He's electric...

Himself is playing at the Electric Picnic, on all the three nights. Tonight is night two.

I'm working all weekend, selling litres and litres of vodka to the happy people in their wellies.

I still get most of the festival athmosphere, though:

*I see drunk people,
*I stay up most of the night, wake up at funny times when my man finally gets home (so my sleeping patterns get fecked up, which usually happens at festivals)
* I'm surrounded by mud (which Himself brings in in his boots, although thankfully I don't have to walk knee-deep in it)
* I'm so tired in the mornings I feel hungover (without the drinking part, so it comes cheap as well!)
* I eat food only slightly less dodgy than your usual festival-meals (couldn't be bothered cooking for one, and don't really have the time either what with all the thirsty people)

So as you can see, you can get all the benefits of the festivals without even going...
(says Laura, as she eats a slice of cold pizza)

...

So much has happened since the last post... Where to start?

The biggest news is that Junior and his lovely girlfriend had their baby a few weeks ago. A lovely little boy, who is possibly the cutest baby I've seen. Everyone is excited and delighted and all those other things you are when something like this happens.

I finally went to red my e-mails after a loooong time, and there was another nice surprise:
My friend in Finland had sent me a post with the latest news and a couple of lovely pics of her and the baby-belly. Awww... :)

And then there's me. I haven't been doing much lately; just going to work, coming home and going to work in the other place, and then sleeping.
The woman I've been taking care of was taken to the hospital, and I'm going to have a meeting with her sister to discuss possibly going in as more of a full-time carer. We'll see.

Oh, and I'm loving Options hot chocolate at the moment. :) (under 40 calories per portion= great!)

Discovering Ireland (Finally!)

Himself passed his driving test a little while ago and we've been unstoppable since.
I haven't seen much in the past three years, partly because of laziness and "I'll get to see these places eventually"-attitude, partly because of bad public transport.
Now I'm enjoying every moment of it.

On Sunday we decided to go for a drive. It was a strange, rainy day, and nearly nothing was open (as it goes on Sundays), so a little spin was the best way to kill some time.
Himself wanted to show me all the places he goes to with the army, so that I could finally get pictures to go with the stories.
So off we went.

The first stop was Curragh, or "The Red-Brick Desert". It's like an army town, with -you guessed it- red-brick buildings. But before we got there, I saw a very strange sight. "What? How? Himself, slow down!!!"
While digging my camera out of my bag, I kept staring at the sheep. The thing is, for some reason there was no fences, no gates, nothing at all to keep the sheep in. They were happily walking around, free. That's something I hadn't seen before.
Just for the record: I was impressed with the town as well, but didn't want to take too many pics in there, just to be on the safe side.

After that we went to see the place Himself goes to when there's camps or suchlike. We drove up to a place called Cemetary Hill, where we admired the view and said 'hi' to a few more sheep.

Hollywood, Co. Wicklow -style. :)

Went up to the mountains as well. I think the place was called The Wicklow Gap. It was a strange feeling, climbing up towards the clouds. The radio signal went, the fog surrounded us and it felt like we had left the country altogether.
Laala likes the mountains. :)
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Monday we went to Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, to do some shopping.
Happy days.
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I've also been going to the gym for four weeks now. If you told me last year, that I'd start doing that and enjoying it, I wouldn't have believed you. (Also lost about 8 pounds so far, which is a huge plus. Or at least a very positive minus. :) )

And this is how it starts...

Someone had left this plant and moved on.
It was looking fairly rough when we moved in, and I had no plans to do anything about it.
So I pretty much ignored the poor thing for the first few days.

Then the falling leaves and parts turning from green to unhealthy-looking brown melted my heart, and I gave it a pint of water.
Then I started turning it around, so that all the branches would get some of the rare sunlight.
Now I say a few affectionate words to it every time I go to my balcony, and ask if she needs a drink.

I suppose I should've known this was going to happen...

We went into town today, just to buy a few bits and bobs for the flat; clothespegs, ironing board, and similar very rock'n'roll stuff.
Decided to have a look around the poundshop, and found little flowerpots and little growing-kits for different herbs and flowers. I picked up the sunflower one, and as soon as Himself went to meet up with the band he's teching for tonight, I dug out my gardening gloves (which I got for Christmas two years ago, and thought I'd never use) and planted the little ones.

Then I sat down beside them and gave them a talk.

So here we are now.
I'm surprised enough about the fact that I wanted to plant something, never mind the talking part.
The nestmaking-mode is on; I'll better take advantage of it and do some more organizing and laundry.
If you don't hear from me soon, I'll either be staring at my flowerpots, hoping to see some signs of life, or I have fallen into the washing machine! :)

Photo-tag

I was tagged by Alex.
The rules are as follows:
-Open your first photo folder
-Take the 10th picture
-Post that picture and it's story to your blog
-Tag 5 friends

Picasa shows folders from the newest to the oldest (I know you know, but explained it all the same. Ha.), but I assumed it wasn't supposed to be like that. So here's the 10th picture of my oldest and therefore the first folder.

I think I only got my old camera a little while before this picture was taken. So I was taking pictures of anything and everything.
I was in guideschool, and we had to do all sorts of things on top of the normal studies. One assignment was to make up a little play for a group of veterans who regularly stayed at the campus. We needed to include music, dance and some interactive bits.

So we decided to make a "Trip around the world". I think we "went" to China, Italy, somewhere in Africa and finally back home to Finland.
This picture is taken during the preparations. One of the tribemembers is admiring her lovely, freshly painted face. You can also see one of the very stylish skirts* at the background.

*A few binliners were harmed during the making of this play.
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I'm not going to tag anyone, because I'm in no mood for complaints.
So take it and enjoy. Or don't. :)

Five more minutes...

There hasn't been much time to recover from all the moving -stuff. I've been doing more here, than I've done in months, which is great. My body wakes me up at around ten the latest, so I get to enjoy the light. But I think I shoud've had at least one big sleep-in after all this. And looks like it's finally starting to show.

I got up extra early today, to go to the other workplace. I had arranged to go to the clinic with my new boss, wait for her and make sure she gets home safely. We announced our arrival and sat down in the waiting room. Soon the nurse came in, all sunny and friendly, and I was introduced to save confusion. I look up from under my hat (OK, so I didn't brush it in order to get five more minutes of sleep, sorry!) and the nurse looks at me in horror.

"Gosh, are you OK? You're looking so teary-eyed. Are you worried or something?"
I said something about tiredness, she looked like she doesn't believe me, but took my boss with her anyway. I quickly occupied myself with a magazine from last October, just in case she'd decide to come back and hand me leaflets for support-groups for carers or suchlike. Bless her.

We had a laugh about it afterwards while waiting for the taxi.
But I might just organize myself a little pampering night in tonight, just to be on the safe side... And while I couldn't be bothered with make-up in the morning, I might just brush my hair tomorrow before our next adventure!

Home sweet home

We have pretty much settled in and the place is starting to feel like home.
I spent the first few days cleaning; First in the old flat, then in here and after that I went and cleaned up at the other workplace.
While scrubbing the cupboards here I thought about the big questions of life, like:

-Why would someone buy lots of little glasstables which aren't actually tables at all, but 'candleholders' ?
- Does anyone actually own that many candles?
-Who took the pairs of most of my socks during the move? Did the little guy who steals them from the washing machine expand their business to cover moves as well, or is it someone else?
-Why would anyone think the next person moving in is going to want their empty jars and bottlecap-collection?

I still haven't found the answers.
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Remember when I said we got a bit of sunshine?
Well, that little bit lasted for a week. So we've been basically living in the balcony.
The shops were sold out of charcoal and cheap sunblock, and there were thousands of barbeques across the country.
We had a little BBQ on Tuesday instead of a traditional housewarming.
Then on Friday we were invited over to AG's house for another one.
(Two BBQs in a week is quite wimpy; some dude we met said he had attended 5 during the sunny stretch)

Yummy... :)


I've also done something I never thought I'd do:
I've gone to the gym twice. My arms ache, my abs ache, my legs are stiff... but I feel so happy!
Now if I could just manage to keep the motivation up...