This week I have been mostly...

Categories: books, food-and-drink, holidays, annoyance, shopping

Tags: moving, rollercoasters, pound challenge

Date: 07 August 2006 10:02:12

1) Going on rollercoasters
Ow, ow, ow, ow. My muscles all hurt and I have bruises on the sides of my knees. I think I may be getting too old for rollercoasters. However, there is nothing quite like the sheer terror of being swung upside down many times. My screaming muscles are definitely well exercised.

2) Camping
A successful weekend all round. Lots of cake and alcohol, a barbecue, a trip to the beach, frisbee-ing and kite flying. The pound and a postcard challenge went down well: Each person in the group picked a name out of a hat and then had to buy an item of tourist tat costing no more than a pound, plus an appropriate postcard. The gifts were exchanged anonymously and we had a grand unveiling on the Sunday morning where we all had to guess who had been our benefactor. I received a postcard of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and a keyring with a steam train on. My sister had no trouble guessing that I had bought her a fridge magnet and an educational Captain Cook postcard. She recognised my handwriting, even in block capitals.

A welcome side-effect of the pound and a postcard game was that we all spent so much time trying to find that perfect item, that none of us spent any serious money on frivolous things, although there were second-hand book shops so I picked up a few items I had been strong enough not to buy new.

3) Remonstrating with removal companies
Hopefully, by the end of today, we will have picked the company with the lowest price. I spent some time on the phone on Friday morning chasing them up. One of the firms I filled in an exam paper for then said they were fully booked on that day so I had to find another one. Why they could not have said this 2 weeks ago when I first approached them I do not know.

4) Not filling in forms for college - I dozed and read books yesterday evening instead

5) Not packing, due to not having boxes yet - see item 3