SPINNING!

Not sure what is up with me today. Every so often I get this horrible sensation as if the world in front of me is spinning upwards and over my head. Should I be worried about this?

I read my contract for the new place last night. It seems fine, apart from one clause that - apparently - requires me to write to the Landlord and request permission to install and use any "appliance". But what exactly is an "appliance"? Anyway I emailed the bloke in Managed and Leased Properties and (after apologising for my previous sarcastic email) I asked about this odd clause. Basically it all boils down to they don't want me to install a cooker in my bedroom. Like there's enough space for a cooker. The reason I apologised was because, really, the whole incident with the woman from the Accommodation Office was nothing to do with him and he's actually been really helpful.

Later I shall head over to PJM and sign the contract, get the key for my new place, then tonight I can begin moving everything. Fun fun fun. At least I managed to acquire some big boxes from work, they should make things a little bit easier.

My Sister goes into hospital today in preperation for the operation on her back tomorrow. Although I could quite happily have announced in the past that I "hate" my Sister, I am actually quite concerned for her. This is a very risky operation, there's something like a 50% chance that it will paralyse her. Even if it works she will be in a hell of a lot of pain for quite some time.

Weekend Over

Yes I am back from Newbury, having driven the "long" way round via Gloucester. The journey is, theoretically, the same length but there is a lot less motorway driving involved, slightly more to remember and lots more speed restrictions. Despite all that I managed to do the journey in half an hour less than my usual time and I didn't feel like driving the car off the road in a fit of desperation because it was so mind numbingly tedious. In fact I would go so far as to say I quite enjoyed it, and I saved nearly £5 too.

So I shall have to drive that way round a little more often I think. The last time I took that route I enjoyed it too, so it shall simply have to become my preferred route. There was lots of wildlife to see (mainly rabbits chancing their lives in the middle of the roads), some stunning scenery, and I even got to witness a Paraglider landing in a field by the side of the road.

I pulled into a field on the left, grabbed my camera and legged it across the road, but by the time I was in a position to see anything there was nothing to see. Shame, I'd have loved to have got a picture of it.

Anyway, jumping back to Friday ... When I arrived at Liz's we chilled and watched some Buffy (She recently bought a metric ton of Buffy DVDs). And that was the end of Friday.

Saturday we got up reasonably early to tidy the house (the estate agents wanted to show around some potential new tenants) and then we buggered off to Basingstoke to go to a dive shop where Liz spent some of her hard earned pennies on a face-mask, fins and a neck-seal. She's now, almost, ready to go diving :-o After that we went to the cinema in Basingstoke to watch The Day After Tomorrow I thought it was a good film, although Dennis Quaid who plays Jack Hall was wooden and lifeless and there was some extremely dubious science. If you can see past the screaming flaws in the film and watch it with an open minded "yeah whatever" attitude then there's a really good film under there.

After Basingstoke we went home, went for a wander down the canal looking at the ridiculously cute ducklings and signets (and I forgot to take my bloody camera), then watched some Eddie Izzard ("Oh you ARE an axe murderer? We were wondering!") and some more Buffy.

Sunday (today) we went for another walk down the canal, and I made a point of not forgetting my camera this time. The ducklings were out and we saw some baby Coots (not sure what the correct name for baby coots is - probably "chicks") and as always there were plenty of Swans. The signets, however, were nowhere to be seen. We went to B&Q to get a burt-pipe-repair-kit then wandered back to see what else we could see. I got some really close snaps of two ducks which I really hope look as good on film as they did through the view-finder.

On the way home we stopped off in Holland and Barrett and got some Vegan sausages which were ridiculously nice, and so we ate them and some porkless pie outside. After lunch we watched more buffy, and then I had to set off. That was when I realised I'd not got enough money for the toll bridge, and didn't fancy going into town to get some money - hence taking the "long" way round.

You will probably have noticed by now that I have taken down the blog on the UWA servers.

That is such a good quote, it really sums up the thinking behind my cutting-down in drinking.

The Nissan Cube

That has got to be one of the single ugliest cars I have ever seen in my life.

Right, I'd better clear my bed so that I can sleep in it. Currently it is buried under boxes, clothes, and other junk from when I was tidying last week.

Final Warning

Oh yes, I forgot to mention... The UWA version of LoweyBlog and LoweyPages will be taken down tonight at 10pm (2100 GMT). I'll implement an automatic forwarding system to redirect people, but that may be taken down in the future so that I can use my UWA space for other things.

44

I just logged into the Aber webmail and found 44 emails from root@aber.ac.uk waiting for me! I really need to turn off the mail feature on Cron!

I need more tea, moi brain 'urts!

What the hell happened there?

I feel like I've just gone through time in the wrong direction or something. It was most peculiar. I was in the kitchen making tea. While I was waiting for the kettle to boil a colleague came in to wash his cup. We exchanged pleasantries and he left. The water boiled and I got a teabag from the tin, but was surprised to find one already in my mug. Odd, I didn't remember getting one. All well, I put the extra tea bag back and poured the water in.

Next I needed the milk, so grabbed it and poured it in. Funny thing was this: Before I went to put it back in the fridge I could remember having already put it in the fridge as if it was in the past, but clearly putting it in the fridge was in the future as I was holding it. I was so confused I even looked in the fridge to see if perhaps there was a second bottle of milk that I had already put in the fridge but there was no milk in there.

I think I may have been predicting the future too much.

*Blink*

I got a reply regarding the email I sent earlier. It was slightly arsey in places, but that was understandable considering what I wrote. Anyway they linked to some information on their website and I decided to take a look at one of their "photo tours". What do I see, but:

It looks exactly the same as my room. Looking at the filename it seems more likely it is the room directly below mine, but it's a little weird none the less.

Nigerian 419 Scam

I've sent a reply to that 419 scam email. I hope they reply!

Email to the Accommodation Office

Okay I'm not going to send it exactly like that, the last paragraph is a little OTT. The rest of it is staying as it is though.

Odd

Someone just rang my doorbell and said they were trying to get in to see their friend. I explained that everyone had moved out.

"No, she hasn't. She still lives here, on the 4th floor." I live on the 2nd. Why the hell is he ringing my bell? I'm a little puzzled, but prepared to let him.

"Well can't She let you in?"

"Oh, okay... I'll just wait here then." I thought about this a moment and then thought, "well if that's what he wants" and then went back to my room.

Lunch at Tanya's

We all went to Tanya's for lunch because she is having an argument with the Council because they put a telegraph pole right outside her house without her permission. She wanted pictures to support her case and so she enlisted John and his digital camera. After he'd taken some pictures he was showing them to Tanya on the LCD display on the back of the camera and they discussed in great detail the relative merits of each picture compared to the last. Throughout this all that I could think of was Rimmer in Red Dwarf and his collection of photos of 20th Century Telegraph Poles!

Not sure what's up with me at the moment, I feel really short of breath like somebody is sitting on my chest. I hope it's not my asthma returning, I do still get a little "tight chested" (as my Mum calls it) every so often. The pollen in the air could very well trigger what little asthma I do get...