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This is my 200th post on my blog, yay! You’d have thought I’d have so much drivel in me (me!)?
From this…
From our procrastination at putting off cleaning out the fish tank, our oldest fish, Psychs, has died.
He was just over 5 years old. We bought him when I came back from my trip to Oz in 2003. He and Budley were our first fish. Budley barely lasted until Xmas, but Psychs was made of stronger stuff. He survived new fish in the tank, tank changes, a house move. He had progressively been getting ill over the last few months. We’d only just brought him back from the brink with the last tank clean. He’d lapsed again in the last week, but we just didn’t act quickly enough to clean the tank. R.I.P Psychs. We’ll miss you 🙁
For the second time in as many weeks I’ve had a dream about David Tennant.
The first dream I had a few weeks ago was highly sexual with me in bed with said Mr. Tennant (in my dreams exactly!). That was quite nice. It has been said by his colleagues that he’s referred to as David Ten-inch – whether that’s actually true or not, who knows? Anyway, the second dream was a bit more generalised and ephemeral. It was basically just me saying “David Tennant – PHWAR!” I was dreaming that I was back home and visiting my sister-in-law who only lives a few streets away from my mums house. I actually DID think to myself, before waking up proper and remembering I was in Luton “I must actually go and visit my sister-in-law. It’s been bloody AGES since I walked to her house.” Well it would be wouldn’t, living some 12,000 miles away! I felt like a right div when I actually woke up. Firstly for the David Tennant part of the dream. I find myself coming round thinking “Man, I’m really getting “into” this bloke ain’t I?” And secondly for my predictability for going for a weedy guy. I’ve always been attracted to tall, thin guys, but only ever ended up dating short-asses. Roger was barely 5 foot 5. Em’s only slightly taller at like 5′ 7″ (not that she’s a guy as such). But really it’s always been tall weedy blokes. I’m not attracted to real muscle-bound types at all. I think blokes with muscles look hideous. Now I’m finding myself REALLY looking forward to next weeks Doctor Who 🙂
Not that I have much in the way of topics for this auspicious post, but Happy 100th Posting on my Antipodean – The Right Side Up blog!!! Yay!
I can’t even believe I’d have 100 posts in me. But it has taken about 8 months to get here. Not exactly one posting a day, but then I made up for some by posting 4 in a row yesterday! When I’m in the mood, I can talk the leg off an iron chair (is that an Oz phrase?). But when it comes to writing posts I have to have no distractions. Which is hard sometimes. Em’s a good multi-tasker, so she can write posts on her blog and do all the other things that have her sitting in front of a computer for 14 hours a day, whilst *I* cannot tolerate having music or the TV on while I’m trying to write stuff out. Until recently we were only using one computer as well, which meant there was a fight for time on the ‘net and because Em uses it far more than me, she naturally just “won out” on ‘net time. It was only when she’d go out for a few hours during the day or similar, that I’d spend more than 20 minutes on the ‘net. Now we have 2 computers set-up (which is SSSSOOOOOO bad), I am spending more and more time on the ‘net. Roughly about 5 hours a day. WAY too long, but you know the old adage…if you can’t beat them, join them. That’s pretty much what I’ve done. Also now ratings season is off on TV in the UK, so TV’s pretty bare at the moment. I think that’s where me and Em differ. She’s the Internet whore, I’m the TV whore. She’s rarely interested in TV these days, and only occasionally ACTUALLY sits on the sofa to watch something with me. Even if she IS interested in something, she might only still watch it from the computer chair, so attached like Velcro to it that she is! Oh, this has SO turned out into an anti-Em rant! lol Not anti-Em, but anti-Em – computer/Internet whore, really. It’s making me laugh referring to it as “Anti-Em”. Makes it sound like she’s from The Wizard of Oz “Oh, Aunty Em, Aunty Em”! In the very, VERY early days of our relationship I did call her “aunty”, before I got all love-struck and got the “hots” for her 🙂 But I digress. No I don’t. This is the most “nothing” post I’ve written! lol Anyway, here’s to another 100 posts and many more (hopefully with better topics, or at least posts WITH topics other than, “hey, I’ve written a load of posts!”). Photo supplied by Pin Shy Avenue under Creative Commons license.
We bought some new pillows as the ones we were using were not exactly plump anymore. Plus after having them for several years, it was probably best to change them.
I had someone contact me out of the blue recently (see comments on previous post) and thought it quite amazing. Especially since I don’t appear to get much traffic on my blog (not that I’m looking, it can be great to know you are almost totally anonymous with this thing, but feel there is SOMEONE listening). It made me reminisce for the lost art of the Internet pen-pal.
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| From Antipodean – The Right Side Up |
We’ve had a busy week leading up to Easter. Em had an appointment for a check-up at the hospital in Leicester on Wednesday (19th), and as you’ll know from previous posts, we decided to go away for a few days. It was our anniversary (the big 10th anniversary) on Good Friday, so instead of going away right over Easter, we decided to do it just before.
I think we had very good timing because this is what it looked like this Easter Sunday morning.
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| From Antipodean – The Right Side Up |
Happy Easter, welcome to spring!!
Anyway, to the adventures of the break. We headed off late Monday morning. We shelved going to the wildlife park at Shepreth for going somewhere else closer to Leicester. We just made our way up to Stamford, stopped there at the local Morrison’s supermarket, then made our way to the Travelodge. We were both pretty tired from having a late night and early morning, so that’s basically what we did for Monday.
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| From Antipodean – The Right Side Up |
Tuesday we headed over to Leicester and we went to Tropical Birdland, which is in this little village outside Leicester. We were following the signpostings for the place. I swear we went around the whole village before we got to the place! It was a freezing cold morning, around 6-8 degrees, with a slight fog hanging in the air.
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| From Antipodean – The Right Side Up |
The signs for the place were NOT good. We went in. No one was manning the pay window. I wish we’d sneaked into the place because it was TWELVE POUNDS (for both of us – IE: not each) to get in. There were emus and and owls at the front entrance, here are some pics.
We were only there an hour. We saw everything we could see by that time. I’m sure the place would be nicer in warmer weather and more of a crowd there. There were loads of macaws flying free. Apart from the emus, there were different types of cockatoos as well as a red-cheeked bulbul and a lovely kookaburra. It was SSSOOO cold though. I could see some of the birds shivering! The poor things. Not exactly the kind of weather conditions for these birds. They were lovely birds though. They had a few different types of toucans there with different coloured beaks.
Time passed quickly though and so we left tropical birdland and took the park and ride into Leicester. We went into Primark and had a look around. Cheap jeans man!! Jeans for £6 and £8. Em bought a pair of jeans and a cardigan from there. Then we went across the mall to New Look and got some bargain tops as well. We killed a few hours there. Had a big costa coffee. Em had her decaf cappuccino and I had a huge decaf mocha. Em’s cup was so huge it had handles on the side like a toddlers sipping cup!
We left Leicester and stocked up on supplies at a Morrison’s nearby. Then we ended up on our first traffic jam, going to Morrison’s! We ate there and then had another early night. We had to be at the hospital early the next day and negate the ring road around Leicester.
Next day, we did start to get lost around the ring road. We took a wrong turn and went off track for a bit, but recovered, so we still got to the hospital on time. All was wrapped up by midday.
Then it was off to Birmingham to watch U2:3D. We thought we’d overspent the day before so we didn’t have 2 brass razoos to rub together. I thought I had £10 left though, so I knew we had enough left to have something to eat at a motorway services. We stopped at a services on the M6. I got myself a KFC twister meal, got the money out to pay and then realised my £10 was only £5!!! Em had yet to buy anything!! So we bought some milk so she could eat bran flakes that we bought from home!!! Poor love, I felt so guilty!
We got to Birmingham HOURS early. We tried to negate the city centre (frig me, Birmingham is the world’s scariest city! – to navigate around that is) and stop at The Bull Ring shopping mall, but every time we went by, we’d miss the car parks, so we gave up in the end. We went and parked near the Thinktank place that has the Imax cinema. We had to kill around 2 hours, cos we only had enough money to park in the Thinktank car park for an hour, so we decided to wait until 5.30pm when parking would be £1. The movie started at 6pm, so we had time to get in and park and get into the cinema. It was cold in the car, but the sun was out, so it kept us warm for an hour or so, until the sun started to go down.
The movie was really good. Some really good 3D effects and the sound quality was fab!! It wasn’t like being at a concert as such, and in a lot of respects it was better than a concert experience. I enjoyed it. A good playlist of songs and really well edited together. It was good.
Then afterwards as we exited the cinema, we had to go down 4 flights of escalators! They were SSSOOO fast, I missed my footing and ended up on my bum. I hate escalators. And if they are high and exposed (IE: I can see down either side of the escalator), it’s 10 times worse. These particular escalators ticked all the boxes. And they were fast speed. I didn’t want to get on it when I approached it, but couldn’t see any lift available, so I had no choice. The steps were going around so bloody quickly. I kept trying to step on, but it just was going around so bloody fast. Anyway, I went and still didn’t hit the step right, tried to recover, but just kept losing my footing, then ended up on my bum. Thank God that’s what happened and I didn’t end up falling!! I screamed out to Em, who was already half-way down. Like she could do anything. I felt so embarrassed and upset. I was shaking! I SSSOOO didn’t want to get on the next one. But I had no choice. I was shaking like a leaf. Anyway, I somehow managed to get down the rest of them without any further mishap.
We got to the car and were leaving Birmingham, going round a roundabout. Em almost clipped the side of the car to the left of us, wanting to get in the left lane. My leg started to sting. I’d grazed my leg on the escalator edge! We left Birmingham. Em was tired as hell, so we stopped at a services for a rest. Then later stopped again. She was almost falling asleep behind the wheel! She had a sleep at the next services. We finally got home around 10.45pm. Freezing cold and extremely tired!!
For Easter I had my treat of a tub of Ben & Jerry’s Caramel Chew Chew ice cream (which was divine!) with 3 creme eggs, which I dropped into the ice cream every now and then. It was GORGEOUS!!! Our anniversary was quiet, but lovely.
All that scrimping on the last day and we’d been paid early because of Easter and were totally fine!! Damn it.
Where do I start? For starters, Em goes to hospital on Tuesday for surgery. She’ll be there for about 5 days and will need 4-6 weeks recuperation time.
Next. Money woes. We are BEYOND broke. But these days, who isn’t? We’ve seen Citizen’s Advice and they will be helping us negotiate with creditors. We need to change bank accounts and may eventually have someone else operating an account on our behalf. In the New Year we’ll no doubt be officially bankrupt, but bizarrely it’ll probably mean we’ll cope better than we have done in recent years. The down side is that this year will be an extra lean Xmas. I mean we’ve not been extravagant by any means in recent years. We would just indulge a little on having nicer food (IE: buying from M&S rather than ASDA). But it’s going to be really tight this year so not even nicer food will happen. Keeping a roof over our heads is just a TAD more important! Despite all this, I feel upbeat. We’re doing stuff to sort out our debt. Em’s surgery will hopefully result in her improved well being. And Xmas is all about being thankful for your lot and (not forgetting) celebrating Christ’s birth. I know there are people out there still FAR worse off than us. How can I be anything but upbeat about our future?
Thanksgiving. Sounds like everything I love about Xmas, only without the presents…as far as I know. I’m not up on Thanksgiving history/culture.
It does seem odd that in such a God-fearing country as America is, a lot more people seem to put more emphasis on Thanksgiving than on Xmas. As far as I know, it is when the turkey dinner is traditionally eaten, not as it is in Europe and in particular Britain when it’s at Xmas. Families seem to try harder in the U.S. to be together for Thanksgiving. People don’t feel pressured into exchanging presents, as we do with ever increasing financial strain, year after year at Xmas. Lastly, it doesn’t seem to be an overtly religious event (despite it being called Thanksgiving – IE: giving thanks to God – I assume – for a plentiful bounty and all the “good things” in our lives), despite the name of the holiday. I wish we had Thanksgiving in England. But then, maybe not. I do love some of the aspects of Xmas. I think the time of year is better. It’s just that little bit later into winter. Not so ideal for shopping, but lovely for Xmas eve and Xmas day, sitting around the fire, having lovely, big and hot meals that make you feel like you’ve put on 10 pounds in 1 hour! I love Xmas decorations, trees, garlands, wreaths. As a kid I use to LOVE making paper chains! And of course, although I rarely get them these days, I LOVE the presents. I love sending cards. And although some are religious, and although I’ve been a total hypocrite and been to church a few years back to enjoy them, I LOVE Xmas carols and Xmas songs. We have a church not 5 minutes walk away, and we went in 2005 for the carol service. But it was really lovely. It’s a non-domination church, and it was quite liberal (as churches go), not doing lots of preaching and stuff. It was a really nice service, and we all sang carols. It was lovely. As much as I love Xmas though, there are things that are overbearing about it. The compulsion to buy presents. The more expensive, the better. And the relentless ad campaigns that go with it. I mean, it’s in full swing on TV (and all other media) now. The supermarkets started filling their shelves with Xmas themed food weeks ago. I haven’t been in a supermarket for about 6 weeks (last visit, early October), but the last time I went, there was already stock on the shelf. The campaigns on TV will just get more and more manic. Soon the Xmas songs will start (mostly in shops and that, so I have been spared so far, as I really don’t get out much these days), and so by the time Xmas day comes, you’ve heard “White Christmas” at least 50 times (subliminally, and non-subliminally), Slade’s “Merry Xmas Everybody” about 100 times, and the new favourite for “playing to death”… The Pogues “Fairytale of New York” what feels like 500 times, but is in reality probably only 150 times!! Supermarkets start to look like we’re heading for The Blitz at around December 18, and if you’ve missed something off the shopping list and don’t remember it until Xmas eve, you might just want to write out your last will and testament before heading off to the supermarket for that last vital thing, because you may just die there, waiting in the queue! One last thing that I use to hate about Xmas as a kid. The only thing in fact. Australia. I HATED living in Australia at Xmas. Xmas in the northern hemisphere looked SSOO lovely. And all the stories whilst growing up were all northern hemisphere biased. All the little things like Santa arriving by coming down the chimney! HEEEELLLLOOOO…no house in Oz that *I* ever knew of had a chimney. How was Santa ever going to leave our presents? Break in through a window? Then of course there was the sleigh and the reindeer. Rudolph with his shiny red nose. Not because it was minus 10 degrees in Oz, but because it was more like bloody 25 degrees on Xmas eve NIGHT! Silent Night? Silent night…on a tropical evening in Sydney?! Doubt it!! The one nice thing that Oz has for Xmas though is Carols by Candlelight…outdoors! That’s nice. Although, again, traditional carols are a bit northern hemisphere/wintery themed. Very odd to sing “Winter Wonderland” on a summer’s evening in 25 degree heat! I really do love my winter Xmases though. They are the best. So, happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it. Xmas, the steam train, moves ever closer.