I now have a wardrobe in my bedroom. And right across my right hand hurts from screwing screws into wood where there were no holes. The pack had 80 screws in them and we used... more than 20. So it's quite shoddy but not really quite shoddy. I've filled it up and it hasn't fallen over or fallen apart anyway. I still have more unpacking to do, five weeks after I've moved. The trouble is I have too much stuff for the space - I need a two bedroom house to fit it in. Although then I'd have to bring up all my books and videos and other stuff from home and goodness knows how I'd have the space for everything...

I'm still feeling a bit temporary and like everything is on hold until I get my main laptop sorted and get my flat sorted of piles of crap. So in the meantime, have a couple of long Doctor Who fic recs with Harry in:

Saving Horse Feathers by Weimlady. It's unfinished, but there's another long one to read first. They're both Ten, Sarah and Harry and although I started off not sure about them, I still couldn't put them down.

The Trouble with Harry by Azar. It's a crossover with NCIS starring Ten, Martha, some Harry and some NCIS characters that I vaguely recognise the names of. But even not knowing anything about NCIS, I still liked it.

On the whole, this has been a bad week. But it did have some good things in it:

• I found Sainsburys did lasagne sheets made without soya flour, so I can eat soya again
• I now have a sofa and a wardrobe (even if the latter is currently in the kitchen, since that's the only space for it) and a coffee table
• I have some friends coming tonight to go to our Cheese and Wine quiz and see my new flat
• I found some white dairy free chocolate. I haven't tried it yet, since I ought to finish my current bar first, but I'm very excited about actually seeing some

And the bad:

• Friday last week the graphics card on my computer died. Friday, yesterday, my laptop keeps fusing, for reasons we're not 100% sure of yet. It's just as well I'd brought my work laptop home. You'd think two computers would be enough, but no...
• I haven't had any emails since Thursday - turns out that actually I've had 34, including the test one I sent to myself. Now it's sorted and I have them, but it would have been nice to have had them at the time...
• I worked ridiculously hard and late Tuesday and Thursday - the only days I had something on in the evening. So Thursday I didn't get to go back to fencing again and Tuesday I got in long enough to have a pot noodle before going out, then only had the energy to go to bed when I got back in. Although part of that was because I had yesterday off.

Ok, so there aren't any more bad things than that, but those are bad enough, I think.

Tomorrow morning I have to go back home (I do have two houses I call home) and then the day after back to work for the first time in a week and a half. Very depressing

So, what I have achieved this holidays? Read more...

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Originally uploaded by paranoidangel

We finally managed to finish the Doctor Who puzzle that we started with Jonathan Creek. It has a lot more black pieces than it looks.

Apart from that I've bought myself a 4Gb pen drive. I bought a 1Gb one a couple of years ago for twice the price... And I tried to buy a bigger xD card for my camera, but the smallest you can get is 1Gb. So I bought that instead (I only really need 256Mb).

And then I got distracted by looking up the two Big Finish Companion Chronicles that are due out at the end of the month, both of which I want. And I ended up buying Benny series 2 in the Big Finish Christmas Sale. And I was doing so well avoiding that sale too...

I finally managed to take the bag of books that's been sitting around my room for ages to the charity shop today. Well, I tried to take it into work on Monday but I only got a few paces from the front door and the handles broke. Since I was already late by then, I took it back and left it for another day. I took it in yesterday, went down to the charity shop at lunch to find they'd randomly closed for lunch. I chose that charity shop of the many we have in town because it has a whole room for books.

But on the way back to work I passed another charity shop. Since I just want to get rid of these books I thought I'd drop them in there. But there was a woman trying to pay by card and the woman behind the till was getting herself in a mess with it and after a couple of minutes I decided I much preferred the idea of lunch. I could have gone to another charity shop, but I couldn't be bothered by that point. I ended up taking it to the original charity shop this lunchtime. The woman in there didn't really seem to care that I was giving them this donation. I almost don't know why I bothered.

I actually had some time at work today where I wasn't trying to do a million things at once by the end of the day. I almost didn't know what to do with myself! So when I got home I had plenty of time to listen to the six o'clock news on Radio 5 for once, make muffins and watch Chuck. And then my TV guide (aka my dad) told me there was a programme on about time, which put paid to my plan to actually do some writing tonight. And as interesting as the programme was it featured quite a few physicists, none of whom were fat or bearded. One of them was even female. What is the world coming to?

For the next couple of days everything gets put on hold for Rotaract. Tomorrow I am not looking forward to venturing out into the cold (not that it's that warm in here) and breaking my car out from under a load of ice, while the car only gets even colder than the outside air. But I am driving far enough that not only will it warm up before I get there, but I might also be able to get warm air on my feet too! It's very hard to drive when you can't feel your feet, your hands and you're shivering.

Thursday I get to spend several hours outside in the evening selling chestnuts (bonus: I like chestnuts). I discovered last year that two pairs of trousers keeps you warm, but it looks like this year will be colder than last year...

But on the plus side, because I have a long weekend to do moving things, this is my last five day week before Christmas!

Since I just added some people to my LJ friends list, since they might decide to read my LJ, I thought I'd write a quick blurb about me.

I wrote a fairly long post about my job a while ago and since that's not the most important thing about me, I won't expand on it further (unless anyone wants me to).

Mostly what I've been talking about recently is moving, since I'm moving house in just under two weeks and it's true that it's one of the most stressful things you can do. The other most important thing in my life is Rotaract, which is a club for 18-30 year olds to have fun and raise money and help the local community. Our club has seven people in it, so we all get involved with everything we do. But I'm also on the district exec and am on the committee that's running the national conference next May. So that keeps me quite busy.

Fandom-wise it's mostly Doctor Who at the moment. I seem to have become known for having a thing about Harry (if the SJA signing was any indication). But I've never quite left (if only because I'm clinging on by my fingernails) Atlantis and Lord of the Rings (with the latter I was known for having a thing about Elrond).

Two years ago I managed to get myself into roleplaying on LJ, where you do get to play fandom major characters, where I play mostly Harry (which surprises everyone, I'm sure) and if you want more of my writing about Harry, his LJ () is the place to find it. There's also Jo Grant, Ian Chesterton and Teal'c, who is new and scares me. A bit.

A quick note about how I use my LJ. Everything starts from the blog, which is a far better way of finding old posts. I read my LJ friends list by RSS Feed, which I prefer lots and lots and don't know how anyone can read anything on their friends list any other way. In my case friends list is a very big misnomer, it's actually a reading list. I have friends who have LJs who I don't read, for whatever reason, but there is a life outside LJ. And I rarely friends lock stuff anyway.

It's weird - I got so used to being busy at work during the week that the weekend seems so relaxing it's hard to motivate myself to do anything at all. And I definitely have things I should be doing because all I've done towards packing so far is to tidy and bring in the crates from the car.

Yesterday I took my old printer to the tip. I've never been to the tip before, so that was an adventure. Fortunately, it was signposted and wasn't hard to find. I was a bit scared about it because it was off a 60mph road, but fortunately wasn't that busy. I had to ask somewhere where I was supposed to put the printer because I wasn't sure. So having stopped at the household waste part I had to go round to the green waste. I hadn't even got as far as opening the boot when the man came round and took it out and away for me! When I was putting the printer in the car in the first place a man who happened to be walking by asked me if I wanted help. I did have my hair up because I was going swimming afterwards, it must have made me look a lot younger.

Although then I got chatted up in the swimming pool. Well, I exchanged names with the bloke also in the medium lane and then he asked me if I was single. I had to think about it for a while because I was going to automatically tell the truth, but then I decided that was a bad idea and told him I wasn't. And then he went away after that, thank goodness.

I keep meaning to talk about TV stuff. After having seen the first two episodes of Survivors (minus a five minute bit in the middle of the first episode because I thought it was only an hour long and started it a few minutes late), I still can't decide whether I like it or not. I will talk about SJA, but I'll leave that till Monday to annoy because I'll be talking about the wrong episode. I won't talk about Spooks, so can't be tempted, but I will say it's been very good so far. The other week we had a discussion at work at lunch about what was going on in it, and none of us could say

And I finished Lost in Austen - it was very good. But apart from spending the whole thing recognising most of the actors, I also spent most of it wanting to know how Elizabeth was getting on. I was almost tempted to read the book, except in the Making Of documentary they said about how a lot of the characters were quite different to how they were in the book, so now I'm not so sure.

I finally managed to get myself out of holiday mode and cleaned the house yesterday. It's hard to motivate myself to do it when I know I'm going to be moving out of it, but I'll be even less motivated when I'm not living in it, and the dirtier it is then, the worse it's going to be to clean. But it does all look so much better now I have cleaned it.

I also finished the book I started while I was away and it felt never-ending. I'm now a third of the way through The Graveyard book. I have two piles of books from the ones I bought in Canada and the Pratchett I finished just before I went. They're just the right size to fit my laptop on in front of the TV, so I can plug the TV into it. Now I've changed the books the two piles are more level too.

I made the mistake, when I got back, of watching all four Spooks episodes, which included the one from BBC3. So although I put it on last Monday because I was too tired to take it in much the first time, it's not the same as watching it new. So now I am back on watching them on Mondays because Monday needs something to look forward to, since I only watch SJA every other week. Suffice to say I enjoyed tonight's, even if I spent most of it wondering where I knew the bad guy from. Turns out it was one of the recent Poirots.

And just to make all the other people doing Yuletide jealous: I have a first draft of mine. At 1200 words I'm doing better than last year where I managed 1006 (but any padding to that one would have been just that, padding). I'm aiming to get it finished by the end of the week and hopefully writing every night will get me back into it and who knows, I might even get round to the requests I asked for back in June that are sitting in my inbox...

As the flu jab clinics at my doctors surgery were while I was away, I had an appointment with a nurse this morning. I got into work, chatted to people about Canada and stuff that had gone on while I was away, discovered I had about 200 emails to go through (of which I needed to read about 2) and then went down to the surgery.

There, their computers had gone down, so it was complete chaos. I didn't help by not knowing the name of the nurse I had an appointment with. It hadn't seemed important to write down at the time (I only knew the time of my appointment because I'd put it in the work calendar). They were writing things down on bits of paper and the nurse gave me an asthma review since I'd had a letter telling me it was due. She was trying to remember the questions the computer would ask her about my asthma and neither of us had any idea if my peak flow was normal.

Even though I'm not that keen on needles I know a flu jab doesn't hurt and I don't have any reactions afterwards. Except that this one did hurt, both when she stuck the needle in my arm and when the stuff went in there. I didn't think much of it, except that just now I leant against the arm of the sofa and my arm hurt. I looked in the mirror and it's bruised. Great.

I've just posted a rare friends locked post. If I am reading your LJ then you can read it on LJ. If not, then you can read it on my blog, you just have to join it. Sadly, I can't open membership up because it attracts spammers, but if you reply to this or email me I'll set you up one and make it so you can see the post.

I'm not going to be adding people on LJ until after I get back from Canada, so it's no use asking that.

I've only locked it from the general public - if I know you, I'll happily let you see it. Honestly, I will. This is ironic given the subject of the previous entry.

(The tag and category on this entry reflect those of the locked one, so you can decide whether you want to see it or not)

I have now packed for Canada. Everything fits in my suitcase fine, which must mean I've forgotten something. But I started throwing things in there a week ago so I ought to have remembered everything by now. Even though I only have six days worth of clothes (one day of which are on a chair for me to wear on Saturday) it still feels like a suitcase full of clothes. But then my backpack will be full of food.

Last week I saw three houses. The first was just down from where I live now - three blocks away (and by blocks I mean of flats). It's more than I pay now, but was smaller - the kitchen was tiny, but the bathroom was massive. All the rooms came off the lounge as well, which is a pain for having people over to stay.

Then I saw one in a former foundry. It's also more than I'm paying now and very quirky. The lounge would be big except there's a step separating the lounge and dining room. The bedroom doesn't go right to the far wall and you can look over the rail down to the lounge below. The bathroom doesn't have a window and all the things in it (bath, toilet, sink) are all dark blue. The walls are also dark blue. So you can imagine how dark that room is, especially as it's only small. I loved it to bits, but it's just not practical to live in (there's a good reason why I haven't looked at any of the places with a spiral staircase in).

Then I saw one in the next town (that would mean I'd have to drive to work from). It's less than I'm paying now and about the same size ish. But I liked it. It's first floor, so no neighbours above and it had red carpets. You can only get to the kitchen from the lounge, but the rest of the rooms are off the hall, so it's not too bad for having people staying.

So I told them I wanted it and it's all approved. After I get back I have to give them large amounts of money and work out what date I'm moving in. Then pack and try to get rid of some of my crap and work through my list of people/companies I have to tell I'm moving. And change my doctors, which I'm not looking forward to. But at least it's all sorted and I don't have to worry about it while I'm away or when I get back.

Yesterday, when I left work, I discovered my wallet wasn't in my bag of drugs and money*. I have a complicated system of storing money, but this is the wallet that contains my keycard to get into the main office at work, the photo part of my driving licence, £15 emergency taxi money and an emergency £5 note. And some other stuff that can't be important because I can't remember what they are.

I couldn't remember when I'd last seen/used it either. For reasons that will become ironic later, I was worried that I was driving around without my driving licence. But searching my bag of drugs and money revealed the paper part, so in fact, I was only without my only form of ID apart from my passport. Not that I've been IDed recently, but that's not the point.

I searched every bag and coat pocket, but it wasn't in any of those. I searched a couple of drawers where I would be most likely to keep that sort of thing. I even searched the pockets of my jeans, but all I found was a hard tissue.

I did look up replacing my driving licence because I thought that would be bound to make me find it, but that cost £17.50, so I wasn't quite that desperate yet.

The thing you have to know about me is that I often put things in really strange places that subsequently mean I can't find them. This usually them means requiring the services of my sister to look through all the strange places it can't possibly be, and then find it. At which point I can remember putting it there. So I wasn't that worried because I felt sure this would be the case with my wallet.

I can also make needles and pens disappear into thin air without moving, but not usually anything bigger. Usually.

Before I took the house apart, I thought I'd look in the car. And it was in the glove compartment. At the end of August we went to the donkey sanctuary and because I didn't need much and I was driving, I carried out a load of stuff and put it in the car door, the shelf by the door where the kitchen towel and torch live, and some in the glove compartment. Since there is a fair bit of crap in my glove compartment and the wallet is dark blue, it's not that much of a surprise that I didn't spot it.

Then I was just glad my car hadn't been nicked. Yes, really, I am an idiot.

*The bag is because I had a tendency to put my money all over the place and managed to lose my wallet on the train moving it from one place to another. So now I have a bag that all of it goes in. The bag goes in another bag if I'm carrying more than just that (eg lunch). Except when I put some of it in my pockets or other random places...

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Originally uploaded by paranoidangel

I had this afternoon off. So I went home and painted my two little daleks pink. Which I think is a productive use of my time...

I went to the art shop to buy the paint after lunch (in the pub) and it was handy it was just a little independent shop because it meant I could go in, pull out a dalek and ask for some pink paint that I could use on it. She did try to get me to mix it with white because it was a bright pink, but that was the exact colour I wanted. And it's turned out well. The one on the right does look a bit patchy but that's partly due to my lack of painting ability, partly due to its fiddliness and partly due to the fact that it was black to start with (the other one was gold).

Apart from that, the only other thing I did this afternoon was to phone David Tennant. Well, I rang up for the Children in Need competition and they had David Tennant doing the voice at the other end to say what you needed to say after the tone. So it was nearly the same.

Ahoy there! Today be talk like a Pirate Day!

And that subject line is really misleading - it's actually the title of a comedy show I found on Radio 4 yesterday where they get celebrities to try really ordinary things they've never done before. Last night they had Phil Jupitus, who had a Findus Crispy Pancake, foie gras, Pigs Trotters, colonic irrigation, shaved a man's head and read a book by Jane Austen.

So that got me thinking about ordinary things I've never done that most people have. I've never been to Spain or Stratford-Upon-Avon. I've never had pancakes for breakfast, although now I never will. I've never read Watership Down. There's probably more, but I've been thinking about it all day and that's all I could come up with.

In the spirit of the original programme, I'm going to say that by the end of 2009, I am going to have been to Stratford and read Watership Down. Going to Spain being slightly more difficult to achieve.

Edit: I knew there was something else: I've never seen an episode of House. So when I spot an episode on (which could be the tricky bit as they're on Channel 5 and I never read that column of hte TV guide - I'm still not used to be able to watch Channel 5), I'll watch one.

So, the rest of you reading this, what ordinary things have you never tried?

I thought I was having a bad day mid-afternoon, but then it got worse.

Last night, at Rotaract, I opened a door, knowing there was someone behind me, but not how far. So I looked round to see where he was and when I looked back at the door it was swinging open further than 90 degrees and I was worried it was going to hit something. So I reached for it to stop it. At the same time it got as far as it was going to go and started swinging back. It hit my thumb really hard. It hurt last night, but I assumed it was stop. But no, it hurts more today because it hurts if I move it, and it's very hard not to move.

Then today, after spending the last hour of work not doing anything urgent, or that important really, five minutes before hometime someone decided they needed something doing urgently and it wasn't a quick something either.

So after leaving work late and being really hungry when I got in, I found my landlady is selling my flat, so I have just under four months to move out. Which given how stressful moving was last time, was not in my plan for a few years yet.

I think I've been very confused this week. I knew it was Thursday yesterday but I didn't quite grasp the fact that it's Thursday. To me Thursday means fencing, even though I haven't been for a long time, but it's also the day I buy the paper because that's when it has the Online section. Even though they've changed the name of it and what's in it.

It only occurred to me this morning that buying Thursday's paper at lunchtime would be a bit tricky, seeing as how it's actually Friday today. I'll have to go and read it on the website instead, which is never the same.

It was only this evening that I realised I also have no TV guide for next week because I usually buy that at the same time as the paper. Admittedly, I've usually forgotten what I found in there that I wanted to watch, but the thought is there.

Although it's probably not that much of a problem really, since all that's on next week is Olympics. I haven't watched last week's TV or the DVD I've had from Lovefilm for the past week, so I don't think I really need to worry that much about what might be on next week.

Except that there will be no more swimming. I was forced to watch some athletics in between the swimming and gymnastics on 302 tonight (or as the BBC website calls it, Freeview 2) and all I could think about was that they were just running. And 800m was a lot shorter race.

I haven't posted for so long I have such a big update. With headings. Read more...

Today's not been a good day.

This morning the hospital rang me up. They helpfully told reception it was a personal call from Amy, which I heard as Ailie, so I wasn't sure what was going on. Once I'd established who she was, she said that the surgeon who is taking my tooth out on Friday has looked at my notes and decided she doesn't want to do it on her own in the afternoon, so wants to do it in the morning instead.

Because I'm having it done under general anaesthetic (I considered the idea of local because you don't feel so tired afterwards, but then they decided to tell me that they were going to need to break it in half to get it out and after that there was no way I was going to be awake) I have to have someone take me, someone pick me up and someone stay with me afterwards.

Fortunately, as they're all local people, they know how much the hospital are known for messing people around. In fact, when I tell them how much they've messed me around they're surprised it's been so little. So now I get to get up early on Friday then sit around a hospital all morning while they think about getting round to taking my tooth out.

Then this afternoon I couldn't get to my email and discovered I couldn't get to my entire website. After some investigating by me and dad (mostly dad, as I was really busy at work) we discovered this was because my domain name ran out in May. I hadn't renewed it because my provider hadn't quite managed to remind me to renew it.

It's all back now, but it was quite worrying when I forwarded an email to myself and it immediately bounced back saying the domain didn't exist.