Remember, remember…

I have been reminded that this blog exists, and with the lack of contact I’ve had with it’s primary readers recently I figured it was about time I added to it.

I’m sitting in my pyjamas procrastinating. For the first time ever I’ve left writing an essay to three days before it’s due to be handed in – not the most terrible choice ever made, but it’s an uncomfortable feeling. I’ve got to find out competition for a compilation of essays on the works of Iris Murdoch – shoulders sag at the idea. This means I have to tackle ‘Nielsen Bookscan’, an online database of practically every book ever sold over the past 10 years – it’s like trying to get blood from a stone. I may not be going out for fireworks this evening after all.

I didn’t even realise who Iris Murdoch was until about five minutes ago…. groan.

November is going to be good, I reckon. We’re moving house back in Devon, which will probably be one of the more heart wrenching moments of my life. When you’ve been lucky enough to grow up in one house, imagining the rooms without their contents sends a shockwave through to your toes. When I told one Miss Emily Shaw that we were leaving it so soon she was outraged; “WHY!? Why would you move out of that house? Where are they moving to? …Beer? That’s not even barely close, that’s ridiculous, you CAN’T! Nothing will be the SAME!” I loved her for that, because that’s exactly what I haven’t said because I know it’s the right thing to do, haha. One thing’s for sure, no one will ever decorate my room as beautifully as I have in the past.

The new house has a balcony as well.

I went to see my favourite band last night. It was a bit of a trek, but absolutely worth it. What is it about going to a rock gig that brings out my inner 14 yr old. I set off fully expecting I’d be thrown into a mosh pit. I had a thick hoody to wrap around my waist, books thick enough to withstand any number of stamping, sweaty moshers and for the first time in over a year, black eyeliner. It made me realise how easy it is for me to look like a teenager… and then, if I want, I can stick on some slightly less trampy clothes and look quite ooold .Good thing?

Anyway, we stood quite sedately somewhere in the middle determined not to have any elbows knock our beers. Excellent 4th November…

Something amazing has happened

 

Something beautiful has come to pass. Ladies and gentlemen (or perhaps I shouldn’t pluralise), I give you , the Nikon D3100! My new best friend; a complex and heady mix of technology and beauty. Hand in hand, the D3100 and I will take on the world, make her look delicious and hopefully make it back with time to spare before they bring out another, higher spec. version. How dare they even contemplate it.

I have had the D3100 for nearly a week, however, I have also had the most debilitating head cold known to man (I nearly classed it under ‘male influenza’ but decided it was worse than that and, therefore, didn’t qualify as such). Said cold rendered my limbs heavy and useless, I could barely drum up the strength to cross over the road to Costcutter, let alone get snap happy with a precious piece of plastic. Today, however, I was feeling a lot better and left my boring flat, where the only thing I could take a photo of was my own jewelry, for prettier environs over at the parental abode. Flowers were EVERYWHERE! Enough chatter….

 

 

All This Sun

…I’m eternally grateful to it.

Since last we spoke, the tonsillitis came back a third and sort of fourth time. I felt predictably miserable when I was handed a prescription for a further 110 pills, 11 a day. The doctor didn’t think the Penicillin was working hard enough so she added 3-a-day of Metronidazole to the mix, the foremost side effect of which is ‘numbness in the extremities’ and fever if combined with alcohol.

There followed a reasonably peaceful week of slovenliness, by the end of which I felt perfectly fine! Warning – never feel safe once you’ve had tonsillitis. I was back in the hospital on Monday morning, by which point I had made quite good friends with my doctor. I had a blood test just in case I had the dreaded glandular fever, which came back negative less than two hours later, during which time I sat in the sun outside the hospital writing a 2 page long birthday card to my friend Faye in London. The doctor decided that the tight feeling around my neck was viral and that there was no longer anything we could do. She gave me a prescription for more antibiotics in case it came back whilst i was in America (2 weeks to go!) so I wouldn’t have to deal with the nightmare they call a health system.

The parents had, in the meantime, returned from Nepal looking remarkably white (“Factor 50 every day! You could feel the sun singeing your skin!”) and incredibly relieved to return to drinkable tap water, soft beds and bearable temperatures. Bearing in mind how massive home is, how clean it is and how full of vegetables and vitamins, I shipped myself off for a week of much needed parental TLC.

I cannot explain how amazing that week was. It honestly felt like a holiday in Spain. I slept, a lot, ran outside at midday in my shorts and sat on mum’s amazing recliner in my sunnies, a good album on my iPod and a newspaper. I managed to change the shade of my skin from what Maybelline would call ‘Ivory’ to what I reckon could probably get away with ‘Sand’.  Joys.

I’m back in the flat now, which is only annoying because there is no possible way I can run out into the sun and slump somewhere a while. If, indeed, I did want to catch some rays whilst staying on my own, personal rented property, I would have to wedge myself up against the window like a child in an aquarium.

Anyway, it’s time to be cracking on with something or other. Enjoy the sun!

Unlucky

Things I have learnt in the past few days:

1- Tonsillitus needs a 10 day course of antibiotics – NOT a five day one.

2- Alcohol reduces my immune system to that of a decrepit, frail elderly woman.

3- It hurts just as much the second time.

So it came back. I went out on Friday night knowing full well that I needed to watch how much I drank because I had promised to pick my lovely friend Guy up from Taunton at midday on Saturday – a good 2h round trip. Not to mention I had my rearranged Waterfront shift that night at 6pm. So I devoured pints of water between drinks, kept to single measures and was in bed by a reasonable hour. I even had a brilliant hour of dancing in The Chevalier in town which I think counts towards some sort of work out.

I woke up on Saturday morning feeling spritely! It hurt to swallow but I figured that was just dehydration. I headed off to Taunton and by the time I picked a very fatigued Guy up from the station that swollen, sharp pain had returned. What do you do when you might be coming down with a possibly job-threatening illness on a Saturday? Go to hospital, it seems!

New Doctor tells me the bad news – there is no way I should be serving people beverages that night. I didn’t even feel that bad when she packed me off to Boots the chemist to pick up 80 pills but I sure did when I rang the restaurant to tell them. They probably won’t be offering me another shift. I don’t know whether that’s a fair decision, because they need to find someone soon, or whether it’s extremely unfair because I can’t help that the swollen balls of evil had returned. Whatever it is, I had a little cry in George (my car) before heading off home to ‘be poorly’.

Today was Dreadful. I returned to the ‘unable to swallow food, not even a little bit’ phase. It’s better now (10 pills later) but when Mum rang me from Terminal 4, Heathrow, on her way to Nepal with Dad, I couldn’t even say goodbye to her. Very inconvenient. I picked up the phone and tried to say hello… I couldn’t, so I had to listen to Mum repeating ‘HELLO??’ about ten times before I squawked ‘I’m here!’

The next few days should be fun.

I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s earlier, not having seen it, and I did love it one whole lot. Romance must never die! And finally I understand all of those modern day pop culture references to it! Next stop, Roman Holiday. I bought the Audrey Hepburn collection for a tenner you see. I may have an Audrey Hepburn sick day and put on my black shift dress, get out the hair spray and try and tame my short, short hair into something resembling her up-do. I have pearls too! Ohh yes. Although I will pale in comparison to her. My new jaw is nothing compared to her and her angles. Ohhh well.

Turning against me

My body has been very kind to me these past twenty-three years and five months.

I don’t bruise easily, I’ve never accidentally broken any bones and my scalp doesn’t mind all that much if I keep piling chemicals onto it. I even managed to have the mumps and not give it to anybody, but this past week it has decided to well and truly give up.

I have tonsillitis (something which I definitely know how to spell now). Dr Foster said she hadn’t seen such enormous tonsils for a long time. Trust me to think my clever body would sort things out by itself. I had a bowl of tomato soup at lunchtime – it turned out to be such a painful experience that I broke down in tears much to Mum and Dad’s quiet horror. I’m sure they didn’t really mind, I guess they weren’t expecting such a melodramatic reaction to some inoffensive soup.

So I’ve been gargling dispersible aspirin and devouring penicillin like there’s no tomorrow and am feeling mildly better than 6 hours ago.

But enough of that, who wants to hear lots of complaining? Pas moi.

I’ve placed some rosey tulips on my table to try and bring the outdoors in from over my window sill and have decided not to worry about the coin-operated electric so my heater is spewing out hot air which may or may not be good for the aforementioned tulips. It’s cheery in here though, despite the feeling that someone is rotating a dagger at the back of my throat whenever I swallow. Somehow, you have to achieve a balance of sorts.

This whole, dastardly illness thing has meant I’ve had to re-schedule my first shift at On The Waterfront where I was looking to show off my superb pizza dealing skills. I imagined myself dispersing dustbin-lid-sized pizzas between tables like I was playing frisbee. Whipping drinks from behind my back, neatly scattering them across tables of twenty and being handsomely rewarded for my efforts. Alas, this dream will have to be saved for another day. Nobody wants illness on the side.

I’ve just finished watching The History Boys – a sterling example of British stage-to-screen comedy. However, I failed to take it all in, so will probably have to have a long sleep before I can properly comment on its merits and failings. This often happens to me. I watch a film and am entirely without opinion directly after I’ve seen it. I wonder what it is. People place such importance on opinion, but what’s so wrong with thinking things through, maybe even never forming a like or dislike feeling towards something?

I’ve been contemplating this a lot lately. Some website asked me what my interests and hobbies were yesterday and I honestly did not know what to put. I enjoy a lot of things, I love white water rafting and skydiving but that doesn’t mean I could technically count them as hobbies since I’ve only done each of them a few times. In order to have hobbies you seem to have to enjoy them on a regular occasion. You need to know quite a bit about whatever they are. When is a hobby no longer relevant? Because the only things I’ve been doing regularly are eating, sleeping and meandering aimlessly around the internet for the past few weeks. I need to remember to pick up the art stuff Mum gave me for my 23rd Birthday, then I can form an interest.

I want to get into ‘why do we need specific interests’ – but I’ve suddenly come over all woozey. I’ll leave that pause for thought to another day.

OW. Swallowed.

ow.

Lazy Sundays

Although it won’t be too lazy by the end of the day. I am still yet to feed my clothes to Hermes the magical drawer monster. There’s just too much pressure! I don’t want to just put anything anywhere! Hermes is so beautiful I’m going to have to at least divide clothing into colours or when I might wear them. I could then put tiny labels on the inside rim of each drawer… bit much?

Today actually had the potential to be very exciting. There is a Valentine’s Raceday at Exeter Racecourse today and I was on standby to work at the event on the bar. However, it looks like everyone must have turned up, because I didn’t get the call I was hoping for at 9am. Cue an enormously satisfying lie in including several bizarre dreams revolving around cleaning up rotten food.

I’m being put down to do future events though so that’s pretty good. And on a more positive note, I won’t have to serve couples all day. Although couples can be very interesting. Very interesting, indeed.

I start work experience tomorrow! Woo! I shall be putting together a booklet on money for young people who have no idea where to start when it comes to their finances. Trouble is, I have no idea where to start either. I should do some kind of survey.

It is cold and drizzly outside but I need to get to Mama and Papas to pick up a laptop for said work exp. But alas! It is Sunday, so I shall have to eat boring frozen pizza for dinner. Costcutter doesn’t really offer us veggo’s anything more exciting. I could do noodles. I could. But that may be a little bit too much like reverting to university ways, something I’m trying to avoid.

Oh well! Time to de-peejay!

Square 1

Maybe not quite square one, maybe square 5 of 10 because it turns out I am not a master purveyor of diamonds and rubies any longer because I decided not to take the job up full time. Reason number one: I’m not great at window displays. Reason number 2: I wouldn’t have had any time for work experience, which I am supremely looking forward to. Reason number 3: I would be working every Saturday which I find a little distressing. (Funny how I don’t mind working Saturday night though). Reason number 4: We didn’t sell a single thing on one of the days and although I hear it is a rare occasion upon which this happens, the alternative to selling was either window displays or administrative duties, neither of which I am very good at.

Of course, number 2 is the real reason. I’d been champing at the bit to get going with my work experience at a small publishing firm in the country, However, this would have meant I would have to use one of my days off, during the week, to do it, which would have drained me completely. As well as this I want to join two choirs and am volunteering to help the elderly get online (apparently I am ‘leading the project in Devon’ according to a fellow from BBC Radio Devon) and I anticipate that there will be less time spent on the internet watching all of my favourite programmes (Glee, Cougar Town, Life Unexpected, Gossip Girl, How I Met Your Mother, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, Misfits, Diary of a Call Girl) of which there are many, and more helping the elderly communicate with their grandchildren.

Unfortunately, I no longer have much of a chance of working at the pub in the middle of town anymore, because they were semi-correctly under the impression that I had another full-time job. Boo. This makes me incredibly sad. But The Old Firehouse has an opening in about a month which I will try my absolute hardest to get. I rang them yesterday and am going in with my CV and a big smile later.

The other, more exciting event is the arrival of my enormous chest of drawers. Who knew such furniture could create such a ruckus! I’ve called it Hermes, because IKEA had, prior to my Anglicising, called it Hemnes, which is neither here nor there if we’re honest.

IKEA was a wonderful day out. I was intending on going on my own, because to be honest, I like to just get going and not inconvenience anyone else. Thankfully, Guy texted me at about 1pm when I was drearily trying to Shreddie some life into myself having remorsefully overslept, to say that he would just LOVE to come to IKEA with me. Let the good times roll.

We just imagined that the shop was somewhere around Cribbs Causeway, so that’s where we went, meandered around the roundabouts for about 20 minutes before parking up to google the address. Ah, so it was a while 10 miles down lots of busy motoring highways. Darn. All I can say is thank goodness for Guy’s navigational skills. Even on 2 hours sleep he managed to get me to the little piece of Swedish heaven, unharmed.

Having devoured some 50p jelly and a lot of potato salad, we ventured off around the maze. How come everything is so beautiful in IKEA? My eventual list of purchases reached dizzy heights, Hermes forming the £202 base. But was he worth it? Hells yes. There was a slight hitch when on realising that home delivery would cost me £40 plus £1 a mile (£120) it dawned on us that I was going to have to try and fit Hermes into George the Micra. So named because he is trusty and small. If we hadn’t stumbled across the African man of very few words in his high-vis jacket I’m not sure it would have happened. Hermes weighs 79kg. More than eeeven me! Me holding a large dog! Chairs were pushed down and forward. Guy was relegated to the seat behind me and as he napped in the back on top of my four new seat cushions we wended our way home along to my ultra cheesy compilation of choons which I may now re-name the Roquefort Remix. Because.

Mum and Dad came around yesterday to construct Hermes, along with my smaller, nameless DVD rack, and now my flat looks like a home.  A proper home with storage at least. Also, I had no idea the parents were such great construction workers. It may have taken several hours to make, but on only one occasion were voices raised and only one slight injury was acquired. We felt our handles of amber nectar and Chinese takeaways were most definitely deserved.

So today’s plan is to deal out a couple more CVs, buy a few post cards that I have promised to send to my lovely friend Iman up in Leeds (she is 8), and a bedsheet to fit what appears to be the Queen sized bed I am sleeping in. It’s still a whole lot like a sea of comfortable. Maybe that’s Reason number 5: The Bed is too hard to tear myself from at 7am (for jewels).

On a final happy note, I am starting work experience on Monday. I have been warned that there is a small puppy in his office. I tried to tell him that I was not a ‘dog person’ but I’m sure I’ll be fine…. in other words, I’ll try not to freak out when it jumps at me and salivates all over my shoes and may, eventually, gather enough courage to hug it. I like dogs really, just not the way they act as though they want to grapple with your throat like it’s a really fat sausage. All the time.

I like old dogs.

An afterthought: Mum thinks my bargainous mirror is TOO SMALL! The cheek.

 

Not bad for £12

Last night was my very first sober sleep in my new flat, and I am happy to report that it wasn’t half as scary as I thought it would be. my bed actually absorbs me – I am turned into another layer of squidge. It’s a beautiful thing. However, it can have quite a detrimental effect on my productivity levels on a Sunday morning.

Feeling a twitch of guilt over how easily I had succumbed to the delicious toasty bed, I tied the laces on my boots and pinned my bushy hair against my head. The wind attempting to knock me off my feet I stumbled down the road into town. Shielding my face from the onslaught I couldn’t help but notice the overwhelming amount of vomit on Polsloe Road. I thought that this was home of the civilised. Young professionals and big, wealthy families… and me. But alas, Saturday night has turned it into a minefield of innards.

Having left all of my warm and cosy jackets back at the parental dwelling I had to wear my enormous, black, zip up ‘Jimmy Eat World’ hoody into town. I felt like such a teenager walking down Clifton Hill, past the gym I first used aged 14, listening to ‘Rock and Roll Queen’ by the riff-loving Subways. It seemed strangely comforting that although I have now left home and am entirely responsible for feeding £1 coins into the electricity machine in my room, that I can find myself stepping into a moment long ago in my own history. Did I really leave school? Did I really work in pubs for five years and go and get myself a degree? Maybe none of that actually happened. It could very well have been an extremely long dream. The tiny wrinkles under my eyes beg to differ.

On my shopping list today; 10m of aerial cable, a divided file for all of my organisational needs, a mirror, a tablecloth and a glass jar for slightly-too-big-for-the-drawer kitchen goods. Here is the mirror… not bad for £12 eh?

Having lugged all of this exceptionally heavy stuff home, I had several indulgent phone calls, used the stove for the first time and watched Vanilla Ice cruising around on Dancing On Ice along with my good friend Hollie’s ever hilarious text commentary. We are outraged that Kerry Katona remains a part of the series. She was DREADful and it is at times like this when I feel really livid in front of the television that I’m glad I’m in here on my own.

Busy week ahead – I start my job tomorrow, dinner on Tuesday and Wednesday, King’s Speech – finally – on Thursday and out and about on the town on Friday. Excellently busy.

It’s only 22.22 but I have a feeling I should be going to bed soon. Isn’t that what working people do? I don’t want to be late or early tomorrow morning and I think it takes 15 minutes to walk there. I’ll take about an hour mooching around getting ready and another 20 eating shreddies and reading the (online) paper, so I suppose I’ll be getting up at 7.10?? Sounds doable. 8 hours sleep means I need to go to bed in 23.10. Wow! I have ages! Might watch Family Guy then.

Night night!

Life Goes On

I thought I would think outside of the box and not simply write this blog when I’m on holiday. Because we all know that really, real life is a lot more interesting than ‘I moved here then there and saw this wonderful spectacle that was amazing’. So from now on I’m going to share the odd day-to-day ditty of info.

Australia turned out to be a good, but very long, excursion from real life. On landing in Heathrow it had been 5 months since my operation, and my feet were itching to get going. Instead of taking a week to readjust I spent 5 days trawling Exeter with my CV and going to flat viewings.

After only TEN days in the country I had secured myself a job and a flat in the city centre. I feel like it’s one of the most miraculous things ever to have happened. I’m currently sitting in said flat, which I slept in for the first time last night, feeling a little chilly. I didn’t realise when I moved in that the electricity is coin operated! Behind the door of the main room there is a miniature door which opens to reveal quite an exciting piece of kit. It’s like something of the Antiques’ Roadshow. The satisfaction of putting a golden nugget into it and twisting the key-shaped rotary thingy so that it disappears and light showers the room is something not easily matched.

I have a feeling I won’t be feeling quite so jolly about it by the end of my tenancy. Lugging £100 in £1 coins home from town is not something I want to be doing frequently.

Right, that’s it, the heater’s going on. It’s an awesome heater, chucks out warmth and it has little fake flames fluttering at the back of it through a glass window. The dutch girl who lived here before me left it behind, along with the most enormous, squishy bed you ever did see. She worked for a bed manufacturer you see – I feel ever so lucky that she was here before me. She left me so much cleaning stuff and kitchenware I now have a kitchen stuffed full. I’ll have to host a banquet to use it all. That said, I had a little house warming party last night and there are currently 12 wine glasses dotted around the room; perhaps you never can have too many goods!

I apologise for the rather odd nature of this post – last night I managed to drink the equivalent of a bath full of beverages and I am having flashbacks of when I gave the barman my number – something I have NEVER done before and probably won’t ever again, but what with this sudden rush of good fortune and the idea that I’m starting off a new life I probably had it in the back of my mind that a job, a flat AND a boyfriend within 3 weeks would make everything perfect. Maybe a little too perfect.

Right, time to go and buy 6m of cable for my TV. It’s on the opposite side of the room to the outlet in the wall. Looks like I’m going to have to get used to having a white snake winding it’s way across my room. Although I do suppose people have lived with worse.

Just one more Quorn sausage roll, maybe another coke, then I’ll leave. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr…….

Christmas & New Year!

31/12/10

Dear Bloggee’s,

I haven’t been in touch for a while because we’ve been staying in the reasonably isolated Lake Bushland Caravan Park and they appear not to have heard of t’internet. I’ve been letting mama get on with her fervent blogging (she’s typing so much I’m surprised she’s not churned out a 50,000 word book by now) and relaxing myself. After all, we are on holiday.

Christmas in Ballarat was, of course, splendid. Holly roasted the veg to perfection and I drank for 12 hours straight. Slowly of course – I surprisingly had not even the slightest hangover the next day!

I got a frisbee, a veggie burger cook book, eyeliners and a purse from Hol and greatly enjoyed it when mum started to dance with a bottle of red wine when Never Do a Tango With an Eskimo came on the stereo. I managed to record it for ever more on her video camera but I have a feeling that’s one film mum’s going to want to keep in the vault. What a terrible shame!

It certainly was a wonderful thing to have so many facilities around – clothes could be washed, there was free wireless, and my bed, despite being on the floor, was the cosiest there ever was. Although I did keep accidentally rolling onto the touch lamp Holly had kindly positioned near the head of the bed. It was very confusing being woken up by a bright light at 4am.

Unusually, very few games were played over Christmas – we had a snap tournament where Holly and Pete easily triumphed over us slow-witted Pommies, but nothing else was brought out. There’s something very wrong and very strange about that.

This has to be the first Christmas during which I haven’t watched A Muppet’s Christmas Carol for an extremely long time. Instead we broke out Hornblower and are now completely hooked. Who knew Ioan Gruffud could be so gorgeous!?

On Boxing Day morning we all packed up our belongings and headed off in Corella the Corolla, leaving Holly and Pete to pack 3 tents, 6 beds and an awful lot of kitchenware into their car, Dolly. When we picked Corella up from Hertz garage at the airport 3 weeks ago she had only done 13,000kms, I reckon we must have nearly doubled these numbers since. So, we left Ballarat and drove east past the Melbourne skyline for 5 hours to a tiny place called Nicholson, where the caravan park lies. We’re near the coast in a 6 bed cabin. I am on the top of one of two bunk beds, the lower two beds are occupied by my parents, who felt the narrow ladder, more suitable for a seven year old, might be too much of an ask. The ladder is a nightmare. I didn’t realise I’d grown so big! There is nothing to hold onto when you’re climbing it and I can’t fit more than one of my size 8 feet onto a rung. Each rung is so narrow and sharp I put off getting out of bed in the morning because it’s so blimmin’ painful. But I must be grateful. Camping from tomorrow night will be dreamy – I’ll be able to dive into bed from a great height.

We’ve been in this cabin for about 5 nights and have done a variety of different day trips, clocking up the number on the odometer as we’ve gone. Last Monday we drove, all five of us in Corella, into Alpine Shire, aka The Alps. The road up there, The Great Alpine Road, was a bit of a thrill ride. At it’s highest it grazed the edge of so many vertical drops, often positioned on c-shaped corners, I was gripping my seat. As if that would have saved me!

The view at the top was tremendous. The mountains were covered in silvery trees that had been stripped of their branches and any foliage during fires but poked up like long bony fingers, all bending in the same direction. The trees were so dense that from a distance the mountains looked covered in silvery snow. In fact this is one of Australia’s primary skiing destinations. I would never go along that road in icy conditions, I can’t believe anyone would even think of it.

Yesterday, Holly, Pete and I went to visit some caves, but we all decided that once you’ve seen one set of caves, they lose their charm. Holly thought you would have to bring a child along with you to make it worth it. The kids on our tour were told that fairy’s lived in the caves. They were all having a spectacularly magical time.

Now I come to the subject of my hair. Once again it has proven to be important news. My roots were getting ridiculous. I looked a bit like a less nuts Katie Waissel so I had to do something about it. The upkeep of platinum blonde locks is hideously expensive so I thought I would go for something a little different this time, perhaps go for a more ‘employable’ image! I told mum and dad this morning that my appointment would simply involved the bleaching of my roots, as it usually does, but in fact I had entirely different plans in mind. And so, here I sit with dark, cherry coloured hair that just reaches my chin, waiting for them to get back from whichever swamp they went to visit for a spot of birdwatching today. I’m bracing myself for a couple of startled looking faces.

The dyeing of blonde to brunette involves re-injecting the warmth into hair that’s been bleached to within an inch of its life. And so before my lovely hairdresser could turn it dark I had bright pink colour put all over it. I had to sit there staring in the mirror hoping earnestly that this wouldn’t be the final outcome. I took a couple of photos. It’s not something that happens very often.

I’m glad I had it done today. I often use my hair colour/style/length as a memory aid since I have a habit of forgetting most things I do (hence the blogging), and now I’ll be able to differentiate between things I did in 2010 and what I went on to do in 2011.

Plans for this evening involve a BBQ, since it’s achingly hot today – the wind feels as though it has come from a supersized hairdryer – and perhaps another game of Trivial Pursuit – Bet You Know It (where you bet on whether you think your opponent will know the answer to their next question and win chips if you bet correctly! It’s amazing) whilst watching the fireworks go off in Sydney on the telly. I’m looking forward to it.

Happy New Year to you all. I miss you very much indeed!