Autumn

This morning it is freezing cold, but outside it looks beautiful, lovely and blue and fresh. This weekend I have been quite busy. I worked at the Maltings on Saturday afternoon and evening, there was a wedding and then I did a bit of work behind the bar. On Sunday no work :) I wemt to London in the afternoon with time, we did a bit of shopping. I met Tim in Clone Zone, just as he was buying gay pornography (he's not that savvy with the internet hehe), he announced to the shop that he was just buying my Christmas present, at which point the man behind the counter pointed to a bollard sized dildo and said he was sure I'd prefer that, I was shocked, do I look like some kind of fetishy leather pig!?

Now I'm just getting ready for work, this week is gonna be quite easy I think, last week was manic, we did so much work, and the boss was away, which shows how good we are, in fact we're gonna tell him he should spend more time at home because last week absolutely everything we did worked perfectly.

Here's a picture from my bedroom window of a beautiful morning a few days ago, the sky was so blue, it was almost like being back in Gran Canaria.

My Nephew

Here's the first picture I took of my nephew William the week before last, it was just before he was 6 weeks old bless him.

It's Cold...

Well, I think autumn is just about here, today has been gloomy and wet. One of my experiments failed last night, so that added to the gloom this morning, we decided to treat ourselves to some cakes from Fitzbillies (sp?) which is a lovely little cake shop close to where I work. They did the trick and after that I was feeling more myself again.

This afternoon Kerry and I were looking at various volunteer experiments we can do around the university to get extra money, her for her wedding in June and me for more travels. We found one that pays £60 and you get a free picture of your brain at the end of it. All you have to do is lay in an MRI scanner for 90 mins, do some gambling and maybe have some blood taken at the same time, sounds an easy way to make money to me :)

Monica Naranjo

No Voy a Llorar






Sobreviviré

Tequila

Tonight I am going to dinner with some of the girls from work, they are going to do a Mexican theme. One of the girls is from Nevada and she knows all about tequila and margaritas, so it should be fun. It's also given me an excuse to stay late and work and try to get myself up-to-date with everything; I haven't though, I've spent the time looking at different cocktails it's possible to make with tequila...there are loads :)

Tomorrow I'm going to sit with my mother again at lunchtime, her neck problems have returned and I have found out that my dad has stopped her taking most of the medication the doctor prescribed here...oh well, such is life.

First picture of Francis

This is the first picture I took of Francis, he was so timid for the first couple of weeks.

 

My last ever picture of Cass.

Here is the very last picture of my cat Cass. It was taken by my then boyfriend on the the morning of the day he was killed by a car :( I can't believe it but it happened over 6 years ago!

 

Ode to the Cat

There was something wrong with the animals:
their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads.
Then they started coming together,
little by little fitting together to make a landscape,
developing birthmarks, grace, flight.
But the cat,
only the cat
turned out finished,
and proud:
born in a state of total completion,
it sticks to itself and knows exactly what it wants.

Men would like to be fish or fowl,
snakes would rather have wings,
and dogs are would-be lions.
Engineers want to be poets,
flies emulate swallows,
and poets try hard to act like flies.
But the cat wants nothing more than to be a cat,
and every cat is pure cat from its whiskers to its tail,
from sixth sense to squirming rat,
from nighttime to its golden eyes.

Nothing hangs together quite like a cat:
neither flowers nor the moon have such consistency.
It's a thing by itself,
like the sun or a topaz,
and the elastic curve of its back,
which is both subtle and confident,
is like the curve of a sailing ship's prow.
The cat's yellow eyes are the only slot for depositing the coins of night.

O little emperor without a realm,
conqueror without a homeland,
diminutive parlor tiger,
nuptial sultan of heavens roofed in erotic tiles:
when you pass in rough weatherand poise four nimble paws on the ground,
sniffing,
suspicious of all earthly things,
because everything feels filthy to the cat's immaculate paw,
you claim the touch of love in the air.

O freelance household beast,
arrogant vestige of night,
lazy, agile and strange,
O fathomless cat,
secret police of human chambers and badge of burnished velvet!
Surely there is nothing enigmatic in your manner,
maybe you aren't a mystery after all.
You're known to everyone, you belong to the least mysterious tenant.
Everyone may believe it,
believe they're master,
owner,
uncle or companion to a cat,
some cat's colleague,
disciple or friend.

But not me.
I'm not a believer.
I don't know a thing about cats.
I know everything else,
including life and its archipelago,
seas and unpredictable cities,
plant life,
the pistil and its scandals,
the pluses and minuses of math.
I know the earth's volcanic protrusions and the crocodile's unreal hide,
the fireman's unseen kindness and the priest's blue atavism.
But cats I can't figure out.
My mind slides on their indifference.
Their eyes hold ciphers of gold.

Pablo Neruda

Mother sitting

Today my Dad needed to go out and do some banking and other bits and pieces, Mum is still not very well at all and can't be left on her own, so I went round late morning to sit with her whilst he went out. I was a bit nervous before I arrived because I didn't know what state she would be in. When I got there she wasn't too bad, still very weak, but not as bad as the worse case scenarios that were going through my mind. She looked a bit panicky when Dad left, but once he'd gone she seemed ok. We had a nice little chat, but I made sure I didn't talk too much in case she got tired or something. My main worry is always that she's gonna start choking, but luckily this didn't happen. She had some orange juice beside her and every now and again she would ask me to give her some, which I did, with a spoon, it was very pitiful really but who says life's a bed of roses lol! My brother phoned me when I was there, he's now moved to Oxford and they have settled in well. Rachel was getting to know the new doctors and midwife as she's having the baby in 3 weeks! My brother informed me that the baby's head was now engaged lol! So I say to my niece/nephew if you're reading this in 18 years time ('cos this is an 18 rated blog sort of) this was your first mention in this blog lol!
My Dad got back around 2ish without any incidents and in fact I really enjoyed the time we had together, it's nice just being me and my Mum, when Dad's there he tends to do all the speaking for her.

At Diamonds

While I remember, here's another pic from Gran Can. This was taken at Diamonds bar. We used to go here every night and have a beer and also Tim used to chat up the very cute Welsh barman. Who incidently took the shirt from Tim's back!

 

New iPod

Well, the iPod arrived, but not until 4pm, so I had missed a whole day of work! As I was doing some bar work in the evening it meant that I could not even work late and get finished, no, instead I had to go into work today. I didn't really mind though as I still have my holiday energy lol! Toprove it I even went to the gym when I finished work. I got back home about 3ish and have just been lazing around at home since then, I even had a little nap this afternoon. I bought myself some phish food ice cream this afternoon, so I'm gonna have some of that now and watch a film :) See you next week xxxxx

Ya he vuelto!

I'm back! We had a fab time in Gran Canaria. I'm so glad that we had 2 weeks, now I'm back in the UK I feel full of energy and completely reinvigorated lol! I didn't take a huge number of pictures because basically we just did the same every day and went to the same places, sounds a bit boring I guess but I think it's good for you sometimes just to do nothing except relax and enjoy yourself. There were only 3 little niggles I had, the first was that when I arrived my mobile didn't work, this was beacuse I'd changed to a monthly contract with Virgin and they don't turn roaming on until you've been with them for 3 months. I wrote an email to them explaining that I'd been a pay-as-you-go customer prior to being on pay monthly, they turned the roaming on a while after this. It was stressful because I knew that my Mum was ill and so I panicked a bit that there was no way anyone back at home could contact me. The second thing was that I didn't take enough books with me, I only took one! Stupid boy I am. I finished that in 2 days. I borrowed some books from others but they weren't really my type of thing. The 3rd thing was that my iPod was broken! I had no music, it was a bummer! But anyway the holiday was good, we met some lovely people had loads of lovely conversation, loads of clubbing, loads of lovely food, loads of drink and most important loads of lovely Spanish boys lol!

Right now I'm sat at home waiting for my iPod to be returned, the UPS tracking says it's been out for delivery since 7.20am but still no sign here. It's a bummer 'cos I have quite a bit of stuff to do at work and I can't stay late tonight as I'm working at the pub in Quy. Hopefully it'll arrive soon.

Chico Latino ;)

 

The Dunes

 

Los Almendros

 

View from our Bungalow

 

Gran Canaria

Tomorrow Tim and I are off to lovely Gran Canaria, yet again! Only this time we're staying for two weeks. I am determined to do loads and loads of relaxing and doing not much else. I'll try to keep updating this blog though. We are flying from Stansted and the flight times are good, we take off at 2.45pm, so no early mornings to cope with. Tim's gonna come and collect me around 11 and then his Dad's gonna drive us to the airport. It's gonna be fab :)

 

Kissing

This was my horoscope for this week:

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22): To let a fool kiss you is bad. To let a kiss fool you is worse.

How wise.

Miguel from Spain and the Bitch from Poland 

Romans 

A taste of the East... 

A nice queen for Tim. 

Mas mas mas... 

Nice bum! 

Mmm a bit of the dark side. 

Queens! And a nice boy in glasses :) 

Gaydar boys. 

Here are some pictures I took at Europride in London last Saturday. 

Back to Normality

Here's my day so far...I had to wake up a little earlier this morning as we had a meeting scheduled at work for 10am, so 30 mins less time in bed boohoo :( Luckily I easily found a parking space so I didn't have to rush for the train.

I got into work around 9.20am checked my emails, there was nothing, which was good, no extra work (one last night from my Canadian man, I'm gonna reply after writing this;-). The meeting was in the building I worked in up until January and it was quite funny going back there but not working there anymore, I'm a sentimental old fool lol! The meeting itself went very well, my boss is very happy with the work we are all doing, we have new staff members starting soon and we're gonna de diversifying and doing a lot of different things, so all very exciting! The rest of the morning was pretty mundane, just doing repetative tasks, but at lest I could listen to Woman's Hour on my iPod, so not that bad lol!

At lunch I had a text from my friend Tim saying he was in Borders Starbucks with Booboo (he's a 60something eccentric man, can't remember why we call him booboo, but it's brom Barney bear hehe), it's always funny talking with him because he is always horrified with the things me and Tim tell him.

This afternoon work has been quite slow, I need to use a piece of equipment but someone else is using it, so I have to wait, that's why I'm writing this now. When I finish here I'm gonna meet Estefania Beaverhausen in town and we're gonna get something to eat. Next week she starts her new job and then the week after that is off to Singapore and Australia for months! Will Jack forgive her. And like the conversation we had the other day, let's hope he doesn't die!

Long day.

Today has been a long and hard day. I had to take my Mum to hospital because she needed to have a bone scan. She has been having problems with her neck recently, this compounded with the MS has left her being not very well at all. The plan for today was that I would drive her and my Dad to the hospital with my Dad sitting behind her, trying to hold her steady. I would have felt much happier if they had decided to go there by ambulance, but they had decided to go like that and I wasn't gonna add any more stresses by arguing with my Dad. Anyway, the journey there wasn't as bad as I was expecting, she'd taken some codine before we left and that seemed to be relieving her from pain. When we got to the clinic she was seen almost immediately. This was the first of two trips we would have to make. This first one was to give her an injection and then 4 hours later we would return and they would scan her bones. When they came out from the first injection and we returned home she seemed much happier. I drove them back home and then returned to work for a bit. I was gonna collect them again at 1.30pm....thank God I have a good boss.

When we got back to the hospital this time she seemed to be in more pain so Dad gave her another codine in the car park and then we went back to the clinic. We got there around 2.15pm but although there was no one else waiting she didn't go through to the scan until 2.45. That half an hour was horrible. It was obvious she was in a lot of pain and couldn't get comfortable. At one point she started crying bless her heart, it was terrible. I went up to the reception desk and asked the boy there if there was anything he could do, he rushed off to see if he could find someone who might be able to help. In the mean time Dad had given her another codine. Then the boy returned and said he had found a bed where she could lie down, but at the same time the doctor came through and said they were ready to do the scan. I was a bit relieved then, I knew she'd be ok with the doctors. I went to the shops and bought her some cakes and chocolates and by the time I got back they were just coming out. She looked ok which was a relief. At last we could go home! Going home was a bit of a nightmare as it was rush hour.

So far there is no idea what is wrong with her neck although I think the doctor thinks that it is connected with her breast cancer from 3 years ago. So I think there are more horrible times ahead. But at least today is now over and I can go to bed, I'm knackered.

May Ball

On Wednesday night/Thursday morning I worked at the Sidney Sussex May Ball. It was a nightmare! The Ball itself was lovely, but working wasn't. We started off doing the meal, that was fine, all the students looked sexy and they were all friendly and happy too. I was enjoying this part. The meal went on until about midnight by which time the rest of the students who weren't dining arrived. 2000 of them! I was then sent over to the bbq where for the next 4 hours I served beef steaks followed at 3.30am by bacon (breakfast). It was horrible. I'm sooo glad I only said I'd do one May Ball. I very nearly did the Trinity one, thank God I didn't. I will stick with the normal 3 hour affairs from now on I think. Still, at least I made some extra cash for the Gran Canaria trip. I lost count of the number of times during the Ball that I kept reassuring myself that this would all translate to cocktails on the beach in Gran Canaria, but it was probably 20 million.

Anyway, here is a tree of the same type but I think this one is much less old. It has a bit of the character of the old tree, but only a little. Maybe this is the granddaughter of my lovely tree. 

They've cut down one of my favourite trees! This used to be a really really old looking tree. I used to love looking at it, it just looked so old, like it was maybe 200 years old. It looked like it was half dead, so that's probably why they had to chop it down. But I'm sad it's gone, I just wish I'd taken a picture of it before this :( 

The lake, I think my brother would love to fish here! 

A big red catkin thingy. 

University Botanic Gardens. The hot weather has continued over the weekend :) Instead of going to France we decided to stay in Cambridge. It was so hot and also so lovely and sunny. Here are some pictures I took. 

Hot hot hot!

Today the weather is absolutely beautiful :) Here is my day so far... I woke up just before my alarm at 8am, I had slept soundly for 10 hours! Although I woke up around 5am to the sound of a blackbird making a terrible noise, I wished at that point that one of the cats would get it! I ate my breakfast in the garden as it was so warm, Pam, the next door neighbour came out and spoke to me for a bit, she hopes to get a moving date soon...yay! Soon I will be able to sunbathe in the garden completely naked hehe! When I got to work there was loads to do, but I managed to get everything done so that I could go to lunch early. I spent all of lunch lying on Jesus Green, it was lovely. Then back to work, tidied up one of the rooms that is meant to be dust free but wasn't (is now thanks to me). And now I'm off into town to get something to drink and sit in the sun for a little bit more...La vida es buena :)

I must get one of these for Estefania, it's sooo him!