Category Archives: Life

A very Amazon Christmas

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Amazon is amazing.  I always knew it was amazing, but at Christmas it’s even more amazing if you’re buying their core products (rather than through partners) and you have their Amazon Prime free trial.  There’s something amazing about ordering 10 items, getting an e-mail an hour later saying they’re being dispatched, and then having them all arrive 9:30am the next day.

They deserve to make a killing.

I’m impressed by their packing system (yeh, I know).  Various sized items all purchased and then they seem to package similar sized items up and into a kind of wrap cardboard thing.  I wonder if it’s fully automated, partially automated or completely manual.

So this is Christmas

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We’re ahead of the game this year, kind of.  Although we’re always late starters as far as Christmas is concerned, this year we’re better than normal, and as of today, it’s officially Christmas in this household.

  • We got an advent calendar (chocolate naturally) before the 1st of December and hung it up before the 1st of December, this is essentially a Christmas Miracle come True.
  • We bought presents for people the weekend just gone and some of the ones we have to post are already wrapped, and we’ll be posting them during this week.  Yes, we are posting parcels to people, as Christmas presents, instead of just you know, forgetting, or not bothering.
  • Grete has writers cramp from writing out our Christmas cards which will be posted before Christmas, not like the year we posted them after Christmas.
  • I have just retrieved our tree from the cupboard upstairs, and we’ll be putting it up in the next day or so.  We didn’t bother last year because we weren’t sure Fizz would cope with all the glittering things that hang off it without trashing the house, but she’s (slightly) more relaxed now (pictures of the tree as soon as it’s up, I promise).
  • We’ve already started buying the food for Christmas, so we don’t have to spend 19 hours queueing in Tesco two days before hand.

So there you have it, Christmas at last.  Nearly the end of 2008, near the start of 2009 and that means we’re uncomfortably close to 2010.

Of course, in some ways, it’s always Christmas in this house, since our Santa Clause stuffed toy sits on top of the book shelf in the lounge all year round, bringing us good cheer and joy.

Oh yes.

Why do I hate having my hair cut?

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Anyone who sees me on a regular basis knows that the length of my hair goes from one extreme to the other, although in the past couple of years it has gotten better.  It used to be that I’d let it get far too long and only when it really bugged me would I get it cut, and then I’d have it cut really short so that it would last a while.

It’s because I truly hate visiting the barbers / hair dressers.

I have a memory from childhood but I’m not sure if it is the cause of my barber distress or merely a contributing factor.  I remember going on my own (I think) to the local hair dressers and getting my hair cut very, very, very short.  I remember being extremely distressed by the result and maybe even hiding in my bed for a few hours.  I’m not sure exactly how old I was, maybe very early teens.  I’m sure there was crying, for several days.

Whatever the root cause, I know I’ve hated it for as long as I can remember.  I get very stressed while my hair is being cut and find myself tensed and clenching all my muscles,  until I make myself relax and as soon as I stop focussing I tense again.

The net result of all that is that while I was at University, and ever since, I’ve always left getting my hair cut as long as possible, usually up to the point where it bugs me so much I finally relent and get it done.  I also find it easier to go somewhere I’m familiar with.  When I was living in Rotherham this meant getting three buses each way to get to a barbers in Sheffield I’d used while I was living near there at University.

When we moved to Nottingham I started going to a local hair dressers, and they were pretty good, while it was still distressing I got used to it and managed to go reasonably regularly.  We moved in Nottingham (still close to the same place) next to a barbers, and I tried that once, and it was a terrible experience.  My feelings weren’t misplaced though, since when I went back to the hair dressers next time they commented on how bad the cut was and fixed it.

It’s not like I have complex hair, or want a complex cut, I just want it short and tidy, I’ve always just wanted it short and tidy, but for some reason the whole experience is distressing.

Grete cuts my hair now, or I should say, she shaves it using electric clippers (#4 all over thanks) and it’s much, much, much less stressful.  However, it’s still not stress free and I trust Grete with my life so it’s not about people I don’t know, it’s about the whole process of having my hair cut.  For some reason.

Anyway, now that Grete cuts it, it doesn’t get quite as long as it used to, but it still gets too long.

So there, I don’t really answer my own question, but I thought I’d blog about it anyway.  I guess I’ll never really know, I’m just glad that I’ve finally found the least stressful solution to the problem.  Getting my hair cut gives me a huge personal confidence boost, I feel measurably happier with it short, I just wish I could use that energy to make the process happen more often and be less stressful.

Maybe in the future.

Frost came visiting

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Totally clear night last night (Saturday to Sunday, since technically I’m writing this on Monday morning), so it was always going to be cold.  The frost this morning though was amazing.  On the shed roof it looked a little like snow, but the grass and leaves on the ground looked like they’ve been coated in sugar.

Tried to get some shots, but not really pleased with how they came out.  I’ve whacked a Picasa album up (including the shots of the snow we had recently) which you can see over here.

Here’s my favourite shot though (click for full size) and check out the album above for a couple more.

From Dawn till Dusk

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We went Christmas shopping today.  From dawn till dusk.  Breakfast at Tesco (as opposed to Tiffany’s) then into Nottingham City Centre until 4:00pm, then Toys-R-Us and then back to Tesco (everything that has a beginning has an end) to get some food for today and tomorrow.

We got everything we planned to get, some stuff we didn’t plan to get and some very sore feet.

Woolworth’s was super-mad with a huge sale on and people queueing out of the door, I bet it’s their biggest trading day this year, but it’s too little too late no doubt to save people’s jobs 🙁

We couldn’t believe how empty Tesco was first thing and then the Broadmarsh carpark was pretty light as well, the walk up to Victoria Centre was empty as well (at about 10:00am) but by the time we were leaving Victoria Centre (1:00pm) it was knee-deep in people and town was fully packed.  The Christmas market is on again in Market Square and the smells were amazing.

By the time we got back to Tesco second time around there were 3 trollies left in the trolly bay inside and about a million people buying stuff.

Glad we got it done, glad it’s out of the way.  For everything else, there’s Amazon.co.uk …

Paw prints in the snow

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Why are they so evocative?  Click the pictures for full size images.  It snowed in Nottingham today, for about 15 minutes, really heavy wet snow which lay and then started to vanish almost as quickly as it had arrived.

Both cats are old hands with the whole snow thing so no sudden flurry of excitement from them, although Fizz did try and eat a few snowflakes as they fell on her.

men can’t sleep

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maybe stressed about work, maybe money, maybe just because it’s christmas, maybe all three.

who knows.

Caught the end of Knocked Up, that was funny, made me more hopeful for Zack and Miri.

Saw 3 minutes of Enemy of the State, perhaps I should give it another shot after not liking the start.

Saw 2 minutes of Attack of Precinct 13, Laurence Fishburne steals the whole thing, twice.

Watching some random moments (magic moments!) now from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

And now distracted by NFL live on Five.

What do you eat first?

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We just had a big roast Sunday lunch (turkey, roast sweet potato, roast potato, cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, yorkshire puddings, gravy).  Clearly, since I got to cook that, and I only really cook stuff I’m going to enjoy (why bother cooking what I don’t enjoy!) there wasn’t anything I didn’t like.

But it got me thinking about a difference between how I eat and how Grete eats.

I eat stuff roughly, in general, in order of least likeable leaving the best until last which means that I usually end up eating everything.  Grete eats the stuff she likes best first which (and some might argue this is a better result) means she tends to end up leaving stuff when she gets full that she doesn’t jump and down with excitement about.

So, what do you do?  If you had, roast meat (pick your favourite, or vegetarian replacement), three or four veg (pick some you like), yorkshires and potato of some kind, what order would you eat it in and why?  All mixed up randomly?  Favourite first?  Least favourite first?  Potato’s first because they go cold quickest?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Poor Bubbles

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She’s off to the vets again, we suspect cystitis.  Grete rang up to see what they could suggest and they had room to fit her in now, so we mugged her and Grete’s driven her straight over to the vets.