*yawns* Eee I'm tired this evening. I had a good lie in again this morning although I had to get up due to immense back pain but this afternoon I've been very busy baking with my mum so I guess it tired me out. Between us we've decorated the Christmas cake and made mince pies, sausage rolls, coconut tarts, and fairy cakes, which I have to ice later on when mum's finished in the kitchen.

We always make the same sort of things but this year I know that mum hasn't been on top form and I think she saw most of today as being a bit of a chore. Hopefully, it wasn't too bad for her and she can feel relieved that her work is done for today and most of the bits and bobs for tomorrow's Christmas dinner are sorted.

Today is also my nana Joan's 81st birthday so mum brought her breakfast in bed this morning and I brought her cards for her. She also opened one of her presents from me and Chris, which was a little pink rosette with Birthday Girl on it. She usually opens her birthday presents along with her Xmas pressies on Christmas day but I thought it was more appropriate for her to open her "bit of silly" today.

I don't know whether I'll be writing tomorrow and then on Boxing Day we'll be staying over at nana's before driving down to Chris' house in Essex so I shall wish anyone and everyone that casts their eyes over this blog a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Tomorrow will be my last shift at work for the year. I can't say I'm looking forward to it either. For starters it's been bloody freezing here these past couple of days and the roads are rather dodgy so I won't be enjoying the drive to and from Durham and negotiating the car park with its 1 in 4 gradient. Then there's the fact that the whole building is closing for Xmas at 1pm apart from the library and the security guy so there'll be three of us in library and most likely the powers that be will have forgotten about this and will turn the heating off (again). Dicing with death, freezing and being bored to tears, oooh luvverly.

At least this morning I got to see a happy Chrimble baby :D I went to Vickie's new house to drop off their pressies and she let me have cuddles with Evie then she opened her pressie so we could see what Evie made of it. She seems pretty intrigued, talks to it a lot and gets narked when she can't grab the bit that she wants or make it jingle. The seal of approval was given though when she managed to get a teething ring straight in her mouth so I am a happy godmother :)

Work was an absolute sod this morning. It was my penultimate shift of the year and thankfully most of the students have gone home for Xmas otherwise I'd have given up and gone home early. When we got in first thing this morning there were strange messages on out computers saying something about the programmes having to shut down so I clicked OK and restarted them... and they shut down. We rebooted the computers and as we were trying to get our system online I noticed that our machines for the online catalogue were all off as well so I went into the office and saw the computer that controls the networking and possibly the server for our building had been switched off despite a huge note on it saying not to. I went up to the department's computer room to get the out of hours ITS number only to find that all the computers there were buggered too.

I rang Main Library and, of course, everything was peachy there so I rang the only ITS number I had, which thankfully gave me two other numbers (for the same person, it turned out) to ring. I ended up talking to some bloke called Robert who is responsible for university systems across the whole of the North East (he thought I was at Northumbria uni) and eventually he said that he'd put us on priority status and someone should be coming out to fix the problem. That someone never came so we had to tell all the library users that any books they returned wouldn't come off their accounts until Monday although they would then be backdated so that no fines would be incurred and that any books they took out today would also not go onto their accounts until Monday but that they were OK to have them once we'd filled in the emergency back-up forms *rolleyes*

As I said before, thankfully we didn't have many people in and we hadn't been left a great deal to do so we ended up sat in the back room drinking tea and opening our Xmas pressies to each other for about an hour. We still got everything done that we had to do though and got out on time for once. So, it could have been better but it so easily could have been worse. Let's hope that my last shift next Thursday goes a bit more smoothly.

I have had another very productive day in the kitchen today; I maded 60 pepperkaker biscuits. I couldn't scale down the recipe to make less because of the weird measurements and the fact that they wouldn't taste right without the correct amount of spices in them so I made a whole new batch. The intention was to make a load for my parents to take to my grandparents in Leeds tomorrow but as it ended up making so many biscuits it looks like we'll end up eating most of them. That's no bad thing though cos they're very tasty and this time Chris helped me decorate them with writable icing that I bought (I couldn't be fussed with getting green food dye everywhere from making glacé icing again).

I got two suprising communications today regarding jobs I've applied for. The first arrived in the post and was about the casual work available at the County Record Office. I'd totally given up on this job because it's been so long since I applied so getting an interview for it was a nice suprise. The second was about the Extended Hours Supervisor post at the university. I was astounded to get a reply to this so quickly as I only emailed my letter and CV off yesterday but I've got an interview for that one too. I had a feeling that I might get one for that anyway as there's no real reason for them not too and at the moment the job's only available in house. However, I get a feeling that some of my colleagues may have also applied for it so whether I will be successful remains to be seen. So if everything goes we'll I may have three part time jobs on my hands next year and that's not counting the fact that I'm meant to be employed by the County Council already to work in their public libraries although they've never actually called for me to come in (their loss LOL).

I have just realised that sixteen years ago today I took my Brownie Guide Promise. I don't know why this date always sticks in my mind other than the fact that it was exactly six months after my seventh birthday and the number 13 is my lucky number due to alarming regularity with which it crops up in my life (I was 13th on the class register in Years 7-9).

Also, I have just ended a massive philosophical debate with my co-worker for the evening. It started off as a sort of argument as to whether cynicism and scepticism could be considered to be the same (I won that one, they aren't the same) and ended up with Ocham's Razor, at which point I annouced that I was going to the toilet and then for a cuppa. I can't understand why whenever I work with this particular person we end up having some sort of mental conversation and I wonder whether he's like this with everyone LOL He's just coming back from his break now so au revoir.

I baked today :D I got all domestic and made a batch of pepperkaker biscuits (Swedish gignerbread, apparently) in the shape of stars, Xmas tress, and holly leaves. The recipe said it made 38 biscuits but somehow I ended up with over 50 and had to throw some of the dough away cos I didn't have any more room for cookies and it was getting too dry from being rerolled and floured. However, they are bloody lovely and I've iced them now so they're all pretty. Chris is gonna make me some little boxes to put them in and I'm going to take them into work as my Christmas treat instead of getting shop bought biccies.

Finally we made the bloody Christmas Cake! I've only had the dry ingredients weighed out for oooh three or four weeks *rolls eyes* Mum and me usually make the cake at some point during October week because when I was at uni in Manchester, this was reading week for me and I'd come home. However, this year, despite my best efforts, things got in the way and it's been put back further and further to the point that I thought it was gonna end up as a Simnel Cake instead. How it is made, I just took it out of the oven and it smells lovely. Mum's gonna give it a good dousing in rum tomorrow when it's nice and cooled so hopefully it'll be good and marinaded by the time it's marzipaned and iced on Christmas Eve.

Today also marked the annual argument over the Christmas decorations. Every year mum tries to get the whole family involved in decorating the house and my dad always finds some excuse to not join in or annoys everyone so much that he gets sent away. He tried his damnedest to piss everyone off but mum wouldn't let him leave so he sat and "directed" until mum press-ganged him into hoovering up the fallen bits of Christmas tree, glitter and tinsel, and putting all the empty boxes away in safe places whilst Chris made us a cuppa and we decided which ornaments should go where. It could have been worse; Jamie could have stolen the tree chocolates and mum could have garotted dad with some fairy lights.

Gotta love that festive family spirit LOL

So it looks like I wasn't the only one unhappy with Northumbria's marking system. One of my friends' dissertation was mysteriously lost so she's unsure whether she's actually passed the course or not and she didn't receive any information about graduation through the post so she had to email and ask what the hell was going on. Another girl had to hand in an essay late because she had an accident and broke a couple of ribs so missed a fair bit of the second semester but although the essay was marked and she was emailed the grade, it wasn't tallyed onto her module marks resulting in a score of 11% for one class!
Conclusion: UNN couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.

Yesterday was graduation, which is how I came to see these people and find out about their mental situations. The ceremony was good although it was amazingly windy in Newcastle so I had to fight to keep hold of my mortarboard. The hood on the robe was also really heavy and kept trying to make a break for it so I spent a lot of time fighting with it to keep it in place and not strangle me. Then there was the fact that loads of peolle weren't down on the seating plan so had to sit seperately and be filtered into the line as we went onto the stage. There were obviously a lot of people whose names weren't on the order of service booklet either, which must be a real kick in the face when it's your special day.
Conclusion: UNN couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.

The strangest part of the day was that we had some special guests at the graduation. Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, famous for 'Porridge', 'The Likely Lads', and 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" amongst others, were there to be awarded with honorary doctorates along with all the rest of us. It was a bit weird but so cool to be on stage with them... it was a bit awe inspiring LOL
Conclusion: I bet they're pleased they didn't have to study at UNN.

I got my feedback from my dissertation through the post today and I am not a happy bunny about it. I know that at the end of the day I have an MSc and I should be happy about that but I am still disappointed that I didn't get a better mark for the dissertation. I could have lived with that if it wasn't for some of the completely unfounded remarks made about it. I'm not going to go into details because I've gone past anger and don't want to get riled up again, but I will say that I'm wondering whether the two markers read the same piece of work as there are some blatent contradictions and things said about the work that are not true. I don't know how this is possible but it's happened and I was 2-3% off getting a commendation for the MSc.

Most universities don't grade the Masters courses in that way but for some reason Northumbria do. However, it's a small consolation that if it was graded in the same way as an undergraduate degree then I'd have another 2.2, same as my BA. I'm going to try and forget about what they said... and may shred the feedback, although I haven't decided if that's a good idea yet... so let's hope the people in question aren't at graduation because I can't trust myself to be nice to them. I considered changing my mind about going but I've got the tickets and paid for the gown hire so I may as well go. Like everyone keeps saying to me, I should be proud of my acheivements and the graduation ceremony lets me stand up and say "it was bloody awful but I got through it when others may have given up".

Right now I am feeling very disheartened. I really wanted to get Chris something really nice for Xmas because he's my special fella and he always gets me such wonderful, thoughtful presents that I feel ashamed of my crappy ideas. He asked me to get one thing for him, I bought another cos I thought he needed them and they were nice and I also bought him some nice pants cos I figured he needed some more of them too. When I did my adding up I realised that I'd already spent too much (especially on the thing he had to have) so I ended up just giving him the pants as a "congrats on the new job" pressie even though he'd been there almost a month.

Still after that, the amount I've spent on him is too much for me to spend to much more on him (does that make sense?). So I had a really nice idea for a pressie, found one that fit the bill online and then went to order it. They didn't have the exact one I wanted so I tried four other options, the last of which actually went through to my shopping basket. I click on the basket to complete the order and what does it say "new stock awaiting delivery, reorder in 14 days". What the hell is all that about? If you don't have an item then you don't advertise it and then if there's an item out of stock you generally let the customer know before they try to buy the damn thing. I can't even remove it from my basket so god only knows whether the order will go through or not. I should have known not to trust Studio again after last year's debacle. I'd get rid of my account with them if it wasn't for the fact that they refuse to let me do it online or over the phone and I'll be damned if I'm gonna spend any more money on postage for them.

After all that, I'm stuck not knowing what else to get Chris. If I pick another item from his Christmas list then that'll be no real suprises from me as I won't be able to afford anything else. I know I shouldn't be hung up on all this materialism but I like to be able to give people nice things. I have no problem buying nice suprises for other people so I'm doubly peeved that I'm finding this so difficult. It's like his terminal indecision has had an influence on my ability to buy things for him. Having said that, there's a lot of very feminine gifts out there but the masculine ones tend to fall into very few categories; cars, boobs, booze, electricals.

The stomach pain has continued today unfortunately and that Fleet buisness is still effecting my insides. I've felt generally very crappy today so haven't really done much other than sorting out the washing and in a bit I've got to do some ironing or my mother will kill me when she gets home.

Anyway, in case you haven't noticed, I recently added a phase of the moon image to the right-hand side panel of the blog. If you scroll down it's between the links and the archive, and it should show the current phase of the moon in your area. It looks at your computer's clock to determine where and when you are in the world and then displays the image. It can take a while to load but I think it's cool anyway.

Well this morning I had the dreaded flexible sigmoidoscopy and it was mercifully quick because hurt like a bastard. I will never complain about the pain of IBS again as this was far and away worse than anything I've ever felt before. The going in part wasn't too bad because it's only a small camera but when it was being worked around the twists and turns of my insides I thought I was going to scream. The nurses, bless them, were lovely and helped me to calm down and cope better with the pain. I wouldn't have been able to manage without them.

Anyway, now I'm left with terrible stomach pain and tenderness, wind and the almost constant need to poop... so I'll be off before I crap the bed.

Nighty night :)

Today I feel like death cos I've had to take this stuff called Fleet that makes my insides empty themselves over a period of about twelve - fifteen hours. It's made me incredibly ill and I'm only just feeling the effects wear off now. I've also not been able to eat anything other than a few cups of strained soup, which has increased the feelings of weakness and nausea to the point that I now no longer want to eat anything. I can't even stomach the thought of lemonade and I know I need to drink because the headache's partly to do with dehydration.

After all this, tomorrow I've got to go and have a camera stuck inside me to see why I was bleeding while I was in hospital. I wouldn't care but I haven't had any bleeding since I was discharged but they say I have to have the investigation done anyway cos my nana used to have polyps and her sister died of bowel cancer.

Oh happy day :(

Yesterday was Bonfire Night and the whole clan went off to nana's house for what will probably be the last Bonfire Party there. Chris and me got there at about half past one so we went with mum and nana to Strikes Garden Centre near Northallerton to look at their Xmas displays. Nana is giving us one of her Xmas trees because mine's got a bad case of the Leaning Tower of Pisa effect so I decided we should probably get a few more decorations for it or it'll look a bit sparse. I wasn't really taken with their range of tinsel, especially at their prices, so we got a tube of red glass baubles and a little box of wooden tree ornaments, then chose a few pressies for my bestest bud, her boyfriend and my mum. I think we'll have to go to Peter Barratt's in Stockton to look at their Xmas decorations next week because they always have loads of lovely things in and tinsel in almost every colour imaginable.

Anyway, everyone else was due to arrive at nana's shortly after dark so dad lit the bonfire and it went up like a bloody rocket. It was that fierce that we could feel the heat about 25 feet away and the sparks that it sent up made it look like the garage had gone up in flames when we went round the other side of the house. People started to arrive shortly afterwards and then when everyone had said their hellos and been sorted out with something to drink we went out and watched the fireworks. Some of them, it has to be said, were a bit pathetic but others were almost like professional style ones in blue-purple and white. Halfway through we had out customary mug of hot soup and dad started putting all sorts of things he'd found in the garage onto the fire. That included an old wardrobe that I was meant to be getting when nana moves and some doors from god knows where. They were meant to be 1960s fire-retardant doors but they went up remarkably quickly, sending sparks and ash all over the place so we retreated a bit after I got a hot ember on the face.

After the fireworks were over we retreated inside to sort out the dinner. Mum had told me to buy 60 sausagesand 60 buns, although we only made 48, with fried onions on most of them, plus there were enough spuds for everyone to have a jacket potato each. A lot of the spuds didn't get eaten and even 48 hotdogs were too many, although my brother did manage to eat seven and only one of those was bun-less. Nana had made a trifle and a pavlova, which I decorated with whipped cream, kiwi fruit and strawberries, and I made my famous cherry pudding with the addition of some sherry to give it a bit of a kick. The pavlova went down a treat as usual despite nana saying that it had come out as flat as a fart LOL However, there's a lot of cherry pudding and trifle left over so it's just as well that my aunt and uncle were staying over to take nana to Otley because they can help her finish some of it off.

Yesterday was also my uncle's birthday and after dinner my cousins came in carrying a tray full of chocolate birthday cake, which no one could manage to eat after all the hot dogs and puddings so it went untouched for my uncle to take home. Then we all went into the living room so he could open his pressies and cards. He's a bit of a DIY expert so he'd asked for some B&Q vouchers from us but mum said she thought it didn't look like much, so when we were in Strikes Chris saw an apron with "Merry Berry Christmas" written on it and as it's my uncle's surname we decided to get him a little pillow and a large stocking with it written on for him to display next month. Nana reckoned that the pinny was too feminine for him though so he didn't get the full set.

So now we've returned to normal again, for a while at least although Chris is coming down with the early stages of tonsilitis so I whisked him off to see the nurse this morning and she gave him some penicillin to knock it on the head. Hopefully, they'll kick in fairly fast so that we don't have a repeat of last year's tonsilitis, which he was incredibly ill with. His neck was so swollen it looked like someone had implanted stuff into it. I made him some bacon sarnies for lunch to make him feel better and as dad's still off work he had some too.

I have passed my dissertation!

I saw my tutor this afternoon, completely by chance and she told me that I have actually passed my dissertation. This means that I will actually be graduating in December and havce the right to put MSc after my name as well as BA(Hons). I am chuffed as little buttons and can't wait to tell the rest of my family. I don't even care how well it passed cos I highly doubt it got a distinction.

Tonight I am too tired to write much so I shall ask two questions:

1. Why do some people feel the need to drive at a constant 40mph regardless of the speed limit?
2. Why am I not being paid the proper amount of money per hour commensurate with the amount of time I've been in my current job?

That's all for now. Good night.

Happy Samhain!
(or Hallowe'en, for the lesser mortals ;) )

Yes it's that day again where some nutty kids go running around the streets in crappy costumes begging for sweets and money. Mum and dad have instructed us to not answer the door to anyone that comes knocking tonight and I'll bet they're not the only ones that feel like that. I don't mind if there's little ones properly dressed up with their faces painted and escorted by their parents, but the teens with the cheapo supermarket mask on and their hoods pulled up make the whole thing tantamount to begging. Anyhow, I'll be at work until nine tonight so hopefully the cold will have pushed most of them back indoors buy then.

Back to Samhain. As on most days, I've been thinking about my grandad although with it being Samhain, and with Bonfire Night nearing, he's been on my mind more than usual. I still miss him a great deal and I wonder how he feels about my nana selling their house, even though we all know it's the right thing for her to do. I'm pleased we get to have another Bonfire Night there next weekend, I don't know what we're going to do when nana moves out. I hope he's pleased with the changes that have been made to the house to update it and that when the new people move in, whoever they are, that he won't make too much of a nuisance of himself. I wonder if he'll be able to move with nana to the new place...

Today I have been contemplating politeness. I asked myself, why do I seem to be the only person in Durham with any manners? I hold doors open for people, I always look behind me in case there's someone following me through a door so I don't close it on them, I stand back to let people through in crowded areas, I say excuse me, and most importantly I say thank you when someone does the same for me. Why then do so few people ever say thank you to me when I do these things for them and why do so few people do them for me either? I'm not just talking about people my age and younger either, so often it's people of my parents' generation that seem to take it for granted that someone will hold a door open for them and so don't say thank you. It really annoys me and soon enough one day I will have to say something in one of those instances just to vent my spleen.

Queuing is another point. Whilst in ASDA the other day, Chris and me were waiting for a free self-service till when a lad of about 11-12 went straight to a till that was about to become vacant without even considering that we were waiting. I went over to him and said "there is a queue you know", which was met with "well the lad didn't know did he, there's ways of telling people without being nasty" (which I wasn't being) from an elderly lady behind him. I thought it was some woman sticking her oar in but then as we left I saw that she was obviously his grandma! Surely she should have said something more along the lines of "sorry he should have waited" as that would have shown the kid that queuing up is polite instead of just pushing in. If it had been someone else's relative and they had pushed in front of her, I'm sure she wouldn't have responded in the same way.

I just had a lovely phone call with the County Archivist :) She does want me to apply for the casual job at the Record Office and was obviously pleased that I had already spotted it and put in an application form. Hopefully, I'll be shortlisted out of the 100s that have applied for it thinking that it was a full-time job (another Job Centre cock-up) and I'll be back slaving away with the cataloguing. I hope to god someone finished the slides from planning because if I see another picture of the steps in front of Beamish Museum being built I'll scream LOL

My ASDA credit card has jus arrived today too and I've got the ridiculous amount of £3000 credit with them! I can't believe that, it's got to be a typo cos I was only expecting £300. Perhaps I have quite a good credit rating just from spending with Next's mail-order service and the few things I got from Studio last Xmas (don't buy from them, their goods are shoddy and their service is worse). I think I shall take myself up town now to change my PIN to something memorable and then get something to eat to try out the new card. I shall, however, only be using it to get petrol from now on. You can't grumble with 2p off every litre of petrol I buy with this card :)

Got another letter from HM Customs & revenue today *rolls eyes* They sent me out an emergency tax code for some mad reason, which would have meant me paying 22% of my income per month. Considering I get bugger all as it is, that did not make me a very happy bunny. So I rang them up, explained, told them about my two P45s and now my three different tax codes. Thankfully the lady was lovely and reinstated my proper tax code then made sure that they know I'm not committing any kind of benefit fraud too.

Went shopping with mum today, which was lovely even though he tummy was upset so she had to keep running off to the loo and had to sit down the whole time I was in LTS cos she felt all whammy. I managed to find two nice Christmas cards although sadly I didn't see any nice paper. I also picked up a few Xmas pressies and mum got me some bits and bobs for me to forget about until December :D

Tomorrow I have to ring the County Archivist because she left a message for me with the Assistant Keeper at Palace Green telling me to do so. We think it's because she wants to make sure that I've applied for the part-time job they've got going at the Record Office but I won't know for definite until I ring and I forgot to do it today. Anyway, if it is that job then I've already applied for it so everything should be OK.

It looks like nothing will ever come of that incident on Saturday. I went to the police station yesterday to report it and the desk officer took all the details and then went to check if the guy had been in and said anything. He only had 24 hours to come in and make a complaint about me and after about 23 hours he hadn't said anything so the officer said that he probably never would come forward. She told me to put the whole thing out of my mind and if this guy does do anything about it in the future, they would contact me and I've to tell them that there's a record of the whole thing in the station's desk log so I can't be done for not reporting an accident.

She also said that it was obviously a genuine accident with no malice on my part, the guy should have been paying better attention to the traffic in a busy area where people generally think that cars shouldn't be going up there. It's Durham's narrowest road and because it's cobbled and leads up to the Cathedral and Castle, people don't think that there are homes and places of work on the Bailey. I couldn't have stopped to say anything to the guy there and then because of the narrowness of the road and the traffic around there, I didn't have chance to go and find the guy because he found me first, he didn't ask for any of my details other than the registration number that he took himself, and he refused to give me any of his details when I asked for them. Basically, if he was going to say anything he's put himself in an awkward position because of his attitude towards me. I can understand the guy being annoyed but he acted like a total cock IMO

My god this afternoon has been horrible and tomorrow mum has to take me to the polics station in Durham to make a statement. As I was driving up to the library on Palace Green a pedestrian (I think on the edge of the path)turned round and I clipped his backside or lower back with my passenger side wing mirror. The mirror was already broken and held on with gaffer tape but the impact knocked it in towards the door, ripped the tape on the underside and dislodged it. I swore loudly (they couldn't hear me) and one of the women looked at me like I'd just murdered him but I had to carry on up to the Green because there was a car behind me and two cars can't pass on that road.

I couldn't get the mirror back on properly so I ran into the library and got a load of thick tape to strap it back on. As I was doing this the man approached and said "if that's what it's done to your wing mirror, you should see what it did to me", to which I replied "look I'm really sorry but that's not a pedestrian area down there and people just don't seem to realise it". That's when I noticed he was writing down my registration so I said "you're taking my details because you turned round and I clipped you with my wing mirror?" and he said summat like "I certainly am". So, naturally I asked if I could have his name and he said "oh there's no need for that, you'll definitely be hearing from me again soon".

So I spent the whole of my lunch hour in floods of tears on the phone to my insurance company and then trying to get in touch with the police. Apparently you have to go in in person to report and incident bvut no one told me that on the phone. That's why mum's taking me in tomorrow to make a statement in case this guy reports me. I wouldn't care but it wasn't my fault. That road is very narrow and cobbled so people think cars aren't allowed on there. People constantly step out in front of you there too. I'm in bits :(

Sorry for neglecting this place for so long, I just couldn't be arsed to write anything. To be honest, nowt much has been happening recently since Chris got his job. I've been hugely tired due to all the early mornings (I drive him to work for half nine five days a week) and I'm back at work for five shifts a week. I could moan on about all the shite that's been going on at work and the with JobCentre (suprise suprise I hear you cry) but I really can not be bothered to pour it all out again. My anger has dissipated and I've passed into apathy LMAO

I was nearly late for work again tonight due to a combination of hellish traffic in Durham City and getting a puncture on the way to pick Chris up from work. I heard an odd thumping noise coming from the front end of my car but couldn't work out what it was. I asked Chris to get in and rev the engine so I could have a look and he managed to stall the car. That dislodged the spiky nail thing that was ripping into my tyre and we could hear the air coming out so I went into Chris' work and rang the RAC. They were great and only took about ten minutes to get there then a further ten to fix everything up (take the crap wheel off and blow my spare up and put it on) and we were off again.

How daft the world is that I have had to apply for a credit card so that in the future I will have enough of a credit rating to be able to get a mortgage *rolls eyes* I don't want a credit card, I've never wanted one and I certainly don't need one for the money... I don't spend money that I don't have and I never will. I've only been in the red once and that was because the bank cocked up and put my student loan into the wrong account (never worked out how they managed that).

So now I'm awaiting an ASDA card coming, if they'll give me one. Why ASDA? Well I'll get 2p off each litre of petrol I buy with it, every November I'll get vouchers and I should also get special offers throughout the year, which is great cos I only buy petrol for ASDA and I get most of my shopping there too. Another good thing about this card is that I can set up a direct debit to pay it off every month before the interest kicks in so I never have to pay more than I've spent and won't incur any fees cos as I said before, I don't spend what I don't have. Also, I only intend to use it for buying my petrol so there'll never be that much on it and I'll be able to keep better track of how much I'm spending on petrol.

me/ responsible spender ;)

As Chris will be starting his new job tomorrow, today we went shopping for smart-casual clothes for him to wear there. He doesn't have to wear a shirt and tie but he got two new shirts along with two pairs of smart trousers, a jumper, and a zip-up jacket that he can wear over a shirt if the office is cold in winter. He looks well smart and I'm dead proud of him. Here's to tomorrow :D

As I said on the phone to my mum and nana this afternoon, I've got some good news and some not so good news.

The not so good news is that I didn't get the job interviewed for last Friday. Apparently I came out second choice of the eight interviewees and my interview was excellent but I didn't have as much experience as the person that got the job. However, I was tipped off that there would be a few Group Managers retiring soon and that they'd really like me to try for those posts so I've to keep my eyes peeled for them.

The good news is that Chris did get the job he interviewed for on Friday and he'll be starting on Wednesday! Everyone's thrilled to pieces for him and we're so happy that he's no longer unemployed. Tomorrow we're gonna go and sign off at the job centre at last so thank god they gave us out money last week. After that I'm taking Chris shopping for some appropriate workwear.

I made a decision today to redevote myself to my faith. Whilst I was studying for my degrees I really didn't have the time and energy to give to its proper study and implementation and I regret that, so I'm throwing myself back into it with a vengeance. Just call me the library witch LOL

The interview this morning seemed to go very well; there were lots of interesting looks and writing down, they asked questions in relation to what I was saying rather than telling me I'd missed bits out and hopefully I'll find out on Monday before work. Chris' interview this afternoon seemed to go well for him too although he was only in there for fifteen minutes compared to my almost hour.

After the interview I went to see Vickie and baby Evie. Evie was asleep when I got there but she had to be woken up to be weighed by the health visitor so after that I got to have a cuddle and tried to keep her occupied and stop grizzling while she waited for her mum to finish with the health visitor. Then she had a feed and went off to sleep again until I was just about to leave and she woke up to say goodbye and give a few gorgeous little smiles. I lovely to see her again and to have a good long natter with Vickie because we've not really seen very much of each other this year. We talked about everything from babies and wedding to houses and benefits, an adult conversation at last! LOL

So very tired tonight *yawns* I'm not sure why cos I had a great sleep last night and I'd not really done much today other than finishing off the washing. I did have to go to the Job Centre to ask about some letters the DWP sent this morning but everything's OK and we've finally had our claim processed so they're gonna be giving Chris some money now and we get backpay from the end of May when all this arsing about started. That's a weight off everyone's minds.

Other than the usual stuff, I've been doing a lot of sewing as I've bought a crosspatch kit of a little grey bear with a pink blanket that I'm making as a christening present for Evie. It'll have her name stitched on it above her date of birth and birth weight. I saw some really cute baby Hallowe'en costumes in ASDA this afternoon and would have loved to recommend them to Vickie but Evie's still too small for first size clothes at the moment so they wouldn't fit. However, I am going to visit mum and baby after my interview on Friday to see how they're both doing. Apparently the health visitor's coming at around the same time so I may see more than I bargained for LOL

It looks like I didn't get the job I went for on Thursday as they haven't called me. I'm not too disappointed as the hourly rate was lower than I'm currently getting and there were so many that applied that I'm just pleased that I even managed to get to interview. Besides, I now have another interview on Friday for a higher paid and more important job. I don't have much confidence that I'll get it but I'm astonished at being shortlisted so I'll do my best and see what happens.

We had a very productive day at work this morning; me and Rebecca managed to relabel 118 books between us and also stripped a further five bin bags full of books alongside serving the handful of customers we had. All in all a job well done and we managed to beat our previous record of 103 books relabelled since we started having to tot them up at the end of the shift.

This afternoon we had visitors too because nana and aunty Janet were having their hair done so they and my uncle Malcolm, along with my cousin Nickeee for a few hours, came for lunch and tea. It was nice to see them again cos it's been a while and after dinner I made a pot of Nicaraguan coffee, which me, mum and aunty Janet had with a shot of caramel syrup. My dad's on conference in Liverpool this weekend so we didn't have to put up with his crap jokes and attempts to ply everyone with alcohol ;)

I'm at work again and I am wondering about the sign in front of me at the desk. It says " Service Point opens at 09:00", the same as the one in front of the porter who is at the enquiries desk (I am at the issues desk). So far tonight two people have tried to return books to me, one has asked for an Inter-Library Loan (not sure if I should have let him have that one), two more have asked if I can issue books for them, another one asked for help with the self-issue machine after he broke the receipt feeder, one wanted to reserve a carrell, and another wanted to know where she could buy printer credits (at least I think that's what she was asking).

The Inter-Library Loan guy was probably alright, same as the self-issue guy (even though he broke the machine and I don't have a key to be able to get in and fix it), printer girl and carrell guy (the information's on our website as far as I know but I helped them as best I could).

However, the whole point of self-service hours is that the library staff aren't meant to issue and return books etc. The porter's here for security, to lock up and make sure I'm alright. I'm here to process the books from the return bins and shelve them if appropriate, and issue any books that are on reserve because they can't be accessed without a member of staff. Most people get this and even those that I can serve usually ask if it's alright for them to have their reserved items but tonight I can't understand why people can't read my little sign when they seem perfectly able to read the porter's sign about five metres away LOL

Went for my interview this afternoon and it was OK I guess. There was a panel of three, all of whom seemed very nice and friendly people. They laughed at me saying I couldn't bring my degree certificate because dad's put it up on the wall and seemed to respond well to everything I said. They wrote loads down and had few questions for me other than the usual set they have for all positions in the county of that scale. Altogether it was good but I'm not going to get my hopes up too much because I don't want to be let down. They said if I was successful then I'd get a phone call between about 4-5pm so if there's no call, I didn't get it *crosses fingers*

On a slightly brighter note, my bits and pieces from CILIP arrived today including my membership card, which I have proudly shown dad and Chris cos it has my post-nominals on it LOL

Good news or bad news?

Bad news: following my trip to the colorectal clinic this afternoon, it has been decided that I need to have a barium enema in order to make sure that I haven't got polyps.

Good news: Vickie has asked me to be Evie's godmother and I said yes!

Every cloud has a silver lining :D

Chris and me went to have a look at Finchale Priory today but when we got there we discovered that they only open on weekends and bank holidays so we couldn't damn well get in. Then we saw a sign saying that when they are open, the adult admission fee is £2.30, meaning that the leaflet we saw the place advertised has both the opening hours and admission wrong cos we thought entry was free. Then we discovered that in order to get out of the place we'd have to pay two quid to get a token so that the car barrier would lift up and I could drive out! I asked Chris if he faniced trying again on Saturday when I've finished work but he reckoned, and I agree, that for the £6.60 it would cost us, there really wasn't that much there to see. I think we may be making a second quest to find Castle Eden Dene on Friday.

In other news, keep fit was good tonight despite me gaining weight this week rather than losing it and sweating like a whore next to a ten pound note during the routine. I did feel really good afterwards, even though me and mum looked like two beetroots, and my back didn't hurt too much this week. I'll be back on the diet wagon that my dissertation threw me off this week. I've already started today by refusing to even contemplate getting cake when we went out for lunch today.

The Xmas shopping is coming along since winning the auction yesterday. We sent the cheque off for that this morning so hopefully it shouldn't be too long before it arrives. That and my order from Amazon.co.uk. I saw a little bit of something for my mum today too so I just bought it cos it wasn't very expensive and I knew if I went back to get it that they wouldn't have any or I'd just forget about it altogether. Mum mentioned that she'd like a new one of these and this one's a rather different type to what she already had so I'm quite chuffed with it (yes I know I'm being very cryptic LOL). We also managed to pick some things up for Chris' mum's birthday but sadly we picked up the wrong box in Whittards (they all had the same damn packaging) so we'll have to get one of the pressies changed. Thank god I kept the receipt and got money off with my student card.

The dissertation has been finished and handed in. All my books for it have been returned so my account is clear. A strange sense of liberation is seeping out through the veil of tiredness. I am no longer a student and by Christmas I will have some more letters after my name; Lady Vampy BA(Hons) MSc! Who's a clever little bugger? LOL

This coming week's going to be busy with hospital visits and a new shift at work. Also I;ve got a job interview on Thursday for a library assistant position in a local public library. I'm hoping and praying that I'll get it cos I so want a permanent full-time job and this one's 37 hours per week rather than the 17 I'll be doing from the start of October if I'm still working for Durham Uni. The hourly pay rate will be less but the hours more than make up for that and in time the pay will increase anyway. Also if I do get this job, I'll actually be able to afford Christmas and my next car insurance payment.

Talking of Christmas, I've done something that I usually never do before October week; I've bought someone a Christmas present already. I saw it a while ago but Amazon.co.uk were doing a deal on the new Terry Pratchett book and Chris wanted something too so I figured I may as well add it to my order so that I could click for the free postage. I've also got two auctions on watch on eBay so hopefully by the end of tomorrow, my dad's pressies will be bought and paid for. I'm thinking of getting my brother a lump of coal...

The wall has been plastered, sanded, reskimmed, sanded again and given its first coat of paint. Sadly it looks a bit shit cos you can see really easily where one paint ends and the other starts when the light shines on it from a certain angle. Turns out that this is probably because I should have got emulsion in stead of vinyl silk but then I didn't choose the first paint colour and wasn't even here when it was painted so I can't be expected to know everything. The upshot of this is that it looks like I'll be painting the whole of that wall when I get back from work tomorrow afternoon. Thank god it's only a small wall (the width of the bed, about 4'6").

I had my final interviews this morning, which went really well and lasted an hour because the person I was talking to kept getting side-tracked and cos she knows my dad she was asking me questions about my work and studies etc. It was good though and at least now I'll know who I'm talking to when she phones for my dad in future.

Finally, we got some good news today; Chris has an interview on Wednesday for an admin assistant position with a local bathroom company. Dad also knows that guy that runs it and works with his wife so he's gonna try and put a good word in in the hopes that it'll further his chances against whoever else is going up for the job.

Today I have mostly been... in hardware stores. As the plaster began to bulge and come away from the wall yesterday I decided to go to B&Q as soon as I could and got some multi-purpose filler and a little tool to do it with. Unfortunately they didn't have a colour scanner to match up the paint we needed to the colour of the wall as it is now so we went to Homebase. They scanned a piece of plaster that I'd pulled off the wall and matched it to one shade above the one I'd picked out by eye. The guy that was doing it said he thought the colour I'd picked was a better match as it would be too light otherwise and when he put in that I wanted a silk finish rather than matt, it came out with the colour I'd picked.

So when we'd returned home, and I'd managed to get the sticky label crap off the plastering tool, I pulled away the loose plaster and set to work filling the 6" x 12" area that needed doing. It took about half an hour to get it all sanded, filled and smoothed out to a reasonable state. By the time I've got home from work it should be dry enough for me to give another light sanding and possible another thin coat of plaster if I think it needs it. If it looks fine then I'll give it a wash and then put the first coat of paint on. Otherwise, I'll be painting tomorrow as soon as I've got back from my interview.

Tomorrow I MUST get my arse in gear and actually start writing up these interviews or I'm gonna be in the shit with myself *smacks hands*

Today has been a productive day although not in the dissertation sense. I managed to get all the washing done and dried so now it's in piles in the spare room waiting to be ironed. I took my dad around on his errands this morning, which took an hour but he bought me a puzzle book as thanks so I didn't mind. Then when I got home I found that the council had sent one of the application forms I asked for so I filled that in then sorted out my application to CILIP, got the whole lot printed, put in enveloped and posted off. I should be getting two more forms to fill in this week, sooner rather than later I hope.

Unfortunately, this afternoon I noticed that there was a huge crack in the wall above my bed, which has got worse as the evening has progressed and the plaster is sagging quite badly now. Dad reckoned there was no way to fix it and the whole wall would have to be reskimmed but I stood my ground, backed up by my mum, and said that if I pulled the loose bits off I could easily replaster the whole and paint it up again. I've done it before on a smaller scale when a huge lump of blutack pulled an egg-sized piece of plaster out of the same wall about two years ago. I fixed up the coving that was departing from an adjacent wall at the same time so I reckon I should be able to do this. I'm gonna take the piece of plaster with the paint on to B&Q to get it colour matched cos they don't do the same colour paint anymore and I had to mix my own with acrylic paint and water last time to get a near match.

A very sad thing happened today too. My uncle's mum died in her sleep last night. We knew that she had some heart problems but she was waiting for test results to see if she could have an operation to fix them. She's not been well on and off for the past few years but I really can't believe she's gone. She was such an active and vibrant person regardless of the medical problems she had. I feel so bad for my uncle and aunt because they, and the rest of us, aren't over losing my grandad yet so this muct have been a real blow for my uncle. Also, they were planning on going down to Canvey Island, where that part of their family lives, for a wedding this coming weekend. I can't imagine how I'd feel on my wedding day if I'd lost my nan the week before. Sleep well Dot...

Why do people have to go on endless holidays when I need to see them for my interviews? I have my last interview scheduled for Friday morning, less than a week before my dissertation's due but I'm determined to get my head down and get as much done before then as possible. I have to be up early tomorrow to take my dad out so the rest of the day will be filled with getting the washing done and writing as much as possible.

Another pet hate of mine today is the Job Centre. Somehow, my claim for Chris still hasn't been processed properly, leading to me receiving a letter from the DWP telling me that I don't even have an open claim. Turns out that all the documentation I sent off was lost somewhere between Stanley and Sunderland so the powers that be decided that I hadn't sent it and my claim should be voided. Someone managed to find some of it and then had to hair round a building somewhere in County Durham trying to find the rest of my forms and all the shite they'd asked me to photocopy (twice). Some of it must have been found, the rest has been sent off again by post and fax (just to make sure). The people at Spenny Job Centre even said that I should complain because no one listens when they say anything about the messed up situation.

On a lighter note, last night me and mum went back to keep fit and really enjoyed ourselves, despite sweating like there was no tomorrow. Unfortunately, since we last went we'd both piled on weight so we're making a concerted effort to get back on the wagon and try and slim down a bit before I graduate in December (I will wear that tweed skirt). Today has gone very well, so I allowed myself a small bowl (and it was small too) of ice cream as my daily treat. Tomorrow I may have a biscuit instead. I even made myself a proper lunch of pasta and spicy tomato sauce to keep me going in a healthy way, and there's plenty for tomorrow too.

Been to work this morning... my god it's getting monotonous in that place. We had all of three people come into the library and one of them only wanted to know if the computer room in the Education department was going to be open today. On the upside, me and my co-worker got to have two decent sized breaks (one of them included chocolate digestives) and had a good natter about her new house.

Also, my legs are still fairly smooth :D

Today, for the first time in so long I can't remember, I shaved my legs with a proper razor. Most people would think "eww yer hairy cow" but there is a reason for this. Up until now my psoriasis has been so bad on my legs that shaving with a normal razor was impossible and if I tried to have a go I lost so much blood that the water would run red. Even shaving with an electric shaver proved difficult as it irritated the skin on my legs. Now, however, I am as smooth as a baby's arse despite a little blood loss from the few remaining patches of psoriasis. This is a rare occasion hence it's blog-worthy-ness :)

In other news, the Lost board game that I ordered back in July for Chris' birthday finally arrived this morning. I guess that emailing Amazon.co.uk and asking if I was ever going to receive it did some good. I also got a £3 voucher for the inconvenience, which cut a nice little chunk off the cost of the new Sims 2 mini add-on, especially as that order didn't qualify for the free postage that I usually opt for.

So very tired *yawns* I was woken up early this morning by the combined sound of my dad yelling at my brother to get his arse in gear and get off to college and my mum trying to jump-start my brother's car because he left his side lights on and it drained the battery (for the second time).

Chris is also a bit under the weather, which always makes me feel down too so I'll probably end up having a sleep this afternoon. I might be able to persuade Chris to join me for a nice bit of nuggling :D

I uploaded the few pics my mum took of Evie yesterday to my pooter so if anyone wants to see the little babba, leave a comment and I'll see if her mum will let me post one on here.

I got to see the little baby today and she is amazingly cute. Her mum looked tired but then she kept them up last night wanting feeding every hour. This afternoon she slept most of the time although she did rouse a little when she was being passed around for a cuddle but she fells asleep again when I was holding her. Every now and then she makes little squeaking noises like a little guinea pig and it's sooo cute. I am smitten :D

We didn't get to see baby Evie today, or the new parents for that matter, cos mum's still out of it from her travel sickness pills LOL I even had to drive home from the supermarket this afternoon cos she couldn't manage it, thankfully we went in my car so we didn't have to swap them around on the drive before going shopping. We should now be going visiting sometime tomorrow. This kid's gonna be walking before we get to see her :D

On Friday, Chris and me decided to go for a walk round Castle Eden Dene, a nature reserve not far from here. We set off in the car but couldn't find the place anywhere so ended up at Blackhall Rocks where we walked along the coastal path for a bit, looking for a way down to the beach. Turns out that you can't get down to the beach from the rocks so we went back to the car park and had out picnic lunch on one of the tables there before making a second attempt at finding Castle Eden Dene. We ended up in Hartlepool this time *rolls eyes* I was sure though that I'd seen a sign for this place the last time I was in Peterlee so we went back through Blackhall and on to Peterlee but were still unsuccessful. It was getting on a bit by this time so I said we should give it up as a bad job and just go for half an hour on the beach at Crimdon Dene. We did manage to get there and had a nice bit sit on the pebbles and Chris chucked a load of rocks into the sea, but on the way there we actually saw a sign for Castle Eden Dene so we decided to go there on Saturday.

However, soon after we go home that day my aunt phone to say that my cousin had given birth to a little girl at quarter past six that evening. I said we'd come and visit her after I'd finished work on Saturday afternoon but we ended up not going because the hospital said they were going to discharge her. By the time this had happened the sky had clouded over so we ended up not going to see the new baby or going to Castle Eden Dene. Never mind :)

Last night was a bit mad... actually it was a lot mad. Jamie tried to smuggle his girlfriend, who is persona non grata, into the house but me and Chris could hear them talking and turfed them out into the living room to give them a damn good talking to. That lasted an hour before Jamie finally agreed to take her home and then when he got her there he rang to ask if she could stay anyway cos she couldn't get in to her house. I was livid that he was willing to wake us up to ask something he knew wouldn't happen (not that we'd got to sleep by then anyway) but not willing to wake Polly's family up to let her in the house (apparently the doorkey was in the lock on the inside so she couldn't open the door). So we ended up not getting to sleep until well after five this morning.

That meant that I ended up not getting out of bed until way later than I wanted to. I had most of the house to clean before going to get my parents from the airport this evening so it's just as well that their flight was delayed leaving Larnaca or I wouldn't have managed to get it done. As it was, I had to get Chris to do most of the dusting and then forced Jamie to do some hoovering for me. I also asked him to some tidying for me and bring all the crockery down out of his room but that obviously proved too difficult for him. I also didn't manage to get any ironing done so I had to come clean to mum about wearing one of her tops to go out last Saturday :D I did manage to clean both bathrooms and all of the kitchen from top to bottom, which is one less job for my mum this week. Mum also commented on how clean and tidy the house was looking when she got in and apologised for promptly messing up the dining room table with all her post and camera bits and pieces.

Tomorrow, we should be going to visit my cousin and her new little baby so until then, tata!

Another Thursday evening, another Main Library shift. This time I've actually had some work to do; it took me and hour and a half to get all the returned books checked and shelved onto the right trolleys. Here's a question; does the plural of 'trolley' take '-ies' or just '-s'? Despite my linguistic background, I can't remember for the life of me. I also appear to have lost the ability to type *doh*

I got a call from my Aunty Barbara yesterday to tell me that my cousin should be giving birth to her first child sometime today. She said she'd ring and let me know whether Vickie's been deemed ready to be induced and if little Evie's made an appearance yet. Vickie's currently two weeks past her due date so she's getting a bit edgy and wants to get everything over with. Good luck to her, rather her than me LOL I'm not saying that I don't want to have children but I am so not ready to have them yet.

Today I have been mostly eating Pralines and Cream ice cream... well this evening I have at least.

Mum and dad have been away in Cyprus for a week now and apparently it has been unbearably hot. Completely different to here then cos it's pissed it down almost every day so far. Hopefully it'll brighten a bit for the rest of the week so that me and Chris can get out and about. We did manage to get out to Crook Hall and gardens on Saturday but it rained there too so we had to have a cream tea inside :D

Other than that I've been interviewing some people for my dissertation but unfortunately one of the people I need has been very elusive so I may have problems finishing the third level for analysis unless she checks her email as soon as she gets back from holiday. Thankfully, the people I've interviewed so far have given me some other useful names so I should at least me able to ask them some questions via email. That'll bulk up the methodology as well I imagine. I still have to write the damn thing so I'm gonna have to lock myself away for a week or so to get it all down and then send as much as I can off to my supervisor for her to look over.

Until next time, nanu nanu!

So I'm back at work again *yawns* I've only got one more hour until my shift is over though. It's been fairly uneventful thus far, other than learning where the 005 books have been moved to on level 3 and finding that one of the self-issue machines has decided to stop printing out reciepts. I have, however, managed to read about three chapters of my book. Oh the heady world of the librarian LOL!

So then, I'm finally back. After a lovely week at Chris' mum's I was only in the house 15 minutes before receiving a call from the hospital to ask me to come in. I was admitted before 5pm that day and only just came out. Thankfully the treatment worked so the methotrexate should see me right for a while and I may even be clear for a bit.

Contrary to my original reason for starting this blog, I am not going to give a day-by-day account of my stay in hospital as most of the days were fairly uneventful. I will say though that I met some lovely people in there and took great comfort from them. Having people around you that have the same illness as you and understand everything you're going through from their own perspective is definitely a bonus. I just hope that when it comes to the crunch our voices will be heard and we'll get to keep our dermatology ward. We're not bothered about being left in the old part of the hospital because although it sets us apart (I believe the powers that be see us as the lepers of modern society) it also gives us a level of independence that the other departments / wards don't have. Unfortunately, it also means that the pharmacy don't seem to give us much importance, which is why I had to wait hours and hours for my prescriptions before being allowed to go home. I waited that long I could have had another day's treatment.

Anyway, I'm home now and crossing my fingers that my skin will not go back to how it was. I'm also hoping that the other patients are keeping well and that their treatments are working. I know that it's the consultant's rounds tomorrow afternoon so I'll ring and find out how they're all doing and who's been let out etc. It's very saddening to see people who think they're skin is improving to be told that they've got another three weeks stay ahead of them, especially for one particular person who has been in there for nine weeks already.

Went shopping with mum yesterday. She got loads of nice clothes for her holidays and I got some nice things too. I got a black top and a lovely floaty green skirt from M&S and then from LTS I got a great pair of cotton trousers and a posh grey top. All my birthday money's gone now though LOL

Chris and me went to the Job Centre today to sort out our joint claim and it appears that the two phone conversations we had with the benefits people didn't tally with what they were meant to have done regarding our claim. We ended up being at the Job Centre for an hour while they sorted out the mess but now everything should be OK and the claim's going through.

Tomorrow, Chris and me are going down to his mum's for a little holiday so I probably won't be updating for a while. Later on tonight I've got to get the last of the ironing done so we can pack in time for an early start tomorrow morning. Hopefully, we'll be able to get away in time to miss most of the morning rush.

The weather has been rather lovely today so I decided to make the most of it and get the car nice and clean ready for our journey down south of Tuesday. I gave it a much needed hoover out and then washed it thoroughly.

Apart from that I've done very little. Nana, my aunt and uncle all went to get their hair done for their holidays today so on the way back they dropped in for a cuppa, which turned into lunch. We sat out in the garden in the sun and it was all very civilised LOL

Gah this week's been weird. First off I thought I was going to be admitted into hospital on Monday afternoon but after running around like a scalded lop trying to get myself ready I got a call to say that they couldn't take me after all and to ring them on Wednesday morning. This caused a problem because it meant I'd probably be in hospital for Chris' birthday. After a long "discussion" with Chris and my dad we decided that I would ring the hospital to ask if it would be possible to push me down the waiting list a bit and admit me after I get back from Chris' mum's. If they said no we were prepared for Chris to go down on the train on his own and as a sort of trade off we would spend Christmas together with his mum and New Year with my family instead of doing it the other way round. I rang fully expecting for them to say no but the ward sister said they'd actually had an emergency admission so I wouldn't get in at all this week and they would ring me when I get back from Chris' mum's to bring me in.

Then there was the interview from hell on Tuesday. There were four of us shortlisted, three with a library background and one with a graphic design background. None of us expected the interview to last all day but I didn't get home until gone three and I was there at half nine. First we had a chat with the school's buisness manager and then with the head, followed by a quick tour of the school's display boards with the library manager. After that I had a design task to do using sugar paper etc and I had half an hour to do it. I didn't finish it how I wanted and I thought it looked shite but then so did the other applicants so we didn't feel to bad about that. Then we had a chat with some of the kids who were amazingly mature and obviously loved having special access to the library, then lunch where we all ate like birds but had a good chat and got on really well. Then we had our proper interviews with the head, buisness manager and link manager from the English department. That was the worst bit cos they obviously weren't that bothered about my library skills and seemed to really want a classroom assistant with a bit of library experience but a lot of graphic design experience.

Yesterday was better cos I slept most of it and did a bit of gardening in the afternoon. Unfortunately my black peppermint has got some weird little green bugs living on it so I had to give it a spray and couldn't get a crop from it. I did get a crop from the garden mint, lemon balm, and oregano though and the chamomile is properly coming into flower now.

Today I got my letter from the school telling me I hadn't got the job but I'm really not bothered cos I didn't fancy the job after the way the interview went and this means I don't have to ring them up and tell them I don't want it :D I've got two other applications in the pot at the moment anyway so let's hope they're more successful. Now I'm off to take nana back home cos she's got an appointment with the pain clinic tomorrow morning and then my aunt and uncle are coming to take her to the hairdresser's on Saturday. I know she's feeling a bit iffy but hopefully she'll be alright.

Mum, nana and me went shopping this afternoon and I got the dress I saw the other day when I went with Chris to Matalan. I didn't bother trying on the size 18, I went straight for the size16 and it fit like a glove. I also got a lovely new black bra with lacy bits on. When we got home I tried them on with a pair of black wide-leg trousers from LTS and everyone said they looked fab so that's what I'll be wearing for my interview on Tuesday. Mum said she'd give me the job just for my outfit but then she's biased LOL

I got a letter this morning saying I've been shortlisted for a library job at a big school in Durham and interview's on Tuesday morning. I was totally not expecting to be asked to come for an interview because they want someone that knows stuff about putting displays up and I openly admitted I haven't got a clue about that. I'm willing to learn though and hopefully the task they want me to do will be fairly easy. I have to ring them up on Monday to let them know that I'm coming so I'll ask how many people will be there besides me and what I might have to do.

Now the big question is, what do I wear? Mum says I should go for my smart black trousers and a suitable top but I saw that nice dress in Matalan so if they've got it in my size tomorrow I may get that to wear. Oh decisions decisions.

One more thing about this interview is that I'm going to have to ask the hospital people on Monday if it'd be possible for me to be admitted a day later. Hopefully they'll say yes but that'll mean travelling down to Chris' mum's another day later that expected when I get out. I'll just have to risk it cos I really need a full time job.

Three major things happened today:

1. Chris got his hair cut again.
2. I found out when I'll be going into hospital.
3. I had an interesting conversation with my boss.

Chris hadn't had his hair done since just before last Christmas and he wanted it doing before we go down to visit his mum at the end of the month. So I rang today and made an appointment for next Tuesday, then I rang the hospital to find out how long I might have to wait to be admitted and the nurse I spoke to on the dermatology ward said I was next on the ladies' list so should call back on Monday afternoon to see if the bed was reay for me. That probably means I'll be going in either Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning so I had to ring the hairdressers back up and ask if they could take Chris this afternoon. They said yes and it only took half an hour to have him all shorn, restyled and looking cheekier than ever.

When we got back from the hairdressers I managed to get in touch with my boss to tell her about when I'll be going in to hospital. She mentioned that she'd been meaning to speak to me because she'd had a request for a reference for me from one of the jobs I recently applied for. She asked me a couple of questions because she said she wanted to make sure they could tell from what she wrote that I fit the person specification and seemed to be quite positive about what she was going to write about me. This is ace because I hadn't heard anything back from this job yet and they said if you hadn't heard by 10th July then you weren't shortlisted. It seems likely that as they've requested my reference, I must have been shortlisted and just haven't received the letter about it yet. It's just as well that the consultant said she'd let me off the ward if I had any interviews :D

It's been very warm again today, still no sign of these storms that are meant to be coming. At the moment it's a very refreshing 19 degrees Celcius outside although it feels a lot warmer in here at the moment so we've got the fan on again.

Chris and me went shopping in Dragonville this afternoon and it was absolutely stifling hot. Thankfully the shops were all air-conditioned. First we got mum and dad some new black ink cartridges for the printer and then headed over towards Matalan. We were just going to have a quick look in but they've opened up a TKMax nearby so we went in there first. Chris managed to find two nice pairs of swim-shorts and two t-shirts to go with them all for about fifty quid (they're all well-known names like Moschino, reduced from about £30 each) so we got them and were well pleased cos there wasn't much he liked in Matalan. I tried a dress on in there but it was too big on the bust! First time for everything LOL

This evening was lovely too cos we sat out in the garden with my mum and did puzzles in the sun. Mum reckons my tan is coming on nicely as I'm turning from pink to brown. I was never intending to get a tan but I suppose it's an additional extra along with hopefully helping my psoriasis. After tea we all watched tele together and then played Scene It, so it was rather nice altogether.

Tomorrow after work, mum's going to pick nana up and she's going to come and stay with us. She hasn't been very well for a while, especially with her nereves and mum would really like for there to be someone around to keep an eye on her. She's worried that nana spends all day in bed, existing on tea and toast, and not feeling motivated to do anything. Hopefully we'll be able to get her feeling like her old self again.

Our goldfish died today. When we came in this morning she was floating on her side and I had a good look but she wasn't moving at all. She's had a good innings though, we must have had her about ten years so she's incredibly long-lived for a goldfish. She was huge too. When mum took her out of the tank she was about the same length as her hand. In the past Mum would flush any dead fish down the loo but Baby was special and far too big to go down anyway so we buried her in a kitchen paper shroud in the back garden. Dad dug a little hole for her between the parsley, rhubarb, and mallow and mum popped her in. It's weird not having anything in the fishtank cos we've had goldfish and shubunkins for about fifteen years. It's very quiet downstairs too without the pump and bubbler whirring away.

Anyway, despite that little cloud over the day it has otherwise been very enjoyable. Chris and me have spent most of the day sat in the back garden doing crossword puzzles, with the occaisional word or two from my dad, who was sun-worshipping as usual. Then when mum came home from work she joined us too and we had Mr Men milk lollies. Dad did a barbecue but put far too much tandoori spice and black peppercorns in his marinade so it nearly blew our socks off and Chris couldn't eat it at all so I popped a pizza in the oven and me and mum helped him eat it.

We also discovered that my dad is partially colour blind. We always thought he was being pedantic when he'd say pair of trousers were green when they were actually beige, or that a flower was blue when it was purple. Turns out we were wrong and he has serious problems telling orange from red, red from pink, pink from purple, and purple from blue. And that's what we gleaned from going round the garden and asking him what colour he thought the different flowers were! Mum was astounded that after almost thirty years of marriage they'd only just worked it out LOL

I'm off to play a little bit of MapleStory now, ta ta *waves*

There were tears today :( The Job Centre is trying to screw Chris out of money and have decided we now have to make a joint claim in order for him to get anything, meaning we'll probably get bugger all. The County Council are screwing both my parents by making my mum have to basically reapply and reinterview for the job she's had for over ten years with no guarantee she'll retain that job and my dad's wage has more or less been cut in half for no good reason.

Fuck restructuring and fuck the Job Centre. Honest hardworking people aren't looked after in this country anymore. Fuck Tony Blair and his New Labour, I ain't shaking his hand again. I always thought that I'd grow up to vote for Labour but they're not the Labour I grew up with. The only party that has any clue what socialism means anymore is the Liberal Democrats and no bugger will vote for them in case the sodding Tories get back in.

What else is pissing me off today? Bigots! I'm fucking fed up of know-it-all bigots that think they're bloody marvellous. I've stood up to these particular people before and if they're gonna have a bloody go at anyone they can come and argue with me. But then they won't because they misguidedly think they have my best interests at heart.

*sighs* Fuck chocolate biscuits too cos I can't stop eating them and I'm supposed to be trying to lose weight :p

Today has not been as leisurely as yesterday as I have spent most of it doing the ironing. However, I did get to sit in the garden for a short while and somehow managed to catch the sun again even though I was in the shade all the time and couldn't have been sat out for more than an hour. Mum says I'm "turning a lovely colour and going about it the right way, little by little". This wasn't exactly my intention. All I wanted to do was cool off with a crossword in the back garden and enjoy the weather. If I was brown, I wouldn't worry but I seem to be going an odd shade of pink. Chris says it shows up my psoriasis nicely LOL

On a brighter note, I think I must have cold rather than hayfever because it seems to be slackening off and I actually managed to sleep last night. The sore throat has gone too so I'm hoping I'll be able to breathe without sniffing before I go into hospital (whenever the hell that's gonna be).

Last night I also discovered that mum has bought a box of Fox's biscuit selection, my favourite. They were hidden under some Cadbury's chocolate biscuits (which are stuck together with the heat) but I dug down and spied both a bourbon cream AND a chocolate cream sandwich, the best biccies in the box! So now I am away to raid the biscuit barrel once more and probably have a cuppa too :)

Tonight's post is dedicated to Robert because he makes me laugh and he asked LOL

It's been about 29 degrees celcius here today so I spent most of the afternoon sitting out in the back garden in the shade reading my book, which I have nearly finished, and doing crossword puzzles. Somehow, probably due to the after affects of Neoral, I have caught the sun on my shoulders and chest. Chris keeps saying I should put some after sun on but it's not hurting or hot so I don't see the point. It's a shame that the days of me going brown straight away are gone, hopefully I won't go back to being as pale as I was before and will retain a bit of a tan. Strangely, my legs are still as deathly white as they were this morning even though they're the only bit of me that spent time in full sun. Proof that as I get older I am turning into a taller version of my mum :D

I'm now going to play on Neopets whilst listening to Chris Cornell *waves to Robert*

Pinch, punch, first of the month *yawn* Another month closer to dissertation deadline, really need to get my interviews sorted out but the impending hospital visit is complicating matters so I prefer to just avoid thinking about both things. Also my head is too full of hurty hayfever snot for there to be coherent thoughts in it too.

At least the weather's nice :) Sunshine does make me happy (Chris swears I'm part kitten) so I took the opportunity to read some of my book out in the back garden this afternoon. Gave my pasty white legs a sunning too LOL

Slept through most of the sport this afternoon, which makes little difference anyway cos Chris was watching the footie so I couldn't watch Andy Murray beat Andy Roddick in straight sets!!! There'd better be some highlights tomorrow and not when the bleedin grand prix is on cos Chris is already making me watch the sodding qualifying from midnight tonight.

The moral of this story is: thank god for laptops LOL

Last night I finally finished 'Taltos', the last of my books from Xmas. Now I can start on the five I got for my birthday. I've decided to begin with the Agatha Raisin books cos I need something that's not too taxing on the grey cells and is enjoyable to read after the marathon of the Mayfair Witches books. Then I'll read the new David Eddings book (although having read his other stuff I can pretty much guess what'll happen), leaving the latest Juilet Marillier offering til last so I can savour every page *rubs hands in glee* By the time that lot's finished with I'll get the next Discworld book with my Waterstones vouchers and then it'll be almost Christmas. Aah the literary Wheel of the Year LOL

Anywho, Chris and me went into Durham today. I took my shoes back to Next and we had the usual trip round the usual shops not buying anything much. All I got was 'Down On The Upside' by Soundgarden cos I fancied spending some of my birthday money on a CD and they didn't have the Jerry Cantrell or Alice In Chains ones I'm looking for. Naturally, they had no Skyclad or Madder Mortem either, no suprise there.

We then went off and looked at baby clothes because my cousin's due to give birth to a little girl in about five weeks. She's just gone on maternity leave from work because she's so anaemic at the moment that it's tiring her out. Apparently she's quite large as well, I haven't seen her for months so I don't know how big she is. So anyway, my mum bought her a set of baby stuff from ASDA (scratch mitts, babygro, bib, etc) so I thought it might be nice to get her a bit of something that she hasn't got much of. Probably something for when the baby's a bit older cos they grow so damn fast she'll hardly have time to wear all the newborn stuff. Then I saw these gorgeous little sun hats and now I'm torn. Looks like I'll have to ask her mum what she thinks.

Might be going garden centreing tomorrow after work, that is if mum and dad remember that I want to go with them *rolleyes* Last week they buggered off without me :( Bedtime approaches now though *waves*

I have question about toilet paper; do companies really think that they are saving money by putting that crappy thin stuff in their loos? Would it really break the bank to go for a nice 2-ply tissue? I'm sure it would boost staff morale if when they had to nip off for a "comfort break" *vomits* they knew that they wouldn't have to use reams and reams of the stuff just to wipe their backsides. Customer satisfaction would improve too if the loo paper matched the quality of the goods on offer.

I'll bet there's soft cushioned paper in the boss' corporate toilet!

Perhaps I've been thinking about this too much LOL I guess that's what happens when you're stuck at work with bugger all to do other than Kriss Kross and Arrowords. I have done some work, mind. I have emptied the self-return bins three times... not that there was much in them to empty.

Oh well, I'll be finished in half an hour. Thank god cos I'm starving *wates away in short loan*

My new shoes (supposedly for drving in) and socks (a treat for going in to hospital) arrived from Next this morning. The socks are great, they're stripy and they've got sparkly bits in that I wasn't expecting. The shoes are not so good. They're definitely the right length but they're far to wide so they gape when I walk and they look like friggin boats. Also the soles are really hard and inflexible so it looks like I'll be taking them back to Next tomorrow (I'll be buggered if I'm paying to post them back and I can't be arsed to arrange a courier to come and get them).

Apart from that, I've slept most of the day. Chris and me had a go at my Atmosfear jigsaw but the light really wasn't good enough to be able to tell the difference between the colour shades. So we gave up til tomorrow.

That's it really, bit boring LOL

Hello folks, welcome to my newly formed bloggage. I know I always said I wouldn't succumb to popular pressure and get one of these things but two things happened to sort of spur me on:

1. Everyone seems to have one these days and I'm actually starting to feel a little bit left out.
2. I'm due to go in to hospital soon and thought it might be cathartic (ie. stop me going insane) to document my stay there.

Having said that, I won't have any internet access while I'm there, unless they let me come home for my Sunday dinner like they did last time I was in, so the hospital blogness will probably come in one big post when I'm let out. Either way, I'm doing in so ner. I figure this thing will also help a bit when I'm nearing the end of my dissertation and start to pull my fingernails out with worry :)

That's it for now cos it's gone 2am and I need to go weewee. Chris looks like he's already asleep so I'd better hurry up and turn the pooter off or he'll get nouty.

*hugs*