Home again

Back in Surrey again.

The boy had work tonight so we had to come back this morning. It's ok though because we go on holiday a week today!!! Hurray!!! Gran Caneria again. Must say we this is the millionth time I've been but I know the weather will be lovely and warm and I know where everything is so it will be a week or relaxation.

Oh yes I just remembered my dissertation, I said that I'd have it finished by Christmas, that really didn't happen. Ooops.

Must do some of it before we go on holiday and if possible take it with us and do some of it while we're away.

Christmas unravelled

Right so it's time to discuss Christmas.

Woke up super super early (as always) and went and got the parents up because lets be honest presents are the best part of the day. Presents were groovy this year, apart from the box of Daz washing powder from mum, will have to think about that one a bit. Although I did get some lovely jewellery that I wore to lunch.

Went to see Nan in the home because it's also her birthday! What a horrible day to be born although to be honest I'm not really sure she knew what was going on, although she did like unwrapping pressies (very like me), tried to use her curlers while we were there and ended up pulling a massive chunk of my hair out. That's gods way of telling me that I should just straighten it I think.

So anyway we went home and the boy arrived. This whole split Christmas thing is such a pain, we did lunch with my family. Went to a restaurant because lets be honest who wants to get up at 4am to put a turkey in the oven?? Not my mum that's who! Plus this way everyone got exactly what they wanted. Made a bit of a mistake and wore a sequin dress, would have being ok apart from the flipping sequins were dropping off all over the place.

Anyway, we went back to the boys and went to his nana's for tea. This would have being ok but we were bloody stuffed. It was also a bit depressing cos his nana's boyfriend's dad died early on Christmas morning, so we had to be careful not to appear too jolly. He went to bed early though so I took the chance to disappear off because by 10pm I was starving again.

Got home and found the parents and my fave aunty and uncle there, and they were hungry but slightly sozzled so I did a mad thrown together buffet of everything in the fridge which totally didn't go together but it was the best I could do. Eating dinner at 11pm is a bit surreal but it was groovy. In bed by 1am and then up again here at 8am to start the clearing up.

Christmas has gone again, flipping eck don't know what all the fuss was about.

Hurray

Merry Christmas!!!!

Taken advantage of

My parents have had be driving around delivering flipping presents since I got back here.

Christmas tomorrow though!!!!

You must be joking.

I've got to tell you this, the boy has just packed his playstation into the car. Apparently we cannot leave it here over Christmas, he seems to think that we might get broken into over Christmas. This would be amusing because;

1. We live on the third floor.

2. There is the worlds best door you have to walk though just to get into our building. You have to have a knack to get the lock to turn.

3. If they get to our front door they will then face four locks they have to get through.

4. We have 8 sets of neighbors in our building and live less than half a mile from the police station.

I REALLY DON"T THINK THERE WILL BE A PROBLEM!

Off home for Christmas

It's here!! The day when me and the boy finally drive home for Christmas. The car is packed and I'm just waiting for him to get back from work so that we can set off on the lovely 200 mile drive.

Must say it was a pain lugging everything down three flights of stairs to the car. Living in a flat really does have it's drawbacks sometimes. Looking forward to being at home for Christmas but am betting that I want to kill the parents about 5 minutes after walking in the door.

wish me luck!!

Uni is such a drag!

Sorry I've not written on here for a bit but university has being mental and I have a deadline next week so I haven't being on here much recently. What shall I tell you? Hmmm... Well not much really because all I've being doing is work, work, work. Although I am proud that the flat looks very Christmasy and everything's tucked up under the tree. Can't wait to go home and see the parents.

Christmas fever

Oh lord it's here. Christmas Fever. Now I'm not exactly sure when this started up officially (I've had my head in books for the past week or so) but it really is in full swing. The Christmas lights have been switched on in our town and all the shops have those ludicrous gift sets that you think are a good idea at the time but when you receive them from other people you realise you'll only use one of the products and then your bathroom/kitchen cabinets get filled up with stuff that you won't be using. Madness. Now I'm not one of these women who will die without shopping but I am one of these people who likes to please. Sometimes it's not that easy though. The boy doesn't get a christmas present because he got a Playstation 3 for his birthday but I still have his parents, little sister, my parents and 4 friends to buy stuff for.

Sigh. It really is stressful.

I've sorted my dad, the boys dad, my mum and the boys little sister but have no idea what to get my mother. It should be easy, i SHOULD get my mum something that she'll love and cherish forever but she's one of these people who has literally everything. Annoying. I'm not going to get her perfume (She got some in India a few weeks ago) but honestly what do you get the person who has everything??

The four friends are slightly easier, they're getting a box of beauty products that I've put together for each of them. Now because we all know each other quite well I'm hoping that I know what they want. If I do get it wrong though I can't be that far off the mark, because, lets be honest. Can a girl really have enough make-up??

The hardest word is goodbye.

So it was the boys Grandma's funeral yesterday, very sombre affair. Now she would have been 80 today and I'm not overly religious or anything like that but it really doesn't seem right when people die sometimes. Yes she was old(ish) and yes she had a few health issues but sometimes life really just isn't fair.

The boy and his family were understandably a mess. I've only been to a few funerals but this was the most emotional one by far. Perhaps my family just aren't that good at expressing emotion. In face, I'm probably right there. Crying really isn't the in thing with my family at all.

It just seems kind of final when you put somebody into a wooden box to me. This was the first burial that I've ever been to, all other funerals have ended in cremations. There we were stood in the graveyard, it was cold and wet and it just seemed a bit strange to me to be putting someone into the ground. Yes she was been buried with her husband who died over 25 years ago but it's still strange to put someone into the ground and then walk away and leave her there. I could see that this was what the family wanted, somewhere where they could all visit when they wanted to.

I'm not sure though, I know that both my parent want to be cremated and I kind of see why now. That way they can always be with me, not in some cold foreign cemetery that lets be honest we'd probably not visit that often. I saw on the TV the other day that you can have peoples ashes turned into diamonds and that kind of appeals to me. To have something made of the person that you can have with you forever.

It is all personal choice at the end of the day though, I'll see what the parents opinions are next time I remember to call them.

A cure for Man Flu

Last night while we were sleeping something crept in and infected our flat. Man flu. Now I’m no expert on this but from what the boy has told me man flu is a million times worse that normal flu. According to my boy it’s even worse than having swine flu (not that he’s exaggerating or anything). So we wake up this morning and he’s feeling beyond sorry for himself. He is apparently SO poorly tat he cant walk the 20 feet from the bedroom to the kitchen to get some Flu tablets . I have to climb out of my lovely warm bed and do a mad dash into the freezing kitchen, we left a window open last night and it is now arctic cold in the flat. I return with 2 tablets and a glass of water and discover that he has somehow managed to wrap the entire king-size duvet around himself.

I’d best get up then.

So I potter into the kitchen and root around for some bread to make toast. I check it carefully because the last time I just put it in the toaster I ended up eating more mould than bread. No it is definitely out of date. I’ll have to settle for a banana then. I go through to ‘the office’ (our rather cramped spare bedroom) and log on to check my emails and do a bit of work that I didn’t get finished last night. 20 minutes later I’m all done and go into to the living room.

A miracle has occurred!

The boy is sat on the sofa in his boxers playing on the Playstation3, now there will be thousands of girlfriends out there who hate the Playstation because basically you become a console widow, especially if there’s a new game just been released. However, I cannot complain because I was the one who bought the thing.

Apparently he feels ok when he’s on the Playstation, so I leave him there and go have a shower. Now I am a girl and I am quite vain thus I spent a lot of time in said bathroom. 45 minutes later I come out of the bathroom and he’s still on the bloody thing.

I manage to force him into the shower but only when I threaten pulling the Playstation plug out of the wall. He’s not a happy bunny. He returns from he shower all nice and fresh and promptly sits back down on the sofa and starts playing again.

I really can’t win here.

By the time he leaves for work the man flu had completely vanished. Surprise, surprise! I can finally get on with my work without having to listen to things been blown up next door. Bliss.

You can’t live with them but you really could live without them sometimes!

My worst nightmare

There are some embarrassing situations that we all have to go through, tripping in the middle of the street, stalling the car in front on a load of people for example. However, the most embarrassing of all is when you get to the till to pay for something and them telling you your card is declined.

Right so just picture the scene here. I’m stood in Sainsburys on a Saturday morning, it is heaving with all the mums and screaming toddlers. I’ve been waiting to pay for a good 10 minutes and I really want to get home. I’ve managed to wrestle all the food into bags and somehow get all the bags into the trolley neatly.

I put my card in the card reader and type my pin number in. Wait a few seconds… Nothing…. I know there’s something wrong because the cashier frowns ‘It’s been declined’ he tells me slightly sheepishly I swear in my head but then remember that I do have some money; I must have typed my number wrong I tell him. He lets me try again.

Declined.

Now I’m not one to have mental breakdowns in supermarkets but I had to try really quite hard to hold it together here because I KNEW I had enough money on that card.

Thankfully the supervisor that came to help was understanding and let me ring the bank. After getting through several security questions the girl on the other end of the phone tells me that the account is empty. EMPTY. Holy cow have I started shopping online in my sleep? The thing is I know as soon as she tells me the accounts empty what is actually wrong

I borrow enough money to pay for the shopping and trudge home slightly worried about what I’ll find when I log onto my online banking. I don’t even put the shopping away I just dump it on the floor and get onto the computer as soon as I can.

And there it is, plain as day. Money going out of my account, that I haven’t spent. I print out a six-page statement and start going through it with a pen. Now I’m one of those annoying people who keeps all of their receipts until the bank statement comes every month so me, the six page statement and the receipts settle down on the floor and start to piece together what’s going on.

It had started about three weeks earlier. Just £10 on phone credit. 02 phone credit (I’m faithful to Vodaphone), but then it increases. Over £70 on a train ticket, £100 on a phone from Carphone Warehouse. The list really does go on.

I’m silently seething here, how dare someone use my card details? I ring the bank and cancel the card.

Haha, fine that’ll show them.

The following Tuesday, I’m having to live off cash which is something I’ve kind of forgotten how to do. I check my online bank again and see that nearly £200 more has gone out of my account. Oh Crap. I ring the bank; they have no record of the phone call on Saturday. My card has not been cancelled and I am now over £500 out of pocket. I now know what it is to want to kill the person who sits in the call centre all day. I know it isn’t their fault but they are the nearest I can get to the company at the minute so I give the poor girl an earful for a few minutes, she’s obviously seen it all before and doesn’t bat an eyelid.

By the time I’ve finished on the phone it’s quite late so I go and silently sulk in the bedroom while the boyfriend hides from my foul mood in the living room.

It takes a few days for my new debit card to arrive and along with it comes a doorstop sized booklet of fraud forms for me to fill in. they seem to want to make me feel guilty that someone has stolen my card details. Questions such as; ‘Have you ever used your card in a place where known fraud was taking place’ makes me really mad. I didn’t ask for all this hassle. It takes a good hour to get the paperwork filled in and then wrestle it all back into the envelope.

When I post it though I get this huge sense of relief, I know it wasn’t my fault. I am really careful when I use my card. I never leave it with anyone on anywhere where the details could be picked up off it. This is just one of life’s little annoyances.

I was ridiculously lucky that the people in Sainsburys and the people at the bank were so understanding, otherwise we’d have had no food or rent money for the past few weeks.

I’m still waiting for my money to be recouped back. I hope they catch the person who did it. If they do I’d like to meet them to let them know what they’ve put me through, I’ve lost sleep and worried myself half to death about this.

I know there’s people reading this who’re going to say that I must have left my card somewhere or been careless with it but believe me I really haven’t. The one good thing that’s come out of this though is that when you’re using cash you’re much more aware of what you’re spending. I’ve not bought anything I don’t really need this week, that’s kind of the whole point here. The value of money, you don’t really learn it until you have none.

This is it

So this is my first ever post. Basically this is going to be a diary of all the dramatic goings on in my life. I just seem to attract trouble sometimes!

I write these posts in a lighthearted and humorous way. Please don't take them seriously this is just the way I write and how I talk normally. I've tried to write so that you'll get a kind of sense of who I am and what I'm like.

Katykins