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

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

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

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

I get assaulted at work!
Honestly!

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

2 Random phone calls yesterday..

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Oh dear Shaun!!

Things that have irritated me today.

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

Sigh.

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

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

I wonder if an angel really go joy riding?

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

What the hell's that all about?

Jimmy Floyd!!!

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

Sometimes in the Shop I play "guess the sex"

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

So Pirates of the Carribbean?

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

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

I have quails!
They're so cute and gobble like turkeys, they're pretty tame too and I've been petting them most of the day.
Getting them was a bit of an adventure, had to travel down to Ashford and we got to the village ok but was then told to look out for "A Big Sign for the Darling Buds of May" Well we travelled all over that village and repeatedly rang up asking for help and eventually after circuling the village several times we found it.
It wasn't that big a sign so boo to them!
The farm was great though! It had raindeer! And goats! And piglets! And Ducks! And geese! I love farms.
So I'm now the proud owner of Quentin and Quaver (I love alliteration in names!) quail.
I'll put a pic up on here shortly when they've settled in, they're quite young so look a bit scrawny and have no feathers on their back but that'll all grow back. I'm considering making them little wooly jackets to wear until the feathers grow.
They make the coolest noise too! They sound like robot turkeys!

However when we came back Satan Cockatiel was in a right state. One side of his face was covered in blood, a mask all over his face.
One of the budgies had blood on his beak so I'm not sure if he attacked him or whether he caught himself on something.
But the budgies have laid eggs so maybe he stuck his beak somewhere he shouldnt have and they were defending their eggs.
I had to catch the bird and try and clean him up with some damp cotton buds, so I'll keep him indoors for a week till he recovers and some of the blood scabs fall off or something.

So thanks all for your lovely kind words!

Today was not my best day at the aquarium. While taking a group of 6 year olds round a fish inconviently decided to die in front of me.
Bastard thing.
I managed to pass it off by telling them it was going to the Fishy Hospital to be made better, so unless those 6 year olds are reading this now, I think I've got away with it!

Secondly while doing my first ever "Amazing Life of the Coral Reef" Talk, I managed to completely forget to mention the coral.
I cant believe that, however I did mention everything else with a few giggles.

Tomorrow Mother is taking me to Ashford to get my quail! And possibly to see Pirates 2 so I can drool over certain Misters Bloom and Depp!

Oh and play my game!

6 months ago.

Sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago, sometimes just like something that happened a week ago.
Sometimes customers ask about me, ask what I did to end up in the shop or ask about my folks and I tell them. I'm not looking for sympathy or anything.
And they tell me that they're sorry and you smile at them and thank them politely but inside you feel like shaking them and screaming in their face.
They're not sorry! How can they be? They have no idea about any of it. They have no idea who we are, its just names to them. They dont know him, they dont know us. About what we went through, the things we never speak of, not to each other, not to our closest friends and family, stuff that I've never even put in here but yet is always in the back of my mind. You wonder how much you can talk about before they mentally drown you out or start avoiding you.
And They don't know what we go through now.
How Mum is odder than ever, how she panics when either of us is even ten minutes late home. About how her Brothers are all bullying her to do more with Nanny and Granddad, how we should sell our house and move in with them and care for them so they don't have the burden of it all.
Did I ever tell you guys about how my Uncle J suggested that to my Mum just a few days after the funeral?
So far she's resisting but how long?
About how she greeted pretty much virtual strangers on holiday with "Hi I'm.... and I'm a widow.." Thats not coping surely?
About how she's already putting the pressure on me to not move back out, or to take her with her.
About how much she relies on me. "Her Rock." I dont want to be anyones rock anymore.
And the customers tell me how selfless I am. How much of a big heart I must have and you feel like screaming at them. "No! I'm not! All I did was what was right. What everyone expected of me."
And I think of now and how its affected me. How I find it hard to sit still for a few minutes, with out the need to do something, to occupy myself in some way, but yet how I can't concentrate on anything.
How I lie awake for ages after I finally give in and go to bed, and how you miss him so much it physically hurts.
and of then, and how much I hated and resented being trapped with them, in that situation, when being at home was the very last thing I ever wanted to be.
And how much I'd give anything, do anything to have him back with us, even in that awful state he was in the last month, and that's not being selfless at all.

I have a webcam!
Wheee look at it all webby and cammy!
I dont really know what to do with it now, it took me a while to get it going, after pulling out the wire to the internet while plugging it in.
Now I have an eye and a green light staring at me, what if its on already? what if someone is staring at me?

Maybe I'll need to get it a cover for when I'm not actually using it.

Football!

Fucking Hell!

Having very little else to write about recently, I thought I'd show you some pics my friends took of some of the fish at the aquarium.
This dude here is Albert, I named him that mainly cos I think he looks like a grumpy old man, and Albert seems like a grumpy old mans name!
Octopuses are great fun, when he comes out, most of the time he sleeps all day.
He's good at escaping too, the aquarists have so much security around his tank and he still manages to get out of it!




Percy is our Pufferfish
Hes dead sweet and takes food from our hand, which we're not actually supposed to do, but I can trust you guys to keep it secret!
Apparently unlike in Finding Nemo Pufferfish can only inflate themselves so many times and then cant deflate which leaves them easy targets for predators.


Our clownfish eggs never hatched though, I guess they didnt want to be raised in a single parent family

I went to the Tower of London today!

Its one of the few "main" London attractions that I've never been too.

And I rode up on a boat and now I know how the word wharf originates and all about the sites and things, I know the pub where Captain Kidd was arrested and the house where Nelson lived and the Pub thats made out of parts of the Mayflower!
Yeah! It was like a history lesson only fun!

The tower was ace, we got shown round by one of the Yeomen Warders (Beefeaters) they all live in the Tower grounds! Imagine that? And at night they get locked in the castle and can only get in and out by using a secret code word and have their own doctor on the premises and play football on their "village green" which in olden days was where Anne Boleyn got the chop. How cool is that?
Apparently you can only be a beefeater if you've been in the army 22 years, reached a certain rank and something else though, so unless I marry one of them I dont think I'll be living there!
And I saw the famous ravens and the Crown Jewels, which would be ok, I guess if you like that sorta thing, I just thought it was a lot of glittery tackiness!

An Ace day though!

best bit about this promotion effort?

I get to spend time supposedly doing the work for it in work!
This generally means I spend time gazing into space and doodling on my notebook and getting paid for not being on the shop floor or behind the till!!!

Despite not having a clue about anything at work and STILL fucking stuff up with the till I've been offered a promotion!
Oh yes! I can become a "Product Advisor" instead of just a humble "sales associate"!
And what will my new fancy title mean?
Well If I take the exam within a month and pass, I can have a one off pay bonus, I'm not sure how much of though, probably not a great deal, and its still a fancy title for "shop assistant!"

My clownfish - well they aint mine exactly but heyho - are having babies!
There's a mass of teeny red eggs next to their anemone home!
The dads well cool, I kept hopping off from my appointed task of the half hour to go investigate them.
He waves his little fin over them and sometimes dusts them with his tail fin to ensure a floew of clean fresh water over them and carefully mouths them to remove any sea-dust on them!
He's such a good parent already!
The same cant be said of the mother, her job is to protect them (Dad and eggs) from attack and chase away any bigger fish that could cause a threat.
I think being a potential parent has caused her a bit of a breakdown, she keeps hiding in the coral away from her family.
However if Disney has taught me anything, its that Clownfish fathers make great single parents.

Hopefully (this is the second time in as many months) the eggs will have hatched this time next week as the previous batch were duds.
Hurrah!

what a game!
And what a typically awesome (note the sarcasm) performance from Poll the Arsehole!
Go Aussies!

gotta love this link! I wanna toy poo!

I have a habit of greeting my friends with the term stinky. Upon hindsight, perhaps its not the best term to adress my boss at the aquarium first thing in the morning.

It was odd being in Derby this time. I remember when I knew the name of every station even the ones that I didnt stop at on the way up and now I can't remember if Wellingborough comes before or after Market Harbourgh.
And things there have changed.
Its not the 5 of us any more. R has moved to St Lucia, A is working in Southhampton at the moment and STF was in Germany, although he did come home for this weekend and we went out.
Places I know have changed, and I'm no longer part of that inner circle, there's all kinds of adventures and plans that I'm not part of any more.
I guess its all to be expected really. I'm not living there. I'm not sure if I'll ever go back to live there again and I still want things to be the way they were.
Odd to seeing H2 so pregnant. Hearing that the day before I came up CL's UDOBF had proposed and they're thinking of getting married in April 2008.
Hearing MH talk about her continuing hunt for the perfect man and how she at 25 feels the need to settle down and do housewifey things and that she's sick of the student lifestyle.
I know I'm not ready, not willing for that, I feel sometimes that I was robbed of being careless and not worrying about it all.
I know I'm not the same person I was when I left Derby, I can't barely remember the person that I was 5 years ago when I moved up there.
So why should I want things to stay the same so much?

I had a great time nonetheless, I stayed with N and like I said STF popped home and we went out on a tame (for their standards) night out, where I got shamefully hammered and then overly fascinated with the fact that I could see double when we came home and how many times I needed to tell them I didnt like Indian food when they were shoving it under my nose.
And then they passed out and I curled up in the corner of the bed and got busy with some of my other favourite drunken past times when I can't get near a computer of drunken texting.
I'm still trying to remember what and who I texted though!
And then on Saturday I met MH and I felt sick at the thought of meeting her, I dreaded the invevitable and vile questions of "how are you coping?"
Why can't it be like the lads who greeted me with "Alright Charlton? Get t'bar and getter round in!"
But I lived and we came back to H2's house and played with her cats and played endless games of "I remember such and such an incident"
And then we went to Asda mainly cos I wanted to remember those funny trips up there, when I'd go straight to the items I needed and not waste time going up and down the aisles like they did and it was kinda like old times, especially cos they had an aisle devoted to the World cup and football stuff and showing the Portugal game, (Oh I remember how they did the same during Portugal 2004 and I'd sit in a chair there and watch a DVD of Englands 50 greatest goals while they did endless girly things)
I miss those days where everything now seems careless and carefree. You can forget the bad stuff like how our house was always cold and the Co2 leak we had and how the lad we originally stayed with stunk and made a horrible atmosphere.
So we went for this meal for H2s birthday and of course MH flirted stupidly (I can see it now and how I still sit back and wait for her to get it on with them before I go over and make friends, the way I used to see myself as the hanger-on, the not really in the way but not really wanted by either of them to be there.)
So I drank loads again, combatting my fierce hangover.

Today I met up with The Lizard and it was nice and we went for dinner and a trip to sainsburys (Where me and Mum and Dad had our first ever meal in Derby! And where I took LF once and he offered to buy me flowers and I laughed at the idea that someone would want to buy me flowers and what the hell I'd do with them)
And again it was nice, and nostalgic and I'm all caught up in wanting things to be like they were but knowing that it can't be exactly how it was.
There wont be a red taxi waiting for me at St Pancras every other weekend and there wont be my Dad standing on the platform, waiting to greet me with a huge grin and likeways there isn't the commute up to my house and up those hills every other Sunday.
And a whole weekend without a trip to Our Beloved Friary! Now there's a good reason for another trip!

I ache for things to be like that, and I think I'm also very tired, mentally and physically.

Do you ever get the feeling that sometimes you just can't cope with everything your friends place upon your shoulders?
That you feel like breaking down in tears and crying "no! Enough! I can't do this anymore, I can't be that rock for you, when you're not there for me"
I saw scars on N's arms, deep, ugly red scars and asked him and felt them.
He cuts himself and I feel so bad and so want to help and yet I can't bear the thought of shouldering another burden, I carry too many other peoples burdens.

Why can't things just stay the same?

Yay! My work uniform for the shop has finally arrived, admittedly its the winter shirt but yay!
No more patching this one up everytime I wash it!
Off to Derby for the weekend! See ya!

One of the cleaners at the aquarium brought in his babies today.
They were gorgeous! So cute! And ever so friendly.
Admittedly I was a little worried when he pulled a wriggling bag out of his rucksack but when he produced a handful of baby two-month-old boa constrictors, I fell in love!
They were tiddly! And so cute! I was on the verge of bringone one home and then remembered the birds, and The Brat's phobia of anything that has no legs, and the fact that they grow to 18feet and I reluctantly handed them back.
Boo!

I fucking hate this heat!

Its bad enough in our shop that our air con is permanently switched to hot, although there is an occasional *poof* of air, which has the same strength of someone breathing on you.
We asked Head Office about getting it fixed and they responded by saying it might take 6-8 weeks to get someone out to look at it. Thanks guys, the summer will be over by then.

Incidentally someone complained to Head Office about us drinking on the shop floor, so as I do 5 hour shifts I don’t get a break and am permanently on the shop floor. Often on my own if the Big Boss Woman is doing the paperwork and on lunch and my supervisor spends a lot of time on the phone out the back, having a fag or trundling along the high street.
So I suffer and a Charbs can’t work in this heat and my patience for the Idiot customers is low and I end the day feeling sick and dreading my next shift.
I worked 7 hours on Thursday with no break for a drink or dinner and felt really rough!
So anyway, I’m fighting the power by having my sneaky bottle of water under the till and standing by the doorway whenever I get a chance hoping to find a bit of wind.

The machinery has other ideas, today they came into work and found that the freezers have been over working, and that they’d died and everything had defrosted.
There is only two tills in our shop and one of them has blown up – with purple smoke!!
So once we’d cleared the floors of gravy. We continued our day moaning about the heat and then it suddenly went from brilliant heat to thunderstorms, hailstones and torrential rain!
And we flooded! Ever seen those cartoons where a character opens the door and a huge wave of water rushes out soaking him?
Well it was like that!With the odd box or packet of papaya floating past!
Loads of stock ruined!
And the computer and ticker that records everything got wet too!
All the time dealing with the waterfall above our heads We mopped up the best we could and then rang Head Office. And remember this is the company that refuses to give us CCTV, claiming its not cost-effective – (fuck our safety or whatever!) Told us that they might send some one round on Friday, and until then we’re too do the best we can and carry on as normal*

So if you happen to be in Woolwich High Street tomorrow and pop your head in and see members of staff, lying dead and electrocuted on the floor and bottles of Evening Primrose Oil floating about you’ll know what happened.


* of course I’m hoping that we’re closed for Thursday so that I can watch the England game in peace!!!

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Its the world Cup! Hurrah! Go out and miss the key clash of Mexico/Iran? You're having a laugh?
(How boring was the Portugal/Angola match though?)
And Englands got off to a winning start, although I still remain convinced (and even more so after yesterday) that we're facing another q/f exit!
And if anyone can think of a better way to spend their day apart from drinking in Greenwich, watching the Sweden match outside in the Sun by the Trafalgar and getting the worlds nicest Apple Pie at the Yacht over looking the river?

The only problem I have is that its too fucking hot! I'm hiding indoors from it and my poor birdies are sweltering! I put in a bath for them, they paddle in it and have water fights, they're so funny!

Today was Granddad's birthday so we all (minus D) arrived at the Anchor In Hope on the other side of Shooters Hill, and watched the Holland game and laughed and joked.
It was fun! And an idea was suggested by M that we all go off to Cuba for Christmas and New Year! We'll see how that one plays out, it'd be a quality holiday!

And next weekend I'm going up to Derby, bit sad really cos STF will be in Germany doing his World Cup thing and I think most of the lads will be busy doing stuff, so although I'm staying at N's I'm not really sure if there will be any decent nights out with them all, but its H2's birthday and MH will be there and I'm going to meet The Lizard so it should be a fun weekend anyway!

Wheee!

Hello there! Have you missed me? I've tried to blog honest!
But Blogger has been a Queen Bitch all week!
Any one else had this problem?
The World Cup is here! Yeehaaa!

ANNNNDDD I've been asked to stay on at the aquarium for another three months!
I absolutely love working there its the highlight of my week, and I'd like to be considered for a perm job there if one came up.
However, there is one part I dislike and thats the public talks, I guess you need to be a certain kind of person to be able to handle talking over hundreds of kids/tourists who aint listening to a word you say, or to give a talk to just one or two people and see your crowd dwindle off as they go onto to see other exhibits.
I'm not that kinda person, maybe its something that will come in time, all the people that work there are doing it everyday and I just have to put myself through it once or twice a week.
but I dislike all the crowds and the kids under my feet all day and the repedative screaming at them NOT TO FUCKING SPLASH THE WATER IN THE RAY TOUCHPOOL!
So I'd like to get into the quarintine department I think and I'd like to find out how to go about that, its so much more hands on with the fish and best of all its all behind the scenes so I can stay there and not have to deal with the public.
Only thing is they're obviously very picky about who they pick and you need a gazillion years of experience with fish beforehand.
So we'll make discreet enquiries and if not maybe we'll sign up for another three months, like I said, I do really enjoy working there.

This is chief Journalist Charby McCharb reporting to you live from her computer!
*NOW UPDATED*

Uncunformed reports indicate that a shot has gone off in the house next door but one, and indeed a gun has been carried out!
The police were called about half hour ago, after people broke in and set on the house, we're not sure of the full details and we are all aware of the not so pure background of the people next door but one.
Is this a vendetta attack? A robbery that went wrong?
Who knows? An Eyewitness by the name of Charbs McCharby can say is that they heard a lot of shouting and then the father of the house in the street with blood running down him.
Paramedics, dog handlers, SWAT teams, (ok maybe not, but definately Special Operations) and normal police were quickly on the scene.
We'll try to get back to this story with more rumour and hearsay later tonight!
For now I'm heading back off to my familar position on the Woolwich Front Line!
Over and Out!


*update*

Apparently they pulled a gun on C coming down the stairs, but it didnt work or something? Anyway, the Father is now back at home and the boys are all here, and they've found the clothes or something, I'll fill more details in as they come through! Wheee!

Project bird cage is finished!

I've installed them all in now and they look terrified poor things, its all the outside noises and natural light and not being able to hear the telly I guess!

Pictures forthcoming with Blogger stops being a bitch!

Hi!
I'm back! And fuck me am I burnt! I thought Ireland was supposed to be a rainy country?
I had a great time and one without any of my usual disasters hehehe!
Here's my caravan!










And here's me and my new bestest horsey buddy Tommy!

Going on Holidays today!

Yay! Be good all! Be back saturday!

Ian Dowie!!!!!

It was like the worlds worst kept secret ever, ever, ever!
Although I was still hoping Scolari might be unveiled! (hey a girl can dream!).

The main problem I have with this is that Dowie looks suspiciously like Sloth and I was always scared of Sloth.
I mean it guys! I still have problems watching the Goonies!
But I'll guess I'll reserve judgement on Dowie until the season kicks off (got new ticket today -whooo!)

And honestly! What kinda saddo is Jordan? What was that attention seeking all about with the writ?









Sloth from the Goonies.




Ian Dowie.

The Brat scratched his head and stared.

"So I left the house about three hours ago and there was five birds."
"Yup!" I agreed.
"Now there's 10."
"Again technically true."
"What the hell are they in the corner?"
"Mini-peepers!"
"What?"
"Chickens! Well baby chickens. Aint they cute?"
"They're hideous!"
"Why do we have chickens?"
"Well technically I'm only looking after these two, they're going home on Thursday."
"Are the parrots going home too?"
"Well not really, see I saw them in a pet shop and thought they looked fun."
One parrot skidded around at 20 million miles an hour upside down on top of the cage like a bat.
"Well..."
"And I was only gonna get the one see, and then I thought it'd be a bit mean to get one, so thought I'd get the pair and then the woman pretty much begged on her hands and knees for me to take the third and she reduced the price on it too, so I've kinda got a foot and tail for free!"
"So how much was it?"
*mumble* *hundred quid for three *mumble*
He scratches his head again. "Well as long as I dont have to go near them."







The Mini-peepers! They're so ugly they're cute! And they make more noise than all my lot put together!









New Parrots!

So perhaps now I've re-read my weekends posting I owe a little bit of an explaination.
I still reckon I was completely sober all weekend, obviously though, my fingers get a bit drunk, a bit quicker than the rest of me!

So Friday I show up at the aquarium and promptly get invited on a night out. I only possess my work shirt for there, and nice as it is, I can't see it going down well in a pub, especially as its adorned with a large sewn on shark and several badges that I make when I get bored at the craft table.
But luckily K from Swansea, lends me a nice black top and away we go to The Horse Bar somewhere on Westminster Bridge Road.
So yay! We settle down for some serious drinking with other members of the Education Department and The Hallowed Aquarists, responsible for all fishcare and who (bastards that they are) get to hide behind the scenes and never deal with the public (obviously I'm after a position down there, even if would spend all day stinking of fish)
I've not been proper drinking since I met Flash and Spins so I'm well excited. (plus some of the aquarists are very cute!)
Anyway I think I aquitted myself well, nine double archers and lemonades's later and I've outlasted many of the aquarists and a few of the education dept too!
K from Swansea, then decided to show me how she has double jointed shoulder blades, so I demonstrate my famous-hand-that-can-revolve-around-360 degrees trick.
I'm rewarded by a box of purloined matches from the bar.
I demonstrate the trick several times over and my pockets fill up with matchboxes. Then one of the aquarists pinched a box for their fags!
Oh the horror! How dare she?! They're MY presents!
So I instantly fill my pockets up and what to do with the others? Well sticking them down my bra seemed the only sensible place to keep them safe.
Somewhere else along this point, I challenge B from OZtralia in a "show-me-yours-and-i'll-show-you-mine" thing.
Only I claim forfeit cos he had a really hairy chest, which I dislike so I claimed I was too revolted to show mine - incidently aquarists are really boring people! I listened to one discuss his favourite terrapin for 20 minutes and another talk about the problems of feeding the sharks.
So yeah, ho-hum, then I realised that I didnt wanna get trapped in London again and scuttled back of to Waterloo Station, scattering boxes of matches on my way!

Saturday was my mums best mates daughters 16th (follow that?) and we get invited round to a BBQ.
My "excuse" for my behavour was that I was drinking WKD and all the caffine sent me hyper, cos her oldest brothers mate, showed up, with what was possibly the coolest hat I've ever seen since my awesome Wormy Hat!
After Extensive googling, I believe it was this.
Possibly bouncing up to a guy I'd never met, waving a burger at him and promptly stealing his hat might have shall we say, spooked him a bit. He disappeared with the hat and I didnt get to see him again until I had consumed all the WKD and was working my way through a bottle of vodka that I was mixing in a pint glass with orange juice and lemonade.
Looking back perhaps he wasnt eyeing me up, perhaps it was just fear.
Anyway, I launched another attack on the hat, which he tried to hide from me.
Pppfftt I grew up with The Brat, I dug him in the back of the knee and he yelped and let go of the hat, which I ran away with again.
He promptly persued me upstairs into their bathroom, and I tried to offer a fair exhange for the hat, including some of my Aquarium badges, my trainers and my glasses, which I thought was a fair trade.
Trying to hold a door shut by leaning on it isnt something I can do well, especially in just socks, so I was sliding over the floor, they took advantage of this and burst into the bathroom.
I then tried to make an escape out of the bathroom window, only well I'm not sure how but I kinda dented the hat getting stuck, whilst hanging out the window.
Shortly after this my Mother decided it was time we left.

wee! I think i pulled someone wiyh a great, hat, then i btrok the hat cliumbing out a window. so you know fuck him!

Weee!

So yyeah, a good place to hide matches are in your bra.

Continuing this weeks theme of short posts!

Guess how many people I did my second ever talk in front of!

(Answer in the comment box!)

I've been playing with a pneumatic drill! Yeeha! Its as much fun as you'd think it'd be

If anyone tells you that I sat back and watched over sixty pounds worth of stuff get nicked from our shop you'd be wrong - cos in fact it totaled 58 pounds and forty pence.

Yesterday I had to do my first public talk to the public (well dur!) at the aquarium! It was a bit scary, getting in there and finding out I'd been nominated to do a talk.
It went pretty badly I think, I forgot lots of stuff, giggled nervously through it and had problems with the microphone - still here's hoping the next one goes a bit better!

So the 19th of May dawned, the woman dressed and then dressed her daughter and they made their way on the bus to Woolwich Town Hall where the registery office is.
She had no doubts at all that he would be waiting for her and all their friends too, and they were there hungover and tired but she was overjoyed, although hating to be the centre of attention.
The ceremony at 11 am was short and brief and they then all rode on the bus back to the pub that they had hired out for the party.
His best man and Godfather to the little girl, still drunk from the night before, fascinated by the little toy, ball that belonged to the baby, inside was a duck that refused to turn over despite all the shaking and damage that they could cause to it as they rolled it up and down the bus.
The womans father had put money behind the till and they partied to celebrate the start of their new lives together as a family.
Cousins of the man had a whip round to collect money to help start them off and raised about 200 quid and then did a runner with it, but this wasnt found out till many, many years later.
And then it was closing time for the pub, and time for the FA Cup Final (Everton - Watford) so the party trooped back off to their house but they all passed out before the game even started and the baby and the woman were the only two awake for it.


HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MUM (AND DAD TOO I GUESS)!!!!!!!

Once about 23 years ago, a young girl, just nearing the end of her teens was dragged to a shabby, run down pub in Lewisham.
"You gotta come out!" Her sister urged. "Come and meet G, you'll like him, and his mates, he's just got back from a trip to Corfu!"
So she allowed herself to dragged to the pub.
"I'll go and get him!" The sister urged and feeling like a fool, she nodded and waited outside.
There was a commotion near the door and out fell the man with the bluest, twinkliest eyes ever and she instantly fell in love.
"L this is G" Her sister made the introduction and this girl started a hesitant conversation with him, finding him easy to talk to and lots of fun.
He invited her to the pictures to see "Porkys" and despite him threatening to walk out on her with her loud and embarrassing laughter, they had another wonderful time.
They dated for a few months, they were very different people, he very laidback and found fun in most situations, her more volatile and ready to fly of the handle over anything, much like the rest of her family.
One day after a furious row in the pub over a silly trival incident she stormed off barefoot and made her way up Blackheath Hill and onto the Heath to walk home and he ran all the way up the hill after her.
One day her parents had to go to court about a custody battle over her cousin, who had been living with them for some time.
She invited him round and cooked her first meal for him, of egg and chips and it was a night of firsts in many more ways than one.
Shortly after this night, the girl found out she was pregnant.
Her family took the news badly, her father refused to speak to her for months, one of her brothers lashed out physically and broke a chair over her back, the man offered to marry her but she refused.
"No! I want to get married because I want to, not because I have too!"
But he wanted to marry her anyway, not just cos both their families said so, but because he loved her just as she loved him.
They set up home together and shortly the woman gave birth to a girl, he redoubled his proposals to her but she kept refusing.
Then one day when the little girl was three months short of her 1st birthday he asked again, in the car park of sainsburys in Woolwich and this time she agreed and the date was set......

To be continued

I've been to therapy!
*waits for you to pick yourselves off the floor*

It was at Dad's hospice, and I thought I was only going to support Mum as she'd expressed an interest in going but didnt want to on her own, I assumed I'd just sit in a corner and watch telly or something while she talked but I got put into a group with another lad my age who'd lost his Dad and a set of twins only about 16 - poor kids! who's lost their Mum.
Pretty odd really seeing as they'd all been in there the same time as me, and lost their parent a few days after mine and had the funerals at the same place and after mine too!
It was the first day I'd been back there since that day, I didnt want to go around the wards and see Dad's room and bed, it was enough going there and seeing the day room where he'd sit or the car park space where we parked that last morning or the spot by the door where I comforted my Uncle G and spoke to TP and TJ on the phone.
It was a lot better than I thought it'd be though, they didnt hassle me too much and we just chatted about it all, I feel so much better knowing that they hardly/never cry over it and feel guilty too over the fact that they dont think about it 24/7!
Not sure if I'd go to another thing, but I got their numbers (well I had but I lost the scrap of paper! - But they have mine!) So maybe we'll keep in touch and talk stuff over and that.

Look at what I've made so far!!!!!
Its a bit taller than I was expecting cos I messed up my metres/foot conversions and my 6ft tall cage is now 10 foot, but I imagine the birds will like it in the end!

My bed room door wouldnt open...
I pushed it and pushed it and then kicked it. It still wouldnt budge.
I swore at it and pushed it some more.
My brother comes out of his room.
"what the fuck are you doing?" He asks.
"What does it look like? I cant get in!"
He sighes and pushes the handle down - Boy do I feel silly!

In my defense though, having a door handle is a pretty new concept.
While back in uni I came home for a weekend and had a snooze on my bed, before getting up to go to the loo.
I twisted the doorhandle confident it would open as it had done so a trillion times before.
The door handle twisted in my hand and I heard an ominous thud.
I pulled my hand back and was left with half a door handle!
I was trapped! With a need to pee! With no one in the house to rescue me!
It was the longest 2 hours I ever spent in my room, waiting for someone to rescue me.
In that time, anything and everything looks like it could make a passable loo, from the empty pringles tube to the half filled bin!
Gross!
Luckily I managed to hang on till I heard them come home and rescue me, but anyway, thats the reason why I've not had a door handle in my room for 3 years

I've spent the day breaking up rocks to go alround the base of my new project! Tomorrow will be concrete day! Huzzah!

I was chatting to OF earlier and remembering some of our games we used to play as kids, some of them seem a little crazy now!
There was the usual things like cops and robbers, which became an obsession with us for most winters really - darkness = better "robbing" opportunities!
My house used to have a gate and therefore became a jail! which wasnt very secure! I remember one time OF crashing through the fence in an attempt to jump over it!

Every Spring we played "Blossom Town" with the flowers that fell from the big Cherry Tree in the middle of that cul-de-sac. (only the dead ones though that were on the ground, we were very concerned not to "hurt" the tree!
We used to pick one big fresh blossom each day to be the mayor of "Blossom Town" and would "bury" all the old wilting, brown ones in the earth in an area we marked out to be a "Blossom Graveyard"
And yet we seemed to be convinced that piling our bike baskets with the blossom would prevent them from dying if we rode round and round really fast, like the fresh air would revive them!

Another common game, but one that tended to get us in trouble was "The Drain game" We'd find big stones and drop them through the drain gates and attempt to get a splashback up with extra points if you could get the water to hit you!
Another rather unhygenic game we played now that I think of it was with the droppings from the horses at the stables, we'd throw them at each other in a kind of wild target game, I guess its not as bad as it sounds as the horses have hardly any chance to get worms, but still!

All those wild and crazy games, mainly focussing round that tree, like the day we dug up a root and believed it was a dinosaur bone and tried to get it out the ground or the day we broke part of a branch off and were convinced we'd get arrested for vandalism!
Good days, fondly remembered...

So what games do you remember inventing as a child to play?

Wheeeeeeee! There's still a chance for Europe you know?
Via the fair play league! I'm sure I blogged somewhere deep in the archives about the last time we were in that draw so lets hope we make it through this time!
Although, think how much it'd cost me! No! Charbs put that thought out of your head right now!

I've been working like a mentalist lately, did 4 days at my shop last week, as well as my two at the aquarium, and doing 6 days at work this time round.
I complain bitterly about all this work and yet when I have a day off I sit around biting my nails and driving my Mother up the wall about needing desperately to go out and do anything, even if its just visiting Sainsburys.
I guess all that sitting around last year has affected me strangely, cant wait for me to get back to my sedentary lifestyle.
Who are you guys cheering on for the FA cup tomorrow? Its gotta be the Hammers for me, gotta pick a local side! Luckily I demanded the afternoon off of work so I can get home and watch it!

Todays Fun Fishy Fact!

Chiclid fish have oral sex, oh yes, only the females get the benefit though, and males build sandcastles to show off to the females!
Its a bit disturbing when one of your workmates greet you in the morning with that piece of information!

To prevent boredom setting in between now, and The WC I have decided to build an aviary for my feathered friends to play in!
I've almost even talked the Mothership into letting me have a quail oh yes!
Course, if its a male quail, the only name for him shall be Quentin

I fucking hate [insert name of well known health food shop here]

They're bastards, cunts, trampwanky, bollocking, duckfucking twunts.
I can handle getting threatened, I can handle getting the blame when chavs come on the rob, I can handle the fact that the customers drive me mad with their crazy complaints - Oh I really need to tell you about the woman who demanded me to treat her kids rash when even doctors didnt even know what it was, how the fuck am I gonna know Lady? Honestly!
I can handle the fact that I'm still in a borrowed shirt after my uniform was ordered two weeks after joining the company and others newer than me have their shirts a few days after ordering it.
My shirt is sewn back together after every wash and held together with sellotape!
But! What I can't handle is the fact that the cunts are on the rob!
That poxy exam I did to earn commission? I may have mentioned it somewhere...
Well my area manager went through it all with me, so I knew I had passed, then they gave the results back and apparently I failed, and then later that shift told me there'd been a mistake and I'd really passed! Whoo! I thought and eagerly awaited commision which should have been paid two weeks ago.
Well its still not been paid in, so today I consulted my Big Boss Lady who went on the hunt to find out about it.
Well there's no record of me ever attempting the exam on the computer. They're telling me I've never done it and I have two weeks to learn a new exam with the knowledge that I need to get 90% to pass and haven't even been given the shit to learn!
I'm fucking sick of that place! Grrr!
Time to find a new job?

So there we go!
15 years and 729 games later Curbs has left the building for the last time.
I still can't imagine what things will be like without him there, I'd like Burley to take over but who knows?
Incidently the TY'U showed me the CV he sent in to apply for the job in which he had a print out of his Championship Manager game in which he'd helped Charlton win the Champ League!
I'm not waiting for a decent reply!
Who ever the new manager is I hope he has a good clear out.
Get rid of fucking Rommedahl please. I've had enough of him, no more patience, yes he's fast but only when he can be arsed.
And he can take the Crap Bent and Hughes, Euell and Sorondo with him, all players I don't really rate too much.
Chrissy is a awesome fucking legend but how much longer will he manage to keep going? Don't you expect him to collapse on the pitch one day?
The defence isnt that great and the midfield has been held together with Sticky tape ever since Murphy and Smerts left us in the lurch.
Cute thing though to give Curbs tickets to NZ, surely though he'd have time off in the past to either bring her over for a week or too and the money as well? Or am I just a cynical bitch?

Anyway. Its all over now, and I've got another payday to come before I can even think of renewing that Season ticket for next year - The cunts at work owe me at least a hundred quid in commission that I'm counting on to put towards that.

And wait till I tell you my new plan to keep myself occupied over the summer until the WC starts!

Too hot again today, so jumped on the 89 to get the train to the Fishies.
A woman got on the next stop and plugged her headphones in.
A few minutes later, she starts singing tunelessly and happily, about "The Grace of our Lord"
People start staring and i cringe down into my seat, hoping no one thinks I'm with her.
Her toes start shuffling and her fingers clicking and the bus is only at the petrol garage at the start of the Heath.
I stare out the window.
The singing, clicking and feet tapping continue all the way to the station when I finally brush past her and she sinks into her seat with an embarrassed grin when the entire bottom floor give her a round of applause

Ok now lets never speak of this blogger fiddling again.....

I fear the Lurker may be on his way to another banning, he keeps taking drinks and putting them in the freezer, it is nice of him to cool them down, but we have a perfectly well stocked fridge to store them in and customers dont tend to like frozen coke exploded all over their veggy sausages.

You have to spend over a penny to be on the card in our shop, his came to 4.99 so I told him and he went mental and demanded that I change it, so I said I couldnt do that and that he could pay by cash, get something to make it over a fiver or I could look after it till he got some money.
And then he went mental at me, screaming abuse and that so I'm there just trying to stay calm with him and he's going on about how he knows the manager and she'd let him go with it, which is balls.
so I repeated about it all and how we can look after it and he's screaming more abuse at me about how I'm stupid, I'm a whore, I'm this, that and the other.
All this over a penny remember!
And he said something, - niave I think but he used the word in the wrong context and I was pissed off so corrected his english. Which admittedly was stupid but I was angry now at him!
And then he threw it at me and told me I should be scared of him cos he has a knife at home and I should be careful on my way home and stormed out.
Ordinarily I shy away from any kinda confrontation, and it was just my luck to happen when I was in the shop on my own, with nothing to do about it - for reasons I better not get into seeing as it wouldnt be hard to track my shop down!

Wheee! Look what I learned to do!

Now if only I knew how to fix it....

holy shit green!

Shocked!

Can't ever imagine a time without him, 7 years I've watched him pootle around in that grey jumper with the baggy eyes and paper.

"Yesterday I sat down with Alan to discuss our plans for the future and Alan was as honest as he has always been throughout his time at Charlton and told me he would not be extending his current contract. We enjoy a fantastic relationship and Alan only wants to do his best for Charlton for whom he has a deep affection. Alan is, in my opinion, the greatest football manager this club has ever had. We both agreed that it would, therefore, be in the interests of the club and Alan if we parted company at the end of the current season. We do so as the best of friends. Alan will manage a Charlton team for the last time at Old Trafford next Sunday and today is his last match in charge of a Charlton team at home. When Alan emerges from the tunnel today I would ask each and every one of you to stand and pay tribute to a remarkable man and leave him in no doubt of the genuine affection you all hold for someone who has done so much for our football club and is, in my opinion, the greatest football manager this club has ever had."

Incredible scenes at the end. I did get a bit touched by it all. A shame the game was crap though!

And guess who forgot it was a 5.15 kickoff and was at Charlton Church Lane at ten to 3 wondering why it was dead!

"You want me to do talks? I don't even like the public! Too noisy!"
"That was part of the job description."
"I guess.."

So here I am, loaded down with over 34 pages of information on the different talks we give at the aquarium, and printing off pages and pages on the different fishes so I can recognise some of the rarer ones, and be able to identify them easily and whilst I'm at home too.
Its like being back at uni again! I could go through my archives and find out exactly when that last essay was handed in, the last presentation done, but I'm a lazy fuck and that's boring!
And much like my uni days, I'm successfully avoiding doing any revision via the age old, fool-proof methods of drinking lots and eating pringles and drawing a smily face onto my ankle!
Huzzah!

Gutted! No free ice cream for me!

Picture the scene, your heroine (me) is leaning on her scanner, idly plotting ways to kill Kim Wilde and stop that awful gormless grin I am faced to confront every day and counting down the seconds till I get released (17 minutes and 23 seconds!)
A man stops, looks at the stack of boxes of prunes.
"How much?" He demands.
I assume he's blind and cant see the A4 sized pink sheet just 6 inches above the dumpstack.
"£1.15"
He piles loads into a basket and approaches me.
"Altogether then thats 6.40" I say pleasantly.
"No."
"no?"
"£1.15 you said."
"£1.15 EACH" I wonder if there's something in the atmosphere at [insert well known health food shop here]
"So how much altogether?" He waves a two pound coin under my nose.
"6.40"
"that can't be right."
"why not?!
He pulls them all out the bag and starts counting them, claiming that my till must have added them up wrong.
He counts, looks at me, and then counts again.
"I know where I've gone wrong!"
"oh?"
"Yes! I only wanted one packet!"
"But! But! You picked up six!"
He scowls at me.
"manners dont cost anything you know"

I have a pay rise at work!

Oh yes! From the mighty 5.15 an hour to now getting 5.70 an hour, I really don't know what I'm gonna do with all these riches!

I've been too lazy too post this weekend so here's a quick update!

On Friday at the aquarium (before my adventures in the freezer department of Sainsburys) I discovered that one guy is leaving.
So do I apply for the job or not? I haven't decided.
The good things about it are that I like it and the people there, and it'd be a start anyway degree-wise.
But there are several bad points, such as:

A) The pays no better than I'm getting now, yes I'll be getting full time pay but I'll be spending more on commuting to London so getting no benefit from it, and I'll already posted my dislike of commuting.
B) Its not really as hands on as I'd like with the animals, I've pretty much attended all the talks and assisted with all the feeds that the normal education staff do, the only difference is that I'd be doing the talks, which I dont do now but they are thinking of teaching me to do.
I'd really been spending 6 hours a day making badges and sitting on the ray pool, so I dunno.

What do you guys think? Should I apply if the position comes up and then see what happens or just carry on as I am?
Incidently I've been given different hours of work and am thinking of using my new perminant day off to volunteer at a wetlands reserve, and learn how to build birdboxes and weed out pests and stuff, so it'd be another thing to add to the CV.


The football on Saturday? I dont really wanna talk about it, its too depressing, I do have some thoughts but will save them till the last home game of the season next week.

Whilst at work on Saturday, I was placed in charge of the weekend girl, and the girl who just started that day.
We ran out of change and I had one ten pound note and no access to the office to get more.
It was scary and I was considering barricading ourselves in with a small wall built of nuts and dried apricots.

You know supermarkets have those really big doors to the freezers, so they're like walk-in-able?
And you know how fond I am of Ben and Jerry's ice-cream right?
Well did you also know that the doors are sticky? And if you let one bang against you while you reach in for that last hiding pot of "oh my apple pie" and think that its no big deal cos you can push it open again when you back out.
Well you'd be wrong there. So very, very wrong.

There was an investigation into our poor stock take today!
Oh the horror of it all!
Mostly its to do with all the thieving, there is no CCTV installed and they refuse to splash out for some for us.
Cheap cunting bastards.
I got into trouble too! Oh yes, once again my poor maths skills have let me down, damn it.
Sigh, its like being dyslexic only with numbers instead of letters and I got a right good telling off, but never mind cos tomorrow is Fishyday and I can't get into too much trouble there!

Update - I just cut my hand open, hmmm, not sure that'll go down well seeing as I'm not meant to have any open cuts.

Oooh! The Dodgey Chinese Pirate DVD sellers are branching into porn!

2nd ooh! The Lurker has abandoned his winter getup of tweed coat and tribly hat to a rather fetching bright blue jumper and orangey-mustardy coloured flat cap.
He still stinks of coconut though, and appears to be growing his beard back, which saddens me, he always looks so much more friendly without it.
When he has his beard he looks like the kinda person you'd see on the news after going on a killing spree with an axe in Woolwich High Street.

Wheeeeeeee!
Just returned from a day spent with OF in their place in the Sussex Countryside, about two years ago they were left 5 acres of woodland and have set about building their dream home.
They've spent most of that time living in two caravans but now the house is nearing completion!
Me and Mum went to see them today.
As I've said before here, when away from other influences telling her she needs to grow up OF is great fun to play with, we reminscened about childhood games we played, and indulged our inner children shamelessly.
We made a rope ladder from knots to shimmy up and created a wodden swing from that same grotty bit of rope and an large chunk of stolen tree, ran around shrieking, had an easter egg hunt, fended off our finds from her two dogs, played fetch with Puppy Dotty (now a very grown up 18 months old and still very playful), investigated piles of old fallen wood, and generally had a pretty awesome time getting filthy in the country!
Huzzah!

What did you guys do with your Fridays?

Me I spent it hand feeding various fishies, including a two foot long Zebra Shark!
I was allowed to go "behind the scenes" more today and got to see where they keep the really cool stuff like Moray eels, a smaller cousin of the Manta Ray and the Black-tip sharks - Believe me they are creepy!
I got to feed the fish in the Rainforest, Mangrove and Coral reef tanks too, I got nipped by an archerfish who mistook my finger for a slimy sand eel but he didnt break the skin and let go as soon as he realised his mistake, so its all cool there!
I rescued a lost child, spent a scary amount of time at the craft table and made two aquarium wide announcements!
Whooo!

I hate Boro.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
4-2 to The Smoggies

Todays the day!
Unfortunately I didn't get a ticket but I'll be watching on the telly and cheering us on in our attempt to reach the FA cup Semi finals!
The coaches will have left or be on their way now!
Let Operation Riverside Commence!

My Nanny, as I've stated elsewhere in here is suffering from Alzheimers, its quite frankly exhausting dealing with her, as much as I care about her and see her as much as I can.
The other day my Aunty G was checking her bank book and discovered that 2k was missing from her account so asked Mum if she could sort it out as she's off work with Easter Holidays.
Anyway, the money was found in another account and Mum and the Bank Manager took Nanny in hand and organised her fianances, and discovered that she has about 40k in accessable cash!!
That's not to mention their house which is theirs, shares that she's collected from somewhere and the money in joint accounts with Granddad (and his own money!)
My Grandparents are loaded! Where did it all come from?! No one can work it out!


Anyway. While Mum was looking through boxes and stuff trying to find bank books she found some old photographs.
There's not many old ones around of my grandfolks, and great-grandparents, mainly cos of their rows - in which my Mum recalls Nanny ripping up albums of them, and ripping others up over an old family feud - involving some quite nasty court cases over child abuse, which might make another post when I lack inspiration one day.
That picture up there is her in her Land Army Days, way back in WW2 (possibly dates are a little hazy) as far as we can make out she was stationed in Cornwall and shortly after this picture was taken was in a nasty car accident where she went out the front window of the car, leaving her with a lifetime of being a nervous passenger on car rides.


This one touches me, I dunno if you guys can make it out but it says "all my love Jean" and was sent to my Granddad, on the back it says "here's the picture you asked for, but keep it to yourself, it's terrible!"
I only picture them as my grandparents, fighting like cat and dog (and believe me I've witnessed some terrible fights with name-calling and things being thrown at each other!)
Its hard to believe that they were young and in love and separated and by the looks of things, just as caught up in the neuroses about looks and things that we do now!
I'm not sure of the date of this picture, I know that my Granddad was in Burma (whether as part of ww2 or not I dont know) and also rejoined the army to go to Korea - where he claims he spent the war teaching them how to play football with a Scot called Jock and painted boats hulls, - he speaks very little of army life, there is a photo of him all dressed up in army gear and he tells of seeing a orangatang walk out of the jungle at him but thats all he really speaks of and we never ask him either.





As I mentioned after the Great Fight there's little wedding photos around, also few as rationing and stuff was on at the time.
There is another photo of them with their wedding feast, which consisted of one bottle of ale, a plate of sandwiches and a single plain sponge cake.
The only other Surviving wedding picture is them surrounded by other family members, most of which I don't know and have never met and of which Mum only has vague memories of.

We've not done it for a while so here's Conversations with My Customers part 4/5/6?

ring, ring.

Me. "Hello [insert well known health food shop name here] Woolwich"
C. "Yeah, has my wife been in yet?"
Me. "Excuse me?"
C. "Yeah, she came in and was gonna buy some Aloe Vera (This might be an British thing but does anyone else subsitute that for a 'allo Vera in a parrot voice?)
So do you think we get only one or two customers a day and can remember everything purchased? Stupid fucking idiot.

C. "Yeah I want these banana chips"
Me. "That's 93p please"
C. "Er no, they're 74p"
Me. "Show me?"
C. "Here."
Me. "Yeah, you know the Papaya next door to it? That's 74p"
You stupid fucking cunty cunt. Can you not tell the difference? Can you not read the giant pink sign?!

C. "I want these orange flavoured teabags."
Me. "£1.19 please."
C. "I thought they were £1.09, I'm not paying that!"
Two minutes later, the same customers return with a £4.99 bottle of cod liver pills, whilst looking for their (exact) money, they pull out a wod and I mean a wod of cash, all fifties, there must have been over £2oooo there.
My first thought is who did they rob/steal to get that money, (come on it is Woolwich!) and only when they leave I wonder why they made such a fuss over 10 fucking pence.

Yesterday I was woken by an unfamilar american voice!
After a few disbelieving minutes (when I first wake I'm not too good at anything until I get my toast!) I realised it was Spins!
And we quickly made plans for a fun-filled evening with Flash which would involve a lot of drinking!
So we met outside the National Gallery and headed out on a hunt for a real english chippy!
And then we commenced on an awesome night of drinking!
In which we forced poor Spins to sit baffled through various football highlights, where we ignored her and gazed at the big screen, drank a lot, discussed accents, drank a lot, laughed a fair bit, put blogworld to rights, and drank a lot!
And then found ourselves wandering down the streets of London, stuck as the tubes had stopped running and I needed a nightbus!
Somewhere in this I got several phone calls from a neurotic Parent, and made several calls to Welshy, not that I'm too sure why.
I also pee-ed in the street, had a strange Albanian man try to chat me up on the way home and finally stumbled into my bed around 3 or 4am!
Great night though and great to finally meet Spins!
(and see Flashy again of course!)

So I went for my first day at the aquarium!
I spent most of it just following people round, listening to the odd talk and getting hopelessly lost.
I loved it though!
I got to feed the seahorses!
And I got placed in charge (!) of the ray touchpool, which basically involves standing there for half hour, making sure no one picks the fish up, shouting at those who splash the water too much and making sure no one jumps in.
Then they put me in the craft table with loads of little kiddies making badges and stuff.
I made an octopus badge - I wore it home!
The people there are all very nice and funny too so that always makes it easier!
I really can't wait to go back next week!

A lot of people ask me why I've always been so into my animals and why I wanted to work with them.
Its a hard thing to answer, I normally say I like animals, they're so easy to work out, where as people baffle me.

And then sometimes I think about when I was young and I'd ride the trains up to London Bridge or Charing Cross.
Riding with commuters packed into trains, all smartly dressed and gazing out of windows in a distracted way, looking at the same things they've seen everyday for several years, some reading, or attempting to do so in those crowded conditions or some catching a few extra dozes and I'd wonder about them, did they like this?
Did they want to go into the field that they found themselves in now, or had they wanted to DO things, GO places, BE explorers in their childhood and now found themselves captive in offices, gazing out of windows wistfully at the pigeons flying free in the parks?
And in those days it was still slam-door trains and they'd sound like heartbeats bang-bang-bang as they'd all file in and out like herds of cattle to various offices to fill in another dull day of being trapped in an office.
I hated the thought of that, I swore it'd never happen to me, I was not going to be a Commuter getting up early to go to London and not getting back till late.
Working in a suit and in front of a computer would kill me so what options did I have?
And I remember being about 6 or 7 and travelling up to Waterloo and deciding I'd rather sweep the streets than do that and deciding as well, that I wanted to be well paid for what I did.
I'd had enough of the constant poor-ness of my family, I was going to get a job that I could be well paid in and not be in a dreaded office or be another faceless member of the Commuter Herd.
Well I could be an author or work with animals, but I quickly decided writing wasn't for me.
I enjoy it and like crafting little stories for my own enjoyment but when I've had to do them for school or others the words fail me.
But I could work with animals, and be outside in the fresh air, with creatures I loved.
And of course my parents hated it.
"You wont get paid well, you'll be a skivvy" They'd tell me and it made me all the more determined.
Not for me working in a kennel or down the local stables.
I was going to be a vet!
So when I was 16 I spent two weeks in a local vet surgery at realised something else very important, I could do all that they asked to try and get into Vet school, and possibly still miss out - They're very fussy and inundated with people wanting to work with animals.
But the main problem I had is my clumsiness and lack of skill and patience with fiddly things and a vet is Surgeon as well as animal GP.
So I drifted aimlessly for a year or two, unsure of what I wanted but knowing definately what I wanted NOT to be.
And then whilst helping E look through the uni listing books I saw a zoology course.
I looked it up in the dictionary.
A study of animals.
Bingo! I thought and so I went and applied and well you know the rest.
Tomorrow is the first real step (albeit in a voluntary status) towards that goal I set myself as a child watching Commuters with a sense of horror.
I'm going to work with fish!
And funnily enough - I'm going to have to commute to do it!!!

Just think in the course of this blog I've been indirectly and directly involved in the deaths of three people!
Starting to think I'm a bit unlucky!
4 if you count that my earlier attempt at one of these things, talked about how MH had recently lost her best friend in a motorbkike smash
Anyway! Onto happier things! If all goes well Friday will see my first tenative steps into getting a degree-related job with work at the aquarium beginning and then on Saturday after the football I'm going to meet Spinsterwitch!
Huzzah!

CL's Dad has just died, he suffered a massive brain haemorrage.
Its all brought the shock back and everything.
I've offered to go see her and go to the funeral, hard to sympathise when at least I had some prior knowledge and how I'm still missing him 3 months (on Friday) down the line.

All my happy thoughts about what I have to look forward too later this week have gone.

A girl, not much older than 14 walked in front of my bus today.
The driver screeched to a halt, and tooted his horn, understandably annoyed and alarmed at this maniac.
"What the fuck is your fucking problem?" She screamed.
"Watch where you're going!" The Driver yelled at her. "I nearly ran you down!"
She aimed a kick at the front of the bus with a ding, her chavvy mates giggled at her and she continued her line of abuse.
"Dont you fucking dare tell me to look where I'm going, you stupid cunt! Fuck you!"

Its the first day of the summer holidays and already the peaceful( ok maybe an exaggeration!) Woolwich High Street is swamped by kids screaming, drinking, fighting and stealing.
The Pirate Chinese DVD Sellers are out in force, the Special Constables who walk down the street are mysteriously vanished.
And I keep my head down and try to walk along the street without getting mugged or spat at or even noticed at all.

And dammit - I wont know till Tomorrow if I can get the time off for the Boro game and by the looks of things that will be too late.
Nearly 4,000 gone out of a 5,000 allocation on the first day.
Sigh.

I passed my theory driving test, yay me!
Now to seriously consider real driving lessons! AGAIN!

I got the fishy job people!
*does victory dance*
Only one day a week on Fridays and its still only volunteer work!
But! A teeny, tiny baby step in the right direction!

H2 at the grand old age of 24 has managed to get herself married about a year into our uni degrees and is now expecting a baby.
It frightens me slightly that someone I know has managed to get herself into this situation, and yes she's very happy with hubby but my god!
24!
I swear if someone came at me with that kinda commitment I'd run as far as I could in that other direction.
Yay for her I guess but I'm dreading the thought of seeing baby scans/pictures and boring baby talk.
One things for sure though, I imagine there will be a lot of teeth gnashing and jealousy from MH - 25 tomorrow and not even in a relationship!
There's gotta be some kinda gene missing in me I'm sure of it where the thought of these things are absent from my mind.
Ah well I shall carry on happily ignoring any talk or thought of growing up!

I still think of you, you know?
I dream about you often, but you're never well in those dreams, always I see you in the wheelchair or needing support to stand, but being you nonetheless.
I rage at the fact that I still can't or haven't grieved, and how life continues as normal, as if you were never here.
I see things of yours everyday, things that have one hundred different memories and they make me smile and sad at the same time.
I miss you intensely and I am furious at the disease that took you away from us and I want you back, here, now and whole and well.

We beat the Toon!
I'm quite thrilled by this, it was an ok win and made the more sweet after that money-hungry cunting wanker Spotty Parker scored an awesome goal.
( I in no way at all wish he was still at the Valley - nope, nope no way)
There was this really cute little pigeon in the ground too sat in the corner of the ground, who for some reason couldn't get up in the air terminals enough, perhaps he was still a bit inexperienced?
I had my heart in my mouth each time the ball was in that end that someone would fall or stand or accidently kick the ball on him.
And judging from the scream of some bloke to "SAAAAAVVEEEE THE PIGEOOOONNN!!!"
when the guy came past to change Chrissy Powell's boots, I'm not the only one.
but luckily he survived the full 90 minutes and now hopefully he's off safely back in the nest.
And According to the programme I'm gonna get 25 quid off my season ticket next season with all these reductions, which means another away game!!
Details for the Boro cup match should be about soon so I can work out if I can make it too the game! Free Coach Travel! Yeehah!

The Lurker is back, I've missed him this week, thinking that perhaps he's got the message but he was back today and moreso I had a proper conversation with him!
After several looks round the shop he appeared at my till with a 19p lollipop. (last of the big spenders!)
He's shaved all his beard off and looks less scary now, almost baby-faced.
Still had the same nice hatr and tweed coat though.
He returned twice more that day buying a lollipop each time.
He speaks very good clear English - Queen's English I suppose, no slang or accent for him!
He asked my name and like a fool I told him and then got all paranoid and wish I'd told him my name was Brunhilda or something.

My god!
What a 0-0 draw!
Now for the Dilemma!
Obviously I want to go to the Replay, but its midweek so trains coming back down are impossible.
So the thought is get a coach up, but its gonna cost so much money, plus the ticket plus dinner, we're looking at at least 70 quid.
Obviously its 70 well spent if we win but what if we dont? It's a long way back down sulking.
And then on the other hand what if we win?
And then the semi gets played at a neutral ground up in the midlands or OT or St James?
Thats another 100 quid gone easy and then Cardiff too?
Oh dear me, why couldn't someone have converted that chance and then all this money wouldn't be thrown away in another hopeless cup trip?

Remember I applied for the London Aquarium for voluntary work?
And got rejected?
Well when I came home from holiday I found an email asking me to come in Wednesday for an interview, so I did and I hope it went ok although a couple of times I waffled myself into a corner and then my sentence died in a "er..... Ummm........... Yeah"
So fingers crossed!
At least it'd be a step in the right direction of using my degree!

One of the best bits of the Blog world is that you have a captive audience to show holiday snaps
So Enjoy random holiday snaps!

The geysir!


















Random dead Volcano!















Part of the Icelandic National Forest!
They have no trees so are busy planting loads and are so proud of these little shrubby bits!

The amazing Gullfoss Waterfall, drenching everything around it in mist and water droplets.

We rode the Icelandic horses, Everyone knows I'm a keen rider and I was so excited to get a chance to ride these ponies and get a feel for the "Tolt" a special pace unique to the horses.
This is my buddy Gomma!

Blue Lagoon.

Even like this, its hard to describe the pastel blueness of the water, the blackness of the rocks and the smoke and steam that rose from the water.
The way that the floor was uneven, the sand that changed to sludge beneath your feet, how you swam through warm and cooler currents.







See! It was 0 degrees outside that day and the poor lifeguards were tucked up warmly!









There was buckets full of sludge, a kinda silica mask made from the bottom of the pool and we scraped it all over ourselves!
In the back ground is the power station that made all this possible!

Geysir video (download)

By Charby aged 22 and a bit!
On my holiday I did the following exciting things and learnt the following information:

Iceland is actually warmer than Britain!
Iceland gets BBc London!
The only grain to grow in Iceland is barley, but they have bananas!
I went riding!
I broke my finger in an arguement with a hot tub!
Its hard to type with your main fingers taped up.
I got us abandoned in a icelandic bus terminal after getting on the wrong bus
After being rescued it was discovered that our hotel was 200 yards down the road
Whilst getting rescued I trapped my finger (different one) in the bus door!
Icelandic men are all very good looking!
Iceland has lots of waterfalls
They really do eat decayed shark
I went to the Blue Lagoon and fell over and have scraped all the skin off of my arse!
On a trip for the northern lights, I discovered a favourite pastime for coach drivers is ten pin bowling for tourists!
I dont like blue cheese on my pizzas
Icelandic supermarkets are all called Bonus
Its surprisingly easy to crash the entire computer system of The Blue Lagoon whilst trying to send an e-card
Sweetshops and bookshops stay open till 11pm while everything else closes at 5
Dont loose your passport just before going through customs

Pictures will be coming shortly

Going on holidays!!!!!
Be back Monday!
Behave yourselves all!
Now where the fuck would my passport be?

Isn't foreign money funny!
You get so used to looking at normal currency day in day out that when someone presents you with money from another country its like play money or monopoly money!
Not long to go now!!!!

"Ok so if your allergic to fish, you can't take that, but! If you come up here we have Devil's Claw, that'd be fine for you to take."
"Oh I can't take that!"
"Oh? Why not?"
"I'm a Christian!"
"But... Yeah I see. Right. Well I'm needed at the till now." Ha fend for yourself awkward bitch!
My customer care skills are excellent!!!

My mother has a terrifying need to be organised, left up to me I'd pack for Iceland the night before after a three hour panic buy round the shops collecting anything I needed.
Instead she has me organised, travel insurance brought, money in the agents to be changed over and an alarming amount of spare socks purchased because "You can never have to many socks for emergancies."
I imagine in an emergancy a clean pair of socks will be the first thing I reach for.
She also made me pack tonight, despite the fact I don't leave till Friday morning.
She watched over me carefully, socks, thermals, towels, underwear, warm jumpers.

Two hours later.
"Do you realise what you never packed."
"Oooh I need more socks?"
"You need jeans to wear unless you propose to wander round half naked?"
"Now who's fault is that for not supervising me properly?"

Just had to upload a picture of the best hat ever,ever ever

Do you think it'll go down well in Iceland?

So I trotted off to Surrey Quays today to do my exam!
The real thing, unlike last weeks stupid fake date!
I've been slack really at revising, so wasn't too fussed even if this 90% pass mark scares me!
I needn't have worried by the end anyway!
I got bunged in a room on my own - well I say on my own, it was me and what I discovered in the drawer - all the text books we're supposed to use!
Of course I wasn't going to let this discovery go unnoticed and used them shamefully as much as I could.
Then the stupid area manager woman went over them with me!
So I'm quietly confident I'll pass!

I've decided to take up driving again!
Just put in for my 3rd theory exam at the end of the month!
Wish me luck!

Tony Christie is coming to the Valley for the Boro Cup Tie!!

Fuck yeah!!!

"Shalalalalala We sent the Palace down!"