It's been a really frustrating day. It's the one day of Wimbledon you get to spend the whole day watching tennis, not just in the evening. But instead we got nearly an hour of one woman thrashing another. I could have watched a different match on 301 or 302 but frankly, it would have just been the same. I would have been quite happy watching tennis from 12 till 9ish, then watched Doctor Who, but it wasn't to be.

The only good thing about it was I got time to clean the house and make flapjacks and they decided just before Doctor Who started that there would be no more play today, so I was free to watch it live. Although I shouldn't have done because I had five minutes of Galaxy 4 part 2 to go, which was a bit surreal to listen to afterwards.

There were some things in the episode that I liked and other things that annoyed me, but I'll put them behind a more since they contain SPOILERS:
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I thought I should make a post about the new Prime Minister being the fourth since I was born. Five Live did a whole afternoon on it yesterday, so I listened to the tennis on Sports Extra instead. I mean, it's interesting but it's not that interesting. Mostly it's just weird - you get used to one being there forever, or at least that's what it seems like. And it seems like much more fuss than any of the others. Major was the first time I noticed politics (and worked out Paddy Ashdown was not in fact in the headmaster of the local secondary school, just because it was called Ashdown - it was logical at the time).

Then Blair was a general election four days before my 18th birthday, so that was a big event for everyone not born at the beginning of May. But this one, I came back from Romania wondering if Brown had been elected yet. I never quite got round to asking or looking it up. I don't think I need to yet.

The date I was born makes naming PMs easy - Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown - anyone older than me has to know the one before: Callahan. No idea what his first name was, mind you. Mind you, I can tell you my MPs party, what school she went to and I think I can remember her first name. Her last name could be anything though. I also can't tell you what my constituency is called since it has such a strange name.

Oh, and Henman's out of Wimbledon - it's a good thing because now we can focus on some more interesting players who don't favour long drawn out matches. I want Nadal to win.

I've really had one of those days. I woke up at 7am and did get back to sleep but the dreams I get when I do that are always really weird in a slightly disturbing way.

So then I went to work and was involved in doing something not at my desk at one point during the morning and came back to it at 11.57 to a reminder that I was supposed to be going to a meeting at 12 on the other site, which is a few minutes work away. And I had something I had to get done before I went. So of course when I phoned to say I was going to be late there was no one there. I eventually left at 12.10 and the meeting ended up only lasting five minutes.

Then Henman drew out his match this afternoon, as per usual, which was incredibly distracting.

So then tonight was Rotaract. I was good and left early, partly because I couldn't remember how long it took me to get there. I got there at 7.55 and realised that we've moved the second meetings of the month. At which point I couldn't get anyone on the phone at all. I went home to get my car, at which point I got a text message that confirmed I had gone to the wrong place. And I still couldn't phone anyone.

The meeting started at 8pm, I left at 8.10. Amazingly, I got a phone call as I was waiting at the lights, so could tell them I was going to be late. I eventually turned up at 8.20 to find it was just about my turn.

And I am now giving one Rotary club a talk about my Romanian trip at the end of July, so I will need to get on and write it.

The scary part of the evening was getting out of the car park. It's on a hill, so the part where you park is particularly steep and looks into the river. So you turn the engine off, put it in first, pull the handbrake as hard as you can and gingerly take your foot off the brake. And breathe in as it creeks and lurches a bit but doesn't go into the Thames. Getting out of the space is even more fun as it involves practically putting your foot to the floor to get the car to move backwards rather than forwards down the hill. The car sounds absolutely terrible doing it too.

It's that two weeks of the year again - where I don't talk about anything else. Although I was gripped by tonight's match (and some of the ones during the day too, but it's harder to be that gripped when you have to work at the same time) it means I'm only just about to start on some of the things I need to do tonight. I'm just hoping it rains tomorrow and Thursday evenings, since I'll be out then. It usually rains beforehand, then the players come on just as I have to leave. Sod's law for you.

Remember how I accidentally dyed some of my clothes pink before I went to Romania by washing my red jumper? Well, when I got my washing out of the machine yesterday I realised I'd done it again. I might end up getting some stuff to get the dye out because I'm fast running out of white tops now, and there are only so many pinks tops you can usefully use.

Yay for me, for I am now all caught up. Well, nearly, I just need to ask this...

Anyone want to come with me to see GB vs Croatia in the Davis Cup at Wimbledon on 22nd September (which will be the doubles)? It costs £20 but I've been to one before and they are really good fun - much more noisy than a Wimbledon match with a Brit in. I'd normally go with my sister but she's very selfishly booked a holiday then.

I spent a large part of tonight's Doctor Who trying to get my head round John Simm's accent on it. It just wasn't what I'm used to hearing from Life on Mars.

Plus, it had Nichola McAuliffe from Surgical Spirit. For some reason her name has stuck in my head, I think because I thought it was so strange it had an h in it. I was only young when I saw it. I know it was being repeated on ITV3 at one point but I didn't have a way of taping digital at the time. I'd have loved to have seen it again, although I do wonder if I'd find it so funny all these years later.

And there was that bloke who's the token American guy in various things, like Spooks, and that conspiracy thing with Jason Isaacs and Neil Pearson recently that I've forgotten the name of. He must have been in more than that though because I keep seeing him and thinking he looks familiar.

Oh, and I quite liked the episode too. And, for a change, Confidential. Sel, there were no spoilers in there at all. They spent half the episode extolling the virtues of Roger Delgado and the other half talking about explosions and stunt driving. There wasn't even a trailer for next weeks at the end, like there was in last episode's Confidential.

I like thunderstorms when it's been really hot and you can stand outside, watch the lightning and go 'please rain'. It's a lot less good when it's rained every single day since I got back and isn't really very warm.

I just did my finances and I have paid myself back the money I owed myself to go to Romania! So I now have no money till I get paid on Friday, but this is an improvement on minus amounts. Now I need to save some so I can buy a new TV and have a very cheap long weekend away somewhere in Britain (possibly Cardiff, possibly somewhere else if I think of anywhere else reasonably close I want to go that's not in Dorset) in September.

I discovered that BT will give you a bill in pdf. I've had paperless bills for a while but I've always just downloaded my calls as a csv file. I don't know how long the pdfs have been there, but it doesn't help that they like to move everything on the site round on a monthly basis (or that's what it seems like - I can never find anything). Looking at it, I discovered that they're charging me £1.50 for the privilege of not paying by direct debit (so I actually pay the amount I owe them, not the amount they'd like me to owe them), which is a bit much. It doesn't help that they also charge £10 a month just for the line - which I use for my broadband connection, and occasionally for phone calls. My calls this month were particularly expensive at 71p.

I have my amazon parcel! It arrived yesterday and someone had hidden it downstairs. Which is just as well because when I rang them up they promised to look into it and get back to me, which they never did. So I have now watched the whole of the Robot commentary and am now on Glastonbury, which is on BBC3, BBC4 and 301 - I feel spoilt for choice, I've never had digital while Glastonbury's on before. Now if only I'd ever heard of any of these bands...

While I was away I read the BBC Doctor Who book Wolfsbane, which was the last one (of three) that exists with Sarah and Harry in. And there was a very interesting bit about Harry's feelings for Sarah in it on page 137 that I copied it out:
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I've had no end of problems with Gmail in Firefox since yesterday, which is driving me mad - it works at first then falls over and shows me everything in plain text in one long line.

And I realised today why the top bit of LJ looks funny - it's because those links to the message centre and friends page and whatever else there was under your username isn't there any more.

These two things have only happened yesterday - the connection? I was typing when the update Firefox box came up, so it updated and installed Tuesday (when I had no internet).

This is why I never update Firefox unless it's not working. I'll just be getting the old version off my backup then.

There's nothing quite like getting back off holiday to really make you feel good. But in my case I also had to cope with the following:
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I'm back from Romania. I'm really tired - I got used to going to bed when it got dark and getting up about 6.30am, and that's Romanian time too. And the travel sickness pills still haven't worn off yet - although they say on the packet 'may cause drowsiness' what they should actually say is 'will put you to sleep' - I feel asleep in Budapest airport.

Romania was a lovely place - very beautiful and all the people were very friendly. It was great to go with Habitat too, because you get to see the places tourists don't, meet the people, and see what a difference you make. We worked on houses for people with no running water, and they were so grateful for what we did. Coming back and watching the final of the Stella Artois I established I really need a new (bigger) telly because I can't see the ball properly from so far away, but that sort of thing seems so inconsequential when you've seen people who have very little and are grateful for it.

There are photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/paranoidangel/tags/romania/

I wish someone would turn the heat up on the weather though - it's colder now than at nighttime where I was. Last Tuesday my arms tanned (and nearly burnt) even through putting factor 50+ on every half an hour.

I am caught up on Doctor Who - I really liked Blink, which really scared me. It'll take me all week, if not longer, to catch up on the rest of my viewing and my RSS Feeds, though (even though I just marked most of them as read).

I also need to remember how to type, it seems so hard after two weeks without doing it.