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:

gah. always forget this post vampirism.

arm aches like hell. oh, this is going to be fun....

Why do I always, always forget the fact that when I give blood I go listless a few hours later (post the general wooziness that getting rid of a pint of blood tends to give you) which is no fun? Also, achey arm and bruised finger.

:grumble:

Oh, and the National Blood Service? less organised than a *trout*. Seriously. The London database is not hooked up with the rest of the country, does not seem to have been updated with my details even though I asked them to over two weeks ago, it keeps insisting that the last time I attempted to give blood was back in 2001 (went for an interview in London, tried as the van was there and it was coming up for due date, but because my details were still in Falmouth, I couldn't - don't ask, how do they cope with drop-ins?) even though I'm rather obviously in possession of a brown card that was issued fairly recently. (design changes every couple of years, colour changes with number of times you've given - red is 1-4, blue is 5-9, brown is 10-25, etc)

:sigh: Twats. Really.

Though as usual, the actual experience is fun - chatty nurses, biccits and squash and cups of tea, doctors going 'er... please specify when and where you went overseas/were in a malarial country' and commiserating over the stupidity of having a question on there that says 'have you ever had sex with someone who's injected drugs or steroids/had sex with another bloke/paid for sex' because that is not exactly something that comes up in conversation during one night stands. Or short relationships. And exactly why there is no rule against girls who've had anal sex because surely that's just as risky as gay and bisexual men, who are banned from giving blood precisely because of this.

Also when the nurse tells a new donor 'we recommend not drinking alcohol for six hours after', I butted in and told them about what happened at Jo's birthday meal and thus recommended not drinking at all until the next day. There's the whole embarrassment factor to contend with. Because one drink and it went so much to my head that I slid off my chair.

Donor center on Margaret Street (it's off Regent Street past Niketown) has a very cool energy-saving device for the lights in the loos. Infra-red sensor is positioned to catch anyone who comes in, lights turn on, lights go off when you go out. I was very tempted to keep popping in for two seconds just to test the sensor.