| Mayor Making |
[May. 15th, 2008|11:03 pm] |
I'm back in Birmingham after attending my father's Mayor Making, which happened on Tuesday and also coincided with the Annual Council of the Borough of Islington. That being the one occasion in the year where the entire council gets together and votes effectively on who will be on the autocratic ruling committee known as the Executive Committee, making all the decisions for the next year. It's wonderful to see Democracy in action, isn't it?
They also elect the Mayor for the year. ( A brief bit about what the Mayor actually does... )
The event itself was very cool. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) pplfichi was there, along with my cousin Marta and pretty much all the family in England attended, including my uncles and aunts on my grandad's side, who I don't get to see often. It was good to see them and it felt so good that they came to support my dad. The event was also attended by the Polish Consul (the Ambassador was meant to come but didn't, which was all very well because the thought that she would come made the council officers shit themselves). The outgoing Mayor made some speeches, which were a bit long but not too dull and there were speeches of thanks from both sides of the chamber. Apparently, the outgoing Mayor had made a point to invite Labour Councillors to events in her parlour and had been a fair chairwoman. The leader of the opposition also took the time to talk about dad as the prospective Mayoral candidate who would probably win and said some nice things about him. Scarily, I was mentioned as the "apple of his eye". Eeek, so much for anonymity. This was later somewhat deflated when she walked out past me and pplfichi and called him me. Well, I suppose that's an easy mistake to make since pplfichi gets to see more of my dad then I do...
After the speeches, both sides were asked to propose and second candidates of their choice for Mayor. My dad's ward co-Councillor stood up and gave a really nice speech about dad. It started off by comparing him to Boris Johnson (eh?!), generally to do with the hair and general disarray, on which she had a point. However, she soon branched off that topic and the speech more or less confirmed my picture of my father, gathered through long conversation and seeing him in action: the fair, moral voice of the group, who's never going to allowed any real power for that reason and isn't ruthless enough to be successful but has the respect of the group and every so often shames the group into a new direction when they get too ruthless themselves. The opposition voiced their candidate and the vote was taken (25-24 for dad, the Mayor's casting vote deciding it in his favour) and dad was elected Mayor. The outgoing Mayor left with dad and dad came back, dressed in all the regalia. I was very proud. Dad then gave a speech, citing his roots as son of Polish immigrants and talking about Islington's cultural diversity and acceptance. Twas very cool. *sniffle*
Finally, the Mayor called for a vote on the leader of the Council (which went to, well, guess...) and several appointments were debated, the nice atmosphere degenerating into a somewhat barbed one (it should be noted that the governing and opposition groups in Islington have a lot of bad history between them and that the current bad treatment is considered to be retribution for past treatment when the tables were turned, this being a lesson that, if you go into politics, be nice to the opposition, for some day, you may be the opposition too).
Then the Council ended and we buggered off to get some food while Mum and Dad swanned around being important :) ( I ramble about titles... )The Polish newspapers were out in force and taking lots of photographs. At a time when Polish immigrants are more numerous then they have ever been, the election of a Polish Mayor is big news to them and there's a small non-zeor chance that my picture may have ended up in the newspaper :S I ate, chatted with pplfichi, chatted with my family and just generally tried to be lovely, charming and subtly sarcastic, which worked for me really well that night. I also met and chatted with Euan, one of dad's ex-co-Councillors who got unelected when the Lib Dems nearly lost control of the Council last election, who had the attitude that he was going to get his council-tax's worth by drinking as much as he could that night. This seems to be a more common attitude among attendees than you would think...
It was a good occasion, and I got to see more about the intricate workings of our great Democracy. I hope you found it interesting too. |
|
|
| In Poland |
[Sep. 11th, 2007|12:29 pm] |
My family bitches about travelling by air but this trip reminded me all the bad things about doing that level of mileage by car: severe lack of sleep and chronic pain in the bum that after 24 hours no amount of shifting can alleviate. We've been here a few days now and I'm just beginning to fell that I've caught up on the sleep I missed. The journey itself was relatively uneventful. We only got lost once in the dead of night around a complicated junction mainly thanks to the fact that my parents forgot to bring any of the up to date maps we had (I swear they have too much faith in my map-reading ability that they forget that it's not magic and needs things like, say, maps) and the lack of attention that lack of sleep brings as dad continually sails serenely past all the exits we're meant to take and I serenely fail to plot alternative routes.
We're in a small town called Szczawnica in the Pieniny. The town isn't particularly nice or unice but the view of the mountains outside of my window is cool.
On Sunday we went for a walk along the Homole Canyon which was very pretty and a suitable short walk to ease one back into walking. I'd forgotten how nice walking is, I want to do more. I think if I can persuade my parents to go on a longer walk tomorrow, that would be good. We then ate a huge meal and then went to sleep. We then woke up and spent until 4am awake. We have no sleeping pattern.
On Monday we went into Nowy Sacz and put the car in for a service. We used the time we waited to do shopping. It's not particularly worth buying electronic goods in Poland as they're about as expensive as in England, sometimes more. However, being a bit more chilled makes it easier to shop and I bought myself a usb wifi stick because it turns out my work laptop doesn't come with wifi and also I bought a 1Gb mp3 player because if I hear any one of our car CDs one more time I will kill. We can make that work with the car radio thanks to one of those FM broadcasters dad owns. Also, we twisted my mother's arm and got her to buy herself walking shoes. In the past mum always used to be the least prepared for walking and used to both suffer the most and hold us back. Dad solved this by buying her a proper gore-tex jacket which, despite her objections, gets regular use and means we are all on a par for surviveability. So it was amusing to hear her try to justify not needing boots given that anytime she uses her coat is an occasion she will use her boots.
Today we went to see a property mum has her eye on buying in this region. We're not very decided about what to do. What we can agree is that investing in this region is a very good idea seeing as the Polish tourist trade (particularly skiing) is under-developed. The question is very much how. Also, our sleeping patterns seem to have just about realigned and we just about seem to have shaken the post travel tiredness.
We're staying in a hotel that is a Sanitorium. I'm sorry, I mean health spa. This is because there was no where else available. It's an old communist building and it's very cool (in the communist-is-cool-because-it's-history-and-I-don't-have-to-live-with-it way). Mum rented an apartment rather than a hotel room and it looks like the apartment was for the old communist important people. It is set up to be luxurious in this way that is like someone had only academically heard what luxury was like and tried to emulate it but actually missed the spirit completely. We have gold-plated taps and doornobs, a huge bath, lots of space and the beds are comfortable but it lacks all the actual final touches that would make it a comfortable place to be. Clearly you are meant to impressed and happy at how important having gold-platted taps makes you. Fortunately, we're not going to be here long enough for that to affect us. |
|
|
| Les parents invade |
[Mar. 12th, 2007|11:19 pm] |
The weekend saw my parents come up. My dad has been ill for the last while and my mother felt completely tired and out of it, so they decided that the best way to get away from it all for the weekend was to physically distance themselves from London and come and see me instead.
Saturday, they arrived and I made them dinner in the Italian style that I've become accustomed to eating. I made Lemon and Spinach Risotto for primi and just fried some freshly bought mince burgers with frozen mixed veg for secondi. I have a terrible history of trying to make complicated food that takes a long time to make when guests come around and invariably starving them, stressing myself out incredibly and getting it horribly wrong. I've given up on that and when people come around try to feed them something on the nice end of what I eat daily so that I know how to make the food I'm making in my sleep and only the fact that people are there and the quantities are bigger are things that can throw me. It's become a pretty successful way of doing things given that my blood sugar issues force me to eat very well. Anyway, my mother showered me with praise and I don't really feel big headed because it's pretty impossible to feel big-headed about every day things. It's like being praised for breathing or something like that. It does feel good, though, in a different way, one that's nicer.
I figured that if my parents were tired, they'd not want to go anywhere that day. My mother was still buzzing and making plans and my dad was, well, just being annoying. I fed them a big lunch knowing they'd not want to go anywhere afterwards and this worked. Damn I'm evil taking away their ability to choose... So my parents just vegged. Mum watched Gosford Park on the telly and dad browsed the internet. Then they went to sleep and dad coughed his lungs out all night.
The next day, we were all pretty much up by 10 and ready to go by 11. After some faffing by my mother that it was too late to go anywhere (yes, mum, I agree with you, it's not London, it doesn't take an hour to get out and you didn't know that) we went to visit the Severn Valley Railway, a historical steam railway, where they were having a branch-line gala that weekend. My mum is wonderful for finding these things and kicking us out to go to them, because left to our own devices, me and dad would never do anything. By luck, we managed to catch a place in the restaurant wagon just after noon and chuntered through some really beautiful countryside eating a really, really nice roast dinner. My dad was managing to combine his passion for food with trains and was very happy. Mum was making dad happy and hence was happy. We chuntered back, got out at Arley and walked along the river a bit with a fantastic view of the railway crossing overhead. I think at some point I'd like to do more of the Severn Riverside walk, it looked particularly beautiful.
We got back to the car about 5ish and my parents dropped me back at home and headed straight back for London. Fresh air plus parents had completely destroyed me and I napped for several hours straight. |
|
|
| I hope my mother appreciates me... |
[Jan. 29th, 2007|01:09 am] |
This weekend was to be my mother's 50th birthday party over the weekend, and I was to come down for the weekend to help both of my parents do some preparations and to be there for the actual event.
What actually happened was that on Friday, I came down with the lurgy. I spent a most quiet and pleasant morning in my flat playing SimCity 4 to distract myself from feeling, y'know, ill, and just feeding myself on the supplies of food in my fridge (I got ill with a fridge-load of easy to cook stuff. How convenient is that!). In the morning, I had a quick think while my brain was unfoggy and decided that travel would be unavised and that I'd probably have to miss the party, if indeed I was being ill. By lunch, when the sore throat and lack of energy morphed into a sorer throat and dizzyness, I had my confirmation and called my parents to tell them the bad news. Of course, my mum was not taking no for an answer and initially made me promise to come down the next day, after I was feeling better (which I mentally tagged as, tomorrow is another day to fight). Anyway, I carried on my comfortable day and ended up being phoned later where my mum got the general gist that a) I was ill and b) in no state to travel and c) unlikely to get that much better that quickly by tomorrow. Mention was made that I might get picked up by dad the next day to be taken down, which I tried to disuade, seeing as for various reasons (that I'll list later) it was going to make me iller.
So, Saturday morming, my dad drags me out of bed with pplfichi in tow. They are to take me home. I swallow my anger and slowly get ready to leave. We drive out and, both of my shining knights being how they are, neither of them had eaten breakfast. By the time we pulled into a service station to get some food (I have no clue if dad would've done it without me mentioning it to him), dad was dangerously low on blood sugar and pplfichi was in blood sugar depression. So much for being looked after and low stress journeying!
We arrived home and I crawled straight into bed. There then followed a tactical fight between my mother and I which ended up with me staying dressed in bed long enough to heat it up a bit and the heating switched on while my mother got me to undress and take some lemsip. I also got to vent some of my anger at being coerced into being made iller, which was very important to me, because being happy at hurting yourself is never good and very bad for anyone's mental health. My mother got the message loud and clear but was pleased to see me and made that loud and clear. Anyway, I traded my health for making my mother happier and, being fairly empathic, I regard that as nearly being a zero sum trade. During our "argument", my mum had the unmitigated gall to tell me I was being a typical ill male and complaining heavily about being sick (although I was apparently being better than my dad). I shut her up by pointing out that I had been quite happily convalescing without bothering anyone, on my own, 120 miles away, and I was not the one who had dragged me from a warm, peaceful flat where I could control the temperature and my environment and easily feed, water and look after myself to an environment where I had no control over the temperature and environment and was forced to be dependent on others to look after my health.
I tried to sleep, but didn't really succeed, and then the party cranked up. Loud music etc. hexter came, and I talked to her and pplfichi lots until I became too exhausted to do it anymore. I went upstairs, to my parent's bedroom, to try and get some sleep, where the music was at its quietest, but I couldn't sleep. This was all punctuated by various trips downstairs to go to the loo and get water (I want my single level flat dammit!), which involved trying to get past lots of drunk people who tried to talk to me, none of whom I had the least inclintion to talk to that night and seemed bent on not taking the "I am ill" hint.
Eventually, at about 5a.m., pplfichi came up to talk to me in the wee hours of the night, and that was a good conversation, especially as I'd been going out of my mind and had finished my book much earlier. We talked until dawn, where I knew my old "stay-up-all-night" reflexes made me sleepy and I actually got to sleep. Before I did, however, I had the bright idea of replacing my bed slats (I had some new ones after I broke the old. I had patched a repair and been too lazy to replace it before then, but then the patch broke and I could feel it). I strained my back doing that and this morning I got a splinter from trying to move the old boards out of the way of their position in the middle of the floor. Truly, I am cursed.
The next day saw me wake up and water myself lots interspersed with catching up on lots of sleep. I finally cralwed out of bed properly at about 3pm. From there, I cooked myself and pplfichi something and watched a bit of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and was reminded how utterly fantastic the Sheriff of Nottingham character was. pplfichi went home, I hope to get some laundry done. I then watched Star Trek Insurrection (again) and then came up here to use the computer and write this. My mother is begining to get over her hangover and started trying to feed me earlier (bigos is good...), which makes a nice change, although u had more lemsip forced down me. The bright light at the end of the tunnel is that on Tuesday, my dad will return to Birmingham by car for a conference, which means I can go home and actually concentrate on getting, y'know, better, instead of being there for my mother to mother at her convenience. |
|
|
| The gran cometh |
[Nov. 26th, 2006|11:09 pm] |
Friday:
The combination of C++ labs in the morning and group lecture at 2pm managed to effectively destroy any hope of work for that day. Which was all to the good, because I don't think I could have done any work.
In the evenning, Liz (who has LJ but doesn't use it anymore) came to spend the night. She'd been invited to a wedding and needed somewhere to spend the night, so I offered her my guest room, squee!! We talked lots and caught up with each other's lives.
Saturday:
This was a really busy day.
It started off with Liz and me getting up in the morning, getting ready and chatting some more. She's a naturally early person and (I'd never thought I'd say this) I'm one too and just being up after 1am is just... late, so both of us had cut short our catching up for some sleep.
Liz left for her wedding at about 11:30. An hour later, my parents arrived bringing with them my grandparents. I was really glad to see my grandparents come up. They spend too much time in their flat and it's good to get them out of it. Not so good to see my parents. My mother was a pain and just whirled in, setting to preparing food for us all and being obnoxious. The reality was that she was hungry and the food she made for "us", only she ate. Not to mention, I had food to give people, if anyone had given me a chance. Once they left, all the food my mum repared went in the bin. It's such a waste, why didn't she just eat if she was hungry?
After a bit of rest (and, of course, food for my mum and coffee/cigarettes/sarcasm for my dad), we left for Sutton Coldfield where we went to see an old war buddy of my granddad's. My grandparents had been wanting to visit this person for a while and it was only a chance remark by my grandmother about how this person also lives in Birmingham combined with my dad asking where and telling her that we'd been to Sutton Coldfield and it was not that far away had started the whole plan rolling about a month ago in the first place.
We arrived at this massive house with a swimming pool on the edge of Sutton Park and were (of course) immedietely given dinner. My grandparents had a good time and it was not to boring on my part either, I must say, although I felt a bit on edge not most of the time (elderly Polish people do that to me). We left, my parents dropped me off at home and (thank god) didn't stay but left to go straight home. I collapsed in an exhausted heap on my sofa and watched some anime, trying to weigh whether getting off my arse and going into the cold would be sufficiently outweighed herringprincess and wrysprygoat's houseparty. Generally what decided it was that I was going slowly insane at home on my own.
I dressed up well for cycling in the cold, found an alternate route that avoided the Pershore Road and cycled out to the housepart. I was glad in the end that I did. I got to talk to some cool people who I'd never met before and have herringprincess be nice to me. Even kht's unexpected presence didn't spoil the evening and didn't seem to be the big thing it usually is. I stayed for a bit too long though, and should have gone back earlier.
Sunday:
I woke up at 1:30pm. I haven't done that in... a really long time. I don't want to do it again either. By the time I'd gotten ready and had breakfast, it was three and then an hour later it got dark. I shined some SAD lamp into my eyes and that'll probably let me sleep tonight, but I really don't want to make a habit of this.
Anyway, I watched the first episode of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I was a bit worried because I thought it wouldn't be any good: the movie was interesting and had a really cool plot, but it was also hard to follow the plot and the animation was, at times, horribly static. Additionally, the movie and the series don't share plot, AFAIK, so if they got rid of the plot there was a great potential for things to go wrong. However, the animation was very fluid and the plot challenging but not hard to follow with the rest up to the standard of the movie, so I really enjoyed it. Additionally, the soundtrack is very good: I'm having trouble getting the openning credits out of my head
Also cooked Cauliflower Risotto today and generally, despite previous experience, it didn't go well. It's amazing how some days, cooking just doesn't go well and although you theoretically follow all the steps of a recipe, the ten or so small errors along the way accumulate and create an eating experience that lacks all enjoyment. |
|
|
| Weekend over... |
[Oct. 30th, 2006|06:27 pm] |
Got back from seeing my parents late on Sunday. It was a good trip and it was good to see them. I also got to see pplfichi and hexter on Sunday for a walk in Regent's Park, where I got to catch up properly with them both.
With domestic chores piling up and no weekend to sort them, I took today off to go shopping and sort various other things. I must say, it's a relief to have an apetite when I'm food shopping, as I actually bought things (versus my other problem of just not wanting anything). Anyway, food-wise, I'm sorted for the next two weeks. I also have a sport's wrist bandage for my left wrist RSI (another reason I really didn't want to be working earlier today) and a piece of rope tied to that wrist to prevent me subconsciously typing two handed (which seemed to be the major way I kept fucking my wrist up last bout of RSI and was the only way I stopped it...). I'm typing so bloody slowly, it's a damn pain. And guess what work completely and unavoidably involves: yes, typing! Lots's of typing! Anyway, I guess I won't be updating LJ much for the next few days... On the plus side, I've been scribbling more thoughts on paper. Admittedly, you can't edit what you've written, which is a real pain, but you don't get the harsh glare of monitors and you can take writing implements with you, which is good. And writing is pretty. Or, at least, mine is. When it doesn't look like a spider was dipped in ink and crawled across a page... Which it isn't now because I'd been writing calligraphically just the week before.
I've also filled out and sent the necessary forms to get paid for teaching work. I'm buggered if I filled them out correctly (confusing they were) but we'll see. |
|
|
| Off to see the parents and update |
[Oct. 26th, 2006|09:12 pm] |
To people in Brum: I'm off tomorrow to see my parents and grandparents, so it means any plans for socialising are going to be on hold. Sorry about that.
Work is still going badly. The pipeline fails to work. My code is working fine. However, when I run the next part of the program, it exits normally producing a blank file with no data in it and no fucking errors. Wrath. Wrath and doom upon the author of that code. I will need to recompile that program and add debugging output to see what's wrong. Usual whibble of "if I'm doing that, I may as well just start rewriting the fucking code". I'm going to go and whibble about this in sourcesmith. |
|
|
| Life is hectic |
[Jul. 16th, 2006|09:51 pm] |
Life is hectic just now.
First off, I split up with swan_song on Thursday. ( Details... )
Secondly, my parents came on Saturday. ( Visit... )
Thirldy, because my parents visited, I just started bitching to them about my housemate, something I've been keeping inside because I wanted to get my work done, and when we got back, they decided I should return with them. I didn't have the heart to argue and now I'm in London. I've slept a ton and I'm just doing nothing. It'd be nice if I didn't feel so shit. But at least there's no conflict in the house.
Fourthly, being back, my mother has started talking about my health again, despite my last visit to the doctor's. ( Read more... ) |
|
|
| Weekend and training |
[Jun. 28th, 2006|02:51 am] |
I've dived off the edge of LJ because I've been very busy. For once that makes a nice change. Instead of having all my time filled by failing-to-do-work and guilt over failing-to-do-work, I'm doing useful and interesting stuff. Some of the stuff I've been up to:
( Weekend visit to parents: Kew Gardens )
I finally have a repaired bike!!! With access to all the gears!! Last week I took my bike to a distant bike shop in a fit of organisation and picked it up this Monday. It was the right thing to do: the local bike shop is, alas, incompetent. They failed to fix this problem before. However the new bikeshop I went to fixed my bike up well for not too much money and my bike feels totally different and absolutely wonderful to ride in addition to the gears being fixed.
I had signed up to do some HTML/Javascript training for this week in the hope of getting paid £500. One of the people organising said training session had his wife become ill and they needed someone to step in and it twas to start Monday evening. It was to involve helping out with exercises and giving some presentations.
( Training ) |
|
|
| Easter Update |
[Apr. 20th, 2006|04:54 pm] |
Spent Easter by going back home to see my arents, dragging swan_song along with me, where Sunday afternoon saw the usual Easter breakfast in the nice cmpany of my parents, grandparents and two cousins. While my parents did the religious bit of Easter, I finally got to see Serentiy on my parent's livingroom screen. It was an absolutely awesome film and although I have small regrets about not seeing it in the cinema, I don't regret watching the series first as it fleshed out a lot of the backstory. The film was very skillfully done, there's only a few films I've seen where the film manages to successfully imply and incorporate a backstory into the film without giving the feeling that the premise of the film is violated as almost unrelated plot elements get plucked out of the air and although I knew the backstory of this film, this had that same feel to it. Anyway, I recommended it to my parents and left it with them and they watched it Tuesday and apparently liked it loads.
Easter tended to be quite nice, my only regret about it was that I didn't manage to link up with midnightmelody and co and that the journey home took an awefully long time due to engineering works closing part of the track. Hopefully, reading about the engineering work shows they're trying to speed up that section of rail, which is very good as it's the cheaper High Wycombe route and currently it takes much longer to use it to get to London. They also seem to have upped the number of trains to and from London. Something I'll have to look out for over time.
On Wednesday, swan_song flew out to Germany for a two week stay with family. It's probably because I'm missing her a lot that life fell apart a little after she left, in that I'm sleeping not so well and forgetting to eat and drink when I should. The annoying thing is that these things are cumulative, in the sense that you screw up one thing and then everything else suddenly becomes a lot harder. So, plan is to get all of them back together and then get on with academic work and all the things I didn't do because I was spending time with swan_song. So, yes, looking on the bright side. So to be useful, I did three loads of washing yesterday and got my hair cut today, among other things. only niggling detail in all this is that I needed my paper in a draft form by Wednesday and I didn't feel like doing that, so there's one section that I haven't gone through (out of 4) and I'm completely lacking the will to do it today as well. So I'll see how that goes. Final thing making me feel down is ( medical stuff, TMI ) |
|
|
| Christmas Update |
[Dec. 26th, 2005|03:28 pm] |
It's been a little crazy, as this is the first time I've had on the computer since my last update, but overall quite good.
Christmas Eve saw Wigilia as usual where my grandparents came around and we all sat down to the traditional Christmas meal. We had a good time, chatting, eating, opening the presents, discussing them and figuring out if any clothes need changing, chatting some more and then I tried something new in that I got my flute and played some Polish carols. That proved to be interesting, as people tried to sing :) We had some good moments where I discovered that playing the flute is impossible if you're laughing and I got to scream at them all for missing rests ;)
( What I got for Christmas )
Everyone seemed to like their presents, which was good. Next year, I'd like to do something special for grandad as I always neglect him each year because he's so damn hard to buy for.
Then Christmas Day saw us get up quite late, travel to nan's where dad set up the Digital Polish television for them and then we headed off do Bozeni (I mean to Bozenia's) where we spent the time until 2am chatting to them and stuff. I took my flute along so we could try singing carols as I was requested, but that wasn't a good idea I think and next year I won't, because the gathering degenerated into people sitting around trying to sing the carols but not too well and having to keep in time with and at pitch to the flute made it worse. Ania's grandmother loved it though! It's nice, she's very quiet otherwise, so that was nice. We travelled home quite late and a dampner was put on the day by me stepping in the smelliest dog poo ever and not noticing because it was so dark. I managed to track it through most of the house before I noticed and everyone pretty much snapped at each other by then because we were tired. Sleep cured that. |
|
|
| Back with parents |
[Dec. 23rd, 2005|09:11 pm] |
I'm now back home with my parents, which I'm looking fowards to in terms of relaxing and introspection. Also looking fowards to the first calm patch in a few days, for which I've left myself the pleasure of responding to emails triggered but Christmas cards and other correspondence.
Today I've finished my Christmas shopping for immediete family, which is a large weight from my mind. Especially welcome is that all the presents are generally good and interesting and my mother had a positive response to those that I bought. Present shopping nearly went very badly with only my grandmother to go but I discovered a fantastic market just opposite the Royal Academy where they had the most gorgeous wine glasses within my budget. The stallholder was nice aswell and let me browse and take my time, although he engaged me the minute I walked past and looked interested, which normally puts me off.
To balance the good, I'm just recovering from a headache and from sore knees and back after a lot of time walking. I had to sit down multiple times during my shopping trip. Also, I left my computer on and accesible over the holidays in Linux. However, it started crashing in true Windows style and has obviously just crashed again because I can't access it, so no music or files from there for this holiday but I get the electricity bill for running it. Tosspot! |
|
|
| Weekend |
[Nov. 28th, 2005|12:44 am] |
This weekend was pretty good.
It started with me quitting work to meet up with swan_song in the centre of town to wonder around the German Christmas Market (as part of her b'day celebrations). It was fantastic! There were multiple stalls seeling all kinds of stuff. Some random things were being sold have connections with stuff my mother bought and made me have sudden flashes of homesickness although swan_song's was worse than mine, being as Polish culture seems to share some but not much with German culture. I ate Nuremburg sausages with saurkraut, which, after smelling it and the homesickness, I suddenly wanted. Unfortunately, Germans don't appear (I could be wrong) to have learnt the trick of mixing saurkraut with sausages while cooking so it didn't hit the spot it was aiming for, despite being very good. swan_song grabbed the pork steak which was so soft and delicious I'm going back for some! Topped up with absolutely fantastic mulled wine (I had mulled cherry wine... *heaven*), we had fantastic desert (and there's still more stuff I haven't tried, I'm going back), listenned to some music on the bandstand playing at least one song that took me back to happier days and finally, homewards bound to watch some Firefly. A thoroughly enjoyable evening!
Woke up the next morning fairly early, which is good for me, to go home and see my parents. A person was meant to be moving in that day, her name's Amy. However, someone else came to look at the house and has also moved in. Suddenly, I am not alone and it's a bit shocking. After adjusting to this and clearing myself out of various places I shouldn't have been, I finally left much delayed. Train ride was uneventful and read some papers while going. When I got home, I saw my mother and my father :) Chatted to them and mother gave me dinner: kapusniak, a soup made of saurkraut and ribs! It hit the exact spot the Christmas Market failed to. That was mopped down by fresh, lovely white bread baked in our local bakery... Mmmmmmmm... I got through about one third of it there and then! This was followed by nalesniki z serem (pancakes with cheese!). I was stuffed. Also, Lucia, my cousin, came over. Unfortunately, I didn't get to talk too much with anyone because my mother was following the X-factor and Scrictly Come Dancing (which are now in a ratings war it seems which requires the use of a video recorder to resolve...). Ah well.
Next day saw me go shopping with mother and grandparents. Nan wanted to buy me something for Christmas because I'm being difficult and won't say what I want. I ended up with a pair of trousers which I like the feel of very much but aren't a great colour. However, I got a lovely cashmere jumper with roll-neck, like the one I used to nick off swan_song while I was going out with her. It feels lovely, is warm and the colour is gorgeous. Unfortunately, the price was... They really, really shouldn't have kept pushing me to find a jumper I liked. I did, told them and then looked how much it cost and realised Nan would still get it. Oh well.
After that, mum cooked a raost and eventually, I wondered back here. |
|
|
| The Grand Move |
[Aug. 15th, 2005|12:08 pm] |
This weekend, my parents came up and helped me move from my old house to my new house. It has to have been the least stressful move I've ever done.
First off, my parents were, as usual, exhausted, in some way or another. Mother had a cold and dad was just completely whacked. So, after arriving in the morning, the sat down, had some food which they'd brought and srarted relaxing almost immedietely. Eventually, my mother went into the kitchen and started packing, I went into my room and started packing and my dad sat watching the TV. Eventually, he went to sleep.
After lots of packing, mum had done all the stuff we wouldn't need for them to stay the night from the kitchen and I'd done most of my drawers and some other random stuff. Mother hit the clothes and I hit the books and soon we had a nice collection of stuff. We woke up dad ("dad, wake up!", "why should I..." mumble grumble, "there are cream cakes downstairs", "hmm, cream cakes...") and after eating said cream cakes, we packed up the first car load for the couple of minutes it took to drive to the new house (it's so nice to not have to pack everything properly!) and dumped the stuff there, unpacked the crates and went for round two.
What was really nice, is that my parents confirmed what I thought of the house I moved into. The house is exactly the same layout as my old one except that the kitchen is wider (and possibly longer). Despite this, it looks bigger despite categoric proof that it is, in fact, the same size. It's more brightly lit despite facing the same direction exactly as the old house and it just feels more homelier. In short, there's little better about this house compared to the old one except for the feel of it, a very human reason to move.
We were a bit tired but started the second lot of packing, which was random paper in my room and various random junk. We managed to clear out most of my room apart from the stuff in and around my desk, the computer and the Hi-Fi. We came down and dad started watching the telly which sucked us in (with mum having a nap) and, in a commercial break (yes, that was how we did things) we moved nicely and carried on watching it there while unpacking a bit more. We all collapsed down and just vegged in front of the TV watching Saturday crime stuff (inc CSI) while mum now was bushed and rather ill and getting sleepier. Eventually, because of mum, we moved back to the old house and after takeaway curry at midnight, we all headed to bed.
Next day dawned, and no one really wanted to do anything, but dad was the one who suddenly perked up and started ripping through my room packing at breakneck speed. It was good to see how relaxed he'd been away from London and everyone around there. And amusing listenning him talking on the phone to anyone who phoned him regretfully telling them that he had to move his son and you know how much trouble moving your kids are and, yes, it's horribly tiring and exhausting, thank you for the sympathy, bye! He got the last room stuff sorted, mother got the last kitchen stuff sorted and me and dad got it packed and ferried it across to my room while mother stayed behind to clean the old house. There, me and dad got talking about the arrangement of stuff in the room and, being dad in full-energy mode, started measuring stuff up before deciding that the best way was to move the room into the configuration we wanted it. Much furniture shifting later, moving the bed away from the radiator, we had a nicer arrangement of stuff which, we dragged mother over for and she confirmed, looked a lot better.
Onwards to Ikea, where I became the proud owner of a bookcase! The white melanine bookcases (the Billy range, if you're interested, ~£30) are bloody cheap and sticking it back in my room has made such a difference in terms of storage space. We got through Ikea despite it being very busy without dad killing anyone either, which just shows how utterly chilled he was... Then finally to Sutton Park to grab a roast dinner as a reward for all the hard work and maybe a walk (but there was no time). The bottomless custard is still as good as ever!
And, yes, all in all, it was one of the least painful moves. It's especially nice because my mother seems to cope well with packing the kitchen and cleaning while I don't like that and dad is just happiest avoiding actual packing but moving stuff to the car and packing it makes him happy and saves my energy, so generally, no one had to do too much of what they didn't like or shoulder any burden alone. And the fact that both parents got out of London far away from everything and actually relaxed just makes it all better. |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| |
|
|
relaxed