Handed my Notice in at work today.

Fuck Yeah!

Been making a list of all that I'll need to get sorted by the 10th... Am already wondering if I can postpone it to the 11th of September so I can get to the Charlton/Exeter game.

What made me decide to go? A cold, wet, rainy day on the ROG 3 Arches. I dont wanna spend another winter that lasts 7 million months with cold feet and bulky uncomfortable coats and arguing with foreign language groups

Hopefully on Monday work will get in touch and let me know my final date so I can plan amazing leaving drinks and book my flight.

Spain here I come!!!

Handed my notice in today!
Hurrah!
Set up a livejournal to follow my tales for the people that I dont want to follow me on this because I dont what them to know about this.
Made a list of things that need to get done asap!

EEEEEKKKK.

Been offered a job in Spain... Gonna go... Mother VERY pissed. Am scared about going... scared about not being able to afford my msc... scared about how she's gonna cope... scared about if I can go back to the museum after...

Fuck I can't even speak spanish....

Its looking more and more likely that Welshy is going to be offered a job in Spain... There would be work for me too should I go.
Do I go though?
I need to be able to pay for this course for three years, I could potentially take up to 6 months unpaid leave from the museum and then go back at the end of it. So if thats agreeable with this language school I can work there for 6 months, then come home if it works out too expensive for my course.
Welshy thinks it'll be ok. He'll earn 1200 euro... and rent is 400 pcm. I need to then just cover enough to pay for my course and what?.... sponge off of him? I dont know. He owes me enough to make it worthwhile.
I'd miss riding, I dont want to lose my spot at new stables. I'm learning so much and dont wanna go back on a years waiting list there. I'd miss football.

And there's Mother... She doesn't want me to go. She says I/we'd struggle too much for money out there.
She says she cant cope without my rent money. That she'd need to take out a second job... That she'd need to rent out my room. She says its unfair of me to go and leave her with my brother, with my nan and granddad.
I havent even had my interview for this place and I already feel guilty for even considering the idea. For wanting to leave her in the lurch. I'd be such a bad person to do that. However Welshy points out that he left his mother in the exact same position to come here for me and that I am now 28(gulp) not 18. That I can't spend the rest of my life in a job I hate and living at home to help support her until she dies.
I want to go. It'd be a huge adventure. As long as I could be sure I can afford my course and have my job to fall back on after 6 months if it doesnt work out. But how can I turn my back on someone who would struggle to live without my wages? That would make me a shitty awful person.

Looks like the riot adventure is all over now. Been very quiet the last couple of nights apart from all the helicopters flying overhead.... Back to normality!

A friend of Welshy's slightly dramatic account of his adventures last night.

So last night, most of Woolwich got torched. Brat went and drove round Granddad's street last night about 11pm and that was ok then.
And it spread outside of London. Crazy shit is going down people.
work has been evacuated... People are jumping everytime they hear sirens... Rubber bullets are rumoured to be deployed..
Tonight its supposed to be kicking off in Welling, Bexley and Plumstead.
Its all just a matter of waiting for nightfall and seeing what happens next....

Honestly what the hells going out outside? Luckily I'm South East London so avoided the previous two days of madness but now its all spread to Lewisham and there's crazy stories going on on facebook from things going on in Woolwich, Eltham and Grove Park.
Welshy was trapped in a put on Roman Road after there was rumours of shits firing shots and is now being offered clearly looted trainers from some cunt out there.
My cousin is out there working in the police and hopefully he'll be ok, as will everyone else.
Luckily Blackheath and Greenwich is ok, although being trapped in the middle of Lewisham and Woolwich all I can hear is helicopters and sirens rushing up and down the roads behind me.
People are cunts. I dont know if my poor Granddad in Woolwich is ok, and if my stables are fine.

I'm going to Vegas in November.. I'm looking up the usual things for fun, horse-riding, the possibility of a Helecopter tour of the Grand Canyon.
When I saw this. Las Vegas Stripper University. All those times (well twice) that I've been to see strippers and longed to learn how to pole dance. And now I can! And will! And possibly most exciting of all, I'm gonna get me a "diploma" in exotic dancing. FUCK YEAH. Blatantly one for the CV there!!!

I am jolly tired! I have worked about 9 days straight and then taken yesterday off and am preparing to go in again today for daytime overtime. I've also done about 32 hours of added overtime in those 9 days.
Its all for this bloody course. I've managed to save enough money to buy myself a laptop so I dont have to share with anyone else, pay for my Vegas trip and put 250 aside for spends while out there.
Anything I make this month will go towards the 3k of fees I need to find....

I'd like to tell you more, including about a night out in Barbican me and Welshy had which resulted in us getting home at 3.30am during this 9 day stint but I'm late for work.

Harry Potter was amazing, sad, funny, brilliant. They missed out my two favourite sections but everything else went exactly as the book. It whizzed along and I can't believe its over.

Oh - as for Miss happypants, who accused me of "verbal assault and bullying" She came back to work yesterday after a week signed off with "stress" (I'll give you stress. I've had a rotten headache all week thinking about this bollocks.)
She was on my break at work but got up and left every time I came into the messroom and ignored my tentative "hi." So fuck her. She was last seen speaking to HR armed with a copy of our code of conduct handbook.

This is it guys. 10 years ago I went to a cinema in Nottingham with E and her uni flatmates to see the first Harry Potter movie.
11 years ago she returned from uni with a copy of Goblet of Fire that she demanded I read. I've queued up at midnight for the latest books. Seen all the films, often a couple of times at the cinema.
Now. Tonight at 7 Harry Potter FINALLY comes to an end.

Gah. Just ogt my reading list for uni... Why are textbooks so expensive? £25, £31 and a whopping £71 monster. Why couldn't I have won the euromillions?!

For God's Sake!

Some complete non-event at work is being completely blown out of proportion and resulting in what looks more and more likely to have me hauled up infront of HR.

I was covering the Museum patrol position and the patrol had arranged for this lady to go see the new wing between 1 and 1.30. Bear in mind that I'm still on the radio and supposed to go aid if requested and go to where I'm needed so really I shouldnt be doing this but its the only chance we're getting to go look in the new wing before it opens.
Anyone half one comes and goes and I get called several times on the radio but I can't leave my position. I'm getting more and more pissed cos I'm gonna be bitched at for failing to go, cos there's a huge group in front of me that really needs more than one person dealing with it and the girl I'm covering is recovering from having a cancerous growth in her leg so I try and do a lot of the pointless busy-body running about errands that Patrol does to help her out.
Come 1.45 its time for me to go and relieve somewhere else, and have patrol take over and the original lady, D - go on her break.
So I grab someone to hang there for a moment and scamper off to find my patrol and hand back the radio.
Patrol mentions that D has been in the messroom for a good five-ten minutes. This pissed me right off. It may only have been for a short while but she should have come back from the tour to her position and not go take an extra long lunch break.
So I'm seriously annoyed and storm to the staff room to confront her, and yes as her supervisor I'm well aware that it should have been done privately, but this woman is not afraid to lie, play the race game, and cry to get her own way (despite being the same age as my mother.) She's dragged several people to HR. So although wrong I decided it was best to talk to her in front of witnesses.
But i'm also not going in there hollering and yelling as I want. So I approach her and ask her why she didnt return as I and Patrol asked and she agreed at 1.30.
"Oh I didn't think it was worth it."
"I ASKED you to come back at half past. I had several radio calls. I'm not there specifically to cover you."
She suddenly flipped and started yelling about how she couldnt be expected to walk there and back again in half an hour. I pointed out that others managed it. I did her a favour I didn't have to do and I expected her to be back by half past as arranged.
She burst into loud tears and then tried to usher me towards the door demanding that if I had such a problem then why didnt we go see a manager.
I lost it then (frankly I don't know how I controlled myself) told her that she was pathetic in so many words, that she didnt need to go see a manager, that I as her senior had dealt with it and she needed to accept that she was in the wrong.
I then left.
I then get called to speak to the manager as D is "shaken by my verbal assault and needs to go home to recover." wtf?
Yes I shouldnt have raised my voice and maybe my judgement call of talking to her in front of others was wrong. But from her track record I felt it best to do so with witnesses. I certainly didnt go in there screaming and shouting and didnt raise my voice until the last minute.
Even if she didnt get into the wing until 1.15 as she claims, then surely common sense would have made her think "oh I'll just look at one part and then scamper back." or "i'll leave it for another opportunity."
And why she felt she could take an extra break rather than coming back is beyond me and its beyond me why I'm now suddenly in the wrong for this "verbal assault and bullying."
The managers believe it to be a non-event. I think they secretly agree with me. but she wants to take it further so its all very up in the air and I could be taken to HR for a disciplinary hearing.

Today I will be mostly:

• Mixing with Royalty.


• Sneaking in an hour of dressage before work.


• Mingling with top Olympic standard International 3-day eventers.


• Trying to meet a woman named Piggy.

So am back from the Lakes. My Tipi was beautiful (and waterproof!!). We avoided most of the rain and the toilets were the best I've seen on any campsite.
I've never been on a holiday where so much has gone wrong and yet its been such a laugh. We failed in our mission to get a car so that left us a bit stranded, stopping us from riding as we wanted to go do. Ambleside was the nearest town over an hours walk and 3 miles away and once we mastered the location of the permissive footpaths was a lovely stroll.
We walked to Hilltop - home of Beatrix Potter (Never knew she was such a big thing in Japan!) that was a good seven mile walk, again amongst beautiful scenery.
We managed to get a bus to Hawkshead, a lovely little town and to Coniston where I rowed a boat and learned all about "Swallows and Amazons" And Go Ape at Grizdale.

I got home late Thursday to find I've won Dressage Olympic tickets, so now I've got two of the three day event. Be nice if I could get Cross country and Gold Medal Show-jumping if they come available on the buy-back later on.

Yesterday was the wedding of a good workfriend of mine and one of the members of the N.M.M.C.A.S.C. I totally approve of Registry Office do's. Over and done in half hour. None of this nonsense you get in church dos.
Of course I had to make a show of myself by skidding on the damp lawn for a photo... forgetting I had white trousers on.. Idiot!
The after do was a great party, went home with many glow-sticks. I danced for hours in barefeet. Drank with the boys and went home with Lollypop. Someone at the bus stop said it looked like he'd been to a funeral and me to a rave, as I had so many glowsticks attached.
On the bus it was someone's birthday so we all sang "Happy Birthday" and I presented her with some glowy magicness before going home and passing out in a happy drunken heap.
Spent today just chilling, watching a bit of Hickstead and BMM'ing Welshy who is up to his neck in mud at Glasto.
Work tomorrow. Sigh.

I got on my MSc course! Whoo.

Well actually I got approved for the first year of it. If it works out I can't afford it or just cant complete the workload satisfactorily, then out I go at the end of year one with a PGdip.
So we'll see.
Gonna try and do it while working fulltime and doing my overtime at the museum. (30 hours overtime completed before I hit the Lakes!) and riding... But I fear something might have to give.
That's 500 quid gone before I even start the month and that's a good half of my wages if I can't get the Overtime to cover it back up!

Meh. Its only money. Sure it will be fine. Paid off my Vegas flights earlier so all I need to do really is win 3k out there and my first year is sorted!

I can't believe I didn't get any olympic tickets! I'm outraged! I had my application in on the very first day as well! Now I'm forced to watch the horses from a window at work. Maybe.
Am gonna try for any sell- backs they might do later in the year and of course I have the ones I won at work... But still...

Grrr!

I'm going to Vegas in November! Wheeee! and trying to plan a decent week in Lanzagrote maybe...
After that its a lot of a saving for all this MSc nonsense. I have been sucked back into the overtime trap. I'm still thinking about Bali in March but we'll see! Lake district in a few days! Whoooop!!

This kinda relates to Weenie's blog a while back about losing good teachers. I lost a good one on Tuesday. My riding instructor. (yes another horse related post!)
She tore my riding to shreds to begin with, made me doubt what I knew I could do and then rebuilt me. Better. Stronger. Faster. Etc.
My position is better now, I'm more aware of my capabilities.
On Sunday she recieved an email telling her that her 11-year service of Teaching on Tuesday nights was no longer required.
On Monday she was told that her full time job was no longer there. That in two weeks she will be redundant.
I hate the politics and bitchiness of stable life sometimes, although as its 90% female orientated I guess thats too be expected. I felt desperately sad for her as she said goodbye to us all and the horses for one last time.
We are facebook chums now so at least we can keep in some kind of touch and I wish her well in whatever happens next in her life.

And on another note I sent off my MSc app yesterday. Fingers crossed for that!
No news on my olympic tickets yet.... trying to remain patient!!!

I had a lovely day visiting CL and her daughter E yesterday. WE went to Avon Valley park and met the farm animals and played on seesaws and in the ballpond and on a slide of death, which was just a vertical drop. Wheee!
I rode home on First class (Very Posh!) which was nice. She hit me with a bombshell about MH, she's once again jobless and with a tiny baby daughter to support (I wrote once about her "sperm donor")
anyway, she sold her story to the readers of the daily mirror and is in this weeks Reveal magazine. I decided against putting the link up to here.
The story is full of lies and I not only can't believe that she would sell the story but lie about the process.
I found out that the baby isnt the result of a "sperm donor" as she claimed but the result of an affair with yet another married man. Or so CL seems to think. I am still in touch with Jena, her longest long term relationship and I facebooked him one day and happened to notice a comment thanking him for her daughter. So I wonder if that's who is the Dad.
I am worried for her sanity and her daughter but it is non of my buisiness. I can enquire from our mutual friends for updates but I will not get back in touch.
I also decided that all of us who were freshers in our halls should have a 10-year reunion. Lets see if anyone is interested in that. MH most definately isnt invited!!!
I applied for tickets for the test event in Greeny park, that'd be nice to go too, can't wait to hear back from the real ballot for the real tickets.
Welshy doesn't want to go to Bali with me. I'm contemplating going alone for a week in December. I can dive and ride and see animally things and soak up a bit of culture so I don't think I'll be lonely or bored.
However I'm not a big fan of flying and the thought of a 11 hour flight alone is scaring me slightly. As is getting on a plane company that I've not used before.
We'll see. I have to finish my MSc app now so no more avoiding work!