Miraculous recovery

Well not really - recovery I mean, but I do feel a helluva lot better than I did. Feel a bit dizzy without alcohol so that must be a good thing and a head start.

So I'm off out with Mad Jane and Lynda Big-Lungs and I shall kill my germs with vodka - and maybe a sly fag.

After all, I have a brand new really slutty pair of high-heeled, leopard skin, platform-soled, ankle-strapped shoes to wear. And they're nearly comfy.

Oh happy days.

Poorly sick

and maybe dying.

I HATE being ill. I am very rarely ill. It is a full year since I was last ill, and that was sort of self inflicted when I had an infection after having my thingy cut off.

And now I feel like shit, think I've got flu. My throat hurts and my chest is tight and I'm sweating more than is polite.

Bollocks.

Worst nightmare comes true

Admittedly I am rather old (39 + vat + postage and packing) and I do have a lot of female friends, and all my siblings and cousins are female. Despite the fact that most are married, including myself, I had never, EVER been on a hen night. Purely because the whole idea makes me cringe. Now, a stag night is a different kettle of bananas, but that's another story.

Saturday it happened. My cousin Justine (yes you, ya moo) made me go to her hen night. There were 20 screaming women (terrible, just terrible) and we had to dress as cowgirls.

As I was sat on the train into Leeds city centre on Saturday evening with everyone else dressed up in there posh outfits it dawned on me (after spotting my reflection in the window) that a check shirt, jeans and boots made me look more like a lesbain than a cowgirl. And that thought stayed with me, festering all evening. Cos after all, I might not look like a dainty little princess on the outside, but that's how I feel inside and nothing can ever, ever be too pink or too glittery for me.

The combination of screeching women (even though I was related to many) and looking so butch was making me totally miserable. The kind of miserable that no matter how many large vodkas I drank I was simply not getting pissed enough to not give a monkeys how I looked. I stuck it for 2 1/2 hours before I did a runner and legged it for the last bus (although, theoretically I was willing to stump up for a taxi.) As I stood in the bus queue a man came over and started chatting me up. Asked me to go drinking and dancing with him. Was most insistent (but I didn't.) Me, in a mood to end all moods, with a face like a slapped arse, looking butcher than butch. Ha!

Obviously the lesbian look is favoured by the latino type, or the poor man was very, very, desperate.........

Working 9 'til 5

I worked on Thursday for the day.

Well day is stretching it a bit, it was 8.30 - 2.00, including the rather nice free lunch we had.

And working is stretching it a bit too, it mostly involved 'being available' to answer questions and putting table cloths on 50 tables - but there were at least 9 of us doing that, so we weren't actually slaving away over trestle table.

The worst bit was the god-awful t-shirt we had to wear, and the fact that we got to keep it.

The reason for this was Freshers' Week and this was an event put on by the Business School and as I had got one of the highest scores in the subject that was running this event I had been 'volunteered' to help. Hmmmm, I thought you were supposed to be rewarded for doing well, not picked on.

There were about 500 students involved, assuming around 50% were male, and 50% of those were reasonably cute (for an old woman with bad eyesight who's not terribly fussy) that was approximately 125 good reasons to get up early.

I'm such a tart.

Practice makes perfect

After 18+ weeks off over the summer (it's bloody great being a student) I have to go back on Monday. At 9.00am. For fuck's sake. And, and then I don't finish until 5.30pm. Shocking......but I do have 10-2 off.

Anyways, to make sure I'm a proper scratty student I have been relearning the art of drinking cider again. I thought, when I went on to Pernod at 14, my cider drinking days were well and truly behind me. After all, I am now of an age where I am too old to drink cheap wine let alone cider, and my favourite local bar doesn't even stock Smirnoff vodka cos it's too common so I have to drink some Bison vodka (which is really rather nice in a weird smoky-flavour way.)

But no, those nice people that make Magners decided it should be served over ice and lo, another convert was born. I could only drink one 568ml bottle to start with but now, after some serious training, I can fit in more.

Yesterday I managed four. What a result.

Slap around the face with a wet kipper

Well, this week has been a total shock to the system.

After 18 whole weeks off we had to go back to university, yesterday, to regsiter and sort out our timetable. We were there almost an hour and a half and I was absolutely knackered after all that effort. It's going to kill me when we start 'full-time' next week (ie. ALL Wednesday and Friday off and a 4 hour lunch break on a Monday - tragic.)

Today I called in because I had to complete my registration with the job shop - for my new job. My new job involves 5 hours of messing around with freshers on Thursday.

Whilst I was on campus I thought I'd go and renew my NUS card. I had to have my photo taken. Well, considering the majority of students were around 18 - 21 years old, and, mostly, fresh-faced, (added to the fact that the spotty youth taking the pics was no bloody David Bailey) when commited to print I couldn't avoid the truth any longer. I am an old, OLD hag.

I could have cried.

True confessions #1

I am such a sad bastard (no, that isn't the confession as that is probably bleedin' obvious.)

I absolutely love playing SpongeBob Squarepants Collapse. That in itself probably does not make me pathetic as many people have a favourite game they play on the computer. But........if I get a really good score, or make it on the Top Twenty I take a screen print and save it in a file.

Sad, but true.

Birthday booty

The cache so far (which I will update when/if the kids give me presents when they bother to get out of bed) .....

UPDATE - Ysabella has bought me some cracking black, very high-heeled slutty shoes - what a girl (obviously the fact that she is almost the same size shoe as me now has nothing to do with it and she's not forward planning......)

UPDATE #2 - Theo got me 2 DVDs, lovely. Mind you I had to wait until he got up before I got my present - at 4.45pm!

UPDATE #3 - I got money, flowers and a birthday cake from my mummy and daddy as they breezed through on a whirlwind visit.

From my sister Sarah, one of her lovely special hand-knitted scarves and a handbag charm.

From my cousin Mandy, £15 - yay!

From Lynda Big-Lungs, a pale pink glass handbag, my favourite thing in my favourite colour.

From Mad Jane, a very pretty pink murano glass bag charm, to decorate my favourite things.

From the very lovely Paul, a little book on handbags and a SHOE VOUCHER (I love that man......)

From Jonathan, a bottle of Chanel No 5 Perfume (not the cheap stuff!!), and 2 books, Cracking the Da Vinci Code and.......

..........How To Survive Bird Flu

It's my birthday

on Sunday. Just thought I'd tell you.

I know for sure that Jonathan still hasn't bought me anything. When he does, it'll probably be crap.

Oh goody.

Don't try this at home or

out in public......

I am trying to post 2 fishing nets, many knickers and an Andy-present to Zoe (http://users.pandora.be/quarsan/zoe/index.html) and it's not been as easy as you may think.

I parcelled all the stuff up, which resulted in a 6 foot tall, top heavy, brown paper lollipop, and decided to combine a walk to the Post Office with walking the daft dog. Hmmm.

It all went a bit Pete-Tong when I got to the Post Office. To start with I 'pretended' to tie the dog up - which she usually falls for - and all went well for a while. She obviously got a bit bored with me queuing and wandered in to join me sniffing and inspecting the now huge queue, much to their amusement. Due to a change in posting things pricing, I was told that as the parcel was over 90cm, it would cost over £18. Oh-my-gawd........... But if I cut it down to size then it would only be £4 ish. Sorry Zed, it's stunted nets for you.

So I left the Post Office with net-shaped parcel and dog in tow. The PO is right next to the park so we turned in to walk through there. Maddy was persistently sniffing at my bag which had her frisbee in so I got it out, skillfully threw it about 6 feet and then it took her about 34 seconds to rip that to shreds and then.....

Well, then she spied the long bamboo poles from the fishing nets - and attacked them. Took me and 2 other people to drag her off the bloody things, and then I had to repeat this procedure all the way home.

Nightmare.

Of course all any one else could see was this overly large chocolate labrador crunching through bamboo whilst growling and baring her teeth. I wanted to make sure there was still at least 90cm to send to Zoe so was trying to remove it reasonably carefully. Maddy thought this was a great game and growled more. Must have looked like I was in fear of my life.

Oh well - shall try sending abbreviated fishing nets tomorrow.

News in brief

Another one bites the dust........ another minnow has died, there should be 2 left now, let me check - yes, there are 2. Amazing. Obviously the disappearing spell has worn off leaving the die-you-bastards spell.

I think over the course of the summer I have broken about 5 toes spread over all my feet (I have the standard issue of 2,) with my little toe on my left foot being the latest to suffer. Sick of this now and would like to move out of flip-flops and back into slutty shoes.

The bedroom action has almost come to an end. Our wardrobes are in situ, looking good, just all the crap to put away and a bit of gloss painting to do. Hmmm, these last bits never happen in our house so I predict Dec 2008 as the completion date at the very earliest.

As part of putting stuff in my new drawers I have decided to audition my bras. I have been in search of that elusive perfect bra for years - because of this I have 317 bras, most of which cripple me. From now a bra has to pass the 'comfortable for a day' test before being promoted to a bit of new drawer space.

I got stung by a wasp yesterday. I was hanging out the washing and as I reached up I must have squashed it between my nightshirt and my shoulder and it stung me. Ouch. So I ripped off the nightshirt and was running round the garden in my knickers and all Jonathan cared about was the neighbours seeing my tits. But they've seen them before.....

I went to the Lake District on Monday to visit my sister (and avoid the wardrobe fitting) who is pregnant and in the process of moving. They have sold her house, and his house and are moving into a different house. She's a bit of a stress-head at the best of times but she's struggling with this one. So I brought her dog back home with me. Barking - yes I must be!

Only 68 1/2 hours to go before one of the kids goes back to school, followed by the other 24 hours later. Why do the days - and I don't just mean the daylight hours - during the school holidays seem to be the longest days in the year? Still haven't labelled any uniform, thank heavens for laundry markers.