Honestly! Cricket has totally prevented me from posting, since, erm, the day Play began.

Its reducing me to staying up till 4am, repeatedly emailing SKYSPORTS in the vain hope of getting an email read out, and watching our inability to bowl the Aussies out and score a decent set of runs.
Bring on Monty for the next test!
I totally blame Dad for this cricket lark, when I was in school, the Ashes test was on and he'd have it on when I'd get home and we'd watch it, I vaguely remember watching Andy Caddick go mental and score about a hundred in 10 balls or something stupid when he got the hump at being put in last and Darren Gough, I will confess to having a strange fondness for the bowler!

Saturday was The Big Boss Lady's 40th's so we all went to party, me E, E's little nephew and her sister P all did karaoke to Ernie the fastest milkman in the west!
And I like to think I impressed with my attempt at Russian Dancing, and line dancing, and my Strictly Come Dancing routine with E, where we successfully introduced breakdancing to the world of ball room dancing!
Seeing The Big Boss Lady's feller, do The Full Monty is a sight that I shall be revisiting in my nightmares I fear for years to come yet.

And today I have a big Boo reserved for the Driver of the 178 bus, it starts at Sainsburys, goes round the corner to the 2nd stop which is where I get on.
So he stopped, let someone off and I prepared to get on, and he tried to shut the door, I have no wish to be sliced into by the door so I stepped backwards off of the step and he drove off!

The twat! No one else had the chance to get on or anything.

So he, rather than the English Cricket team get my Boo of the day!

I finally have plane tickets to New Zealand!!!


It kinda cost me a small fortune, like over a thousand pounds of a small fortune, just for flights. Still I'm hoping it'll be worth it.
So! My schedule is now as follows:

28/1/07 Depart London at 3.10pm
Arrive in LA at 7.10pm
Depart L.A at 8.30pm
30/1/07 Arrive in Auckland at 6.00am

So its like time travelling! I'm going forward in time and somehow missing out on a day!

and then when I return I shall be doing the following:

12/3/07 2.20pm Depart Auckland.
8.45pm Land in Hong Kong.
11.25pm Leave Hong Kong.
04.50am Arrive in London


It all sounds real now!!! Yeah! Cant wait!

Hmm.

Not sure I like this "minimalist" look.

I'm definately of the opinion more colour is better but I might leave it a while before I attempt to fiddle again!

Having a broken Blogger is not conductive to a happy Charbs.

I really am pissed with it now. I tried Red Squirrel and Adem's suggestions.

anyone else?

Hello!
Did you miss me?
My God Scotland is cold! We were up in the Highlands for three days and I just kept watching the snow advance down the mountains.
Which was a bit of a bollocker cos all the touristy things were closed, but we did get to feed reindeer (I'll put some pictures up in the post under this!)
And we went on some nice walks around a Loch with a castle on a island in the middle and to a Highland Wildlife park with deer and wolves and bison and stuff and super rare Prezwalki ponies, which have not altered, or evolved since the Stone Age and there's about 20 of them left in the wild.
And I also went to Edinburgh one day, which excited me, and I shall tell you the story of my previous trip there.
*starts flashback*
I was looking for universities see, and had gone to look at a course on Freshwater and Marine Biology, and me and the Mothership travelled up overnight on the Coach, which was a bad night in itself, surrounded as we were by other farting, snoring travellers.
Anyhoo! We got into Edinburgh, which is a gorgeously gothic city about 7am and we pulled up outside a Macdonalds near the City's main Shopping street.
So we hopped in there for Breakfast, now my uni open day started at 10am, so we had lots of time to kill, we'd each dressed up in stupid unsuitable shoes for a day out and had Twenty pound between us until 9pm when the Coach returned to take us home.
So at 10am we got to the Uni, and by 20 past 11, we were done, so we had many, many hours to kill, and little money, especially once we'd brought cheap trainers to rest our poor aching feet!
So we spent a great deal of that day, looking up and down the streets, walking up the hill to the castle, having no money to go in, and returning to our Base Camp of Macdonalds, where we'd buy milkshakes, read the free papers and then go out again, only to return an hour or so later
We ate in there, made use of their loo's drank, rested and chatted, its probably one of my favourite memories of hanging out with Mum.
*End flashback*

And while I was getting excited about seeing my Macdonalds again (TP and TJ laughed at me when I wanted to take a picture of it again!)
They took me to Mary Kings Close, an underground street from the 1600's and I met GreyFriars Bobby! (Which, if you dont know the story, is a little scruffy terrier, who after his owner died, returned to sleep on his grave every night for the next decade!
So it was an ace trip, apart from the cold and I went to see TP and TJ work on the farm, demonstrating how their sheepdog Skye goes herding the sheep, which is so cool, and met her puppies, which had been born early in the year.

Me and Greyfriars Bobby's Statue!













Bobby's grave, apparently some batty people put flowers on it every day.











but funnily enough not on his owners! The smaller gravestone belongs to the Church Sexton, who apparently "was a good friend to Bobby"

my reindeer buddy!

















Very handsome Red Deer Stag!








No trip to the Highlands is complete without seeing a Highland Cow!

Blogger is still hating me.
I didnt get to pick a Fish of The Week cos I had to be in my shop instead so boo to that.
I got March of the Penguins on DVD, its utterly awesome.
And it made me think of this clip, which I found on Utube



Anyway, I am off to Bonnie Scotland to spend a week with TP and TJ, which will be awesome as it was ages since I was up there last, but there will be no internet access for that week.
Anyway! Have a good one all!

I dunno whats going on with my blog, but unlike Red Squirrels Accusations its nothing at all to do with me!

I went riding today! and took some pictures of some of my horsey friends to show you all.

This is Molly, she's my baby. If I had the money I'd buy her, she's like a neurotic mess, if she was human she'd be on uppers and downers and going to see her therapist every day.
She was really pleased to see me and gave me a huge hug.

(Literally - she puts her head over your shoulder and gives you a shove to move forward and hug her, while she grooms your back with her lip)




Jimmy is in disgrace at the moment. As a full stallion he's very bolshy and not to be messed with by people who dont know what they're doing.
About a month ago he was tied up in the yard and a woman was leading her horse past and Jimmy flipped and tried to attack the other horse, she put her hand up to protect herself and try and push Jimmy away and he bit her thumb clean off.




This little guy is Captain, he came to the stables about 10 years ago now, on Boxing day, for Christmas one year some kids were given a bow and arrow set for xmas, they decided to use Captain as target practise and he lost an eye and was half blinded in the other from the attack.
Despite being little, like all shetlands he's got great character and bosses everyone else about and gets us all doing his bidding!







I also befriended a fox!

YES!

Get in!

So I promised a suitably halloweeny Fish Of The Week and so I present....

This guy.

He's a redtooth or Vampire Triggerfish, so called cos he has these little red fangs. I love how these fish names are so original!

I love this picture too cos of the way he's just chilling out on the rocks. There was another one lying horizontally but he ran away when I went back for my phone.
They have these long frondy tails and are a deep velvetty blue colour and skid about the tanks like a maniac bat.
Trigger fish are pretty awesome, you cant really see it on this pic but they have this little lump in front of their dorsal fin which is their concealed trigger, when they're stressed or feel threatened they shoot this trigger or spine up and make themselves look bigger and more aggressive or if they're really spooked they dive into little holes for protection, pop up their trigger and wedge themselves firmly into the rocks so they cant be pulled out.

He also has a buddy, a Picasso Triggerfish, which we call Pablo (funny that!)



You can just make out his concealed trigger there, just in front of his fin.

I went to the Tate Modern Gallery today. Not to look at arty farty things, oh no, my sole reason for going was these!

They were great and free and who can refuse a slide? Welshy thought he could but once I we got there he was just as excited.


The first two were piddly ones going down a floor and they gradually built up to the biggest one that descended from 5 floors. They were really steep and fast with all these awesome twists and turns.
I love slides!

So I went out with the fish people on Friday night and got hammered on Sex on the Beach Cocktails and Sambuca. From what I remember this guy was pretty fun.
Saturday night I went to a Halloween party, which was themed as "Creatures from the deep" Which I chose to interpret as me being a zombie pirate, much like the ones from Pirates of the Carribbean. I got a pirates outfit, and skeleton hand gloves and shredded some green crepe paper to staple onto me for seaweed and glued empty cockle shells to be barnicles.
I looked yaaaargh-tastic!
Today the morning girl at work was not in, which kinda disappointed me as I have started a mini-campaign of terror on her.
Although we get on alright, you can clearly see that she thinks I'm weird in the head and I have no interest in her complicated life about the "talent" she seems obsessed with, flirting and pulling a hundred people in a day.
I had already traumatised her by leaving her a little note addressed to her from some Cod Liver Oil.
" Dear F.
"J" Is coming to collect me later and take me home with him, please do not put me back on the shelves with the other cod liver capsules as they do not like me and bully me terribly.
Thank you very much Mr Cod Liver Oil xxx"
I thought it sounded a lot more fun than just "To be collected later by J"
She saw the note, read it a couple of times incredulously, looked at me and shook her head sadly at me.
Last week she saw me trip the child over in work and I put my leg into a shopping basket and imitated that Simpsons episode where Bart breaks his leg and then manages to get it into a series of scrapes attempting to save Lisa.
"i'll save you Lisa, cast or no cast" Foot goes in trashcan "Doh! I'll save you Lisa Trashcan or no trashcan"
My version was "I'll save you F Basket or no basket and waddling about the shop after her and her horrified look.
Its pretty sad really, but I feel no shame or guilt in getting her.

frined fromphotograhys last day.
Drank cocktails.
Sambuxuca is bad.
Maet nice guy elliot. woman topok me away. huh. went home.
I have a Vampire TriggerFish for Fish of the week cos its halloween innit.
May popst it tomorrow. cos he looks cute.

There's something strangely liberating about knowing you're quitting work.
I dont do anything extreme but take little liberties. Like swearing in front of customers.
Althought I may have scared one of the regs off who came in everyday for his little bag of Caribbean Cocktail.
He looked like an chubby little 8 year old stretched and put into a suit. He giggled nervously when I cursed under my breath his Cocktail for not scanning "you motherfucking wank"

Today there was a bastard demon child from hell running around the shop with its devilspawn companion
They were circling one of the aisles and its parent or their parents were ignoring them, concentrating on the magical properties of Fibre Diet.
So I stuck my foot out as one of them circled round at a million miles an hour.
It skidded to the floor and slid and I felt a warm glow and a sense of "take that bitch" and then the plan backfired cos it started screaming and crying.
Ah well

Today I was awoken at 7am again for work.
I dislike getting up that early, I may have mentioned this.
I determined to make The Health Food Shop That Must Not Be Named pay.
Yesterday I took my final promotion exam and the woman who set the exam didnt leave me alone in the room with the answers. How can someone pass without that?
I did alright, although I was pissed off with the question about where asprin comes from, we dont sell asprin in any of our shops so how should I know?
I scored a mighty 79% with 84% needed to pass. Its a bit of a pisser cos I've now lost my hundred quid bonus for passing all of it completely first time.
But I can retake the exam if I like later.
But back to today, I was determined the company would pay for their crimes against me.
I was working in another shop an hour or so away but would get clocked in by my shop, they were clocking me in for 9-5.30.
So I showed up to work at 9.30 (There's little they can say as I'm there doing them a favour, as long as I'm not cheeky I can get away with being late like that)
I then claimed I had to get to the dentist for early evening and was worried about being sat in traffic for god knows how long again and missing my appointment.
So they said I could go at 4.30. So thats 90 minutes so far I was getting paid for and doing nothing.
I scraped an extra 10 minutes into the bank run by visiting a bookshop on the way (I figure as well it was a good way of fooling potential muggers who might suspect I was carrying over 2 grands worth of money in a plastic bag.)
So thats 100 minutes add to that a cheeky 10 minute extra break onto my lunch and the bastards are gonna pay me for 110 minutes that I wasnt actually at work.
Silly little things like that help get me through the day.
Shame its all back to normal in my shop tomorrow though.

I'm in the middle of the working week from hell.
I've been doing full time hours in Orpington as well as my own shop. Its not too bad I guess, I was swayed by pound signs dancing the tango in front of me.
And then today was a bad day, not only did I have to get up when it was still dark which is sooo depressing (actually it wouldnt be dark if it wasnt for the fact that I'm hopelessly addicted to Tellytext and have to set my alarm half hour earlier than I should so I can read it all)
And then there was the sudden joy of having a whole hour for lunch rather than my quick 30 minutes that I try to fit into when I have my full days in MY shop and I got a 10 minute tea break! Thats something else I dont get at all in my shop!
I was practically skipping down the high street in my excitement.
And then it was hometime and I got on the bus that happened to get stuck in the traffic jam, so for 45 minutes I sat on the top deck of the 51 trapped outside Sidcup Station, gazing longingly into the house nearest and seeing the man there eating what looked like a tasty steak and chips.
While all I had was half a packet of polos.
Cunt.

Its time for Fridays Fish of the Week! We seem to be staying in one section, namely the Coral Reef section so far and so Todays fish is no exception.
I present for your general blogging pleasure.


The Lionfish.





These guys fascinate me, they "sleep" in odd looking positions, upside down and wedged onto rocks.
They can hunt in Prides like real lions too! They open all those lovely elegant frondy fins and herd their prey item into a corner where they can eat them all with a surprisingly large mouth.
And posh looking as they are they're also some of the most dangerous fish you could meet on the reef.
get stung by one of these buggers and you could face anything from nausea, vomiting, convulsions, or even suffer a coma and die.
Charbs advice? Stick the stung bit into as hot as water as you can stand and then get yourself off to hospital quicksmart. The hot water will act to break down the protein based sting and hopefully nutralise its effects.

Its taken a hell of a lot of planning, but! I think I'm finally starting to get organised on this holiday in the New Year, Me and E have decided to only visit New Zealand rather than try and fit in Oz too and rush about, missing out on things and we've also FINALLY come up with a list of places that we wanna visit.
As can be shown by the badly scanned in maps.
Now all we need are important details, like how we're gonna get about and eat and live and stuff like that.
If it was up to me, I'd just pootle over, and figure it all out on the way. E however is a planning, organised kinda person, so she's busy panicking over whether its worth hiring a car to take us round or exactly where we'll stay and what direction we'll do it all in.
My contribution to all this has been to volunteer to be a navigator and cruise along in her slipstream while she fusses and rushes round trying to find the best way to fly there or the cheapest flights.
I quit work today over it, well I quit for January and the conversation went kinda like.
"Big Boss Lady, do you think I'll get time off in the New Year for 6 weeks?"
BBL "I dont think so, why do you want all the time off?"
Me "Ok then I'll quit in the New Year, I wanna go to New Zealand"
her "Fair 'nuff"
HURRAH!

Pinched from Spins and Flash!
1) My ex is: A friend.
2) I am listening to: Oh Stacy - The Zutons
3) Maybe I should: eat some more ice cream, get an evening job.
4) I love: fun!
5) My best friend: is on the bus going home from my house
6) I don’t understand: People who need to know every little detail about your life
7) I lose: everything!
8) People say: lots of things I dont understand.
9) The meaning of my screen name is: A combination of Charlton and Derby.
10) Love is: a mystery.
11) Somewhere, someone is: saying a prayer thatt we'll find another (been watching An American Tail, the song has stuck!)
12) I will always: be there.
13) Forever seems: scary.
14) I never want to: do grown up things.
15) My cell phone is: rarely off of silent/vibrate.
16) When I wake in the morning: I sit in bed reading telly text for half an hour !
17) I get annoyed when: People assume they know me..
18) Parties are: Something I wish I went to more often.
19) My dog is: a urn of ashes under the stairs.
20) Kisses are the worst when: The guy pulls your hair, or is too enthusiastic with his tongue and slobbers.
21) Today I did: walked to work, bused home, looked at my travel plans and watched us on the telly.
22) Tonight I will: playing on the net until the early hours.
23) Tomorrow I will be: going to work.
24) I really want: to be with my friends.