FINISHED!!!!!!

I may have to kidnap this chair from the college library - it has become shaped to my bum, so much so, it's almost a part of me. I shall miss it.

I shan't miss carrying all those books. I just dropped off 8 hardbacked books of varying sizes that I've been carrying around with me for weeks. I just have to get rid of the other 4 and put away the paperwork in a meaningful manner and then - I'm FREEEEEEEEEE!

I can actually socialise madly without worrying about it, instead of socialising madly and feeling intense guilt. Oh, Zombiecon - why aren't you next weekend?

Dougs had expressed a soft spot (or perhaps hard spot) for Helena Bonham Carter. I recently purchased "Rik Mayall Presents", a series of one-off plays starring him in a variety of roles. One of them (which appears to be a prototype for the film "Staggered") features Ms Bonham Carter as the stripper at a stag party; she does a routine which ends up with her leaving the stage topless in fishnet stockings. Dougs seemed quite taken with the image in a misty-eyed sort of way.

Last night I showed him the sequence. We were eating a noodley soup, which seemed to require a considerable amount of his attention, and as Ms Bonham Carter skipped off the table she had been dancing along he said: "Oh dear, I don't think those shoes will have done the finish on that table much good."

For those of you who don't know, I have just completed a degree in English Studies at Sheffield Hallam University. As I'm still at my father's house helping sort out the funeral and lending support I haven't seen my post. However, Yvonne dropped into my house and rang to say there was a Strictly P&C envelope waiting for me from SHU. She opened it for me, and then kept me hanging on tentahooks before announcing I've got a FIRST!!

Who'd've thought it? Discovering a long unused brain at my vast age...

Just to let people know:

After a couple of months of increasingly severe illness, my mother passed away last night at about midnight. I will miss her very much. If I don't contact people for a bit, it's not that I'm ignoring you on purpose (or it might be - you'll never know for sure!). Hopefully the year will improve from here.

Thank you to all those people who knew and sent their best wishes and prayers, and provided support both physical and mental. I really appreciate it. Hope to speak to you soon.

I have not got around to official invitations to my summer party this year, but I have mentioned the date to people here and there as I've run into them.  Unfortunately, due to family sickness I am going to have to cancel the party for this summer.  Sorry for any disappointment, but look on it as getting a whole shiny new weekend back this summer to do with as you will.