Liz Going On

Last night one of Andrew’s closest uni friends was in town so we went to The Greenhouse in Rusholme for dinner.  It was lovely. I’d never been there before, but its a cracking vegitarian resturant.  The menu was huge.  The food was delicious.  The service was slow (we got there at half six, but weren’t done till after half ten!) but the man running the show was nice.  I’d recommend it to everyone!  And its not expensive either.

Tonight was choir. It was dull and boring.  Boo.  I kept myself entertained by texting people to ask for their favourite words.  I got (in no particular order…)

jam
purloin
creosote
frugal
snuck
wench/SriLankaHaveJustCrushedEnglandAndIHaveAFlag (no prizes for who sent me that!)
freedom
Brrt (said with heavily rolled r. It means cold in amharic)
Facecious (as its the only word with all the vowels in the right order)
flange
Holidays
mush
Arse fuck (thanks Paula, there’s always one to lower the tone!)

I have to admit that I think flange was my favourite.

I’ve had a disaster.  The packet said it would be mahogany.  A similar colour to what it was at the moment.  But it lied.  Its come out black.  I look like a goth.  And too add insult to injury I have red streaks across my ear, neck and face where I forgot to wash off the dye properly.  Yes, red streaks.  Its gone red where I don’t want it to be.  But my hair is very black.

And the water-through-the-kitchen-ceiling has appeared again. In vast quantities. So I can’t even continually shower to wash the damn stuff off.

I’m not going to leave the house for a long while. To hide the shame of disaster-hair and neck colourage and the fact that I’ll smell quite a lot due to the lack of showering-facilities. 

Thank goodness I wear a hat for work. That is indeed a blessing.

Enough of a rant.  Some good things have happened today.

I have cleaned my lounge, dusted, polished and vacuumed it. It sparkles and smells ace.

I have moved the furnature around in my bedroom. Vacuumed everywhere. Sneezed a lot cos of the dust.  And I even managed to not let the radiator that is hanging off the wall propped up by a chest of drawers fall any further off than it already is with said furniture moving.  I’ve also sorted out all my clothes and thrown away* the ones I don’t like.

And, most amazingly of all I’ve finished updating my logbook for work.  Since August last year I’ve given 496 anaesthetics.  Its never been totally up to date before, so I’m happy! (bet it won’t stay that way for long though!). 

*well, put in an old suitcase to give to charity or mother or something like that.

I can’t sleep.

Its probably because I slept quite a lot of today.

Damn night shifts. 

I’ve had a nice hot bath (and identified where the water is coming from into the kitchen)

I’ve had a nice glass of wine

I’m cozy in bed (with my laptop, oh no, am I turning into a geek? eek!) 

Time to count sheep.

1

2

3

4

5

zzzzzzzzzz 

… day 1 of Wimbledon and its raining in SW19.  Its not raining in Manchester, maybe they could all come and play here.  I have Barley Water I could make for them….

Very little to report.  I have mostly been nocturnal, but that is over now (for a few weeks) so I am happier. I discovered that Clare brought me six bottles of wine to try and not just three as I first thought.  Lucky me!  Maybe all this wine will help my detox from diet coke… Which, as you ask, is going rather badly. 

Night shift 1. Drank a whole 2 litre bottle by myself.  I guess the flaw was buying the two litre bottle in the first place.

Night shift 2. Did fairly well as had no coke or money to buy coke.  Stole a couple of cans from Andrew, and had had at least one during the day when I was awake.  So, reflecting on it, I was rubbish.  Total consumed 4 cans.

Night 3. One 500ml bottle.  That’s it.  But I’m drinking my second one of those now, but maybe its another day? I get confused.  But I’ve got no coke in the house, so should be ok.

Another thing while I’m on the subject of coke…  Has anyone else tried ‘Coke Zero’? I think its coke’s rival to Pepsi Max (ie, no sugar but tastes like full fat).  It seems to have been launched very quietly. I would have expected lots of adverts and fanfares.  I tried it. And quite liked it.  Although nothing will match the loveliness of genuine Diet Coke in my mind. 

Working nights causes me to be a confused person.  However tomorrow morning it’ll all be over.  Then I’ll be able to put my mind to sorting out the water that is coming through my kitchen ceiling.  I’ve currently fixed the problem by neglecting my personal hygeine.  Its the shower thats causing the flood.  So I’m not showering*.

I had another very odd dream last night. In the little sleep I got, but that’s better than getting none I guess. I had to try on hundreds of bridesmaid frocks.  Not sure why, but I looked ace!

The wine fairy has visited me. And left three bottles of red in my kitchen and a corkscrew.  Magic!  We’re buying the wine for the hospital ball I’m organising from Majestic (cheers Clare) and she’s left me three bottles to taste.  Woo!  Think they’ll go down very well on a narrowboat, which is coming up very soon, woo.

Lost a pound at fat club yesterday.  Happy Happy.  Despite all the cheese I ate last week.

That’s enough for now.   Come on England.  (and Argentina)

* Now before you all shout ‘You’re a Minger’ at me in four part harmony, I showered at Andrew’s house yesterday and I’ll shower at work tonight.  And I can shower at the gym too.  So actually I’m probably cleaner than I normally am.

I had a dream last night.  Actually I tend to dream rather a lot.  I like them.  This dream was rather bizarre, more bizarre than most.

Jonathan Ross was my Dad.

Well, I referred to him as my dad when talking to other people in the dream. We (unknown group of people, including Mr Woss and My Mum) were at my Mum’s holiday home (in Borth) and I was talking to people refering to Jonathan Ross as my Dad.  The strange thing is I knew he wasn’t my real dad (as I mentioned he’d died years ago, as is factually correct) and I don’t think he was married to my mum, but he was my dad.

Strange

But that’s the point of dreams surely?

And dreams never sound as good as they were when recalled/written down. You all probably think I’m mad! 

What else….

Played tennis last night. Was fun. Wish the courts weren’t so close to a biscuit factory as the smell is distracting, especially when hungry. Went to the gym this morning (and watched ‘homes under the hammer’ at the same time. I love that programme!).

Not done much today. But that’s been nice.

Today is Thursday.

Tomorrow is Friday. I like Fridays much more than Thursdays.

Today had been througherly unremarkable, which is nice for a change.

Time for a nap, methinks. 

I went to visit Miranada and Steve in their new house last night.  Its very nice.  They’ve painted the lounge already and are waiting for sofas to be delivered.  New houses are exciting.

On Monday night I spent more of Mum’s money, I bought her a new computer.  That is very exciting. I also signed her up for a 18 month broardband connection.  With her permission of course. I’m quite strangely excited about the prospect of Mum having broardband.  Will have to make a trip home to sort it out for her and teach her how to use it, which will be nice.

Choir tonight was a bit pants. I think cos we were all on a bit of a comedown from Sunday’s excellent concert, and we’re singing new music.  Which interestingly doesn’t have any words.  So there’s a lot of ‘ah’ and grunting and panting.  It sounds like sex noises to me… 

I was in MummyHouse for the second half of last week.  I arrived late Wednesday after choir and I returned to the big city on Friday afternoon.  I had a wonderful time.  The things I didn, in no particular order

• Sleep
• Shop (I bought… shoes, duvet, doormat, toiletries, plant, strawberries, dinner and two fantastic handbags)
• Walk in the woods and the deer park barefoot. (damn blisters)
• Write letters and make parcels
• Gym
• Hug Mummy
• Eat strawberries whilst sitting in the garden (with ice cream, naturally)

Friday night was spent worshipping the mighty Mr Slugs and Larger (Two pounds!).  I accidently drank 5 pints (I blame Cass and Matt, they lead me astray!). Dan was on fine form, and another act, Gillan Edgar took my fancy too.  He was really good and had a beautiful voice.

I thought that all of friday night’s beer would lead to a disaster at fat club, but thanfully it was ok. I lost one pound. Gotta keep on trying….

Then we went to a balloon festival in Heaton park.  I’d never been to Heaton Park and I love hot air balloons so thought it’d be ace. However it was one of the biggest disappointments of my life!  It was basically a noisy massive chav filled funfair with 6 hot air balloons tied to the ground. Grump!  The good thing was it was nice to catch up with Debbie.

Saturday night was a trip to the Rocky Horror picture show.  It was on at the Opera House and was rather quite good.  There was a group of 13 of us, all dressed up in our best underwear.  Andrew was rather exticed at the prospect of wearing suspenders, stockings, ladies pants and a basque. (And actually looked less scary than I thought he might) I refused to wander round in public in just my undies so I wore a short black frock (which was far shorter than anything I’d normally consider wearing). I have photos, and may share them with you if I get round to putting them on a site thing.

Then today I’ve had a very big sing.  Our concert tonight was ‘Best Choruses in the World’ (which I wanted to add ‘…EVER’ onto the end of!).  It was ace!  Lots of tunes that you’d all know and love.  But I’m knackered as we rehearsed all afternoon then sang all night.  Mum and her friend Marylin came to watch as did Andrew and his parents. Thankfully the parental meeting went well and all parties seemed to approve of the others. Phew. 

And now I’m home. I’ve fed Beryl and she seemed really glad to see me. I’ve reset the burgular alarm (god knows a) how long it was going off for all weekend and b) what set it off this time). And I’ve used mum’s credit card to book her flights to Canada for yet another holiday.

Bedtime. 

Quite a lot to get though…

Friday.

Felt poorly at work so took my temprature.  It was high (38.1C). So I felt sorry for myself all day. And when I finally got home I couldn’t leave again. So missed helping Steve celebrate his graduation.  I felt better after lots of sleep.

Saturday was exciting and fun!

I took part in a BBC recording of Thomas Tallis’ 40 part motet, Spem in Alium.  They were hoping for a choir of 1000 people, but think 600 was closer to the mark.  The piece is totally amazing and I had a great day. Jocelyn has written about the event, and its probably better and more interesting that I’d make it!

After the recording I drove to visit Alsion in Edinburgh.  The journey was great as everyone in England was drunk (or so it seemed after the football) so the roads were really really quiet.  When I arrived I was met by Alsion, Adam and beer which was ideal and made me even happier than I already was!

Sunday was more fun!

Alsion, Adam, Patrick (AlsionFlatmate) and I went on a day trip to the beach.  We were really good and got up and made a picnic (of lots of yummy food that Alsion and her flatmates had stumbled upon the other night when the local Co-op’s fridges had broken so it was bing all thrown out, this was enhanced a little by tesco food).  Getting out of Edinburgh prooved tricky as there were lots of people running a marathon, so we had to share the roads with runners.  Much cheering of said runners was done. I think it was almost the end of the race as it was 11 am and all the runners looked quite broken.  I’d never seen a marathon before, and I felt sorry for the runners having to share the roads with us evil polluting cars.

We got to nice pretty beach and ate yummy picnic, after a swift swim in the sea.  There were lots of people on the beach as it was such a nice sunny day, but we had a nice spot so it was ok.  We made a sand mound. It was going to be a sandcastle (Patrick is an artist and was going to make a Darlik in a phonebox with a spear through its head) but we distracted him with frizbee in the sea. Then we got changed (on the beach with the help of towels for decency purposes) and retreated back to Edinburgh. After we’d buried Adam in sand and played rounder with cherry tomatos and got a bit sunburnt (some of us more than others!).

We briefly went to an ok festival in a tree, but we were a bit tired to appreciate it fully.

Back to flat. Nap. Shower and beautify.  

Then we went out for dinner. It was rather nice.  Italian food and wine.  Hurrah!  To start Alsion’s birthday celebrations.  I got a bit drunkened, but it was good.

Monday.  Shopping and Cows!

I was very excited to see the Cow Parade was in Edinburgh. And I needed to get an outfit for the ball I’m orgainising, so we combined the two.  We saw (and photographed) 35 cows (which wasn’t bad for 5 hours of shopping!) and bought lots of clothes.  Alsion was very useful and extremely patient.  She made me try on lots of things, and I discovered a particularly fab frock that I’d never have tried on myself but made me look ace all over! So it was bought.  And I got a ball outfit with not much hassle.  It was good all round.

Then we made two cheesecakes. Cos we could.  

Went to another flat for birthday celebrating purposes. Then went to bed.  

Tuesday.

Got up. Took Alsion to job interview (but was thwarted by traffic), got lost in Edinburgh, trying to leave.  Left.  Drove back to Manchester. Saw Andrew. Didn’t go on a boat (another story, another time maybe, but maybe not at all).  And now its Wednesday.

Holidays rock!