Journal Entries
Gardening?
Posted Apr 12, 2006
As we've got some free time (the first for ages 
) we've decided that we should really sort out the garden. It's a bit of a wasteland at the moment - but as it spent a lot of last year looking like a jungle, I guess it's an improvement.
So, we've got a garden to fill with plants. And we have a huge garden (roughly 12m x 6m). And neither me nor Dave are natural gardeners 
.
We've just about worked out that we have a south-facing garden with neutral clay soil... but what plants does that mean we can put in? I've got a scale drawing of our garden with all the borders laid out and the patios drawn in, and I have no idea how we're going to fill all that space with plants 
- assuming we can find plants that will go! And that's not even considering if the plants are annuals, perennials, hardy, tender, fast growing...or if they flower in spring, summer, or autumn... 
Who knows, maybe this time next week I'll be a gardening convert, but right now it all seems far too much hassle!
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Latest reply: Apr 12, 2006
All change!
Posted Mar 6, 2006
Somehow life seems to be busy as ever (no free weekends now until April!) and I'm itching to be able to stop the world for, say, two days, while I can finish off several things I've been wanting to do and haven't had the time for, and generally relax. But there's no chance of that happening .
A friend of ours called Chris was living in a flat with two other girls, and was looking at buying a house. One of them left early, leaving Chris and the other girl, Hannah, in the lurch. They did try extending the let on the flat on a rolling contract basis, but were told it was 6 months or nothing . Chris had only just put an offer in to buy a house, so was looking at a few months gap where he and Hannah would be homeless, as she would rent a spare room off him.
Me and Dave offered our spare room to him, no better offers turned up for him, so we now have a lodger till his house sale goes through. Hannah is lodging with another friend till the house sale goes through.
But.... it's *my* house (alright, *our* house 
). Especially at PMT time, I need to have space to hide from the world before I want to kill something or someone. I need to have a space where I can just be me without any fears, where I can just be with Dave and 
without anyone around. I don't want to feel confined. I don't want to feel like I have to be on my best behaviour all the time. I don't want to have to watch myself so I don't make Chris feel scared/embarrassed/whatever. I feel incredibly possessive over the house - not the stuff in it, which is odd I guess. And I don't feel like I can relax there any more .
Chris is a nice chap but he is clinging on to being a student - so I do have some worries about what sort of state the kitchen and fridge are going to be in while he's around. Not that I'm a total neat freak, but it's nice to have some semblance of order!
I haven't said any of this to Chris, although I have to Dave. Don't get me wrong, as a person I do like Chris; but I'd resent anyone's intrusion into my house! And it worries me that barely a weekend into it, I'm already quite het up and feeling stressed about it all (but that's probably just PMT 
).
I suppose it's the lack of options that gets me here; I wouldn't ask Dave to kick Chris out, but at the same time I can't really demand Chris naff off so I can have some me-time every now and again.
I expect he'll probably be out a lot, anyway, rather than moping around the house. Certainly the next few weekends we're away, which will make it odd for him. It must be weird for him - it's not like me and Dave live like sharers or students, we're definitely domesticated 
.
Hopefully at the end of it we'll still be friends... and I'll still be sane and have a marriage!
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Latest reply: Mar 6, 2006
Blast!
Posted Jan 24, 2006
I can't be online much at the mo.... RL is somewhat getting in the way. Had a bit of a warning at work as I'd been caught hootooing (the eyes in the back of my head just don't work that well ), so I'm being very careful. Hey ho.
At home, it seems to be like we barely have an evening/weekend free until, well, March 
. Trips to friends, visits to parents, people around for dinner..... I just can't work out what seems to have happened to have made us so in demand!
We're looking at getting broadband, as dial-up is just too slow. Any recommendations for 512k, circa £15/month suppliers would be welcome as there seem to be lots!
In the meantime... I am around, though not as much as I'd like to be. So if I haven't replied to you, 
but I haven't had time 
. I hope to catch up soon!
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Latest reply: Jan 24, 2006
I'm back!
Posted Jan 4, 2006
Well, I'm finally back online... three weeks off work is a heck of a long time. Being back at work isn't very nice after so long off - I couldn't even remember my password, and it took me most of yesterday to remember what I'd actually been doing at work last year .
Overall, though, it was a good holiday . The first thing we did on the Saturday was visit Bath, as Dave had a suit fitting for his best man Nick's wedding, as he was returning the favour of being best man. After the fitting we explored Bath a bit more, and spent a good few hours in the Bath house itself .
The Roman Baths are huge, and utterly fascinating. It doesn't look that big from above ground, but below ground you could get lost in there. We took the free audio tour thing as well, which was interesting too. There is so much of the Roman stuff left, some of it amazing well preserved, and they think even more is hidden under the 18th century architecture elsewhere in Bath - shame they can't dig it up to see .
We had planned to have a cream tea in the pump rooms, but the queue was massive (we worked out it would have meant standing for an hour *just to be seated*) so we shelved that and plan to return again soon. Bath itself was absolutely heaving with people, so I guess part of it was the Christmas rush, anyway. We just went to the pie shop across the road and grabbed a pasty and a danish instead .
Then I did all our Christmas shopping for our parents and my sister-in-law - having not done any of it until then! Me and Dave decided we couldn't be bothered to buy proper presents for each other, as we couldn't think of anything we wanted, and anyway I'd have to go and buy it for myself anyway. We're the last of the great romantics, we are .
Then it was Dave's turn to be best man at Nick's wedding. I don't know what to say about it without sounding bitchy, really . Nick and his new wife were very obviously besotted with each other, which was lovely, but the wedding itself was just far too formal for me; there was a proper "top table" for the meal, so Dave was up on the top table with the bride and groom, bridesmaids and family and I was on a side table with lots of people I didn't really know 
. Fortunately we were still in each other's eyeline, and when things got too stuffy we started pulling faces at each other 
until the groom's sister, who was a bridesmaid, couldn't stop laughing at us. It was all incredibly serious and formal, and to be honest I was very glad that me and Dave had a much smaller and much more relaxed wedding. Nick and his new wife didn't even leave their reception until half past midnight - we'd been up since 6.30am, and Dave was their chauffeur to their first night hotel, so we didn't get to bed until gone 1.30am and were absolutely shattered. They seemed to have had a wonderful time, anyway - which is the aim of a wedding reception!
When we got back, we decided that as we'd be going away for a few days, now would be a good time to redecorate the kitchen 
. There was some logic in there; the paint would have time to dry while we were away, and thanks to the shape and location of all the units, tiles and windows, there isn't much wall to paint. So, after a bit of debate about which shade of yellow to go for, we finally picked a colour and painted it .
Then we visited my parents for a few days, and saw some friends up in Rotherham, which was nice. Mum gave us a massive Christmas cake, a Christmas pudding, and a tub full of mince pies and bakewells 
.
For Christmas itself, we just stayed around home and enjoyed our first Christmas together 
. Instead of turkey, we decided to have pork, so I did pork with sauteed apples, roasted vegetables, stuffing and yorkshire puds . We went for some long walks around in the cold, and just generally chilled out.
After Christmas we spent a few days with Dave's parents in Dorset, and again just chilled out. We had planned to drive to Exeter for the yearly family meet, but the weather forecast was predicting atrocious conditions for Thursday night and Friday, so we decided to come back a day early and miss the bad weather... which turned out to merely be a bit of rain .
New Year was rather quiet - most of our friends were still off either at their parents or with other friends, so only a couple of people came around to ours and we sat around eating Pringles and cake till midnight. We also managed to find and order a new laptop to replace our defunct PC, which should be turning up on Friday 
. The New Year sales can be very good for bargains .
And that's pretty much a summary of our Christmas and New Year. I hope everyone had a good time . Just give me a bit of time to catch up on all my conversations and things that I've missed for three weeks!
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Latest reply: Jan 4, 2006
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Posted Dec 9, 2005
I start my Christmas holidays at 1pm today - three whole weeks off work! My brain is in shutdown already, which is really bad considering the stuff I have left to do . That's why I'm on here, and not doing anything useful .
As I probably won't get much chance to be online over the holidays, between buying a new PC, doing the Christmas shopping, seeing friends and family, and all that, I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas 
and a Happy New Year 
. I hope you all have a great time and enjoy your Christmas holidays .
Discuss this Journal entry [3]
Latest reply: Dec 9, 2005
Rains - Wondering where time's going and why it's in so much of a hurry!
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