cough cough

is the sound of our house at the moment. I still can't seem to shake off my cough, and my housemate is poorly and has a nasty cough. She's just gone off to bed, which is a place that I would love to be right now. I've just a couple of things to do before I do though, and I really wanted to get a post on my blog before people started thinking I was dead or something.
Not that many people do seem to read my blog. Right, that's a challenge. Who are you? And why haven't you recommended my blog to others (Ok, so Bekki and Kathleen have both made links to my blog, so they are forgiven). HP make your uni friends read it or something. Mummy, you haven't commented for ages, are you not reading*?Anyone else, it's lovely to have you reading about the generally mundane moments of my life.

* I do realise that if she's not reading then she can't comment, but she should be reading.

evening all

We've had a fairly busy day today - Doing lots of things like tidying, dusting, hoovering, washing (both clothes and people - I had a bath!) I'm feeling quite tired now, but my housemate is playing the keyboard, practising for tomorrow because she is playing at church, and then we've got to to finish cleaning the kitchen and mop the floor.

I can never remember which practice\practise is which. Does anyone have any useful suggestions?

I love supermarket shopping

To some people it may sound strange, but I love to go to the supermarket. Whether it's with my mum when I'm at home, or our regular trip on a Friday when my housemate and I tend to go a bit mad because it's finally the end of the week. When I say mad, it's not that we spend a lot, it's more just having fun, singing silly songs and generally not behaving like the sensible adults that we've been having to be all week. In fact, I don't even have to buy all that much, it's somehow just the excitement of going. I can't put my finger on the precise reason, I just love it.

One of the things I'm going to buying a lot in the next few weeks is tissues. Yes the hayfever season has officially begun. This I know because I have started sneezing just about all of the time. Some people, like my sister Bekki, have the luck to only be affected by one type of pollen, but for me it's all of them. And dust, and animal hair, and dust mites, and about a million other things. Oh well, I guess I'll just keep taking the tablets...

back to broadband

ok, ok, so I said I was going back to my other home, and I did for the a whole 36 hours or something, but I came back to London this afternoon. But for a good reason, and in fact I'm totally shattered now. Bed is calling, but I'm just making the most of the boradband before I go again.

Right, let me explain. As I said, our friend G is back in hospital, and J, his wife,has been feeling poorly, so as of yesterday morning they came over to my parents house to stay for a while (they being J and her 4 lovely kids). Today J was visiting G because he was seeing a consultant, and because my mum works afternoons she couldn't look after the kids (J home schools, so it was all of them that needed to be looked after). So J took them to a friends for the morning, and I drove back down the M11 after work (I was only working till 1 today) and went and picked them up and brought them back to my parents house. And looked after them all afternoon, including helping A to make a birthday cake (she is 8 today), and sorting out a few arguments and tired children (C didn't have a nap this afternoon which she usually does, so she was getting a bit cranky and tearful by the end of it.).

This evening we had a lovely birthday tea, and I've just been helping J to put the kids to bed and tidy up the tea stuff. It may not sound like a lot, but 4 kids can be quite a handful. They're fantastic and all know me really well and listen to what I tell them to do, but still.... I'm quite glad that they're all just about past the nappy stage (well, C is 90% potty trained now), although have got quite a dab hand at doing it having spent lots of time with them, especially since the youngest two were born. I don't think a lot of people my age would have a clue about looking after small children, but I'm really thankful to J&G who've given me lots of experience practising on their kids :-)

debs loves peas

I realised while eating my lunch that is most remiss of me to have not mentioned my love of peas before now. We had peas for lunch, and I love them. They are green and round and roll (unlike sweetcorn, which some might classify in the same category, which do not roll and are clearly of a lower standard).

I don't really remember when I started liking peas. I've always been the one out of the three of us (my 2 sisters and I) most likely to eat vegetables, and love tucking into things like roast root vegetables (I'll tell you about them sometime), but somehow peas are the best.
In my first year at university we had fridges in our hall or residence, but no freezers, and one day I decided I really wanted to eat peas. Now I don't know about you, but the smallest bags of frozen peas that I can ever find (the tinned ones just don't cut it) are 250 gram bags. I got one of them, and without a freezer they were gonna go soft quite quickly, so for two days running what I had for dinner was a big bowl of peas. It must have also been sometime during that year that I got a postcard that I stuck up on my door. It was circular, and had a big pea in the middle, and said 'pea brain'. Some people might have been insulted by this comment, but I decided it expressed to people how fond of peas I was, rather than how thick I was.

The last meal I ever had in my college dinner hall was also the time that my own personal tongue-twister was invented. It's very simple, just three words - debs loves peas, but you just try saying it quickly several times in a row and you'll understand. I personally thank Bex for helping it to come into existence. Bex could also tell you of some other interesting moments when it comes to me and food, but I won't go into them right now...
I would probably have to say that peas are definitely one of my favourite savoury food. Please comment and tell me what your favourite foods are :-)

goodbye to broadband

Well this afternoon I'm finally heading back to my other home. I came home to get better when I was feeling rough, and ended up saying with my parents for almost a month. It's been lovely being home, but I'll be glad to see people in Cambridge again. I decided to go to church here in London with my parents, and drive home this afternoon. And in the time between getting home from church and lunch being ready I'd make the most of our broadband conection to post on my blog and catch up with a few favourites. My other home only has dialup internet access, so my posts may not be quite as frequent as in the last couple of weeks.

I love the church we go to here in London. We meet in Cineworld cinema in Enfield, and it's fantastic to be so visible to people going to the cinema. We started off in one of the smalled screens, but as people have been added to our church we've been moving around a bit. This mornnig we were in screen 8 which is one of the really big screens. We by no means fill screen 8, but it's great to see the potential that the room has! This morning Adrian (http://www.adrian.warnock.info/) (I must find out how to make fancy links within a post) was preaching. If I had more time I'd write all about it, but check out his blog for more.

I need to start packing and hunting round my hosue for all my belongings, since having been home for so long things are all over the place.

my second Saturday

I was disappointed about my car not being ready on Thursday because I had been planning to drive up to Cambridge in the evening for a meal with my church growth group. Because it still needed a part they couldn't complete the job until Friday, so instead I went with my mum to her church community group (every church seems to call them different things, but they're generally pretty similiar). I enjoyed the evening with them - they're very friendly and made me feel very welcome. I love being able to be a part of a group that's made up of people from very different ages and background, but have something in common that overcomes the differences - the fact that we are Christians and believe the same things. While I was a student I enjoyed being part of the Christian Union in my college, but there was also something very special about meeting up with people who weren't students, and had a bit more life experience to share. Talking of those people, J and M from my current growth group got engaged this week, so congratulations to them.

Yesterday really felt like a Saturday, so it was a lovely feeling this morning, waking up for my second saturday this weekend. I've had a busy day, so I'm quite tired and it's only quarter to 8. We're having apple and blackberry crumble for pudding in a minute, so that should help to wake me up a bit. This morning we had a church prayer meeting, and then I visited some friends of mine. G&J have 4 children, and J home schools. While I was doing my A-levels I started visiting them one afternoon a week, and I've been going round ever since. G is currently in hospital, having been having breathing problems. I went over to catch up a bit as I haven't seen them for ages, and to just show them my love and support. C, their youngest daughter, was a little nervous of me to start with, but was soon jumping all over me like the rest of them! I love visiting them, and they always make me feel really welcome and a part of their family, not just a visitor.

Then this afternoon I met up with a friend from university. We met up at Victoria station just inside WHSmith because it's easy for her to get from south London, and me to get from the north of London. Unfortunately S, another friend wasn't able to join us because she's poorly. We had a lovely time eating lunch and wandering around Green Park and outside Buckingham Palace. We were playing spot the police van as there seemed to be hundreds of them drivnig around (ok, maybe a slight overestimate, but we saw more than 10, which to me seems quite a lot).

This evening I'm had some yummy tea with my mum and dad, and now I'm off to eat crumble. (with blackberries in that we picked in the late summer\early autumn and put in the freezer).
After that I need to do some packing as I'm finally back up the M11 tomorrow with my car. And my mum and I might watch 'House' that we videoed on Thursday night.

no posts since wednesday

So I'd better do one quick. It will have to b equick because we are off to visit my Grandma and Grandad for the day, and I'm supposed to be ready and I haven't been in the shower yet. Yesterday was a little disappointing, my car went to have it's headlights checked out, which we were hoping would be simple. But it wasn't, so my car is still at the garage and I can have it back tomorrow. Must go because I'm about to be shouted at...

yummy lunch

We had a lovely day in Cambridge. We parked near my old college and walked into town from there. It was really odd walking along the road that I used to walk along, some things looking the same and some things looking really different. We went to a few shops and then met Bekki for lunch down by the river. We had some yummy curry for lunch. And then after lunch we did some more shopping, ending up having a drink in a place called 'Eat', and then we drove back home to London. (And in case you've forgotten, or I didn't mention it, 'we' was me and my mum)

it takes a while but just look at his smile

The sun is shining and I'm in a happy mood. My mum and I are off to Cambridge for the day (or however much of the day is left once we make it out the house!) to go shopping and meet my sister for lunch. I'm enjoying being at home with my mummy and knowing how much we have in common. For example the "it takes a while.." phrase originates from a bath book that my little sister had when she was small. It was all about a crocodile brushing his teeth.

me

100_1078
Originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

This is me, as taken by me. Which is why I think it looks quite odd, and not really lke me atall. Other people say it does though, so here it is. Also I'm not wearing my glasses because I quite often take them off in the house. I'm putting this on my blog using my sisters flickr account, so I'm not quite sure how it's going to work. I'll try it and see what happens :-)

The blog that made me think

I've just been reading a blog by a guy called Pete who lives in Venezuela. (I'm not gonna make a link to it just yet, but i'll keep reading it, so you never know). He is brand new at blogging, so I got to be first to comment on his blog, which was quite exciting for me :-)

Anyway, Pete is a Christian and made that very clear from the start of his blog. Reading it made me realise that all the stuff I've written about buying a new car, and going to the dentist and all that is part of who I am, but not the whole story. So, laying my cards on the table, I'll tell you that I am also a Christian. I believe that Jesus was fully man and fully God, and that he actually lived on this earth. He was born, and died for me, to take away my sins, so that I can have a relationship with God. You might be thinking "ok, that's for you, but not for me", but I don't believe that can be true. For me there is one absolute, not many, and that one absolute is God. I don't want to be all preachy, because that's not who I am, but I did want to get that out in the open so that anyone reading my blog from now on can understand how my faith affects the way I behave, the things that I do and say, and the person that I am. I'm sorry if that offends anyone, but that's just who I am and what I believe.

So, happy Tuesday :-)

dentist update

Everything was fine. I just need to floss more, and since I don't floss much that shouldn't be too tricky to improve on. I had an interesting chat to the dental nurse while we waited for the dentist to finish making a phone call. She had just started a few days before and seemed very nervous. She seemed nice, but Iwas glad she didn't have to do much when it came to the actual check-up - I like people to know what they are doing when they're doing something to my mouth.

I also had a wander down the market (Walthamstow market, apparantly the longest street market in Europe) although today there weren't many market stalls around, just all the usual shops. I bought some deodrant, some hair bits and a book. I hadn't been down there for ages, so it was nice.

monday monday

I have a dentist appointment at 12. Which makes this one of those waiting to go ot the dentist mornings. Which is not good. Every time I go I think maybe this time it will be ok, and if I admit it sometimes it is ok. But I just don't like sitting there having someone sticking things in my mouth, not knowing quite what they're doing or what they're going to find. Ok well, hopefully this will be one of the ok times.

Going to the opticians, on the other hand, I absolutely love. But you only get to go back to see them every couple of years, and you have to see the dentist every 6 months (although this time I left it 8 months, which means there's bound to be something wrong). Having my eyes checked is great fun. Getting to wear those bizarre glasses while they try out different lenses to see what's best. When I was little my best friend had glasses for a while, but I never needed them thne, even though I desperately wanted to have them. Now I do have glasses, and she doesn't (I haven't seen her for a while, so I could be wrong!). I don't have a very good track record with them either - must be to do with my accident-proneness. The other day I managed to get elbowed in the face by the boy work with (by mistake), luckily it didn't hurt, but still knocked my glasses off my face. I've also, in the past, stood on my glasses and squashed them, had them sat on....

The most bizarre one must be when we were on holiday the summer before last. We went up to Scotland which is beautiful. We had a week near Inverness, and then a week on the Isle of Skye (I would love to go back there). Anyway, somehow I managed to to loose the screw that held in one of my lenses while at church in the main town, at the other end of the island to where we were staying. That meant for the rest of that day I couldn't really see where I was going, and that on the Monday morning we had to go all that way back to the town to get them to put a new screw in them for me.

Hey, I've managed to distract myself from thinking about the dentist for at least 10 minutes by having that little flashback, so that can't be too bad! Only another hour and a half to go (and counting).

sleepy sunday

It's only 9pm and I'm really tired, so I think I might be heading for bed soon. I've gotta get up (rather than making the most of half term and sleeping in) so that I can drive MY car (so exciting!) to the garage along with my mum driving her car. That way we can leave hers there and I can give her a lift home. And she wants us to get the car there for 8am. Does that time even exist in the holidays? Or if it does, you ought not need to be dressed and out of the house by then!
Went to church this morning. I didn't drive my car because it seemed silly to drive 2 cars for 3 people! (Also, not earning much money it's far better to use someone else's petrol. Although strictly speaking my mum did pay for the petrol we put in my car).

Talking of my car and petrol. Because it's obviously not really worth it for him to put lots of petrol in, the guy we bought my car from had let the petrol get really low. So I had my first ever experience of seeing the little light on the dashboard come on. The one that says 'give me petrol now or else'. I come from a family of 'only let it get down to a quarter, that way you won't be using all the gunk in the bottom of the tank'. I don't really understand that, but at least it means you're unlikely to get stranded anywhere due to lack of petrol.

Right, must go to bed before I talk much more rubbish.

new car

We're off round the London north circular to pick up my new car. Hurrah!
Afraid that's all I can say for now because we do have to go right now.
More later if I have a chance to get on the computer.

the car saga continues

I'm sure there must be something to do with me and cars. I picked my mum up from the school where she works this evening. When we'd been home a while we noticed that there was a light on the car alarm remote that shouldn't be on. When we pressed a button it went out, but I thought we'd better check that it was still working to turn off the alarm on the car. It wasn't. Having tried various things we ended up ringing the AA, who sent a lovely man who managed to do something to make it stop coming on. But it's definitely got to show up for it's date with the garage on Monday (that we'd made on our way home, for something that we think is probably unconnected, although also to do with the electrics). At least by then we'll have my car to get around in when we need to.

It just occured to me that..

..I never wrote anymore about the drain. My housemate's dad sorted us out with some chicken wire to cover the drain up outside, and we've got a plughole cover inside as well. Although it doesn't always seem to want to stay in position, so we may be investigating other designs to see if we can find one that fits better. Our neighbours have also shot a couple of rats (not entirely sure what with, but we didn't feel like enquiring too deeply into that one), so hopefully that might help with the problem!

new car

Well D and my mum went and looked at the car. They found out that it hasn't got power steering, but other than than all seemed good. Since I was at work my mum couldn't get hold of me at the time, but decided that she'd go for it and put down a deposit. It may be a bit odd without power steering, but since it'll be a lot smaller and lighter than the cars I've driven lately, hopefully it won't be too much of a problem. After all, a couple of weeks ago I couldn't see myself driving my mum's car, but out of necessity I have, and that's been fine. So I'm sure I'll get used to it soon enough.
I just rang up my insurance company and sorted all that out too, so hopefully if all goes to plan we'll be picking up my car on Saturday afternoon :-)

wedding bells...

.... no not mine!
Today I recieved an invite to my good friend R's wedding to P. It's in July, and it's all very exciting :-) Also a little scary because R is 2 years younger than me, but we won't dwell too much on that one!

*car update*

I can't remember what I last said about cars, but the latest is that tomorrow my mum and D - a friend of the family who knows a thing or two about cars - are going back to Wembly to look again at one of the 3 we saw on Saturday. Since we saw them I've kind of been thinking of this one as 'my car' so I'm really hoping D reckons it's worth it. It seemed in great condition, and has only had one 'careful lady driver' so all seems good. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Once they've seen it and made a decision we might be a step further towards figuring out our plans for half-term, which is next week. We'd like to visit people like my 2 sisters, and perhaps my Grandma as well, but it all depends on the car situation. My mum's car has a continuing problem with its electrics which really ought to be sorted out, and if I have a car by then we'd be able to get around even if it takes a while them to sort it all out.

Oh, and talking of Grandma, it's her birthday today so HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

ankles

Those of you that have known me for a while (and since only about 3 people ever read my blog that's probably my mum and my sister) will know that I'm the most accident prone person in the world. (oh, I forgot my housemate - she's reading this to catch up on what I'm up to in London - make that 4 people).

Anyway, (thought I'd best start a new paragraph to get away from all those brackets)(doh), I've very good at going over on my ankle. The most memorable of recent occasions was while playing 'it' in the playgroud with some children at school. The boy I work with is very fond of the game, and although his classmates are very patient they do sometimes get bored, and hence I got roped in to play. I somehow managed to stumble and hurt my left ankle, and having survived the last 10 minutes of lunchtime pretending everything was fine, got to sit in the staffroom with an icepack on it for a significant amount of the afternoon before atempting to drive home. At least that was mostly on the motorway and I didn't have to change gear too many times.

Surprisingly that wasn't actually the story I was planning to tell you, just background information to illustrate just how accident prone I am. What I did today was come up stairs to tell my mum that dinner was ready, and while standing (yes, just standing, not even walking or moving in any way) I somehow managed to go right over on my ankle and cause myself lots of pain. I sat through dinner with an icepack on my ankle and it is feeling a bit better, so I don't think I've caused any major damage, but I'll try to be more careful with myself over the next few days.

Will anyone notice this now has a title?

I just managed to work out for myself how to set up a link. Well, I say by myself - in actual fact went into my blog settings and found the bit Bekki hd taken me to when she set up a link to her page, and copied what she did, only with a different website. But I think that still counts as by myself, since that was a while ago, and noone was with me this time.

On saturday we looked at 3 cars - all Micras. I test drove 2 of them - the other one was very blocked in, but we may go back and look at it again. It doesn't really seem like the end is it sight yet, but it feels like there might be hope...

The ceilidh at my church on Saturday was great fun, and I think Bekki, I and G enjoyed it as well. (To save on confusion, 'I' is my housemate, rather than me geting confused and putting myself in the list twice). It was great to see her and catchup on life since I was last in the house.

I'm so glad it's Friday

It's Friday, I don't have to go to work tomorrow. I made it to the end of the week - a whole 5 days at work without being ill. (or at least not too ill) That makes me happy :-)

A big hello to Kathleen, whose blog I posted a comment on, and she came and posted one back on mine. (Now that might seem a little thing to some people, but to someone who is still discovering the delightful world of blogging it's a very BIG thing.) Once I find out how to do it, it would be great to make a link from my site to hers, but I'll have to get back to you on that one.

This week I have worked in the every morning, and managed to make the boy I work with cry on two out of the five days. Now I realise that isn't necessarily something to be proud of, but he was being very silly and mucking around, and all I actually did was tell him he had to stay in for a couple of minutes at playtime. Perhaps next week he won't be so silly and I won't have to be so mean, but perhaps pigs might fly (although they do in our house, but that's another story).

Any minute now I'm going to go back to looking at websites about cars, in the hope that I can arrange to go and look at some tomorrow morning. Then tomorrow we'll hopefully look at some cars, and maybe even decide on one that we want to get. In the afternoon I'm going back up the Liverpool Street-Cambridge train line to my little village. And in the evening I'm going, with some friends, to a barn dance. Actually it's officially one of those Scottish words that begin with 'C' that I can't spell, and am not even going to try.

I'll have to come back to London on Sunday evening I expect, otherwise getting to work on Monday will be tricky. And that begins a new week. It occurs to me that if I posted more often I wouldn't have to keep updating you on my whole week. I'll try..