Remember a few posts ago I was waffling on about that new book place that had opened in town? The one where books are free and you just make a donation?
http://www.healthyplanet.org/projects/books-for-free.aspx I finally went in today. I picked up a few books, one was an AA new york travel guide, probably out of date by many years, but I thought it'd be useful for me for firstly transporting me away to it in the many occasions when I stop and think to myself "I need to be in new york right this minute" and secondly cause by the time I get to go, I will probably have read the book so much I will know exactly what to do and where to go (providing its not toooo out of date).
The other was don quixote volume 1, which I have no idea about but just picked for its size, age and pretty pattern down the spine .
The last one I got, I would probably have picked up and put back down again, but when I opened it up I seen written inside that it was a book crossing book
http://bookcrossing.com/ which excited me. I had visions of it once belonging to a lovely tweed jacket wearing Matthew Chan-esq boy. When I entered the code into the website though, it had only been left by one guy, who's 45, and who's profile picture was of him looking like he needed a hug from David Cameron
Anyway, I'm still pretty excited about it, I'll leave a review and maybe get in touch with the guy after I've read the book.
In other parts of my life, I went to that interview, the guy was alright but I didn't get the job. He called up to tell me on Monday, which in this day and age of job rejections is a very rare thing, but the cynic in me believes wholeheartedly that I was the only rejectee he'd called to let know, because he knows where I work and knows my bosses and doesn't want to look like a cunt in front of them. But oh well, looks like I'm stuck in my lame job for a bit more. Crappy amount of hours but it feels wonderful to have a whole week off between shifts.
In town today with my mam we stopped off at the butchers to buy a joint of lamb for Sunday dinner, later on making idle talk at the checkout I asked my mam if we were having dinner at ours this week rather than my aunties. Then she started going on about how my auntie had been mentioning a trip to Scarborough, this was news to me. I hadn't been there at the time it was discussed, but the long and short of it is that we're going next Sunday instead (I think. I hope) Which got me thinking about how much I love scarborough even though I don't think I've mentioned it before on here. I had this memory, a good few years ago, that had been lurking around in my brain un-remembered since I was a kid, I don't remember what caused it to come flooding back but I'm so glad it did. When my mam and aunties were kids, my nana and grandad used to always take them there on holiday, and when I was born, me too.
Anyway this memory, of my nana sitting playing bingo, in one of the seafront games arcades, you know on those horrible but brightly coloured plastic bingo boards that made such satisfying noises when you clicked the covers across each number. Behind the boards, racks and racks of crappy tacky prizes along a mirrored wall, and someone with a monotone voice slowly calling out the numbers. You know the place. My nana loved bingo. The rest of us wern't so keen so we'd go off and wander around while she stayed playing. I remember I was only a dead young kid, probably about 6 or 7, and in one of the bingo places, for the kids they had this weird little machine, not a game, but just things moved and you watched. I remember it cost 10p a go, and it was, if I remember correctly the facade of a house, like a dolls house, but this one was spooky and haunted. And when you put in your 10p skeletons would come out of the doors and go into other ones. I don't remember if they did anything else, I think maybe you got a prize at the end, something dropped out like a kinder egg toy, in a plastic ball. I loved that thing, I would go on it alllll the time while the bingo was going on. Don't know why it mesmerised me so much, or how I even managed to forget about it all. I was so happy when it came back to me though. I wish there were pictures of it or something. Anyway that's my strange little memory.
One last tale before I go, you may or may not be aware that my mam and auntie are trying to spruce up my grandads empty house. They're decorating it all, to be honest I hate decorating its so damn boring so I've been avoiding it as much as possible. The other week for some reason or other, they wanted to get into the attic. For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to get in that attic. Unfortunately when it came down to it, our ladders were nowhere near long enough, I couldn't even pop my head in so far as to see anything. I've been told repeatedly that its empty, but I thought, WWJD? (What Would Journey Do) and I didn't stop believin'. In my minds eye, the attic was choc full of my nans clothes, my mams old clothes from when she was my age, old books, forgotten family heirlooms, tall old hat stands, big wooden chests, lamps. Just all sorts of stuff.
So anyway, I managed to get the hatch off and shoved aside up the attic hole, but could go no further. We left the hatch off anyway, for my cousin to have a go of getting up (which she didn't) and that was that. For the past week or two, its been open. Today, after I had yet again dodged the decorating, my mam came home and said to me "eeee you'll never guess what happened at grandads tonight" then she told me how they had been decorating and my auntie noticed that the hatch, which had been completely open, was now completely back its its original position. Freaked me right out that did. Theres pretty much no way it could have been done. None of us have touched it, it can't have slipped back into position. The only viable explanation is that the guy who came in to do some plastering work had a mooch around when he had the place to himself, but even that's unlikely. We'll ask him next time we see him, he's one of the neighbours. What a mystery! If it wasn't him, there is literally no explanation for it. My first conclusion that I jumped to was that it was a ghost, my mam just said "I hope theres no one living up there". Not sure which is the scarier prospect. More on that as I find out.
On a final couple of notes, my 200th blog post is coming up, so keep your eyes peeled. My stats page revealed that I recently hit the 7'000 views mark (wow!) and last but not least, here is a photo I took the other day of an exceedingly fluffy white cloud.
I eventually did find my card reader, it was in my converse boot. How it ended up there I have no idea. Then I lost it again, then I found it again on a shelf.
From now on I'll try to write shorter blog posts.
