Cacophony.

I love this time of year. Summer is still a thrilling concept - we aren't bleached and wrung out by it yet. There's still a coolness in the nights that means you can sleep, but you don't need extra layers. Getting out of the shower doesn't mean speed-dressing as close to the radiator as possible, but you haven't reached the point where a cold shower every 8 hours is an absolute necessity.

I love the way it smells, too. It reminds me a bit of India, but only because smells seem so much more pungent in warm air. (Actually, I think that might be an Actual Fact, or nearly - something about speed of diffusion.( I was cycling around the city this evening at breakneck speed to catch up with the Van of Stuff, enjoying the way the scents changed with neighbourhoods in between willing my bike to change gear and not drop its chain or its pedals or anything like that.

Where I live, there were barbecues. Charred meats and hot fat spitting into charcoal. The difference between steak and sausages discernible. I was starving, too, that's partly why I noticed. Down near our new house there are large communities of Chinese and Indian people, and the smells change. Curry, of many sorts, interspersed still with barbecues - sometimes also Indian-flavoured. Odd to pick out the scents of a western meal in that setting, actually. There's the river with its own smell, and the diesel smell of buses that I kind of like in a perverse way. In a brief period of calm, the clean smells of the launderette and a tanning salon permeated through the food odours. Late, on the way back through town and up the hill to home-for-tonight, the pubs were full and spilling into the warm night. As you go past the door, apart from the thumping music, you are assailed by the cloying smells of sticky alcoholic drinks, cigarette smoke, cheap aftershave and sweat. It's odd that that isn't really off-putting - it's just an indication of what a place is.

And home, at last, there's the smell of me. I stink. I've been chasing about all evening doing things that make me sweat. Bleugh. I need to peel off the clothing and shower. Then I shall smell of soap, rather than fading deodorant and ick, and this will be better. But the smell of me tells me that I did work and can be satisfied with myself for that. Not that I recommend house-moving as the ideal get-fit activity - I suspect it only works for me, and even then I'm not sure it counts....

Shift.

I'm looking forward to this house. I only recall looking forward to moving house once before, and that was in similar circumstances, in a way. That's saying something - I moved 5 times within one city in one year, last year, and moved twice at least in the year before, between three cities. Some might say I lack stability, or am flighty, or get bored easily. Those might all be true, but they aren't really the reasons I had to move. A catalogue of unfortunate circumstances, for the most part. This year is going to involve some moving too, but I'm excited about all of it.

This time around, I'm going to a place with two of my favourite people in the world. We're all going together, at the same time. That's important, it gives us equality. We're going to a pretty house, with the nicest landlord I've ever come across, in one of my favourite areas of town. We were fussy about what we wanted and we got it more or less exactly - up to and including having the rats living on the property with us. We have two big bedrooms, a decent living space and a garden. AND it's summer.

Next move will, with any luck, be to London. There will probably be a hiatus in St Albans, but still. LONDON. I've lived on the edge all of my life, and so much of the world goes on there, and I'm so looking forward to it.

Moving is usually hard work and seems to get me nowhere. Shifting restlessness with no purpose. I have a purpose now. I'm happy.

Unrelated.

Two different people in the last week have noted that I have lost weight. Now, I knew I had, but didn't think it was enough to be noticeable. Maybe I should take the extra TWO INCHES of space in my (albeit always a bit baggy) jeans more seriously. I have no idea what I actually weigh now, since I don't have access to scales, but yay! For reference, I suspect that purely developing an aversion to food for a few weeks is probably not the most healthy way to shed pounds, but it seems to have been effective. NOW I just need to keep it away. I'm thinking about going to play lacrosse again, if I can find a club whose schedule will fit in with mine. Trouble is, I think the nearest two are Welwyn Garden City and Hitchen - neither VERY near. Potential for playing with people I knew at school is reasonably high. Also, if I'm going to go and play lacrosse, I might need to go and have a go at the contacts thing. I can probably see well enough to play for a bit without glasses, but it will annoy me and probably give me headaches. So. We shall see.

New Year's resolutions, since several people have asked:

• Finish the jumper. It'll get there, depending on the length of time I have in front of the telly.
• Write more. We've covered this.
• Move out of Cambridge and have adventures. Only ordinary adventures, about jobs and life and love, but adventures nonetheless. Meeting new people - lacrosse and theatre and singing. I've never been able to limit myself to just one of the standard extracurricular directions, why did I feel that I should?
• Not move house so often. That shouldn't be hard, right...?
  

That'll do...my laundry's cooked. And Martin's making me STEAK for tea. :-D.

Autumnal busyness.

It's been a while, hasn't it? I ought to be better behaved about keeping this up. Lots of things have been happening, not least that I got promoted. Yay! And I'm moving house AGAIN. Third time in 9 months. I hate the graduate life. Being a student was SO much better. For the next three weeks I'm living in North Cambridge with John (Christian's old housemate) and Andrew... Techie house extraordinaire. Then I move BACK, get it BACK, to the road I was living in before - this will be the THIRD TIME I move into a house on that road. Dammit. At least it's not the same house. The rats are going on holiday to Christian's for a bit while I build them a shed in the garden to live in and work out how to get power to them so that I can plug in their heater. That house is rapidly becoming more and more like a zoo.

What else? I've spent every weekend for the last month in a capital city. 1) London, 2) Edinburgh (where I made a brief appearance at the Fringe, where I made the famous lemon cake as ever, and saw some great shows, got drunk with Matt and Chris and had an amazing curry), 3) Belfast with Elaine (where we made pasta and went to the seaside), and 4) London. I'm in Cornwall this weekend, then the Scilly Isles for a bit, and then I come back and go back to London to cook for the crowd of friends that live there - three of whom have moved to BOROUGH HIGH STREET, putting me within 5 minutes walk of a certain Market. I've already claimed my weekly sleeping spot...

It's getting autumnal over here, without really showing us a summer that was anything more than sticky. The shops are beginning to get over the summer veg, (I had to hunt for peppers from a reasonable location in Tescos yesterday), so I guess I must regretfully abandon my hopes that the sun was going to come out in September. I did find butternut squash, however. Yay squash! Andrew bought a monster one a couple of months ago that sat in the fridge for AGES until I came up with something to make from it. Squash makes amazing soup (roast chopped up squash with thyme/sage/both at 200 degrees C until soft (about 40 minutes-1 hour, depending on age of squash and how much chopping you did), fry some chopped onion and garlic for 10 minutes or so until soft but not coloured, add the squash and some good veg stock, bring to the boil, puree, and add a hefty quantity of grated parmesan...), but I'm bored by soup most of the time. I opted for curry that time, instead. It came out quite well, but we did eat it for about a week. This time I went for pasta, and made sure that I bought the smallest squash I could find!

Squash is pretty keen on thyme and sage as platefellows, teamed with something salty - like parmesan or bacon - to complement its sweetness. Hence my pasta, really.


Creamy Pasta with Squash and Bacon
(veggies, just leave out the bacon and have more parmesan at the end - when frying the sage, do it gently but for long enough that the leaves go crispy or they might be tough)

For 2

- one very small squash (about 300g, at a very rough guess...something about 4 or 5 inches high, probably)
- 4 rashers good organic smoked bacon
- 1 dessertspoon chopped fresh sage leaves
- 100ml single cream, or a couple of tablespoons of full fat Greek yoghurt (I'm not sure actually which comes out less fattening, if you can find the lower fat single cream that Elmea make, of which I approve)
- about 150ml white wine
- black pepper
- olive oil
- 200g sturdy pasta shapes, e.g. caesarrece or penne
- salt for the pasta water
- parmesan to serve

Chop the squash into fairly small dice no bigger than 1inch cubes (no need to peel - that way there are more vitamins and more texture...), and mix with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Spread it out on a baking sheet and roast at 200 degrees C for around 40 minutes, until soft and crisping around the edges. If you clean the seeds off a bit, spread them on another baking sheet and roast for about 10 minutes until brown and crisp, you'll have a snack to eat while you wait.

Put the pasta on about ten mintues before the squash is going to be ready. Dice the bacon and fry in another tablespoon of olive oil with the sage, until the fat runs and meat is crispy. Add the white wine and allow to reduce for a minute or two. Add the squash and turn it over in the juices, so it can soak up the flavours. Turn the heat down and add the cream. Drain the pasta and add that too, along with a good grind of black pepper. Stir together and allow to heat through for a minute or two before serving with plenty of parmesan and the rest of the bottle of wine. Some sort of green salad would be good on the side.

Christmas.

Christmas was quite good, actually. I had fun singing - my voice has been enjoying a break and so was really rather nicely responsive when I came to use it for high descants. Unfortunately, this didn't last for long, because the 6 hour drive down in the car with my dad, who had a streaming cold, meant that I ended up snuffly. I made it just about to Christmas lunchtime though, by which point the singing was over, so I guess it could have been worse. Me and the brothers took the dogs to the beach at Perranporth. I tried to take some pictures of the Christmas tree someone had put up on the rock that's in the middle of the sand, but they didn't really come out. And then Kiri fell in the swimming pool. It had muck in the corner, and she thought it was solid and tried to walk on it. She felt a bit silly.

We had beef for Christmas lunch, from the farm up the road. Properly fed, properly looked after, properly killed, proper beef. It was absolutely lovely. It's not often I rhapsodise about meat on here, for the sensibilities of the orthodox vegetarians who drop by, but this was really lovely. It's ok. I'm stopping there. Presents was good too. I had a watch from my parents, which I must go and get shortened, probably on Friday, and a proper ice blender for making smoothies and crushed ice, among other things. My brothers bought me rat things and a plant. My parents seemed to approve of the things we got them, and even my brothers seemed reasonably pleased with the things I'd got them, which I hadn't been sure about. Ooo and I had glasses made from half wine bottles in my stocking. Really nice.

I enjoyed being in Cornwall this time. Kiri was really upset when I left. She hates watching you pack the car and goes all sad and pathetic. I actually found myself wanting to be able to stay a bit longer. I headed up country on Boxing Day though, with Rocky in tow. He was much admired at the dinner party Christian had that night, and then came up to Derbyshire with us the following day. We had a tiny little cottage that looked like it had once been a stable, right on the edge of Bakewell - it was lovely. Sadly, the weather was less so when we tried to go for a walk the next day. We managed about half of what we'd been intending to do, but we and the dog were so cold and bedraggled that we gave up and went home for curry.

Christian decided he was brave, or foolhardy, enough to join in my mum's family's Christmas in Coventry. Not really sure what he made of it, or how much gossip we've now created among my somewhat peculiar family, but it could have gone worse. Rocky, however, loved it. LOTS of people to play with, yet another new house to explore, AND a big game of football to impede. Auntie Helen kept up her usual tradition - she gave me what I believe is called a 'snood'. In the last three or so years she has given me a pair of gloves, 2 scarves and a hat, as well as the 'snood', which is a cross between hat and scarf... All very nice, but I do find it rather funny. Could have been worse, I suppose.

Then we brought my brother Ed back, so he could meet the rats. He liked them. Then I finished moving house. I'm now back in Cambridge, in a room that at least feels homely. And somewhat full of stuff.

Been a while.

Things have happened. I just haven't updated, for several reasons, none of which I'm going into. I'm sad about several of them, but they had to happen.

I have rats now. The black baby (with ordinary ears, not dumbo ones) in the last post is actually one of them - now called Briar and considerably larger. I also have Ivy, who's a bit older and also black, Berry, who's agouti (ordinary wild rat colour - imagine the colour of wild rabbits), and Apple, who's chocolate agouti (that's the same, pretty much, but a bit lighter - the technical definition is apparently that she has brown rather than black hairs in her coat).

Ivy's definitely the most sedate, quite happy just to sit in the hood of the hoodie and watch the world go by. Having said that, I just had to extract her from the bowels of my printer, from whence I didn't manage to prevent her entry. She was very good, and didn't chew anything. Good rat. Berry is slightly more irritating to hold, in that she wants to be INSIDE your clothes...she climbs up my arm to my neck and then struggles down it. This can involve a lot of sharp claws. Once inside, she'll crawl about for as long as you can stand. This is quite a while if she ends up between clothing layers, but if she's against the skin involves sharp feet and INCREDIBLY tickly whiskers. Silly rat. Apple's berserk. Won't sit still at all. Holding her requires the most attention of all of them, since she's desperately keen to be everywhere at once. Briar's a bit of everybody. She tends to be the most scaredyrat - everything makes her jump and run and hide in the tube, which is about the one place I can't catch her from, as she's well aware. I haven't managed to teach them their names yet. I have only had them a week though. I'm not sure quite how to go about it is part of the problem. Dogs have an eagerness to please, which makes them very easy to train - you're just teaching them that you'll reward their attention, to start with. I don't think rats really pay you attention like a dog does. A reward system hasn't yet been set up. I need to teach them the word 'nuts' I think. They LOVE nuts. Hmm.

Other news, I got a Real Job (tm). I'm moving back to Cambridge, though. Stumo pointed out I made 6 months in the Real World before chickening out and moving back to the Bubble. *sigh*. To be honest, if this job had been in London, I'd have still taken it. It's essentially data analysis, as far as I can tell - the job title's 'research and admin assistant'...which doesn't mean anything. It's for a company called Baker Richards, who do arts marketing consultancy. Means I should get a look in at pricing and business strategy in the arts - which ought to bode well for theatre management type jobs, if not producing ones. It also bodes well for marketing in a lot of other businesses, which should mean I have a reasonable chance of career progression of some sort in some direction. Theatre is a bit more one dimensional than that. Essentially, I'm putting off decisions, while doing something that combines maths, presentations and reports with the arts. All boxes I'll quite happily tick in an ideal job.

Fyi, I'm moving back into the Victoria Road flat. Will's living in it these days, and my old room's vacant. The only problem's the rats. Need to pester the landlord, and move.

There's a book about Morris Minors under the counter.

And I saw someone writing a real letter.

This really is about the extent of today's news.

Actually a reasonable day, for all that. Managed not to get snapped at or to ignore it if I did. And I was in a good mood until just now. Couldn't tell you why it changed. I'm not really used to living on my own again is part of it...I just feel lonely. Meh. I keep dreaming about possibly maybe maybe moving back to Cambridge. There are people (you: please read that properly - I'm not talking about that, I really mean everyone up there whom I go up to talk to; of course there's that person, but they aren't in any way the be all and end all...I could even see you, if we could ever cope with that.) I could see all the time, and I could live in a shared flat again, and frankly while I'm doing what I'm doing, i.e. filling time and writing job applications, why NOT do it in the town where all my friends live? Because of rent, is why, but I'm wondering if that's really a good enough reason. I COULD get better temping than this, even down here, and I could probably get enough up in Cambridge to make it nearly feasible. Would require more effort job hunting wise, but I COULD.

People keep pointing out that if I've left, I should leave, but the amount of time I'm up there, I clearly haven't left. I'm told not to become one of those people hanging on to their student days with all their effort. I don't feel I'm doing that, and frankly I've always liked being around the old Sods, so I'm a bit torn about that, really. I've ALWAYS hated moving house, with an absolute passion. And no matter how many times I've done it, and in the last 5 years alone that's been a hefty number, I don't get any better at dealing with it. I hate the displacement, and I hate the losing people and the not knowing the place and the sense of trying to break into a community that's already formed. I know I KNOW St Albans, but it doesn't know me any more. It's weird the way it's so the same but that absolutely everything in my world has changed.

There are many many reasons why it wouldn't be a clever idea, of which the most pragmatic is money. Currently, I'm going to try and stick this out for a few more weeks and see where I get to. It's only about 7 weeks to Christmas, which is scary in itself. Maybe I'll get that far.

In other news, Nationwide put a stop on my card because of a random fraudulent transaction. Which was good of them, in that I didn't lose any money, but distinctly awkward just the same. I currently have no cash card with any money I can use (I need to shovel some money into my other account or sort out an overdraft on it in case this ever happens again) on it, and this weekend needed to pay an overdue council tax bill (for the last month of residence in Victoria Road when I wasn't a student) and a SoD dinner cheque. Fish paid the latter, and I had to get Andy to pay the former, and I had to borrow some money to see me through until I got paid (in cash) yesterday. That money hasn't been paid in. I was going to go to the supermarket tonight - slightly glad I didn't now because I wouldn't have remembered to pick it up and thus could have had a very embarrassing moment at the till.

Other slight worry re wages: I got paid the full £200 for last week's work. Which is all very nice and all, but I really ought to be missing a fair amount for tax. I also didn't have a payslip. I mentioned this to the manager, Lawrence, today, who told me that we apparently never GET payslips, and to talk to the owner Götz about it. This worries me a little - surely I should get a payslip every time I get paid? It's like a receipt, and you'd always get a receipt for something when you spend that amount of money. Also, it makes me wonder if he's fiddling the tax a bit. If he pays everyone the full £200 every week, and paying the tax properly, we're actually being paid more like £7 an hour, which is nice, but distinctly lots for the work we do. I'd EXPECT us to be paid minimum wage, which is what £200, properly taxed, works out to. I can deal with cash in hand for once in a blue moon, and because it'll all come out in the wash, but I'm going to be slightly worried if it goes on. I haven't asked the other girls, because you don't do that kind of thing, but the envelopes I saw were lacking in coins, which would be necessary to make up random numbers. I haven't filled in the relevant forms yet, which might explain any perceived irregularities, and if I'm not being properly paid by next week I'm not going to have much choice beyond making a fuss. Meh. Might be my excuse to leave...shouldn't leave.

shifts: 6
rejection to interview ratio: 6:1 Gah.

...ditching school staff served. I get the impression it's all going to be the same ones until I happen to work an early Wednesday shift, when they're ALL in during house assembly.

St Albans.

So. Over the last few days, I have mostly been unpacking. It's been a long term operation. After all, I had to build a bookcase in order to unpack in the first place. In fact, I didn't really build the bookcase, I persuaded the brother to do it. He seemed to enjoy it. I got to watch Heston Blumenthal making Black Forest gateau instead, except during the difficult bits. It's sort of nice to have all my books on a bookcase properly again - it's been a while. I'll bring the rest of them up from Cornwall at some stage; I'd like them to be all together. Besides, the ones that are still at Lanner Mill are mostly the crappy easy-to-read things (not Discworld; that has traveled with me) that I actually WANT now. I actually bought books yesterday, as well, which was bad of me, since I've got loads of stuff to read at present, but I went deliberately for stuff I thought would be good fun to read. As it turned out, I bought Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh) and I, Claudius (Robert Graves), which are proper classics and don't really count as trashy novels, and a historical crime book called Sovereign (C. J. Sansom), which is not and does. Ah well. The first of the three I know as a fantastic television series (Granada, 1981, starring Jeremy Irons, but with cameos from the likes of John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier) , so should be ok. The second is a great TV series too (BBC, 1976, starring Derek Jacobi), but I've not seen it. Maybe I should - Jacobi's great. Will see, anyway.

Had lunch with Katy yesterday. Nice to see her. I've hardly seen her at all over the last few years when we've both been away at uni, so it was good to catch up. Her parents split up in April, so she's been coping with that. She's changed - and I don't think it's to do with her parents. She's much more outgoing than she ever was before, or so she seemed, but then I think I'm probably far more reserved than I was. Hard to tell. That doesn't really interfere with how well we get on; it was just a change. Still feel unsettled about being back here and seeing all these people again - it's all such hard work. The flat feels strange. I know I'm not living with my parents or anything, but it almost feels like I am. I couldn't say why though. I suppose it'll be better when I've found something to do with myself. Must buy a copy of The Stage tomorrow.

I had to buy a new air pump for the fish tank yesterday, because the one I was using died completely. I inadvertently bought a huge one, designed for a vastly bigger tank than mine. Until I figured how to limit the flow, Boris and Azrael were a little non-plussed at the jacuzzi that appeared to a come into being in a corner of their tank. I was debating taking it back, but it's only a matter of time before I DO get a bigger tank - albeit still one where I don't need so enormous a pump - so I've decided to keep it for the time being. I was admiring the fish they had though. I think I'll buy a thing called a 'butterfly ghost koi' when I get the bigger tank. I can't find a picture at the moment, but they're mostly black with gold sheen and scale tips, with beautiful long feathery fins. That is, if I can get a guarantee they won't grow too big - the smallest ones I saw were about 3 inches, but they're koi, and can end up a good foot long. I was admiring the big koi as well - the largest they have there (Hertfordshire Fisheries) are about 18 inches long and sell for about £500. I was talking to the guy, who said they'd sold one in two years. It's such a shame - they're beautiful fish and they're trapped in a completely bare tank not big enough for them. It would be great if they could have a proper pond, but these days they're an insurance risk, beside the fact that you need a pretty much a country house to keep them in. Bah.

Off to Cam today, hopefully til Saturday morning, when I head to London to see Graham. Really looking forward to having a few days up there, even if I'm going to be camping on a series of floors.

WhiteWater?

Hugh managed to get preview tickets to the first Cambridge preview of Transformers at one minute past 12 on Friday night/Saturday morning. The film's ACE - proper comic book movie, with lots of shooting and awesome aliens. Yay. You have to go and see it when it comes out. Yes. You.

Saturday was Angharad and Steve's wedding, in St Michael's Manor in St Albans. It was a lovely day, and the weather even held off long enough for them to do their photographs. I haven't seen a lot of those people for several years, so I spent the day trying to re-attach names to people I've known very well in the past and done shows with and everything, but whose actual NAMES wouldn't come out. Bah. I'm clearly old. The party in the evening was in the theatre - weird to be back there, too. I've visited it a few times, but not everyone I wanted to see has usually been there, so this was really good. Strange though - that was the place I spent more waking hours than I did in my own house when I was at school. Erk. Going back is going to be strange. I will go back to the theatre, because it can still give me things and people keep suggesting me things I could do, which is lovely. There's a part of me that's not sure about the whole idea though. The Abbey Theatre represents a massive chunk of my past and some of my happiest memories, but their from a past I don't particularly want to be stuck in. At the same time, I don't particularly want to be stuck where I am now for any length of time, either. Bah. I know I'm not making sense, here. I have an issue at the moment with wanting to do anything - like go out anywhere or do anything that's not with my usual crowd of friends (for this purpose, those are Hugh, Andy, Kate, Lara, Rob and Carl). That's not to say I don't get on and enjoy the company of anyone else, but I worry and um and ah about going out. When I *do* go out, I usually enjoy myself provided I don't drink, I just find the idea of going really unpleasant. I've lost any will to put *ANY* effort into it. Hope it comes back. Slightly worried about that at present...it's not a great symptom, really.

I took Eleanor up to Oxford on Sunday. Good job we went when we did, and I'm very glad I didn't stay longer given the chaos over there now with the floods and everything. I didn't actually see any water in Oxford, apart from in the Cherwell, which was running REALLY high. There were punts that were clearly tied to the original bank with their noses stuck down in the water at 45 degrees and their back ends in the air. It was still getting higher until yesterday - I think the warnings are in place still, but it has started going down I believe. When I was driving out, there were flooded fields, but the roads were still clear. Apparently on Friday when all the rain came down the M40 had been closed. That was what did it though - on Friday, some areas had three times the normal rainfall for the entire MONTH fall on one day. Nice.

I went up to Chatteris to see the little house on Tuesday. I'm glad one of me and my brothers has a useful memory of the place now - I doubt David even registered it exists. I suspect it'll stay rented for a few more years yet, at least, until one of us actually wants to buy somewhere. In the meantime, it earns a reasonable rent, and will earn a bit more when we redecorate it and stuff.

Other than that, I've spent this week packing. Gah. And I need to finish that today and do the cleaning. *sigh* I hate moving house.

Life itself going on.

It's Friday the 13th. Arg.

Die Hard 4.0 on Wednesday was great - hilarious. Shooty shooty die die films are clearly the best. Though John McClane finds the 'die die' bit nearly impossible. And does the shooty bit by throwing cars at helicopters. Was great. We went to Chiquitos in the chavplex afterwards, and had a really rather passable meal, for the price we paid. They refused to give us the advertised student discount when we asked for it though, which rather spoiled the evening. Carl wrote a nice complaint letter asking for the money back after we read the advertisement for said discount a bit better, so we'll see what happens with that.

I trekked off to St Albans again yesterday with another car-load of stuff. I was cocooned in binbags before, almost literally. I couldn't close the door or see much of my floor. I'm getting on with it though. I've basically got the plant stuff and the fish and some bits left to do, so I'm more or less where I wanted to be by this stage. I'll pack up the plants and compost and bits and pieces and then leave it for a few weeks I think, now. I have to go to St Albans for a wedding next weekend, anyway, so I can take it down then.

I discovered that someone else I know (Hugh, guess who? (but don't spell it out...for anyone else)) is going for the job I'm going for. Bah. She IS more experienced, at least in some things, and hence gets most of the roles in Cambridge that we both go for. I don't know how much other experience she has, so I'm not giving up completely. Still.

Shopping and p*cking.

I bought shoes yesterday, finally. My nice old flipflops fell apart in Italy, so I needed something comfortable and presentable to wear for the summer. After much searching and liking of the feel of the Hush Puppies, I decided I didn't like the actual look of them, which was a bit of a shame. In the end I bought some Birkenstocks, on the basis that they're usually pretty reliable and are good shoes for more or less every purpose I'm likely to have in the summer. I came to the conclusion that it's worth spending money on decent sandals and a decent pair of boots, since I wear one all summer and the other all winter. Other shoes are more or less incidental. Not that these were horrendously expensive...just more than I usually try and spend on shoes. I like the colour though - they're a sort of bronze which will hopefully mean they go with more or less everything I own.

I've spent a quantity of today packing. I HATE packing. My room is an absolute tip and I need to do something about it. It's probably about time I made another trip to St Albans, I suppose. I shan't bother with the boxes, because since I filled them I've been into them for more stuff, but there are black bags full of clothes and soft stuff I could leave behind. I'm making progress though - I've got garden stuff and a bit of kitchen stuff still to do, but all that's left after that is the clothes I'm likely to need for the next month or so (which includes a wedding and a week in France!), my computer stuff, and a few other bits and pieces. And the plants and the fish. You know, the small things. *rolls eyes*. I'll take the fish to St Albans when my brother's back from Egypt so he can feed them. I'm not entirely sure I trust him with plants, but he'll probably be ok with fish.

Apologies for the brain dump - I needed to plan things a little bit. I'm going to put real clothes on (as opposed to the scabby tracksuit bottoms and comfortable old vest top I habitually live in at home) and wander over to Cineworld to meet the others to watch Die Hard 4.0 and have dinner and that kind of thing.