Liz Going On

I’ve been back from the spa for four hours now and all I’ve managed to do is watch telly and nap!

The spa was fantastic.  We filled our time with

• Croquet
• Tennis
• Assult course
• Hammocks
• Swimming
• Salt water cave
• Water grotto
• Sauna
• Steam room
• Solarium
• Handstands in swimming pool
• Swings
• Back Massage
• Reflexology
• Hopi ear candles
• Aramatic back massage
• Pedicure
• facials
• floatation
• Drinking champagne
• Eating mucho fine food
• Drinking port and wine (not at the same time)
• Taking the piss (I was generally on the recieving end of that)
• Sleeping

I had a dinner party on friday night.  I would have told you all about it yesterday, but due to the amount of alcohol consumed I wasn’t quite up to it.  Looking in my recycling pile I conclude that between ten rather thirsty people we got through…  0.5 Litres Gin, 1.5 Litres hoegaarden, I bottle of Port, 12 bottles of Sol and 10 bottles of wine.  No wonder we all felt quite broken the next morning.

With the help of Andrew I cooked mexican type food and made Bev’s easy tiramasu for pudding.  I’ve never known who this Bev is, and I hope she doesn’t mind me making her tiramasu and I’m not even in contact anymore with the person who gave me the recipie so the chances of me meeting Bev to ask her is very slim.

We played games, some more successful than others.  The vessel game was inspired as usual, although I don’t remember the miming so nothing that extreme must have been done.  (Talking of extreme miming, I was playing a similar game to the vessel game with close family friends.  My friend’s Mum had to mime something which I can’t remember, which involved her starting to take her clothes off! We were all horrified and told her to stop!).

Prior to the party I carefully duck taped the loose leg onto my table using all the duck tape I owned.  At dinner time I reminded the guests of the instability of the table.  Everything was fine until I was a bit too drunk to control my body and I ended up knocking into the table and causing it to fall over, making a massive crash and smashing about 4 glasses. Cass and Steve were total stars and cleaned up the mess for me.  However I did end up cleaning a big pile of sick, and sorted out the person concerned.

Yesterday I didn’t do much. I ventured into town to see Paula get dressed up, and then had to nap.  

Today I’m off to a health spa for total luxury and pampering.  Wonderful. 

Clare arrived home, and it turns out its her birthday today!

Cake has been duly scoffed, and bloody good it is too even though I do say so myself. (I am disappointed that its a bit thin.  Maybe I used plain flour instead of self raising…. but it tastes ok so I don’t really care)

Red wine is bloody good too. 

I’ve just baked a cake.  Its a lemon cake and looks gorgeous.  Its for Clare as I forgot it was her birthday yesterday.  Actually I’d not seen her for about 2 weeks and had only been told about said birthday once, so I don’t feel that bad (and I was out last night, actually that was pretty interesting. It was a fundraising night for the people of Palastine in ‘The Basement’ on Lever Street.  ‘The Basement’ is a nice vegan cafe type place.  The night made me realise quite how little I know about the Middle East). I digress, back to cake!

I decided to bake a cake cos I’d not done it for years and it was a little test to see if I could still do it.  And I would have bought Clare a bottle of wine, but its a bit of a busman’s holiday for her. So cake it is.  

Driving to work I pass a shop that advises people in financial trouble.  On their window is a quote something along the lines of "take our number down while your sat at the traffic lights".  I am very tempted to take their number down and inform them about their appalling use of English. It just doesn’t make sense!  The fools.

More fools designed the new building at work. On the top floor the ward has two balconies.  And very nice they look too.  But no one is allowed to use the balcony as its deemed ‘not safe’.  Why couldn’t they have put a fence or similar device to make it safe? Surely 20metres of wire netting wouldn’t have broke the budget?

I’ve officially started work for my very big exam.  I am scared.

Time to eat cake methinks.  It’ll make everything better.  Actually maybe I should wait for Clare to arrive home…. 

A friend’s Mummy died on Monday.  She’d been ill with cancer for a while, but had been recieving treatment and fighting hard.  The family seem to be doing ok at the moment, but its still really sad. Mrs S decided that she didn’t want a funeral and has donated her body to medical research, so there’s going to be a party with her favourite foods, a rose planting and fireworks.  I think that’s a great idea, sadly I can’t go as I’m working that weekend and my Mum can’t go either as she’ll be in Canada. Maybe I’ll set off some fireworks here in Manchester to pay my respects.

I reversed my car into a wall last night.  Well techincally it was this morning (00:20 I think).  It was dark and I was keen to leave work as quickly as possible.  I now have a big scratch on my bumper and car and its down to the metal. Oops.  But I was expecting much more damage as I was going quicker than I should have been and it was quite a thud.

On Monday night I headed to holmfirth to see Rachel.  She’s now living in York so we had to find a new meeting place.  The drive to Holmfirth was beautiful (althought I suspect its definatly a summer drive and not a route to brave in winter), and we found a nice tapas bar to put the world to rights.

For some reason I’m really sleepy today despite having quite a lot of sleep for the past few nights.  But as I’ve got today off work I’m going to make the most of it and have a nap.   

This weekend Andrew and I visited my Mum.  Andrew was a lamb and set up Mum’s new broadband (man’s work = electrics) while Mum and I altered my bridesmaid frock (women’s work = sewing).  Frock now fits really well and looks ace and internet is always good.

Got a bit of a shock when I opened the hall door after dinner to find a bat flying around.  It was quite scary, as I’d not seen a bat up close.  Andrew at first said it was a moth, but was quickly convinced.  Mum chased it into my bedroom (cheers mum!) and we shut the door.  With advice from BatWoman (Cass, she really works with bats!) and the internet we left it be, with the doors shut and windows open hoping it would escape.  Andrew went up a bit later to investigate and it appeared to have left.  We all breathed a big sigh of relief, espeically me as I didn’t fancy sleeping in the BatCave, then suddenly the little bugger came out of its hiding place and almost sliced Andrew’s nose off!

So we (well Mum, as she’s the brave one. I was cowering outside the door watching from afar) attacked the blighter with a towel.  Mum managed to catch it in a towel and then liberated it through the window. I was a bit happier but still slightly perturbed that we don’t know where babybat came from.  But I wasn’t attacked in the night so its all ok.

Today we went for lunch. I had to stand on a table for dress shortening purposes. It was quite odd and high and not fun in heels.  I’m really looking forward to the wedding.  Hen weekend next weekend.  Wooo.

And tonight I’ve been seeing lots of wedding photos involving people I went to school with.  I’ve not seen some since we left school so it was a bit strange. But nice.  All at the same time! 

Lets be positive.  I’ll start with the things I like at the moment.

• Sleep.  Can I have more of it please?
• My new phone. Its very cute (pink!) and functional so two steps up from the previous one
• My cleaner. Having a clean house is very nice
• Wine.  It makes everything seem better
• Posh resturants

Things I don’t like

• My new rota.  6 12 hour shifts and 2 10 hour shifts in 8 days.  Not fun. (I wish it was illeagal, but sadly its not)
• Rude arrogant people who make me 45 minutes late for home (especially not good when its the last shift of above and finishing time was midnight)
• The new streetlamp thats outside my bedroom window.  It gives off a strange white light. Rather bizarre.
• Being snotty, if I’m going to get a cold then can’t I just get it out of the way please?

I tried to blog this morning before bed and the computer ate it. Probably a bloody good job it did to as it wasn’t half boring.  I felt obliged to blog, but with being on nights and stuff then I had very little to say.

Anyway, its later now and I’ve had sleep and played tennis with Debbie.  I got home and I’ve switched on the telly.  Its Songs of Praise, and I’m wondering if I’m hallucinating as its coming from Alton Towers.  Its hilarious.  Aled Jones in a lounge suit effort braving Nemesis, Air and Oblivion!  Now whenever anyone mentions Alton Towers I have to tell a story.  Sorry if I’ve bored you with it numerous times, but I feel the need to share.

My Gran almost bought Alton Towers.

Back sometime in the 1950s (I think, my Mum is vague on the exact date) Mum, Nanna and Granddad went for a day coach trip to see Alton Towers. The property was for sale and it was a bargain.  My Nanna was very good with property and decided that it’d be a good investement so she tried to presuade my Granddad that it was a good move and they should buy it. But my Granddad was a car fiend and was only interested in garages and cars so he said no.

The people who bought it stripped all the lead off the roof and sold it for more than they’d paid for the house and left it go to ruin.  Then in the 1970s someone decided to stick some rollercoasters in the park and it became Alton Towers as we know it.

And that’s my story about Alton Towers.  I had suspected it was a bit of a family urban myth, but according to http://www.towersalmanac.com/history/index.php?id=1 it might just be true…

I’ve been to the hairdressers today.

I hate going to the hairdresser. They don’t seem to understand that I don’t want to spend four hours doing my hair each day, I don’t use a hairdryer or other hair burning device, and I quite like using 2 in 1.

In the past twelve months I’ve had one good hairdresser experience. It was in America, when I visited Rhiannon.  Her hairdresser, Rick, was lovely.  Did a good colour and a cracking cut too.  And it was cheap. Not having the time or money to fly to America to visit Rick every six weeks meant that I have been on the quest for to find the perfect hairdressers in Manchester. I have tried… salon (1) - lovely colour but shite cut and not that cheap. Salon (2) - Lovely cut but totally shite purple colour (not at all subtle).  Then a friend recommended salon (3) - ok cut and colour, reasonable and not too bad.

So today I went back to Salon (3).  The stylist I had last time was on holiday so I had another one.  Things started badly when they told me off for colouring it myself.  And pointed out quite how grey I am.  Like, hello!? I know that, why do you think I dye my hair?!?  And I never know quite how to verbalise what I want doing and they never seem to understand my hair needs (ie. low maintainence, see above).

However, whatever they’ve done to me it seems to have worked.  Its a nice colour and the cut seems good. I was there for three hours and it did cost the GDP of a small country but I did get three cups of coffee, two goes in the massage chair while my hair was being washed, a bleach thing, then a colour thing (two tones on head) and two goes under the hot lampy thing and a cut aswell.  Then I bought overpriced product/gunk for £17 quid too.  But at least I look a lot better than before I went in.

However being sat in front of a massive mirror for hours has made me realise, much to my dismay, that my eyebrows are getting out of control and I appear to be growing a tash.  Time for me to reaquaint myself with the tweezers.  Ouch.  God I hate being a girl sometimes.

Also I appear to have broken my mobile.  Phone that is, not dangling pretty thing that hangs over my bed.  I put a new cover on it as I’d broken that ages ago. And now its bust.  The phone is on but mostly the screen is black.  Or upside down.  Or strange colours.  Its rather bizarre.  Hopefully some man can fix it for me, if not I’ll have to buy a new one.  Guess its just not my day.  Time for a nap methinks.  I hope things get better, or it’ll be one hell of a night shift tonight. 

I’m knackered.  Its new school.  I like it but I’m so tired. 

Quite a lot has gone on since Sunday.  Monday night I went out for yummy dinner.  Last night Andrew did a very nice thing, but I got annoyed and upset cos I was so tired after oncall and I don’t like surprises.  Don’t like being grumpy when I don’t mean to.

And now its time for bed.  Sorry this is brief.  I’ll blog again when I have something worthwhile to say.