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Written on my Psion today at various times; a summary of all the stuff I think I've missed due to not updating this for ages.
I really oughta write up a few days before I lose them - I already lost Saturday Evening (what *did* I do then?)
On Friday I missed Economics - not on purpose, I just plain forgot when it was, or rather was so certain of when I thought it was (last lesson) that I didn't bother to check my timetable (on which I would have discovered it was the lesson after lunch). So at the end of what I'd thought was a free, with Sath in the electronics computer room, I looked at my timetable and said something along the lines of 'oh damn' - nothing stronger than that, but it might have been 'rats' or 'pants' or something else. I wasn't overly stressed tho, because Mr Moore is quite a friendly teacher, although sometimes unpredictable. So I went along to the room I was meant to have been in and explained, and Mr Moore found it highly amusing, said 'It happens to us all', and told me to sit in on the next group's lesson 'cos it was the same as mine.
On Thursday, we all went to the costume shop, Jem's, because school finished early for Open Day. I couldn't find the plastic breastplate or much of the fake chainmail, so I just picked up one of the plastic grey-metal-painted tridents (the only weaponary I could find were the horror section's tridents and scythes, and the scythes were no use because the head kept rotating on the shaft) and proceeded to annoy everyone immensely with it.
Saturday morning was fairly routine in that we went shopping for random things; I opened a new bank account 'cos they'd put me into some rubbish one from the kiddie one I had when I turned 16, we went to have a look for CD-RWs but could only find CD-Rs for audio only (this wasn't on the list, Julia made the mistake of letting me and Paul go off together to get stuff...), and we looked for a ton of stuff in Woolworths and couldn't find any of it, and bought a really impractical but very pretty Winnie The Pooh watch with circling butterflies on it (instead of a second hand) and a purple/blue/pink strap, and got a DVD out which we've had to take back before we actually watched it because we forgot it'd be due back the weekend we're away (next weekend) and after all this we were rather later home than we'd intended. So I looked in my schoolbag and saw it had all the stuff I needed for a day in it (except I didn't actually use most of it), and we set out. It would have only taken us an hour to get to Cambridge if we had set off in the right direction, but we didn't, so it took us an hour and a half... then it took us another half an hour to drive around Cambridge enough to satisfy us there wasn't any parking. My parents decided to drop me off but there were so many people around I had a fit of nerves and Julia agreed to come out with me 'cos we were stopped in traffic and she just wanted to get me to move. Of course, as soon as we were a few steps away and Paul had driven off sufficiently, we saw Neil... so it was kinda pointless her having come 'cos I didn't have to wait around as I was scared of. (I really do *hate* having to stand around waiting for someone in a public or even semi-public (like a school corridor or college grounds) place. Sitting isn't so bad because I can use my Psion; some places I can read a book (if I've thought to bring one, which I hadn't that day 'cos I'm trying not to destroy my bag too fast) which again makes it better; but just standing there waiting for someone makes me want to crawl into a corner and die.)
As we spotted Neil before he saw us (he was looking in the wrong direction and expecting a car rather than people on foot) I crept up behind him and shouted 'Boo!', but he wasn't actually that startled although he pretended to be because his reaction was a bit too delayed. Neil asked where I wanted to go first, and I said that the first thing I needed was a toilet... so we went back to his room at college first, him complaining about a flier he'd just been given for an Internet Cafe opening near there which was useless to him since he had a much faster connection for free in his room, explaining how the key system he used to get into the college was difficult (you had to push the keycard in further than you thought, but not pull the door open by it, 'cos it'd snap and the door would be unusable until someone came out to fix it and you'd have to buy a new card), and pointing out some stuff around the college. Locking the door of the toilet was fairly straightforward, but unlocking it was more of a challenge - I thought the door was stuck, but in fact I just had to turn the handle a bit more to actually open the door rather than just unlock it. When I got back to Neil's room he started on praising the quality of accomodation at Emma (mainly the floor space and the fridge in every room), produced some Jelly Babies (naturally), blew up some Winnie the Pooh balloons his parents had sent him, and checked his email to find out when the Poohsoc stuff was - he told me they were playing Poohsticks at 3pm 'cos it was Pooh's birthday on the Sunday. We emailed Marn who'd said he was going to be along to try and remind him (after finding out we'd missed him online by 13mins, and Neil talking to Naath a bit), but he never even replied to the email, let alone showed up. We played silly games with the balloons for a while whilst Neil talked (mainly maths), then we decided to go find some food. At some point when we were wandering around the grounds of Emma (not necessarily at this point) Sandy (whose real name is vaguely unpronouncable) accosted us to say hi - in fact I think this happened twice, once was rather quick near the start (prolly here) and she hugged Neil and got introduced to me but was in a bit of a hurry, and the other time we were walking in the same direction so we chatted a bit more, mainly about Poohsoc's declaration that 'everyone's a mathmo'. We wandered around the Emma site for a bit, visiting the college foodhall on the way, but decided to give them a miss - Neil pointed out Selina but I couldn't see her. As we'd been carrying around the balloons Neil insisted we go back to his room to put them down before we went out of college grounds. We'd planned to go to a Pizza Hut but both were packed out with queues so we went to a rather inferior and more expensive pizza place (well, it was probably superior if you're actually into pizzas and cooking, but not to our tastes as much). Neil couldn't manage all of his pizza (he apologised for not living up to his reputation as a starving student) so I had some of his as well, because while not up to Pizza Hut standards it was quite nice and it was quite late to be eating.
Over lunch Neil talked maths at me, so we went back to his room after lunch (before or after lunch I was introduced to the duck pond, the ducks who occupy the front lawn merely to annoy the students who can't, the grass-you-can-walk-on (apparently rare in Cambridge colleges), the building in which the rich people and rowing team lived (where the rooms were palatial but the floor and ceiling weren't exactly parallel), the places where 2nd years live, the bar where everyone drinks orange juice, the subway, and basically most of Emma) to actually look at some of the maths on paper, and for him to scare me with lecture notes. Then it was time to go to Poohsticks, so after checking the email in vain hope of a reply from Marn, we went down to Pembrooke College ('cos Poohsoc is that college's society) to meet the grand total of two maths students (one Part II, one Part III-Fluid Dynamics). After a few minutes (and managing to knock over someone's bike spectacularly and spending quite a while trying to work out how to fix the basket back on the front) we gave up on anyone else arriving and started up to the bridge. On the way up we debated about opening the meeting while walking to make the Part III, who was the undersecretary (the secretary wasn't present), try to take minutes while walking, and mathsy things, and if knowing about fluid dynamics would convey an advantage at Poohsticks, and who was most qualified to go open the weir 'cos the water was entirely still and we needed it to flow a bit more to play, and when we got to the bridge (Neil was the only one who'd picked up a stick on the way) how good a bridge it was to play Poohsticks from ('cos there were so many sticks nearby) and whether the half-a-tree that the Part II (wish I could remember names rather than just courses) found qualified as a stick, and whether they could throw me in the water 'cos I wasn't a member, and whether I would count as a stick or not (I wouldn't, apparently, because I had a watch on so I wasn't entirely organic, but they could throw me in the water anyway, they just wouldn't be able to use me as a poohstick). Somewhere along the line I managed to steal both balloons. I also lost every game but the one I played by myself 'cos I always chose really small sticks. There were lots of silly motions passed but I can't quite remember most anymore (the second one passed was to let visitors vote, and one was to censure a small child who, the one time we stockpiled some sticks on the bridge, threw them all over the side with no regard for due procedure). We saw that the Part III (who wasn't playing, just minuting) was writing fluid dynamics on the minutes, and discussed the perils of getting fluid on the minutes until I pointed out that some fluids, i.e. air, wouldn't make much difference and indeed were already present. We attempted to decode the writing on the bridge - smar tfn tfn tfn tfn but the last t looked like a plus sign and we decided it must be a fluid dynamics equation, albeit a rather repetative one. On the way back we saw a boat trying to row the wrong way (so that the person rowing could see), and said that going the right way for you with the boat going the right way would mean you'd get wet, then we said all the circumstances in which this wouldn't happen, like the boat being on dry land and there being an infinite chain of boats, then the two higher mathmos had a conversation about if a chain of boats could be chain-complete and handled by something or other while Neil and I got confused.
We went back to Andrew's room in Pembrooke for the actual 4pm meeting - Rosie (the secretary) showed up (well, her room was right next to the one we were in) but didn't take any minutes, we kept the meeting open while walking but didn't manage to get the undersecretary to take minutes, also present was Ghoti (female, realname begins with K, something like Karen or Katrina) with Benedict (male, long hair with which to be dragged to Poohsoc meetings by Ghoti), and some stuffed toys - a sweet ickle thingamy I sat on Ghoti's head and it was passed that she had to wear it whenever it was present (Andrew objected to the motion making it 'every Poohsoc meeting' 'cos it was his toy), and a red dragon without forelimbs which was the subject of some debate as to whether it was a valid dragon without them, and if it liked to fly. After batting the blue balloon around for a bit I managed to punch it across the room onto the folder Part III was taking the minutes in and burst it, so we continued with the violet one. Ghoti insisted she could get anyone to Poohsoc by threatening to kiss them if they didn't have enough hair to be dragged by, and recounted the incident where she was able to say that Berry tasted of Ribena 'cos he'd been drinking lots before kissing her, and that she'd joined Poohsoc 'cos he was in Shiela and her dog society which Poohsoc was at war with...
Several interesting motions were passed when proposed unintentially by Ghoti, like 'I'm confused' (due to Part II passing one of the unopened pakcets of Jaffa Cake Bars that Neil had brought to Andrew and Andrew inspecting it closely and passing it back instead of openign and passing it on as expected; this continued throughout the meeting even when the cake bars got eaten (the packet didn't get damaged much so still looked full), and a motion was passed at one point 'to confuse the issue' when a load of motions (mainly about if visitors could second stuff) were proposed concurrently. Despite having two visitors Christopher Robin had to be phoned - the visitors were hung (but not drawn or quartered) on the motion 'Linux is a children's TV program'; Christopher Robin said that it was. The confusing packet of Jaffa cake bars contained bars that were both jaffa cake bars and not jaffa cake bars; mince pies were voted identical to camels; and a discussion ensued as to whether the empty Jaffa Cake bar packet being passed contained symbolism; we decided it didn't, it merely contained a piece of cardboard, but we had to destroy it to be certain of this. Neil had to read the minutes from the last meeting 'cos no-one else could be bothered, and also ended up reading Pooh again in the Reading (in which Eeyore loses a tail and Pooh finds one). Neil proposed the successful motion to close the meeting (after a motion was passed that he could propose the motion to close the meeting) 'cos we had to go and we went back to Neil's room where I'd left some stuff.
We had a quick look at Neil's Python program to find prime numbers and I gave him a few ideas how to fix it, and stole his PsiWin CD (which I still need to copy, also need to copy Win98 CD for him but will do that at half term when parents won't ask questions - Neil does have a license but lost the disc) 'cos I've lost mine. Then it really was time to go. We wandered about outside trying to see where we were meant to be, and found my parents just as the Park&Ride bus we'd wanted drove off... waiting and chatting a while wasn't any hardship tho.
As I said, I've lost Saturday Evening entirely, can't remember anything from it. (And no, no alcohol was involved!)
On Sunday, after church (which was good and made me happy, but also made me a bit too happy and I got worn out 'cos I can't stay happy for that long. The song that went 'how beautiful is the grace that gives/all that we don't deserve, all that we cannot earn/but is a gift of love, Your love has lifted me' especially was relevant/good) we went to a lunch with the ppl from my parents' cell group, which was a rather trying occasion; the food was good, but I ate rather too much of it, and the conversation ranged from boring to annoying to embarrassing. Before the meal it was okay 'cos Anna was chatting about her work at the Ambulance Service (answering phones), but during people just didn't *say* anything; I'm interested in just about anything people want to talk about, or rather just about any aspect of people's lives, but they weren't even talking about home/family/job, they were talking about TV/church events which I already knew everything that they were saying about anyway. The two littlekids were also bored, and started insisting we pass Chinese Whispers, the first of which was 'Bethany wants to go home, but not really' - we suspect the disclaimer was added to appease parents and wasn't true. Then when they were going on for a walk, I just couldn't take any more, and even more annoying Vicky (ex-youthgroupleader) started messing around saying that I couldn't go and they'd all be really upset if I did and that they were obviously just not worthy company - and I had to lie and tell them they were, that it was just people rather than them... to some extent it is, but just *normal* people *like* them. So I escaped, although I then felt guilty about it, and Julia came home not so long afterwards having also escaped 'cos they were going to go for a muddy walk and a couple were going to bring dogs.
Neil connected just before I did when I'd escaped tho so I didn't feel too bad 'cos at least I wasn't being totally asocial. Due to having been overloaded by people earlier I found it difficult to phone up Pete for a lift to 8-10s but I did and it was quite good 'cos we played Trivial Pursuit so I got to show off (our team won, despite the fact that the other team had two adults instead of one (always an advantage at TP 'cos of all the old-TV questions) and Jake.
Hmm, this Psion has lasted on 'low batteries' for ages more than it ought to... normally it's only a few minutes you get out of it after that, I've been scared to use it all day! Maybe it's the cold that's taken normal current down to low, 'cos I know that heat gets more out of the batteries... but anyway, at least it's let me write the days I've missed up. Now my arm hurts so I'll stop.
I really oughta write up a few days before I lose them - I already lost Saturday Evening (what *did* I do then?)
On Friday I missed Economics - not on purpose, I just plain forgot when it was, or rather was so certain of when I thought it was (last lesson) that I didn't bother to check my timetable (on which I would have discovered it was the lesson after lunch). So at the end of what I'd thought was a free, with Sath in the electronics computer room, I looked at my timetable and said something along the lines of 'oh damn' - nothing stronger than that, but it might have been 'rats' or 'pants' or something else. I wasn't overly stressed tho, because Mr Moore is quite a friendly teacher, although sometimes unpredictable. So I went along to the room I was meant to have been in and explained, and Mr Moore found it highly amusing, said 'It happens to us all', and told me to sit in on the next group's lesson 'cos it was the same as mine.
On Thursday, we all went to the costume shop, Jem's, because school finished early for Open Day. I couldn't find the plastic breastplate or much of the fake chainmail, so I just picked up one of the plastic grey-metal-painted tridents (the only weaponary I could find were the horror section's tridents and scythes, and the scythes were no use because the head kept rotating on the shaft) and proceeded to annoy everyone immensely with it.
Saturday morning was fairly routine in that we went shopping for random things; I opened a new bank account 'cos they'd put me into some rubbish one from the kiddie one I had when I turned 16, we went to have a look for CD-RWs but could only find CD-Rs for audio only (this wasn't on the list, Julia made the mistake of letting me and Paul go off together to get stuff...), and we looked for a ton of stuff in Woolworths and couldn't find any of it, and bought a really impractical but very pretty Winnie The Pooh watch with circling butterflies on it (instead of a second hand) and a purple/blue/pink strap, and got a DVD out which we've had to take back before we actually watched it because we forgot it'd be due back the weekend we're away (next weekend) and after all this we were rather later home than we'd intended. So I looked in my schoolbag and saw it had all the stuff I needed for a day in it (except I didn't actually use most of it), and we set out. It would have only taken us an hour to get to Cambridge if we had set off in the right direction, but we didn't, so it took us an hour and a half... then it took us another half an hour to drive around Cambridge enough to satisfy us there wasn't any parking. My parents decided to drop me off but there were so many people around I had a fit of nerves and Julia agreed to come out with me 'cos we were stopped in traffic and she just wanted to get me to move. Of course, as soon as we were a few steps away and Paul had driven off sufficiently, we saw Neil... so it was kinda pointless her having come 'cos I didn't have to wait around as I was scared of. (I really do *hate* having to stand around waiting for someone in a public or even semi-public (like a school corridor or college grounds) place. Sitting isn't so bad because I can use my Psion; some places I can read a book (if I've thought to bring one, which I hadn't that day 'cos I'm trying not to destroy my bag too fast) which again makes it better; but just standing there waiting for someone makes me want to crawl into a corner and die.)
As we spotted Neil before he saw us (he was looking in the wrong direction and expecting a car rather than people on foot) I crept up behind him and shouted 'Boo!', but he wasn't actually that startled although he pretended to be because his reaction was a bit too delayed. Neil asked where I wanted to go first, and I said that the first thing I needed was a toilet... so we went back to his room at college first, him complaining about a flier he'd just been given for an Internet Cafe opening near there which was useless to him since he had a much faster connection for free in his room, explaining how the key system he used to get into the college was difficult (you had to push the keycard in further than you thought, but not pull the door open by it, 'cos it'd snap and the door would be unusable until someone came out to fix it and you'd have to buy a new card), and pointing out some stuff around the college. Locking the door of the toilet was fairly straightforward, but unlocking it was more of a challenge - I thought the door was stuck, but in fact I just had to turn the handle a bit more to actually open the door rather than just unlock it. When I got back to Neil's room he started on praising the quality of accomodation at Emma (mainly the floor space and the fridge in every room), produced some Jelly Babies (naturally), blew up some Winnie the Pooh balloons his parents had sent him, and checked his email to find out when the Poohsoc stuff was - he told me they were playing Poohsticks at 3pm 'cos it was Pooh's birthday on the Sunday. We emailed Marn who'd said he was going to be along to try and remind him (after finding out we'd missed him online by 13mins, and Neil talking to Naath a bit), but he never even replied to the email, let alone showed up. We played silly games with the balloons for a while whilst Neil talked (mainly maths), then we decided to go find some food. At some point when we were wandering around the grounds of Emma (not necessarily at this point) Sandy (whose real name is vaguely unpronouncable) accosted us to say hi - in fact I think this happened twice, once was rather quick near the start (prolly here) and she hugged Neil and got introduced to me but was in a bit of a hurry, and the other time we were walking in the same direction so we chatted a bit more, mainly about Poohsoc's declaration that 'everyone's a mathmo'. We wandered around the Emma site for a bit, visiting the college foodhall on the way, but decided to give them a miss - Neil pointed out Selina but I couldn't see her. As we'd been carrying around the balloons Neil insisted we go back to his room to put them down before we went out of college grounds. We'd planned to go to a Pizza Hut but both were packed out with queues so we went to a rather inferior and more expensive pizza place (well, it was probably superior if you're actually into pizzas and cooking, but not to our tastes as much). Neil couldn't manage all of his pizza (he apologised for not living up to his reputation as a starving student) so I had some of his as well, because while not up to Pizza Hut standards it was quite nice and it was quite late to be eating.
Over lunch Neil talked maths at me, so we went back to his room after lunch (before or after lunch I was introduced to the duck pond, the ducks who occupy the front lawn merely to annoy the students who can't, the grass-you-can-walk-on (apparently rare in Cambridge colleges), the building in which the rich people and rowing team lived (where the rooms were palatial but the floor and ceiling weren't exactly parallel), the places where 2nd years live, the bar where everyone drinks orange juice, the subway, and basically most of Emma) to actually look at some of the maths on paper, and for him to scare me with lecture notes. Then it was time to go to Poohsticks, so after checking the email in vain hope of a reply from Marn, we went down to Pembrooke College ('cos Poohsoc is that college's society) to meet the grand total of two maths students (one Part II, one Part III-Fluid Dynamics). After a few minutes (and managing to knock over someone's bike spectacularly and spending quite a while trying to work out how to fix the basket back on the front) we gave up on anyone else arriving and started up to the bridge. On the way up we debated about opening the meeting while walking to make the Part III, who was the undersecretary (the secretary wasn't present), try to take minutes while walking, and mathsy things, and if knowing about fluid dynamics would convey an advantage at Poohsticks, and who was most qualified to go open the weir 'cos the water was entirely still and we needed it to flow a bit more to play, and when we got to the bridge (Neil was the only one who'd picked up a stick on the way) how good a bridge it was to play Poohsticks from ('cos there were so many sticks nearby) and whether the half-a-tree that the Part II (wish I could remember names rather than just courses) found qualified as a stick, and whether they could throw me in the water 'cos I wasn't a member, and whether I would count as a stick or not (I wouldn't, apparently, because I had a watch on so I wasn't entirely organic, but they could throw me in the water anyway, they just wouldn't be able to use me as a poohstick). Somewhere along the line I managed to steal both balloons. I also lost every game but the one I played by myself 'cos I always chose really small sticks. There were lots of silly motions passed but I can't quite remember most anymore (the second one passed was to let visitors vote, and one was to censure a small child who, the one time we stockpiled some sticks on the bridge, threw them all over the side with no regard for due procedure). We saw that the Part III (who wasn't playing, just minuting) was writing fluid dynamics on the minutes, and discussed the perils of getting fluid on the minutes until I pointed out that some fluids, i.e. air, wouldn't make much difference and indeed were already present. We attempted to decode the writing on the bridge - smar tfn tfn tfn tfn but the last t looked like a plus sign and we decided it must be a fluid dynamics equation, albeit a rather repetative one. On the way back we saw a boat trying to row the wrong way (so that the person rowing could see), and said that going the right way for you with the boat going the right way would mean you'd get wet, then we said all the circumstances in which this wouldn't happen, like the boat being on dry land and there being an infinite chain of boats, then the two higher mathmos had a conversation about if a chain of boats could be chain-complete and handled by something or other while Neil and I got confused.
We went back to Andrew's room in Pembrooke for the actual 4pm meeting - Rosie (the secretary) showed up (well, her room was right next to the one we were in) but didn't take any minutes, we kept the meeting open while walking but didn't manage to get the undersecretary to take minutes, also present was Ghoti (female, realname begins with K, something like Karen or Katrina) with Benedict (male, long hair with which to be dragged to Poohsoc meetings by Ghoti), and some stuffed toys - a sweet ickle thingamy I sat on Ghoti's head and it was passed that she had to wear it whenever it was present (Andrew objected to the motion making it 'every Poohsoc meeting' 'cos it was his toy), and a red dragon without forelimbs which was the subject of some debate as to whether it was a valid dragon without them, and if it liked to fly. After batting the blue balloon around for a bit I managed to punch it across the room onto the folder Part III was taking the minutes in and burst it, so we continued with the violet one. Ghoti insisted she could get anyone to Poohsoc by threatening to kiss them if they didn't have enough hair to be dragged by, and recounted the incident where she was able to say that Berry tasted of Ribena 'cos he'd been drinking lots before kissing her, and that she'd joined Poohsoc 'cos he was in Shiela and her dog society which Poohsoc was at war with...
Several interesting motions were passed when proposed unintentially by Ghoti, like 'I'm confused' (due to Part II passing one of the unopened pakcets of Jaffa Cake Bars that Neil had brought to Andrew and Andrew inspecting it closely and passing it back instead of openign and passing it on as expected; this continued throughout the meeting even when the cake bars got eaten (the packet didn't get damaged much so still looked full), and a motion was passed at one point 'to confuse the issue' when a load of motions (mainly about if visitors could second stuff) were proposed concurrently. Despite having two visitors Christopher Robin had to be phoned - the visitors were hung (but not drawn or quartered) on the motion 'Linux is a children's TV program'; Christopher Robin said that it was. The confusing packet of Jaffa cake bars contained bars that were both jaffa cake bars and not jaffa cake bars; mince pies were voted identical to camels; and a discussion ensued as to whether the empty Jaffa Cake bar packet being passed contained symbolism; we decided it didn't, it merely contained a piece of cardboard, but we had to destroy it to be certain of this. Neil had to read the minutes from the last meeting 'cos no-one else could be bothered, and also ended up reading Pooh again in the Reading (in which Eeyore loses a tail and Pooh finds one). Neil proposed the successful motion to close the meeting (after a motion was passed that he could propose the motion to close the meeting) 'cos we had to go and we went back to Neil's room where I'd left some stuff.
We had a quick look at Neil's Python program to find prime numbers and I gave him a few ideas how to fix it, and stole his PsiWin CD (which I still need to copy, also need to copy Win98 CD for him but will do that at half term when parents won't ask questions - Neil does have a license but lost the disc) 'cos I've lost mine. Then it really was time to go. We wandered about outside trying to see where we were meant to be, and found my parents just as the Park&Ride bus we'd wanted drove off... waiting and chatting a while wasn't any hardship tho.
As I said, I've lost Saturday Evening entirely, can't remember anything from it. (And no, no alcohol was involved!)
On Sunday, after church (which was good and made me happy, but also made me a bit too happy and I got worn out 'cos I can't stay happy for that long. The song that went 'how beautiful is the grace that gives/all that we don't deserve, all that we cannot earn/but is a gift of love, Your love has lifted me' especially was relevant/good) we went to a lunch with the ppl from my parents' cell group, which was a rather trying occasion; the food was good, but I ate rather too much of it, and the conversation ranged from boring to annoying to embarrassing. Before the meal it was okay 'cos Anna was chatting about her work at the Ambulance Service (answering phones), but during people just didn't *say* anything; I'm interested in just about anything people want to talk about, or rather just about any aspect of people's lives, but they weren't even talking about home/family/job, they were talking about TV/church events which I already knew everything that they were saying about anyway. The two littlekids were also bored, and started insisting we pass Chinese Whispers, the first of which was 'Bethany wants to go home, but not really' - we suspect the disclaimer was added to appease parents and wasn't true. Then when they were going on for a walk, I just couldn't take any more, and even more annoying Vicky (ex-youthgroupleader) started messing around saying that I couldn't go and they'd all be really upset if I did and that they were obviously just not worthy company - and I had to lie and tell them they were, that it was just people rather than them... to some extent it is, but just *normal* people *like* them. So I escaped, although I then felt guilty about it, and Julia came home not so long afterwards having also escaped 'cos they were going to go for a muddy walk and a couple were going to bring dogs.
Neil connected just before I did when I'd escaped tho so I didn't feel too bad 'cos at least I wasn't being totally asocial. Due to having been overloaded by people earlier I found it difficult to phone up Pete for a lift to 8-10s but I did and it was quite good 'cos we played Trivial Pursuit so I got to show off (our team won, despite the fact that the other team had two adults instead of one (always an advantage at TP 'cos of all the old-TV questions) and Jake.
Hmm, this Psion has lasted on 'low batteries' for ages more than it ought to... normally it's only a few minutes you get out of it after that, I've been scared to use it all day! Maybe it's the cold that's taken normal current down to low, 'cos I know that heat gets more out of the batteries... but anyway, at least it's let me write the days I've missed up. Now my arm hurts so I'll stop.
