Cleaning house

“What’s that, Anna? You’ve written 800 words about cleaning and church? Why, you must be a RIOT at parties,” I hear you cry. “u sarcastic bitch”, I reply.

I am an untidy person. Whether this is nature or nurture, I couldn’t tell you, but I’m happy to let my entire floor disappear under strata of clothing before I finally decide to tidy. But when I clean, I clean HARD. And I think that has its roots in a church rota.

As a child, I was raised by my religious community almost as much as by my parents. I therefore spent a lot of time wandering around the church my family has attended since the 50s. My grandfather, as I understand it, was one of the founding Elders, and it had always felt like a home – just with more pianos and a higher ceiling.

Bethany Evangelical was (and still is, I’m sure) a community. We had rotas for everything: for flower arranging, music, sermons, the recording of said sermons onto countless cassette tapes... And, whether I liked it or not, my family and I were on the cleaning rota. I did not like it. Or, no, it was fun at first: up to about age 10, I loved running around the church in its off-hours, getting to know its every secret corner while playing hide and seek with our cousins. But playtime can’t last forever, and I was eventually expected to be useful.

As I got older, and more fiercely protective of my lie-ins, I started to resent the enforced early mornings. I’d never signed up for this, after all! How often do plastic chairs really need dusting, anyway? I’d waft a dustcloth around, spray furniture polish at things, and get frustrated by the total lack of difference it seemed to make. It was rubbish. I’d grumble, I'd slack off, I’d attend only out of duty - but I’d clean.

At that point in my life, I was a sincere, believing Christian. So I did what I always did when something frustrated me: I asked God why I should bother with any of this, and started feeling slightly guilty. Not in a bad “faith made me neurotic” kind of way (I've never wanted to blame religion for all the world's ills), just in a “maybe check your selfishness” kind of way. If I really wanted to honour God in word and deed, I reasoned (or He pointed out), maybe I should take a different approach.

That’s when I started cleaning in a completely different way. For some reason, there were long bamboo sticks in one of the church cupboards, or under the stairs. So I’d tie a dustcloth around the end of it, and brandish it like a magical extendo-rag to get dust out of all the hidden places. I’d stand on the balcony at the back and dust the slats on the blinds that were higher than any of us could reach. I’d dust the tops of doors. I’d dust the light fittings. I’d clean anywhere that nobody would see, that nobody would notice…. except for, if he happened to be paying attention, the omnipotent, omniscient deity with what I imagined to be a bird's-eye cross-section view of the building. Like in the Sims.

And if my parents complained that I wasn’t doing the hoovering, I could have a little theological chat from atop the moral high ground about who we were really doing this for. Oh, yeah, I was that insufferable.

I bring this up because it’s become part of my approach to cleaning, and I hadn’t noticed until recently. Why do I scrub the dirt out of woodgrain on the bannisters? Why do I wipe down the underside of shelves? Why do I clean the grime off lightswitches? (Well, because that’s where most of the germs are. But still!) I spent a day cleaning our tiny bathroom at home recently, using a rough sponge then a normal sponge then a dustcloth then a disposable dry duster. My housemate may do the washing up more often, but he doesn’t clean like this, does he? He doesn’t dust and sweep and polish every tiny crevice, does he? He doesn’t get on his knees and scrub with an old toothbrush at the gaps between the taps, does he?

Well, no, nor should he have to.

Maybe this is not a normal thing to expect of someone.

Perhaps, thinking about it, I am a bit manic about these things.

And now, with God no longer in my personal picture, who am I really doing this for? I don’t know. I just like to. My room may still be an absolute tip, but the bases of our shampoo bottles are clean, and I’ll be happier sooner if I accept that my housemate will never notice or care, and that I shouldn’t expect him to. But for some reason, that’s how I operate: If I’m going to do housework, I’m going to do it to an almost unreasonable degree, as a passive-aggressive jab at a callous universe that still sometimes makes me get up earlier than I’d like.

“If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.”
-          Matthew 5:41, NIV.

Feelings! Quick, squish 'em!

A lot has happened since my last post. I would have kept you more updated, but apparently this is the 90s and wireless internet isn't a thing yet.

Here are some things that happened!

I went to a new church for the first time in ages, with my ex. The service was very American Southern Baptist, understandably, since that's where the people are the front were from. I feel like I reconnected with God, although that's more to do with admitting my anger than with anything they were saying. Also there were assnapkins. Seriously! Little butt-hankies that they'd drape over people's posteriors when hey knelt down at the front of the church, to conceal any undergarments or bumcleave.

Anyway, that made me chuckle.

Also, I performed at my first ever Open Mic! (Well, second, but we don't talk about that.) I sang and played ukulele. he first two songs were a but shaky, but the third, my relyricking of the Cranberries' song Zombie, went down a treat! Hopefully, soon, a friend's going to lend me a videocamera so that I can get something up on youtube.

There are photos of the performance viewable here, courtesy of the very talented Rob May.

This weekend, I helped Rob out with a couple of photoshoots (standing in places with a reflecty thing! Huzzah!), and actually got a few pics taken of myself - I'm sure they'll be turning up soon, though I may well not tell you. Depends how bashful I'm feeling at the time!

It was my brother's 21st birthday yesterday. Apparently my parents forgot, but the pocketwatch I'd been so excited to give him arrived in the post on the right day, so yay for that.

I'm still around, my lovelies. Haven't gone anyway. Granted, I've been restricting my internet usage to sites accessible from my mobile phone, but comments are still read and appreciated! Much love x x

Frantic catch-uppery!

Hello all! Right, first off, I've been listening to a lot of Owl City (Spotify link). It's beautiful stuff; Fireflies has been #1 in the UK. I have no idea how long for, and in fact it's a miracle that that much information made it into my head.

I'm afraid that my extreme slackness means I'll have to do a bullet-pointy catchy-uppy thing.

Friday 29th Jan: We had a uni field trip to Cardiff Bay, got rained on, and went to the pub; and I had one glass of rosé and wouldn't stop talking. Here's a  few photos from the field trip:

Saturday 30th: I'd had a very early night, and consequently woke up at 4am. My housemates were awake, though more of the "still up" variety than my "already up." I watched Iron Man, started making my boyfriend's Not-Valentine's Day presents (bath bombs! It's ok, I've already given them to him), and saw the final episode of Dollhouse. No spoilers here, don't worry, but I was a WRECK by the end! A shell of a woman.

The rest of the day consisted of a girls' day at my church. I hadn't been to one of these things before, but my wariness of all things girly has subsided somewhat as I've grown up, so I thought I'd give it a go. After a worship session of rather gutless and floaty (but very pretty) songs, we had a great sermony thing, and set off on a Grand Adventure.

We started with a pub lunch at the Captain's Wife (a name that gave me the giggles for some reason); after which we traipsed around the beaches of Penarth, enjoying the sunshine and taking photos of people, places, and (in my case) interesting bits of driftwood.

Back at the church, we watched a movie called My Sister's Keeper. It was billed as a chick flick - I was expecting something with Sandra Bullock in, you know, a guilty pleasure, but instead I got a child dying of cancer. Lolz were not had. Don't get me wrong, it's a good movie, but crying at a screen twice in one day is just demeaning.

My week at university was fairly standard, and then I had another action-packed weekend...

Friday 5th Feb: I went round to my boyfriend's house and watched Buffy. He got the box sets recently so we're plowing happily through them! We're into the 3rd season now, and honestly, I wholeheartedly forgive Joss Whedon for always killing the one I love. When I'm King of the World, I'll ban FOX from cancelling anything he ever makes, ever.

That night we went to TGI Friday's. I'd never been in one before; the food was great (if pricey) and the service was excellent, but I couldn't help staring at the waitress's 'flair.' I've gone off pin badges lately - I used to think they were awesome, but I never seem to have a good place to put them. Yes, I have braces, but now that I've seen Office Space, they've become emblematic of workplace dictators and the futility of ambition. So YAY for that I guess.

Saturday 6th: Pub, house party, home at 7am. I met lots of lovely new people, and totally messed up my 8-day streak of 'early to bed, early to rise' success.

Sunday 7th: I woke up late for my new role-playing thingy! Also, I appear to be having noun troubles today. ANYWAY. The pub's just around the corner from my house, so I ran in with my dressing gown flapping dramatically behind me (untrue, but improves the visualisations). We started playing a Victoriana game, and it's AWESOME. Also, I'd never met the GM before - his name's Nimrod and he runs a convention called OddCon  UK. I very much like the sound of it. I've been searching for geeks like this my entire life... I'm so happy... and determined to get myself a pretty set of these:

Also, a huge thanks to the legendary Andrew Canham for the blog's new look. As someone remarked, mine is the Incredible Changing Blog, but I think this is a dramatic improvement over the old look! What do you think?

Nostalgia: the Bandstand

Well, I've been wanting to write this post for ages, but I really wanted to take my time with it. This post is about something very precious and important to me.

The church I went to growing up was boring. Dull, dull, dull. Don't get me wrong: I love it very much, and it will always feel like my home, but it was just impossible to get excited about singing those dirges from the 19th century. It was geared towards the older people, which made sense as there were loads of them, but for the kids... well, it failed to thrill us.

Which was why the Bandstand was so special.

That's what it was called, the Bandstand. It felt like a separate world. It happened in the summer, late on a Sunday night, and it was like nothing else I've ever experienced...

(I'm speaking, of course, with the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia perched on my nose. That's often how it goes with things that end before you grow up. I'm almost glad it did; doubtless it would never have been the same if I'd gone there as a teenager, sulking and scowling my way through the hymns...)

This is how it would happen: our mother, not wanting us to get tired while we were there, would insist that we take a nap beforehand. Let me tell you, never in my life was it harder to sleep than on a beautiful summer day before the Bandstand. Mum would close the heavy yellowy-gold curtains of our bedroom, and there in the yellow-gold light, we'd try (and often fail) to sleep.

Then we'd go to a little park in a little town on a little island. The birds in the aviary would chirp and sing as we passed, walking towards the river. Bright lights would illuminate the stepping stones, the beautiful plants, and the magical, elusive little fish that flitted through the water.

Most of my siblings fell in that river at one point! when it was my turn, it was a consequence of a selfless act... one of about three I committed before the age of 12. Maybe that's why I remember it. My brother was sailing a little leaf-boat past the stepping stones, reaching out to catch it as it floated past, until (inevitably) he let it go beyond the reach of his little boy arms. So, me being on Big Sister duty, I stretched to catch it... and fell in. The lights made everything so strange and beautiful, and I swear that in that half a second I saw the bright orange fishes swimming around me.

We weren't allowed to stay on the stepping stones, or to climb the trees, or to play in the park for long, though. Because over by the bandstand structure itself, in front of a little raised and covered platform near the trees, a tiny congregation would gather in the fading light as the night grew colder, singing from a little booklet of hymns. A friendly man with a goatee played the keyboard from the platform, playing the songs that we rarely sang outside of this one special occasion. I often wondered how the people who were so stiff and formal in a building on Sunday mornings, could be so at peace in the breathtaking wonder of nature?

Three or four minutes away from those harmonies that rose above the enthusiastic midges, was a playpark - a magical place for us kids. We'd go there every time, pretend the roundabout was taking us to places that only existed in our imaginations. And the swings! When you got them high enough, right at the top of the arc, you could see over the hedge to the edge of the world, where the sun set over neverending ocean, and nothing else. Just sea and sky. For those brief seconds, I could rise above all the world and be so completely free.

Even if there was never a God, that would be enough.

I know these songs will mean nothing to you, but to me, they mean so much. If you want to hear them, and you've got Spotify - I've only managed to remember / track down these three - click this link:
http://open.spotify.com/user/thiefree/playlist/4Yb0ZVGtOQGZNvwaHM4Cmq

This is a really long shot, but there was one song I remember the most. It was the one people would always be so eager to sing, another song that was unique to that time and that place - so much so that it's not online. Not anywhere. I've written what I remember of the lyrics below... if you can tell me anything about it, I'd be so grateful!

It's a new life, oh how He changed me
A new life, He rearranged me,
A new life, richer and fuller,
It's a wonderful, wonderful life!

Gone is the old life and gone are its chains,
Gone are the wrinkles and gone are the stains,
Gone is the darkness and gone is the night,
I have found Jesus, the truth and the life...

I went back once, years ago, and took these pictures. So although it wasn't the same - how could it be? - I at least have these reminders.

Volunteers and things in ears

Ever been 'volunteered' for something? As in, told that you were going to do it and then left to deal with that fact? Of course you have. Well, last Thursday was the date of a church party that my sister had volunteered me, my brother, and my youngest sister for.

We were all up visiting her for the week, and had been shopping a few times and watched a lot of movies by this point. When I got to the church on Thursday, I started blowing up balloons for the games. I'd been told what game I was going to run, and secretly I was delighted to return to something I knew that I was good at. I did a year of youth work for a Christian charity on the Isle of Wight (something I've blogged about on many previous occasions), so I have a huge repertoire of games. We played quite a few classics that night; Mafia, this is a tick, Splat, and of course musical chairs. We were catering for people aged 15 to 90. My previous experience with youth work had been a lot more... youthy, but I distracted myself by taking photos of everything in sight.

These were the lights in the kitchen of that church - look how pretty! Oooooh! (Photographers are much like magpies. Anythign that looks even vageuly interesting, and we're as good as hypnotised!)

While we were staying with my sister, I absolutely fell in love with a cat that had adopted her. The cat's called Lilcat Freesian, or Lily Freesia for short, and is a one-eyed beauty with a heart on her back. Sadly her real owners showed up towards the end of the week, but I absolutely loved having some kitty time anyway! Honestly, those of you with full-time cats are very lucky indeed, I have to borrow cats from my friends.

I'm back with my parents on the Isle of Wight now, after a beast of a train journey that was meant to be direct (but ended up with two changes and huge delays). I've been meeting up with old friends and relaxing (as relaxing as anything can be when you're once again surrounded by siblings) and I'm very much looking forward to getting home to Cardiff!

I got a phone call from my boyfriend this morning. He's - how much of this have I told you? - He's on a stag do for his best friend, and they successfully survived the mountain-climbing part. He hasn't been so lucky with the pubs and clubs part, however, as apparently he had to be taken to a medical centre to remove something from his ear with pliers! Now, I love and respect my boyfriend tremendously, but if I can't mock him relentlessly for that then there's just no point us being together, is there.

Corrupted (plus photo recap)

Well, it's official, my mind has been broken.

I was helping out with the lounge today, which is an event not unlike Soul Café for an older patronage (so, no dance mat. Boo!) It's held at our church, Woodville Baptist. It was a lot of fun, and I even know how to make lattés and stuff now (although, hey, let's not test that knowledge just yet).

But yes, the guys I was helping refer to the various coffee contraptions by female pronouns, as you do. And at one point, someone was making a hot chocolate, and that particular contraption was a bit tricky to use, and he said "Ooh she's a squirter... nice." And I was the only one who laughed.
Ok, right now half of you are laughing, and the other half are thinking "I don't get it," because I have a wonderfully diverse readership like that. But essentially that was the moment I realised that I have been seriously warped by the people I hang around with.

Hang on. I didn't say that was a bad thing. The way I see it, I just have a whole new sense of humour to supplement my regular sense of humour. Only, the new one involves piles of dead babies, and ducktaping cats.

In other news, I realise I'm stretching the term "almost daily" to breaking point since about mid-December. I'm not sure whether to apologise or not. On the one hand, my blog is suffering and my readers aren't getting their regular injections of wit and humour that I so skillfully bring to their otherwise drab lives. (I know. Thank me when you see me.) On the other, the blog isn't the only aspect of my life that's suffering, and you people don't pay me anyway. CONUNDRUM.

But I will try to be better. Really, really I will. Since I've been taking tons of photos lately, I'll use them to jog my memory about all the things I need to update you on.


Ah yes, this is the Elm Street legal graffiti wall. The girl in the picture was interviewing the artists as Ross and I walked past, so she found me on Flickr and emailed me a few questions. You can read what that was all about here.

Next...


Lucy! My lovely lovely Lucy! I had a great time with her. She's an old friend from the Isle of Wight, whom I have mentioned on multiple previous occasions, and she's very lovely and special. We went for a walk up past Roath Lake to a place where there was a river and squirrels and trees, which made me happy. (It was actually SUNNY, too!) We also went shopping - I bought a dress! And a not-diamond not-silver ring that was £1! It's so shiny! And we did face mud mask thingies, the pictures of which will NOT be finding their way online. Nope. Also we went to see Aladdin with Anthony Costa in the starring role. It was my first panto! And it was amazing! Ok, Costa (from Blue, don'tcherknow) was shit, but the 3d glasses made up for it. Then we had sushi, watched Iron Man, slept like babies in my lovely lovely bed, and had pancakes for breakfast round the corner from my house. It was so great to see her again.


Oh oh oh and then the other day, I spent from 1pm till 5am - holy poop, 15 hours?! - at Ross's house watching movies n' stuff! I know, I know. Shocking. But it was so much fun, and Ross, Rich and Dan are just about some of my favourite people. Being cuddled up under a duvet watching great TV with them (again) is no great hardship. We saw 3 Batman movies, several episodes of Nighty Night, some League of Gentlemen, the final episode of Avatar, and several hilarious personals on Gumtree. A++, would do again.


Ahh! It's Gav's Rock Face! Yes, last night I finally got to see Gav rocking out on the bass. Apparently his energetic performances I've seen thus far have been the restrained ones. The band, Gary and the Gutners, did some quality covers at a birthday party in Buffaloes. I took hundreds of photos - probably around the 500 mark! - and danced with some of the lads from church. Oh and also! A lady got talking to me about my photos, said she works in media... I'll definitely follow that up, she gave me contact details and everything. Exciting!

So, yes. While I have been low and am not getting on with uni work or organising my life AT ALL, at least I'm making time for the important things.

How peculiar

On Thursday, I met my new cell group. And in traditional "my life is rather odd sometimes" fashion, one of the girls mentioned that I looked familiar, and was I from the Isle of Wight?

I was indeed.

And did I know Hannah Barker?

... Yes, yes I do.

And had we met once before at (insert random Christian event here)? We had. And were we in the same team at (insert other random Christian even here) back in London in 2004? ... Quite possibly, yes.

Funny how things go.

Anyway, after that we went to an event at our church - yes, at this point you're realising that random Christian events make up a large portion of my life - and Gav did his thing.

His thing is being awesome.

This time his awesomeness took the form of beatboxing, and everybody was very impressed, and I was slightly smug. I'm thinking of learning a skill for the next open mic. Whaddaya reckon? Stand-up? Poetry reading? Poledancing?

Wait scratch that last one I just realised it wouldn't really work in the church.

Their pole's out of order. (The whole freaking SYSTEM's out of order!)

ANYWAY! Today's interesting thing! Because I have not shared anything interesting in quite some time! Free Rice. You may well have seen it before, and indeed I have mentioned it in the past, but do go play it again please. Feed the hungry!

Ten things

For some reason I've found it difficult to write about anything lately. I haven't seen any new films lately, or I'd attempt a lacklustre review, possibly with a few mediocre puns thrown in for good measure.

So anyway, as I said, not much in the way of inspiration happening here. I suppose this is a filler post. For my regular readers, here are ten unrelated things about me that you may not know. To those who don't know me, who are new readers, perhaps, here is my proof that I'm not just another cardboard cut-out person who sits on the bus with you.

1. The place I dream about most often is my home church. I've had flying dreams, naked dreams, exploring dreams, even a sexy dream once, located there. I think I probably dream about it roughly once a week.


2. My parents sent me a bear for my birthday. He arrived today and has a hot water bottle inside him, and I've named him Bode. I think the journey must have been stressful as he's shedding a fair bit - I never want to travel by envelope!
   


3. Back when I used to get insomnia as a kid, I'd try sleeping the other way round, on the floor, in my wardrobe, on top of my wardrobe, in the hall... anywhere. It never worked.
   


4. I want to redecorate this site to something a little less fey, but I've absolutely no idea where to get the layout. I got this one by butchering some code from one of those "OMGLOL pretty up your myspace, lyk totally hot!!!1" sites.


5. I have maybe sort of cyberstalked before. A bit. But it was all public information. But I'm still sorry. Although I would probably do it again. Well then people should stop being so damn INTERESTING then shouldn't they! Still, we're going out now so I suppose I must have done something right! Hahahaah!! I'm not crazy!!! Hahahaah!!!!


6. I used to get very homesick for places I'd never been. Heaven, Ankh-Morpork, a willow tree by a river. I don't any more. Any great thinker, writer, or comedian will tell you that as soon as you're happy with your life, something in your imagination goes dormant.


7. The first pet my family ever owned died right underneath my feet. He was a cat called Chloë and I loved him very much. He purred for the first person to get up every day, so our parents had to ban us from getting up before 6.


8. For years I thought someone I knew was skiving off school. He had six months off at one point just because every weekday morning he'd wake up with an indefinable headache that would disappear sometime after lunch. When he was diagnosed with depression I felt like utter shit, especially since part of me still didn't understand.


9. My greatest fear is that I will cease to be interesting or likeable, and everyone I know will desert me, and I'll be incapable of making any new friends. Every day I wonder if this has already started happening.


10. I could be an amazing poet. I know I could. Maybe I will be one day.

I'm not going to say it's a meme, but if any of you decide you'd like to write ten unrelated facts about yourself (and let's face it who doesn't love a bit of a vanity-wallow once in a while), drop me a comment or an email with a link - I'd love to read them.

Cardiff Bristol Bath etc.

Wow. What an incredible weekend. I'll race through the main points!

Friday: Travelled up early. Gav met me at the station to give me sandwiches, a solar-powered keyring and some cuddles. I love this man!
The interview was easy, I was in there for ten minutes and as long as I pass my first year, I'm in.
So I'm moving to Cardiff.
I'm moving to Cardiff!!!
Then we went out to watch Son of Dave. I met a bunch of Gav's friends, which was ace, and SoD was awesome musically. I freaked out though. Got all claustrophobic; it hardly ever happens, but when it does I would give ANYTHING for people to stop brushing past me. G was a star so I didn't have to run away like last time.

Saturday: Slow start, which was lovely. We watched the rugby, England deservedly thrashed by Scotland, and watched Withnail and I which I'd never seen before.
The Bristol Beatbox heats were awesome!!!!! it was so good to see everyone again! There are photos here if you're interested, which you should be you ungrateful spoon.
Gav and I were on photo duty; he got some truly epic shots with TyTe's digital SLR.
After that, Gav, yasSon and I went back to Mr.T's house and crashed on the floor. It was so wonderful! We got all giggly and went to sleep fairly quickly.

Sunday: I woke up to realise that I'd slowly and steadily inched myself towards Gav, almost pushing him off the mattress. Heheheh. I'm a somnuggler.
His church was awesome. I'm not going to church enough, and it was very touching to be handed the bread by a man I respect so much. I got a bit weepy afterwards.
We had lunch with his family, who are all total stars, and T took us to the station. G and I said goodbye to Yass and got our train - I think I fell asleep on G! I was very good on Sunday night, I let Gavin get his sleep.

Monday: agh, I hate leaving in the morning. No more 8am trains for me. The frantic rush to get everything ready, and the fact that got there 1 minute before the train was due to leave and couldn't find my ticket so I had to buy a new one... gahhh! I'm a student, y'know? It's slightly scary to realise that I'm spending over £100 a month on weekends in Cardiff. On the plus side, when I move there, I'm gonna have more cash than I know what to do with, possibly maybe!

Anyway, it's back to Plymouth and back to work for me. I have an essay to do and three books to read, so I might not update for a bit... take care, all!

Ooo tidy!

My room is usually an utter mess. This is a huge shame as I love having a tidy room; I get all houseproud and turn on my pretty colour-changy things.



For the past few days I've been spending MUCH less time online; it's been good for me. I suddenly have heaps of spare time, hence the tidy room, the fact that I've been doing lots of reading for my course, and my thoroughly moisturised body. I've even painted my nails. Heck, I've even painted my TOEnails. I haven't taken this much care of my appearance since... last time I had this much free time.

I might go out and buy that celebratory bottle of Baileys I've been promising myself. For weeks now I've been saying "When I make some definite progress on my uni transfer, I'll treat myself." Well, today I finally managed to beat the information I needed out of the admin team! (They were lovely and helpful actually, I just wish they'd been as lovely and helpful the first seven times I asked them...) Mad props to my tutor for helping me out with that, even though she probably doesn't know what mad props are.

On a similar note, I have an interview at UWIC on Friday the 7th of March. I'm pretty confident about the interview aspect of things but I'm terrified that my grades aren't up to scratch. We'll see. That's gonna be a good weekend though; I'm staying in Cardiff Friday night (plans yet tbc but I think there's a party on the cards), going to Bristol for a beatboxing event on Saturday, staying over at a friend's house and going to his church on Sunday, then back to Cardiff until Monday morning! Most excellent!

It's especially good to have the countdown at less than a week because I've been missing my boy like CRAZY. It gets particularly bad for no apparent reason sometimes, and this is one of those times. Last night we were talking on the phone and we agreed that it felt like ages since we'd been together. Some quick mental maths put "ages" as 12 days. I mean seriously; that's not even two weeks! What's wrong with me?!

Oh right, the love thing.

Anyway, hope this finds you all well. I'm not spending ages online but I will get your comments as I'm still checking my emails... several times a day. Well nobody said I was going cold turkey!!

EDIT: Oh and I almost forgot, ITOTD: Garfield Minus Garfield. Well worth checking out!

Trains, Aliens, and Nirvana in the bath.

Stupid trains.

I should have been suspicious when every train around us was being delayed and having platform changes, but our faithful little train to Cardiff stayed rock steady... I should have realised then. It was cancelled. And the next train to Cardiff was half an hour late. Grrrr, stupid trains... so I missed the concert we were going to see, which I feel bad about because my boy could have gone but instead he was cooking for me and such.
(Side note: the 'insert picture' button didn't work, so I did that with my newfound knowledge of HTML. That's how badass I am.)

I had so much fun dancing with my boy... I haven't done that since that festival (vaguely referred to here, it was wonderful). There's a lovely picture of us doing the aforementioned here, YAY!

Saturday was similarly awesome, we saw Alien vs. Predator: Requiem which was pretty much new territory for me, but I actually really enjoyed it! (It was my idea, he didn't bully me into it.) Then we went out to a gorgeous Italian restaurant that he's been wanting to show me for ages, which was absolutely amazing (although sushi still wins).

On Sunday, we were both too tired for church in the morning, which was really a shame. Never mind, next time. And he showed me how to do interesting techie things with a nitfy little firefox addon called Firebug. I was surprisingly clued up :) SMUG.

Everything got a bit chaotic towards the end, stupid taxi company sent me two so I thought it was about to drive off without me, meh anyway.

It was about time too, hadn't seen my boy in weeks.

Don't worry, as soon as I start doing other interesting things I'll blog about them as well!

Jeffers, my Boy, and Technical Difficulties

The sky broadband at our student house, unreliable at the best of times, finally broke completely last week. We're trying to get it sorted; unfortunately, this makes no difference to me since my laptop's finally given up for good. It's been hopelessly crash-tastic for a long time, and my techy did the decent thing and put it out of its misery. ;)

Thank God for university computers.

So it's been a wonderful few days! My boy came down for the weekend, we went to see Pendulum, we explored Plymouth looking for a cinema (trickier than you'd think when the maps don't have a You Are Here), watched TV with my housemates, made (burned) lasagne, ate jelly and ice cream (two colours of jelly, OGM!) and went to Mutley Baptist which earned a thumbs-up from Gavin.

I'll be seeing him again this weekend... my gosh, I'm terrified. It's a beatboxing jam in Bristol. WARGH. This is the first time I'll be meeting these guys in a situation where I might be reasonably expected to actually make some sounds with my actual mouth. :S STILL, what's the worst that could happen! ...

I evicted Jeffers on Friday. I didn't want to. Michelle came upstairs and said "ANNA I think Jeffers is in the recycling, I was wondering if you could..." So I obliged, went downstairs and moved cardboard boxes around until I found him tucked inside a Fab box (remember those? David's been buying loads of them lately). I then, VERY reluctantly, took the box outside, had one last look at his tiny whiskery adorableness, and sent him running off up the road.

Which I then proceeded to feel very very guilty about for two days, until Gav told me that he'd seen a mouse in the kitchen. I saw him yesterday too, Jeffers is officially still with us. (Ok, maybe it's another mouse, but this way I don't have to picture Jeffers dying of hypothermia in a coke can.)

Anyway! Hope everyone's ok, there should be more to come soon, although how soon I don't know. Don't suppose any of you have got a computer you don't need...?

Plymouth and Exeter with my boy

WOOHOO! What a fantastic weekend. I've missed my boy SO much, it was wonderful to see him again. Right from when I got hold of him at the station and we just stood there for a good few minutes just being so glad to be together again.

I made a complete hash of cooking on Friday night, fortunately my boy stepped in and saved me from myself. I almost violated rule 1!* Then we went out for drinks to a lovely little pub that I'm quite fond of, it's a proper one with lots of green and red and wood and things stuck on the walls. There was a band playing and I was extremely happy.

Saturday was totally fantastic, we took the train to Exeter to meet Tyte. (If you don't know who he is by now, please pay attention!) We were wandering around Exeter cathedral for a few minutes, marvelling at the masonry and stained glass windows and such (I don't marvel often, but it was totally marvelworthy). We had just gone outside again, and Gav was saying that we'd find him soon, and just as we kissed we hard someone yelling "OI! Stop that you two!"

We went to a brilliant little Italian restaurant, where I did my usual thing of not finishing my meal and feeling hideously guilty and annoyed because it was actually really nice. And it was so, so lovely to see him again, and to chat to him about everything. He had a wonderful weekend, bless him, which I was very glad to hear. Then we wandered around for a while in a desperate search for a pub that might conceivably be showing the rugby! (Oh yeah, I'm into the rugby now. So much more fun to watch than football.) We had obviously stumbled into a fairly upmarket area of Exeter because it was all coffee bars and such, but we eventually found a great pub to watch the game in. We beat Australia, this is because we are AWESOME.

On the way back, my boy taught me some beatboxing - because as involved as I am in the community, and as much as I love it, I'm still utterly rubbish and REALLY need to practise. It's astonishing how shy I was about beatboxing in front of Gav.

Then we took the train back to Plymouth (I left my Bees hat on the train, wahh). We then... did nothing... then on Sunday... we did some more nothing. Oh but there was cooking. Although Gav relegated me to washing up at one point because the kitchen was too small for two cooks... ;) that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

I was gutted to have to say goodbye, of course, but I'm feeling a lot better than I was this time two weeks ago. Having satisfied my cravings, I'm working out when I can next go up to Cardiff.

I went to the church that I was invited to on Sunday night, which was lovely and very very much needed. Today has been good, I've been wandering around beatboxing atrociously and enjoying it a lot.

*Gav made some rules for the Anners. Rule 1 is: no going on fire. Rule 2 is: Anners may has hugs. Rule 3: Gavs may also has hugs.

My What-Ifs

Some of my what-ifs, for your amusement.

Oh my gosh, what if Boh3m3 just walked round the corner? What would I say, do? Would I play it cool?

Wouldn't it be weird if that guy told me he loved me for no reason? He's kinda hot. What if he turned out to be a psycho? What am I saying. Of course he would turn out to be a psycho.

Heheh. If I stood up and shouted "STOP LOOKING AT ME" in the middle of this church service, what would happen then? oh, but then what would I do. Hm. Probably burst into hysterical tears, run away, and laugh myself to death when I got around the corner.

What if I was a famous writer? What if I had a secret pen-name? It would be really fun to tell people in a really subtle way and then they'd be like "OMG I've read everything you'd ever written", and I'd be all cool and humble about it. Naturally.

If gravity was the other way up, we'd all have to jump over lights and step over doorframes and such. Plus, going outside would be terrifying. We'd have to grapnel our way from lamp-post to lamp-post.

What if all the people I liked the best came and rescued me from... something? Like an office job. And they all just burst in through the door and swept me off my feet and we all went and spent the day on a massive exploring adventure. Or a beach adventure.

What if I met Dave tomorrow...

What if someone could actually see my thoughts? ... What if they didn't like me...

Well, now you guys can see some of my thoughts. And if you don't like me, I guess that means the real me isn't worth liking. But the one person who knows me better than anyone else, loves me so much he died for me. I guess that makes me pretty special. (In a modest, self-effacing way of course.)