Whoops, I haven't posted for a week. Work keeps being busy and I keep getting woken up by the boiler, so my evenings feel really short.

I got my Yuletide assignment on Tuesday and I got the fandom I secretly wanted to write. As I research I am appreciating my recipient's favourite character more and more. And I have started writing - I just need to find the time to write more.

This evening's short because the tennis was long - not that that's a bad thing. Today was the final of the ATP World Tour Final and it was a good, close match, so that was good. I went to the first semi-finals yesterday and saw Mirnyi/Nestor vs Bryan/Bryan, followed by Federer vs Ferrer. There are photos and some of them aren't blurry.

The doubles match was not terribly exciting. The Bryan brothers challenged at the end of the first set, but then went and sat down, so they clearly knew it was out and they'd lost the set. And then they challenged at the end of the match, but were trying to shake hands before Hawkeye had confirmed the call.

The singles was more exciting, but confusing. Whenever the umpire said Federer, then he was clearly talking about Federer and that was fine. But when he said Ferrer it could have been either. And after the first set Ferrer changed his white shirt for a black one, and Federer was already in a black shirt. So you had to pay attention to which was which based on the colour of their headband.

I got dizzy due to sitting in the dark and watching tennis. When I wanted to go to the toilet between matches and my sister didn't I had to get past people on our row without being able to hold on to her. But the people I passed started holding on to me!

Afterwards we stopped off at Westfield to go to the Lego shop. When we came out the Jubilee line was closed. We were really lucky we weren't coming out of the O2 when that happened because that's the only tube line from the O2. Whereas from where we were we could get back into central London on the Central Line. But it didn't help the busyness on the tube caused by people Christmas shopping and a load of lines being closed for the weekend.

We get to repeat the experience in just under two weeks for Coldplay, albeit on a Friday evening rather than Saturday during the day.

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.

Read more...

Wimbledon started and I've been listening to it on the radio at work in the afternoons and have had it on in the evening. When it started I was a bit unsure what I was going to do with all this Wimbledon on. I got used to not being able to see much of the French Open and Queens and I just concentrated on the big names.

But then I remembered what Wimbledon is all about. It's spending evenings doing nothing much while watching tennis. Until 8.30pm you even get a choice of two matches. I am making the most of it this week because next week I'm out more than I'm in. It's mostly Rotaract things, so I can't begrudge it that much, as I'm only a Rotaractor for another week and a day.

And I'll be making it up for next year. This year we couldn't go to Wimbledon due to both my bosses being off. So we went to Queens instead where it rained all day... So next year we'll be going to Queens and Wimbledon, and the ATP Tour Final as we have the past two years and will do this year. But also we have tickets for the second and last day's of tennis at the Olympics. Although on Court 1, but we're bound to see something interesting.

I was very excited to be going to the tennis at Queens yesterday to see the Men's singles final and the Men's doubles final. Except... it was raining.

They moved the start time from 2pm to noon because it was forecast to rain in the afternoon. It was raining when I left the house not long after 9.30am. But we got there early and hoped it might stop raining... Optimistically, I thought that the big screen by the food court might tell us what was happening. Since my sister had an iPhone we checked the official app and the website, neither of which said anything. Twitter, on the other hand was the most useful source of news all day.

We ended up going back into the centre of London. I introduced my sister to Foyles and she introduced her bank account to four books. We discovered the iPhone is useful for finding Starbucks when you can't walk any further and are cold and wet.

Despite the sky being grey and horrid, and it being cold and windy out, we were amazed when it stopped raining. Just as we found a Starbucks with seats. So we didn't linger and went back to Barons Court.

When we changed trains a woman and a boy ran past us. Then we we got off at Barons Court the same woman and boy ran past us. Then they ran past us on the road on the way from the tube station to the Queens Club. I don't know how they managed that.

By the time we got there and used the toilets, it started raining again. So we hung around for an hour. We discovered that all the places to sit that were on seats were in the cold and all the places to sit that were on the floor were warm, but really hard.

We ended up leaving when it was clearly not going to stop raining and people were leaving. Once we got to Paddington we found Twitter said it was called off for the day.

Fortunately, we get our money back, but it was so annoying to see Murray win today after taping it and watching it this evening when we could have been there. But we are planning to go next year - the tournament's only gone to a third Monday three times in the 125 years it's been running, so we'd have to be really unlucky to be rained out again.

Next year we could go really overboard with tennis with Queens and Wimbledon and the Tour Final and if we get Olympics tickets. But this year there's no live tennis for me until November.

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).

I'm so busy at the moment it's crazy. Work is busy and then I have things in the evenings and when I don't I'm so busy catching up that I never manage it. Mind you, it didn't help that there was tennis every evening last week. And then we went to see the final on Sunday. And took 73 photos... Read more...

It's that time of year again... Well, it's a new time of year. This is the first year the ATP tour final (formerly known as the Masters series final) has been held in London. So, we went yesterday afternoon. As a result I feel terrible today while not lying down, but I have the week off, and anyway, it was worth it.

We saw Nestor and Zimonjic play a Polish pair I've never heard of, can't spell and certainly can't pronounce. They're ranked 8, so they're the lowest ranked pair in there. It was a bit odd because they played a variation, so when it got to deuce whoever won the next point won. And if they won a set each they'd play a tie-break, but to 10 points. It made it very quick, but it felt like it all turned on those deuce points because the Polish pair broke once per set on those points. But it was a good match and now I'm reduced to seeing the rest of the doubles matches online.

We had half an hour's break after that and then there were a lot fewer empty seats for Murray's match. This was back to usual point scoring and because they spend a lot more time than the doubles per point, made it seem really slow. The doubles match was an hour long, this one was two and a half. But it was a battle and Del Potro played well, apart from in the middle of the first set and towards the end of the third. That was a good match too, but we really wanted it to end because the seats just go so uncomfortable after sitting in them for the best part of five hours, I was really dizzy and it was really hot in there, which didn't help.

But we had a good view, even though we were near the back. People at work were trying to tell me we wouldn't be able to see a thing, but it was no different from being at the back of Centre Court.

And there are photos, some of which are a bit blurry because they're all taken with the flash off and the lighting was terrible (really bright on the court and we couldn't see a thing, which made eating lunch interesting).

I keep meaning to update more often but I'm just so unmotivated by everything at the moment. I think all that time reading and watching videos and not doing a lot else and I've got used to it. But there isn't nothing on tonight (I'm most upset that The Bill's off for Celebrity nonsense), so I am determined to do something constructive with my evening.

In Yuletide news I am currently reviewing the source material in the hopes that I might manage a plot at the end of it. I'm quite excited about what I'm writing and it helps that my recipient likes a lot of the same things that I do. I'm hoping that writing that will help remind me about the whole doing something constructive thing.

It's Children in Need tomorrow, so it's guaranteed to rain, since it's not that cold. Normally I'd be running around in the road with a bucket before work, but I'm not well enough to do that, so I am counting money after work instead. I don't think I can quite cope with the idea of not doing something for Children in Need any more.

I'm having a week off work next week, which I will mostly be spending listening to the tennis, since the BBC aren't showing much. I was very excited by a twitter post of Andy Murray's today because he revealed that he's playing Sunday afternoon and that's when I'm going. We're further back than we were for the gymnastics, so expect pictures of ant-sized people.

I am most distressed my today's paper when they announced they are discontinuing the Technology section in the Guardian. I liked it best when it was the Online section with the Science section inside, but it's still been worth buying the paper once a week for it. Without it there'll be no reason to buy the paper any more - and I don't like reading the paper online, it's not the same. These days I tend to get my news from Radio 5 on the way home from work.

I should totally be working on my remix fics on this tennis-less (but not Glastonbury-less) day, but I heard them talking about this on Radio 5 and have only just seen the list on Andy Murray's twitter now.

He has a tennis player snack name game going on, where you alter tennis players names slightly to match up with names of snacks. Where snack is a loose definition. His list includes:

Lleyton chewit, james flake, boris doubledecker, dorito starace. #

Juan martin del popcorn, vania kingsize mars bar, gilles muller fruit corner. Novak Yorkie-ovic #

John MacEnrolo, Cod woodbridge, mardy fishcakes, prawn borg, martina haggis, mince spadea, egg rusedski, spotted dick norman. #

Nicholas Tiramassu, ernests gulbiscuit. Jesse levino? Juan carlos ferrero rocher. #

Ryvita gerulaitis. #

They were coming up with these on Radio 5 on Thursday for the tennis players on the commentary team, but the only one I can remember is Michael Stichy Toffee Pudding.

With useful headers and everything. Read more...

Dear BBC

Why is it that the closest I've come to seeing either of Andy Murray's doubles matches at Queens is seeing him walk out on court this evening before you stopped broadcasting for no good reason and despite saying you'd broadcast till 8pm?

Oh, hang on, I know the answer. It's because you're a load of useless tossers who don't deserve the licence fee I have to pay every year.

You'd better have a bloody good answer to my complaint.

No love,
Me.

This weekend I've watched lots of tennis. Which was good, but I wish they'd just stick to showing us the court in such a way that they don't have to move the camera, and not show us a picture from behind one of the players where you can't see anything and the camera moves too much. I also could do with them not showing us an aerial view of the court and then spiralling round and in. But at least we get six days of French Open viewing (at the weekends) whereas for Wimbledon we only get three.

I saw Sports Island 2 for the Wii and I want it - it looks good. Not that I can play on the Wii at the moment, mind you. Or cross stitch, which is really quite frustrating.

All of a sudden remix is happening, so I'm going to be writing two at the same time.

I need to do a reading my weight in books update - it might be in a while when there's no tennis.

My hayfever's gone from practically nothing to me spending the afternoon blowing my nose, last night with itchy eyes and sudden asthma when it got dark Friday and today. At least it's quite late, so hopefully it'll only be a month and half - which I calculated should only cost me about £30 in drugs.

I had a good weekend - well, half a good weekend. I went to High Wycombe to drop off some knickers and other stuff for Knickers 4 Africa and go to selenay936's ex-local bookshop. Where I saw her parents and spent £17 on books - that was being restrained. I'm still working through the books I got from my mum and grandmother for my birthday yet.

It was a good day and we somehow managed to avoid the worst of the weather. I was really tired when I got home, which I expected. What I didn't expect was how dizzy I felt Sunday. All I ended up doing on Sunday is lying on the sofa reading and watching tennis because I wasn't capable of doing anything else. Fortunately, there was tennis on - exhibition matches under the new Centre Court roof at Wimbledon and I enjoyed them, although I could have done without the camera moving so much. I didn't even feel like I'd done that much either. I'm less dizzy now but back to going to bed at 10pm.

But on Friday I'm going to see if I feel well enough after work to go and see In the Loop, which wasn't at the cinema walking distance from where I live now. But it is at the cinema walking distance from work on Friday and Saturday. Then it is at least a three day weekend, although I plan to do things with it - not least find a place for all these books to live...

Also, in the unlikely event that there's anyone left who doesn't have a Dreamwidth account that wants one, I have four invites. And, it turns out, Trillian Astra invites, since it's now in beta. And probably has been for a while, I've just failed to notice, just gave them money...

My trouble when I'm ill is I tend not to want to talk to people, mostly because I have to be polite and I don't have the energy for that extra thinking. So it's usually better just to shut up and ignore everyone. Which has extended to me not wanting to post in here either, although I do have things I want to blog about.

I am getting better, if slowly (and don't have concussion, which is good after I hit my head on the kitchen side on Thursday night) and this has been marked as unread in my emails for a while:

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your blog and elaborate on the subjects given.

tanaquilotr gave me Doctor Who, Elrond, food allergies, Davis Cup, fencing: Read more...

I now have a clean and tidy flat for the first time since I moved in. I made loads of space by throwing out stuff, which includes a bag of books to take to Redemption, three boxes of floppy disks (mostly blank) and backups of my last but one computer on eight CDs. But not only can I now get to things but I also have space for more things! Which is great. Well, it will be till I fill the space up again.

My lengthy to-do list did all get put on hold this morning for the Australian Open final, which was great, although did mean I had a late lunch. I can't believe what sort of times they play till over there. But I really, really enjoyed the match. No matter what happens I can't stop thinking of Federer as the No 1 and champion and Nadal as his adversary. Despite the fact that it's pretty much been the other way round recently.

Next big thing is the Davis Cup, which we ought to win...

I knew today that Andy Murray was through to the semis and Jamie Murray was into the Mixed Doubles final. And he said that maybe he's better at mixed, which is really unhelpful given the number of opportunities he has to play mixed doubles vs doubles. Anyway, his match was due to start at 5.30pm BST. Which is really good timing as that's when I finished work.

So I got home and went to 301 & 302 and there was... no tennis. But there was sports news, so while my computers started up I thought I'd see if there was any news of the score. Andy Murray was mentioned, Jamie Murray might well as not have existed.

As I was hungry I went and put dinner on and turned the radio on. The radio in the kitchen is permanently tuned to Radio 5, purely for Wimbledon but I found their news at 6 is handy to listen to while I cook dinner and try not to die of boredom while I do it. Jamie Murray got mentioned in the headlines.

Turned out it was on 5 Live Sports Extra, so I've been listening to that all evening. It's really strange how different the US Open is to Wimbledon. When the players sit down they have the big screen picking out random people to win a George Foreman grill. They played a final on a Thursday during the day US time, which seems mad. And the commentators end up having to stay up till 3am to commentate on matches! I mean, I do like all day tennis, but there's a limit.

And the strangest thing of all was sudden death at deuce in the doubles matches. Which made that one point so, so important. And utterly pointless, since it was only done for the TV schedules. Keeping the number of deuces in a game is going to make the match shorter, but not by much. And it isn't going to make it any more unpredictable either. Crazy.

Dear Andy Murray,

Henman is not your hero and he's not someone to emulate. I only have a finite number of fingernails and the edge of my seat is really uncomfortable.

Just win or lose, none of this mucking about in the middle, okay? Or at the end either, I mean, win when you have championship points, not five games later.

Love, a British tennis fan.

I have just added a few people to my friends list - mostly people from TR or names I've seen often in various places. Friend back, don't friend back, I don't mind. As far as I'm concerned, my LJ friends list is a copy of my RSS Feeds and is just a reading list.

I'm really disliking hayfever season. It's not helped by spending last night in a Barn in a field that was open. I'm currently on medicine, nose spray, eye drops and the maximum dose of my inhaler, but for the past week I haven't been able to lie around in bed after I wake up because I just can't breathe. It does go away a bit during the day, to come back in the evening, but I'm really looking forward to the end of the hayfever season.

I'm really looking forward to Wimbledon now, after the taster that was the Stella Artois semis and finals this weekend. Especially today's between Djokovic and Nadal, which was such a good match. The question is whether any of them can beat Federer, who won in Halle.

After having it on my rental list for months, Amazon have finally sent me the first DVD of Sapphire and Steel. I've had it for a week now and have so far watched none of it. All TV except Doctor Who has finished, but I keep not being in for that and then just don't get round to putting the telly on.

I had such a long list of things to do this weekend that I wrote them down. Then got all the more urgent things done yesterday, but I still have to clean, spring clean, make bread and do some Rotaract stuff. Today I don't seem to have managed much at all.

After the big, long post the other day about roleplaying, I have almost decided to drop Gene and Ian in favour of spending time on Harry & Jo and other non-rp things. Almost.

Although I haven't started any of them yet, I am still taking fic requests. I am already feeling guilty about not thinking about them and refusing to let myself write anything else, so it's sort of working.

I liked it, it was fun. And it had more guest stars I've heard of than you can shake a stick at: that guy from Hustle (who's also apparently going to be in Life on Mars, yay!), the girl who was Moaning Myrtle and one of Bridget Jones's friends, and Moya Brady (Robbie Cryer - it seems like forever since she left). And Peter Kay, who I've heard of but not seen in anything. I keep thinking I hate him but then remember I'm getting him mixed up with Johnny Vegas, whose scene in Blakes Junction 7 is fabulous but makes me cringe because it's Johnny Vegas.

So, on balance I haven't had enough sleep.

In today's driving lesson I only stalled the car twice, which is an improvement on last week. I also failed to find fifth gear on all but one occasion (the first one, bizarrely). And I still can't do junctions. So, as long as I don't have to drive anywhere that involves changing roads, I'll be fine.

There was also tennis today, yay! Two good matches, hopefully tomorrow's final will be good too. Only a week till Wimbledon, and three weeks till I go there.

I have been good and updated my website. Including music video recs that have been sitting around on my hard drive since January...

I was supposed to be playing tennis tonight but I stil hurt too much for that - but I can move a lot more than yesterday. So I'm not actually out a single night this week, so I am trying to be good and get things done. It's working so far but there's still plenty of time for it to go downhil...

I was followed home by a dog today who was very nice and just sat and wagged its tail while I stroked it. Which was more pleasant than next doors dog who is a bit enthusiastic - which is hard work in a big dog.