You had plenty money 1922

Hogswatch this year - relatively stress-free and quiet. with swag.

Started wednesday with me recovering from a 24hr flu session (which I spent woozy and queasy at work, recovering enough to go meet my state-sponsored vampirism appointment which i'd booked for the first time - seemed plenty of people had responded to the 'our blood stocks are low' call as it was pretty full, and my blood flowed well and quickly) which I passed on to my mum - she's been getting all my symptoms one day later. Slightly dodgy gut for the past few days but otherwise fine.

Anyway, all pressies arrived from amazon/play/amsterdam.

Haul - lessee, got Roman Britain book, jewellery, Armani Diamonds perfume (yes, shocked slightly, but then it was from the bro's gf and it's quite subtle and smells nice on), bits of chocolate, vintage fishscale mail belt, token, merlin S1 dvd (tag: 'AKOB without the spam.' Cue my squee to my mum's confused look and me having to explain that dad always barges in during merlin and asks what's going on with Arthur King of the Britons while I yell 'OUT!' - and that Holy Grail jokes just happen when any Arthur adaptation is on - as i shredded the paper gleefully), a desk calendar of obscure and lost words in the English language.

Dad loved his history of the Ordnance Survey, mum loved her lemon tree.

Went over to neighbours for drinks, where there was gossip, the saga of Debbie's trees - she'd ordered on 5' and one 6', they finally turned up a couple of days ago, and were... 2' and 3'. Yeah. Sian's preggers, Steph's sproglets charged all over the place, Alex's present from Chris was the Toy Story remote car with Woody and Buzz on it, which meant we had to assemble it *right that moment*. oh, and got a new copy of Good Omens as requested from Anna - Waterstones was apparently out of stock

Dr Who was ... :happy sigh:. I WAS NOT CRYING, OKAY? And Katherine Jenkins was pretty good and her singing was plot-relevant. cool. Great performances from everyone, snickered over how the Ponds dodged why they were wearing their outfits, and then we had a trailer of awesome. and yeah, it says something where for the first time in a Dr Who solstice special when it finally snowed, cue audience going 'bit *late*, isn't it?'

Strictly was rather good - Barrowman won - no surprise there, he's got training and if you can get a Quickstep that looks like that in 7 hours training.... fuck me. Vince Cable's was lovely and just floated along. Others - not a bad effort.

Beef wellington went down nicely. with some bloody gorgeous parsnips. The demon brassicas were kept at the other end of the table. Though there was some mad dashing around when it was discovered there was no madeira for the sauce and mum managed to unearth some marsala from the depths of the wine rack to substitute. :burp:

finished it up with watching the repeat of Going Postal on Sky.

I ALSO GOT THIS:

Was supposed to get at least a few things done last night that I'd been putting off - hair dye, jobs, etc, but got hit by the thing that's been plaguing me a bit.

'Dopey. Steadily more tired and listless plus head/jaw pain. Upchuck.'

Fortunately, this one happened in the evening so I didn't lose the day as I have done previously.

Had previously recorded dates in diary, so the fact that the pattern appears to every 3-4 weeks looks like it's tied to period.

Body, you are very fucking weird. Pre-period pain I get. Headaches and dopey I sort of get, even nausea (more likely in my case as 90% of my headaches tend to focus on jaw), but seriously, being sick?

:pokes at eye area: Also, blood spots are not appreciated. They're not very visible but they do contribute to that ghost look when you stumble in the next morning.

On a more amusing note, as I was working from home yesterday, I put face mask on. Five minutes in, window cleaner calls as this is pretty much the first week it's warm enough. Open door, he doubles over in a fit of laughter and says 'Looking good as ever.' I mouth 'I hate you so much' at him, which sets him off again. Bastard. No good comes of having a window cleaner who's known you for years.

:sigh: tonight, I need to get shit done.

Dammit. At the dry lips stage of a cold. not much more than sniffling, a bit bunged up and coughing though (not too many coughing fits, thank the FSM). Fingers crossed it doesn't get any worse before weekend.

Any recs on desktop twitter apps? currently trialling ada which I think is definitely missing some. however, I want it as minimalist as possible, along the lines of tweets60 for mobile - not interested in interfacing with facebook or screencapping the page.

Gah. Deodorant makers, why do you not make travel-sized versions?

After shopping for socks and superheroine undies (clearly a hit for topshop, considering how long they've been selling them - and you can now get a Wonder woman bra. Sadly, Topshop doesn't cater for those with big boobs or tiny backs.) Bumped into Adrian and gossed a bit - apparently neither of us knew the other lived in Reading. 'How long've you lived here?' :self makes gesture around waist level, which is true since I remember coming up to my dad's waist when I was 5: Failed in finding a boob tube or sleeveless bodice-type top. came home, curled up in front of Merlin and Strictly. merlin was fab, although sadly continuing this season's thing for giving Morgana bugger all lines, Charles Dance chewed scenery like a pro, and everyone in Strictly was upping their game. Except for Craig Kelly, who much as I love the boy, can't dance. And how adorable was Natalie commenting about how springy the floor in Blackpool was?

Meant to start writing after that, but lo, jaw ache of evil so I spent most of the evening curled up pressing that point and the point in the forehead that the pain spiked up to. Yay. Couldn't eat either. Also realised I really needed to plot a bit of the next scene out before i can get to act 2, so eked out a couple of bits of plotting for today.

New Sherlock Holmes trailer. In which there is not just fabulous explosions, Robert Downey Junior, Rachel McAdams, jude Law and Mark Strong, fabulous explosions and many jokes, but they're actively slashing themselves. MUST. SEE.

ended up going home early as i'd tried to struggle on as i got gradually sicker - started with headache, on into woozy and vaguely nauseous. Hoped it would get better with lazing in park at lunch, it did slightly, but the wooziness returned half an hour, so i informed co-workers 'Off to sick bay to have a fainting fit, back in half an hour'. It did get better (complete with being so bloody bored that I started tapping out the percussion of Ring of Fire and Prokofiev's Troika, and the office manager poking her head in because she could see feet through the open door) but returned again with the headache and the screen starting to blur. Tis a tad difficult to proofread when you can't see the words.

Staggered home on hot tube and then collapsed on couch to sleep/doze intermittently before retiring to bed post-dinner. Suspect since it came two days after end of period, it's me old mucker that I used to get monthly.

In ongoing notation, it turns out that I lose at least two pounds of water retention/whatever it is after my period. Noting this is at least vaguely interesting to self, and will see what happens post-camping, since that'll be a strange regime of probably high calorie but also quite a bit of exercise rather'n sitting on arse all day.

Working from home and it's pissing it down. I have laundry, sky gods!

Went out with girlies from work for Emma's birthday. Cocktail at the Nordic, then hie ourselves to the Roxy. Started with Emma, Lissy, Jellybean, Jen and Nicola. Lost Nicola after the Nordic. Added Abi at The Roxy, got there at about 8, went on the pitchers of sea breeze and some tequila thing that tasted like cheap margherita, then dancefloor. Way too much fun, v. silly, once again got the '...wow, you can move', cracked Jelly and Jen up with 'no, really, this is how you can get away with doing the Macarena, Saturday Night and the Hand Jive', then taught Jelly how to do bellydance shimmy (all in the knees). kept running into work people and previous work people. With that classic of 'My mate thinks he used to work with you.' 'Riiiiight.' 'he says he used to find you under your desk when you had a headache' 'Um. Possibly...' Go back to dancefloor, see tall and lanky bugger, bounce off the dancefloor and launch self at said feller in a hug, go back, get accused of tartishness. 'It was *James*. Louise's James?' 'Oh. Considering we've seen Charlie and Verity and Maria, that makes sense....' Danced selves silly. Apologised to the others for getting into a dance-off with two blokes who were painfully Jarvis Cocker-ing it, which meant they then stayed near us, did the slinky rebuff (you slink up, dance, and then dismiss him very obviously) of one middle-aged suit who'd been eyeing us up and dancing way too close for comfort, which got clapping from the rest. Left at 11. Me for the train home, them because their feet were aching.

Got across the road, started off for Tottenham Court Tube, then this bloke came careening out of the crowd, bounced off one girl's shoulder, and ran full-tilt into the girl flyering for the Roxy, slamming her into the Starbucks window, cracking it, then bouncing her head off the pavement. (seriously. it bounced. fortunately she stayed conscious throughout) I grabbed the back of his jacket as he started to run again, yelling 'What do you think you're doing', but his mate running after him pulled him out of my hand with a 'What do you think you're doing' and they ran off. Seriously. What the fuck? Meantime, a bunch of other clubbers were checking she was okay, I went back across the road to get help from the people at the Roxy, then it was kind of a case of everyone helping her into the Starbucks, them calling the ambulance and applying ice. Somehow I ended up being the one waiting with her for the police and ambulance since I was the only one who'd seen everything and was still there. Gave witness statement and details and then went off for the tube. Paramedics kept making jokes about getting free frappuccinos and showed me the lump on the back of her head. Size of a mars/galaxy egg. Not kidding.

And now I have a mild hangover that won't go away.

made the decision to finally get rid of the last few SGA comms I had on my flist. Feel a bit more cleansed.

Yesterday was spent throwing up water and generally wiped out. yay body.

clanwilliam : Musicals, John Barrowman, Discworld, costuming, being a painted jezebel.

( bing )

birdsflying : photography, cornwall, theatre, costumes, sherwood forest
( beep )

Sitting watching blackbirds (who appear to be the humans of the bird population - they're bouncing around something chronic in the snow), cursing outlook and tweaking manuscripts. And of course, those classics of 'Look, I don't care if he is bugging you, scroll down that email you forwarded - I told him no already with reason, he is not getting any more!'

Throat killing me. (along with general grotty feeling) Have suspicion that it's one of those ones that doc would look at, go 'inflamed, home rest, now go away'. Combine with scheduled train irregularity and this means more home working.

Remember how I manage to survive without getting so much as a cold while everyone else was getting flu?

I have not stopped sniffling all morning. Dammit. With occasional need to blow nose.

:wails: I have illegal recording of Douglas Hodge and Denis Lawson to do tonight! The mic picks up *my* sound first! (sadly, laughing like a drain is unavoidable...)

pubmeet fun. and giggly. The word 'moist' entered into the general conversation due to Jackie and the description of one of the puddings...

Apparently gently tweaking bits of hair right around the scalp is akin to a gentle massage. Started doing it to Chris to annoy him and he went 'oooo, keep doing that' and then

It seems it was tickle Heather's midriff day. Jackie was going 'Look, real-life Black Canary! Able to shatter glass and knock people halfway across the room with her sonics!'

In other news, it appears that one of the girls turns into Donna when she gets bad customer service. 'Sour cream, nachos, hello!' In *exactly the same tone and accent* as 'Time lord, Tardis, best temp in Chiswick!'

Sunday : some sort of 24-hour flu which involved me shuffling downstairs once stopped feeling achey in usual sunday fashion - and then bolting for the porcelain god as soon as I saw food. Spent day on sofa feeling dopey and woozy and unable to stand up. And throwing up water. Appears to be going round since Lissy at work spent sunday in the same fashion.

Merlin ( squee )