God, Ted. D'you remember that fella who was so good at fashion they had to shoot him?

Happy Wednesday, everybody!

I have had a very happy Wednesday. I worked from home today, which is always good. In between doing my work I was able to clean the kitchen, change the bed linen and bake a bran loaf, so I feel like I managed to get lots done today and that always makes me feel happy. The bran loaf was very tasty as well, so it was win all round really.

A nice calming day was just what I needed, actually. Yesterday was my first day in our brand new offices in Coventry. In fact, the day at work was really good. The offices are lovely, really bright and clean and spacious and the relocation team made sure that the induction into the new building was efficiently handled. It'll be a good place to work, once I'm based there all of the time. I had a very enjoyable work day and had arranged to meet Nic on campus afterwards. I walked up to the nearest bus stop after work and had been feeling pretty good about my day, but the red mist descended on me. I wore my new Irregular Choice shoes for the first time (well, the first time during the day) and, as I had feared, they are a little bit too big for me. They're officially the right size - I bought them in my size, obviously, but they come up bigger than other size 5s I have had before so they became difficult to walk in. Irrational, I know, but this enraged me. Why didn't they fit? Did I look like a child wearing her mother's shoes? Why the hell didn't they fit?!

I'll admit, that is a fairly inconsequential problem. Added to it was the fact that it was freezing (I know it's January, but Coventry is MUCH colder than Leamington) and I was carrying a heavy bag containing my (borrowed, annoyingly) work laptop in addition to my already pretty heavy handbag. I hate feeling ungainly, and ungainly is what I was. I got to the bus stop and plonked myself down. Seeing as the electronic sign thing said it was 25 minutes to the next bus I got my book out and started to read. A lady came and sat down at the bus stop as well. I don't know her and I don't think she knew me and maybe she just had one of those faces that always looks cross, but she glared at me until the bus arrived. When it did, I had my hands full with my purse and my phone (which had chosen that moment to ring) and my book and I was laden down with my two bags and my stupid bloody shoes....I got on the bus and paid the driver, the glaring woman pushed past me, the bus driver moved off before I'd had a chance to sit down, I had to stumble down the moving bus trying to find a seat.... It was NOT good. When the bus did get to campus the woman sitting next to me didn't move an inch to let me up, so I tripped over her. I met Nic in the bar that used to be The Graduate, just as he was deciding to leave because it was too noisy. We went to the cafe in the new union where I promptly burst into tears because I was just so pissed off.

I know all of that is pathetic, and no real reason at all to get so annoyed. Yesterday afternoon just felt like a series of annoying occurrences one after another. After I had mopped up my tears and eaten a cream slice, I went to the toilet (disgusting, I have to add - Warwick spend £11 million upgrading the union and don't renovate the toilets. Only one cubicle out of the 10 in there actually had a toilet seat, there was no soap, the tap sprayed water all over me and the hand driers weren't working) Nic took me home and I changed into my pyjamas straight away. My evening improved immensely after that. The lovely Mrs Z was in the area and she popped by (Impressively, she managed to get her ready-to-give-birth pregnant self up the 100 stairs to our flat and luckily for me she didn't mind my pyjamas) We had tea and biscuits and a chat, then she went home to have her dinner and Nic and I had ours. Then I stretched out in a bubble bath with Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years which was a gift from M. All of my grumpiness was washed away, and good thing too!

So, you know, yesterday wasn't an ordeal or anything, but I was glad to have a more relaxed day today. Also, I took my shoes in to the excellent Timpson branch on Regent Street and the man there said he could pad the heel out for me. So I should actually be able to wear my lovely shoes without them putting me in a foul mood!

I was also feeling a bit more chirpy because I remembered I had this dress, also a gift from M:

My hair is doing something a bit funny in this picture, but I love this dress and wearing it always makes me feel good.

Sugar Plum and N called round for a cup of tea and some bran loaf, which was very nice indeed. I went round to their house on Monday after work, as did M, and I came home so laden with gifts that Nic had to meet me at the bottom of the stairs to help me with carrying them up to our flat. Sugar Plum donated their old kettle and toaster to us, as their wedding presents have arrived and they are now proud owners of a Delonghi Icona kettle and toaster. This worked out well for us, as our kettle leaks and had begun, worryingly, to switch itself on! Sugar Plum had also bought me two multipacks of Tayto crisps, which made me ridiculously happy. M gave me the Adrian Mole book and a mug with dascshunds on it. I am very spoiled - which actually makes me feel quite ashamed about spending so much of this blog post whining about being cold and having small feet. I'll dry up next time, I promise.

I'm off to London tomorrow and am going to be in meetings ALL DAY. I have four back to back meetings but, when they're finished Nic and I are meeting to take the train down to Kent to spend the weekend with his parents. It will be so good to see them and I am really looking forward to spending the weekend by the sea. On our way back up on Monday, I'm going to pay a visit to the Fever shop to spend some of my hard-earned wages as well - something that is guaranteed to put me in a good mood!

Did I really do remarkably badly, Holmes?

Sunday, here you are again. I almost can't believe it really is Sunday, it has been the slowest week. Has anyone else felt that way? I think I'm still on a bit of a go-slow, I've been staring at this for ages now, trying to think of how to get started. LAME.

On Friday I had a meeting in our new office, which was more exciting than it sounds. Since I started my job over a year ago, we've been waiting to move into our new offices but there have been many delays. In fact, in May we were moved out of one interim office and into another one. That move completely sucked because the first interim office was really nice and easy to get to, and the second interim office was disgusting and far away. The proper office was finally finished and opened a few weeks ago, but we're on a move timetable and I don't officially move into it until Tuesday, so when I went to the meeting on Friday it was my first time inside the new building. It's really nice. Unlike the crappy interim office, there is loads of natural light thanks to the large windows and the skylight that runs the width of the building. There is a beautiful cafe area, lots of plants and comfy chairs. I'm not going to get too excited about somewhere I'm going to be working, but it is lovely all the same, so I'm looking forward to moving into it on Tuesday.

Another major benefit of the new office is that, unlike the interim one, it is not in the middle of nowhere. In fact, it's a short walk from Earlsdon high street, and a slightly longer walk away from some good friends. With that in mind, after work I took a walk into Earlsdon and met Mrs Z. My original plan had been to walk to her house but the weather was atrocious so she kindly collected me in Earlsdon. We had a lovely afternoon together, knitting and chatting. Sugar Plum joined us when she finished work, and Mrs Z served us up her amazing bran loaf with some tea. It might be the last time I get to just chill with Mrs Z before her baby is born so it was a very pleasant afternoon indeed.

Sugar Plum gave me a lift home and I had just enough time to get changed and eat my tea before it was time to go out again. Tom came round and we headed up to The Somerville Arms for a quiet Friday evening in the pub. It was lovely! We were joined by Caroline and Lauren who brought along the very lovely Kate. Sugar Plum and her husband came along, and so did her brother and sister-in-law, and slightly later on we were joined by Denise and Michael. I'll have to admit, there were so many of us that we took up half of the back lounge, but it was excellent. Having only met Caroline and Lauren properly last week, it was good to see them again and it was excellent to meet Kate as well. I feel we bonded over pretty nerdy things, which was great. It was a really relaxed evening and I had such a good time, I hope we can do it again soon.

I wasn't feeling hungover on Saturday (I had been pretty good on Friday night) so Nic and I were able to tackle a few chores like doing proper grocery shopping (checking to see what we have, making a list, going to the greengrocers - rather than just getting what we need for that evening and buying it all in the supermarket) We watched The Lady Vanishes by way of research for a piece of writing Nic wants to do, and we made sausages and mash for dinner. As the sun came out today we thought we'd be a bit more active and get out for a bit of a walk in the park. Also, Nic wanted a chance to wear the lovely tweedy jacket he bought in the Myton Hospice shop on Saturday afternoon:

Doesn't he look handsome?! Nic is very talented at charity shopping - yesterday he found a beautiful Autograph Marks and Spencers shirt in Oxfam for £5. It was a doubly exciting find because it was the shirt I had wanted to buy him for christmas but couldn't afford - obviously this made it a more exciting find! The sunshine tempted me to wear something summery, so I got out my Fever Poppy dress and paired it up with my new shoes:


I'm not sure how well I like this dress with these shoes but I am pleased with the dress. I bought it a few months back when it was on sale and have only worn it once before because I didn't know if I liked it on me or not. I've decided I do, however, so it's going to see the light of day a bit more now!

I have a fairly busy week ahead. I have a few days in London and we're moving into the new office on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to next weekend, however, as Nic and I are going to Kent to visit his parents. They live in a lovely little seaside village near Folkestone, and I love the seaside in winter. I'm also hoping we'll get the chance to visit The Malthouse in Hythe, which is an antiques fair. Last summer I found my Hornsea heirloom coffee pot there, so maybe I'll be able to find a matching teapot there this time. In any case, it will be lovely to spend time with Nic's family, and walking on the seafront always makes me happy.

I'm away to get the dinner on - we're having stew tonight!

Your legend appears violent and unpleasant. And rather too convenient!

I've been planning out this blog post in my head for a few days now, but now that I've sat down to actually write the dratted thing, my mind has gone curiously blank. It's been a week for that kind of thing, though.

This month is going by far faster than I could have credited when I dragged myself out of bed and onto the 7:18 to London on 4th January. Experience tells me it's usually February that I find difficult though so I won't wish this month away just yet! I'm now into the third week of my new job. So far it's going well but I'm still being eased in, I think. There are a number of IT issues that are being slowly resolved (I need a new laptop and a Blackberry, apparently) and it was only on Tuesday that I was actually granted access to the floor our team work on! It's a secure floor so I needed extra security clearance. This was a real pain because the toilets are on the stairwells, so I needed someone to let me in and out every time I needed to pee! The job itself is shaping up to be very interesting and I'm glad I made the move. When the work really kicks in it's going to be very busy, but I don't mind that at all. The only (very minor) gripe I have at the moment is that, while the train journey down to London is fine, the train journey home feels like it takes forever. This is made worse by the fact that I'm usually too tired to really enjoy reading. I think I might start bringing some knitting or crochet with me. Writing isn't really an option because I just can't get on with the little tables they have on the train - the pull out bit has an uncomfortable ridge and I can't rest my elbows enough so that writing isn't really tiring on my arms. Oh whinge whinge whinge! The good things are that it's miles better than going into the office in Birmingham (which I hate) and it's round the corner from the Fever shop, and the job is good and I like the people. There, enough about work now!

The lovely Darling dress that I ordered from the Frock closing down sale finally arrived last week (I ordered it on 23rd December. They were closed over Christmas, in fairness, but I think £5 postage is a lot to pay to have to wait for so long!) and it was even cuter on than I had hoped. I wore it to Mrs Z's baby shower on Saturday:


You can also see the beautiful Firetrap shoes my brother bought me for Christmas. Aren't they lovely?! I never would have thought of Firetrap shoes, but he obviously has a good idea of what I like!

I had never been to a baby shower before so I didn't really know what to expect. Mrs Z is the first of my friends to get knocked up, so it was new for all of us. There was a wishlist set up on the Mothercare website, but I already had a very clear idea of what I wanted to get for Baby Z, which was a little rotating night light. Nic and I were able to find one in Blooming Marvellous but the photo they have of it on their website is so crappy I'm not going to put it here! My dad gave me a very similar one when I was about 18 - he thought it was cool and it had VW Beetles on it, so I liked it. I was so pleased to be able to find one for Baby Z. It was a very lovely afternoon and good to spend time with Mrs Z before the baby arrives. I also put in some quality time with her guinea pig, Button. I think we have a lot in common:
(I haven't got as cute a pout as he has, unfortunately.)

I spent the rest of the evening eating Tuscano's pizza and watching the Sex and The City movie with Sugar Plum. The idea had been for us to do that while Nic and N (Sugar Plum's lovely husband) watched some sci-fi films. The men watched their sci-fi, but Sugar Plum and I paid little or no attention to our movie and concentrated instead on gossiping. Which is okay, I think, because the SATC movie pretty much sucks. It was an extremely girly day and I spent most of Sunday recovering from all of the sugar (there were lots of cakes at the baby shower.)

I worked from home yesterday and at lunchtime Nic and I had a browse through some of Leamington's finest charity shops. We had a wee look at lunchtime today as well, and were very successful. I picked up the complete This Life for £4 and Nic bought me these gorgeous Typhoon scales for £7 in Oxfam:

I had seen them last week but decided I didn't need them, but when we were in yesterday we thought it was a shame to leave them there so they came home with us. They're practically brand new as well, and considering they retail at around £25 I think I got a good bargain! Nic had similar luck today when he found the new Peladon Tales box set in CEX. This only came out on Monday. As he had some DVDs he wanted to trade in he got it for £4!

I'm very excited about watching the two Peladon stories. I've seen The Curse of Peladon once before, and thought it really enjoyable. It's loosely based on The Hound of the Baskervilles, features David Troughton and has an amazing scene in which the Doctor sings a lullaby to a scary monster. Caroline and I had a little conversation over Twitter about the relative merits of new Who versus old Who and I recommended Jon Pertwee-era Who to her. She felt a little dubious about classic Doctor Who because of seeing some of the less good Sylvester McCoy episodes in the 80s, and I think that's fair (although, I have come to like McCoy quite a lot after watching some of the better serials like The Curse of Fenric and Battlefield) but, as a relative newcomer to Doctor Who I have enjoyed every one of the Jon Pertwee serials I've seen. It's a very different beast to the Doctor Who on our screens today, but it is lots of fun. And look at Jon Pertwee's wee face, he's so cute!


In fairness, you could say I have eccentric taste, but I love all of the Third Doctor and UNIT stories, mainly because I think that Nicholas Courtney is so wonderful as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Just for good measure, here is a wee photo of the Doctor, The Brigadier, Benton, Yates and Sarah-Jane Smith:


Enough Doctor-chat now, I think! The only other exciting shopping I did was to buy a pair of red tights from QS. As I have so many red dresses, these will go with lots of my clothes and I think they'll look good with some of the things I bought in the sales, like the Irregular Choice Flick Flack shoes and the Ruby Belle Sailor dress that I bought a while ago, but which it has been too cold to wear. I think I need to give my poor wee debit card a rest after all of that!

It's been a while since I included a list on my blog, but I'm going to end on one today.

Reasons to be cheerful (1, 2, 3)
Nic is very very lovely
I have some very good friends, and I'll be spending time with them this weekend
It was sunny today and the evenings will soon be getting lighter
I'll be going home to see my lovely family in February
I'll be going to the seaside next weekend
I've found two Hornsea heirloom teapots on eBay

Hurrah!

The Pineapple Tart

A slight departure here from my usual form for blog posts, but I'm very excited today. I discovered this morning that one of my favourite authors, Anne Dunlop, has a blog AND she has a new book coming out in March! You can read her blog here.

I first discovered Anne Dunlop when I was a teenager. My mum had picked up a copy of her first book The Pineapple Tart from my home town's only bookshop (it's been closed for a good many years and is now a paint shop, which makes me sad) I don't quite know what possessed my mum to buy the book, at the time she was mainly interested in reading books that were set in Liverpool during the Second World War. There are a surprising amount of these! Anyway, she passed The Pineapple Tart on to me and I fell in love.



The Pineapple Tart tells the story of the man-mad Helen Gordon and her four sisters (Laura, Daisy, Sarah and Jennifer) and their eccentric family. I liked it because it was at once familar and exotic. It was familar in that Anne Dunlop comes from Castledawson and Helen and her sisters come from the countryside near Magherafelt - local places for this Tyrone girl. Helen's large and eccentric family reminded me of my own, and Helen's desire to experience something new mirrored my vauge and unspecified teenage yearnings. It was exotic because Helen was a Protestant, and she was beautiful, and she was heading off to university. The book follows Helen's late school days and her university career, studying Agricultural Science at University College Dublin. I read and reread my copy until it fell apart, and the same for the book's sequels A Soft Touch and The Dolly Holiday.

Part of the reason for my enduring fondness for these books is the fact that they are set in rural Northern Ireland, and they depict the eccentricities of country life in a funny and affectionate way. I identified with and admired Helen, who is warm and funny but intelligent and independent. I loved her sisters as well. Laura doesn't care at all about what people think, and falls in love with a man who lives in a caravan, farms chickens and races stock cars (incidentally, Laura's boyfriend's mother has one of the best ever names for a fictional character - Slack Alice)Daisy has her heart broken by The Muesli Prince at university and is dippy and artistic, but she can still build a sheep dip. Sarah is an uptight perfectionist who decides not to marry the perfect man because 'I've unblocked drains with more enjoyable poking and prodding' and Jennifer is...well, Jennifer is Jennifer. She gets drunk on her wedding day and gives birth to her first child on the kitchen table of a decaying mansion in the wilds of Kerry. The novels, in their own light and frothy way, look at how easy it is to fall in love with the wrong person. Mostly their appeal lies in the way that Anne Dunlop shows five young women growing up and doing things in their own way. I am so excited about reading the next installment of the Gordons' story The Revenge of Lady Muck when it is published in March.

And then, do you see, he went and sold the miniature hound for cash! And he bought a mower. A lawnmower.

Before I get started onto the real business of this post, the blog post I wrote about Northern Irish English has been published on the Macmillan Dictionary Blog. You can read it here. Hurrah!

It has been a really lovely week so far. I've had some time to exchange long and chatty emails with Sugar Plum, something that always makes my work day go by much faster. It's still fairly quiet and unpressured in my new job as I get to grips with what I'll be doing, so that has been good as well.

Last night Caroline, Lauren and I met up for a few drinks. I've been reading both of their blogs for the past few months now, and they live locally, so it was really good to finally meet. Caroline has written about it too and I don't want to be repetitive, but considering we had never met properly before last night, we got along famously. I don't mind admitting that I was feeling nervous on the walk to the pub, but in a very short time we were chatting away and sharing personal experiences like we had known one another for years. This was really evident when Lauren looked down and said 'Ooh, you're wearing the shoes!'. I was wearing one of the new pairs of shoes the snow has stopped me from wearing, shoes I had referred to in internet chatter with Lauren. It was really very easy and comfortable, and we ended up having a later night than planned. From reading one another's blogs we already had a good idea of the things that we have in common and the conversation flowed very easily, and I feel like I have made two very interesting and fun new friends. We talked about having a party to which we can all wear our most over the top party frocks, and I will definitely be sure to make that happen! When I started blogging again a few years ago I restricted it to a list format and it was just on my Myspace. It was a good thing to do in that I got something out of it, but it was limited. I have already gained so much from writing this blog, even though I have a small number of readers. I have met two really lovely people in Caroline and Lauren and made contact with others, and I have enjoyed the writing of each blog post enormously. This year I would like to do more creative writing and already writing this blog has encouraged me in that so I'm going to keep it up.

This evening I was back in the pub, this time to meet up with two friends I haven't seen for ages. When I was a teacher I worked with Megan and Anna and it was brilliant to catch up with them over dinner and a glass of wine. I don't miss teaching, but it was good to hear about some of my former students and how they've been getting on since I left teaching. Mainly, though, it was excellent to see Megan and Anna again and I hope we'll be able to do it more often once I am working near them again. As I wrote in a previous blog post, I don't really do New Year's Resolutions but I want to change some of the things that I was unhappy about in 2009 and, with that in mind, I think it's important for me to socialise a bit more with people outside of my immediate close group of friends, to make new friends and to learn new things about myself.

I've had a fairly quiet Thursday and hope to have a similarly quiet Friday. Nic and Paul went to see Sherlock Holmes last night (the second time for Nic and he says he enjoyed it just as much the second time round) and it has put Nic in the mood to revisit his love for all things Sherlock. I think the plan for tomorrow evening is to watch The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, as I have never seen it. After three evenings in the pub this week (I know, I'm totally rock and roll, check me out) I am looking forward to a quiet evening in watching films in my pyjamas!

On a completely unrelated note, I spent some time today looking for one of these on the internet:
(image from here)
I like this blue one, but ideally I want a brown one or a green one. I'm going to try to add to my collection of lovely Hornsea heirloom pottery this year. Maybe I'll be able to get a brown one from the Malt House in Hythe the next time I'm down in Kent. In the meantime, if any of you see one of these, let me know. In return, I'll make you a cup of tea. Now, how's that for a deal?

Quick and Dirty

This one is quick and dirty, and is about how I plan to spend my money this Spring!

On these shoes by Irregular Choice


And these dresses by Fever

Jeanne Maxi Dress

Ocean pocket dress

Aaaah, mentally spending the money I haven't yet been paid. Internet shopping at its finest!

Esther! I wouldn't marry her if you paid me in swans!

Hello to everyone! Even though it is a grey old Monday and I am tired already (I blame the long commute I have to make on a Monday morning for that!) I am feeling pretty cheery. I hope all you lovely readers are as well!

I had a nice extended weekend. I took Friday as leave because it was so icy and the thought of getting stuck on the way home from London was not appealing. So instead I had a bit of a lie-in, then had a nice breakfast and pottered around listening to Radio 4 and doing some householdy stuff while Nic worked. I think that means I am definitely getting older, because it made me very happy to be listening to the radio while doing the washing up!

When the wardrobe rail collapsed last week it prompted Nic and I to rethink some of our furniture arrangements. When we moved into our flat it was unfurnished and we didn’t have a car, so we bought all of our furniture from Ikea. We don’t have much storage apart from the wardrobe so we decided on Friday to go to Ikea again and get another bookcase for the living room and some drawers for the bedroom. Early afternoon seems to the time to go to Ikea because there was hardly anyone there, it was excellent. We had something to eat in the Bistro and then took our time getting what we needed. At the moment I don’t mind the fact that nearly all of our furniture comes from Ikea because it suits us, and most of it looks good in our little flat, but of course in the future I’d like to diversify a bit! We bought a red Billy bookcase to put in the living room and it does look nice with our red sofa, so it’s all good.

After Ikea we had dinner in Nando’s and a drink in Browns before attempting to get home on the train. It started to snow while we were having dinner and all of the trains in and out of Coventry station were severely delayed. It was extremely cold and although I was wearing my wellies, I’d forgotten to layer an extra pair of socks over my tights so my feet were freezing. Nic and I moved to wait in the waiting room, but unfortunately it was occupied by one of those people who make me want to eat my own ears so that I don’t have to listen to them any more. She was talking on her mobile phone, using a handsfree kit so that, to start with, I thought she was talking to herself. Now, I know that any conversation that you can only hear one side of is going to sound tedious but this one was just genuinely tedious. And it just wouldn’t end! It really seemed to me as if she was just talking to fill the time while waiting for the train. I know that there is nothing wrong with that, and waiting for a train that keeps on being delayed is really boring, so I’m trying not to be too judgmental here. I hate talking on my phone in a public place (especially trains) and so I find it very irritating when other people do. Still, I like to have some time with my thoughts when there is an unexpected gap in the day, and it is people like this girl droning on about which of her friends is the prettiest, that makes that difficult to achieve. I really pitied the woman sitting next to her, who was struggling to concentrate on reading her book.

We made it home eventually and spent the rest of the weekend in a very domesticated manner. We built the bookcase and filled it with the stray books that have been in heaps on the floor, or on top of other books in our other bookcases. Sugar Plum and her husband N came round for dinner, and N very kindly offered to fix our broken wardrobe for us. He did this on Sunday, and although the estate agent still needs to send someone to reinforce the rail and the shelf, I was able to unpack my dresses from their boxes on the floor and (very gingerly) hang them up once again. This took ages because I have so many dresses and also because I took the opportunity to organise them. I’ll have to do this again later in the week when the contractor comes round again but it was worth it all the same! Maybe Nic and I will be hip young things next weekend to make up for the fact that this past weekend was spent rearranging our books and DVDs (him) and clothes (me)

I learned from Friday’s mistake and put a pair of socks on over my woolly tights before putting my wellies on for the walk to the station this morning. My feet were lovely and warm the whole way down to London. Nic thinks it’s starting to thaw a bit in Leamington, and although I have enjoyed the snow (and the snow days) very much I’ll welcome it getting a little bit warmer. This is purely superficial, because I have three new pairs of shoes that I haven’t had the chance to wear yet and it’s also been a bit too cold to wear my new coat (I know that sounds stupid, but it’s more a winter into spring coat) I don’t want to invoke the ire of this blogger though, so I’ll just point out that I don’t expect the climate to bend around my new (and fairly impractical) shoes or anything. I’ll carry on wearing them to do the washing up until I can wear heels outdoors without risking a major injury!

Some people think I'm a tube fer NAT smoking? Aye, Dead On!

The lovely Caroline from Second Hand Shopper put out a call yesterday for writers and bloggers to have a go at writing guest blogs for the Macmillan Dictionary Blog about their English. I felt very inspired by this, having both taught English and being very interested in language in general.

As most of you probably know, I'm from Northern Ireland. Or, Norn Iron as we like to call it at home. Although English is my native language, I was lucky enough to be able to learn Irish (Gaelige - rather than the Scots Gaelic. They are similar, but separate languages) and studied the language all the way to A-level. Moving to England to come to university here, and subsequently becoming an English teacher, made me love and value my own language and idiolect even more, which is what I'm going to have a go at writing about today.

This online dictionary of Northern Irish usage might be useful to you in reading this entry. In fact, I contributed to this!

I think Northern Irish English is a very rich, highly expressive, and very funny language. Although Gaelige has become very rare outside of the political 'jailtacht' use (former terrorists who learned how to speak Irish in prison) it has had a lasting effect on the way we speak and the phrases we use. A good example of this would be in describing someone who was in a bad mood. You might say they had "an oul head on them" and this construction comes from the Irish way of describing emotion. To say that you are angry you say "Tá fearg orm" - there is anger on me. I particularly like this construction because I think it reflects the way in which moods and feelings are often fleeting, they settle on you or you wear them, and then they move on.

As with any regional dialect, the most interesting words and phrases are often the most insulting ones. Lots of people have a giota beag (small bit) of Irish, and that small bit is usually 'Póg mo thóin' (kiss my ass) I think Northern Irish English has a real richness and humour in insults as well. I always enjoy hearing someone being described as a dose - "Isn't Kevin's wife an awful oul dose?" means exactly what you would imagine, she's as much fun as a dose of salts, or she'd put you to sleep like a dose of something strong. The great English insult "She had a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp" never quite took off in NI but we have a good variety of similar insults. A fairly indecipherable but pointed one is "She has a face like a fur hatchet" and one I've heard used often to describe someone looking glum or sour is "He had a face on him like a well-chewed chip". I'm not going to even attempt to find a provenance for those expressions but I think their meanings are fairly clear!

As most of Ireland is still very rural, a good deal of our language comes from the agricultural life. The word 'Culchie' is a well-used one in both Norn Iron and The South/The State/The Free State (all various ways for NI people, especially those of us on the border, to describe the Republic of Ireland) but its meaning in Northern Ireland is a little bit different. In the South it's a good deal more insulting, referring to anyone from outside of Dublin (see this episode of the wonderful Soupy Norman to get an idea of how insulting it can be.) In NI, the term is usually more affectionately meant and refers to country people. In Northern Ireland we're all country people, though, so it really isn't very offensive at all. It's unclear where exactly the word comes from. It could be from the Irish 'Coillte', to describe people living in the woods, or it could just be from the word 'agriculture'. There isn't really a clear translation for this word, but "Ye big Culchie ye!" can be used to describe anyone who doesn't live in a town.

I'll bring this to an end by giving all of you non Norn Irish folk some of my favourite NI words and phrases. Nic is English, and every time he has visited my family in Tyrone (yes, they are Culchies!) he has picked up some new words and phrases to enjoy. He's trying hard with the accent as well! Here are some that he has learned, and some of my favourites.

Quare - this is used in a variety of ways, but usually as a superlative e.g. "That's a quare nice car you've got there, is she an '09?" or "He's the quare lad" or "That's a quare day, isn't it? The sun's splitting the trees, so it is!"

'Bout ye? - This is a standard NI greeting. You can precede it with the word 'Well' if you like e.g. "Well, our lad, 'bout ye?"
Tayto crisps have sort of adopted this as a slogan recently, and Nic is the proud owner of a 'Bout ye?' t-shirt!

Boke - this is one of my all-time favourite words, and it means to vomit, e.g. "Holy god, I was so blootered last night I boked all over myself". I like to use it as an expression of disgust as well, and I'm not alone in this - "Did ye see that Sherrie Hewson on 'Come Dine With Me'? BOKE!" In some parts of Northern Ireland you can describe a boring or offensive person using the word 'boke' e.g. "He's a dry oul boke, so he is" but this isn't something I would say. I might describe someone as "A dry shite", though, and that's roughly the same.

Eariwig/ Earywig - an earwig. I don't know why we put the extra letter into it. You can also use this as a synonym for eavesdrop e.g. "I caught that sleekit wee bitch eariwigging on me."

Slippy-tit - this one isn't all that common, but I love it anyway. It means someone who is sneaky, or can be used to describe someone who is trying to wheedle something out of you e.g. "He was slippy-titting about trying to get out without me noticing"

Hoke - to root around for something e.g. "Hi Grainne, wid you quit hoking around in there!" A friend once asked my Daddy "Here Eugene, have you ever been caught bin-hoking?". Daddy said no, and the friend retorted "You must be wild good at it then!"

One final thought aboout how we speak our language in Northern Ireland. We love adding things on to the end of sentances:

"That's a brave nice day, hi!"
"Aye, she's a great going wee car, boy!"
"And she was late to meet me, but!"
"I'm away to get my messages, so I am"
"I'm not being charged, ampninat?"

Listen, to be believable you have to get a furry hat and a snow machine!

Snow day!

Well, almost. There is a lot of snow in Leamington, and I've spent the day at home. I had planned to work from home anyway, so I didn't quite have the excitement of waking up and realising I could stay at home, but I'm not complaining. I got sent home from work early yesterday, so it's all good. The snow is very exciting, and Nic and I braved it earlier to go to the post office and do a few other chores in town, as well as taking some photos:



Like most of us, I'm a big child when it comes to the snow, so I was unreasonably excited to lean out of my bedroom window last night and watch the snow falling on my street. Oh, and also I was excited to experiment with making my clothes winter appropriate. Well, almost. I got out one of my favourite summer dresses and put it together with the jumper Nic bought me:
I wasn't sure about the combination of a v-necked jumper under the straight neck of my dress, so then I tried it this way:
I'm not sure if it is better, but I couldn't be bothered changing it back. I think the first look is a little bit What Katie Wore, or at least it would have been if I'd had some nice big plastic jewellery to go with it! When I went out I put on my red cowboy boots and red beret, overall I think I like the effect. I've been inspired by the way Katie puts her outfits together so I have been trying to be more thoughtful about the combinations I make. I had poor Nic tortured, asking for his advice and then getting him to take the photos. He's very good about it, I must say!

Unfortunately, our Vax vacuum cleaner dream might have to wait until next month. When Nic got home yesterday, he hung up his coat in our wardrobe, and the wardrobe collapsed! It's a built-in wardrobe, and the rail holding the clothes (which is also attached to the shelf above it, which holds almost all of our other crap) pulled away from the wall. It's not something we can fix, and the estate agents can't have someone out to fix it until tomorrow. At the moment all of my dresses are in boxes on the floor, which is very sad. Anyway, we've decided to go to Ikea and buy some more furniture instead, it's more pressing at the moment. So, no Vax or Henry or Hetty for us until February, I think. But we will have another much-needed bookcase, and some drawers so all is not lost. It was pretty stressful, though, and the estate agents had the joy of coming into the office this morning to find a cross message from me on the answering machine!

After folding up all our clothes and putting them into boxes, Nic and I went round the corner to see Sherlock Holmes in the cinema. Tuesday evening is apparently a good time to go, the cinema was almost empty so we didn't have to deal with other people being irritating. I really enjoyed myself. They showed loads of trailers, including one for Clash of the Titans - I can't find the cinematic trailer online, but it made me laugh so much. In fact, they showed it twice. It looks like Lord of the Rings, but even more lame, and with Liam Neeson and Pete Poselthwaite in it. I enjoyed Sherlock Holmes even more than I enjoyed the trailers (a considerable amount) I'm not normally the least bit interested in action films, but this was just so much fun. It was very funny and, while I could have done with a lot less of Guy Ritchie pratting around with slowing things down and then speeding them up, I thought it was very well directed. And, even though I normally hate Jude Law, I thought he was excellent. In fact, I think he was my favourite thing about the film. The relationship between him and Holmes was so good, and he limped well, and I thought his comic timing was excellent. I'll definitely be buying this when it comes out on DVD. I did have a moment when walking back when I thought about how amused I was by Nic looking at vacuum cleaners - me praising a Guy Ritchie film, and praising Jude Law? The Roisin of 8 years ago would be so disgusted with me right now!

Bouncy castles! Make sure you get a go on one of those, they're excellent. So bouncy.

I hadn't really planned to write a blog entry today but the heavy snow in Birmingham meant that we got sent home from work early. There isn't much snow in Leamington but it is very cold, so I'm sitting on my bed, wrapped up in blankets and doing a wee bit of work. It's all good.

Yesterday was my first day in my new job. I had to get up much earlier than normal (and much, much earlier than I had been getting up over the holidays) to be in London for an early meeting. It's hard to say how the day went because it was a bit of a blur. The floor my new department is on is a secure floor, and my pass hasn't been programmed to let me in yet so once I was in I stayed in - it was a bit like being under house arrest! I got a better idea of what I'm going to be doing and I think it'll be very different to the work I was doing in my last job. There'll be some of the same finance and admin stuff but a lot more project management, which will be interesting. It's very high-stakes work for our organisation so I'm happy to be part of it, and I'm interested to see how the next few weeks go. I'll doubtless blog about it here anyway!

Nic and I had a very quiet weekend. We had a look again in the sales on Sunday as I need a new coffee machine and thought it would be a good time to get one. The machine I have works fine, but it is pretty old and it leaks water from the tank any time I make coffee, which is a pain. The problem is, I couldn't find another coffee machine I liked as much. This one is just a plain old filter machine, and it has been discontinued. I couldn't find one I liked because none of the ones I was looking at were my coffee maker, how sad is that?! They were either very cheap and ugly, or more expensive but with features I just wouldn't use, like a timer or a bean grinder. I'll have to do a bit more research into it and come to terms with the death of my coffee maker, because the constant leaking is wrecking my head.

Nic spent ages looking at vacuum cleaners as well, which amused me very much. We have a vacuum cleaner, but it's crap. The main attachment doesn't work, so to get any kind of a job done you have to just use the metal tube and it takes ages. I spent an hour vacumming our bedroom on Saturday. Given that I don't live in Southfork, that seemed a bit excessive! Anyway, one of the shops near us has Vax vacuum cleaners at half price and Nic and I spent a good half an hour looking at them on Sunday. I know on its own that fact isn't very interesting but it did make me laugh - when I first met Nic at university years ago, and even when he and I got together a few years after that, he was a bit of a wastrel and now the two of us are spending time debating the relative merits of vacuum cleaners! We are getting old, I think! Still, a new vacuum cleaner would be nice and I don't have any kind of sentimental attachment to get over before buying a new one.

Well, on that note, it's time to get back to work (and to researching possible coffee makers on the internet. It's all glamour here, don't you know?!?

They say he's capable of boiling an egg in less time than it takes to boil an egg!

I haven't done one of those '2009 Highlights' blogs. I tried to plan one out in my head last night when I was going to sleep but, well, I fell asleep. Then I had a dream about a girl I used to know from university giving me a cupcake, and all of my ideas were lost. And Nic woke me up before the dream version of me could eat the cupcake, which was very sad!

I hope you all saw in the New Year happily. I got back to Leamington on Thursday morning and our wee flat was freezing. I had to go and collect parcels from both post offices and do some shopping, and then I huddled under blankets with a fan heater on until Nic arrived home. I had planned to have a romantic reunion at the railway station but that went awry, but once I got some pizza into me it was fine. As I wrote in an earlier blog, my plan for New Year was to have a wee party at my house with some good friends. The organisation of this turned out to be very stressful at the last minute, but it all went ahead and our little living room was very full of joy at midnight. Also, the party food I bought from Marks and Spencers was extremely tasty! I've never really been much of a one for celebrating the New Year, but it's a good excuse to get friends together and have a laugh.

I spent the first day of 2010 very lazily with Nic, only leaving the house to go to watch Doctor Who and Gavin and Stacey with Tom. It's only in recent years that I have started to watch Doctor Who and that has mainly consisted of watching all of the old serials that Nic has on DVD. I thoroughly enjoy the concept of the show, but haven't been able to get on at all with the revamped Who of the past few years. Big CGI effects leave me cold, and the injection of obvious emotion (and by obvious emotion, I mean obvious to the point where a million violins play every time the Doctor so much as looks at his companion, who is of course in love with him) robbed the Doctor-Companion relationship of its subtlety, I think. I didn't watch the first part of Tennant's swan song on Christmas day, watching last year's Christmas special had been enough for me. I won't write a review listing all of the things I didn't like about the episode, but I hope that Stephen Moffatt has more self-control than RTD. David Tennant's Doctor was the only one to have made such a meal of his regeneration, and it nauseated me. To end on a positive note, however, I loved all of the millions of John Simms everywhere. Especially all of the background ones who were tapping away on computers. That was very funny, and I liked his performance a lot. I very much enjoyed watching the last episode of Gavin and Stacey as well, particularly the choice of music for Nessa's wedding to Dave Coaches. I love Dave Coaches!

In previous years I have made some sort of attempt at New Year's Resolutions. Sometimes I have kept them (I haven't bought a copy of Heat magazine since I resolved not to at the beginning of 2006, for example) and sometimes I haven't, and I'm not sure of the wisdom of making them. I have been thinking about the things that I would change from 2009 instead and wonder if a better thing to do would be to make an effort to right those things in my life. I have spent a lot of time in 2009 worrying and feeling unhappy about various friendships and relationships and I think 2010 might be a good time to take more control of my life and my feelings. A number of years back I had to come to the realisation that an important relationship in my life had changed, and that I could only keep that friend in my life if I adjusted my expectations of what that friendship could give. You can't force people to care about you, is what I reasoned. It was the right thing to do, and I have hardly worried about it since. I'd like to be able to be that clear-headed about the things that cause me grief and worry now, so I'm going to try to be. People change and relationships change, and that doesn't have to be a bad thing. I'd do well to remember that.

I'd also like to be more creative in 2010. Nic and I have great creative ideas, and I'd like to do something with them. I'd like to do something with the ideas that have been bubbling away in my mind for the past few months, so I'm going to try to be disciplined and set time aside for that too. 2009 was a very good year, and I would like 2010 to be even better.