Someone reminded me it was only 8 weeks until Christmas and that got me panicking a bit! I always concentrate on my nephews and niece first, then after that I’m free to start on the adults. I bought some more stuff today and will just keeping getting a few things each week. I’m deffo not a last minute shopper!

I’m not sure what’s going to happen this year because of recent family events but hopefully we’ll still see plenty of the kids. It feels kind of strange not being able to talk to my sister-in-law about the kids’ presents and having to relay everything through my brother. I still feel like she’s betrayed us all and I get really angry when I think about how she’s split up a beautiful family but I can’t bring myself to hate her. I am disappointed in her more than anything and it hurts to think that she is no longer part of our family by her choice. It will be a very long time before my parents forgive her - if ever.

HAPPY SAMHAIN!!!

My broadband speed was increased from 1MB to 4MB today for free! This is the third free increase I’ve had from Telewest since converting over a couple years ago. I really didn’t notice any difference at first but then I guess you have to make allowances for slow servers as well. I really noticed the difference though when I visited some forums - they just zip across the screen like magic. The upload rate has been increased too but I won’t know the difference until I mess around with some sites and try to load larger files. So far, the download speed remains uncapped but I don’t really download large files these days. As long as I’m on the net, I’m happy.

We’ve had really heavy rain the last two days and yesterday it was so dark the whole day. It means I’ve been suffering from constant headaches too which is not nice but there’s not a lot I can do about that. The clocks go back next week and that means it’s going to be even darker when I get up for work and I’m already having a tough time. I don’t need an alarm clock to wake me up because I always wake up naturally anyway and some ppl at work seem to think that is really wierd. *shrugs* I dunno, I guess I’m in a routine and I’ve always been a light sleeper. It takes me ages to fall asleep though and I really envy those ppl who fall asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow.

Anyway, I need to have an early night because I’m due in court tomorrow. LOL! It’s not as bad as it sounds - it’s actually work related and I get to see what they do. Next month, it’s the big court in Edinburgh which is really old and our “head office” if you like. I’m not going to go into details of what I actually do because there is only one office of its kind in the whole of Scotland and it would be dead easy to track me down. Paranoid much!

I fell in love with this layout as soon as I saw it at endless-light.com; it suits the mood I am in so perfectly, I just had to use it. As for the site, I’ve removed a few things, tidied up some other stuff but I really don’t think I’ll be adding much to the content here, other than updating the blog. I’m just too busy with my other sites and I’m currently building a First Wave archive.

Isn’t it just typical though when you are messing about with a layout and everything is a mess, either your server goes down in the middle of everything or something else goes wrong? In this case, gravatar.com seems to be down and it is slowing down my comments page. It doesn’t look too bad at the moment but I need to sort the boxes around the comments. I’m actually wondering if gravatars are worth the bother.

How are you supposed to feel when someone you’ve been married to for over ten years suddenly decides they no longer want to be with you? Not only that they move out with your kids, take everything in the house and leave you homeless?

That’s just happened to someone very close to me. I’m angry, sad and very upset because the guilty party was accepted as a member of our family and she was given everything she ever wanted by her husband. He’s a good father and he was a good husband. He didn’t deserve to be thrown away like yesterday’s garbage just because someone suddenly got bored being married. But he’ll be alright because blood really is thicker than water and families always stick together. We’ll take care of him and help him pick up the pieces of his shattered life and maybe, one day, he’ll realise he’s better of without the deceitful cow.

I just booked tickets to see Bon Jovi at Hampden in Glasgow next year and I’m so excited. I’ve been wanting to see them for ages and finally decided to go ahead. The ticket prices are so ridiculous these days but they are going to be so worth it!

As I said before, I went to the Mitchell Library in Glasgow today as my aunt was doing some research and wanted to look at the newspaper archives. We knew we had to get off the train at Queen St and then use the underground to get to St Georges Cross - the nearest to the Library. This is the first time I’ve ever used the Glasgow Underground and I felt like such a country hick on her first visit to the Big City. LOL! The underground in Glasgow is nowhere near as big as the one in London and there are only two lines - the outer and the inner - which travel round in a circle. We managed okay but I certainly wouldn’t like to use them at night by myself. *shudders*

Anyway, the Mitchell Library was huge and the building is so impressive! We made our way to the Archives and the staff were so helpful but we didn’t really find out anything useful in the end. They have a big family research centre as well but as I explained to my aunt, you really have to be organised when you visit a place like that and know exactly what it is you are trying to find otherwise it is just way too confusing. At least I know where it is now if I ever need to get to it again. No offence to anyone from Edinburgh, but I always find that the people in Glasgow are more friendly and they just can’t do enough to help you. I think the folks in Edinburgh are much more aloof which is a shame since it is our capital and they are probably the first Scots a lot of tourists meet. I’m proud of my Glasgow roots, although I have just discovered an Edinburgh connection now too.

After we’d had enough of the newspaper reels (which really do make you feel seasick btw) we decided we’d just head back to the city centre since we had already passed Sauchiehall St and knew it lead back into the city. After walking a couple of miles, we still weren’t near the shops and we were kinda thinking to ourselves that the street was a lot longer than we thought! Turns out we were heading along it the wrong way! I’m very directionally challenged and of course when we stopped to ask someone for help, he laughed and said we were about three miles out of the centre. It wasn’t all that bad though - there was an underground station nearby so we just jumped back on that and headed back into the city. See? You can be clueless tourists even in your own country! It was quite funny though and we certainly got to see some parts of Glasgow we’d never seen before and now I know where Partick is, although I’ll probably never need to go there again!

I’m definitely not a big city girl though and I’ll stick to my boring little town life.