Seraphim's Journal of Muses

Template Tests In Progress

2007-11-04T01:34:51Z

Please ignore the mess, watch out for falling masonry, and come back later.

Returning to the fold

2007-10-21T09:40:50Z

Oh Wow.

Even after almost a year, my blog is still here. Even though I've been living under an internet-less rock, it still exists.All praise Webkittyn and her fantasticnessness. I hope she won't mind if I start using it again, now I've moved into my new place and have ze precious internet back....

But first, as always, the template needs a huge overhall and I need to archive some stuff and all sorts.

Well, here goes...

There really is a good reason for this.

2006-10-30T15:28:53Z

I haven't posted my competition winner yet - and this is the honest to goodness reason why. It's not 'I'm tired' or 'I have been lazy'. It is because I need my visa card to be able to pass their prize on to them - and a cash machine ate it on the weekend. Really it did - not just an excuse. It's a pain because I need that card to get to my money pretty regularly as I am currently paid on a weekly basis... and I have to wait for them to send me a new one. My bank did promise me it would arrive this week, so..... *fingers crossed*
Altogether very annoying; not least because it makes me twitch to think how much I rely on that little bit of plastic. Ugh.

I have a deep, dark confession.

2006-10-26T08:35:29Z

I am a murderer.

Well. Almost.

The woman who I share my office with drives me crazy. She treats her pot plant, Sid, with more concern and respect than she does me. I often feel like something that just crawled in from the swamp.
And so.
After one particularly nasty incident where after she left work for the day I was so angry I was almost in tears, my Hubby came to pick me up. I was so angry that as I was clearning up my stuff, I swung my arm out a little too far and knocked over a bottle of whiteboard cleaner. All over Sid. Hastily, Hubby and I cleaned it up.
But now Sid is dying.
And my collegue is so terribly disappointed over it. She asks every single day if I think Sid looks any better today. And I say perhaps he is perking up, after all. But he is not. He's simply shrivelling and going brown, despite her tender loving care.
And I just don't know what to say. I feel so guilty. I killed Sid.

Danish and Darkness

2006-10-24T08:28:34Z

I am at work and it is still dark. This must be wrong!! It's not even quite the end of October! It's bizarre, I'm now used to living in a country where 'winter' means the odd lightening storm, the odd sand storm, and a drop in temperature of a few degrees. But this is crazy! It's cold, and wet..... I missed it really, but I really had forgotten how dark England is over the winter. But the reason I am in at work hideously early is that I have a HUGE project to finish for today. Thus I treated myself to a danish on the way to work this morning - I didn't buy a coffee to go with it however. I have an aversion to buying coffee on the way to work. I mean, why?? It's so expensive and it's only five minutes away... plus I am perfectly capable of boiling a kettle myself and having a proper cup of tea, thank you very much. The nation seems to have forgotten how to operate a kettle, or coffee machine. Or even a microwave if they were incrediably desperate.
*sigh* oh, the world is gone mad I say.

Celebrations

2006-10-20T08:54:42Z

Hubby found a job, yesterday. Time for some celebratory.... what? Other than the obvious celebratory sex (do I over-share?) I thought we'd go out for a meal together. However, Hubby and I are pretty bad at picking restaurants. I can never think of anywhere, and he cares too little to have an opinion.
So in the end, our celebratory night turned out to be..... a trip to the supermarket to load up on kitchen-stock and buy a waste-paper bin for the study, and a snack in the supermarket cafe. How un-glamarous is that. But I'll tell you for nothing, my £3 mushroom stroganoff was great.

Another note which may lead to (minor) celebrations for some: I'll stop taking entries for my Blog-Naming competition next friday. I'll then announce the winner on the following monday. I still have two entries which are hard to choose between - one humorous and one reflective - but keep 'em coming and I may just change my mind.
Good luck, have a good week.

I have a dream...

2006-10-12T11:24:16Z

It might not be as ethical as Martin's, or be quite as tuneful as ABBA's, but I really do have a dream.

I have a dream of one day, owning my own business and working from home. Sounds pretty common and basic, huh? Well I guess I am a pretty common and basic person. I want to own a small internet based business so I can work from home all day and be able to look after my currently non-existant children and my hardworking Hubby.

However, I have a slightly smaller dream at the moment. That dream, is a washing machine. How absurd is that? I'm certainly not the stepford type, but I do really want a washing machine. I hate handwashing. Unfortunately, the price of a washing machine over here is double what my rent is. And my rent is a struggle by itself some months. I also can't afford to pay someone else to do my washing, as £15 per tiny load will bankrupt me pretty soon.

I have an even tinier dream, too. And that is for the goit who buys the milk at work to stop buying full fat. I like to have milk in my tea, sometimes. Only with English Breakfast tea, and even then not all the time, but I hate full fat milk in my tea. I hate scraping the oily film off the top. Bleugh. You see, I grew up in an area where my milk-man was my local farmer. And my milk arrived in a re-used plastic bottle with a bit of rag covering it, held with an elastic band. Proper, fresh, just outta the cow milk. The stuff that I get here in the city is so bland. The vegetables too: they never have any dirt on them. The meat tastes of chemicals, and it's tricky to find a brace of pheasant or nice piece of venison no matter how hard you try. Frozen meat is never good. Maybe I'm just a back-country snob. I'm just used to food that has some colour and taste. And air that smells of chicken poo and compost. So full fat, supermarket milk just doesn't cut it for me. At least get me some semi-skimmed.

That is my dream: a dirty bottle of semi-skimmed milk.

Playing catch up, and competition pimping.

2006-10-10T10:23:04Z

So, I haven't posted for a little while. I have been really busy with work, and fundraising, and decorating my new apartment. Also, Hubby has been sick so I have been a good girl and forcing him to eat soup and drink hot lemon while I massage Vaop-Rub into his chest and try to avoid the hacking phlegm and blood which flies around with such hardy infections. Aww, poor baby. Anways, today he seems to be feeling a lot better which is why I packed him off to pick up a table for me while I am at work. The luxuries of a house husband should not be scoffed at... if only mine had the slightest inkling of how to cook rice, we'd really be getting somewhere. He's wonderful, but really... I should stop asking him to give a hand in the kitchen.
Anyways, thanks to all those who submitted competition entries. My shock at how many came in was.... shocking. I never realised people actually read my drivel. Once my ego deflates and I can comfortably sit in my office chair again, I will pick a winner. I'll still take entries for another week or so, but at the moment I will say there is one entry that jumped out at me straight away, and another which has steadily grown on me.
So, go go go good people! You still have time, and huge thanks and personal-space-invading hugs to those who already entered!

I never did a competition before....

2006-09-28T10:02:00Z

I have a lack of inspiration.

I am really itching to start working on the new template I promised for this blog. But I just have no inspiration. Not an ounce. I can't get even the tiniest inkling of what I would like to do with the place.
I know I want something pretty; but not in a girly way. Something beautiful, graphical. But not in an 'in your face' way. Perhaps I could/should change the name of the blog to something a little more.... interesting.

And so.

It's not an official competition, but anyone who can suggest a name for the blog, which I like, I will use it - and award them with a nifty mystery prize. It aint amazing, but it is nifty. And it is a real prize, something you can look at and go 'oooh'.
There are a couple of tiny rules, so here we go:

1. All entries must be EMAILED to me at ' cookie-faerie@hotmail.com ' . Yes I know this is my junk mail account not my regular one, but I promise to read it.
2. All entries must be clean. And I don't mean well-polished.
3. You can enter as many times as you like with as many ideas as you like.... but please try and minimise the number of emails. Group them together.

Thats it! Use your imagination and be as wacky as you like! The title doesn't HAVE to have the word 'Seraphim' in it, though there is no reason why it can't. Good luck, readers. *hugs her tiny but precious readership and cackles insanely*

A grumble about the watchful eyes of a concerned husband!

2006-09-25T09:38:46Z

For some reason this morning, my significant other was fretting about my eating habits. Concerned that I don't eat often enough and that when I do eat it's only tiny portions. Personally I can't see where he is coming from on this, as, yes - I do often skip breakfast.... but its soon replaced by chocolate biscuits at work and a greasy take-away in the evening or a huge hearty meal cooked by myself.
I would like to lose a couple of lb perhaps, but I'm not bothered about it. If I had the inclination to get off my ass and go to the gym or go swimming, they'd drop off. But I'm too lazy so ha. I don't think there is an issue with my weight; I've never been huge - I'm around 5 feet 2 inches tall and a British size 8. I wear size five or six shoes and I have no idea what size my waist is, or really what I weigh. We don't even own any scales in my house.
Compared to Hubby I do look small. But thats just because he's 6 feet 3 inches or so, and (although slim) built like a bull.
But, he did make me think this morning. What right do we have to judge the weight of others? So what, I'm small. I'm not sick or anything, and past that why should anyone care? As long as I'm healthy and happy - other things are secondary at best.

The One with The Post before The Post

2006-09-21T09:01:28Z

I've been feeling under the weather for a couple of days with a cold, so I haven't updated... as I didn't want to just be depressing! But today I have much to look forward to. I have my office to myself today, and for a few more days until my new co-worker starts. I won't enjoy sharing the office, but she seems very nice and at least she doesn't drink anything from starbucks, so the office wont stink of that burned crap. She also makes good tea.... my boss doesn't seem to understand that there is a difference between strong tea, and tea without much milk. I like my tea really, really strong... but with quite a lot of milk or lemon. If its not right, i'd rather have earl grey or darjeeling. And herbal teas are never bad. But English breakfast MUST be made correctly! *british stiff-upper lip and all that, what-ho*
Also, hubby has been back for a week now, and I have never seen him this happy. He hasn't stopped smiling all week, it's wonderful to see. He's usually a very sombre person - not unaffectionate, he's a big softie for me, but people often see him as grumpy and unapproachable. He isn't, really. Luckily, having met him the way I did, I got to know his personality before anything else.
I get paid tomorrow! That is always good, especially when I am still searching for furniture in my new flat. Mostly it's ok now, but I don't have a table to stand my tea pot on *pouts*.
Later will come a hopefully more interesting post, an actual post, about something. I just don't know what, yet.

A small ramble on Racial Equality and Immigration.

2006-09-14T08:31:58Z

I have an issue in that whenever any English or Welsh person asks me my partners name, they eye me after the reply as if I had replied in complete gibberish. I am English, though I prefer to classify myself as Welsh (having spent more time there growing up than I did in England). My partner is Polish. I don't consider this to be a strange thing; we met over the internet when we both played MUD's together, (The Lands of Evermore and at one point ToD and Shadow Siege too.) and I have never really considered him being Polish as an issue - other than the obvious heavy accent and the slightly bemused way he views some English traditions..... and lets face it, who isn't bemused by those.
But some people do consider it an issue, and it angers me greatly. When they find out he is Polish as opposed to a middle-class, white, English businessman with a small grange or good family name - as I am 'supposed' to have... what with me being white, English, educated and 'well to do', they immediately categorise him as one of two things: Fruit Picker or Gold Digger. The 'Fruit Picker' one angers me the most. In England, we have the same problem with the Poles that American's have with, say, Mexicans. When idiot Tony Blair decided that EU freedom of movement laws were good for England, all hell broke loose. 600,000 Poles under 25 within the first 2 years of Poland joining the EU, and those are just the legal, fully registered people. The Polish authorities would probably give figures hundreds of thousands higher than that.
Now, personally, I don't have -that- much of an issue with this. As a generalisation, the Polish are hard working people. They come here, work like slaves for a pathetic, in-human, illegal wage, pay tax on it both here and in Poland, are treated by some people like degenerates just because they do the jobs that certain classes of English people consider to be 'beneath them'. They fail to take into account that if they sent all these people back home,the English Ecconomy would go into freefall. English people will not do these jobs; otherwise the Poles wouldn't have them in the first place. Sending these people back wouldn't be a cure for unemployment, because no English person would work for the wage these jobs offer. In my opinion, if the Poles carry on working and boosting the economy in the positive way they have so far, why -should- they go?
Anyway. I am getting, in the heat of the moment, off track.
The 'Fruit Picker' label. Many people assume that this means my partner will 'change his mind' soon and go back to Poland, having made himself a nice stack of money to take home to a 'real' partner - not an English whore. It is not the suggested attitude of the Poles that gets to me here, it is the fanatical English assumption that every country, every person, must be like them. In the past two years, I have met more Poles that I would call 'gentlemen' than I have met English ones in a lifetime.
The 'Gold Digger' label is just as infuriating. People always ask if he works, if I provide for him. Or if he's just another Pole come over here to work his way in to an English family, so he wont have to worry about finances again. That never looks at English people, just English peoples wallets. I am at a loss for words on this one. It is possibly one of the rudest and most incorrect assumptions people could make.
My partner is nothing like either of these labels. He is smart, hard-working, funny and cares for me very well. I don't care if he's Polish, or English, or any other nationality you can think of. If he was a martian, and still made me this happy, I wouldn't care. It's being loved that matters, not the 'label' of the person who gives it. I pray that now, having much bigger internal issues to think about, the English will begin to appreciate the Poles for the hard work they do.

A Tribute to Danielle Delie

2006-09-11T09:01:43Z

When I originally signed up for the 2,996 tribute, wondered for a while what I would write. I also had some concerns about getting it done at the correct time due to my working hours and non-american timezone. But I decided to go for it anyway - and this is why.
It doesn't matter where you are, when human tragedy strikes. It doesn't matter what you say, or when you say it - as long as you remember. It may not be the correct time for you, reader, in your country. But the events that happened on that day 5 years ago affect the people who were involved, and many more, every day. Not just one day a year. People have to live without loved ones they lost, with injuries they recieved, or with memories they must relive vividly for the rest of their lives. They do this every day.... so one day of my time, given in thought and rememberance, is nothing.

I found very little information about the person I am remembering here today. But I did find this: Her name was Danielle Delie. She was a warm, delightful individual who was working within the world trade center building as a management consultant - she was obviously an intelligent woman. She was one of the many international victims, of french origin, who died that day. At 47, she was still young, and her smile suggests to me a youthful, adventurous personality.

She probably woke up and went to work, expecting a day like any other. She could never have known what was to befall her, her collegues and indeed all of the world that day. I imagine she smiled and laughed like any other day. Maybe drank a coffee or tea, spoke to a friend or loved one, unaware that she would never see them again. I remember watching the footage of the trade center bombings on my TV in England. I wonder now, if Danielle Delie was one of those I saw - fighting their fate with courage, or accepting it with quiet dignity that I know I would not have had. I like to think she was one of those people; a beautiful woman with much to live for, who will be remembered by many - not least by me.

The eerily fateful thing about this exercise of rememberance, for me, was this: When I signed up for the 2,996 tribute a name was chosen for me at random - that of the beautiful frenchwoman Danielle Delie. In real life, I answer to the same name, also of french origin. To me it was a somber reminder that these people's lives and memories should be carried on and celebrated, for as long as these people are remembered, the unwilling sacrifice they made that day to open the worlds eyes to the global threat of terrorism, will not have been fruitless.

Postman Pat - The R18 Version?

2006-09-08T15:00:33Z

Postman Pat, Postman Pat, Postman Pat and his black and white..... Instrument of torture? Kidnapping sack?

That's not quite the lovable theme tune to the lovable british childrens program I was used to hearing when I was a kid. But yet, for the past 2 days I have been harrased by a creepy postman nicknamed Pat.
I won't go into details here as their has been an official complaint made by my boss against this man - as he came to my work place as part of his creepy stalker spree, but it was more than a little un-nerving.
24 hours off and a large meat pizza I think.
Yeuch.

A little healthy fret never harmed anyone.....

2006-09-05T16:33:05Z

I'm exhausted of waiting. I have been waiting for Hubby for too long. He doesn't arrive in the country until the 13th of September, but I haven't seen him for months now and I just miss him to the point of insanity. So I am trying to amuse myself tonight by inviting around a couple of friends for chinese food and movies. Ho hum. I barely have enough furniture to entertain with, but there we go.
My parents have been staying with me a month, also. As much as I love them, in a way, I can't wait to get rid of them. They both drive me crazy after only a few hours with them, never mind weeks.
Ahhh well. It will all be over soon - and I'm sure I'll then find something else to fret over!