An Unexpected Visitor

Today has been a catchup day somewhat, getting a few jobs done here and there, avoiding work (again) and generally being quite lazy. I'm getting slightly concerned about the amount of work I've been doing (or not) for the past couple of weeks. I have a meeting with my dissertation tutor on Thursday and in the two weeks that will have passed since our last meeting I have accomplished absolutely nothing.

A couple of arguments arose this evening and I think a couple of people are a bit on edge at the moment with one thing or another. This sort of thing always seems to manifest itself in the smallest of things for example one of the tiffs was over a section of the One Show of all things. So the sane two remaining (one of those being me) decided to escape the mad house and do some much needed shopping. We have neglected to do this for the past two or three weeks and have been living off left over cupboardy things and various trips to the Co-op. The supermarket is not more than 5 minutes away in the car but none of us has been bothered to go recently so we took this chance.

A relativly sucessful trip as far as trips go, we only forgot one item and managed to get everything more or less first time round. Normally we go round and pick things up as we see them then look at the list at the end and realise we've forgotten half of it! As we were unpacking the shopping from the boot of the car, the ginger cat that had been snoozing under the car in front decided that it was too cold outside and that our house was much more cosy. It darted in in a flash and ran straight up the stairs. We both did a double take and looked at each other as if to say "did you just see what I think I saw?" I ran back into the house and up the stairs to try and track it down but it had gone up another level and was sitting in my room next to my bed. Thankfully it didn't get the chance to make a mess and as soon as I saw it I chased it back down the stairs. I managed to get it down to the ground floor but as I went to open the door to let it back out, it ran upstairs again. I decided to play good cop this time and coaxed it back down with the false promise of food before turning as soon as it got back downstairs and I frightened it out of the door. Hopefully that should teach it not to come back in this house again any time soon.

A quick game of tetris with the ridiculously small freezer that we have and yet again managed to cram all of the food in there somehow. They are deceptively large actually. We both collapsed on the sofa and left the rest of the stuff to put itself away. Turns out it doesn't work like that so after watching the Gadget Show I managed to find the strength to unpack the rest of the stuff. Next came the laborious task of dividing up the shopping bill into who owes what. I won the personal shop spending challenge this week with £23 worth of personal items, most of them in the form of sweets and biscuits. Again the curse of special offers haunts me and I couldn't resist the temptation of chocolate, party rings and Lucozade. In my defence, I did also buy bananas and raisins so I think that balances it out a bit.

On a completely separate note, I have noticed that ITV have ditched their Silverlight based catchup player in favour of the more traditional flash based one. Not heard anything in the news about this so it took me a bit by surprise when I was watching Harry Hill's TV Burp.

The day drew to a close and just as I was about to go to sleep (after forgetting as usual that I had stripped my bed to wash it and not put the new covers back on). I was happy, I had clean sheets (which always helps me sleep better) I was quite tired thanks to the shopping trip - despite eating Smarties and drinking Nesquick before bed - just as I was starting to drift off, some idiot next door decided to play his music full pelt. I assumed it would pass soon - after a couple of songs maybe - and was humming along to Cheryl Cole's new single trying not to get too wound up. Unfortunately it only got worse... from a bearable song to a totally unforgivable song... I cannot stand the Red Hot Chilli Peppers at the best of times, the whiny American accent drives me nuts (apologies to any Americans reading) and so I sat through Californication hoping that it would move on to another artist who was more bearable. But no, not only did it not move on to a new artist, but it didn't even change songs! Four or five times in total I heard that infernal song before finally giving up and going downstairs to escape the torture. I had already resorted to banging on the walls in the hope that he would shut up and go to bed but alas the torment continued and it all got too much.

After about half an hour downstairs, I thought the bass had stopped so trundled back up the stairs only to find it raged on. I couldn't be bothered to go downstairs again so after a few more frustrated bangs on the wall, I tried to get to sleep again. Then at last, a miracle, it stopped! For all of about 20 minutes and then started right back up again just as I was starting to nod off. It's as if he knew that I had an early lecture tomorrow and was deliberately trying to keep me awake.