Oxfamglam

9:06pm: You're everywhere and nowhere, baby, that's where you're at (from Hi Ho Silver Lining by Jeff Beck)
Well, here I am, the elusive, lesser spotted Me feeling incredibly drained after a week of not a lot happening.

I don't know what's up with me right now. I just can't seem to be totally awake at any point during the day. I spend most of my day yawning, which must make the kids at work feel incredibly important!

Maybe it's the weather and the season. I don't cope well with these dark nights and now it's gotten all wet and windy it's even worse. I swear I was in the middle of a tornado today. One minute it was just cloudy and then all of a sudden this wall of wind and water hit the windows of the classroom I was in causing the windows to rattle in their frames. The kids freaked out and were hiding under the tables while we had to pull the braver kids away from the window because we thought they were going to blow in. It swirled around the wall and down the playing field, taking the first layer of wood off another classrooms door. And then it was gone. I can't find anything in any news reports or weather reports about any freak weather happening in my area but it did and it's was really weird.

Jay and I have to move out of our house. Maybe that's making me feel so low too. We knew our contract was up for renewal and were planning on staying on for another 6 months when the letter came through to let us know we could agree a new tenancy... But the rent was going up. We're at the limit of our budget now so we can't afford it. Now I spend most evenings looking for somewhere else to live and hoping they don't get snapped up before January because we're tied up here until then and need the deposit from this place to put on a new place... Rubbish.

I just don't understand where time is going at the moment. The next month or so is so full of happenings. I've got 4 birthdays (not mine, obviously, that would be greedy) and all the Christmas shennanigans at work. I've been roped into doing the sound for the school Christmas performance for the 2nd year running so I have to start working on that and we've got a make and do Christmas craft day where I'm organising an activity and... No. I don't want to go on. It's all far too depressing. When do I get time to do what I want to do? And why should I have to spend my spare time when I'm not having to be Christmas jolly doing Christmas jolly things like buying people presents and... Stuff. I can feel a grr coming on...

GRRRRRRRRRR!!

I'm sure I must have more to talk about. Something good even. I just can't think. Thinking takes too much effort.

Sigh. What a depressing blog. I think I'll leave it here and see what I can do some other day.

9:24pm: I've a PhD in "I told you so", you've a knighthood in "I'm not listening"
The subject title is from Don't Marry Her by The Beautiful South which wouldn't fit in the title box (damn Blurty limitations).

I've not updated since the other day when I couldn't be bothered to write about Friday and now, looking back, there's not much to say...

We ended up meeting Jay's uncle (other uncle, not divorce uncle) and he made us go to rubbish bars with him. Of course, we couldn't refuse as he was paying for all the drinks. Eventually got home at about 2am after dancing to rubbish R&B. Shan't be doing that again for while.

Sunday was my Nan's 80th Birthday meal. It went OK. All the family were there and Shaun's girlfriend was there and suprisingly, we all liked her and she liked all of us so I consider that side of things a success. Unfortunately my Nan had decided on roast beef for the main course and I really, really hate roast beef so I ended up eating a plate full of vegetables and potatoes but hey, they were nice enough vegetables.

I started back at work for the new term on Monday and the kids are already driving me completely bonkers. I had drama with the year 10 and 11's last lesson (all aged 15-16) where we started looking at comedy. Now, every single one of them THINKS they're funny (ie. jokes about penises and vagina's and poo and stuff) and it was just so satisfying to see them all fail. I love doing drama lessons because the staff are allowed to use swear words as examples of how not to do things so I get to swear at the kids and shock them. I remember one particular conversation:
Pupil: Miss, can we pretend to slip over in some dog crap?
Me: What are you, 5?
Pupil: Roy Chubby Brown makes jokes about dog crap.
Me: Roy Chubby Brown makes a living out of being fat and using the words "fuck" and "wanker".
Pupil: And?
Me: And that means that you are precisely what he's talking about if you find that funny. Now, use some imagination and be clever with it.

Sigh.

My mum works at the same place I do and there's a kid in her class, who shall be known as R, who is on the autistic spectrum and god love him, he hasn't developed the autistic tendency to talk with an american accent, he just talks posh. And I mean P-O-S-H posh. Anyway, he can't cope that there's a Miss and a Mrs with the same last name at his school. He can't get his head around what relation we are to one another and who's the oldest. That was until I realised today he's known all along and has just been playing us for fools.
R: Hello Mrs C.
Me: It's Miss C
R: How's Mr C?
Me: I'm MISS C.
R: How's your daughter?
Me: I don't have a daughter, I'm Miss C.
R: Yes, but how is your daughter?
Me: R, do I have a daughter?
R: Not that I know of, Miss C, but Mrs C. does, how is she?
Me: Mrs C or her daughter?
R: Her daughter.
Me: ...I'm fine, thank you...

I had to have a strong coffee after that.

So, now here I am, Tuesday night, pottering around the house until it's an appropriate time to go to bed. Tomorrow is Wednesday where it's major drama day. I don't mean that major incidents happen I mean I have 5 lessons of drama out of a possible 6. It can be fun, mostly its repeating yourself and laughing at kids at inappropriate times.

I better go get some clothes sorter for tomorrow. That might just take me close enough to bedtime.

Sorry this has been a relatively dull update. Unfortunately now I'm back at work they'll probably stay that way.

Oh well.

7:56pm: Yeah, you made me merry, made me very, very happy (from Merry Happy by Kate Nash)
This really made me laugh today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJFF7QkwRaI

I tried to embed it but it didn't work. Maybe I'm just being stupid. Oh well.

I spent so much money today. I don't feel to bad because I didn't really have a choice about it, really. I went to the opticians and apaprently my eyes have gone all sqiffy so I need new glasses. Well, I tried looking at the cheaper range but then I found out that if I went to the designer range I could buy one and get another pair for free. FREE! My favourite price! ...Unfortunately the other pair were £125. But the free ones are worth the same so I think I got a good deal. And they're both very, very cool.

I bought Jay's cousin her 3rd birthday present today. This chimpanzee baby thing that reaches up for cuddles when you walk past. I'm struggling with the idea of giving it away. He's so cute and his name is Vincent. Damn it. Now he's got a name he is so mine.

Jay's cooking me dinner tonight. Well, I say he's cooking dinner but from the noises coming from the kitchen he's not cooking anything and just swearing a lot. Something about rice being wrong and the chicken not doing what it's supposed to do. I'm staying right where I am, no way am I getting involved in that. I'll just clean up the mess afterwards. As usual.

I managed to catch a glimpse of my brother and his girlfriend today. We were upstairs in the shopping centre and they walked past on the lower floor. She's tiny. My brother is 6'6", so compared to most people he's tall but seriously, this girl is nothing more than a convinient leaning post. Must go to parents and meet her.

This afternoon I did my 3-7 bar shift. So many men being so manly. Sorry. Did I say manly? I mean burping, farting and calling me "babe". I AM NOT A TALKING PIG. But hey, I got a fair bit of my book read and earned some extra cash so it's not all bad.

Supposed to being going out again tonight, I'm not sure I have the energy. And I just realised I've said nothing about last night yet. And I'm not going to. I can't face it just now, that'll have to wait for another update.

Well, apparently my dinner is ready so I have to move the laptop off the table so we can be civilised. Whatever that means.

I'm looking forward to the next update, should be post Nan's-80th-birthday-all-the-family-in-one-room-athon.

Can't wait.

4:43pm: C'est la vie say the old folk, It goes to show you never can tell (Never Can Tell by Chuck Berry)
Well, that didn't take long.

A miner not having sex at home "can get mighty grumpy at work".

Click here to read the whole story: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/071026/oddities/australia_miners_sex_offbeat

I think this is actually a really good idea and should be extended to men in all professions.

Just in case you understand, not because all men are like this at all...

4:23pm: Birds can fly so high or they can shit on your head (from Birds by Kate Nash)
So, I'm still sat here waiting for Jay to get back.

I've been bumming around the Internet trying to resist coming on here and typing utter balls just to pass the time and then I found this:

Davydenko fined for "lack of effort"
Eurosport - Fri, 26 Oct 16:03:00 2007

World number four Nikolay Davydenko has been fined $2,000 for not trying hard enough during his shock defeat by Croatian qualifier Marin Cilic at the St Petersburg Open.

Click here for whole story: http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/26102007/58/atp-tour-davydenko-fined-lack-effort.html

It really amused me. Especially when he made the valid point "How does he know what I was trying to do?". I can't count the times where I've tried hard to do something and people have assumed it was easy and asked me to do better. Never during a major tennis tournament though. And I've most definately never been fined $2,000 for it.

I'm off to search for more amusing headlines from the day.

1:39pm: Good as gold, stupid as mud, carry on regardless (from Good As Gold by Beautiful South)
I SLEPT!!

I estimate I finally dozed off at about 1:30am and I didn't wake up until midday, thank goodness I'm on holiday from work or I would really be in the shit. I feel wonderful today. Full of life. Raring to go.

I was planning a lovely day spent with Jay (preferably him trailing behind me with my shopping bags and a nice lunch out) but his Uncle has roped him in to helping him move house. His Uncle has decided that he wants a divorce and has basically abandoned his 3 year old daughter, 11 year old son from a previous relationship and wife to go live with another woman across town. I feel really sorry for Jay. He's really family oriented so obviously, he feels he has to help his Uncle but he loves his Aunt and his cousins so much. Especially the daughter. When she's in the room I fade into the background, she stole his heart from day one (bad news for me, considering she was born a month after we got together!). I hope it all goes smoothly for everyones sake, despite the length of our relationship I'm still a bit of an outside with some of the family relationships.

I had a really fun afternoon yesterday, waiting for Jay to arrive. I went to my parents to pick up some post that had arrived and ended up staying all afternoon and evening. I spent the afternoon looking through a case of old photo's. Because it's my Nan's birthday party at the weekend we thought we'd have some pictures of her put up here and there and some of the photo's are so much fun. Photography held much more meaning in the 40's/50's, even in the 60's. My grandfather was a keen photographer, he built his own dark room and everything which is still there in my Nan's loft and some of his photo's are so much fun. Two of my favourites is of my Nan and her brother. He was a policeman and it's a photo of them pretending that Nan needed directions to somewhere and he's pointing out where to go and in the next photo they're looking at eachother and laughing about what they just did in the previous photo. Doesn't sound like much in a description like they but hey, they say a picture speaks a thousand words and obviously, they're better words than I can manage. On the other hand, I found this picture of me:


What an idiot.

Anyway, after I went through all the photos (and about a million cups of tea - Mum's always tastes better than mine) I helped my Dad do some DIY, putting new door knobs on to all the doors in the house. Now, I have to point out here that I can't draw a straight line with a ruler so me doing anything remotely DIY is dangerous which, thankfully, Dad knew, so he just had me holding the door while he drilled through it. It's a bit of a running joke in our house that we've never had a house with knobs on. Seriously, all the years I lived in that house there were doors with one knob on, or a handle, or no knobs or handles at all where you'd have to yell to get let out of the room you'd shut yourself in and the doors that did have knobs and handles on were all different, not one of them matched. Ironically, I still managed to shut myself in the living room yesterday, despite the knobs, because my dad had painted over the catch and it had got stuck.

I attempted to show some interest in DIY yesterday, rather than just resign myself to holding the door. I asked my Dad how old his drill was because I've never seen him with another one. He told me he'd been bought it by his mates for his 21st birthday so it was 30 years old. He wasn't impressed when I asked him whether his mates actually liked him or not. Seriously, who buys someone a drill for their birthday?

He was even less impressed when I asked him where the coal goes, assuming that a drill that old HAD to run on steam.

I seriously love this blog thing, despite this only being my 2nd update. I had itchy fingers yesterday not being able to type. I was tempted to make notes about what I'd like to say. I can see this becoming a bit of an obsession but it will useful because I have to most appalling memory. Jay will say something to me like, "Remember last Autumn where we went for a walk at the country park and we saw that baby deer?" and I really won't remember it all but I can't bring myself to tell him that no, as far as I'm aware I wasn't even there, so I'll make up some daft repy along the lines of "Yes, and we thought it was so cute but as we approached it it morphed into a disgusting monster with blood dripping from it's fangs but it was ok because you had Excaliber with you and beheaded with one fell swoop." And then he'll sigh and tell me my memory is shit. The wacky replies don't fool him, no siree...

Ok, I'm going to go get some brunch and get ready for an afternoon of wondering what on earth to do with myself. I hope to get time to update later today but if not, I'll try for Saturday.

That will be a fun one, on Saturday I have an Opticians appointment and then a shift at my local pub. Hopefully some funny customer stories will occurr.

My brother's new girlfriend is arriving today to stay at my parents for the weekend. Poor thing. I think they've only been seeing eachother for a month or so and Shaun's got her staying over with him at our parents house for a whole weekend AND attending my Nan's 80th birthday where the rest of or whole entire family will be. Having not met her yet I can't decide whether to be nice or civil. I'll work it out I'm sure.

And yes, Shaun really is my brothers name, and yes, he has heard all the Shaun of The Dead/Shaun the Sheep jokes in existence.

Mostly from me.

4:02am: Oh, 4am is the time when you were mine, frozen in deepest sleep (from 4AM by Cherry Ghost)
So, I finally found somewhere to post a blog to.

Want to know how I found it? I looked through my old registration information emails that I have a terrible habit of storing and found this account dating from about 2003.

And, it took a bit of colour tweaking (no longer really into bright fuschia) and editing here and there (ie. deleting ramblings about who said what to who and why they suck) I finally think I can settle in here very nicely indeed, thank you very much.

Well. It's 4am, hence the time and title above and I am yet to go sleep. I have progressed from daywear to pyjamas and dressing gown and I did manage to wrench my bone dry contact lenses from my eyes and replace them with glasses so I'm not doing too bad. I just have no inclination to lie down and actually go to sleep.

Feel like I should be doing something worthwhile. I've finished crocheting a hat. I've created this place... There is nothing left but the ironing and I have already resigned myself to just doing it when I need something to wear (the creases drop out when wearing clothes anyway, right?).

So, at some point today I have a man coming to fix my television aerial. It's been hanging off my chimney by one hinge for about forever now and I've been worrying about it falling down through the roof and pulling the chimney down. But finally, the man who can is coming today. I hope he won't mind me taking photographs of him mending it. I just feel the urge to take a photo of a man on my roof. Esepcially if he's wearing overalls. I hope he has a moustache. That will just make my day to have a stereotypical handyman. Oh God, I hope he doesn't go through my roof. Stereotypical handymen do have a tendency to be a bit... plump.

And Jay's back today. So hopefully for his sake I'll be able to sleep tomorrow. I imagine its not fun to share a bed with an insomniac. I don't imagine it's much fun to share a bed with me whether I'm asleep or not. I have it on good authority I have a tendency to "starfish" and possibly, maybe, on occasion have been known to snore slightly. If Jay were here he'd be demanding I change that to say snore like a pig dreaming deeply about truffles. But he's not here so I can say I do a little oink-whoosh rather than a proper snorty snort.

I spoke to an ex-boyfriend online tonight and he made me so angry. We were having a really normal, decen conversation but then he just suddenly said something that reminded me of exactly why we broke up and I got so angry I ended up threatening to reach into the computer and grab his throat. I was in a real rage and he just carried on. Well, talk about red rag to a bull, I let rip in an email and told him exactly what I don't like about him and what a dickhead he is. I hope he understands. I needed to do it. It was personal therapy. And boy, did it work, I feel great! ...Still can't stand the bastard though.

Situation is dire. I'm drinking coffee and listening to Counting Crows. Perhaps I should step away from the laptop...

I'm going to go and actually lay down.

No, really...