7/12/07 - 13/12/07

I'm going diary like to make it easier!

Friday 7th December - Not much to report but I did forget to mention that in November one of my fantasy football teams was in the top 10 of the mini league that came top for the month. This means I will win a share £8000 come the end of the season. The downside of this being that the share will be between about 50-60 people so my current estimate is that I will walk away with £160 which is still a nice profit for the season and taking money off The Sun is always good. Whoever said this was a fluke!

Back to the diary and I remember going to bed a little later than planned just before 1:00

Saturday 8th December - 3:51am my phone rings. I was asleep so I ignored it. Then it rang again so I thought i'd better answer it. It was the hospital saying my grandad had had a cardiac arrest (or what non-medics call a heart attack) and could I take my grandma there. I woke Phil and he told me to get some sleep to prepare for my exam and he'd take her. I didn't get any sleep. My brother returned at 6:15 with the news of his death.

We played PES2008 for a bit to block it out then it was my job to ring around family friends and inform them. I then went to see my grandma and sort the funeral details out. I've never had to cope with death before and timing could not have been worse 2 days before an exam with my parents 10,000 miles away.

While everything else seemed insignificant, it was Huddersfield Town's big local derby against Leeds which we lost 4-0. Rubbish doesn't even begin to describe that day and I went to bed at 10:00 to try to sleep.

Sunday 9th December - Head down revising all day trying to block everything else out. That was the idea but generally failed and kept snoozing.

Ricky Hatton lost to Floyd Mayweather in the fight of the year and came third in Sports Personailty of the Year. Second was Lewis Hamilton and the winner was Joe Calzaghe (a welsh boxer not an Italian food).

The hot water pilate light went out again.

Monday 10th December - Exam day arrived. There were plenty car parking spaces so I arrived at 9:15 (45 mins before start) to take one of the last ones. I walked in expecting about 80 people to be taking it like at ACA to be confronted with a huge athletics hall full of desks - like 300 of them. A daunting prospect but really i'm used to this exam lark by now. I couldn't hear the invigilator despite him reading his stuff twice (once at the front and once from the middle of the hall). I'd had a word with one of them at the start to tell them of my recent troubles and he kindly said he'd log it and said I should write a letter to ACCA to confirm this.

The exam itself didn't seem to go too badly but it's one of those things that you can't really tell so it's a wait until 20th February for the result. I then lost my house key so had to go via Bradford to pick one up from Phil and eventually got home for lunch at 3:30. Luckily I didn't have to go back to work. Upon returning home I found my key (typical). I then went to look after my grandma for a bit.

Me and KAte had a go at the quiz by ourselves and got a respectable 87 out of 150 for 4th out of 8. We were sadly nowhere near 3rd though but still a good effort. Thanks to Caroline for a bit of help too! My flight to Vegas is now paid for but still no hotel booked.

Tuesday 11th December - Back to work. It was nice to catch up with people again and despite someone's circumstances changing there was still a deja vu ness to our conversation.

After about two and a half hours of knob turning the hot water pilate light finally got relit.

Wednesday 12th December - It was Steph's 18th birthday so belated congratulations from the blog although I think the necklace I bought her should have got that message across already! I'd normally wish her a good night at this point but I know she had two so i'm glad you had a fun birthday.

It was also the HSCA Carol Service at lunchtime where I got roped into doing the collection along with my other helpers James, Greg, Howard, and Anton. The Parish Church was quite full and it was nice to have a sing to some carols.

I had a CASSH meeting in the evening which seemed to go fairly productively. The best meetings are the ones where things get done.

Due to my busy day, Phil was left to sort my grandma out with picking up the death certificate and sorting out finances of my grandad. This is really all that could be done until my parents get home. Thanks to Phil for helping out in such a big way and also thanks to everyone for their support in this difficult time.

Thursday 13th December - It was the day of the In-house Department Christmas meal at Verve. I was seriously flagging by this stage with the rest of the week seeming to take it's toll on me and I had a headache all day. Bearing this in mind I was glad to be last to leave at about 11:00 and enough alcohol had been consumed to make it a good fun evening.

I think i'm about halfway through the catch up so i'll pause there for now and do part two soon.