I purposely uploaded my Bad Day icon to my Dreamwidth account so I could use it when I crosspost this to LJ and DW. Yes, things have been that bad. It's mostly been lots of little things, but I am definitely having a bad year. The past two weeks I have:
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I don't really make new years resolutions because I tend to forget them. Plus you can't change the whole of you all at once, so one thing's enough.

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...

My sole post all week has been the latest Big Finish releases, which included the subscriber special The Five Companions. Which was fun - I want to see more of Ian and Steven teaming up now.

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.

It's definitely winter - my hands are dry and have started cracking This is even though I wear gloves whenever I'm outside or in the car, and for doing the washing up and when it's cold in the house I wear fingerless gloves. But there's only so much you can do and I'm not feeling desperate enough to wear gloves when washing my hair or showering. It's not as bad as when I had a rabbit because there are some things you can't do with gloves on because straw and food sticks to them.

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...

I have been meaning to post all week, but I've just been so tired. Work was busy and I keep getting woken up by the heating coming on. Which is bad enough usually, but was worse on Friday when I got up extra early to collect for Children in Need at 8am. I would have caught up on my sleep this weekend, if I hadn't been waking up early for no reason.

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.

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I hate it when people spell names wrong. Well, mostly mine, but I can do hatred by proxy too. It would have been more timely if I'd posted this on Friday, when I was called by the wrong name twice by email and Alexander Armstrong posted this to twitter about people getting his name wrong.

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.

My October's been quite boring. I've just done nothing to speak of at all. Which is partly due to not having Rotaract any more, so I have much more free time, partly because I've not organised myself to do anything, partly because work's been busy because I've not had the energy, and partly because I just can't do that much anyway.

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.

Yesterday was a bit of a frustrating day. First I discovered I had a hole in the knee of my jeans. Last time my jeans all went holey I had to have my sister drag me round all the clothes shops to try on all the jeans to establish that only New Look's jeans fit me. Amazingly, I found some that are ordinary (I can't wear hipsters because belts are really uncomfortable because they pull all the fabric to the front, and can't wear flares/boot cut because I need them to stop at my shoes so I don't walk on them). So I bought two pairs, which I had to do online because the shop only has long and extra long leg lengths. If you want slightly long, you have to buy them online.

So as I bought two at once, that means if one's gone, the other's going to go too. And do New Look still do the same style of jeans? Of course not. And, at least according to the website, all their jeans are £20, which is twice what I'm prepared to pay for jeans. Which means I now need to find some jeans (and buy about six pairs this time when I find some). What I really need are children's jeans, because they fit properly, but it's impossible to find some that aren't cool or girly.

And then in the afternoon we had team building exercise, which involved making chocolate. Well, that was my contribution to the creating a chocolate brand (no one in my team would let me create an evil brand). So I spent the entire afternoon with chocolate around the room and on the table. It would have been so easy just to eat some, but I couldn't. I was so hungry by the time I left and could still taste chocolate when I went to bed. I'm halfway through my everything + sugar free diet and I haven't ever wanted chocolate as much as I did yesterday.

This week I have:

• 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...

Yay for it being a three day weekend. Although that meant today was manic at work as we all tried to get stuff launched before the weekend. I am looking forward to three days off and watching Reading. Although it clashes with Doctor Who, so I'll have to tape them both.

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.

This week started well on Monday and went downhill rapidly after that. Tuesday I had a conference call that started at 12.30 and finished at 13.40. By which point my tummy was making hungry noises and I only got a short lunch break. Which might have been fine, except that I'd only got a short lunch break the day before as well, so I ended up having the 40 minutes I'd missed in the middle of the afternoon instead.

Then Wednesday afternoon I felt all weird. It wasn't until after I left work that I realised that maybe it was a mild migraine, but with none of my usual triggers. So after that I was tired. But last night I slept for 11 hours. Now I feel great, except that I have conjunctivitis...

On the plus side I am off on the annual trip to the windmill with no TV and no internet for four days. Based on past experience my conjunctivitis will be getting better by the time I leave...

Blogging hasn't been top of my list of things to recently due to lack of time and energy.

A couple of weeks ago we moved offices, so it now takes longer to get there and back. But I have been exploring different routes and discovered they all take the same amount of time. Although there's one I don't really want to do in the winter because it's narrow and has no streetlights - the main road doesn't have streetlights either, but at least it's the main road.

So then I overdid it with work and extra driving and randomly waking up at 5.30am for no reason. I was so tired a couple of weeks ago I slept during the day. And then slept for twelve hours, which would have been better if I hadn't then woken up dizzy.

So then I spent a week being dizzy. Which was just what I wanted when I was already feeling behind.

I went to see a ballet choreographed by my former teacher. Which I actually enjoyed (the only other time I went to the ballet I found watching the orchestra far more interesting than watching the dancing). It was interesting to see them perform movements we've learnt, but I got to see how they're supposed to look.

I did manage to see a house that I liked and now I am moving into it! I had a list of all the things to look at (so I know, for example, that the bathroom mirror is too high for me to see in, but at least isn't over the sink, so won't involve me standing on one foot and leaning over the sink to see in it), but I mostly just liked it. I am moving mid-August. I need to sort out some men with a van to pay to move my furniture, but any help anyone can offer would be appreciated as it's not likely to do my dizziness any help for a start... If anyone is curious I can message/email them the estate agent's listing.

I also signed up for femgenficathon, which is due around the time I'm moving. And 100 drabbles of summer, which is due a couple of weeks later. Neither of them have any penalties for defaulting, so we'll see. The main trouble I'm having with femgenficathon is which female character to write, there are so many to choose from...

I am on the last edit of my Big Bang. I will be done before Wimbledon.

Tennis! As great as it was to see some of the French Open I could have done without the camera work. Any time the players weren't playing a point the shot would change to the spectators and then move along and zoom in on a player and wave about and zoom in and out. I swapped to the radio commentary at one point because it was making me dizzy. I did hear the commentator remark that Federer looked calm after losing the first point in the tie-break. Which of course is nothing like how he usually is... I've seen a bit of Queens so far and I'm much preferring the camera work. And looking forward to going to the final on Sunday. Fingers crossed for nice weather (or at least no rain).

Despite only going to work for three days this week, it still felt like a long week. So it's been good to have a four day weekend.

Thursday I went to London and met up with just_ann_now, munditia, jay_of_lasgalen and some other people I didn't know. I managed to find the British Museum on the first attempt, although not the statue we were meeting by - that took me ten minutes of wondering around. Then after lunch me and munditia went in search of Foyles and nearly ended up at Forbidden Planet. In my defence the street did look familiar. Fortunately I had a map and there were maps on the street which told you where you were. I ended up buying the three Chalet School books written by other people that they had there.

So then I felt awful on Friday, which was why I'd taken the day off. I watched a lot of Castle. So much so that I have on episode to go, that I'll watch tonight, and I'd only just started season 3 on Friday...

I was going to be all productive today, but then I wasn't much. I did play with the cat in the garden a bit. I hadn't seen him since Christmas and now he's a fully grown cat. Pictures to follow once I get round to uploading them.

But I did sort out, with my sister, what Olympics tickets we want to apply for. We ended up with the maximum number of sessions at £1550 between us... But think we'll only get half of them, if we're lucky, so it won't cost too much. And it'll be the price of a holiday, so it'll be my holiday for the year.

In an effort to wake me up from the hot weather and holiday stupor, have a meme, that I saw on lost_spook's LJ:

Give me the name of a character and I will tell you the following:
1. How I FEEL about this character
2. All the people I ship romantically with this character
3. My non-romantic OTP for this character
4. My unpopular opinion about this character
5. One thing I wish would happen/had happened with this character in canon.

PS Doctor Who was good, I liked it. And if anyone's not following Stephen Fry on Twitter, who announced it this morning, John Sullivan (writer of Only Fools and Horses) has died. It's clearly that sort of week.

Back at the beginning of the year I made a resolution to have one day out a month. I had things planned for the first three months anyway, so I've been doing that. And now after a busy March I've had some time to clean and get some jobs done (last weekend) and relax (this weekend). And book some more things out:

June - I have tickets to the finals at Queens! I was expecting a stampede when they went on sale at 10am on Wednesday, but I could have got any tickets at all. And at 10.30 there were still tickets left for Centre Court on the Sunday. I've never been to Queens before and it will definitely make up for not going to Wimbledon this year.

March - this doesn't count as a day out, but I am going to see Chris Addison on his next tour. Yes, this is March 2012. But he's coming near here and how can I not go? And there shouldn't be anyone I know likely to get married then.

This still leaves April. I've been thinking about getting away from the Royal Wedding. Especially if there are likely to be street parties anywhere. And to celebrate my birthday. So a day out would be a good way to do it. But I can't go to London or to the seaside (since it's the start of the May Day bank holiday weekend) or anywhere full of tourists. So I think I might go to Bletchely Park since I've wanted to go for ages and there's a coach to Milton Keynes which is ridiculously cheap. I am quite happy to go on my own, but does anyone want to come along?

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...

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.

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...

There are so many things I could talk about. Like how I haven't had the energy to write posts or reply to any. Or about the book just_ann_now sent to me called Chicks Dig Time Lords that I'll take to Redemption to pass on to someone else. Or how I'm off to Redemption this weekend. Which I'm looking forward to because it's in Coventry and it still feels like home (and I can go and see what the new union building looks like). But something bad happened for the last three Redemptions (last year I got labyrinthitis, the year before I discovered my car had been broken into, the year before I developed a lactose intolerance) so I can't help thinking something bad is going to happen in the next few days. Or about how I can't afford to buy a house, but can afford to rent somewhere bigger (with more space for books!). Or about how I'm halfway through writing the first draft of my Big Bang fic - I have 9000 words so far, so I should be able to make 25,000. Or about Nicholas Courtney dying, which is very sad.

But mostly, I feel that I ought to post today, of all days, because today is the two year anniversary of me being ill. Which is not really something to celebrate, but is something to mark.