Last Post Of 2007

No updates recently as not much has happened. Christmas was standard - It just gets less interesting each year now. There was a bit of a lack of football on Boxing Day. There used to be three games back to back but there was just one at lunchtime and one in the evening. My grandad's funeral went ok on 27th. Since then i've just been sleeping really. Maybe I should sort out what's happening tonight!

14/12/07 - 24/12/07

The diary of my rubbish December continues...

Friday 14th December - Woke up at 4:30 hungover. Didn't go back to sleep but felt fine by the time it was time to go to work.

It was ACA exam results day and big congratulations to Eppy, Gillian, Adeel, and Cassie for all passing their finals.

The evening saw Rob, Ann and I hit Halifax. We didn't seem to drink loads but did have a good night until about 1:30 when it got a bit Christmassy for Rob's liking so we called it a night!

Saturday 15th December - It was Lucy's birthday so Kate had a party. It was a good night and great to see Kathleen, Lucy, Sarah and John again as well as the usual friendly faces. Anyway there was half a washing up bowl of punch to drink (sorry, special bowl for punch and only punch) which we finished about 4am and then went to bed...

Sunday 16th December - ...for about six hours before Lucy had to fly back to Ireland. I do remember Kate cooking us a nice breakfast though! In the afternoon I sorted out with a family friend about how we would tell my parents about my grandad on Wednesday. Then things started going pear-shaped again. The family friend rung that night saying he couldn't get time off work so it was decided Phil would come with me. Kate also tried to get me a room for Vegas but with no luck.

Monday 17th December - After about four hours sleep, I awoke at 2:30 not able to get back to sleep, mainly worrying about Wednesday. I ached all day at work and felt awful so I went to bed at 5:30pm and got up at 10:30 for a couple of hours for some toast as i'd not eaten all day. No Christmas quiz for me then!

Tuesday 18th December - Most of my aches had gone but I had a cold and looked a bit like i'd been fighting Ricky Hatton. There was some good news in that my monitor at work broke and I was given a new 17" one which is two incher bigger than everyone else in my room so I was well chuffed with that.

I made it through the day then I was sick when I got home, only to be straight off out to the CASSH Christmas social at Revolution. It was more social than other years with over 40 people turning up, double the normal number of students but this was really promising for the future. I laid off the heavy drinking due to my recent lack of food and loss of weight (5lbs in two days) but was ready for bed by 1am.

Wednesday 19th December - Phil and I got up at 5:30 to head for Manchester Airport to pick up our parents who were flying back from Ecuador via Amsterdam. Mum texted me at 5:00 waking me up for another four hours night of sleep. We broke the bad news which was hard and was a bit like going through it all again. The funeral will be on the 27th by the way.

I got home about 10:30 feeling sombre and like I never wanted to leave the house again so had a sleep for an hour which perked me up a little. It was time for work's Christmas party at Lounge 68. I started off drinking slowly, still feeling awful but then after my meal decided on taking the "what, the hell it's Christmas" approach polishing off any spare wine that was left, be it red or white.

From then on the drinks kept flowing and from what I remember, I had four glasses of white wine, two glasses of red wine, four vodka and oranges, two smirnoff ices and a sambuca. Well that's what I remember anyway and from what I remember it was a fun day/night but not greatly eventful other than The Rhino getting up to his usual tricks! I caught the last train home feeling fine at 10:25 and went to bed.

Thursday 20th December - I took the morning off and got up at 11:00 having got up for a few waters in the night having walked into things indicating how drunk I actually was. I got into work and three or four people were commenting on what I text them the previous night. I didn't remember texting anyone the previous night.

Turns out there were only a couple that got me into trouble, one of which I was the total innocent party in and have no idea how I even got involved but i've managed to sort this one and one I was not the innocent party in and deserve everything I get. Although, in hindsight, if you're going to tell a friend you're unhappy about certain things and keep dropping subtle hints about things, as well as telling everybody else half truths, then perhaps i'm not totally to blame, especially as I had no idea i'd even sent any texts until about 12 hours afterwards. Some friends are just too much like hard work anyway so life will be less frustrating this way. Having said that though i'm always open to reconciliation!

It was the audit meal at Cibo's that night too but this was a fairly civilised affair with me getting home at 9:45.

Friday 21st December - It was a festive day at work though I was very all day. It was Carolyn's last day. I wondered about applying for her job but i'm content at the moment but should my audit load increase too much, then I maybe tempted to look elsewhere or make things change back. Anyway, Sarah also left which was very sad as she was one of only two people left in the audit department from when I started. On a lesser note there's also a severe lack of females at work now too. So we went out for a few after work. It was only a few though so I had beer. Beer seemed to clear my cold up nicely but I ended up hitting the sack at 10:00 after keeping falling asleep all evening.

Saturday 22nd December - Just a relaxing day. Oh and I rung Vegas and couldn't get a room. Kate is looking into it again. I wonder if i'll ever get a room!

Sunday 23th December - Ed, Bill, Kate, JJ, Caroline and I went to The Big Six for a chat. It was good to catch up with the boys from the south again(!) and hope to see more of them over the Christmas period.

Monday 24th December - I have time to write Christmas cards but alas it seems a pointless exercise and somewhat too late! Sorry everyone. It's also only really dawned on me how knackered i've made myself, sleeping until 1 o'clock every day since Saturday. Not surprising really looking at my sleeping times! I always go to church for midnight mass which is where i'm going now.

If I remember anything else, i'll add it but that all seems quite comprehensive. I know tenses and spellings may be wrong in places but i'm not going for any literary awards so i'm not too bothered!

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.

Summary Since Last Time

I need to catch up a bit as things have been busy recently. I'll do a very quick summary in this post then fill in the details in the next post or two.

Last time I posted I was stressed and the month wasn't going well. Since then it has gone from bad to terrible to bad to awful so i'd be lying if I said it had been the greatest December in history. So, to sum up in one sentence, here goes:-

My grandad died very early Saturday morning leaving me sleepless and severely lacking revision before my exam on Monday which turned out not to go too bad in the end but me and Phil were left to look after my grandma with my parents still being on holiday and our family friend having to work so we had to go to the airport to tell them so that night i got really tired and really drunk to try and get over my really bad cold and ended up being an arse and am now one friend short however sometimes these things turn out to be for the best.

Sorry if you haven't received a Christmas card from me by the way - don't feel left out as no-one has. I hope to resume normal service next year. Merry Christmas to all readers anyway though.

Now to start on the detailed posts.

Knob On!

Just a quick update to say the hot water is now fixed as Phil managed to get the knob back on and working again. It's windy though sohopefully it won't blow out again!

Studying, Stress

2 or 3 people (not sure who but I have a rough idea) have been checking for posts recently so to reward them here is one.

I went shopping last ~Friday which was rubbish cos it was shopping! Most of the rest of my time has been taken up by studying. I've also been visiting my grandad in hospital. He went in, then caught pneumonia and had a heart attack but is now described as poorly but stable. My parents are on holiday for two weeks so me and Phil are on grandparent duty for that time.

In other news in was a bit windy yesterday and it blew the pilate light out for my hot water. It's a pain in the arse to get it back on, twisting a knob 90 degrees until a flame appears (works about one every 25 times). My knob fell off this morning though so i'll have to see if it can be mended without expense.

I'm stressing over other stuff too which isn't helping me. Hopefully after the exam on Monday I'll chill out a bit and update this more too! Break over, back to work.