The Witchwood

How rock and roll...

am I ....?

Yep, here I am in all my glory, complete with blue eyeshadow, Tinkerbell vest and the new Ashdown behind me, and it matches the eyeshadow.
Thanks to Tim for taking the luverly pictures.

Busy Busy Busy

We, Born Idle, were supposed to be doing a gig on Wednesday night but it got cancelled due to the pub losing its licence (can't blame me - I've never been before!) but we did play on Thursday night at The Witchwood in Ashton, supporting the UK Subs. We were brilliant, especially me....
On Friday I played groupie again, as DC 79 played at the Beehive in Chester. The fact that I am watching a band and not playing with them is always made up for on these occaisions by the fact that I don't have to limit my drink intake, carry anything,pack anything up, drive anything or behave in a professional manner! There are photos of me. I won't be posting them.
I got in at 4am, so Saturday was a bit of a lazy day...
I used to be the stand-in Cliff Williams before they got a proper, male, one, and I enjoyed it very much indeed.Although I pretended to be Mark Evans, just to confuse them. If you don't like ACDC, presumably YOU are confused now!
I went to Asda today for a joint for tea and it took me 20 minutes to get out of the damn car park. Honestly, its just STUPID the way that car park is organised.

Christmas

I have Christmassed up the house....

Although the camera went wonky when I took this one...

But not when I took this one...

Happy Christmas!

Rock Star

Another gig. Live Cafe, Deansgate, Manchester. First on out of three because we are using this as a warm up for next week's mini tour.I have a new amp, a lovely Ashwood Electric Blue 180 and its LOUD. Very LOUD.
Guitar amp went wonky though, which marred our wonderful set, but not too much. I had a cocktail. It was called a Pointsettia, and involved cranberry juice and Champagne and was £5! But I didn't buy it so that's ok.
I have the Christmas tree up in Technical Towers, and a little one in Jezebel, but not in the house yet as I am not allowed.

Christmas is Coming...

On Saturday morning, we went to the Christmas markets in Manchester. We had german steak burgers and something sausage-like that I can't spell, and a ginger latte from Starbucks and it was all very Christmassy.
There were some lovely things on sale...
except I couldn't justify the prices, and a massive Father Christmas, with a rather strange Sooty....

and the most lovely window display I have seen in a long time...

Wish I was rich!

Scarf

You remember the green scarf? It turned out like this. Not sure HOW!....

Travel Lodge

Last Saturday night we began the trek to Benfleet (that's darrrrn sarrrf you know) to see my ma and pa. For a change, we left on Saturday tea time and drove half way ish (to Huntingdon) and then decided to stay in a Travel Lodge overnight. Oooo the decadence! So, we arrive at the Travel Lodge (having booked on line in the modern way) and were put in the disabled room as they were full up. It was very nice as it was a lot bigger than a normal room, due to wheelchair access and so on. There was almost an emergency chord/thought it was a light cord incident, and I locked us out when I went to ask for an extra pillow, but apart from that it was great.
There was a distinct lack of drink, as its attached to a service station I suppose, but there was a Little Chef. Now, Little Chef's are much maligned, but I like them. They aren't cheap but they are reliable and you can see what they are doing in the kitchen. I had a chicken on a bun kind of thing, and him indoors had a burger, sans chips. And three bottles of Stella each and three little mini bottles of wine. And 2 tubs of pringles (the small ones, I hasten to add!).It was like an adventure!
The next day saw us in a Wild Bean Cafe (those food bits in the big BP stations), and then we arrived at Benfleet to do the traditional exchange of household goods (ie giving away things we don't want anymore to each other, although I always seem to be up on the deal!).
The day was lovely, as ever, but a long drive (4 hours in total) and work the next day beckoned, so we had to leave.
I did get back in time for Heartbeat though!
There was a very friendly warning sign in the Travel Lodge bathroom, which I thought informed you of danger in a very sweet way....

Monty

And here, at the request of my mum, is their dog Monty.
Awwwwwwwwwwww.

Stilton and Guiness

Today saw me at the Trafford Centre. I bought more Stilton and Guiness pate (nearly my favourite thing in the whole world) and some Reeces Cups. Now, you have to get Reeces Cups from Selfridges as they import them from America (If you are American and reading this, you can't get them in normal shops over here), and I LOVE them. They are like little cake shaped things only they are milk chocolate filled with gooey peanut butter stuff and they are GORGEOUS. I don't really have a sweet tooth but I do like them A LOT.
I bought the ma in law's Christmas pressies, and then went on to Cost Co (like Makro, only bigger) and bought lots of diet Red Bull. And some lovely smelly candles that are Christmas pudding flavour.
It snowed the other day when I was coming home from work. It snowed heavily on the motorway, and Saddleworth Moor looked all spooky and dramatic and the sheep had gone in.
And here is today's random picture. Its the view of the fireplace from my chair.

Pussy Cats

Here are my cats. They are 16. Felix (the black and white one) doesn't normally squint like that, or look like she is going "Arrrrr Jim Lad". Harvey on the other hand, ALWAYS looks like he does here...

I am so enraptured with my new bag, here it is.....

Laaaazeee Sundy Arfternooon

Well, I have done a whole lot of nothing today. I did hoover Jezebel, and stick some stuff on Ebay and put a picture up, but the rest of day was spent doing nothing. Oh, I did buy a new bag and a pair of boots from Wynsors World of Shoes (what a name for a shop!) - the boots are black, flat heeled knee length things (if they were on Ebay, they would say "Boho/Kate/Sienna" on the label!)but the bag is a tour de force. Its for work, and its got a picture of a kitten on each side, and the kitten is pretending to drink through a straw from a cocktail glass, and its got little diamante bits stuck all over it to make it look like the kitten is wearing a diamond collar. Its brilliant!
I have just watched an advert for Activa yoghurt, where they are going on about it containing "bifidus digestivus" - is that not something they say in Harry Potter when they are casting spells???
And now, to add to the House that Fell To Pieces saga, my overflow pipe is dripping like a mad thing and I don't know why. I can't get in the loft to find out what's going on (and I am not sure I would know what to do when I get up there anyway!). I have a plan. I will IGNORE it.

Going back to the family (a Jethro Tull reference!)

Yesterday I went to see my Nana, Grandad and Uncle. It was my grandad's birthday. It was lovely to see them and I have made a pact with myself to go more often.
On the way back, I drove past the house I used to live in from being 7 to being 13. 83 Fairfield Road. It was small!!! Its a Victorian semi, 4 bedrooms, nice garden, and I remember it as being MUCH bigger than it was. Even the road was narrower,
although as I haven't lived there for 23 years, and there are an awful lot more cars about to use up the space, its not surprising. A lot of my strongest memories lie in that house and I am a bit disturbed that someone else lives in it - it should be a monument to our family!
They have had double glazing put in, but the front door and the little window in the tiny bedroom above the front door are still original. I wonder if it would be too cheeky to go back and ask to see the inside?
Sometimes there is nothing better than sitting around with your family and remembering stuff you used to do. We always spent 2 weeks in North Wales each summer en masse. Me, mum, dad , Nana, Grandad and Simon (my Uncle)always went to Rhos On Sea in a Triumph Toledo (Grandad's) and a Volkswagen Beetle (Dad's) Dad's car had plastic seats which got RED HOT if he parked in the sun and which caused third degree burns if you got in and sat down without remembering to get the rug first....
We played an awful lot of crazy golf, drank a lot of hot chocolate in the local Forte's cafe, and Simon and I virtually lived on the beach. The local swimming pool was an outdoor one, and fed by sea water, and I swear there is nothing colder on the face of the earth than the water in that swimming pool. Its a wonder I am still alive after swimming in that. One year I went swimming in the rain in the sea off the Great Orme. I don't think that's even legal these days!
Happy days.

It's only rock and roll..but I like it

Yet another DC79 gig, this time at the Glynne Arms in Flint. A small place, very narrow and no cider on draft. Boo hiss to that.DC79 were as good as ever, although the drummer was a stand in, as the usual one was away.
The journey home was great - it was very foggy and there was a strange diversion down some country road, which put me in mind of Village of the Damned (!!). We had a 1.30am (actually 2.30am in reality, but the clocks went back, giving us an extra hour)trip to Pop's Cafe (the services at Lymm), where we dined on ham and mustard sandwiches, Mexican Chilli flavoured crisps and coffee.
This morning we took the hire van back, and had lunch in Pizza Hut before a jaunt round the shops. I got "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" by Andrew Collins (the book about his student days at university), "The Village Green Preservation Society" by the Kinks and "Rude Kids" which is about the blokes that started Viz magazine.
Heartbeat is back on (after being outrageously cancelled last week, due to the Brazillian grand prix), so that's ok.

More kerknitting

Here is a picture of a green ribbed scarf I am making. Its a chunky wool, on size 2 needles so it shouldn't take long but I am running out of green, so it's going to end up blue...



And here is a picture of the stripey jumper I am making.



The pictures are a bit wonky (my camera is playing up).

Kerknitting

I knit. I like knitting. I am quite good at it, until fairisle comes into the equation, in which case I pretend I don't know what it is. My mum is a fantastic knitter. Queen of knitting in fact. We were chatting about it tonight. I thought it was a bit of a dying art, until I went looking it up on the www, and it's not all old ladies with cats you know. It's young ladies with cats as well! Just not very many of them. It seems to be more prevalent in America, or maybe that's because its BIGGER, but most of the knitting sites and rings are based there. Girls aren't taught to knit as a matter of course anymore. It's a terrible shame because you can listen to music or watch telly (or read, if you can find a passing cat to sit on the book and hold it open for you) at the same time, its very relaxing and you end up with something that you may end up handwashing for the rest of your life but at least YOU made it!
I am not left handed but I knit left handed, because my mum is left handed and I learned from her. Sometimes this has an interesting effect on armholes when you forget to reverse things!
I can also crochet a bit as well, but I have big problems doing circles (I think I have mentioned this before), so everything I crochet has to be square. Last winter I crocheted a lovely multi coloured Afghan for the cats. It's only taken them 12 months to work themselves up to sitting on it, so I feel very honoured.
Maybe it's a sign of our times, but I think it's very sad that hand knitting has gone out of fashion. Look at the current mad craze for ponchos - one of the easiest things to make and yet people prefer to buy "nylon fall apart after one wash cost £2 from the market" jobs, when they could have fun (yes, FUN) and satisfaction making their own and being a little individualistic into the bargain.
Go on, knit something.

Hex

I've been watching Hex on Sky One and its great. Its been billed as the "British Buffy" but I can't stand Buffy so I took no notice of that, and it was really good. However, it has put me in mind of the way that people describe things for sale on Ebay. I am a bit of a rock chick/hippy chick type dresser (I like my old jeans, long skirts, velvet, band tshirts and my leather jacket), but when I look for stuff on Ebay, I find that 9 times out of 10, the things I like are described as "Boho/Sienna/Kate", which is as bad as saying that Hex is the British Buffy. Kate is Kate Moss. Sienna is Sienna Miller. Why would I want to buy clothes just because some morbidly underweight woman, famous just for wearing stuff , has been seen wearing something similar?I am not a big lass, so it's not envy, but what is it with this cultural edict we seem to be stuck with that says "whatever is new" has to be the same as "something we have already had"? What's wrong with "These jeans are ace and look really nice and you stand half a chance of being unique if you wear them with some other stuff that you like wearing"?
I am selling some jeans on Ebay at the moment. I have sold some before, to great success, but this time I have added "Boho/Kate/Sienna" to the description. Let's see if it makes a difference. Watch this space....

Another night out

Last night I went to see DC79 (Bon Scott era ACDC tribute band) on account of me being married to one of them (the pretend Angus). I got in at 4.30am. It was in Macclesfield. I am a bit tired! They can be seen here: www.dc79.co.uk
This kind of made up for the fire travesty on Friday. The man came to fit the new fire and he can't because the flue or the chimney or something is broken and needs fixing before the fire goes in, which which will cost about a million pounds to do and I can't afford it. Its not fair because I was really looking forwards to staring at the pretend flames on cold winter nights. At least the central heating works now!
I got a gorgeous throw for the settee from the RSPCA charity shop : its all purple and lilac and cherry and black indian patterns and its massive. And it was only £3.99!So two pluses and a minus this weekend.
Another possible minus is the fact that I have a horrible cold but after the tooth trauma, a cold seems like nothing!
I also bought the Sims2. Bad mistake. I was obsessed enough with The Sims and all the expansion packs up to Makin' Magic, but I can see that the Sims2 is going to be WAY more addictive than The Sims. I had a "quick go" for half an hour the other night that turned into 3 hours... One thing that is annoying about it is my female Sims keep dying from food poisoning and I have no idea why!

I am Warm

The man came to mend the central heating tonight and it is MENDED. He is a hero. It cost buttons (he is a friend of a friend kind of person) and now I am warm and have proper hot water. Tomorrow the new fire arrives, to complete the picture. The rest of the house (built 1832 so its falling to bits somewhat!) might be a relic from the past but at least its warm!!!
When I was little, we lived in a house with no central heating, and icicles used to form on the INSIDE of the windows and I used to sit on a convector heater all evening to keep warm, and while this was no big deal at the time, I wouldn't like to go back to that, given the choice.
When we lived in Whalley Range about 12 years ago, we spent a whole 2 months in Winter with no heating at all, and had to sit inside sleeping bags to keep warm. Getting out of the bath was not a nice experience, as you were liable to freeze yourself to the floor! (Not like Arizona ;-))
Happy times though.

Gig # 2

Friday night, The Phoenix Club, Farnworth (yes, THE Phoenix club out of the Peter Kay thing!). It was us on last, preceeded by a band called BillyClub and before them a band called Kiss Off. I stuck to drinking shandy and we were very, very good. Although I wore exactly the same as the LAST gig, which shows a lack of imagination. There were quite a few people there, and lots of our friends turned up (one even came all the way from Wales!) and I managed to get to bed by 2am so not as late as last time.
We are going to be playing at the wedding of our singer's son next year, but we will be reborn as "Wedding from the Crypt" and be playing lots of StrayCats/Cramps/50's songs, and we will be in suits. Can't wait!
Earlier in the week a lovely friend of a friend type man came round to look at our central heating and he can FIX IT! It needs a new pump, which he can get and fit for £40 and will be doing it soon, which is a real result.
Harvey had an abscess on his face, which has gone now but it's left a hole and he looks a bit scary. It doesn't stop him eating mind you, although nothing seems to stop Harvey eating.

Hearth and Home

Last weekend I was out being rock and roll. This weekend I bought a gas fire and went to a car boot sale and Matalan. It is a big car boot sale but I think they should be done under the trades description act because its all market traders and hardly any "boots". We bought olives and garlic, and some jasmine incense. We also joined Matalan and got 2 pairs of pretend Converse boots for £1 each!
The new gas fire arrives on Friday and the downstairs will be warm again. Lovely.
Here is the offending fire, the last time it kind of worked, Christmas Eve last year.
http://www.faerywings.co.uk/fp1.jpg

Gig # 1

Retro Bar, Sackvill Street, Manchester. Voodoo club night. Went on stage 12am, despite being there FOR EVER. Played a lot of songs. Intro was The Sweeney theme tune. Started off great, fell apart a bit, very good at the end. Incredibly hot and sweaty. Lots of people. Clapping. Broken string. Bit of guitar fell off. Amp appears to be on its last legs.
I enjoyed it. Sold a cd! To someone we didn't know!!
Got to gig in a borrowed van with no front seat - it was a dining room chair bolted to the floor and there were a load of fireworks in the back. First and reverse gear were..erm...reversed (first was reverse and reverse was first.)
I wore a black shirt and a school tie and lots of black eye shadow a la Gaye Advert. Got paid 24 bottles of Becks and £60 (between us, not each).
Drank cider through a straw due to teeth (although almost better now.)
Got in at 4.30am. VERY VERY tired now, hence lack of grammar.

DENTIST HORROR - NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH

Not last Sunday night but the Sunday before, I got an abcess under my wisdom tooth. I spent a week of sleepless agony while waiting for the antibiotics to kick in. If you haven't HAD an abcess under your tooth, you can't imagine how HORRIBLE it is.
Anyway, I made an appointment at the dentists for today to have the tooth out (I have been putting it off for 18 months, so the abcess is my own fault anyway.)
Sooooooo I go to the dentist today. Now, I am TERRIFIED of dentists. Absolutley TERRIFIED.
So there I am, shaking and near to tears, and I get called in. She does the injection thing (which I don't mind so much), and then I wait for 5 horrible minutes and go back in. And off we go. 20 minutes (yes, TWENTY) later she can't get it out. I have been yanked and squahed, heard crunching and cracking, and it won't come out. She decides to xray it, and "while we are waiting" for the results of the xray, she does some other work that needed doing: 3 fillings, ANOTHER extraction and a scale and bloody polish!!
By this time, I have lost all fear of dentists and their dental practices - fillings? ha, they are nothing. Scale and polish? a walk in the park. Bear in mind I have been in this chair for an HOUR so far....
The xrays come back, and the tooth that wont come out is "tricky". Mmmmm, yes, I agree, smiling my bloody smile, looking like an extra from Zombie Flesh Eaters, with gore trickling down my face. Another dentist arrives to help with the "trickiness". Dentist number one sits on me, while dentist number two hangs onto her. She shows me one of the things she is going to use. It is a small chisel. A proper chisel, out of a toolkit. I grin again - this is nothing to someone of my calm demeanour and non-fear of dentistry.
Wrench, CRACK, chisel, CRUNCH CRACK CRUNCH, a HORRIBLE pulling sensation which lasts for...oh, another 25 minutes or so.... (yes, TWENTY FIVE).... and FINALLY nothing.
"Won't it come out?" I ask, and she is holding it up in her plier things. I feel cheated. No gut-wrenching final agonising yank, no collosal CRAAACK - it's just OUT.
But this isn't the end of it!!! Its an exciting tooth!
Turns out it has 4 roots and was stuck behind the tooth next to it AND embedded in bone which is why it didn't want to come out. The second dentist jostled me in his excitement at such a unique find. Its going to some dental place to be looked at as its very unusual apparently.
Anyway, here I am , back home, blood filling my mouth, anticipation of impending agony, and I am SOOO proud of myself its untrue.
I am not frightened anymore. Everything that could go wrong or was unexpected HAPPENED to me today in my 2 hour ordeal. It hurt then and it hurts now and it will get worse I expect, but I WENT and I didn't cry or anything and I feel so relieved its unbelievable.
If any of you are scared of the dentist, don't be. It's easy to say, I know, but I was PETRIFIED, went through HELL and now its nothing to me. A filling is a nasty noise and a bit of wincing. A scale and polish is a bit of vibration and horrible mouthwash. The tooth that WASN'T "tricky" was out in seconds (literally - it was pliers in, one yank and its gone!) and it is weird rather than painful. The pain comes AFTER, but by this time you aren't in the dentists anymore so it doesn't count.
So, I am dripping blood, sore jawed and in lot of pain but I lost my fear of dentists, and toothache will never get the better of me again.

I'm With The Band

Actually I am IN the band. After a near two year gap (sacked old drummer and couldn't find a NEW one), we went back to the drummer before last and are now up and running again. We have been rehearsing and we have a few gigs coming up, which is exciting, and we are sounding very good if I do say so myself. The sound is a kind of 70s punk/rock and roll (Stones type rock and roll) kind of style and we do all original stuff except when we go down very well and have to do encores (which happens you know!).
Today we rehearsed in the smallest room on earth, which was a little better than last week's hottest room on earth, and I have blisters on two fingers which is very rock and roll....and very painful.
And now I am at home waiting for Heartbeat to start and knitting a tank top from a pattern in a 1965 issue of Woman and Home. I am a living paradox! Or do I mean quixotic? Or maybe I mean just plain weird...

That was the week that was

I was off work last week. I didn't do very much except potter about, which is proably my favourite thing in the whole world to do. Bit of shopping, bit of gardening, bit of knitting, bit of reading, bit of going out for dinner or tea, bit of doing nothing but more importantly having nothing I HAVE to do.
Now I am back at work and reality is kicking in. I have to get my heating fixed. I have to get my fire fixed. The other car needs £400+ worth of work doing (its failed its MOT for the first time in its history with us, which is not bad considering its a J reg Seat Ibiza which has been doubling up as a gear transporter for two bands) . I have a rather large credit card bill to whittle down, and basically I am not very rich.
Oh well, I am sure it will all sort itself out. S'only money in the end.
Peace!

Poor Felix

One of the moggies, Felix, is a bit under the weather. Being 15 she is getting on a bit, and she has developed an aversion to walking anywhere. She is quite happy to hit Harvey, the other moggie, eat copius amounts of food and loll about in the litter tray, but walking now seems to be off the agenda, unless it involves eating, fighting or weeing.

........

I take it all back. She has just jumped down from the kitchen table, sprinted across the floor and disappeared through the catflap into the rainy night. Cats. WHY?

My Cats Have Fleas

How on earth do you get rid of cat fleas? We have tried collars, spray, powder, everything, and still they live. I have combed and combed and washed and washed the cats but still the damn things refuse to die.
The house is flea-free. The cats aren't.
On a more creative note I have made a patchwork cushion cover for my chair at work, now that we are back in our real office. Oh, I didn't say what happened! We got flooded. The building we work from is having flats put on the top and there is a temporary roof. Which didnt stand up to the torrential rain, and caved in. Although we are on the first floor of three, it got right into our office and all our ceiling tiles fell in. Water was cascading through the ceiling and I had to run around like a lunatic trying to move anything expensive and putting buckets under the worst of the leaks.
We hung out in a cupboard - sorry, temporary office - for a couple of days, and on Friday we moved back into the old one. Which is a lot tidier, a lot cleaner and a lot less like it was pre-flood. It doesn't take much to change the ambience of a room, and even though I have only been out of it a few days, it seems like an alien office - like I have set up my desk in someone else's office without their permission.
At least nothing of a personal nature was damaged. I have a lot of STUFF on my desk, which all pulled through unscathed.
I have also been playing Doom3, which runs a bit slow due to the somewhat ancient nature of my graphics card, but I liked the atmosphere and the monsters. Sadly, it hasn't lived up to its expectations ( at least in my mind). I am a devotee of the first 2 Doom games, and 3 doesn't seem to be of the same stuff as the first two. I can't explain WHY - it's just not the same. It doesn't seem to be related to the first two, and while I am all for great graphics and a good story, it seems too much like everything else out there in first person shoot 'em up land, rather than being about uniqueness and playability like the first two were.

Jezebel

Jezebel continues to be a joy as a car. The ma in law had a go as well. I got a rise at work. Things are nice. Happy girl!

I have a new car. She is called Jezebel. She is a W reg Citroen Saxo and she has a yellow gear lever. And the seatbelts are different colours. Lovely lovely new car.

All bad things come at once....

I have given up with the heating. It will stay cold downstairs. There are always jumpers anyway. Darlene has gone round the clock - I watched it happen. And now her exhaust is on its way out. And I need a new gas fire in the front room because the old one is non-functional. And I haven't got any money to repair the heating, buy a car or get a new fire.
If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all, as they saying goes. Actually its not THAT bad when you weigh it all up, and it could be worse. At least I HAVE a house to go wrong on me. At least I HAVE a car (just) that is losing its vital organs one by one.
I have almost run out of things to sell on Ebay as well.
We went to see Shrek 2 last Saturday - it was ace! There were plenty of adult orientated jokes and references in it, and the kid level funny bits were just as good. Although I did want Fiona to kiss Shrek before midnight so they could both stay beautiful and not turn into ogres again. Lets be realistic about it, people. What would you rather be? Ogre or pretty princess?

Central Heating is Evil...like Microsoft.

My central heating is still broken. Well, its half broken. Hot upstairs, cold downstairs. And I am running out of ideas. I have bled things, balanced things, tapped things with hammers and shouted at things, but the downstairs radiators will NOT get hot.
To take my mind off it, I have begun my campaign of getting away from all things Microsoft on my laptop. I use Incredimail for email and Mozilla for browsing. If I can tempt my contacts away from MSN messenger and onto something else (NOT AOL messenger - I am allergic to AOL) then I will gravitate towards that. Star office is replacing MS office. All I need to do now is get very brave and install Red Hat on here. But I am not sure how it will cope with the hardware, so I may chicken out and trial run it on some old pc and see what happens.
Aside from that, the bedroom is now fully new furnitured-up (apart from the bed - can't face bed building yet) and looking psychedelic as hell. I obviously think its 1966 or something.

DIY - Do I not like that?

Its been all work and no play this weekend chez Faery Towers. The bedroom carpet is a mixture of 70s fibre, cat hair, MY hair and general rubbish. And it had to go. I did it by myself. It took all day. I had to cut the crumbling carpet into bin bag sized bits, fill a bin bag with the bits and then chuck the bag out of the bedroom window. And then repeat this many many times.Then hoover repeatedly. The floorboards have revealed themselves to be archaic, nail riddled 1820s monoliths. I am ignoring them. Rugs are a wonderful invention.
And then we went INSANE and bought a whole pile of self-assembly bedroom furniture. Half of it is UNassembled, but for the first time in my life I have a dressing table. I have always always wanted one, with a mirror and perfume bottles and velvet scarves draped about, and glass bottles and all my girly stuff strewn around and now I have one. It makes it all worth while.
Oh, and the central heating has thrown a fit. Hot water is fine but only the upstairs radiators work. Typical.

Friday Night is Blondie night!

Me and junior sister in law went to see the brilliant Blondie at the Manchester Apollo on Friday night. It was all seated this time but we stood up. Debbie still dances like Dame Edna, but they were great. Clem Burke must be about 19 now, looking at him. A bit too much of the disco stuff for me, and a touch too much new stuff as well, but they always do that so I can't complain. All in all a fantastic night. I was pleased they did X Offender and Rifle Range, but one day I hope to see them do "Die Young, Stay Pretty". Lee Fox (bass player) looks like the child of Dee Dee Ramone and Charlie off Coronation Street, who is now rivalling T**d G******w for sheer selfish horribleness.
At least we have reached incidence number two of soap Nirvana - first Jason chins Nick Tilsey and last night Leanne chucks a pint over him!! You can't beat it.
We had a power cut on Friday night. I was all ready with the candles (we had already had a mini acoustic concert by him indoors)but then it came back on. Boooring...Power cuts aren't like they were when I was a child ( and I was a child during the super ones of the 1970s!)

Car Trouble

Some children of the night decided to attempt to break into Darlene (my car)on Friday night. The hero next door chased them but they got away. After breaking two windows and belting the door with a piece of 2 x 4. Now I believe in instinct - when I parked (right round the corner in a dark side street well away from my street)I thought, don't park here - something will happen. But I parked anyway, ignoring myself. And look what happened. Mr Sam and I managed to replace the windows ourselves (£15 from a scrapyard owned by Mr next door but one - great neighbours!)but I now propose death by beheading for car vandals. SLOW beheading. With a blunt knife.

Does The Bill count as a soap?

Thankyou to the kind lady that told me off about Todd Grimshaw in my previous post. Someone I am not related to has looked at this! Yep, he is being true to his own nature, yep its all down to headline-grabbing shock-script editors (I know that doesn't rhyme like shock-jock does), but I like Sarah and therefore I don't like Todd. Mind you, I don't like Gail either. Or Martin. Or Katy and her solid-state hair. Or indeed Karl. But I DO like Audrey, and Todd has upset Audrey so therefore I am upset about him all over again. Good job I don't watch any of the other soaps! Or does The Bill count as a soap? I have MAJOR opinions about people in The Bill.......

Soap Attack

I'm not daft. I have a brain. But I have formed an "I hate Todd Grimshaw" club. Feel free to harangue him in supermarkets. It's real you know....Poor Sarah.

Hobbies and Pastimes

I was reflecting on the fact that I do have a fair amount of hobbies and pastimes. I collect Holly Hobbie stuff, I like to write, I sew, I knit, I crochet (but nothing that requires me to crochet circles - I can't do circles),I have developed a liking for patchwork, I like to garden, I collect Jackie annuals and magazines from the 60s, 70s and early 80s, I like to cross stitch...in fact a whole load of hobbies that make me sound like a mad old pensioner. Yet conversely I have a very technical job, involving telecomms and networking and internet related things and all kinds of weird and wonderful goings on. Therefore I am a paradox.Or is it quixotic? Or a paradigm? I think I will be all three....
And what do YOU do in your spare time?

Shallow? Moi?

My first real post. I have been reading a few other diaries on here ( I'm not keen on the word "blog" for some reason) and I have decided I am shallow. Pain? Troubles? Angst? Black backgrounds to your web page? Cheer up a bit. I get cross and depressed along with everyone else, but then I realise I am typing this on a BRAND NEW LAPTOP and I am happy again. Consumerist, socialist uber-hippy - that's me. :-)

Another hello

Well, I am now experimenting with this whole "blogging" thing, solely with the vain intention that people will want to respond LIVE to my ramblings. Lets see what happens then, shall we?

A new diary?

Hello