A lovely new morning!

What a beautiful morning it is. The sun is shining, the winter has arrived, and it's cold outside. I'm feeling very cheerful.

There's been lots of good news over the past few days. Firstly Steve is better at last, and it's really lovely to have back to being cheerful and happy all the time. I was very worried about him for a little while you know.

Secondly, Steve had a good birthday. He liked his presents. That was a relief because I didn't feel I'd been very inspired and he didn't give me any ideas until it was far too late. Sometimes it's hard to keep on buying the right things, but I seemed to do OK. He got a good haul of stuff and seemed to be very pleased overall. Now I'll have to convince him that since he was bought the new saucepans, he'll have to do the cooking... somehow I don't think I'll win!

Thirdly, we went to a fab concert with Steve's parents on Sunday. We saw many legendary people on stage that I never thought I'd get to see: Gary Moore, Pete Townsend, Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens), Steve Winwood, Bill Wyman... among others. I didn't know all the songs, but I did enjoy them. Wonderful!

Fourthly, the new potential job has been advertised. I have the details and the application form printed off ready. My trip to Great Hollands on Friday was useful and has given lots of ideas and much inspiration. It's not the best library in the borough, and never will be, but there's lots that can be done to make it a hell of a lot better than it currently is. Fingers crossed, eh.

Finally CROWDED HOUSE ARE REFORMING! I found out this morning and I've been grinning ever since! This year I might get the chance to see my favourite ever band play live again! I never imagined that would ever happen, so I'm feeling very happy!

What a lovely day!

Promotion?

As I've possibly mentioned before, there's a big possibility that I'm going to get a promotion soon. This is good. For a start I'm really ready for a new challenge at work now. I have been for a while if I'm honest. While I love being a library assistant and all the people I work with, the job itself is quite limited and we do tend to do the same things day in, day out. I love the counter duties, serving the customers in particular and the battles with the management that have occurred over the last year or two (though the battles aren't actually in the job description of course) but the fact is that there simply isn't any challenge in it any more. I can do it all in my sleep these days and I'm bored much of the time.

So there's promotion been mentioned. The new job sounds like quite a challenge. I'd be the branch supervisor for two of the smaller branches in the borough, Birch Hill and Great Hollands. Birch Hill is a lovely little library that doesn't have too much trouble. Great Hollands though is a different matter being on the roughest estate in Bracknell, and having trouble with kids hanging around and causing trouble. That doesn't scare me much. After running the shop and dealing with that kind of thing every day I know that I can handle that OK just by playing them at their own game. From what's been said, the previous supervisor was too timid to do anything and just locked the doors. I don't think you should limit the opening like that, as after all, we're supposed to be open to all. I used to find watching them, and following them round used to piss them off so much that any troublemaker would just leave.

So I'm very tempted by the job. It's funny, everyone is treating it like it's a done deal. It isn't yet. There's applications, interviews and stuff to go yet, and there will be other applicants I have to beat. Still, despite that I feel confident that all the experience I have will work in my favour and I know I can sell myself pretty well, despite it being a long time since I was last interviewed.

So anyway, this morning I'm off to work in Great Hollands library. I've got my notebook ready to jot down some ideas for improvements/ things that need doing there. All information is useful. I know that much.

In other news, we seem to have escaped last night's gales without any damge. When I got home last night our road was cordoned off by the Police and the army were busy taking down one of our neighbours' trees. I always worry because we have a tree in the front garden and one in the back, either or which would do a great deal of damage if they came down on the house, but we seem to survive. There are many branches down in the back garden that'll need seeing too, but it could have been a whole lot worse than it is.

5 Exciting Facts About Me!

Having been dared by Gaz to do this, I now present Five Amazing Facts About Me That You May Not Have Known Before:

1. My acting career at primary school stalled after Robin Hood fluffed his line and didn't give me my cue. I was playing Little John, and after the dramatic staff fight scene, we made friends and he turned to me and said "I think I'll call you...Robin Hood". Oh dear! I just stood there like a lemon not knowing what to say!

2. I did my paper round until the day before I went to university. It might sound as if that was some kind of punishment, but I genuinely used to love delivering papers early in the morning, in all weathers. It was good money, for not a great deal of work and I used to get around £100 in tips each Christmas. My last delivery was the day before I went to University in 1993.

3. Hertfordshire Police have my fingerprints on file. OK, this one is less dramatic than it sounds, but after my shop in Croxley was broken into, the police questioned me and took my finger prints to make sure that I was not under suspicion for breaking into my own shop.

4. Me and Steve and a one night stand: Actually lots of people know this, but originally I was invited back to Steve's for a one night, no strings attached evening of fun and the greatest cup of tea I'd ever had. The tea was OK, the rest was indeed fun and a few days later he was asking for more. Lovely!

5. 94% but for what? I'm not a genius, but I once scored 94% in a school exam and came top of the year... but what in you may ask? Was it English, I was always good at that. No! Can't have been Maths, can it? No i was never that good. I wasn't a scientist, or a linguist (not even a cunning one) or very skilled in art. No, it was in the 3rd year at secondary school and it was in Home Economics! Oh yes! I aced that exam, beating all the girls, who were very surprised and not very delighted.

How many did you know? And can you better them?

Uselessness

I feel a bit useless at the moment. Steve is suffering a great deal with his migraines and there's nothing I can do help. It's not a nice feeling to see someone you love suffering knowing that there's nothing you can do to help. Unfortunately I feel sometimes I've been less than sympathetic than I should have been about it, because never having had one (thank goodness) I have no idea what it's like.
Fortunately he's decided to go and see the doctor tomorrow, because having had one or more a day since Monday there's got to be something wrong. I hope there's something that can be done to help.

Anyway, I'm OK. That's something I suppose. 2007 hasn't got off to a great start for us really, but I'm still hoping we'll turn the corner soon.

I went to see Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf a stand-up comedy thing by Toby Hadoake. It was really good. There was much in his experiences that mirrored my own, and it was very funny. I think Steve would have liked it. It's on tour at the moment, so if any of you get the chance, go along!
There were several people I half recognised in the audience. Some were customers I knew from work, some were more difficult to place. I've probably seen them in the queue at Tenth Planet or something!

Wind and Delusionment

It's really very windy. This isn't a huge problem at the moment, despite all the recycling getting blown around the street, because so far the wind hasn't done any damage to the house and the trees in the front and back garden seem to bend nicely with the wind. It also meant I got to work in record time this morning as I wasn't pushing into the wind!

It did reinforce that I desperately need a haircut though. I looked very windswept by the time I got to the library doors this morning. You can see too much grey when it's this long, which isn't ideal... there' s still a bit of hope in me that it looks all black when it's short! I'm probably deluded, but if you can't delude yourself, who can you delude?

I'm feeling cheerful today. I had a good chat with Mum yesterday which put my mind at rest over some of the issues that have been raised recently. Things still aren't absolutely ideal between Mum and Dad, but it's probably too late for them to ever be now. I think we all have to learn to live with things as they stand: with the fact that Mum will probably move in with Adam and with the fact that Dad might just end up a bit bitter about things. We should have seen both of those things from the start. Mum hasn't been entirely straight with us from the start, which has caused most of the problems, and Dad has been gently manipulating that situation, which although we knew what he was doing hasn't made things easier.
Ah well. What can you do?

He's behind you!

I'm missing my PC. Due to the dramatic spilling of tea over the keyboard Steve uses with his PC, the other keyboard which has been used with my PC has been used on Steve's PC, and I'm sort of on holiday from my one! Of course, with the flu(Steve is almost recovered I'm pleased to report) and stuff, the usual routine is all out of kilter anyway, but I still feel odd being on the PC down here, in the corner of the living room, staring at the Beatles Sgt Pepper era calendar instead of the four Doctor Who postcards on the wall opposite my PC in the spare room. And my Last FM profile isn't being updated while I neglect it too! Ah well.

It's been a funny few days really. Saturday was somewhat frustrating for no good reason. It was raining, Steve was unwell and I really felt out of sorts with the world in general. I snapped at Steve for no good reason and then spent the afternoon apologising. Still, I was better in the eveining when I went to see Aladdin at the Reading Hexagon. I love panto and this one was really good. Starring the wonderful Christopher Lillicrap as Widow Twanky and the rrrrrrrrreally good Sylvester McCoy as Abanazarrrrr (He was on top form. Spoons, rolling r's and stresses on all the wrong words!)- we had a wonderful time. I love the silly jokes, the audience particiption and the lovely atmosphere at panto. I shall try and go again next year. They're doing Jack and the Beanstalk. I haven't seen Jack and the Beanstalk since I was young and we saw John Noakes, Valerie Singleton and Peter Purves in Bath! That gives you some idea of how long ago it was!
There was a starring role for a panda too. I find pandas very funny. I can't explain why, but they always make me laugh.

I'm busy researching the life of Brain Epstein at the moment for our next audio adventure. He seems to be such an unhappy man from what I can find out, and his death was just a sad unfortunate accident. What I'm finding is that he was a man in the right place at the right time and signing the Beatles was just a lucky break for him, almost against all the odds. In a funny way he had a strangely fascinating life, doting on "the boys", but unable to find anyone to share his life with and just getting involved with rough trade. It's sad really that he didn't live a bit longer and be able to enjoy the abolition of the law preventing homosexual relations. It might well have been the making of a very happy life for him.
Goodness knows what his relationship with Nick will be like, but I'm very much looking forward to exploring that in a couple of months time.

Surviving Christmas

Despite all those worries, we survived Christmas. Everyone behaved, despite Mum and Dad's house being in total chaos for most of the day and a good time was had by all of us (except Dad possibly, who seemed very melancholy). Present of the day was Luke's Dalek Sec, which he was really pleased with. It seems we managed to get him the one present he really wanted, even if we managed to fox him by making him wait to open it last. Even the mighty Robo-Raptor was no match for the Daleks! A Dalek war broke out on the upstairs landing (for the first time in some years) and myself , Luke and Steve had a great time there for an hour or so. It was lovely to watch.

We had dinner with my lot and then late afternoon we headed off to Steve's folks in Croxley to watch Doctor Who. The special was good fun, and had us laughing all the way through, but the plot was a bit slight sadly. Still enjoyable though. Not as enjoyable as the Sarah Jane Adventures though, which was just superb. A very lovely little pilot for the forthcoming series with much potential for fun! We grinned a lot as we watched it on New Year's Day.

Steve's family are always fun to be with and I had a great time for the few days we were with them. We managed to avoid the stress of the planning, which was making Steve's sister a bit unhappy, but everything went well- even the wait for the presents on Boxing day evening (when everyone was finally there) was OK in the end (and more so for me because that's when K9 was unwrapped! Awww! I've waited for one for years and he's no disappointment. The best Doctor Who toy ever!)

Two Christmas dinners! Two Polish Christmas meals (that was good as it turned out. I enjoyed all the food a great deal) and much red wine. Who wouldn't be happy?

Well I came home, Steve went off to play computer games and I came down with the flu. Not good at all. My immune system is a bit poor at the moment and I need to make sure I boost it during the year, as having flu twice in one year isn't a good thing at all. Steve looked after me well though. I missed seeing The History Boys, which upset me a great deal as I was really looking forward to that, but there was no way I could have gone. I wouldn't have made it there, let alone back.
Now Steve has the flu, alas, and I'm looking after him.

Not a great start to the year, but at least things can only get better from here!