"High on a hill lived...

...Lady and Mr Librarian, Lay-ee ode-lay-ee ode-lay hee-hoooooooo"

I'm sure that's what Julie Andrews meant to sing. We seem to attract hills. Every house we've ever lived in together has been right at the top or right at the bottom of a steep old hill, meaning that at least once a day at we've had to walk up the blasted thing.

We're moving to Norwich, and Norfolk is a county that is known for being flat. On the way there you can see for miles and miles across endless fields and huge big skies. And yet we've still managed to find a house on top of a hill. When we went to view it the first time, I thought I was going to die walking up the damn thing (I was very hungover, we had to stop halfway up). The second time, a lady in the street smiled at us and said "it's much better going down" or some other such pleasantry. This time I nearly did die - of shock. I wanted to shout after her "we live in London, please don''t speak to us in the street unless you're going to mug us. It confuses us".

Anyway, it's worth the trek to the top of the hill, we have the most amazing view of the cathedral, city and miles and miles around. And even better than that - we will be living in a house (a house!) with three bedrooms (three!) and a downstairs loo (like the Queen!). It's a good job we've got the downstairs loo, I'm not sure I'll be able to make it up the stairs after tackling that hill...

Tickets please!

Do you know who I won't miss when we leave London? The miserable man who works in the ticket office at our local station, that's who. Heaven forbid that man should actually speak to you, he has now added throwing your change at you to his repertoire. He doesn't do it quite so well as he does reading his paper and ignoring you - he dropped 5p of my change on the floor as he was hurling it towards me, amature - but I'm sure with all the practice he'll be getting, he'll have it perfected soon.

Leaving London. Part Two.

The last time we left London we went on an 8 month round the world trip. Vowing never to set foot in the Big Smoke again, after the final flight home we lasted two months with my parents before we panicked that our friends would forget us, and we came back. Three years later, we are older, wiser (we now know that our friends will visit us. Promise them fresh air and cake and these people will do anything) and moving the hell out again.

I have a new, fantastic job, working for the brand spanking new University Campus Suffolk and we're going to be living in Norwich (insert Alan Partridge joke here). Both Mr L and I are super excited, and despite my pleas for him not to pack everything up just yet, I came home tonight to a half empty kitchen. I have no idea where our coffee machine is, but I suspect it's in a box somewhere...

So, seven weeks today I will be closing my present library up for the last time. I'll be very sad to leave my job, after a rough-ish start I've grown to really love the library, my colleagues and the library members. Even the consultant who has more questions than the Spanish Inquisition. And after I've locked up the library, I'll head into town to the Knight's Templar where we held our last farewell, and as I'm downing my pitchers of Long Island Iced Tea (thanks Booky B) I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that this time we can stay away for good.

Or at least until December 12th when I see the Manics in Brixton.

Parklife

One of the worst things about living in London is the lack of your own garden, or any outside space. My mum spent the first two years of us living here in an almost constant attempt to buy us a tumble dryer, as the lack of outside drying space for our wet clotehes was giving her sleepless nights. Never mind the fact that our flat at this time was so small a tumble dryer would have taken up the entire kitchen space...

But the lack of garden really comes into it's own when the sun comes out, and you have to walk for thirty minutes to the local park, just to be able to sit outside. I did this on Saturday whilst Mr L had a trip to the library (the closed library. By the way, library, putting the fact that you are closed on a Saturday on your website the follwoing Monday doesn't really count as advanced notice, does it?).

I lasted about an hour and a half in the park, before the general public drove me away. I'd taken my radio, and the batteries died, so all I had to listen to was the Gatwick flight path and other people's conversations. The park was pretty empty, and yet a family still managed to come and sit right by me, in all that empty space....Anyway, the little girl of the family had the same name as me. Now, my name isn't that popular, so when I hear it called, my ears always prick up. And to my credit, I sat through "Abby: "sit down", "don't do that", "come here", "would you like a cheese sandwich?", "would you like a chicken wing?", "would you like a ham sandwich?". Listen Park Mum, all that your poor Abby wanted was a bit of peace and quiet.

The final straw came when looking round the park (in a rare moment of non-Abby bossing) Park Mum declared in a very loud voice "Ah! This must be what people did before television was invented!".

I was home in thirty minutes flat.

Black umbrella, Navy baseball cap, Hard-back A4 lined notebook

Surgical technique A4 booklet (nail PTN system)
Blue envelope file containing printed documents
Hard-back A4 book ‘HGV Man Manual’
Banner shorthand notebook
BMT Careers A4 notepad
Paper-back book ‘The Practical House Officer’
A black and white grey dotted tie
A pair of sunglasses
A green book mark
A small blue ring note book
A CD ‘Kings College London Risk assessment and management of violence…’
Pressure Area Management Guide (leaflet)
Pressure Ulcer Classification (Information sheet and activity sheet)
Booklet titled ‘A Guide to Wound Dressing’
Booklet titled ‘Grey Matter’
Phone chip
BVNA key ring
Ring with a red flower on the front
Pink comb
Cream hairclip
Vesicare post-it pad
Blank patient info table with sticky labels
A4 notice ‘Changes to Recruitment’
Gold USB stick
CD
Grey hooded zip-up tracksuit top
Cream and brown subtle patterned scarf
Burgundy glasses case
Brown glasses case containing a small blue biro pen
A4 ring bound ruled plastic-backed notebook
Dutch to English dictionary
Double aerial device
Brown-green baseball cap
Dark grey printed ladies umbrella
One pair of black woollen gloves
One pair of navy woollen gloves
TV hits magazine
Pink novelty plastic backed notebook
Lilac ring-bound ruled notebook
Parts of the printout of an essay
Blue Nokia phone
Grey 2007 A5 diary
Green H+M jacket.

This is what we have in our lost property box in the library. And no, I have no idea why somebody would bring, and then leave, a tv ariel in the library.

I don't even know where to start on this one

The "logo" for the 2012 Olympics.

Make it go away!

You Love Us

Last night I went to see the Manics. A. Mazing. That's what they were. We were super close to the front and somehow I managed to end up standing behind a girl the same height as me, so I could see! I kept forgetting that I could actually see the stage and found myself standing in my usual gig position, where I look roughly 10ft above the band as that's all I can see. I had a lovely unobstructed view of James, as usual all I could see of Sean was his arms, and I was probably a bit too close to Nicky, got to see a fair amount of his undies once he donned his super short mini skirt.

What I have never, and will never get, are people who go to gigs to talk through the band. Tickets weren't cheap for last nights gig, so why would you fork out £26 and then just chat, in a LOUD voice all the way through it? Why?! Surely it's cheaper to stay at home, or go to the pub? What made this even more annoying was at the beginning of every song they said, loudly, something along the lines of "I f'ing LOVE this song" or, in the case of an acoustic number "this song is just beautiful" and then chatted away merrily all the way through it. I did say to them at one point, after an "I f'ing LOVE this song" "well why don't you shut the f up then?" but they were so busy talking they didn't hear me!