Windchaser

My little part of the country survived with thankfully little damage; mostly fence panels down, a few bent TV aerials, and the ground covered in lots of leaves and bits of stick. I noticed a whole tree snapped off at its base just off Lindbergh Road, and some branches down (there's a gaping hole in one of the old hawthorns up Bixley Road), but that was pretty much it.

At least I still had electricity when I got home, in spite of what the power company said, which is more than some of my colleagues had (and their power is still off this morning, eek. You'd have to go to work just for a cup of tea!).

Storm damage
1987 vs 2013
Photos on Suffolk iwitness
Photos on the BBC

...now I know my flat survived, I can get back to plotting. ¬_¬ (Only 3 days to go, eek.)

Woke up this morning to such gloom outside, I thought I'd woken up at 4am (again). Turns out it was actually just fog - I noticed it coming down at midnight, and it was still thick when I set out for work, to such a degree that I had to take my glasses OFF to see where I was going, as they'd misted over. ("Why can't I see where I'm go-... ohhh.") At first, I thought it was just my breath condensing on them, until it stopped clearing away.

I wonder how long it'll take to lift, today - last time it was this foggy, it just... stayed foggy, all day. (Reminds me, I must take some hand towels out when I cycle home, because Whites is guaranteed to be all condensation'ed up again.)

And here's optimism for you:
Suffolk: Reward offered for return of lost cash - News - East Anglian Daily Times
"If you give me back the envelope full of cash I lost, I'll give you £300."
I know I'd hand it in (I'd feel far too guilty not to, to start with), but I wonder how many people would just... keep the envelope instead? (As there must be more money in it than the reward is for.) Especially given the current financial climate, which still doesn't seem to be getting any better.

When I worked in the Co-op, years ago, we found a purse (I think a customer had dropped it outside the shop, too, not left it inside) absolutely stuffed full of money. (There must have been a couple of hundred pounds in there.) We put it in the shop safe, and were about to take it to the police station when the lady finally retraced her steps back to us and picked it up. I think she'd just picked her benefit up from the Post Office, so it was all her money for the whole week.

Another week halfway gone by... This week, I'm in “Stores and Distribution”, which basically means “small warehouse”. Parts are fun – like being able to skive off in the IV store and listen to the radio on the pretence of getting IV-bags and sip feeds. Other parts are just doing my nut in, like when 4pm rolls around and the work dries up, as it has done for the past two days.

I'm anticipating handbags at dawn in the department very soon – it's not Star Wars, it's Staff-Christmas-Meal Wars. :P One of the ladies on the department had got a meal arranged, and there was very little interest in it (of the “£20 for a meal? You must be joking!” sort) so she un-arranged it, and was going to do a sort of buffet thing instead, got the venue sorted and what have you... Went on holiday, and came back to find out that another one of her colleagues had gone ahead and arranged another meal, this one being a full four course meal (if you count the coffee) and blah blah, AND more expensive, and she's sold out already. So needless to say, her “rival” (the original meal organiser) has put up some very snide “contrary to popular belief, the ORIGINAL STAFF CHRISTMAS MEAL is still going ahead, and the price is STILL VERY REASONABLE” posters. I think we'll be keeping well out of the way, for now...

ANYWAY.

My birthday was on Monday just gone, and that was pretty cool, for once – very often I've had my birthday when I've either been home from Uni and with no way to get to my Uni friends, or else (like last year) I stayed in Bath to work and all my friends had gone home for summer (humbug). Even though I had to work it was a good day – four of us went down into town after work, went for a meal at Old Orleans (which was very nice even if they did overcook the steak. I knew I should have gone for the chicken) then on to the cinema, just in time to catch the day's last showing of “I, Robot”. And I think I'm probably horribly biased, given my pre-existing love of robots and their kin, but I loved that film. :) Fell in love with Sonny, he was THE greatest, EVAR. *nods* ;)

There were some little weirdnesses on the way home, though – we drove past a church, just on the way home, when it had got dark and traffic was slowing and what have you, and there were some REALLY bright lights flashing inside – like there was a little self-contained lightning storm going on inside. It was bizarre – aside from the fact it was 11pm, I doubt it was to do with a service... ;)

We had a mad thunderstorm last night too – middle of the night, got woken up by the rain hammering on my window, then there was a flash of lightning, and I (in my still-mostly-dreaming state) thought “oo flash I wonder if that means thunder and lightning”, and of course along can a clap of thunder so loud it must have been right above us, very nearly. If I'd been more awake I'd probably have gone to look out of the window and watch it, but as I was still more asleep than I was awake I just thought “maybe I should stop that download and turn the PC off as I don't want it to blow up zzzz” even though the computer had been off since about 8pm.
They say that the storms are from the last little bits of that hurricane that was busy taking Florida apart a few days ago – and yeah, the weather is pretty mad, like that flood just gone in Cornwall.

My hepatitis jab is paining me now. :( Occupational Health said I had to go in to have any boosters/immunisations I hadn't had, and this was one of them – normally I'm all right with injections (so long as I don't have to look) but this one hurt. I keep on expecting to be able to feel a little bubble of liquid in my arm where they injected it (as it goes into the muscle). Although it probably didn't help that I walked into a doorframe on the way out of the IV store today (*grs*). And my knee is still playing up – saw the physio on Friday, who said it was probably nothing more important than a muscle strain, but that doesn't stop it being annoying – every time I crouch to pick things up off the shelves, it aggravates it, and I've only just had my manual handling training so I have no excuse for putting my back out for not lifting properly. *gr* And now my elbow hurts *ows* So basically, I'm coming to the conclusion I'm falling to pieces. :P

There. I done ranting now, off to eak Nik-Naks.