girlofprey

So. I have had some excitement over the past few days. Last night my mum and I sat and CLOSELY WATCHED Midsomer Murders for the black character the newspaper assured us was going to be in it, but only briefly. I saw an Asian-looking girl in the background of one of the scenes, and a black horse on the sign of a pub one of the characters went into. No black characters or people with speaking parts though.

Then today - I know my days tend to start a bit later than most other people's, but even so starting it off pretty much by getting up, getting washed, getting dressed, and then getting a call from my nephew's school saying he's ill and needed to be picked up and they couldn't get in touch with his mum or dad, still seemed like a pretty bad way to start the day. My dad was at work and my mum wasn't in. The calendar she both had a day off work, had a late shift, and was getting her hair done at 2pm. I tried calling my sister, and both her house phone and her mobile went straight to a messaging service. I tried calling my mum, and the phone just screeched at me. I tried calling my mum on the house phone, and the phone still just screeched at me. I eventually called my dad, just to see if he knew where my mum was, and he said she had some sort of meeting at the hospital and then an appointment to get her hair done. We decided I'd just need to go get some money, get a taxi, go get my nephew and bring him back here, since I can't get into my sister's house. I called the school back to tell them I'd do that, they had to check if I'd even be able to do that since I wasn't his mother, and while I was on hold my dad called and said he'd called my mum and spoken to her, and she said she'd call Katie and sort it all out. It turns out mum's got a new mobile number, which no-one told me about, or put into any of the house phones.

Anyway, then I had to come off the phone with dad to talk to the school again, who were just saying yes, please come pick him up, to say I'd talked to my dad who'd talked to my mum who was going to talk to my sister and hopefully she'd pick him up. They sounded a bit annoyed, somewhat understandably, and asked me to get someone to call them, then, just to say how long they'd be. I called my dad back again, but he didn't know. I called my mum, a few minutes before she was meant to be having her hair done, and she started shouting at me, and didn't say for definite whether she'd spoken to my sister or not, and when I said the school wanted calling she told me to call them, and then hung up the phone. I didn't understand how she could have spoken to my sister when neither of her phones seemed to be working. So I ended up calling my dad again for advice about whether I should still just get a taxi. He said he'd try calling my sister again and then call me back. Which he did a few minutes later, to say he'd spoken to my sister, and everything was fine, she was going to get him. So everything was okay.

My mum called back a bit later, when she'd had her hair done, to say "Hi..." and apologise. It turned out she'd had a bit of an argument with my sister that morning, when my sister was supposed to meet her at her house at quarter past 1-ish, knowing my mum had an appointment at 2 o'clock and hadn't had any lunch, and still hadn't turned up at quarter to 2. My mum was apparently desperately trying to buy a sandwich and get through the checkouts when my dad and I started calling her about Jack. And she had spoken to my sister, she knew my sister was with a friend, and had called the friend. So it all worked out okay. Hurrah.

Anyway. So then I got to look through my unusually large amount of post: 5 letters. It contained £50 birthday money from my grandma, an appointment with some sort of job group in Pontefract for next week, a letter from the Jobcentre saying they could pay me Employment Support Allowance, a letter from the Jobcentre saying my medical certification was running out and if I didn't send more in it could affect my benefit, and a questionnaire from the Jobcentre as an assessment for Employment Support Allowance. Exciting.

Then I did a bit of tidying in my bedroom, watched Coronation Street, which is UNBELIEVABLE at the moment. ( Spoiler )

And then I watched Monroe, and got practically a whole hour of Matthew Needham, ( Spoilers? Mostly I talk about Matthew Needham )

And now I'm here. I'm going to get my dad to scan some of my documents onto his computer when he comes in from his night out, and do a bit more tidying. And I'm not doing a Pairing Picspam tomorrow, either. It's just too time-consuming. I'm going to put them off until I either don't have much to post again, or I learn how to do them without just telling the story of the film and illustrating it with pictures. Also, I picked Disturbia to do next, and having rewatched it, I'm not convinced it's not just the story of one potential/future psychopath facing off against the neighbourhood psychopath. But anyway, it seems like it will need more time to do. So. No more for a bit.

I did go down to Nottingham in the end, last weekend. It was lovely. I went down on Friday so I could basically go to some of the shops I don't have nearby anymore. I really wanted to go see Alys Power, but I ended up only giving her about two days notice before I came and it turned out she was on holiday last week anyway. But I managed to get to the Focus Gallery, which was lovely, and had some new artists in I'd not seen before who were kind of amazing. And I ended up buying one of their Alys Power pieces as well, so it all kind of worked out. I went a bit overdrawn, of course. But even that didn't turn out too awful, I think.

I managed to get a single room in a hotel quite close to where I used to live, for just £35 for one night, which given that when I was looking at Bed and Breakfasts in Cornwall the other year they were charging £25 per night I think that was pretty good. And it was all perfectly lovely. It was just me on the Friday, and then on Saturday my mum came up and we checked into the Britannia for another night. And I don't know what it was, my mum thinks it's because we checked in early and got one of the better rooms available, I think it might be because my mum booked a room there before and they noticed and decided to be nice to her - but we had, like, an amazing room. It was a double because there were no twins available, and I'm only really comparing it to the room we had there before, but it was massive, we had tons of space, it had a sofa, and sliding panels instead of curtains. And the windows didn't have mould this time! We were very impressed. We were kind of tempted to stay there for a bit, but didn't in the end, and got down to the Riverside Festival in the end. I love the Riverside Festival. It's so lovely, and such a lovely setting, and they really do get bands in from all over the world, and most of them are really great, and not like the music you normally hear most of the time. The only real problem with it is that you can't see everything at once - I had to choose between Latin American reggae and French swing, jazz and Eastern European gypsy folk. I HAD TO MAKE THAT CHOICE. Mostly I compromised by going to one for a little while, then on to my favourite option for slightly longer. But it was still lovely. And the weather was brilliant this year. I always wish I could buy CDs that the bands are usually selling, but this year I was pretty strapped for cash, and the bands I really liked were selling their CDs at £10 each, which I could not afford. But it was still great. My mum was pretty easy and basically came with me to whatever I wanted to see, and she seemed to like it well enough, I think. And because she was there and I had someone to get back with, I got to stay and watch the firework display they always have at 10.30pm on the Saturday. Which was a lot more crowded than I was imagining it would be. But was still good to see, and was actually really really good.

The next day mum had to work in the afternoon, so my dad came down and picked her up, which was good for me actually because I got to send my overnight stuff back with them rather than taking it to the festival with me. The second day was as good as the first, and included a really quite brilliant, quite lovely acrobatic troupe from Tanzania. Including limbo-ing under flaming sticks. I'll say no more. Again, I didn't get to see everything I really wanted to, but I saw more than enough, and really really enjoyed it. Then at about quarter to 6 I headed back to the train station to get the four trains I needed to get to get back to my hometown. And it wasn't even that dark when I got back. And I had had a great time, hurrah!

I'm vaguely planning to go back to Nottingham again in the next few months, if I can afford it. And pretty definitely planning to go back in December, because you remember how last year I was freaking out talking about the pantomime Gray O'Brien (aka Tony from Coronation Street) was doing a pantomime in Manchester and I really wanted to go see it, but couldn't really afford it? Guess where he's doing pantomime this year. The year after I moved away from there. Damn him. Except not really, because he is, in fact, doing pantomime again, yay.

Also, while I was in Nottingham on Friday night on my own, I passed some of the time going to see Knight and Day, the new film with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. ( Thoughts ) And there was surprise Paul Dano! Which I always am in favour of! Yay!

Basically because of that, I am now on a big There Will Be Blood kick. Also partly because my mum and I found There Will Be Blood on TV the next night, even though we didn't end up watching it, which I am cynically assuming might be something to do with the fact Paul Dano is in a new film at the moment. Although I could be wrong. Anyway. I love Daniel/Eli so much. In all it's terrible, twisted glory. I've largely been contemplating my idea from before for AU where they are in a slightly angrier, more violent version of The Princess Bride. And I've now moved onto to a modern AU where Eli is the teenage unofficial leader/priest of a community centre church and Daniel is a gangster boss who wants the building for it's strategic value in the neighbourhood. Both of which are very good places to be.

Also, I watched the last episode of Sherlock last week. ( Thoughts on 1.03, The Great Game )

I'm going away again, on Saturday, with my parents and oldest nephew, to Devon on Saturday, so I pretty much won't be around for all of next week. But I'll be back the week after that. So see you guys then, pretty much!

I'm aware that my post last night about Casualty was pretty much just a rant. Yes.

HOWEVER - I will say that if I did get a ticket for Shades, it's looks like I would be actively shunning the play belonging to whatho's least favourite person. I think. I'm not quite sure.

I'm back at my flat in Nottingham now. It's verey, very cold. Just so you know. But they have fixed my toilet seat. Hurrah.