Update on my baby!

My car, not my brother, or some mysterious baby that I've neglected to tell you all about :P


So yesterday I bought some jump leads and battery charger to restart my car, and was discussing it while one of my male friends was over. He immediately took over for me, much to my relief! My car is parked bonnet to bonnet with Other Driver's car, so he took all the keys, the jump leads and started my car off hers. I was up at the house listening worriedly for any clue to how it was doing. The second I heard my car revving I was off down the drive to see how it was!! (This was 1am, otherwise I would have been hovering near by all along!!).

So now my car starts, I left it running for an hour to charge it a bit, and once I've cleaned it I'll be taking it for a drive! I restarted it again today to check, just turning the key and it wasn't having any of it, which meant I had to get in (eeew - sorry car, but eew!) and rev it quite a lot, but it eventually started up again. Yaaay for my car :)

Though it is now even more moudly and disgusting and needs to be cleaned again. Great. I'm willing to take any volunteers to help! Any takers...? Anyone?? PLEASE???? It was a toss up between tidying my room today and cleaning in the morning (while possibly hungover...it's my friend's birthday today after all!) or cleaning my car today and tidying tomorrow. The rain did put me off and I'm "tidying my room", also known as "updating my blog"!! Hopefully I won't be hungover and will be able to do something for my car tomorrow without being sick!!

I can't leave it in this state, my dad is driving me back this Sunday to see if he can do anything about the rust around the boot which is letting the damp in, so he'll need to be IN the car (I assume!) and it smells rank and looks disgusting and well, he won't want to be kneeling in mould! So that should be a fun task for tomorrow!

Wish me luck, I really hope I won't be sick, that won't help the situation at all!

I'll give you the diagnosis on Sunday about whether or not it can be rescued. Keep your fingers crossed for my baby!


*** FURTHER UPDATE ***


Well I spent 2 hours cleaning my car, using every possible cleaning product under the sun (or so it seemed) and ran out of most of them!! And I couldn't go to the supermarket to get some more...I need a car for that!!


I got almost all of my car cleaned, all except the passenger seat behind the driver. When I last reversed onto my drive I went too close to the hedge and I can't get through the door!

So with about three quarters of an hour left before I had to go and catch a train to go home, and with a fairly damp car (I hadn't thought through that the cleaning products were liquid!) I decided to start up my car, put the heating on full blast and move it forward to clean the last section.


Got in the car and turned the key. It wasn't happy, usual grumblings, so I tried revving it...

And it gave up completely. The battery is once again flat. It was recharged TWO DAYS AGO, it started pretty much alright the day before...but no. It was having none of it! Dad informs me that means the battery is gone and we'll have to get a new one. Fabulous.


So when he drives me back to Uni on Sunday he'll be trying to fix the rust problem, fitting a new battery and hopefully generally checking how my car is!

Come on baby, you can pull through :P

HAPPY BIRTHDAY'S!

So right now it's my American Friend's birthday, and tomorrow it will be my House Mate's birthday. So I just wanted to say...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to them both :)

Hope you have/had great birthdays and like your presents :)

xxxxxxxxx

Feel Better Soon Little Bro!

We thought this weekend that my brother had chicken pox, which was a bit sad for him but good in that it's a "necessary" childhood thing (Unless you're my sister and apparently immune!).

Mum took him to the doctors today and...

...

It's actually shingles. So he's already HAD chicken pox. Poor little boy :(

For those of you who are that bothered and actually know us, for more detail see mum's blog. But basically it's sad for him and I hope that he gets better soon. 

Sending lots of (gentle!) hugs your way little bro!

xxx

Monstrous Journey!!

Well I can't go into detail about my horrendous journey back to uni last night, as that would give away too much about the various places that I live in!

So I'll sum it up.

I left my house at 4 pm. I got to Station number 1 to find that I had to get a train to Station 2 and then a bus to Station 3. Ok, I could live with this. I had a "gut feeling" that I should turn around and go home, but I figured I just didn't want to go back to uni and I should stop being so daft. I had classes the next day and an assignment due the day after. 

So I got on the train.

Then the bus.

Then another train.

Then another bus.

Then another train.

Then a taxi.

So EIGHT HOURS, 3 trains, 2 buses and 1 taxi later...I slammed into my uni house. Which was remarkably quiet, I like to think that my "I'M GOING TO KILL SOMEONE" aura was responsible for this :P And the fact that I tripped over something and so threw everything at the floor. I was not a happy bunny. If you want a major understatement :P

However the actual weekend at home was fun :) I got to go shopping, which for once was less fun. Have you ANY idea how hard it is to find a suit in a size 8? Waaaay too hard! I eventually found one which I'm not overly happy with but was the best of a bad bunch. Finding a white blouse that doesn't look like a school blouse is even harder! I eventually went for the dreaded "frilly" look, but it kind of works, so I'll let that pass I think! My main problem with it is that I'm not really a "suit" kind of person, I like pretty things, and I like properly fitted things (I have no boobs but a great waist, not many clothes deal with that!!). The suit jacket has padded shoulders which to me looks quite angular and spikey (mum says it's fine, I'll just have to take her word for it!) and the jacket isn't as fitted as I would like. It does nip in at the waist which is nice, but I'm skinny enough for it to go in another few inches!! Ah well. I have one and that's all that matters. So long as Disney likes the look, it doesn't matter what I think!! I wouldn't be happy with it whatever I suppose lol

I also got to see two of my Home Friends, one of which recently passed her driving test (WELL DONE!!) and so drove to see me. And didn't kill anyone! (Again - WELL DONE!!). So that was nice :) I like getting to see people, and since I don't drive over (and am therefore stuck on EVIL EVIL TRAINS) it's nice that people come see me, rather than me not get to see anyone :)

That about sums up my weekend I think. To summarise... Trains are evil...Suits are annoying...Friends and family are good!!

My Car Needs Some Love, Send It Some Love People!

So I haven't driven my car much since I got back from the fencing competition, first because I was still too achey, and then because it was just easier to get into my friends car which was at the front of the drive. And it's not been driven at all in about a week.

When I last drove it I noticed it smelled mildly damp but thought "it's OK, I'll just spray it with some Oust or something". So when today it was my car's turn to drive (my other driving housemate was out, we were to go pick her up on the way), I went down earlier to spray it lots.

I opened the backdoor and stood there in horror.

The entire of the back seats, the floor, the seatbelts, EVERYTHING, was covered in spots of mould. My car looked like it had chicken pox!! My other housemate came down the pathway soon after this, looked at the car, and said a few choice words.

Then, being House Mummy, she examined it properly and announced that it was fine, it was just surface mould, on the way back from lectures we'd just buy anti-bacterial stuff and clean it. No problem.

We got into the front (which wasn't anywhere near as bad) greatly heartened.

Problem Number Two...It wouldn't start. At all.

We'd already rung Other Driver to say "bring a bin bag to sit on!!". Now we rang back again "Uh...can you pick us up?".

All the way to the lecture I tried to get in touch with mum and dad, who I was later told were in a meeting. So I texted mum and she rang me not long later.

Dad calmly explained that because around the edge of the boot was rusted, water was getting through, and because I only drive to lectures or the supermarket etc, I simply wasn't driving long enough for it to dry out. Also, I was using up the battery starting it, and then again not driving long enough to recharge it, so the battery was flat.

Fabulous.

So then me and Other Driver had to go to the supermarket, buy every product that may in some way help, and try and clean my car. It's doing alright so far, but we ran out of daylight so we have to do some more tomorrow. We also didn't want to jump start it off her's because we're a little wary of blowing up the engines or something (we've no clue what lead joins onto what), so HOPEFULLY one of our other friends will come rescue us tomorrow. Then tomorrow we'll be driving to the cinema (about 20 minutes away) to air out the car (all the windows open on a big A-road...fuuuun) and to see High School Musical 3 as a HUUUUGE THANK YOU!! to her for helping me clean my car. And by that, I mean cleaning up most of the mould for me.

THANK YOU, LOVE YOOOOOU!

So send my car some love, it's poorly sick and it needs your happy thoughts to recover! I'm terribly sad over its predicament, and the fact that Dad has now told me that come Spring I really SHOULD get a new car. If it lasts even that long. It's been a good car, it's temperamental, yes, but it's served me well and I love it, even more for it's quirky personality!! My poor baby :(

Update from Alix's

Well after the most insanely long train journey ever I arrived at Alix's university-land. Remind me again why she's worth this nutty trip? :P

We went out of a meal last night with a load of her housemates which was nice, the food was goooood! I seem to remember having been there before and not being too impressed, no idea why! I confuse myself sometimes!!

We sat in the restaurant for ages chatting, loudly, and probably winding up the staff, but never mind :D

Then we came back and watched some INSANE programme which is absolutely hilarious...but insane. Flight of the Conchords or something...?? No idea.

Then we decided we'd go to sleep, after first running around the house and stealing various bed-making things from people! Of course as soon as the lights went off we decided that was the perfect time to chat, we did get to sleep eventually!

Today we went into town to look around, Alix wanted shoes (she found none she liked), and we just mooched. It was fun. Though I kept setting off shop alarms, it's getting quite annoying now! I don't know why but sometimes I set them off...and other times I don't! But I've no idea what I have in my bag or my coat that would set them off! Ah well.

Now I'm sat in her room while she's off decorating the bar for the launch party (for the Winter Ball I'm going to, yaaay!) so I'm updating my blog!

So far it's fun, and tonight should be good also :)

xxx

Excited!

Well all is well in my world at the moment :)

Mum's found my camera stuff and has sent it (or was planning to, I'll assume she has).

I'm off to visit Alix this weekend which is always good fun :) (and she says I can borrow her camera)

The weekend after I'm off home to go shopping for suits and stuff for my Yummy Jobs interview

My pretty, pretty dress is being adjusted so it fits for the Winter Ball I'm going to

AND! Most important and exciting of all!!

Mum just booked my friend's plane ticket :D So now my American friend (who I've been chatting to for years but have never met) is coming to visit over Christmas!

*Happy happy happy dance*

More Whinging

I'm not in the best of moods today, I'm a little over-tired and I've realised that I can't find the charger for my camera. The camera I've been struggling on with even though it's clearly broken, but now it's not that it's given up entirely that I can't use it...no! it's that somewhere between home and uni I've managed to misplace the charger for the battery!! GRR!

I hate losing things, and I've tipped my room absolutely upside down looking for it, it's not in my room at home (someone would have noticed), and it's not where it would have been left in the dining room. ARGH!!

And I'm off to visit Alix next weekend, something that always leads to many picture takings, and it'll drive me mad that I CAN'T! Alix, I hope you realise I may be forced to steal your camera :P

So yeah, now I feel really bad that I've managed to lose something ELSE to do with this camera! I take good care of things really :(

My Brother : Tech Support

Me and my brother's favourite game is Lego Star Wars (as I'm sure everyone who knows me is fully aware of!). However before I went back to uni I discovered it was broken. This was a disaster of GIGANTIC proportions. I was devastated. I did everything I could. Nothing worked. I was heartbroken.

It would appear that no-one told my brother of this tragedy, and he hadn't tried to play it in the weeks that I've been gone. Now that I'm back then the obvious thing for us to do was to play it. Me simply telling him "It's broken" had no effect. He had to try it out for himself.

He was very excited when the Wii turned on...and the picture for the game appeared...he didn't understand that I also had got this far!

He tried to put the game on...and as I had told him...it didn't work!

"Oh. Have you tried cleaning it on your t-shirt?"
"Yes."
"Have you tried phoof-ing it?" (blowing on it)
"Yes."
"Have you tried checking it for scratches?"
"Yes."
"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"
"Yes."
"Oh."

He then proceeded to try all of these things for himself, but then was finally forced to conclude that it was, in fact, broken. Just like I'd tried to tell him 15 minutes earlier!

However, it was absolutely adorable that he's picked up all these ways to fix things, that's exactly the way I approached the problem...and I'm a LOT older than he is! He's very definitely a child of the 21st century!

If he's tired...he's run out of batteries.
If he's forgotten something...his memory card's broken.
If he wants to go to the toilet...we have to "pause" the game.

He by the age of 4 was able to turn on the complicated huge tv, the surround sound and choose what he wanted to watch on Sky. By the age of 5 he was able to set up the Wii and the DVD player, including finding the right channel, he can also set up his computer and games. (Ok, he couldn't plug any of them in etc, but he could use them without help). He totally understands things like blogging, texting and emailing! As well as this he also has an impressive understanding of how things work like cars (and by impressive I mean that his knowledge is about equal to mine, since I'm the poor soul coerced into explaining them!)

UPDATE : I am also being told off for turning him into a geek, as he was VERY excited when we found all of my old Star Wars books, some of which had pictures in. Much to mum's disgust he was able to identify almost every vehicle and scene in the pictures, which GREAT enthusiasm!

"Look at the Time Fighter!!" (TIE fighter)
"Charli, it's a LANDSPEEDER!"
"OOOOH, the mellian VOLCAN" (Millenium Falcon)
"AT-AT!" (followed by gun noises to demonstrate it's use!)

He's pouring over a book about how all the stuff is made and he finds it hilarious.
"Charli, he's a DUMMY! How can a dummy drive a ship?! Only people can do that!"

I'm very proud of my little Star Wars geek, even if he's yet to watch a single one of the films all the way through!! :P

UPDATE

My sister is a twit.

BUT I WASN'T REPSONSIBLE OR INVOLVED IN THE BREAKING OF THE SHOWER :D

Little sister was reading Mum's blog, which also recounted my disasterous day, turned around to us and absolutely sincerely said -

"Oh, didn't you know the shower was broken?"

Uh...no? No-one TOLD us it was broken!

Sis "Oh, well yeah it's been broken for ages, that's why I've been taking such quick showers"

Us "What???! How long has it been broken for?!"

Sis "Oh like...5 days?"

Us "You didn't think to tell anyone!?"

Sis "I figured someone would take a shower and notice, plus I kept forgetting. It really was a horrible smell, hurt my nose."

So she's a moron, and the broken shower is nothing to do with me :D

It's turning out to be one of them days...

Where did we leave off?

Ah I was feeling sorry for myself in bed, ok. I am now out of bed lol I stayed in bed all morning and a bit of the afternoon, but dragged myself out for my last lecture and my language class.

On my way there I got a phonecall off my mum and WE PASSED PANEL!!! WOOOOOOOOOO! See mum's blog for details :D

Anyway, that's not why it's one of "them" days, I'm just on catch-up first.

The week was fairly uneventful, did nothing of interest really.

Yesterday I came home for the weekend since it was Dad's birthday earlier in the week :) Happy Birthday Daddy :)

Mum, Sis and Bro all came to pick me up from the station, I was very confused about why they were sat in the car outside though. But when I got to the car I found Little Bro absolutely zonked in the back. He woke up when he heard the doors opening and closing though, looking VERY confused to find me grinning at him!!

He quickly woke up properly and we went to McDonalds on the way home, where he got a Star Wars lightsaber. Which of course he had to attack me with. It quite quickly got confiscated when I got hit repeatedly on the knees with it!!

When we got back I got to put him to bed (not that he stayed there!) then sat downstairs chatting to mum and various people on MSN.

Now we get to today...

I got dragged out of bed at 7.30 and moped about for a bit, eating my breakfast and stuff. Little Bro read his reading book to me, which I am VERY proud about because apparently at school they gave him the wrong book and this is a few levels ahead of what he's supposed to be reading, but the FABULOUS clever boy barely even had to think about it! He didn't know "Can't" but this is a hard one, so as soon as I told him that's what it was, off he went! BRILLIANT :D He also did his spellings, again absolutely no problem. He's my little boy genius :)

I then had to dash upstairs to throw some clothes on so I could go and take him up to school.

When we got back I decided I'd go and have a shower. This is when the trouble started...

I got in the shower and was quite happily shampoo-ing my hair when I noticed a weird smell, I ignored this for a bit while I tried to wash the shampoo out but it was getting worse, and it was a pretty awful smell. So I started looking around and realised that white smoke was coming out of where the pipe thingy joined the box thingy. (Technical terminology that is :P).

EEK!

So I turned the shower off, wrapped up in a towel, then stuck my head out of the door to shout mum.

Nothing.

Two kittens appeared, but no mum. So I had to traipse through the kitchen and dining room, dripping wet, loads of shampoo still in my hair, absolutely freezing, to find her. She was in the hallway and so hadn't heard me. Ah well.

She went to look at the shower and her guess was as good as mine (Er...I don't know...I'll ring the handyman or something...). So I had to go and have a bath. I hate baths, they're alright if you're just laid in a nice warm bubble bath with a book, but for actual washing? Yuck. However, clean is clean, right? And it got the shampoo out of my hair lol.

Then I decided that I was hungry.

So I proceeded to root through the fridge, and threw a fair bit of stuff out, then started on the freezer and have now taken a load out for me to eat over the next few days.

I decided on a garlic flatbread, which I defrosted in the microwave (took forever), grated some cheese onto, and put in the oven.

After the first 5 minutes it didn't even begin to look cooked, so I moved the shelf up to the top and put it in for another 5 minutes. STILL didn't look cooked. However this time when I shut the door back up there was a bright flash of light in the oven and then the entire thing went off.

Charli : 2 , Technology : 0 (or is the technology winning here since I'm not actually getting to do what I want...? Hmm).

I decided to microwave the garlic bread to see if that would get the cheese to melt. Mum finally thought to mention that it was Wensleydale (or similar) that that wouldn't melt. Ah. That would explain it then. So I ate it un-melted (ugh, not anywhere near as nice).

So now I've been banned from touching anything else technological in the house, this mostly just includes the TV, the Wii and mum's computer lol.

Fingers crossed I won't break anything else!!

Update from Bed

Well I'm currently wrapped up in bed feeling sorry for myself!! I ache all over and feel sick and blergh. Not sure if it's because of the fencing competition yesterday or if I'm coming down with something, either way I feel like death!!

I drove for 2 hours on Saturday to get to my Auntie's house, which was 10 minutes away from the competition I went to. It was lovely to see her and we went out for a meal (she had no food in!) and then watched Sleepless in Seattle. Very cute film with lots of references to An Affair To Remember, which I now also want to watch!

The next day I got up at 9! Woah! I've never been able to get up any later than about 6 to go to a competition!! Then I drove over to the school where it was being held, my mum's old school no less!! Very cool :)

I had every expectation to be thoroughly thrashed at the competition, but since I found out when I got there that I'd get a medal either way, and I only really went for the chance to see my family, I couldn't care less!

I did much better than expected, at the end of the first poule I was last in the poule but ranked 10th overall (out of 11 - not last!!), at the end of the second poule I was 4th in the poule (out of 6 both times) and ranked 7th over all!! Not bad! So I came out of the poules with an overall ranking of 8th. (sorry for the overuse of the word "over all"!!)

Then came the D.E. which is normally my forte, but I got beaten something like 15-3, oops!!! At the end of the competition I was ranked 9th out of 11 and got the Highest Ranked Under 20 medal :D Which wasn't hard...I was the ONLY under 20, but still absolutely delighted!

I then went over to see my Grandma and Grandad, and my Auntie again who was there as well! My dad and sister also turned up after running an errand, they'd been to watch the competition which was lovely :) Thank you! Even if you were bored, sis!!

The 2 hour drive back was nightmarish though. The sun was in my eyes the WHOLE time, then it dropped into twilight which I actually find WORSE to drive in! I was tired, I was achey, everything seemed to try and go wrong...I drove an hour then stopped at a McDonalds and refused to drive any further!!

Of course I did eventually get back in my car and somehow made it back the last hour. The final 15 minutes was pretty awful but I got back in one piece!

I then got in and was asked if I wanted to go to the cinema (20 minutes back in the direction I'd just come from!) the answer, funnily enough, was a big NO!!! I just sat in my room on my computer being "Bleeeerghhh" and tired lol

Then when I tried to get up this morning, as already said, I felt like death. I would say like death warmed up but that would imply that I was warm!! So I haven't gone to two of my classes, hopefully I'll be ok to go to my lecture...? And possibly more importantly I'll make it to my language class, which I'm not very good at and really don't want to miss!!!

So that's about it for now I think?

oooh mum and dad are at a VERY IMPORTANT meeting right now so -
GOOD LUCK, YOU'LL BE FINE :D

xxxx

Best Day EVER!

Today I went to HEAVEN ON EARTH which is the most amazing gym/pool/jacuzzi/EVERYTHING, I'm never showering at my cottage again when I can have an AMAZING AND WARM SHOWER THERE! This was followed by internetting where I found out I'M THROUGH TO THE NEXT ROUND OF INTERVIEWS FOR DISNEY! THEN I went back to my house and the internet got set up!!! Seriously the best day EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!