For Auld Lang Syne My Dear

Hello All!

I hope you all had a very good Christmas, I did - it was oh so lazy and calorie-filled!

I've been quite busy over the past week (in two weeks the only day I had off work was Christmas Day - sob!), seeing family and such. I did my last day at work today (after reassuring Wendy on Wedsnesday that yes I did want to finish on Friday and no I didn't want to do a couple more days!) and it was weird cos I thought I would get a bit emotional but I felt ok about it. Maybe because I'm coming back in only three months, or perhaps it was just a relief to know that I don't have to put out any more Christmas/Sale stock! Any which way its not all bad, cos I'll be in next week getting my last bits and pieces anyway. Oh and they did a great cake for me from Asda sporting a rather anebreated picture of me from the Christmas do. I should've seen that coming a mile off!

Anyway, as we see in the new year of 2005, it's weird to think of all the things i've done in the past 12 months. I've seen Africa, done my A Levels, experienced full-time work (and had a great laugh in the process!), passed my driving test, and the thing that I'm most proud of - funded and planned my very own first solo venture. I think in all honesty 2004 has been the year of growing-up for me, I've learned a lot in the past year and I think I'm a very different person than to this time last year. However, I'm sure 2005 will be jam-packed with new experiences as I've not just got Australia to look forward to - I'll be going back to Boots and working some more, working and travelling over in America, and starting my first year at University in Sheffield. And I think this year to come will be where I can finally feel I'm standing on my own two feet.

Happy New Year Everyone! If your not gonna be good, be safe!

See you next year! x

Oh My Gosh, By Golly, It's Time for Mistletoe and Holly!

Seasons Greetings Ye Merry Gentlemen (and Lassies)!

I've been feeling very festive this week after a particularly trying month. Melinda, Ray, Molly, Noa and Lucas came to stay this weekend (poor Bonnie had to stay at the kennels, or "Dog Prison" as Noa chose to call it). They arrived on Saturday night, but unfortunately I was occupied at Claire's house at that time; drinking wine, eating pizza and jelly sweets and whooping everyone's ass at "Family Flip Quiz"! On Sunday morning I awoke at 8:15am after going to bed at 2:30am to the sound of Noa badgering Mum about having a Christmas Tree chocolate! So no change there then!

We walked to Curley's Fisheries in the afternoon and had a cup of hot chocolate and a cookie, and fought with some geese (who really were honking "David! David!") and probably spoilt the couple next to us' peaceful afternoon out with all the noise we (or rather, the dogs) were making, but we had a grand day all the same. Then we came home and attempted to play Trivial Pursuit with the aid of 'Mr T in your Pocket', a novelty remote control type of device which spurts out phrases a la Mr T, but to no avail as we were interrupted by tea-time. The evening was spent vegging out in front of The Vicar of Dibley with some mince pies and the whole day got me feeling very festive.

This week got off to a great start as it was snowing as I walked to work on Monday, an event I have greatly anticipated since the beginning of December, and we had a giant buffet a la Doreen at work which was delicious and very filling! I also got to wear my Christmas earrings, Santa Hat, glittery pants and tinsel on my shoes. And now I'm feeling very Christmasy!

Plans for over Christmas mostly include work (I 'leave' on New Year's Eve, so my only day off between now and then is Christmas Day - groan!), but tomorrow night I'm going into Blackburn with Louisa, Charlotte, Claire and Lauren, and we're going fancy dress! I'm an Angel (complete with halo and feather wings!) Louisa and Claire are being fairies, Lauren is a cowgirl and as far as I know Charlotte's undecided. The plan is to make fools of ourselves on Karaoke (preferably murdering "All I want for Christmas is You" as you can't get worse than Mariah), then to Heaven and Hell as it's been ages since I last went and I love it! Other plans include spending time with family and friends before I jet off and partying over New Year!

If I don't speak to you before, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Eat loads and sit in front of the telly all day. That's what Christmas is there for!

God Bless Us, Everyone!

ps. 2 weeks on Friday! Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

Huddersfield, Cholesterol and Phantoms

Hello All!

Well here we are, another week closer to take-off, and I'm finding that I've prepared myself for this trip in every possible - tangible - way, but as it gets closer I don't think I'm really prepared mentally, it's not really sunk in yet that I'm gonna be on the other side of the world for 3 months with only Claire to watch my back. Scary stuff.

Anyway, the Globetrotter has been in Huddersfield this weekend, and although I found the motorway part of the journey quite enjoyable, everything after that was a complete one-way-system-nightmare! Anybody who's been in my car will know I really cannot fathom one-way systems, especially when I miss a turning and need to get back to that junction again so I can take it. Anyway, I'm sure Patrick's instructions were flawless, and it was merely my ability to follow them that was lacking, but I think I ended up taking the wrong turning at the third roundabout because I thought it was the second (I didn't count the motorway one) and I wound up in the middle of Huddersfield Town Centre, when I was pretty sure I shouldn't have done. So I rang Louisa and fretted, and she tried to direct me from where I was as best she could not being a driver herself. Anyway, to cut a long and tedious story short I ended up parking outside American Golf Discount having to have them come and find me! Turned out I wasn't that far away from their house, but it was a powerful blow to my driving ego all the same.

That night was spent eating homemade bacon cheeseburgers, drinking rose wine (on my part, at least!), eating Fruit and Nut (probably also solely on my part), watching the X Factor Final and meeting Louisa, Rachel and Paul's neighbours (two were lovely, the other was one the vilest human beings I've ever met - a munter, you might say. Or I might even stretch to an uber-munter. I won't go into detail cos I'm still not quite over the experience).

Then we woke up Sunday morning and ate a fried brunch whilst watching Friends. I ate 2 rashers of bacon, 2 sausages, scrambled egg, mushrooms and 5 whole hash browns. I felt like such a heffer, or a bogwhopper, you might say. Anyway we worked it off by going Christmas shoppin in Huddersfield, and although I've nearly done all mine and vowed not to do anymore til I next get paid, I made a start on Lauren, Claire and Sam's presents. I got all of Lauren's and part of Claire's. I still haven't found anything random enough for Sam yet! But at least I didn't use my credit card, though it took all the willpower I could muster!

That night we went to see "Phantom of the Opera" at the cinema (where I argued with an attendant about how crap "Van Helsing" was and nearly sat on a seat that was laced with greb - I love Huddersfield! Then I stopped another guy from sitting on it and he looked at me like I was the one who'd grebbed! Charming!) However, the film was amazing, and after not quite knowing what to expect cos I've never seen the show, don't really know the story and only know two songs from it, I was really impressed. And musical anoraks Louisa and Paul assured me it was very faithful to the stage show. I recommend you all go and see it striaght after you've seen "The Incredibles"!

Anyway, as I have less than a tenner in the bank and another week til I get paid, I doubt I'll be doing anything interesting this week! On the bright side, Smel and family are coming up this weekend, after we were originally supposed to be going down to North Wales to see them. Looking forward to that as we always have a great laugh when we get together (Square-Dancing and Fleetwood Mac readily spring to mind!).

3 weeks on Friday! Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

On that note...

Pink and Lime Green Plimsole Slippersox! (with Lancaster and some Uni worries)

So what have I been up to over my birthday week?

Well on the Monday night after the Friday night out, I enjoyed a meal out with my family at Smithills Coaching House, as a joint venture for mine and my brother Matthew's birthday. It was very enjoyable, especially watching the young bartender (who was clearly on his first day) trying to remember what drinks we wanted and how to make them, and telling the maitre 'd girl to blame him for us not being ready for our table! The best bit was me and David winding up my grandad on the correct spelling and definition of the word "RIGGMORALL" (I don't actually know how it's spelt so that could be wrong) and Grandad accusing our miserable 60-yr-old waitress of fancying him. Much wine and grub was consumed needless to say.

Then on the Tuesday me and Mum went shopping in town for bits of Christmas presents, where we saw Bernice working in Café Nero (that will be of more relevance to Louisa and Charlotte - understandably I was distraught as it's my favourite coffee venue!) and my poor phone broke (it's now in for repair and I'm hoping I'll get it back before Oz!). Then we came back and enjoyed the delights of Horwich Leisure Centre's Health Suite (to which I'm still indifferent really) so it was a nice relaxing day of therapy!

My actual birthday (Thursday) was a nightmare, let's just say turning 19 and the stresses of running a Christmas Gift Section of a busy store don't mix! But in the evening me and my darlings Claire and Sam went to watch 'The Incredibles' and it was great, I recommend you all go and see it! The best part of the evening was receiving my birthday present off Sam - see, getting presents off Sam is never like getting presents from anyone else, cos you never know what your gonna get. For instance, for my 17th birthday, she bought me a bottle of perfume, and a blue-tit keyring that tweeted when you squeezed it. The bird was the better of the two. God love her.

Anyway, this year was no exception, as I received a box of Thornton's Goodies and a pair of knitted pink and lime-green slippersox in the shape of a plimsole shoe. I've never laughed so much at a birthday present and I love them. So good choice, Sam.

Saturday night was my work's Christmas do at the De Vere White's Hotel on the side of the Reebok Stadium. We were debating whether or not to sneak a bottle of booze in to avoid the extorsionate prices of drinks, but it's a good job we didn't really cos they searched our bags on the way in! The cheek indeed! I wouldn't have minded as much but my bag was tiny! As it turns out, I only spent £4 in the end by drinking all the free wine on the table! And I think I got indigestion from having a hilarious conversation about farting with Steph and Josie during the meal. So that wasn't good. Oh, and we all got disposable cameras free c/o the management; I haven't had mine developed yet, I'm too afraid to as I fear there may be a snap of my cleavage on there. There is, however, a 'Wall of Shame' up at work now, made up of everyone else's photos! Oh it's beautiful.

On Sunday, with a fuzzy head and a buzzing source-less energy I drove up to Lancaster to see my dear mate Lauren at university. It was remarkably easy to get to, just straight up the motorway, which may explain why about a fifth of my year at college opted to do a degree there! Claire had gone a couple of days earlier and made out that Lauren's room had enough room for a bed and space to fall out of it, but I was really impressed with how Lauren had made it really nice with photos and posters and stuff. We went out to Revolution for tea, and I had 3 glasses of full-fat hangover-recovery coke, meatballs with tomato sauce and spaghetti, and hot cinnamon waffles with strawberries and ice cream. Oh, it was divine! then we just came back and watched DVDs. It was really good as we had a right good catch-up.
On Monday we got up and went into Lancaster. We had brunch at Diggles (sausage, egg, bacon and only one hash brown cos I'm trying to be good), and looked round the shops before coming back and I set off home. I really enjoyed it and it was a nice break after a hectic week at work. But in a way it really got me worrying.

Thing is, the only thing I'd sorted out for Uni was my place. I hadn't really given it much thought after that, as I'd thrown myself into planning Australia and Summer Camp USA. Also, Lancaster was a campus uni, and Sheffield (where I'm off to next September) isn't. I'd never considered the difference before, but at Lancaster it seemed really good to have a Spar, Natwest, STA Travel, Waterstones and a pizza place right on your doorstep. The first thing that bugged me was that Sheffield isn't going to be like that and I'd never thought of that before. Then Lauren mentioned how Claire had applied for accommodation at Leeds, and I'd not even thought about that.

Anyway the long and short of it is that as soon as I got home, I began looking at accommodation in Sheffield, and discovered that the self-catered halls (which I wanted to stay in) are really boring. No common rooms, bars, lounges, annual balls, nothing. So i've decided - against all my previous principles! - to go catered in my first year. At least then I'll get the social side of living in a hall where I wouldn't if I went self-catered, and I can get a part-time job and not worry about shopping and where my food is coming from. After all, there's plenty of time for managing shopping and finances and cooking in my second and third years! I just hope I don't turn into a heffer!

Sorry for the uber-long post, I'll let you off if you fall asleep half-way through! I've been so busy I've had to update all in one go!

Anyway, I'm off to Huddersfield next weekend (providing I can take my owed time off work), so I'll keep you updated on goings-on.

See y'all!