Thursday, December 28, 2006

Heedless of the wind and weather

I came to my room with the intention of writing another section of my extended essay, but have spent most of the time faffing about putting photos on facebook. (This is always irritating cos for some reason I can't do it on Firefox and have to use Explorer.) However, festive pictures should now be there for your delectation.

Got home today after a week traipsing round England in what seems, in retrospect, like an extended wine-tasting. It started in London (after a prolific bout of work on the East Coast main line) for an exciting AV reunion, where there was much ooh-ing over Nat's new flat and Wellers's engagement (congratulations!!) and I thought how much we've grown up since we all met at the airport four years ago, untravelled and fresh out of school. We went out for a lovely meal in Chiswick and caught up and reminisced lots and pouted in lots of photos, and then unfortunately I had to leave cos it was Nik's birthday the next day and I was going to stay with him. However, due to the combined incompetence of my timekeeping, late-evening holiday period tube services, London Victoria's ticket machine provision and the slow man in front of me in the queue, I succeeded in missing the train and dragging Nik out to fetch me from Epsom at 1 a.m. in the freezing fog (I can't deal with these harsh southern climes) with the remnants of a cold. Oops.

Still, his birthday was fun - he beat me and his sisters resoundingly (twice) at his new Friends trivia DVD game (surprise, surprise) and we had a nice meal and a very competitive game of Trivial Pursuits. (Snowflakes have 6 sides. I knew that, but did they listen...?) On Christmas Eve his mum was giving a huge party which was really cool, but I had to leave after a couple of hours (and spent those gripped by train paranoia) and go to my grandparents' where we had a very traditional Christmas (turkey, flaming puddings, board games, carols). Nik came up on Boxing Day and coped admirably with my mad relatives and their perishingly cold house.

Took my brothers to London yesterday (though Davy would like it to be known that he is an adult and capable of taking care of himself) which, despite more train madness (sodding Virgin, bunch of incompetents), ended up being fun. Charlie is just young enough for it still to be rewarding when you take him to something he enjoys, even if he is old enough for you to take to Avenue Q. Which was, overall, excellent. The second half seemed like a desperate attempt to cobble together a coherent plot from the various amusing songs and characters and consequently the ending felt rather unsatisfactory, and the tunes weren't very memorable (which, considering that the words were, was disappointing) but, overall, excellent.

Back from Warwickshire in the car today, hate car journeys, esp in the back, esp with bony boys with their iPods turned up too loud. Ah well.

Soooo much work to do. Depressing. Just want to lie comatose and eat chocolate. Grr.

Still, can get a bargainous ticket to London for New Year. Carrot.

No comments: