Snow, christmas and all that

Well its been snowing most of the day so far, and we woke up to about an inch or so. The buses haven't been running all day and i didn't fancy getting in to work with dad and then not coming home again especially as mum and dad aren't back til mon. Luckily i have sat and sun off so i am not likely to miss too much work thankfully.

It does give me a chance to relax and rest before next week which is going to be a bit hectic as long as the snow eases off  which they are saying it should do but then again they have been wrong before :P

Since my last post ive been mainly working or playing wow or watching stuff. My driving lessons are going ok although it has bee a month since my last one as it was snowing for one lesson and i had to reschedule the other due to work. I've got one on thurs hopefully tho :)

Watched a film called Pandorum the other night which was good. I was worried it was gonna be a bit too scary as im not a big fan of scary films even though i will watch them. However this was doen well and i could feel the suspense throughout and even though dave and i did guess about the major plot points we weren't entirely right which made a nice change to most of the usual stuff that comes from the movie world. I was also surprised by the ending, i really didn't think it would end the way it did but yet again i was wrong. Overall i did enjoy it, not sure its one i'm gonna rush to add to the collection but if it ever popped up on tv i'd prob give it another viewing.


Not much else going on really, daves applied for his PGCE and we are crossing our fingers and hoping. I'm looking forward to some family time over the xmas weekend and thats about it.

One day i'll blog reguarly

So it's been awhile since my last post and a few things have happened, nothing overly major.

I'm still having driving lessons every fortnight and they are going well, keep making a few silly mistakes but i think I'm improving overall and its just a case of remembering to do everything properly and in good time.

Dave has still not had an success getting a job altho he did manage to get an interview even if he didn't get it, its still a good sign that someone may give him a chance. He did have some good news in that he was asked to cover for another teaching assistant at the school he volunteers at for 2 days so he should hopefully be getting the money for that soon. He has been looking into doing a PGCE but most unis want a 2:2 degree or higher which sucks given that hes had a decent bit of experience and is quite keen to do the course. I keep poking him to email unis to see if they will consider him. We shall see, there is an undergrad course for teaching but it would be the cost that would be an issue. It's a shame things always have to come down to money.

We have recently got back from a visit to Dave's parents up in Doncaster which was nice. We had a lovely time up there and went to visit Vikki and Mark while we were up there too, I'd forgotten how nice Domino's pizzas were :) I spent far too much while we were up there tho, mainly because we found out the new magic the gathering set had been released and we got ourselves some decks from that. I did enjoy myself tho so its not all bad.

I'm back in work on Monday and normality resumes but its payday Tues so looking forward to that. Also Anna is planning on visiting again next weekend as long as the parents say yes :) Shes left a bag of stuff here as she visits soo much at the mo. Got a trip to Cardiff planned for the dreaded Xmas shopping, if i start now i might actually get it all out of the way and then i won't have to worry about it :)

I think that covers everything, there's been a new patch in WoW preparing us for Cataclysm but i have a separate blog for my geeky WoW rambles :)

It's raining again :P

Ok so since my last post, i can safely say that the Abertillery Blues festival was fun and more successful than first thought, being in the beer tent was an added plus point :) and mum and i got nicely merry while we were there.
The abergavenny craft fairs continue to pod along with varying amount of success, there isn't one in September due to the food festival even though that's the weekend after we'd have a craft fair.

This coming weekend is the food festival and luckily this year i am only working the sat morning which is awesome. it also gives Anna, dave and i a chance to have a wander around and enjoy the atmosphere. i have never really explored the food festival so this year i might have a little wander.

Anna is with us from Friday night til Monday night and aside from a wander about town on sat there will be a lot of WoW played. She's got a gamecard and shes not afraid to use it :P That and its brewfest next week and she wants to try the boss for the first time ever and needs to level to do so. I'm sure theres a list of things she wants to do over the weekend and it could mean a few late nights but as I'm off sun and Mon i don't mind :)

I had a month break from driving lessons due to my instructor being on holiday and then getting a cold when he came back. I did manage a drive to pick Anna up in August which was fun with hints of terrifying. My first lesson back was an adventure as we just drove for the whole lesson, this confused me as I'm used to stopping and chatting about driving etc. It was also scary as he took me somewhere I'd never been before, we went down through Usk, back towards Raglan then back through Usk and back home again. It was a good run though and by the end of the lesson i had remembered that i could do it if i just believed in myself more.

My pc is back to factory settings and i have installed very little on it, just what i need and only 2 games at the mo. WoW is being run from my external as is my music collection. Not had any major probs with WoW and its nice to have a pc with little clutter. It starts up in a sensible time again :)

I have gotten back into reading again and my chosen place to read is on the bus into work at the moment. Its taking me awhile but I'm over halfway through Assassain's Quest by Robin Hobb. It the final book in The farseer Trilogy and it is awesome it just takes ages for me to read. After this book i may read something a bit more easy going just gotta pick something from the many books i own :S

I also managed to complete a game the other day - Professor Layton and Pandora's Box, i still need to find all the puzzles, I'm 14 short of having all of them but i might go do some later. It's been ages since I've completed a game, I'm contemplating going back to CSI Dark Motives and finishing that as i was on case 3 out of 5 so I'm halfway there near enough.

Think that's enough rambling for now, I'm  off to try to install the ptr for wow to see some of the new changes, this could take the rest of the day

Busy month

well july is a month full of stuff, the first weekend, mum and me went and did the Friends of Castle Green summer fair. It was a good day even if i got sunburnt, that'll teach me :P
Work is keeping me busy and im doing the odd extra shift at the moment which i am grateful for.
Anna is visiting and a trip to cardiff is planned for monday, before that there is the abergavenny craft fair tomorrow and im working all weekend.
The following weekend, there is the Abertillery Blues festival which mu  has gotten a table for in the craft tent so the 16 and 17th we'll be there.

Other than that i have had one driving lesson and will have another before the month is out. I'm hoping that i can get some practice in mums car soon as i really think it would help.


Aside from that i have been having pc issues. I got an infection that destroyed my connection to the internet. I gave up trying different types of removal software and just restored it back to factory settings. I haven't tested WoW on it yet but will do soon, that will be the ultimate test to see if it really has recognized my graphics card.

I think that covers most things, hoping philip can come visit again soon and thats about it at the mo :)

Birthday etc

Well i turned 24 this week, there was cake and presents and work unfortunately but oh well. I am now the proud owner of a digital camera all of my own. Its a baby version of the ones my mum and dad have but it still has more functions than i'm likely to every understand. So hopefully in the near future my blog will start having some picture in it of things i see everyday that make me think or i find interesting,

I also had a driving lesson that started off quite rubbish as i just had a blank on how to do anything. It did get better and by the end of the lesson i was back to feeling at least half competent again. I really can't wait to get some extra practise in as then i won't spend the first 30mins of my lesson remembering everything again. 2 weeks between lessons is rather a long time really but i can't afford them every week and only having one hour wouldn't give us much time to get to town and then back home again and do much in town.

In Dave's news he has applied for yet another teaching assistant job and i hope we hear something from this one even if it is a no, just be nice to get some feedback. His course finishes soon and the school where he currently is is happy for him to continue going there as a volunteer once it is finished so if nothing else he will have something to do.

Well its a nice day today and dave and i are going for a picnic in a little bit and maybe just maybe i'll catch the sun and stop being a pale shade of pale :P

Its raining so i'm blogging

Just read my last entry and realised its been far too long since i blogged. Also a couple of things have happened since then.

I've been to visit Anna, which was fun even if i was hijacking her laptop so i could play my new lvl 80 hunter. Did get to show her some heroics and have sorted out skype for her so we can chat occasionally.  After that it was straight up to Dave parents place for a few days up there, met up with Vikki and Mark as well. We all went for a lovely indian as a few birthdays were close.It was lovely to see everyone and get away for a bit.

Just before we went away  finally plucked up the courage to start driving lessons. I said to myself at the start of the year i would do it and now i've started it i've got no excuse to stop, even if it means less money for other things. I'm enjoying it so far, had 4 lessons but i have 2 hours each. My instructor has found a nice balance between pushing me out of my comfort zone while still knowing that i can do it. Just got to wait and see, i'm hoping that i can have a go in mums car in the future to get some extra practice in but we're waiting for that.

Work is still plodding along, dave nearly finished his teaching assistants course and is looking for a relevant job. Has applied for one but heard nothing yet :(

Well i've got the day off but not sure what to do with it, currently playing my rogue on WoW while typing this. Did get District 9 to watch so may do that later. Thats enough for now though.

Plodding along

I'm still here, I'm still alive just been playing too much WoW and watching too many dvds :P
Had a visit from Phlip which was fun, we had a day out in cardiff where i spent too much money but was awesome. We watched Up while she was here while eating a massive amoutn of pick + mix, the film had some great moments and was a happy/sad film.
Work has been plodding along, el one of our assistant manages has left and we're waiting for a new one. This means a little bit of overtime at the mo but that will stop soon no doubt. I've booked my holidays and the first one i have coming up is going to be busy as i plan to visit anna and daves parents in the space of a week. I'm hoping i can afford a few days away just for me and dave but its looking likely it will be a camping trip not that i mind but daves no so sure. I'm off to cardiff again on the 17th this time to see rach, dan and lil meg as shes a whole year older.
Anna will be visiting on sunday and we hope to be making some muffins as a way of bribing dad for all the lifts he gives me. I'm gonna try and get her on lego rock band as well which should be fun :)

Thats all for now going to do a few bits before work this afternoon.

The return of the Xbox

Well, i sent it off on the thursday and had a replacement last friday. Just need to find a scart cable now as the one we were using to connect the scart switcher box to the tv is being used to connect the freeview box. Once that is back up and running though i may make an effort to complete some of the games i have.Also need to get another controller so me and dave can play lego batman together.

I'm currently in the process of sorting out our room, so far so good, still got too much stuff but found some clothes that can go to a better home. I just got fed up of living with piles of clothes and stuff on the floor so im going to make the effort to keep it tidy just hoping dave tries to do that same. One day we'll have our own place to fill up but til then i'll have to keep putting things in boxes and having over full shelves.


Not much else going on, i've been working alot lately but the next few rotas settle down again so i'll hopefully have the time to play the games i want and to finish reading Brisingr finally. Been planning a few trips as i really should put my holiday form in at work. Nothing major just a trip to see dave's parents and then Anna and maybe a weekend to ourselves somewhere in a tent, can't afford anywhere with a bed :P

The xbox has gone

Well its been picked up and is on its way to germany to be repaired. I hope i get it back, went on teh xbox site and it said no pending repairs even though it would let me cancel the repair :S oh well if in 3 weeks im still xboxless i'll start to worry. Despite the fact i ahve no working xbox i still bought a game for it :P but it was lego batman adn it was a fiver so i couldn't let that pass me by.

In other news i have my first new pair of glasses for five years :) they still make my head ache a little behind the ears but ive only had them since wednesday afternoon. They aren't particularly exciting but compared to my scratched and battered old pair they look quite snazzy.

I've been playing WoW far too much lately and my hunter has now reached level 74 and is looking forward to 80 even though it might take me a while to get there.

I'd best be off to work now though, doing 11 til 3 so will have some time to myself when i get back as daves on placement and won't be hoe til around half 5 :)

And now we wait

Well in regards to the xbox issue i mentioned in teh last entry i have asked microsoft if they will repair it and despite being out of warranty they are supposed to be sending me a shipping label so i can send it back to be repaired. So now i'm waiting on this email and then just got to package it all up and hope for the best. If they do fix it then i will have saved nearly £200 as we were thinking of geting the elite console. Its been annoying as i keep seeing xbox games i'd like to play and the new final fantasy is out this year and that is definetly being bought.

As a result of trying to save money for a new xbox which i may or may not need i am being really tight and have not spent that mush last week and won't this week. Its payday friday and there are a few things i need to get, dave needs a new phone mainly and i would finally like to start learning to drive (if only i coul pick an instructor) also mums birthday is this month as well as mothers day so will need to budget for that. I have enough to get by but it would be nice to have a bit more once in awhile, i feel like quite the meany saying no to getting things all the time, i mean i dont often consider buying a game if it over a tenner. Heres hoping my pay isnt too bad this month.

On the plus side i have ordered some new glasses, the first new pair in 5 years. They are only cheap but they will be new and not bent or sratched :) I am annoyed that specsavers did charge me for my glasses before i got them as im not getting them til the 3rd of march. Thats just me though. Also the 3rd of march is the day we go digital in our little part of wales. i'm hoping that with the addition of a digibox thingy (ah another thing to get) that i will finally have more than 4 channels (altho one is the welsh one so more like 3 :P ). I'm especially looking forward to having Five as it shows csi and ncis which i can watch no end. Even if i know an episode of csi i can never remeber who did it, obviously i do if i've seen it recently but generally my mind goe i know this but who did it.

Thats about it for now i think.

Theres always something

Well since my last post the xbox 360 has had the red rings of death and is now an expensive paperweight. This does come at an annoying time as both myself and dave were on a playthrough of Blue Dragon and i was up to the third and final disk. Also dad has been playing fable 2 which i think hes been enjoying a bit. It also means the more reliable dvd player in the living room is out of action good job theres the ps2 for backup. I'm now on the lookout for a good deal on an xbox preferably an elite as it comes with a bigger hard drive as standard. Its just annoying that its one of those things that i'm just not sure about buying of ebay, i'd prefer to go to a shop but its likely to cost a little more that way.
It died just before i went to Annas which made me worry about money again but all was well and i enjoyed my weekend there. We had a trip to St Albans, i stocked up on cheap incense from a discount store and got some that wasn't vanilla for once. We made a coffee and pecan cake which was lovely and i made the usual korma that is required of me. So all in all i ate to much but it was fun.

Other than that, not much is going on, i've got dishes waiting for me and a lovely soak in the bath before playing a bit of WoW and deciding what to have for lunch, its odd being at home and not having dave here but its nice to have the time to myself.

Back to normality

I know this is a bit late but everything is back to normal after the snow.
Firstly dave is back at school on tuesdays and is no also doing friday afternoons to help make up the time and get more experience. I do hope he can find a job out of it as he'll need something to keep him busy and focused. I just don't want him to mope too much after his course ends. Theres also the fact that hes not signing on anymore as i was working too much over xmas and im not going to make him go back until his course is done as otherwise it gets too confusing and stressful, as well as costing even more money for him to go back to newport.

As for me i'm back at work and only doing four days a week. I'm happy with that at the moment though, gives me enough time to do other things. My pay from over xmas was nice though and will give me a chance to get a few things sorted that i've been putting off. Firstly i can get my eyes checked again and actually afford new glasses which im in dire need of. I'm also able to go visit anna at uni in just under a fortnight which should be fun. I'm also looking into driving lessons as it is one of my main aims this year to get that sorted. Just got to find a driving instructor now and get on with it.

I'm back playing WoW reguarly now after the xmas break altho im still managing to have time away from the pc. Dave and i are on season 6 of C.S.I and season 5 of Stargate. we alternate disks so we're currently on Stargate but in 2 episodes its back to C.S.I. This way works well as we don't forget the important little details. I just bought C.S.I seson 7 part 2 so got a few to keep us going. Also need to rewatch House at some point as anna got me series 3 for xmas.

Amoung my recent achievements is the completion of lego Rock Band, well we completed the career part, still need to get the all the achievements in it but its only a mnatter of time, more of that in a later blog i think.

Well i'm off, got my facebook things to check and some dishes to do in a bit

Fable 2

So i got fable 2 for Christmas which was a pleasant surprise. I had played the first one a little so knew what to expect and i wasn't let down. I much enjoyed playing it on the xbox when compared to playing the fable on my pc. The controls felt nearly second nature, except the few times i pressed B accidentally, to get out of things and it cast a spell and scared the villagers away, although this did come in handy when i got surrounded and stuck or i felt like stealing from their cupboards.

I will say now that i was playing the game as a good guy (well girl actually as you can pick your gender in this one), all the important points where we had to pick either good or evil i went with good. i put the rent and prices down on any stalls and houses i bought. i was friendly to people and saved the slaves rather than making people be slaves. So overall i was good, just a few books and pies stolen now and then.

This game was easy enough to complete, i got it xmas and finished it yesterday and that was with a week of not quite playing as my disc wasn't being read by the xbox. This also includes doing most of the side quests, i still have a few left but they mainly involve killing gargoyles and buying very expensive housing. I enjoyed the voice acting in the game as the main characters are voiced by people i quite enjoying watching on the tele (Stephen Fry and Zoe Wananmaker) The story moves along at a fair pace and if you followed the main plot it would be quite a short and sweet game. The game allows the hero to get married, have kids and buy as many buildings as he/she can afford. i will admit i got married as it was kinda part of a side quest and because i was being nice i couldn't be evil to the guy.

You get income every 5 mins from your houses and stalls and this counts even when not playing. however due to our xbox being off with no power it resets to the default time everyday so we found out that if you set it to the correct date and time it counted as having you played that time and you got rather a lot if money. Dave used this trick a few times, i did it once deliberately but if i started playing after dave then it happened anyway. It does make getting enough money for the expensive buildings a lot easier tho. I think i would have liked to have had gold as a reward for questing but i can see why they didn't and gave you the chance to do jobs instead which aren't that bad if done in small chunks.

Fighting was very straightforward with the standard slashing, shooting or magic options. I did miss the heal spell but considering i had infinite mana it makes sense. Also excessive use of the inferno spell solved most of my problems as long as i had a potion or two on me.
Overall i rather enjoyed that and i know some say its too short but it was just right for me given that i work and the tv the xbox is connected to also is the main tv so i couldn't play non stop.

Its the first game I've finished in a long while and its kinda made me want to go play more games, i did play a little gears of war while fable 2 was not working and i may go finish that or finish one of the other many games i have.

Snow, Snow and More Snow

Well we've had more snow, we had some last week which stopped me going to work wednesday and we had some last night that stopped me going to work today. On the plus side i don't need to be in work til sunday now so hopefully things will have gotten back to normal. We'll probably still have some snow left but as long as the roads are clear things carry on as they should be really.

It has been quiet at work obviously as not as many people are out shopping. We haven't had big deliveries either as its after xmas and it goes a bit slow for a bit so we've not had a lot to do in the shop lately. The boredom has caused the staff to carry out extra cleaning just so we've got something to do.

I'm also missing the benefits of central heating in the long cold spell, i've got 2 duvets and a sleeping bag on the bed and most evening i'm snuggled up under a blanket. I'm also drinking large amounts of tea in a bid to keep me warm, i tried going on wii fit the other night but it was too cold to stay on it long enought to work up a sweat.

Well thats it for now, gonna go grab a cuppa

Snow

Well at the time of writing i have yet to miss a shift at work due to the adverse weather we've been having. I did leave early with a colleague one day as otherwise i would have been stuck, although it after turned out my dad is awesome and manged to come pick me up.
The problem we face where i live is that it can be quite deep and snowing with us but if you go 6 miles down the road then its clear and normally raining.
They are saying that there will be heavy snow tonight but i am not convinced but we shall see.

Well that's my ramble about the weather, a ramble and review of lego rock band coming soon

A New Year

Whats there to say, time is ticking over as it should and another year has passed. This last year has been alright, not brilliant but not rubbish. Good points include my brothers wedding, seeing rach, dan and baby meg in their new house, getting a 16 hour contract at work and having dave still here.
Not so good has been the lack of jobs and money from the jobcentre for dave, not securing a placement for my course and just a general sense of not getting anywhere.

All that being said i'm happy with where i am at the moment, there are things i'd want and like but at the end of the day i've got a roof over my head, good company and good food and thats all i really need.

This year i aim to learn to drive if nothing else and support dave in his bid to become the best classroom assistant he can be. I've put the counselling idea on hold til i've lived a little more and things are more settled in that i can drive and maybe dave and i get our own place.

Til then its a combination of playing WoW, working, seeing friends if i can and playing on my xbox 360, since i've developed a new found love for it.

More updates coming soonish i hope.