Lissa
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Lissa" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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10:43 am
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Return to the Forbidden Planet
As I mentioned recently a friend's theatre group is putting on RttFP shortly and in case anyone in my Flist is interested in attending, the group's website is here http://www.purpletheatre.org.uk/ and the theatre's website is here http://www.compasstheatre.co.uk/
However you can't book tickets online - you have to do it by phone or by post.
The play is on 2nd to 5th December.
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12:22 pm
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Weekendiness!
Thursday and Friday of last week I used the two days my company gives us to do charity work (have I mentioned recently how much I like this company? Sometimes the work itself has lost it's excitement after 19 years, bt the company is still great) doing poppy collecting in Gravesend, ensconced in the local Tescos (and fortunately not relegated to being out on the jolly cold streets like pretty much every other charity collector in town. I love poppy collecting because it's the closest we get to a national charity - you get a lot of people coming up to you to buy their poppy or just make a donation than is usual for charity collection. I pinned hundreds of poppies on people (probably in direct contravention of health and safety rules, but don't ask/don't get told you can't do it and do on) and had to tell a lot of very disappointed people that they needed to be quicker off the mark if they had wanted a poppy lapel pin because we sold out of those Thursday lunchtime. Everyone buys poppies, including children clearly spending their own money on their way home from school.
Friday afternoon I abandoned my family and drove up to visit Annie & Tim for the weekend, so Annie and I could go to the Hobbycraft and Crafts for Christmas fairs at the Birmingham NEC. Our crafting interests overlap a lot (beads, stamps, odd crafts we've never seen before and card making mostly, with slight side order of threads of varying kinds (Annie for knitting, me for kumihimo) so we had a great time browsing over hundreds of stalls and spending more money than we probably should have and enjoying every minute of it.
We did the Crafts for Christmas bit last and I got hit badly by one of the jewelery stalls where she makes the most amazing stuff out of polymer clay. I have new poppy earrings that I've already received 3 compliments on today at work and Annie got some really amazing conker earrings. I also have a frog, a ladybird and a necklace with a ladybird on a rose leaf. These latter are notionally due to be gifted to other people, if I can make myself do that... I then tried to tempt Annie into some drifty clothing or a wooden flute but she was heroic and resisted. I made her drag me away from the stall called Executive Lizard (how can one resist a name like that? How, I ask you???) when I started getting tempted by their large beaded lizard broach because while it was cool it was also large and it would only have been suitable for giving to myself. And I'd spent Enough Money by then.
Then we got to drive home again and chat like mad for another hour and a half. There was lots of chat going on this weekend. Also I taught Jared and Ellie how to make kumihimo bracelets on the foam wheels (Jared successfully, Ellie a bit more variably but that's purely an age thing and she'll get there in time I'm sure). By the time I left Jared had made 2 8-strand bracelets and was feeling all accomplishy.
Sunday I got a tour of the new house, which looks to me like it should be months away from livability but which I am assured will actually reach that state much more speedily than I think, even if it will be kind of like camping in the house for a while. It's still amazing and wonderful and goes on forever and will be very cool (or very toasty) when they get there. And very them, which is the point, really.
The trip home was faster than the trip up (benefiting from not having to drive past 2 exciting traffic accidents) and I was home in time to eat with the kids (who I thought were in their pyjamas already but who it turned out were in their pyjamas still) and put them to bed.
Thanks for having me to stay Annie!!! Now I need to spend a dedicated weekend or two doing crafty things.
Current Mood:  chipper
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02:52 pm
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Redundant joystick quest
Does anyone on my UK friends list have any redundant joysticks hanging around? My friend Claire from the office is a member of a theatre group who are putting on Return to the Forbidden Planet in the first week in December and she needs a couple of joysticks to use as part of the consoles for the ship. The downside is that ideally she'd like to collect them on Friday, on the plus side she's willing and able to do some travelling to get at them (meeting up in London or travelling to people from where she lives in West London - probably depends on how far away they are).
Current Mood:  optimistic
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04:50 pm
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Bleurgh
I have a cold and have spent the last two days at home, mostly laying in bed and feeling sorry for myself. Not a lot sorry, just a little because it's enough to make me unable to contemplate commuting and enough that walking upstairs this afternoon after lunch made me really glad to get back into bed but it's not what I would class as a bad cold. I'm not contemplating going to the doctors, for example. So I'm weighing up the concept of returning to work tomorrow.
Today Alex also spent at home because it's half term and my official work from home day and I didn't see the point in paying for him to go to holiday club when I'd be at home anyway. On Sunday I tried to make it more interesting for him by arranging for his karate friend to come over to play, but sadly on Tuesday M came down with tonsillitis so that didn't happen. We placated Alex with Chinese takeaway, which worked more than it didn't. Both boys were still pretty upset though.
The plans on Sunday were made on the way back from the beach with M and his mum, where we had fun exploring a beach that was alleged to be a fossil beach but by which we were underwhelmed. As we walked along R accidentally trod on a dead shark, which freaked her out a tad. We proceeded to find a further 2 dead sharks (all about a foot long) so clearly it's a bad area to be if you're a shark. Then we moved on to Broadstairs, played on their sandy beach and had ice creams on our way back to the car (I had yummy coffee gelato but everyone else had plebeian Mr Whippy - strange people. Alex seems to be going off ice cream and was unable to finish his, but that meant we had a spare cone to give to M when he dropped his because the cone snapped half way down! Recycling in action, I tell you)
Current Mood:  poorly
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01:34 pm
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Mmmmmm, Tootsie Rolls!
In my office as probably in most, there is a tradition that when you go on holiday you bring back nice edible things from wherever you've been. Someone near me has obviously just been to the US and equally obviously taken advantage of the special candy options available in preparation for the great candy giveaway that is Halloween. Yesterday we had mini packets of Oreos, Milk Duds and Nerds (purple Nerds! Huzzah!!). Today we had mini Hershey bars, Simpsons branded jelly sweets and Tootsie Rolls. And this is a complete win for me because most of my colleagues clearly have no idea what Tootsie Rolls are and are steering clear of them in their ignorance. Being a big fan of them myself I have raided the bag several times, and the Tootsie Roll count does not seem substantially reduced.
For those like my colleagues, Tootsie Rolls are vaguely chocolatey/caramelly sweets. They may well be one of those things that are best if you are indoctrinated into them at a young age.
Current Mood:  mmmmm, Tootsie Rolls
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08:52 am
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Disney!!! And an earworm.
We just spent the weekend at EuroDisney, courtesy and in company of my in-laws and the fact it was their 50th wedding anniversary and they wanted to have a holiday with their grandkids. We were incredibly lucky with the weather because it was gloriously sunny t-shirt weather all weekend. We have concluded several things:
1) I am not suited to taking holidays with my in-laws (this is not news)
2) "Lissa does like orgnising things, doesn't she?" (per my MIL) (this is also not news)
3) Alex does not enjoy rides aimed at young children, apart from when he does - making Dumbo go up and down was fun, but he kind of missed the spirit of it by trying to shoot down the Dumbos being ridden by his cousins (see previous footnotes)
4) Amy thinks the best ride in the whole world is It's a Small World. I rode it 3 times, she rode it 4 times and the earworm keeps coming back. Not as badly as it did with the California version of it 20 odd years ago after only a single ride, so I think I should thank my lucky stars.
5) The Disney estate does not sell reasonably priced food anywhere. Taking just my family of 4 out to dinner would have cost £75 minimum, and there were 11 of us. Hmm. So we ate at McDonalds both nights since that was the only exception. This would not have been any of the adults' first choice (or 2nd, 3rd, etc, etc) but the kids thought it was great. And they still do free wifi even there, so it wasn't a total bust (yay for my iPod Touch!!).
6) Sharing a hotel room with both children reminded us why we like holidays in cottages with a separate room (and separate beds) for the kids.
7) Roller coasters are fab.
8) Queues are still irritating
9) Disney does a good system of Fast Passes that allow you to bypass some queues with judicious application. Better than the Legoland equivalent where you can get one but it costs you an extra £20.
10) My feet hurt
11) We all had a lot of fun
Current Mood:  tired but happy
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02:33 pm
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plinthy Sue!
This lunch hour ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) frostfox was the person occupying the 4th plinth in Leicester Square and since it was so conveniently timed I went along to join the throng. And a reasonably healthy throng it was to, somewhere in the region of 30 fen, possibly more as there could have been others I didn't recognise. The weather was good, Sue's PA was variably effective and the stories I could hear (when not drowned out by traffic noise and the chattering of the throng who (as Sue said) had generally heard the tales already) were very entertaining as one would expect.
It was all a lot of fun and a better way to spend my lunch hour than my usual one of malingering at my desk. Well done Sue for getting up there and having a good time, fear of heights notwithstanding. Even if she was occasionally upstaged in fandom's attentions by the dog, though this is only what one would expect given he's named Draco...
Learning point of the day - they get new plinthers up there using a cherry picker. It might almost be worth trying to have a go just for the fun of getting a ride on a cherry picker, except I have nothing I could do up there that would be even vaguely entertaining :-)
Current Mood: entertained
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08:49 am
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I'm shocked
I went to M&S last night and actually managed to find 3 pairs of trousers that suited me, all of them work plausible at least (one's a pair of black jeans, which is borderline acceptable but I can get away with because they're black) and 2 of the 3 are even cotton. It never ceases to amaze me that every single pair of their 'officially sold as work wear' trousers are polyester. They sell over 20 different designs of them, so really - what's up with that? Doesn't anyone else want to wear cotton to work?
Oh no - I remember. They do sell some non-polyester work trousers - but the 2 or 3 exceptions are all linen and nothing suits my body shape less than linen trousers. Quite apart from the fact that in my experience linen ALWAYS has to be ironed and I hate doing that.
But anyway - 3 pairs of work suitable trousers. One pair of which is purple. I'm in shock.
Current Mood:  shocked
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08:57 am
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Harry Potter
Yesterday evening I went to see the latest Harry Potter. I was decidedly unimpressed - it's one that IIRC has a lot of internal dialogue that's hard to put over onto the screen, and of course it's ridiculously long so they really had to pick a small selection of scenes and inevitably one is left feeling that if one hadn't already read the book one might be rather confused by the end of the movie as to exactly what happened, or why.
Meh, I think is what that boils down to. Must take a look at the cinema timetables and plan to take the kids to Ice Age 3 (though I could do without it being in 3D, and I suspect Amy won't be too thrilled about that either - 3D glasses are a right pain and distract from my ability to submerge myself in the movie). I might also check out GI Joe with Alex, since it sounds suitably popcorn-esque. All while waiting patiently for November of course, when Star Trek comes out on DVD, I can install it on my iPod and watch it whenever I like in a terrible fit of fangirlishness.
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08:50 am
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Hmph
Bad ways to start the day - no internet connection at home (router working fine so far as I can tell, but no internet at the other end), so no internet browsing over breakfast, my usual way to warm up to the concept of being up and about.
On the plus side I then got to go have a cuddle with Amy and read her a morning story, and then I left home a few minutes early, both to give me time to cope with Echo Square roundabout where we will have 4 way traffic lights with a 3 and a half minute phasing for the next 4 months (I ran the red light this morning - there's really not enough traffic at 7am to be lawful good)) and to pass by MacDonalds and scoop up the latest installment of a WIP I'm reading from their free wifi to give me reading material on the train.
In related news I adore my iPod Touch and I still have the Best Friends Ever...
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11:16 pm
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In which we feel well content with ourselves
With only this week to go before the end of term, today was Alex's school party, which this year was fancy dress with the theme of having to be someone who was famous and dead. One kid got a last minute opportunity to choose to be Michael Jackson, and apparently did it with style.
As I am usually the one who gets to make costume and school art projects and so on, this time I told Phil it was his turn. And then Alex decided he wanted to be Alexander the Great.
5 days of craft-y ingenuity later Alex had a kick-ass set of armour made of gold card, gaffer tape (where would we be without it?), leather, eyelets and split pin paper fastener doohickeys. I took on resposibility for the helmet and the shield and we cheated by using a sword that Alex already had, but painting it gold.
The great thing is that most of this we already had in the craft collection, apart from the gold card and the doohickeys (oh yes, and the sandals and t-shirt). The crest on the helmet was a late inspiration using red card and paper, and thank-goodness-we-have-a-guillotine, because cutting all those sheets of paper into fronds with a pair of scissors would have driven me insane. In the way of things the last part (decoration on the shield (click through to see other photos which show that in more detail, should you be so minded)) was finished at midnight on Sunday. Oh yes, and the addition of the hand holds on the back was at 6am this morning.
Today all of that work was entirely validated because not only did he look cool (smug? us?? Well.... maybe) he also won first prize. Woohoo! Need to do more costuming...
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10:47 pm
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On being eaten by a 'new' fandom
New to me, anyway, but otherwise the oldest of the old, because what I've been eaten by recently is the new Star Trek reboot movie. On the whole Trek has not really done it for me, but I've seen a smattering of TOS, all the older movies (I think the last one I saw was the one where they brought together Next Gen and TOS) and quite a number of Next Gen episodes (until we watched B5 and the joys of continuity and lack of Wesley Crusher blew me away). But the new movie definitely did - I came out of the movie bouncing (big red ball of Plot Deviceness notwithstanding) and I think I still blame Smitty because it's all her fault I'm into slash to begin with and when I got home that's what I hopped online to find.
I am aware that the movie has plot holes one could drive a truck through and it could do with fewer dramatic scenes and a bit more of filling in the storyline, but I read the novelisation (hey, it's Alan Dean Foster, which didn't hurt given the number of his books I have on the shelves) which filled in a number of the storyline gaps and have dived into the fanfic with it's scope for adding slews more, melding in original ideas with bits of TOS storyline and so on.
Today I read one I enjoyed so much I wanted to rec it. It's a gen piece, telling the stories of McCoy meeting each of the members of the command team as they come through sick bay after a variety of traumatic events. Each chapter is nicely meaty and in all it's a very good bit of team centric fic. It's still a work in progress with 2-3 more chapters to go, but each chapter stands on it's own.
The People He Sees, by EstelRaca
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08:16 pm
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Hooray in an arg sort of a fashion, with a side order of sigh
At karate this evening Alex was given a grading form, which means he'll be doing his grading to move up to red belt at the end of June. So hooray! It's good to see him doing well at this, and I can see it benefiting him. Last weekend we went to Drusilla's zoo down near Eastbourne, and one of the activities they have for kids is to see how their skills match up against those of various wildlife. Alex demonstrated the ability to stand on one leg for 15 minutes without needing to touch the ground with his other foot - considerably more than I can do. That's karate balancing skills in action. And more patience than I'd give him credit for.
The arg bit is that his friend at karate did not get a form, despite getting his red/white belt earlier than Alex. M has dyspraxia however, which makes it all a lot more challenging. He might not ever make red belt, but he keeps at it. I just hope seeing Alex move on doesn't make him give it up.
The side order of sigh is because Alex got involved ina fight at school today and hit a year R kid (3 years younger than him). The school tells me the fight was over gogos (latest schoolyard craze), Alex says it was because a group of kids was calling him names and... sigh. Oy vey.
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02:33 pm
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Cooking Mama for the DS - have you lost it?
Through an excitingly circuitous route I am told that a copy of Cooking Mama for the DS is being returned to Alex when next we see Rick. The only problem is we don't own a copy of Cooking Mama.
I'm not quite sure where it originated except that it was probably either the filk con or my birthday party. It does not belong to Ellie or the Crooklets (though the latter is where it's coming *from*) but we're not sure who else may have had a DS at either event and conceivably have loaned it to someone. Looby Loo, one enquires of the ravens?
Any thoughts? If we can't find it's original owner then it may gravitate to Ellie as being someone who will enjoy playing it until the actual owner surfaces... Unless a Crooklet wants to reposess it?
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11:11 am
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Socks appeal
Last night I *finally* went over to spend the evening with Gwen and co, eating yummy food, being ignored by the cat, being given a fabulous book on Braiding to support my use of my marudai and succumbing to the fannish explosion in sock knitting by being given a first lesson in knitting (well, first since I was about 11). I knit a little swatch in red wool on sone circular needles just to see how it went and then I went stash diving (ooo - the shiny!) and came up with some wool to make socks for Amy (good plan to start with a relatively quick project so I don't lose my momentum) and some more to make socks for me in beautiful blue and purple variegated colours.
And then I knitted a swatch with the wool for Amy so we could work out what tension I knit at and then Gwen got all shiny with her pattern generator software and did me up a pattern to use to knit Amy some socks. This evening I shall be reckless and cast on my first sock. My aim is to get enough done to be able to make puppy eyes at Gwen at the Swiggle on Saturday so I can be taught how to make a heel, which looks quite arcane.
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02:01 pm
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Ice Cream - a Public Service Announcement
I went for a walk today, lured by the sunny day and a good opportunity to walk and listen to my iPod and at the same time discover where the formerly elusive branch of Ben & Jerry's 'near' my office is (technically it's very near in that if I could just see around a corner I can see it from my desk, but since it's on the other side of the river and I can't walk on water despite what my PR department would have you think I believe it is actually a 10 minute walk away.
But I digress.
I discovered when I got there that tomorrow, Tuesday 21st April, is Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's between 1 and 5pm.
So there you, PSA of the day!!! And in time to plan your descent on B&J stores in the UK.
And because I'm a completist it's also Free Cone Day in America, but there it's 12-8pm. So far as I can tell they aren't doing this in Canada - meanies!!!
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01:59 pm
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Watching a developing reader
Being the kind of pushers that we are, Alex is currently reading the Belgariad. Since it's the Easter holidays still we let him stay up til 10.30 the other day because he was finishing book 1 (and I hadn't realised quite how late it was getting because I was reading Tanya Huff's Heart of Valor for the first time and was quite eaten).
The next day he told me that he thought Garion was the one who was going to end up killing Torak. When asked for an explanation he advanced the theory that it was because the story was being told from Garion's POV and that in his experience the POV person tended to be the main hero of the book and thus it followed.
I think we may have had a variant on that discussion a week or two earlier but it's still encouraging. He's not much of a one for analysis and he's slow to connect the dots in there the way I did given I encountered it when I was a teenager so this is a step forwards that pleased me mightily.
Also that he's reading something with a *bit* more depth than Horrid Henry...
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09:54 pm
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I have the BEST friends (part 2)
This ought to have been written back in Fabruary. I've been rather dilatory.
Anythway, this is a picture of a Marudai, a Japanese loom on which one does kumihimo once one has graduated up from those little foam kumihimo wheels that various people have seen me and others using to make (mainly) little braid bracelets. Once upon a time many moons ago Allison Durno posted about using a kumihimo wheel with some pictures of the braids she made, and I thought it all very cool. A while later I bought a wheel and a much longer while later I actually started to use it. And was pretty much hooked from there.
I took it to FilkContinental last year and made many braids and tied them about the writs of many people. It's a perfect craft for doing at a filk being small and self contained and not requiring so much brain that I can't still enjoy the music. Plus people tend to like having bracelets foisted upon them.
When I got home I started doing a bit more research and found out about Marudai and advanced braiding and so on and started slowly lusting after one. But they're not cheap so I didn't move on to buying one.
Come this year's filkcon in the UK I was still braiding away merrily on my wheel and talking to people about kumihimo and marudai and how cool it all was and that I was probably going to buy one soon, and various people started to plot. I think it started with Talis and spread to Tim & Annie and Rika and they looked into the possibility of buying me one for my birthday.
Unfortunately in the available timeframe and combined with the main person in the UK who makes these being ill at the time they couldn't buy one.
So Tim made me one.
How cool is that?
He used wood from one of the prototype of the stool they take on re-enactments with them and 4 arrow shafts to make the marudai itself and some other wood (he told me which kind it was but which I now forget - hopefully he or Annie will add it in comments) they had on hand to make the tama (the bobbins at the bottom of the picture) and it ate up a large chunk of his spare time in the run up to my birthday party/holiday.
On the first night of the holiday we all sat around in the evening and Rika and I were braiding with our wheels and Tim asked me all about it and I burbled at him about kumihimo and marudai and tama and the Proper Equipment and he made all sorts of encouraging noises just as if he'd never heard of it before in his life. This is because he is a ratfink, but I got him back by getting him to make his own first braid on the wheel later in the week. But I digress.
Sunday morning (my actual birthday) they gave me my present, making me sit at the table with my eyes shut and putting it down in front of me for me to work out what it was. I quickly did. Then I squeeee-ed. Later in the week I made my first braid on it which I use as a necklace, and I've done a few since but am waiting to kidnap a good book about braiding from Gwen before I make some more.
Did I mention I have the BEST friends?
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07:55 pm
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Packing Marion
Thanks to everyone who answered the earlier post - I look forward to seeing you all over the weekend and I think we're at quota :-)
Gwen and Joe - we're counting Joe as part of that quota but if he's too ill to come then we'll be fine.
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12:46 pm
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Packing and storing Marion - who's coming to help this weekend?
Following on from Gwen's recent post and some of Marion's we have to get the rest of Marion's stuff packed and into storage this weekend so that the workmen can come and start work on Monday.
I shall be there this weekend with our Mondeo, Rika is expecting to be there but no vehicle of her own. There is limited space in the apartment for people to do the actual packing but we need extra people for carrying boxes and so on out of the apartment and an extra vehicle or two for driving it over to storage, with people to unpack it into said storage in the most efficient fashion. I may get to play live-action-Tetris...
The storage unit is open without any extra fee Saturday 9am-6pm, Sunday 10am-2pm so those are the core times when we need people. There may also be benefit to people who can work longer on Sunday and take some of it away for emergency temporary extra storage. If you're up for that then please say.
The work is scheduled to take 6 weeks and if it takes all of that then we'll need people again on something like 18/19th April to begin the job of unpacking pack into the apartment. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, but I thought it worth mentioning so people can consider penciling it into their calendars.
Can people please say if they will be able to come and help this weekend? Please no comments from people saying they can't - I'm looking for positives here and if you can't then I'll take it as read from the lack of comment.
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