Yesterday's day of tiredness seems to have given way to general tiredness from not getting to sleep until 3am (better than the start of the week, hurrah!) and being woken up by a phone call from the Jobs and Benefits Centre. A very nice lady put up with my morning lack of brain and explained there's been an overpayment of Income Support, which she's trying to sort out so I'll know just how much I have to pay back either in a lump sum (ha!) or with a deduction from my IS (it'll be option 2, thanks). So we'll have even less coming in, but hey, it's spring officially and my father-in-law's vegetable patch is open for raiding by me (I usually give it a good weed while I'm pulling a couple of spring onions or a lettuce, or whatever). I'd set the dogs to catching their own dinner, but I'm afraid they'd ignore the rabbits (there's mixamatosis in the population, sadly) in favour of nearby sheep, chicken and cows. Doh!

After that early start (I'm working my way back to getting up by 7am, honestly!), my day was brightened by hearing Warren Zevron's Werewolves of London on the radio as I grabbed a shower - gave me the impetus to wrap up my nephew's birthday presents, then head out on my loop of many errands. Planck's dog license is renewed; I've paid the vet's bill and picked up more Loxicom and spoken to John the Awesome Vet about getting Planck his hip replacement surgery; got coal from the general merchant's; posted Dan's parcel; called by the bank; got the rest of the food shopping from Poundstretcher (dog munchies) and Tesco (gluten-free and dairy-free me munchies) and even picked up some free low-fat fries from Burger King for Jerry (today only, apparently, if your local BK's one of the franchises doing them).

The shopping is all away, the dogs have their stuffed bones (Newton's finished licking out his and is sitting behind me on my chair, watching the garden through the window to make sure nothing needs barking at), Jerry's had his fries and I've had a cuppa. That's probably me done for the rest of the day, but it's always possible I might actually get a little fiction writing done, woohoo! Or I could go look into how to turn Where's My Tractor into an e-book so I can email that to my sister. Or I could finish off that last winter-weight cowl for Uncle Ken and start on the summer lace-weight silk/wool mix cowls for the family...

Gosh, the possibilites are endless! Or something. Yes, well, I think I'd better quit while I'm ahead, don't you? Have a fantastic weekend, peeps.

( Newton and selfie... )

WriteCamp '09 is over. In roughly half an hour, I'll be heading out for parts north, namely Nottingham, for FantasyCon.

For anyone who's interested, my stats are: just shy of 6k words written - 1 story finished, 2 others worked on, & 3 pieces of 30 Minute Drunken Flashfic (posted over on the_proofreader. This isn't a huge amount for me, but it's a good start. I've also finished proofreading a novel and judged 5 entries into Hub's Bootstrap SF competition.

As for tourist-y things? I have done naaahtheeeng. Ho hum! Right, I must go rescue my pot of tea before it gets utterly stewed, since a thermos of tea is essential for a long drive. How terribly british! (It's raspberry tea.)

This evening, I'll be back with ravenlas. Thank goodness. And maybe, just maybe, a decent night's sleep.

Well, not quite - I've finally uploaded a few photos, though, so I'm putting them under a cut to save bandwidth for those who aren't interested in suchlike.

( This way to the photos! )

In other news (not under a cut so people don't run into the photos if they don't want to, sorry...): my bike is in the bike shop! I took it down Sheffield with me last Wednesday and dropped it off at Decathlon for its free 3-month service, expecting them to adjust the cable tension and leave it at that. Instead, it appears to have some kind of gear problem, which I'm hoping they've either fixed or replaced the gear arm (under warranty) by tomorrow so I can pick it up again. I'm starting to feel as though I have finger-of-death for bikes... Or it could be that they use cheap derailleurs...

I went to my ME course on Friday and learned about Graded Exercise Therapy. Which is how to, when my energy scores are consistent and I'm feeling as though I'm ready to start increasing the amount of, well, anything I'm doing, increase my activity level without causing an increase in my ME symptoms. Of course, since my bike's been in the shop since Wednesday, that's meant I walked home from the train station on Wednesday evening, then back in on Thursday morning and out again, then to my course at Bootham Park Hospital on Friday morning and from there into town and home again, and into town on Saturday. I got the bus home on Saturday afternoon. (I also walked into town and back on Tuesday night to the writing group, but that was because I didn't get ravenlas to get me a lift because he has an ear infection, which is now clearing up nicely.) So today has been spent largely on the sofa doing little more strenuous than knitting and occasionally hanging out another load of washing on the washing line, and I am tired, and my legs are a little wobbly and I'm running just a touch of a temperature. Ho hum, so it goes. I shall go to bed shortly and should be fine in the morning.

Anyway, thanks to the ME course, I have a letter, which I took to the council offices on Friday, and I filled in a form and had my photo taken and as of in a few days time, I should have a free bus pass, enabling me to travel on the local buses and not have to pay the extortionate fares. Awesome! It'll mean I can try walking into town to the station one or two mornings a week and be able to catch the bus back, thus getting a bit more exercise but not tiring myself out. Hurrah!

So, I have handouts. I'll type them up soon and post them here for anyone who's interested. Have a great week, y'all! I'm going to duck back below the parapet again.

This are yet another 'Aten't Ded Yet!' post, brought to you from my busybusy workdesk... *grin* From which you may surmise that I'm skiving and really should get back to doing some work.

( The CFS/ME, life, work, yada yada stuff: )

Right! I probably had a bunch of other things to blog about... Birthdays!

Many happy returns of the day to evieb, gaxx and Miss India!

Mazel Tov to vin_petrol, trash_petrol and evie_petrol on the latest addition to their family!

Plugs:
Hub - Europe's largest weekly SF, F & Horror ezine. Fiction! Articles! Free!
Pseudopod - the world's largest horror podcast. Also free!
Kiva Loans - changing the world one loan at a time.

Friday was a bit of a bust. I got some more knitting done, but I woke up with ulcers where my tonsils used to be. Which was rather sore. So I left work early, went home and tidied up more of the spare room and saw Sue, Dave and India (wanolj), failed to have a D&D game, sat on the sofa and watched telly. With takeout. And wine. Hurrah!

Saturday, though, kicked ass (for G.E.D. month, that is). Not quite such a sore throat, so I got up early(ish) and went to Ikea. Where I spent a chunk of my dividend (in lieu of pay), had to get a nice man to help me put boxes on the trolley and another nice man to help me put them in the car. Which was rather full. *heh*

So Saturday's list looks like:
Fitted draught excluder to the back of the letter box.
Put legs on the huge table.
Tidied more of the spare room.
Bought and put up shelves in the kitchen.
Tidied kitchen.
Bought more shelves for the kitchen and for the hallway.
Bought curtain rail for the hallway.
Bought 3 chests of drawers for the spare room to replace the current ones.
Emptied the paper shredder

Also (but not on the list) did several loads of washing and took them to the launderette to dry, went to VJs and saw friends (yay!) and met up with paul_marks who is visiting while Tuesday.

Go me! *happy dance*

At some point today I intend to take and put up photos of the clothes which are going free to a good home (there are more). Would anyone like a wide 3-drawer Malmo chest of drawers (Ikea) in birch veneer? Also there's a little white 3-drawer MFI-style cheapass chest of drawers going free! I'll even drop it round to your house! As long as, yanno, that's York. Leeds, maybe. Bread machine, anyone?

( Kitchen shelves! )

Right, back to drilling holes in the walls...

From kyryn: November is G.E.D. Month! Which stands for 'Get 'Er Done' month. I am hereby signing up.

Since I got home on Friday I have:

• done 6? 7? loads of washing and visited the laundrette twice to get it all dried*
• done a 'proper' shop at Morrisons (and gone back twice to get 'just a couple more things' I forgot
• cooked up a monster batch of lamb stew
• cooked up a large batch of bolognese sauce
• finally cooked up the bag of apples my sister gave me into apple sauce (eaten by ravenlas), a crumble and a pie
• cleaned out and cleaned the fridge
• cleaned out the main food cupboard
• started work on the Pseudopod slushpile

Which I think is a pretty good start to G.E.D. month. Hurrah! I'm taking a leaf out of kyryn's book lj and planning on working on one thing every day. I'll be putting up a post-dated post with The List, which I'll mark up so I can keep track of what I do. Everything may not get finished, but at least it'll get worked on. Maybe I'll be so busy I'll forget just how grey, cold and depressing November is. Meh.

ravenlas and I also spent a very enjoyable (if somewhat jet-lagged) Halloween round at alasdair1076 and Kate's, watching suitably spooky films and Dead Set.

And tomorrow, it's back to work... *le sigh*

*Bendix launderette has awesome dryers: 11 minutes to dry 3 loads of laundry in one dryer? Wow! I think I'll be going there every week. Much, much easier than trying to find places for things to dry around the house (no radiators).

ETA: The List is up. Feel free to come round and give me a hand. Or shout encouragement. Or throw things. Your choice... Yes, you can vote on what you'd like me to do next, but I reserve the right to do something else instead. :)

( In which I expound and pontificate on my sleeping habits, among other things. )

Have a great day, y'all. Shabbat Shalom (technically that's later, but it's so darn gloomy out there...)

So yesterday was my annual barbeque. nearly_everyone attended, and people seemed to have a great time, which makes me very happy. People didn't seem to mind me running around in circles, being unable to finish sentences, and foisting huge quantities of food onto them. People also brought their small people, who raced around and generally had a fab time and didn't fall into the pond and drown. Which is definitely a bonus.

Thank you *so* much to you all for coming! It was an awesome day, spent in the company of lots of people who I know and love. You're amazing!

I have: a fox, a red sticklebrick, a yellow pencil crayon, and a black cherokee jumper. I know who the sticklebrick belongs to - any takers for the others?

ETA:Jumper claimed! And fox claimed!

And thank you guys for the awesome selection of wool, vouchers for wool, vast quantities of truly excellent chocolate, and lush bath stuff. Truly the perfect presents! *is so happy*

You are awesome. And to the few of you who couldn't make it, you have a standing invitation to come and visit, as you should know by now. So get in touch, come visit, and we'll barbeque anyway. *grin*

In other news: today I did lots of washing, a little tidying up, and some writing. It's been my first vegging 'day off' in a long time, it feels like! And tomorrow the very last part of Correspondence Course goes up over at the_proofreader. So if you were waiting to read it all? Head on over in the morning and it'll be waiting for you. *grin*