Little Miss Sunshine

As I am writing this blog, I am sitting in the garden in the glorious sunshine (the wonder of wireless networks for you) and staring at the big, blue sky.

Anyway, I've finally managed to watch the two dvds I got yesterday. (Dad had nicked them after all that.) One was Music and Lyrics, the Hugh Grant & Drew Barrymore romantic comedy (my sister's choice, not mine) and the other was a film called Little Miss Sunshine which I had seen a trailer for months ago, but it looked too kooky to amuse my sis.
Little Miss Sunshine is about a quirky little girl called Olive who gets put through to the final of the little Miss Sunshine contest when the winner of the regional contest pulls out. So her family all pile into their trusty yellow VW camper van and head for California for the competition final. But it's not all sweetness and light as each family member is flawed in their own way - her grandad has been kicked out his retirement home for taking drugs, her uncle has tried to commit sucide after his gay lover ran off with another man, her dad is a rubbish motivational speaker who is close to bankrupcy, her teenage brother has taken a vow of silence and hates the world, and her mum is just fed up!
Ok - it doesn't sound like a barrel of laughs, but it was rather cool, because it was different in a good way. And despite all the heavy issues that the characters were dealing with, it was still funny. So go watch it!

S is for.......

I haven't been to the cinema for ages (I think the last film I saw was Pirates 2) so I decided to see new movie, Hairspray. After yesterday, it sounded perfect for me - it's more bubblegum for the brain than thought-provoking, it has dancing, music, there may be a few hotties, and John Travolta dresses up as woman. What more could you want!;)

Anyway, I plucked up the courage to go to our local Odeon (because I don't enjoy being stuck in the Saturday afternoon shopping crush) and we started to queue up for the tickets inside, as they slapped a stupid charge on you if you pre-order tickets online. Anyway, we finally got to the front of the line, and I told the guy at the desk that I wanted two tickets for the 3.15 performance. Then he smiled, and chuckled.
"Do you know what S is for?" he said. It seemed that he was itching to tell the punchline of his joke, so I played along.
"What does S stand for?" I replied.
" Sold out!"
Oh, how I laughed.
At that moment what I would liked to have done is jump over the desk, get the cheeky bugger in a headlock and demand that he FIND me and my sister a seat. And inform him that he should not mess with me, as I have a blog, and I'm not afraid to use it. (Of course what I actually did was exit as quietly and quickly as possible.)

So after that we decided to go and pick up a couple of dvds, get some yummy toffee popcorn and start up our own home cinema. Unfortunately, when I went to get the dvds I met someone who I went to school with over 10 years ago. My mind went blank as per usual when she asked me how I was, and I wittered about my job, and then she said she worked in a library. I honestly wasn't trying to be nasty, but I said "oh when I was little I used to want to work in a library." I didn't mean it in a bad way, really I didn't.

Anyway, we got home and opened the popcorn, and put the dvd in the player. Nothing happened. After studying the back of the tv - we realised that there was a cable missing. We reckon the culprit was dad, so he will be in lots of trouble tomorrow. Meanwhile I have scoffed a lot of toffee popcorn, and feel rather sick........

It's not a perfect day......

Today, has been a baaaaaaaaadddddd day at work.
The office has been flooded again. We got flooded last August, but I was on holiday and didn't see all the turmoil. Being so far away, I did feel pretty useless at the time, but there was nothing I could do.

This time I watched the river outside our door gradually rise, the sky turn almost black, and the heavens open. It stopped raining at midday, but the river kept creeping skywards. It was actually quite by chance that we realised the village was flooding, because two of my collegues went out to get pizza, and found that they couldn't get out.
So everything was packed away, computers have been taken home, most of us were wondering how we would get through the water, and my boss was praying it wouldn't flood. Badger was very good and gave me a lift to my local train station (because I didn't have my car), although her "mini raft" as she calls it, cut out on her way to work, so there was always the possibility that we were going to have to push it home!

Unfortunately, I missed my train, so sat on a bench outside a chemists waiting for my mum to come and pick me up. I must have looked a right sight, all dishevelled with my scruffy coat, big bag, an envelope stuffed full of paper, and the mug I put my pens in. (I couldn't leave it, could I!)
Anyway my mum took ages as the bottom of our village was closed because there had been a fatal accident, and then we gave a lift to a harassed mum who couldn't get to the village school and pick up her little girl. She told her that that was the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for her! Awwww.

The latest is that the office is under 6 inches of water, and rising. We are office-less again, but this time we have no where else to go.

What makes us British

It's often said that Britain doesn't have an identity any more - that we're such a mix of different people that we don't have any national spirit, but today (in one of the weirdest places possible) at Thorpe Park I felt that perhaps British-ness hasn't completely died out.

It's all because of those annoying theme park queues. As my dad said "the british are the only ones who would pay to queue" and queue we did. I spent half an hour waiting for X: NO WAY OUT, and 70 minutes waiting for Loggers Leap in line with people from every walk of life. The waiting was stupid because it was hot and extremely boring, but apart from the annoying man on the tannoy telling us NOT to sit on the fence (well if you had been standing for over an hour, you would want to rest your feet) no one was cross, or shouting, or fighting. Everyone just waited their turn, and accepted that they would get on the ride some time this year.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to go on Thorpe Park's new ride, Stealth (a rollercoaster that goes from 0-80mph in 2.3 seconds) because there was a 3 hour queue for an approx. 15 second ride.

On the way home, I heard someone chatting on their phone saying that they spent most of the say queuing, and only went on 3 rides! Now that would test my patience to the extreme!

Bored Games?

Last night there was nothing on the TV (as per usual) so me and my sister were at a loose end. So we did what any "cool dude" would do - we played scrabble.

Now my sister has NEVER played scrabble, because basically it reminds her too much of the dreaded L-word (Learning) but she actually did really well.

We didn't set the world alight with our vocab (my high score words included wimp & files) but it was good.

Things might be better

I haven't written on my blog for ages, but I think in some small ways things are looking up.

* I have my car back, hooray! I do go through stages of hating it, and it must have the world's tiniest engine, but who cares? It's my car, I have it back. Now all I have to do is gain the confidence to drive it by myself:S

* When I logged onto my blog, I found a lovely comment from The Cornish Cowgirl on my last post. "Sometimes life is crap. Take joy in the little things that you have control over." It made me smile, because that is exactly what I should be doing. Perhaps I should put it on a t-shirt, lol.

* I've discovered animal bread! (Post coming soon)

* I just feel a bit happier, don't know why because........

* The insurance company who buggered up fixing my car is playing up, now that we are trying to get back some of the money my mum and dad had to spend while I didn't have my car. Both them, and the Cowboy mechanics are lying through their teeth, just to try and get out of taking responsibilty. They offered me about £200 for them turning a 3 week job into a 6 month job! Grrrrrrr.

* Two nice people are leaving my workplace (Not that I blame them).

* And my weekend holiday has been cancelled because it is going to POUR! I understand that the weathermen/ladies can't control the weather, but why do they have to be so smug when the weather is awful?