Mostly lemon based

Category: General

  • Ergonomic’d up

    So, I went to John Lewis’ and bought a new keyboard. It’s the first time in my life I’ve actually paid for a decent keyboard which is odd. We’ll see how it goes. I feel kind of sad to no longer be using my RM AT keyboard (circa about 1990). It’s also thrown up how wrong the height of this desk is for me. Also, I bought the wrong one; having examined about twenty boxes to find the right one and the price of it (it turned out they have 5 different, but very similar sorts of keyboard there) I then promptly picked up the wrong one and bought it, drove home, started to unpack it and went “Oh bollocks” then drove back and had to swap it for a vastly more expensive one.

    Never mind, it does feel more comfortable. Although it also shows up the age of everything else; the non-matching beige/off whites of the rest of the components. Never mind so.

  • Brief hiatus in the workie workie

    Just to say thankyou to James who pointed this out to me. Excellent podcast. Go. Go now. Make with the listening. Such excellent music.

  • So… today.

    Let’s just get this clear. I’m fine. Nothing wrong with me, apart from some ‘normal’ lumps that will come and go and are probably related to the medication I’m on and the stress I’ve been under. Sorry for driving everyone insane with neurosis.

    Doctor I saw? He gets a complaint, because my GLBT status appeared to make him into a complete arsehole; but the relief of not having anything unpleasant lurking in my breasts, that made me let it slide at the time. It’s not staying slid.

    Buying an ergonomic keyboard in Bristol – well, the spectacular range (two model options! Two! Wow) means I’ve not done it yet.

    I think that’s it :-)

  • So… today then

    Bah, I’ve got over tired and my brain’s now having trouble merging images from my two eyes. Don’t ask me why, it’s something that I’ve always had on close viewing – since I started wearing glasses. Sadly, it’s too far away for me to be able to focus without glasses.

    Tomorrow then. Distraction; the mother of my day. I’ve got so much work done today it’s quite astounding. Oooh. I can see. No, seriously, I’ve done a good 1/3rd of the Mental Health EU Learning pack (still need two more descriptions of mental illness though folks). But having laughed my way through an episode of Green Wing (S2E02 is *excellent*); I had to start to deal with tomorrow. I put the paperwork out downstairs for my appointment. Checked the time. Got my clothes out of the tumble drier.

    To say I’m tense is an understatement. I’m sure it’s nothing. No, I’m not sure it’s nothing otherwise I’d’ve not got this far. No, I suspect it’s nothing – or at least nothing significant. Coming as it has as Trey’s disappearing and my dad’s casket’s being burried it’s a bit stressful. Top that off with the sheer quantity of work I’ve got on, the house hunt and really, everything. This is not the most relaxing bit of my life ever.

    I’m scared of what they might find tomorrow; and I realise that it’s a stupid thing. What’s the point in being scared of something you can’t change? But still. I actually quite like my body; apart from being a bit big in the stomach region, I actually am pretty darn happy with it. And I am slowly losing that spare tyre. I’ve done my damnest to take care of my body, which I’ll grant I didn’t exactly treat with the greatest care for the first 20-something years; I eat well – I eat mostly vegitarian, mostly home cooked food. I exercise. I have an active job. I go to the doctor’s when I’m sick. I’ve been good to it. I know I drank far too much, and did other things which I’m not going to comment on in an open post. I know I’ve slid it down a motorway, rolled it in a car and generally not been too great at looking after it for years.

    But I’m trying to take care of it now; so maybe, just maybe this once it can reward me for my attempts; at any rate, I should really be in bed, stressing and failing to sleep. I think this is a ‘get yourself so tired you will sleep’ thing.

    I’ve managed one other thing today (beyond EU Mental Health, hopefully resealing the exhaust, swapping the wiper blades and the seatbelt, loading and later unloading the dishwasher, and doing laundry). I’ve managed to listen to Radiohead. I’ve been phobic about it for a while, connected as it was to not the best phase of my life; but I loved Radiohead before then. And today I put it on again, it’s sat in my music library, strangely absent from playlists for a very long time.

    Now I feel good, because I’ve listened to it, and it’s just as fracking fantastic as I remember. I’ve also heard some Kosheen – a Bristol based group that Kara’s introduced me to (is that fracked up or what? An Alaskan friend introducing me to a group from my own city!) – and from whom I now need more music. I also selected the two pictures I want from rana-x’s huge selection of fantastic pictures. James said he’d get me one for my birthday (woot! Only 6 days…) and I’m paying for the other… For those who are interested it’s a shot from her Book Project – Zaya and Aries, Light 2. Now I just need a house to put them in.

    It’s right about now I miss having a working hi-fi in my room; I could just chill out laying in bed with some music… For definate.

  • Did you want the bad news or the bad news?

    Okay. How about the bad news first?

    I got a quote, just on the off chance like, of how much it’d cost to re-roof an entire victorian butterfly roof’d terrace with knackered joists and all. The ‘rotten as a pear’ assumption.

    The bad news is that my rough guestimate for a new roof was *wildly* inaccurate. Laughably so.

    The other bad news is that it was wildly inaccurate in the wrong direction; I was assuming it’d cost *way* more than the roofers think it’d cost. Arse. This now means that if the survey throws up the roof as being nadgered that I then actually will think ‘hrm, best get a quote from a couple of roofers’.

    Oh balls. Oi! Universe! Stop tempting me!

  • International help Kate with her degree day

    Okay, so this is an ‘optional activity’, but I thought it might be interesting. One of the questions in my Mental Health Pack (Year 2 section, see how much work I’ve done!) is:

    “Ask 3 or 4 people to write down a definition of ‘mental illness’”.

    So, I’m grovelling to you, the internet masses to provide me with a definition of mental illness. The idea is to compare them, see where they match, where they don’t, and how accurately they reflect the ‘medical’ opinion of what a mental illness is.

  • And so it continues

    So, back to doing more… I’m going to have to get a different keyboard I think. I keep moving this one around but I am suddenly seeing the point of Ergonomic keyboards. Bollocks.

    Yeah, back to doing more Uni work today. Still got EU Maternity to do, but I’m mostly through it. Once I’ve answered all the bits I can I’ll start on the EU Mental Health; this is because there may be things I need to get from Uni for the EU Mental health, and I’d rather do them as one trip. I did spend 10 enjoyable minutes trying to find a paper for the Maternity pack, which I couldn’t find because… they’d got the bloody reference wrong. All that bollocks about marking us down for getting references wrong and they do it their-bloody-selves. They’d missed out a space, making ‘birth plans’ ‘birthplans’, eventually I thought “hang on, maybe they’ve made a typo” and found it. Bastards.

    In other news, I’m still running after the NHS / the Government with a big stick saying do your fucking job. You know, given that they’ve made me wait 2 sodding months because they failed to send a letter, and the people in the NHS at the other end failed to actually check that they’d received a letter (both assuming that it had gone / arrived (*rolls eyes*)) you’d think they might be a little teeny bit pro-active about actually checking that things are now moving. But no. No. Apparently not.

    “Hi, this is Kate, did you get a fax from X on Friday?”
    “No….no, definately not. They did ring to ask for a fax number though.”
    [Thinks… and you didn’t think it was odd that you then didn’t get a fax at all? *HEADS DESK*]
    “Oh, ah, okay, I’ll go chase them.”

    …

    “We sent the fax on Friday”
    “Right, well, they didn’t receive it”
    “Oh. Well, I’ve got a sent recipt here”
    “Yes, but they didn’t get it. I don’t know why. Could you send it again? Please?” [… before I’m forced to come up there, kill every last living one of you bastards, and take the form down to Bristol by hand myself]
    “Okay. I’ll send it again.”

    I will be ringing again in a couple of hours to check that it has, this time, been recieved. Before I’m forced to beat them with sticks. Beat. With. Sticks.

    In other news, my wrist is hurting and I’ve not even started working today. Bloody thing. Also, I’m still completely stuck on this house, I know exactly how I want to layout the bathroom now. And the bedroom, I have some *really fucking ace* ideas for the bedroom, if the roof doesn’t need doing. God yes. Although they might cost too much. They might cost more than it’s worth to do it. But I have a concept. It would actually require builders though, and hence might well not be worth it. But hey. We can but think about concepts. If it’s too expensive, it’s too expensive. I don’t have the house yet. I alternate between dreams of no-one bidding on the house and me getting it for less than the guide price, and bidding wars where it rapidly disappears out of my price range; and of going with the surveyor and him saying “it’s knackered, fit only for demolition” and equally, going with the surveyor and him going “this roof’s just been replaced…” :-)

    At any rate. I should be working now, so I’ll go prod my EU pack with sticks.

  • Abandoned Filton

    So, before the Second World War there was a village outside bristol called Charlton*; it was a bit of an unlucky place really, because very close to it was the Rolls Royce Factory and Filton Airfield. Thus, during the war and the rather rapid expansion of the Airfield, Charlton disappeared under tarmac; and where it once stood a large number of RAF buildings were thrown up.

    Filton Airfield still exists, serving a variety of purposes; and today my housemate went for a flying lesson. We spent some time taking photos of her taking off and landing; but even with the strict instructions on where we could and could not go (what with being in the middle of the airfield) we did manage to snap a few shots of the remains of what had been the RAF buildings in the area that was once Charlton.

    I’d love to go back and get some more thorough shots; it’s all fenced off (which you can’t see in Google earth) and so we’d need (want) permission to get a proper look around.

    Anyway, the shots…

  • When she said ‘there’s a whole other side to Huntingdon’

    I didn’t quite follow her meaning…

    Hoe Express!

    (Sorry for the spamming of the journaling, but I’m doing a massive catchup post orgy (as in an orgy of posts, not as in posts happening after an orgy, obviously (well, possibly not obviously, but I felt I should make that clear (just in case it wasn’t (especially with the whole going out / getting laid (new hair cut) thing (dontcha just love nested brackets? (I do)))))).

  • Abandoned Press…

    Go, enjoy the lazyest gallery