Si

I have a whole bunch of piccies that I've been meaning to post and I'm too exhausted to actually write a proper update (I have been for most of the last few weeks. Ugh) so I think the next few posts are going to be photo dumps. Sorry for my lack of photography skills.

A weekend of games and good company was a nice way to distract us from the worst possible election result and Bath is a lovely city that I'd only been to a couple of times before.
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Soooo, just cos I took a few piccies (which I don't do much. I really must get into the habit of it more. It's nice to look at them, even if I have no eye) here's foggy, pretty Whitby, in all (or at least a small part) of its glory.

( Ridiculously big piccies - cut to save your f-page )

As of about 6 hours ago I now have an external wall that doesn't leak water when it rains. Yay! I've been meaning to get that done for ages and obviously with the winter on its way it was getting quite pressing. I have so much else to get done but that's the most serious external thing. It's such a relief that it's sorted. There's always something to stress about though.

But whatever, I'm off north of the border for a few days come Sunday. I've been so looking forward to it. Nice lazy evening tonight though. Possibly see the last couple of episodes of season 1 of Once Upon a Time (which I'm loving but which, for various reasons, has take me most of this year to get through) or Ponyo, or maybe The Princess and the Frog (I'm on a bit of a Disney kick recently, and I was taken by the New Orleans setting of that one).

Now then, let's see if I can remember how to link pictures from Photobucket. I'm sure it can't be that hard.
Ah yes, that's it. A lot easier than I remember. Yay :)
We'll see if I took any pictures worth seeing.
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This is how time works, apparently...

Just got back from my second 40th birthday bash in 2 weeks. This one was ajoint one for two of my old university housemates. Last week was one for an old school friend (who's now my joint-oldest friend, since Steve (whom I would have known for 29 years this year) made a decision that we all regret a couple of years ago). They were both really nice, actually, although utterly exhausting.

The one this weekend involved camping, which, yeah, not a great life choice really, not in an English spring-time (I've camped at the beginning of May before when it's been absolutely glorious (too hot for me, but then I really don't like the heat) but it's a little unpredictable to say the least) but given the amount of people and the location it was probably the only option available. It kicked off at 2pm yesterday, but obviously I was latelatelate (in my defence, I did have to drive all the way down to Stratford and I was, erm, kind of disorganised, so I only left at 1.30. Whoops). I turned up at about 6 which still left the evening, into the night, and most of today. And really, the first few hours was mostly dominated by an unseemly amount of children. I mean, seriously, I don't think I've ever been to a party with that number of children. It was kind of disconcerting. And then I realised that, yeah, I'm actually now at an age where having children, and possibly several of them, is pretty normal. And I'll admit (and this is very, very rare for me!) I actually got a little broody at times. I guess I always thought I'd have children at some point? I don't know. It seems pretty unlikely at this stage, and mostly I'm perfectly fine with that but sometimes, just sometimes, I regret it. Oh well.

Where was I? Ah yes. It was cold! Like, for most of the evening I was wearing two t-shirts, a top, a coat and a blanket, and I was still pretty shivery, although Tom's home-made cider kind of helped with that (mind you, I went pretty easy on that because he had no idea how strong it was, except that it was probably more than 8% O_O).
Despite that, it was actually really nice. At least the rain held off, and most importantly of all I had the chance to catch up with some very old friends whom I haven't seen in ages, which is always lovely. Obviously we all promised to make more effort to keep in more regular touch and I really hope that'll happen. We'll have to see!

On the way South, and back North again, I had Covenant's Northern Light on more or less constant repeat. 6 years after first hearing it it's still one of my favourites.

One of my favourite sayings that, mainly because it's so apt. I've only ever heard it from one person, mind you, a Welshman (and whose first language is Welsh) who translated it from the Welsh for me. He could have made it up on the spot for all I know. I wouldn't really care either way. It's still very appropriate.

So yeah, kind of a rough few weeks, emotionally speaking. Been struggling to stay positive, although the spring-like weather of the last couple of days has helped to lift my mood some.
It's always the same at this time of year, really. February is my Long Dark Teatime of the Soul (TM Douglas Adams :)) but March isn't far away I guess, and things usually start to look up around then. Fingers crossed!
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First illness of the year and I feel oogy. I actually had to duck out of my Samaritans duty a couple of hours early on Wednesday, and I've been basically lying on the sofa feeling sorry for myself since then.
Nothing out of the ordinary, just a really nasty cold. The constantly running eyes and nose and general achiness have passed now, but as so often happens, it looks like it's planning on taking residence in my sinuses for a while. Sinus pain. Boo.

I should get some fresh air later, I'm sure that would do me good. But for now I'm just going to languish on the sofa and feel sorry for myself some more. Oh woe is me XD

I hope you're all feeling better than I am :)
♥

Which is to say, when the 'check engine' light is on, I probably shouldn't assume that the only problem with the car is that there isn't a check 'check engine light' light.
So, after more than 8 hours of traveling on Sunday (although over 4 of those were spent waiting on people to come fix the car/tow me home) I arrived back exactly where I started, with my car on the back of a truck, sans water pump and 'auxiliary belt' whatever one of those is. Having driven it about 50 miles with no effective cooling system (other than the air going over it at 70 miles an hour) it remains to be seen how much other damage I've done to the engine (the last time I let a car drastically overheat, it melted the engine and it had to be rebuilt, for an eyewatering amount of money :/
God, I have such bad luck with cars :(

So I've got a week off work, and my plans to visit family and friends down south are a complete bust (especially as it was a bank holiday yesterday, so there were no garages open till today. Gah. Great timing, that). I've got a whole load of stuff that I can do at home. Stupid amounts of books to read, beta-ing to do, stuff to write, house stuff (need to sort out repairs, and there's always cleaning), so many comments to catch up on, and emails to write to, and loads and loads of TV to catch up on. It's just, I was looking forward to having a nice wander, and seeing people I've not seen for a while.

I'm trying so hard to be productive and not just faff my time away. I'm just naturally a faffer, what can you do!

Talking of which, I'm going to watch a couple of episodes of Criminal Minds now. I do love a good police procedural :)

Kind of a random picture to start off with, but then I think this post may turn out to be made up of kind of random things, so whatever. I've been on Tumblr for about a month and nothing has changed my initial impression that it's largely a whole array of very pretty (and sometimes very pervy) pictures. Which is nice, of course, but it rather fails on the whole interaction thing, which is one of the things I like most about LJ. Given that, I'm super happy that both shan_3414 and blurubberband55 have expressed their intention to come home :). It's been so quiet here recently, it'll be nice for things to be a little more lively :). Of course, I can't guarantee that I'll post more myself. I always intend to, but I'm so good at just faffing my time away that, well, I'm never as productive as I'd like at anything (who is?).
Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, this!
( Pretties and randomness behind the cut. )