Mouseicidal Maniacs

Came home on Thursday to find a new present under the tree. Thought at first it was a baby mouse, because it was quite small. Closer inspection proved it to be - half a mouse. Ick.

First Day Back

Well, that wasn't too bad.

Get into work (dropped off, rather than having to face public transport).

Get through three coffees, mince pies and Christmas cake whilst swapping respective Christmas gossip with m'colleague.

Get sent home again because there's nothing to do. Result!

Merry Christmas

May your balls jingle and all your toy mice be fully wound!

Get Your Titles Here...

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Her Royal Highness Izzy the Sardonic of Fishkill St Wednesday Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Mummy, Mummy why's that man dressed as a Christmas tree?

What is it about Christmas that suddenly the world is full of people in fancy dress, all looking REALLY cross? I don't think British people really take to being made to dress up (when they're stone cold sober, anyway). The other day I was served by lunch by a particularly murderous looking fairy, and then in Tesco's narrowly avoided being flattened by a large box of mini cheddars thrown angrily to the ground by a shelf stacker in some sort of dog outfit. So if you discover a recently purchased cheesy snack is predominantly small fragments of trampled dust, blame whoever decreed all staff must wear festive fancy dress...

Update - checklist

So it's been a busy sort of week:

Christmas cake baked - check
Christmas tree up and decorated - check
Cards written and posted - check (mostly anyway, ahem.)
Presents bought and wrapped - check
Recently received cheque paid in - check (ah ha hah...)

Also a notable week for having lost proper internet connection for a couple of days arrghh nononono due to a dodgy connection box type thing. Probably because of the extremely damp wall...also, saw the landlord for the first time in two years, heh (not due to the damp).

Anyway, um, Hi, I'm not dead. Will try to post more often now...

Public Rant-sport

So the train wasn't, due to a signal failure. No problem - there's a coach waiting outside. So up I go, and stand waiting five minutes for the driver to finish his phone conversation. Which he eventually does, and gets out and makes to walk past me without stopping, despite the fact I've obviously been waiting to speak to him. So I collars him, I do, and ask politely if this is the bus to Falmouth. No, he says, there's another one coming and he's just on stand-by in case it over-loads. So I wander back to the front where I can see to read my book, and wait 20 minutes. At which point the twat driver starts up the bus and lets everyone on, me now being at the back of the queue and in danger of not getting a place at all! Grrrrrr.

Feeling Shelfish

Oooooh. I have a new bookcase! A friend was getting rid, and asked if I wanted it, and of course I said yes...and it's here!

This gives me free reign to buy more books (doesn't it? yes, of course it does...).

Now there is the small problem of finding somewhere to put it...anyone who has seen my house knows it is already crammed to bursting with various piles of tat.

I'm going to have to move furniture about like pieces in one of those small square interlocked picture puzzle things (I'm sure they have a technical name, but I'm buggered if I know what it is).

Still, nothing like a bit of a challenge...

Why....?

Why do eBay only send me item ending or outbid reminders the day after the fecking thing has gone?

Why do Sainsbury's do half-size tins of kidney beans but not of chick peas?

Why do people say they will attend meetings and then not bother to turn up?

Answers on a postcard.

Plymouth - Ho!

Went to Plymouth on the train today. There was a mother and little kid wittering behind us for most of the way. When the kid went to the buffet car, had to stop myself laughing out loud when the mother said "If it's more than three quid, you're shit outta luck" (has to be imagined in a Cornish accent).

Plymouth station loos are very strange. The doors have frosted glass in the top, so people can see you sitting on the toilet. Eww.

Wandered round the shops, mostly avoided the rain, had fabulous pig-inna-bap, closely followed by hot doughnuts.

And my favourite stall sign of the day, for perfumed flora-craft: "Sented Wooden Roses". Oh dearie me.

The Kindness of Strangers

So there we were this morning, waiting for the train as usual. And waiting. And waiting. A woman phones up to discover 'woss on', and is told there's a tree on the line, and no trains. A bus is coming. Probably.

We wait some more. No too bothered yet, as I've got a warm coat, a packet of polos and a copy of 'May on Motors' to keep me occupied.

One colleague is on leave today, so I text the other to say I might be late. Get a reply straight back to say her car won't start. Ah. Maybe we should just go back to bed.

An hour later my feet hurt (crap shoes and nowhere to sit because everywhere's wet) and my fingers are freezing because I've forgotten my gloves. M'colleague has made it to work, but we've remembered she'll be out at a meeting most of the morning, so if I don't get there the office won't be manned (womaned?) and someone's bound to whinge.

People are turning up for the 'next' train now, and there's still no sign of transport. We could get a bus, but this would involve a/ walking into town, b/ paying two or three times as much and c/ everyone feels instinctively that as soon as they wander off, the coach will arrive.

A chap I see most mornings then says he can give a lift to three desperate people. Those next to him look at him suspiciously. I catch his eye and nod hopefully. "Yeah, I'm desperate" I say. As introductory lines go, this is obviously a corker.

Turns out his mum has come to pick him up. So we drive to where he works, and then his mum is kind enough to drive me on up to the hospital. I get to the building just as m'colleague is leaving for the meeting, so "just in the knicker", as they say.

Much obliged, Mister (and Mister's Mum).