Typical bank holiday!

So, the end of another bank holiday weekend (enough of the comments about how every weekend is a bank holiday for me), and I have spent it in time-honoured fashion by getting overwhelmed in IKEA and annoyed that despite them not having in stock any of the things I went there specially to buy, I still managed to spend 60 quid there. It's all part of the house reorganisation, I wanted to get some CD towers that will fit all my CDs and DVDs, as the current ones aren't big enough, but they didn't have the colours I wanted. So I bought a computer desk instead as the one I have currently is too big and has a lot of wasted space, it's all about getting more minimal. I'm getting there, very slowly, but enough for some people to have noticed. This trip to the shops was on my way home from Oxford yesterday as I went to see my friend Russ who has recently moved there. Had a good laugh and went out in the evening - can't believe how much difference it's made since the smoking ban, it was really nice having a few drinks and not coming home stinking of smoke. Except in the summer you now have to go inside in order to escape the smoke as they are all outside in the seating areas! Will be better in the winter I guess. Had a lie-in this morning as was rather a late night on saturday, then went to see my parents and eat barbecue food in the afternoon.

Got a pretty usual week at work as far as I know, think I'm supposed to be going to Thorpe Park this weekend which will be good fun, it's been ages since I've been to a theme park, but there seem to have been a spate of friends going to Alton Towers recently that I've had to miss out on for various reasons. Being the last weekend of the school holidays will be a pain, but needs must I guess.

Have also been trying to sort out an itinerary for a course that I've been accepted onto in a fortnight's time, it's up in the Lake District and is a residential junket-type thing on expedition medicine with lectures but more fun practical stuff like outward-bound things in the afternoons. Have most of the kit already from the Everest trip, but I'd rather not have the opportunity to wear the waterproof trousers etc if I can help it. As it's such a long way up North I'm going to be staying with various friends en-route there and back so am using it as a good way of catching up with people without using any of my holiday time to do it (they're rather generous with study leave where I work so I've still got to find another week's worth of "educational" things to do before April next year.

Can't think of anything more to say, I'm sure I remember having lots of ideas earlier in the week but they've all gone now so I'll just have to try harder to update this thing more often.

Domestic goddess

This picture was me, yesterday, as I re-discovered the joys of ironing. Well, not joys exactly, but I used a steam iron for the first time and was totally amazed at how it made my ironing so much easier and quicker! I had a pile of stuff waiting to be done but had been putting it off, however since I just found the instructions for my iron which can be used either as normal one or a steam one, and had acquired a big bottle of distilled water (so's not to fur up the iron with scale as I live in a hard water area), I decided to try and figure out how to use it on the steam setting. The iron glided across the clothes effortlessly, and I was actually sad when I had finished. I think I may have missed my true vocation as a 1950's housewife. In fact the picture here does look a bit like me, as I do wear an apron when I am doing cooking and stuff, much to the amusement of some of my friends who have seen it. I'm sure it will be coming out again on Sunday as Russ is coming down for a job interview and has requested a "mixed dead animal pie from Momma Hannah's menu", so rabbit and game pie it is! I've been doing a lot more cooking lately in an attempt to eat healthier, am trying to empty the freezer but my efforts are being thwarted by Sainsburys who have got Ben and Jerry's ice cream reduced at the moment. So I've stocked up on the Cherry Garcia frozen yoghurt as a compromise as it tastes much the same (in fact nicer, as not as creamy) as the full fat version but is much less fattening. It also took all my willpower to walk past the shower gel aisle as the one I use is on buy one, get one free offer at the moment, and you know me, always one for a bargain. But since I have a whole unopened one already, I managed to resist but I suspect I will be sneaking back there next week to get a couple so that I can save £1.97 which is how much one usually costs.

Had a fairly usual week at work, but it's gone fairly quickly which was nice, and am looking forward to the weekend again. Last weekend I had a friend down and we went to London for the day on Saturday - it was great fun and we did the touristy thing and visited the Tower which I really enjoyed! I especially liked seeing the crown jewels, or "House of Bling" as it was described by one of the Yeoman Warders who were giving random tours to people, although we didn't stick around on one for very long as there were far too many Americans. I made a bit of a faux pas in one of the exhibition bits though, commenting that an interactive feature was "a bit gay", only to turn around and see a completely stereotypical gay male couple who were also studying it in detail - I think they found it funny though as they did smile and laugh, despite me being mortified. Note to self that I really must try and stop using that expression, even though I did pick it up from a gay friend in the first place... We then stayed around in London as we both wanted to see the musical Wicked, and managed to get overpriced tickets from some tout in Leicester Square - however it was still cheaper than what we would have paid on lastminute for the only seats they had available (best ones), so mustn't grumble. The show was excellent and well worth seeing, if you like that sort of thing.

I am still addicted to playing online scrabble, I have a few games on the go at the moment but am still not very good. There seem to be lots of people who are taking it very seriously, and so when they start bringing out obscure long words, I know it is time to start using one of the online word generators which I know is cheating, but it's all about placement and tactics to try and work out which words to put where. Well, if you can't beat them, join them, but I don't do this when playing with friends as I feel guilty!

Anyway, going to go and continue some of the current games now, more from the blog later (am aware have been rubbish at keeping it updated but don't want to write anything unless I have something to say... not that that has stopped me so far)...

"Severe exhaustion" my arse!

Celebrities are a funny bunch. Not satisfied with having, say, a hernia, or a niggling appendix, they keep getting themselves admitted to hospital with a condition known as "severe exhaustion". Except as far as I'm aware, such a condition does not exist. I have never admitted anybody to hospital with it, and I can't believe that no civilians work hard enough to get suitably exhausted to allow them to suffer from it too. I typed "severe exhaustion" into the computer today at work and got no matches at all. Every recognised condition has it's own code made of letters and numbers (called a Read code) which allows us to consistently record diagnoses in the notes for ease of audit and stuff. And every condition known to man has it's own designation. For example, there are codes for "T55z1 Spacecraft accident NOS, member of ground crew injured" and "ZD1M - Therapy to promote recognition and understanding of sarcasm", but extreme exhaustion? No such thing. So, Winehouse, your people are going to have to come up with a more convincing explanation as to why you were admitted to hospital last night and given "an injection of adrenaline" (more likely narcam) before having to cancel much of your tour. They tried to make you go to rehab, and you said no, no, no. Perhaps you should have said yes, yes, yes... Her album is bloody good though, in her defence, and she seems to have created a home for the 5 birds nests that were removed from my rotting fascias and soffits earlier this week - in her hair. The new fascias do look good though, much tidier!

Random links

Time for another blog, and in order to not just go on about work (blah) and cutting my lawn (blah), thought it was about time I shared a random link. Apologies to anyone who has seen it before, since I obviously nicked it from a recent mailout.

This is something rather strange. It seems that in the Philippines, they have a slightly different approach to the way they occupy their prisoners than we do in the UK. Whilst our jails are full of people suing the prison for not letting them watch porn etc (sweeping generalisation which I have to state for legal reasons, does not apply to all inmates), in the Philippines they spend their time doing really gay dance routines. Like, if you imagine 1500 inmates in the courtyard dressed in regulation orange jumpsuits, doing the classic "Thriller" dance. Or "Radio Ga Ga" Or several others that I can't be arsed to list here, but they're all on YouTube. Best one should be their uber-gay YMCA/In the Navy montage, but the only clip I can find has rubbish sound quality. What a shame. There are lessons we can learn from their example, but at the moment I can't think what they might be!

My other current favourite waste of time is playing online scrabble on facebook. There is a facility that lets you play games against your friends and it is most addictive. Except I can't play it at work as I haven't yet been brave enough to download the required flash plug-in, in case it wrecks the system. If anyone wants a game, you can find the link to it on my profile (and since Steve finally got his act together and signed up, I think most regulars are on there now, much to our collective shame at being far too old for that sort of thing really).

Only one more day of work this week then I am off to London for the weekend to see some friends, then having new fascias and guttering put on the house on monday and tuesday which should smarten up the exterior no end. Then I'll only have a few odd bits to do to make it looking right, like getting a new door for the boiler cupbard by the front door as the current one is rotting away. Exciting stuff!