I meant to blog, but I wanted to get certain things in my life over with before blogging. There are probably lots of things I want to blog about. That's the trouble when you leave it so long!

First off, let's talk about snow. Yes, snow! I would upload a picture of snow to show you, but I haven't set up an FTP program yet on this PC. I'd have to do it from the other PC, and at the moment I can't be bothered. Awful, eh?

The snow in Leicester wasn't all that impressive, but in Lutterworth, a bit south, it was brilliant! It was about 10cm or so, in the end. It turned all blizzardy for quite a while. Cool. :) The only problem was that it took us hours to drive from Lutterworth back to Leicester. It took about an hour to move what normally took 10 minutes. At one stage we were watching a van that was having extreme difficulties getting around a mini roundabout. It was trying to turn uphill and it kept wheelspinning. In the end it gave up and turned left instead.

Thankfully we made it home in one piece.

Maybe you were wondering why I was in Lutterworth. It was a strange day, really. Rob dropped me off at his parents' on the way to work. His Mum was there, and I ended up talking to her most of the day, which was interesting. I think we were getting on quite well. We talked about many, many things. And I learnt how to use a breadmaker. :)

Anyway, he came back to take me to the doctor's for 11.20. He'd made me an emergency appointment at his doctor's, because of my complete failure to find one. I've been putting off going for ages anyway, because although I wanted to find out what was wrong with me I was, well, scared. Maybe more scared of the actual appointment than what might be wrong with me, although that was scary too. I've had it for about a year and it's only been getting worse. It turns out to be nothing serious, but nothing they can do anything about. Which is good, but also bad. More good than bad, probably. Ah well.

After that I spent the afternoon talking to his Mum, watching the snow, and then we had the scary drive home on the slippery roads. Considering they knew it was going to be freezing, even if they didn't know it was going to snow, there was a distinct lack of gritting. :(

What else was I going to blog about? Hmmm... there have been lots of birthdays over the past week, notably Rob's and Mark's. Obviously it was Richard Dean Anderson's as well. And my Nanny's. I think everyone had a nice time, anyway. I was trying to make Rob's birthday special, although it's hard to know quite what to do when it's the first time you've had a boyfriend's birthday to sort out. And not just a boyfriend. A future husband. Ooer.

There were definitely more things I wanted to blog about. But I can't remember what. Hmmmmmm.

I have been mostly.... READING: magician (raymond e. feist) / WATCHING: stargate (sky 1); neighbours (bbc 1); angel (sky 1); friends (e4); best of top gear (bbc 2)

posted by Fiery Fred @ 11:07 AM 0 comments

The internet seems a bit odd lately. I don't mean the internet in general, although many would agree that it is indeed odd, but rather our internet connection. A couple of times it's been working enough for it to attempt to collect mail and then failing, although it didn't like the idea of letting you look at websites. Most of the time it's okay, but still. It's a bit annoying. And it's being incredibly slow at times, taking ages to load pages. Add to this the problem of the router that decides to stop working at random intervals, and... chaos!

Well, not really chaos. At least Ali's upstairs usually playing Neopets games, so she can see when the router's gone all peculiar. I say 'at least', although sometimes I wonder whether she's getting a little too obsessed. ;)

I'm still not feeling great. It seems lately that I'm collecting illnesses - whenever one's on the way out another one appears. None of them have been life threatening, which is good since I don't have a doctor in Leicester. My doctor's 160 miles away. I've tried a couple of times to get into Ali's surgery (not that she owns it, it's the one she goes to) but they're not accepting new patients. This seems to be a common thing in Leicester. I don't want to find a new doctor, because I hate going to the doctor's and I hate signing up and having tests etc. when you join a new surgery, but I have to do it. The fact that they're so full up at the moment just makes it so much worse. :(

Anyway, I really have to go to work tomorrow (the unpaid work) because the nice chap's on the case to find me something that's actually paid. He's always so enthusiastic about the work I do and what with being ill I haven't seen him for a while. I feel bad that I haven't been around to do more for him. Ah well.

What else... well, eBay's recent 'free listings day' has resulted in me selling a bunch of N-Gauge train stuff and a few bits Mum wanted to get rid of and making (wait for it) about £120! This amazes me! Someone paid about £10 more for the tank engine (it's green, not blue, so if it has a name I suppose it's Percy, unless I've forgotten my tank engine names) than I paid when I bought it new! Wow. It makes me feel slightly better about the lack of paid job. I want to hang on as long as I can without having to take a shop job or something. If I do that then I'll be totally out of the loop, and where I am at the moment I'm perfectly placed if archaeology jobs come up. That's the plan, anyway.

Hmm... wedding stuff, well, not much to report on that front. Mum booked a marquee for the reception, I think. We need to find a band though. The band she was going to ask about won't be available - their lead singer's daughter is getting married on the same day (September 4th). D'oh!

Weddings cost a lot. It's scary.

Ah well. Since I have no money I suppose I won't be paying for much. :)

But I'd rather not bankrupt everyone. :D

I have been mostly.... READING: best of private eye 1996; the king of torts (john grisham) / LISTENING: eurovision 2003; ego war (audio bullys) / WATCHING: stargate (sky 1); neighbours (bbc 1); angel (sky 1)

posted by Fiery Fred @ 5:22 PM 0 comments

I kept meaning to blog but, er, I haven't. It seems like I've been busy doing things, and also feeling a bit ill, so I hope you'll all forgive me. What have I done since I last blogged..? Nothing terribly exciting. I suppose lots of wedding decisions have been made, so I could tell you about those.

The original plan was to have the wedding in Leicester on the 4th September, but the place we wanted was booked on that day. We started thinking about other places, then it seemed odd that we hadn't thought more about the possibility of having the wedding in Southend, where I come from. I talked to Mum about it and she seemed to think we could work a lot of things out fairly easily. The whole 'building to have the ceremony in' problem seemed easily solved when there were two churches I went to at home who wouldn't mind.

One huge plus point is that Mum seems happy to organise things at her end of the country, so Rob and I don't have to. Hooray! The two things I have sorted out is that we can use the church, and I've sorted out a bunch of musicians to play in the church - the bunch I used to play bass guitar with (my brother'll probably be drumming, hehe).

A reception venue was jokingly mentioned to my Mum by another volunteer at the museum she does things at - namely the museum building. We thought about it and decided that it would actually work, so... it's an old Victorian Pumping Station in the picturesque Essex countryside. We can have treasure hunts and everything. If we go with the pirate theme. Mum even mentioned a band that one of the people at her church plays with, to play at the reception. They play all sorts of things, so maybe they won't be averse to some sea shanties. Hehe.

I dunno, that might be about it. We've been sorting out rough drafts of guests to invite, and thinking about a wedding gift list, and lots of similar scary things.

Oh, and one last thing, I forgot to type something when I did that Christmas present list - the Mr T Keyring that does six authentic Mr T phrases! I don't know how I forgot that, everyone was playing with it over Christmas. You can imagine how many times phrases like 'Shut up fool' and 'Don't make me mad, grrr' can come in useful in everyday conversation.

And as to me feeling ill, I've had two migraines lately, which is odd. I don't usually have them very often. And now I have a cold. All my head tubes are bunged up and achey. Booo!

I'll slope off and do some stuff now then. Bye bye.

I have been mostly.... READING: artemis fowl and the eternity code (eoin colfer); magic private eye 1995 / LISTENING: eurovision 2003; jools holland big band small world 3 / WATCHING: stargate (sky 1); neighbours (bbc 1); britain's best sitcom (bbc 1)

posted by Fiery Fred @ 10:37 PM 0 comments

It's me again! Our New Year was spent the way we usually spend time, i.e. not doing much. But we did watch Jools Holland, which was cool. Especially The Poo Stripes. :)

Well, as promised, here is my list of Christmas loot. I think I've remembered everything. Ali's mission this year seemed to be to buy everyone tons of strange cheap junk. ;)

* Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon (PC game)
* Indiana Jones Trilogy (DVD)
* 'Magician' by Raymond E Feist (book)
* Father Ted script book
* Red Dwarf RPG book
* The Darkness's Christmas single
* Red Dwarf Series 3 (DVD)
* Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill (DVD)
* Jools Holland and Friends Volume 3 (CD)
* 'I moved your cheese' by Darrel Bristow-Bovey (book)
* Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Shoot from the Hip (CD)
* Bathroom buddy (for putting your flannel in)
* Candle that looks like a stick of TNT
* Calendar that's one of those puzzles with sliding squares
* Clock/calculator keyring
* Rubber monster that squirts water
* Magic screen that you write on
* Really horrible cow picture frame
* Glow in the dark space stickers
* Last piece jigsaw puzzle
* Gold gel pen
* Pen which is also a maze
* Pen that glows when you write
* Tiny magnetic posable man
* Giant party popper
* 'Magic Private Eye' book (1995)
* Private Eye Annual (1996)
* 'The Fairly Incomplete and Rather Badly Illustrated Monty Python Songbook'
* Plastic sword
* Bubble mixture x2
* Making faces sticker book
* Snowman puzzle
* Red furry gloves
* Chocolate Santa
* Cat socks
* Jade dragonfly glow light
* Fuzzy craft balls
* Giant polystyrene plane
* Lush bathbombs x2
* Glittery candles
* Teatowel
* Duster
* Skin cleaning wipes
* Bath pearls
* A squirly picture
* Festive mug filled with sweets
* Various sweets and biscuits including pfefferneusse!
* Almost £100 from my parents and grandparents
* Really really awful Egyptian cat perfume bottle

I think the prize for most awful present goes to my Aunt (it does most years), with the awful cat perfume bottle. Still, at least she gave me a present. I might find someone who really likes it and make them happy with it.

The prize for things I've never before been given for a present goes to Rob's parents with the duster and teatowel combination. Very handy for when I have a house with Rob, I suppose, but still. It's amusing. :)

My parents did try to buy a fair few stupid presents, since they were mainly giving me money, but they were totally left behind in the cheap quantitative present stakes by Ali, who bought approximately 20 ridiculous things. The cow picture frame really has to be seen to be believed, and if it wasn't for the perfume bottle she would have taken the awful present prize as well as the quantity of cheap junk prize. I have no idea where she found stuff like the Private Eye books. I can't say I've ever read Private Eye books, and the fact that they're almost ten years old can only make topical news books more interesting.

Well, that's about it. I had a quick look in the WHSmith sale the other day and bought three CD's for £2 each - the Eurovision 2003 CD (so now I have legal copies of Sanomi and Eighties Coming Back, and there were quite a few half decent entries, oddly), Ace of Base 'The Collection' (because Mark had an Ace of Base CD that he played us in his car) and Audio Bullys 'Ego War' (which only came out last year and has some genius tracks). So that was good. Perhaps I will revisit their sale again. :)

The new year has brought a few scared thoughts to mind, what with it being the year I get married. Yesterday it was exactly eight months until the wedding, which seems really terrifying until I think that I haven't been going out with Rob that long and it seems like we've been together for ages and ages. If you know what I mean.

Anyway, yes, another fairly long blog, although most of it's a list of presents. Nice.

I have been mostly.... READING: artemis fowl and the eternity code (eoin colfer) / LISTENING: eurovision 2003; the collection (ace of base)

posted by Fiery Fred @ 12:54 PM 0 comments