The garden man (a.k.a. the parish vicar) was more than happy to hand his vegetable patch over to us ruffians. This time next year it'll be sprouts on sticks all round. You have been warned!

Off to see a man about a veg patch.

Well, it snowed today, but sadly not heavily enough to stick. It didn't stop a man reversing his car into my (parked) car. Luckily he was driving o-h-s-o-s-l-o-w-l-y, there's no noticeable damage, and I was standing on the pavement next to the car chatting to my head of department when it happened. I tapped on his window and said, "Excuse me sir, I think you've just reversed into my car." He replied, "Surely not - I just went back until I hit the curb." Given that his car was a) a good foot away from the curb; and b) resting with its back bumber against my front bumper, he could do little other than apologise. Doddery old drivers!

In other news, we think that we've got a vegetable garden to look after. We've been on the hunt for an allotment for a while, but there's a waiting list as long as My Cat's girth, and we stand no chance moving up the queue - I've only lived in the village for five years, so I'm still a wet behind the ears interloper. The vicar, however, prostitutes out his veg patch to anyone willing to dig it and pay him a tithe in vegetables. Rob is already planning vegetable rotation systems; I'm thinking that it may be time to add gardening tools to our Christmas and wedding list. At the moment, the most spade-like implement we own is a tablespoon... there's a bit of catching up to do in the digging department, methinks!

Bad, naughty Emuss. Have been playing along with a nice-sounding man who phoned to ask if I wanted health insurance. I even asked about underwriters, and made encouraging sounds while he desparately persuaded me to hand over my bank details. It's a shame he put so much effort into such a lost cause. Mua-ha-ha!!!

In other news, I have been offered a place on a GOLD trip to South Africa next summer. I'm VERY excited. Now all I have to do is raise the dosh...

The worst week in the whole history of bad weeks has finally drawn to a close. Things all went a bit belly-up for a while at school, including a weekend in which I got about 5 hours off; the loss of my self-appraisal form; and failing to complete over 70 internal reports by the deadline, just by thinking that Thursday was Wednesday. To say that it was fraught is a little bit of an understatement. Now, though, it's finished, hopefully never to return.

There were good moments of last week, including the House charity dinner, where I got to take more photos than is possibly healthy. I only hope my dad isn't right when he says that digi-cameras are only able to take a certain number of shots before they break: Rob and I have mananged hundreds already. Rob's photos are far better than mine, especially this one and this one. Even so, I'm still pleased with these shots from the house dinner:



I know that the background isn't great, but I just love the expression on her face.



Some of the band, including Richard's wig!

Please stop the world, I want to get off.

Ebay parcelly goodness day! My postman must hate me! :-)

Digi-photos spew forth relentlessly: so far I've taken 103, of which the grand total of five are worth even thinking about keeping. My cat is now looking like this when I go near her:



That's one mightly unimpressed cat.

Things have been busy here, so alopogies to Charl who has been trying to avoid writing essays but has had no new bloggage to distract her. The last week has consisted of school, marking, socialising, co-cooking a mighty fine roast lunch, and discovering ebay.

I've lurked through ebay occasionally, but have never picked up the nerve to hit the Bid Now button. The impending nuptuals (tee hee!) have, however, necessitated a bit of camera-buying-goodness. There were a few moments of nail-biting worry as I faffed about with bank verification, but the sale went through without a hitch and the camera arrived yesterday afternoon. I speed-read the manual last night and took about a bazillion pictures of My Cat to try out the different functions. It was all hampered a bit by not knowing what an aperture was, and having no clue about shutter speeds, but a quick session this afternoon with one of the art teachers has helped a lot. The cat, however, keeps running away when I get the camera out, so I think I'd best find a new subject. Luckily Rob's home from work soon.

The worst thing about buying the camera is that I am now hooked on ebay which is BAD and they take the money straight out my bank account which is BAD but there's all sorts of random things for sale which is GOOD and I've already bought a new jug that matches our plates which is GOOD. Overall, the goods and bads seem to balance themselves out, so I won't stop using it just yet. As an economist might say, I'm indifferent, but since when has indifference stopped something so pleasurable? After all, I nearly bought an aga over the weekend, and was outbid at the last minute today on a Sultans of Ping CD.... who knows what crap I might have accumulated by the time I get hitched?!