I've changed the background to something bright and cheerful...

... because I'm sick and tired of winter now. I'm fed up of being cold and I'm bored of grey skies and dreadful weather! Roll on spring, I say (and I don't like warmer weather in the main, but I'm a bit disheartened with it being so bleak and miserable all the time).

I quite like tulips, they aren't my favourite flower, but I love the myriad colours they come in and they certainly do have a knack of cheering up dullness.

I've finally got the results from the doctor. Turns out I have a severe vitamin D deficiency. I'm now on a super strength supplement tablet (which is vile, by the way... note to companies making these things - if a tablet has to be either sucked or chewed you could at least make it taste pleasant... is that too much to ask?) I've only taken two so far as they are one a day, so I haven't noticed any change yet as it's too early. I just hope that they work... I don't know what happens if I still feel like crap in a few months time. What if the vit D thing is just something they found and not the cause of the aches and pains I'm suffering from? I guess I shall have to cross that bridge if I ever come to it.

I wish that sciatica was as quick to abate as it is to arrive... it can take seconds for it to appear and you're in agony for days/weeks until it decides to pack it's painful bags and sod off again! Mine seems to have come to stay for longer than the weekend, though. I hope it's not going to be visiting for much longer... I've been in bed for two days and already I feel like I'm going mad lol. Unlike last time it is mainly in my left leg so sitting isn't too bad, it's walking and bending that leaves me gasping for air. As I can sit down I've been trying to get some writing done.

I like writing, when I'm in the mood (which isn't very often as my concentration span is minute at the moment... pain does that to me) - but I found a book I started writing almost two years ago. It's set in London during the Blitz and it follows the life and struggles of a young woman called Tilly. I'm thinking of making her under twenty, that way she won't be conscripted into war work and I can develop her character more fully. Of course she'll volunteer for something, probably the WVS as I have first hand diary accounts of that branch of the voluntary services I can draw information from. I had only written a basic 'chapter one' before I put it down the first time (yeah, I'm easily distracted!)
  I'm unsure as to how long the piece should be, a full novel, novella or short story? I'm leaning towards novella and see how I go... it can be edited down or padded out to become either of the others if I find the story grows or I run out of ideas hahaha. I like to keep my options open.
  Normally I write poetry... mostly short and they have to rhyme. I don't like poetry that doesn't rhyme, it makes no sense to me, it doesn't 'flow'. I'm not a natural novelist, and I envy those people that seem to have hundreds of pages of stuff floating about in their brains. Part of my problem is that I'm impatient to get it all written down... so many times I have good things in my head and by the time I come to write them down they have disappeared, never to return! So frustrating to me, and I begin to lose heart, and interest, so I just stop. I also struggle in being descriptive, of conveying the pictures I have in my head down for others to read about and absorb.
  Apart from poems I have only ever completed one novella, in my life. A murder mystery, all written in long hand, and probably not very good... but at least I can say I have written one book lol.

Anyway, it's late and my painkillers are starting to work so I should try and sleep. I've had a bad few nights as I just get comfy and something spasms in my back or legs and I wake up again. Not helpful, not at all *sigh*

Our boiler has stopped working!! (Plus a right old moan-fest!)

Meaning we have no central heating and no hot water!

I never knew this house could be so cold... my bedroom is recording a temperature of 56F or 13C! No wonder I'm having trouble sleeping. Funnily enough it's not the central heating I miss, it's the hot water... if I had water I wouldn't care about the heating, we have electric fires and blankets so it's not a huge problem, and if things get too chilly then you just go to bed (well, I do - must remember to add another blanket tonight).

The only problem I'm having is washing my hair - I have scalp problems and have to wash it daily or else the itching and soreness get too great and I'm in a foul mood and I feel dreadful (like I have swarms of headlice - not a pleasant sensation). I literally have 24 hours before I have to wash my hair again and any time over that and I can feel the tingling and itching creeping back again. Maybe it's psychological, maybe its me subconsciously clock-watching and making my head itch... I have no idea, but the burning and the consequent scabbing from scratching is real, and hurts and I really want to avoid that if possible!

Pingu has a friend that was meant to be coming round yesterday to have a look at the boiler and see if he could see the problem... then he was meant to be coming today, but now John (the friend) has miraculously discovered the problem without even looking at the boiler and has ordered a part (which is costing almost £100) and he will come and do it for us and waive the labour charge. The only problem is that it will take THREE DAYS to get the part and then he has to come down from Essex (about 70-85 miles, depending where in Essex he is based) to do it for us... on top of working his regular job.

Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to him for helping us out, but part of me wishes that Pingu had kept his nose out of it! As soon as the boiler went wrong he was straight on the phone calling his mates and trying to get it fixed... without even asking us first! He had no clue as to what kind of breakdown cover we had in place, he never even asked, he just did the usual and "Super Builder" came to the rescue!

Regardless of the problem, be it big or small, he thinks he is the only one that can fix it or get it fixed, and I actually find that blanket assumption very insulting! Just because he's a qualified carpenter (though is now a delivery driver) he thinks that he is the be all and end all of odd jobs and how a house should be run! He regularly tells Mum when to pay the bills and says what he thinks the rent money he gives us should be spent on, he complains when we buy food, yet never complains when he eats it (and then never replaces it). He just pisses me off... he even tells Dad off for pinching cigarettes and when he sees him coming will hide Mum's or give them to me so that Dad can't take any. He thinks he's helping, but in reality he is just pissing people off - big time, with his constant poking his nose in where it doesn't belong! Any more of it and I'm going to have to say something... along the lines of "how the hell do you think we coped before you came here, Bob the fucking Builder?"

I wouldn't mind if the work I've seen him do was good, but it wasn't, it was half-hearted and unfinished, we are still waiting for him to put all of the screws in a ceiling fan, for instance - from July... he gets so far and "that's good enough" and he stops - so why he feels that the opinion of "Mr Bodge-Up" is more important than my Dad's, who was a fully qualified plumber/multi-tradesman his ENTIRE CAREER, I have absolutely no idea. My Dad is a depressive, not brain-dead, FFS! When my Dad does a job it's done properly, it's done well and I trust him, Pingu put up a ceiling fan so poorly that it wobbles ominously when it goes above the first setting and scares me so much that I won't turn it past that, if I turn it on at all (I'd rather be hot than have it fall on me!!)

And to top it all off, Mum now cannot find her bank card so has had to cancel it! The card that is tied to the account with all of our money in it! She also has a tax rebate check to pay in there so this is just turning out to be a very bad day! The Gods help Pingu and Sissy if they start complaining today... I know Sissy will be in a bad mood as she started her new temp xmas job in HMV today... the HMV that is an hour's travelling from here... on a bus, in the cold (Pingu was the one that convinced her to take it... purely for the money, everything he does is based on money... you don't need happiness in a job, according to him if the money is good enough... the man is an ignoramus!! *sigh*)

Moved yet more of my stuff out of my old room...

... because "they" need more space! I am so angry right now. They agreed to all of my books being in the room when they took it on, and now over time more and more of my stuff is going into my tiny room, meaning they have even more room and I have less! I now have books stacked on my floor, at the end of my bed, even outside my bedroom door! It pisses me off as it was fine when they first moved in, but now it's not... I still have no more space to put stuff, but they want it out  **fumes**

The time frame of their being here has also increased, first it was roughly a year, then a year to 18 months... now it's 2-3 YEARS!! I will go insane, I know I will. Just the thought of them both here for that length of time fills me with a sense of dread that I cannot put into words (I'm not joking, either, it really does). Three years of having to hide my journals/blogs from prying eyes, three years of Pingu's "suggestions" for how to make the house better, three years of being woken up at all hours and of never ever having a good sleep when my stomach plays up as I'm always woken by them slamming drawers or stomping to the bathroom, three years of there never being any hot water to have a shower as they take it all (he had two showers yesterday and there was no hot water left for anyone else!). I will be end up writing this from an asylum or going to live with my Nan, I just know I will!

I just feel so helpless... like an invader in my own home!!

So I've dug out an old laptop

... and I do mean OLD! It's running Windows XP, that is how old it is! (of the three laptops I've ever owned, this one is number two).

It is so slow that it's not even funny. It also seems to dislike DragCave, which is very bad news... it does stuff there, but soooo ssslllooowwwlllyyy. Even writing this here it keeps freezing and saying that it's not responding, then all of the words I've typed all appear at once... most weird (but typical).

The shop have been on to Mum about her laptop, and as they don't actually deal with the brand of machine she has and they are going to have to send it back to the makers (after they get the parts sent to them and then send it all on to them...don't ask!) they have told her that it could take 6-8 WEEKS!!!

That makes it sometime in late October/early November before she'll get it back... she's not a happy bunny, but there is nothing that she can do about it.

The amount of time it's taken to write this I think I could have written a note, attached it to the leg of a carrier pigeon and sent it off flying to Blogger HQ and let someone there type it out for me! Just when I think things are going well it suddenly freezes and I'm sat there staring at the bloody annoying little hourglass, spinning end over end telling me that the computer is not doing what I want it to! ARGH!

Anyway... at least I have some means of getting online that doesn't involve disturbing Mum when she's doing her stuff... it may be slow and frustrating, but at least I can still talk to my friends and (incredibly slowly) deal with my dragons.

I do wish that the spacebar was more friendly, though... it takes a lot of pressure to get it to actually do its job, lol!

Anyway...