My Journal - A Chronicle of Randomness

Normal service has now resumed in the world of i_just_hide. TEEF is back with his wife and I am back to sparring online with CB. I'm not the happiest I've ever been, neither am I particularly unhappy. My own, personal status quo has been reached once again.

Monday 14th January was my 27th birthday. I honestly can't believe that I'm 27. The three and a half years since I returned from Plymouth have passed in a flash. Anyway, my birthday celebrations were threefold. My aunt and uncle were visiting my parents on the Saturday 12th so we all went out to dinner in Richmond. I'm treating it as my family birthday celebration. The food was good and it was nice to see the rellies. We hadn't seen them since Grandad's funeral in June 2006. My uncle commented that they now have a family of 24 and my parents only have a family of 2 (my sister's boyfriend presumably doesn't count for some reason). I am fully aware that it will get to the point that I am the only person of my generation without a child and I don't care one bit. I will just keep away from my uncle at family parties. In the mean time my cousin (technically my great cousin) Eleanor is pregnant again. They just can't stop having babies on their side of the family.

Last Saturday I went out with mum to chose the boots that she was buying me as a birthday gift. They didn't have the £50 pair I wanted in Next so we went to New Look. I tried on two pairs. Mum liked the first pair best whilst I preferred the second. As they were only £30 each mum offered to buy both pairs which was a bit of a result. Only problem is I now have eight pairs of 'everyday' shoes and boots cluttering up my living room. I like looking at them but visitors look at them a bit oddly. While mum and I were shopping, dad attempted to unblock the bath waste pipe (which was unsucessful as the bath panel is sealed on so he couldn't get to the 'trap' without pulling off a load of paintwork) and resealed the bath (which was sucessful). He then couldn't work out how to turn the TV on (the 'on' switch is on the back and he couldn't find it) and managed to unplug my PS2 and tune the radio to a pirate old skool station in the process. He must be the only technophobe electrician in the UK!

In the evening I went over to Surbiton to visit my sister and her boyfriend. They have a rather lovely new flat which is costing them a fortune. It suits them down to the ground as it is very modern and trendy. Went out and got very drunk that night. They drink all the time and I decided to try and keep up with them. This was not a good idea as I felt dreadful the next morning. My sister's boyfriend doesn't sleep in. We got to bed at 2.30am and he was up and about with the TV on by 7am. Not my ideal start to a Sunday morning. They then drove me back home and we had to have the window open the whole way to stop me feeling sick :( I got home at 12 noon and slept until 5pm at which point I got up and went to mum and dad's for dinner. I then felt bad for wasting the day.

The third part of my birthday celebration was held on Monday 21st January. This was the only date I could get my five best mates in the same place for dinner. Unfortunately, one of them still dropped out at the last minute but I guess four out of five ain't bad. We decided to meet for dinner at Giraffe on Battersea Rise. It turned out to be a good choice as there was something on the menu to suit everyone's post Christmas diet. I refuse to diet between Christmas and my birthday so I went all out and ordered a massive chicken and chorizo burger with chips. It was delicious. I highly recommend Giraffe to anyone who wants a reasonably priced meal from a resturant with a very varied menu. The mezze plate we had as a starter was lovely too. I finished off with chocolate cheesecake. You can't argue with that! My friends came up trumps in the gift department. I am now the proud owner of a chocolate fondue set, a Gallileo themometer and a book which sums up major events of British history in date order. I can't wait to get my friends together to try out the fondue set.

Now it's back to reality after the festive season. I've just looked at my calender and there's nothing else to celebrate until my friend's birthday on 25th February (I'm ignoring Valentines day as usual). At least it means I won't spend too much this month. I've just forked out £200 for a new pair of glasses so this is going to be a lean month. I might buy a huge cross stitch and concentrate on doing that.

The new, spendthrift me started today with a day spent cleaning and tidying the flat. The kitchen and bathroom are now sparkling and the living room is tidy and has been hoovered. I've finally emptied the box which had been sitting in the middle of the living room floor since Christmas. That can go back to mum's tomorrow. The new me is going to be tidy, if it kills me trying!

I guess it's about time I updated my poor neglected livejournal!

Quite a lot's happened since the last time I wrote hence the long gap between entries. It's nice to have a bit of a social life again.

Last weekend I went to a uni friend's party in Cambridge. I went up on the train and I was suprised at how quick and cheap it was. The train itself was really nice and clean and it didn't stop between Kings X and Cambridge.

I arrived in Cambridge at about 1.30pm and the first thing I saw was my friend and her ex who'd come in on the same train which worried me a bit but things were ok. We went punting in the afternoon which was fun although the weather was dissapointing and it rained for a while. I wasn't brave enough to actually punt but I enjoyed the ride and it was great to see some of the really impressive college buildings. I didn't see Tom's college (Jesus) but I did see Kings, Maudlin and another one which I've forgotten the name of. Would've been good to study in Cambridge but I was happy enough in Cardiff.

All my friend's old friends from school were lovely which was good as apart from her ex who I'd met briefly a couple of times before there wasn't anyone else there I knew.

Met up with my man on Wednesday for a few drinks. Drank four pints on a pretty empty stomach which was a bad idea as I was really drunk for the journey home which included a long walk down the high street which isn't the nicest place in the world to be in the dark. Also a bit of kissing went on which I'm really cross with myself about. Being with him is like treading water, it involves a lot of effort and doesn't really get me anywhere. He's looking good though.

A friend from rag who's been travelling for nearly two years, has just emailed to invite me to a reunion in Cardiff sometime in August. Cardiff bloke hasn't been in touch for ages now, if he had've been I wouldn't have kissed my man. I think he's annoyed because I didn't make it to Cardiff in June but it wasn't my fault that I got a job.

How do I get myself into these situations? Will be back tomorrow with more.

Not only did I attend my first union meeting today I also experienced my first fire drill at the VO. I understand that this probably doesn't sound exciting to most people but everything's exciting to me in this new job right now.

The union meeting was pretty dull as I haven't been around long enough to be able to make a contribution. Changes to the layout of the offices was the main topic of discussion which didn't make for a particularly thrilling half hour. Apparantly even more new staff are joining our office and the're going to have trouble fitting them all in. Crockery, hand driers, computer sockets and kitchen refurbishments were also discussed!

Just as I'd recovered from the excitment of the Union meeting the fire alarm went off and we all had to make our way out of the building and around the corner. Our meeting point is on a busy road outside a busy branch of Sainsburys so we attracted quite an audience as my line manager Hilary stood with her red hard hat on calling the register! Our boss got us each a choc ice so I went back to the office with a smile on my face. It's nice to be working in a building where you only have to worry about yourselves and your colleagues when the fire bell rings rather than customers and theft prevention like you have done in all the shops I've worked in.

More progress on the social life front. My man called on Monday night and we're meeting for a drink next week. Nerve racking stuff as I haven't seen him since October and we didn't part on good terms. I'll talk about our relationship a bit more later.

Also shock news from Cardiff via my friend and former housemate Lucy. Sophie, a Christian and friend of some of our other housemates, is getting married in August to someone she has only known since April! They got engaged after knowing one another for a month!! Apparantly they met when she was looking around this guys house when she was trying to find a place for next year and it was love at first sight. Personally, I think she's mad, especially as her parents are divorced and she was quite disturbed by it. I really hope she's not doing it for the attention or because many of our friends are getting hitched this year but I wouldn't put it past her.

That's all for now but I'll be back soon.

Last night, whilst I was playing with my neopet, a little message popped up in the corner of my screen telling me that Welsh Bloke had logged on to MSN Messenger. When I finished the stupid game I was playing I looked at my on line contacts and I was shown as having no contacts on line. This really hacked me off as it was obvious that he was hiding from me. There was a maximum of 2 mins between him logging on and me checking so he'd either logged off again or was showing himself as being offline. Its not that I wanted to speak to him or anything, its just that we're both adults and I'd like to think that we're fine with one another. I wouldn't even have him on my contacts list except that when I first started using MSN a little message popped up telling me that I was on his list. Part of me wants to be his friend, but part of me really wants to break away from him forever. Its difficult.

On an entirely different note: my mum is getting stressed out about the fact that year 6 SATs start a week on Monday. You'd think that she's taking the things rather than helping out the special needs kids. She worries much to much and she's passed the trait on to me.

Instead of providing me with an offer for a brilliant job this morning's post contained an invitation to Emma and Andy's Wedding on September 6th. It was a really profesional looking home made invitation but they managed to spell my name wrong. You'd never think that I lived with Emma for a year!

This is a seminal year for me as far as weddings are concerned as two of the girls I lived with in the second year of Uni are walking down the aisle and they'll be the first people of my own age that I'll see getting married. I've only been to 3 weddings in my entire life, 2 were my cousins and 1 was my mum's cousin's daughter so I was kind of an esteemed family guest this time I will be just one of many friends! Polly and Rob are having 250 people to eat! I'm looking forward to it all but I'm a bit worried about the religious aspect as they are all committed Christians and I don't follow a faith. I won't know the words to any of the hymns!

Other than that I've just been reading 'The Fellowship of the Rings' really.