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Love and War
Aug. 12th, 2006 09:36 pmLove and War is the title of one of the best episodes of Press Gang. It has multiple meanings within the context of the episode but here I am using it to explain the contrasting elements of the last three days.
Mum and I have started looking into our family history and had been planning to go to the family records office in Islington on Thursday. With all the security alerts that day I was a bit nervous about going into London on the tube but mum convinced me that life must go on. In the end the journey was straightforward and uneventful. However, I felt sorry for all the people whose flights had been cancelled and were stuck at the stations with all their suitcases not knowing what to do next. We did OK at the family records office but we could have done with spending longer there and having more breaks. You lose concentration after looking at endless rows of names for a while. We've ordered a copy of the marriage certificate of mum's maternal grandmother and grandfather. It'll arrive next week and then we can decide what to do next. Since then I've been looking on the old censuses and I've traced my dad's paternal family back to 1861. He comes from a family of bricklayers. We're now trying to figure out what they were building in the tiny Kent village they lived in!
The security stuff is worrying of course. We are directly under the transatlantic flight path (if you use an FM radio in the loft you can tune into the pilots talking to air traffic control "this is American Airlines flight **** climbing to 30,000 feet etc. etc.") so there is always a risk that a plane could fall out of the sky over our house. You can literally see one of the runways from my new flat. I don't know what else I can do but carry on though. I tried moving away but it didn't work and I ended up coming back. Well, once I've had the flat for a couple of years I'll probably be ready for a new job so I can look at moving on then. It was certainly noticably quieter without the planes though even though we are only half a mile away from the M3.
On Friday I went to the building society to discuss insurance for my mortgage. That was depressing. Another £30 to add to the monthly outgoings.
Today was the most exciting day I've had for some time.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
violetcreme and flip18 came up/down to London for the day and invited me (and everyone else on holding on and the PGML) to meet up with them. As a cautious and shy person I'd never agreed to meet anyone from the net before so I was nervous to say the least. katie_pillar and purple_pirate were also there along with three people from the PGML and another long time PG fan. They were all lovely, normal and fun. We had a pizza in Pizza Hut and then thanks to purple_pirate we were joined briefly by Steven Moffat who'd been signing Dr Who books in Forbidden Planet nearby. He sat right next to me and I was so excited I wanted to squeee very loudly but I managed to control myself. I felt a mixture of excitment and horror which I last felt 10 years ago at a PJ and Duncan concert at the Royal Albert Hall and realised that Declan Donnelly was standing about 3 foot from me waiting to make his entrance through the audience. Despite being dumbstruck through his entire visit I learnt some interesting facts, particularly that it was Julia Sawalha who introduced him to pizza.
Thank youvioletcreme for inviting me along.
On a completely different note, I'm currently watching The History of Light Entertainment on BBC2 and they're talking about comedians. I'm not really a fan of stand up comedy. It often seems to involve making cruel jokes about members of the audience and I'd be too scared to go and see it live. I really don't understand the comedy of Benny Hill either. I love slapstick but I don't find watching a bloke running around chasing girls in their underwear very funny. Give me Victoria Wood or Ben Elton any day.
Nikki has been voted back into Big Brother and is reportedly now 2nd favourite to win. I don't know what to say about that really. All they're going to show over the next week is the Nikki/Pete romance which will get on my nerves very quickly.
Mum and I have started looking into our family history and had been planning to go to the family records office in Islington on Thursday. With all the security alerts that day I was a bit nervous about going into London on the tube but mum convinced me that life must go on. In the end the journey was straightforward and uneventful. However, I felt sorry for all the people whose flights had been cancelled and were stuck at the stations with all their suitcases not knowing what to do next. We did OK at the family records office but we could have done with spending longer there and having more breaks. You lose concentration after looking at endless rows of names for a while. We've ordered a copy of the marriage certificate of mum's maternal grandmother and grandfather. It'll arrive next week and then we can decide what to do next. Since then I've been looking on the old censuses and I've traced my dad's paternal family back to 1861. He comes from a family of bricklayers. We're now trying to figure out what they were building in the tiny Kent village they lived in!
The security stuff is worrying of course. We are directly under the transatlantic flight path (if you use an FM radio in the loft you can tune into the pilots talking to air traffic control "this is American Airlines flight **** climbing to 30,000 feet etc. etc.") so there is always a risk that a plane could fall out of the sky over our house. You can literally see one of the runways from my new flat. I don't know what else I can do but carry on though. I tried moving away but it didn't work and I ended up coming back. Well, once I've had the flat for a couple of years I'll probably be ready for a new job so I can look at moving on then. It was certainly noticably quieter without the planes though even though we are only half a mile away from the M3.
On Friday I went to the building society to discuss insurance for my mortgage. That was depressing. Another £30 to add to the monthly outgoings.
Today was the most exciting day I've had for some time.
violetcreme and flip18 came up/down to London for the day and invited me (and everyone else on holding on and the PGML) to meet up with them. As a cautious and shy person I'd never agreed to meet anyone from the net before so I was nervous to say the least. katie_pillar and purple_pirate were also there along with three people from the PGML and another long time PG fan. They were all lovely, normal and fun. We had a pizza in Pizza Hut and then thanks to purple_pirate we were joined briefly by Steven Moffat who'd been signing Dr Who books in Forbidden Planet nearby. He sat right next to me and I was so excited I wanted to squeee very loudly but I managed to control myself. I felt a mixture of excitment and horror which I last felt 10 years ago at a PJ and Duncan concert at the Royal Albert Hall and realised that Declan Donnelly was standing about 3 foot from me waiting to make his entrance through the audience. Despite being dumbstruck through his entire visit I learnt some interesting facts, particularly that it was Julia Sawalha who introduced him to pizza. Thank you
violetcreme for inviting me along.On a completely different note, I'm currently watching The History of Light Entertainment on BBC2 and they're talking about comedians. I'm not really a fan of stand up comedy. It often seems to involve making cruel jokes about members of the audience and I'd be too scared to go and see it live. I really don't understand the comedy of Benny Hill either. I love slapstick but I don't find watching a bloke running around chasing girls in their underwear very funny. Give me Victoria Wood or Ben Elton any day.
Nikki has been voted back into Big Brother and is reportedly now 2nd favourite to win. I don't know what to say about that really. All they're going to show over the next week is the Nikki/Pete romance which will get on my nerves very quickly.
