I absolutely hate this time of year, everything comes flooding back, everything that I more or less manage to hide the rest of the year.
I hate pretending to be normal, happy, bouncy, fun Charbs at work, I hate being in company, but I hate being alone more, cos thats when it hurts more, at least in work I can distract myself because i'm acting so hard to hide the pain.
I hate it. I hate the wrench in my heart as that date gets closer and closer, I hate feeling like I'm going to break down in tears any moment, sometimes I do, luckily always alone and no one knows about it.
I know I have people to fall back on, people who'd be more than willing to help me, but I can't, physically can't bring myself to tell them how much it still hurts
(shit I'm crying now)
Welshy last night, he offered, he's there. I know, he's a good boy. but I snapped at him, told him that I was fine and to leave me alone, that I didnt need his help, although I do, but I still prefer to keep these things to myself, to deal with them on my own.

Anyway. Its time for my usual end of year review.
Its been a good one really. There was New Zealand, I can close my eyes and I'm in the bush, I'm watching the sunset and stars over the Kaikoura mountains. I'm crawling under or through four tonnes of blue ice looking at the bubbles imprisoned in it on the glacier. I'm seeing the baby dolphin play against the waves of our boat, I'm standing on the edge of the bridge, shit scared about jumping off, feeling the fear as my feet dangle out of a plane. I hope the memories of that stay forever.

And I have Welshy. I'm glad, that I found him, glad that I have his friendship, perhaps sometimes I do take him for granted and his willingness to always be the one who takes that godawful 4 hour train journey so we can see each other. I'm very glad too that I realised before it was too late how much he means to me. (I wont get any more soppy and girly, he reads this sometimes!! - and it sickens me!)

I have my job too, I hate it and love it equally, I hate always being poor and bored, I hate the fact that again its nothing degree related, but I love how easy it is, I love the people I work with.

The only real downside to this year, is my Mother's continued attempts to keep me here forever and losing Chris.

So my New Year's ambition is to get a real job doing something I'd love, something degree related at last!

And now to Wish you all a very Happy New Year!!!

My Holiday was great fun! We saw Stonehenge, something I've always wanted to see and one day i'll see it better than just chuntering past in a slow traffic jam!
We hunted for the Wild Dartmoor ponies on Xmas day, eventually finding ourselves up a massive tor looking at an old church, we got lost (thanks to SatNav and her insistance to take the senic route) in several country lanes and once even a farmers yard!
We went to the Eden Project and Plymouth! It was great!

I've been on a bit of a bender lately.
On Wednesday I had to go to some stupid meeting thing at work, talking about how to give talks to the public, we played some silly bonding games, like WinkMurder, I was the only one who knew this game, but I was also the only one there under 40 so maybe its a new game!
Anyway, we then had to do this exercise of telling our life stories.
Urk. I hate telling mine, I hate the idea of sympathy. People at work know my past but only in a throw away sense.
I was gonna give the much edited version of it, when the guy who was leading this exercise interrupted the start of it "I was born in Greenwich Hospital, just 10 minutes walk from work"
With: "Oh so you're the boring saddo who's never left Greenwich in their life"
Which upset me greatly, fuck it still rankles, and the only way to deal with that was to go into heavy stupid detail about listening to Dad die, to having him threaten to hit me, when he went insane and the horrid smell of death and every horrid, pointless to share little detail, about how I tried to get my life back on track again and then got stuck here after my Mams car accident.
I hope I left him feeling a little abashed and ashamed of himself. God knows I'm not here still through lack of trying!
Anyway, this effected me, maybe its the time of year as well, but I started drinking heavily that night, cried myself to sleep and then prepared for our work xmas party the next day, where again I drank stupidly heavily, danced in bare feet across the Great Hall, screaming "I PREDICT A RIOT" to the office staff, trustees (including a peer of the realm!) and curators, who were until then quietly enjoying mulled wine, mince pies and quietly piped carols.
Ooops.
It had a pretty great night, I went with 3 other lads that I work with, who all took it in turns to be my perfect date (one even stole me a rose from the table decorations, didnt have the heart to say I don't do flowers) We got hammered on cheap drinks, danced like loons and I have several drinking injuries to prove it was a good night!
I got up and went to work last night, still sulking over that stupid comment and how shit I viewed my life to be, went to the pub (AGAIN!) with guys from work, and set about drinking heavily again, the lads that I'd been out with last night, were sipping coke and suffering quietly and there I was drinking two drinks to everyone else's one and it all ended dramatically when I suddenly got an attack of the Girly Weepies, disappeared subtly (I hope) to the toilet, cried heavily for a couple of minutes, drunk-texted Welshy with a very dramatic "My life is shit" text and then returned to drink some more, with people none the wiser!
Hurrah! Luckily sanity has resumed today and I'm having a sober day!
We're escaping London tomorrow to go to Devon, no one wants to be at home for Xmas so I'm having a sneaky sicky and we're staying there till the day after Boxing Day. It'll be remote and quiet and peaceful and not a trace of christmas about!
Bah Humbug!
Hope you all have lovely Christmases' and I'll be back on Friday!

"So" I enquired at the end of last nights event. "What are you gonna do with all this bamboo?"
She shrugged. "Just break it up and bin it I guess."
"You cant do that!" I was horrified, I dont know much about plants but wasting them like that seems like a crime to me.
"I'll take one home!"
She shrugged at me again. "Suit yourself."
So that is how at 9pm last night I was struggling down the road carrying a 7 foot tall bamboo plant. I had right difficulty getting him on the bus, cos he's actually taller than a bus and got trapped a lot in traffic lights, over hanging trees, low flying aircraft, that kinda thing.
However he's now safely placed in a corner of my kitchen, awaiting a pot to live in.
I named him Brutus, he looks like a big masculine plant to me!

Hyde - its difficult to say what exactly is my Mum's main problem with Welshy. Mainly I think its jealousy, she's always struggled with the idea that she's not the most important thing in my life, and she's been totally reliant on me for a long time now. Fear of me leaving home is another one I think again because she's relied on me for so long.
I dont really know how to deal with it, other than to try and ignore her as much as possible.

I've been lost in a little daydream just now, remembering how cool it was that I used to be able to take huge 6 foot long strides, which gradually grew longer and longer until i was almost flying and hovering along, whizzing along the ground and I really missed how I couldnt do that anymore and then reality hit me with a huge bang and I feel geniunely sad that that was only a dream I had once and I never have been able to fly.

Still no backing down on the Mothership and her anti-Welshy Stance!

last week in my feverish ramblings I told my Mum about Welshy.
She reacted better than I thought she might.
Although, she refuses to use his real name or even bring him up at all if she can help it. She refers to him as "Your friend"
As in "Is that your friend texting you?"
We went out Christmas shopping with her best mate, The Agraphobic, who spent a great deal of time talking about her eldest sons Girlfriend, normally she'd use this as an excuse to compete against her but she kept stubbornly silent.
Today I happened to mention that I was going to meet him and stay out tomorrow night. I wasnt expecting an invitation for him to stay but I was expecting her to ask to meet him, instead it went as follows
Me "You can meet him if you want."
Her: "Do you want me to?"
Me: "Its up to you."
Her. "I wont then."

hehe, its kinda funny, I wonder how long she can deny his presence?

I have the flu. Proper doctor-diagnosed, signed off of work flu and everything.
I read a article once that claimed most people suffer from 2 colds a year. In my case thats probably about right, but they're always pretty mild and never stop me from struggling into work or getting on with whatever and they pass really quickly as well.
This flu has completely stopped me dead though. I have achey joints, my head hurts. I've gone from proper goose-bumpy, teeth chattering coldness, to having sweat pour off of me. I've had falling down bouts of dizzyness and for two days was unable to leave my bed, as it is, going to the kitchen is still enough to put me out for a good few hours.
I hate it. I hate being ill like this cos I can't actually or show whats wrong with me, so I feel like a fraud, I need like a limb hanging off before I'll give into to the idea that perhaps i'm not so well!
And being ill is so damn boring!
I'm getting strangely addicted to the shopping channels, especially GEMSTV, (although i never wear jewellery and wouldnt dream of buying the tat that they sell)
I'm probably the only person in the world who is still willing to struggle into a job they hate, rather than sit at home snuggled under the bedcovers!

it was CL's wedding over the weekend to UDOBF (who ever expected that one to last?!)
It started pretty badly when on some bad advice i left getting my train tickets to the last minute and had to spend 95 quid to get up there! Ouch! and it took ages for MH to pick me up and find our way back to the hotel.
we dumped our stuff in the hotel room, and headed to the bar - yes we have our priorites sorted! To find a pre-wedding drink going on and I found myself introduced to UDOBF's family, who are all from Denmark and speak such good english it puts mine to shame! although I was a little put out to find they all spoke with an american accent!
I was chatting to his Danish Nanny and younger cousin for ages, his Nans awesome, she was telling me that last year she went backpacking about Europe!
MH pissed me off a little, by telling me that i should be careful of "getting overfriendly with those lads in case they see it as being more than it was" what a lot of nonsense! it was like she felt she had to be Welshy's watchdog for me. Boo to her, she made me quite paranoid about it all.
Saturday and after an iffy start - honestly who has a wedding in November?! It all went off without a hitch and then we had the aftershow party.
We were joined at our table by the two danish cousins and for some reason chatted to them about sharks and the mighty Dennis Rommedahl and the older one told me this was the first wedding he'd been too, let alone the first english wedding and they seemed a bit bemused about the toasts.
then after the meal it was time for the party and first dance and after that apart from the kids the dance floor was empty, apart from the kids messing about so with a few drinks inside us me and MH hit the dancefloor alone, although she got shy so we retreated to the bar after "Living on a Prayer"
After which MH got an attack of the nerves and didnt wanna dance alone on the floor, so i danced on my own pulling some really silly moves to get a laugh out of her and then decided to find a new dancing partner
I found the Danish group sat in a corner and harassed them until one gave in and came and danced with me, poor lad, didnt know half the songs, and I had to explain the concept of cheesy songs to him but after I demonstrated how to do the "Timewarp" and the silly dance to "I will walk 500 miles" He seemed to be really enjoying myself and in my drunken state I attacked him for his bowtie which seemed to alarm him slightly. I guess having a slightly drunken english woman suddenly launch herself at your throat is pretty scary, especially with no prior warning!
MH had found herself to Rock/goth type lads to chat to, one of which was hanging his head in shame at the awfully cheesy music, so i dragged him up with me and the Dane to "hips dont lie" by Shakira and tried to get them all to attempt belly dancing with me, which went as badly as i feared it might. And the three of us danced for a few songs until it was the end of the night and the obligatory slow songs came on, I danced by myself for one of them, with my imaginary partner before begging my two real dancing partners to come play and the Dane came and we had a very proper and formal slow dance.
The party closed so us three MH and another rock/goth lad she'd found headed to the other bar, where she made some comment about always wanting to dance on the table.
"Come up and have a go" invited the barman, she declined, but as if I was gonna let a chance like that down! So I clambered onto the bar, danced alone to music that wasnt there and then clambered over onto the otherside to serve drinks to our new friends.
So we sat up chatting and playing silly beggers till 3am when we decided the most obvious thing to do was decorated CL's car with loo roll and toothpaste and after that I realised that MH and the rock/goth guy she'd pulled had vanished and me and the dane were the only ones left!
so we headed up to his room, me worrying about being homeless and sleeping in a corridor, decided to wake me other dancing friend so i could sleep with him if i couldnt get into my room (The dane was sharing with his brother so that was out) but MH was done and ready to go by then so I gave the Dane a hug goodnight, thanked him for being a gentleman and a fun dancing buddy and headed to bed and luckily woke this morning hangover free!
The only downside of my ace weekend was not remembering to get either of my new friends emails or facebooks so they're lost to me now forever!
Back to work tmorrow! Boo!

christ why am i so tired all the time lately? i think that bug i caught scuba-ing has really wiped me out and i'm struggling to recover from it.
Anyway, my job interview, last wednesday. The Brat was hit by a sudden attack of kindness and offered to drive me up there. which was nice, but also meant leaving at 5am!
Fuck that for a box of spiders.
We did alright really, we only got lost, erm.. what... three times? on what is basically a straight route up the m11, a11, a14 and then some B1065 or sommat. who knows? either way it was basically a straight line up the road to Norfolk.
And we made it on time so who cares?!
i was supposed to spend the day on shift with them, which i was really looking forward to! I met the other applicants for Wednesday, i figure getting through to the final 12 (over two days) out of over a hundred applicants has to be good!
Anyhow I spent my morning in a funky white paper suit helping to clean and weigh some of the millions of injured hedgehogs and birds that had been brought into the centre.
Lots of scrubbing things involved in this job, which i suppose is fair enough, what with the risk of cross-contamination, then we had a quick break, and I helped to catch a seal in one of those slingy things, heave it onto some scales to be weighed prior to release (it was too skinny still so will be kept in a bit longer) and then shifted it into another pen.
We then helped treat and clean some more hedgehogs who had ringworm and it was time for my interview!
It went ok i think, i dont like to say it did or didnt in case it didnt go well. Hopefully i answered all their questions ok, although there was a moment on panic when they asked me to name 10 garden bird species! which normally i can name in my sleep. But when under pressure my mind went a little blank, but we got there in the end.
I spent the afternoon helping to clean out a loosebox that a badger had been living in (more scrubbing!) and was introduced to a cute little muntjac deer before The Brat came and found me and drove me home without us getting lost this time! Huzzah!
And now we play the waiting game. Never one of my favourites! i'm too impatient!

I was talking to V at work today, up in the observatory.
He's one of the FOG's (Funky Old Gits) there's 6 or 7 of these guys who have worked there for the past million years and have a combined age of 1 billion or something, seriously. The youngest I think is at least 54.
They're quite good fun really, and are all completely insane. I think its a combination of the isolation of being up the hill and the high altitude that's done it.
(its quite funky the hill being that high, meant I had a good view of this all day!

For example none of them seem to bat an eyelid that V is married twice, or claims to be. One of his wives is his Belgian Mamma who is 30 stone (i've seen the pictures of them, its proof enough for me).
Sometimes it means I have to endure conversations about "the good old days" or listen baffled while they write long and complaining letter to The Radio Times complaining about the Smug look on the faces of the teams on Eggheads, and as I spend a lot of time up there I'm an honourary FOG and an adoptive granddaughter to them all, they all call me "bub" which slightly irriates me, but they're harmless and it makes my day happier.
Which is nice, I seem to spend all my day getting hugs from them all.
Anyway.
I was positioned out in the cold today, after listening to an almighty rant in our morning brief about them all getting cold. (they tore our manager for the day a new arsehole, it was simply fantastic!)
And I was talking to V about my forthcoming interview (wednesday, i demand good luck messages!) when I was assaulted!
I'd been figdeting with my coat sleeve and making it rustle and somehow a squirrel had snuck upbehind me and assumed that the rustle meant that I was hiding food from him and proceeded to climb up my trouser leg to inspect what exactly it was I was hiding in my sleeve!
cheeky sod!

I didnt even see my attacker creep up on me! It was a unprovoked attack!

Remember the days when i used to complain about being bored? do ya? huh?
well i think i've gone in the extreme the other way! i worked it out the other day that the last day i had some time off to do absolutely nothing but sleep in, watch daytime telly and slob about the house eating ice cream was the 16th of september.
since then i have been just maniacally busy, theres' been work, overtime, events that i've worked out, scuba, football and trips to the pub, there's been visiting the Lizard and going to Bristol for CL and applying for about 50 million jobs and keeping in touch with Welshy.
Its no wonder that i'm slightly run down, blogging had to take a back seat and i'm fighting off a stupid cold (every time i cough, i utter the words, argh stupid cough!) anyone that'd think the cough'd learn from that that it's not wanted and sod off.
And its still not finished, my next day off is saturday, friday night i'm going to a friend from works leaving drinks, Welshy is down so i'll be *ahem* entertaining him the rest of the night getting up, rushing back home for football, doing some of my mums coursework and then getting ready for work, before i go to bed tonight i need to have booked all my stuff for the trip to norfolk next week.

anyway, perhaps if i'll get time in the next century i'll fill you guys in with the Mothership situation, its not good. I'm worried about her, I fear she might be suffering from some kinda depression. I dunno. But that's another day!
Because! I promised to tell you guys about Scuba and tell you about Scuba I shall!
Again JF proved herself to be an utterly awesome person by volunteering selflessly to be our own personal taxi and took us the 25 minutes out to the wee village of sapcote, where our B and B was near to Stoney Cove which is really cool and has all sorts down there, like a submarine! and a helicopter! and a bus! and a plane cockpit!
(and then taking us to the pub for a meal on saturday and then home again on Sunday.
Like I mentioned it was an utterly fucking freezing weekend and I still havent mastered the art of dressing in a wetsuit.
nor have I mastered the art of effortlessly heaving around a 12l tank of air, 8k of weights and putting on flippers, mask and snorkel without nearly overbalancing and falling flat on my face.
as much as i hate to admit it, i'm only small and fairly weak, so after one dive all my muscles were shaking and i barely had the energy to climb up and undress.
So I had to do that twice on the saturday and after that I was attacked by the Cold Virus!
All my nose blocked up and my voice grew hoarser and hoarser until it vanished!
So I tried to make it better when we went out by eating a fuckoff icecream.
Sunday I felt absolutely rotten and we were always told not to dive if you had a bunged up nose, ear whatever because of the problems with equalising the air spaces in your body and not having ears/lungs/head explode.
so sensible thing would be for me to not dive and postpone my final until april or later on when it was warmer and i was better, but as we all know i have a stupid stubborn streak and ignored all ssensible advice told the Evil Cold Virus to fuck off and went down anway.
so we went down and instantly i had problems equalising, i'd never had so much pain in my life in my ears, i really thought that my eardrums had burst, and funny thing was it was just in one section, of the lake.
once i was deeper it was fine, but it also so happened to be the place were were doing some of our dive proceduures, which i managed to cock up spectacularly, while sobbing in pain into my mask.
but i struggled through until the last dive, by which time i'd mastered the art of coughing underwater without spitting out my airpipe (always a handy skill!) and i had to take all my stupidly heavy gear off, and put it on again. and by this time i was utterly exhausted, freezing cold, and utterly pissed off with the entire thing. In fact I was virtually incapable of putting my gear back on, I just had no strength left to keep me upright in the water let alone put my gear on.
And I was on the brink of telling my examiner to "fuck the fuck off, i didnt care about his poxy exam and i didnt care if i fucking failed or not"
But again my stupid stubborn ness won through and i somehow managed to heave myself back into my gear, sobbing with frustration all the while and with more than a little help get dressed again and make it to the surface where i was helped out of the water and onto the shore and then had to spend 20 minutes recovering before i could strip out and warm up!
but! i qualified! hurrah for me! even if i have spent the last week struggling to get better!
Here I am on a slightly happier Saturday!

I am now a fully qualified scuba diver!
i've spent the weekend in freezing leicester in an even more freezing cold lake. The fish were amazing though and I swam near a submarine and a airplane cockpit.
i might tell you more and show you a pic or two tomorrow, i'm dying from exposure/hypothermia as well as my cold and sheer utter exhaustion.
Oh and i have a interview! for something degree related! finally! Huzzah!

So I'm back from Bristol, where I had a fab weekend, introduced Welshy to MH and CL, I think they liked him, I hope so, and he reckons he likes them too.
We all went out (well except Welshy - he'd just look daft dressed as a bunny girl) for CL's Hen Night, met her bridesmaids, gate crashed a wedding party - Imagine the co-incidence for that!
ate a ridiculous amount of take away and drank a reasonable amount and then came home to the room I was sharing in the Travel Inn with Welshy only to be interrupted by a guy knocking on the door at 3am asking if we had any cocaine we could have!
Its been a hectic couple of weekends, and up next weekend is my final part of my scuba exam in Leicestershire!

I'd asked for this friday and sunday off (I already had cleared the saturday agess ago) so I could go to CL's hen night (she wants us to be Bunny Girls! How on earth did she dream up that one? I refuse point blank to be one) In Bristol, I even convinced Welshy to take Friday off of work and spend it with me in bristol and then wait for up for me on Saturday.
So the little man gave me the time off and all was going great, until this weekend when I found that he couldn't do it! AARGH! I'd already spent fuckloads on travel and accomodation, it was a hairy few hours until two kind friends decided to take pity on me and swap days off around so I can still go.
I promised to bring them both back a present, they're nice lads. I'm sure they'll appreciate a Bunny Girl or something equally tacky from Weston's numerous tourist tat shops.
I was also in for DayTime OverTime, expecting to be put into a gallery, and at least given a role, even if I had no actual work to do, in stead I roamed aimlessly all day, talking to people and then decided to go home at half 4. Hurrah!

I also passed my diving theory and confined water dives! Next weekend I'm heading off to Leicestershire to do the proper open water part! Fingers crossed!

So this weekend started off on a bad note, when i managed to get to Kings Cross just in time to see my train pull out of the station. Curses!
So i tried to swap my ticket onto another train which normally I can do at St Pancras without any bother, but instead I was harassed but some stupid jobsworth cow who demanded to see proof that i'd been held up at blackheath, when I couldn't prove it, she claimed that it'd be a waste of her time to phone up the station and check it and made me buy another ticket! at 30 quid! ouch! I was really pissed off when she started lecturing me about how I should buy the tickets on the day at the station and not have that problem again.
Well if I could get the same deal and pay 12 pound to go up instead of 30 quid I would! Stupid Bitch!
So I was late heading up to see the Lizard and my new train meant I ended up spending two hours sat in Grantham train station, which really isnt as exciting as it sounds, although they make fucking nice ham and cheese toasties!
Finally however I made it to Skegness and met Lizard, who's still as batty as ever, she took me to the beach, and to Boston to see Ratatooie, which is awesome and we both got over excited about ice cream and fizzy frozen drinks and then she made a special detour to drive me past a place called Jolly Farmers Lane, honestly! hurrah for funky place names!
On Saturday we went to Natureland to visit the seals for feeding time and then we had chips on the beach, as is the law when you go to the seaside and then she drove me to Mablethorpe which is a place that I've had on the brain ever since my Seal Field Trip way back in uni, i dunno what it is about the name, it just sorta draws me to it, so she drove me there (past a place called the Jolly Common! I think its the law to be happy and jolly in Skeggy!) and we played in the sand dunes and made a sand dolphin and examined a fish skeleton that we found and then came home and made cakes!
and then went out for drinks, now Lizard is 5 foot nothing and is as skinny as, she weighs about 6 stone soaking wet, so it dont take much to get her drunk, let alone cocktails and sambuca.
So we got drunk, danced to cheese, watched a great drag act, before retiring home and deciding to walk up Lizards' stairs and dance about her floor pretending to be a chimpanzee.
And then the obvious and logical next step from that was to drunkenly call Welshy and MH and leave them voicemail messages explaining that we were chimpanzees and they were invited to Skeggy to roll on the floor mimicking chimps too.
So all in all it was a pretty ace weekend! despite the inevitable fallout the next day as we were informed of our drunken escapades!

tomorrow i'm scooting off to Skegness to see The Lizard, it's pretty exciting, she's just got herself a cushy number teaching in an environmental education centre, so i'm off to the coast.
its time to move on at awork, nearly all the people i get on with, and go drinking with have left to go to other better paid and more interesting jobs or go back to uni so i'm left with all the old fogies, who to be fair are really nice, but still, i dont wanna get in a rut there.
so i'm still job searching sigh.
and Welshy has himself a job, go him, although this is a huge bitch as before he just pottered down whenever i had two days of in the week, now everythings all based around my one weekend off a month.
big boo.
still! away to Lizards! yay!

today at work. i pretty much spent the day breaking open Sweet Chestnuts that fell from the tree and either eating them or feeding them to squirrels.
Its nice to know I earn my money!
Also I overheard this snippet of conversation:

"Of course, the food tasted better there as its a smaller house"

What the hell?! where and how does that work? and how do you work out what a small house is? do you do it by number of rooms? whether its a flat or bungalow? or by cubic feet?

Yesterday I went for my first scuba diving lesson!
It was dead exciting! And its so odd and a little creepy being able to breathe under water! Its just wrong!
We had to do masses of home work before and then go over it and then sit a little test which took about 2 hours and then an hour actually playing in the pool.
We did all the boring safety stuff, how to set it up and then we got in the water and we learnt how to clear our masks when they fill, how to share someones air supply, how to rescue yours when it falls out your mouth, how to inflate and deflate out BCD (buoyancy control device, dontcha know!?)
I kept laughing which made my mask move about and fill with water and you burp lots! I guess its something to do with the air spaces in your body adjusting and moving about!

I cant wait for next week's session!

Yesterday was one of my friends from the museums last day. The swine is moving to Switzerland.
So I was in charge of organising his leaving party. Which is always fun cos there's a hardcore amount of people at the Museum, who will only frequent ONE pub (The yacht), and complain loudly and bitterly and throw kiddy tantrums and refuse to attend anything that is held elsewhere.
Then you have people who dislike studenty places, like WeatherSpoons and Greenwich's version of Our Beloved Friary, the auctioneer, which is actually my favourite pub in Greenwich and where me and Welshy go a lot.
And then you have people like me, who dont really give a fuck where they go, as long as they go SOMEWHERE!
And to add to this mix is the few people who wanted (me and another guy) to watch the Rugby (aaah to the last WC when I dragged CL and MH out of bed to watch the final and then took CL to her first football match)
Being as the only pub I know with a Telly is the Auctioneer, it was the one I settled on, I spent all week informing people of this situation. I gave them a chance to change their mind and find me somewhere better but by 4.40 when I left work to go home, get changed and collect the leaving present, the location was The Auctioneer.
So imagine my disgust and rage when waiting for my bus back into Greenwich at 5.10 that they wanted to go to the Yacht and in fact thats where they were.
And believe me an enraged Charbs is not a pleasant sight. I raged all the way silently on the bus, stormed down the road, Slammed my way into the pub and announced loudly to a shocked group of workmates, barstaff and other unfortunate lookers on that:
"YOU GUYS FUCKING PISS ME OFF, YOU UTTER, UTTER BULLSHITTING WANKERS"
and other such pleasantries. And then I instantly felt bad, as their jaws dropped, unbelieving that I can utter such phrases, and actually be mad at anyone, and then as quickly as I'd raged my temper was gone and a good night was had by all. The Guy in Question Loved his present, England won the rugby, I got to wear star sequins all night, get mildly (ahem) drunk and pin a collegue down and demand to know, point blankly and quite rudely.
"You know Are you gay? I mean It dont bother me, I'm just curious like."
Apparently he's not though. Ooops! But all was well when we bonded over our mutual love of Dolly Parton!

Today I was in the Queens House which was built for the Wife of Charles the 1st and is mainly used as an art gallery today.
I discovered that a lot of the floorboards are loose, and of course my imagination run riot with me and I started pulling them up and looking, hopefully for lost treasure, but finding instead only a few fuse boxes and power points.
Still. I remain hopeful that i'll find something and am even considering leaving a message for gallery assistants of the future down there.

there's been another sign that I do actually own JesusBird.
He was watching one of the Rosellas enjoy a bath in the last of the summer sunshine
And decided to play too.


And so JesusBird took a step into the water. And sunk.
But then! The miracle happened!
He actually walked on water, ok, admittedly there was a lot of flapping and some hovering but there was a secong or two when he was WALKING ON WATER!
Hurrah!
N mocked that he was actually JesusBird. He then went to work the next day and found that his clutch was on gone on his car. And thats what happens when you mock the JesusBird.

JesusBird (grey one) and his Disciples!

Yesterday was dead exciting!
Mum woke me up at half 6 and dragged me to look out the window at our birds and there! Sitting on the roof, shivering and looking very miserable was the cockatiel!
Not eaten after all! He was minus a tail, so I guess when the hawk chased him next door, he managed to grab his tail and pull that off and my stray escaped!
So I put the cage out with some food in it and he didnt have the energy to fly to it, he dragged himself down, walked across the grass and hopped in and i ran out and shut the door on him!
He shouted at his big adventure being over and I brought him indoors for a bit but he kicked up such a fuss I let him into the aviary.
He clambered up to Satan Cockatiel, had a bit of a preen, cleaned himself up and had a nap and then Satan showed him where the seed was. Which was pretty clever of him really.
The Brat wanted to call him Jesus, cos he came back from the dead. But I pointed out that as much as I thought the name suited him it might not go down well with the religious types next door.
So we named him Dodge, cos he successfully dodged the Hawk.
And on another bird related note, we won last night with 2 perfectly taken penalties from Andy Reid! Our promotion bid is well and truely underway!

Good things.... Bad things.

Good.

Being on tickets with fun people...
.....
Being near the entrance to another gallery.... being near the light switch.... being able to turn the lights off everytime the GA walked into a different part and gleefully awaiting his grumble about how the shoddy electricans kept breaking the lights or the rotten kids turning his lights off...
.....
Being promised that the next time the flag needs to come down from the observatory roof, that I can climb up there with the New Gallery Manager to play....
.....
The stray cockatiel that spent most of the day around the aviary....


Bad...

Despite my best efforts to catch the cockatiel, he continued to fly about, tired, scared and starving until suddenly a sparrowhawk dived at him... A flurry of feathers and a scream from the cocktiel cut off mid scream and it was all over. I know its nature and all that but I feel as bad and as guilty as if it was one of my own birds that had escaped and been caught....
.....
The text I recieved from MH apparently LJ the guy who gave me a ride on his motorbike a few months back and the guy she's been living with cornered her, threatened her and then gave her a "tap" on the face.
I dunno what that means. In MH speak it could be anything from a proper smack or him just raising a hand. Either way she got out, is staying at STF and N's and will not go back there and has even got onto citizens advice.
She wont reply to any of my texts, so I'm trying to get hold of STF to find out what happened. I hope she's ok...

Two very exciting days at work lately!

One of our super posh and super expensive portraits - Turners rendition of The Battle of Trafalgar has gone on holidays! He's going on an american Tour.
Heading to the New York Metropolitian museum if thats anywhere near you Hydey? I may have remembered the name wrongly!
Anyway thats where it ends up in the Summer next year and I challenge you all to go admire the painting that i spent a good 7 hours looking at and deciding that there was a cartoon giant in it.
A lot of people hate that painting. Its all wrong you see, the Victory is wrong in the water it should be lower down than it is and some of the other details are wrong. But a lot of people like it and anytthing with a comedy giant in it, needs to be loved!
It was pretty exciting, I saw them take it down and sandwich it between filler and then seal it in a box and then i waved goodbye to it!

Today a staffy dog managed to get under the gates and go loopy in the courtyard, I reckon he came to stand on the Meridian line and get some one to take his photo, and then he came into my gallery, legs skittering about on the wooden floor and grinnin and waving his tail happily.
(In no way did I encourage him to enter my gallery - no. Thats wrong. Bad Charbs.)

I've also applied for a new job! As a penguin Keeper! That'd be dead cool, and as I reassured Welshy. I can easily take an egg when they lay them, incubate it at home and then raise him as my own pet penguin.
Which'd be fucking ace and the ultimate pet.

I think I've found the answer to my money woes. Well at least something that'll help.

Daytime overtime

Oh yes. All I have to do is sign my name away on the weekly rota sheets and I too can give up my days off and come in and work. For time and a half. Which, going by my summertime-overtime pay slip, means I only have to give up two days a month to recieve the extra sum of a 114 quid in my account. More or less (remember my poor maths skills)

Which means I could work, 9 days a week before I get two days off to recover (I have a crazy work pattern, where I work 4 days, have a day off, work 4 days, get 2 days off. Work 4 days, get a day off, work three days, get a weekend off)

I figure thats a do-able sum, my works not exactly physically straining, but it is exhausting. I walk between 6 or 8 miles a day.

But! I am a tough little cookie. I mean I'm currently (due to a fucked up September rota pattern) two days into a 6 day work shift, before I get a day off, work 4 days, day off. Three days, two days off. Five Days, day off pattern.
I figure I can work 9 days in a row if i gave up one of my days off, easy. My mate told me he did 22 days in a row once. I figure if that weedy little shit can. I can do double that. Easy.

The only problem at the monent is my sleeping pattern. I've tried hard to get myself into a good pattern, however insommnia does like to bug me and I'm finding it hard to sleep and when I do sleep, its restless and uneasy, with lots of bad dreams that wake me throughout the night, I thrash about, I throw my duvet around. I wake up feeling as exhausted as if i've had a really late night.
My crazy sleeping might last for a month, sometimes it only happens two or three nights and then I wont see it again for months and I'll sleep a restful, peaceful sleep.
It's just knowing how long it'll last for. I'm already falling asleep for a nap as soon as I get home and I'm desperately tired now, but its pointless going to sleep, because. Simply put I'm scared of the panic attacks that come in the dark.
I hope they go soon, i'm so tired and I need some sleep if I'm to survive this 6 day thing and do these long week working patterns.
(Plus Welshy is coming for another hotel adventure on Wednesday and although he knows about my shitty sleeping, he's never had to endure it and I dont wanna beat him up in my sleep, or show myself up to be a girly-girl if the panic attacks come!)
Boo to sleep and hurrah for daytime-overtime and that extra hundred quid in my payslip!

sometimes my Mum goes mental on me. Everything thats wrong in her life gets dumped on me.
It sucks, but thats the way it goes, my bro notices it, even her mates on occasion has told her to get off my back.
I dont know why, maybe I'm just that kinda person.
She goes crazily irrational. She wants me next to her all the time, but yet was bitching today about me watching telly with her.
"You have your own room. Go and watch telly there."
And then it'll be back to
"I might as well go to bed, you're upstairs and I'm bored of being stuck down here alone."
Honestly how can you win against that kinda logic?
All it does is make me feel like the worst, most horrible ungrateful brat-daughter ever.
Today, nothing I did was right. Every comment I made was wrong.
How was I to know that in the 10 minutes between her leaving for work and me leaving, she wanted me to put a wash on, hoover, do the washing up and post a letter? I'm not a mind reader. If she wants me to do this, all she needs to do is ask. I dont have time in the morning for everything she asks, but I'd willingly do some of it, if it meant I can come home and not worry about what foul mood she's in cos I cant yet mind-read.
All I asked was if something had run out of date 6 days previous, if it was still edible, and I'm not being fussy about bread or frozen food or pasta or some such shit, but EGGS (not laid by my quail I hasten to add.)
"Stop being a goddamn baby and a fussy cow and just cook the damn things."
The she accused me of not taking any care of the birds outside, which is a loada balls as she well knows. I spend at least 15 quid a week on food, bedding and stuff to keep their little feathery brains active.
But asking her to pick up a 5kg sack of seed in her lunch break when she has a car and doesnt have to battle a 35 minute walk home with it is clearly a sign of me not caring.
I wanna do this scuba course, I explain how I need it for fish-type jobs. She agreed that its a good idea, even though it's 350 quid and although I made extra money (£900) this month, all I normally take home is 720 so it leaves a big dent in my finances.
Speculate to accumulate and all that bollocks right?
Anyway she decided I need to pay rent, fair enough. I lived rent free while working part time at the shop, and I feel bad about not paying my share.
"How about I give you a hundred quid a month?" This I felt is fair enough. I'll be left with 620 when I get my wage this month, and even with the 350 I need to pay for the scuba, I should just about be able to manage and have some money.
She agreed this sum with me, so its not like I made an unreasonable request or I'm being ungrateful.
Yesterday she hits me with the bombshell that she wants me to pay 150 a month, not an great deal extra, but it means I only have 400 to last me the month.
The Brat earns nearly 350 a month more than I do and pays 200 rent. How can that be my fault that I dont earn as much as him and suddenly I need to be grateful that she's not asked for the full 200?
And she's not finished there. I say I can write you a cheque. And suddenly thats about the worst thing I've ever suggested. Honestly she chucked some crazed mardy at me, accusing me of trying to get out of paying for it. That I shouldn't sign up for a pointless course thats expensive if I'm going to complain about giving her a little bit of money.
Again. SHE AGREED THAT DOING THE COURSE WAS A GOOD IDEA. SHE AGREED A SET SUM, IN A CHEQUE, ONCE A MONTH.
I refuse to walk the streets with all those notes in my wallet and again its with the: "And who's fault is it you refuse to do any more driving tests?"
Now she's gone to bed with the strop cos today was a bad day to suggest that she help me write a basic begging letter to an aquarium, hoping they employ me.
"BUT YOU'VE JUST GOT A JOB! WHY DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE IT?!"
I loathe the museum, actually not as much as I loathed the shop, but I hate having nothing to do all day. I hate the fact that because of the crazy power balance in that place. I'm not allowed to do any overtime in order to get more money. That I get dumped in all the shit gallerys, by the other staff, who cross me off of the cushy numbers and put me in the daft places.
I hate the fact that as soon as I cross the door my brains starts to rot. I spend the day in a daze, broken only by my breaks and hometime.
I want to work with animals. I've wanted this my whole life. I did my degree to try and help me do that. I dont want to spend the next 30 years telling people not to take photos, or pointing them to the loo.
But apparently I should be grateful that I'm employed and stay there for at least a year before trying to find a job with no experience or no training that I'm actually qualified to do.
"Your problem is: You're never satisified. Why move on now?"
And people laugh when I tell them Welshy is a secret, that despite him wanting to meet her. She'll loathe him. She'll never get it. She'll use that as something else for her to go irrational about.

Its not just over-reacting is it? I know she's been through a lot. We all have. But why is it noticably me who seems to get used as her emotional punching bag?
I need to get out. And soon before I get stuck in a rut at the museum and living at home putting up with her good moods and trying to smile and tolerate her increasingly common bad ones.

I promised piccies of my new birdies and here they are!
This is one of my Rubino Rosellas. I was on a bit of a Harry Potter inspired naming session so they're called Tonks and Lupin, this one's Tonks and as far as I can tell is the female of the pair, and I can only guess at that cos she's smaller.
They're all dead pretty though, you can make out the pretty pearly yellowy white markings on the wings and tail.




Quentin the gay Quail died not long after I returned from NZ so I brought a new pair the same time I got the rosellas. This is Hedwig and the female of the pair. She's taken to laying eggs, pretty little pale green ones with darker green blotches.
Pigwidgeon is the same boring brown mottley colour of Quentin.
Hedwig is dead funny, she thinks she can fly like the big birds do and suddenly launches herself up into the space flapping her wings frantically and then crashes back down to earth. But she perseveres and one day I'm sure she'll get to sit on a perch like the other birds do!

somehow my bosses at the museum, have seen fit to extend my contract from a temporary one, to a perminant one. This is cause for much yayness as I have been panicking about going back on the dole and also some minor depression. The idea was, by now I'd have found myself a decent job, degree related, be out of london and living somewhere. perferably with a pet rabbit. And with Welshy. I miss him too much being miles away in Wales.
But. On the good side I suppose at least this gives me a bit longer to find that perfect job and to save up some more money.
The saving of money is a bitch really. My wage is really poor there, and as I'm spending so much a month on staying in touch with Welshy or visiting i finish each month with no money. Which is a big deal for me! Since we were very poor when I was little I've had this fear of having no savings whatsoever and even when I was at uni or working part time in the shop, I was able to save away a little bit of money each month. Now I'm finishing each month as I start it, with a big fat ZERO in my account.
But. I guess at least I blow it all on worthwhile things!
I've also decided to take up a proper PADI scuba diving course, in an effort to improve my job prospects. Unfortunately. It takes away over a third of my wages but if it helps me get out of London I suppose it'll be worth it!
Now the only thing that's causing hassle is finding the right time to do it, I wanted to go on the course right away, but E wants to do it as well, but is too busy at work until October, which is a big Boo as I just got paid for all the 6pm overtime finishes i've done all summer long, so had the money to pay for the course and wanted to do it, now I have to put it aside and wait probably till october.

Anyway. Let me tell you about my exciting incident at work today.
A pretty Asian-looking American woman came up to me and asked about the noise she could hear.
"What noise?" I asked.
Anyway, she describes the sound of a wooden door opening and the sound of a lot of rushing wind and then a slamming.
which puzzled me as it sounds EXACTLY the same as the door that you open, that she's standing just to the side of. When you open it, you hear a wind tunnel and look at the workings of a turret clock and the door makes a slam when you shut it. I figure if a person is too dumb to work that out for themselves then you're allowed to take the piss.
Its like your civic duty or something.
So I put on this puzzled look and then a face of realisation and then mock horror and asked her to describe it again, all the time thinking rapidly.
"Oh my god! You know some people here have reported the same thing! My friend Su refuses to work in here! She says she can hear that noise all the time in here! You know this room is supposed to be haunted?"
The silly tart is believing all this so I start expanding my story.
"I mean, I dont believe a word of this, but she is convinced of it. The story goes, is that there was this local lass Annie. Who fell in love with one of the astronomers that worked here and pined over him all summer, and then when she finally managed to confess her love. He told her he was betroved to someone from the next Village, which was Charlton in those days. And it was all too much for Poor Annie and she raced to the top of the Tower and threw herself off of it. And the story goes that you can sometimes hear the slamming of the door as she opens it, the sound of her body falling and the thud as it hits the ground. But its only a story, you know. I dont believe in it, ghosts aint real."
And then someone chose to open the door again and I really thought she'd click then but she never. She just gazed at me all wide-eyed and believing but flinched as the door slammed shut.
She never even stopped to say goodbye but rushed out of my gallery so fast she left skid marks on the ground.

I felt evil, but I had a good chuckle at it!

Hurrah, I'm back from Camping and to end a top week I met A for a quick drink before the mighty Addicks gained their first 3 points of the season with a stunning secondhalf come back to finish the game 3-2.
I really liked camping! Although traipsing through about 20 fields or crossing trainlines in the dead of night in order to find a toliet aint exactly my idea of fun, especially when your imagination is running riot with you, about serial killers lurking in the darkened cubicle, making me run in and out!
We were right next to a beach too, so spent hours paddling and swimming and playing silly buggers on the sand and then one night we headed into the town to go on the fairground rides.

Now here's the thing, despite all the scary shit i got up to in NZ, I LOATHE with a passion fair rides. I refuse to believe that that clickety old thing that might have been in place 20 years is safe, and i especially dont believe the ones that travel about are safe, i mean it only takes one guy to forget to tighten a bolt and there where will you be? Dead on the Waltzer is where.

So Welshy made me go on that, and I kinda enjoyed it until the fairground guy came and started spinning it and then I started screaming like a little girl, demanding that he stop.

We found ace pubs, some that showed the international friendlies, some that played all the awesome old time music (How good honestly is Tie a Yellow Ribbon?) and one that had a natural spring in it complete with goldfishies against one wall!

We went pony trekking, which was a bit dull although I'm happy just plodding about on a horse, even at a beginner walk level.

We toasted marshmallows and I dared Welshy to drink an entire bottle of wine to himself and we or I ate noodles that I cooked over a wee bunsen burner type stove and then had to eat with my fingers cos we had no knives and forks.

He showed me star constellations and we played phone monopoly, of which I was cheated and we tried to egg each other on for midnight skinny dipping, although in the end we both chickened out cos it was just far too cold!

It was a fucking ace mini-holiday all things considered! Shame its back to work tomorrow.

Guess who I kinda did and didnt met on Thursday?!

Think top super cool hollywood megastar! Think Voice of Woody in Toy Story! That's right! I met Tom Hanks! In my museum! Well I didnt!
See on Friday they were discussing his visit and I complained that I'd been in the museum and not in the Observatory where he'd been (apparently he's a big clock geek and came to see the Harrison Timepieces) and then they all turned to me and frowned and asked what gallery I had been working in and so I told them.
"But (insert real nickname) He did come into you're gallery, I saw him! He had two minders with him, how can you not have seen him?!"
So who's the most famous person you've seen and not realised?!

I'm away camping with Welshy till Saturday, have fun all!

Thank you all for my birthday wishes!

As soon as the weather improves Hyde I'll take a picture for you of the birdies!

As for telling my mum. I still havent done so. I dont know how. Its pathetic. I'm 24 *shudder* not 14, I shouldnt be having secret relationships, especially when I'm going on holiday next week to wales with Welshy (another lie, mother thinks I'm going elsewhere!)
I said about it to E. She asked that I wait until she'd left London before I confessed all and she thinks i'm crazy.
When I think about it I am, not only for lying and getting myself into this mess but for wanting to confess, its gonna be a huge row over nothing. Welshy STILL wont be able to stop at my house or hang out.
I remember the fuss she kicked up over MH being my friend and me going to uni or going out with my work friends. She just cant accept that I need to live my own life thats separate from her.
And she'll scowl at Welshy and hate him irrationally. And its times like this I really miss my Dad more than ever cos he'd be able to talk some sense into her.
And I still dont know how to do it, how to go about it for the best or whether its best to keep quiet and carry on as I am.

its my birthday!
I'm 24 years old and I hate it! I wanna be 23 again!
I got some new beautiful red parrots for my birthday, with pale yellow, almost white pearly markings on them.
And a new pair of quail, now I have 11 birds living in my garden!
And it even looks like Charlton are winning as well to help celebrate my big day!

Football's back! Hurrah!
I love waking up on the first day of the season, especially when we're at home and thinking "yay no work! Football later! I get to see all my football friends that I dont see any other time apart from on alternate Saturdays!
Its like how I always imagined birthdays and Christmases to be, full of excitement and anticipation, only to end in crushing disappointment by the end of the day.
Bring on Scunthorpe! Hurrah!

(a 1-1 draw? you're having a laugh!)

Welshy and me when to Antartica yesterday!
Well not the real antarctica cos that's just silly, although I would like to go there! This was a representation in the Natural History Museum. We got to sit in a freezer room, where the temperature dropped to below -10 (which is fucking freezing when you've only got a tshirt on!). He laughed at me going numb! The bastard!
We got to drive a simulated skidoo and smell penguin vomit! It was fantastic!
We also went to see the Simpsons movie which really rocks! We saw a naked Bart! And Spiderpig! Hurrah for spiderpig!

We made a kinda deal as well, last night. See he has the most awful diet of anyone I know in my entire life. He exists simply on chips and bread (but never mixed!) which worries me, it cant be healthy in the slightest. Its like a food phobia, that he cant eat anything else. (I should be careful what I put seeing as he reads this!) So he promised to try if I told me mam about him.

See she is blissfully unaware that he exists. I've just always made lies and excuses about where I was going, it was easier than telling her I was meeting a friend from the internet as she remains convinced that everyone from there is a serial killer.
And then, well as now I worried about her state of mind, how much she relies on me, how much she hates other people taking me away from her, so I never told her about all our little dramas before we got together, about how happy he makes me (yeah bitch you know I know you're reading this so thats all you're getting) and now i've built up this horrid web of lies, designed to not upset her and me, cos she'll be a bitch when i tell her, and its all gotta come to an end.
I hate lying to her, but I've always gone for the quiet life with my dealings with her.
She'll not like the fact that I've lied to her for over a year, that I'm sleeping with him, and she'll really not like the fact that he's so important to me.
And as well on my list of confessions I'm going to have to admit to the loss of my brothers driving license! If i dont post for a while it'll be because he's put me in hospital!

yesterday I discovered that the shop sold spacefood, like real proper astronauts in space eat!
So today I simply had to try some. I tried a space icecream, inside two chocolate bourbourn biscuits.
It was all freeze dried and in packets and more than a little disappointing.
I mean if I was in a big spaceship and I'd done some kinda super hard and really technical thing, like washing my spaceships windows and wanted to reward myself with a big bowl of ben and jerries, I'd be really, really heart-broken with what I got.
I definately think Mr Whippy should start organising some kinda space icecream van.
Playing his happy little tune and handing out 99's to whoever asked for one.
I bet there's a market for this!

The Wicker Man came to work today!

fucking hell!
Just spent the last two hours filling in an application form for a job in Hull, when an accidental click of the mouse removed all my hard work!
Cunting computer bastard thing.

Anyway, let me tell you about my trip to Wales. It was dead exciting, I got to go on Welshy's Magical Mystery Sight-seeing tour of all the places that he knows and he took me on the bus to the Aquarium near Chester and promises to take me to the Zoo next time (If there is a next time) I visit.

I met his Mam and brother and Sister, who I made leave her bed and room so I could sleep in it, poor bitch. And his brother's rabbits and had some of the special cake that his brother had made for the occasion and I met one of his mates and his mates girlfriend and I think they all liked me but you'll have to ask him for whether I passed the inspection or not!
They're all nice, and best of all when I came up and down on the train the stupid ticket inspector never marked my ticket so I have virtually a free ticket to use again, before August 26th!

This nearly but in no way makes up for me leaving my brothers oystercard and full driving license card on the train at Crewe, that was then heading towards Liverpool.
I hope it returns in the post in a few days, I'm not looking forward to his mental breakdown when he realises!

I've been collecting Boy Scouts!
I plan on working my way through them all, state by state.
Since the other day when I was part of a scout Human Pyramid the museum has been invaded by hundreds if not thousands of Boy Scouts.
They're all heading to Chelmsford for a big Boy Scout Jamboree or sommat or other, and assure me that by the 8th of August over 40,000 different scouts will have attended or be there.
From what I remember of Chelmsford thats about 38,200 more people than actually live there!

So I've made it my mission to attack each little gang (troop?) of Scouts as they wander about and find out where they're from.
They all look a bit bemused as I wander (casually of course!) staring hard at their little badges and then stop and demand to know where they're from and if its somewhere new they get clapped and if not then I tell them off.

So far in the past two days I've got: Colorado, California, Georgia, Lousiana, Texas, Arkansas, South and North Carolina, New York, Washington, Pensilvania (yeah I know thats wrong, but its taken me 4 attempts to get that far and I REALLY cant be bothered to try again), Florida and New Jersey. (Plus a Scout group from Portugal)

They all seem pretty amused by this collecting and suggest that I get a little map of all the states to tick off so I know what one I've done and whats left to get and they all hand me their buisiness cards and one group from North Carolina handed me a special commerative coin celebrating this big ScoutFest!

After Work tomorrow I'll be making the most of having the weekend off and am scooting up to Wales on the train to see Welshy and meet his family! I'm terrified!

So on Friday night me and Welshy and E went to the pub and eagerly awaited the Midnight launching of Harry Potter!

And God it was worth the wait! I got home and started reading it and finished it at 3.50 that morning and then went off to work for 9.

And I've been waiting impatiently for other people to finish it so I can talk about it and its taken them forever!

I cant believe its all over though! Now what am I going to look forward too?

I have been in Derby the last two days!
I met MH's new housemate, we'll call him LJ, he's great, he became like my new best friend, once CL appeared and the talk degenerated to weddings (CL's getting married to UDOBF in November) So me and LJ talked of normal things, like how fucking awesome Monty Panasar is and if we'll bounce straight back up from the Championship and we picked out a Dream Team from the paper.
I'm not sure yet how he and MH will get on, but it might all work out, hope so!
We all went to see Harry Potter (Again) And then he took me out for a ride on his motorbike! I've always wanted a go! BB would never even let me sit on his bike when it was parked so to get a go was dead exciting!

(Like the green shoes?!)

We went speeding about the streets, its all scary, as I couldnt put my glasses on so everything was kinda blurry and he kept laughing at me trying to duck out the way of the traffic coming at me from the other side of the road!
I loved it! Maybe I am some kinda adrenaline freak!

And Tomorrow the wait is over! Yes! After 7 books the Harry Potter saga will be over!
I cant wait! I'm making plans to be there at waterstones at midnight!

I went to see Harry Potter last night! It was great! I loved it! And the last book is out next weekend! I cant wait! Hurrah!

I had THE best morning in work ever, ever, ever today! I was stuck in the really boring modern contempory art gallery, which basically looks like some guy went mental with a stencil and half a box of colouring pencils.
(I did make a documentary style film on my mobile about JUST how boring this place is, but I'm not sure you guys deserve to view it!)
Anyway, you're lucky if you see 20 people all day, its that quiet with nowt worth looking at.

And I was there, chilling out, doing the wordsearch that I'd smuggled in, when in bounced an american boy, perhaps about 12, he disappeared and returned a few minutes later with 8 friends and a grown up.
"Hi there!" (Imagine funny US accent)
"Hey!" I said chirpily (Imagine wonderful and in no way irritating cockney accent)
They did the usual, "What the hell is this place?" question and I joked that this was where you went when you were bad.
They asked if I saw many people and I laughed and said no and that I was bored and lonely.
"Awww" One joked. "You sound like you need a hug!"

I nodded. "Indeed I do!"
The next thing I know, he's given me this massive bear hug and then all his little mates are hugging me one after the other and then some other grown up who's with the group appears and is told to give me a hug too, which he does, rather bemusedly.
I found out that they were two scout groups, one from California and the other from Colorado (apologies Yanks, but I had to ask where Colorado is on the map)
Anyway getting lots of hugs would have been enough to make my day, except they then went bouncing along my gallery and discovered that there is a song on the wall. Which they then sung to me. Which excited me even more and I told them, that they were about the best thing to happen to me all day and that I wished others could see this and they pointed to the CCTV camera and asked who was looking at that and I told them security and then the next thing I know, they've all agreed to get on the floor and write out HI! with their bodies.

Which excited me greatly! I mean one of them was even curled up to be the dot on the top of an i!
And I ran to get my phone to take a picture of this! Its much too dark to see really, but I just HAD to try and show you guys!
Then some how, one of them decided, that they should form a human pyramid! So i lurked to take the photo and then they urged me to be in it too.
So thats how I ended up, on my hands and knees on the back of two 14 year old scouts from California, and a 12 year old from Colorado balancing a little precariously on my back and my companion to the side!
I begged them to send me an email of the pyramid, and they all seemed overwhelmed to collect my email and all had little buisness cards! It was adorable!
I was mildly hysterical with laughter for the rest of the day thinking about it!

I'm looking after Red Squirrels blog for a bit!

Come on over to play!

Dont worry! It wasnt a dress! I dont do dresses!

So yesterday me and Mam and her toyboy WA piled into the car as the Rectory Field Contingent and went along to deepest, darkest Surrey to OF's wedding.
(I should probably explain, that she's known him since he was born and is about 11 or 12 years older than him and has called him that all her life and so we use the term as well, even Dad did - it led to a fuckload of confusion in the past!)
So strange to think of the girl that I used to joke about what it was like to be old and married getting married herself! I'm still struggling to think of her as having a new surname!
The church itself was cute and tiny, apparently its been about for the last 700 years or so, and it only seemed to take her five steps and she was up the aisle, her bridesmaids had to sorta hover at the back as to avoid stepping on her train.
But she did herself proud and didnt cry or anything as she feared she might as she said all her vows and stuff, although she did trip over her words a bit!
I suppose it was a nice service but its in no way made me change my mind on getting married myself one day!
Then we all piled back into the car and drove to her folks place for the reception.
I left Mum and WA to play silly buggers, I went of to congratulate OF, catch up with her sister, now finishing her first year of kiddy nursing!
And steal her older brothers top hat, I've always had a thing for top hats, I love them. I want my own one to wear about the street.

I nearly got away with it, until the end when he realised. "Oi (insert real nickname)! Gimmie that back you thief!"
I also met some other guy who fed me caviar. I dunno if any of you lot have had that before. But its rank. Horrid. Very salty and the little eggs pop in your mouth. It was gross.

Then it was time for the speeches. I got mentioned in the Father of the Bride Speech!
He told about her mischievous side when she cut all my hair off when I was about 6 and how her husband could tell when she was lying and recounted a story about how he'd found her eating lots of chocolate - thieved from our fridge! and asked if thats where she'd got it from and she'd claimed that I'd given it to her and clapped her hands over her ears to stop them going red as her Dad told her thats how he could tell she was lying!
Congratulations to her. I hope she and him are very happy, even if I think they're crazy!

Today I was in charge of tickets at work.
I like doing tickets and being a meeter/greeter. You get loads of people to chat to and there's always something going on. High profile and stressful at times, but I love it (when its going smoothly!)
The guy who was my opposite number today and the girl who relieved us for our breaks are both foreign.
The guy absolutely dazzled me, he spoke french, italian, spanish and german as well as near perfect ( well a lot more perfect than me) english.
The relief girl is Korean and also speaks japanese. So i felt kinda left out and a bit rubbish at only really being able to speak english to people!
So I dragged up the few words of German and Spanish, that I remember from school (hi, how are you, have a good day kinda stuff) and then demanded that she teach me Korean and Japanese.
So now I can, very badly! pronounce Hello, Goodbye, Sorry, Pretty, Idiot, and thanks in Korean and Japanese! And I then kept pouncing on oriental looking people asking where they came from. Often I was disappointed when they told me Woolwich or China but sometimes I got to practise. They seem to be more excited when you try and speak to them, than the Germans/Spanish people were. Maybe cos they're nearer and are more used to people tryin to talk to them in a mangled version of their language!
Konechiwa/An Nyoung!

Tomorrow Is OF's wedding. Mental. she's only 23

I went to see Shrek 3 last night!
It was good, not as good as the other two though, the best bit was when the Gingerbread man did a poo and a jelly tot fell out. How I laughed!
Had a classic silly Charbs moment when I raced to get a drink and sweets before the trailers started (everyone knows they're the best bit of going to the pictures!) and fell over my own feet, hurrah for me!

Earlier that day I was walking to catch a bus to the stables along an empty road, free of an obsticles, parked cars or anything like that.
Apart from a large puddle in the gutter, actually it was more like a little moat.
And there I was walking alongside it innocently and minding my own buisness when a car came by and decided it'd be fun to swerve into it, causing a lot of splash to come up.
Soaking me from head to foot.
Needless to say my full range of swearwords were unleashed at the car now disappearing into the distance!

Welshy was down again!
We booked ourselves a couple of nights in a hotel overlooking the Upton Park pitch! and it was great! all West Ham themed!
I stole a pen as a memento! It'll go in the drawer with the other things i've pilfered over the years. The teaspoon... the wine glasses... the bar mats and stuff!
Anyway, we also took the train down to Brighton for the day!
I love the beach! But it was just too cold to go Swimming! I played in the surf for a bit, splashing about and getting freezing cold and wet jeans while he stood by and watched!
And we ate chips on the beach! And he squealed like a girl when I made the gulls come (didnt you! hahaha)
And off to the sealife center and the pier where we played in the amusements and sulked over the fair rides being closed and stuff!
Ace couple of days!

Because of me, this notice was read out in the morning brief.

"Gallery assistants are reminded that the plastic bags for umbrellas are not to be worn about your person. Please kindly remember that you are representing the museum and act accordingly."

I feel so proud!

Phew!
One of the drawbacks of working at the museum is that I have to work 3 weekends out of 4 (its ok, I've got the ones that Charlton are playing at home off already!)
not that I do much over the weekend anyway, now there's no football, but it sucks knowing you're in work the next day while everyones out and about.
Anyway. After work I found Welshy in Greenwich and we went for a meal and then another internet friend got in touch and we went to meet him at Covent Garden.
And we ended up all going to some random little club, playing some cheese! Whooyeah! At at 3am, I found myself wandering the streets of London with Welshy, still in my work uniform.
I've blogged about my adventures on the Night Bus before, which has left me with a deep horror of getting it again, never mind the fact that it takes just under two hours to get home on.
So we decided to find a hotel room, got totally ripped off at 90 quid for one near Covent Garden (It didnt even have shampoo! I had to wash my hair in the morning with a bar of soap! Just like in the Movies!)
So by about 4am, we were snuggled up for the night, me still clutching my work backpack.
7am and I bombed back home, just in time for the morning brief at work. STILL in my contacts (bear in mind I'm only really supposed to wear them for 7 hours at the most) and still in the uniform that I wore when I left for work the day before.
Yeah! Go me! Classy! Not even time for a change of socks or anything!
I feel quite fine about it all though, not hungover (unlike one certain grumpy Welshman this morning) and I've only just started to succumb to tiredness!
Quality fun night! Although far more money than I was expecting to spend on what I assumed would be a simple tea in a local pub!!

Things that I learnt in my gallery today.
If you put your foot in each flagstone squarely. It should be 38 steps to walk through the "Your Ocean" section, depending on how you walk the route it can reach 39 steps.
If I walked very slowly around the upper deck I can make it last 4 minutes and 37 seconds. If I walked averagely I can walk around it in 3 minutes and 5 seconds. If I walked at my normal speed I can do it in 2 minutes and 12 seconds.
I kept a tally of how many visitors came by different galleries in a 5 minute period. This broke down as follows:
1 - West Street - 36
2 - Passengers - 37
3 - East Street - 18

4 - Cafe - 3

My Gallery - 10

People that then went into Your Ocean 5

Tickets Entrance - 21

Tickets Exit - 23
Left Ticket booth - 3

Right Ticket Booth 8 - equalling 32 people in total

this added up to 164 people (not counting my added bit of who then went where)
So using the power of a calculator I then worked out the mean average, so 164 divided by 10 means rougly 16.4 people went to each to each part of the museum.
How can you only have .4 of a person? what is that? an arm? a leg? How can I have got so bored to have dedicated my day into doing this kinda research?

Welshy came to visit last night!
Yay!
He suggested it on Thursday and I didnt really believe he'd come all this way cos i'd hardly get to see him this weekend and even him texting me all the way down, didnt really sink in until I saw him enter the pub!
I kept acting like a real girl, laughing at him and telling him, he wasnt supposed to be here! He was supposed to be at home! In Wales!
It was a pretty good night actually, before this, I got invited earlier in the week to "Lark in the Park" a picnic organised by one of the guys from work. We'll call him Clumsy. Now i'm always covered in bruises from walking into things or accidently kicking things. But he's possibly the only person I know who's more spacky than me.
I mean, when I met him, he bounded over to meet me, like a little labrador puppy or something and immediately fell over a chair.
So about 14 of us had this nice picnic in the park after work and then some of us headed into The Yacht, which was great, although in a fit of over-generousity I insisted on buying the entire group a drink - and then The Idiot Brothers came in, who i've mentioned here in the past, as the family that treated us like we were infectious, well still do really, when Dad got sick.
Anyway, we see them out and about down the Standard or at the shops round the front occasionally, and I make the point of saying Hello and making them feel awkward, but I dont mind that so much cos I can then walk off feeling all smug and moral for forcing them to acknowledge me. But in the pubs and things I hate meeting them, I get all agitated and literally shake with rage and I know if I met them when I was really hammered, I'd probably confront them and that wouldnt be a smart move, so as soon as Welshy arrived I made him leave the group with me and we went to another pub and the night resumed smoothly.

Anyway. TODAY!! (This is turning into an epic!) I had to go clothes shopping for something that can be combined for both OF's wedding in July and CL's in November. Clothes shopping in itself is always traumatic. (its alright for you guys, you can walk into Debinghams without being accosted by a hundred orange-skinned sheep trying to force you into their chairs so they can attack you with the latest Super-Duper Mascara or tut at the dirt in your broken nails or something equally horrid)
And clothes shopping for events like this is always traumatic, cos it involved boring hours of looking at clothes and the constant "This'd be so much easier if you just gave in and wore a dress or a skirt" and my refusal to wear something flowery. Or black (well apparently black and green are BAD WEDDING COLOURS). Or White. Well white is a bad colour for someone incapable of keeping neat, clean and tidy. And I refuse to buy a pair of trousers, however nice they are, that cost £40 especially when I will only be wearing them twice at most. And I will still need to spend on a top, and new undies, and the accessory shit that HAS to go with it.
Its not that I want to be awkward... I'm just stubborn! After 2 hours Mother admitted defeat, and we went home, although I really need something to wear as jeans and trainers are out! So it'll be this whole debacle over again at some point. I'm dreading it, I really am!

Oooh exciting!
I spent the day down the hill in the Queens House which is an art gallery. I'm not really an arty-farty person, but some of them are absolutely amazing and you can spend hours looking at them and constantly spot new things.
This is one of my favourites. You cant get it as good here, obviously as in the flesh, but there's something about the widow in black and the woman in purple behind her, you almost can feel how soft their clothes are and I love the man who's sitting there silently smoking his pipe. I was making up a little story about how he was an ex-sailor, longing to be back on the open waves.
The other good thing about that post today was that I discovered the research computers. Some internet sites were blocked, but I managed to find my way to the Charlton site to get the new seasons fixtures and i discovered that I can play the crossword, wordsearch and match the pirate game on the museum's website.
so that wasted a good hour or so, while I played rather than patrolled!

So! Let me tell you a little bit about my job, three weeks in!
Although employed by the National Maritime Museum, I seem to spend most of my time here. In the Old Royal Observatory - Home to the Meridian Line (Yawn), the timeball, which is no where near as good as it could be and Harrisons Clocks (Bigger Yawn)
If telescopes and clocks turn you on, this is like being in your very own porn movie.
However if like me, you couldnt care less about them, you spend a lot of your days with a glazed look on your face or running from the on the hour chimes and ticking clocks! Some galleries are pretty good and you spend all day on your feet learning stuff (I now consider myself a minor expert on Horatio Nelson) or staring blankly at a blank wall.
The people are all really nice and I like the fact that I get to sneak home 20 minutes early when I do the relief shift, but its very dull with nothing really to keep my brain turning into mush (I dont seem to be able to find a medium - plenty to keep my brain busy at the shop and fish, but not a lot to do and vice versa here!)
My favourite position has to be on the North Courtyard, where you get an amazing view over onto the city and I can stop and look out on the wildlife, in fact I've already started naming some of the pigeons and indulge in bird spotting, admiring the cheeky little tit birds and very excitedly seeing my first woodpecker and jay!
And of course I get to eat my dinners and share my breaks with the squirrels, deer and ducks!

Welshy's leaving me!
The bastard!
Incidently I gave him the address to this place, so say Hi to him!
He's pissing back off to Wales to get some money together and shit and we're doing grown-up things - which sucks, I swear I mean, I was almost getting excited about the pension plan at work, what the flying duckfuck is that about?
Anyway, hopefully it'll only be for a short while, and I'll be going to visit him on my long weekend in June. So! Lets all hope it goes better than my last attempt at a long distance thing!

I took Welshy to the stables yesterday for a ride!
He did pretty well for a first-timer and I showed myself up completely, with a loss of concentration and crashed my pony into his!
Afterwards, we went with some of his uni friends to the Globe to see Othello, I've not read it before but I knew the vague story outline and got totally engrossed in it, it was awesome and they sold Ye Olde Ben and Jerry's!

Oh and as for the other thing? Loads and loads better and not half as painful now, I really quite enjoy it - not that I didnt before when we tried!

ouch!
As interesting as that was, not quite sure it was worth the wait!

Its time to fill you guys in on a little secret.
We all know Welshy told me, just before xmas that he fancied me.
And thanks to Red Squirrel *rolls eyes* - last time i tell you anything in private! - we know that I got very drunk one night and stayed over and drunken stuff happened.
anyway, I realised a couple of weeks ago, that he'll be leaving me soon for good as his uni degree will be done and he'll be heading back down to Wales.
Which quite upset me, the silly fuck's been there for me a hell of a lot the last two years and we've shared a lot of stuff, became very close and I think of him as one of my best friends.
And to think that he might not be there any more upset me more than I thought it would do.
So when he asked me out again a couple of weeks ago, I said yes and surprisingly he's making me a happy little camper.

Tomorrow is my last training day at the museum before they let me loose on the unsuspecting public, I have to sit a small test so fingers crossed!

Well a new day at work is always eventful, but i never expected it to be in this way!

The Cutty Sark is the last of its kind and lives in dry dock in Greenwich Town Centre, I've grown up playing around it and always take friends new to Greenwich to see it.
so it was pretty devastating - even if it is only a ship - to wake up with pictures like that on the news!
Still! Here's hoping it'll be repairable, although I worry over the state of it!

Tomorrow I start my new job!
I will be working until September at least as a "Gallery Assistant" in the Museum, which is not too far from my house.
Its not the worlds most thrilling museum but a jobs a job and it could have unexpected perks plus! STF has offered me the chance to go to New Wembley to see the Shrews in the Playoff Final! I have to work three weekends out of four so I'm hoping it'll work out that I'll be off this weekend and I can go with him and A to it!
Yeah!

I went to Liverpool Yesterday to make the most of our last Premiership away-game for the season!
hurrah! Somehow I'd always imagined it to be a lot bigger than it actually was, and I was quite gutted at the result, we'd outplayed them for most of the game, still! I suppose at 2.50 that afternoon I'd have been quite happy with a 2-2 draw!
Apart from the awful weather and the mean Scouse Steward who stole our beachball and then gave it to some wee Scouse Child it was a pretty awesome day out!




And Happy, Happy Joy, Joy, I even got a decent view of most of the game, although The scousers were pretty quiet!

The Hillsborough Memorial.


















Now its time to get out my "Championship Away days" book out and figure out just how to get to Scunthorpe for next season!

Well... After 7 years in the premiership, we're down.
Its been expected all season, but still.
Come whatever I'll be there again in August, and I'll be at liverpool next week, but oh dear oh dear

Employed Charby!
Yeeeehaa!

somehow all my links have gone. Sigh. That'll be a bitch to repair.
MY job interview went ok, I think. I got nervous and babbled on a bit, but we'll see how it goes.
Oh! and there was a classic Stupid Charbs moment on the bus going to the interview.
I was in a world on my own, before noticing that I was getting some strange looks from those getting on and the man sitting next to me, seemed to be providing my chest with a great deal of attention.
I'm only little and have little boobs, so I dont often get people staring at them, least of all when I'm in a suit and all covered up like a good girly.
At least... Thats what I thought and then I happened to glace down and realised that my shirt had popped open.
And everyone was getting a good eyeful.
Still. I made up for the cunt not having the politeness to tell me, by giving him a short sharp "accidental" kick in the ankles as I went to get off.