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!