hallo ian

I am twenty eight years old now. My hilariously cute mother pointed out that I am now exactly half her age and wondered if that would ever happen again...? Bless. I spent my birthday in a happy fog of presents and good wishes and Steak 'n' Chicken Tuesdayness.

Number 13 De Lacy Mount will be hosting a Halloween party in a couple of weeks, and it's going to be ace. I hope. I have finally decided on a Cruella de Ville costume. S has been perfecting his face paint as Heath Ledger's Joker, and it's hilarious and scary all rolled into one. Ooh and we have a new housemate, called Ruth. She is lovely. She's the baby of the house. With the exception of Emma, our house is now full of women who are in semi-relationships.

S has moved into his new flat, above Clare's, and I've been spending most weekends here with him, apart from when I went home to cat-sit for a week and a half and S went to a stag weekend in Edinburgh for his friend James at work. He sent me a text in the middle of the night saying he missed me. Nothing's set in stone, and we haven't really discussed it, but I'm going to Mow Cop with him for his dad's birthday in a couple of weeks, and I can't stop smiling : )

By the way, the whole Fiona thing was explained and ok'd and I don't want to talk about it.

L asked S to be his best man, as he's getting married in a year. S said no. I'm proud of him.

I like Autumn.

so naive, yet so...

Hmm. So this evening was a bit weird. S came round for beers and DVDs and we had just finished a tasty McDonalds treat and come up to watch The Fly in bed, all cosy and naked and pink, and then Mental Fiona texted him with 'Random, but I can't stop thinking about you. I hope you're not out with Emma. Wish you were here... x'

So S has gone home and I am feeling shaky and like I might be sick.

hell, boy

Carrie isn't coming back for a whole nother week! With whom shall I share pink wine and £1.00 Iceland garlic breads? Who will brighten up my day with sunshiney blonde laughter? I will have to cope with Emma I suppose...

This weekend has been ace, right up until about two hours ago when I poisoned S and myself with chlorine. I got a bit carried away with the Grot Buster in S's bathroom and now I'm home and I can still smll chlorine and my pupils are still dilated and I might be sick. I hope S doesn't get ill. Ooer.

We had a nice weekend. Nothing happened betwixt S and any laydees on Thursday. I spent Friday and Saturday nights at S's and he stayed here last night. And we talked a bit about stuff and although we're both worried in case all of this is incredibly unhealthy, it doesn't feel it so we're not going to rule anything out.

Ooh! I saw Mum and Dad! They came to visit on Sunday and I made fancy sandwiches and we went to Lotherton Hall and it was really nice and sunny. I love them.

I also love four day weeks : )

small mercies

Thank goodness tomorrow is payday. And praise be indeed for overtime and expenses being paid at the same time. And hooray for bank holiday weekends.

Not so hooray for the new lady at work who now sits in my seat. I don't like her. I like the new boy (who I don't like) more than I like her.

Last night I taught Carrie how to knit, because she was getting worried about her impending driving test (it was today but the test centre cancelled it), and it was good. We are going to have some adventures. The first one is going to involve either:

a) a wine tasting evening, or
b) a salsa class

We have a third option, which is a trip to a new casino, but I am a bit scared of that in case I get addicted to poker or blackjack or one of the other ones.


Did you see how I didn't mention S? I'm being good, I have deleted all his text messages (I haven't brought myself to delete his emails yet, I will though, give me a chance godammit), and I don't text him or email him unless I'm replying to one he's sent me.

He is out for L's birthday tonight. I feel weird knowing that nothing he does anymore is any of my business.

blue blue blue blue moon

I've not been feeling incredibly cheery for a few days and it's completely ladydays-related, but it's also really horrible and making me cry a fair bit. And my emotions are getting more and more tangled up and S is being so kind but trying to be sensible and growed-up and I can't do it. I am better off not spending time with him. I spent last night at his and it was so nice falling asleep and being able to feel him next to me, and now I want him to be here, but he's not, and I forgot my toothbrush when I came home, and I hate being in limbo, and none of my thoughts are very coherent or rational, and I just want to curl up in a ball and shut everything and everyone out, and I don't think I will cope when S and I finally stop this whole charade.

Carrie was very good yesterday and said I shouldn't try and think about things. I should be grateful for the following facts:
1) S is a good person
2) S cares for me and likes spending time with me
3) S sends me lovely text messages and hasn't got a new girlfriend

But I am not grateful because of the following fact:
1) S is not my boyfriend anymore

Dear S...

... it's been six weeks, two days and two hours since we broke up and I want to get back together. Not move in together, but date again. I liked it. I don't feel that we gave ourselves a chance. I shouldn't have moved in with you so quickly, even though I didn't realise it was a mistake at the time. I wish we'd waited, and enjoyed each other's company, and carried on having fun like we are doing now. I wish we didn't have this big black cloud hanging over us.

I feel like I could fall in love again.

lucy's tiny mind

I am now installed in the new house, and it is good. My room is so nice, and it has lovely things in, and my bed is beautiful and comfy and it feels like I'm in some kind of fancy hotel even though I've been here over a week now.

At the weekend I went out with one of the girls from work to a couple of the pubs in her village. It made me a bit homesick for Woodhall Spa, because everyone knew each other, and it was all cosy and friendly, and safe. Even though we had a fun time gossiping about work and drinking pink wine and talking about boys, in the back of my mind I was wondering what S was up to, and whether he was wondering what I was up to. And in the morning we saw each other again and it got fruity, and the rest of the weekend stayed pretty fruity, and by Sunday evening I had decided in my very tiny mind that we actually do love each other after all and we should totally just go back to dating, like we did last year, and live apart, and see each other a couple of times a week, and we'll realise that we should be together, like boyfriend and girlfriend, and it'll be okay, really.

It is amazing how I can convince myself of things that are utterly ridiculous when I am at my lowest.

patience might be a virtue, but...

... I'm not all that virtuous.

I am so poor right now, and so depressed, and so hungry. Next weekend symbolises lots of good, exciting things, but it's very far away. I can't even wait to get paid so that I can buy normal, boring things, like shampoo and cooking oil. Mostly I'm excited about the big IKEA trip and the meal at Chiquitos, and the moving house, but I'm also looking forward to being able to fill my car up with petrol, and getting myself lunch so my tummy doesn't rumble.

S doesn't understand why I am poor. He earns £9k more than me, and didn't MOT his car this month, or drive to Norwich, which I did. And so I'm amazed I've got to 6 days before payday and I've still got £2.38 in my bank account.

I'm worried that the next 6 days are going to be horrible because I'll be feeling blue about having no money, and it will mean that we're not even friends by the time I move out.

Fingers crossed.

... going down the only road i've ever known

I'm moving out in a week and four days, and honestly? I haven't been this excited in a long time.

Here are five reasons to be superhappy:

1) I get my bonus in a week and three days
2) I have got a lovely room back in Kirkstall, in my old landlord's other house
3) I am going to buy a house and have my cats back
4) It's summer
5) I'm single : )

Giggedy giggedy.

the ladybug's picnic

That's that, then. S and I broke up, proper, like. And do you know, it's really all right.

I'm sad, because it's always sad when people break up. And I wish we had had that 'thing' that meant we had butterflies in our tummies when we thought about each other, but we didn't. Not really. So we've been very growed up and admitted it and are currently living together as non-rufty buddies who share a bed (which is a little bit weird, but only because it doesn't feel all that weird...).

I have started looking at buying a house on my own. I'm very excited, although since my arranged viewings have all gone t*ts up so far this week (I got the day wrong yesterday and spent half an hour waiting for an estate agent when they wouldn't be arriving for another 23 and a half hours, and today the estate agent got the house wrong), my excitement has turned a little less shiny. A bit tarnished, if you will. Like those spoons you get from gift shops.

So right now, this very minute, I am going through ads on 'Easy Roommate Dot Co Dot Uk' in an attempt to find something to move into while I buy a house. There are lots of nice housies, but they all cost monies. I have found one where there's no deposit payable though, so I have left a message for the landlord because I am super duper keen to have a look at that. I shall keep you (oh laptop of mine, and oh future me, reading back over this), posted.

Tomorrow I shall mostly be travelling to London and back on the train, and then to Woodhall Spa in my newly MOTd car to see parents and cats, and to break up a journey to Norwich.

Oh yes, a ladybird landed on my car window today and I nearly crashed because I was mesmerised.

It was so pretty : )

bttf II

Lordy, lordy, lordy. Since the last post, S and I broke up, I moved out, then the next day we got back together again, and I moved back in. And somewhere in the middle of it all I discovered that he is not in love with me.

I went to see a card reading old lady last week with some girlies from work, in the hope that she would tell me I was going to live happily ever after, but she didn't really. She told me lots of things about previous relationships and then said 'there's something happening at the moment but there's a lot of doubt... maybe you should stick with it.'

And then S went to see her a few days later because he was intrigued, and he got the 'lovers' card, and apparently something will be happening this year.

Fortune tellers are gay.

bttf

So we're not buying a house, is what's happening now. S has changed his mind. I'll be calling the estate agent tomorrow to withdraw our most recent offer.

I don't know what this means. I went for a long (by my standards) walk and thought about things a bit, but my thoughts just repeated themselves like when I read the same paragraph again and again and don't take any of it in. The main thought I had was 'I don't believe in soul mates anymore' and it made me sad, and I didn't know where it came from at first, but then I sort of worked it out. Here is the thought process I went through:

1) S doesn't want to buy a house
2) S doesn't want to buy a house with me
3) S doesn't think we have a future together
4) S doesn't love me
5) I'm pretty sure I love S
6) Ok, so we're not all over each other all the time and we don't shout about our relationship from the rooftops but who honestly feels like that anyway?
7) I think we both felt like that in our last relationships
8) Bollocks

And I bloody missed the end of Back To The Future for all that.

what a way to make a living

I'm really cross. Craig (at work) has just been asked by a female colleague to carry two boxes of paper to her car for her. Not asked to help her, just to do it for her. Her exact words were 'Craaaaa-iiiig, I need to some boy help...' and then she just pointed at the boxes and said 'Two please'. I just sat there with my mouth open, completely take aback by her appalling behaviour.

That suffragette woman off of Mary Poppins would be spitting feathers, I can tell you.

"Womankind, arise!"

it's a whole lot of fun

So S and I have been looking at buying a house. And we found one last weekend, and it was good. And we put in an offer, which was rejected. And we put in a higher offer, and it was also rejected. And so now I have come to the following conclusions:
1) Vendors are greedy and sneaky
2) Mortgages are a rip off
3) It's not possible to have a nice house in a nice area with a driveway for two cars and a garden for three cats
4) Housebuying sucks donkey balls

I suspect that these are well-known facts that I've simply never been privy to before now. But they make me a bit sad.

Gay, gay, gay.

big friday

It is Good Friday tomorrow, which is something to do with Jesus and Creme Eggs. Until this year it has never been a good Friday because I've always had to work it, so I'm particularly excited. Even more so on account of S's mum and dad and nanna gave me three (count 'em, THREE) Easter eggs.

Also, tomorrow is Big Friday because we are going to look at a house in Cookridge. For purchasing purposes, not just because we are nosy. I enjoy looking at houses with S, it is a bit new and exciting and not something I am used to.

I am also going for a run with Clare if it isn't snowing (which it's forecast to be). So secretly I hope we have two foot drifts that mean I can't even get out the door let alone run around Beckett's Park for forty minutes.

Let it snow, let it snow...

yahoo? i don't think so

I was sent a lovely email from someone who saw a photograph of mine on Flickr, and was asking permission to use it on a website they're creating to try and stop Leeds City Council from building a car park on Woodhouse Moor. I haven't logged into Flickr for ages so thought I'd have a bit of a Sunday-night trawl through old pics. But Yahoo! have other ideas.

'Forgotten your Yahoo! ID?' - Yep.
'Enter your details' - OK.
'Good news! We found you! We have sent an email with your log-in details to your alternative email address!' - Nice one. Except those log-in details don't work.
'Want a new password?' - Yes please, the one you sent me is gash.
'Enter your details' - OK.
'Fuck that, enter the postcode you provided when you originally registered with Yahoo! ten years ago, when you were a student!' - Fuck off, I can't remember it.

That's basically where I'm at now.

Yahoo! sucks donkey balls.

jes, dat is roight

S is playing Settlers 3 and is getting very excited. 'He's just touched my border, but this time, I'm ready. I'm stronger, and I'm faster, and I'm harder'. It's really very cute. I secretly get the same about Sims 2 but I keep it under my hat.

We have somehow accidentally found ourselves watching documentaries and films about people giving birth of late. I'm not sure what to make of it. It started with 'Knocked Up', which we've seen twice now, simply because it's a truly hilarious and moving and genius film. And then we watched 'Juno', which we wanted to watch because the dude from 'Superbad' was in it, and it looked kind of indie and kookie, and it was, but it was also about a teenaged girl falling pregnant and stuff. And then we stumbled upon a 'Dawn...' documentary where she watched women giving birth. Well, I say 'we'. Actually, S was pulling an all-nighter for work purposes and had the TV on in the background, and watched this 'Dawn' thing. Which he told me about the next day, including tips on how to prevent ripping. You 'work' the muscle with your finger, y'see. Anyway, this was repeated a few days later and I watched it. And now, this evening, we have watched 'Pramface Babies' on Channel 4.

It made me feel strange. I know that I am glad S doesn't run from the room screaming and being scared when these things are on TV. I also know that seeing people give birth makes me gip a bit, and also want to cry. It's a strange jumbly ball of feelings. Maybe it's that at twenty-seven I've unconsciously realised that having a, um, bee-ay-bee-why, wouldn't necessarily spell the end of the world. Until now I had always just assumed that should the unplanned happen, I'd have a termination. I hadn't considered the other option. Now it's not so scary.

Which is kind of scary.

miaow

I have spent the last seven days at my parents' house, looking after four cats (and myself). It has been gruelling. I have forgotten how human interaction works - is it customary to rub up against a person's leg when you greet them? Or hiss if you don't like them?

S is arriving tonight for the home stretch of the cat/house-sit, and I can't wait. It feels like I haven't seen him for weeks. I've really missed him.

Purrrrp.

mercredi à l'orange

Today is mostly ORANGE which means two-for-one (or toofer) at the cinema, which is exciting because S and I will be going on a DATE. I like date nights. The last date night we had ended in severe drunkenness though so the cinema is a much safer option. There will likely be less pole dancers on tonight's date.

I went for a run this morning and have worked out that 0.6 miles was actually covered in a running fashion, and 0.3 miles in more of a walking fashion. I am going to keep it up though because one of my colleagues (Sir Gorney Weaver) has challenged me to do the Leeds Half Marathon in September with him.

Watch this space. Or the one that's now behind me. Ha.

when's day?

It's now official. I've moved in. Nothing of mine is left at De Lacy Mount. Apart from a side table, my X-Box and some curtains. All of which I am donating to the boys. I am way too tired to unpack the rest of my crap though. Poor, tidy, minor-case-of-OCD-suffering S is being very patient with me. We are sitting in the living room surrounded by boxes and bags of Lucystuff and I am too full of fajitas for to move any of it.

Last weekend I got paid, which was fab. I also got skint, which was not so bad, and was on account of my buying S dinner at Yo Sushi! and then getting very drunk and thinking that going to Wildcats, the lapdancing club of choice for the young professional, would be a grand idea.

I made friends with the troll lady in the toilets in Tiger Tiger too. I'm going to take her charity shop shopping, apparently.

I'm not a bitch, I'm a drunken horror,

With no money.

yan oo arr

I can't believe we're already three weeks into 2008. It's flying by so quickly. I've moved into S's flat (although it's not official until 1st February - lots of my stuff is still at the old house) and we seem to have settled into a lovely little haven of domesticity. He's very tidy. I forgot that. It's good.

There is a farewell party on this evening somewhere in Harrogate, for a lady who henceforth I'll call 'C'. S was invited to the farewell party. In fact, S was probably the reason for the farewell party, as C is in love with him, and has been for a number of years. After she discovered S and I were a couple, she decided the best thing to do (after begging my boyfriend to sleep with her first, for 'closure') would be to leave the country for a year and join a commune or something equally as lame and straight out of Dawson's Creek.

All credit to her, she's got some balls. I never thought she'd go through with it. Part of me wanted S to go to the party to make sure she was leaving.

I'm a bitch.