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