i know it's been ages again since i updated, so here's a potted history of what i've been doing for the last month:

moved somewhere i am actually paying rent so officially not couch surfing any longer.
discovered the most amazing mirror in John Rocha in the Oxford Street Debenhams that makes you look two sizes smaller.
failed my driving test again. (for not glancing out of the back window on a 3-point turn, rest of drive was perfectly fine)
reached my one year without being absent from work except for weekends and annual leave.
went to Thorpe Park and got caught in a hailstorm in the Colossus queue.
went to the Bavarian Beerhouse for Liz's birthday and drank 2-pint Steins of wheat beer.
went to see Swan Lake.
dressed down for work to avoid being attacked by the G20 protesters.
had an amazing birthday - 12 hours of drinking in Soho with fantastic people. (and on a school night lol)
been out to g.a.y. lots and this week went to heaven for the first time.

i was intending to go for a run this morning since i was woken up by a text at 7.15am but it's raining so i'm updating LJ instead, i'm actually on twitter (username italktolions) much more regularly. ooh it looks like the rain might have stopped, i'd better get up and attempt to get the day started properly!

wow i haven't posted in ages. i'm still couch surfing at the moment, but i'm at dad's this weekend. dad's taken my sisters to their ballet lessons and my brother is snuggled next to me giving me a running commentary on the game he's playing on his nintendo DS. in a few minutes we're going to go and wash my car together (i've got my second driving test on thursday, yay!). dylan's got waterproof dungarees to wear for such activities, and i'm just going to get a bit wet.

even though i was woken up this morning by three pyjama'd shrieking lumps landing on my chest, i still feel the most rested that i've been in weeks! i was babysitting last night and went to bed about 9.45pm, it was bliss! i've been staying at keith's this week again, so have been staying up playing warcraft 3 (awesome game!) and then getting up at 5.45am to go to work, and last weekend i spent all Saturday night at the IMAX for a vampire movie all-nighter (Twilight, The Lost Boys, Underworld and Blade), which seemed like such a good idea until about 9.30am on Sunday morning when we realised we'd been awake for a good 30 hours and passed out!

liz's dad is visiting from Spain for a week, so i've moved from a double mattress on liz's living room floor to a double mattress on my friend from work keith's living room floor. it's inflatable and very comfy, although i keep lying on a random bit of velcro. my brain drifts out of sleep, registers there's something wrong and goes "ouch what the hell is that scratchy... oh it's the velcro move it ok back to sleep"... and half an hour later "ouch what the hell is that scratchy... oh it's the velcro move it ok back to sleep"... etc. etc.

it's fun though. this evening keith, his boyfriend jon, their lesbian flatmate and i had a bit of a pampering evening with face masks and Mamma Mia. can't believe it's almost midnight already though, have to get up at 5.45am to get the tube so off to bed.

the other day i'd put something in the microwave here to heat up, and then made some comment about how liz looked taller than me. we were standing there in the middle of the kitchen arguing about who was taller, measuring up against each other, completely not noticing anything going on behind us until laura suddenly said "um guys? is it supposed to be doing that?" we looked round and there was a cloud of burnt plastic-smelling smoke billowing out from the microwave door. it was still doing it for a while after we unplugged it, so i think it might be landfill time. it was the only clock in the flat so we all keep giving the blank display little futile glances every so often.

the past week staying at liz and laura's has been really fun. liz apparently hadn't heard about this journal at all during the six and a half or so years that we've known each other, so yesterday night we went back and looked at old entries from 2003 and 2004 which i'd tagged as 'liz'. laura read them out loud whilst liz and i fell about laughing remembering all the weird little moments we'd had in our first couple of years of uni. most of them happened on the bus between uni and her flatshare in edgeware road, although more often than not we'd get as far as the front doors of uni, invent some excuse not to go in and we'd just sit and laugh for hours in Nero's on waterloo bridge instead. good times.

i overheard a conversation yesterday that was straight out of an advert, it was brilliant. three women were standing outside covent garden tube, all wearing heels. one of them said "well we need to get to such-and-such a place, it's quite nearby, shall we take the tube or shall we walk?" her friend was like "i'm wearing Clarks, i could walk for hours!" and they all marched off, smiling and laughing. i could almost hear the rousing music starting up before the voiceover said something about Clarks shoes never being delayed and always having a good service or something.

lush had the most amazing offer on recently. you could buy a lucky dip bag for £5, £10 or £15 and they would fill it with lush products worth £15, £35 or £50 respectively! it was mostly christmassy things, but they added some current things in too. here's what i got in my £15 bag:

the godmother soap
another soap that the label has rubbed off but it smells gorgeous!
lush pud bath ballistic
vanilla fountain bath ballistic
chocolate santa bath ballistic
mr butterball bath ballistic
let them eat cake lip balm
snow fairy shower gel
ambrosia shaving cream
secret santa gift box (chocolate santa bath ballistic & honey i washed the kids soap)
snow fairy gift box (snow fairy shower gel, snowcake soap & glitterbug massage bar)
happy shower gift box (gold frankincense and beer jelly & too drunk emotibomb)

how awesome is that?! i love the way they'll give you a little pot of whatever you're interested in to try at home and see how you get on with it too. lush is fab.

today i'm mostly laughing at the fact that London has completely shut down due to the six inches or so of snow, it's brilliant. no buses, no trains, part-suspended tube lines... half the call centre called in sick this morning so just about everyone in the business was taking calls - random members of the sales and IT teams, my team, the operations director, even the managing director! the people who weren't on the phones were going out for starbucks and bacon sandwiches runs keeping everyone's desks replenished with morale-boosting treats.

of course, if people in my office couldn't make it in then unfortunately nor could the rest of the country, so work has been manic all day. everything is wonderful however, because i'm wearing absolutely gorgeous new work shoes.

yesterday was awesome because i got a bonus fruit winder in my packet!!

my flat is virtually empty - my mum and granny came to help me over the weekend, and now everything else i own is secured by padlock in a metal box about a third the size of an average garage. i'm moving out on Friday after the landlord has done the inventory, i've given my final meter readings to the utility company, cancelled my contents insurance and the man from Virgin has been to collect the cable tv box. i'm excited to be moving back into London, and surprisingly calm about the whole couch surfing business and not having an official address! we'll see what happens, there's somewhere i'm hoping will work out, but the person who would need to move out in order for me to move in is being frustratingly indecisive about their life plans.

my life is going pretty well despite the impending homelessness, and in other news there was a giant caterpillar on my back today. a real one. i was just taking my jumper off, glanced in the mirror and there was something dark green crawling across my shoulders at a rate of knots. argh! i'd been home for hours, how long had it been there?!

i'm completely washed out at the moment as my hours have changed at work so i have to get up an hour earlier every morning, and i'm trying desperately to hold off a cold that's doing its utmost to make me stay at home this week. i'm going to go and have a bath and go to bed in a minute but before i do i have a bit of news - i'm moving house in a couple of weeks! i'm putting off the house hunting and staying with friends for a while, so i guess it's less moving and more voluntarily making myself homeless, but i'm very excited about it. my flatmate moved out in December and i can't afford the rent by myself, so rather than stress myself out any longer trying to find another flatmate i decided to move back into central London. i do like certain aspects of living in zone 5, but i'm getting too fed up with being so far away from work and most of my friends, and although not impossible, it's a nightmare to get back to after a night out.

i gave in my notice for 9th February, but my landlord already has someone lined up to move in so he said he'd be happy for me to leave early. if i can get all my stuff packed up and into storage quickly, i might be out of here by 30th January! the current plan is to look for a quirky little one-bed in east london somewhere on the Jubilee line, but we'll see what happens.

one of my friends had some free cinema tickets to see The Reader last night, so i went along as i'd read the book in German before uni and really wanted to see the film. it was very good, i'd recommend it. Kate Winslet gets very naked. we went out for a couple of drinks afterwards, but although Liz and Laura said i could stay at theirs, i have a few things to do today so i thought it would be better if i woke up in my own bed. i called the transport for London call centre to make sure i'd be able to get home by bus as i'd missed the last train. they assured me that if i took the night bus to Morden, i'd be able to catch the 157 before it stopped running at 2am. i got to Morden by about 1.45am, but found that the last 157 had been at 1.20am.

cue a tiny flash of panic as i glanced around the bus numbers and saw that none of them were night buses.

i rang the transport for London call centre again. the guy was very nice, apologised profusely, said that i could call back to speak to a supervisor who would listen to my previous call and arrange for compensation, and he just about managed to find me an alternative two-bus route home before my phone ran out of battery.

the alternative bus route actually was fine, i got home about 3am after a bit of waiting around in the freezing cold at two different bus stops, there were no late night weirdos or drunks, and the bus drivers were very helpful about telling me where to get off, but without my phone i felt incredibly vulnerable. it made me wonder how we ever felt safe before mobile phones. i use my phone as a clock so i couldn't check the time when looking at the timetables or work out how long i had before i needed to get off the bus, couldn't text anyone to let them know where i was, and wouldn't have been able to call for help if i'd been stuck as not only did i not have any change for a phone box, i no longer know people's phone numbers off by heart.

lesson learned i guess, at least i'm home safely. off to bed now!

this is my sixth year of doing this, i like traditions.

( click for my end of year meme 2008 )

my friend Laura came over yesterday to join greg and me for another dvd night (i think it's the weather, it's too cold to do anything else but sit inside and watch movies.) we watched Juno and Stardust, greg cooked an amazing japanese curry and we managed to consume a large quantity and variety of snack foods. a perfect evening!

today is awesome because i got up early to take Laura to the train station, and i've had time to clean my bathroom, tidy my bedroom and rearrange the furniture in my living room. all this on a weekday! i feel a bit like a student again (albeit a conscientious early-rising one.) hurrah for holidays!

my mum and step dad brought their dogs to visit today. we played wii, watched a film and went for a long walk in Beddington Park and the dogs played in the river. it was all a bit idyllic and lovely, if a little chilly.

Greg came over for another dvd night tonight (we had one last night too, The Golden Compass and Mushishi) - he sat through the extended edition of Sex and the City making huffing sounds and grumbling for the whole two and a half hours about the selfish woman-centric representation of love and relationships in girlie films. we're now counteracting the effects of excess girlyness by watching Mongol. the tagline on the dvd box is "carnage, bloodshed and testosterone-filled manliness". that should do it.

dad's Rock Band game is the awesomest thing ever - dad and i have moved on from easy to medium difficulty level for a bit more of a challenge, created our own little band of two (drummer and guitarist) and have taken ourselves on tour. no hotel rooms trashed yet but it's early days...

the kids were SO excited this morning, especially Libby who is the most excitable of all of them and has a special little hoppy-skippy dance she does when she's particularly happy. she was running around telling everyone about the "giant sock" with presents in that Father Christmas had left at the end of her bed. Christmas this year was a bit different - as the kids are getting older, we had a family Christmas dinner all together at lunchtime rather than waiting until they're in bed to have the main meal in the evening (although the adults did still wait until about 8pm to open our presents), it was lovely.

highlights of the day were dad being thrilled with his "super star" achievements on Libby's High School Musical dance mat, snuggling in a chair with Charlotte wearing one earphone each of her new fake video iPod and singing Gotta Go My Own Way together, seeing Dylan's face light up when he opened the dvd of Prince Caspian and playing at the park with Libby this afternoon (i was leaning over the slide being a tunnel as she slid under me squealing with laughter shouting "do that again!").

today is awesome because my step mum gave my dad Rock Band for the Wii and we spent this evening rocking out! i was on drums, Sue was on vocals and dad was the guitarist, it was fab.

we were actually all given a half day today (which i found out almost an hour after my half day should have ended!), but i need to wait around to let my keyless flatmate in before i go to dad's, so i'm using the time to do some tidying and sorting so the flat is a bit more welcoming when i come back to it. i've bagged up my pile of wrapped Christmas gifts, popped in Mario Kart and a couple of wii wheels to play with dad, been through my shelves of YA lit to see if there's anything suitable to lend to Dylan yet (maybe the Spiderwick Chronicles, but i think even the Series of Unfortunate Events is still a year or two off), and now i'm off to hang the laundry out and get ready to go.

only one more sleep until Christmas!

so... we spent pretty much the whole weekend sitting on the floor of a tiny French airport waiting for the fog to lift, watching Mamma Mia (the girls are obsessed with it) and Kung Fu Panda on a portable dvd player about six times each. i eventually made it home late Sunday night rather than Saturday lunchtime. i still think this holiday was one of the best weeks of my entire life.

work has been horrendous since i got back because two of my team were also away last week and we have a massive backlog to catch up on, plus i have another cold and refuse to take any time off work due to my bizarre personal goal of making it to a year without any absence. thankfully it is Christmas Eve tomorrow! i'm off to dad's for a few days to celebrate with the family, i'm very excited! i was very disorganised this year due to being away so close to Christmas, didn't get round to buying or writing any Christmas cards (i've vowed to send lots of letters in the New Year to make up for it) and only got my Christmas shopping finished off today. i wrapped them all this evening which has actually left me feeling especially festive!

we had such a great ski lesson this morning. Charlotte woke up in a fantastic mood, so she was cooperative, smiley and enthusiastic which made such a difference. i finally got rid of my snowplough (after doing some hilarious practice exercises) so i'm doing parallel turns on pretty much everything, Eveline took us off piste through the trees and we tried some little jumps... it was fab!

i'm so sad that it was the last ski day today - i would have loved another week of this now i've really got the hang of it - but we're back again at the end of March so not too long to go!

including my lesson today, i skiied for about five hours (post-lesson, it was about 15-20km)! we skiied up to a really cool restaurant at about 1900m which had a big log fire in the middle of a circular room, and the tables were all at floor level so you had to step down into your seats. we then skiied back to the chalet via a different village - we skiied right down the high street!

i also did the best fall of the week so far - i cut a corner on a track, accidentally went over a ledge, overbalanced and ended up lying on my skis with my feet still strapped into the bindings, gliding at speed towards the edge, wondering whether i was actually ever going to stop, with my little brother guffawing loudly behind me!

it was snowing all last night and all day today, which meant wearing goggles rather than sunglasses for our ski lesson, and also that there was a good foot of fresh snow on the ground. i loved it! the lesson was great because the fresh powder was fab to swoosh around making tracks in (it's crazy, you can't even see your skis sometimes because they're under the snow), and it took some of the speed out of the steep slopes so i could go down scarier stuff after the lesson with dad, Dylan and a couple of dad's friends. we even went off piste a bit (2-3 feet of fresh snow, it was madness!) and dad was on his snowboard so he fell over more than me.

i absolutely have to mention the awesomeness of my waterproof trainers. they've got a Gore-tex layer and i suppose i've never really thought about it before, i've had them a couple of years and i just wear them like regular trainers. i must have trodden in a few puddles at times, but didn't realise quite how amazing they are until i brought them here. i've worn them outside with my ski trousers, fell off a sledge into piles of snow in them, have even waded along in snow up to my knees and my feet have stayed bone dry. really! dad keeps laughing at me every time i come out with an exclamation about the greatness of my trainers, but they are seriously fab.