Friday 31 December 2010

Quick rundown before 2010 goes bye-bye

I've said it before but I always feel an urge to squeeze one last blog in before the year ends. I'm going out n about later on, so I'm in a bit of a rush, I have no idea what to wear and my bedroom is a mega mess which I'm about 30% done tidying.

Christmas was alright, good, nice. I know this isn't what its all about, but I got some really good presents this year, the three main things I wanted which were, in no particular order, an epilator, which by the way is mint, my legs are smoooooth!!
This -



(its a mandolin)
Bit of a whim, I've been thinking I'd like one for about 6 weeks, and figured Christmas was a good time to ask for one because it wasn't that expensive and even if its a shoddy one it'll still be good for me to learn on, and another reason which I've just forgotten. Anyway, there you go, I'm going to learn mandolin, eventually, it might take me 20 years but I'll get it down. I don't have a first clue about music, learning it, reading. Nada, zilch, zero. So it'll be a challenge, but a good new years resolution right?

I also got a tiny mp3 player, I don't have a photo cause I can't take one that shows just how tiny it is, but its very small and I like it a lot.

Anyway I'm gonna go now cause I need to eat and decide what to wear.
At the time of this blog going to publish, I look like this -



Its my first time using heated rollers, so its a mystery as to how it'll turn out, but its quite exciting waiting till the result. I'm already annoyed at having them in my head and they've only been in an hour, if that. Gonna keep em in as long as possible though. Should have put on my make up first cause its gonna be a faff on with all the plastic in my head. But ohh well.

Anyway, have a lovely new years eve wont you?
Jolly good.

:)

Wednesday 29 December 2010

Stargazing live

Looking forward to this. Thats about all I wanted to say really.


Monday 27 December 2010

Some songs are way too good to ever just be B-sides

By which I mean this -



So so good.
Just stumbled upton it today.
Oh lordy.


P.s I hope everyone had a nice christmas.

Thursday 23 December 2010

Messy bedroom, mooching, stuffy

Feels like it's been a while and I probably should write somethin. I have a blocked nose, I don't think I have a full blown cold, just my nose is horribly stingy and stuffy and runny, you know how it is. I lost count of how many times I've sneezed today. But it could be worse, at least I don't have a sore throat, and I'm pretty optimistic that I'll be pretty much back to normal by christmas day, which I really really hope because I really want to savour christmas dinner. And the mulled wine I'm planning to make afterwards. My second attempt, me and Laura tried to make some the other week, but I accidentally put in double the amount of sugar because we only used one bottle of wine and I forgot to half the ingredients. Speaking of crimbo dinner, I bought some salt and pepper pots for half price from work today, they're in the shapes of little christmas puddings and they're so cute. They will be documented. Watch this space!


So I'm feeling pretty chipper today anyway, I wrapped most of my presents tonight and had a good time doing it. It took longer than I expected and didn't really look as good as I had hoped, but I think thats because I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Overall I'm happy with how it turned out, and maybe I'll like them more in the morning at second glance. Gotta make a few little christmas cards, and sneakily wrap my mams present and I'm done for wrapping. Completed my mams present buying today so feeling pretty chuffed about that, THOUGHT i had finished Laura's but I just remembered one more thing, but hey, close enough. I genuinely do love wrapping though, so its all good.

I'm pretty buzzing with my present choices this year, its proved to be not as hard as I thought, I've got my mam slippers that I know she needs, a book that I know she'll like and finally a large shoe box filled with loads of bars of chocolate that I know she'll love, I could do with adding a few mars bars but I don't think there's any room left. She's fussy with food, so I couldn't get her a nice boring box of Thorntons because she doesn't like Thorntons chocolate. Anyway, the shoe box idea is a good one, if I may say so myself, cause obviously I know what she likes and which ones she doesn't. It currently looks something like so -


I will wrap and ribbon it tomorrow.

I'm listening to a christmas playlist on Spotify, just discovered that there is a Jimmy Eat World cover of "Last Christmas", I am enjoying it a lot.

Finished work for good today, I didn't hate it, but I'm glad to leave. I have to go in tomorrow to pick up my wages and my wellies. I was in such haste to leave today that i forgot to put them on, which resulted in me traipsing around town with wet and cold feet, ballet pumps really aren't good for winter. Ohh well.

Going to boro tomorrow with my mam, not sure why come to think of it, it was her suggestion. The metro centre thing never got rescheduled which I'm not so bummed about any more. Lemme give you this analogy, its sort of like when you're really hungry, but you don't get to eat for aaages, and then when you do get around, the hunger has passed and you're not really hungry any more. Its like that. I don't care any more, maybe I'll go in the new year.
THATS the plan anyway, or it was till it started snowing a fair bit a coupla hours ago. Not that I'm complaining cause I really do love it, but I don't think the buses will be too reliable tomorra, especially early like we were planning on going. But nevermind. Snow messes things up and theres nothing anyone can do about it. I was locked out of work this morning cause nobody had got there to let me in. I made the mistake of going to cafe nero for a take out cappuchino but not picking up any sugar. It was rank without it, like drinking hot strong chemicals. But lesson learnt.

Its almost technically christmas eve. After I've finished doing this I'm going to pain my nails like candycanes.

After the shopping I'll be retiring to my bedroom, possibly for a nap, but more probably to sneakily wrap my mams prezzies and to finally tidy my room. Its an absoloute tip, as you will soon see. There is hardly any floor space to walk on, this is a record for me, I never usually let it get this bad, but I'm definately definately tidying tomorrow.
Ahem.













In other news, had a couple of drunken but fun nights at the weekend. One was impromptu but resulted in me having suuuuuuch a fun night, the next one was a wierd but cool and planned situation of getting back in touch with someone I hadn't spoken to for a long time. I guess thats a long and deep blog for another day, but suffice to say we drank wine at the tommy sheraton, stumbled about in the newly arrived snow afterwards, and ended the night with a kebab. You can't fall off with that really. Also I had work both the next days after that, and I felt mint and hangover free for both of them.


These are from night 2-






More on that laterrr.



Sunset on the way home looked as beautiful as ever. Apart from the massive smudge on my lens that I didn't find out about till just now.
D'oh




So there you have it. Bish Bash Bosh!

Sunday 12 December 2010

Oh good God

"World no.1 Rafael Nadal is to succeed football icons David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo as the male face of Emporio Armani Underwear"

That is going to be a good day for me.




That is all.

And breath

A blog in which I will be quite ranty, but then mellow out and finish with a photo.

I'm having quite a stressy day. Last time we spoke, I voiced my fears about my metrocentre plans being kablammo'd because of work. Guess what? My metrocentre plans have been kablammo'd because of work. If you don't want to read a long rant about work, here's the short version - I find them to be very phony.
Want the long version? Then I'll go on.

So. There I was, having a weird dream about the sea freezing over, followed by a rather nice deam about kissing some rather nice boy, when suddenly the faint muffled pangs of "sweetness, sweetness I was only joking..." made their way through the pillow and into my eardrums. Yep its 9.15 on Sunday morning, yep its my boss on the phone, yep she wants me to start at 10am.

Anyway, on the plus side its extra hours and extra wages which is never a bad thing of course, and it was only until 4. I was a bit sad, and even got a pang of missing being at my aunties after the trip to tesco, waiting half an hour for yorkshire puddings before we can have the roast, and channel hopping between Dog the bounty hunter re-runs and old movies. That was probably my stomach talking though because right on cue at 12.30 my stomach started rumbling. I got a break at 1 for 20 minutes, nipped across the greggs for a horrible pink sausage roll. I would have had a sandwich but I can never eat them fast enough in the alloted time, and I wanted to save myself for warmed up roast when I got home.

Then I made the 5 second journey from greggs back to clintons, I was about to hog the staff room to nosh my saus but was stopped in my tracks by the sound of copious vomiting from the staff toilet. The staff night out the night before was probably the reason, I think they were all hungover. You know especially old(er) people can't drink without voming the next day.

Now, I don't know if I really talk about this on my blog, but I have a "thing" about people throwing up. Almost a phobia, I guess. I suppose its one of those things that you'd only know if you know the real life Bianca and not the Biancapol-Bianca.
Anyway.
I can throw my own guts up and I'm cool about it, but anyone else mentions feeling nautious around me, and I'm off in a cloud of dust. I once almost got off the bus halfway through my journey and considered walking the rest of the way after I heard the chav girl sat behind me saying she felt sick.
So, I was pretty cool at this point, showing that I'm probably not quite at phobic level yet. My thought process went something like

> "shall I just go in the staff room anyway? No its right next to the toilet, whoever it was will come out and know I've heard her talking to god on the big white telephone and then we'll have the akward 'shall I pretend I didn't hear it?' moment and it will be akward"

>"I don't really want to be that close to someone who has been sick so recently, what if she still feels bad and throws up again?"

>oh yeah, Its totally putting me off my horrible sausage roll that I don't even really want in the first place anyway and I don't want to sit eating and hearing someone throwing up at the same time"

So I turned on my heel and went straight back out again. Walked up wellington square and sat on some benches, I only had my cardigan due to the unexpected series of events that had lead me to being there. I was pretty cold, but there was things going on in town, so I sat and ate and watched a cool brass band of people dressed as toy soldiers. Then I scarpered off back to work and avoided any sickly looking colleagues for the rest of the day.

Right, so continuing my work related rant. At the end of the shift I checked the rota, the one on the wall, compared to the one they gave me right when I started, to find that my only day off this week is Wednesday. Bang goes the metrocentre dream.
The thing is, they didn't even tell me. They mentioned the other week to check the rota's because they've all been chopped and changed, but the last time I went to check there wasn't even one up. So basically if I hadn't been called to work today, I wouldn't know I was in tomorrow and would have got to the metrocentre just as I received a call asking me where the dickens I was, and probably told to come back. So its lucky I got called in today. Also the aforementioned jaunt to Darlo with Laura on Thursday was cut short halfway through by them calling me in to see if I could work. That one wasn't too bad, cause she was like "its OK if you can't do it... ..." but I could tell she really needed me to go, so I thought OK I'll be a nice employee and it'll hold me in good stead with them.

I honestly honestly don't mind doing extra hours, but I really wish they'd give me more notice, y'know? A couple of times I've been halfway through a shift and someone will come up to me and say "can you work later tonight?" and I'm always good about it and say yeah of course. But it messes me around, I mean I could bring a sandwich from home to eat on my unexpected break if I'd know, blah blah blah. And they tax me quite a lot. They've said I can claim it back afterwards, bit its Christmas trogfokkit, I need the money now! Its just a bit disappointing working out how much I'm going to get paid, and then getting my wages to find a third of it gone.
Mainly though, I feel like they don't really give a shit about me, about us temps. They're so massive on "customer service" but they don't give a crap about their employees. Not the temporary ones anyway. I can't really explain it, I just feel like there is a lot that we're supposed to know that they don't seem to have told us much about, we're sort of just left to figure it out almost. My first shift I ever worked there, they showed me how to work the till and by about halfway through my four hours I was left completely as the only person behind the till while the others were mooching around the shop floor. It was alright cause it was pretty easy peasy, but just the fact they did that didn't really sit well with me, it was a little bit daunting. Things like that, things like whenever I ask for change half the time I do, the management come, take some cash out of the till then just forget about it. Moving stock around allll the time, all around the store, and not telling us. Things like that. At the risk of going all Holden Caulfield on yo ass, I find there to be an overwhelming sense of phony with them, as a company.
I don't hate the job, and I don't dislike it, but I think that's because I know I'm not there much longer. And when I compare it to being an elf last year, I really really miss it.

The thing is though, on one hand I feel like I shouldn't even be complaining about it, I'm almost obliged to be on their beck and call as a Christmas temp, its my job to do all the dog work and put my social life second at the drop of a Santa hat. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't even be going to the metrocentre at all. I chose to do this.
Well at least this has taught me the importance of finding a long term job that I'll enjoy.

Alright that's the work rant over. In other stresses, I'm feeling really stressed out because I applied for this amazing job that I wont mention too much about at the moment. Spent a long time making the perfect application and putting a lot of effort into writing a good cover letter and all those things, not really ever expecting as much as a "sorry, no vacancies" back. Then they emailed me and seemed to like my application and asked for more reference details.
So I've been running around like a madman trying to get in touch with all the people I need to. I've contacted two of the people from my Romania days and they've been ace and said they would do me references, but I haven't heard anything from them for about four days and I don't want to get in touch with them again being all pushy-pushy, but maybe I'll have to.
The most recent ones though are giving me massive grief, the elf job. I've had a nightmare with them, calling and calling back again and again only for The Mall to say they can't give me a reference because I was only a temp. Well thanks for the slap in the face. I worked my ass off at the job, I really did, I was the only elf who went to the effort of even elfing up - (round blusher cheeks and green eyeshadow AND stripey tights yo!). I was the ONLY person to get there on time last year when it proper snowed and nobody else turned up for ages afterwards.
And they wont even give me a quick reference. I thought I had a backup via the agency but I've called them, the woman was so unhelpful and after I'd relayed everything to her, she told me I'd have to email them. Whyyy! Why do I have to email what I've just told you?! So I was polite and cool with it, emailed them and still nothing back. Tomorrow I'm going to have to get on every ones backs.
I don't want to leave my reference details too late or they'll think I'm messing them about and I'm not interested, and I reallllly don't want them to think that.

Haha oh God. I'm getting flustered even writing all this out.
If you got to the end of this post, let me know and you'll get a prize. If not, I don't blame ya.

(maybe I should get a job as typist, I'm pretty fast!)

Right Dirty Dancing is just about to start and my estrogen is calling me to it.

Wednesday 8 December 2010

I can't sleep

So I'm writing a blog and listening to Edith Piaf. (I've had hymne a l'amour stuck in my head all day)
I worked 2 till 7 today, it was supposed to be till 6 but they asked me to do an extra hour which was alreet. It felt weird when I'd got home though, I didn't get in till about half 7 and after that the night seemed to just go so fast. Anyway, what am I getting at? I don't think I actually know.
So tonight I thought I'd have an early one, I put on the electric blanket, put up some fairy lights so I could get into bed and read whats left of The wind in the willows. So I read for a while, then decided to go to sleep because I'm getting up early tomorrow to go to Darlington with Laura. Spent about 20 minutes tossing and turning before admitting that I'm not gonna sleep any time soon. I'm not even a little bit tired, and now I'm angry cause I just want to sleep, but what can you do, you can't force it I don't suppose. Ohh well.

Put up the Christmas decorations and stuff on Sunday, it's not quite finished, actually it looks pretty bare, to what I'd like it to be anyway. We now have not one but two Christmas trees, owing to my mam's very strange habit of giving away our Christmas trees and then accepting them from other people. I don't know. So the one we had last year is now relegated to the corner of the room while the one we gave away last year and have now received back again is taking pride of place in the bay window. Its wide, very wide. And we have no lights for it because they're on tree number 2. Also we have no tinsel that actually "goes", we only have two small scraps. So the tree only has baubles and silvery chain-strings at the moment. I'm planning on buying loads of cheapy foil decorations for the rest of the room. So yeah, the decorations are halfway there.

The other day I made bakewell tarts, well it was more like a bakewell tray bake. They turned out alright but not as almondy as I would have liked, though I did follow the recipe correctly. Bakewells were also a very good chance to get my mam to buy me glace cherries which are undoubtedly delicious but don't actually taste anything like cherries. I wonder why they don't do glace other fruits? Anyways, I had some pastry left over so I knocked up some jam tarts. I'm a regular Delia Smith.

I had a dream the other night and Rolf Harris was in it. I hadn't been thinking about him, so I've no idea where he cropped up from. At first he was just sort of signing autographs for a few people, including me, but there weren't many others around and it all felt pretty casual. Then I said to him "How are you at giving advice?" I then went on to ask him advice because there was a girl in my dream who I had just seen kissing a boy in my dream who I had a crush on. Very strange indeed, I don't know what his advice was because I guess I drifted into another dream after that, which is really a shame.

On a less undecipherable note, I'm going to the metro centre with my mam on Monday and I'm buzzing. It sort of came out of the blue, my mam for some insane reason doesn't really like the place, and when yet another advert for it came on T.V a few days ago and she mentioned going, I didn't really think she was serious, but to my joy she was. I love the metro centre even more at Christmas than I do anyway. We're getting the train which should be A-Ok. We went last year, after much pestering from me, but we got the bus, a few buses. Four in total. Two of the buses were alright, but the first bus nightmare began on getting from Gateshead bus station to the Metro centre, when the bus was properly packed and there was a really really overweight and very smelly woman very close to us. It was only a 10 minute journey thankfully, but it felt like much longer. On departing the bus her first stop was Greggs. I kid you not.
The second bus nightmare was on the very packed hour long journey from Gateshead to Stockton, we had to wait aaages (and it was darn cold) for it because we'd just missed it. Then we we got on it was totally packed and we couldn't get seats near each other, but we did get seats next to a horrible woman and her annoying kids, she was horrible because even though the bus was packed she'd taken two seats up with her shopping bags and made no attempt to move them until someone asked her. And her kid was really playing up, not kicking off but just being a bored kid on a bus, she kept drawing on the steam in the windows but there was this old man in front of her and she kept leaning over into his window and getting on his nerves, he kept asking her not to, and the mother just kept doing fuck all about it.

So yes, trains all the way this year please. I'm very much hoping I wont get drafted in to work on Monday, I will be so crestfallen if I have to work after all. But I won't think about that for now.

The 1am munchies are starting to kick in, I'm not going to indulge though cause I've already brushed my teeth and its too cold to venture off the bed.

I watched a bit of this film that was on last night called "The Honeymooners", the remake version, I missed the start because I didn't really know it was on, but the section I watched of it was really good, probably because it was set in New York. I decided not to stay up and watch it though cause it was getting late and I had work today, so I was sensible and turned it off. I'll keep an eye out for it again.

Its pretty close to crimbo and I've yet to see any TV channels showing trailers for Muppet Christmas carol or any of the home alones. But a girl can hope. There is time yet. Really gotta lose my "its a wonderful life" virginity this year too.

Righty-o, I think that's about enough rambling on for now. I still feel fresh as a daisy, how annoying.
Right.

End.

Friday 3 December 2010

Bath abandonment

Ughghg. Just filled the bath, got in, decided it needed more hot water, took out the plug to make room for more water, waited a few minutes, water not draining, poked things into the plug hole, nothing blocking it, abandoned bath in favour of shower, tried to get in shower, couldn't get in shower cause my mam put lino down a few weeks ago and its in the way of the shower door which opens outwards. Had to climb over the enclosure. Did lots of angry shouting and banging.

So tonights bath was a complete disaster. I don't know what the hell happened, my first inclination is to think the pipes have frozen, but I don't know if that's a bit too dramatic? I know its baltic out, and its another very icy and snowy winter. But nothing like this has happened before. If anyone can offer any explination please do.
Anyway, we now have a bath full of water that wont drain. I hope it gets sorted soon, I hate showering in winter, especially when I can't get in the goddamn thing.

Wednesday 1 December 2010

Fuuuuuuuck!!

Ohhh I love Bon Iver SO much.
I can't even explain.
In a good way.
Wooha.

Monday 29 November 2010

Snowstuff



















These were all taken between 7.45 and 8.45 (or thereabouts) this morning. I can no longer resist taking loads of photos even though they all probably look the same anyway. I hate getting up on mornings, and I had to get up at 7.30 today but the walk to work was so beautiful and waking up to the snow that had fallen in the night, was so worth it. The power lines outside my widow were thick, I mean I didn't even think snow could settle on something so thin.
I went to sleep at around 11.30 last night, read a book (reading the wind in the willows at the moment) for a bit and then hit the sack cause I had to be up early, and I was already pretty tired. Early by my standards but bed is a lot easier to get into now that I've put the electric under blanket back in. It hadn't been snowing much all evening/night. I had a weird nights sleep anyway, for some reason in the last couple of years even if I'm pretty tired, it always takes me a lot longer to drop off than it used to. I'd been dozing for about half an hour, it was about half 12 at this point, and I decided to roll over, and have a cheeky look out of the window.
It was snowing like hell. Pretty fast falling really big flakes, I knowww I keep saying this but it just looked SO beautiful. I laid in bed just watching it, it stopped after 10 minutes, but it was a very serene 10 minutes, everything was silent, and even though it wasn't late I felt like I had awoken in the dead of night and was witnessing something that I wasn't supposed to be, something secret. In a good way of course. Like waking up to find the tooth fairy taking a molar from under your pillow, or like sneaking down in the night and seeing Santa putting out yr presents and him not noticing you and then finishing up and leaving without ever seeing you. If that makes any sense, that's what it was like.
I had expected it to snow in the night but not till long after I was asleep, and while I had been reading I kept stopping and looking to see if it was snowing but it never was each time I checked. I guess it snowed a hell of a lot more throughout the night when I had finally got to sleep. When my mam woke me up this morning she said it'd been thundering but she'd only heard one rumble. Tonight I heard a loud rumble as well, kind of cool but I can't get my head around snow and thunder at the same time.

So anyway, the trees were so covered in snow this morning, whiter than I've seen them all week, the snow on the pavements was really really deep as well. Its getting on my nerves a bit that people are moaning about it already, even though this weather has been here less than a week, the proper proper setting snow has only been here a few days.
Its Christmas for gods sake, it only snows for a tiny portion of the year. Just enjoy it please.
Anything that makes Stockton-on-Tees look pretty can't possibly be a bad thing.

Friday 26 November 2010

New

New post, new job, new weather, new socks.




I haven't worn them yet, and I don't suppose they're new anymore, cause I bought them about a month and a half ago, but I've been waiting until its more festive to wear them. And that time is round about now. Might wear em tomorrow, over tights of course, I'm not insane enough to go partially bare legged in snowtimes.

Speaking of which, Stockton is very snowy at the moment and I'm trying very hard to not go off on one and jabber on and on for ages about how magical it is, and how much I'm enjoying it and how much I missed it.

In other news, I need to find a new way to start new paragraphs. And also, remember the ranty post I made about that gay interview I had for Clintons? Well the lady from there, the boss of the Stockton store, rang me on Monday and blah de blah to cut a long story short, she asked me to come in for a chat if I was interested in a crimbo job, and now I'm working there. I get finished on Crimbo eve, I don't think they can take me on after that, they seem to have a lot of staff already. So I had my second day today and it was alreet, its no being an Elf, but its been good so far. I feel sheepish for ranting so much about how lame the interview was for the job I didn't get. But anyway I suppose its all good, got a bit of money for the festive season now and I feel 100% less of a jobless waster now. (I filled a massive helium balloon today, it was fun).

Its great being able to start sentences thusly - So I was on my way home from work today - it'd been snowing on and off pretty much all day, I only worked till 1pm, when I finished I went to boots to buy a natural collection lipstick for £1.99, and then when I left, I got totally blizzard-ed on. Which was pretty wonderful. I was wrapped up well, and just having a thoroughly great little time walking home in such snowy weather, sporadically laughing to myself cause I was just having such a damn good time.
Here's some views from on the way home.




At this point I was so so tempted to just throw down my bag and start building a snowman, but I had no gloves and would have lasted about 2 minutes before giving up, and also I wanted to get home to watch the Nadal/Murray game.



When I arrived home I looked like this -


Don't wear mascara when it snows, unless you want to look slightly Alex Delarge


Later on we walked the dog, the street looked pretty.





And that's about all I can be bothered with for tonight.
Thankyou.

Monday 22 November 2010

First question as an agony aunt

From the lovely, Anonymous, I am going to assume you're a girl, though my response would probably be the same if you were a guy.
Anonymous says-

"There is a boy so pretty I cannot bear. All day I wish to kiss him and it is difficult but I must not.
We are friends and I do not want it to be spoiled. What can I say...Do I stay quiet forever?
"

The short answer is this, No.
The more in-depth answer is this, I understand the whole not wanting to spoil the friendship thing, but imagine how much more worth it the risk is, if you kiss him one day and it all ends with a happily ever after.
Now imagine you never take the chance, have a string of boyfriends until you eventually just settle for someone in your 30's who makes you happy, not ecstatic, not thrilled, not filled with passion every time the guy you settled for even smiles at you. But happy all the same. You'll never know if this guy, the one you want to kiss, would thrill you and make you happier than you ever thought.
Of course it could all go the other way, you could tell the boy that you want to kiss him, and he might knock you back, or he might say he feels the same but after a while it doesn't work out. This sounds bad, but isn't it worth the risk?

Anyway, I'll restrain myself on the rambling and get back to the question. Is the reason you must not kiss him just that you don't want to spoil the friendship? If that's all that's stopping you, its really not so bad.
I think the only reasons you shouldn't kiss this boy are if -

-You have a boyfriend
-He has a girlfriend
-You're related

If none of the above apply, then girl, you're good to go. (If any of them do apply, then whoa whoa whoa, let me know and I'll dish out more advice)

So assuming all systems are go, lets cover the kissing. I understand this part of your predicament very well, kissing is my number one favourite thing in the whole world. However, unless you think he feels the same, its probably not the best idea to just ambush him with kisses (as much as I reaaaaally do want to advise you to do that).
This brings me to the next bit. Do you think he feels the same? Do you think there is even a maybe?

That opens up a whole other bag of, stuff. Its hard working out if a boy you like likes you back. Its been years since I've really been in that sort of situation, and only with the gift of hindsight have I picked up the signals that I naively missed the first time around. I think its the same for everyone. You just don't realize what what he's saying actually means. I think boys get accused of doing it all the time, missing what us girls think are totally strong signals, but in my old age I realize I've missed fucking loads, not realising what was going on. I guess its just as hard for everyone.
I think basically you've gotta trust your instinct, your gut feeling, your intuition. If you think its looking like he's into you, then its quite likely that he is.

In conclusion, don't stay quiet forever. Tell him you like him, and that if he wouldn't mind, you want to kiss him please. If you're exceptionally nervous, maybe give it a week or so. Or if you're too nervous to tell him to his face, maybe you could leave a little note for him. It sounds like its your time to do it, good luck!
Let me know how you get on, and if you're crazy enough to want any more advice, agony Bianca will be here!

Friday 19 November 2010

Agony-Bianca

I had a great bath tonight. I kind of miss showering, but showering in winter is just far too cold, I hate cold at the best of times, so you can imagine how much I love being wet AND cold. I always thought that if I ever get rich, I'm going to have a dealie in my shower whereby once the water has been turned off, hot air blowers come on from above, and possibly all sides, like a car just coming out of the car wash. Not only does it eliminate the need for huge bath towels, but its warmer than getting out of the shower and fannying around for ages huddling near the radiator. Also its just totally cooler. Until then I'm sticking with baths each winter. Its wonderful how a bath just always makes you feel better, when you're having a bad day, when you're upset, when something happens to make you feel a bit shitty or when you're pissed off, a bath always seems to just absorb all the bad stuff you're going through, and suck it away with the water down the plughole when you get out. I find that I always feel a least a little bit better.

Anyway, on an unrelated note, I was thinking recently that I think I'd be a pretty good agony aunt. Partly this is me just being nosey and wanting to know peoples juicy problems, partly I want to know if I really would be a good agony aunt. I have the clear steely heart and mind of someone who has neither been in love, or knows dick about it. Which I think might come in pretty useful if you want the impartial views of someone who's never been sucked into that world. An outsider looking in, if you will. Imagine Carrie Bradshaws Sex and the city column, but in reverse, and if she was giving out advice.

So, come one and all, roll up roll up, agony-Bianca at your service. Send me all your queries, questions and problems, love related or otherwise, and I will be here, a virtual shoulder to lean on, my life experiences and skills and most importantly - worldly advice, to impart to you.
Send problems to my email address or in the comments box, anonymous or yourself, and they shall be answered.

Sunday 14 November 2010

Friday 12 November 2010

Chocolate-toffee-danish

Chocolate toffee danishes can only be purchased from the bakers known as Cooplands. I had one today, because I realised I hadn't had one for ages and wanted to rectify the situation.
Here is my artists impression (because I gobbled it up before I even thought of taking a photo)
Basically, as the name suggests, Imagine a regular danish, but instead of raisins imagine loads and loads of chocolate chips. And not just your regular chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips that are sort of mushy. And then instead of boring old sugary icing, imagine toffee sauce type icing drenched over the top of the danish. And you're about there.
They are heaven. All the toffee sauce/icing stuff settles in the chambers, like a delicious snail.

So, next time you're passing a Cooplands and want a tasty tasty treat, remember Chocolate Toffee Danish.

Thankyou

Thanks for whipping those arcade fire tracks over, I'm having a bedroom tidy and they are an excellent accompaniment.
Thankyouuu
:)

Sunday 7 November 2010

LastFM OCD

Got a touch of OCD on Last FM the other day. I just had a mega strong urge to make all the numbers of plays on my top 8 artists even. Got the top four evened out, until I miscalculated and gave an extra play to Bon Iver. At which point I gave up.


Last Fm is interesting though, its a pretty good idea, I like to keep track of whatever I've been listening to. I would never have expected YYY's to be my top artist, though I do love them. I love all those bands in my top 8 though. Interesting that The Smiths and Bon Iver are currently neck and neck, though I have a suspicion that if Bon Iver had as many songs on Spotify as The Smiths, they'd probably just have the edge. Also I would like to mention my disappointment that Spotify has no Arcade Fire and I also suspect that if they did, they would be my top artist by a country mile. As well as my mentioning it, I would like to make a pledge to anyone reading this who might have a host of Arcade Fire mp3's, to please send them my way. I really miss listening to them. Any takers can email me, my email address is in my profile, should you be so kind.

Now thats out of the way, the updates on my aunties bonfire party are as follows.
Got there at around 6.30, sat around not really doing anything for about 5 minutes because nobody was there yet who wasn't a Brown. Picked a few wotsits off the food table, had a glass of WKD (blue) that an adult bought me for my birthday that I had taken round. I'm 24, I guess old(er) people think that thats all young people like to drink. Anyway, it was the thought that counts so I'm not gonna bitch about someone buying me WKDS. Also I had topped the bottle up before I went round with extra vodka. After that 3 of my aunties neighbours arrived, they're real nice oldish women. Then I stuffed my face with party food whilst drinking more blue stuff, and one glass of wine. And then chocolate gateaux. Went out onto the front to watch the fireworks at around 7.30, they were pretty lovely. Not so lovely was my aunties bald fat neighbour coming out in a T-shirt and boxers. This is the second time I've seen this man in his boxers. Anyway the less said about him/that, the better. I didn't want to watch the whole display through a viewfinder (and I had no idea about the settings, apart from some vague Internet instructions that I couldn't remember) so I only took a handful of photos (unlike bald fatman who snapped away for pretty much the entire thing)
I know they didn't turn out properly, but here's just one for now. I'll post the rest later.

(this was photo number 3333 on my camera)

Glammed it up a little bit, not so much with clothes but I wore some make up. As you can see I'm venturing out into the world of red lipstick. Tricky because I know fuck all about lipstick, its all about "underlying tones" and all that crap that I don't know/give a damn about. Also when I think of red lipstick, I almost always think of this http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=fashion which sort of worries me. But seeing as it was night time, and I was only going round my aunties, and I was in a glammy sort of mood, I went for it. I'll do some further testing regarding the red lippy and get back to you.
I took the bonfire night opportunity to add a bit of glitter and teeny tiny stars to my face. They didn't show up on this picture, but they were there, somewhere.



So anyway that about covers it. It is now the 8th of November, already. (buy a poppy, people!) About 5-7 days untill the time of year last year when I got the ball rolling on being an Elf. More on that as/when/if it happens. My mam told me its going to be horrible weather tomorrow, I'm going to wear my massive red jumper. If I can find it.

Till next time...


Friday 5 November 2010

Martin Hughes-Games

Is who I currently fancy the pants off. I've had a crush on him for about a year, and he is beautiful. He is also 54 which makes him a nice round 30 years older than me. 6 years longer than I've even been in existence. Other than bed-man*, I've never really had a crush on someone old enough to be my father, but MHG just sort of, makes me go all weak. He rides a motorbike and is a vegetarian, which are the sort of things that wouldn't really occur to me in regards to people I fancy, but on him, kind of makes him about 5 times more attractive to me than he already was. Add to that the floppy messy curly hair, the smooth voice and the fact that he's into wildlife and stuff, and I'm in swoonville.
AND on auntumwatch last night he was wearing a tweed suit, and for a few delectable seconds spoke french. Or maybe he put on a french accent, I can't remember which because I was too busy A) trying to act cool in front of my mam and trying not to reveal how much I fancied him, B) thinking that it was a good job I was sitting down because my knees might have actually buckled otherwise and C) my brain was struggling with processing MHG in tweed, speaking french.
Anyway that about wraps it up, I won't post a picture because I can't find a decent one of him, and my friends already think I have bad taste.
Just watch Autumnwatch on Thursday ok?
I should also add that for the last few weeks, I've been more excited about watching AW than about nevermind the buzzcocks which comes afterwards.
What is happening to me?!

*
http://biancapol.blogspot.com/2009/10/bed-man.html

Parties and old tv programes

Ten past two, Friday afternoon. I've just painted my nails metallic blue, you may or may not be interested to learn. I wanted something glitzy and glamorous cause its bonfire night tonight and my auntie is having a sort of bonfire party. I'll probably be the youngest there, probably by about two decades now I think about it, but actually I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to stuff my face with party food, and then I'm going to get drunk on the provided wine, or maybe I'll do that in the reverse order, or maybe I'll just eat and drink at the same time. I'm going to get dressed up, because it is a party after all and I haven't dressed up for anything in ages and I'm sort of having an urge to wear ginormous heels, and put on makeup. My auntie lives real close to the town, and thanks to her street being where it is, we get a pretty good view of the fireworks without having to go into town and be packed in like sardines. Hopefully, we'll also be far enough away that we can't hear the Bollywood music which is the theme for this years display. I hate Bollywood. If our luck is really in, we'll also be out of hearing range of last years X-factor winner Joe McElderry performing his new song "Ambitions" (I doubt it was his ambition to come to Stockton On Tees). Speaking of X-factor, I will freely admit that I have been watching it this year, and if Wagner Carrilho was in town instead of the pretty crap joe, I would definately brave the crowds and go see him, because he is ACE.
Cagney and Lacey is on at the moment, so I'm watching that in the background. It's so good!! I don't know why I like it so much, or how I even got into it. I hate all those other crap detective and murder mystery programmes, this one is great though. Actually I probably love it because I love new york, and I especially love old footage of New York in the 70's and 80's. If anyone's seen the film "Coming to America" (mint film by the way), you'll know what I mean, that bit where they first move to Queens? Yeah, amazing.
Also Cag and Lace has a miiint theme tune. Its just a whole bundle of cool things. You should maybe watch it sometime. And definitely watch Coming to America

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Halloween and soup

So. Halloween was upon us. Seeing as I wasn't doing anything, my mam bought me a pumpkin. These are the results.






My very first pumpkin, so I was pretty happy with how it turned out. It was messy and fidgety but worth it, and I enjoyed making him. Spent proper ages fishing out the hundreds of seeds that were inside and separating them from the weird pulpy stuff, and then washing them and then drying them. I had planned on making pumpkin soup with the innards see, but it was only afterwards when I googled how to make the soup, I realised its the hard shell bits you need, not the stringy wet stuff. Anyway, I asked my soup making auntie if it was alright to use it anyway, and she said yeah, she did. So that's OK then, I thought I'd use it after all, might as well use the whole thing.
This evening I got to work on it, chopped up my pumpkin, got rid of all the skin and bits I couldn't use, did everything, made the soup, and then when it got to the blending I realised that when I had borrowed my aunties blender, she failed to put the blades in with it. I was gutted, I was really looking forward to my soup and now I'll have to wait another bladdy day. I'll let you know how I get on. Also I had so much pumpkin that it wouldn't all fit into the biggest pan we have, so I'm gonna make another batch, with chili and peppers and curry powder. Works out nicely all round. ALSO I'm going to toast the seeds with some nice flavours and eat them too. Not too sure how I feel about eating seeds, theres something about it that makes me feel a bit wrong and uncomfortable. But that's probably down to a childhood link to someone telling me if I ate apple seeds an apple tree would grow inside me.

Anyway. Carried on thinking about the orphanages thing, went on a bit of a mad researching spree. Sent off for and received information packs from about 3 companies, actually got a phone call from an American woman from one of the companies which was unexpected but good I guess. It all looks great, its something I'm most definitely doing, I'm certain I want it to be Romania seeing as I went there before and it just really appeals to me. But there is a deep cynical streak running through me about these companies, which is odd cause I'm never really cynical about anything much, but I just worry that the money you pay to these companies isn't going to go to the projects you're going to. They're pricey these things, and I have absolutely no problem paying that much, If the majority is going to, say, the orphanage I'll be going to or whatever. I would hate it if the company just took most of it for themselves.
Anyway, all that just got me thinking I can't really allow myself to get into all that until I have a goddamn job.

I've been thinking recently about being an elf again. The last couple of months I've been toying with the idea generally, but I'm so fickle about it, at first I was really into the idea of getting a job as an elf at the Metro Centre, because I fucking love the Metro Centre for some weird and completely inexplicable reason, and their grotto's are amaaazing. And I though, ohh yeahh ace, I can get the train there and back, it'll be proper bo. But then I changed my mind and though ohh I can't really be arsed, trekking that far twice a day in the cold and dark. Tossed that up and down a few times, concluded that I didn't really want to do it after all.
More recently I figured I'd get a Christmas job around about now, but just a few days ago I realised that shop jobs are just so shit at crimbo, just being rushed and stressed off your feet the entire time, most of the time they make you work boxing day and new years eve/day. And then you're finished. You've done all the dog work, thanks, cya next year.
That made me think, maybe I should go for my elf job of last year again. Theres something making me think it'd be kind of lame, going back, they'll all be "oh so what did you do since last year?" and I'll just be all "umm ohh, well fuck all".
That said, that's a stupid reason not to do something I enjoyed loads last time I did it. It was great in that we got paid weekly and only had one late night shift each week and obviously Christmas eve was the last day you worked. And just how much I enjoyed it generally. Milling about the mall on occasional quiet spells, playing with the toys on the toy stall behind the grotto, and facing a sweet stall at the other side. It was actually perfect. Remembering all that stuff, (combined with being totally broke and wanting to do loads of stuff in the next couple of months) really really encourages me to do it all again. In the end, I probably will.

I'll shut up now, exept to say that last week I discovered Joan Armatrading and she's ace.

Monday 25 October 2010

Adopting

Ever since this http://biancapol.blogspot.com/2010/05/chinese-babies.html I've been thinking about adopting. Not thinking as in considering and want to do it immediately, thinking about the whole thing in general. There are a lot of good blogs about families who have adopted, though the only ones I've found are basically American families who have adopted from China. There is only one I follow, it was just one I randomly found somehow and it charts the entire thing of how this one Jewish family in I think Florida adopted first a girl from China and then a little boy with a few medical problems. They only very recently found out that the girl the adopted has a rare eye condition and eventually she's going to go completely blind. She's 5. Anyway here's the link to their blog, in case yr interested http://stressisthenewblack.blogspot.com/. Basically they just seem like a really really warm loving family, genuinely nice people with normal lives and all that.

At the other end of the spectrum I've came across what I find personally to be some really dark shit. This actually happened ages ago but I can't shake it out of my head, and I really fucking wish I could. I didn't save the link because at the time I didn't think I would think any more about it. Basically it was this American couple, pretty religious, and they got some "sign from god" that he wanted them to adopt. So off they trotted to this orphanage in Russia, to see a girl they were hoping to adopt. In the end it didn't come through with that girl because of weird shoddy Russian laws and all that jazz. But the woman that was writing this blog, was saying how heart breaking it was that all these little tiny innocent kids were living lives they didn't deserve to be living, and how could god allow this to be? When, And I quote "I was gently reminded by a friend that it was our sins that put these children here, not god"

Urgh. What the fuck? The whole what I think about religion thing is opening up a can of worms that I don't really wanna end up going on and on about on here right now. But in my looking through quite a lot of adoption blogs, pretty much all of them have been written by families who have adopted and who are, if I may take an immature detour just temporarily, proper bible bashers.
I'm trying to post my argument in solid and mature way but I'm finding it really hard without having to thoroughly explain myself and rambling even more.
I just think having your life so completely ruled by it, I don't know, it just seems so unnatural to me. And to be honest, I think its more than a little creepy. On the other hand (damn being a Libra!) sometimes I think that if they're not pushing it on me, who am I to say all this, right? Each to their own, its not like they're hurting anyone.

But back to business, I'm not generally shocked by much, but that line shocked me. Sins, its a weird one, and I feel a bit foolish writing all this when I don't have the knowledge even properly back up my argument, but anyway I just wiki'd the term "sin" -


  • Sin is often used to mean an action that is prohibited or considered wrong; in some religions (notably in Christianity), sin can refer not only to physical actions taken, but also to thoughts and internalized motivations and feelings. Colloquially, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, shameful, harmful, or alienating might be termed "sinful".
  • Food, for example, while a necessary good for the (health of the temporal) body, is not of (eternal) transcendental living and therefore its excessive savoring is considered a sin.

So, because I want to bang Rafael Nadal, and because I fucking loved that Sunday roast followed by lemon cheesecake that I ate for dinner and dessert today, I'm putting innocent little children into orphanages. Add to that the countless sins I must be committing each hour, phew, I don't wanna think about how many little babies I'm effectively sending to a life of poverty and shit.

It is not our fault that these kids are in orphanages.

It just makes me feel very frustrated that people who believe such horseshit are adopting these kids. Its like they just don't have a clue about how the real world works and they're just living in some crazy dream world.
Maybe they would argue that someone who swears so much shouldn't bring up kids either.

Anyway like always when I start things like this, I'm running out of momentum to carry it on, so I'll end this part here.


PART 2!

alright moving onto a less ranty side of this.
The more I read about it, the more certain I become that one day I'm going to do it. Each little bit I read, each little piece of information just cements it further. Though I honestly can't pinpoint why, one certain reason. Because its a nice thing to do? Well yeah but that's not the sole reason. Because I can't have my own kids? I'm too young to know that, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to have kids fine. And its irrelevant anyway cause I still want to do it even when I do have my own. So no, that's not it. I guess, what it comes down to is that it feels like a natural thing to do. To me anyway. If I could take and love every oprhaned and abandoned child, I would do it in a heartbeat. As it stands I can probably only take a few. The adoption process is lengthy and heartwrenching and expensive. I really hope one day I'm able to do it.

The other day I came across this website, adoption.com. I only stayed on it a little while, partly due to my restless nature that day and partly because it was just so achingly sad. Its a bit of a shit website, not a proper agency one or anything. I clicked into the browse section, and found this little boy -



Isn't he just the most gorgeous little thing you've ever seen? I just think his face is SO sweet, and his messy curly hair just springing out of the top of his lovely head.
He's 4, and I don't know where exactly he's from other than Europe (shit website)
But his name is Ruslan, and he has Cerebrospinal partial Aplasia of the lower part of the spine, partial hypoplasia of pelvis bones.
I have no idea what this means. I sat for what felt like ages but was only really a minute or so, just staring at his picture and wondering about him. I just wanted to hold him cuddle him and make him feel that someone loved him, and somehow just make him healthy and not riddled with that horrible condition.http://photolisting.adoption.com/international/children/ruslan-20692 Here's his link, you can see for yourself how random and crap that website is.
I wanted to know more about him but there really is fuck all. I guess I just needed to know that someone wanted him or had already adopted him, that he hadn't been left somewhere while all the healthy kids get picked around him. I hope so.

After all that, I thought back to something I'm pretty sure I've yet to write on this blog, because it happened before it was created. But four years ago I did a college course whereby they took us to Romania. I stayed there with a group of people my age, for three weeks, to renovate the P.E hall in a special needs school. I won't write too much about it cause I'll save that for another post, but in conclusion it was fucking amazing, I had such a great time. So while we were there, I didn't see any kids like Ruslan in the special needs school. There was one or two who were quite clearly special needs but mostly I think they were just learning difficulties and nothing so serious. The school wasn't properly top notch but it wasn't bad at all.
We visited an orphanage one time. It was where two of our guides lived, they were lads of about 16. I wish I remembered more and took more notice, but the orphanage had a good atmosphere and as far as I could tell this one was definitely one for older kids.
Anyway, where am I going with this, I don't know.

But finding Ruslan on that website, and remembering the pictures from the woman mentioned above's blog, and things I've seen on TV, just made me seriously start to think maybe I should do something like that again. Go to an orphanage, help out, give some kids a friendly face and some goddamn love.

Right, that's it for now. More later probably.

Saturday 23 October 2010

Sky, funfair, kaleidoscope, and other things

I'll kick this off with something cool and amusing (to me anyway) that I found and or did today.
I have one of those crystal heart things, won from a 2p machine. I always put it up to my eye and look at stuff and experience how a fly must see. Today it occurred to me that I could just shove it in front of my camera lens and probably do the same thing. Kept me amused for a while. Here are the results.









Anyway other than that, I can't say I have much else to report. Went to Yarm fair last week with mon mam and auntie. Its a weird little tradition we've somehow adopted. We go every year, walk up and down a couple of times, laugh at people on rides, and then go home again without even going on anything. I don't mind though, not going on anything. Its nice to walk around and stuff. Not as nice as it used to be though, I remember once a few years ago when they were allowed to have little bonfires, the travellers with their old fashioned caravans and there would be the odd horse there too. I don't think they are allowed either now. But I'm not sure, maybe they are but just don't any more. Either way its a shame, cause that really distinct smell of their little bonfires and the smoke in the air, really was the essence of the fair to me. And it seems lacking something big without it. Also whenever we've been, I always really really want to go to one of the fortune tellers, on the whole I guess I don't really believe them, they're most probably just out to rip you off, but I'm still really interested in what they'd say to me, if it would make sense, if it came true one day! I still would love to though, and I still don't know why I never do see one when it comes down to it. Maybe next year. Anyway these aren't very good but here's a couple of pictures.




So that just about covers it for pictures. I was going to take one of my street, it was so full of leaves, but the other day I said to my mam as we were going in the house "there doesn't look as many leaves today" and she said "yeah two workmen came and cleared them all up". I was pretty gutted, the street looked so lovely, just so many leaves. The tree to leaves ratio seemed a lot off, in the way that there seemed to be more leaves than was possible considering there isn't that many trees. It was probably right really, I guess leaves isn't something I think about a whole lot. Also it seemed like a pointless thing to do, not just cause its pretty much an impossible task trying to clear them all away, but its unnecessary as well, I mean nature sorts its self out, on the whole. I'll take a picture when the street is re-filled.

Well I'm running out of things to say in this post, so I'll leaf it here (geddit?!)








Thursday 14 October 2010

I just remembered

I was just having a bit of a slow Smashing Pumpkins song fest thanks to spotify, scrolling through the list, when suddenly I noticed a song called "This Time", I haven't listened to it in a long long time, it truly was wedged deep in the back of my memory, but the instant I saw the name it it came right back at me.
I thought "woahhh I remember that! Its a mint song!". And it really really is, ace intro, everything about it, its just so good, and kind of (totally) heartbreaking. There was a time in my life when it really spoke to me. But I really did (and still do) absoloutely love that song. Ahhh. So good. Really gutted that it just totally slipped my mind for so long. It wont again.
Here it is-


Monday 27 September 2010

Whitby

Went to Whitby on the train with my mam and auntie on Saturday. It was pretty good, the weather was a bit shabby, it was fucking freezing, that was the worst bit, we got rained on once but not for long so that wasn't too bad. Here's us on the train ride there. My mam, followed by me and my auntie.






When we got there, we found this ace junk shop, I could have stayed in there for hours but I could tell it wasn't really the adults scene so we only stayed long enough for me to snap these cheeky snaps. I believe it was called the stonehouse emporium, on skinner street.




Generally had a bit of a mooch about, y'know. There is a polar bear in Whitby, true story. Not sure why its above a Holland and Barrats, I think it used to be a toy shop.


Other things we did included having dinner, more mooching, spending not as much time as I would have liked in the arcades, I won a little car filled with sherbet and a plastic mobile phone that had a pinball game in one side and sweets that were like nerds in the other. Well worth £1 in two pences. All of which I didn't take pictures of.

By this time the weather was going a bit crazy, the tide was really high and the sea was more rough than I've ever seen it there, it was quite scary. In hindsight I really wish we'd have gone closer to other end of the seafront and got some great picures, but I didn't think of this at the time cause it was bloody cold and we were on the way to catch the last train and didn't have time. Here's some windy pictures before we had to shoot off home-






And one where I'm not sharing the shot with a massive bin.



Thank my auntie for the great framing skills


Insane sea conditions-



Click this one for bigger, the waves are pretty cool closer up.


And of course, even though we didn't climb up to it this time, you can't really go to Whitby without taking a picture of the abbey. It must have been very pretty, once upon a time.



Just after taking that picture it was time to get the train home. I don't want to write too much about it cause I'll end up going on about it for ages and it pissed me off enough at the time. I'll write a separate blog about it another time maybe. Basically loads of drunk people got on the train, were dead noisy, had 2 proper fist fight brawls, close to where we were, we had to move. Train stopped in the middle of nowhere where yet another fight broke out. We waited for police/transport police who did fuck all when they arrived. Waste of time. Got home late, blah blah.

But anyway, here's the last few pictures of the train, before everything went mental.
I bought two amazing hats in a charity shop for £1 each. More on that later.





Done and done.