Beautiful Bath and Bristol, Vindictive Vegetables, Super Slugs and Hellooooo Hermit!

Whooo. It has been HECTIC!

Well, my train journey to Bristol went fairly smoothly, only got lost the once. Bristol's a magnificent city, rather lovely in it's own way. Some nice bits of architecture! I went to find my way to Brook Street Agency (they accepted me straight away) and only got lost twice on the way there; which is impressive for me. I can get lost in a telephone box, so I'm regularly told. Anyway, meeting there went well, the filling of forms and the online form for a big bank also went well - so well in fact I had a telephone interview there and then! That was a breeze (big thanks to Ms Rondell), and have secured a proper interview slot! Oh, and I've probably landed myself a temporary job with the MOD until then. Yes, I'm a little smug to say the least. Can you blame me?!

Coming BACK was a different story altogether. They say 13 is an unlucky number, and this is platform just that, waiting for the London-Paddington (first stop Bath Spa). It got delayed, then a bit more delayed, and a bit more for extra fun. Thirty minutes later, it comes in, I get on - it's ready and just about to go when the tannoy suddenly calls out "Due to the delays on this train, first stop is now Reading, and not Bath Spa." Oh SODS. Several passengers (including myself) freak as we try to get off in time, and run all the way over to platform SEVEN, where a train to Bath Spa has been moved to. Another couple were getting on the L-P train, and I informed them of the latest tannoy. They said they'd be over soon - I pointed out the train was going in a moment. "Oh, it'll be fine, we'll be there in a couple of minutes." Well, I just shrugged and ran to get my seat. And waved as it went without them...

Travelling to Bath initially was incredibly dull for the most part, as my grandmother has this hatred of motorways which means a four hour journey took eight. Although I was greatly amused when she was telling me they went all the way to Kettering to see the Kites, spent hours going round and didn't see a single one. Chance would have it that we were driving through at that moment - and lo, what was that going literally straight over the car?! - Only a huge male red kite, flicked wings and red forked tail... WOW! Camera wouldn't get a shot, as road too lumpy.
I did see a very cool slug though.

I also had a wander around Bath on several occasions (and yes, got LOST on several occasions), and I have to say, it's rather nice. There's lots of quaint little shops, lots of big versatile shops, for some reason there's no Woolworths, but there is a (an?) Habitat, and lots of great organic food shops. And fresh fruit is WAY cheaper! Oh, they also have a couple of Thorntons! On one of my getting lost sessions, I managed to find it; that's a good start at least.

NEWSFLASH: The crazy lady on the bus (remember I mentioned her earlier?) - apparently she flipped and attacked a bus driver. Nice...

I also tried a lot of new stuff this week, I tried a strawberry and raspberry ice smoothie which I liked, a bit of white chocolate coffee cold thing, which I didn't like. Turns out I LOVE home made chicken korma and vegetable jalfrezi, but I don't like ginger and butternut squash soup at ALL. I'm also having to learn to cook proper stuff, which is a bit different - but my garlic mushrooms turned out really well much to my delight. My hands still smell of garlic though. Yummmm - can't complain. I chopped about six onions - the first five were fine, but the sixth one was a real killer. By multiple heavens, my eyes were quite literally streaming...! Gwuh. Green onions = NASTY VINDICTIVE VEGETABLES!

And I found an insane new pet! Meet Frankie Jexx - he's a land hermit. He's living in temporary accommodation at the moment. It's not great, but he's got sand, some water, plenty of humidity, stuff to climb. He's also learning to be hand tame, and gets to be a free range crab for 20 mins or so each day. He seems to be pretty happy - I just hope I chose a good one. They have a habit of not being very hardy, so Google tells me. He's got lots of fresh stuff and commercial pellets to eat, so hopefully he WILL eat something soon and be ok.

Quote for this week: "it's great - i can't hear a thing - i'm going in for more" - I'm forbidden to say who it is, sorry. They're a bit famous.