ONLY out of wine glasses. Ever. That meant they had to take them camping. He also refused to do the washing up.

Me and C were kind of amazed and suggested that it might be a better idea to have a plastic cup instead... "Oh no, he wouldn't have that! He'd not drink out of it," the woman said, with an expression that showed she'd given up years ago. And off she went, to tell him she had broken another wine glass, all over again, and they'd have to drive a very long way the next day to buy another one.

What for?!

I thought half the point of camping was that you don't need many things, so that you feel pleased with the simplicity and basics of it all. Then, when you get home, you are astonished by all the things you do have, like computers and televisions and wine glasses - like the one I am drinking from now - which makes you feel a bit confused and sit down and blog about not much really.

And now I really am going to shut up.

Posted by j at 9:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Earlier today, E asked me when I was going to blog again, and I told her I would when I had time to do so (ooh, snappish! sorry E!). So now, I have a bit of time, here I am, blogging again.

I know I've been crap lately and my Moveable Type account (the thing that I type and publish the blogs in) tells me I haven't blogged for 5 days and 20 hours. I wonder if anyone has noticed, apart from E, and if anyone cares? I don't mind either way cos if no one wants to read my rambling rubbish, I totally understand :o)

Soooooo I have not blogged for 5 days and 20 hours - oh sin! - so what is new? What is new is that I don't have a weird story to tell cos nothing suitably weird has happened (apart from the story about Ce and the motorway, but I'm saving that one for a rainy day).

And there are those people who think bloggers have nothing better to do, which is not true. Sometimes I will be in the middle of piles and piles of work, when I think "OMG! I HAVE TO BLOG ABOUT THAT!" so I stop what I am doing and blog instead. So yeah, blogging is weird, and I like it.

I'm not one of those bloggers who takes photos of their meals - yes, there are some people who do that, and no, I don't know why - and I also don't treat this blog as a diary. I suppose I use it to empty my head when it gets full, to make room for all the other crap that will want to come and sit in my brain, just to annoy me and keep me awake at night.

So basically yeah I haven't blogged much in the last few weeks because I haven't had much room in my head and I haven't even been able to wade past all the things that are filling it to get into Blog Mode. Hopefully soon I will have more room, and more Weird But Harmless stories about things like being followed by strange dogs and almost getting crushed by garage doors, and things like that.

And if you have read to the end of this completely blabbery post, I would like to congratulate you. WAKEY WAKEY!

Posted by j at 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

As I often say; hooray, hooray, IT'S FRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDAY!!!! Thank F*** for that.

I don't know why but since I burned out and stopped organising demos all the time, I've looked forward to weekends far more. Probably cos I don't have to spend them working? Don't get me wrong, I so loved organising demos and doing the various other bits of activism I did... but it is also soooo nice to get the time to have a Proper Weekend; to go camping or faff around in the garden and read and walk the dog and go shopping and see mates and drink and chill out and other things that you are supposed to do simply because it's the weekend.

I keep telling myself I will get back to the demo business - and I definitely will - but right now I don't have the time at all, for various reasons. And because I am older and wiser, I spend my weekends As You Are Supposed To, which all helps me to stay nice and sane and sorted. Well, kind of anyway!

This weekend is definitely gonna be a Proper Weekend. For a start, it was raining like crazy yesterday but now that has all gone and has been replaced with sun that is getting hotter and hotter every five minutes. So we will definitely get a bit burnt, which is also what you're meant to do at the weekend. Also, the Preston Riversway Festival is on, about a minute's walk from our house, so we will probably have a look at it, in proper Proper Weekend-dom. (It was weird last year, with completely random things like a fun fair, car sales, music and er, a pretend medieval market. Yes.) Also, Latch is coming with his trailer to pick up rubbish and take it to the tip - if that isn't part of the Proper Weekend, I don't know what is!?

Anyway, Happy Proper Weekends, everybody - may the sun shine on your BBQs!!

Posted by j at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Went to G and T's (ha! G&T!) BBQ yesterday, because it was a Bank Holiday and that's what you have to do on Bank Holidays; watch men cook meat outside, for no better reason than It Is A Bank Holiday And That's What You're Meant To Do.

Anyway. I was very impressed to see how G and T followed The BBQ Rules very closely indeed. T, being the Girl, made sure everyone had drinks and smiled and was nice to people, while G, the Man, tried to light the BBQ.

(Actually, I should say the BBQs, because G and T were very cool and vegetarian and vegan friendly, and provided not one but two BBQs, so our Emergency Disposable BBQ stayed safely in the car boot, as there was no BBQ Emergency to require it.)

I say G tried to light the BBQs because that's what he did. He tried. But it wouldn't work, much to G's annoyance. After using almost a whole box of firelighters and many, many matches, T walked round to the Spar (because she was the Girl, and G was the Man, so he was far too busy) to see if she could find some of that fluid that makes flames go big. She couldn't.

"Why don't you use that old door that's in your alleyway?" I suggested to G. "There's a door in my alleyway?!" he said, completely unaware of that fact. (Why I always seem to find things in people's gardens that they don't know are there, I'll never know - last week it was a bike and a toilet...!) So we dragged the old door out and made it into a kind of wind-shielding fence, but that didn't work, so I dragged it back into the alley again.

All this time, G was getting more and more annoyed with his BBQs for not lighting - one would light, but the other one wouldn't, and then it would but the other one wouldn't - kind of taking turns to be as annoying as possible. Then, G had an idea... we should all gather round and make a human wall, so the BBQs would be shielded from the wind... yep, that one worked, and the BBQs were soon smoking away happily!

And which one do you think burned the best? The veggie one, of course! Ha.

Through all of that palaver, I realised that I have never seen a woman cook a BBQ when men have been around, except for C when we had a BBQ in our garden last year (and she had to fend off the men who wanted to cook, believe me, even though it was in our garden!). Very strange indeed.

I told this to T, who wondered why... we discussed, and then decided its because BBQs are so dangerous and hot and things might explode so men have to do it and be the Man to protect us girls and all that macho crap that they really truly believe, and we women just let them cos it's easier that way, and it keeps them quiet anyway. An interesting social fact - in 2006, men still feel they have to protect women. And we women still let them think we need it! Hm.

Anything for a quiet life ;o)

Anyway, it was a fab night and we all enjoyed ourselves, so many thanks to G&T, especially to G for his bravery in cooking chicken skewers that almost exploded and killed us all. Hooray!

Posted by j at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

When I was a wee girl, I was very attached to my bike. In fact, I used to ride it all the time, and didn't mind falling off it quite often... one of my favourite things to do was to speed fasttttttt downhill, in the middle of the road, with no hands. Typing that now makes me feel a bit ill, but that was in the 80s, before danger was properly invented..! I also loved to build ramps from a couple of bricks and a plank of wood... we'd all crowd round them and ride over them and things, narrowly missing breaking our fingers and whatever.

Ah, those were the days.

Never mind the fact that my green bike was much too big for me until I was a teenager or so, I loved it. That was partly because no one wanted to steal it, and I refused to have a mountain bike or anything else.

So, when I moved to East London and my parents kindly drove a van down with some stuff for me, I asked them to put my old green bike in the van too. They thought I was mad, but did it anyway, and it saved me so much cash. Again, no one wanted to steal it, but that was London, so I locked it just in case!

Anyway, that was about 10 years ago now (and yes, I do feel old thinking that!) ... in between East London and now, I lived in South London, where there was nowhere safe to cycle, so I kept my bike in my flat, and then moved to North London, where I lived at the top of a very big hill that I wasn't crazy enough to even try to cycle up. It was a really big hill, OK! Unfortunately, my old green bike had to stay outside because my landlord never got round to building a bike shed, although he promised to, and they don't have garages in London. So it got a bit weather-worn, which made me feel bad, but it still worked.

When I moved to Preston, of course I took it with me. But I stayed with a mate at the start, and there wasn't room for most of my stuff, so I stored it with the nice people at the Deaf Power House.

Yes, there is such a thing. A Deaf Power House. In Preston.

Basically, the Deaf Power House came about when four Deaf students started sharing a house together in the middle of all the Deaf Power demos and stuff a few years ago. The Deaf Power House seemed a good name, so that's what it became - or DPH for short. DPH has been the home of Deaf students for the past few years, and also, obviously, many house parties!

Anyway, my stuff stayed under the DPH stairs, along with banners and ropes and paint and piles and piles of other demo-type things, until I was ready to move. Unfortunately, there was no room for my old green bicycle, so I left it in the DPH's outside toilet (which was un-used, in case you were wondering), promising to pick it up soon. That was five years ago(!)

So why am I blogging about this now?!

Because as from next Saturday, the DPH will be no more... the final Deaf student moves out, marking the end of an era. Also marking the end of an era, they held their last house party last Saturday, and I went along.

C and me arrived at 11pm, because we'd spent most of the afternoon/evening making our office look more like an office, and we couldn't stop until we'd finished it. Was weird to be back in the DPH after a few years' absence, but it was exactly the same as before - even the tinsel on the wall was the same(!)

After a few drinks, I suddenly wondered if my old green bike was still there. Could it be?! No, impossible. I had kind of assumed that someone had thrown it away along the years, not knowing it was mine, and of course I felt sooooo bad, but I have another bike now and I never had time to go along and check, and I have so many other excuses it's impossible to list them all here.

But as my Dad always says, you never know unless you try, so I asked Andy (the DPH's last ever Deaf resident) if I could have a look in the outside loo. At first, he didn't know what I was talking about, and then he said, 'oh, yeah...' as if, like, whatever, he didn't know what I meant and he didn't care.

So I opened the door of the outside loo very carefully indeed, and yes!! My old green bicycle was there! Upside down, and a bit rusty, but it was there and it was OK and it was mine!

Andy was so amazed to see it, and even more amazed to see a toilet at the back of the outside building, behind a huge pile of junk and things. The other people at the party just looked at me as if I was crazy, but I didn't care. It was fab to see my old bike... there's nothing like childhood bikes, is there?

The weirdest part of the night had to be at 2am when we wanted to go home. I thought we could craftily sneak out from the backyard through the side door and along the alley, but it was all blocked up with beds and mattresses and other health hazards and things, so we couldn't.

Unfortunately, the walk-through living room was full of people watching R give a drunken speech about the history of the DPH, so I thought we were trapped... until C made me hoist my old green bike above my head and carry it through the room saying "excuse me" about 50 times... I have no idea what they thought!

But I don't care.

Old Green Bike Power!

Posted by j at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Hooray, it's Friday evening again and I'm sooo ready for the weekend. Been a busy week - well, busier than most - and I've hardly had time to make a brew, never mind blog. Actually, blogging only takes 5 minutes sometimes, and so does making a brew, but who cares. You get the picture!

Like many millions of other people, except Gavin (who hates it, largely cos of the crappy subtitles) and possibly Ali (who rolls her eyes every time I mention it, which is quite often), I frothed with excitement last night when Big Brother 7 started.

Yes, I know I am sad. So are millions of other people, and millions of people cannot be wrong, so do keep your anti-BB comments away from my comment box, please! And yes, I also know that my last sentence means people like Joe will send me hate mail. It cannot be helped. You simply cannot go through life without meeting one or two people who are evil, and that's a fact.

Anyway! I was on about Big Brother. Any fellow BB fans should look at the Digital Spy BB website for news that doesn't come from Channel 4 (i.e. most of the boring promotional bits are edited out) and also for the bitchiest forum ever. Some of the forum posters really, really scare me, I swear - have a look and see! - although I have to say I agree that a bloke should be voted off first for a change. About time!

So, I will be watching, and hoping that either Lisa or Pete wins, cos they're nice and I like them (so far), though they probably won't cos she's from Manchester and he has Tourettes, but you never know, do you?

It's things like that that make some people sigh and say "oh God, what a waste of time!" but people like me love it all cos it means we don't have to think about serious and important things - we can just let our brains be burnt to a crisp in the forum instead.

And why ever not?!

Have a great weekend, people.

Posted by j at 6:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's amazing what a weekend of camping can do for the soul. It's fab! I've spent many moments wishing I was still camping since we got back on Sunday, simply because it's soooooo relaxing! Am not sure exactly why, or how come I love it (when I lived in London I used to think people who camped were crazy, and that you had to sleep on worms and things - I was wrong), but I do.

I think one of the main reasons is cos camping slows you down, and I usually tend to rush through life at breakneck speed, sending 50 emails an hour and talking to 5 people on MSN, at the same time as making soup and cycling to uni. Well, not quite, but you know what I mean. Camping is cool cos it forces you to stop and do things slowly - you can't get in the car and drive off until you've packed the tent, and you can't pack the tent until it's folded, and you can't fold it until you're quite sure it's dry, and you can't be sure the tent is dry until you've taken it down, shaken it and turned it upside down, and you can't take the tent down until you've emptied it, and so on and on and on. There's no point being impatient is there!?

Camping has a weird way of making things simple, but also more complicated. For example, you can only cook certain foods because you don't take an oven or microwave camping with you (unless you're a bit strange!?), so you have a choice of something that is cooked in a pan, or something that isn't cooked. And no, BBQs are not proper camping food!! So you cook something in a pan, or you don't cook, which makes things all very nice and simple.

BUT it also makes life more complicated cos it takes a lot longer to cook, and you have to make sure you have enough water, and you haven't forgotten the olive oil, and it isn't raining or too windy, and you haven't forgotten the matches, and you have to swap the pans at the right time etc. Well, it is more complicated for C maybe, cos she is the Chief Camping Cook, while I just sort of hover around and carry things and watch in admiration at her survival skills and whatever... but still!

And again it makes you slow down. I could go on and on, but anyway, that is part of the reason why I love camping!

On another completely random note, Ce thought I might like to blog this weird-but-true fact that someone emailed to her (thanks Ce):

"Just in case you wanted to know this.

That won't ever happen again in our lifetime. In fact it will be approx. 400 generations before it happens again."

Spooky!

And now I really must go and do some reading. *SIGHHH*

Posted by j at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Goodbye, evil blog readers. Have a happy weekend! xxxx

Posted by j at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As my Dad always says, if you don't have anything to say, don't say it... so I won't, because I don't have anything to say. Am too knackered right now to form an opinion on anything so am just gonna go and watch Desperate Housewives and wonder why Susan Mayer annoys me so much, and why I even watch it in the first place.

OK, so my Dad always told me not to say anything when I didn't have anything to say because I used to like talking a lot of crap as a child, and I probably drove him mad, and if I really think about it, I still talk crap now, as an adult. Lots of it, on a daily basis, as this blog proves. In fact, I could type a whole lot more meaningless drivel from my empty head, but I won't.

Instead, I will say "HOORAY" to C, who somehow managed to find the world's only recipe that makes celeriac edible. Whew, I'd even go as far as to say I liked it! Genius.

And I am sure that anyone who managed to read this post to the end would agree that my Dad is a very wise man indeed.

Posted by j at 9:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

As you may have noticed, I recently joined Freecycle and put a link to it in my links section further down on this page. It's really cool... for those who didn't know, you can join your local Freecycle egroup and give away your stuff to random strangers, rather than throwing it away. Kinda like free recycling, hence the name. Of course, you can also get things for free.

C, being C, decided she wanted to ask Freecycle for some compost (yes, poo, rather than computer parts or a spare widescreen TV, for example), and was thrilled when an old lady gave her some horse poo. As you do(!) She was even more thrilled when an old man offered her some chicken poo, which is apparently even better for the garden than horse poo - and smells a lot worse too!

So, today, I offered to go with her to pick up the compost/chicken poo/whatever, thinking it would be really easy. Ha. We drove farrr into the middle of nowhere, where we came to a house with the world's longest garden - no joke, man it was long! - with many different birds wandering around.

The very nice old guy took us down to the bottom of his longgggg garden, where there was a huge pile of chicken poo. The easiest way of getting it was to stand on it, so we did... well, C dug while I held the bags open and pushed the wheelbarrow up to the other end of the longgggggg garden and generally freaked out and pulled faces cos I didn't mention I don't actually get on very well with chickens, and they were looking at me funny, and I couldn't believe I was standing on a giant pile of chicken poo in the first place, especially not on a Saturday, and especially not when we were meant to be working (oh well, there's always tomorrow)...

... And now I have bird flu paranoia.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhh!

Apart from that, today is the 3rd anniversary of BSL recognition. I'm feeling grumpy about it here.

Posted by j at 5:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

... and I am too tired to write a blog.

Sorry.

In fact, I have been asleep all day (OK, so maybe you find this rather surprising because today I was talking to you on MSN or even face to face, or I emailed you or whatever, but I was asleep in my head).

The reason for this is simple.

I stayed up too late on Saturday night playing isketch with A, C, R and some other random people who we didn't know. It's fab! Unfortunately I still haven't caught up on my sleep yet!

OK, so I am sad.

TRY IT TODAY AND YOU CAN BE SAD TOO!!

Posted by j at 9:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

OK so I was 30 last year, which means this year I will officially become Over 30.

Over 30?! Blimey.

I suppose that's not too bad really cos most of my mates are also Officially Over 30, and some of them are even Officially Over 40 or 50, so I can't complain toooooo much..!

You do notice things when you get old though, like being all stiff and slow in the morning, or like my Mate Without A Name showed me on webcam today, you get liver spots on your hands. No, I don't have any, but she did, and was "very upset". She was so upset that she has developed a kind of fascination with it, staring at it and all it represents - AGE!

Meanwhile, I'm busy being fascinated by the fact that my hair (with bits of grey, yes) has now grown long enough to tie back. I have a ponytail!!!!!!!!!!

I so can't believe I have a ponytail!!!!!

And I bet you can't either!

I'm still scary inside though ;o)

Posted by j at 6:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

While I was eating some cashew nuts just now, I noticed that whoever made the label on the packet had probably never seen a nut before. Why? Because it said:

"ALLERGEN INFORMATION
This Product Contains: NUTS"

Er, I know that... that's why I bought them!?

The mind boggles.

Posted by j at 1:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I think I am slowly turning into a geek. I didn't actually mean to, and now I think about it, I don't really know how I became one. What I DO know, however, is that IT'S ALL A'S FAULT.

Sigh. Well there are worse things to be than geeks, and I have to admit it's quite useful to know techy things, even if you don't really understand them. Like yesterday, for example, when A was teaching me how to use FTP (I forgot what that means, but I know what it is... sort of).

A: *Geek language* "Put a tick in the box in the right hand column and then click 'yes' and then upload a file."

Me: "OK, I did the thing, and now the thing is spinning round and the other thing has stopped. What do I do now?"

(Yes we do talk like that, it's how geeks and learner geeks talk.) The weird thing is, we understand each other. Hell, we even have whole conversations!

Well, I now own some webspace, a few websites and I can upload files to servers (well, I think I can anyway). That's good innit? And I'm looking forward to the launch of GOD, but we can't do it yet cos there's something wrong with the thing so the other thing won't work. Whatever!

Watch this space! Things will happen! ;o)

Posted by j at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yep, I know I uploaded a BSL blog yesterday, but that was yesterday.

Today, I am having Privacy Issues, so it is gone for now.

Made me think about lots of things - the Internet is a funny place, innit?! Anyway, I'll get back to youse about BSL blogs (dunno if that will be in BSL or in English, or in both, but whatever, ok!).

In the meantime, anyone who has accidently found this blog and wants to know who I am can view this special video of me in my office:

Download file

Enjoy!

Posted by j at 7:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Well, MERRY CHRISTMAS everybody!

And yes I know it is really sad and geeky and whatever to be writing a blog on Christmas Day, but do you know what? I DON'T CARE! Ha. And I have had a wee bit too much to drink already and it's only 3.30pm. Well hasn't everyone? If you haven't, GO AND DO IT NOW.

Anyway this is meant to be a speech so I should probably be typing serious things about how crap it is that there's still a war in Iraq and all that (well, it is) and Tony Blair should resign in 2006 (well, he should have done it already), but I really can't be bothered.

Maybe I am getting old, but I know it in my bones that 2006 gonna be a good year. Just trust me on this one ;o)

I am quite sure my Toxic Waste Neighbours will start to recycle. Also, the RNId will go bankrupt. EBay will become less addictive. And there will be less reasons in general for me to be Annoyed All The Time. Or maybe it's just the beer?

As well as all that, I got a remote controlled car for xmas to annoy the dog with - at the moment, he just stares at it suspiciously - so nothing can really go wrong!

God I am really starting to bore myself now so I will go downstairs and get some more beer. But, I would like to leave you all with a picture of a traditional British Christmas icon that everyone loves to hate (except C, who loves to love)...

... yes, the humble brussels sprout. Enjoy!

Posted by j at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Been meaning to blog about our new organic vegetable deliveries for a while - right now there's a huge pan of Random Vegetable Soup bubbling in the kitchen, so now seems an ideal time.

The recipe is this:
Open fridge. Remove vegetables. Chop vegetables and throw in pan until pan is full. Put any spare vegetables back in fridge. Cook. Add stock. Cook more. Blend. Or maybe not. Eat your Random Vegetable Soup!

It's cool getting veg delivered cos you don't know what you're getting. Sometimes you get things that you've never seen before in your life, so you have to surf all over the net to identify them, and work out what to do with them. It's fun(!) So why not see if you can find a vegetable distributor in your area? Go on ... well unless you live in London where No Veggies Grow Unless You Have An Allotment!

PS: Am Officially On Hols from Weds, and will not be blogging from 15th-23rd December (at least). A is trying to make me buy a new mobile so that I can moblog or whatever that is. Ahahahahaha.

Posted by j at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

...For she is bored and needs links. So what can bored people do?

* Find your celebrity twin (thanks to H for this one!)
* Book your place at the 2007 WFD Congress
* Bother your MP
* Fly across the earth (warning: this is meant to make you feel sick!)
* OR MAYBE DO SOME WORK!?

Posted by j at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Eek, the purple monster is coming...

And now it has eaten me...

Well, I hope all those who should feel bad DO feel bad. You know who you are. Ha!

Posted by j at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes it's really cool working at home, cos it means you have the peace and space to do what you want, like play with your brand new webcam or do your xmas shopping online, or wind up the dog or whatever.

And sometimes it's not cool, like when you're meant to be doing really boring things like admin, or working out your wages so that your accountant can tell you how much tax to pay, but you really, really can't be bothered, and there's nobody to tell you to get a move on and just get it out of the way, so you keep delaying the boring bits by doing random things like Building a Better Bush or writing a stupid, irrelevant blog.

And when you finish writing your stupid, irrelevant blog, a huge, huge purple monster with massive teeth and an angry face comes out of the sky and yells at you:

"FOR GOD'S SAKE, JENNIFER, JUST GET THAT TAX RETURN OUT OF THE WAY! NOW!"

Posted by j at 1:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When I said you couldn't die in the Gorillaz Geep game, I was wrong. You can fall faaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr into a hole somewhere in it.

I am sorry. We all die sometimes.

Get over it!

*goes to bed*

Posted by j at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hooray! My blog is back and it's got a cool new image...!

Again, I have to thank A for her patience while I am confused. Very confused. I still don't understand how these things work but A assures me "you will one day." Yeh, maybe in about 20 years time or something.

Well right now I am happy enough. I am also addicted to online Mahjong - blame C for that one - and very proud of my new recycled trainers, in case anyone was wondering (OK, I know you probably weren't but I wanted an excuse to show off).

Maybe one day I will actually know how to put pictures on the top of my blog and other clever things like that. But for now, nice people like A and R do it for me. I am eternally grateful.

And I am off to walk the dog.

Posted by j at 6:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I was right... nothing wrong with my teeth :-D so there is nothing to say about the dentist, who just smiled a lot and said "very good." The hygenist was another story - she did the brushy scrapy filey thing (as usual) and I shouted "I PROMISE TO FLOSS!" in the middle of it (as usual) etc.

When she had finished, she said "This is not your favourite place, is it?"

"No." I replied. She smiled to herself.

"Do you like your job?" I asked, suddenly wondering how someone could actually like doing brushy scrapy filey things to other people's mouths all day.

"Oh!" she looked a bit embarrassed. "Oh. Yes, I do actually... I've been doing this job for 19 years!"

Me: :-O "19 years?! Blimey."

Her: "Yes. I deserve a medal, don't I?!"

Too right!!

Posted by j at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

... Today, not only am I off work sick (although am getting better), but I also have to go to the dentist.

This news should please those of you who seem to enjoy reading about my unfortunate incidents (the Garage Door Story seems to be the most popular blog I have posted, except for the photo of Harry). Funny to think how my friends and family members like reading about me escaping death. Wonder what would happen if I didn't escape?! Well, I couldn't blog for a start ;)

However, I am sorry to tell you that One Of Those Stories is not going to be written later on. For a start, my dentist is very nice, and so is the hygenist. Also, there's nothing wrong with my teeth. So there!

Errr..... TOUCH WOOD.

Posted by j at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Strange as it may seem, many Deafies will nod their heads and laugh evilly if you ask them if they've ever heard about hearing aids being thrown out of windows. In fact, there's a famous story about how Deaf school-leavers from one particular school often open the train windows on their way home and chuck their hearing aids out onto the tracks. Well I can't say I blame them...

When I left school, I was desperate to get rid of my hearing aid but didn't want to throw it out of the window, and didn't really know what else to do with it (wear it?! no way!). So I took it to the audiologist and told her I didn't want it any more. She was shocked: "Oh, you won't be able to manage without it!"... "You will need it to go shopping." ... "You will need it to ..."... etc...!

I tried explaining it didn't WORK because I am Deaf, which means I CANNOT HEAR, but she wasn't having any of it. I then changed my plan and said I wanted to give it to Deaf children from poor countries who couldn't afford to buy their own. She looked at me as if I had just said I had Found Religion. "Oh Jennifer, are you sure? That is so kind of you!"

"Yeh whatever," I mumbled, as I dropped the hearing aid on her table and left. "It's kind of like recycling..."

PS: Thanks to those of you who have asked how I am after the garage door "incident". I am fine thank you, and so is the door!

Posted by j at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just to prove I'm not a grumpy bugger ALL the time, and also to prove that I listen to feedback(!) I've created a HAPPY category. So now I have to think of happy things to say. Hmmph.

Oh well, here goes! Things that make me happy!...

1) Being in love! :-D With C! Agh! Happy! :-D
2) Harry. Photo coming soooooooon!
3) My mates. But only when they're being nice to me, not when they're winding me up and calling me old and grumpy and things ;)
4) The end of war. Well, I WILL be happy WHEN it ends. Does that count? In the meantime, direct action makes me happy, like what 82 year old Walter Wolfgang did (see here).

..................... blimey!! Too many to list!! That was a hard one!

Posted by j at 6:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Well here I am in blogland, much thanks to A and R for helping me to get set up! I hereby promise to TRY to blog at least once a week, mainly to stop A nagging me and whatever.

In the meantime, here's something to laugh at ... :-D

Posted by j at 7:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)