Work avoiding again

from Christmas. First is Alison at the Post Alpha Bravo trip to the Panto and CURRY. Why anyone would eat Sprouts with the exception of being at gunpoint is beyond me.

Next is me at the Panto (school not Peepul) dress rehearsal. No wonder Year 7 laughed as I made my entrance.

This is from the night I had circles for tea..

And these are 'not just' cups of coffee! These are Marks and Spencer's cafe coffees that Mum got for me and Pops as we made our way back from 'toy' shopping to find the ladies who had been girly shopping in Marks. Well, Mum had been shopping. Nan found a seat and thought she had been abandoned!

Uploaded photos from my phone. For some reason have kept a record of cookies I have made recently. Just have to accept my own strangeness sometimes.

This one got a bit stretched getting out of the cutter... and turned into an alien..

And this was my winning entry in the Music Team Christmas Party Cookie Decorating Competition (2008).

Saturday... up late (oops). Showed potential new lodger round. Don't think she was very impressed. Oh well. Did a run (6.5k). Breakfast, shower. Afternoon already. Did some blog and video stuff, then made cookies...

... to take round Rach's. Played with Naomi for a bit.. she showed me Elmo and her Duplo, and she knows what colour my car is! Sounds weird to hear her saying my name.. have really lost track of her.. she is growing up and I missed it. Decided I need some toys for the bath.. she wouldn't lend me her purple whale tho :-(

Played Guitar Hero World Tour... with the Drums, Lead and Bass... was awesome. So much fun. And sooooo hard. I'm so bad at drumming... nearly phoned Nick to tell him I couldn't drum at EP today! Yet another toy to save up for!!! I'm getting worse. Watched Narnia (LWandW) in bed.

Up early today for the car boot. Tiny again. Red t-shirt is nice tho.


Nice chilled breakfast watching some more of Narnia. Few jobs to do (like getting the spare room ready for parents next weekend) then some GH practice on my old PS2 set.

Leaving do last night disappointing, although prob entirely my fault for not being in a social mood at all. Left early just before someone made me cry. Chatted to Vicky a bit tho, and other Tom, so that was good.

Chips on Wednesday was better. Chip and runny egg butties. Mmmm. And lots of wii-ing after. Decided that the Sega Tennis game was crap. Hitting tennis balls at zombies is just weird. Ems loves carnival, so we played that. No cups tho! When Lu came back from footy we beat her at Volleyball hehe.

Ems disappointed that my butty was bigger than hers..

Enough posing... back to scoffing..

Head pretty messed up at the moment. Trying to keep busy doing things... mainly on the Mac hehe. Am looking forward to Tom's leaving party at school tonight.. sausage and chips! Can't wait to see Vicky. Gonna do a run before I go so I don't feel too bad about all the comfort eating this week.

Reading: The Beano Annual!!! and just finished Bill Bryson's Shakespeare that Ma gave me for Crimble.

Listening: currently Bon Jovi (hmm) mostly been Radio 2 and whatever is on my ipod.. been using the dock loads.. its fab... but shuffle can be weird cos there is just a load of Pops' CDs on there that I ripped at Christmas... Oliver.. Sixties.. George Harrison.. Bananarama..and my Black Dyke CD!

Watching: The start of Wallace and Gromit lots of times as I try and fail to get the new DVD recorder to record in widescreen. Failing so far. Quelle Suprise. Friends and Frasier been on the TV a lot. Watched the old Bean movie the other day.. needed to laugh. And Dogma... feeling cynical and wanted to see my thrid fave God again.

Had a couple of 'make Lego in bed' mornings recently to try to stop me getting too sad. Started on the General Grievous Starfighter that I got given for finishing my PhD.

This is the naughty boy himself (he's on the Dark Side!)

Four lightsabres is just greedy!

My new plan for sorting the bits is working well... microwave tubs!

Watch it grow (I have better plans for this.. doomed by technical issues at the moment).

Saturday: g factor on the feminine side of God.. interesting. Then rushed off to Burleigh for the Hathern Brass Band concert. The world premiere of their newly commissioned Finale was fab. Late tea in the Laughing Buddha.. was yummy, and the complete opposite of Maxims.. great service and menu.

Sunday: Car boot on again... although there were only 6 tables, so I was done in 20 minutes. Glad we didn't go to sell today, think it would have been a costly waste of time. Anyway.. good game (we tested it after dinner)..

Probably a good job that I was back early, got the veggies prepared before doing a massage. Hosted a meal for Desree's birthday. Worked really well.. I did veggies.. Alison did meat (cut the crap...) and Karen and JPK did afters (an exceedingly yummy pavlova). Unfortunately I only got pics after we had cleared the decks (should have had proof.. Alison asked 4 greens...and got 4 kinds hehe).

Don't think JPK was particuarly happy about the prospect of being blogged.. can always remove him if he is not happy.

Des liked her card from Alison...

and her present... a little bit of Africa..

... when you go looking in Grandad's shed!!! Chalkie came over to my parents house on the Saturday I was home for Christmas (having spent the whole of Boxing Day in bed!) after he had got up early and been over at Nan's clearing out Grandad's shed. His question was "what should I do with these?"...




"Put the tin down carefully and run away" was our reply when we saw the contents.. along with "stop rattling the tin like that"!!

Goodness knows how he smuggled them out.. knowing him he just had them in his pocket when he got 'demobbed'. Cool!

Reckon this is the Best Before date??

Sat 3rd Jan. Ran and made gingerbread men (wheat and dairy free!) then went to De Montfort Hall in Leics with Alison and Karen. We saw Evita and it was absolutely brilliant. The cast were really good and I love the songs (good job as humming them ever since!). Was really happy to get out and really DO something before the end of the holidays.

Even happier that it didn't end there... hosted a Wii night that was great fun. Was supposed to be a big SW Force Unleashed tournament, battling each other with lightsabres... but I didn't realise I need another nunchuck...drat! So, Karen was spared (hehe) and we played Mario and Sonic at the Olympics instead, having stuffed ourselves with chip and egg butties whilst watching Creature Comforts. Olympics was funny... we all pulled some bad faces trying to sprint faster! (another video for the blog hehe)

Em and Lucy stayed later.. we ended up getting rather competitive at volleyball... actually me and Em made Lucy stay until we finally beat her! Poor pups left all alone... hope they hadn't destroyed anything this time.

Sunday: Attempts to go to car boot met with locked gates and a flat car battery. So came home after breakfast at the flat and did all the house-y jobs I'd been putting off. And had a yummy dinner while watching Elizabeth. Drummed at EP for Graeme... was fun, if freezing. Pub... then a very very cold ride home.

Monday 5th. School. Boo Hiss. Assemblies then doubling up in the Sports Hall (I had long thermal underwear on.. fleece..hoody..fleece... woolly hat and gloves.. and still frozen. Poor kids.

Is exactly what I did. So when I woke (rather late, yet again hehe) I reached down for the box and began the New Year by making Lego Starfighters in bed!!

Was an excellent way to kick things off I thought. Then I did the 'I shall be good and I shall get fit' thing and did a run on the treadmill. Is quite pitiful that I'm only running 5k at 12kph at the mo. Had to christen some new trainers for the new year cos the others were so old and un-bouncy..not good for my poor old knees!

Breakfast and shower then headed off to the Beacon Pub. Was further than I thought so had to run as was late. Went in and got lots of strange looks... no friends inside tho... phoned them, only to see them strolling up the road! Was a fun quiz (esp the music lyrics round) but it took about 4 hours!!! I did manage to make one pint of Guinness last the whole quiz, which I think is quite some feat of slowness. And they made me eat a cheese cob so I didn't go all silly, but it had yukky onion in it.

Chilled night here after.. so chilled we fell asleep watching the movie.. which doesn't do 'The Big Kahuna' justice.. it was really good.. just couldn't keep eyes open.

Friday 2nd. Probably more messing about with Lego (vulture droid this time) and treadmills and Macs and videos in the morning.

Went to a workshop in the Apple store in Highcross in the afternoon, via a brief wander around the sales with A and Karen. (Only a Sesame St t shirt and Ninja turtles DVD in HMV hehe). The workshop was good, in that it gave me a few tricks and lots of inspiration for doing stuff with videos and making DVDs. It was short and rushed though, even though there was only the two of us, and no-one was able to help me with the video cameras and Macbook issue.

A very very productive evening in after that... did the filming for my Christmas pressies video, and tidied them away (kind of) ... anyone get the impression I like Star Wars?

...then worked out how to edit movies in iMovie, and also made a website in iWeb. All so easy! Helps using programs all in the same suite.. that work so well together. Even managed to upload my first Video blog to my site... although I must make them way way shorter in future... takes an age to upload.

Tuesday: Another sleepy start.. then I set off on my mission to create an amazing animation with Lego using my cool new video camera... only to be utterly defeated by toys not wanting to play nice with each other. I could not get either camera to work with the Mac or the Istopmotion software. Was gutted and stressed. Felt like I had wasted a whole day. Luckily Alison and Karen came over and rescued me from my grump through large amounts of TV watching. Have to remember to put the photo in here of just what lengths Alison will go to to feel warm!

Wednesday 31st December: playing with the video camera again in the morning (well, after lazing in bed and then a run) making a review of 2008 goals film. In the afternoon I joined Alison for a mooch around town.. hoping to get last minute bargains in Woolies but getting there a day too late! Don't think I bought anything actually... mainly cos I'd left my Waterstones vouchers at home... bit of a Star Wars/photography book dilemma there.. actually I bought the most posh milk I've ever had.. it was 'not just' 2 pints of semi! and some strange food for tea in Marks (well, that Cava that came with the deal was yummy). Tea at the flat, then a nap on the sofa .. we're such party animals! then round to Sophie's for the New Years Party. Bit strange as only 5 people there.. but was good fun, playing board games and getting through far too many nibbles hehe. The actual changeover was a bit of a let down.. Jools began his 10 second countdown.. and instead of everyone shouting Happy New Year at midnight and hugging and being all happy... they were just argueing about the time.. "well my watch says there's 2 minutes to go" etc etc. Oh well. Didn't stay much longer... went back to the flat and drank the aforementioned cava before a cold ride home!

Monday 29th Jan. Busy day... helped Alison move into her flat. Lots of lugging boxes upstairs, which I'm good at. Then sorting her stuff out, which I'm bad at. Got told to just shove the DVDs on the shelf, not spend hours putting them in alphabetical order! At least I didn't divide coats into Posh Coats and Everyday Coats, and put swimming costumes on hangars like Karen did!

In the evening we had the Official Celebratory Meal.. the party for the PhD. Was great. We met at the Orange Tree in town (to make a change from Spoons). Karen and James were already there (oops!) and Em and Lucy, Rach, Des, Louisa, Tim and Joy also joined us.

Em bought me a very yummy drink.. an alcoholic milkshake that tasted just like a mint Aero.. mmm.
Was messing about with the video camera.. mostly Karen pulling faces hehe. My buddies gave me a fantastic gift... they had clubbed together and bought... STAR WARS LEGO!!! was soooo happy (obviously I had been whining a bit much that I hadn't got any for CM.. soz) Hurrah for Alison knowing me perfectly and Karen trying to be subtle in texts! Got my next suprise when we went to Maxims... a Spiderman tablecloth and lots of graduation hat confetti hehe... sneaky Alison!

Food was a bit stressy (crap menus and a rubbish waiter... it seems to have been taken over since A last went a couple of months ago) but we all got there in the end, and was quite nice. Was fab just to be there chatting with everyone.. all seemed to get on great. James got the prize for eating.. loads of starter then TWO meals! think he even beat Ems!


Joy obviously bored of waiting for her wheat free food... having remained terribly calm trying to get the idea of wheat free across

Sunday.. went to Hemsby in the morning... it were bloody freezing!!! Followed the tradition to the letter... beach (American Football then chucking stones in the sea) then the caff... then Martins Bingo (only Ma managed to not win)... Donuts. Maybe the video will make it to my website one day!

Got all packed up, amazing how it all fits in my diddy car, then went to Aunt Syl's. Ended up staying much longer than I'd expected... lucking the ratties survived the cold car. Played wii with Lewis.. he was well good at Brain Academy, and I was gutted he beat me at Carnival.

Drive home was eventful! Got quite sleepy by Newmarket so stopped to eat me pack up from Ma and have a pee! All went well until I stopped on the exit sliproad to answer my phone. Being a dumbass I left my lights on so no-one crashed into me, and turned off the engine so I could hear. Quelle suprise... the engine wouldn't start. Went in to ask the services guys for a push, very nice man came to my aid... and prayers were answered when an RAC man turned up and very kindly zapped my battery. Aside from the awful singing rest of the journey was fairly dull.

Oh dear.. gone midnight again... where's me hot water bottle?!

Decided that we would get up early to go shopping in the sales on Saturday. Not sure that 11am really counts as particularly early.. and don't think we made it to the City until half 2!! Chips on the market for dinner were well yummy hehe! Me and Pops coped very well with the girly shopping, although we did also exchange books and look in the Animal store. Swapping my crop top from Santa in Debenhams was fun... was a bit freaky going bra shopping with Mum! Texted A and Karen... then had to explain to the check out staff why I was laughing.. Karen had told me to get one "that only takes three" (from the Peepul Centre panto 12 Days of CM song). Me and Pops escaped the really girly shopping in Marks.. and went to Currys and got my video camera (my main pressie from parents) which was a bargain.. loads off in the sale. Then we went to HMV and got DVDs and books.. including Muppet CM Carol hehe.

Getting the video working with the Mac was a bit tricksy to start... but got there in the end.. and Pops obliged at being silly for the camera, then Nan did a lovely bit of acting for her clue for Ape in Articulate... we even beat Ma and Pops!!

Rather late posting this... as usual. What did I do Boxing day... well, I'm proud to report that I stayed in my jammies until about half 1... I got told I had to get dressed for dinner! I had been up doing stuff... sorting CM day pics on iPhoto, and playing with the iPod dock I got from Chalkie (which is fab... and was dead easy to move into the conservatory, so we had Deano entertaining us while we ate). Fun afternoon playing games on the wii with Angelique (who really loves the ratties!) .. we managed to beat Pops and Rob at tennis in the end.. then games in the evening I think... this might have been the evening I managed to get internet sorted on the Mac (should have guessed it involved turning it off and on again!)