Last week

Wow what a week - lots of time off and only three days work :)

On easter monday, P buggered off to his island to see some family and friends, which meant i had the telly all for myself for the most of the day! Also i had no one to protest against turning the lounge into a crafts workshop.
I pulled out my beading tools and materials and in 5 hours, i had made a few things i was really happy with - as opposed with the last time when i tried this sort of crafting, and ended up with three earrings (pieces, not pairs). I made a bookmark and a keyring for P's mum, a keyring for my mum, and also a bracelet and two pairs of earrings for myself, and started another bracelet. At that point i started to run out of blue beads, so i was left with the charms only. Will continue when i have money to get some more supplies.

Tuesday, wednesday and thursday were workdays, so i could only work at the evenings on a small cross-stitch pattern for my cousin who just got her own flat (rented, not own).

Friday was spent in front of the telly again, of course, watching the wedding - i booked the time weeks ago and P still tried to protest until he gave up and went off to play pool. I was prepared for the day, too,here's how i started - toast, cup of tea and a commemorative sampler to stitch on. Around two at the afternoon i had my cousins over, tho K was so busy with her new phone (Samsung galaxy - very jealous) that she might as well not been there at all.

Saturday P was working, and he was sufficently grumpy about it. I had a much better day, i could actually spend some money to buy a few much needed clothes. I can't even remember when was the last time i bought new clothes. P got out of work at half past 4, and as i was still in the town, he asked me to start to walk towards his workplace so we'll meet up halfway. Wasn't a bad idea except half a street away from the football stadium the crowd started to come towards me - the game just finished... bad timing :)
In the evening we went down to Old Leigh which turned out to be more then "just 4 pubs" - there was a Tea Garden too, which i immediatly associated with Madame Puddyfoot's in the HP books, little antique shops and a couple galleries too. Aide of the best restaurant in Essex. We started at the Petersboat, but it was a bit too chilly plus no one was there, so we went to the Smack after one drink and luckily we did found some friends there, inside - in the family area, but no kids were around so it was ok. We left somewhat early as we (i) didn't wanted to spend much money. It was a good night but the money situation is still makes it hard to have a real night out, as it turned out on sunday morning when i assessed the damages and realized we had a bill to pay i didn't took into account, leaving us 40 pounds shorter then i expected. I was quite angry at myself - can't wait to have things sorted out finally and not having to worry that one bill will leave us in **** for a whole week or longer.
Had a lazy sunday afterwards, with pizza and some crafting. I tried out quilling - don't know why not "coiling", to sound more sophisticated or to make people confuse it with quilting. That happened at the craftshop were all i could find were two small books on quiling at the quilt and patchwork section, no papers or tools at all. So i ordered some on the internet, looked up instructions and pictures on the internet and in my craft magazines and started to coil. I quite like it, my problem could be that it is so small, but i like it that it needs some dexterity in each piece as opposed with the knitting or cross stitch were all stitch is the same.
I will make a card and/or box for the keyring and send them for my mum for her birthday.

Then i got up this morning, with the intent of finally writing something onto this blog, and as i usually do, checked the news.
Another day spent on BBC. It took them 9 years to train up those SEALs but finally they done it - bet w bush is gutted that it wasn't him who got Osama. Well we'll see the effects in the coming weeks, i hope it doesn't turn even worse.

Dangerous job

My factory is a dangerous place to work, everyone realizes it after working with cardboard boxes for more then ten minutes. After five years, i thought i got over the silly mistakes but no - yesterday i've cut myself twice within half an hour. So now i have three fingers plastered, the two cuts and and a nail witch got damaged by rubbing effect of the scourers. I do look funny.

Spring, with full force - Tavasz

Or is it summer already?
Weather turned around completely in the last two weeks - trees in full bloom, there`s so much more around here then my former place, i love it. And even my St.Paulaner is blooming :) We look forward to a four-day weekend :) What else to wish for?

Crazy saturday

Acually it started at friday evening, around half past 11 when i woke up hearing some very scary noise about an hour after going to bed. Waking up for pebbles hitting your window is not fun. P went out for "a quiet one" and apparently 3 pints had done him in big time, so much so he couldnt open the door for himself :D It`s very rare he ends up like this and he had enough punishment by standing outside thinking he has to sit in front of the door all night, so i didn`t even tell him off just put a pillow and a blanket on the sofa for him to sleep it off there (still came into the bedroom at 5 in the morning when the sofa turned too uncomfortible for sleep there longer).
The morning seemed all right even with a hungover boyfriend, and i was happily clicking away on my new ubuntu when out of nowhere (or the kitchen window maybe) a big bumblebee zoomed past me and landed on the curtain, about half a meter from my head. And when i say big i mean big. HUGE. Huge enough that i don`t wanted to be in the same room with it and i`m not easily scared by flying things. But this wouldn`t have been that much of a problem - just open the window, and herd it in the right direction using a broom. But. Our windows do not open. With the exception of the kitchen window which is an old simple/glazed type, all others are new double glazed windows with locks on them. Locks that need keys, and keys we dont have. So we couldn`t open the window.
We managed to close the curtains in the hope it will fly out of the room in search of light, opened the kitchen window fully and put the key into the front door (the doorhandle is still broken) so we could open it right away if the bee flies that way. As we were going hungry and it was a beautiful day, we decided to walk down the shore and have lunch from the burger van there and honestly, we wanted to get away from that flying monster tooand from the stupid bills which started to get on me again. Off we went, i pulled the door closed, and that second P turns back and asks "do you have the key?"
No i didn`t. I left in in the door. On the inside.
Usually i check multiple times if i have my keys, even ask P if he has his keys, but with all the bee and the angst for the bills and things, i just walked out. I broke down of course and P got annoyed me of course ("don`t you cry on a stupid key"). We had a bank card an his phone so it wasn`t that bad though we could`ve done with some jumpers as it was crazy windy too. We`ve found a windshielded spot behind a utility building and still in sight off the shore and without the wind it was lovely to sit on the grass with our bacon roll/cheeseburger and chips and even thinking about how to burglar our way back to the flat seemed enjoyable.
P broke off a branch from a tree, cleared off the twigs and off we went to broke into our own home. I had to do this once in my former flat, we had to break a kitchen window there, but that was ground floor. Here we had a kitchen window near the door too - but on the first floor so we hoped we won`t need that. i hoped that i can put my hand through the letterbox and reach the key or turn it though P didn`t had high hopes for that. He couldn`t even get his hands through, he got stuck by the thumb but i could get my hand in quite easily and then sqeezed my arm in as far as i could and actually got hold of the keyring - a bottle opener with P`s name on it. Couldn`t get it off so i tried to push the branch in along my arm and that hurt as hell as every bump where a twig was broken off scrached my arm. That still wasnt enough and also every time i twisted my arm my muscles hurt for being sqeezed against the letterbox. I gave up after a few try, P took over, then i felt a bit recuperated and i knew i was really close before the pain stopped me, so tried once again and managed to get the branch through keyrings hole and P pulled off the key from the lock and got it through the letterbox. My arm was in ruin but we were in.
We do have a spare key at my cousin`s but we left that as a last resort - popping down the shore in t-shirt and training bottoms is one thing, going through a crowded (and windy) high street and walk half hour and then admit how stupid you are is another.
We hoped the craziness finished and for 1` minutes it seemed like it did, with the bee gone while were away - but no, it was still there, visibly weaer but still alive. Ok so others might have already sprayed or crashed it, and that point we got the spray out too, but really didn`t wanted to kill it - P reckoned it was a queen-bee, and these type are endangered and in the same time important for flowers, and i just hate killing anything which moves, so we ended up doing this Wildlife Rescue England operation. After a few failed trials and bouncing back bowles we managed to trap it under a box then carefully dragged the box on the floor through the flat. We had to stop at the lounge door as it has a bit of an elevation, but it was so weak then that couldnt fly up. Finally it crawled onto a piece of cardboard and we let it out on the stairs.
A couple hours later P went out to get ice cream from the ice cream van and i saw that the bumblebee is still crawling on the stairs, but kept falling back. I got up the cardboard, manouvred under it and throw it over the railing so it landed on the grass below. I don`t know if it survived or not, i hope it did and not because of the time we spent getting it out.

(Ok i feel a bit guilty as i don`t feel sorry for the spiders even though i hate to kill them.)

Ubuntu

On wednesday i received my third sp16 package. Huuuge thanks for my pal :) It was lovely and huge and turned out to be the only good thing that day... i logged in at the evening to check e/mails and to do the usual web/surfing stuff and did something i never did since i first came across the internet: opened an almost-obvious virus package. Things escalated and in five minutes, that stupid worm or whatever it is blocked my internet and kept popping up.
That was the last sign that i have to do what i was thinking for years now but never had the guts to do: switch to linux. I`ve asked my cousin to help and now i have an Ubuntu 10.04 running on my old pc.
So far so good.

Spring spring spriiing - Tavaaaasz :)

I think the daffodils were up already last week but i only realized that i'm seeing actual flowers growing from the ground and not potted ones in a store on monday. Actually, first i just realized that the bushes i thought are constantly leaf-less are now covered in yellow flowers. That happens when you move into a new place at december, when spring comes, the flowers and blossoms look twice as new.
I wish i'd taken some pictures of the bushes - i love them, in hungarian they're called golden-rains, dont know they english names... But my mobile's camera is broken, plus even tho the plants knew its spring, the weather did a great effort during all week to try and convince everybody that it's still winter, with all its greyness, mist, fog, rain, clouds and more rain. Well fortunately Mr.Winter gave up - or somebody paid him a pint yesterday evening and just turned into better mood - and we woke to a lovely sunshine this morning.
Spring brings some less lovely thing too unfortunately even for the lucky ones like me who have no allergies at all, like flu and colds. P started work this week and of course he's starting to have man-flu or at least he's trying to convince me that he has. I bet i'm feeling worse this morning then him tho, headache and tiredness. Sunshine helps a lot luckily :)

Now on to cleaning and tidying and maybe some knitting (clue 4 is out - not sure i have the concetration tho...)