I had stupidcrazy busy week last week - it seemed that not only did I not stop at work, I was pretty much on the go after work as well with home stuff. Monday was the only evening I had in, and I enjoyed that very much. Tuesday was rehearsal, Wednesday I went to Salisbury to meet my parents and see Joan Baez in concert (she was AMAZING!), Thursday was another rehearsal, and Friday I got on a train and headed down to Devon for a hen party! Phew!

Hen weekend was great fun - an old farm had been converted into a set of 5* self-catering houses, complete with oak barn dining hall (with giant plasma screen TV), gymnasium, hot tub, huge lounge, all coupled with gorgeous views over the Devonshire hills and rustic charm. It was an expensive weekend, costing £123 each for the stay, but it was brilliant fun. We had all the usual hen party silliness with penis-shaped straw holders, a blow-up man, fluffy pink handcuffs, etc etc. BUT because it was in a complex in the middle of nowhere nobody had to suffer the embaressment of being seen in public covered in all things pink, fluffy and rude!

Saturday we did clay pigeon shooting, which I thought I'd be rubbish at but turns out I was pretty good - I got the bext score out of 12 girls, including one who'd shot before! I hit 10 out of 24 targets, which the instructors seems to think was pretty good. I had a natural aim with the shot gun; the thing that held me back was lack of upper body strength, when my left arm started shaking from holding the gun upright. Having discovered this new talent I'd like to do more shooting, and I'd even like to have a go at pheasant shooting. I know it's a thorny issue with some people, but in my eyes a bird that has a happy, free-range life then gets shot and dies quickly before getting eaten is far preferable to chickens, farmed in cramped indoor cages, force-fed antibiotics and hormones, bred as quickly and as cheeply as possible. Some friends of mine still claim that the fact you're gaining enjoyment out of ending an animal's life is the cruel part, and I do see their point, though I don't necessarilly agree.

Anyway...

I tried to spend as little money as possible this weekend. I ate frugally when out, and when we were back at the farm masses of home-cooked food was pre-supplied for us so I stuffed myself with cheese, meat, salad, cake and biscuits! Not a healthy weekend...

Hopefully things will be a little quieter this week, and I'll have the chance to do some much needed DIY (radiator needs bleeding, side gate needs repairing after the high winds, garden needs tidying, house needs general clean and tidy).

I'm looking forward to Thursday when I have my costume call for singing! Costume call is always hugely exciting, because you never know what you're going to get until that day. Previous societies I've sung with have had a first-come-first-served attitude to costumes, with those who turn up late getting left with older, tatty, usually massively too large costumes. This society tries to pre-match you with your costume, and you'll find one or two with your name tagged to. The don't always get the measurements right and the chorus normally swaps items round quite a lot until everyone is happy. This year, as a principle, I've had my costume custom-made for me! I think I've only got the one costume, but I'm incredibly excited about it! Plus I get a dressed wig to take home as well! :D

I've just put a whole bunch of stuff up on ebay, including lots of fabric (mostly faux fur), plus some gorgeous purple pleated pumps (my wedding shoes, only brand new!) and my wedding petticoat. Just in case anyone is interested:

http://shop.ebay.co.uk/blue.dragon/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340

:D

I've been searching for some craft projects to make for people as Christmas presents, and here are some of my favourites! (For my reference as well as anyone else's use).

D12 handbag
Molecular embroidery
Fabric placemats
Holiday wreath

All for now! I'll probably update this as I find more. :)

Off to make toffee apples for tonight's firework display!

I just order my Christmas turkey! The butchers in town was very busy, which was nice to see, and open from 8.00am! I've bought a 16 lb (7.25 Kg) free range local bronze turkey, at a little over £9 a Kg. A quick look online shows me this is a very good price for a good quality bird - they do sell for cheeper, but generally for cheeper, lower quality meat. I'm very pleased! Still, it's going to cost me a fair amount for the meat, but it will be worth it. I just hope it fits in my oven!

Car is currently in the garage having its MOT. I didn't book a service because they couldn't fit me in today and the MOT needs doing before next weekend. But apart from an oil change I think I've been keeping Lucy fairly well maintained - she's got new tyres and is always topped up with oil, coolant and water. Here's hoping for a painless MOT...

I had a bit of a money panic last night, realising it's only the beginning of the month and we're still in debt overall. We did have a healthy balance until mortgage went out! I just need to remind myself that we are making progress month on month, and after December we'll no longer be paying for the wedding photos so that will make a huge difference. I'm going to have a big old ebay this weekend as well - I know it's not going to make much of a dent in our debt, but at least I'll feel like I'm doing something. We have loads of wedding gubbins to sell, so hopefully I can make something on that.

I've also been trying to figure out ways to make frugal Christmas presents for people. I hope my brothers don't mind getting home made and cheaper gifts this year, since we're usually all pretty generous and I can end up spending £50 on each brother easilly. Nothing like a bit of debt to bring out the crafty side of me! :)

The MOD obviously spend a lot of time blowing things up round our way. Fireworks have been going off nonstop since yesterday night and the cats are barely flinching. Miles occassionally looks round curiously but doesn't seem scared at all. :)

Is it too early to be using this icon? Probably...

Tom's mum emailed to say everything has changed. Tom's sister, who was the one not wanting to come to ours for Christmas, now has to work Christmas day (boo!) so instead we are having Christmas a day early with his folks, then again the next day at our house with my family! It does kind of suck her having to work Christmas (and boxing day) but she'll get paid loads, and her boyfriend is working anyway since he's a chef so this way she gets to spend an early Christmas with him as well as her parents. Plus she'll get paid double time, which isn't bad considering she's employed by the NHS and only a band below Tom and I - the band I was employed at two years ago.

I'm very excited about this! It means two Christmas dinners back to back, which may be tough on the old digestive system, but I'll cope somehow (probably go for a Christmas day cycle or something). It means we get to have a wonderful cosy house all decorated and full of all the people I love, and I get to cook for them all it's going to be wonderful!

Plus my parents and Tom's parents are coming to see The Mikado! I haven't convinced my brothers to come yet (they went strangely quiet when I asked them!), but may still work on Tom's sister and boyfriend, and maybe Tom's aunt and cousins.

Woop!

I'm having a productive lunchtime. I've booked the car in for its MOT, the boiler in for a service, and Tom has called the bank about his debit card randomly not working since his account became our joint account.

Our boiler has been causing me grief lately. It keeps turning off when the heating is on, and when it does that it's very difficult to get it going again. It started doing it occassionally but last night the heating was barely on for 10 minutes before it started playing up, and the house got really cold! Until we get our cavity wall insulation (Tuesday!) the house loses heat quite quickly, and I was sitting there under a blanket shivering, which is unusual for me because I normally quite like the cold.

Right now though I have a stonking headache. I took some paracetamol and that didn't seem to help, so I was forced to buy the overpriced packs of ibuprofen that the canteen sells in order to take some of that as well. My head is still throbbing, but at least I can use it as an excuse to leave work a little early.

Oh, and I keep meaning to say - good luck to everyone doing Nanowrimo! Maybe one of these years I'll do it again and actually write something passing for decent rather than my last rather embaressing efforts.

I have now cycled in twice on my new bike and it is lovely! Significantly faster, smoother and easier than my previous old road bike, and more to the point capable of taking panniers so I no longer have to suffer rucksack sweaty back! This is definitely a good thing. The bike is by no means perfect; it took me two cycles and Google to figure out how to change down gear (the up shifters are independent, but the down shifters are built into the brake levers), and the front shifters are a little temperamental, probably exacerbated by my small hands being unable to reach them without stretching a little. The rear brake was also rubbing slightly, but I fiddled with it last night and appear to have solved that little issue.

I don’t have a name for her yet, but since she’s all fast and pretty I’m thinking of something based on birds of prey. I did see an egret on my way in this morning, but somehow a graceful, lazy sea bird does not really seem appropriate. She’s red and white, so maybe Red Kite? Though that’s a little boring. My previous bikes have been Oddity and Aleda (named after dragons), Lily and Kitt (not named after anything in particular). Recently my dad told me that his first real bike, which was a three speed black ex-postal bike, was called Hercules Falcon III or something like that – that seems a good and noble name for a road bike! Maybe I can come up with something more imaginative than Red Kite.

Singing was tiring last night. A lot of the company are ill, which is kind of a good thing because this way most of us will have got ill and better before the performance, rather than during. Lead sop in particular was very unwell and miserable, and spent most of the time moaning or playing on her new DSi. I did kind of empathize with her, since she was needed briefly at about 9.00pm then sat around, occasionally dashing on stage to say one line then dashing back to her seat for another half hour. I was the same, mind, and I have ever less to do. But then I was feeling well and enjoying watching the other performing.

Next Tuesday we have a photoshoot for the local paper as well. It’s going to be just me and the other two Little Maids, and I’ve been given a long list of things to bring with me next week. Plus I actually get to wear my yukata from Japan! It’s a cotton kimono, and is purple with white flowers all over. Our Stage Manager, Helen, also has a kimono which she is lending for the shoot, and hers is much more detailed than mine, and a finer cotton, but I don’t mind because mine’s PURPLE. The lead sop will be wearing a fantastic white silk kimono, which is apparently rather see-through! We’re having to arrive half an hour early to have our makeup and hair done, then we get to do the whole rehearsal in the kimonos rather than the sarongs we normally wear to simulate the restriction round the legs. It’s going to be awesome! :D

I seem to be inexplicably annoyed with someone at work today. There's no particular reason for it - she just seems to be pushing my buttons for some reason. I'm going to escape to the lab soon, and the rest of the afternoon will be spent with our nice new Spanish temp and training so that's good.

Tupping hormones...

The weekend has been fun! I spent all of Saturday ridiculiously busy preparing for a Halloween party; I got up at 7.30am, having woken up and decided I might as well make myself useful, rather than just lay awake in bed not being useful. I cleaned and tidied and washed up and put away and etc etc. I didn't think I had that much to do, but at 4.00pm when the guests started arriving I was still wearing my apron baking pumpkin pie! The party was good fun; we played Rock Band, then Beatles Rock Band (the whole game was completed in one night!), and watched Rocky Horror and I squeed at the hoardes of adorable small children.

We got a very good flock of Trick or Treaters, which I was expecting since we now live on a nice quiet residential crescent where a lot of the neighbours know each other and there are many families with young children. There were only two kids who were bordering on too old to get away with it, and one of them was I think the older sister of a small boy, so she was allowed a cake. I baked 22 spooky cupcakes and they were all taken by by about half of the patroling kids! More needed next year, methinks! My favourite was a small girl, about 5 I think, who told me very loudly "I'm a cat! Meow!". I told her what a fantastic cat she was, and she beamed. She reminded me of me when I was 5. :)

This morning was my race for Salisbury Stars. I had set the alarm in good time, but managed to oversleep because I had set it for 8.30pm not 8.30am! I woke at 9.30, which is when I had intended to leave the house! I got up and dressed in 10 minutes, and was at the race venue by 9.45. Unfortunately I had to wait for a bus to shuttle me to the track, and collect my T-shirt, and change into my costume; so I missed the start of the race by about 10 minutes! Keith was my handler for the race, and though I hadn't really had a chance to explain the 'rules' of handling to him he did a good job! He led me to the start and convinced an official to let me run (the danger was I would still be on the track when the main 10k race was about to start), and then ran most of the race with me to help guide me round! I did pass a few stragglers so wasn't the last runner, but I did miss the fun of being in with the pack and getting all the attention of running in costume in a crowd. Still, I made it round in 17 minutes - not bad!

The weather was horrendous. Not only was it raining buckets, but the wind was fierce and cold (not that I noticed!). The ground was muddy and slippery, and my head didn't have nearly enough ventilation. I was okay when I ran into the wind, as it blew air in through my eyes and out through the chin of my badger head, but with the wind behind me I rapidly ran out of air and had to walk and hilt my head back in order to recover. :( The costume is fine for walking round in, and with some modification would probably be better, but as it was it was not really suitable for running in. Oh well. I barely noticed the rain as well, but my suit was pretty soaked when I got it off and I was STINKY! Shilpa helped me out of the badger in the changing rooms and she said when she unzipped me a large cloud of sweaty steam rose out! Eww! I climbed into dry clothes which quickly got soaked on heading outside, and we all drove home for a shower and a fry-up. I am incredibly grateful to all my friends for turning up, standing round in the freezing wind and driving rain for half an hour, just to see a wet, muddy badger cross a finishing line!

Sadly because the rain was so heavy we didn't get any photos, but there was an official race photographer so I'm hoping he will have got some snaps of me! Badger has now been washed, and apart from the nose needing some new paint I think no damage has been done. I'm going to get kitted up in it again and take some photos in my back garden once the suit is dry. :) I have also decided that I do too many of these events where I suit manically for a short time then have to unsuit shortly after - I need to find some event where I can properly enjoy being in suit, and give attention to all the small children that look adoringly at you and all the adults that grin at you. Maybe come Christmas... ^_^

Oh, and one guy wanted to know where I bought my suit, because his rudgy team's mascot is a badger! Annoyingly this was just before the race so I was too manically trying to find the start line and didn't get the name of his club, so I've been trying to find out in case he wants me to badger for him on home matches! That would be awesome. :D

( Photos! )

I’ve just realized how bloody amazing this song is. It just hit me! I used to love Elbow; got their album Asleep In The Back, saw them in a little gig in Cardiff (their background set cloth was covered in little led stars… it was pretty and sparkly), then someone I worked with said they sounded too much like Radiohead and he didn’t like them, and I kind of stopped listening to them after that. Then all of a sudden they burst onto the scene with this spectacular album that has Radio 1 and 2 drooling, winning awards left, right and centre. So I pick up their latest couple of albums and once more I am in love with their beautiful sound.

It might help, of course, that I am trying to make sense of some nonsensical data tables and any music sounds like blissful escapism right now.

I went for a run at lunch, and it was good! One of those days where I seemed to have power in my legs, not lead weights. Where I pushed myself and really ran up those steep hills, rather than trudging one foot at a time. Of course now I’m unable to concentrate on my work because I’ll all worn out, but it’s worth it. It’s also my 3k in a silly costume race this Sunday, and the weather forecast is spectacularly atrocious. I’m thinking about running holding an umbrella, because I’d hate my badger head to get wet – it might get damaged, and it would become insanely heavy, mostly being made of fur and foam!

All the more reason to sponsor me, I think…

http://www.justgiving.com/Laura-Bean/

Today I am feeling tired, shivery, and sore. My stomach and my back stil hurt a little, and I generally feel like having a duvet day. I've also just remembered that I have work singing at lunchtime today, not Friday as it usually is, which means I have to miss out on going to the pub with the group to meet our Senior PTL's new baby, Max. Boo!

Singing will be good, it always is, but on a Thursday I'm not expecting a great turnout. I've had a couple of appologies already from people who can't make it, and I expect there are more who don't think to send an email. On the plus side, we're expecting some new male recruits, rugby players, two of whom are Welsh! I'm expecting booming baritone voices. :)

Another good thing was that yesterday my Cycle To Work voucher finally turned up, so today I get to collect my new bike! I might even cycle in tomorrow, provided I'm not still feeling like I am this morning.

Yesterday Tom and I went to see Up, which was magnificent and I cried buckets! Since Tom's boss lives near to the cinema we went to see him afterwards for a cup of tea and fish and chips, which was tasty but of course probably the prelude to last night's episode. Gastric karma.

Well, lst night I woke up at about 1.00am, got up and 2.00am, and went back to bed at 3.30am. After my post last night, Tom came down and sat with me whilst I paced, whimpered,curled up, and outright cried at the pain and the frustration of it all. He got me four painkillers (two of each) and I took them all, and whethe it was that, the Gaviscon, or the episode generally passing but it finally cleared. I spent most of my time foetal on the sofa on my front, with my chin resting on Tom's lap while he browsed the internet. I think it was just a really bad bout of indigestion, but my God did it hurt! I know there are prescrtiption drugs you can get for really bad or recurring indigestion, but whether I'd be given any considering it goes away on its own eventually and, after all, I was only in pain for two and a half hours (ugh).

It's such a silly and small thing to complain about, and it's neither life-threatening nor that debilitating, but when I get nights like that I just get so fed up with my digestive system. Bah!

It's quarter past two in the morning and I'm awake with the worst bloody indigestion for years. I knew I had it coming when I started getting that first uncomfortable twinge at about 9.00pm, but I took some tablets and it seemed to ease. The last hour, though, it's back with a vengeance and has kept me awake since, despite taking the maximum dose of Gaviscon. I'm not sure what I can do now part from wait, but this is proper doubled-in-two walking round whimpering kind of stomach pain. It's almost, but probably nowhere near, reminding me of the not-officially-gallstones that I suffered from 6-7 years ago. But this is proper pain. I keep having to stand up and wander slowly round for a bit, or lay foetal on the sofa face-down. Fuck. Not sure whether to take painkillers for this, but I'm probably going to go and soon just fr a bit of relief.

Husband is now stiring from upstairs, so I expect he'll be down in a minute. I didn't want to disturb him.

Kittens are entertaining me though...

I’m listening to Joan Baez, which is a dangerous thing to do at work. It’s not really my fault – I had my ipod on shuffle while doing some dull worksheets, and one of her songs came on so I started listening to her Best Of album. Joan Baez generally makes me all soppy and happy and melancholy, and often makes me sniffle, though only when I try and sing along (which I’m not doing in a busy office!). Of course now I’m finding it very hard to concentrate on my work because all I want to do is lay down and light some candles and watch the stars.

But… I am seeing her soon! She’s playing Salisbury City Hall on the 11th November and I’m going to see her with my mum! :D Odds on me ending up a sniffling wreck during that concert please?

One thing I forgot to mention about the weekend was that I started playing piano! Shilpa now has her old piano, which used to live with her parents but when they moved house they brought up for her to keep! It’s a nice old thing – pretty much in tune and makes a very nice sound. It also came with a huge two seat piano stool full of music, from very old copies of classical stuff to Disney musical scores and the theme tunes from TV shows! I found a book called ‘learning to play for little fingers’ or something similar, and since I have little fingers I decided to give it a go!

I started teaching myself piano when I was quite young, and I already have a basic grasp of musical theory (much less than I should do for my current level of singing I feel). I want to learn more music, and making myself play piano was probably a good start.

Currently, I would say I can follow music, but not always read it. I know how long beats last for but can’t always remember which one is a minim and which is a quaver, and I usually have to work out which line equals which note. I guess it’s not always important to know you’re singing a C, so much as know what a C sounds like. The piano book also had scores written in bass clef, which will be something very useful for me to know so I can pick out a note the basses are singing to pitch my own note from.

So on Saturday and Sunday I started playing through the easy little tunes from the book. Shilpa was very kind and said I was picking it up amazingly easily, but she then took over and started playing the theme from Ski Sunday. Show off. :)

I want to learn more now. People always seem amazed by how little I know of music (I didn't even know that middle C had it's own line on the music between treble and bass clefs), and I think playing really really basic piano would do wonders for my musical ear. I wonder if there's anyone giving away an old piano round here and how on earth I would get it into my house...

A good weekend so far! Friday night we travelled up to Stroud to stay with the inlaws, but not before visiting the garage for four new tyres, a replacement spare tyre, and wheel alignment and balancing. It badly needed doing, and now the car no longer shakes above 70mph! (Not that I ever drive above 70mph, of course...). The car has also had a free car wash and hot wax, courtesy of Will's little brother Keith who works at a Budgens. Lucy's all shiny in the sunshine! :)

Friday night we had a lovely roast dinner followed by banoffee pie, though we were forced to watch X tupping Factor all evening as Tom's sister was home. As far as I can tell if you watch ITV 2 on a Friday night it's a bit like watching a 24h new channel, but with X Factor. The stories and performances of each contestant keep bloody repeating! Argh! We did managed to convince her to change the channel at 9.30 to watch the new Armstrong & Miller show, though.

Saturday morning was a fry-up and a lounge, then on to W&S's for afternoon and the starting of a new, one-off D&D campaign run by Keith who hasn't DMed before. I was a bit annoyed at the start of the campaign, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I had created a shifter druid character - I've wanted a druid ever since I started playing D&D and never got round to it before now. I discovered that Will had also created a shifter character, which annoyed me a bit because I announced mine waaaay back and he said he'd create another elf ranger (always elf rangers! No imagination...). His character is still a ranger, but a shifter. However, we're different types of shifter characters now; I'm cat-like, he's dog-like, so there's some fun character interraction possibilities there. The other disappointing thing was that Keith seemed either completely unable, or unwilling, to DM the role-play aspects of the game - we skipped loads of fun dialogue and interraction to get straight to the fighting. Rather than encouraging us to seek out information, explore the town, chat up the barlady, panda to the isolationist wizard in the big tower, yadda yadda; he simply presented us with the information each of the important town characters had to offer. They all seemed to simply come up to us and blurt out the plot the instant we stepped through the village gates! He's also not very good at hiding information, and we end up knowing almost everything about the plot, rather than gathering intreaguing snippets here and there.

That said, the combat was great fun, and just challenging enough. Tom's on hand to act as DM advisor and rules monkey, and hopefully Keith won't end up relying on him too much as he gains experience. More today, though I doubt we're going to get the campaign finished in one weekend though that was the original plan.

I also got sketching during one of the fights and drew and inked my submission for char_shuffle, so that should get completed this week in time for the Halloween deadline. It was quite a good use of my time during the other PC's rounds I think, and I may do some more drawing today. Get working on some more dragons, as I've been wanting to lately. ^_^

Here's an answer that will make everyone happy:

Let them on, but dub over Nick Griffin's voice using a voice-actor like the Beeb used to with Michael McKevitt, leader of the Real IRA. Get Julian Clarey to be thevoice-actor, then all the racist, sexist, ignorant, skinhead Daily Mail reading thugs will think the leader of their beloved National Front BNP is gay and will not bother voting! Or will vote UKIP, which is probably marginally better if not much.

Last night was not so good. I was looking forward to having an evening at home with no rehearsal, and had lots of things planned, but my tiredness got the better of me. It started kicking in during the drive home from work, and I genuinely felt I could have climbed straight into bed on getting home! Husband was grumpy, and we had a Talk. Not an Arguement because there were no raised voices, but it still left us both feeling annoyed and guilty. He's fed up with me doing everything for me, and nothing for him. I take on so many projects, he was kind of hoping that on my evening off we could do something together but I wanted to use the time to do more 'me' things like work on costume or do some art.

As it was I was utterly exhausted, and spent the whole evening in front of the TV with Facebook open on the laptop. I also made a new D&D character for this weekend's campaign (a druid! I've always wanted a druid!). I was hoping Tom would help with the making of the character since he loves that (doing things together!) but he was distracted and grumpy at that point and didn't really have much to input.

I watched a lot of TV, which was nice. I don't get to watch evening TV on rehearsal nights, so Masterchef and the new BBC drama Beyond Gravity was a nice treat. I was up much later than I intended (10.45pm) but this morning I definitely feel much more awake!

NSFW:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5267958

Why, yes, I would like the hobbies of crochet and erotica combined thankyouverymuch!