In my defence..

All the posts about feeling tired, and generally being mopey? Well, in the words of Spike Milligan, I told you I was ill.

I've now been signed off work for a week (and I have until next Monday to go!) with a virus. It's an evil virus that is just a bit like a phlegmy cough, but add it to Citalopram and basically you can sleep for 18 hours a day. I'm not complaining, believe me, I like my sleep - but obviously this makes it quite hard to appear at work at 8am every morning. Hence the off signage.

This excuse also doubles as the reason that I've not posted on here in many many days. So there.

In the meantime, it's a balancing act. I'm trying to get all the sleep and rest that my body is telling me it needs, whilst cohabiting with a fiance who wants to know why I've got all this time off and the house is still a tip, and whilst trying to follow up this journalism opportunity I've been given (which, yes, has come at a crappy time!)

So far today I have dragged my sorry arse into town to buy a printer. I'm now too knackered to contemplate actually installing it, plus in my snotty haze, I forgot to buy any paper. Yes, I am a spaztard. Still, it's a job to tick off my list. I may be ill, but I'm not useless!

Right, I'm off for a lie down now matron.

xx

Doesn't time fly...

... when you've got a new toy?

I haven't posted in three whole days. That's not going well for my attempts at writing something every day, is it? It's the new laptops fault. I can play The Sims in bed - which of course leads to very late nights which in turn lead to very miserable and unproductive days. For example, I generally come up with something to write about whilst I'm on the bus on the way to work (as you may've noticed from some of my previous entries!) but this morning I fell asleep on the bus. Proper unconscious, waking up with a start, wondering where I am and what I'm doing. That kind of asleep. It was really scary! I've never fallen asleep on the bus before...

Here Comes The Sun...

The Backwards Church may be branching out into Paganism. Or Egyptian..ism. Or any other Sun worshipping religion. I can't believe it's something I've not thought of before. All I need to do is develop a strict series of beliefs that mean that I follow the sun. I get up when the sun rises, and I'm in bed when the sun sets. It means I could leave work at about 3pm... And if they said no, I could sue them for religious discrimination. I love it when a plan comes together.

It's just good manners....

Those of you who read Thursday's entry, or equally, those who have mastered the scroll bar function, will recall Mr. Squeaky Nostril. Well, today we met his older, and frankly more icky distant cousin Mrs. Chews-With-Her-Mouth-Open.

Now, if Algy (that's Mr. Algernon Squeaky Nostril Esq. as he shall hence be called) should learn to open his gob and let lashings of unobstructed bus air into his probably starved lungs, then Wilhelmina Chews-With-Her-Mouth-Open should balk at her distant cousins rebellion and keep those lips firmly sealed. There is nothing nastier than the constant sound of wet chewing first thing in the morning. It's as if the chewing powers her motor neurone functions.... Oooh, maybe it DOES! *develops idea for Science Fiction novel*

The only thing that makes this even slightly entertaining is that Wilhelmina is the spitting image of the teacher in Clueless - officially the best film of the 90's. (Now, that's a statement I'm going to regret when I've thought about it. And considered Grosse Point Blank. And Usual Suspects... Oh, arse.) I keep picturing her going home to Wallace Shawn....

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Are you happy?

Although we are a “Backwards Church” here at Holly Towers, there are some beliefs that it would be, well, just bad manners not to uphold, like “always be nice to people” and “try not to kill stuff”. And whilst coveting thy neighbour’s ox might not be entirely relevant in today’s non-bovine centric world, the concept of being happy with what you’ve got and not hankering for the greener grass is one that more people could stand to follow. So, with that in mind, I’m going straight to whatever the Backwards Church idea of hell is (stranded in the desert with only a packet of ready salted crisps and a can of Ginger beer for company?).

At the weekend we went to a dinner party. Not quite the grown up, sitting round, quaffing Brandy type of dinner party, but a dinner party non the less. And the host’s house – oh my god, the host’s house. Imagine just getting to that point in life where you have everything. The house, the job, the money, the family, the puppy… Where life is full of walking through the park, to the pub, having lunch and walking home again. Where you wake up and do a job you love, in a house you love, as part of a life you love.

Yes, yes, I know I can’t assume that it’s all a bed of roses, but Lee in his own drunken inimitable way asked one half of our hosting couple “Are you happy?” - and you know what she said?

“Yes, very very happy.”

I thought, “Wow, imagine being able to say that….”

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Thursday's Child

First off, I'd like to start with a message to the man with the squeaky nostril who sat behind me on the bus this morning. BREATHE THROUGH YOUR MOUTH! I can hear you, the whole bus can hear you, surely YOU can hear you??

And now, the main feature (let's all go to the lobby, let's all go to the lobby..)

At the risk of famous last words, the snow was a disappointment, wasn't it? It wasn't enough to sledge precariously down the hill, careering dangerously towards the Derwent, and it certainly wasn't enough to keep me home from work. All I need is for the buses tomorrow morning to stop running. Obviously not today, otherwise I'll be stuck here - and as much as I don't understand people who get nervous in hospitals, I sure as heck don't want to spend anymore time than I have to in this place.

It's getting harder and harder to get up these days, to pull myself out of the dark, and the warmth, and the peace and quiet. I often find myself lying in bed in the mornings, willing to lie, cheat, or sell my prospective first born for 12 minutes more on my own, in the silence... Mmmm.

I wanna go to sleep..........

x

Book at Bedtime

The sound of a key in the lock awoke her. The birds were in full song, yet it was a gunmetal grey morning that crept through the blind. She prised one eye open slightly and reached to the bedside table, fumbling for her mobile phone. The screen cast a bright blue light on the bed. She squinted until peering through her eyelashes, and read the time display. 06:05. An audible groan escaped her lips. The phone was dropped back onto the bedside table, and the duvet pulled up to her nose as she flung herself onto her side and contracted into a fetal position. There was nothing worse than waking up 30 minutes before your alarm. Really. What was the point? 30 minutes isn’t long enough to fall back into a proper sleep, but it’s too long to warrant getting up. She cursed work. She cursed her alarm. She cursed him for waking her up with his abnormally loud door unlocking abilities. She cursed her penchant for caffeinated drinks that meant she slept like a shark. She cursed that it was doubly hard to get 30 minutes sleep with all that cursing going on.

It's so COLD. Really, truly, and properly cold.

Well, yesterday was put to good use. Mainly sleeping and playing computer games, but still how I like to spend a day off. Over the last few days I have managed to sort out flowers, invites, and balloons for the wedding. I've bought an inordinate amount of balloons. They're not really something you get the opportunity to buy that often are they? Well, now I've got 150 of the buggers. Two different sizes too! Who'd have thought you could have little mini 5" balloons? I bought two different colours of curly ribbon too. White and green. I'm not sure what the green will go with, I probably should have bought two whites instead. Maybe the green can be wrapped around something like a cake stand. Oh God, that means I need to get a cakestand. Maybe I could use the green ribbon to garrote myself and end this sorry charade??

xx

I don't like Mondays.

Ohhhhh, it’s Monday. Day of sleep deprivation, suffering and general nastiness. I went to the pub last night. I didn’t drink but I did eat the free nachos… I think Tuesday may have to be an emergency holiday to have a nice lie down and ponder wedding invitations. Oh yes, I’m getting married. I neglected to mention that, didn’t I? Well, I’m sure it’ll be okay. It’s not like its less than four months away and I’ve not done anything.

Seeing as the first two posts on this blog are copied and pasted across from the blog I created yesterday and then managed to forget the log in AND password for in the space of around, ooh, three hours, I think I'm allowed to post again today.

Then there is the question "Post about what??", and a good question it is too. This isn't an actual diary, so should I veer away from writing what I've done over the past 24 hours? And is "read Spiderman and watched 5 episodes of Law and Order: Criminal Intent" such a fascinating answer anyway?

Such a strange title as The Backwards Church of Holly could use an explanation I suppose. It all came about when my friends and I were discussing religion - how you do. Now, I'm not a great knowledge on religion, I don't claim to understand world religions, or faith, or beliefs (not even Electric Monk beliefs, except that maybe everything IS pink) but sometimes, when you're a bit 'tired and emotional' you discover what you really think about life, the universe and everything. Wow, that's two Douglas Adams references in one sentence! It just so happened that on this one occasion, I decided that the life was just an anomaly that you found yourself in, and then when you died, you just stopped existing. I thought there might be the possibility of reincarnation, which was a bit of a paradox. Or perhaps more realistically, I HOPED there might be the possibility of reincarnation. Somebody happened to comment that this was like a "backwards religion" with no beliefs and no afterlife, and thus the church was born.

It was fun whilst it lasted. We had a High Priestess and a martyr, and our symbol was the bumblebee. A creature, that by laws of physics, should apparently not exist.

And now, back to work children, back to work.

x

So, what have we learnt so far today?

We've learnt that Daniel Radcliffe has oh so blossomed into a near-adult, that google researching the answers to the King Williams College Quiz is more satisfying than actually knowing the answers, that "Murse" is an amusing new name for a male nurse, that I have NO idea how to hyperlink within my blog (otherwise you could, at this very moment, be looking at semi-naked pictures of Harry Potter, or taxing your brain cells on the KWC quiz) and that Citalopram has incessant yawning listed as a side effect. I'm not just that people are boring, honest.

We've also learnt that I have an even worse memory than I originally thought, and have actually had to revive an OLD blog because I can't remember my username for the blog I created just yesterday........

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Well, here I am - it must be my third attempt at a Blog by now. Originally I wanted to be self indulgent and smug, then I felt I needed a cathartic experience and a place to vent about daily goings on with handy pseudonyms of all antagonists, and now...? Well, now I just want to write.

I've hit that time of my life, I don't know whether it's when you get to your mid-20's and realise that you're nowhere near the place you thought you'd be, or whether the idea of being a quarter of a century old and having to work for another 40 years is just mortifying, but I want a way out. I want to do the job I always thought I'd do when I grew up. I would always be a journalist. Or a novellist. Or, obviously, a rock star..

I'm fully aware that the key to being a good writer is to, well, write. So, I'm hoping a 'blog' (a word which conjures up such awful images to me), something I can dip into here and there during a quiet patch at work, a running diary of ideas or thoughts, will help hone any skill that might be lying dormant way way below my surface. We shall see!

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