emeraldsword

Had the parents to stay this weekend so we could view some houses. All incredibly premature, of course, but it was lovely to see them and very interesting to have a nosy around various places for sale! I'm going to see them next week, so that's nice too, and I am so tired I'm actually quite glad that they've left already - am just lying quietly, reading fic and planning an afternoon nap. Am so tired I feel sick!

New Jonathan Creek on Friday night was entirely crap and we were all very disappointed. *sulks*

I still live! With a high level of temporal confusion, as always. Life now includes Sunday lectures, and that is very muddling indeed (not to mention tiring). Finals next week, eeep.

Saw some fantastic fireworks for Chinese New Year last night, on the way home from said lectures. One was like being in a glowing net, it was splendid. I smiled all the way home. Nothing makes me quite as happy as fireworks, they are just the most magical thing. Bonfire Night was a bit of a mess last year so it was really lovely to get this (and I think the fireworks themselves were miles better than on Bonfire night).

So, most recent ep of Teen Wolf? FUNNIEST THING EVER. FINGERNAILS IN A BOX, LMFAO. I heart my show, they go on epic quests for toenail clippings! Cannot. Stop. Laughing.

Reminds me of the episode of Midsomer Murders where the woman mummified her dead brother and kept him in the front room before trying to kill her sister in law with an axe.

New Midsomer Murders tomorrow too. My life is full of totally ridiculous tv.

So, I finished my final day of placement before Christmas (woo hoo!) about 10 minutes before the bus was due. I looked out at the cold and the rain, and thought 'hmm. I should go out there now just in case, but it is cold and nasty.' I toddled to the bus stop where I stood in the little plastic hut to pass the by-now-5 minutes before the scheduled arrival of my bus.

My placement is in the middle of nowhere, so I am all alone at the bus stop. I therefore enliven my wait by humming Christmas songs to myself and tapping my feet, and playing all the little counting games I have devised to make the wait a pleasing part of my day rather than cold and annoying.

The 5 minutes pass quickly, to the accompaniment of 'I wish it could be Christmas every day,' and 'when 20 cars have crossed the bridge, my bus will come." Eventually, I start singing "Do they know it's Christmas?" instead, and venture a glance at my watch. Bus is now 5 minutes late.

'oh well,' thinks I. 'It could come any minute then!' I realise that I can't remember many words to 'do they know it's Christmas?' and switch to 'Yellow Submarine' just because.

Another 20 cars cross the bridge, and then another 20. I am by now singing 'I saw her standing there,' and feeling on balance, slightly less Zen about my wait because I've been waiting half an hour, and 4 buses going my way (run by two different companies) should have gone by and they have not. I can still feel my feet, thanks to the tapping, but my fingers have gone numb.

Then lo, a bus!!!! I leap to the side of the road and start waving enthusiastically. The bus draws to a stop and I step forward into the light and the warm, purse in hand and goodwill in men restored...and the bus driver says 'hang on a second duck, I need to flag down the one behind,' and pushes past me to stop the identical bus LITERALLY right behind us. I make a joke with the passenger on the front seat about how you wait ages for a bus and then two come along at once, and the driver comes back.

"I'm 35 minutes behind schedule," he says, "so I'd like you all to get onto the bus in front."

So I do. I am still holding my purse, but the other driver says "get on duck," and I decide Most Evilly not to mention that I haven't actually handed over any cash yet and scuttle into a lovely warm seat and think happily that in 25 minutes I will be home and I will be home for free!

So, I probably deserved what happened next. Everyone obediently transfers to the front bus, we all sit and the bus goes. We procede happily at normal bus speed for 15 minutes, and then we stop at the shopping centre. People get on, people get off, but I am texting my friend about her love life and thinking happily how warm my feet are and how in 10 minutes I will be home! The bus driver shuts the doors and goes to pull away...and the bus makes a whirring noise but goes nowhere.

The bus driver tries everything. He turns it off and on again, he winds some little windy thing, he presses the accelerator really hard. Then he says "I'm sorry about this" and gets out to have a fag and call his mate.

"Another bus'll be along in about 5 minutes," he announces when he gets back on, but to do him credit he does keep pressing little buttons and winding the windy thing.

10 minutes later, when nothing has happened, he hops off the bus and flags down a bus from the different, rival company, which very surprisingly agrees to take us all home for free. Merry Christmas!

So HOORAH! And All's Well That Ends Well and that is the story of how what should have been a 25 minute bus ride and a 5 minute wait ended up taking an hour and a half.

(Am not cross, am just hoping that that's got all the travel jinx out of the way because tomorrow I catch three trains and then I see my family again!

Had a quiet weekend, which was good. Slightly quieter than I intended thanks to Uterine Woe, but I did manage to get some stuff done, hooray. (I found my hot water bottle! VERY grateful for that, I can tell you!)

Had friends round this evening for mulled wine, mince pies and to help me put up the Christmas tree. It was lovely. Mum gave me a make-your-own snowman kit last year and I...had not done this, so we all did it this evening instead. It is for ages 3+, which is why our snowmen look lopsided, seem to be drunk and are possibly owls in disguise... There was also not really enough glue and you suspend them from the tree by wires attached to their hats, so I suspect that I will be spending the Christmas season fixing decapitated snowmen. Festive.

In an odd train of events, I have managed to lose the star for the top of the tree. Last year, when I put everything away, I was extremely organised so the tree was very easy to put up and all the decorations were in the same box as the tree. With the exception of the star, which would not fit. I do not remember where I put it last year, I don't remember seeing it when I cleared everything out of that room to get the new carpet in there, I don't remember seeing it in here when I got the new carpet in here and I can't find it in the bathroom or the kitchen. Luckily, Mum also gave me an angel last year and I put her on top of it. Initially she was suspended from the topmost branch, but A thought that she looked strung up and has rearranged her so she is straddling the branch instead. It doesn't look that indecent but I'm not sure that I'd want to be stuck at the top of a tree with a branch up my skirt. Though she doesn't look too unhappy about it...

I have been obsessively reading the True Blood books. My internal monologue has now developed a dreadful Southern accent and I keep saying 'Sookie' and cackling to myself.

Anyway. First day of a new placement tomorrow morning *sigh* (nothing new should ever happen in December) so that's another early morning. At least it's a place I've been before, if not since January 2012.

"Sookie" hee hee

My sister came to visit this weekend. Introduced her to the ?girlfriend (we've established that I'm allowed to say that now, btw, but ?girlfriend entertains me so I might stick with it on here. Possibly abbreviated to ?gf but who knows?) which I think went well. We had a lovely weekend, but I am just so, so tired atm. I slept a lot and she woke me up to do helpful things. Like watch Blake's 7, which she and my parents are watching atm. She's allowed me to borrow the first season so that I will know what the family are talking about at Christmas.

Went to see Richard III, which I was looking forward to, though I was a bit sorry at the beginning because I suddenly realised it was going to be ridiculously long. Luckily it was great so I didn't mind it being EPIC. Though I did have a tiny little nap in the first half, during which I apparently missed nothing-some king died. I am not actually sure which king he was, but he was Richard's brother. My sister is appalled by my total ignorance of history. I resent that. I know some history. Wives of Henry VIII, I can do those! William Marshall, I know about him. Just because none of them were in Richard III... Also, kings do not help themselves by all being called Edward or Richard or Henry. How the hell is anyone supposed to keep them all straight?! Especially when everyone else is known by a place name... (Incidentally, Prince George is from Blackadder, rather than third in line to the throne. Just saying.)

Anyway, I am now having a little panic about my total lack of knowledge about everything ever...so I am drinking wine and watching the greatest Doctor Who monsters. The Weeping Angels, unsurprisingly. I do like that one though.

Right. A decent hour of work before bed, I think. God knows what I'm supposed to be doing tomorrow but it's probably tiring and starts too early, and involves my general lack of knowledge and skills being pointed out to everyone ever. NOT THAT I AM BEING DEFEATIST AT ALL. At least I'm going out for dinner tomorrow with the ?girlfriend. Something to look forward to.

My sister had told me that Atlantis was dull after watching the first episode. I therefore ploughed through 4 episodes to give a fair trial and guess what? It's dull. There is a lot of running around and fighting things, and nothing happens at all.

Starts off with Our Hero (no point learning his name, really, if you just think of him as Our Hero you've got the all the character development and motivation you will ever need) standing by the sea. He is told by Older Male Authority Figure 'you look just like your father' and one clumsy exposition of his daddy issues later and Our Hero is now in Atlantis...where he's attacked by some mysterious thing, managed to kill it and gets attacked by people who apparently wanted it alive. How he was supposed to know this or why it attacked him are left unexplained, but not in the 'WE ARE BEING CRYPTIC! YOU SHOULD KEEP WATCHING' way that the rest of the ep is attempting to do, but in the 'we just needed an action sequence here' way.

Actually, I could have summed up this entire show by saying 'lots of action sequences, not one character.' And I think I will, as I have a really stinking cold and I'm going to the zoo tomorrow (weather permitting...)

OK, so that's probably not the MOST important thing ever, but I think it's worth saying. I'm off home for the weekend and then when I come back, I'm going to put the heating on! I was going to explain the rationale behind this most shocking of decisions (heating?! but it's only October!) but aside from saying 'storage heaters' I don't think I'm going to bother because even I am bored by this. Though excited about being warm.

Letting agents appear to be doing nothing whatsoever about the flood situation. Have emailed them to ask whether it's safe, as we did mix water and electrics. I actually don't give a damn about that (though if the place burns down, I will!) - my issue is the damp, yuck yuck yuck. I have got my dehumidifier up and running and so far it is being a pleasing machine and busily sucking water out of the air. I'm sure the place feels drier already.

Those of you who were worried about the elephants - thank you for all your suggestions. It turns out that elephants will pogo-stick to Nellie The Elephant (who knew?) and just skip to 'Ride a Cock Horse' so their lives have improved.

I am going to stop talking bollocks about singing elephants and going to go and read Elizabeth Chadwick in bed.

just signal boosting - people are allegedly being blocked from LJ for having gay content on their journals. If your stuff isn't backed up somewhere else, do it now?

I am enjoying the first-day-of-a-new module crash - pizza for tea, followed by biscuits. Eventually I may start to feel human again *has more biscuits*

Skype to my mother today - I've been hypersomnolent this week, which worried me slightly, so I thought I'd have a chat with my mother as that usually cheers me up. It was going very well, and it was going even better when Lycoris got home.

As it often does in our family, the subject of the Sarah Jane Adventures came around. Lycoris was happily expounding about Clyde (BLESS HIS LITTLE HEART) and my mother was nodding along. Then:

Mother: I'm just going to pause for a minute. I mean, I'm just going to pause Lycoris for a moment to tell your things.
Lycoris *blink blink*
Me: *cackle*
Mother: well, you know, you can start again in a minute, but I've got something I need to say first.
Lycoris: *EPIC SULK* *WHATEVER FINGERS*
Mother: *ignoring Lycoris* I'm going to a concert tonight so I'm going away to get changed now. Lovely to speak to you. Lycoris, you can talk again now.
Lycoris: *resumes talking about the Sarah Jane Adventures*