Ta daaaaaaa!

My god I'd pretty much forgotten this place...so much has happened since last time I wrote, would be too hard to put it all, so to summarise...

I was about to quit my job when the company hit financial difficulties and instead I was made redundant!! YAAAAAY!!! I wanted to leave anyway, but that way I got more pay out of it.

A month later I went to the Dominican Republic for 6 weeks, volunteering on a horse ranch, was such an amazing experience, went on my own and I am now fearless, lol. Seriously, nothing bothers me now, it's great. If you've been stranded in the middle of the wrong Dominican town at night, with no where to stay, with very little cash, and speaking only a few basic Spanish phrases, knowing no one - if you can get through that fine then everything else is piss easy :) I miss the DR so much tho :( Miss the people there, miss the horses...am so going back...I have the travel bug ridiculously bad...off to Italy in May :)

So anyway. I'm a freelance photographer and digital editor now, I built and now run Arcana Artworks and it's great fun. I'm gonna have to get something part time to bring a bit more cash in, with it being a new business, but it's going well. I am super happy :D

xxx

Another Update

Apologies for not updating sooner, but the last few weeks have been really busy, and varying between fun and utter shit.
My grandma died just over 3 weeks ago now, so that was very awful. Not going into details, but at least she's at peace now. Felt wank about that for ages but am starting to feel better.

The rest of the time was spent ill for about a week with another shit chest infection...shifted the majority of that a fair while ago though...

Other stuff:
Got Download festival tickets :D Line up is looking very nice indeed.
Got Hatebreed and Acacia Strain gig tickets :D
It's my birthday tomorrow :D (if all goes to plan am buggering off to Alton Towers, cos it's Adrenalin Week and you get to go on all the biggest rides without having to queue a lot of the time = awesome)
Big birthday night out is soon :D
Mel's mum died from cancer. Another shit thing.
Went for nice meals.
Discovered how much I love chicken tikka masala and Thai food.

Bought lots of stuff I probably shouldn't have.
Ate ice cream for the first time in a fair few years, hadn't had it since I had my tongue pierced and used it to make the swelling go down...blimey, that means I hadn't had it in nearly 3 years. It was very nice, pralines n cream n caramel. Looked at the fat content which wasn't nice at all, lol.

Cough Up People!

Boo

Morning...it's been an odd week or so...would come on the chatterbox and tell you about it but it's broken and won't let me on so... brief update. Been editing a hell of a lot, everything from air shows, to wildlife and ladies in various states of undress...s'fun though most of the time... Watched some cool films, watched a bloody awful one Japanese one called Versus last night, just rubbish it was, watched half an hour of it, decided to go to sleep on the sofa, woke up half an hour later and the same people were still running round the same forest kicking the bejeezus out of each other and acting badly... it was like watching some low budget student rubbish. I've made better myself.

The weekend promises horseriding goodness and family things. Oh something else, I'm booked in to run (ie. saunter) the Race For Life cancer research jobby again. This time dressed entirely in pink. I'm gonna have to gradually accustom myself to pink maybe else the shock of wearing it on the day might finish me off before I even start :|

Shiiit

It's been a chaotic last few days...

To start with, last Saturday went riding, then rushed about and in the evening went to Rock of Ages avec Ben...had a good night but hurt myself dancing to Lamb of God and I'm still paying for it now. I should learn to pace myself but I have a habit of going mad. Spose it's cos there aren't that many good metal nights anymore, everywhere seems to have tamed out and gone into either cock rock or that boring rockabilly shit, so when a decent metal night comes around it's a novelty.

Sunday morning was when the fun started, and the toilet's turd munching saniflo packed in. Which is just what you need when you have a hangover and can hardly hold your neck up. So the sewage all backed up into the loo, the bath / shower and the sink. Yay. Got a drainage man out, as at that point we assumed it was a pipe blockage, who faffed with the drains for an hour, THEN asked us if we had a saniflo, then charged £100 (the landlord was paying) to tell us he couldn't do anything and that we'd need a proper plumber. A proper plumber then came, in the form of a chav with a black eye, who confirmed it was the saniflo that was broken, told us he didn't have a new one to replace it with, smeared shit all over the walls and charged £65. The landlord still wasn't answering his phone, and by this time it was getting late, so had a lovely evening of having to piss in the kitchen sink. Yeah I know it's vile, but there was no, lol.

Come Monday, and I was off work waiting for the saniflo man to turn up and replace the duff part. It fucking stank. I've smelt bad things in my time (the toilet pits, 3 days into a festival, in the middle of a heatwave, nice) but I swear I can't express how gut wrenchingly horrific the smell was. The guy was retching and I had to run away into the farthest point of the house. Apparently the smell reached the people 2 floors above the offending toilet which lets you know how fucking manky it truly was. It got sorted in the end, but I got a chest infection in the process. I was still a bit rough from Saturday night but cleaning up raw sewage and inhaling that god awful stench finished me off and I've been coughing up orange chunks of throat lining ever since, and am off work. Think I'm back in tomorrow though, feeling better today, probably due to the 4 layers of clothing I've got on to keep warm. I look like the Mitchelin Man, but with a small head :)

Ooo give over.

T'internet's in. Go go 2mb broadband. And go go shiny new phone which arrived aaages ago but lived in the neighbours house for a week, as the couriers forgot to leave me a note informing me that's who they'd left it with. DHL are shite. My phone's not, it's all touch screeny, will have to get used to that but it looks cool...

Been uber-busy with the whole editing commission stuff, was doing rally car images yesterday so that made a nice change from copious amounts of flesh :) Been generally doing lots of stuff still. V busy at work. Gonna take a day off work in a week or two and do Sharon's shoot for her, looking forward to that :)

Looked online for a holiday this morning, but got blagged after about an hour, cos of indecision regarding the destination...it'll be somewhere strange though, can't be going just anywhere now can we? No Costa del morons for us...

Off to ze pub with Aneeta n Brew tonight, don't think anytone else is coming this time...

Righto, off for coffee (decaff, am being good) and tv, as my neck's starting to hurt from sitting here in the chilly spare bedroom. It's so cold. I've got a hot waterbottle with me because I am infact 75. A hot waterbottle and fluffy dog slippers. I am well rock n roll :D lol Might as well go watch Songs of Praise :P