So I know I love snow, but for it to snow the night that my car is in for work; meaning that the first day I ride the motorbike I have to ride through snow; that’s taking the piss.
Blog
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Sometimes I feel insanely lonely. I miss having someone to love…
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C’est la [fracking cold] vie.
My beloved mog did not, in fact, pass her MOT today. She failed on 2 points – one: the handbrake managed an astonishing 6% efficiency. 6. The word ‘pathetic’ is perhaps one that we could bandy about, were we the kind of people to be bandying words about with reckless abandon.
Sadly, she also failed on a split steering rod gator. They, however, were a fantastic bunch of guys who did the MOT and looked so desperately upset that they couldnae pass her. Not only that, but because she’ll have to undergo a retest then there’ll be a retest fee.
I have not bought the much desired new Wireless Router. Although, maybe I should take back the wireless card and see if I can swap it. The doojit. BT Shitehub might not be unhappy with a different card, alledgedly.
Annnyway – I’m on a training day tomorrow, which means I’m going in later than normal and staying until rush-hour. So, my poor beloved, having failed her MOT was promptly booked into the garage on the same site, which was recommended by the Mog owning mechanic I spent much time chatting to; although I will have to check my car still has servo / disk brakes when I get back ;-)
Anyway, leaving the car there meant I got to
endureenjoy a charming walk back to my house, 45 minutes, thankfully in the thermal Old Navy tee I bought in AK, my Toronto Maple Leafs hoodie and my motorbike jacket. Preparation for the charming ride I’m sure I’m going to have tomorrow morning. Oh dear god. I’ve just read the forecast.-1 Deg. C. I’m going to have to ride 20 miles in sub-zero temperatures. Uh, err. Bollocks. Seriously. I think I may have to wear every piece of clothing I own. And this assumes my bike starts tomorrow. Oh good jesus. It’s going to be *SO COLD*.
In the realms of being thankful for small (oh so small) mercys, I do appear to miss the forecast SLEET FUCKING SHOWER. ARGH.
I am so, so, going to be glad when my beloved mogster is back up at 100% strength. Although, she’s done 12k miles in the last year, so worn out brakes and a split steering gator really aren’t that much to complain about. Sadly there is a distinctly increased vibratory thing going on, so I’m not sure whether my ?high milage, ?condition pickup engine is going to be happy. It surfaces between 2 and 3k rpm, which makes it somewhat hard to avoid, only really appears when the engine is warm, and I’m really, truly, hoping it’ll be gone when they re-set the timing.
Anyway, I guess I better get on with my Article that I’ve got to read for the teaching session tomorrow; and so yeah. Yeah. Here I am. Defrosting by the fire…
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Making yourself feel homesick for Canada…
So… it’s cold here. Not really Canadian cold, but cold. Bitter, is the way that Naomi described it. I travelled to work listening to AM’s Underground (aaah, those TTC Chimes); I’ve got home (it’s cold, really bloody cold), read Torontoist and now I’m watching Holmes on Homes. It’s still really good…
I’ve also been watching The L Word Season 4. So yet again I’m waaaay ahead of everyone I know. Not that anyone at work watches the L word anyway. It’s such a good season, and I really really want someone to talk to about it. TREEEEYYYYY – Can I ring you?!
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Meh
So, I should be relaxing, watching The L Word after having a really good, successful party at my place. Whilst the latter part is true, windows is being phenominally annoying.
Whilst my little Mac sits upstairs happily being very mac-y, and my 2000 based laptop works fairly well with the old wireless, my lounge PC sporadically connects to the network, randomly disconnects (whilst still stating ‘network strength Excellent’; and then complaining that it’s connected at 1Mb/s and then falling over). So, my relaxation has been somewhat destroyed by an evening of battling with windows, I did briefly think I’d had success and that the ‘bloody thing’ as I’m currently calling it was working. Then 20 minutes into the L Word it declared war on me and has since failed to reconnect to the network.
Ironically, the shiny apple upstairs does Windows filesharing better than either of the windows machines – neither of which can see each other. No, the shiny shiny apple, it can see and connect to them both. The big problem I have is that fundamentally, the BT Homehub appears to be an astonishingly shonky piece of kit – something which has given me no end of grief, and so I’m not *really* able to deduce whether it’s the shonky, no-brand-USB Wireless Dongle, or the Shonky homehub, or the mildly broken windows install. I am, however, seriously considering reverting this boxen back to Win2k, because frankly, Win2k is vastly better than XP; XP was only on this boxen for the purpose of a bit of software I wanted which needed XP and now it’s my lounge PC It doesn’t need it.
Anyway, so the Party was good, a shockingly large number of people turned up, who managed to (sadly) split into the nursing and non-nursing groups; but everyone appeared to have a good time, people left about midnight (who weren’t staying) with the exception of Alexa who stayed until…errr….I get sleepy at this point.
About 3am I finally headed to bed, and fortunately last night was a mild one, because people kipped in the room of no heating (i.e. the Kitchen). I spent faaaaar too much on Partyfood; Hannah brought a whole bunch of party food, and in general there was more food than you could shake a proverbial stick at. If you even had a proverbial stick to shake. And I don’t. The food was good, the PC played much music and didn’t crash, the fire was much admired, as was my room design in general (which is, to be fair, as it should be). And y’know what? My house feels like a home.
My home.
Which is really nice.
Now, if only I could make this fracking network work properly.
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’tis the end of another week
And I’ve got my ‘zed back; well, one of ’em. Cherry (or ‘the red one’) is back outside my house, covered by a tarpaulin (sp.). She’s not a happy bike, with a top speed of 100km/h; Dave reckons I should change the base gasket again, but the whole tedium of the job fills me with a longish dread.
Of course, Rebecca needs a new exhaust, which is rather more pressing, ‘cos her MOT is due the week after next. Despite her leaky exhaust, she managed to pull me, my mum, and what appeared to be the entire contents of Ikea back down the motorway; Ikea now being a distressingly long distance from my house.
And next time I will be paying for delivery. Hearing the cheery thunk of bookcase-on-roof for the first ten miles as I repeatedly pulled over to retie things and re-arrange things was painful. Getting sprayed with road-muck, stood on the side of the M25 in the rain, retying stuff again (the wind was wrenching things off the roofrack), and so on was really not worth it. Although seeing my books on the bookcase… Hrm. But hey.
So I assembled part of it. The kitchen, incidentally, wasn’t on sale, so we didn’t bother getting it now. So yeah. I got my tickets though, or ticket, for Metric. Anyone else going? Anyone…?
What else. I spent far too much in Ikea; or at least, I spent what I intended, but as usual came out with more things than I was intending to buy. Technically, I guess, only the one thing. But…
…it’s a light, to go on the stairs.
Unfortunately I need to drill a hole in the ceiling to allow the light cable to go the roof, and across, to join the stair light. I want them both to come on at once, I think.
And in other, other news… err… I forget. Apparently one bottle of cider, plus incredible tiredness, takes me to drunk much quicker than I’d expect.
No, yes, I got rid of – or at least, selected for disposal, about half a box of books, from the 4 boxes I unpacked. Which isn’t too bad. I think there’ll be more, later.
Oh yes, we ordered the Sofas for my lounge, I need to organise delivery (not ’til mid feb); and presumably removal of my old sofas… So, that’s news.
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Another day of painting and music
So, the door frame by the front door is now painted in undercoat. Hopefully I can throw a couple of nice coats of white gloss on, so for the party I can throw the door back on quickly. It won’t shut, but it gets it out the way. Then it can stay on until I’ve decided what I’m going to do with it. I’ve also thrown paint onto the last bit of wall which had escaped painting. It’ll get it’s final coat tomorrow, yeah. I think. Argh. It’s all a bit of a logistical nightmare, the housewarming approaches and I’m totally trying to schedule every task I can get in beforehand without bodging anything. The kitchen doorframe won’t be done, but I will put the door back on; or upstairs. I may put it upstairs, actually…
No, so, yeah. I am pretty wrecked, I did supermarket shopping today, and my shift, obviously; and then some prep work, and then some painting.
I also painted the first wall in the corridor; the dark blue one. Seeing it on the wall it may actually be ‘too dark’. We’ll see. Unlike the red which as soon as I saw it I knew I’d made the right decision, the blue is possibly too dark given the nature of the space.
Anyway, enough house stuff; should I slap a house filter on? So people don’t have to endure my house rambling?
So – there’s a shiny new Best of Bootie CD for 2006; I’ve not listened to it yet, just bits and pieces; I don’t think it’s hit me the same way as the Best of Bootie 2005, it’s still got some interesting stuff; and the Bonus Tracks are pretty entertaining.
In other news, the BT HomeHub continues to suck. Although, perhaps it’s the wireless card also sucking slightly.
In other OTHER news, The L word Season 4 has started! Why did no one tell me! ARGH! I can’t get behind already…
And in finally other news, I actually mailed someone off OKCupid; so yeah, wish me replies :-)
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Sometimes things talk to me
Sometimes the house talks to me; it tells me tales of it’s youth in an austere post-war Britain; it talks to me about the excitement of the 70s. Today it told me about it’s childhood; new and shiny, exciting, people moving into a new house, and it showed me something more of what it used to look like.
It told me about the luxurious experience of carpet all the way across the stairs with thick, high quality underlay. And about years of thin strips of carpet down the centre, with grey painted skirting and stairs.
And I wondered about those first owners, flush with the joy of having a brand new house all of their own. I wonder whether, when they moved in they were worried about the situation in Germany. Whether they were wondering about being bombed. I think about these walls, and the things that have happened within them, and I’m honoured to be here.
But it didn’t just talk to me about the past; I saw the future, where people look at the work I’ve done and say “how could she do this?”, and I respect more the choices that people made in past times.
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At the end of the road
I’ve never lived at the end of the street; well; my parents house is, but it’s an odd end of the street – it’s a junction, with houses all around. Well, stables and houses.
The only time I’ve ever been in a house that’s at the end of the street was staying with Kara – looking out of her window and seeing that view of mountains every morning was inspiring and beautiful. So it’s weird to be sat at the end of the street, as I am now, the big blue sky opening away from you; I’d never realised what a difference it made, but it’s so relaxing to have the houses sort of in the periphery.
Of course, when I’ve got cushions on the sofa, my view will change, and instead of the beautiful sky being the bottom and top of my view, the houses at the far end of the street will be there, but for the moment I’m reminded of Alaska and big skies.
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100% Dumbass
For the *third* time since I got this job I’ve got my shifts wrong; always with the turning up for an early when I’m not actually on. Today I went for turning up for an early after sleeping really badly – and I’m not on duty today at all.
For frack’s sake.
Why?! I did that, like, once is my last place. Now I have to drive for half an hour down the M25 and the M4 I seem to be obsessed with fucking up. Bah. I am very tired.