girlofprey

The TV is up, and it was fairly painless, although it did take a whole day as I suspected it would. I have more cables than ever back there now. The big screen is beautiful, the colours look better (possibly the placebo effect), and the sound is better (this one's just objectively true). BUT. It's darker than the previous TV. To the point that it's genuinely hard to see at night in Valhalla or in dark/underground places. I hoped there was a setting on the TV I could change, but the brightness is automatically maxed, so. Dad and I think it's possibly because it's a QLED TV with advanced colour/HDR settings, so when they display black, they make it black. It doesn't make things unplayable, but it does make some sections harder. The price of progress I guess. But a bit of a shame that for £400 we didn't just get positive changes.

I'm busy putting off Valhalla at the moment though, because I'm at the end and characters are claiming doom is coming, so I'm a little reluctant to finish it. I just got through a really nice part and am sure they're going to destroy all my happiness now. So I'm trying to complete all the side activities before finishing the game, except that some of the side activities are just glitched and can't be completed. I spent a long time sailing around Norway looking for Big Mackerel, before going online and finding out a few other people also find that they're Just Not There. Which is extremely frustrating. And not particuarly motivating.

We had snow last week, in the middle of the night, which was mostly melted by the time I got up (mid-afternoon). Then yesterday I got up and everything was white again. I assumed it had fallen overnight again, but no, my parents said it started falling at quarter to midday and looked like that by ten to midday. After they'd already made plans to meet my ON, and sort of needed to go food shopping. Eventually we saw a news story on the BBC, posted at 1pm, about how there was a possiblity of snow until 6pm. Thanks, weather people.

We did have a nice little jaunt up the field with the dog though. We couldn't let him off the lead because there were other dogs around, but we saw a snowman, and our dog was afraid of it. Who knew?

I have:

• Booked a hotel room and a day off work for the trip to the Shire Horse Show. Well, technically my mum found the room, but only after I called up some B&Bs and got directed to the nearby Premier Inn, and then the Premier Inn website told me they were both fully booked on the night I wanted it. Somehow mum, on a tablet downstairs, found a room that they weren't advertising to me. I'm a little worried we're going to get there and find out we booked a room for March 2021, but I've checked the booking a lot and it all looks right. So we're going to the Shire Horse Show! Hopefully it will be Good. I'm going to miss the fillies and mares, because they're on Sunday. But hopefully it will still be Good.



• Chosen a TV. After a week or two of always wondering at work if when I got home I'd find my dad had messed with the broken TV in my room, and my gaming set-up, he finally did it on Saturday. When I'd been into town for literally an hour - I told him I was going, and I told him I wouldn't be long - I got home to find he'd removed the TV and unplugged basically every wire he could think of and dragged the rest of them up from the dusty back of my drawers. He seemed to think this was my fault for having a rat's nest of wires, and not his for waiting (not very long) for the person who understand all the wires and how to keep them sorted and where they should go. Anyway, I sorted them all out, after that. I had no choice. He did not offer to help or learn about any of the wires. Then he told me once again about the TV he'd picked out for me. It was 32-inch, instead of the 22-inch I'd had before. And it was full HD, because I shouldn't get 'HD ready', the screen was bad and it's just a con. And it was a Smart TV, which means something I don't care about I'm sure. And it was £200, and he would just go get it, go get it whenever I wanted to stop wasting time. I have found a 22-inch screen that is full HD in Argos, that has all the connections I want (the one useful thing about him unplugging all my wires, although I still think I could have learned it if he'd unplugged them while I was there, is that I learned you can have a small-ish TV with two HDMI ports), and it is only £140. I told him to butt out more or less, and he lamented his life of no-one ever listening to him and not being appreciated. I'm planning to just go get that TV on Friday.



• Watched some Coronation Street. Another storyline about Carla suffering miserably, yay! Another potentially psychotic love interest for Eileen, yay!

Our dog is going to get clipped tomorrow, after about four months of not having been done. I suppose it was winter and a thick coat might have been nice for him, but I didn't understand how he could see most of the time. We always laugh at him when he comes back from the clippers, because he goes from looking like a cotton wool ball to a long black stick. I can't imagine what it'll be like tomorrow. Amazing I'm sure.

I've been looking at what films are coming out this year. There's more or less nothing I want to see. Nothing that looks fun. What is happening to media? I don't care about Marvel films or Disney live-action remakes, and that's leaving me with very little. I'm looking forward to Godzilla King of the Monsters because it has Mothra in it, and this looks like it might be good, and I'm looking forward to Spider-Man: Far From Home just for the sheer possibility of more Michael Keaton. Other than that there is nothing.

I did find this lovely story about a woman and a dog today though (tw for mentions of sexual harassment). Enjoy it.

RIP William. My lovely friend.

I have been playing Fallout 3 this week, partly because I love it and partly to take my mind off things. Unfortunately - though it is very sweet most of the time - the main 'companion' you can have in that game is a loyal dog, that comes panting up behind you whenever it catches up to you. I am planning to go play some again today, to take my mind off things, and because I need something to do, but it might present a difficulty all of it's own.

I hate Rob on Coronation Street, I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate him.

( Cut once again for mention of pet death )

I had quite a lovely night tonight. Last year my local castle was holding a Proms-type event, but by the time I'd decided I wanted to go the tickets were all sold out. Then last night I found out it was on again, but today, so I assumed it would be sold out again. But my mum took my ON to the castle today, and found out they were still selling tickets, so she got one for me and one for herself, and we went down. It didn't start until 7.30, so the weather had cooled down from what it was like earlier today, and it managed to hold off from raining, and the place was packed. So we just spent a rather lovely evening sat on the grass with a few hundred other people, listening to our local symphony orchestra. I didn't even know we had one. Highlight of the evening: hearing one theme tune and racking our brains trying to think of what it was, humming it to ourselves, only for me to remember while mum was in the toilet that it was the theme to the Magnificent Seven. LITERALLY ALL I COULD REMEMBER WAS THAT THE SIMPSONS MAY HAVE DONE A PARODY OF IT ONCE USING THE THEME TUNE, AND IT MAY HAVE INVOLVED HORSES AND LASSOS. A close runner-up was the orchestra playing the can-can, and a bunch of people in the audience getting up and can-canning to it. And then at the end of the night we had a fireworks display. It was an incredibly decent night out for £5.

In family news, things aren't really any better. ( Talking about our dog, cut for mention of animal death )

And in general family news, I generally ask not to be involved in or hear about news to do with my sister anymore. But despite this, I have heard or overheard this week that she and her partner had a massive row on Wednesday night which ended with her sleeping separately from him, that having been moved from Disability Allowance to ESA recently she's now being asked to attend assessment interviews, and after an unfortunate incident on Thursday while my mum was looking after my YN, I seriously suggested to her that maybe she just shouldn't take so much on, if she genuinely can't cope with it. So it sort of feels like things might be changing in the near future, and possibly not for the better. Maybe they won't though, I might just be worrying too much about these things.

In other news:

• I honestly can't believe there isn't a Starkid kinkmeme in existence. I found a TFLN tumbr, and even they for some reason miss out Holy Musical B@man! in their posts. YOU SHOULD ALL WATCH TEAM STARKID PRODUCTIONS. And write me fic.



• You know how a while back I was talking about the video games I played in my youth, and mentioned the Great Giana Sisters?
  
  - I just spent literally about an hour looking for it, and while I remember posting about it, I can't find it. But anyway. Whereas I had assumed the Great Giana Sisters was a one-off 'homage' to the Super Mario Bros, it turns out it's actually an ongoing property. And there's a new game that just came out. I bought that. I'm going to play the hell out of it.



• I saw (most of) an amazing documentary about a lioness today, that ended up being basically a slash fic between her and a rival lioness. It was amazing. Then it ended on the note that there were 450,000 wild lions 50 years ago, and now there are 20,000. Which was a bit of a downer. I didn't even realised lions were in trouble. Still, it was an amazing documentary though. It was called The Last Lions, and it's apparently available on DVD, even though it's only about an hour long. Also, it was narrated by Jeremy Irons - I c what u did there, documentary makers.

In other news, I'm playing Fallout 3 again, and I've just gotten to the parts in the game that make me really angry. Or kind of angry. I feel like I want to go somewhere and discuss at length the differing moralities of the characters in the Wasteland - and why I think they're genuinely good choices by Bethesda, even if they didn't quite write them as well as they could have done. But either no-one is having/had those conversations, or I'm missing them. Or they're on the type of game websites that I don't like to frequent, in case they're a little more hostile than the sites I usually go on. Oh well.

Hello. My parents have gone to Portugal. I am on my own again for a week, or most of it, except that unlike last time that happened, when I was supposed to be going on holiday to so had nothing to do except stay in the house, I am going away for the weekend in about five days. I'm looking forward to that. I'm just also aware that on Thursday I have to take our dog to the kennel he's staying at on Thursday and Friday (at 7pm, apparently), have a bath, pack, and try to get a decent night's sleep for the con. Then I have to get up, finish packing, and go get a train.

Also, unlike last time, I basically forgot everything I actually needed to do to take care of the house while my parents are away. Partially I mean I forgotten how to do certain things, partially I mean I forgot I was going to need to do ANY of those things until about Friday night, when my parents were packing to leave. I forgot I was going to have to clean up after the dog. I mostly forgot to ask what to do if the cat leaves a dead bird in the garden (as she has been doing in the last week, again). And I still can't really remember when I have to put the bins out. My dad left a note about putting the recycling bins out on Wednesday. But do the regular bins go out on Wednesday as well? I don't know.

And to top it all off, I have one of the least helpful days I've probably ever had.

1. I mentioned not remembering I had to clean up after the dog. Well, also this time my parents didn't clean up what was there before they went for me. Probably this has more to do with them having to set off for their plane at about 4.30am than any inherent evil on their part, but still. It's meant to be done every day, but since I had to go food-shopping yesterday, I decided not to yesterday, and just to do it all today.
   
   Anyway. So this morning when I took the dog out, he had less clean/comfortable places than usual to do his business in, so I was trying to keep an eye on him, and didn't bend down to stroke the cat like I generally do when she comes over. Yesterday, kind of jokingly, I tried to get her to jump up on the hood of my mum's car so I could stroke her, because I've seen cats on cars before, and didn't think it was that big a deal. She wouldn't do it yesterday, but today - without me urging her to - she did have a try. Except that it was my dad's car, because my parents have taken my mum's car, because dad gets so worried his about being stolen or damaged. The cat didn't manage to actually manage to get on the car, but when I looked, she had left a couple of small scratchmarks in the paintwork.
   
   I rubbed them a little with my t-shirt, hoping they'd go away. And I think they did fade a little bit, but I also left a slightly more noticeable smudge on the car. But it's been raining tonight. Perhaps it'll all be fine in the morning.



2. After many days of some of the signs, I've finally gotten my period. Which is nice, because I was worried I would get it on Thursday or Friday or something, when I'm meant to be going away. Except that now I've got my period, on my own. And there is no-one around if the cramps get bad, to look at me and stroke my hair and maybe make me a hot water bottle if I need one. Hmph.



3. I was playing a computer game, and I had my window open, and it started getting dark, but I figured it was fine, it was probably to early for bugs to come in. Then I heard a slight thump and looked up and saw some dust flying down from my lampshade, and thought oh well, I don't mind moths. Except that it wasn't a moth. When I had pretty much finished the computer game and got up, I noticed it was a wasp. Hanging around my light. I didn't even know wasps did that. And I couldn't catch it because it was flying around, I couldn't hit it because it was flying around, and I couldn't turn off my light and hope it would leave, because it was completely dark and I didn't have any other lights, and I wouldn't know where it was or if it had gone out of the window, or if I left my room, if it would still be there when I came back. I finally had to catch it when it landed briefly on the side of the lampshade using a small candleholder of mine, slide that onto a pringles tin lid so it was trapped in there, and then hold it out of an open window, let it go, and then quickly close the window. Thankfully that did it.



4. I have already mentioned the dog and cleaning up after him. I got up late as usual today, went out to get some chocolate, and then decided to do it after playing my computer game. It would only be a couple of hours, and not too late I figured. Then I could do it, then wash my hands and make my dinner. Except I forgot that a time that 'wasn't too late' in August when I was looking after him, would actually be significantly darker now. So, because I really couldn't have left it for another day, for his sake or mine, I ended up having to clean it up in the dark, and in the rain. What I use for this is a small plastic bag used like a glove, and we use it to pick up the poo and put it into another plastic bag. But because I couldn't see very well, and there was so much of it by then, at one point I felt like I'd actually touched something. When I looked, my thumb had been really close to the edge of the plastic bag handle. But there was no way to tell if I'd actually touched something. I have OCD, and am fairly germphobic at times. I washed my hands about three times afterwards. But it still didn't feel entirely clean.
   
   My dog was a complete sweetheart though, he came out with me when I went to clean it up because he wanted a wee, and when he was done and I was about to start I sent him into the garage, with our big garage door still open. When I was finished I was half worried he might have run off and gone wandering around our cul-de-sac, but when I went in he was just laid by the door to the kitchen, waiting. He is quite lovely.



5. However, when I was later on playing with him with his toy bone, he still (accidentally, probably) gave me a bit of a bite on the thumb.

So that was my day. But it's not all bad. I went food shopping yesterday, and even though I'm pretty sure I spent about £40 or £50 last time I was shopping for a week alone, I ended up only spending about £26. I did have one less day to buy for though, and mum had already gotten me some stuff in. Still. It's quite nice. And I have plenty left over from the £70 she left me to pay the kennel lady upfront on Thursday.

Also, I have been mentioning a computer game a lot, which is Oblivion, the fourth Elder Scrolls game, which was released five years ago (apparently) but I never got because I didn't have a computer that could play it. But now my laptop can, and I'd like a chance to play it before the new one comes out and I get it, and I found a "5th Anniversary Edition" including both the expansion packs, for the same price as I could basically get the game secondhand on Play.com. So I got it. This is also probably part of the reason I didn't think to ask my parents much about what to do around the house while they were gone, and why I haven't been posting much lately. It is wicked and I am properly sucked in, as usual with Elder Scrolls games. I'm not loving it as much as Morrowind so far, but Morrowind was set in Morrowind, where the Dark Elves come from, and I always play as a Dark Elf, so that's probably just personal bias. Anyway. It's one of those games you can sort of play for hours and get slightly sick of, but still want to play more of after you turn it off. Or at least that's how it is for me. So I am enjoying it, even if it tends to eat up a lot of my day.

And, ETA, somewhere in the middle of that last paragraph my parents called, and we sorted out a few things. The bins don't have to go out this week, if I find a dead bird in the garden I should either use a plastic bag to get rid of it or just leave it, and mum didn't sound madly concerned about the scratches on dad's car. Which is nice. Also Portugal is apparently nice, and they have nice room with a lovely seaview. So hurrah.

I'm also - in the midst of all this complaining - sort of aware that I'm probably so stressed at the moment because I ran around doing things and getting things sorted last week. I went to my appointment with my employment coach, I went to see my doctor and got a new medical certificate and got it sent off to the Jobcentre, I sorted out a transfer for the money I need for the Connotations hotel room (despite Santander's every effort to thwart me in doing this), and I looked up the train journey I'll need to take to Durham on Friday, which is basically hourly, and really straightforward. So things are pretty much sorted. And I'm meant to be going to another workshop thing with my employment service tomorrow, but I've pretty much decided I'm not going. It's just too much hassle this week I think, and hopefully they'll understand that. I think it's better if I just chill out and save up my energy for Thursday and Friday.

There's an insect flying around my light again now, but I'm pretty sure it's not a wasp, so I'm happy enough.

Anyway. So now I'm probably going to go off and play some more Wet. I found out some problems with Wet which make it slightly not perfect, the controls are really hard to handle, especially when you're meant to be doing 'acrobatic' moves. And it turns out that not only does True Love die young, so does vague computer game het shipping. Hmph. But it's still pretty awesome. Yay. There's other stuff I wanted to talk about, but I'm pretty sure I've blathered on enough. Or the pain in my arm and the new text size in the posting box is confusing me. Whichever.

So. I didn't go to Wales. I decided to stay home instead. I thought about it some more last night, and I realised that mostly when I thought about the holiday, I thought a little about it being a holiday, a little about my youngest nephew, and mostly about how if I really couldn't take it I could just stay in my room and read a book all day or something. Or go off on my own. Or get a train back home. Which didn't seem like the best way to start off a holiday. And then my mum came and dropped the bombshell that it wasn't so much a caravan park we were going to, as a holiday park, and it did specify smart casual dress for dinner. So I would have had to choose some nice evening stuff. And pack it. And change into it and wear it on the holiday. And at around midnight last night I still hadn't packed anything. So I decided not to go.

I feel a bit bad about it really, because I feel like I'm letting my parents down a bit, and I'd told my oldest nephew I was coming and he was really excited, and I'm missing out on a holiday obviously. But I just felt so much better when I'd decided I wasn't going than when I thought I was, so there doesn't seem to be much point just putting myself through the ringer when I wasn't even that happy about going.

So anyway. I've been to town and bought food for a week. I've had a quick course on how to use the dishwasher. My dad's told me not to turn off all the lights in the house I'm not using like I usually do, but to leave one or two on, or else burglars will probably come. And I've been told not only do I have to get up early to feed the dog, as I'd realised, but it'll have to be about 7.30 or 8.00-ish. I might try leaving it till 9.00. And I'm going to have to clear up our dog's droppings, which I was sort of hoping I could just leave for a week and not look at. I can't.

But anyway, yes. I'm on my own for a week. Hurrah (sort of).