Scattered thoughts

A bit of an update entry here, using crappy phone camera pictures to show a little of what I've been up to :)

Firstly, due to a deal between mum and Pete I was the agent delivering 43 beers to Pete (and buying said beer), leading to a rather odd looking collection of goods when I made the purchase - 43 beers and a packet of naan bread for our dinner that evening. I'm fairly sure that the collection would have looked a whole lot less odd if it hadn't been for the naan bread.



The clunking of that lot in the car sounded quite dreadful as I accelerated, braked, turned corners... Luckily nothing broke :)



In other news, the Christmas Market is now in town! There's a stall that sells cool keyrings and 3D wooden puzzels. I've got some pictures of the keyrings, but not the puzzels :( Also, not the full spectrum of keyrings - there are lizards and frogs, and elephants, and giraffes and all sorts, all made from natural rubber :)





There's a stall with mulled wine and hot chocolate (regular hot chocolate and hot chocolate with rum or amaretto).



There's also a stall selling all kinds of Wurst, cooked over a barbeque. This stall is ben's favourite! :D



Finally, I took this picture of a very funny card:

( NSFW! )

Carols at the Cathedral tonight. I'm really looking forward to it :D It always feels like Christmas is really on its way when we have them. It also really enthralls the history part of me, as we stand in the Nave of the Cathedral with all the lights off, holding lit candles and singing carols, because I feel a real connection to the past - 100 years ago, 400 years ago, 1000 (or so) years ago there would have been people there doing much the same thing. It's hard to articulate, but it feels amazing.

Today I fell down half a flight of stairs from our flat. I mis-stepped on the top step and fell until the halfway break and its railings stopped my fall. It hurt.

Anyone thinking of falling down stairs (especially concrete ones with sharp edges) take my advice. Don't.

I was checked out at the hospital, and didn't break anything luckily (and rather miraculously). I have scraped most of the skin off my left shin though, and have grazes on my left shin, right thigh, left forearm and right upper arm, and an enormous bump on my forehead. And I'm black and blue in a way that ben's pictures (see below for link) don't show (mostly because they've been coming up since he took the pictures at the minor injuries unit at the K&C).

Pictures here.

It really hurt when the nurse cleaned the grazes up, because underneith is all bruised and there was grit and stuff in wounds that had mostly scabbed over. Apparently all colour drained from my face.

Anyway, now you all know how stupid I can be.

On the upside neither my glasses nor my phone were destroyed, despite falling twice as far as me. In fact, the phone didn't even disconnect the call I had going at the time. Talk about impressive (and lucky). Yay!

Again, I reiterate, if you're thinking of falling down stairs, don't ;)

I went to Wildwood (again) the other day (this time with rahslowe and her sister, Hannah) and got some more animal pictures, quite different from the ones last time because most of the Animals weren't co-operating. Pictures here. Best picture was of an American Bullfrog, I'm quite pleased with it. Pity about the grass that kind of got in the way of my shot.



The other thing that happened to me recently was a mobile phone upgrade. I was due for my upgrade a couple of weeks ago but put it off till yesterday, and had the weirdest and easiest upgrade ever (which is why I'm writing about something so mundane :p)

My current phone is a Sony Ericsson W300i and I've been very happy with it for the most part, but it's 18 months old, scratched and generally looking and starting to behave like a phone that's 18 months old (unimportant bits falling off it and such).

Anyway, I decided to pull my finger out yesterday and call T-Mobile (who I've been with for nearly 6 years now on contract, and four years before that on PAYG, and part of that was when they were still One2One). What can I say, I'm really happy with them, always had excellent customer service from them, and not had any problems with coverage - when I was first with them they were the only ones with signal covering my mum's house (necessary since I was living there at the time).

I got through to customer services very quickly and asked about an upgrade. A very chirpy scotsman confirmed I was due, and said I was a high value customer to them, and as such he wasn't going to offer me any deals - I should just say what I wanted and he would make it happen. So I said I was after the Sony Ericsson W890i, which according to T-Mobile's website should cost me about £50. He said I could have it for free, then gave me a discount off my bill (£4 a month) without me asking. Win :D I was really surprised, but very impressed with their customer service, which for me was impeccable. So I'm writing this all down, to act as a record for just how pleased I am with them and why.

My new phone should arrive on Tuesday morning. Mmm, shiny :)