October 2007 Archives

Last weekend saw the start of a good 5 weeks of travelling about on trains for me when I came home to work and chill out after a bad week at Uni.

This week I'm home again to work even more shifts and make a bit more money, next weekend I'm intending to go to Hoylake for a day or two to watch the WSYC racing, the following Wednesday I'm travelling to Kev's and, due to lecture changes and cancellations and a holiday week coming back just after my birthday after racing at St Andrews.

 I want to work out how many miles I'll be doing before Christmas because I think, because of the distance out towards Birmingham and Tamworth I'm having to make for connections to and from Derby, and then all the other journeys, it's quite a good distance.

For some reason I actually enjoy it.

Well, Peg Leg Kev, aka Wolverine, Bionic Boy and so on, will hopefully soon be off crutches!

An appointment with the Consultant again on Friday and the Physio on Monday should hopefully mean that sometime soon I'll be back walking again (and driving I hope).

I'm looking forward to the more manouverability it will give me having not only 1 working leg, but having 2!

Well, it would appear, what with student loans coming in and suchlike that it is the time for spending some money.

Recent aquisitions for myself include:

A 3.9m Combat (affectionately known as Dingbat)

A Samsung U600 (very thin and sleek, but taking time to get used to the txting facilities)

A CKB Deck (Custom built and light as a feather, hopefully it shall bring some more stylish board offs)

And of course, Leahs recent 'new stuff':

A 6m Combat (Tomcat the Combat)

A 7.5m Combat (On loan from Si)

A 0.7m Buster (WHY?!?!)

Life is good! :D

A few days ago I posted about a random act of kindness from a stranger and how happy this made me.

Today, after getting up and deciding I was too lazy to rush getting out of the house to walk to Menai Bridge I went to catch the bus outside Morrisons. When it finally came it turned out the return fare was £3.something and all the change I had was a ten pound note. Just as the driver was about to turn me away from the bus journey a young man in the queue behind me offered me the 10p to make the change nice and easy for the bus driver to work out, and I was allowed to continue my journey.

I was talking to Haz about it and she says she read in a book that for every act of kindness you receive, you have to pass it on 3 fold (so my two acts of kindness now mean I owe some people out there 6 acts of my kindness) so it keeps on going. Obviously in the real world very few acts of kindness happen anyway and so nobody passes them on - but I am going to try and pass on some kindness to some other people in the world, be it lending them some change or helping rescue a cat from a tree or whatever.

On the way home I headed for the bus stop and Haz and Andy decided to come with me - but Jenny didn't have any bus fare. So I said I'd give it to her, I had plenty of change from the bus now so figured I might as well. When the bus came to pick us up, to my dismay it was a different company to the one I'd used to get over to Menai Bridge so my return ticked would have been wasted. But the kind driver let me on anyway.

Somewhere out there, 8 people (it would have been 9, but Jenny said my bus fare for her counted as one) should receive some kindness from me because the world has been so good to me today.

You might well have heard, Cadbury's have bought out a limited edition Wispa bar, a chocolate bar that I remember being my favourite from my early childhood years. Earlier today one of my housemates was eating a Wispa bar, and I nearly died - surely it couldn't be true? The Wispa bar was back among us?

 Anyway, it turns out that Morrisons has them on sale and they're selling out quickly. So I put on my boots and went up the hill, armed with a five pound note, ready to buy as many as I could (lets face it, if they are that popular I could easily make this fiver back on eBay, and if not, I have £5 worth of probably the best chocolate in the world).

When I got there I had a massive struggle (some may call this a quest, like finding the holy grail or something) to find where they were actually on sale, and by chance came across a 25-piece bag of Dairy Milk Treatsize "Pure Chocolate" on a buy-one-get-one-free offer. And so naturally I had to buy 50 chocolate bars for £3.

Now, I have only £2 left and realise this may be enough to buy 5 Wispas. I find a store attendent and he goes and gets a box from storage for me - and hands me 5 Wispa bars.

When I get to the checkout, much to my dismay I discover Wispa bars are actually 43pence each - meaning that 5 bars AND my 50 snacksize bars will take me over my £5 limit by 14pence. I apologise to the cashier, explaining my struggle, and face the fact I could have had more Wispa bars if I hadn't been so desperate for a combination of 50 dairy milk, Twirls and Cadbury's Bubbles bars(and yes, I am well aware this is just a slightly better formed Wispa bar but they're just not the same).

Then, something beautiful happened.

There was an old ish chap in the queue behind me. As the cashier told me I owed Morrisons £4.something he nudged my arm and held out his hand - containing a 20 pence piece. This was plenty enough for the fifth Wispa bar AND Cadbury's Mix bag; so I asked him if he was sure and he said "Yes I'm quite sure," and gave me the 20pence piece. I couldn't be more grateful to this man. By giving me this 20 pence piece he has given me another bar of chocolate, but he's also restored my faith in the fact that there are good things in the world too - some people are kind enough to help someone else out, even if its only over a bar of chocolate.

Thank you Morrisons Man. One day our paths may cross again and I will repay the favour - maybe you will be 14pence short of buying your favourite chocolate bar?

Well, I'm back, have moved into our 7-bedroom Victorian end-terraced house, begun to decorate, nearly finished setting up the club with the others and bought a t.v. I haven't really stopped!

 I got out the other day on my 4.8 Combat, I had a well deserved thrashing (face it, I was due one) but I didn't have the nerve to snap my ankle and have it pinned - I know if that had have happened I would never have heard the end of it (for having footstraps on my buggy, obviously). Haven't been out since and am beginning to get twitchy.

 Dive wise I haven't been in the water since Stoney, though to be honest the weather hasn't been fit for it here and the dive club haven't been very active.

I began to decorate my room the first weekend I was here - pale blue, white and "chocolate truffle" - but unfortunately some evil stomach bug (believed to have been caused by some dodgy ham) took my body on the Monday and I never got it finished. And now, I can't be bothered or the wind is too good.

The most exciting news I have is I bought a t.v. I did have an adapter for my laptop, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to want to receive terrestrial channels and only picks up about two decent digital channels and every shopping channel under the sun. So yesterday, when I saw a 14" t.v. advertised for sale on the discussion boards, I did buy it. I promptly spent the rest of the day watching rubbish.

 Soon it all starts to move quickly again - I'm busy every single week in November for some reason or another and my October weekends are quickly being booked - a good timetable (with lots of weeks off, for one reason or another) and an early finish for Christmas mean I'll be off for 5 weeks over the festive season and that's all pretty much booked up too! It's a busy life being a student...

I just read about this on a site about tetrapod zoology. Apparently it's a giant red squirrel they had to kill because it attacked a load of boy scouts in America. It's not just Snowdonia that has giant freaks such as the Snowdonian Mountain Mole...