Gracie’s Life Experiment

With the impending new arrival, my parents are going to come visit Loughborough for a week or so in August.  As they’re getting on a bit and don’t like driving long distances I booked some train tickets online for them.  They get free off-peak travel in London (being over 60 you get a free travel pass) so all I had to do was book the St Pancras - Loughborough leg.  Sometimes they have some cracking Advance deal tickets.  Last year I think it was £7 each each way (so £28 for both of them return - it would cost 3x as much in petrol to drive up).  It only takes about 90 mins on the train from London so it’s not too bad a trip. 

So first I went to Network Rail website  and started to put in the journey partculars.  Excellent, there’s some tickets at £7 again from London to Loughborough - but hang on the Loughborough to London ones are £46!  So I started to try different dates.  It’s most frustrating as you have to keep going back and forth changing the dates and waiting for it to recalculate.  I noticed a button near the bottom that helps you to find cheap seats over a range of dates - but that’s useless as you can’t seem to add more than one date anyway (no matter how many times you try to add more).  Eventually I worked out that any time from 23rd August onwards was going to be expensive (I guess lots of families off for 10 day holidays what with the Bank Holiday at the end of the month). 

So that’s the days sorted then - 14th August to 22nd August, now to work out which trains to get them on.  Now they can’t get to St Pancras till at least 11am because they have to get off-peak trains from Beckenham first.  Hmm there’s tickets available for £7 at 11.55 - excellent that’ll do.  Now 22nd August, there’s plenty of tickets for £9, but they don’t want to hit rush hour on the trains when they cross London, so need to be at St Pancras by 15:30 ish.  Excellent - there’s a £7 ticket that gets in at 15:14.  Now make my selections and try to book - oh I seem to be being redirected to East Midlands Trains website (hmm they’re not Midland Mainline anymore).  It’s allocated some seats for those trains - but the parents need to travel forward facing - hmm Network Rail site didn’t give me that option so I start all over again on the EMT website.  Putting in the same details only to find that the tickets for cheap trains are different, but at least I can allocate forward facing table seats!  End up with train from St Pancras at 12:30 and return from Lboro at 13:44.  Hmm, hang on, isn’t Loughborough a short platform and have I not had to run down the train at the last moment before to be able to get off the train somewhere other than a 4ft drop!  So thought best to give the station a call - can’t for love or money find a direct number for Loughborough and end up talking to Customer Services in Derby (after getting through the various recorded options) - good the seats autoallocated won’t be in the wrong carriages.  Now, finally time to book.  Damn it wants my login and password (what, this is a new site, not Midland Mainline anymore) and now I have to trawl through my old email trying to find out what these details may be!!  Everything is paid for and confirmed and I try and print out the confirmation - funny they’ve made it open in a new window with no File Menu on it so I can’t save it.

It certainly wasn’t simple booking online at all.  Last year seemed to be so much easier!  I imagine that a lot of people would get fed up and just give up after a while.  There’s no way my parents could have booked it themselves.  My mum asked what she would do next year when we’ve moved to Oz and she won’t have me to book the trains - I said, well you won’t need to get the train to Lboro anymore as we won’t be there!!  ha ha

Summary of the day:  Went onto Campus to drop stuff off and collect prescriptions, Went to Aldi to get some food (lots of reduced stuff in there today), Went to Merlins to pick up some arrows and other bits and bobs for hubby, Went to chemist to drop off prescription, Had lunch, Tried to book train tickets (2hrs of my life), Made steak and jacket potatoes for dinner.  

Hmm today’s max temperature was 12 deg.  It’s almost June FFS!  Feels like it’s gone back to being February again.  It was actually warmer in Sydney (in winter) today than it was in UK.

Hubby and I had a fairly relaxed Bank Holiday and went shopping in the morning.  It was dead in town guess everyone else must have been hungover somewhere!  We had to return/exchange our baby gate to Argos as they had a product recall.  Popped into Poundstretcher just to see what el-cheapo stuff they were selling (actually I was reading on the Bounty Pregnancy forums about the little bits and bobs other ladies had got there).  Bought 300 nappy bags for 99p and a selection of random cleaning products.  Then we wandered off to Subway for lunch (2 meals for £5.99 - mmm Meatball Marinara) and then off to Wilkos to get some Cocoa Butter (no sign of stretch marks yet, keeping fingers crossed).  On the way back to the car park the wind was really getting strong and I was waddling along, stupid Braxton Hicks coming on, trousers trying to fall down off my hips, top trying to ride up above the bump, cardigan blowing off my shoulders.  I think I needed about 14 hands to carry the stuff, and hold various bits of clothing around myself.  I was sooo angry and irrational I was telling the weather off (I don’t think it worked as the wind didn’t die down at all).

Summary of the day: Went shopping, Relaxed, Did a few chores, Had a lovely afternoon nap, Comforted the dog after hubby accidentally dropped her down the stairs (oh dear, what will we do when he gets butter fingers with the baby?).

Considering we had nothing planned this weekend, we seem to have had a jam packed time anyway. Got a phone call early afternoon from an old friend (in fact an ex from ages ago) and some other mutual friends from student days who were back in Loughborough for the day. They wanted to know if I would like to come on a campus wander around to see what’s changed (hmm, passed on that seeing as I drive through campus every day). Met up at the Students’ Union (yikes haven’t been there since October) for a coffee and found out there was a beer festival on. John was happy as he got a tankard and quite a few 1/2 pints of various tipples. I had a soya mocha decaff yum (wow the Ritazza is so cheap at the SU - £1.50).

Summary of the day: Played piano at church, Went shopping at Aldi, Went out to see old friends, Folded clothes (oddly therapeutic), Watched Family Guy Blue Harvest (it rocked)

It’s the end of yet another year.   Time to look back and see what I did…

Main events of this year for me (at least those I can remember from the fuzziness I call “my brain”):
- applying and getting a permanent residency visa for emigrating to Oz
- cousin Steve’s wedding
- having lots of building work done
- not going on holiday at all (first year we’ve not gone anywhere as tourists)
- big conference trip to San Diego
- finding out about facebook
- starting my blog (of course!!)
- buying my first laptop (all the previous ones were work owned)

Roll on 2008!

Summary of the day: Didn’t do much at all, Went to Aldi to pick up some laundry liquid (came back with £50 worth of crap), Relaxed, Thought about doing some work (didn’t!)

Drove back from London today.  Bloody awful weather.  Rain, rain and more rain.  It took us 4 hrs to get back cross country.  Of course it wasn’t helped by the fact I dozed off after about an hour and when I woke up we appeared to be heading TOWARDS London again!!  30 mins of chastising driving hubby and we were back on track (didn’t go back to sleep again after that).

Summary of the day: Packed car and tidied room, Had early lunch, Sat in car (and sat and sat), Got home and put heating on (brr), Unpacked car and made fish with mash for dinner.

Much of today was spent on the road.  We’re spending Christmas with my parents this year and then heading North to visit his parents.  Wish that our parents didn’t live in Kent and Lancashire as we end up spending so much time travelling.  We would have Christmas at ours, but none of our relatives can ever be bothered to come visit us (funny how they expect us to drive miles for them numerous times a year).  When people ask what we’ll feel like when we move to Oz and none of the family is nearby I always say it’ll make no difference as it doesn’t matter if we live 3 hrs or 3 days away they still won’t come visit!  With all the fog it was hellish driving home and there were accidents all over the place, it ended up taking 1.5hrs longer than usual.  Bah humbug

Summary of the day: Packed up the place (no presents or anything worth stealing left behind if you happen to be a burglar thinking about casing our joint!!!), Sat in a car, Went over to an uncle’s house for Laksa (sort of curry soup noodles)

Although it was actually the 3rd Christmas meal I’ve gone out for this season, tonight was our first Christmas meal (crackers, paper hats, etc).  We went to Lynroys with the archery club - sort of Loughborough’s own version of Phoenix Nights.  As it’s also 10 things thursday, here’s 10 things that I had for dinner:

1. Turkey
2. Gammon
3. Beef (hey it was a carvery so I had a bit of each)
4. Roast potatoes the size of a small fist!
5. Stuffing
6. Asparagus soup
7. Carrots
8. Loads of gravy
9. Something resembling parsnips (looked like deep fried matchsticks)
10. Chocolate Viennetta

Ended up totally stuffed! Got another christmas dinner on Sat night and Lynroys (again -groan) next Thurs for works do. I’ll have to think of a better 10 things for next Thurs!

Summary of the day: Work, students, nap, Lynroys

Hubby had to go to his school open day today.  That left me on my tod again.  Rather than bum about in the house feeling lonely I decided to go out and about and keep busy.  So got up and dragged my (slightly hungover) ass to Victory Hall for archery.  I missed practise on Wednesday because I didn’t get back from Farnborough till late.  Practise started out great. Brilliant sighters (I should have known it was going to go downhill from there) and first dozen was 107.  Sadly my group then moved to the red/blue border and then everything went totally to pot.  I even hit the target to the left of mine!!  Managed to at least shoot a round, 496 Portsmouth. 

After archery I went food shopping all by myself (I don’t think I’ve done a full shop alone for about 5 years).  Kind of strange but also much more efficient (forgot the bacon though) and not as stressful as I’m not being asked “can we get this, I think we really need to buy X, Y, Z powertool or 47″ LCD TV”.  I went to Aldi this week (there’s no market this week in Loughborough as the annual fair is in town)- there’s not as much variety as the bigger supermarkets but it’s also not as busy and there’s always something a bit different.  I even managed to put away all the shopping myself (usually husband growls at me when I try).  Bit miffed to have to buy my own flowers though >

Summary of the day: Woke up alone and thought about going to work, Realised it is actually the weekend, Went to archery, Sucked, Went food shopping, Put away said shopping, Read first few chapters of A Room with a View (one of my favourite films, not sure what it is about it that appeals to me)

I’m quite partial to going to see musicals.  Love them and remember lots of fun evenings round the piano as a kid singing from the various songbooks.  Tonight we went to Loughborough Town Hall to watch Little Shop of Horrors.  It was fab and very funny.  Nice that they had the original ending.  FEED ME!! So this Thursday’s 10 things are the last 10 musicals I’ve been to see (as far as I can remember).

1. Little Shop of Horrors
2. Spamalot
3. Blood Brothers
4. Jesus Christ Superstar
5. Miss Saigon
6. Blues Brothers
7. Les Miserables
8. Rocky Horror Show
9. Grease
10. Phantom of the Opera

Summary of the day: Went to work, Had student meetings, Had more student meetings all afternoon, Went to Wetherspoons for dinner, Saw Little Shop of Horrors, Had a nightcap, Hung a curtain

So it was the first archery club social tonight.  Started out at the SU and ended up at the SU.  The route to the final destination was a little strange as we ended up in the GB and Phantom in between!  I haven’t been out to the SU for about 3 years (tried to go a few weeks ago for the decanniversary but couldn’t get in).  It was packed at Stupid Tuesday.  Quite an odd sensation going out with a bunch of people 10 years younger than you - wasn’t too impressed when they decided that I must be 49 though, grr!!!  Ended up with writing all over my shirt, arms, chest, and a big green X on my forehead. 

Note to self: you don’t like drinking nasty, so why do you keep doing it?  Note 2 to self: you don’t like drinking VK, so why do you keep buying it because it is on offer?  Note 3 to self: Phantom cocktails are too drinkable.  Note 4 to self: switch off phone when going out drinking then you can’t “accidentally” send drunken txt msgs to people.

Summary of the day: Went to work, Had a long long meeting about TLCM, Went out to socialise (eep)