Monday, May 28, 2007

Passwords and other nonsense

well!

I would've posted ages ago (well, maybe 2 weeks ago) with my latest journal entry and I had all sorts of rubbish I'd saved up to discuss with....well, me mostly but you know what, I'd forgotten my bloody password to this blog! As I have recently with several passwords needed at work, to use online banking, several different email accounts etc etc. 'they' (i.e. IT boys at work) keep advising me, if not forcing me to keep changing my passwords, and make every account different, which is all well and good for security so no-one will ever pass as me, but it's so secure EVEN THE REAL ROSA CANNOT ENTER! Because, as I said before, I keep forgetting them. And you know when you've got a creative flow on,really needing just to get on and start writing, only to find you can't remember your password, then need to email the website to get another password, only to forget that, it kindof loses all concentration and creative flow!

So now I find myself blogging about bloody feckin passwords! ugggh!

How are you all anyway! Today is a Bank hol in the UK, and more importantly, for Perth&Kinross NHS Tayside, so I get a holiday! hooray! Yesterday me and the G came back from a couple days in Geordie-land (Whitburn, on the coast near south shields and Sunderland/Newcastle, to be exact) to catch up with friends and participate in the great british tradition of having a BBQ on may bank hol weekend where it'll rain continously as soon as you get the BBQ out. which duly happened. Prior to that however, it was quite a nice day, as we ambled through Whitburn village perusing the local fancy-dress shop (elvis accessories!) and watching mad dogs and englishmen frolic on the beach whilst eating icecream, as you do when you're on a beach in northern UK.
then back to my mates place to put up the gazebo to shelter the BBQ from the thunderstorms. T'was great fun. Apart from the trip back. Which would be 10times worse if we'd come back today (traffic!!!!!) didn't avoid watching suicidal maniacs overtaking on blind corners to catch up to caravans and trucks. idiots.

Anyway! time is skipping past quite freely, as I plan for my hens weekend, a weekend hillwalking in the Cairngorms in elvis costumes and more BBQ's in the scottish rain. Went up to Braemar to pay for the deposit where we're staying. Good to note the owner has an old collie dog pathologically obsessed with playing catch to entertain us. The place looks good. Just linen provided on bunk beds. huge kitchen, and outdoor BBQ area. hooray! must remember waterproofs.

Do you know when you say to people that you're having an informal, casual 'non-traditional' wedding, this is translated as 'oh they need help with turning this into a traditional "proper" Wedding, the poor things'. It's a full-time job to keep the bloody thing casual. If I didn't hate Las Vegas so much or wasn't keen on Gretna Green it would've happened there.

Yep, all things previously noted to be re-written as funny anecdotes now completely forgotten.

yay for holidays!

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Memories are made of these....

So Mistah G is away on his 'smoker' (aka stag do) in Amsterdam this weekend. Good luck amsterdam is all I can say!

Time for Rosa to: eat onions! pickled onions, red onion, spring onion, onion and tuna sandwiches, hell even onions all by themselves. and green stuff! lots and lots of green stuff. I've turned into a onion salad eating machine the last couple days. (note: G doesn't like or tolerate onions in any foodstuffs except for indian food, he loves indian food, which is mainly onion based. weirdo). I haven't had a chance to eat macaroni and cheese (his other pet hate) but that can wait.

Also Time for Rosa to catch up with all the other jobs put to one side to have general hilarity and mayhem with aforementioned G.
So i finally get around to a mental list of things I must attend to:
1) unpack all the boxes shipped over from Enzed, oh about 3 months ago, that have made it impossible to get into the spare room for about 3months.
2) eat onions! buy onions. look at onion based recipes. have onions as a snack shortly after breakfast. (did i mention I kindof miss not eating onions).
3) practice my ukelele
4) attend cheesy scottish-based functions where I won't hear constant moaning about how 'this is a load of shite, you do know real scots don't act like this, this is a carry-on for tourists like you, bloody teuchters, can we go home now....etc etc'
5) sleep diagonally across the bed, changing position whenever I want to, even to kick the cat out of bed, without any whinging or snoring...(bliss!)
6) tidy the house

So, it's approx 7.30pm on sunday night, and I have acheived 4 out of 6 on the list. no ukelele practice (but i still have tonight!) and no tidying house. oh well.

What I did do that i'm immensely proud of is unpack the boxes. What a mission! T'was great fun, a real step-back in time although I am a little perplexed why i kept so much rubbish and then had it shipped over about 15000 miles. I spent all of saturday (a good 9hour day) unloading boxes, which mainly involved me stopping every time I found more photos and old journals and old letters I'd written and received. I realised how just reading these and looking at stuff really brought memories flooding back, for e.g. i didn't quite realise how obsessed I was with swimming in the river in Dad's village in Portugal during my trip there when I was 8. Or how this obesession didn't seem to subside when I travelled to Tahiti for an exchange. (swimming every day. grumpy if this didn't happen). fantastic photos, of family/friends, trips to oz, OT training, Africa, USA, Tahiti, the list goes on and on.

So anyway, I should keep a journal more often. Maybe this electronic one will be a start. I don't really care if no-one reads it, it'll be good for me.
Saturday night, after not having left the flat all day, went up to a Friends ceilegh (ok ok I don't know how to spell it properly, it's pronounced 'kay-lee', but it's scottish dancing and party!) at the Alyth Town Hall. Alyth is part of my catchment area for work, so I was half expecting to see some ex-patients (or current ones?) . A small rural town. Population: prob around 1000.
Whilst I waited for my friend to turn up (notoriously late, even later than me, so we were both about 2 hours late). I arrived at the hall clutching my ticket. Stepping around the door past the club sandwiches and sausage rolls set out for 'half-time' I felt like I'd stepped back in time. Accordian, fiddler and organ player slowly droning away on the stage of the hall that looked like the hall I used to go to dance practice when I was about 6. Big heavy wine-coloured velvet curtains framed the stage and the windows. Blue-rinse-& hairset brigade and husbands sitting at trestle tables with balloons to liven the place up. So anyway, the place slowly fills up ('Alyth time', as the clock on the wall attested to, varied from 15-45mins behind the real time, and only had one hand. 'an obvious money saver' my friends husband said in jest). Kilts aplenty. Get your drinks from 'the bar': wooden trestle tables and 2 skulky looking teenagers. My Friend Elaine turns up with her husband, both from lancashire. Hilarious. Peter Kay impressions continue all night. As do anecdotes of trying to get accepted into rural scottish farming cliques. Interspersed with Dancing! Reels and round we go! flying kilts and flying women. Great fun, especially as me and my friend and her husband had no idea what we were doing. Just make it up as you go along. Glad I wasn't drinking, awfully dizzy enough thanks very much. which was even funnier as about halfway through the night the 'young folk' came in, some of whom could hardly stand and staggered about the reels. Great fun.

Back home to a huge bed. Awake today and out to watch G's neice at footy (she's better than the prem team!), and try not to get blown over with the wind, or the dog trying to bite his lead off. then wedding stuff shopping, then dinner (roast lamb!mmmm) with G's ma and pa in the ferry, sitting next to Jim McLean and chatting bout Chelsea losing the premiership, as you do (D Utd glory days! ha, G will be so jealous) then home.

Come back G! I've run out of onions!