Cold

Minimum temperature today is -3
Maximum temperature today is -2

Definitely a day for the thermals.

Funny

Someone said something the other day that amused me. I was going to blog about it. Now I can't remember what it was.

There is something stuck under my 'i' key that means I have to press it very hard to make it type.

I am at work, writing next terms assemblies, whilst listening to The Archers omnibus. They are enjoying some pantomime shenanigans. Apparently it is much funnier now they have the giant props.

Peter Sissons.

Christmas is happening tomorow. Happy Christmas.

Gutted.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/7783738.stm

Hallelujah

On the X Factor last night the 1st and 2nd place sang Hallelujah, as this is the song the winner is releasing. I was watching this with a family that have two teenage children. As one of the final acts was singing said song one of the girls turned round and said 'Oh this is the song from Shrek'. The youth of today! Forget Leonard Cohen or Jeff Buckley, no no no it is only known as 'the song from Shrek.'

Lump

Does Magilton normally have a big lump on his forehead, or has he been walking into doorposts?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/i/ipswich_town/7773209.stm

Mission

Christian mission can only happen when Christian people understand the sending nature of God.

I'm not so sure I agree with this statement, do you?

Praise the Lord

I was in church this morning doing the listening and praying and singing and all that. We sung one song that contained the words 'let everything that has breath praise the Lord'. The man sitting next to me very definitely at one point sung 'let everything that has breasts praise the Lord.'

Dull

At the moment life is dull and my brain is dull. That is the reason for the lack of postings around here from me. I would post, but it would just be dull.

Seasons

I can tell what season it is by the knicker to sock ratio in my wash load. I do a wash load whenever I have enough clothes to make up a wash load - none of this sorting colours and whites or types of materials or anything like that for me. In the summer there are less pairs of socks than knickers. In the autumn and spring there are even numbers of pairs of socks to pairs of knickers. In the winter there is at least two pairs of socks to every pair of knickers. I would like to point out that the numbers of pairs of knickers I wear each day remains constant, it is the amount of socks I wear that doth flux.

Breakfast

I think I might have not eaten my breakfast on Monday. I normally have a yoghurt for breakfast, not out of any healthiness reason, just because I am not very good at food in the mornings but I can normally manage a yoghurt. When I got home from work on Monday there was a yoghurt sat on the side. I can remember getting it out of the fridge, but I can't remember eating it. I also can't remember not eating it. So I do not know if I ate my breakfast on Monday, and I guess now I'll never know.

Radios

I flicked Radio 2 on on Saturday when Jonathan Ross should have been doing his show, and later in the day when Russell Brand should have been doing his show. They have replaced them with possibly the two most boringest people ever to have graced the air waves. I think it was Richard Allinson and Alex Lester. They are quite often used to fill in when other DJs are away and they are boring then. This means that they have replaced the two most entertaining DJs with the two most boringest ones. I don't think this is very clever of them, they shall lose listeners aplenty. I am not even going to go on now about the wrongness of Brand and Ross not being on the radio, ask me sometime it you are interested and I will bore you with my views.

The other thing that has annoyed me about the radios is a thing on Jeremy Vine today. It was about the goalkeeper who had done some drunk driving and caused an accident and some people did die. That is all quite sad really. But they were going on on the radio about the victims and speaking as if goalkeeper man has no remorse and won't suffer for what he has done, and speaking as if the relatives of the dead people were the only people that will carry this through with them for the rest of their lives. They were also saying that Norris's goal celebration on Saturday was a bad thing. So when one of our friends has done a bad we are meant to not be friends with them and not support them and help them through what they have done? The people on there were silly and did annoy me.

Weferwee!

There are quite a few people around where I live that are not happy with referees at the moment. It has something to do with goals being disallowed for no reason at the end of game that it is being drawn 1-1. It is not the first time that particular ref has made a big mistake.

I decided to get to the office nice and early this morning as there is lots to do at the moment. When I was in the shower I realised that I don't have the office keys (we are only allowed one set between two of us) and so the waking up early was pointless.

I have got my Christmas decorations up. I was getting so fed up with life that I decided I needed something to cheer me up, and a reminder that there is fun ahead.

When I woke up this morning

I thought of something really good to blog about, I even had a witty title for the post. Now I can't remember at all what it was about. So instead I will tell you about some journeying I have done recently.

On Saturday I drove to Ipswich. This journey started at about half past four. It finished at about ten past seven. It was quite a pleasant journey. I got to see a lovely sunset as I was driving. I was stopped at the services at the point of dusk that makes my eyes goes funny when I am driving. The traffic was really clear. It was dry the whole journey.

On Tuesday I did the same journey, but in reverse. It was important to do this, if I didn't I would have still been in the place where Saturday's journey took me to, and that is not the place I live. The place I live is where Saturday's journey started from, and so this is why it was important for me to do the journey in reverse.

I set of on this journey at about quarter past 4. It was dark not long after I started my journey. I was driving at that point in dusk that makes my eyes go funny. It rained pretty much the whole journey. There was a lot of surface water, meaning there was a lot of spray. There was a lot of traffic. There was one part of the road where we had to go down to one lane because of roadworks. During the whole stretch there were no road works, just some cones. Within an hour and a half of driving I passed my first full services. I didn't need to stop at this point. It was nearly two hours before I reached the next services. I really needed one before then. It took so long to get there because of the aforementioned traffic and weather. I eventually got back at about half past eight.

I much preferred the journey I made on Saturday. Partly because of the lack of traffic, good driving conditions and time it took. But also because of the people the journey was taking me to see.

The good old days

Right so Paul has got me to do this fantasy footballs thing. I don't really know what I'm doing with it, so I picked my team a bit randomly. I got an email from them today saying this will be your team, if you want to change it then do so by 11:30am tomorrow. It then listed the premiership games being played over the weekend. There are ten games. Four are being played on Saturday. Of those four only one is being played at 3pm. Whatever happened to the good old days, when all teams played at 3pm on a Saturday. It added to the excitement to listen to the scores at half time and try and work out what would happen in the league if the scores stayed the same, and then to listen to the scores at full time, or on the radio when you got back to the car and hear how those around you the league had done. And it means not being able to see highlights of all premiership games on MOTD on a Saturday night. Footballs is not what it used to be.

Triangle

What's the difference between Spurs and a triangle? A triangle has three points.

Right so that is a joke I nicked from somewhere else and have now told you.

I was going to show you a funny picture here, but I can't seem to put it here - probably due to my technical incompetency. I shall see if Paul can do it when I see him at the weekend. Oh yes you heard that right, I will see Paul at the weekend. That is because we are both in Ipswich. So maybe I will see you too if that is where you are.

Dreams

I had some really scary dreams last night. In all of them this man was trying to attack me. Sometimes it was in my flat, sometimes it was in a different flat that the council were letting me stay in to try and hide me from this man. Interestingly the council flat had 7 beds in it, some of them were doubles. I couldn't work out why the council were letting me stay there when there must be families that needed big flats.

In one of the dreams this man was attacking me in a car park. There were other people about and none of them seemed that bothered I was being attacked. Then walking into view come dad, Steve, Paul, Gareth, Kev and Crug. So I think they will rescue me from this attacking man. I call to them, but they don't hear. So I start calling them all by name, they still don't hear. Calling them gets harder because the attacker man is trying to strangle me. Eventually they hear. A couple of them glance over and walk away. Some of them walk up to us, so I think they are going to help me, then they just shrug and walk away. Crug comes running over, pulling some ninja moves as he does so. I'm convinced that Crug is going to save me, but he runs right past, and helps someone who has fallen over, or something trivial like that. By this point I really can't breathe at all, and I can see all these men I know and think will help me standing watching. And then I wake up. Bizarre and scary.

In one of the dreams the man had broken into my flat. I didn't know he was there, but from the window I see two police officers notice something and come running towards my flat, so I guess that the attacker man has just come into my flat. I go out onto the landing and he is there, he grabs me by the throat, the police officers come in. I don't know what happens next because I woke up.

In another one he was in my bedroom while I was asleep. He was sitting on my legs. I woke up aware that he was there. I could hardly breathe because I was sure that he was going to do something really bad to me. He comes and stands by head, I can't feel my legs because he's been sitting on them. He is stood by my head, I am tyring to ask him who he is, because I feel that if I know who he is I can stop him doing anything to me, but I can't speak, so I can't ask him. Then I woke up, and strangely I couldn't feel my legs at all for a few minutes.

Evoking memories.

It's funny how a certain smell, or sound, or place can evoke a memory in you. Today I went to a church that is not my regular church. I went there because I had been invited to go and talk about the work I do. During the service several of the songs sung were ones that could be found on a set of CD's that were played quite a lot when my mum and auntie were in hospital and the hospice. The memory of place and emotion that came flooding back to me were overwhelming and unexpected. I have sung those songs since, so why was it that in this strange church they evoked such a strong actually and emotional memory.

Now here is something I don't understand

Why is it that when someone has had a baby they think that it is ok to show people pictures of them feeding the baby with their boobs all on display? In my world its not normal to say to someone 'here look at this picture of my boob', or send an email with a picture of your boob attached, or but pictures of your boobs on facebook. So why is it that because there is a baby attached to the boob it seems acceptable to do this?

Dilemma

Here is a dilemma that I have. On Thursday I could go and see Deliriou5? in Cambridge. If I did this it would mean buying a ticket (using money), driving to Cambridge straight after work, and then either driving straight back home afterwards, or staying with Steve. If I took the staying with Steve option I could either get up early and drive back, or take the day off work and stay at Steve's and study. Steve is going to Ipswich on Friday, so I could not stay the whole weekend, alongside the fact that I am at an Owl Hoot on Saturday and working on Sunday. Going to see Deliriou5? would mean seeing a friend that I've not really properly seen in a while. Staying in Cambridge on the Friday means having the option of seeing some friends who moved there at the end of August. Now this all makes dilemma levels of decision making for this girl who is rubbish at decisions. Add to this the fact that a whole load of work landed at my feet this morning (including a meeting on Thursday evening, and preparing for the working on Sunday amongst other things), and it just leaves me not really knowing what to do.

Today

This very day I am going to finish work at 3pm. Then I am going to the house of my friend, from where we shall walk into town. When we are in town we are going to eat some food, and then see Jason Donovan who is performing in our local shopping centre. When we have done that we will then go and do some shopping because I need to get some clothes to wear for the Walley wedding. This in itself is all very exciting, but to add to the excitement I found five pounds in my jeans pocket this morning. I think this could be the best day ever. Well maybe not ever. But definitely the best day of the month so far.

Secrets

Right here is something that happened to me recently (that's what you write about on these blog type things isn't it?)

Someone who I work with started going out with someone. It was obvious to everyone that they were going out, lots of people were talking behind their backs about it. They hadn't told anyone that they were going out. They hadn't shown anyone they were going out (no holding hands in public or kissing was seen to be done, in fact they were rarely seen in public together). And yet everyone knew they were going out.

I asked the person I work with if he was going out with this girl, because that is the kind of person I am. He told me yes. He said that it is not a secret, but that it is not public knowledge. So I said nothing to anyone. Even though a fairly large group of people had asked me if I knew for sure they were going out. I just kept my mouth shut.

I was talking with a family who are very good friends of mine. The person I work with knows they are good friends of mine, and that they get told most things that happen in my life/that I know. They asked me if I knew if these two people were going out. I said yes they are, and told them how I knew for sure.

When they next saw him, they were talking with him about his girlfriend. He asked how they knew he was going out with this girl. They said that I had told them. This conversation happened in their home, where no one else could hear it.

I then got in trouble for having told his secrets. I don't quite understand this. Firstly he had said it wasn't a secret. Secondly, I had told some people that he knows I tell everything to, and so knows that what he says they are likely to know. Thirdly, I had know for a while before I told them, and only told them when they asked me (I wasn't going to lie to them). Fourthly, if you are going out with someone, and you want to be going out with them, and you really like them, wouldn't you want to shout it from the roof tops and let the world know?

Maybe I don't understand people. Maybe I don't understand secrets. Ho hum.

Footballs.

Hull seem to be having a cracking season so far. It really warms the old cockles to know that a team from the Championship can go up to the Premiership and beat some of the bigger clubs, and (certainly for now) hold their own. I heard an interview with one of the Hull City FC types who was saying that they are not getting excited by doing well yet, they are wanting to reach 40 points (or whatever the 'safe' number of points is), and then they will start thinking about what they can actually achieve.

Tottenham on the other hand are having a rubbish season so far. And they are one of the teams that you would maybe expect to do quite well.

Sepp Blatter is calling for stricter rules on foreign ownership of clubs. I think he may have a point.

Based on my extensive knowledge and experience of the music industry

I think that Louis made the right choices, apart from possibly Girl Band, although on reflection they maybe they would just scrape into the top three, Cheryl made the right decisions, Simon made all of the wrong decisions, Danii I think made the wrong decisions as well.

Essay

I am doing this college course. Yesterday evening I sat down to do some reading for an essay. It took me half an hour to read four pages. And this was meant to be one of the lighter easier books. Maybe this study thing is all a bit of a mistake.

I told a lie

I said that I got everything off the shopping list. This is a lie. I had mayonnaise on the list, but I didn't buy any because I didn't see it when I walked past it, and I couldn't be bothered to go back for it. However when I got home I found a new jar in the cupboard that I previously hadn't seen there. I wonder if I have mayonnaise blindness.

The weekend.

At the weekend I made a shopping list ready to go shopping. Then I opened my post. In it was a letter that made me very cross. I rang up the people who could help me sort out the reason I was cross. They helped me mostly sort it, but there is bit that can't be sorted. I then rang up my dad to tell him I was cross. This all meant that I left later for the shop, which meant I caught the beginning of the school traffic that I was planning on avoiding. This made me a little bit crosser. I had to deliver some important things to someone on my way, so I did that, and they chatted at me for a little while. I then went and payed some cheques into my bank because I had had them a little while and my account was crying out for the money. By the time I got to the shop I was running late, tired, hungry and still a bit cross. This meant that everything on the list got bought, but so did several other things as well. Like the cinnamon roll I ate on the way home from the shop. And the beer I drunk when I got home. And the random snack type things that I didn't need at all but still ate that evening. And the pot of herbs that may or may not grow and may or may not be of any use if they do grow. And all of this I blame on the letter that made me cross. It is also the letters fault that no tidying or dusting or hoovering got done over the weekend. And it is the letters fault that no essay plan got written, or studying got done over the weekend. Silly letter.

This weekend

These are the things I need to do this weekend. I am writing this as a reminder to myself. It will not be of great interest to people reading, but I keep forgetting what I need to do and so thought I would write it down. I have not written it on a piece of paper because when I do that I put the piece of paper down and forget where I have put it.

Tidy up
Hoover
Dust
Clean bathroom
Clean kitchen
Pay cheques in
Make shopping list (RUTH YOU MUST NOT GO TO THE SHOP THINKING 'OH I KNOW WHAT I NEED', WRITE IT DOWN OR YOU FORGET BY THE TIME YOU GET TO THE SHOP AND BUY THINGS THAT YOU DON'T NEED AND NOT THINGS YOU DO NEED)
Do food shopping (remember to buy tissues and toothpaste)
Write an essay plan
Do some reading for essay
Make cherry buns
Make curry
Make sponge pudding (maybe at same time as buns)
Phone Paul and Dad
Think about making Christmas cards
Go out for lunch on Sunday

Eggheads

The Retrosexuals need to apply to this. They would be much better than most of the teams on there. And they could win some monies. Apply boys. Go on.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtours/beonashow/eggheads.shtml

Tea

For my tea tonight I had a chicken, tomato and muchroom omelet. I always feel there is something a little bit wrong about eating chicken and egg together.

Thread

I currently have my mum's old sewing threads sat on my table. Looking at them I realise that some of them are catorgerised by number and others by colour. The ones that are catorgrised by colour are called Filbert, Dark Elephant, Venetian Red, Old Rose and Gay Kingfisher. They are quite old sewing threads.

More playdough

When I got to work this morning the playdough turned out to be brown. Either the playdough elves had been working on it overnight, or I was looking at it strangely yesterday. The event that required the playdough also went really well, which is good because it had the potential to really not go well.

Playdough

Tomorrow I need some brown playdough. I don't have brown playdough, nor have I recently seen any for sale. I do however have several other colours of playdough. So I thought I would mix my own brown. No matter what colours I seemed to add to the mix, all I could make was a strange greyish-pink. I don't really understand this. Maybe I need to return to the colour wheel.

Pinch and a punch for the first of the month

and no returns.

Mamma Mia

I saw this film about a week ago. A lot of people had told me that I would really enjoy it, so I thought I should trundle along. I had not read anything about it, or heard anything about its storyline. I realise this was a bit of a mistake for me, because I like to know whats going on. I had gone with someone who had seen it a couple of times before. In the first 15 minutes or so they did have to tell me several times to 'just watch it' instead of asking them what was going on, and who was that, and what are they doing, and are they related etc. When I did know what was going on though I really quite enjoyed. I didn't feel like any of the songs had been levered in, which could so easily have happened. It had Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth in it, so plenty of eye candy, no-one seemed to mind a bit of singing along (although not many people outside of those I was with seemed to sing a long). There was a bit of it that made me cry. There were lots of bits that made me laugh. Some bits made me laugh a lot. I walked out of the cinema wanting to see it again on the big screen, I think that is quite a good indicator that I rather enjoyed it.

Greenbelt

Over the weekend I went to Greenbelt. Normally you would stay in a tent at Greenbelt, but I have a friend who lives about a mile from where Greenbelt happens, so I stayed at hers. This turned out to be quite a good thing. The weather was a bit wet and windy and cold, especially at night time, the walk from tent to main bit of Greenbelt was a little way, and there were no showers and only port-a-loos. All very good reasons to be grateful for house staying in.

Here are some of my favourites bits of Greenbelt.
- Seeing friends I don't see very often.
- Watching a deaf dance group from Tanzania
- Woebegone Brothers. Three brothers, all very musically talented, amusing, good time.
- Brian Houston. Absolutely brilliant. Really funny, great songs, brilliant performer. Fightstar were meant to play after him, but they were late so Brian marvelously extended his set and filled in.
- African jazz band.
- Bumping into people I didn't know would be there.
- Pie Minster. Best. Pie. Ever.
- Beer and Hymns.

Bed hopping

On Friday night I slept in a converted farm building in Wales, on Saturday night I slept in a vicarage in Preston, on Sunday night I slept in a flat in Derby, on Monday night I slept in a b&b in Youlgrave, on Tuesday night I returned to the flat in Derby. I will sleep in that bed for two more nights before sleeping in a house in Cheltenham. I've enjoyed doing different things in different places, but I will quite enjoy it when I am in one place for long enough for it to be worth me going food shopping and unpack my wash bag.

Music

Stupid Paul has added another song to his myspace. It is of the kind of quality that we have come to expect of him.

In the last 12 days I have been to Soul Survivor, helped at a holiday club, had Rich to stay on his trip round the country, and had Ben and Leanne to stay for the weekend. I am just tyring to work out which bits of those things I share with the interweb world.

Sometimes

Occasionally I like to read old blog post. Not just on here but on other people's blogs too. It reminds of things that have happened in the past that I might have forgotten about. It is a nice thing to do. It also makes me think I should blog more so that when I forget things I have a way of remembering them. The trouble is I just don't remember to blog.

Today

I am a little bit sad today. Paul and Steve came up to stay this weekend. Now they are gone I am a bit sad. My flat feels all empty. There is no-one to cook with. Or to chat with. Or to play games with. Or to question as to who is responsible for that smell. Or to pop out on a little walk with. Or any of the things you quickly get used to when there are people around. I am also a little bit sad because I don't actually know when I am going to see them again.

I am a little bit happy today. I have only three half days left of working with someone who is hard to get on with. I have only three days left before going to Soul Survivor. It is only 10 days before Rich comes to visit on his trip round the country (he's doing it all for free, trying to not spend any money, and in the process raise money for the Christian Alliance Housing Association). It is only 11 days before Ben and Leanne come for a weekend of birthday fun. It is only 19 days until camp, that is going to be a whole load of fun. It is only 32 days until Greenbelt. There is a lot of happy making things coming up in the next month or so.

Top speeling

This are some words I came across today when writing some things some 7 year olds had written.

fowd
noo
yooneform
scicesec
sayns

I was able to work out what they all said. This either means my spelling is not so great, or I have read a lot of things small children have written and have developed the knack of working out what they mean.

This made me do a little cry, but I am a bit soft.

Right being a bit on the not bright side I can't work how to do this properly so you will just have to click on this here link. Try and have the sound on, although it's still good without.

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=8616c1559ab4221b3910

(ignore the last 30 seconds, he manages to turn something very moving into a 'give us lots of money' bit - some people eh!)

Yesterday

Yesterday I did this thing called ‘having a birthday’ (my thanks if you sent birthday greetings). Now normally I don’t really like ‘having a birthday’. But yesterday I quite enjoyed it.

I think one of the things I don’t much like about ‘having a birthday’ is celebrating it. I don’t like having to do the thinking about how to celebrate, who to invite, and then actually doing the celebration. I do sometimes think about doing nothing. My fear then is that someone will either take over and organise something that I don’t want to do with people I don’t want to celebrate with, or that someone will organise a surprise. I dislike surprises more than I dislike ‘having a birthday’. So I normally sort something myself.

Last year I combined it with doing a ‘Ruthie is leaving’ thing, so that the focus was off ‘having a birthday’. The year before lots of us watched a film in the park and I got really rather tipsy (which took my focus off ‘having a birthday’.)

So this year, why did I actually quite enjoy it? Well mostly because I didn’t celebrate it. Very few people where I now live knew it was my birthday. Those that did know know I don’t like celebrating it, so let me not celebrate. No one mentioned it when we were in school, so the children didn’t know. I went to someone’s for tea, they just said ‘happy birthday’ and gave me a card, didn’t make any more of it than that. And then in the evening I went crown green bowling with people from church (most of whom had no idea it was my birthday). And so by not celebrating I actually had an incredibly pleasant birthday.

For those of you who think it makes me sound all rather boring, I am being made to celebrate this Friday, but it was organised all last minute so hardly anyone could come, so I can pretend it has nothing to do with my birthday and is just about a few friends having fun. And then there will be a weekend later in the month when I see family and so I might use the excuse of it having been my birthday recently to get them to cook me dinner and buy me beer, and another weekend next month when I shall be involved in a triple birthday celebration with some dear friends as at the beginning of the year we decided this would be more fun than buying each other presents. Somehow though, those celebrations being not that close to my birthday make them ok celebrations. So yes, this year I think I coped rather well with ‘having a birthday’, mostly by not having one.

I have got some new glasses

I've not really got much more to say than that. Other than maybe I have two new pairs of glasses. They are both wider than my old glasses, which means I can clearly see more of the world around me.

Gareth wins

Well done Gareth. You had the winning team. That makes you a winner! As your prize you can claim a hug off any/all the Armstrong's. I'm told the final was a good game. I couldn't watch it coz it made me feel too nervous. I watched Top Gear instead. It wasn't so funny this week, and there was a lot in about cars. Dr Who was good this week. Does anyone know if he actually regenerates? It's just that normally you hear about that kind of thing in the news, and I've not heard anything. Today I heard some of my least favourite words. They are 'with Scott Mills coz Chris is on holiday'. I don't like those words very much. But it does mean I get ready quicker in the morning coz I spend less time lying in bed listening to the radio.

Ring and camera

About six months ago I lost a very lovely ring that my wonderful Paul had bought me for a birthday several years ago. I was rather upset that I had lost it. I had looked and looked and looked for it, and I had got other people to look for it in case I had lost at their houses.

A few weeks ago I lost my camera. Couldn't find it anywhere. I was fairly sure it was somewhere in my flat, but really didn't know where.

Today I thought I would just check those bags on top of the wardrobe in case I had taken my camera somewhere in one of them and left it in there. My camera was not in them. BUT my ring was!!!!! Yipeeeeee. Woohoo! Whoop whoop! I was so excited I did a little dance and then rang Paul to tell him I had found it. Hurrah!

As I went to pick up my phone from the base where it doth rest, right next to it sat there looking at me all forlorn was my camera!!! Double joy!

Footballs

Listening to the footballs on my radio I found myself thinking 'ooo how exciting, we have an all Europe final'. I'm thinking maybe I missed the slight clue in the whole competition being called 'euro 08'. I blame this entirely on tiredness and not at all on lack of brain cells.

Bananaman

Last week I got a Bananaman costume. It is possibly the most exciting thing I have ever owned. After my megaphone. I am very very excited about wearing it. So much so in fact that I keep on putting it on around the house just to have a little practice at being Bananaman. My life rocks!

Two football stories that amused me, taken from the BBC football gossip page

Switzerland's railway staff will now wear yellow vests instead of orange ones after Dutch fans followed a worker onto the tracks as they thought he was a football fan. (Daily Telegraph)

French coach Raymond Domenech knows exactly why his side failed so miserably at Euro 2008. It was the team's hotel. "The layout of the hotel was all wrong," he said. "It was in a kind of cul-de-sac with only one route in and out. Plus, there were no proper directives from the Swiss about gatherings of people watching us eat." (Daily Express)

Footballs and non-uniform

Portugal are out. Doh.

The school over the road from where I work has a non-uniform day today. If children come in non-uniform they have to bring in £2 or a bottle of wine for the school summer fayre.

Quarter finals

Spain (Gareth), Holland (Steve), Italy (Paul) and Portugal (me) are all through to the quarter finals. Spain will play either Holland or Italy, so one of you will knock one of the others out, so to speak. I've not seen loads of the games, but what I have seen has been enjoyable and entertaining.

In other news, in my dreams last night I was engaged to someone, but I have no idea who. I'm not entirely sure I was happy about being engaged either, so maybe it was someone I didn't want to be engaged to, or maybe I wasn't happy at not knowing who it was.

The Apprentice

Tonight I am going to watch the final of The Apprentice. I have been quite enjoying this series. I think it's only fault has been that Michael should've gone much much sooner. The interviews last week were rather interesting. Lee was maybe slightly daft to do his strange dinosaur impression, but I think if someone asked me to do something in an interview I would probably do it. It was interesting to see all those that had done the interviews not quite agreeing with each other, and there was no one clear person tat stood out head and shoulders above the rest. I was really surprised when Sir Alan kept four of them, so surprised that I rang my bro and asked him if he was watching. He was. And he graciously spoke to me for a few minutes before telling me that actually he was still tyring to watch, but couldn't with me wittering in his ear. So we put the phone down.

While I am looking forward to the final, I am wondering if the Radio Times is giving something away. On their website the description for tonight's You're Fired says 'we meet the two who almost made it but fell at the final hurdle.' So there are four people left in the final. We are expecting one person to be hired. The Radio Times are saying two people fell at the final hurdle, that suggests to me that two did not fall. I think the people most likely to win are Clare and/Alex. I think Helen is not so good, and Lee is OK but would be fairly annoying to work with.

Footballs

Portugal won 2-0 yesterday. I saw the tail end of the game. It was good.

Steve is supporting Holland.

Euro 08

Right so this year we cannot support our own country in the upcoming football tournament, so I think we all need a team to support to make it a little more interesting. I am going for Portugal. Who will your team be?

When I say church, you say quiz.......

On Saturday I went to a church quiz. It was run by Littleover Churches Together, and so there were people there from many different churches. On my team there was me, two 16 year olds, a 13 year old and two people in there 40's. We were the youngest team there by a long long way, the rest of the room was fairly dominated by white haired type people. The quiz master was 20 minutes late, as the advertising in his church said it started half an hour later than it did. The first round was bible stuff - fair enough you think for a church quiz. He gave us the answer to the first question, not even by accident, he did it on purpose. The first question was, ‘what was the name of Isaiah’s horse?’ The answer to this was ‘Isme, because Isaiah said ‘Woe is me.’ It turned out the rest of round had answers like that. Another question was ‘what vegetable did Noah not want on the ark?’ Answer: a leek. At this point we wondered if we had come to a quiz or a guess the corny punchline evening. It unsurprisingly turned out that no-one got more than about 3 points out of ten in that round.

The quiz did pick up slightly from there. There were some good questions, many of which we could answer. We played our joker on a round that we got full marks on, so that was pleasing.

Round 8 was due to be a music round. We were unsure how we would do with this round as with this kind of round it often depends on who has put it together as to how easy it is. Had the quiz master have put it together it would have all been music from before when we were born. It turned out that someone else had put the round together. It also turned out that when they gave the quiz master the tape, they didn’t give them the answers. This was realised at about round 6, so the score person went off to see if they could get the answers. They couldn’t

Between each round they kept trying to get hold of the person who had put the music round together, to no avail. We did round 9 and round 10, in the hope that the answers to the music round (round 8) may come available. It was getting a little bit late by now, and some people wanted to go home. We were asked if we wanted to do the music round. Many people didn’t, but we thought it would be quite fun, and as the most vocal team, our voices were heard and the music round began.

The first song was All Saints, Pure Shores – I had half a thought that it was All Saints, but didn’t remember the song. Someone else on my team thought it was Kiss Me by Six Pence None the Richer, so that is what we gave as our answer. We had a few more bits of songs, most of which we knew the title to, and some of which we knew the artist to.

The sixth song was Sex on the Beach by The Venga Boys. It was a part of the song were they sung ‘sex on the beach’ several times. Now bear in mind for one moment the demograph of the people at the quiz (elderly Christians). We found the looks on their faces rather amusing. The quiz master clearly had no idea that song was on the tape either. The next song was Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys. Normally this would not be amusing, but considering the song it followed it turned out to be rather amusing.

When we got to the end of the round, the tape was played again in case we had missed any. That meant that we got to see the interesting looks on peoples faces again. By the time we had listened to it a second time, they had managed to get on the phone the person who had put the round together. She didn’t have a list of the answers in front of her, so for her to give the answers the tape had to be played a third time so she could listen to the songs and try and remember what they were.

I done a good answer to another of the songs. It was Octpus’s Garden, which is a song originally done by The Beatles. This version sounded quite Beatlesish, but I didn’t think it was them. Thought the person singing sounded a bit like Ringo Starr, so we put that as our answer and it turned out is was right! Another answer I knew and I was quite proud of (I think this was in the geography round) was ‘where does Postman Pat live?’
Anyway the main thing really that is actually important from the whole evening is that my team won – by a clear two and a half points. That was good. Our prize was 8 bags of left over crisps – whoop! (oh and btw it raised about £100 for Christian Aid)

Grace

At church tonight we were thinking about grace, different aspects and all that. Sometimes I hear stuff in church and think 'yes, but how do I now apply that to my life'. This evening I had no trouble applying it to my life, I was sat between someone who really could not sing but still sang at a reasonable volume and someone with dog muck on their shoe. Undeserved kindness was definitely needed to be shown to both those people.

Forgotten

I just thought of something to blog. It took me six clicks and 35 key taps to be able to blog. In the time that took I have forgotten what it was I was going to say. I will be back if I remember.

I have forgotten to go on here a bit. I don't really have anything to say (part of the reason I have forgotten), but part of the reason is also that the Hayley Gareth type blog has been down, and that is the main way I access this little bit of space. So really I place any blame to be apportioned on Mark. I will try and think of something to say one day.

Dream land

Last night I had a really strange dream. I was at some kind of largish Christian type event. It was no specific one I have ever been to, but did have parts of different ones I have been to. There were people there from different parts of my life who have never been in the same place a the same time. That is not so unusual for dream world I guess, but I can remember thinking in the dream that it was weird that these people were all in one place, but put it down to being at a largish Christian type event and the Christian world being small meaning that sometimes you see people where you would not expect, or find out that that someone you know knows someone else that you know but you never knew they knew each other.

One of the people in the dream was Hayley. I had gone on a long walk as all the food we were being served was either very expensive or had cheese and/or chocolate in. For some reason this meant I should go on a long walk. I then met Hayley, who was staying with some of her uni friends in some caravans (the nice kind) near a railway station (it was unclear whether it was disused or not).

They were staying in the caravans as it was the cheapest way to go to the largish Christian type event. Anyway, it turned out that they had been robbed because they had left a little window open. Two of Hayely’s friends had had everything stolen (undies and all). Hayley wasn’t too worried because she had only had a couple of things taken, and they were things she didn’t really like anyway. Right so none of this is the interesting part, I shall start a new paragraph and get onto it now.

Right we were at the largish worship gathering, there were lots of CYM (of the Ipswich variety) staff and hangers on there. We reached the ‘ministry’ part of the worship gathering. There were lots of people praying for other people. These parts of a worship gathering always make me feel uncomfortable and God has to poke me a lot if he wants me to pray for someone or be prayed for. We were being told to get into two’s and pray for each other. The people around me had all paired up and there was no-one left for me to pair up with in the immediate vicinity. Because of this and my general uncomfortableness at these parts of worship gatherings I sat down, with my knees up and my forehead resting on my knees so that I could peek out and see what was happening.

There were lots of people praying for each other and that was great for them. There was someone else sitting down next to me, and someone else sitting down next to her. I don’t know of they were praying for each other or not. From my peeking out position I could see Dave Pepper was going round praying for people. I thought that this was not a right thing to do because we had been asked by the important man at the front to pray in pairs and he was not doing this, and also he was not on the ‘ministry team’ and so had no right to go round praying for people. I thought to myself, ‘he better not come and pray for me coz he’s not following the instructions right and he’s not meant to be doing that!’

Anyway he prayed for the person sitting next to the person sitting next to me. She stood up as he prayed. He prayed for the person sat next to me, she stood up as he prayed. As the woman sat next to me stood up while Dave Pepper prayed for her I found myself standing up as well. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stop myself from doing so. As soon as I stood up Dave came and prayed for me, putting his hand on the top of my head. I kept feeling like I was going to fall over, and thought I must have stood up too quickly and that had made me dizzy. Then I fell right over in one big collapse. I realised I had been ‘slain in the Spirit*’. Now this has never happened to me in real life, so for it happen in a dream was incredibly strange. I was shaking, was tingly, was warm in a glowing kind of way, and it felt like there was a huge sheet wafting over me, and like someone was giving me an all embracing hug. Dave stayed with me and kept praying for me until the experience had ended.



* this is not a phrase I am particularly comfortable using, I think it is because it makes it sound like a bad thing, slaying happens with dragons and knights and all that, but I looked it up on wikipedia and it told me this –‘when a person enters a state with loss of all motor control over their body and falls to the floor during an event perceived as a personal encounter with God's glory and power, usually associated with occasions of public prayer ministry when the laying on of hands is practiced.’ This description I feel comfortable with.

Nowt going on round here

Paul's internet is not very working so you won't find him on here at the mo. I have nothing to say that anyone would particularly want to read so you won't find me on here at the mo. If Paul's internet gets fixed, or my brain gets fixed you may find something or interest here, but until then you just won't.

Holiday

Right so i can't think of any particular funny anecdotes from my holiday. This may be because there aren't any, but it could just be that I can't remember them, or that in retelling them they lose all their funniness. Instead I will tell you some things we did when we were on holiday.
- Went paddling a few times in the freezing cold sea.
- Went for a full dip in the freezing cold sea
- Done dome walking places
- Saw some old ruins
- went to a pub or two
- Drank some Guinness
- Paid some rather high prices for food
- Paid for carrier bags
- Drove places
- Saw the Blarney Stone (but didn't kiss it coz that's just a whole load of rubbish)
- Got a tea towel
- Watched one episode of neighbours, and one episode of Eastenders
- Read some good books
- Cooked some food, and ate it
- Went on a bus
- Made a sand castle, using spoons and empty food vessels as we had no buckets and spades.
- Told lots of random dogs to go away
- Watched/listened to a rather good Irish singer man in a pub
- Chatted with a drunk Irish lady

I can't think of anything else now. You can see now that it might be that there just are no funny anecdotes to tell as this is a list of possibly not exciting things to do. Please don't go thinking we had no fun though because we did. It just wasn't anecdotally funny. Right now maybe I should do something that looks a little bit like work.

Right so my excuse for not blogging is that I've been on holiday. I know that this means that so many people have been terribly disappointed that there have been no incredibly boring posts to read. Paul's excuse probably has something to do with playing the guitar and making some songs up or something. The real excuse should probably be studying. But I don't think it is. I know that the lack of Paul's posts means the lack of amusing things on here. I would apologise for this but lets face it, I'm not my brothers keeper. If I feel like it I might tell you some things about my holiday. Like where I went. Or what the weather was like. Or what food we ate. Or who I went with. Or what we did. But if I don't feel like it then I won't. If you are my Facebook friend you can find out many of these things without me telling you here thanks to the joy and excitement of photo's. Today is Monday. Hello.

Ricky and Bianca

I had weaned myself off Eastenders, but thought I'd tune in to see the return of two great characters this week. They aren't half dragging it out though. This little video is more than we've seen of Bianca all week.

Shop door; further thoughts.

Having thought about it, and having conversed with my occasionally sensible brother I am thinking that maybe a door that opens both ways would not be so good. The main reason for this is that if there is someone standing on one side of it who is about to open the door one way, and someone on the other side opens it the other way, then one of them will get a surprise and maybe a donk on the nose. This could lead to not happy customers, which would not be so good for business. A solution could be a revolving door, but as one who suffers from mild claustrophobia (due to a childhood dream involving a drinks bottle spout) I am not a huge fan of revolving doors. Maybe an 'in' and an 'out' door is the way to go.

Rather Dull

Today for my tea I had baked beans and pancakes. I did not have these together, I ate the baked beans while I was cooking the pancakes. Also while I was cooking the pancakes Delilah by Tom Jones came on the radio, I turned it up loud and danced and sang a lot to it. As I made the pancakes I put them in a tray in the oven that was slightly turned on to keep them warm until I was ready to eat them. To eat each pancake I put the filling in and then rolled it up and then picked it up with my fingers and ate it all up. That is all with the exception of numbers 4 and 5 which I rolled up and then ate with a spoon.

This is what I had on my pancakes:

1. Peanut Butter and Maple Syrup. I really quite like Peanut Butter, and I am learning to like Maple Syrup. Together on a pancake they made a great combination. I would give this filling 7.8 out of 9.
2. Not Just Any Lemon Curd and Bog Standard Plain Yogurt. This was proper gorgeous. At this moment I thought things could not get better. If I had rated it at that exact moment I would've given it a 9 out of 9. In retrospect I think it should have a 8.6 out of 9.
3. Strawberry Jam and Plain Yogurt. This was even better than number 2. As I ate number 2 I thought nothing could be better than it, but this little number proved me wrong. I got no lumps in the jam, I think if there had've been a big lump it might have very rather spoiled it. This one received a top score of 8.9 out of 9.
4. Lemon Juice (fresh from the lemon) and Soft Brown Sugar (fairly traded). This was as tasty as any pancakeswith fresh lemon juice and soft brown sugar, proper tasty and all that. I give a score of 8.5 out of 9.
5. Same filling as number 4. This time with a rating of 8.4 out of 9 because the pancake was a little bit cooler.
6. Not Just Any Lemon Curd, Strawberry Jam and Plain Yogurt. I had no more new fillings to try at this point, so I thought back through the other fillings I had just had, and decided to combine the two best ones. For the first two and a half bites I thought that maybe I had made a big mistake, but for the rest of the culinary delight, I realised that no mistake had been made, but instead I had made a Thing of Great Delight. I ate it all up. I give this one a tip top score of 9 out of 9.

As I was eating these pancakes I had Hollyoaks on. It was either a bit of a dull episode or the pancakes were very good, because I can't really remember what happened in it.

If you have read all of that and found it Rather Dull I have no sympathy, the clue was in the entry title.

Shop door

I was just thinking that if I ever owned a shop or restaurant or such like I think I would have a door that opened both ways, I feel that that would make it a whole lot easier for people using said door.

Hidey Seek

We had a lot of fun playing Hidey Seek on Saturday. Me and Paul had had a sneaky game on Friday, but that was not as much fun as Saturdays game because on the Saturday game me and Paul and Steve and Dad played. It started when me and Dad got back from seeing the rather fantastic London Community Gospel Choir. I won three of the four games, and unfortunately lost the other game badly. My bestest hiding place was on the window sill in Steve's room. I had to stand a bit funny to fit on and not make the curtains stick out, but it was worth the funny standing. Dad was hiding in a cupboard in the next room. At one point he broke the cupboard a bit, and another point he did a big fart. I had to try very hard not to laugh when I heard both these things happen because it would have given away my hiding place. Paul was seeking for this game. Paul did possibly the best hiding place of all. It was the game I was seeking for, and I had to give up because I could not see him anywhere. He had hidden in the under stairs cupboard, right up in the corner kind of behind the shoe storage with a blanket over him (it is where the blanket is normally kept so it just looked like the blanket was there as normal). He had also pulled the hoover (it is really a hoover made by hoover, so by saying hoover I am not using a brand name to describe a generic sucking device, I am actually calling it by its proper make name) back into its normal place so it didn't look like anyone had gone in there. It was a good hidey place. Steve was the very worst, all the times he hid part of him was sticking out (at one point his whole head was not in his hidey place), which made him very easy to find. If I have spoken to you at all since Saturday night you will have already heard this story, I am not sorry you have heard it twice for I am sure you will agree it is a lovely story. The end.

Further injury

To add the the overly bruised knee, I bit my tongue last night. It now has two lovely teeth marks in it and a couple of bits of flappy skin. I also feel quite sick today and have a headache, I am hoping that is just tiredness causing those two things, and not some bug or such like.

Completely unrelated, but a few weeks ago Paul and I realised that neither of us ever remember what out blog www dot is, but we do remember our friends so we go there and use the handy link they have to our blog whenever we want to post/find out what the other one is doing. So thank you hayleycornwell.com for having an easy to remember interweb address thingy.

Bruises

I have five bruises on my right knee. I only know how I got one of them. Where have the other four come from? They are all in the general vicinity of the knee cap. I do generally bruise easily, but think that maybe I should've noticed bumping myself five times.

Sometimes people are not useful

I had not told someone something as it would be rather unuseful for them to know this piece of information at this point in time (although they would need to know it at some point in the future). There were only three people who knew this piece of information. One of them told the person that I had chosen not to tell as it would be unuseful for them to know it at this point in time. Now I have to explain why I hadn't told them, and tell them more of the information than they would have needed to know when I was going to choose to tell them because this other person has told them some of the information. People!

I need someone to do nothing with!

I found a website today that is advertising a CD of traditional nursery rhyme tunes with Christan words so that teaching children about Jesus is made much easier! In fairness it looks rather twee, but on the blog type bit of the website I did find this poem by Hazel Butler that sums up some of my thinking these days


I need someone to do nothing with!
To sit and just to be.
Someone who’ll accept me,
The simple, no-frills, me.
Someone who spots the difference
‘Tween grunts, a gasp, a moan;
Who knows when they should comment
And when to leave alone.

I need someone to pass the T-towel,
To turn the last light off;
Someone I hear breathing
Or give the slightest cough.
Someone who loves the silence
That sits between us both –
A mark of understanding,
Acceptance of our sloth!

I need someone who’s not frenetic
Or striving to achieve,
Not madly energetic
From morning until eve.
Someone who’ll smell the roses,
Light a candle, spot a shrew,
And boil two cobs for dinner –
‘Enough for me and you!’

I need someone to do nothing with,
Communicating love,
Accepting of the silence,
That frees my mind to rove ;
Exploring scraps of nonsense,
Inconsequential thought,
The dust that’s on the table
Or stuff that I have bought.

I need someone who knows the meaning
Of every breath exhaled ;
A groan that marks frustration
With plans that somehow failed.
A sigh of satisfaction,
Or a funny little thought,
A gasp ‘cos I’ve forgotten
To do something that I ought!

I need someone, when the day is done,
And crowd has been dispersed,
The celebration’s over,
And I’m looking at my worst,
Someone to do nothing with,
To unwind and relax;
To chew the details over
Of the feelings and the facts.

When I kick the slippers off my feet
And sink into the chair,
Someone to do nothing with
Is what I need right there!

Some days.

Some days I cope quite well with this life malarkey, and most things go tikkety boo. Other days I don't cope quite so well and fall apart a little bit. Today was a falley apart day. I didn't realise quite how much of a falley apart day until I made a drink in a Pyrex jug instead of a mug, and didn't realise my mistake until the drink had been made. Oh dear.

This weekend had some fun moments

This weekend I was in Ipswich. It had some fun moments. They included:

Barn dancing
Going to Felixstowe with bruv 3
Clearing out a cupboard at an old work place
An 80's disco
Eating a jacket potato
Jumping on a bouncy castle
Watching Shaun the Sheep
Chatting with people I hadn't seen for a couple of months
Being told I was missed (although I do always find it slightly strange being told I am missed when I was fairly undervalued in the place I was missed, if what I was doing was of value enough to now be missed, why did no-one make it known it was of value when I was doing it. Hmmm)
Hearing a good speaker man (the only church type person I've seen who has catered for all learning styles and preferences)
A cracking afternoon nap
Two fun pub nights
Good leek and potato soup
Top worship
Some people who don't normally talk to me talking to me
Making up a dance
Tea with Steve

Some things that were not really as much fun:

Mothering Sunday
Being ignored by some people
Consequences of a great pub night
Aches from dancing
Not having a conversation that might have been helpful if it had taken place (although I was not sure what I think about the conversation that might have been helpful, so I couldn't really initiate it)
A minister who does not listen
Not sleeping well
Mad weather while journeying
Not seeing Paul

From this we can deduce there was more fun things than not so fun things. Isn't that lovely.

This weekend

I was going to do a blog at the weekend, and it was going to be an exciting one because I was going to do one that was JOINT WITH PAUL. Yes that is right I was going to do one joint with Paul because he was visiting at the weekend. We were going to blog about some fun things we did. We didn't actually get round to it though. We did write some captions to some photos on the book of face though, so if you want some of the joint Armstrong writings then look at those with your eyes. We did do some fun things. Like going to the cinema and looking at a film. Like visiting my friends and being fed alcohol. Like having a big fry up. Like going to watch some football. Like watching a film. Like playing Simpsons Uno. Like doing a look at MOTD. Like having porridge. Like going to church. Like going to a yummy Chinese buffet. Like playing hide and seek. Like doing a mini service. There we go, now I have written down a lot of the things we did we won't forget them and maybe will write a bit more about them. But even if we don't, then you still know all of the fun things we did at the weekend when Paul visited. I think that now you are probably really jealous and wish you were there as well, coz you can see that we really did some fun things.

Warning

Only ever watch this if you have seen the Be Kind Rewind movie film

If you have never seen it but would one day like to then do not even watch this.

Tis the season

for scrunching hands inside sleeves. Today it is blooming cold. The kind of cold that even thermals cannot warm you through. As I wandered into work today I had my hands scrunched up inside my mittens with no tops, inside my coat. I realised as I was walking that most other people also had their hands scrunched up inside their sleeves. It was like a universal unspoken acknowledgment of how blooming cold it is. We had a smattering of snow overnight. I am hoping that what with it being so very cold and all that we might get some more snow so that being so jolly cold is worth it in the end.

Boring

This week (well from mon-thur) has potential to be quite dull because for us here in the cold land of Derbyshire it is half term. I don't get school holidays (to the shock of most of the people in our supporting churches), which means I am in the office this week. I have a bit of planning to do, but probably not a whole weeks work. So what fun things can I do that still make it look like I'm working?

Things will get more exciting on Friday beacuse the Paul piece arrives on Friday for a weekend of fun, football and .

Two things

1. Following on from the laminator breakage. We now have a new laminator, it works brilliantly and I love it (as much as one would love an inanimate object that is).

2. It is looking like we have the right weather conditions for it too snow. If it did it would come just in time for our half term. Woohoo!!

Today

Today the laminator broke,
Just when I needed it the most.
Why do things go and do that,
I just don't understand,
why the thing that need most of all,
goes and crumbles in your hand.

Today I needed something,
and it hadn't yet been done.
Why is it that some people think
That I need this done by then
means 'do it when you feel like it'
not 'get this done by ten.'

Today I watched a well poor film,
it promised to be good.
Why is that the film reviews
don't match just what I see,
A lot of my time could be saved
If people got things right for me.

Today I had to play part,
It was a first for me.
Why is that this particular one
made me shake like never before,
Throughout the nerves I could lose
Yet I finished wanting more.

Today I got some feedback
on a piece of work I'd done.
Why is that when people say nice things,
and the things are aimed at me,
They make me squirm and wriggle,
I cannot take them gracefully.

Today I realised anew,
That me is a good place to be.
Why can't I know this all time,
Why does it not always feel true,
Why can't I forever love the skin I'm in,
Why do I let myself feel blue.

Today the sun shone down on me
And brightened up my life.
Amidst the things that weren't so good,
the trouble and the strife,
I knew that life was not so bad,
I knew my friends loved me.
I knew that I would always live
And love them gratefully.

Here is a silly thing I did

Today I cooked some sausage rolls ready for my lunch tomorrow. I got them out of the oven, put them on top of the oven, got my spatular, loosened them and left them to cool. All week I have been craving egg mayo. I decided that a great accompnaint to my sausages rolls would be an egg mayo sandwich. I put the egg in some water in a pan, put it on the cooker, turn the hob plate thingy on, walk out of the kitchen, shut the door (it's a very cold room so I try to keep the cold in it).

I went to go and do some faffing about on my puter box. After a while I realise there is a strange smell coming from the kitchen, but put it down to the fact that the pan with the egg in is on a hob platey thing that is larger than the pan, and the smell must be whatever crud is on the hob platey thing burning off.

When I've done on the puter box, I go into the kitchen to check on the progress of the boiling egg. As I walk into the kitchen I realise that something is not right. I come to this realisation by the fact that my kitchen is filled with smoke, and that it smells quite awful. I go to the cooker to see what is up. The tray with the sausage rolls on is smoking yay verily. The spatular that was sat on the tray is exceptionally melted, and somking more than the tray. The sausage rolls are blackening from the bottom up. It turns out that what I did was not turn on the hob platey thing under the egg in water in a pan, but actually turn on the hob platey thing that the tray with sausages rolls for tomorrows lunch and the spatular was sat on.

This was a silly thing I did.

Ha ha

First Particle: Why are you crying?
Second Particle: I've lost an electron.
First Particle: Are you sure?
Second Particle: Yes, I'm positive.

Convention Crashers

If you have 4od, and you haven't seen any of Justin Lee Collins Convention Crashers series, I recommend you go watch some. There are three programs in the series, JLC learns how to be a magician, a ventriloquist and a clown. All really rather funny.

Ok, so what happened there was

Right, I wanted to put a video from youtube on here, but I couldn't manage to put on the one I wanted, Paul was talking me through it but it just wouldn't work. There was another one that I also thought people should see, so as I was trying to put that one on, Paul was trying to put the original one on, and we ended up both putting different videos on at the same time. They are both rather worth a watch.

I am trying to think of some amusing incident to tell you of, or some great thing that has happened in my life that you all should know about, or some other such interesting thing, but I don't have any. So maybe I'll prattle on a bit instead. This year I am 10,000 days old, I am thinking of not celebrating my birthday at its normal time but instead celebrating when I reach 10,000 days. I went along to a 16th birthday party on Saturday. It was a fancy dress party with the theme of stereotypes. Most of the girls were wearing next to nothing. My mother would never have let me go out dressed like that (although I probably wouldn't have wanted to, so it was never really an issue). There were a couple of rather good chavs. The winner of the fancy dress was someone who had some dressed as a typical stereo box. I thought that was quite funny. In church last night we played pass the parcel. All of the prizes were chocolate. Not really so great for someone who can't eat chocolate. It was meant to be a 'this is a really depressing time of year lets cheer you up' pass the parcel. They should've thought that chocolate doesn't cheer all people up. Right now I've rabbited on a bit it makes it look like I might have something interesting to say, whereas if you've read this far you will realise that really there was nothing interesting there at all, but you have lost approximately 3 minutes of your life reading it.

Ray Stevens

We used to have a Ray Stevens record when we were younger, which we all enjoyed a lot. I have recently rediscovered Ray Stevens thanks to the wonders of youtube. If you have a few minutes to spare check out some of his songs. If you have even more time to spare check out Marty Berk's versions of some of his songs.

youtube

I want to put on here an amusing video from the youtube. How do I do it please?

Top pots

Carrying on in the looking back at the past year at things that have been good, we have my top five pots.

Pot number one is my saute (or skillet) pan. I cook many things in it, soup, sausage casserole, chicken in sauce, a fry up, stir fry, curry etc. It is incredibly versatile, non-stick and a very lovely size. It is the pot I use more than any other. Number 1 pot - saute (or skillet) pan.

Pot number two is the pot I keep pens in. I keep pens in two different places, and the place the pen is kept in is determined by the kind of pen it is. Nice pens (gel pens, shiny pens, fountain pens etc) are kept in a drawer. This is is because I don't need to use them all that often so I don't need to access them easily. Everyday pens are kept in a pot on the side next to my tissue box and a stereo. The pot is purple, has a pleasant curve on one side, and was bought very cheaply in a sale. It is a top pot for many reasons, it is pleasing to look at, it is big enough but not too big, it sits nicely on the side and it holds pens that I need quite often, so I can always find them. Number 2 pot - the pot I keep pens in.

Pot number three is the one under the sofa (some may describe it as a box). This is used to keep presents I have bought people in advance of the present giving situation, and is also used to house bits and pieces I have picked up ready for Treginnis in the summer. I like this box because of it's contents more than the box itself. The contents remind me of loved people and places, and when I put things in there ready for the summer it reminds me that God loves us all very much, and that he wants the children we work with to know that and to love him too. Number 3 pot - the one under sofa (some may describe it as a box).

Pot number four is a small frying pan. The pan is the right size for frying off onions for onion gravy, for cooking a couple of sausages, or for cooking a fried egg. It was given to me by someone I love very much, and so whilst it can cook some of my favourite foods, using it also reminds me of that person. Number 4 pot - a small frying pan.

Pot number five is a small red pot covered in silver foil. This pot is kept in the office, and was used in the telling of Joseph's story as the cup that was placed in Benjamin's sack. I like this partly because I like shiny things, but also coz the assembly it was used in was a good one, and because I like Joseph's story it has much to teach us as well just being a good story. Number 5 pot - a small red pot covered in silver foil.

Top tops

It seems to be the season for top 5's and look backs at the year gone and all that kinda malarkey. So here is mine. It may be the start of a series, or may just be a one off. By not deciding now I am making it more exciting for the all of us. For me it is exciting because I don't know what I'm going to decide, so I don't know yet if I need to think up more tops, and for you all it is terribly exciting because you won't know if the next time you read this here blog there will be another top something, or something completely different. So excitement all round!

Anyway for now, my top five tops.

Number one has to be my brown jumper. It is smart enough to wear for work, and goes with two of my three pairs of work trousers. And it is casual enough to wear not at work, and goes with all of my non-work trousers. It is a fairly loose so I don't feel too fat in it, and it makes me look like a half decent individual. So number one - brown jumper.

Number 2 I think would be my green and white longish kind of blouse but it doesn't have buttons all the way down top. This is great because it covers my bum, doesn't show my tummy, and gives my boobs a bit of shape. It also goes with all bar two pairs of my trousers. Number two - green and white longish blouse type top.

Number 3 is my Howie's jumper. This jumper is fab. It is reversible (number one reason for fabness). It goes most other items of clothing I own (number two reason for fabness). It is made from organic fairly traded stuff (number three reason for fabness). I bought it in the sale (number four reason for fabness). It has a hood (number five reason for fabness). I think that is enough reasons. Number three - Howie's jumper.

Number 4 is my orange, red and white top. This was bought in the sale for my graduation. It was a good day when I wore it, which is part of what makes it a good top. I also had straight hair that day, which is just a point of interest and nothing to do with the goodness of the top. It is slightly elasticy which means as seasons change and with them my shape it adapts nicely. I feel good when I am wearing it. It is orange, white and red, for me that would be reason enough. It's down side is it can only really be worn in the more summer of the months. Number four - orange, red and white top.

Number 5 is my blue t-shirt with some swirling gold bits on it. It is not a very special top, but I feel a little bit special when I wear it, and for that reason I like it. Number five - blue t-shirt with some swirling gold bits on.

So there we have it top tops. Come back some other time for the exciting possibility of another blog in the exciting top five range.