Monday 22 October 2007

Poetry, Procrastination, Problems and

I have been laughing myself silly all this morning.

Yesterday night, after blogging, I went downstairs to eat, and met the first of the other course members, a bloke called Dave. Turns out he spent a lot of time in my old home town - small world hey?

Anyway, this morning, I went down, booked a big taxi, had some bacon etc and spotted Dave in the breakfast hall. He'd already found another lady on our course, and offered a lift to the pair of us. Well, fair enough, so I went out and cancelled the taxi (was going to offer to share see) and got told a call had just come in, that someone was going to come meet us "soon". Well, of course, I asked how soon is soon. "uhhh, dunno." Ok.

So, I go back to where Dave and Julie are sitting, and tell them of this development. Being the practical soul I am, I hold up a letter with the company logo clearly emblazoned on it, and others on our course started heading over.

By 9:45, we start wondering - where's this person. By 10, I go ask if there's been any more information. No, we just have to wait in the foyer. Ok.

10:10 - there's been a call. No-one's coming to pick us up, and they'll meet us there.

Right. So that left us 20 minutes to pile into cars (fortunately, we'd been sat discussing for just such an eventuality) and try to drive there with the incredibly pathetic directions.

So, there's Dave, Julia, Gareth and I piled into Dave's car, and we're following the girls, because they've got GPS and have programmed the place into it. And boy oh boy. We switched lanes, cut people up, got a siren blast from a police car, went the wrong way, and made a royal hitch up of it, following them. And then we discovered there was no designated parking, when I finally spotted where it was we were supposed to be.

So we spent another 10 minutes getting each other completely lost, until Dave did the sensible thing and asked a local pedestrian. We ended up getting off in Number 2 Dolphin Centre Carpark, and arriving (8 of us) at the course, 45 minutes late.
Well, what can you do besides laugh? Our car were just falling about - we couldn't work out how to get across the road. The girls ran ahead and had fun trying to climb the fence in tights and high heels; when we finally stopped laughing long enough, Gareth pointed out the subway.
And it went from there - Dave's chair bust and nearly deposited him on the floor, and the icebreaker went badly wrong for Julie. We were supposed to describe our pets, and favourite colour. Julie described her dog as old, grey, whiskery and smelly.

Which was then that we found out this was a psychological thing, and was supposed to be the way we describe ourselves.

Well, I creased myself laughing (had to put my head on the table) and Dave was in hysterics, and Gareth was laughing because we were, which set the rest of us off even more.

I'd put "scaly, spiky and loyal" - which I guess is kind of appropriate, even though I was describing Kyle. Could be worse, I could have said cold-blooded and greedy!

And on the way HOME. Oh dear oh dear. Well, Dave took the lead back to the carpark, and I'm following them going "we're going the wrong way, we need carpark two. We're going the wrong way..." Guess what? We ended up at the top of CARPARK ONE. Hehehehe. What a surprise hey? We eventually managed to get back to ours, going the wrong way first and losing the girls, apparently they went off shopping for a bit so they didn't realise we had actually got lost (thank goodness).

And, because they were confident of the route and have the TomTom - we followed them again. We ended up cutting lanes, narrowly missing a people carrier, going round a roundabout the grand total of TWICE (I said as we approached "I bet we do an Arc de Triumph here..." Love it when I'm proved right) going the wrong way off the roundabout and having to go round ANOTHER one to go back ON the roundabout to go the right way (some comments were made about women drivers at this point, from Julie too I hasten to add...) and finally made it back to the hotel.

We found a lovely space, RIGHT outside the doors, and waited whilst the girls couldn't work out how to lock their own damn car. I had my hands on my knees gasping for breath by this point, as the lights kept flashing on and off, and they kept unlocking it every time. Oh yeesh...

And we got homework. I'm studying. Can you tell?
I gotta give another shout to my mum for being great and talking me through some issues, thank you. Here's one for Redline - you know what it is you want, and you can have everything you want, you just have to take that step. You've heard my opinion, get the books checked over first, and worry about the rest later. I'm with you 100% on whatever you decide, ok?

Today's most remarkable Quote: "That moment when you fall apart inside to something rare and so gifted, that golden chime of a heartbeat that races with the leaf as it floats to the ground in autumn, the parade of carnival spites the elements of a dark bank holiday monday sky...... enjoy yourself as doris day and terry hall once sang." - Jon. Dude... that's... wow.

Sunday 21 October 2007

My Microwave, Groovy Grandparents, Poole Party(?) and an "Earthquack Explanation"...

I need to write an official thingie for apologising for lack of updates, don't I? Save me a ton of time. Well, imagine I've done it already, and save us all the tedious procedure!

This last couple of weeks, because I've had to completely wipe my OS (Operating System) my friends have rallied round for me finding freebies to replace the stuff I lost. Nige discovered all six Harry Potter books in PDF format for me, dozens more refilled my MSN gifs (and sent me a few new ones!), and wonderful, WONDERFUL mate Gaz has just sent me "River Below" by Billy Talent. I LOVE that song, it rocks my purple and black stripy knee high socks off! (Thankees, owe ya one boyo)

Oh, and I have a question for you. How is it, when you've spent too long in bed, you get all hot and sticky, but your feet are FREEZING?! (Or is that just me?)

My grandparents turned up yesterday, which was nice. With a microwave as a surprise gift for me, which was nice too! We went out, got lost, had a big breakfasty/brunch thing in a Weatherspoons, got lot, walked around the city for a while, and then spent some time watching a busking showman. He was very good actually, roping in audiences and performing some fascinating feats; his grand finale was riding on a ten foot unicycle and juggling fire clubs! (and scaring the audience by pretending to fall off)

Ow, soddit! I pulled a label off this holdall, and the elastic snapped back with a wire loop on it, and cracked me across the knuckle! I seem to have wound up in Poole of all places. Oh, SCORE! I was rummaging in one of the cupboards (as you do in hotels, and yes, there is a Bible) and have just discovered freebie biscuits! There are marmalade ones (I think I'll save those until I'm really hungry) and chocolate chunk with pecan. Needless to say, I'm halfway through snarfing that one. Crunchy! Oooh, better yet - I've just discovered there's two in each packet! I'm having a good day for freebies, Nan and grandad insisted on taking me to the train station this morning (saving on busfare) and getting brunch at Morrisons on the way. And Nan gave me one of her hash browns. Thanks, I love hash browns!

Australians have a whole new way of thinking to us "Pommies" here in the UK. This is BNAlbino "tidying up". I told you, you've been lucky to get away with it for this long, because I promised you that I'd put it up... Perhaps their famous "Bundaberg Rum" makes things appear that way? Alright, alright, in fairness, this was when he'd only just started.

But still very funny - that stack's taller than HIM.

And isn't it always the case that it has to get worse before it gets better?

Actually, it's probably a good job I do have a microwave now, it's so much easier to quickly cook something, and to find some can-be-ar*ed-to with a microwave. Well, you know what I mean, you can't be bothered to faff around with pots and pans when you're only cooking for yourself.

I'll explain: most nights I get in from work tired. Back home, I'd normally eat about 6pm, which is great. Here, Dave does the cooking and we all pay a share (and I wash up while Kat's supposed to dry), which is fair. However, most of the time, he doesn't cook until about 10pm.

By which time, I've gone past being hungry, and gone to bed instead. (Thank goodness for large lunches) Now, he's got grumpy because I don't eat what he's cooked (although I sometimes have time for it as breakfast, and have been known to come home from work and eat it cold, as I'm hungry WHEN I GET HOME FROM WORK). This is understandable, but I do pay for it even if I don't eat it, and more often than not HE eats it whilst I'm at work anyway. Anyway, the sum of this all is, he refuses to cook for me now. That's ok, I refuse to wash up, because none of it's mine, and I'm not washing up at 11 at night when they've had their dinner. But if that's all the quarrel is, it can't be too bad.

And I said I'd give a public apology to Kat; whilst I was away, some of the bugs that Kyle eats got out. This has never happened before, and I'm very surprised it did. I can only apologise. But, (and this is just explaining, not taking at you, I already told you the same remember) they are a whole lot cleaner, less smelly, and don't bite like crickets. They also haven't got downstairs, unlike the cricket's ability to jump all the way down (I found one in your shoe one time) and they're not NOISY. (I had a big cricket singing under my bed at nights for nearly a week before I managed to catch it. They're a bit fast.) And my chufftastic sketch of Kyle in a leash - Kat designed the leash and I think it's very clever, works lovely!

And what's an "Earthquack" anyway? Thank you Mike, for a very good laugh. Oh, apparently it's one of Duckzilla's superpowers when he gets a n g r y.

My calculator has also started singing a waltz at me at 8pm every night. I've got used to it, as I haven't figured it out yet, and so just thump my bag instead. That seems to stop it.

"When the wise man shows the moon to the idiot, the idiot stares at the finger." - Frenchman Will. He claims it's an old French Proverb. I just like it for it's sense of perspective.