Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Apologies...

Yes, been exeptionally rubbish recently. But most of my friends are far far worse.

Thoughts of the moment:

- They've had pictures of this "Amy" on the underground before and after her "cosmetic surgery". I think she looks better before. Even if she's not smiling.

- I like my new job. That's all I can say about that.

- Sitting down all day makes me fat. Oh dear.

- I love Heroes. It rocks. My favourite is Peter Petrelli. Hubba Hubba!

Sunday, September 02, 2007

TPC Annual Do: Better Than Ever

New Haircut:£70

New Dress:£30

Having a fantastic time with good friends and the man I love....













ABSOLUTELY PRICELESS!!

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

The Bus That Talks

"This is the 243 to Waterloo"
"Rosebery Avenue"


Yes, it's true. I've found a bus that talks. And it tells you where you are going. It's incredibly helpful when you have no idea where you are.

I wonder how long it'll take before it gets annoying... never mind, I'm moving next week... I hope!

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Printer Farce

Last week, I mostly tried to get a printer. It was supposed to be delivered last Friday and arrived on Wednesday. There was a catalogue of mishaps along the way, including:
- My father allready being a member of the site, which meant I couldn't register with the same address, and because I was busy the next day I had to leave it to poor Tony, who was having a bad day anyway
- The printer being "delivered" on Friday - not sure what happened there, but I sat around all day jumping every time I heard a car go past
- The bloke turning up on Monday morning, just as I was going to London, being told that my mother was in the house and not bothering to knock loudly, just leaving a card
- The delivery being "returned to the branch after an unsuccessful delivery attempt" on Tuesday i.e. they couldn't find us
- Finally turning up on Wednesday, after I'd rung to check where they were and being told they couldn't find us again, only with one box - printer cartridges and no printer
- Calling them again, only for them to assume I was still chasing both boxes, and finally getting two minutes to explain I'd got one box and not two. Then I was told that they'd only loaded one box onto the van that morning. Duh. They said they'd see if they could get someone on their way home to deliver the printer
- The bloke turned up at 7:30, saying "Here's your delivery they cocked up for you"... never has a truer word been said

Worst of all... they're going to deliver something to me tomorrow. Agggh. I really hope they can get it right this time, otherwise I'll have no nice new shoes for next week! (that'll then lacerate my feet... ah well can't have everything!)

Friday, July 06, 2007

Messing About By The River

Yesterday I got to be fraightfully posh and go to Henley. Henley, for those of you who don't know, is all about rowing. Well, mostly anyway.

My father in byegone days was once a great rower and rowed this course several times. This is why he comes every year to watch, and got annoyed when, in years gone by, a certain daughter of his had Parent's Day on the last day of Henley (which, needless to say, is the finals day...). I got home on Wednesday night after midnight (not drinking, just for a change, babysitting for my sister's incredibly well behaved and very sweet children) with a horrendous throat and as a result, wasn't feeling terribly special.
We ate the most delicious lunch - I had a half pint full of shell-on prawns, very fiddly but yummy with seafood sauce, followed by crab with new potatoes and salad and to finish, half a platter of cheese. Mmm. Oh, and I probably finished off a good half a bottle of wine.
After that rather filling lunch we - that is me, my godfather and my father, decided to go up to the start, which involved a rather interesting walk along the river which was quite narrow in places, and getting out of the posh area and seeing what is rather sadly the commercialization of this event - at what point do you really want to buy silver jewellery/fat face tops/an ergo at a rowing event? We did go into the food tent where I succumbed to buying beautiful tea that expands into a flower and my father bought some garlic for my mother...

When it got to tea time, the rain started, but, in a very British manner, we sat down with our umbrellas opened, had cake and scones with champagne and eventually went home.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

And There Shall Be Much Rejoicing

... for I have been offered my dream job.

Sometimes I wish I knew more internet trickery so I could bring you them dancing.

Pop Goes The Gooseberry

Half a pound of tuppeny rice
Half a pound of treacle
That's the way the money goes
Pop goes the weasel


We've had a lot of rain here. Although, we're lucky because some poor people have been flooded badly up north. The problem with rain, if you're growing fruit, is that it seems to make ripe fruit burst. So, it was, as I was picking gooseberries, that this rhyme went round my head. There's something about picking fruit that makes me think random thoughts, such as "what does this rhyme really mean?" I came to the conclusion that it was a subversive rhyme suggesting that if you bought rice and treacle, you would have no money and be fat. I was almost right.
Last time I picked gooseberries, I decided that fruit plants had a "zen". I did warn you my mind wanders. The zen of fruit plants was that they attempt to hide all their fruit under their leaves so that I didn't see the ripe ones. And, in the case of gooseberries, protect them with evil thorns to put you off.
Nevertherless, I got a whole punnet of mostly non-popped gooseberries.

However, before I picked the gooseberries, I picked a whole load of tayberries. These fruit may look the same, but because they're redder and smaller, are different. My mother told me not to pick them any more, but then in the afternoon started picking them anyway. Yes, I was confused too.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

So Much For The City

Well, here I am. Last week all I could see from my bedroom window was a street lined with houses leading down a (very steep) hill to the train station, this week all I can see is fields.
I miss the city.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Making It Up As We Go Along

This weekend I went to a friend of mine's house who happens to be Indian. We started to watch some Bollywood movies, the first was Bride and Prejudice, which was actually quite good and in English. The second film was entirely in Hindi with the odd English word thrown in, with no subtitles. So we made up what they were saying which made the film probably far more amusing than it really should have been.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Having A Rammstein Moment

Many years ago my then boyfriend introduced me to 80s rock bands. Many of the music he left me with (after a badly-executed finale) is still top of my playlist. One of the songs he gave me was Rammstein - Du Hast.
For those of you who don't know, Rammstein are a German rock band that, apparently, are still touring. I did try and find a decent picture but random won me over in the end.
Anyway, the years have gone by, and hard times have befallen the Tall Scientist, who is about to be demoted to Mother's Fruit Picker and Plant-Fixer. It's not that I mind helping my parents, it's just that I'm 28 now and I'd really like a life and a place of my own, but I've managed to mess that up by not being offered any of the jobs I've been interviewed for. In my rollercoaster ride of trying to find a new job, I have encountered excitement, hope and despair. There's not much I can do about the last one, but I have found a solution. It's Rammstein. Something about angry German music (never, ever listen to it in English, it's just not the same) just makes things better.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Oefs Sur La Visage

Ah... Eurovision. I'm sure at some point this was actually a competition where members of Europe competed in a song contest. Now, they let countries such as Russia, Georgia and Serbia compete, with the end result being that the Balkan states run away with the competition.
The entire show runs on one premise: introduction, then before each country's entrant comes on, they show some kind of random skit about the country (this year, it was in Helsinki, and I gather most of the skits were about snow...) , then the entrant (a lot of freaky people and/or traditional style). Interspersed with this was commercial breaks (filled for us by some scary woman in pink) and, as always, keeping the sanity in what is otherwise completely mad, our Terry Wogan (who DID NOT like the woman in pink!!!!), then another interval after all the entrants for everyone to vote where they have a weird show, which this year for some reason or other included some very mad cellists and a bloke in a bubble.... Then every country in "Europe", even the ones that got kicked out in the semi-final, get to vote, with points ranging from 1 to 12 being awarded to the other countries. At this point the "neighbour" voting comes into place, with Norway giving the most points to Sweden, Macedonia giving the most points to Serbia, etc etc. The UK, being not a very popular country, narrowly missed being stuck with the dreaded "nul points". A couple of years ago, just round the time of our invasion of Iraq, we did get that, and it was embarrassing. So, I have some suggestions for next year:-
1) Get Gordon Brown to make a suggestion that Balkan States become part of the EU (it'll never pass, and they might like us more!)
2) Get some kind of weirdo to represent us - that bloke from Dead or Alive would do
3) Get morris dancers to do it
4) Get someone whose family originally came from a Balkan State to do it (then they'd all vote for us!)
Bye, bye Scooch.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

So Far This Week....

- someone created a small fire below our labs and due to smoke damage we now cannot do 90% of the work we do for an entire week (and consequently can't work)
- someone hacked into my Ebay account and tried to sell stuff, causing me some panic. If I'd been away this week, I would have been in all sorts of trouble...
- I tried to fix the broken front screen of my mobile, only to discover that in fact I needed a whole new fascia
- my back wheel on my bicycle went over something, it went "whoomph" and was suddenly very flat.
- trying to do tongue twisters for my singing teacher almost made me cry (not his fault)
- my badminton friend fell over and broke her arm, and will be plastered up and out of action for six weeks (not my fault, and slightly tenuous)
- in organising my life I have come across various problems, and am currently on Plan D or something... whimper
- I've had two very horrible vivid dreams, one involving a big flood with zombies who could walk through water and the other being semi-naked at work (although I obviously wasn't too bothered about this, as in my dream I just looked down and thought that maybe I should put on a pair of trousers soon....)

Saturday, April 21, 2007

A Change For The Good?

In my email inbox today....

Dear Hilary,

I am pleased to inform you that you have been included on the shortlist for the position of xxxxxxxxxxxx on xxxxxxxxxxx. Please take a look at the web site to familiarize yourself with the journals http://www.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To give us an indication of your skills and expertise -- and to give you some idea of what the job will entail -- we would like you to complete the enclosed written test.

---------------------------------------------------

Hilary - your horoscopes for Sat 21, April 2007!

Gemini (May22-June21)
Studying for a test will yield impressive results; you soak up information like a sponge. A friend who is in the printing, publishing, or communications industry could help you find a good job.



This is my time. I have to shine like a star or else.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Celebrity Spotting

Alan Titchmarsh in the centre of Bristol today, by the fountains. Sadly my phone camera wasn't working so I had to cycle on by.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Things You Never Knew About Your Boyfriend (And Never Thought To Ask)

Recognise this person? No? I'll leave it to you guys to guess this one.

Ross got it in 15 seconds. I never knew he had such an encyclopedic knowledge of films. He'll be on my team if I go for a pub quiz next time. His knowledge of films and my knowledge (ha) of science/nature and pop music would be a great combo.

Those of you who played this on Thursday, don't give the game away!

Monday, April 09, 2007

What Happens When You Wear Pretty Shoes

I will warn you now, that the picture I'm about to link to is gross. Those of you with a sensitive disposition, please do not whinge to me when you open it and, in fact find it really horrid.

This is what happens when I decide to walk home in my favourite shoes. It was so bad by the time I got home I bled all over the kitchen. Oops.

Just to make it worse, this morning I bashed the same toe against the door, drawing yet more blood, which caused a large amount of gurning and probably just the odd profanity or two...

I'm feeling very icky today. I definitely have a sensitive disposition...

Monday, April 02, 2007

My House Is Sweating

While I was away having a great great time over the weekend (more about that soon...) the landlady brought a plasterer round to sort out the walls. It's amazing. The Artex (or however you spell it) has GONE. No more drunken or carrying incidents where you brush against the wall and draw blood. Instead, I have a very dark and very brown hallway (it's not very nice, believe me.). The plaster goes on wet, so as it dries, as I have just discovered, all that water has to go somewhere. My front door was literally dripping - I mean, it was truly disgusting - this morning. My house smells of milky tea (yuk!). So now I'm going to have to freeze my arse off with the windows, doors etc open to let some of this excess moisture escape out of the house...
And my hallway is almost inevitably going to be brown until I leave. Nice.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Vauxhall Corsa Was Not Made For The Taller Person....

..... and I have to drive it all the way to Milton Keynes and back.

This'll be interesting.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Blame It On The DJ

I decided this morning I should stay positive, despite:
having no job in two months
having to move to London and live on no money
my experiments, which were going through a really good patch, completely failing on me again
being full of goo (yet another cold)
being at least a stone overweight
not being at all sure where my current relationship is going

when the DJ starts one of those "back in the day" slots where he plays music from a particular year. This music reminds me of:
not having to worry about money
going to the other side of the world and having a bloody good time, every night
most of all, meeting a guy who I flirted with all the way up the east coast of Australia

Ah well, I guess I'd better get back to my experiment that doesn't work, figuring out how I'm going to get to my car rental tomorrow and applying for yet more jobs...

Friday, March 16, 2007

Friday Is Good Because....

....I had loads of results to show at the lab meeting this morning, and most of it worked as well!

....I got fed LOTS of lunch (although I did have to wait two hours later that I normally would for food, which was bad)

.....I got offers of two interviews.... although now I realise that they're two different groups operating in the same place, eeek

.....I didn't have too much work to do today, which was good given that I cant work on a) no food or b) too much food

Monday, March 12, 2007

Men Wearing Pink Trousers?

Just stop it, right now.

And, it is NOT the time of year to be wearing shorts.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Mmmm.. Pancakes...

Pancakes with..
Fried mushrooms and grated cheddar cheese
Boursin (garlic and herb soft cheese)

Fried cooking apple in cider brandy (CAUTION: cider brandy is, in fact, flammable) cinnamon and sugar
Lime juice and sugar
Nutella (chocolate spread) mmmmmm
Lime juice and sugar (was so good the first time I had it a second time).

I should have pancakes as a meal more often. I love them.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Ha Ha! I'm Famous!

Hopefully only for five minutes...

Ross is loving this, and I'm really not. It seemed like a good idea at the time...

Look at us looking a bit dazed in The Sun

We got half the page (and full page picture!) in the Daily Mail

Oh yeah, and I don't think we're the tallest couple in Britain. Please don't let the Guinness Book of Records get on to this one... aaargh! Go away! I like my nice quiet life!

Friday, February 16, 2007

A Bit Less Shoop, Shoop, Shoop and a Bit More Aaaargh

Well, I'm back and I didn't break anything! Hooray! Rather than give you an entire rundown of the week, I thought I'd just give you some snippets:-

Saturday night: Just catch last train from London at 11:30, after worrying all the way from Stratford I'd be horribly late, get back to Bristol after a short sleep at 1:40 with sore feet and then having to walk all the way home, get to bed finally around 2:30 after finally finishing packing, get back up again after not much sleep at 3:30, get lift to airport at 4:10, get plane at 7, sleep on plane, get on bus, sleep on bus, get to resort at 1pm. Get skis, go to bar. Fall asleep in deckchair while everyone else drinks beer. Go inside when it gets cold, fall asleep whilst sat on sofa while everyone else drinks beer.

The chalet host was 9 years younger than me, and I think I was the youngest in the group. He was mooning over some other chalet girl from the group. He did try very hard to solve most of the chaos in the chalet that wasn't entirely his fault. He also made a mean biscuit cake (cue me getting very hyperactive on sugar).

The ipod I brought was put on some speakers so everyone got to enjoy my kind of music and make various comments on the cheesiness of the music, and the randomness - well, there's Belinda Carlisle, Aerosmith, Samantha Mumba, Coldplay, Doves and Abba just to mention a few...
Down a ski slope the thought goes through my mind: "Congratulations. You have just chosen the steepest part of the slope to go down."

Solving a work-related problem whilst trying to go to sleep, and getting annoyed at myself. I was on holiday!

Commenting that I wasn't looking very pretty (I meant ski style-wise) coming down the last slope in a cable car, only for an unknown bloke opposite us to pipe up, "You were looking very pretty from behind". Whimper...

Getting more bruises off slope than on - my skiing has got to the point where I no longer fall over (and therefore get worse and worse at skiing because I don't want to fall over). On Friday night I fell twice in about five minutes down a slope and landed on exactly the same place both times! I also have various USHIs (Unidentified Skiing Holiday Injuries).

Getting home on Sunday only to get to a cold, untidy and quiet house. It was strange to share so much time with people and then there to be nothing. Then I fell asleep during Natural World.

Finding that in fact people you know can become proper friends - it's funny how you can know someone, but not really know them, if you see what I mean. I hope that I have made an "acquaintance" become a friend. Also being the person that people tell things like "I have a really bad farting problem today". Thanks for that.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

It Seems That My Life Will Be Forever Touched

So, there I was. Hmmm, Valentine’s Day. The Most Romantic Day Of The YearTM. I know, let’s go “surprise” my boyfriend in London by visiting him for a couple of hours on that night. Let’s go by bus because it’s a darn sight cheaper than booking the train the day before.
So, the first bit worked pretty much to plan. Then it all started to go horribly wrong on my way home. Nooooo…
I got to the bus with plenty of time to spare, but unfortunately lost my helium balloons from Pizza Hut in Victoria Station. Then I wasn’t in the first few people to get on the bus so some girl pinched the front seat (having very long legs means sitting in a cramped bus seat is not the most comfortable, and the front seats have the most room). This girl then proceeded to push her seat back (I won the first battle, but then fell asleep when she did it again, grrr) to make what little legroom I had to start off with completely disappear. Thanks for that, cow.
So, the bus sets off at 11:30 pm, fine, I fall asleep after a while, only to wake up an hour later to the bus driver calling his mate to say that there’s a problem with the fuel and he’s hoping he can get to the next service station before the bus dies. About five minutes later, the bus dies. In the middle of nowhere, somewhere near Reading on the M4. Oh Great. So we sit, on the side of the motorway, while the trucks blow past us, and our emergency hazards on. Fair play to the driver, he did what he could to solve the problem, but there wasn’t much he could do except wait with the rest of us for rescue. About 10 minutes later, a bus stops by us. Hopes flare until it transpires the bloke’s going to Swindon, Chippenham and Gloucester. Not much good for a group of tired people who want to get to Bristol. It transpires that the people coming to rescue us are coming in a van, and all the way from Bristol, which is a good hour or so driving away. We sat, and then sat some more, and then eventually I probably did sleep. An hour and a half (2am) after we pulled to the side of the motorway, another bus turns up. This one, it transpires, is going to Swansea and will drop us off on the way. And it has enough seats on it! Hooray! So I quickly get off the bus, in the hope I can get a better seat that isn’t being crushed by the (insert rude word here) in front. We get on said bus, and the driver starts being very randomly rude to my fellow passengers – telling them they can’t even have a very small rucksack on the bus (luckily I got away with my heavily laden handbag) and it has to be stored in the hold (?!?). I get my space at the front of the bus, somehow, absolutely no legroom whatsoever on this bus, when someone gives me back my rather lovely gloves I left on the previous bus (whoops). Thankyou, kind man.
Finally, we set off on our trip back to Bristol, the driver telling the bloke on the opposite side of me to get his seatbelt on straight away, and we leave the poor other driver to wait for recovery, which still hasn’t arrived. The driver listens to cheesy radio all the way, but I sleep. An hour later (3am) we finally arrive, tired and annoyed, at Bristol Bus Station, after an extraordinary route round Bristol that almost takes us to the train station and annoys the bus driver further. Some guy pipes up, “I guess we’re not going to Bristol University?”. The terse Welsh bus driver replies, “You guessed right”. How polite. I don’t know what happened next as I just got off the bus, happy to be a bit closer to home. The guy next to me (who, it has to be said, snored pretty much all the way home) comes out of the bus station shouting about the bus driver. I start undoing my bike, realising that I have no lights. Ah well, I’d rather cycle home than attempt to walk it at this time of night. And then, the most random thing happens. The ensuing conversation takes place:
Random man: Can you give me a lift?
Me: What?!?
RM: Can you give me a lift?
Me: On my bicycle? Are you crazy?
RM: It’s no problem, I’ll just sit on the back.
Me: I’m sorry, I can hardly push myself along on this thing, let alone anyone else.

I get home at 3:45, on my own, and finally get to my nice bed. I get 4 hours sleep before I have to go to work again. National Express is not in my good books today.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Monday, January 29, 2007

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside..

...in the pouring hailstones?


Actually it wasn't that bad. I had a lovely day out with the Conservation Group who conserve things by cutting down trees. The trees in question on Sunday were in fact evil. They'd been planted in the hope that they'd stabilize the dune system, which they did, but then they also kind of took over the entire place, removing any chance of nice native species to grow. And to cap it all off they've got massive great big thorns on them too. So I ended up scratched and reeking of smoke after they lit a fire to burn said evil trees. We cut down quite a lot of evil bramble too, which I think did the most damage to my poor hands... Oh, and we got caught in a couple of nice downpours of hailstones, which we stood with our backs too and tried to remember not to turn round too much until they'd finished (hailstones in the eyes is not, actually, fun, funnily enough... Would you believe that we actually cleared the hill you can see in this picture, and left only sand? We did very well, and then we got to burn lots of evil plants and then go to the pub to drink cider (well I did anyway) and eat massive concoctions of ice cream, chocolate syrup and maltesers... mmmm

Saturday, January 13, 2007

The Day I Got A Shiner On My Knee


It doesn't come up very well in the photo, but last week I managed to fall off my bike. To be honest I was lucky not to hurt myself more, and I hardly even broke skin in my inability to cross hosepipes. Yes, I do know I should take them straight on, but occasionally I have a magic ability to be a bit of a plonker...