I set myself Three New Years Resolutions last year.
1: To travel more
2: Learn another language
3: Finally get another job.

Hmm. I guess I did achieve the travelling thing, I toured most of Italy, well the only bits I'd ever wanted to see anyway. I only really got the one day in Rome, so I'd like to go back and see the bits I missed, actually get inside the Vatican and see the Sistine Chapel, as it was too busy when we were there and we were so limited for time. I think I'd like to go to Venice again as well, its shabby and rundown, but on a good day its one of the most beautiful cities. If things had gone according to plan I'd also be able to tell you that my Visa and plane tickets to India were sorted, but there we go. I still have 18 days of leave to use up before April, so I'm sure I'll get away again.
I did Also achieve my other language resolution, well I claim I did, I guess it depends on the person, I went on a BSL (British Sign Language) course in the Summer, I'd like more practise at it, but I feel I could, perhaps, have a very basic coversation with a Deaf person, I'm also trying to put my Gallery Favourite Talk into Sign, but that's gonna be a long process, perhaps next year I'll do another course in it as I really enjoyed it.
I failed in my mission to get another job, not without lack of trying, I had three interviews last year, perhaps that dont sound too good, but over 300 people went for my Seal Job over in norfolk and to get myself in the last 6 that get interviewed ain't too bad! And I think thats the same with all my other interviews, plus what with the climate at the moment, people are less inclined to leave the jobs they have, or create others, so it was August that I had my last interview, but I have one Thursday week, so we'll see.

Good points of the Year? - Welshy coming back and getting Geronimo, I cant imagine going back to just seeing him, one day every three weeks again, Italy was a good point as well. I've started riding again too, something I've missed a lot, although falling off of Selica last week, wasnt good!
Bad? - Still being in the Museum, still pandering to the whims of Mother - who is the reason I'm home tonight, even though she went to bed at 7.
Granddad's Cancer is another bad point, I couldnt bear it if he died as well, nor can I bear the fact that my other Aunts and Uncles seem to carelessly abandon him and Nanny to me and Mum to deal with.
And Charlton's seemingly relentless slide to League One is also a real bad point! Just think, when I started this blog, we were 4th in the prem and beating the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea. Now we're 24th in the Championship and 4 points behind everyone else, in a lower league and losing to the likes of Barnsley and Blackpool and if things dont pick up we'll be off to another lower division!

I wanna talk about MH too, but that's a post for another day, so all thats left is for me to thank you all for reading! Wish you a Great New Year and Hope you join me in telling 2008 to fuck off at midnight!

Happy Chrimbo to you all!!!
I've rather enjoyed having 5 lazy days off, although going back to work tomorrow is pleasing me slightly as I'm rather bored imprisoned in this house with no where to go!
Plus in the New Year I have another interview, for a safari park in the midlands. Wrong side of Derby though, but hey ho.
They phoned me up last Sunday, so i wonder if thats a good sign, or not! I've been to a few interviews over the year, for the RSPCA in Norfolk, for Colchester Zoo and London Zoo's but due to the economic climate at the moment, work kinda dried up around August and then didnt come back so I was reduced to looking for seasonal work, but this is a full time position!
I feel really awkward though, it was a job I applied for, merely to keep myself motiviated for applying for jobs, like I said it all dried up and from doing one application a week, to not doing any in three/four months and I was hopelessly underqualified for this job.
But now I have the interview and I cant even remember what the job was, something to do with fish/reptile keeping and public speaking according to the Covering Letter I sent it.
I hate being under prepared for these things!
But figners crossed!

I think i'm all caught up in the general gloom about at the moment. I'm disappointed about my trip to India being cancelled, well postponed indefinately and I'm finding it hard to summon up any enthusisium for finding another adventure.
Work at the moment is pretty shite. Well more shite than normal. There's fewer visitors, cos the weather, economic climate (despite us being free) and its always dead this time of year anyway. But being alone all day with nothing to do to keep you pre occupied does strange things to your mind. I made a film in my gallery on my phone today.

I find this time of year hard anyway.... too many memories I guess. I had to take my Granddad to the hospital last monday for his chemo as all the rest of my so called caring aunts and uncles claimed they were too busy to take the time off.

I hate that room. I hate the reclining green leather armchairs. I hate watching the clock and counting drips from the bag of blood or drugs slowly flow through the arm. I hate the relentless cheeryness of the nurses that work there. I hate being there. Thinking about all the times Dad sat there, how ill he was and how ill he'd be before he'd get the blood and how the blood'd perk him up for a bit and then he'd sink again. I never wanted to return to that room. I spent the day dealing with circular conversations and then trying to sort out his medication and feed him and my increasingly insane Nanny and I wonder why this is happening again and where in the world it is fair.

I came home and shouted at Welshy over nothing and I've been in a foul, tired gloomy mood ever since. I hate Christmas. I want to sleep it away.

So today is the second anniversary of THIS Its so funny now thinking of my dilemma back then of how best to deal with him.
We went out today to the pub we used to do most of our drinking in, only to find out its been upgraded and not for the better! So perhaps we'll fondly reminisce and not go back there again.
Sometimes I try and think exactly where I started to change my mind about how I felt about him, but I dont remember. It just happened somewhere between the long drinking sessions and day long chats either on msn or hanging out together, between the silly little bickering fights we have and the teasing jokes and giggles we had.
But I'm glad it did change.
Also amusingly the day after that incident I was working in the Blackheath shop and managed to drop a pint of probiotic strawberry yoghurt down me and into the freezer, where it froze almost instantly.
I dont know who was more worried about that incident, me or the shop manager. I text Welshy to tell him about me being clumsy just to reassure him more than anything that nothing had changed between us and he told me later that he laughed at me and then cried cos it made him realise that he loved me even though i'm a "clumsy spastic"

I've been so busy lately! Been working loads, managed to get my Bahamas application in, so now its a case of waiting and seeing, fingers crossed.


Selica is turning out to be hard work, I'm starting to fall in love with her and I kinda see myself as her Social Worker or something. Me and my Instructor both believe she's been badly abused in the past and is slowly coming out of her shell and wants someone to love her.


She's a very affectionate thing, who loves cuddles, but is still very nervous and skittish, She dislikes me moving my arms near her face which is where I think she's been beaten, but she loves getting her throat scratched. To ride she's a bit of a baby, she needs constant reassurance to be told she's doing the right thing and if you push her beyond what she's capable of, or give her confused signals, she's inclined to panic and either stop dead or just take off at a million miles an hour.


She's been schooled really badly too, and canters in a really poor "disunited way" so that's something else I need to work on with her, and teach her how to canter in the correct way. But I love it and I feel like I can learn a lot from her as well.


I've started a new volunteer job with the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) mainly involves me standing around on events and shows and harassing people to join up, maybe it'll help me get a job, maybe not. We'll see.

Job hunting is going so poorly lately, I guess its the whole climate of things and the time, no one wants to be looking for a new job near Christmas, I did apply for a job in the West Midlands but I'm hopelessly under-experienced for it.

Welshy is good, still jobless but its great having him here and hopefully he'll get employed soon!

On a slightly selfish note, I'm annoyed that those terrorists have gone crazy out in India, I was really hoping to book a trip out there, either this weekend or next week and now it may not be safe.

Ho hum.

So what have I been up too? I#'ve had a rotten, rotten cold, and been a busy old bunny.
I've been asked to ride a young horse at the stables, Selica who is a challenge to say the least at the moment!
work wise? meh, its been about the same, we actually had this really, really exciting event last Saturday, Shark Day! With lots of marine charities, Save Our Seas, Shark Trust, that kinda thing, and dive companies, like the people who take you out to cage dive with Great White Sharks (God I'd love to do that!) anyhow this man reccmended I email some people and now I'm filling in an application to go out to the bahamas for a month next year, so fingers crossed on that!
Which leads me to my problem, they ask about skills you have, boating, (never done owt like that) mechanical and handycrafts (I have no idea what I'm doing, but i'll give it ago as long as someone's willing to supervise/tell me what to do!)
and then it comes to other skills, which has me stumped, i have no idea what i can put, not sure what i've dont is actually relevant to this, there's not a lot in work that i do apart from public speaking!
I really, really, really wanna go do this so i really need to come up with something to make me stand out, and so far I dont think making the best campside marshmallows will help!

Ever wondered what a giggling Charbs and a Grumpy Welshy sound like? Well wonder no more! And admire the video of Baby G trying to fit under the playstation unit and his little legs go scrabbling about!

So on Halloween I spent the night in the haunted building at work, it was pretty good fun, a shame more people didnt go really.

So did anything spooky happen?

I'm not sure, being the sceptic I'd like to say no, however I'll tell you guys and you can make up your own minds.

I'll skip the whole crazy episode with the dowsing rods, mainly cos i think they were set off by all the electricity and stuff about.

At 2am we decided to do a protection ritual before we communicated with the ghosts with our rods and as we did the ritual, the giant mannaquin in the far corner (well away from us) suddenly set off on his own, like something had tripped its sensor and he "spoke "breathed" and "moved" on his own for a good 10 minutes althoughout this ritual thing.

anyway the night moved on and as those at the far end spoke to the "ghosts" we saw little lights flicker on and flicker off on the telly screen that was connected to the camcorder recording it all and then the lady conducting it all asked the "ghosts" to communcate with us at the far end as we couldnt see what was going on clearly.
Now either it was a well-timed practical joke by Security but at that EXACT moment the lights all popped on and then went instantly off again in the rooms where we were and the phone rang briefly twice.
So ghosties communicating? Or just a very well timed practical joke? You decide!

I Pinched a Meme from Spins, its more fun than dwelling on our rubbish performance tonight and worrying about if Geronimo will cope with the cold.

The home I grew up in... Was originally a "prefab" designed to be a temporary answer to the housing shortage after the war. It was the house my mother was born in and lived in till she was 12, I lived there from the age of 3 until I was 15/14. I remember the pebble-dashing was painted pink, and also went yellow and grey in the years that I lived there. It was two-up-two-down, with a large wide garden

When I was a child I wanted to be...An author, or an olympic standard show-jumper, or a paleotologist, or a vet.
The moment that changed me for ever... was realising death really was The End.
My greatest inspiration... is Dad
If I could change one thing about myself... I'm not sure, there's the shallow things, like I'd like to be taller, look nicer but on the whole I'm pretty happy with the person that I am and I wouldnt change me.
My style icon... me.
The person who really makes me laugh... The Lizard, we always have a fun time together
.A book that changed me... loads, erm.. To kill a mockingbird, probably.
My favourite work of art... The Parting Cheer
My favourite item of clothing... my new geeky Black Holes Hoody.
It's not fashionable but I like... watching the Horse and Country Channel
You wouldn't know it but I'm very good at.... Remembering impossibly pointless things, like I can recite word for word the script to one of our planetarium shows, despite only seeing it twice.
You may not know it but I'm no good at... remembering things. I have a really poor short term memory.
.If I have time to myself…I facebook
My house is... always in a state of disrepair
My most valuable possession is... Sentimentally, my photo of my graduation with Dad, moneywise my new digital camera or my camcorder
My favourite building.... The Valley!
Movie heaven... is a really good horror film.
The best invention ever...changes day to day.
The last album I bought/downloaded...I've never brought or downloaded one for myself.
In 10 years' time, I hope to be in a job I love.
My greatest regret... Hand on heart, speaking truthfully I dont have one.
My life in seven words... Has enormous highs, lows, adventures and disappointments

Yesterday me and Welshy went on an adventure down to the Tortoise Centre and we returned with this!

Introducing *fanfare* GERONIMO! The coolest baby tortoise ever!

He's so tiny and so very, very cute, I can even forgive him for costing me 190 quid in order to get him and all the crap that he needs to keep him happy and healthy!

So. You'd think after locking myself out of Welshy's room three times in one morning and THIS INCIDENT would have taught me how to master his lock? Right?
Wrong.
Apparently learning how to work a lock was a lesson I musta skipped at school, because last night I managed to lock him out, before going on my merry way home.
And after he and his flatmates attempts at making a contraption to get the keys failed to produce said keys, and attempting to kick the door down also didnt work. They eventually had to get a crowbar and smash the door to get him into it.
I'm now officially banned from touching whats left of his door.

Despite Welshy nearly making me stupidly late, I went for the stables for a ride again. I decided recently its something I wanna take up seriously again and get back to my former levels of goodness.
It was a really good lesson, one of those where I really achieved something by the end of it, Pebbles is a stroppy little pony at the best of times and the start of the lesson was a real fight between the two of us, to get her to do what I wanted, rather than taking it easy and chilling out as she wanted!
But by the end of it, she was bending and being really flexible and really working to please me and enjoy it herself rather than grumpily huffing her way about and then going back for a snooze.
We worked on basic bending and circles, its always good to go back to the basics, especially as I've forgotten the diameters of how large to make some circles, and learning how to bend properly and flow around corners, instead of just turning sharply was the real highlight, again it just re-enforces to me, how much harder riding gets the more you do it. I mean to learn to turn as a beginner, its all sharp angles, left rein, right leg, for example to turn left. To actually have the horse bend with the corner as it goes round, there's just so much more involved. The outside rein needs to be higher, the contact with the horses's mouth needs to be more precise, the inside rein needs to be more centralised to help support the neck, your weight needs to adjust and lean with the bend to allow the horse to move its own weight easier, you need to keep the pressure on with your inside leg to encourage the horse to move over!
So much going on just for a simple turn!



oh and did I forget that all this was carried out in canter without stirrups? Gonna be stiff tomorrow!

Ooops Part 1. Getting locked out of Welshy's room for the third time that morning and banging on the door for him to let me back in, meanwhile his flatmate wanders out to talk to me. Cue Welshy opening the door, in a huff and stark bollock naked. Not sure his flatmate'll recover from that sight first thing in the morning!
Ooops Part 2. Finding a lead attached to a display case at work and obeying my cursed curiosity to pull it and then realising that not only is it the lead for the display lights, that its also the lead for the alarm system.

As for Shorty's question yesterday on whether my mum accepts Welshy yet.

I dont think she does. She's already making funny comments about "having to get used to me not being about as much" and "I'll have to book in advance to see you now" and "I'll have to be used to being alone."

It really exhausts me, I feel kinda like I'm getting torn in two different directions, I really wanna spend time with Welshy. He begs me to move in with him, but I feel like I can't cos she makes me feel so horribly guilty for not being there with her, to give her a reason to cook, to eat, to leave the house, to live.

I really have no idea about the best way to go about this, I'm too much of a pushover to just walk out and leave her, especially with Granddad still really sick.
I know she's had it rough over the last coupla years, we all have and I've bent over backwards to look after her as much as possible, so I guess part of it is my fault for spoiling her and part of me is still that silly little girl looking for her approval, desperate for her to like me.
And I guess part of it is the other way around. I was a Daddy's girl. All she ever wanted was for me to be little and fluffy and not run about in torn jeans, falling out trees, forever dirty and screaming and sobbing whenever a dress was placed on me.
I know she struggles with the idea that I'm independent from her, I've always known that, even from before she tried to talk me out of moving to uni.
I know that she loves my brother a lot more than she loves me, because of the above and because of his problems. So why do I still feel the need to try and get her to approve of me, even though she ignores me and then makes me feel guilty whenever I do my own thing?
She pushes me away loads and yet makes demands on my time and attention and I just simply can't say no to her.

So whether she'll ever accept Welshy and welcome him as one of my friends is debatable, and certainly not going to happen any time soon!

Hurrah the money's been located! And Welshy only has one more day at work before coming home on saturday!
I am rather excited by this, its been what? 16 months since he went back up to Wales. And although he'll be living 40 minutes away in the shittiest part of london, it'll be ace having him about again! And ordering him about so we can go on little adventures!

Last Monday I paid in Welshy's rent and flat deposit for him, 930 quid.
The money came out of my account on the first, however his landlady hasnt recieved it in her account.
So where's the money?
I asked Natwest, my bank, if they could check it went into the right account, they did this and confirmed it. So I went to her bank HSBC and asked them to confirm that it had gone into her account. They said yes and that it could take a few days to clear. So I waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally I grew fed up of waiting and went to the bank yesterday, they claimed that they could not trace it their end, so I went to Natwest and asked them for the statement showing that it had left my account and gone into hers, which they confirmed and said it must be a fault at the other end.
So I went back to HSBC, gave them her details, showed them this statement and gave them the reciept from the transaction (which I fear they might still have!) and they agreed that it was the right account but they couldnt prove that I'd actually paid the cheque in and told me to get Natwest to trace it, and they traced right into.... Yeah you guessed it, the HSBC account. So they photocopied me a copy of the cheque and I went back to HSBC. Now HSBC are starting to get concerned. Not concerned enough to ring me like they promised too, today though! And certainly not concerned enough to phone up the landlady and explain to her whats going on.
They're still blaming me for somehow getting the numbers wrong, even though when I challenge them about it, they agree that the account details are right.
So where does that leave me? I'm not sure. It leaves Welshy 930 out of pocket and he's potentially going to be homeless come Friday as the Landlady wont give him keys without the deposit!
How can a bank cash a £930 cheque without putting the money into the right account?
I intend to find out the whereabouts of this money tomorrow, even if it takes up my entire day off. I shall take my paper, some supplies and amusements and I refuse to budge from my one-woman peaceful protest until that money is traced and placed in the right account and I get an apology!

I've had a busy day with N, according to his wishes as to be allowed on a horse I took him riding where he commented that "its not as easy as I've always thought" and "I kept bashing my balls against the saddle"
Cheers N, nothing like too much information is there?
I then took him home to get changed and then we headed into the big city to play at being tourists. We went up to my former Aquarium where we got in for free (hurrah for my security pass still being valid there!) had a quick look round and then walked up to Trafalgar Square where he posed for many pictures, sat on one of the lions, laughed at me when i fell to the floor after jumping off of the plinth there. Its gotta be about 4 -5 foot high, so perhaps me taking a leap off of it wasnt my smartest move ever!
Then we walked up to via Picadilly Circus for more Touristy type photos to go to Mayfair to visit the IceBar that Welshy took me too once, on our one and only "official date" which impressed him.
"You've scored here Charlton"
Then we walked down to Buck Palace so he could have some photos taken outside there and then with one of the guards in their fancy uniforms and then walked home to get his stuff and back to the train station!
An epic sight seeing trip!

Welshy's sign the contract on his flat and is moving down in a few weeks time! the 11th to be precise! hurrah!
we've decided to cement this new stage by getting ourselves a pet tortoise!

So I worked at this staff party last night, doing a bit of overtime, it seemed to make sense to me, whenever i've gone to these do's before they mostly only ever serve wine which i dont drink, so i stay sober and watch my friends make tits of themselves.
So I figured why not do the same this year and just get paid for it!
Only they brought out pimms, which i'm still debating as to whether i like it or not, anyway i got horribly drunk, luckily i was only on the cloakroom so had nothing too difficult to deal with apart from trying to hide my state from my boss.
ended up going to the pub afterwards where I made my friend AH bleed cos I twisted his ear, stood on a bar table and dramatically apologised, stole someones pinwheel that i stuck in my hair for the rest of the night, staggered off to catch the last bus, and awoke this morning to find myself covered in AH's blood and clutching a bag of stolen candyfloss!
Now i have to go to work with a mild hangover. booooooo.

stupid work fucked up and have decided that actually they dont have free places for staff. Ho Hum, I can still do a 5 week short course but we'll see...

N has text me demanding that I arrange it for him to gallop a horse on a beach.
Now you might be able to do that in other countries but here in the UK? I dont think so! I've done it in the past down in Cornwall and paddled a horse out in the sea there.
But because of the safety laws to you and the horse, no one will take you out to do something like that unless you have the experience to back it up, to be able to at least control the horse at a canter and not sit there clinging to the saddle like a bag of bricks.
This is something that is really one of my pet hates.
It really irritates me, how people think you can climb onto a horse and yank and kick it into doing whatever the hell you want!
Its a living creature for fucks sake, how would you like to have someone yank you in the mouth with a iron bit the same size as your thumb and a good six inches long hitting your teeth, roof of mouth and tongue and never mind the side pieces which'll pinch?
And kicking at the horses side will lead to either one of two things.
A - The horse (and indeed most horses that I ride!) will take it as a signal to go fast, to run from something scary. And you'll inevitably fall off, cos you wont have a decent centre of balance on the horse and if you're lucky just be winded, and at worse paralysed or dead.
B- The horse, and most ploddy old riding school nags'll fall into this catorgory, will become dead. Their sides get so numb to the constant banging on their ribs that they just end up stopping feeling it and they'll amble along at a snails pace, slowly losing the will to live.
I love horse riding, but I'm greatly aware of how every action you do, reflects on the horse, how moving your leg, your arse in the saddle, how moving just one finger on the reins affects the horse and how it then reacts to what it thinks you're asking it to do.
Its most definately one of those things that gets harder the more you do it, and the more aware you are of exactly how much you need to know and be able to do, just to be able to control the horse at a walk and get it to turn a corner for example.

Dr. John Stemple, Medical Editor of the American Medical Equestrian Association News, said between 150 and 200 deaths are caused each year by horse accidents. Of those, 55 percent were caused from head injuries. Fifteen percent of the deaths were from chest injuries and 10 percent from abdominal injuries. According to the National Injury Information Clearinghouse, head injuries make up less than 12 percent of horse-related injuries, but over half of the fatal injuries.
I think you'll even find that its in the top 10 most dangerous activities to participate in, so people thinking its all just jump on and kick 'n' yank really annoys me!
Phew rant over!

I'm going back to school!
Well kinda.
Frequently I've reached the conclusion lately that as I no longer use my brain, its slowly rotting through lack of use and one day it will simply just ooooze out of my nose or ears or something equally gross.
So work offer this GCSE in astronomy and I've managed to grab one of the last free places, so for the next 30 odd tuesdays I shall be peering at a telescope and looking rather bemused at mathmatical equations which apparently teach you about the speed of light or something.
Best part of it, is that for part of my coursework I get to make a sundial! Hurrah!

Fuck, once again i'm gutted about the fact i'm no longer in Derby!
Yes MH got to meet Sir Cliff Richard today!

I work in a supposedly haunted building.

Rev. Ralph Hardy, a retired clergyman took a photo of our "tulip stairs".

however, the photo revealed a shrouded figure climbing the stairs, seeming to hold the railing with both hands.

Experts, including some from Kodak, who examined the original negative concluded that it had not been tampered with.

It's been said that unexplained figures have been seen on occasion in the vicinity of the staircase, and unexplained footsteps have also been heard.
This photo isn't the only evidence of ghostly activity at the Queen's House. The 400-year-old building is credited with several other apparitions and phantom footsteps even today...

a GA who left before I started was discussing a tea break with two colleagues when he saw one of the doors to the Bridge Room close by itself. At first he thought it was one of the lecturers. "Then I saw a woman glide across the balcony, and pass through the wall on the west balcony," he said. "I couldn't believe what I saw. I went very cold and the hair on my arms and my neck stood on end. We all dashed through to the Queen's Presents Room and looked down towards the Queen's Bedroom. Something passed through the ante-room and out through the wall. Then my colleagues all froze too. The lady was dressed in a white-grey colour crinoline type dress."

Other people that I work with have reported seeing people following them even as recently as last Sunday
Other ghostly goings-on include the unexplained choral chanting of children, the figure of a pale woman frantically mopping blood at the bottom of the Tulip Staircase (it's said that 300 years ago a maid was thrown from the highest banister, plunging 50 feet to her death), and even tourists being pinched by unseen fingers.

Welshy Claims to have seen a figure one day whilst visiting me in the Orangery, a place with a horrid, heavy atmosphere, I also think I may have seen something in there, whilst gazing out of the window I saw a figure reflected in the glass behind me, but having turned no one was there.

That can possibly be explained by my imagination seeing my own reflection, but I've also had doors slam, jumping out of their hook and eye fastenings to slam shut repeatedly.

The point of these stories?

Guess where I'm planning on spending Halloween night? We're having a sleep over, scary films, apple bobbing and all sorts of other fun!

Hurrah! After an iffy few days Welshy is almost set to come and move back down. He's even got himself a place at uni studying accountancy (yawn) so he's set to be in London for at least three years.
I'm however not gonna wait for him to finish his course and am carrying on with applying for jobs out of the city, so sods law, i'll end up getting something miles away and we'll be back where we are now!
hehehe, but for now we're gonna take every day as it comes, and I'm gonna make the most of him being down and eagerly await the 22nd of September when he'll be down for good!
Oh and plans for adventures in India are progressing well... Me and E have pretty much decided we are going, its just a matter of when, and we look like we'll be hitting New Delhi, Agra, before going down into the deepest, darkest jungles to find tigers, ride elephants and see what other freakishly cool animals we can find out there!

SO I went out last night for my birthday with work people, it was all rather jolly and civilised, cream teas and crosswords and so forth.
So any reports that at 1.30AM I was riding a disability scooter "Chariot" whilst wearing a chain mail shirt several sizes too big and waving a sword and squealing madly after i determinedly drove into a rose bed are all unfounded lies with not a bit of truth in them.

Its my birthday! Today! I am offically a quarter of a century old, and while this brings on its own dramas of "I'm 25, still living at home and still in a shit job" I feel kinda more positive about it than I have done previous birthdays.
Previous birthdays have resulted in a month long sulk as The Day approaches, getting more and more tetchy about the idea of growing old and although i'm still not exactly happy about reaching this milestone I'm ok with the idea.
How very grown up!
I'm also attacked by the travelling bug again, ideas are running through my head, from Canada, to the Cape Verde Islands to India.
India looks like it might be a winner so far, I've even gone as far as to start working out how much I need to save in order to get around, and I'd like to go out there for November, although stupid money might interfer and say "No Charbs! Save a bit longer!"
but we'll see...

Welshy has gone home today, its been really good having him down, i think i've seen him every day now for a week and a half. Annoyingly he's starting to have doubts about if he should move down to his friends place in case he doesnt get on with them.
I guess this is another way in which we're very different people, where as I've developed into a real people person, he's very almost anti-social and abrupt with his dealings with people, with a very low tolerance level of their actions and stupidity.
Red Squirrel can testify to this and how he suddenly developed a "hatred" of him after only meeting him the once and a couple of msn convos.
So now i'm kinda in limbo, I've gotten used to the idea that he'll be near and we'll be together properly and now he's thinking about the move with dread and starting to talk himself out of the idea.
Silly cunt.
But heyho, The Olympics have started, I have matchsticks holding my eyes up after getting hooked on whatever inane sport they seem to show at 2am and was rather late for work this morning as I refused to even consider getting dressed until after the 10m syncronised high dive.
And We won! Huzzah! I've missed football!

Welshy has been down since Wednesday, its rather exciting him being around so much, I dont think i've spent so much time in his company since before we started going out (now how does THAT work out? Stupid distances, stupid everything)
He's decided to take a week off of work and devote it to job hunting in London, I hope its a successful search, spending 10 hours on a train, there and back every three weeks or so, just to spend 24 hours with him, sure soon loses its novelty value!
We did originally start looking for places that maybe we could move in together with if he got a job here, but on our wages its just not gonna happen.
I mean, for a one room flat, we'd be looking at a good 800-900 quid a month minimum, in a place where I could walk the streets without fear of being raped or have people break into the flat and kill us in our sleep.
and seeing as I get paid 820 a month and assuming he gets a mimimum wage job too, you're looking at us living on one wage, taking tax, bills, food, transport into account.
Realistically, its not gonna happen.
However, a room may be available (depending on him getting a job...) at his mates place, for 105 a week, its a rather squalid and run down part of East London, a place I still dont feel safe in and would point-blank refuse to walk down the street alone but he'd only be 40 minutes away instead of 5 hours so I'd get to see him a lot more.
Hell I could even have my own sock drawer and goldfish bowl there, I'd probably end up virtually living there, and there's loads of benefits to him, and me, moneywise, him living somewhere so dirt cheap.
So I suppose I should grow up and swallow my disappointment that it'll be a year contract and we'll not be living together after all.

my granddad has come out of hospital which is good! hurrah! hopefully he'll get all better now.

I was talking with a few friends today about Poe and I remember reading a lot of him when I was four or 5 years old, I'd been given a collection of "mini-classics" with the pictures on one page and an edited version of the story on the other, it was this way that I discovered Dickens and trembled at Sidney in Tale of Two Cities long before I read the full length version, (actually I only read the full length version late last year)
Anyway, I still maintain that Poe wasnt the best choice to put into kids books, I still cant bring myself to read The Fall of the House of Usher again and I still skip the picture of the old man in The Telltale Heart now.
Anyway, a question for you all is: what was the most scary childrens book you ever read?

For me it was this, rather random story I remember reading during nursery, it was a foreign folk tale possibly from Poland or Finland and it was about a man who went to bed every night and a wildcat would creep into his house and each time he'd send his dogs out to chase it away and then one night the wildcat led the dogs far into the woods and got them lost and returned to the man's house.The very last page i remember reading has the cat peering over the side of the mans bed and the mans crying for the dogs but they never came.
Do any of you guys remember or know of this story?

I'm off to my cousin M's wedding tomorrow, thankfully he gave up on his earlier idea about making me a bridesmaid!

He showed up at his house at half 11 its a 2 mile walk from the hospital to his place. and refused to go back in, so much so that the hospital started to consider putting a temporary section on him to force him to go back.
But once the painkillers wore off, he was in so much pain he was glad to go back.
And strangely rather pleased, not so much by the fact that they were putting him in a private side room but that they were gonna make him wear a tag that set off an alarm if he left the ward.
I left him watching "The Great Escape" I hope he dont get any ideas about tunnelling out!!!

(i hate going to that hospital, its the same ward me Dad went into when he had his first battle with The Big C)

After two more botched attempts to escape/get us to take him home, my Granddad has finally ran away from hospital.
You gotta admire his determination, I mean Dad only managed to get half way out before he was rounded up.
Only question is: Where the fuck has he ran away too?

So Granddad had his op and it went really well, so well they decided he didnt need a colostomy bag and could even go home monday if he carried on improving.
However since yesterday he's gone crackers! I guess reacting on the methadone or something like Dad used too. Apparently people in the ward he was in were planning to stab him so he needed to escape and pulled out all his wires and managed to get halfway down the ward before a nurse spotted him and tried to restrain him.
ANYWAY, it all ended up with us held hostage by him in a day room for several hours before we managed to calm him down.
They decided to move him to another ward after that, with more older people in it, but apparently he's gone crackers again tonight and has just rung mother up to demand she come take him home.
When you add that to the bastard uncle who keep phoning mum up and telling her that SHE's not looking after them all properly, despite spending 3 hours locked in a room with him, spending 8 hours there the day before and 6 the day before that and STILL going to me Nans to take her dinner and to the hospital.
And When was the last time he went to see Granddad or Nan? Easter.
Yeah you can fuck right off.

So my Granddad had his rescheduled op yesterday, which lasted 4 hours.
He came out of it well, a little dopey (buut really who can tell the difference!) and today they'll tell us about what happens next, so fingers crossed that they've managed to remove all of it!
I went to see LOTR on stage last night, they've made it into a musical, which mostly didnt work I thought, although I liked the little song that Frodo and Sam sang near the end.
Visually its amazing, from the terrifying Black Riders and Shelob, storywise its a little confused, a little mishmash from the film and books and the ROhan bit is skipped completely but I guess its impossible to put it all in!

this weekend I headed down to Bristol to have a bitta reunion with CL and MH.
It was a bit rubbish to be honest, and I kinda wish i'd saved my money and not bothered!
See whenever I speak to them now its all about them and how good their jobs are and they talk about their houses and whatever and I cant really compete with that being stuck in the museum and at home, but you know I'm not really bitter about it.
You cant help the way fate fucks you about, but what really gets me is how they love to rub it in, even when I tell them how miserable I am with everything and the constant, constant rejections and knowing that even if I wanted to move out I simply CANT afford to live in London.
So when they get together and talk about stuff I cant join in with, you cant help feeling a little left out and compare yourself to them, even though in that way madness lies.
Anyway, we headed out to Cheddar Caves. Which took them an hour to get ready for, and involved me spending an AGE to convince MH that wearing a mini-skirt in there was a bad idea and waiting for her to choose which bra was best, after she cswapped between the two three times.
Girls!
Anyway, that was all pretty interesting, although those two wanted to rush and not take anything in and then we headed back to CL's and they both claimed they were tired and we sat in adn watched movies all night.
Which kinda annoyed me some more, you know i've spent money i dont have cos i'm more poor than them, in coming to see them, been unable to join in with any of their convos, and now i'm spending the night watching crap girly movies.
I came home feeling really depressed about my life and weekend away and feeling, like I do more and more these days that I'm drifting apart from them and really wouldnt be too fussed if I never really spoke to either again.
Which is an awful, awful thing to admit to.

holy shit they let me play with the colours on here now!

Aparently no one thought to explain to my Granddad that you should stop taking your medication when about to go have a major operation.
So there we go. Op Cancelled. The bastard inside him will continue to grow for another week or two until they manage to reschedule it.

My granddads operation is tomorrow.
i hope it all goes well.

I went to my first ever East-end lock-in on friday! It was actually pretty fun and I can feel quietly proud that i helped the place run out of alcohol. By all accounts the place went through 3 bottles of sambuca, and completely ran out of gin and vodka.
it was 4am by the time me and Welshy ran out of money and decided sleep was our best option!
Hurrah!
And on Sunday I made him accompany me to the Natural History Museum to see the Butterfly exhibit. which was rather exciting, we got to run around (well i did, he followed me with a slightly disapproving but resigned look on his face) a giant maze competiting with children to complete the maze and collect our stamps, ride on a small butterfly zipline and then to play with all the pretty butterflies inside the exhibit.
Then our day of culture continued with a trip to the next door Science Museum where I bored him by insisting that we MUST look and read everything in detail in the Vet science gallery and then he claimed he was squeamish and ran away while i looked through the medical history galleries.
But what was the most exciting part was our trip to the IMAX cinema to play with the 3d fishies that were there. I've never been to a 3d cinema before, and kept trying to grab all the wee jellyfish as they swam past! Dead Exciting.
Sadly since this weekend I've somehow lost my work keys again. Well misplaced them really, however work have warned me that if i lose them again I'll be getting a written warning.
Bugger. any ideas where they are?

So after the bad news of Friday, me and Mum headed to the stables, since its been sold the lady who runs a small rescue aviary there, has been told to wind it up and find homes for them.
I dont wanna brag about my aviary, but my birds have SO much more space and things to do than hers! I guess half her problem is not being able to say no to anything, and that resulted in me doubling the birds I took home, because I simply couldnt bear to see them all in such a small, overcrowded and heated place.
So I took home, 3 female cockatiels and 3 female budges, and a pair of golden mantled rosellas! The rosellas especially are fantastically coloured, maybe tomorrow I'll try and take some pics of them and put them up. I also fell in love with this little Ducorps Cockatoo.
I also took some more pictures of my horsey friends. I took some past ones HERE. (yeah its always a sign that i'm bored, when i go and actively LOOK for past posts to link too!)












This is Chelsea, I mentioned his partner in Crime, one eyed Captain in the aforementioned post. As you can see he's a chubby little beast!






















Jude (in stable) and his girlfriend Selica, Selica is a lovely thing who will fall asleep with her head on your shoulder. I'm always amazed to see Jude, he's half brother to Jimmy (again mentioned up there) and I remember them as tiny little babies and then as naughty teenager horses, getting broken (horrid term) to the rider, now they're respectable members of society!



Here's George showing off his lovely long thick mane. He's a proper lightweight gypsy cob, all snorting and hair everywhere! Ever so good looking though! I rode him oh god only once about 8 or 9 years ago, when he first arrived and I rode often and relatively compently (I wish I still had the money and time to do so again!) He was a complete handful to control and we argued constantly about exactly who was in charge!

Horses! Gotta love them!

So it is cancer, which i was pretty much resigned too. and its big and nasty apparently.
However, the docs reckon they can cure it up with a single op and a bunch of chemo, so its time to go down that route again.
and so far I've only had one uncle phone me up and demand that I/Mum quits work and cares for me nan and granddad as "we know how to look after people with cancer"
Ho hum. Its nice to know I'm surrounded by caring family members.

i was sent on a spying mission today!
Work do this "benchmarking" scheme, its a bit like mystery shoppers i guess really, we get sent on an expenses paid trip to a local museum to find out if theres any ideas we could pinch for our museum or anything that we do better than them.
We got sent to the docklands to the Museum there, which had this really good jack the ripper exhibit on, i love goulish things like that, it also had really good exhibits about the history of the docks.
it was a pretty good day out really, loads more fun than standing in a gallery!

My Granddad may have Cancer, we wont find out until next friday (the 13th? a bad omen?)
I dont know if I can go through all this again. I seriously dont.

I've just had a pretty awesome 24 hours.
Nothing happened in it, I was pretty bored and mystified during most of it. But all through it I had the most wonderful sense of contentness and peacefulness.
For the first time in a long while I was happy doing nothing. I had no need to keep myself busy and keep on the go. I was simply happy doing nothing, and the company was great too!

Another manically busy week, in the last 10 days i've done 18 hours overtime, considering that i've spent 3 days in derby, thats a huge amount.
Everyone loves my purple hair at work, well, there's always the odd miserable sour-faced cowbag who looks at it and tuts and scowls at me about lowering the museum standards or something.
But anyway the museum has no standards left to lose!
I went in early this morning for a lecture by the museum director. It was pretty much bollocks. We'd been given this 20k by some random old rich nutter and its been given to "the south west link project" which as far as i gathered today, involves ruining the museum look (wonder actually if they get planning permission) by adding a glass box to the back, which will hold a corporate cafe a reading room, for members only and a new entrance, it'll also mean the destruction of two of the largest galleries, and certainly the most popular one. - The Nelson's Navy gallery in order to put three floors of paper archives in. which considering we get on a good day 10 visitors to the library seems a bit of a waste, especially when you realise that they have no plans to add more galleries and to put all that stuff exhibited in storage.
Including Nelson's Trafalgar uniform, which is THE only thing the museum is known for and the main reason we have any visitors. Madness I tell ye!

Anyway, work seems to be on the verge of getting more interesting lately! what with that and the fact that i'm now getting trained on the switchboard at work (imagine that! Me! Who until 4 years ago was utterly unable to talk to ANYONE on the phone!) plus I may finally be getting unleashed soon on the public giving gallery favourite talks, and i shall campaign most strongly in favour of me getting a payrise!

hurrah! i'm back from derby, where i've had an awesome time, culminating in a random trip to Splash Landings at ALton Towers, despite me arguing to STF that i cant possibly go, I didn t bring a costume! But when has that ever stopped him?!

And now i'm purple. I dont know what work will say, but i love it! hurrah for purpleness!

yo yo yo!
i'm abso-fucking-lutely knackered! Decided to "celebrate" my year at the museum (How the fuck i've managed to stick THAT one out is beyond me.) by doing a mega amount of overtime. As in working 3 days 9am-8pm in a row, plus two days later working from 9am till midnight.
Hardcore.
It didnt help that this was my long week, so it worked out that i've worked 8 days with one day off inbetween, with an extra 18 hours at least overtime fitted in somewhere.
So yeah. I'm rather knackered, to say the least.
And the reason behind all this?
My football ticket for next year. Bastard wanking footballers, didnt even have the decency to go and get themselves promoted back to the prem for me.

Still i've got the whole of bank holiday off. and i plan on celebrating this in two ways.
1. I'm taking Welshy to meet my Derby lads and I hope they all get on, despite him being a stroppy little get at times!
2. On Monday i'm dying my hair purple. In direct violation of the "No extreme hairstyles" rule in my contract.

Hurrah.

summer has finally arrived here, so i headed up to Welshy's and we set out for adventure!

We were heading to Anglesea island to find puffins when we stopped at this place

*deep breath*

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch!

and if you can pronounce that you're a better person than i am!

I LOVE Chrissy Powell.
What a fucking living legend.

My name's Charby. I want to be a zoologist.
I've wanted to work with animals my entire life, I've surrounded myself in pets, in horses, in dogs, in fish, in birds, in geese, in goats.
And my bookshelves are filled with biological textbooks and zoology reference books. Books that i've had for years, admiring the pictures and dreaming of the day I too could see these things.
I've spent hours watching wildlife tv shows, going to zoos and safari parks. In trying to soak up every little bit of information I could.
I went to uni and studied for three and a half years and put myself nearly 16k's worth of debt in order to work with animals.

But with every rejection letter and failed interview, I start to wonder, is it really worth me still trying? Three years now since I've left uni and is it time to acknowledge the fact that if i've not been able to get anywhere now, I wont get anywhere ever?
This rejection for Colchester Zoo, has really hit me hard. I'd have been perfect at it, Its stuff that I could have done, that i've done for ages at the aquarium.
I sit and look at my options, I cant afford to go back to uni, I cant afford to do another course. I cant really do any volunteering any more. I cant afford to take the time off of work in order to do so.I'm trapped in a kinda catch-22. I dont have the experience, no one is willing to give me the experience. I cant afford to take a day off of work to go volunteer.
So what else do I do with my life? I really dont know. I dont like children, so teaching is out. I'm too figety and have too much energy to sit in an office.

Am I really doomed to spend the rest of my life at that museum?
Was it silly of me to ever attempt to not only escape London, but get a job working with animals?

so last thursday i had an interview at colchester zoo. Its about 3 hours from my house so happily if and thats a big IF i get it, i'll have to move back out of London.
Just getting to the interview in itself was a drama, the train in front of mine, hit someone at Romford Station so we got held up somewhere past Ilford for 40 minutes and then when i was preparing to leave the train at Colchester, a well dressed man stopped me.
"Excuse me" He said. "I dont feel very well, can you help me please."
So i had to help him get off of the train and found him a seat and called a member of the station staff to come over and he then got an ambulance for him and I waited with the man for the ambulance to arrive.
Putting my first aid skills right to the test there!
The interview was to become a park presenter, doing pretty much what i did at the Aquarium, but paid this time! I'm hoping it went well, but they havent got back to me yet, which is always a bit of a boo.

So when we returned from Venice we headed back to FLorence to see "David" and then took a bus up to Michaelanglos Piazza which overlooks the entire city and has amazing views.
Then we caught a train down to Rome, sadly we only had the afternoon there really, so didnt get a chance to see much, we got a bus to the colusseum and braved the queues to have a look inside. It reminded me of some of the new football stadiums, you go inside and head up to your seat in the covered section adn then head outside to the pitch side as it were!
it wasnt hard to imagine how it must have been then. We then headed off to the vatican city, we both wanted to go see the sistine chapel but it was massively expensive and a huge queue so our next port of call was the trevi fountain.
which we missed and got side tracked by this lovely big fountain in the middle of the roundabout, which mother insisted we stop and risk life and limb crossing the road and posing for photos with!
The next day we caught a coach to Naples and Pompeii, Mother got bored with the speed that the group was moving at and encouraged me to come explore with her, which isnt a good i dea! all the streets look pretty much the same!
WE explored in the ruins of some houses/shops and saw the towns Brothel! Not sure that was on the tour and some lovely frescos, and was only late back finding the group by a few minutes!
So thats the end of my Italian adventure, and I have to prepare now! I have an interview tomorrow for Colchester zoo so i better do some research for that!
TP and TJ are moving back to Derbyshire" Hurrah!

i'll put the last set of pics up tomorrow maybe when i report back on how it went!

the Duomo, Florence.

St Marks Square, Venice.

Gondolas!

So on the 3rd day we headed to Florence.
We spent most of the day just pootling about and booked tickets to go see David at the Accademia when we returned and visited the Duomo, which is an absolutely beautiful church, we went into it and lit a candle and put it on a tealight tree for Dad and then went into the catacombs and saw lots of old roman and religious relics and icons and sainty type things.

Then we headed to Venice the next day, I cant even begin to explain to you just how amazingly awesome that place is. The water is a lovely blue, the streetlights are pink and give a lovely glow, there's canals and bridges and gondoliers everywhere, although it kinda spoils the image you have of them in your head when they whip out their mobile phones!
And of course the novelty of riding a water busboat everywhere and getting onto floating platforms to wait for the bus can never ever grow stale! Although I admit for the next two days afterwards everytime i closed my eyes or stayed still i was swaying!
Venice is also famous for its Murano glass, which is awesomely pretty and very expensive. I got a pretty multicoloured photo frame and a little blue bird thats all cheeky looking and a multicoloured parrot.
We spent two days in Venice before going back to Florence where we went to the Accedamia and saw "David" Who is fantastically good looking even if he is a statue. Although he has almost scarily large hands, as apparently he's supposed to be on a mountain top so he'd look in proportion then.
Whats scarier is that like at my museum photos of David are banned and I was off duty and still found myself yelling out "No Photos please" at tourists hiding round corners to take pictures!

Blogger is being a bitch and not uploading my photos so i'll try again tomorrow when i tell you the final part aboutr Rome and Pompeii. ooh i bet you're quivering with excitement!

Hullo!

I'm back from Italy. It was a strange little place, rather rainy and dirty grotty cities with graffiti. So much like London then!

I did like Italy though, all the streets are narrow and dark and rather scary on a dark night. I loved wandering down odd streets and coming across ancient churches or ruins.

Pisa, was dark and spooky though, and rather run down. We went to the tower and climbed up it which was the oddest thing ever, you lean with the building and start walking up one side of the staircase and find yourself on the other! And at the top with only a thin bar stopping you from slipping off of the steps and falling does odd things to your centre of balance!
THe place we stayed at was odd though! It was basically a B&B set up by a rather enterprising woman in the spare room of her 3rd floor flat. who spoke no english. and my italian is limited to "Hello" "Bye." "Thanks" "Excuse me" "Welcome" "ice cream" and "How much does that cost?"

She got rather excited by the fact i was travelling with my mam though and pinched my cheek lots which hurt. And hugged me loads. And offered me what looked like Liver on toast. I opted for the nutella at breakfast time. Which they all seem obsessed by. Its everywhere, in ice cream, in cakes, on the breakfast table.
Needless to stay I spend much of my time hiding from her.

On the second day we went to Lucca, which is a lovely little medieval town about 40 minutes away on the train from Pisa, its exciting cos its mostly pedrestrianised (which is a good thing considering the driving skills of most italians!) We got a tandem and rode it the 4km around the city walls, which was an experience! its horrid not being in control of your cycle and i was at the back all the time and feeling like it was gonna tip over!
Anyway here are some pictures from that part of my adventures and I'dd do the rest tomorrow.

Me at the Tower!

Climbing to the top!

Lucca

So Tomorrow I'm flying off to Italy! Hurrah! My plan is to fly into Pisa, spend a day in Lucca, then head to Florence, before going onto Venice, returning to Florence, for the night before we go to Rome and then down to Naples and Pompeii before returning to Rome to fly out. In the space of 9 days! Phew!
I'm kinda nervous about it, its the first time i've back packed in a country i dont speak the language of, I'm worried that me and Mam'll fall out and can i negociate my way around Italy's train network without speaking a word of italian!

I like ducks, always have done, i like the way they waddle and the way they wiggle their feathery arses and i like the sheen on a mallards head.
OF used to have a mallard, it lived in a small pond that it shared with a rabid goose.
So when i saw two mallard drakes and a duck crossing the road on the way to work, i was entranced.
"Hullo Duckies." I greeted them. "why are you here? You shouldnt be here, not in the middle of a road, you belong on the pond"
They wiggled their arses and quacked cheerily at me, as if to agree that yes they thought they should be there too.
"quackie, quack, quack." I chatted happily back to them, and then prepared to cross the road, which was when the cyclist pedalled past giving me the strangest, and in my opinion completely undeserved look.

Hurrah I'm back! Hullo mr internet how are you?!

i've been disconnected thanks to those cunts at tiscali, who took it rather badly indeed that i was changing over my internet provider, cut us off, and yet refused to free our line so we could change provider.
it took a month of harrasing them, speaking to a lovely guy called ryan in their accounts department (indeed i think he might now be on my christmas card list!) and phoning up OFCOM who threatened to sue their asses before i'm back here, right now!
Except i'm not, cos i'm currently about to catch a train to Wales to see Welshy for 4 days.
So what's been going on in my life? Not a lot, apart from realising i CAN live without the internet, works still the same boring fuckery that its always been, except some mad cunt decided to donate 20million to us, which is apparently the largest donation ever made to a british museum. We all got summoned to a meeting after work (with free booze) to hear this, and i think one of my proudest museum moments was the pantomine gasp at the announcement and seeing how we then all started edging backwards towards the bar, before the speech ended and then how we all turn and ran to it, my boss leading the charge!
I also managed to disgrace myself fantastically by being caught by Lord Stirling who is head of our trustees with 6 glasses in my hands and in the attempt to smuggle them into my locker and take home.

Other news.... Hmmm, oh I got an interview at London Zoo to be a temporary animal keeper, however i didnt get the job cos "i didnt have the experience" So what spending 6 years of my life during the weekends and school holidays clearing up horse shit means i cant then clean up monkey shit? fuck that.
Applying for a job at another zoo now, we'll wait for that rejection letter!
Oooohhh. Speaking of stables, the sale of the land fell through, which is good, cos the man who brought it was refused planning permission, which means it'll be up for auction again soon.

And finally before I really must go and pack is that I'm away on holidays again soon. Last night in a rather supreme acto of boredom me and Mum decided to go to italy, so we have a flight out booked to Pisa and a return one for Rome, as to what we do inbetween that for 9 days is a mystery! Hurrah!

Oh dear..

i've found a grey hair. perhaps I'm getting old!

I'm achieving at work! oh yes. That phrase has become a bit of a running injoke now with me and a lad who is just dossing really until he starts teaching in threee weeks time, especially as its very heard to actually leave work with a feeling of a achievement. unless its the fact that you managed to count a new number on the never-ending quest to count all the tiles in the Great Hall.

(slightly blurry but you can see how many there is, especially when you have the dilemma of whether you count cracked tiles as two or one).

Anyway he's been mocking me lately as in the space of one week, i've been admissions trained, reccommended for "special duties" (as yet unknown) and we've both signed up for this first aid course at work.

Which has been a source of great fun, we've just been ripping the piss out of each other today.

And that brings me onto my point-of-posting.

Oh yes. After my first day of first aid training I came home to eat my dinner, and somehow I reached new levels of spackiness, even for me.

Yes somehow i managed to bite my fork while eating my dinner. Hard. And after having consulting my mirror I've managed to chip a tiny piece off one of my front teeth.

hmmm. Dont think the first aid booklet gives me help on dealing with this one!

so yes.. i arrived in derby and was taken to the eagle centre, visited MHs new house, went for a rather random countryside drive where we talked through some of that girls shit that she's got going down and then i headed out to meet the lads.
It was a bit awkward at first. Like i said its been a long time since i've visited last a long time since i came up last and I was a bit of an outsider at first, all shy like when we first started hanging out but then R appeared!
I've not seen R since, oh forever! See after he finished his degree he moved to rejoin his parents (I'm never quite sure what they do, i think they teach english as a second language abroad, he describes them as travelling missionaries) in the cayman islands (lucky cunt) so for the last two years he's been working out there with the blue iguana conservation program and they have decided to fund his masters in wildlife conservation and in september he moved up to Newcastle!He hasnt changed! He's still the same annoying, drunken tart he always was.
hurrah!
so we went out for many drinks and all was good fun, R tried to teach me how to salsa, N pushed me over and pinned me down in the middle of the road, just like old times!
anyhoo. it got to about quarter to two and MH who was my taxi service for the evening despite not coming out, text me to say she was coming to get me and N got rather irritated at that. I wasnt ready to go home, but obviously i cant take advantage of her kind offer to pick me up and offer me a place to kip!
Anyway he demanded that i stay out and i refused and then he stole my phone and pushed me outside the bar and i followed him, arguing that he gave me back my phone.
Being a tall cunt he strode off and i had to trot after him. he started giving me this speech that i think he'd rehearsed a million times about how I should stop allowing myself to be used by her (which in a way is true. She's said some pretty shitty things to me in the past and messed me about a little) how i should stop worrying so much about what everyone else expected me to do and do what i wanted for a change.
Which I got pretty upset about, I am trying to rebuild my life and sort it out and i dont need pity from anyone else and then he reminded me of some of the things she's said to me, how she expects me to go and move back in with her while she finds me a crummy job just to make her happy, where as I'd quite like to give living with Welshy a go. but he dont figure in her plans at all.
And I got pretty teary and he cuddled me while i fought back a couple of sobs and then walked me to his house. demanded that I not go back to MH and indeed rang her and told her i wasnt coming back (by this time she's arrived in derby, spent 40 minutes looking for me, is pretty pissed off and gone back home, only to come back out again with my bedthings)
He demanded to know when I was coming back to live in Derby again, telling me that he knows i'm not happy, that i've spent too long making other people happy and coming back there would make me happy (I'm not sure it would anymore. i dont think i can live the student lifestyle like they do. yes i miss them all and i miss the social life but i think my lifes starting to take me in another direction to theirs. And really i think all that was part of a ploy to get me to pick sides in the row that is ongoing between him and STF and MH)
Then he started to ask me about Dad, which I've never really actually talked about with anyone in real life except Welshy. About the day that he died and the events leading up to it which made me cry some more.
Then at 3am he decided we should make pancakes. which in hindsight was a bad move when you were as drunk as we were. They were inedible, but we took the scraps up to his room where we settled down to watch crocodile dundee and i must have passed out cos the next thing i remember is that it was half past 7 and his poxy alarm is going off and he's dragging me up and out, so we ate breakfast out, and headed to the pub!
A had gone to the casino and had a mega win 900 quid for putting 80 in! lucky bastard!) so treated us all to breakfast in Our Beloved Friary (there's something so wrong and yet so right about sitting outside a bar ringing them, demanding that they open up and serve us)
I text MH to apologise for the drama last night, and she came and collected me and told me very severely off all the way to the train station and I came home after an epic 4 hour train ride (normally takes only an hour and 45 minutes to get back)
so there we go, an ace night out really minus the girly dramas and i promised i wouldnt leave it so long before i visited again!

So early on Saturday I caught the train up to Derby, I was horrified to learn that the old Midland Mainline company has been taken over by East Midland trains and they'd taken away the complimentary tea and coffee, not that i drank either but its the principle of the thing!
Going up to St Pancras was an experience too. Since I went to uni, they've slowly been revamping the station. I used to pull into the station and watch the men work on the expansion and then half way through my second year, we got moved into the temporary extension which was very exciting and now its all posh with a pretty glass roof and lots of posh shops.
What I liked best on the way home though was that, before I could look out of one corner and see my Dads cab in the taxi rank, and he'd always be waiting for me in the lobby part either with the cab or he'd come up on the train and we'd talk bollocks all the way home.
Anyway, obviously since he's not around any more to meet me, I always found it hard to go past that window without looking to see if the taxi was there and even Welshy commented once that I walked past all the cabs and had a quick glance in the windows to see if he was there. So to be able to go past and not have that sinking feeling was really nice.

My journey up was pretty uneventful, I befriended some Spurs supporters heading up for the Derby/Spurs match and got chatting to this old man who was carrying a bouquet of roses and I asked if that was for someone special and he started telling me that they were for his best friend'd 60th. A lass that he'd known for fifty years since they were children together and that they only met up twice a year for each others birthdays but had written a letter to each other every fortnight for so long and spoke on the phone once a week for like the last twenty-nine years and stuf like that. Which I thought was incredibly sweet.

I met MH up in Derby and she took me around the new and modern Eagle Centre and i got a very exciting lemon meriangue flavoured milkshake and some stuff that turns your bath water into goo! I cant wait to try that out!
Anyhow I'm really tired so i'll finish this off tomorrow if i remember...

What a match!
Charlton v Palarse games are always something special. thought it was all gonna kick off though at the bottom of Charlton Church Lane, when we got caught in a crowd yelling abuse at the palarse fans and them giving it right back. Anyway the police horses moved in and me and E and her two workmates nipped round the back of them.
Poor things, one of them was getting right spooked by the atmosphere and backed most of the way up, only the skill of the rider and the confidence boost it got from an older, more placid horse, whose rider shoved right in the way of it, stopped it from bolting.
Its so funny to see those guys who just a few minutes ago, had been mouthing off, just scatter away from the waving hooves.
And even more funny to think that me and E just walked past them rather blaise and uncaring. I guess all that time around the horses as kids has left us with perhaps a false sense of secuirity of guessing how the horses'll react. One day we'll get caught out and trampled underfoot!

By the time we'd gotten through all that the game had kicked off and it was a fantastic atmosphere right from the start!
When Varney got the first and then the other (surely it'll go down as an own goal in the end though!?) It just went crazy, right through to the final whistle, where it was another ballache to get out!
Our next game is away to Wednesday. I was hoping to go to this. A had kinda, almost, not really, promised me that i could come and sit in his box for the match but a midweek game is just silly cos i cant afford to take the time away from work, especially when i'm being entrusted with the excitement of a first aid course!

And Tomorrow I'm heading up to Derby! Hurrah! N has been most affronted recently that I've only been up once since coming back from NZ so i'm heading up for a "lads night out"! Ha!
I would have gone up tonight, but obviously, football comes first!
Derby Hurrah!

On Thursday I had the day off of work so I did some work for the gallery favourite talk that I wanna do for work, so i took a trip to the Imperial War Museum.
Ordinarily i love museums, i can spend all day happily reading and admiring the exhibits (of course it helps if they have interactive parts so i can indulge my inner child!) But there's something so sad and mournful about the war museum. I guess thats to be expected really. I mean its not like war is a happy picnic and kite flying session is it?
Looking at the room full of Victoria Crosses (including one of my talk subject - funnily enough, as I've discovered that the picture they have of him, isnt really him!) and in the main foyer they have an exhibit on the recent TV production of My Boy Jack which starred Daniel Radcliffe and they have loads of parts of guns and tanks and aircraft, and its filled with kids pretending to shoot them and men reliving their childhoods and it made me sad somehow to think about it all, that people were killed and injured and they (visitors not the museum) were making a joke out of it, and not treating them with respect I guess.
I couldnt face looking around the rest of it so I got the info I needed and hurried off to meet Welshy.

My Mother is slowly starting to relent on the Welshy part of my life and curiosity is beginning to get the better of her (only 2 years after I first met him, one year after we started going out and 2 months since I told her about him!) I think soon she'll ask to meet him which alternately scares the hell out of me and is something I want to do.
Anyway we checked into a hotel as we do and hung out for two days, it was nice, I could pretend that we lived together and i was coming home to him from work and gay girly stuff like that.
We went to Pizza Hut together and took supplies from sainsburys to the room and laughed and chatted and caught up.

I like hanging about with him, he's my best friend and one of the very few people I can feel i can be myself about, i dont feel the need to hide my occasional spacky moments where i trip over my own feet and walk into walls, i can tell him about the often random and fantastically illogical thoughts and fantasies that go in and out of my head and i can curl up and lean on his chest and feel safe and comforted in a way that i dont ever feel elsewhere.

Anyway. can you guys believe its a year since NZ? This time last year I'd done my sky tower jump, and spent two days clambering about in a cave. Awesome.

I've just come back from visiting Welshy!


I had a fantastic Saturday with him, combining all of my favouritest things, animals, football, drinking and dancing!


He toko me to Chester Zoo which is i have to admit loads better than London Zoo, with more big animals and lots more space and exhibits, i saw loads of new animals that i've not seen before, like gorgous big jaguars and I had lots of fun running about like a loon from one pen to another to see them!
I even managed to crawl into a giant tortoise shell and pretend to be an orang-utan and saw my one of my favourite animals the okapi, who blatantly have sexy arses. We even saw the parthenongenic komodo dragons! which was exciting!


Then luckily his local team had got their game re-arranged so we rushed to the ground in time to see Wrexham throw two points away and settle for a 1-1 draw!

then down into the city itself to meet one of his friends where much drinking was partaken and much silly dancing also!

I got id-ed on saturday. Which isnt an unusual thing for me, despite being 24, If I venture away from my local haunts I tend to be id-ed all the time, which is almost fair enough. I do look young for my age, and what with the challenge 21 thing, although its a pain in the arse I carry ID with me at all times.
No. What upset me most about being id-ed on Saturday was that it was while trying to buy a lottery ticket!! (for those over the water, you have to be 16 in order to get a lottery ticket)
I was most annoyed (and i will kill anyone who says I'll be glad of it when i get older, that's no consolation for the shame i felt when I realised that my wallet was in my mums handbag at the time and so had to be escorted out of WHSmiths by a security guard while trying to prove my age)

Today in work I had to settle the argument of whether a penguin was a fish or a bird and if it had legs or not.
Seriously. This was debated between two people I thought of as intelligent.

It makes the Great Squirrel Egg debate of the summer, seem kinda reasonable now.

oh no!
I said in my last post about how i crashed into a friend while ice skating, causing him to crash and cut his face open, well today. Lovely (We'll call him that cos he is a sweety and lovely goes well with his name)
anyway he was eating his dinner as i entered the messroom and i notice that his arm is in a sling and he's got one of those splint glove things on.
Turns out that when i crashed into Lovely, I may have fractured his arm!
Ooops!
He's pretty cool about it, and just shrugged off my apologies as "one of those things" although i'm not sure he appreciated my giggles while i watched him struggle to unwrap a tinfoil bread roll.

last Wednesday was Dad's birthday so we went to see the Spamalot show. It was really fun, even if like me, you've been brought up opn the Monty Python movies, and you know all the jokes you still find a reason to laugh at them!
And if you're (un)lucky enough you may even get picked up out of the stage to help find the grail by King Arthur and his gang and get a photo taken on stage with them all.
Friday I went ice skating with some of the lads from work that i've gotten quite chummy with and a girl who used to work with us during the summer,unlike me though she wasnt lucky enough to be taken on perminantly.
it all went pretty well, really. The lads seem to think its funny that my lack of balance and co-ordination meant that it was ESSENTIAL that i flapped my arms around as stabilisers and to help me turn around corners, the other problem i have is that I get carried away with my own ability and find myself going really fast, then i start gliding, start panicking about how i'm going to stop and skate straight into a wall in order to save myself.
Well i sure stopped them laughing when one of them lost his concentration after skating around me showing off, and he promptly fell onto his arse, and i then drove my skate into his face and cut his cheek open.
Ooops. Still he seemed ok about my accident and we're still pals! Hurrah!
Then it was a rush to get off to meet Welshy, because! Scarily enough this weekend, turned out to be our one year thingy. So we went out for a weekend of fun and football (well for me)
Tomorrow after work E is joining me for a drinking session as we remember that its nearly a year since we flew out for NZ and we both are suffering from a bit of itchyfeet syndrome and agree its time for a new adventure!

Disaster!
Before Xmas the land that my stables resides went up for sale, and land prices being what they were went for nearly 2 million pounds, well beyond the price limit of the lady who rents the land and runs my stables.
So far she's not heard anything about the person that owns it, but it stands to reason that if you pay that much for land you'll wanna build on it, and its a good few acres, enough for several houses, shops, god knows what.
Which leaves the question of, what will happen to the 30 odd horses and ponies that currently reside there.
Its a worrying thought, some of the show Arabs, and other horses that compete will be kept obviously, for breeding and she does own a little bit of land to which to keep them on, some of the others would have good homes, if she put them up for sale, but then there's the worry of what kinda homes they'll end up in, at least at the stables, they get retired off to a small holding when they get too old to work to live out the remaining years in peace.

But what about the likes of little one-eyed Captain? He's well into his 30's, he came to us from the RSPCA after kids attacked him and his constant companion Chelsea with bows and arrows, he's cheeky and full of fun, but far too old really to go and start life over again. What about little Charmer, tied up and beaten with an iron bar? He's still scared of men and cant be used for riding and the laminitus in his feet means he cant be used for a companion pony out in a field.
BamBam too, Manny, Pod, Trooper, all live on painkillers, would someone be willing to pay out masive vet bills for a pony you cant even ride?
And the people that I've known since I was 6 years old and working at the Stables is all they've done from School. What will become of them?
Horses that have characters and are as real to me with personalities as vivid as the people who care for them, will they end up as glue or dogmeat?

So here we are again. Now it seems like my New Years start here, another Year without my Dad.
This year the anniversary has been so much harder to deal with, or maybe last year was like that and I blocked it from my head.
I've been struggling with it all week, the worst thing in work is that there is simply nothing to distract you and stop you thinking about it, and i've brooded on it, and been simply rude and awful to some people that haven't deserved it, I even played a cruel, horrid trick on Welshy New Year's Eve, for no reason other than I felt the need to take it out on someone.
Bless him to pieces, despite my insistance that I'd be fine and the fact that I'd not see him, he insisted on coming down, saying that he'd feel better being only 40 minutes from me, rather than 4 hours away if I needed him.
I took him and his friend to the Cup Game, and we went for a drink in Greenwich afterwards, I shall have to buy him a present or something to say thank you.
and now its the day itself, and I think i've exhausted myself through not being able to sleep for the last two weeks, or sleeping very badly if I have done, and I've spent a great deal of this weekend asleep.
We didnt do much for the Deathday anniversary itself. Brat took himself out and away from us, and Mum was loathe to do anything without him, so we've both moped about the house a little all day.
On Wednesday we're going to see Spamalot for his birthday, and I think he'd have approved of that.
I miss him. I miss him terribly and constantly. And I have no more to say about today than that. And I hope he knows that, somehow.