Been to the gym again so all wobbly n stuff. I know it's doing me good, but I wish it would do me good in a less intense way. Of course all the soldiers were ripped and lifting 50lbs. Bastards.

Off to Leicester this weekend to spend time with my friend Julie and her kids. Next weekend I'm in Levisham, then the weekend after I'm in Birchover, then Daz is visiting the weekend after that, then I am down in Oxford! So I am actually busy every weekend until late August. Wow!

We are having a server reboot at work so of course it went horribly wrong and we can't get back on now.

face_furniture was round last night for pizza n chat. She had the pizza, I did the chat. :) Actually I had half a shish kebab with yoghurt which was lovely. We are arranging a bilberry-picking trip later this month, then food for the Derbyshire Pagan Camp trip. As Ellie isn't going we can stock up on various flesh. Yum!

And a little something for amusement. I will never be the stupidest person in the world while this person is still alive! (Pinched from spEak You're bRanes.

A consensus of my friends who are scientists believe that a wind farm of this scale will shift the earth off its rotational axis and send it hurtling toward the sun in a matter of decades.

Snerk!

ETA: Holy shit! Some of the other comments on there are even worse!

The guy from this post never did get back in touch. I got one email last Wednesday to say he would let me know when he was working so we could arrange a date this week, and I haven't heard a thing since. And another guy who I met through OK Cupid and who has emailed and texted me non stop since last week has suddenly gone completely silent. So my question for the gentlemen on my f-list is this: Why do men think that ignoring people is an acceptable way of saying they have changed their mind? Do they think I am a bunny boiler? Are they so up their own arses that they think I would slit my wrists if I got an email saying 'Sorry, I'm just not that into you.'

I am not for one moment suggesting that the lovely men on my f-list would behave in this flippant and cavalier manner, but you have got a much better insight into this behaviour than I do. A reason more in depth than 'because men are bastards', or 'because we can' would be appreciated, but anything would do. Just so I know what to expect in the future.

ION, I have joined a Pilates class! It doesn't start til September (as it goes alongside the school year) but it is something to work towards. I have done Pilates before but had to give up due the class finishing, and I really enjoyed the fact it builds up strength. Let's face it, I will never be slim and svelte as I am just too tall and scary, but I can be toned.

To be honest, I may just give up the dating game until I have lost the weight and have a killer bod. Then I can fuck the men over and treat them like shit for a change.

I lost 4lbs in the last 2 weeks, and that includes a chinese meal at Happy Valley (which was YUMMY!) and several pints of beer. Yay! I had an excellent Saturday night with Daz, which always cheers me up.

I recently treated myself to some exercise DVDs called 10 minute workouts. Some of them will have to wait until I am a bit fitter, but the Toning one looked reasonable so I tried some yesterday after swimming. Those women are sadists! Just as you think you are coming to the end of the repetitions they make you do 8 more! I had to give up on the push-ups.

And it's now been 6 smoke-free weeks.

*Iz ded*

I have never sat in a cinema and been surrounded by sobbing before, but tonight me and Ellie went to see My Sister's Keeper. Ellie was almost prostrate with grief, and I had a few sniffly moments. Gods, it was sad. Very good, but sad. Don't see it if you are mildly depressed.

Tomorrow I am having an induction for the gym at work. The things I do to look halfway decent. Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, I am still smoke-free.

http://www.yorkcamra.free-online.co.uk/beer_festival.html

Finally! A beer festival in York! It's not til September but that weekend is now booked! And if I can swing it Daz can sneak me in on his CAMRA membership.

The date went very well, although cracking open the elderberry wine may have been a mistake. Anyway fun was had by all and hopefully I have another FWB to add to the list. Daz is over this Saturday and I am taking him to Happy Valley (the restaurant, you dirty minded....ehhhh, who am I kidding) for tea. Then the weekend after I am visiting friends in Leicester so that will make a change. My daughter has decided to stay in York as she is getting her lip pierced that weekend. My mother is going to have a coronary when she sees her in August. :)

Didn't get to go swimming yesterday so I did some aerobics instead. *halo* I am determined to trim my body down at least a little bit.

I mean, the cheek! Civil Service should be a non-stop carousel of flexi-time, leave, and expert level Solitaire when I am forced to come into the office. I am knackered!

Anyway, that's that. Last night was spent doing an Orange Wednesday with Ellie and seeing Sunshine Cleaning. It was a lovely film and I highly recommend it. We then did the Orange Wednesday Pizza Express thing too, and felt very fat afterwards. As I am trying to lose weight we decided that would be the last one for a while, but it was very yummy.

Oh, and I had a date on Monday. He was very, very nice, and happens to be pagan! I am not saying anything else for now but I have another date with him tomorrow night. Could people cross some digits and limbs for me here please? Appreciated. :)

Happy Birthday to count_libido. Hope it's a good one. :)

Friday night was spent eating yummy food and drinking unwise amounts of beer with face_furniture. She is a member of the York Brewery pub so we had a couple of pints in there. I will have to join - Daz would love it!

I was awoken by Bill coming over to get into the garage. I was feeling a bit woolley but OK. I finished off the crystallised oranges for my Mum's birthday and picked some rhubarb and blackcurrants from the garden. The rest of the day was spent idling.

I feel very virtuous today as me and Ellie went swimming. It was lovely. Then this afternoon I baked bread.

I knew something had happened when I couldn't get on LJ. How sad is it that LJ is brought down by one community consisting of people desperate to be the first to post that some celeb has died. I don't do celebs, couldn't give a crap, and am seriously pissed off that the death of a mentally ill recluse is the top story on the BBC.

Pinched from face_furniture and tyrell.



As was the case with Anna Nicole Smith and Jade Goody, I couldn't give a shit. Move on.

Today work has been a nightmare. I won't bore you with the details but I am out with face_furniture tonight and I suspect the first pint won't even touch the sides. We are going to IndoChine for tea. Yum!

THINGS THAT ARE DIFFICULT TO SAY WHEN DRUNK:
1. Innovative
2. Preliminary
3. Proliferation
4. Cinnamon

THINGS THAT ARE VERY DIFFICULT TO SAY WHEN DRUNK:
1. Specificity
2. Anti-constitutionalistically
3. Passive-aggressive disorder
4 Transubstantiate

THINGS THAT ARE DOWN RIGHT IMPOSSIBLE TO SAY WHEN DRUNK:
1. No thanks, I'm married.
2. Nope, no more booze for me!
3. Sorry, but you're not really my type.
4. Kebab? No thanks, I'm not hungry.
5. Good evening, officer. Isn't it lovely out tonight?
6. Oh, I couldn't! No one wants to hear me sing karaoke.
7. I'm not interested in fighting you.
8. Thank you, but I won't make any attempt to dance, I have no coordination. I'd hate to look like a fool!
9. I must be going home now, as I have to work in the morning.

This doesn't make me look good. However, I am an equal opportunities snarker.

I met a guy from an online site last Friday night for a drink. You would have thought that being online there was less scope for the guy to tell porkies, but you’d be wrong.

First of all, kudos to the guy for at least having a picture of himself on his account. However, either the picture was very old, or he had been making large with the Touch of Grey™. No real worries there though. Unfortunately he was also a bit wrong about his height. I am 5’10 tall, therefore I should not be looking down on someone who insists he is 5’11. Although I am slightly biased toward tall men, again, I let this one go. Last (and pretty much not least any more), non-smoking means not a smoker, not ‘I only had one cig on the way to the date’. I can smell now. I can tell whether people have been smoking. Again, he insisted that he didn’t really smoke, while lighting up when we walked between pubs. And yes, he lied about something else too.*

So tied with the fact he was not that interesting, he had just come out of a long relationship, and he knew I was cross with him regarding the ‘untruths’ on his profile, it wasn’t overly successful. Luckily the beer was good, although I will never understand why Ye Olde Starre Inne always runs out of decent beer. Why don't they just buy more before the weekend?

I am not even going to start whinging about how unlucky I have been with men lately because you can read all about it on this LJ. I do think that I have had more than my fair share of bad luck though. Just letting the cosmos know that, although I can take a joke, this is getting silly.

The rest of the weekend was spent starting off my Mum’s birthday present (candied orange slices, so I have to start now), and ruining some gooseberry jam. I also watched May on the Moon on BBC2 and its follow-up programmes on BBC4 which were very good. I completely forgot about the Summer Solstice but, as I said to Ellie, there will be another one next year.

* Yes, I am a sot and a slut. I ended up sleeping with him, but I don’t feel good about it.

Witch anger at Catholic club ban.

A Stockport (natch) witches coven are cross because the Catholics won't let them book a site for their Hallowe'en party.

"It makes you think that there is still a little bit of that attitude from the past of the Catholics wanting to burn witches...I thought we had made progress, that we could accept other people's religious paths."

Yeh...OK. Having your party booking refused is exactly like being persecuted then set on fire. Wait, no it isn't. I can just imagine how this is going down on some forums. 'OMGzzzzzz religious persecution! Let's sign some online petition that will change nothing!!'

I do think this actually could qualify under the Equality Act, as the group is being discriminated against in the provision of goods, facilities and services, in the disposal and management of premises, and in the exercise of public functions. I just don't see why a coven practicing Witchcraft would think it was a good idea to ask the local Catholics to use their room.

Edited to add: I realised that the BBC link did not have the quote regarding burning witches. It appears here: 'Witches Ball' banned from church hall.

Also Davis said she has found a new venue for October's event. So what's the problem?

Also, a definition of Brock's Law for those of you who are not familiar with it:

"In any discussion of the interaction of modern witches with the rest of society, as the length of the discussion increases, the probability of the mention of TEH BURNING TYMZ!!! OMG!!! WTF!1! BBQ!!!111!!! approaches unity."

Not any more! I went through religions like a child through chocolate when I was younger - I was christian, then high christian, then methodist, then heathen, then 'wiccan' (I was never initiated. This was just the 80s version), then pagan, then nothing, then buddhist, then pagan. Now of course I revel in my atheism, which fits with my witchcraft just fine.

Terminator Salvation was actually quite good. Not amazing, but worth seeing again. There were a lot of one-liners that most of us would recognise, and a bit of a surprise that Ellie totally called. Christian Bale seems to be the man of the moment in Hollywood right now - he must be knackered! But yeah, if you liked T1 and T2 (T3 was a travesty) then go and see it.

The pizza afterwards was fine too. If you are a fan of Orange Wednesdays and a fan of Pizza Express then you can download the voucher here.

ION I managed to pick up 5lbs of apricots for £2 last weekend, so I have now got hawthorn blossom wine, oak leaf wine, red clover wine, elderflower wine, and apricot wine on the go. Heh!

Apparently Aeire has some strips on ebay. So if you want a copy of the Vagina Dentata strip or particularly enjoyed the Chainsaw of Natural Selection strip, they can be yours!

I am sorely tempted by the Kitties Rock print. I shall think about it.

As it is Orange Wednesday me and Ellie are off to see Terminator Salvation tonight. Pizza Express are doing a 2 for one offer on their pizzas so we'll be going for dinner there. Yum.

And if anyone is wondering, I am still off the fags. :)

Scotland was fun. We checked in to a hotel which was packed to the gunnels with vague, silver haired Americans (one asked the receptionist while I was checking in 'how do you pronounce the name of this place?') We had a nice meal on the Royal Mile and Vicki nearly precipitated in international incident with a bunch of Scottish guys in the pub. Well really, why is it OK for them to insult us but we can't insult them? Anyway, now I know how much Magners she can drink before I have to drag her away from a fight.

The castle was lovely. We got to see the one o'clock gun being fired (it was LOUD!), and we went to see the crown jewels and Stone of Destiny. I also took pics of pretty much everything so, now I have a Flickr account, I shall be discerning and just let you see the really nice ones. The windows in St Margerets Chapel came out especially well. Sometimes it's best just to turn the flash off!

Anyway, as Ellie wil no doubt be hogging the pooter all day and I am off to see Daz tonight, I shall sort the pics tomorrow.

The 80s was defined by Thatcher and greed. The 90s was defined by New Age and alternative therapies. The noughties seem to be getting defined by the environment and being skint. Why do I get the feeling that the next decade is going to be defined by prejudice?

I am not just talking about the recent popularity of various right-wing parties. I am also talking about people on LJ communities talking about repatriation and ‘wogs taking our jobs’. As if these mouth breathers would do any job, let alone a job that pays below minimum wage working 12 hour days. I am talking about people who have known me for quite a while now assuming that I am not going to get a tad upset when they start spewing out anti-gay and anti-woman rhetoric. People who state that they are left wing and liberal, but start their sentences off with ‘I am not homophobic but…..’ It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.

( Cut for rant. I can't help it - I am a woman after all! )

On a lighter note I am Edinburgh this afternoon and tomorrow for a team meeting with the rest of my workmates. We will be at the Castle so hopefully we will get a quick tour. I have been told it is quite good in there. And my copy of 'Charge of the Goddess' has just turned up. It is excellent. I now own a copy of every book Doreen Valiente (co)wrote. This makes me happy.

PS I coded this entry all by myself! *giggles*

I've spent the last 2 days on a course at the Holiday Inn in York. The course was for Assertiveness which people seem to think I don't need, but I suspect that, as I come across as aggressive to some people, it is something I could have done with some time ago. I picked up some handy tips anyway.

It was a residential course which meant we got to socialise after hours. I also lucked out and managed to get a shag. I bet you can't guess his name. I'll give you 3 guesses, and the first 2 don't count. That's right, it was Rich. (For those of you who haven't been keeping up with my LJ recently, in the last 6 months I have hooked up with six guys, and five of them have been called Rich or Richard). This is getting uncanny!

I have actually realised why this might be happening - shoddy spellwork. I assumed that this:

I want abundant riches in my life

would be pretty unambiguous but it seems not. Looks like I should be resigned to unlimited Richards for a while.

:D

And in other news, I didn't cave, even after unwise amounts of red wine. I am on my fifth fag-free day. I did manage to chew up two drinking straws though.

Out again tonight. Lots of drinks planned, although no sex.

Apparently being unable to sleep is a side effect of giving up. Looks like I am not going to be my normal friendly self for a while.