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.

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.