- So cold. It's been getting down to -9C at night. My hands are really dry and cracking - they're even dry on the insides of my fingers, and it's usually only the outsides of my hands that get that bad. The worst part is that the heating at work is rubbish, so it's freezing all morning and boiling in the afternoon. Friday, which was particularly cold, was so cold at work that I couldn't feel my fingers with fingerless gloves on. Which is because they're fingerless, but I just can't type with gloves on.

- Sunday evening my heating started humming when the boiler went off. It took me ages to track it down because it sounds like a transformer hum. Things work so fast when you're renting - I called the estate agent on Wednesday, they're sending someone to look at it next week. If the heating broke I definitely wouldn't ring the estate agent.

- Because my boiler is so loud I don't have it come on until I get up. Thursday morning it was 10C in the house, Friday morning it was 9C. Even my head was cold. I ended up leaving the heating on last night turned down, but due to that and the humming I've been wearing ear plugs, which irritate my ears, but they're the good ones. And I've still been waking up at the noise and I'm really not good on no sleep.

- Finally made it to ballet, after missing the first two weeks of term due to being dizzy. The good part is that I actually managed to get all the way round on a pirouette this week. It helped that I was actually well enough to balance, as it does involve standing on the tiptoes of one foot while going round quite quickly.

- Joined the local choir. You don't have to be able to sing, which is handy because I haven't really sung since primary school. Being able to read music helps, but I was very glad I'm not a bloke because some of their parts was in bass clef and my bass clef reading was shaky enough when I had to do it regularly. I enjoyed it, but it's going to take a bit of getting used to, reading two notes at the same time, working out which one is mine and reading the words at the same time. I was very welcome as I'm an alto and they were short of those last term. (I wasn't sure at first because the parts didn't have names in primary school and I'm sure my voice has changed since then, but having been I can confirm I definitely can't sing as high as soprano).

- Managed to kill Firefox on my netbook by accidentally upgrading 3.6 to 9 and then 7 wouldn't accept it was my default browser. I finally managed to get 9 to use my profile for 7, which solved the problem.

- General other things on my computers being a pain that required time to fix

- I have eaten quite a bit of wheat! I've had whole meals of wheat pasta and wheat spaghetti and not been ill. I bought myself some bourbon biscuits and haven't been ill on two of those a day either. But it was really hard to go down the biscuit aisle and choose a biscuit because there was so much choice. I haven't brought myself to eat bread yet because I don't want to remind myself what it tastes like if I have to go back to Genius bread (which I currently think tastes nice).

- Managed to pull down the curtain rail in my bedroom. I am getting a friend of mine to fix it, but I feel like such a useless girl to have to get a man to help. But it's not because I'm a girl it's because I'm accident prone and likely to make it worse if I'm left to do it myself.

- Still feel like I'm waiting to get my life back and it's been a few weeks short of three years.

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But I was still going to get lots done this weekend. Until I got dizzy on Thursday. Since this is a random dizziness for no reason, it takes a week to go away. After two days of not working, I'm now bored. Not because I have nothing to do (I have plenty to read and write) but because I feel fine when I'm lying down and want to get up and do things. But I can't. It's so frustrating.

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Life: Ill

Last year I said I would go on a day trip at least once a month. If you count up the number I did and divide my twelve I succeeded. If you count it by month I failed in October. I knew it as well, I just didn't want to go anywhere.

This year I have resolved to put things off less. Before I was ill I used to try and get things done, then I could sit down and do what I liked. But that doesn't work any more because I have to stop and rest. So instead I am going to write down things I need to do as I think of them, and then do them. And try not to leave them all until the weekend, but it doesn't matter, as long as I do them. And writing them down should mean that I remember to do them. I already have three things on the list...

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Life: Life

Friday was our work Christmas party, which I've only just recovered from. All I did was to sit around and talk (and stand for an hour) but I was tired from it I slept for 11 hours Friday night, still felt tired and slept for 10 hours last night. Now I don't feel tired.

In the work secret santa for the first year in I don't know how many, I didn't get a Doctor Who related thing. I got a rabbit instead. Which is good, because generally you can't go wrong with with rabbits. However, this one has a hole in it that you're clearly meant to put something in, but no one knows what. There was no packaging, so presumably my santa doesn't know either. The most suggested things at the party were mobile, iPod and remote control. I tried putting my phone in it and the hole holds together too well to get anything in there easily. So I am stumped.

There was also food, which I mostly couldn't eat. The chef wouldn't understand that I just wanted to know what was in it, I didn't care about contamination, which she was more interested in telling me. I don't think she wanted me to eat at all. Fortunately, I brought my own - I remember last year well when I got a salad.

I have things booked for January now. I am going to see the Gymnastics at the O2. It feels like we can't get away from that place. I'm also going to see Spamalot. For the third time. But the first and second times were on Broadway and in the West End, this one's in my nearest city.

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Life, TV, Work: Doctor Who (Classic), Life, Work

But at least there's only 11 days of work left. Well, 10 and a half for me as tomorrow I am off to see Coldplay. Annoyingly we have to be there two hours before it starts to avoid the rush hour, as it's on the wrong side of London. And by the time it finishes we'll be on the last train and I'll get home at 1.15am! Which is why all I have planned this weekend is to catch up on some of the stuff on my PVR because that's definitely all I'll be capable of. I know I will enjoy it, despite the fact that I got dizzy last time I was in the O2 and the last time I was up that late at night I couldn't stand up without falling over...

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Life, Music: Coldplay, Life

In other news, I had mushrooms last night and wasn't ill. They were nice as well, I'd forgotten! Even better, I had them on pizza. Sainsbury's Free From pizza bases don't go completely solid in the oven either. They're just expensive, which is why pizza is a treat. But since the smallest amount of mushrooms I can buy was 150g, I will be eating mushrooms every night this week.

Mushrooms are the last thing I have to try before I'm onto wheat and wheat gluten. It's a tricky one because I don't want to eat something that I'll remember the taste of and then might not be able to eat again, but I could eat half a breaded fish from the fish and chip shop, so I will need to eat quite a bit of gluten to test it. I am intending to have a tube of Pringles because limiting yourself to one or two is really hard. I think it'll have to be pasta - I have plenty, so I can always have half ordinary, half gluten free.

At some point I will have to try an actual egg and not just egg in bread and biscuits. But since I really don't want to remember what one tastes like and then potentially not be able to eat one again, I'm not in a rush.

Permalink | 2 comments | Categories: Life, Work: Food, Work

But I do have a meme from selenay936:

Comment to this post, and I will list five things I associate with you. They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your blog/LJ/DW (or just add a reply back to me). Other people can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

selenay936 gave me:

Rotaract
It has been my source of friends, social life and knowledge of the local area since I moved here. It's weird not having it in my life quite so much any more. I collected for Children in Need on Friday, as I've done every year, and I had to wear a Rotary tabard. And we have to be more organised about seeing each other socially now that we're not meeting up anyway at least once a month.

So that's a fairly reasonable thing to associate with me. And I'm glad I have got the Rotaract name out a little bit because not many people have heard about it. Amusingly, while I was writing this bit, I was interrupted by a Rotaract-related phone call.

Tennis
Wimbledon's always been this big fixture in the calendar. It's only recently that I've started going to tennis matches. I'm going to the ATP World Tour Finals semi-final on Saturday. And next year I'm definitely going to two Olympic tennis days and two Paralympic tennis days. Plus am also hoping to go to Queens, Wimbledon and the last ATP World Tour Final in London. Which is quite a bit of tennis...

But there is something about Wimbledon and the atmosphere. More so for home Davis Cup matches where almost the whole crowd on Court 1/the NEC are cheering for Team GB so loudly. Except when we're losing when it gets a bit depressing.

So, yes, I like tennis. Although mostly I only watch the men because the women are boring and grunt, which is annoying. The men's game feels like it has more stars. It certainly has more status in this country, but at least some of that could be due to Henman/Rusedski/Murray versus no decent British women players.

Doctor Who
I do like Doctor Who. Doctor Who fandom makes me think I don't and it's only when I see a new episode that I remember I like it. It's not my favourite TV programme, it's just the one that I am involved in (bits of) the fandom currently.

But I do like that it has time travel (I love time travel - time is my favourite bit of physics). I also like that it has historical episodes, so that's two of my favourite things.

Cats
My parents have always had cats. So I like cats. I can especially talk about cats when I've just been home for a long weekend. Not that I actually played with Timmy - he did all his playing outside. But he did take great delight in sleeping where other people wanted to be sitting, investigating an Amazon box by getting in it and answering questions by making noises. No idea what they mean (except for the noise that means he wants someone to play with him and the ones that means there are birds outside). Cats are entertaining and relaxing and useful for eating spiders that have come in the house.

Having Interesting Adventures Unintentionally
Er, I do this? I would say I don't mean to, but that would be the point of the unintentionally bit above. I think it comes from a mixture of bad luck and a tendency not to know when to leave well alone. But at least they're interesting adventures.

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Animals, Life, Meme, Rotaract, Sport: Cat, Doctor Who (New), Life, Meme: other, Rotaract, Tennis, Timmy

But now I get to reintroduce foods one at a time to see if they make me ill. I'm starting with soya. When I first couldn't eat soya it seemed like it was in everything. Now I'm struggling to find things to eat with it in. It's my cheese, but I was eating that anyway, as I could tolerate that much. It's in chocolate, but the nicest (dairy free) chocolate is soya free. I've been forced to eat Swedish Glace ice cream, which is such a hardship as you can imagine. Especially since the only flavour Sainsburys had was Neapolitan.

After three months without cheese I had some in my sandwich at lunch. And it tasted so odd. Granted, it does anyway - it doesn't taste like cheese, hence why I like it. But ice cream tasted so odd too and I was eating that, albeit a different brand, three months ago as well.

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Life: Food

I have got used to people spelling my last name wrong so generally I spell it straight after saying it. It cuts down on people saying "Is that with an e?" me saying that it is and them then putting two es in. Yes, there is an e in my surname, but not there.

I have got used to people getting my pseudonym wrong. No one ever spells it wrong, but people do put random capitals and spaces in there. The only capital is a p and there are no spaces. Despite it being two words put together it really is one word. But I reached the stage of not caring about that long ago.

My first name, on the other hand, that I care about. People spelling the shortened form wrong is quite annoying, but people give you odder looks for spelling it than they do when you just tell them what it is, so I've given up on that and just don't look when they write it down, it saves time. My full first name on the other hand... There are some other spellings of it, but on the whole they're rare and people don't guess those. What they are incapable of is one letter that changes my whole name. That's not my name and it's not me and there's nothing that annoys me more than people getting that wrong. Even the Tories having a general election five days before my 18th birthday is only second on the list of things that really wind me up. Don't get me started on that.

So I get annoyed my proxy at people writing Sarah-Jane Smith or Elizabeth Sladen or Russel T Davies because that's not their names (and there's no excuse given that they're clearly written on screen). It's also because I can't personally mix and match spellings. I can't remember someone's name unless I know who it's spelt. Even though they're only one letter difference and pronounced the same, Clare and Claire are different. Perhaps it's the way my brain works, but it probably has something to do with why I can never remember character names on TV programmes. Although in that case it doesn't help that people mumble and pronounce things differently and it turns out that what you thought was Emma was in fact Erin.

So the moral of this story is, get my name wrong at your peril. Or at least be prepared to apologise profusely afterwards.

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Life: Life

So I am being better for November. I'm already going to the tennis at the end of the month and home for a long weekend. At some point once I can get everyone to agree on a date we'll have a Wii night at my house, where we can use my big lounge to its full advantage. And I'm going to the fireworks on Saturday - I haven't actually been to a firework display in years. It looks like it might be dry, not too cold, but muddy.

I have still been going to ballet. Last half term there were only three of us, none complete beginners and it was nice to have a small class. Now we have more beginners and it's nice to see how far I've come in a year. Although I still get very confused. The most amazing part about it is that, given my dizziness, I am getting better at pirouettes. Last night I even managed a couple where I didn't completely fall off at the end. But when the Winter Olympics were on one of my exercises was turning round in a circle slowly, which I could just about do. So pirouettes is a major advance. I can't do many, but then I wouldn't have been able to do before I was ill either.

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Life: Life

I have one bookcase left to make. At some point once I've made them all and got all my books on them I will take a photo (well, it'll take a few photos) to show how many there are. LibraryThing tells me I have 430 books, but there are some I could get rid of.

I have started reading A Game of Thrones. I'd been putting it off because it's 800 pages in a small font, but it turns out that the chapters are only about 10 pages each. So it's easy to just read a chapter before bed. I am enjoying it - the TV series followed the plot well and the book is explaining more of the background. So I will watch the next series before reading the second book.

Before I read A Game of Thrones I read Snuff. Which I was never not going to like.

My copy of Mylo Xyloto (Coldplay's new album) arrived on Monday. And I finally managed to listen to it today. I got through the whole of it on my journey to work and back. But since I was busy driving and navigating the fog and making sure my windows stayed de-misted and talking, I can't say that I listened to it that closely. But not as closely as I did X&Y - I had that in my car when I moved house the time before last and my sister had it in her car too. Given there was a 10 minute journey between my old flat and the new, we both got sick of the album. I couldn't listen to it for ages after that.

I have almost finished playing Lego Harry Potter. I would have finished it ages ago but I came across a bug, so I was forever stuck at 98%. Once my sister's finished Lego Pirates of the Caribbean then I can play that and she can play Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7. And then I can play it once she's finished. I have bought games for my Wii, but only three and only because I'd played them and liked them (and in two cases because they came with nunchuck/extra bit to make the remote more sensitive).

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Books, Life: A Song of Fire and Ice, Discworld

So I spent the week feeling rubbish and improved towards the end of the week. Which is the opposite of how I usually feel when a week goes by.

This weekend I spent getting the jobs done that I should have been doing last week. Oh, and spending the whole of this morning fixing my computer. Theoretically it was an easy fix, if only my Ubuntu installation pen drive. But I have now added to my list of Linux distros I've used with Puppy Linux. Which looks like the Windows sort of environment with Linux icons. And barks when it starts up, which frightened the life out of me because I wasn't expecting it.

I did finish a fic a couple of weeks ago and then didn't want to post at the same time as the other one, otherwise I'd look far more prolific than I really am. But I have now: John Chesterton: Time Lord (spoilers for When a Good Man Goes to War and Let's Kill Hitler). When I first had the idea, at the end of the first half of the series, I was intending to write something serious. But by the time I came up with a plot it ended up being not terribly serious at all.

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Computers, Fan fic, Life: Ill, My fanfic, Netbook

So my life for the past week has been very boring. Apart from discovering a big spider on my bed last night, which is the sort of excitement I can do without.

And Spooks is back, yay! Sadly only for six episodes. But this week's featured Dayna from Blake's 7 (I spent the whole of the first scene she was in trying to work out if it was her). When I went on the website to check the credits I realised I knew why I recognised Elena - she was the Borg Queen. Only First Contact was quite a long time ago.

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Life, TV: Spooks

• Made a shepherd's pie for the first time ever. It didn't stick together, but it tasted nice and that's all that counts
• Had a fry up for breakfast because I ran out of porridge - well, I say fry up, but actually only the tomatoes were fried. The has browns were cooked in the oven the previous night and microwaved. But they did taste very nice
• Got the car out of the garage without having to go forwards for the first time ever
• Seen a lot of tractors on my way to and from work. On Wednesday I managed to get stuck behind one when it was stuck behind a cyclist going up a hill...

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Life: Life

Yesterday I managed to post my femgenficathon fic: Stuck With You, featuring Jo Jones née Grant.

I've been watching Downton Abbey too. I kept meaning to watch it, being as so many people talked about it, and then I heard there would be a second series in the autumn, so I thought I ought to get on with it. I was expecting it to be the usual serious period drama, but it's actually quite ridiculous and I am liking it.

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Fan fic, Life, TV: Downton Abbey, Life, My fanfic

Maybe now I can start feeling like things are normal again. Although it still feels like I'm living in someone else's house.

I have uploaded photos - they're the first eight at http://www.flickr.com/photos/paranoidangel/tags/house/

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Life: Moving

I managed to move on a day when it rained pretty much all day. The removal men came, packed everything in an hour and a half, then moved it over to the house. It was so quick that my PVR hadn't lost any of its settings.

Since I've moved in I've discovered that the shower is a trickle (although I think that might be because the shower head is tiny and useless), the light switch in the kitchen is upside down, the oven doesn't work unless you set the time and the smoke alarm just outside the kitchen (which has no door) is really sensitive.

I also have internet, courtesy of BT Openzone, which I have paid for, but it's better value than dial-up or 3G. It is a bit slower than I'm used to, but far faster than the alternatives. At least it exists, which is great.

While I unpacked I listened to The Rocket Men (Big Finish Ian companion chronicle) which I thought was quite clever. And has jet packs in. Once I've had this month's credit card bill I will be giving Big Finish lots of money for a monthly releases subscription, the Benny box set and the Jo companion chronicle coming up.

I've also been watching Game of Thrones this weekend, since I promised people at work I'd marathon it this weekend. I don't know if I'll finish it though, since I'm only halfway through and it's already mid-morning on Sunday. But so far I am enjoying it, with the aid of a character and actor guide. I spend half the time watching it checking who the characters are and then going to imdb.

I had no idea so many actors I knew were in it. I am less keen on all the sex and gore, but I do like the sword fighting. I definitely need to read the book to understand what's going on - the episodes don't make it clear how much time has passed, which has been confusing me. So far I like Ned Stark dealing with his daughters making his life complicated. Which is much more interesting than him dealing with politics.

Permalink | 2 comments | Categories: Life, TV: Game of Thrones, Moving

The kitchen doesn't have a door (to be fair, there isn't much space to have one open and has a smoke alarm right outside(!), but the lounge has a door, so I can still shut away the noise of the washing machine. Which seems to be a washer/dryer. Not that I'm likely to use the tumble dryer that much, but it does make towels nice and fluffy.

I measured my furniture with bits of string, then took the string to the new house to work out where to put everything. I'll get to see on Thursday how accurate the string is... But it looks like I can fit all my bedroom stuff in the smaller bedroom (which only shares a wall with my neighbour's bathroom), so I'll have plenty of space for books and other stuff in the big bedroom (which shares both its walls with both my neighbours. I will take photos after my stuff is moved in, it just might be a while before I can upload them.

I also spent the afternoon ringing companies up to change my address. My car and contents insurance have both gone down, which is good. And all the people I talked to were English, apart from one who was Scottish. But on my list of people to tell my new address is 'Friends'. And I've lost track of who even had my address to begin with, so if you'd like my new address (or phone number), let me know.

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Life: Moving

I am so glad the removal men are packing my stuff because there's no way I'd have the energy to do everything by myself. This weekend I got about halfway through my list of people to tell I've moved (although some are unimportant and can wait), spring cleaned the lounge (except for the book shelves, which I did a couple of weeks ago), defrosted the fridge and did some other odd bits of cleaning. And done some betaing. It's just as well I'm not actually moving until Thursday.

Given that my contract for the new place says I have to have it professionally cleaned before I move out, I hope that means the last people have done that, so I won't have to clean it before I move in. Just buy a few things that I need - so far I know I'll need some airers to put on the radiators, as I don't have any. But I'm still paranoid that things will go wrong. I have to try putting my car in the garage tomorrow - I don't know if I can do it or if I can even open the garage door, having never done either of those things before in my life.

On the plus side, I have a couple of friends who live five minutes walk from my new house. They already lent me their electric cool box, so the entire contents of my fridge fit in that and stayed cold while the fridge defrosted. And I will be borrowing space in their freezer, as I have to defrost the freezer for moving it. But they are getting whatever tea bags the removal men don't drink in return.

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Life: Moving

There's a theory all these food intolerances are caused by not enough good bacteria and too much bad bacteria in the digestive system. Which itself could well be caused by stress, at least in my case. I was stressed by becoming lactose intolerant in 2005 when I got most of my intolerances. And I became soya intolerant the last time I moved house...

In order to get rid of these intolerances I have to not have any of the things I'm intolerant to for three months, as well as not having any yeast or sugar. And only three portions of fruit a day.

I say that it will get rid of them, but the doctor couldn't say for sure. The only evidence is from alternative medicine, which doesn't prove anything. But Mum tried it and it worked for her, so it's worth a go.

So far I've been eating up things with sugar in that won't keep or are frozen. There are plenty of things I know sugar is in, which is fair enough. But then I'm finding it's in things like cornflakes, sausages, chips, stock cubes, pasta sauce. Ok, so I got unlucky with the chips because they don't all have it in, just the packet in my freezer. But there are no stock cubes I've found on the Sainsburys website that don't have either sugar or yeast in.

I'm feeling positive about it at the moment, but I might well be sick of porridge for breakfast and rice cakes for snacks in three months time. Especially when there's nothing I can find to spread on rice cakes except for butter. But on the plus side I did make my own pasta sauce tonight. I've tried it once before and I didn't like it, but I don't remember what I did. Tonight I had tomatoes, tomato puree and basil in what ended up being random amounts, but it came out tasting nice. I've been meaning to make my own pasta sauce for ages, so when I've finished the diet I might stick with it. Apart from the jar I have in the cupboard that will need using up before it's best before date.

Permalink | No comments | Categories: Life: Food