So its time for my end of year post!

Obviously the main event of my year was Dad dying. Perhaps I'll post more about that next week on the anniversary itself. but needless to say its something that has had a bearing on everything I do every day.
The best events have been my holidays, Iceland is an amazingly beautiful country and its somewhere I've wanted to go for many a year, maybe I'll wait though until they stop whaling again before I go.
Ireland too was beautiful, but totally different to Iceland.
Planning my great adventure to New Zealand too, is a huge highlight.
Incidently I need someone to be in charge of my blog while I'm away... so I'll be holding a competition to find my perfect blog-sitter! The Winner will not only get to post here at will, but will be given special emails with pictures and stuff about my adventures to keep every one else updated!
It'll be like Blog Idol!
You guys have a week to post in this comment section here! With a 20 word comment on why YOU should be the lucky winner of all my embarrassing holiday photos and get the choice of which ones to post and what to put in the blog from my emails and obviously you get to get to keep this place clean, dust occasionally that kinda thing...
Then, the comments will be posted on here and you get to vote for who you think the winner should be!
Sounds complicate? Hopefully not!

Anyway! Other Highlights this year have included the meeting of two other BlogFriends, the Awesomely cool Spinny and the always funny Red Squirrel!
i'd like to put that the football has had a highlight too, but after losing Curbs and the fiasco with Dowie and Reed and our dreadful position at the bottom of the league its hard to see a positive there, but hopefully Pards can sort it out!
So thats my post of the year and all thats left to do is to Wish you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR and beg you all to think of me, who's working hard on NYE and on New Years Day itself!

29 days till I go away!
Shit! Maybe I better sort out accomdation and insurance and boring stuff soon!

Fucking hell Poll!
You robbed us of all 3 points.
Bastarding Cuntbag.

Happy Chrimbo all!

I did a bad thing..

Isn't it a shitter knowing somethings bad for you and yet doing it anyway and then the endless guilt feelings about it?

Oh dear.
Why do people come to me in the shop, asking for advice and then refuse to take it?

Monday I had a woman come to me asking about stuff to keep her bones strong.
so I showed her the calcium supplments and advised her to take one of the ones that contain added stuff like the Vit D and Magnesium.
"And thats the one?" She asked.
I nodded.
"Really?"
"Really, really." I assured her.
It took several minutes before I had convinced her I knew best.
She paid for her items, looked at them in the bag suspiciously and then I lost her in the queue of people I was serving.
Bad mistake.
She returned full of indignation and waving an iron supplment and some gingseng
"Look! Iron! Iron will make my bones strong! Why didnt you reccomend this to me?"
She made me refund her calcium and get the other two supplments instead.

I also had a man come to me wanting help with his sperm, So I said how bout Zinc cos of that being in your sperm and he said that he'd had something else before.
I elimated our line of herbal aphrodisiacs and drew a blank, and then he returned with folic acid.
"This! This is what I had before!"
I shook my head. "Thats no good for sperm, its for like pregnant women and the developing embryo"
"Really?"
"Yes."
"You sure?"
I sighed, pointed out that not only do I get sent on random courses about the rubbish that I sell, I have a degree in biology.
He still refused to believe me. So i got the book out and looked it up for him and then checked it with The Big Boss Woman.
He took the zinc and folic acid and walked to consult with his friend and then returned with, yes you guessed it, the folic acid.
"I want this."
"But its not gonna help!"
"I want it."
Honestly, why do you bother asking for help, if you're not gonna take my advice!

Lets talk about the football.

Lets talk about how tonight was so cold, even with 4 layers of clothes on.
About how we lost to Fucking Wycombe wanderers, who to be fair had more bottle about them than any of us.
About how we had a possible penalty turned down.
About how We have no midfield, constantly hoofing the ball down the pitch and hoping for the best is not good.
Dennis Romm, stop running on the inside and go down the motherfucking wing.
About how We booed them all off the field and sang about wanting Pards to take over, or "Premiership, we're having a laugh" or "You're not fit to wear the shirt"
Cos none of them were tonight.
We were fucking poor.
Poor.
I'm not daft enough to put all the blame on Dowie and Reed (As much as I'd like to blame Dowie!)
The rot had set in long before Curbs left.
Now we have that tactical genius Reed, who if he is a tactical genius, I am the Prime Minister.
Gaaah!

So lets try and catch up on my weekend!
So Thursday was the night of the party on the boat and then Friday I talked Welshy into coming to the Natural History Museum with me so I could look at a pickled Giant Squid.
It was a little awkward at first, considering the relevations of the other weekend but we quickly moved past that, played happily with the interactive displays and then went to his union where we got hammered and I decided to stay at his place rather than worry about the hour and a bit that it takes to get home, via tubes and trains and DLRs and buses.
Really you'd think he'd be more considerate and move closer!
Saturday I had to wake early and head home as the mighty Addicks were playing in the morning Kickoff against Liverpool, I soon wish I hadnt bothered.
Rubbish!
Then I had to rescue a sick Budgie and head back into the city to meet my good BlogFriend Red Squirrel who also got the dubious pleasure of meeting Welshy.
Today I had to work in the Blackheath Health Store That Shall Never Be Named.
I really am annoyed with this store, they asked me to cover 3 weeks cos they were short staffed, which I have done so, now last week, there was 3 of us, which mightily pissed me off, cos its hard enough finding enough to do with just 2 of us on a Sunday.
But I was happy with the thought that I dont need to go in there again, at least thats what I thought until I had to go into the office and discovered that they've put me down to work this weekend.
From 8-6.
On Christmas Eve.
Without checking with me, or my home store or anything.
So I'm mightily pissed off cos they still never mentioned anything, but I need the money for going away, so I dunno what to do.
And after that was my works Xmas do! Which I've just got back from!
The Morning Girl is a Pool Shark!
It was a pretty good night really!

After a rubbishy sleepless night (not surprising I guess after yesterday!- No news on the girl either.)
I headed into the City for 's works Xmas Do.
We partied on a river boat, sailing down to my part of London and back up again. Its kinda awkward going out with them, cos they are a bit clique-y and despite all efforts, I am always singled out and retreat into my own little world.
but the city at night all lit up is amazing!

Was gonna write a post about how I met up with H2 and Bump in London today.

But at 12 in the afternoon I saw a girl fall under one of the tube trains, dunno if she jumped, fell or what, but I'll never forget her scream.
Dunno what happened to her, they were talking to her when they evacuated the station.
Awful stuff, I've always made sure to stand well back when the trains are appraching and will be doubly careful in future

"Aw Bollock off you saddo!"


*Flashback scene starts*

It started as an averagely boring Monday Afternoon, I came into work, was thrilled to see that the damage to my little BlueTack Elephant had been repaired and he had been joined sometime over the weekend by a Bluetack Snail and a BlueTack Snowman.
The BlueTack Snail is actually bigger than both Elephant and Snowman, but hey! In Bluetack World perhaps Snails are bigger than elephants!
Someone asked me to get them a protein shake mix from the stockroom, as I returned to the till aread my Aunty G banged on the glass and waved at me accompanied by one of her Nutters (She works for the council Mental Health Team)
I grinned, waved back, served the gentleman and then turned to see if I could see where she'd gone out the window.
And then I saw him, Poor Hoppy, this kid on a crutch was making his way across from Poundland to our store Hopping with all the speed he could muster.
Closely following him was Afro.
Hoppy clearly already had been hit by Afro and as I looked Afro threw a traffic cone at Hoppy, which just missed him and smacked into our Window.
Hoppy fell up the step and into our store colliding his crutch with our sample table.
"Jesus Christ!" Cried my supervisor!
"Help me!" Cried Hoppy!
The Morning Girl instantly garbled a report down the Walkie Talkie to Street CCTV, and I pulled the doors too and locked us in and Afro out.
Hoppy feels safer now he's in the store and starts mouthing off to Afro who is standing outside waiting for him to leave.
The Morning Girl and my Supervisor are making a series of panicked calls to the CCTV headquarters and trying to find the keys, not remembering that I'm clinging onto the door, attempting to lock it and Afro is still lurking calling people on his phone and is joined by some chavvy bint
(Oh My god, look he's getting reinforcements! Where are the Coppers?! Its like a fucking Vigilante squad out there!) The Morning Girl is nothing if not dramatic!
When the coppers show up its in their proper wagon thingy, from what they were garbling about, it sounds like they were expecting murder to be committed in our shop.
They arrest Afro, take Hoppy into our Staffroom and we point out the Chavvy Girl who's been joined by some other bint who they chase off and THEN to make matters more dramatic the fire alarm decides to use this opportunity to go off.
Which then results in a five minute drama by them pair as they try to figure out how to turn it off, I serve the few customers who got locked into our shop, make a sign that we're closed for the foreseeable future - not that anyone reads it and they continue to demand entrance into the store for their multivits.
I guess they assumed we'd invited the Police round for a teaparty or something!
And then a girl from Savers comes round, alerted no doubt by the panicked witterings of them pair to check we're alive!
Finally Hoppy is taken away by the Coppers, the fire alarm is switched off and they decide that fags and cups of tea are needed to restore their shattered nerves.
So we sit in the staffroom, while they smoke lots of fags and I drink Hot Chocolate and they muse over who Afro was phoning and what will happen about them girls.
"Thing is Charbs," My supervisor muses. "You gave them your name and address, they might want you if it goes to Court."
"What if he was phoning for reinforcements and they'll be waiting for us after work?" Thrills the Mornings Girl.
"You finish in a few minutes anyway." I point out "And dontcha think you're being a little dramatic?"
But the idea has caught on and both are convinced they're never safe to walk home or be in the store alone again.
So 5pm rolls round and I prepare to go home.
"How you getting Back Charbs? Anyone coming to get you?"
I laugh and say that if I did what they did, I'd be laughed at by my family and forever have the tag of sissy on me.
""I really dont like you going home alone." My supervisor worries.
"Aww Bollock off, you Saddo." I laugh. "As if anyone will be that sad out there!"

At least working in Woolwich is never boring and best of all, the interruption and retelling of everyones thoughts on the matter and how they lived through the event, means that magically an hour and a half of my day vanished!

I wanted the morning girl at work to like me again. She went off me a week or so ago, when in a fit of boredom I launched myself at her screaming at her to catch me and then wrestled her to the ground.
So I made her a little blue-tack elephant as a gesture of friendship.
She put it on top of the till.
Imagine my sadness when I saw that the little elephant had been crushed by a thumbprint. Possibly by evil Blue-tack hunters who wanted the little elephants blue-tack ivory tusks

Poor old Bump is not not well.

If you remember Bump was H2's baby, that she had in late October and I went to see last time I was up in Derby.
Apparently he's been diagnosed with Glaucoma, which H2 had as a child and left her blind in one eye, so the poor thing had to have a quick operation up in Derby to check him out properly and then got taken down to Moorfields Eye Hospital down here, for a quick op, when I was in Scotland.
Now the specialists want to take him to Great Ormand Street here, as its more designed for babies and stuff as he was underweight for the minimum operation in Moorfields, so in the new year he has to come for an op, which hopefully has a has a 70% chance of working the first time and an 80% chance of working the 2nd time.
So they go back into the new year. They'll check him again under general anesthetic and operate again if necessary, hopefully it won't be. Poor Bump! Fingers crossed for him!

We're not bottom, we're not bottom, we're not bottom any more!

Yes! The Once Mighty Addicks are now 2nd from bottom, a couple more points and we're clear from relegation!

Altogether now!

"We're not going down, we're not going down, we're not going down!"

I went out last night with Welshy and we hit Weatherspoons in Greenwich and proceeded to get hideously drunk on Cocktails.
And then he hit me with his bombshell.

Well its not really. See I've always been aware of the fact that he fancies me, and I've always done my best to let him know that I dont think of him in THAT way. And we muddle along happily in our own little way, I dont bring it up to save us both from embarrassment, and he's too shy a guy to actually make a move.
And then I was saying something, and then he said I was really unappreciated at home, from the things I've let slip to him, and I laughed it off and then he suddenly confessed, that he loves me and has done since the second time we met, and I was totally taken aback by this, cos this breaks all the unspoken rules of our friendship.
And he came out with all this stuff about how he just longed to be close enough to be trusted with some of my secrets, some of the stuff that I dont tell anyone, like the real reason behind my panic attacks.
And how it was the best moment of his life when he woke up and found me snoozing in his bed the night I had to stop over and how "holding your hand walking down the street would be bliss" and all the rest of this bollocks.
Seriously though I was fairly touched by it all, even if he is a crazy nutter, and was heavily influenced by our "Straw-pedeoing" and many, many cocktails so all the shit is just words, but still! Bless!
And then I had to let him down gently, how he's my friend and I can't think of him in any way other than as a best mate, and like I said, we've known about this and its just bubbled away under the surface but I think the drink forced it out of him and he needed to hear confirmation again.
I can't see it making our friendship any different, he knew that I knew he liked me and I knew that he knew that I dont feel things for him.
But I still feel bad and a little sad for him.

Lets talk about the day from hell.
I knew it was going to be bad when I woke up at half 6 and decided to watch the cricket, considering I went to bed at half 4, this may not be a smart move.
I was working in the Blackheath Store for an hour from 9, which didnt make me happy but I need the money.
I got there too early so went to StarBucks to get a hot Chocolate, only I burnt me tongue, ever burnt like the top layer of your tongue off and then it feels all rough?
Thats what mine was like.
So I got to the Blackheath Store and then found out they didnt even want me!!!

Apparently they wanted me Friday, but they told me and The Big Boss Lady Saturday so go figure.
And then they decided to send me on a Road Trip!
They wanted me to go to Catford to collect some carrier bags, only I refused, seeing as its awkward to get to on the bus, and I frankly didnt know how to get there.
So they sent me to Woolwich and my normal store to collect carrier bags.
And when I return to Blackheath I find that theres 4 yes 4 boxes of carrier bags waiting there and I am really pissed off and refuse to believe that the 4 boxes of bags will be used before wednesday.
And then they send me home! So I truely am pissed off that they dont even need me, and send me on a fucking road trip wasting my money in the process.
And yet I agreed to work there for the next 3 weeks!
Charbs! you are a fool!

Honestly! Cricket has totally prevented me from posting, since, erm, the day Play began.

Its reducing me to staying up till 4am, repeatedly emailing SKYSPORTS in the vain hope of getting an email read out, and watching our inability to bowl the Aussies out and score a decent set of runs.
Bring on Monty for the next test!
I totally blame Dad for this cricket lark, when I was in school, the Ashes test was on and he'd have it on when I'd get home and we'd watch it, I vaguely remember watching Andy Caddick go mental and score about a hundred in 10 balls or something stupid when he got the hump at being put in last and Darren Gough, I will confess to having a strange fondness for the bowler!

Saturday was The Big Boss Lady's 40th's so we all went to party, me E, E's little nephew and her sister P all did karaoke to Ernie the fastest milkman in the west!
And I like to think I impressed with my attempt at Russian Dancing, and line dancing, and my Strictly Come Dancing routine with E, where we successfully introduced breakdancing to the world of ball room dancing!
Seeing The Big Boss Lady's feller, do The Full Monty is a sight that I shall be revisiting in my nightmares I fear for years to come yet.

And today I have a big Boo reserved for the Driver of the 178 bus, it starts at Sainsburys, goes round the corner to the 2nd stop which is where I get on.
So he stopped, let someone off and I prepared to get on, and he tried to shut the door, I have no wish to be sliced into by the door so I stepped backwards off of the step and he drove off!

The twat! No one else had the chance to get on or anything.

So he, rather than the English Cricket team get my Boo of the day!

I finally have plane tickets to New Zealand!!!


It kinda cost me a small fortune, like over a thousand pounds of a small fortune, just for flights. Still I'm hoping it'll be worth it.
So! My schedule is now as follows:

28/1/07 Depart London at 3.10pm
Arrive in LA at 7.10pm
Depart L.A at 8.30pm
30/1/07 Arrive in Auckland at 6.00am

So its like time travelling! I'm going forward in time and somehow missing out on a day!

and then when I return I shall be doing the following:

12/3/07 2.20pm Depart Auckland.
8.45pm Land in Hong Kong.
11.25pm Leave Hong Kong.
04.50am Arrive in London


It all sounds real now!!! Yeah! Cant wait!

Hmm.

Not sure I like this "minimalist" look.

I'm definately of the opinion more colour is better but I might leave it a while before I attempt to fiddle again!

Having a broken Blogger is not conductive to a happy Charbs.

I really am pissed with it now. I tried Red Squirrel and Adem's suggestions.

anyone else?

Hello!
Did you miss me?
My God Scotland is cold! We were up in the Highlands for three days and I just kept watching the snow advance down the mountains.
Which was a bit of a bollocker cos all the touristy things were closed, but we did get to feed reindeer (I'll put some pictures up in the post under this!)
And we went on some nice walks around a Loch with a castle on a island in the middle and to a Highland Wildlife park with deer and wolves and bison and stuff and super rare Prezwalki ponies, which have not altered, or evolved since the Stone Age and there's about 20 of them left in the wild.
And I also went to Edinburgh one day, which excited me, and I shall tell you the story of my previous trip there.
*starts flashback*
I was looking for universities see, and had gone to look at a course on Freshwater and Marine Biology, and me and the Mothership travelled up overnight on the Coach, which was a bad night in itself, surrounded as we were by other farting, snoring travellers.
Anyhoo! We got into Edinburgh, which is a gorgeously gothic city about 7am and we pulled up outside a Macdonalds near the City's main Shopping street.
So we hopped in there for Breakfast, now my uni open day started at 10am, so we had lots of time to kill, we'd each dressed up in stupid unsuitable shoes for a day out and had Twenty pound between us until 9pm when the Coach returned to take us home.
So at 10am we got to the Uni, and by 20 past 11, we were done, so we had many, many hours to kill, and little money, especially once we'd brought cheap trainers to rest our poor aching feet!
So we spent a great deal of that day, looking up and down the streets, walking up the hill to the castle, having no money to go in, and returning to our Base Camp of Macdonalds, where we'd buy milkshakes, read the free papers and then go out again, only to return an hour or so later
We ate in there, made use of their loo's drank, rested and chatted, its probably one of my favourite memories of hanging out with Mum.
*End flashback*

And while I was getting excited about seeing my Macdonalds again (TP and TJ laughed at me when I wanted to take a picture of it again!)
They took me to Mary Kings Close, an underground street from the 1600's and I met GreyFriars Bobby! (Which, if you dont know the story, is a little scruffy terrier, who after his owner died, returned to sleep on his grave every night for the next decade!
So it was an ace trip, apart from the cold and I went to see TP and TJ work on the farm, demonstrating how their sheepdog Skye goes herding the sheep, which is so cool, and met her puppies, which had been born early in the year.

Me and Greyfriars Bobby's Statue!













Bobby's grave, apparently some batty people put flowers on it every day.











but funnily enough not on his owners! The smaller gravestone belongs to the Church Sexton, who apparently "was a good friend to Bobby"

my reindeer buddy!

















Very handsome Red Deer Stag!








No trip to the Highlands is complete without seeing a Highland Cow!

Blogger is still hating me.
I didnt get to pick a Fish of The Week cos I had to be in my shop instead so boo to that.
I got March of the Penguins on DVD, its utterly awesome.
And it made me think of this clip, which I found on Utube



Anyway, I am off to Bonnie Scotland to spend a week with TP and TJ, which will be awesome as it was ages since I was up there last, but there will be no internet access for that week.
Anyway! Have a good one all!

I dunno whats going on with my blog, but unlike Red Squirrels Accusations its nothing at all to do with me!

I went riding today! and took some pictures of some of my horsey friends to show you all.

This is Molly, she's my baby. If I had the money I'd buy her, she's like a neurotic mess, if she was human she'd be on uppers and downers and going to see her therapist every day.
She was really pleased to see me and gave me a huge hug.

(Literally - she puts her head over your shoulder and gives you a shove to move forward and hug her, while she grooms your back with her lip)




Jimmy is in disgrace at the moment. As a full stallion he's very bolshy and not to be messed with by people who dont know what they're doing.
About a month ago he was tied up in the yard and a woman was leading her horse past and Jimmy flipped and tried to attack the other horse, she put her hand up to protect herself and try and push Jimmy away and he bit her thumb clean off.




This little guy is Captain, he came to the stables about 10 years ago now, on Boxing day, for Christmas one year some kids were given a bow and arrow set for xmas, they decided to use Captain as target practise and he lost an eye and was half blinded in the other from the attack.
Despite being little, like all shetlands he's got great character and bosses everyone else about and gets us all doing his bidding!







I also befriended a fox!

YES!

Get in!

So I promised a suitably halloweeny Fish Of The Week and so I present....

This guy.

He's a redtooth or Vampire Triggerfish, so called cos he has these little red fangs. I love how these fish names are so original!

I love this picture too cos of the way he's just chilling out on the rocks. There was another one lying horizontally but he ran away when I went back for my phone.
They have these long frondy tails and are a deep velvetty blue colour and skid about the tanks like a maniac bat.
Trigger fish are pretty awesome, you cant really see it on this pic but they have this little lump in front of their dorsal fin which is their concealed trigger, when they're stressed or feel threatened they shoot this trigger or spine up and make themselves look bigger and more aggressive or if they're really spooked they dive into little holes for protection, pop up their trigger and wedge themselves firmly into the rocks so they cant be pulled out.

He also has a buddy, a Picasso Triggerfish, which we call Pablo (funny that!)



You can just make out his concealed trigger there, just in front of his fin.

I went to the Tate Modern Gallery today. Not to look at arty farty things, oh no, my sole reason for going was these!

They were great and free and who can refuse a slide? Welshy thought he could but once I we got there he was just as excited.


The first two were piddly ones going down a floor and they gradually built up to the biggest one that descended from 5 floors. They were really steep and fast with all these awesome twists and turns.
I love slides!

So I went out with the fish people on Friday night and got hammered on Sex on the Beach Cocktails and Sambuca. From what I remember this guy was pretty fun.
Saturday night I went to a Halloween party, which was themed as "Creatures from the deep" Which I chose to interpret as me being a zombie pirate, much like the ones from Pirates of the Carribbean. I got a pirates outfit, and skeleton hand gloves and shredded some green crepe paper to staple onto me for seaweed and glued empty cockle shells to be barnicles.
I looked yaaaargh-tastic!
Today the morning girl at work was not in, which kinda disappointed me as I have started a mini-campaign of terror on her.
Although we get on alright, you can clearly see that she thinks I'm weird in the head and I have no interest in her complicated life about the "talent" she seems obsessed with, flirting and pulling a hundred people in a day.
I had already traumatised her by leaving her a little note addressed to her from some Cod Liver Oil.
" Dear F.
"J" Is coming to collect me later and take me home with him, please do not put me back on the shelves with the other cod liver capsules as they do not like me and bully me terribly.
Thank you very much Mr Cod Liver Oil xxx"
I thought it sounded a lot more fun than just "To be collected later by J"
She saw the note, read it a couple of times incredulously, looked at me and shook her head sadly at me.
Last week she saw me trip the child over in work and I put my leg into a shopping basket and imitated that Simpsons episode where Bart breaks his leg and then manages to get it into a series of scrapes attempting to save Lisa.
"i'll save you Lisa, cast or no cast" Foot goes in trashcan "Doh! I'll save you Lisa Trashcan or no trashcan"
My version was "I'll save you F Basket or no basket and waddling about the shop after her and her horrified look.
Its pretty sad really, but I feel no shame or guilt in getting her.

frined fromphotograhys last day.
Drank cocktails.
Sambuxuca is bad.
Maet nice guy elliot. woman topok me away. huh. went home.
I have a Vampire TriggerFish for Fish of the week cos its halloween innit.
May popst it tomorrow. cos he looks cute.

There's something strangely liberating about knowing you're quitting work.
I dont do anything extreme but take little liberties. Like swearing in front of customers.
Althought I may have scared one of the regs off who came in everyday for his little bag of Caribbean Cocktail.
He looked like an chubby little 8 year old stretched and put into a suit. He giggled nervously when I cursed under my breath his Cocktail for not scanning "you motherfucking wank"

Today there was a bastard demon child from hell running around the shop with its devilspawn companion
They were circling one of the aisles and its parent or their parents were ignoring them, concentrating on the magical properties of Fibre Diet.
So I stuck my foot out as one of them circled round at a million miles an hour.
It skidded to the floor and slid and I felt a warm glow and a sense of "take that bitch" and then the plan backfired cos it started screaming and crying.
Ah well

Today I was awoken at 7am again for work.
I dislike getting up that early, I may have mentioned this.
I determined to make The Health Food Shop That Must Not Be Named pay.
Yesterday I took my final promotion exam and the woman who set the exam didnt leave me alone in the room with the answers. How can someone pass without that?
I did alright, although I was pissed off with the question about where asprin comes from, we dont sell asprin in any of our shops so how should I know?
I scored a mighty 79% with 84% needed to pass. Its a bit of a pisser cos I've now lost my hundred quid bonus for passing all of it completely first time.
But I can retake the exam if I like later.
But back to today, I was determined the company would pay for their crimes against me.
I was working in another shop an hour or so away but would get clocked in by my shop, they were clocking me in for 9-5.30.
So I showed up to work at 9.30 (There's little they can say as I'm there doing them a favour, as long as I'm not cheeky I can get away with being late like that)
I then claimed I had to get to the dentist for early evening and was worried about being sat in traffic for god knows how long again and missing my appointment.
So they said I could go at 4.30. So thats 90 minutes so far I was getting paid for and doing nothing.
I scraped an extra 10 minutes into the bank run by visiting a bookshop on the way (I figure as well it was a good way of fooling potential muggers who might suspect I was carrying over 2 grands worth of money in a plastic bag.)
So thats 100 minutes add to that a cheeky 10 minute extra break onto my lunch and the bastards are gonna pay me for 110 minutes that I wasnt actually at work.
Silly little things like that help get me through the day.
Shame its all back to normal in my shop tomorrow though.

I'm in the middle of the working week from hell.
I've been doing full time hours in Orpington as well as my own shop. Its not too bad I guess, I was swayed by pound signs dancing the tango in front of me.
And then today was a bad day, not only did I have to get up when it was still dark which is sooo depressing (actually it wouldnt be dark if it wasnt for the fact that I'm hopelessly addicted to Tellytext and have to set my alarm half hour earlier than I should so I can read it all)
And then there was the sudden joy of having a whole hour for lunch rather than my quick 30 minutes that I try to fit into when I have my full days in MY shop and I got a 10 minute tea break! Thats something else I dont get at all in my shop!
I was practically skipping down the high street in my excitement.
And then it was hometime and I got on the bus that happened to get stuck in the traffic jam, so for 45 minutes I sat on the top deck of the 51 trapped outside Sidcup Station, gazing longingly into the house nearest and seeing the man there eating what looked like a tasty steak and chips.
While all I had was half a packet of polos.
Cunt.

Its time for Fridays Fish of the Week! We seem to be staying in one section, namely the Coral Reef section so far and so Todays fish is no exception.
I present for your general blogging pleasure.


The Lionfish.





These guys fascinate me, they "sleep" in odd looking positions, upside down and wedged onto rocks.
They can hunt in Prides like real lions too! They open all those lovely elegant frondy fins and herd their prey item into a corner where they can eat them all with a surprisingly large mouth.
And posh looking as they are they're also some of the most dangerous fish you could meet on the reef.
get stung by one of these buggers and you could face anything from nausea, vomiting, convulsions, or even suffer a coma and die.
Charbs advice? Stick the stung bit into as hot as water as you can stand and then get yourself off to hospital quicksmart. The hot water will act to break down the protein based sting and hopefully nutralise its effects.

Its taken a hell of a lot of planning, but! I think I'm finally starting to get organised on this holiday in the New Year, Me and E have decided to only visit New Zealand rather than try and fit in Oz too and rush about, missing out on things and we've also FINALLY come up with a list of places that we wanna visit.
As can be shown by the badly scanned in maps.
Now all we need are important details, like how we're gonna get about and eat and live and stuff like that.
If it was up to me, I'd just pootle over, and figure it all out on the way. E however is a planning, organised kinda person, so she's busy panicking over whether its worth hiring a car to take us round or exactly where we'll stay and what direction we'll do it all in.
My contribution to all this has been to volunteer to be a navigator and cruise along in her slipstream while she fusses and rushes round trying to find the best way to fly there or the cheapest flights.
I quit work today over it, well I quit for January and the conversation went kinda like.
"Big Boss Lady, do you think I'll get time off in the New Year for 6 weeks?"
BBL "I dont think so, why do you want all the time off?"
Me "Ok then I'll quit in the New Year, I wanna go to New Zealand"
her "Fair 'nuff"
HURRAH!

Pinched from Spins and Flash!
1) My ex is: A friend.
2) I am listening to: Oh Stacy - The Zutons
3) Maybe I should: eat some more ice cream, get an evening job.
4) I love: fun!
5) My best friend: is on the bus going home from my house
6) I don’t understand: People who need to know every little detail about your life
7) I lose: everything!
8) People say: lots of things I dont understand.
9) The meaning of my screen name is: A combination of Charlton and Derby.
10) Love is: a mystery.
11) Somewhere, someone is: saying a prayer thatt we'll find another (been watching An American Tail, the song has stuck!)
12) I will always: be there.
13) Forever seems: scary.
14) I never want to: do grown up things.
15) My cell phone is: rarely off of silent/vibrate.
16) When I wake in the morning: I sit in bed reading telly text for half an hour !
17) I get annoyed when: People assume they know me..
18) Parties are: Something I wish I went to more often.
19) My dog is: a urn of ashes under the stairs.
20) Kisses are the worst when: The guy pulls your hair, or is too enthusiastic with his tongue and slobbers.
21) Today I did: walked to work, bused home, looked at my travel plans and watched us on the telly.
22) Tonight I will: playing on the net until the early hours.
23) Tomorrow I will be: going to work.
24) I really want: to be with my friends.

So my weekend!
I got up to Derby after a day at the Fish, got picked up by MH and she took me to Our Beloved Friary for tea and then we went back to hers for a scary movie and to discuss her career options now she's pretty much been kicked out unless her appeal is successful.
And then Saturday H2 came round with Bump, who now has a real name, but I shall continue to call it Bump.
And I viewed it from a distance after presenting him with a toy mouse teddy.
And then it was time to go into town for our Reunion meal with A, STF, N and N's ex housemate J and Booker.
And then back into Our Beloved Friary, where STF set me a challenge, most people who go drinking with me, know that I compulsively peel the labels from my bottles, I can't help it. So he bet me that I had to go the whole night without doing it, or I'd have to kiss A and N.
Which is a good incentive not to do it, so I was good for the two drinks we had in Our Beloved Friary, and then we headed to The Ram, which is a grotty looking old mans pub.
And there was my downfall, I peeled absent mindedly the label off.
STF quickly noticed it.
"Ha! You lose! N! N! Come here!" He looked over, and then grabbed me for a quick peck and then A was thrust at me. I had half a second to think, Oh no he wont go through with it, I'm safe and then he pounced on me to too!
Which kinda shocked me, A is a little different to the rest, he's as naughty and troublesome as them, but he hangs back a bit. Shy.
So then we went on to The Bless which is your typical studenty rocky/gothy/emo-ey pub and then there was some disagreement about whether I'd fulfilled my forfeit or not. N decided to take matters into his own hands about it and launched himself at me.
And tried to shove his tongue down my throat while I shrieked at him to "gerroff me ya caunt"
Into the Bless, chatted to some guy we'll just use the term FS for, about fish and showed him some of my pictures and then back intowards town for a drink in Seymours, a lot of the people out I hadnt recognised, so I imagine they all had left uni before I became mates with them.
I saw some other guy, a cute blonde and smiled at him.
Into a few other pubs and then we ended up in Walkabout, where STF stole my phone and started texting my new Blog Friend Red Squirrel (And I haven't forgotten my IOU).
And then they put some music on so we started dancing and here's where my night got a little confusing.
I quickly became aware of the fact that FS was eyeing me up. I wasnt too sure about this, I only wanted to dance and drink and not be bothered with people trying to get it on.
He told me to act like I would do normally, so I gravitated towards my usual gang and then he pulled me back and started dancing with me and told me not to listen to anything I might have heard from J.
Which puzzled me and I made a note to lose him in the crowd, which I did too, somehow getting into the middle of a pogoing group dancing to Suspicious Minds.
And then I met the cute Blonde guy again and we danced together and he kissed me on the cheek and then his hands started wandering, which I dont mind to a degree, as long as the hands stay OUT of my clothes. So I had to keep firmly placing them elsewhere.
So we danced and we kissed a bit and then he asked me if I wanted to go to the toilets with him.
Which I decided was probably not a good idea and then promptly lost him in the crowd.
And then I got a tap on my shoulder and there was FS.
I looked round and STF, A, N and Booker were all close by, close enough for me to hide with, so I danced with him but keeping an eye on them as I did so, not close enough to be dancing with SF but not far enough to be distant, if you get what I mean!
And then he said something about how if I wanted to be with them I should be, and shoved me in that direction.
So I did and danced with A, who was looking pretty grumpy at having seen me go off with Blondey and FS, (he's so sweet!)
And then FS pulled me back to him and kissed me, and I was pretty much at the stage where I just thought "Meh, what do I care?" And I kissed him back, but he was rough! He kept pulling my hair, I was almost tempted to pull his and see how he liked it.
And then Blondey came over and scowled and pulled me away, and then some blonde bird that he was with asked him what he was doing, so I ran away again, back into the safety of STF
And my night continued in that form, hiding from both, finding one or the other and dancing with them.
And then STF decided that he'd had enough of watching me get groped and kissed and decided that he was taking me home, so me and N and him jumped in a cab and went back to theirs.
Where I snuggled into an armchair with N and listened to one of those drunken, rambling tales that could be summed up in 3 sentances at the most, only when you're drunk take about 20 minutes to tell.
And while I waited for MH to come collect me STF went to make his bed and then N got all touchy-feely, which while nice, isnt what I expect from my mates so had to put a stop to that to and we just cuddled for ages until I finally got picked up, and after a brief run through of my night with giggles and drunken over exaggeration I went to bed and indulged in some of my favourite drunken texting!
Today I woke early, after about 4 hours sleep and headed back to Our Beloved Friary for dinner with MH, N, STF and meeting I of I and C fame.
And now I'm home and its all go here! Mother has had a row over Nanny with Uncle J which resulted in dramatic tears from here and "I wish you dad was here!" type outbursts.
So I tried to comfort her and now I'm all up to date! Yay!

I've won a holiday!

Well Mother did, when we came back from Ireland, we had to get the coach part way and filled in one of those customer service surveys about how to improve their services.
So we did and thought no more of it, then tonight she gets a phonecall from Nat Express saying how we've won a holiday for 4!
So very excited she goes and calls the freephone number and quotes her code down the phone to them.
Now here's the bad part and how our luck is always bad. Apparently its a holiday for 4 and seeing as Mother automatically ticked the option for there is 4 members in our family they now claim we cant have this holiday.
She asked if it was possible for us to bring someone else in, and the horribly embarrassed woman on the phone says no.
So she repeats that we're now in possession of a box of ashes rather than a real Daddy and that shes willing to being that along in order to be the 4th person but the woman still says no.

I'm just gonna pop an email along to customer services now asking exactly why we cant have that holiday.
And I'm off to Derby tomorrow, so I shall see you all when I get home.
Be Good!

My friend H2 has had her baby!
Its a boy, it was actually born on the 2nd of this month at 1.03pm after a whopping 22 hours in labour, and weighed 6lb and 3 and a half ounces, which I am assured is a good weight.
I'm going to see it at the weekend, but they've assured me I dont need to hold it, say good things about it or generally comment at all (but I did buy it a toy mouse!) and whilst there I shall be celebrating 5 years since being dumped in my first halls of residence where my Dad cornered MH in the kitchen, while she was putting away her cornflakes and demanded that she look after me.
Speaking of MH, she's in fear of failing her Disseratation and in doing so, also failing her Masters. Apparently she forgot to properly reference something in it and they're doing her on plagurism, with a big ass meeting in a week or two, but its not looking hopeful.

People let you down, I think I was 8 when I first realised that, that you can't trust them.
When I was eight I first heard my Mother say to her friend that if she'd had the Brat first she'd never have bothered with another child.
I remember that the way I've heard it many, many times in the past. I suppose its why I find it hard to talk to people, but in the years that follow I've seen it, many people I've called friends, family, they do something to let you down, and you realise you can't trust them. And then you get so paranoid you imagine slights, hates and you chalk it up to it being you. Something about you being wrong.
You accept it.

But yet it still gets to you. After Dad died we had hundreds of offers, people promise to look after you, to not abandon you, but they do. His best friend, the one he'd known since he was 6 years old, the one who promised, crying to look after us. We've never heard from them and when we ring them they claim they're busy.

I went to the pub last night down at the Standard and I saw two lads I had known, for about 8 or 9 years. They and their family were pretty good friends of ours , When Dad got sick the first time, they were good to us, they were good to us when we were poor and brought us food parcels.
When he got sick the second time, they distanced themselves but when he got well again they were back to us, as if nothing had happened.
When we found out he was terminally ill. They fully dropped us, they'd not respond to phone calls, they'd pretend to be out when we went round, they crossed the road to avoid us on the street. As if we were fucking infectious.
I could go on for ages about how they "claimed they couldnt cope with the illness" and all that bullshit.
I saw the two lads in the pub last night, I made an effort, cos I'm not rude like them, I was pretty drunk, I waved and smiled hi and the bastards turned their backs on me.
Needless to say I was fucking furious. And the bastards left the pub before I could really work myself into a frenzy.
Funny how people you think you can rely on, seem to let you down.

my drunken Albanian man occured on the night bus home after meeting Flashy and Spins, I may have mentioned it then, on my account of the night.
But basically I passed out on the back seat of the bus and woke up at one point to see some Albanian man trying to get me to go back to his place. I kept shaking my head, but he was intent on getting me back to his place and then I think I passed out again, but I know I never got off the bus and he was gone by the time I got home.

Today we had some spiny crabs added to our ray pool, they're fucking big bastards. One of them is clearly a bit stroppy, one of the rays drifted over to say Hello and he rapped him sharply on the head a couple of times with his claw hand and the ray swam off very cross and with a headache!

which leads us on to Fridays Fish Of The Week!



SeaHorses!
(I'm gonna recylce parts of my SeaHorse talk for this!!)
Obviously everyone knows Seahorses are actually fish, not horses, and that its the Dad that carries the babies, that Mum places in his pouch. Around 200 babies and he looks after them for I suppose about 2-4 weeks depending on the species and then he gives birth and they all swim off happily.
And whats really cute is that they mate for life, and they lead mostly seperate lives during the day but they always spend the night together and then in the morning have a little seahorse dance before going off to do their seahorsey thing.
Sadly however, out of the 33 known species over 20 are already under threat and population number have declined about 25-50% in 5 years alone, and its also thought that 20 million are caught every year for use in the Chinese medicine and the pet trade.
And a final shocking statistic for you is that in 2002 the volume of confiscated dried dead seahorses reached 70 tonnes which works out as about 24.5 million individuals!

So last night!

I went round to visit Welshy last night and sample the delights of his Student Union bar, it was a load cooler than our one was!
There was some sports and societys night going on so it was filled with crazy drunken girls and people in rugby shirts. We compared scars, a bit like that scene from Jaws.
And then I decided to pull my sock off and put my foot on the table to present the scar that The Brat gave me after dropping a bottle of wine on my foot.
so there was lots of drinking, lots of very nice looking sports people about and some impressive projectile Vomiting from an afro-haired man that put the girl from The Exorist to shame, that I was unfortunate enough to witness, after several drinks there, we considered our options.
Getting across London at night isn't something I'm keen on, especially after the crazed Albanian man on the night I met Flash and Spins.
So at closing time we considered my options, luckly the Mothership is away till Monday so I knew I wasn't going to have a panicked phonecall when I wasnt in by midnight.
So we decided to head to the student union Cheesy club night and have a few more drinks and then make a decision.
But it was cheese! So I pointed Welshy in the way of the dancefloor and once I got a few shots down him, he loosened up and impressed with some very flexible and funky dancing.
And then it was the end of the night and 2am, so we retreated to his room to check out the transport for London website and discovered that I could get home via three buses, two of which stopped in god knows where and in my merrily inebriated state it was a bad idea me heading somewhere I didnt know.
Indeed thats normally a bad idea when I'm sober and in daylight! So we made the rational decision for me to stay at Welshys and we curled up top-to-tail on his bed and passed out, well he did, I lay and listened to him snore for a bit.
And then it was 9am and I had to be off and away home to prepare for work, only as I'd gone out in contacts, and I'd taken them out as I'm paranoid about sleeping in them, in case "somehow" they end up at the back of my eyeball.
So cold, mildly ill from the shots I'd drunk I made my way partially blind across London, got changed, popped on here and then went to work!
I'm tired now!

Fuck me, just got in from a night out.
why do I drink shots? I know I always end up feeling bad afterwards.
I have to be in work in one hour 40 minutes!
Yeah!

Full story later!

As you all probably know I'm not a girly kinda girl, my make up routine consists of brush teeth, brush hair go.
I'm very low maintaiance, and lazy.
I loathe shaving, its so fucking boring, and it takes so long, guys come on, imagine the whole shaving face boring routine and then times it by about a hundred, legs, arms and anywhere else that might need a trim up.
I hate it, its boring, so I leave it for as long as possible. Weeks and weeks until I start to resemble a yeti (to be fair though, It seems pointless shaving them in winter when no one sees my legs and if I have a night out planned then I'll do them then as well.)
So I'm always looking for ways to stop them growing and save me the hassle of shaving.
I tried those immac/veet cream things, that go on and then you wipe it off. I didnt have much luck with that, I'd have had less of a workout if I was sandpapering a whole room, so I tried again with some scrapy effort, and that worked kinda well, except it took great chunks of my skin with it, and then burned the rest (damn this sensitive skin)
So that leaves one option, and today I took the plunge and tried to wax them, it was partially sucessful, it didnt hurt as much as I thought it might (although this might be cos I cheated and shaved a few days prior)
However I've been left with a problem, I cant get the wax residue off my leg, I tried soap, I tried shampoo, I even really scraped the bottom of the barrel and used toothpaste (and my bros toothbrush - ssssh!) to try and remove it, but the damn stuff is stuck firm.
So I'm sitting here writing this, with half my jean leg firmly stuck and trapped to my leg.
I'm not looking forward to taking them off tonight, I think my jeans will rip and still remain attached to the wax attached to my leg.

Last Wednesday, we had a Top, Top Head Office guy come to our shop, it was supposedly to be a routine thing, but we all knew he had an ulterior motive, mainly the magical disappearance of stock somewhere between the delivery truck and the tills.
It basically was a "you're lying about the theft and we're gonna persecute you until we discover which one of our loyal staff are stealing from us"
Which worked well until Druggie Shoplifter No.1 came in, (I so wanna use their real names but fear what might happen if I do
Perhaps we'll go off onto a tangent and I'll make a new section on the Who's who bit describing my nutter customers)
But from now on we'll call him POB, as they are his initials.
Anyhoo! while Mr Suspicious Head Office was down on Wednesday POB came into our shop and his little druggy filled eyes lit up at the sight of the shampoos (normally we have to hide them away as they are the number one target for getting stolen, but cos of the visit everything had to be out)
And he promptly put three in his coat.
Big Boss Lady spotted him out of the corner of her eye as she stood getting chastised by Mr Head Office and went after him.
anyway, this was enough to convince him, that hey, Woolwich, home of the Benefit Cheat, Druggie and Pound shops is perhaps not filled with the kinda people who will look in a shop and leave without stealing.
So we got CCTV installed today, which has fascinated me immensely, no longer will I have to worry about being left alone and attacked by a shoplifter (again) and being found in a pool of blood, by the next customer who will see my mangled body, calmly step over it, and help themselves to some echineacea.
Also and more exciting, when I quizzed the CCTV man, he said I can install an arial and tune in normal TV!
Why didnt we have this during the World cup?!!!

I've decided we need to inject some culture and learning and stuff into this blog.
So from here on in, or until I get bored of running about the aquarium with my new camera phone, prepare for Charby's Friday Fish Of The Week! With a few hopefully unknown facts about fun Fish species.
Yeah!
First one! ! CLOWNFISH!


This is Daddy Nemo! Or more technically a Clarks anemonefish.
Anyway, if you can make out the red on the rock, they're baby Nemos!
Although this set never hatched either.
Anyway, Daddy Nemo does all the hard work of looking after the eggs and stuff, in this pic he's been fanning them with his fin to keep them aearated and then he nibbles dirt of them, really gently so its really sad to see all his work for nothing.
Mummy Clownfish gets to cruise about, chasing off anything that might attack Dad, the eggs or the aneomone.
What else is cool about the clownfish is that they change sex, which is fairly common in the fishy world.
They're all born as males, with a dominant female, a male and in our setup at least, with an Uncle (well I like to call him that anyway)
If the female dies, the dominant male then becomes a female and the uncle gets promoted to dominant male and so on.

So I think I've finally caught up on all the sleep that I've missed out on over the weekend!
Its been a funny old week so far, with a funny, but gory story, although its not funny in a way.
Basically a woman I know at the stables got her thumb bitten off and then spat out by a horse and then the first woman to pick it up then fainted and cracked her head open, gross I know but funny.
Today was my new conservation day and I spent most of it sorting out a Compost heap, I was quite enjoying it, happy as larry, reminding me of long ago days chucking up muck on the muckheap at the stables.
Unfortunately, its been about 6 years since I did that regularly and my hands have gone weak and soft and I'm now finding typing very hard to do so due to the MASSIVE BIG FUCK OFF BLISTERS on my hand.
OUCH.
Yes, just like that.
I've started to think about taking up another job in the evenings to save money for NZ. But yeah, I bet it just stays as thoughts and not bothering!
Oh! And HAPPY 21ST BRAT!

So my weekend?
Hectic! Great fun but very manic!
Thursday was a bit of a bummer seeing as I was trapped in work, and then half way through realised that I'd forgotten to pack my super-duper travelling toothbrush.
So once that little trauma was resolved I headed towards Derby, and met MH and her new little car Davy.
She drove me to the worlds greatest pizza shop and then we had a quick drink (well she had a quick coke) at Our Beloved Friary and then we drove to see STF, heard all about his new girlfriend (apparently he's not going to mess her about "Charlton I've reformed, I'm now just a loveable Rogue" He swore)
Drove back to Chadd where MH is currently residing, after a trip for old times sake to see the magic buzzing streetlight (5 years and still flickering and buzzing) and our old house!
Aaah I miss The House That Was Never Warm!
Then we sat up chatting for ages about all her Man Problems (There's three fighting for her, or three that she's interested in, you can never tell the difference with her)
Next day I woke early and toddled off to see H2, her baby was due on Sunday gone and I was a little worried about her dropping Bump while I was there, I warned her, that if Baby made an appearance, I'd ring an ambulance and do a runner.
Then it was a short toddle to the Eagle Centre and then on the train to Nottingham, where I met the Lizard, who is as cool as ever, so all I was worried about the other weekend is silliness!
She drove me to Sheffield so we could go to the big shopping centre there and eat Ben and Jerrys from the special Ben and Jerrys shop!
Then back home to meet her lovely but mental dog Wilf and then out to the pub before crawling into bed at a stupid hour again!
And again up at a random hour for a train ride home and then I listened to another poor performance by the Addicks before meeting a mates dad to get to Croyden.
(This really is turning into a Hyde-esque sized post)
I've never mentioned my mate K on here, I used to know him about 7 years ago when we were both taking GCSES together, but then drifted apart, anyone on one of my many trips to sign on, He spotted me walking down the street and resolved to dig out my phone number and get in touch.
Which is ace, now the thing about K is that he was a big Wrestling fan when we knew each other and he's still very into it now, and he goes to Wrestling School, when not holding down a responsible bank-city type job in Canary Wharf.
And he wanted me to go see his show, which was fun, and silly and a cool way to spend my Saturday afternoon.
So again I stumbled in at about 1am, which was the earliest night of the weekend.
Sunday I chilled mostly, helped me Mam paint the new Kitchen and then headed towards Greenwich to help E celebrate her 25 successful years on the planet.
Which was funky, lots of people from her work showed up and from my shop and I discovered I'd aquired the nick name "Granville" from Open All Hours. due to my incompetence with the till (although its still not slammed on my fingers)
So another late night there and then finally an early morning to get to work, in which I dealt with the Bad Druggie Shoplifter, radioed Street CCTV to save him after he unwisely chose to pick a fight with a girl. She was kicking his ass!
Later we heard over the radio, that he'd flipped and was running about with a needle in his neck and another in his hand threatening to stab the police.
But yeah, that brings me up to date with my weekend and I'm exhausted!

Oh man, its been a hectic week.
I've taken up a new volunteer position at an ecology park and i've spent today digging up bulrushes and wading in the river and pulling up bindweed.
Tomorrow, straight from work. I am going up to Derby to stay with MH, pop to Saddlers (God I've been more excited about going to that pizza place than anything else!) quick visit to see N and STF, before sleep, in the morning I'm rushing off to see H2 (Bump is ready to drop anyday now and I've warned her that once it does come I refuse to see her until its toilet trained)
Then I'm racing over to Nottingham to see The Lizard who is taking me to Mansfield for a night out, Saturday morning I'm getting the train back down to London cos I need to get to Croyden to see a mates show thingy and then Sunday I'm going on a pub crawl with E round Greenwich for her birthday!
Phew! I'm gonna be knackered!

There's a White Shark in Captivity!

One of the aquarists was telling me today, he got caught a few days ago in (where the hell is this place anyway? California?) and is in the Monterey Bay Aquarium, he's only the 2nd ever white shark to be captive.
And now you too, can sit here like I am right now, patiently waiting for a shark to swim past THIS camera and shrieking with excitement everytime a pissy little blacktip goes past

There has been a pesky sparrowhawk hanging around my parrots for a few days now. She sits down by the cage or on the roof and occasionally launches an attack on them, before being baffled by the wire preventing her from getting a tasty treat.
Of course my birds are equally unconvinced of the strength of the wire and keep running around screaming and panicking when it does launch an attack.
It bothers me it being around, it's already frightened one of the baby quail to death but neither do I want to destroy the bird, so I'm going out to buy a mock-plastic owl to sit on the roof of the cage to see if that encourages her to go away.

And I've scored a new volunteer position, I've quit Wednesday FishDay so from next week I can go volunteer at the ecology park near the Mill Dome, I can learn exciting things like tree coppicing, and weeding and building nest boxes and shit like that.
So it's something else that I can put on the CV as something I can do, rather than just being an unemployable zoologist who can kinda-just-about use a till in a shop!

And it looks like adventures might be heading my way, my drinking buddy Welshy is coming back to London, the Lizard has invited me for a night out in Mansfield. (lets see if it beats last times adventure, where I nearly started a fight with two men - how I LOATHE people groping me while I dance!) plus a weekend in Derby in the start of October to celebrate 5 years since starting the degree (how time flies!)
And another weekend, that I might mention to you guys later, I'm still pretty unsure of it at the moment.
AND a possible week in Scotland with TP and TJ!
Things are looking up!

My boss at the aquarium, always a happy camper bounded over to be as I sat on the craft table.
(50p per badge/jellyfish)
"What are you doing tonight?"
"Nothing, why?"
Get yourself a formal top, youre coming to the event tonight. Free bar, free ice cream, free chocolate fountain."
"I'm there! Just name the time and place"

It was like my wildest dreams all come true!

Shame the drinks were all champagne though, despite my best efforts to learn to like it, I remain revolted by it.

I had to go up to Pimlico today for a course in this promotion effort and take a test.
One I'd not be able to cheat for (hehehe) So I was pretty apprensive about taking it, but I passed, yeah me with a grand score of 87% (pass mark of 85%!)
The trainer taking the course was a prat though, he could tell that I was bored stupid and kept picking on me to answer things. Booo!
I dont like it when my lack of knowledge is exposed to the world. So I think we were both pleasantly shocked when I passed!! One more big exam and then I get my promotion I think, I hope!

And Steve Irwin died yesterday.
Being stung by a stingray is a pretty freaky way to go out. Most incidents where you end up getting stung aint fatal, but I guess it could have brought on a heart attack or something.
I was pretty gutted by this, I was hoping to see him when I went to Australia. You might not be so keen on his style, but he was so animated and in love with everything he did that you'd couldn't fail to get swept along with it all.
I remember seeing him in a show on Komodo dragons, big fuckoff man eating lizards and one attacked and chased him and as soon as he was safely away from it, he came out with the immortal line... "That was close... too close. Lets go back and follow them!"

"I've been a bridesmaid several times, and I can say with great authority that your job will be to dress in a dress someone else chooses for you and stand where they tell you. After your duties are done, you usually are forced to sit at a table facing everyone else in the room while they watch you eat and drink."
Oh dear God. I really dont think I'm the right person to be asked to be a bridesmaid. Still! Here's hoping he was very drunk and didnt mean the offer or I can wiggle out of it.
Our family gatherings are always great fun. We all meet up and go to football together, but other than that we only meet up for family dos like this.
Normally me and my brothers plan of action is to head to the bar and stay there as long as possible and get as drunk as possible in the quickest amount of time, which is probably common to all families!
Only as The Brat was driving I took it upon myself to do his drinking for him, which is fine in a crowded bar and you can get served without drawing too much attention to your drinking.
Unfortunately for me, I got Id'ed as soon as I went to the bar, as I didnt have ID to hand, I had to grab my Aunty G to "prove" I was over 18. So I now stood out.
Possibly going up to the bar 3 times in forty minutes also didnt help my cause, or my mother knocking the glass out of my hand (while I was still reasonably sober although I bet the bar staff didnt think so!)
Ah fuck it. I decided. Ive already made people think I'm an underage drinker, lets totally throw the bottle out and really draw attention to myself.
So by running across the empty dancefloor to request 5,6,7,8 by steps (again, there's no attempt to hide my love of cheese to dance to, I can almost SEE Flashy shuddering!)
And then doing some shameful dirty dancing with my Aunty G to the Grease Megamix. I think I did a pretty good job of drawing attention to myself, and fulfilling my mission of getting hammered.
Oh God I hope they were joking about the bridesmaid thing.

Oh and is it a bad thing that as soon as you walk through the door of your local chinese takaway they've handed your order over to the kitchen. I think I might spend a little too much time in there!

its M and s's engangemen t.
they asked me to be a bridemesaid by prixt. what the fuckiny fuck does a bridesmaid do?
they'll think twice one the drink has kicked in.
im taking my auntys on a pubv crwal.
fuck me. im cool;.

A man pops into the shop.
"Do you sell phone cards?"
"Sorry?!"
"Phone cards, you know, to swipe and top my phone up with?"
"Err, no. Sorry."
"Oh. Ok. Do you know where I can find one?"
"The phone shop maybe? The one just down the road there? Or the one opposite us?"
I walk him to the front door of the shop and point at two of the many many phone shops in Woolwich.
Unfortunately, this coincides with another trip to our shop for The Lurker. Today he is resplendent in a sky blue jumper and mustard cap, which he has fastened to his head with the aid of an elastic band, a matching band is around his ear and he's sporting the latest style of trouserwear, as in dirty grey trackie bottoms, with one leg rolled to above the knee.
"Charby!" He greets me with delight and I cringe. "Hullo." He decides against popping into our shop for the forth time today and carries on.
I point at the shops again.
"Oh! Maybe! I never thought of that!" He beams delightedly at me and walks off and into New Look.

....
A man stinking most suspiciously of fags and weed wanders into our shop and stands in front of the till, swaying slightly.
The Radio crackles into life.
"[health shop that must not be named] this is Street CCTV recieving. Has this man (gives description of the man standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME) entered your store? If so be careful, he's a known thief and can be dangerous if confronted."
"Oh. Ok."
"So just keep an eye alright?"
Whoa, hang on, he's been listening to me talk about him to the CCTV control people, and now you're leaving me o deal with him.
I dont think so buster!
"I think you guys should get down here." I lie. "He's causing trouble."
Actually he's too stoned to do much in the way of movement and he staggers out the shop.

While waiting for my bus, it looks like its gonna kick off between some mouthy girls on one side of the road and two girls about 14, one is at least 8 months pregnant.
"Dont worry." She says confidently. "That whore comes over here and starts I got your back. I might be pregnant, but I can still fight that slag."
I wonder if perhaps the best thing for her is to lose the kid and then save it from a life like that.

Just another typical day in Woolwich! Hometown to all of S.E Londons nutters!

WE won yesterday! Yeeaaahh! And there is a stranger in our midst. The Brat gave up his season ticket last year and C who is our buffer between Scary M and Mr Swindon was gonna bring her kid to sit there, and in our typically disorganised way, left her to sort it as The Brats seat is inbetween mine and E's (only he never sat there.)
Anyhoo, we got to the ground and there was a stranger sat between us and C's kid, apparently has the seat to the right and a few along. Its a mystery!
And then JF turned up in Greenwich and I took her out to the Cutty Sark pub, and we had a nice night out.

But I promised you guys the story of the man who threatened me (Over a penny!) so sit back and make yourselves comfortable.

It was a busy lunch hour and I'd been left alone while the Big Boss Lady had headed out.
Now our shop has a minimum amount to be spent on the card and thats a fiver. This indian man had stuff that came to 4.99 so I pointed out that he couldnt use his card and he'd need to get something else or I'd look after it till he went to the bank, what ever was easist.
"No!" He shouted at me. "Why should I do that? You should be able to do that for me."
"Look, our systems pretty old and feeble. It wont handle it."
"Well change it!"
"I can't!"
"Change the details to be a fiver!"
"I cant do that!"
"Well this is ridiculous! Why are you so niave? Have you no idea how a shop works?!"
"Clearly I do, and I can't change it."
By now the queue behind me has grown and there's tutting and grumbling, I'm not sure at who but suspect its me, but there's nothing I can do and then he starts ranting and raving at me, demanding to speak to my manager who is out and who anyway would say the same thing and then he starts having a go at me, calling me stupid, niave and incompetent and using all these big words in the wrong context and by now I've lost my temper with him.
"Sir. It clearly isnt me who's niave, and if you're gonna use big words, at least use them correctly"
Ooops. Wrong move Charb!
He almost turns purple with rage and then starts shouting and raving about how he only lives a short way away and I should be frightened cos he's gonna go home and get a knife and then be waiting for me when the shop closes.
Seeing as I finish a half hour before the shop does I'm not too perturbed by his threat, anyway if you took all the ones you get in Woolwich seriously then no one would go to work at all.
Although I'll admit I was shaking and wobbly-legged about the whole thing for a while afterwards!

fucking shop lifters!

THe morning girl, caught someone behind the till yesterday and tried to pin him there, while shouting for help.
Obviously he just barged past her, and even though a lot of the the Gymmie type people where there, no one tried to help her.
(I realise I've not told yet about the man who in the middle of a busy queue threatened to stab me and how the customers turned their backs on me, I will tomorrow though!)
Today I spotted one of the druggies, (I'm so tempted to use the real names of the shoplifters but perhaps its not the best idea) trying to take bottles of shampoo from behind the counter.
So I went up to him.
"Hi! Can I help you! Yeah I know exactly what the fuck you're up to and you're not gonna get away with it.
"Shit!" Opens a bottle. "I was just smelling it!"
Yeah sure fuckwit, walk away now.

And The Lurker, who seems to have developed something of a fixation, has recently been revealed as schizophrenic. Hmm.

Also in todays shop adventures, I successfully prevented some chinese twat giving me about 200 quids worth of forged twenties (or maybe I jumped to conclusions, but as if I'm just gonna change that up for him, what do I look like a fucking bank?)

Yeah!

I love the start of the football season, all those hopes and dreams, the first wearing of the brand new shirt, the sight of old mates, reclaiming your old favoured seat, seeing the sights, hearing the sounds, the smell of frying onions and chip shop chips.
Only... its supposed to be August sunshine on a Saturday afternoon, not a wet Wednesday afternoon and its supposed to be easy opposition not fucking Man United.
The first half seemed ok, we challenged them and it seemed pretty even.
Once the first goal went in though early in the second half.
They are a bunch of cunts though! I saw that Evra and his constant foul-throwing and when he bear hugged Lukey Young to pieces and Rio throw the ball at the back of Hermann's head.

Pah, maybe on saturday we can beat the might that is Bolton!

I met Curbs today! He's my new best friend!

He was slumming it doing a book signing in Woolwich so I rushed over after work and stood in the queue!

He laughed at me too! Boo!

Well when I told him how to spell my real name!

And then I asked him how his holiday was, He was supposed to be going to New Zealand and he told me he was going in September.
So I told him off and said I was gonna use him for holiday advice and he laughed at me again, and wished me a good holiday!
So we're now best mates! Hurrah!

fucking football.

Today on my way into work I was sat next to all the kids collecting their Alevel results (For those of you who dont know, Alevels are the exams needed to get into uni)
Its kinda scary to think that these kids collecting them now, had only just started school when I got mine.

I remember my Alevel results day very clearly, down to what I was wearing at the time.

I knew that I'd failed my Biology Exam, as I've mentioned before School wasnt the happiest time for me. And with teachers openly mocking my misery and classmates doing their very best to make me feel like shit it was hard to concentrate on anything.
In a fit of madness I decided to retake all 6 biology modules in two days, along with the final exam. Of course by the end of it I was almost ready to collapse with the stress and the knowledge that it had done no good whatsoever.
The days that I took my two English Lit exams were almost as memorable, on the first attempt my brother managed to get himself mugged, so I was worried about him and didnt go as good in that exam as I know I could have.
The second exam I ate 4 packets of sugar-free polos, they have a little warning on them, about how the mass consumption can cause a laxative effect, I've tested it again since then and I wish I'd read those warnings before hand, although whether it'd have stopped me or not from doing it is another matter...
Its kinda hard to concentrate on John Donne at the best of times, let alone when you're convinced that any minute now your bowels will open, and never ever close again.

So on the day itself I wasnt too convinced on my ability to pass them, but being the stupidly hopeful optimist that I am, remained that something might have happened and I'd have got through.

Of course I failed them miserably and to this day am the proud owner of a U in biology and an E (worst grade possible) in English Lit, I think only my outstanding (hahahahahaha) coursework pulled me through that.
So I cried, and the head of the 6th form centre, tried to tell me it didnt matter, that I could retake them in a year or so, which made me worse, I was already so miserable and so close to doing something drastic at home that I still remain convinced that another year at home and I'd have made a serious attempt on my life.
She suggested that I rang Derby which was my chosen choice anyway and see what they said.

So crying and sobbing I rang John Cassella, who will always remain a hero after his organisation of my Graduation, who suggested I take the HND route into zoology.
Which I did, and it was the best thing I ever did!
So you see, even cocking up your alevels dont mean the end of the world!

So it was a fairly nice birthday, pretty quiet which was what I wanted.
My grandparents gave me a hundred quid too, which The Brat matched to put aside for my trip, which is ace.
Today I also got a card from Dad's Mum.
Apart from one attention-seeking phone call a week or so ago, we've not heard anything from that side of tha family, but who cares? Amused to see that the card was posted and not actually brought round to me but that's not my problem.

So what did I do on my birthday?

Well in a fit of madness (and possibly slightly drunkenness) I applied for a two week volunteer position in Bristol, working with young foals.
The woman emailed me back today and seemed pretty keen on having me, so if I can get my two weeks holiday sorted from the shop I guess that's what I'll be doing!!!
I'm pretty chuffed about it really, I miss hanging round the stables, and I've never really spent that much time around young foals.
And these will be reaching the age of teenagerdom, all lanky legs and spotty and wanting to be stroppy and stay out late and smoke at bus stops.
So they'll be pretty cute.
And as I'll be in the back of beyond, spending money will be virtually impossible (unless these foals talk me into buying them fags from the local cornershop), accomodation and food is all thrown in, so it'll be like a holiday!
Only with baby horses! And it'll look great on the CV and did I mention the cute little baby horses?
So hopefully I'll be able to arrange time away from work and the Aquarium and go play!

Happy Birthday Charby!!!!!

How can I have not blooged for nearly a week?!
And there has been excitement of such, that I can't possibly begin to tell you!

Ok thats a lie, but it got you interested didnt it?!

So what has been going on?

Well not a lot, I'm still scolding The Mothership for trying to do housework. The Brat is still avoiding it.

Oooh oooh! But the men who came in the other week and knocked me over came back into our shop on Tuesday, He looked at me, I looked at him, smiled sweetly and rang the buzzer, he walked out minus his attempted stolen items.
I think that counts as 1-1 to both of us!
Today, while listening to the walkie-talkie that connects us to the CCTV street team, I was visted by the Community Police type people who told us that they've arrested the dudes, after they came in Wednesday and stold more stock, and they might be bringing it back to us.
So 2-1 to us! We win, thank you very much!

I've also been getting more and more hyped about this holiday thing, although I can see it taking a large portion of my savings, if not all of them.
Still if you're gonna blow them, you might as well blow it on something good!

And my season Ticket has arrived! Hurrah! Now the start of the football season is nearly, almost here! All those games I can look forward to seeing us lose! Yay!

Yehaaaa!!!

Guess who's going on a tour of the Land Down Under in Feb next year?

I've finally got dates settled, now all thats needed is to organise places to stay, places to visit and flights!!

I'm hoping for a month in New Zealand and two weeks touring Australia starting on the 27th Jan - through to the 10th of March!

I'm gonna meet Skippy and Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee and see where they filmed LOTR!

Upon departing my room this morning...

"MOTHER! What are you doing?!"
"Well the bathrooms dirty..."
"No! Bad parent! Go sit down, I'll do it."
....

"Mam! What are you doing out here?!"
"I wanted some Cheese on Toast."
"You're not allowed to bend over, go sit!"

.....

"What the hell are you carrying?"
"Just some small washing"
"Drop it this instant! I'll do it!"

Hmm. Something tells me she's going to be a bad patient

Mums home! yeah!

So there I was getting all excited about the Pre season Friendly!
And we go and lose! To Welling! They aint even a real team!

Blinding own goal though!

so mum's operation went ok, and I've been toddling up and down from the hospital and working, but the Brat has still not been up.
Ho hum, its all good, the worst is over now!

So! The Mothership has gone into hospital today for her hysterectomy (sp?).
And Guess who now becomes Offical Next Of Kin?
Just think of all the things I could sign her up for. Voicebox? Yeah whip it out while you're there she dont need that. Two legs? Bah thats just greedy!
Of course, the downside to this is she's out of action for the week and probably the remainder of the summer.
And The Brat, being unable to cope with this, has reverted as he always does to Incredible levels of Brattishness.
He has already informed me, that he doesnt not plan to do any of the housework or help when she comes out.
It was all we could do to convince him to take us to the QE, and he just dumped us at the hospital, and didnt come in or come to pick me up.
Unless he goes through a change of heart, I imagine the next time Mum will see him will be after I bully and hassle him into agreeing to come pick her up.
Brothers! Sheesh! Are they always this lazy and self-centred?

I've been looking after some duck eggs!!
A couple are duds but two look like they have little duck embryos in them, with little duck feet pressing against the shell as they move and ful of icky looking pumping veins.
I showed them to my brother, he was not impressed.

"They aint ducks! They're fucking aliens!"

I get assaulted at work!
Honestly!

There was these two guys who walked in bold as anything while I was serving on the till and picked up these boxes of protein drink and then walked out with them! I was watching them and although the other bloke left the shop before I could stop him, I was determined not to let the other guy get away.
"Oi! Drop those!" And me - being the smart idiot that I am tried to pull his arm away and grab back the box.
Unfortunately, while he wasnt much taller than me, his arm was roughly the same thickness as my thigh. So when he told me to fucking let go and elbowed me in the stomach there wasnt a lot I could do and I fell backwards landing on my arse.
I now have a nice bruise and am so fucking annoyed that I didnt have the presence of mind to kick him or try and trip him or something while I was on the ground.
And then!! My manager told me off for tackling him, apparently all we're allowed to do is ask "politely" that they put the items down.
Ha! told off for not tackling shoplifters and all I get is a telling off and several bruises when I do try!

2 Random phone calls yesterday..

The first was my Nan as in Dad's Mum, this is the first time she'd got in contact since the funeral, ignoring us since then, actually its the first time we've heard from any of their side of the family.
Like I've mentioned in the past, we've never had much dealings with them so not to hear from them hasn't really been a great upset.
This phone call was a pure cry for attention from her. Like when Dad got put into the hospice and she greeted us with. "Hi I'm dying from Angina."
Ho hum, she pretended to not know who I was, or why she'd called me. And then told me she's going to have a triple heart bypass for her angina. I know people do have ops like that for their angina, but I also know that her's is not that serious enough for it.
(Wont I feel bad if she's actually having one?! Actually then again we probably wont actually get told about it from any of them)

The second one was at 4am this morning, when I'd just gone to bed. Now there's only two people who even consider that calling me at that time in the morning a good idea.
"Hullo N."
"Charlton! I've just got back from Nottingham!.... ramble about a lampost..... When are you coming up again?.... operation? Bah thats nothing... two days and she's back to normal..."
And then the fucker made me play guess the tv show theme tune till half past 5 in the morning.
I'd consider turning my phone off but I need the alarm on it every morning and hanging up just isnt an option when he'll keep calling me back or ring my house phone.
Booo!

So in a week or two, the reason that I'm sticking about will come to pass, well Mothers operation.
And now shock of all shocks, I can start to think about MY future and what I want.
I realise that I'm gonna be here for a bit while she recovers and that, but when October rolls around, I could realistically start looking for a REAL job, in something I enjoy and get paid for and what all that uni lark was about.
Fuckit I can even leave London again *Lets off celebratory firework*
I might end up stopping until The Anniversary, but I will be free to leave, this prison sentence will be over!
And thats what it seems like, I dont regret a minute of coming home, the tears, the boredom, the mindnumbing lonliness and feeling of getting left behind, because I did it for the right reasons.
And soon it will be time for me!
I dont quite know what I'm gonna do when I finally realise that I can be me again. I still have that need to travel and explore, but it is also time to start thinking about a career, God knows I cant put it off much longer!
Yes its a long way off still, but there is a light at the end of this tunnel and its getting closer, day by day!

Oh and remember about March sometime last year I applied for that fishy job in the lab? 22k to look after some fish?
Well I've spotted it up again, same thing, all thats different is the people you apply to and the moneys gone down to 20k.
I thought about applying again and then decided against it, I'm not really down on the whole "animal testing for medical/genetical reasons" and lab work frankly horrifies me.
I'd rather carry on part timing it at the shop and the aquarium and feel good about myself for not killing and tormenting fish.
Pathetic? maybe? but I dont honestly care!!

I had the best customer ever, ever, ever today! EVER!

He was making a complaint about the lack of air con, on this the hottest day of the year so far, (we were heaving heavy boxes about as part of delivery day). My supervisor was in no mood to pander to him and let him know exactly what kind of cheapass cunting company we work for, and that we also wasnt supposed to drink on the shop floor and weren't entitled to free water.
So he asked us if we wanted him to pop over the road to visit one of Mr Whippys little vans to get 99's.
When we politely refused he disappeared, only to return 20 minutes later with tubs of M&S ice cream for us all!
What a legend! I was skipping amongst the Vit C display filled with joy at the thought of the ice cream to come!

And Oh dear Shaun!!

Things that have irritated me today.

1 - the nonce in the shop who after he had enquired about my family and found out that Dad had kicked the bucket, had the guts and balls to inquire if I missed him and then to ask me if I considered seeing a psychic. Cuntbag.
2 - Having a cold (yes a fucking cold) in the middle of summer.
3 - Being told that I am at work every day this week, meaning no aquarium and heaving boxes around on Wednesday - which is predicted to be a record breaker in the heat ness stakes.
4 - Having a miserable supervisor who hardly spoke a word to me all day and sat in the back leaving me to cope on my own virtually all day.

Sigh.

Walking home from the Aquarium. I passed a car, a posh rover effort on a tow truck.
There was a 6 foot feathery wing sticking out the sunroof.
Another big wing slammed into the broken wingscreen.
And as I walked past it, what looked like to be a head, sliced completely off of the neck and half straight down again into the dashboard.
At first I truely thought it was some horrific accident and then sense came to me, as if they'd bung a body onto the tow truck?
Where were the ambulances?
And the guy in a suit on the phone to the AA seemed a little puzzled.

"Yeah. I mean there these Wings! Just like hanging out of the car."

I wonder if an angel really go joy riding?

I had to be at work (in the shop) by half 8 this morning!!

What the hell's that all about?

Jimmy Floyd!!!

Who'd ever, ever ever have imagined that?!

Sometimes in the Shop I play "guess the sex"

My score today was 0. Everyone who I thought was male turned out to be female.

So Pirates of the Carribbean?

Very funny, not as good as the first but still and Kiera Knightley dressed up as a man? She's very sexy.
Orlando Bloom though and Johnny Depp! Wheeeee!

I have duck eggs! 4 to be precise! I'm hatching them, in an incubator, so fingers crossed that when I candle them in 5 days time we'll see little duck embryos in there and they'll all hatch in a month!!