Since I'm not doing any kind of book-reading challenge, I don't tend to talk about what I've read. But I've recently read a few books I wanted to talk about. Read more...

Despite work being not so bad this week and me being not quite so dizzy, this week has consisted of:

• The bulb in the lounge going - which meant having to climb up and reach up to the trip switch which is above the front door
• Finding a house with a garage and discovering so many people are viewing it the landlord doesn't want any more people to see it
• My credit card company stopping my credit card due to suspicious activity. As far as I can tell, said suspicious activity was me donating to Comic Relief online.
• Getting a cold
• Being woken up at 8.30 GMT this morning by the builders next door re-fitting the bathroom
• Running out of ice cream
• Discovering my (red) Dalek keyring torch no longer has a gun. I think it's only a matter of time before it loses its sucker and eye too.

On the plus side:

• I have worked out how to get fanfic to display better on my ebook reader (I thought printing it to pdf would work, but the pdf printer can't cope with lines going over the page. But if I save the html page Calibre automatically converts them to epub, which works fine)
• I am going to see a house on Saturday (with an estate agent who sounded much better than the ones I rung earlier in the week)
• My new netbook worked out we'd changed the clocks this morning all on its own (the old one never did)
• I have caught up with Taggart - the last episode (which was on just over a month ago) had Steven Pacey in it, doing a Glaswegian accent
• I've changed to the doctors near where I live (rather than near where I used to live) and my new doctor is not only very nice, but also has had the same dizziness thing I've got. My previous doctor would ask me what sort of dizziness it is (me moving or the room moving), but this one told me how it feels emotionally and was exactly right.
• I have written the first draft of my Remix fic
• I have actually had the energy to read my twitter feed for the first time in over a week. I'm not feeling like I've missed anything mind you...

I've just been ill. All last week I kept waking up really early and being busy, so I just got worse and worse. To the point where I went to the Rotary District Conference on Friday and slept better than I had all week, despite the room being hot, the window being open and my roommate snoring on and off. Of course after that I didn't sleep so well and Rotary likes to start early, so I'm back to being dizzy again, although not as bad as last week yet, but then I haven't been back to work yet.

On the plus side, I finished the first draft of my Big Bang fic. It comes to 17,600 words, which is quite a lot considering the first draft is more of a plot outline with dialogue. I have to go back and change bits of plot now. Well, I say now, I mean after I've done Remix. But I have already decided what I'm going to do, I just need to find the energy to do it.

I also got my Ebook Reader (but not the cover, but that's a long story). It's great having so many books on it and I'm loving that you can change the direction you swipe your finger to turn the page - I always went the wrong way on Dad's. So far I've filled it with a couple of books from Gutenberg and a load of fics from last year's AU Big Bang which I've been meaning to read for months.

Speaking of, while I was looking for the 2010 masterlist for AU Big Bang, I looked at people signing up and what they're intending to write. And I thought there should be a Lynda Day at the Chalet School...

Yesterday ended up being a good day.

First I found my Dalek 10 colour pen! It had got itself in the gap between the seat and the back of the driver's seat. Which explains why the seat was so uncomfortable all of a sudden. But doesn't explain how it got on the seat at all - I last saw it on the passenger seat. It must have jumped. But at least I have it back now.

Red ebook readers don't seem to be available online for love nor money. So I went to PCWorld on the basis they have one on display. And they don't have any in stock anywhere in the area. So I have ended up buying a silver one and a red cover. They should be here by the weekend, so I can play with it.

I have this morning off, which is very nice because I've had the chance to do a few things. Especially because I woke up at 7.30am...

I also posted a couple of Ian/Barbara fics this week. The Right Track I had the idea for at Christmas and wrote while I was avoiding writing any of my Big Bang fic. And then I wrote The Dalek Invasion of Johnny’s Wardrobe while I was still avoiding writing any of my Big Bang. They're both around 1000 words and utterly pointlessly fluffy, which has been a nice change to writing unending plot.

Today I went back to work after a week and a half off. Which was never going to be great, but bits of it were really bad and some of it was good:

Good: It was very sunny and light when I got up
Bad: I had to scrape the ice off my car. It wasn't thick ice, but I am definitely moving to somewhere with a garage, I can't be doing with that any more.
Bad: Both my bosses are off during most of Wimbledon, which includes the date my tickets are for. No one else is allowed time off during that time.
Good: Work gave me money for having worked there for ten years (it's not actually quite ten years yet), so I am going to use it to buy myself a red ebook reader.
Bad: Where did the time go? I feel old. I don't want to be old. I want to be 22 again.
Bad: I took my new 10 colour Dalek pen into work and it vanished into thin air. I do it with pens all the time, but I thought this one was big enough not to lose.
Good: I wasn't too busy today.
Good: It was still light when I left work.

Now I've got Redemption out of the way I'm supposed to be thinking about moving. Which involves getting rid of things and doing packing and paying movers to move all my stuff.

But first I have to find somewhere. Houses with two bedrooms and central heating are easy to find. Houses with a garage are more tricky because there's a lot of terraced housing with accompanied obstacle courses round the cars on the road. Street View's quite handy in that respect.

I have written a list of things to look at when I'm going round houses so I won't choose one based on the colour of the carpets. Which worked out well in this flat, but isn't really the best thing to base it on.

What's complicating it is that I am on two month's notice so I don't want to move any time soon. In fact, as long as I don't move in the middle of winter I don't care when it is. And the last time I moved I looked round three places in the space of a week and chose one of them. So I keep thinking that if I look now I'll just find something too soon. And the ones I like the best, based on the photos and description, are a bit more than I want to pay really and if I go and see them I might like them...

I really have to admit I am back in the real world. I was at Redemption last weekend, then I went to the Doctor Experience and haven't been back to work. It's been nice. I would say I could get used to this not going to work lark, but I know if I had to do it for another week I'd get really bored. Since I promised I'd write up the DW Experience, and since I was too ill last year to write a con report, I will do it this year. Read more...