An accident prone kind of day...

Or maybe things were just out to get me!

The day didn't get off to a good start, well being woken at 4.08 am by one of the dogs with their "urgent" bark is never a good sign.... so I was probably half way downstairs before I was actually fully awake, then, without turning the lights on ... which generally I don't at that time as increasing the light levels decreases the chances of me or any of the critters getting more sleep... I got the dogs out their night crates... which was fine till I got to Hopes, which has a sprung latch mechanism .... that I misjudged and trapped my little finger between it and the metal cage front... ouch!  There was some bouncing up and down whilst using creative language as I bustled the dogs out into the garden whilst telling them (and possibly me) to keep the volume down.....  little finger is a little bruised around the middle joint.....

I made it safely then through the morning to 7.45, when I got into the shower, forgetting that I'd had the bath mat up to clean the bath before bed the night before and hadn't checked that it had latched onto the now squeaky clean bath, queue my right leg twisting about as I was standing on it and trying to get the left leg over the edge of the bath without Hugo attacking my foot........ slightly jarred and bruised right knee where it hit the tap.....

I should be grateful I got to work safely by this point......

Anyway, as the day progressed it appeared that the stationary was in fact out to get me....... and my hands are, erm, decorated with plasters.... I have one on the fleshy bit at the bottom of the thumb on my left hand where a metal binder from a document bundle decided to slice into me whilst I was undoing it so I could get a document out to photocopy it....another is on the outside of my right hand where I managed to stab myself with the sharp pointy blade of the scissors I was using to get into the boxes containing the next file I was working one... and finally... and most painfully..... I have a tiny little paper cut on the tip of my right ring finger.... which hurts more than the rest put together and bled all over the desk........

My evening meal tonight was a vegetable bake, which involves lots of finely sliced vegetables in layers..... I elected to use the food processor to slice the veg... I thought using a knife might be tempting fate..... and having reclined on the sofa with my cup of calming herbal team I had hoped for a quite peaceful injury free end to the evening...... yeah, cos that didn't happen as Ivan managed to open the babygate into the hall whilst Hugo was still in there and as I scooted my chair backwards to leap after him and rescue, well one of them, I managed to send the cup flying from the table to the floor, where it shattered sending still rather too warm to be wearing it tea up my right leg.... and as I tried to herd the dogs out the way of the broken mug I managed to stand on one of the pieces......

I think that I shall declare today officially over and go hide in my nice soft comfy bed with my paperback copy of Tigerland which arrived this afternoon........ I should be safe from further injury...... well unless I move my feet in a way Gina and Hugo don't approve of that is.....

A question of timing....

Summer is officially over.... given that we changed time zones at 2 am this morning from British Summer Time back to Greenwich Mean Time.... or in other words for almost everyone else in the UK they got an extra hour in bed this morning...  I say almost everyone else, because I am pretty sure there will be other people who like me own critters who do not understand the concept of someone sneaking an extra hour into their night and mucking up the daily routine.

In an effort to combat what I knew would happen I stayed up till midnight last night and let the dogs out then before putting them to bed.... did they sleep in... did they hell.... 4.30 am (new time) and they are bouncing up and down in their crates making hopefully yipping noises.... I was unimpressed....... a quick nip out into the garden as opposed to a full walk and I put them back to bed again... which lasted all of another hour....at which point I gave in and got up to walk them.

I've had a running battle all afternoon with them in that every time I went near the fridge after about 4 pm they leapt at it hopefully expecting chicken wings to fly out into their gobs.... I held off till 5.30 pm - by which time the cats were also threatening mutiny.  We've had a repeat performance at bed time... when they've paced and glared at me from what they think should be the right time to go out and into their night crates... thing is I don't want to be up at stupid o'clock in the morning tomorrow.

It usually takes them a week to adjust to the time change......... and me about, oh, 5 months of doom and gloom as I walk them in the dark in a morning, go to work in the dark, come home in the dark and never see daylight aside from through a glass window... I am seriously considering applying to be re-classified as a creature that hibernates through the winter......

It's that time of the year......

When if I shut my eyes after about 8 pm it actually does sound like I am living in the middle of war zone.... I hasten to add that I'm not, I am still residing in my usual place of abode.... it's just the fly by night cheap firework shops that sell to everyone and anyone have opened again and have sold their wares to all and sundry....... who then persist in just letting them off where they feel....

It used to be that we only got fireworks on Guy Fawkes night (5th November), but after the millennium it appears that any festival or holiday is a reason to set them off.  Today we appear to have fireworks for Eid al-Adha (well, officially it was yesterday) as well as the usual hooligan element who like to just let fireworks off in the street.... before Christmas we will also have fireworks for Diwali (5 days starting 13th November) and then it all goes mad again at New Year..... I have to admit, as much as I love living in a large multi-cultural city (and in a part of it that is very nicely mixed) I could do without the fireworks at every celebration...... at grove meetings for Beltane and Samhain there are large bonfires, but not fireworks.

Ooooh, that was a close one, my windows rattled....

Luckily none of the hell critters that reside in my house (or possibly own me) could give a stuff about fireworks.... the dogs like to go out in the run and watch.... well, when they aren't sleeping through it.....Though Gretchen does sometimes like to bark back at the louder bangs in a territorial kind of way.....  The cats will watch from the window, though at present it's so cold here (really must sort out getting the boiler fixed) that they have taken up permanent residence in my duvet (yep, inside the cover, who says you need opposable thumbs to get the press-studs undone?)

I think I shall go lie down and watch the fireworks out the window.... I am still rather tired from yesterday... the arrangements at the place we were having our training were useless and had just put out coffee which I was tempted to drink but didn't... as a result I ended up with one glass of water to drink all day and then got stuck in traffic on the way home (90 minutes in a queue outside Glossop... not fun)...by the time I got home (after a really fun run down Snake Pass in the dark.... I love my car, it might have taken a while to climb to the top ... and annoyed the drivers behind me...  but knowing the road when I got to the top I could leave them all in the dust and sail down..... nope didn't break the speed limit once... I am a good girl after all *grin*)... I was shattered and had a stinking headache thanks to being a gnats dehydrated... It's taken most of today to get rid of the headache and re-float myself (though I am not actually a boat...)

More pre-exam mumbling....

There is really no avoiding the imminence of my finals..... not only is tomorrow my official "revision day"... which is going to be painfully boring as our very dry and un-humorous course leader runs through what we will need to revise but today in the post I received my official letter confirming my seat and giving me my candidate number........ I have a really, really strong desire to run away, or stick my fingers in my ears, shut my eyes and sing loudly whilst pretending this isn't happening...... ah yes, that river in Egypt again... denial....

I think one of the problems is that I've always fought off getting a professional qualification.... I've been doing the job, or a variation thereof, in the legal sector for over 15 years and managed rather nicely without it...... trouble is, once I have this, I have a title, I have essentially a career, I can tell people what I am (hell I can even swear oaths and sign passport photos) ...... what I'm hoping is that this doesn't mean that I have to be a grown up and all responsible?

I think that I've resisted the whole qualification route because to me it seems like that is it, that my career path is set, that my future is mapped out to retirement .... and you know what... that scares the hell out of me.  I want to go do other things, to explore, to have fun, to chuck it all in and try my hand at new things..... but a qualification says this is what I am, what I will be..... at least it does in my mind.

Last time around, when I failed to turn up for my finals for my chemistry degree, I already knew that I had no intention of doing anything with the degree I'd worked for and I didn't see the point of putting myself through the exams.... I wonder now how much of me was subconsciously thinking that if I sat those exams, got that qualification, my life would be mapped out by it.... at 22 it really didn't matter all that much, I had my life ahead of me, I could change directions.... but I'm nearly 40 now.... and it's not so easy to think that way.

I will sit the exams this time, after all I owe it to my employers, who have paid for the course, my boss, who I don't want to let down, my family, who have been so proud that I am finally getting a qualification for the work I am doing....... trouble is, I can't find it in myself to sit the exams because I want to, because I'm proud of what I have achieved....

I wonder if this says something about me.... I don't do things for myself.... I knit for friends and family, I write stories for other people, I will go help out when and where people need it.... I've been living in this house for nearly 4 years and aside from buy a few new books and replace the pieces of electrical equipment when I've blown them up, I've actually done nothing for myself, I had a list of things to do when I moved in but, hey, it's just me living here, so why bother.....

I think part of the trouble is, I like doing things for other people ......  okay so I am not so sure about the work related items.... that's more the fact that I find letting other people down is the hardest thing in the world to forgive myself for and if I do let someone down, be it in work or a friend, letting go of the guilt, even if it's only perceived by me, is really difficult..... doing something for myself though, all I can think, is why bother, it's not worth it, I'm not worth it.

Oh deary, deary me....

As we get closer to Samhain, and the doors between the worlds get thinner, the critters occasionally known as the devil dogs, who currently reside in my house and masquerade as being domestic pets, are turning back to their wild ways.

In the last few days there as been a steady increase in the number of sacrificial offerings to whatever demonic creature it is they are worshipping and I fear that very soon the joke about the fact I am the Mistress of the Void under the Kitchen Floor (I title bestowed upon me by friends who should know better that these things will sometimes come to pass) will become a strange reality as the Void opens and the spirits complete their corruption ..... which may in fact mean that Gretchen makes her long awaited bid for world domination.

On Monday there was the destruction of the Oven Glove...... which involved shredding the outer cover to pieces and then liberally spreading the white stuffing all over the floor

Yesterday, the sacrifice was the boxes containing two DVD's which were stealthily removed from the shelf in the lounge as I was reading, taken behind the sofa and ceremonial ripped to pieces, the sparkly DVD's themselves were then simply abandoned to lie unloved amongst the dust bunnies...

look closely and you may just see the horns
yep, right there, in front of her ears...

Which brings us to today........when obviously the demons were hungry and required sustenance, and being demons they required left overs and such like which could be obtained from knocking over the kitchen bin and liberally spreading the contents over the floor.... better still, I had last night disposed of those items in my freezer which were out of date (I meant to put the bin out this morning before work but forgot) and some of those things (including prawns) have vanished.... alas not into the demon but into the dogs...... which meant this evening was neither restful or pleasant.......

And there is still a week to go before Samhain itself..... Goddess help me!

For a Monday....

Today has been remarkably good!

Okay, so there was work, and really dreary drizzly horrible dark weather (I swear you'd have thought we'd moved so far north that we had no daylight at all today).... and the slight problem of me miscalculating my medication and running out of pain killers last night after the chemist shut and having to do without for 24 hours....(insert lecture from person of authority regarding carelessness, forward planning, organisation and looking after yourself)....thank goodness for mother's who can be persuaded to pick up your prescription and stick it through the letterbox so it's there for you when you get home!

That aside, the day started well when the characters for my NaNo project started talking to me over my cup of tea first thing and kept going all the way to work, where I made some quick notes so I didn't forget.... then I caught up with a friend on line.... who helps keep a certain level of sanity throughout my working day (probably to both our respective employers horror if they knew!)....there was some chair dancing as I hummed along to the MP3 player (which was heavy on the Florence & the Machine this morning)...and my boss bought me a toffee apple (okay so she bought the whole team one)... though it turned out to be out of date so I didn't eat it, but it's the thought that counts.

I've finished getting my sister's birthday present together.... and it's not even her birthday until 2nd November... she's asked for some DVD's and craft stuff ..... she does the most beautiful free hand embroidery and I might just have chosen some lovely threads in greens/browns and bronzes and a small frame with the suggestion that I'd quite like two small pieces to hang over the fire place in the lounge....okay, so it will probably fall on deaf ears but it's worth a go

I just have to now get paper and a card, oh and choose some yarn from my stash (and appropriate needles) as she's decreed that I need to teach her to knit...... which is slightly worrying as I do not have the patience for teaching people a skill I still pretend at time I cannot do myself..... I can't remember what is easiest to learn to knit with.... I am tempted to start her with DK and some 4mm needles.... though my nicer yarn is mainly either in sock or aran weight I do have a nice hank of Colinette Cadenza I could give her.....then again  it's only for learning and I've a shed load of revolting bubblegum pink squeaky acrylic.....she can have some good stuff when she's got the hang of it....

Right, well to round off the rest of my nicer than expected Monday I am off to finish Amy Lane's first knitting book in preparation for the second to come out whilst I am in a yarnish type mood :)

Living in a fantasy world....

Okay, well I did say I was on a bit of a fantasy kick at present....

At the back end of last week I fancied some comfort reading so I read the Tiffany Aching series of Discworld books (Wee Free Men, Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith & I Shall Wear Midnight) by Terry Pratchett..... (I won't take the Kindle up to bed for fear of death by feline so I tend to re-read paperbacks I already own as I don't seem to be buying them any more).... I then started, at stupid o'clock on Saturday morning re-reading the prequel to the Belgariad (Belgarath the Sorcerer by David Eddings).....

Switching to the Kindle a few hours later and Concubine by Jill Knowles was next on my to read list.....

After a little light research on line for my NaNo Project... thankfully non fantasy (Ha! I say this now) ... I decided that I would do some TV watching and through the magic of cable TV and in my wisdom decided to spend a good few hours watching The Lord of the Rings.... well dozed on and off on the sofa whilst it was on..... only switching over to watch Merlin (after safely hiding the plot bunny as his ideas about Sir's Gwaine and Percival are, well, lets just say, it would get them kicked out of the Knights of the Round Table for sure....)

This morning I finished watching the Return of the King after I'd taken the dogs out at a time on a Sunday morning which for normal people only happens on the way back from a really good night out.... and then started reading The Druid Stone by Heidi Belleau & Violetta Vane.....

and then I fell asleep......... and landed in the most visually real but at the same time disturbingly surreal dream  in which I was thrown into a highly weird (and very blue like the picture above) fantasy world...... thankfully there were no dragons.... but it was a good thing I know how to use a bow and arrow or I might not have got out alive.........

As it was, reality returned when Gretchen landed on my head to see if I was interested in perhaps getting up and feeding her........... I think I might have to read something other than fantasy next.....