Wishing everyone a Happy New Year

The lovely Paul bought me a bottle of Kahlua for a new year present. Thank you x x And I hope you don't get snowed in again this New Year.

Well, Jonathan has been and bought a new washing machine. Comes next Wednesday so should have managed to catch up with the washing by the end of January. The floor has stopped squelching when you walk on it. Not sure if this is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing.

Actually managed to find some amusement value in my camera phone today, which gave me something to do while I was 'working', sending TL stupid photos. Anyway we managed to convince our boss that it wasn't worth staying all day and escaped at 3.00. Good job too cos I was sick to death of playing Jewel Quest, even though I did manage to get to be 4th on the leader board. (Is there no end to my talents?) Couldn't even face eBay today cos I spent so long on there yesterday.

Trying to persuade Jonathan to wear his DJ tonight so that I can wear an evening dress, but he wants to wear his new Ramones T-shirt (thank you Paul, again - everyone should have a Paul, I can highly recommend two.) If he wears the Ramones T-shirt, I'm wearing my fairy dress.

I'm glad 2004 is nearly over, it's not been a brilliant year, but compared to some people in the world, it hasn't been bad either. I'm just getting fed up with 2004 and looking forward to 2005. I'm determined to get my house in order next year, literally, it's a pig sty. Here is a list of my New Year's resolutions

1.

Yes, I think that covers it.

Pretty fed up

I'm pretty fed up today. My washing machine is wrong, very wrong. It's pissing water all over the floor and when it spins it sounds like the house is about to fall down.

Jonathan had a look at it, cut his hand quite badly 3 times and found £1.07, a sock and a wire from a bra - but still it rattles like the end of the world. He had another look yesterday and told me to try it again. So I did this morning. I put loads of newspaper down just in case, and it pissed water everywhere again and the new floor (well, 6 months old) is starting to lift. Oh happy days.

The drum has a big dent in it and a large lump of metal and 2 bits of plastic fell out of the bottom. Hmmm.

I was cleaning Ysabella's fish out this morning and cracked the tank, hopefully it will hold until I can get another one. Maybe I could just let them swim round the utility room floor.

Now the Christmas decorations are starting to get on my tits and all I can see is the fire without a surround looking dead stupid, and the 1/3rd of the walls that are bare plaster.

Because of this, the screws that went all the way through from our bedroom wall to poke out of the newly decorated bathroom wall are really, really driving me nuts and I'm picking fault with everything in the house.

Jonathan went this morning for a minor op on his face and, as usual, has been messed around by the NHS and will be 5+ hours longer than he was supposed to be.

I want to go and boil my head somewhere.

On the positive side, we went to my friend Jan's birthday party and I sang (almost sober) on the karaoke. Which was pretty scary for all those in the vicinity. My choice of song? Motorhead's Ace of Spades.

Well somebody had to.

Merry Christmas everyone

Our swift half at our local meant we didn't get home until 3.00am and there was no snow then. Because it was so late I never did get round to my planned midnight post or labelling the presents so it was a bit hit and miss this morning. If I tell you that my favourite present from my husband was a £3 joke ring, I guess you'll be able to work out the calibre of the rest.

It took me a whole 20 minutes to make our version of Christmas lunch (sausages wrapped in bacon, cheese wrapped in bacon, chicken satay sticks and breaded camembert and goats cheese.)

Anyway, kids loved their presents, we've eaten hardly anything, and I've discovered you don't get very much in a litre bottle of Baileys - or maybe it evaporates very quickly.

I was glued to Jumanji (again) earlier today. I still haven't got dressed, I went back to bed to sleep off the first round of alcohol and Eastenders is on in 45 minutes.

Christmas isn't that bad after all, I think I'll do it again next year.

So this is Christmas?

Tree's up, cards are written, presents are wrapped.

Roll on 26th when it will all be over.

It's not just me that's a miserable old scrooge, even the kids aren't that festive, they want to know what they've got, admittedly, but have no interest in any other part of Christmas. As a nod to something traditional I have bought 2 x 6 packs of mince pies, but we have no cake, no pudding, no turkey. And I am quite happy with that.

To make up for eveyone else's lack of enthusiasm I have been taking part in plenty of Christmas good cheer in the form of lots of alcohol. All that practice over the last few months has stood me in good stead and it takes quite a lot of large vodkas to make me feel even a little bit tipsy. But I've found a solution......

Last night was our works Christmas do. We were 'first sitting' and the meal was at 6.30 which seemed a bit too early for my liking, however I was planning an early escape to join Mad Jane and Lynda Big-Lungs in Otley so that worked out quite well. Apparently we had a 'gold' package which meant drinks were included.

I had 2 large vodkas while we were in the bar waiting for everyone to assemble. Then there was half a bottle of wine per person and, unusually for me, I opted for the red (cos I can't stand Chardonnay.) With pudding there was a choice of 'shot' and I had Tia Maria, and then there was a bottle of alcopop to 'take through to the club' which I had to drink pretty quickly cos I was dashing off for the bus (yes, that wasn't a typo, I said bus.)

Mixing all these different drinks certainly had an effect that isn't easy to achieve with vodka alone and the bus (yes, bus) journey in all that awful wind was, erm, entertaining.

Seriously considering catching the bus another time. For the bargain price of £2.70 I had a one hour journey into Leeds and a 40 minute journey back to Otley. I got winked at twice (by the same boy) going and had the pleasure of sitting behind a girl that smelled of damp canvas on the way back.

The driver on my outward journey was either a) very kind or b) thought I was some sort of half-wit cos when I asked where the bus stopped, if they did a return ticket and did he mind if I paid with a £5 note he was sweetness personnified and spoke to me slowly, clearly and quite loudly.

Or maybe I really do look my age.

Broken my duck

Well the last 2 Mondays I managed to not drink any alcohol but I had a large vodka today at 11.50 AM and have had 2 large Baileys this evening.

I started so early cos it was my last Granny's funeral this morning and we were going to Bryan's for fish and chips afterwards but it wasn't open when we arrived so we popped to the pub next door. Like you do. Which is why I ended up having a large vodka and slimline tonic. It's a very bad habit - I simply can't help myself, I get to the bar and the words just tumble out of my mouth without thinking. Ho hum.

I can't think of any excuse for the Baileys. No idea why I started drinking it cos it's so very sweet, apart from the fact that I went to Tesco in search of cheap Chablis (well expensive Chablis at a good price) but they'd sold out and ended up with a litre of Baileys for £9.88 - bargain, 4 bottles of Cava to make me burp and a bottle of Champagne. Well, of course, I just had to sample the Baileys in case I had a duff bottle.

Going back to the Bryan's reference. Harry Ramsden's fish and chips are minging, they really are, and bloody expensive, but Bryan's fish and chips are simply the best. So if you're in the Leeds are do try them (ask for the fish without skin.)

Anyway, Ellen Thurlwell RIP x x x x

Bored

I am mind-numbingly bored at work.

I ask for work and they don't give me any.

I hate it. It's very demoralising and depressing and it's completely doing my head in.

I am so pissed of I haven't even bought any sparkly shoes this year. And that is a very bad sign.

Nightmare before Christmas

I have had enough of things going wrong. It must be my turn for something to go right.

Fuck up #1 - Jonathan was doing something in one of the drawers in the living room and he picked up a box that had printer ink in and noticed a bottle had split. So he carried the dripping bottle the length of the living room (22 feet), through the hall, through the kitchen, into the utility room and put it in the bin. Hall, kitchen and utility room have laminate floors so the bright blue ink did come off, but the living room has a pale carpet. He tried to get it out but there are still some visible splodges. I'll clean the carpet after the decorating is finished and pray they disappear. He also managed to get it on the walls and a lampshade. Why didn't he carry the whole drawer through the house with the leaky bottle inside? What a twat.

Fuck up #2 - Jonathan is decorating the living room. We had a dado rail up and now it has gone. He was doing so well, all the glossing done, ceiling emulsioned and then he started wallpapering the walls. Hmmm. The lines where the dado rail was are still visible. So he's going to take all the paper off he's already put up and skim these bloody train tracks with plaster. Guess the papering won't be done before Christmas now. Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks.

Fuck up #3 - Jonathan isn't actually involved in this one! We hated the fire surround and went to buy a new one. We took full advice from the fireplace shop, cos, despite being very old people, we've never bought anything like this before. They said buying just the surround was fine, told us what we needed to measure and away we went. I drew an intricate diagram, did all my measurements in centimetres (with inches in brackets). Apparently the only important measurement is the rebate and ours was 2 centimetres. Fire surround delivered yesterday with a rebate of 2 inches. I am not a happy bunny. Jonathan is not a happy bunny. The people at the shop are not very helpful. Anyway, they're coming to collect it and check my measurements (its 2 bloody centimetres - even I can't get that too much wrong) but have now said that the smallest rebate they can do is 1 1/8". And we have to move the marble away from the wall and pack it behind - its very firmly attached to the wall (and moving the marble would impact on the fire and gas fitting, surely.) They said the surrounds were made to measure if my thingy was non-standard. I'm mighty confused but know one thing for sure, it won't be done before fucking Christmas.

Wot's chores?

Well, I gave it my best shot today. I started writing my Christmas cards, got to my first name under 'C' and thought that I really should write a letter to let my friend know what had been happening over the year. Stuff that for a game of soldiers, so I rang her and an hour and a half later hung up and wrote her card and the rest of the C/D lot (all 3 of them.)

A few thousands cups of coffee and cigarettes later and I thought I better write some more. So...... I sat down to continue.

And then I remembered. There was something quite sticky and revolting in the fridge that had been there for quite a while despite Jonathan saying he had removed the offending article. I was getting mighty sick of everything being covered in this brownish stuff and having to peel things off each other and the side of the fridge. So it dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, I should do something about it.

So I cleaned the fridge out. Properly, mind you. None of this half-hearted throwing one out-of- date item away. I even threw a green pepper away that still had a good quarter of firm green skin and no mould whatsoever. I had to wash all the jars, and packets. Its quite a weird thing washing a tub of butter really.

Took me bloody ages, but I discovered the source of this brown sticky stuff. It was a bottle of leaking lime juice - I knew I should have kept making those tequila based cocktails beginning with M (sorry Steve, forgot how to spell them again) until all the lime juice was used up.

I hate domestic chores, I was made for better things obviously and I will do almost anything to avoid them - except writing Christmas cards, of course.

Exciting news

I was sooooo excited by this bit of news that I totally forgot to mention that last week I was asked if I wanted to be the new Health and Safety officer.

I said no, so my director said 'let me rephrase that slightly, congratulations you are our new Health and Safety officer, now go write your name on the Health and Safety Law Poster.'

Well I had a slight tantrum and said I was reluctantly willing to do it cos I knew no other bugger would but, and this is a really, really big but where I work, I would have to have the full backing of our head office in Germany and there would be some cost involved and I reckoned I would need to go on a course (yawn.) I was assured that this would not be a problem.

Yeah right.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt before, which is why my name is on the Health and Safety Law Poster but only on a pink post-it note for when I tell them to shove it.

My special day

I managed one alcohol free day - Monday, 6th December.

On the negative side I haven't written one Christmas card, made much in-road to Christmas shopping or even got an agreement on what we will be eating for Christmas dinner (sausages wrapped in bacon is all anyone will say.) My living room has now been glossed but the walls are still naked, what chance of that been finished for Christmas? Nil.

But I only have 5 1/2 days to work before Christmas due to only working a 4 day week, one days annual leave and another granny's funeral. I have no grandparents left now, does this make me a grandorphan?

Haloscan?

Should be there now. Thanks be to Debbie for her hints and Steve for volunteering Debbie.

Now Zed can't thump me for any good reason (how's the tongue?)

Blogroll hints anyone?

Blackpool survived

And so did I, despite the amount of alcohol I consumed. (I now realise what a blessing it was that my blog from a few days ago disappeared cos it seems that 'you know who you are's new nickname for me would be most appropriate.)

So (pretending you have no knowledge of my recent drinking exploits) as it was a weekend break I didn't feel too bad about the 2 whole bottles of wine I got through on Friday night, nor the number of vodkas I drank last night - until we got the bill this morning. Only one thing to say - ooops!

Spent all Saturday morning alternating between the sauna and the jacuzzi trying to sweat the wine out and soothe the poor old head. What is it with jacuzzis, aren't they supposed to be sexy or something? Nothing sexy about my flab wobbling around in one that's for sure. Nevertheless, I had a great time, I always do, and, all being well, will be going back next year.

But, Blackpool is still a complete shit-tip. I tried to buy myself something and I kid you not when I say the only decent shop I could find was Next, but it must be the tiniest branch there is and with all 8 of us in there it was too bloody crowded to see anything. I went to M&S (no that is not a decent shop) too and bought myself a bag of mixed nuts. Boy do I know how to live.

The only thing I did see which I really, really, really, really liked was a solitaire diamond ring for £45,000.

If someone would like to surprise me for Christmas I'm more than willing to pass my address on.

Weekend away

We're off to Blackpool tomorrow for our annual November weekend away. Ok, so we missed November by a few days - but we did have a good excuse.

Got nothing exciting to report. Wore my very short skirt today and fishnets and high heels and got funny looks but no actual offers of hard cash. Ho hum.