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I found this through my friend's wife's site and had to give it a go. I got PG-13 because I have used 'dead' three times and 'death' once. At least my late Aunt and Uncle who I was talking about when I used those words would have seen the funny side. Strangely though, I expected worse because I'm sure I've swore (shock horror!) on here before.

Chris finally told me how to get at his pics on Photobucket so I've updated my profile photo from one of my aged 19 to one of me aged 23 taken a few weeks ago at Jamie's 21st birthday dinner. He took it with his new phone on the sepia setting while we waited for pudding cos we were bored and he wanted to have a play with different settings.

Arson.

At mum's school there is quite a large garden area for the nursery with a lovely big climbing frame. It took years and years for the school to save up enough money, about ten grand, to be able to afford this climbing frame and the kids absolutely love it. It looks a bit like this but the legs aren't splayed because the area underneath is enclosed and one side has a sensory area in it with bark and things.

[Edit: Pic removed as link died.]

Last weekend some young lads (aged 11/12) got into the nursery garden and vandalised the climbing frame. They ripped off parts of the eaves and damaged some climbing poles. The police were called by neighbours but they didn't come and get rid of them or even get back to the people that called. Again this Saturday the same boys were back messing about in the nursery garden, smashing bottles and vandalising the climbing frame. The neighbours called the police again and still they didn't come out. Then on Bank Holiday Monday at about 5pm, one of them decided to set the climbing frame alight and it went up like a rocket. There were lots of witnesses and I know someone has a photo of it on fire. These are the pictures I took of it after the firemen had put it out and forensics were on the way. In some of them you can see how the trees around it have been scorched.





This one shows the leftovers of a crawl tunnel made out of heavy duty plastic in the shape of a caterpillar that was nearby, originally there were four sections to it.


This one shows how the heat affected the sign on the side of the school, it just melted away. You can't see it but the white bit next to the blue door is all bubbled up and if that had been melted away the fire would have got into the structure of the building and the whole nursery would have gone up.


Thankfully the staff and police know the lads that did this, at least two of them only left the school last September and mum taught both of them.

The duck saga.

Two Saturdays ago we had a bad case of ducks at Palace Green. Not bad for us cos they're lovely but bad for them cos they were stuck. It appeared that a momma duck had somehow fallen or fled into an area of water, a sort of sump, behind the library and her chicks had followed her. Momma duck could fly out but the poor little babies couldn't because they weren't old enough and momma duck was getting in a bit of a flap.

We rang Estates & Buildings but they said they couldn't do anything so we rang the RSPCA and they said they'd call us back but didn't know when or whether they'd be able to come out. So one of my colleagues and one of the Assistant Librarians mounted an effort to get the poor chicks out of the sump and back safe with their mum. Unfortunately the place the ducks fell is a good four feet down from the lowest window and about eight feet from the external wall. I took a picture of the little ducks and their mum out of the window with my colleagues camera, here it is:

You can just make out seven ducklings and on the left is this weird metal jetty affair. You can tell it's a long way down too cos the momma duck looks quite small but she certainly wasn't when she flew up the wall to see what I was doing.

They are, however, saved from their plight now. One of my colleagues got a bucket and a shovel out of the disaster kit (usually reserved for fire, flood and bomb damange) and the other guy climbed out of the toilet window and onto the jetty thing next to the stagnant water to try and coax them out. Two of the ducklings climbed straight onto the shovel but the others were more wary so he ended up hip deep in yucky water chasing them into the bucket. they were released somewhere in the Fellows' Garden, which belongs to the Castle and straight away we could hear mum quacking so hopefully she was getting them away and fed. The Assistant Librarian has put some shelving over the hole to stop anything else falling in but why on earth it's uncovered and allowed to fill with water we have no idea, especially as it's right next to a load of rare books.

"Librarians: Beware exploding signage!"
(or "Stupid students should look where they're going")

So I'm merrily rebarcoding a trolley full of books and the porter, Marc, is about to put more paper in the self-check in machine when there's an almighty crash behind the Short Loan section. Round the corner is this guy grinning like a dickhead and looking around like he's just stepped out of friggin Narnia or something, surrounded by shards of broken glass. Marc heads off to have a look at where the glass has come from and it turns out that this student was wandering past this large glass sign board (it has a poster on that says where all the different books are on this level) and knocked it with his bag or something, which pushed it over and it shattered all over the floor.

The student talks briefly to Marc and then disappears, coming back about five minutes later to ask me if he can have a plaster because he's cut himself on the glass (I've had bigger cuts as a child for fuck's sake, all he had to do was suck it a bit and it'd be OK). So while he's there he tells me that he walked past the sign and it just shattered. Spontaneously it would seem. Marc gets him a plaster from the First Aid box and then the Deputy Librarian arrives as she has sort out why this happened and make sure no one's hurt etc. He tells her he maybe clipped it with his bag as he went past but that it "shattered before it hit the ground".

So now we appear to have magical exploding signage in the Library *shakes head in disbelief*

Wow almost a month has gone by since I last posted here.

I don't think all that much has happened since the start of March apart from dad's birthday. We all stayed in for that and had a special home-cooked birthday tea; mum made her quiche lorraine and for afters there was pavlova made by me and nana (secretly, in the dead of night as well). I had a pay rise too but it was only by 7p so nothing much to write home about. All the will buisness still isn't finalised but apparently it's in progress so we'll just have to wait and see. Oh and Jane's having a little boy so we've had to go out and buy little outfits and things :D

Then there's nana. She's now living with us all the time until the bungalow sells and then she'll decide whether to keep on living with us (we'll do out the study for her so she can have a bigger room and it'll be downstairs so easier for her to get to) or to buy a new bungalow in Spennymoor. So this weekend we're going down to nana's to have another go at clearing out the house. It's also my mum's birthday so the cousins will be coming too.

The funeral was on Wednesday and it was very emotional but nice at the same time. There were lots of people there and we did have a good time despite the obvious sadness. In the cars on the way to the funeral we had Chas 'n' Dave playing as a tribute to Uncle Malcolm, which I think he would have really appreciated. However, all this shite concerning his mum's mishandled will and his sister's money-grabbing really cast a shadow over the whole day. She tried to get into the meetings with the solicitor but we managed to stop that although her daughter is obviously trying to use her position as Uncle Malcolm's executor to her advantage. I put a stop to that too and so did "the kids" by not allowing her to just have her way and control over the flow of money and by blackballing her as executor and getting the solicitor to have overall control over what goes on.

It's all made things so fucking complicated and has really really pissed me off. All the lies and back-stabbing, it's so petty and really cruel in my opinion. How can this woman openly steal from her flesh and blood like this?

Anyway, yesterday was Nickeee's birthday so we made a fuss of her and had a party at nana's. We had a load of Mexican food and decorated the dining room with balloons and confetti :) Tonight we're going out for a meal as a family.

On Saturday night, we had the joint memorial and farewell dinner at the Toby Carvery in York. The food was good and not too pricey IMO and we had a good time. Everyone's still feeling very emotional but there's very little any of us can do about that. We did get to see Michael and Jane's house though, it's very compact but the kitchen is suprisingly big and overall it's a very nice little house. The parking's a total sod though so I'm pleased I wasn't driving.

Then on Sunday I decided to take the plunge and finally buy myself a new mobile phone. Everyone knows I need one cos my old one is barely usable these days. So I'd found a good deal online from Carphone Warehouse, went to their store in Durham and about ten minutes later came out with a brand spanking new Nokia 1600 for the unbelievable price of £40! That's including ten pounds worth of credit as well. It's quite a fabby phone too, no bells and whistles but it's got a colour screen and polyphonic ringtones, and it works, which is more than a bonus in my eyes.

Tomorrow is Uncle Malcolm's funeral. I have very mixed feelings about it, obviously I'm very sad and grieving for him but at the same time I'm feeling very wary about meeting up with his sister again considering the back-stabbing, money-grabbing bitch that she's turned out to be. We had our worries that this was the case but it's ended up being far worse than I expected so I'll be going with mum and everyone to the solicitor's on Thursday to make sure that at least Aunty Janet's wishes will be carried out. I don't know if I'll be able to make sure that Uncle Malcolm's will is carried out to the letter but I'll try my hardest.

On Sunday, we were all going down to York to view some professional photos that Aunty Janet and Uncle Malcolm had done at the end of last year (it was a Christmas present from my cousin Nickeee) to see if we wanted to buy any of them. When we got to Uncle Malcolm's house at about 1pm there was no answer at the door and the house was locked up with the upstairs curtains closed but we knew that someone was in because we could see Uncle Malcolm's shoes and coat in the house and Bobby's lead was still in the car (he's their dog). We kept knocking and knocking and no one was answering the phone either so mum went to a neighbour's and asked to borrow their phone to ring my cousins Mikeee and Nickeee (would you believe it but all three of our mobile phones were crapped up).

While she was next-door with nana, Nickee drove up and we decided that we'd have to break in because the keys were still in the lock and slightly turned so we couldn't push them through and use another key to get in. So Jamie smashed a pane of glass in the door, reached in and got the keys. When we got inside though the two internal doors that lead to the stairs were both locked from the other side and we couldn't get through because, again, the keys were on the other side of the door. Jamie had to smash in the glass panels on the living room door and climb through while Nickee tried to find a key. We got through, raced upstairs and found Uncle Malcolm dead behind the bedroom door with Bobby curled up beside him crying.

We think it looks like he got up in the night for a drink, had a massive heart attack and just dropped dead where he stood. Thankfully the coroner and the paramedics said it would have been very fast so he won't have suffered.

That's all I can say at the moment.

Malcolm George Berry (1945-2007)

A lot's happened in the last month or so and I just haven't been able to face writing here until now. I think I'll start at the start and go on from there...

Christmas Day was very good, we all enjoyed ourselves and got some lovely things. Chris bought me a lovely gothicy mirror that looks like a miniature overmantle so I'm just waiting for my dad to help us put it up like he promised. On Boxing Day we all went down to Nana Joan's house and stopped over like we usually do. Chris was a bit annoyed that me and him had to sleep on the air mattress again but we had to make the sacrifice for my cousin Michael and his girlfriend as they had just discovered they are going to have a baby!

After we got home from Nana's, Chris and me got all our bits and pieces packed for going down to Essex as we were due to set off the following day. We got off early and arrived in Marks Tey at about half past two. We didn't go out much during our stay but we did go shopping with Chris' mum and then the three of us went to visit Chris' nan in Witham. It was a nice relaxing time and we saw in the New Year together although we missed the fireworks on BBC1 cos Chris said we had to turn over to the Hootenanny again LOL

Everything was great until the day before we were due to come home and I tried to phone mum to say when we'd be home, as promised. I couldn't get in touch with her anywhere but eventually managed to find my brother, who was being very cagey and just said that mum and dad were down in York. I thought they were just visiting my aunt and uncle or taking nana down to stay with them. After a few more tries phoning, I rang Jamie again and forced him to tell me what was going on with the promise that I wouldn't let him get into trouble for it. It turned out that the reason mum, dad and nana were in York was becuase Aunty Janet had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had been rushed into hospital. Later it transpired, after a few more phone calls that it was worse than that and the cancer had spread into her liver, possibly further than that and she probably only had 6-9 months left.

We drove home on the first Thursday in January, the following day I got a call from my cousin Nicola saying that her mum had had a stroke. We think it was probably caused by a blood clot in her leg that had moved into her stomach and then further on after being given Warfarin to break down any clots. When I went to see her on the Sunday she was nothing like herself. She had lost the use of the right hand side of her body, including hearing and sight as well as feeling, and she could not speak or swallow. Gradually she managed to swallow better but it wasn't perfect and she refused all attempts by the speech therapist to teach her to use picture cards in order to communicate. The last time I saw her I did hear her vocalise twice when asked whether she would like anything to eat. It was only a little "err" but it gave me so much hope although Aunty Janet didn't seem all that fussed. She didn't seem that bothered about the possibility of coming home either, which Uncle Malcolm had been trying to arrange with the MacMillan nurses and social services.

Two weeks after the stroke we had a very worried call from Michael saying that Aunty Janet had been put on oxygen and he was really scared. We thought that she must have aspriated some food and it had given her a chest infection. I told mum that she should go and see her in York as soon as possible and she decided to go as soon as dad had finished work. They went off to York and I went down and picked nana up from home as she had been back there for a few days. We knew that mum and dad would be back fairly late as we always stayed at the hospital until the end of visiting hours at 8pm but they arrived home well before expected and with Uncle Malcolm. Aunty Janet had died about five minutes after mum and dad had got to the hospital. She had her husband, children and sister with her and mum says everyone stayed with her for about ten minutes afterwards just talking and comforting each other.

The funeral was on Friday. It was a lovely service and about 200 people turned up, which was amazing. I'd never seen a funeral be standing room only. People that had worked with Aunty Janet at Sainsbury's and Rowntree's as well as the DWP were there, even though a lot of them hadn't seen her for maybe 15 or 20 years. One of her bridesmaids from her first marriage was there with some old friends from Rowntree's that she had lost touch with but had seen the notice in the paper. Vic, a neighbour that had moved away maybe 15 years ago, came up from Cornwall and brought her a special flower as when he lived in the street he always used to visit her and bring a flower, usually picked from her own garden :)

About halfway through the service we watched a slideshow of all the photos we'd managed to hastily collect together, which was beautiful especially as there were a lot of photos some of us hadn't seen of times we'd almost forgotten and they showed the Aunty Janet we all love and miss. Mum and dad both got up and did a reading each, which was so hard for them to do but so very lovely and moving. One of her workmates came and said something on behalf of everyone she'd worked with, which even made us laugh as we remembered the way she mothered everyone and cared so much for us all no matter what she was going through in her own life and with her own family. There were messages there from a friend from the Blind Club, Nickee and Mikeee, and Jane, that they just couldn't get up and say for themselves so the vicar read them out.

Afterwards, we went to the village pub for the wake and it was so lovely to see family we hadn't seen in ages. All of Uncle Malcolm's kids were there, who I hadn't seen altogether for maybe ten years, as were mum's cousins from Lancashire. We stayed as long as we could but had to leave eventually because mum has been unwell for the past week or so. I think the stress of everything has got too much for her and is causing her gastric problem to go mental again.

All in all it's been a pretty shitty month. The only high point was Evie's Christening. I managed to get my embroidery finished in time even though it meant staying up until 4am and Vickie and Jamie loved it. Also, when we got to the church I found out that they had no objection to my being a full and proper godmother so I got to do it officically after all. Evie was very well behaved throughout the service although she was very very tired and ended up crashing out towards the end of the party so there's a load of piccies of her conked out in people's arms. She still managed to look like a little angel though and her dress was beautiful.

It's a bloody awful shame that Aunty Janet will never get to see her grandchild (currently called Bump) but she did get to see a DVD of the 3D scan Jane had done in Leeds. Uncle Malcolm has decided that he is going to use the inheritance money from his mum and Aunty Kathleen to pay for Jane amd Michael's baby to have private health care as York NHS is severaly lacking in care provisions. He's also said he wants to pay for Nickeee and her Chris to have IVF as he carries cystic fibrosis and they need to have loads of medical stuff done in order for them to have a child. I've told Nickeee that if she needs any help from me then I'll do whatever I can. It kinda completes the circle started when Aunty Janet offered the same to my mum before I was born.

*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.