I LOVE GERMS

I know that's a weird title, but I couldn't think of anything so that's what's written on the mug of tea I just finished.

Ahoy mateys, I have got a right treat in store for you guys today; so batten down the hatches and lash your socks to your ankles for I have a fairly lee-heeengthy photoset coming up right after this note from our coordinator (flashes dazzly tele-sales smile).

Basically my friend and I went into lovely, lovely Nottingham (so lovely I put it twice) yesterday to go shopping. We've finished our exams, and get frightfully bored sitting round watching people play Skyrim, noblest of games (heh, super). Essentially we just thought, "well, we've shit-all to do, we went food shopping yesterday, let's go fun shopping today!" And so we did. Now I'm not saying money can buy you fun, but money can almost certainly buy you fun. Or it can at least make sure that you don't go into a swoon when you make the very sensible, executive decision to buy a pair of jeans in Topshop a size down from the pair you got a mere two months previously at £36 a pop.
AVAST! ye slobberin' sea dogs, behold the swag!

£20 Boots voucher spent. Wearing the purple one now, looks neat.

Fancy-dress dress for tomorrow, sexy Zebras or what.

New skinnies :) Topshop £36 (luv u student discount)

Monsoon shorts, £10.50 in the sale!!!!!!1212!!1!!!"!1!

These bad boys set me back about £60 in total. Sheesh, bitchez be trippin', I got cash to burn clearly. Not that I would burn it, that would be most unwise.
Anyway, as my friend pointed out on our little ramble about Lenton Rec this afternoon, it was such a serene shopping experience. We both got really lovely stuff (she hit Monsoon in a big way, summer dress and little black skirt? yes plz. And that holey top, holy holey Topshop top.), and when we tried on stuff that looked shit, or didn't fit right, it was just funny. Rather than emotionally devastating as shopping can sometimes be.

And we put in the bitchingest meal ever at lunch time, slow cooked pork with leeks, celery, sweet potato, pepper, onion, mushroom and carrot. Has there ever been a more veg filled pot bubbling merrily away in that kitchen? I sincerely doubt it. I am looking forward to tucking into that SO BLOODY MUCH. I can't even convey my excitement to you to be perfectly frank.

Aight, gonna hit up ma vlog, which you can catch here and then settle into a book I think, I haven't read for a fair while really! Shameful I know.
Also here's my twitter. I sometimes post things that are bare hilars.

And I just remembered. Please bear in mind that the way I talk on my blog isn't necessarily how I would type or talk in a conversation. I'm being funny because it's bare hilars.

ah, landlords, aren't they a real treat?

Here is a short story entitled "What the actual Hell?":

'Twas a midwinter eve, and all through the house

Clothes were strewn everywhere, too large for a mouse

I think that's efficiently set the mood, this is the Nottingham Fairy-tale; you don't appreciate crime until it (almost) happens to you, and happen it did. 

On the 27th December, sat downstairs in the dining area, my housemate notices a shadowed figure going into next door's house, obviously he can't go jumping the gun, it might just be a neighbour. But 10 minutes later, here comes the shadowy bastard again, wheeling out the neighbour's bike with two bags, one on the handlebars and one slung across him. A conundrum arises, what would you do? Would you confront the burglar, knowing there's full well a chance that he's armed, he's clearly criminal- criminal enough, I hasten to add, to break into a contractor's lock up with a host of keys inside and then systematically clean out the largely vacant student houses.

My housemate does the bravest thing, he cracks a window and challenges the robber. In his own, kind of cool but very "him" way,

"You don't live there do you mate?"

"Yeah... uh, I know the guys that live here, I'm picking up them stuff they said I could borrow."

"You don't know them do you? Put the stuff down"

And he does, he throws the bike and the bag on the handlebars down in the yard and gallops off. 

I know I sound like I'm gushing, but he's a hero, my housemate. I don't know if I'd have been able to do that, he ran to the front door to see if he could catch the guy, ringing the police at the same time, god knows a crisis increases his efficiency tenfold. I'm under no illusion that if he hadn't been so quick off the mark, and enabled the contractor to get the locks changed, way more houses would have been burgled. That kind of shit can ruin people's lives, make them scared to be in their own house, and he helped prevent that for however many people.

Anyway, the mention of the locks brings me back round to the present problem, this happened on the 27th of December, our contractor came and changed the locks on the same day but unfortunately our lock isn't the right size for our door, and locks with a key on both sides which is illegal in a rented property. In addition to this, we were only given two keys between six housemates, admittedly not everyone is moved back in. But when I got to the rental shop on Tuesday 10th I was told that "We have got all the keys for that street except yours". By some magical twist of fate, the housemate with the keys was in the Subway two doors down from the shop. So I managed to get all my stuff moved in without too much of a hitch, but it then becomes apparent that we were meant to have a lock with a twist-lock mechanism fitted that morning. Didn't happen clearly, still only had two keys. "We're having someone come round on Saturday morning to fit the new lock."

"You said that about today. Our lock is illegal."

"Yes we're very sorry about that, we'll get it sorted Saturday"

Of course I'm sat here, Saturday afternoon, not a singular locksmith has been in sight. Not one. I've also left it too late to ring the landlords and give them a bollocking for lying to us again, so I've left messages and an email and I just hope to god it gets sorted out soon. 

I've gone and got 5 new keys at my own expense, but fear not, I'll be sending Reed the receipt and they will be reimbursing me. And sorting the goddamn lock.

I took some photos on my way to Sainsburys to get the keys done, so we'll end with those. This is my Nottingham:

brownfield and towers near the house

My dominion, we call the towers "Chernobyl", they're bleak

The Marina!

Here's a video I just made

and a link to my youtube account, please go have a look?

As promised, some pictures of my room

Some lovely pictures for your delectation and delight:

Here is my lovely lightshade

 (Excuse these next two, I was messing round with the fisheye setting on my camera!)

Wardrobe (an old office cabinet with a rail on the inside), posters, photo collage, cutesie plant I can't remember the name of. Pretty standard.

Moar posterz, (dehumidifier plug), secksy window cover, FAIRY LIGHTS

Sexy, creaky double bed (not so much sexy as just creaky, would be a nightmare if sexy things ever happened on it!), crotcheted cushion, awesome hearts and various bits and bobs.

There you have it, my room in Nottingham. It's getting there. I wish they would strip off the nasty ass wood-chip wallpaper though. Bleurgh.

Guess who's back, back again

That's right, I'm back in Nottingham living the high life like I do. It's Wednesday evening, and there is a delicious texan BBQ Pizza Hut pizza winging it's way to me right this second. Bloody marvellous is what this is. I have my cup of tea, I have my space on the sofa and dinner is on it's way. You wouldn't think it could get any better than that, would you? WOULD YOU?!?!?! Well it can. The pizza is technically FIVE MINUTES LATE NOW, so my housemate and I are annoyed. But that's besides the point, yet again I have forgotton what I meant to talk about and gone off on a random rant because I have the hunger and the Pizza Hut delivery men are denying me! DENYING. Oh god, calm yo' tits, you crazy mare.

Yes, back to the main feature of the post. I have moved back to my little terraced house in Nottingham. Thankfully, contrary to my previous beliefs there are in fact people already here. I'm so glad, because I'm sat downstairs in the living room with them now, and we're not exactly having a full on socialising session but if they weren't here then I would be sat in my room, eating my hands or my feelings or maybe both, just not at the same time. But I'm back in, and I'm all unpacked and my room is looking pretty amazing. I managed to get everything tidied up and packed away the same day I moved back in, which must be a first in my books. It normally takes me till the week before I move out to get settled properly again, ahah. Me and my mother went to Dunelm Mill before I came to the house, and I got myself a lovely new light fitting, which has really brightened up the room, I'll edit a picture in later, but it's pretty much a tiny, chandelier-type thing, with strings of perspex jewels in red, purple and clear hung all around it so it casts a nice colour light into the room and jewelled patterns on the ceiling. It just lifts the mood of the room a load so I'm pretty chuffed with it.In addition to this I've been considering themes that I might like to have in there that could translate to a room at home, and I've decided to go for Van Gogh and Banksy as key artists, so I'm going to see if I can alight on any more Van Gogh paraphenalia and some Banksy stuff too, that means I'll have to rejig my other posters though, although I reckon I'll just see what looks good where when they come through. 

Considering it now though, maybe I won't go for any more posters just yet, I think I've got five and a wall planner up at the moment, and though two of the posters and my window hanging are a little childish, maybe I'd be better saving the theme for my actual room at home (when we eventually manage to move house, hopefully mum's gonna make me a loft bedroom when it comes to it!)

Being back feels good already, nowhere near the stress I was anticipating, but saying that I always get unnecessarily stressed about things before they happen and they always end up okay, so this is no different to anything else in that respect. I have to say I struggled quite badly indeed whilst shopping for myself today, shamefully so in fact. I managed to spend just shy of £20 and only got two bell peppers and a bag of salad by way of vegetables. I just could not for the life of me remember what I needed to be able to feed myself. By having a pizza tonight I've freed up my indian snack selection and sausage tikka masala for tomorrow though. Shit, that reminds me I've got two sausages sat chilling in the fridge (yeah, chilling, in the "G" sense and literally) that need eating. Maybe I'll have chicken tikka for tea and have sausage, egg and beans for brunch... yeeeah, that could work. 

It's almost 21:00 now, in 10 minutes anyway, but I don't feel like I've been particularly bored at all, bonus! I was a little scared of that before I got back.

Tomorrow I plan to wake up at 11, get out of the house before 12 and go to Timpsons in Sainsbury's to get a couple of keys cut for the front door, may as well seeing as Reed are going to reimburse us even though they're just interim keys while we get a new lock put in. Maybe I'll treat myself to a latte. I would go into town but I don't think I can face the walk just yet (christmas pog still slowing me down), babysteps are the key, methinks.

(My pizza came about 5 minutes after I stopped ranting about it, so I've been writing this for forever!)

(CRAZY disclaimer: the following post may include some instances of THE CRAZIES for which I apologise but I am a WOMAN ON THE EDGE OKAY)

Mes amis, I will not lie to you.
Tomorrow, or today if we're being technical, I am going back to my Nottingham house, and no exaggeration- I am shitscared. I always get like this just before I go back, thankfully this time it's been mere hours, rather than for the past week as has happened previously when I've been home. I'm comfortable here in sunny Yorkshire, bored admittedly, but oh-so comfortable. I don't have to feed myself, I don't have to transport myself, I don't have to socialise or work or sort out problems with the house. All that is waiting for me when I go back to Nottingham, this indepency that I so crave when I'm "stuck" here at home combined with my looming examinations and CRUSHING LONELINESS (ok slight exaggeration) means that I really am not too keen on the idea of returning. Also did I mention THE CRUSHING LONELINESS, yeah it's an exaggeration I'm not that desperate for a boyfriend or anything but yeah go out with me... I went off topic, I was meant to say I think I'm going to be in the house on my own for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Which can never, ever, EVER be fun. So I'm going to end up going mental and eating my own hands or something dramatic like that. Hopefully I'll revise but let's face it, my track record is not the best when it comes to academia and therefore, by extension, revision. It's unlikely I'll get anything of worth done. I'll most likely just watch a lot of crappy tv and play Sims 3 until my housemates come back to their crazy handless friend and have to nurse me back to relative sanity.

Look how sad and alone I am, so sad and alone the walls are grey and the floor is like a pool of salty tears and shattered dreams. (Note the lack of hands, I must have eaten them!)

it's ok Louise, you have the Golden Arches on your head

I'm going to sleep now, hopefully unconciousness will provide relief from this mental torment.

(maybe some rather big instances of THE CRAZIES)

An update for the latter part of today

I've decided that I have to start jotting down things that are going to go on the blog before I start writing up a post, because as it is I'm pretty terrible for rambling and generally not making a right lot of sense, well Louise, that's pretty exciting news isn't it? No, basically not, but there you go, that's what I'm doing and you're all party to it, YAY! Jelly and ice-cream for everybody!

I forgot to say earlier that when I was in T K Maxx this afternoon, (imaginary) spending all my loan  in the homeware section, that there was a little boy stomping round after someone who I deduced to be his father. "Daaaaad." He whined. "Why are you so obsessed with flowers?!" and then went on to say something about the colour yellow... I thought that was adorable, but maybe that's just me. Though at the moment T K Maxx really is quite flowery, there's a lot of Port Merion crockery (totally just wrote cockery) in store at the moment; and I have to say,  if I hadn't just got my lovely Whittard's stuff then I'd have snapped some of that shit up, because it's really very pretty.

I believe I've located my blogsession as well, and I will be featuring it heavily come Tuesday when I get back to the house. It is: my university room. Considering I am meant to be living there until August 2013 I figure the room, the house and my life in Nottingham are something I can focus quite heavily on, as I have said before, this blog needs some kind of central point. Seeing as the room is a disgusting shit tip of vileness and damp I thought it'd be ideal as it can quite visibly improve. I'm really quite pleased I've managed to find something I genuinely want to talk about all the time. Maybe I'll even throw in a little archaeology for y'all, won't that be super fun?

So far today I've spent at least two hours looking for various pieces of furniture and decorative items for my university room. Including steamer trunks,

Louis Vuitton: way out of my price range, obviously

Ugh, even painted powder blue I love them

Last one, luv u bby

I've also been looking at art prints and posters, and I've decided on a theme for the pictures, Van Gogh and Banksy. I also think I might buy some heavy curtains and hang those, but that would mean rearranging my furniture I think (which is pretty limited considering the bed is fixed, as are the bookshelves). We shall see, we shall see. But nevertheless, I'm very excited about the whole thing, I'll let you know how that goes.

And I want a big print of Stubbs' Whistlejacket, but I've no idea where that will go.