Cassandra's Predictions

I’m going to try spamming this to all my social networks and see what happens.  Hopefully it will also give me an idea who uses what where.  This will be a rare occurrence, don't worry.
 
Dear Theatre-loving friends, I’m booking tickets soon for some events in Sheffield and London.  If you want to join me please let me know and I’ll add you to the ticket buying list, and/or coordinate with you on timings.
 
Note that I will be getting tickets for the Yard (standing) for all globe performances, these cost only £5 and are definitely the best ‘seats’ in the house.  The Globe shows are part of ‘Globe to Globe’ a special festival showing all of Shakespeare’s plays each in a different language.  If there are any others you fancy seeing, please let me know and I’ll GLADLY join you.
 
Shakespeare’s Globe – London
http://globetoglobe.shakespearesglobe.com/
 
Tuesday 1 May - 19:30 – Midsummer Night’s Dream – Korean
Saturday 5 May – 14:30 – Othello – Hip-Hop
Monday 21 May – 19:30 – Coriolanus - Japanese
Wednesday 23 May – 19:30 – Love’s Labours Lost – British Sign Language
 
Sheffield Theatres
(Dates Uncertain but almost certainly weekends or BH)
 
Pantomime – Sleeping Beauty (around £20)
Company (around £16)

Brilliant day today.
Work went well, we got a lot of work done, including some access that my co-worker Katherine had been working with IT to sort out for a few days. We've got a team building day tomorrow.  That should be interesting.

Then I went to belly dancing class for the first time.

Man, I *really* suck at dancing.  But I decided today I don't care.  If I like it, and I'm at least enjoying it, I'll just keep at it until either it's not fun anymore or I get better.  So, win-win.

And someone said they liked my skirt.  Not someone at the class (although they liked it too - i was the ONLY one in the class wearing a skirt, everyone else was in spandex workout gear) but a random (work related) bloke in the pub before hand.  And I don't think he was taking the mick either.  It really boosted my self image.  Especially since I was feeling a bit self-concious in my 'gothy' skirt.

So.  For next weeks class I am going to

a) practice my shimmy.  It is SO much harder than it looks (or than my brain thinks it should be!)
b) get a hip scarf.  cheap way to add fun.
c) wear leggings and possibly a crop top.  

 Well, I know it's going to shock some of you that I made it all the way to 37 without visiting a single IKEA, but I did.  Today, Alan and I ventured to IKEA for the first time.

I was very excited, and sang the JOCO song quite loudly until Alan turned the radio on and then up, which was apparently a subtle hint to quit singing the IKEA song.  He could have just said.

Anyway, after driving for a rather long time, we arrived at the gianormous store (next to an equally large ASDA).  
I was not disappointed.

The first thing that struck me, was 'Ah HA! This is what the shops in PetVille (see facebook) are based on.' - Sad, but true.  Then I just marvelled at the displays and the wonderful range of things available for one to buy.

We headed for bookcases (Billy was our target, unsurpisingly) looked a bit, took a leaflet and went and had some meatballs.  Meatballs, tasty.
We then sauntered back to the storage section, via the housewares (OMG do they have a beautiful and practial array of glassware!) and mirrors (want full length mirror!) and back to the bookcases, where we opted to get Billy (narrow) rather than the Benno, which was shallower.  We also decided, once we were downstairs in the 'hunt down the stuff on Sam's Club like shelves'  section, that we wanted to get a Billy full width as well, which meant hunting in earnest (no rhyme or reason down there!)

Getting the stuff in the car proved the trickiest bit, as our car was not QUITE big enough for the items we'd bought, but we managed, and made it home in one piece.

Thus ends the first IKEA adventure.  It was like Disney, only with furniture.

Quick update before I go eat something.

Well, it's Christmas. I saw just Santa, riding on a highly lit sleigh, with a horde of 'elves' wearing high-vis vests. The helpers were collecting for charity (I probably should have asked which one), and the one at my door invited me to come meet Santa. I gave him a quid and told him I'd wave at Santa from my door. :-)

In other news, today was a good day. Got a lot done, and also got a gift voucher 'Christmas bonus' at work, and a bottle of Champagne for winning the weekly ICAEW news quiz competition.

Please post in the comments with your favourite Christmas Carol.
And/or with what you want for Christmas.

The first is so I can get an idea what carols are as popular in the UK as in the US, the second is for fun.

Today, Alan is away up north consulting for his firm.  I am on my tod for the second time since moving to Berkhamsted.

Rather than make dinner for one, I decided to break my hike home from the train station by stopping in at the local Wetherspoons.  I was hoping for steak night, but it was curry night.  I had a steak anyway.
Lesson 1: Eating alone can be -ing lonely.  I've often eaten alone, I mean, a good book has served as sufficient company on many, many occasions.  This was not one of them.  Apparently my loneliness was so apparent that the bartender/manager felt the need to come over and point out to me just how alone I was.  Not making that up.  He stopped by my table and said jovially "where've they all gone?  Did you piss everyone off so they made you sit here at the table under the stairs by yourself?"   Oh yeah, that helped.  But, OTOH, my book was good.   For anyone who read Wicked and didn't think the next book would be as good because it was less directly tied to the original OZ books, you should really give Son of a Witch a go.  It was a good book.  Although I never thought I'd see the day that there was gay sex in Oz.  Well.  Except when the Heinlein characters went there in Number of the Beast.  But even then, I don't think Heinlein went that far with the Oz mythology.  I think he did some sort of mushy 'no one can die or be born or do anything untoward in Oz because it's Oz' sort of thing.
 
Then the walk home.  Up the hill.  Wasn't too bad with a nice two minute rest on the bench.  However, on my walk, I learned lesson 2.
Lesson 2:  If you are going to park illegally in Berko at night, don't do it near The Rex.  On the ginormous small hill next to the Rex, there were two (count them two!) traffic officers ticketing cars.  At 8pm.  And I was tch-tching the SUV that had parked, not partly but COMPLETELY on the double lines.  Then as I took my break on the bench at the top of the hill I learned lesson 3.
Lesson 3: Traffic officers sometimes park on the double yellow lines.  And sometimes drive SUVs.  Yes, it would have been damned inconvenient for her to park her vehicle legally.  But presuming that double yellow is there because the curve at the top makes it dangerous for people to park there, it was irresponsible of her to park her large vehicle there for more than 15 minutes (I was in the area for about that long, I don't know how long she'd been there before I got there). 

Sheffield tomorrow!  I'm so excited.  I'm taking the train from Milton Keynes at about 6, and should be in sheffield a little before 9.  With any luck I'll be in the beer tent drinking a nice ale with friends before 9:30 has passed.  Take THAT loneliness!

Well, things are going surprisingly well with the US trip.  I was forcibly reminded why I don't book flights that aren't direct, when our plane was delayed by about 15 minutes, and the airline deemed we no longer had time to make our connecting flight and (admittedly conveniently) automatically canceled our boarding passes and issued us with ones for the next flight.  In 4 hours.  The only part about that that sucked, was that we DID clear customs and passport control in time to have made the original flight.

So after traveling 22 hours, we made it to my in-law's house.  I fell almost immediately into a sleep of the dead.  The next day my sister-in-law and her husband and their two daughters came to the house.  Bailey and Rachel have grown a little bit, and are slightly better at games (they especially like Express) but are otherwise more or less as I remember them.

Apparently Aunt Amber knitting made it seem fun, because they both insisted I teach them to knit (note that both their grandmother and mother knit).  They were doing pretty good, but I think I may get one of those little knitting things for kids and carry it in my bag next time I'm going to be knitting around kids.  I think they would have had more fun with that, as they would have got more immediate good results.  My main instruction for their 'practicing' was to count their stitches at the end of every row to make sure they had the same number each time.

That's about it for now.  I'm enjoying drinking my Mt Dew, and I have been sneaking a few Reece's cups from my private stash every once in a while.  Don't tell the kids!

I thought for those of you out there who might be looking for IT related jobs in England, it might interest you to know which of the job search engines came through for me in the end.

http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/ was the source of the couple of 'nibbles'I had, and the lead that eventually lead to the job I was successful in getting.

And Latcom (http://www.latcom.co.uk/ ) was the Recruitment Agency that the job was obtained through.

I was cleaning today and re-found the piece of paper I'd scribbled this on.

Here you go!

We've been a rambling all of the night
and some part of the day
and now we're returning back again to you
and have brought you a garland gay

A bunch of May we've brought to you
and at your door do stand
it's nothing but a sprout but it's well budded out
by the work of God's own hand

The moon shines bright the stars give a light
a little before the day
so God bless you all whether you be great or small
and send you a joyful May

Our time has come we must be gone
we can no longer stay
So God bless you all whether you be great or small
and send you a joyful May

I would like to say, as a huge fan of musicals, and of Little Shop of Horrors in specific, that I agree with every positive thing that has been said about the current production at the Lyceum.

There are no weak points. (other than a lack of Mean Green Mother, but it turns out that's specific to the film and not part of the original stage musical)  The show rocks.  All the performances are awesome.  The American accents are even good (turns out two of the actors *are* American).

Also, somewhat mind-blowing, the actors had three week's rehearsal (four if you count 'the technical') before touring.  Arrrrrrgggggghhhhh.

GO SEE THIS MUSICAL.

(Not copied to theatre_cass as everyone on there also is on this one.)

Right this post has two separate purposes:

1) Provide an apology and explanation to those I 'abandoned' this weekend
2) To provide a record of the fabulous and relaxing weekend I had.

( First, my apologies and explanations. )

( Second, what I did this weekend.  )
BTW - What do you guys think about me recording beer preferences/notes here in my journal?  Interested?  Not interested? Should I filter? Have a poll?

( Anyway, back to the story. )

All in all it was a lovely weekend, restored my self and my soul, and I feel like I'm me again.  I am sad to have missed the knitting weekend, but am hopeful there will be another one 'soon'.  I don't regret my decision, I can't imagine I would have been good company at knitting in my state of mind.