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.

:)

Stargazing live

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Fuuuuuuuck!!

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