Thank you all for the happy birthdays. I had a lovely day! Evening events were pretty shit, but I can't be bothered to expand on that right now. Perhaps later.
FYI, the crab has been named...Herr Mit. As predicted, Maddy headbutted him when I put him in the flowerpot, and his legs wobbled. Lovely.
I'm at home for the weekend. Normally I would be delighted at the 24/7 weekend internet access, HOWEVER, I have spent the best part of the morning reloading everything onto the damn thing. It died. Blue Screen. New hard drive. I've shed my tears over the years of stuff that's gone missing, including all the photos I recently loaded off my phone, all the ones of the Ex, ones she sent me from Brasil, photos from school, essays and other documents, saved conversations, ALL MY MUSIC, etc etc. I've silently berated myself for not backing all of it up, I've audibly berated my dad for being on the computer at the time of Blue Screen, and therefore everything being his fault. Now I'm comforting myself with peppermint tea, and the pretence that the old PC was stolen and we've had to buy a new one.
On another note, Nanna and Grandad's 50th wedding anniversary last night was quite fun, despite the presence of 5 children, 4 of whom were under 6, all of them capable of running around the table for three long hours. One of them - apparently my cousin's daughter - had only just started walking, and was actually the smallest person I have EVER seen. At some point in the evening somebody passed her to me and we spent a happy thirty seconds colouring (or 'stab sapped with pencils') until she pooed and it was warm on my leg and I handed her to my mother. Cute, but no bowel control. Not my kinda person.
My uncle from New Zealand arrived entirely unannounced. That was quite cool, especially when grandad swore and nanna spent the next ten minutes telling him off before turning her full attention to her youngest. On the two occasions he has come over since he moved there with auntie and prodigal cousins in tow, about 9 years ago, he has managed to make me feel inadequate and stupid. He always did that to me when I was small. He seems to think it's character building to tell me all aspects of my life are worthless, but he is very funny when he picks on other people, so I forgive him. Sort of. He's staying at our house for the next couple of weeks, but I'm heading back to Hull tomorrow, so I won't have to endure his constructive criticism and questionning for much longer.
And now, because it is pissing it down with rain, I'm going to pass the afternoon installing more PC crap I don't need, because it is comforting. I feel like someone's washed my blanky.
