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In my heart of hearts...
Feb 12, 2013

...I am already sick of Valentines.

It's February 12th and I'm sick and tired of love hearts and pink and red and adverts proclaiming the importance of being in a couple and spending as much money as one can on February 14th.

The reason - bar the traditional single, never had a valentine of any form reasons and my belief that it really is a day for shops and show offs - is I've been cutting out hearts for the window at work all weekend and stringing them together. By my self. Despite my little sister's supposed shared responsibility for the window.

Anyway, normally we avoid a valentines window, which has the longevity of a mayfly however - stuck for ideas - we're doing a heart themed window, but specifically making it stay up for February as it is National Heart Awareness Month. And problems with your heart and high blood pressure can affect your eyes and vision. So this year we're making the exception.

My annoyance is probably jealousy , I'm twenty seven and as I've said, have never had a valentine, and I would love nothing more than to have a boyfriend to give the anti-valentines rant too whilst secretly hoping for a bunch of supermarket freesias...but right now, after spending four days cutting out multicoloured hearts, I feel more annoyed by the day than in previous years.

The window will probably only end up being up a week or two before the "haven't you taken down your valentines decorations?" comments get too much.

Why is it when you need to work out a few projects in advance, it's always the ones months away that you have ideas for and not the one you're most desperate to get sorted?

(2 replies, Latest reply: Feb 28, 2013)

Merry Christmas
Dec 24, 2012

Just in case I don't get a chance to get online tomorrow (technically it's already tomorrow, but I've not been asleep, so it's still yesterday to me...anyway...)

Merry Christmas!

hope you all have a lovely Christmas day and a happy New Year...especially since the Mayans seemed to have miscalculated the end of the world this time round

Em x

(6 replies, Latest reply: Dec 30, 2012)

Memory Lane...
Oct 19, 2012

I saw my very first crush today. Okay, maybe not my first, but the first that really made an impression.

What's scary is, not only have I not seen this boy (man) for about 12 years, since the day he left our school for another, but he's been married for 7 years, has two sons and is about to qualify as a Minister.

And despite this, my silly, juvenile heart - knowing he was going to be in the practice, having seen his name in the diary - did flutter a little bit when he came in the door.

Isn't that sad? I just remember this guy as being lovely and sweet and kind and he was a good friend, who made me feel like a nice person, like I was worth something. We were never more than friends, and we'll probably never see each other again, but he was still the first guy I ever felt that way about.

I hope, one day, I meet someone like him again, someone who makes me feel like that and who, hopefully, I can make feel that way too.

I'm an old romantic at heart.

(6 replies, Latest reply: Oct 22, 2012)

Celebrations, confrontations and specs...
Aug 28, 2012

Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike doing holiday cover? In one respect it's great. More hours equals more money. Who doesn't like having a little extra cash at the end of the month to go towards bills or savings or indeed to keep out of the savings jar in order to treat oneself for a change - last months, my 3rd round of holiday cover and I finally treated myself, and bought a pair of curling tongs to try and tidy myself up without going to the hairdresser. Anyway, I won't complain too hard, the money is nice, I like knowing that I'm saving towards my future it just seems like there's someone off every two weeks at the moment!

It's actually been relatively quiet this time around, or at least until Saturday when not only was there a confrontation with a patient which has put everyone not only on edge but in a complete and utter panic, but the roof has begun leaking and needs replaced. So that's anywhere between £5,000 and £20,000 pounds depending on the damage. You can imagine how well that's gone down at work. I am relieved however there was someone living in the flat, had there not been it may have been left unnoticed and that would have been disastrous!

Typically, we had a celebration in amongst all this turmoil, my little sister turned 25 yesterday on the same day my grandmother turned 86. So a double birthday celebration all crammed into one day as panic about the week ahead re-emerged. Don't worry, little sis never minds a bit of turmoil on days she gets presents, cake and the chance to watch Jeremy Renner run around in the Bourne Legacy .

Oh, and I'm getting specs again! To be honest, I've never not had specs, mostly just for reading, but despite my optom being my dad, i haven't been tested in 9 years and it turns out I'm not only long sighted but I'm also now a little short sighted. So I am getting multifocals with prisms so I can wear them for reading and working and driving and hopefully he can fix my convergence problem. So I'm sitting here, typing to myself and the few people who may read this and switching between two of the pairs I've whittled the choice down too. Typically the ones I'd planned for, the ones I'd hidden in my room, I'm now not sure about. Sods law! xxx

(No replies)

An entertaining morning...
Aug 6, 2012

An entertaining morning was had by all in our household - bar my little sister who slept through it all.

I was woken up by the sound of chain saws.

Over the past few weeks the path down beside our house - known locally as Coffin Way - has been being widened and surfaced in order to allow the kids coming back and forward from the new school to walk back safely on proper pavements. Fair enough. So, they've been digging up things, trimming back trees and making a ruck-us all summer.

Today, as I said, I was woken up by chainsaws, being wielded by men who were cutting back three of our trees a good 6 foot up their trunks (they've also taken out all the elderflower, so next years cordial will be lacking). So I phoned my parents, seeing they had been promised this wouldn't happen and I didn't know what to do, who turned back from their trip out, gone from the house no more than 20 minutes, and told me to go out (in my pyjamas) to see what was going on.

To the guys credit, he was very nice, he wasn't aggressive or unpleasant, in fact he was apologetic and explained what was going on. He said that he was a subcontractor and that he had been told to do this by the council - who as I said had promised the trees, which are all in our garden's boundary wouldn't be touched. When I told him about where the official boundary is he was apologetic because the council hadn't told him that. The official boundary I should add is another metre or two outwith our garden, when the houses were built the builders couldn't be bothered trying to secure wire fences on the slope so just plonked it where the ground dropped away. So there is a stone marker to show this...we know this because a few years after we moved here, the council refused to remove the elms which had dutch elm disease because they were in our property, so us and our neighbours at the time paid for them to be taken down.

Anyway, the parents came home, dad talked to the guys, mum and I talked to a few of the neighbours on the other side, who are also not happy because their gardens are now going to flood because of the path and undergrowth being cut back - it used to be quite swampy over there and the ground at the path and foliage helped to suck up the water. Dad has also talked to the man at the council he'd spoken to before and complained. And someone official seems to have already been down there.

But it's done, and the garden/house is now exposed to anyone walking along the path, and the next stage is cutting into the embankment by 1 metre which will then probably make said shallow rooting conifers so unstable that they'll need to be taken down or they'll smash into the very nice neighbour across the ways fence and shed the next time we have a high wind.

This neighbour also said that they've been having problems with teenagers gathering and drinking behind their fence and have noticed the increased traffic of kids on bikes, skateboards, mopeds etc belting up and down the new path since it's laying and there is also some 40 yr old moron who drives a petrol fuelled toy car up an down there at 30 miles an hour on a regular basis which not only makes a hideous noise, but is dangerous.

In some respects, we've all had a very British reaction to it and it's nice to see that the other neighbours are also unhappy.

Anyway, rant about the lying local council, the workers have gone and it's started to rain heavily, so now we just have to pray that those trees don't come crashing down - one did a year ago, luckily missing the neighbours fence. A blackbird was not so lucky.

(No replies)