Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

So it was my birthday the day before yesterday now. It happened to coincide with Good Friday this year. Since Easter varies every year about half of my birthdays have been during some point in the Easter holidays and half of the time they haven't. I'm 25 now. Scary. And no. I'm not writing this to publically announce my birthday and be expecting tons of messages saying happy birthday. I'm just making a statement, because if I don't state it then I can't tell you what happened.

So. Over the last week mum's been saying that I need to be getting to bed earlier because we're going out for my birthday and I can't be getting up at 3 and getting out at 6 because it'd be closed by then. I had no idea where she was planning to take me which got me a little worried.

Based on the limited information I had I tried to work out where it could be based on the usual places. I wanted to be prepared in case one of those places was where we'd be going. Turns out I didn't need to worry about that. Although I tried not to build up an expectations in case I was disappointed it's hard not to let your imagination go a bit crazy.

Mum went out on the Thursday to pay the water bill and came back quite late. I barely noticed because I was making a birthday card for April 1st that had to be posted that day due to the bank holiday weekend.

I finished the card and mum came back shortly after. I was quite excited to see her so I could show her my card and the dog was excited to and I waited in the hall to see her make a fuss of the dog when she came in and tell her about the card.

She was a little unhappy, with having had to wait so long at the bank and all and carrying a large box that I hadn't expected so she greeted me with oh sod off. That made me more than a little unhappy but I know why, he box had my birthday present, this isn't the first time something like this has happened, although I was still a little unhappy about it I knew I shouldn't hold a grudge because she just wanted my present to be a surprise. She went up and hid it in her room, then filled out the card and posted it. She has to fill in the cards because her writing's neater than mine.

I had a bath quite late. It took me about half an hour to fill it with enough hot water from the kettle (SOMEONE put in a heating element that was too short last time he fixed the water heater so it gets cold so quickly and takes so long to warm back up again) then once I was in and settled down the water heater made such a noise that I was scared it would explode so I jumped out of the bath (almost literally but not quite, jumping out of a full bath could be dangerous) and when I was reassured that it was safe I got back in. I had to wait for the water to warm up again before I could wash my hair. Then half way through the pressure in the shower dropped so I could only wash my hair once. My hair's very long now so it tends to need more than one go.

Once I was out of the bath it took too long for my hair to dry so I ended up going to bed nearer to 6am.
Mum went up not long before me. I don't know if I actually got any sleep, I know mum only got about half an hour.

Because at about 8:30am ish I was woken by knocking on the door and the dog whining. After quite a few knocks she barked. I knew it was Napoleon and I wondered why mum hadn't gotten up, she's normally up before me in these situations......although now I think about it the first time Yui barked when he knocked on the door she was asleep. It was very early and I was worried she'd annoy the neighbours. I'd called down to her not to bark as I got up then after I'd opened the door I came back up to get mum. She hadn't heard the knocking or the whining but she'd heard me call to Yui.

Well. This time was pretty similar except mum was completely asleep. I wondered why Napoleon didn't just open the door himself. He has keys. It's because mum leaves the catch on at night in case the dog manages to work the doorknob while we're asleep and escapes (they're smart like that). Usually when Napoleon comes round she just locks the door from the inside (it's just that the catch is easier that finding your keys every night) so he doesn't need us to open it. She forgot to do that this time.

So I went down, let him in then came up to get mum. She was completely asleep and had only been so for about half an hour it turns out.

She'd planned to get up earlier to set things up (like I usually do for such events) but, well, half an hour's sleep. So she put up the happy birthday banner when we were all downstairs.

She presented me with the huge box, wrapped in two kinds of Christmas paper because she didn't have any birthday paper big enough. We also gave Napoleon his birthday things from a week ago. I guess he figured it'd keep until my birthday so he didn't have to come down 2 weeks running. He was baffled by the Danger Mouse t-shirt but liked the Spurs stuff (the shirt we got him and the leftovers I didn't use for my cousin)

I had 4 cards to open. 3 were teddy bear themed which matched the teddy bear eared dressing gown mum got me for Christmas (I wear it most mornings, it's so snug) and Napoleon's one was surprisingly girly for him and was a plate of cupcakes, breaking the bear theme. (I got one today from my uncle, his brother, it's a kitten wearing a pearl necklace). Mum had also gotten me 2 smaller gifts. I knew what they would be. 2 new manga books.

Since Bleach is done now and she can't remember what else I have a collection of sometimes she gets a completely new book without actually checking the content. This is how I got started on Blackbird and Vampire doll. Although never explicit they can contain some naughty and or suggestive scenes that she doesn't know about, more ecchi than hentai, however I do become embarrassed reading such things when other people are around, who may casually glance over my shoulder and see what I'm reading.

Eventually I got round to opening the big thing. Napoleon told me that they'd gone halves on it which worried me further. It would probably be expensive.

It was.....

A telescope, for stargazing.

That was certainly a big surprise.

Napoleon helped me set it up but I could only zoom in on the branches outside, what with it being daylight and all. Then he left and we had to get ready to go out.

I had the good sense to check for closures on the underground, because things are always shut on weekends, even bank holiday ones. Good thing I did because there were closures on the route mum was planning to take.

We did quite a bit of extra walking because mum decided to take the over ground route but hadn't checked for over ground closures, just underground. So we waited there a bit and when we found out there were delays and closures we walked to a nearby underground station. There was some train hopping and once we got to our destination even more walking.

We ended up in Greenwich park and the destination was the observatory.

I must point out that although it's spelt Greenwich the actual pronunciation is gren-itch not green-witch. I noticed this as we were leaving when a woman, for whom English was clearly not a first language, although I couldn't guess her first, and she was talking on her phone saying she was at green-witch then repeated it because clearly the person she was talking to either couldn't hear her or didn't understand her.

Greenwich park is huge. Yui would love it there. We got a bit lost looking for the observatory and I couldn't help, seeing as I didn't know where we were going until we got there. We looked at the exhibits and played with some of the interactive ones. We saw a show that was about aliens, We thought it would be kind of like the things we've seen before for some reason, where they have the constellations projected on the ceiling. But no, this was a short film about finding alien life and it was quite intensive, were I of just a slightly weaker stomach I would've got motion sickness. It was pretty fun.

We had a spot of lunch before the show, but I only had time to eat one of my sandwiches, the ohter was squished in my bag until about 3am when I found and ate it after giving a little of the cheese to the dog (it was cheese and pickle).

I went a tad mad in the gift shops.
I got some very cute things. I got a box of 100 things to look for in the sky, it would help us with looking for things with the telescope. I also got this really cool collapsing ball, it's so cute and oddly addictive.

I've always loved things like that. When I was little I used to play with something similar which was actually some kind of hair grip that was collapsible but I mostly used it as a pretend bracelet for my toys or as a pretend crown when it was opened out.

I got a kaleidoscope, they're such fun. I used to play with one a lot when I was little. I thought something like that would be a fun gift for Chi and Usa. I might even give it to them when they're a little older, but for now it's all mine to play with. It's so simple but somehow so mystical at the same time.

I got a little hour glass. Again simple but somehow mystical. I've admired them for years. At primary school we had 2 for maths, one with red and one with yellow sand and they had different times although they were exactly the same size, I think one was 10 and the other was 15 minutes. They were only used for about 1 lesson. This little one I got is a 3 minute timer, I timed it when we got home.

It's the kind of thing I would expect to have found at my Granddad's. He didn't have one but it evokes that kind of feeling in me. My Granddad used to have some interesting things when I was little, the most interesting being Rich Tea biscuits. Somehow like a Digestive but less crumbly with a different taste. Some people don't like Rich Teas but they always remind me of my Granddad. We never had them at home, we had Digestives instead.

I got a mini multi tool in case of emergency. Actually less impressive that I'd imagined but hopefully useful should a zombie apocalypse occur, or any apocalypse really.

I got a cute mini alarm clock. I imagined it would ring it's bell but that was plastic. It actually emits the digital tone you get in the cheaper clocks but I still think it'll be good.

I also got a really cute mini telescope key ring, mum got one too, it actually works to a limited degree (the limitation being because it's so small.)

I also got this really cool little puzzle. It's a tiny 40 piece puzzle and I thought it would be fun to keep on my desk or out and about to do when I get bored. It's actually so much cooler than I thought. It's made by a company called Wentworth and it's actually a chunky little wooden puzzle with some funny shapes. It has a wreath, a tree, a Santa, a bird and a moose.....although judging by the Christmas themed things in there maybe it's a reindeer and not a moose. Moose is more fun to say though. It's quite a challenge.

We came home and I had a snooze so the dog went out quite late. While I was out mum set up my birthday cake to surprise me when I got back. She had trouble fitting 25 candles on it and it was very bright. The chocolate decorations on the top got quite melted from the heat of it all.

So. That was my birthday. It was a pretty good day.

In other news.

We're going to my aunt's tomorrow....well, today now. I've been making cake pops. Actually I was making them 2 days before my birthday and they've been in the fridge since, drying out. There are yellow round ones meant to look like chicks and more egg shaped ones that I haven't covered yet that are meant to be Easter eggs.

I stayed in bed until about 6pm today, having gone to bed at 6am.

It was a clear sky tonight so I did a little star hunting in my room after walking the dog. I cleaned the window especially. It was filthy. I actually started getting quite frustrated because I couldn't focus on any stars. They weren't super bright or anything so it was hard to find them with the telescope. I was struggling for about an hour. I tried to focus on a bright one but lining it up with the finder scope didn't align it perfectly to the telescope itself so I had to do quite a bit of hunting when I was in the right region. Also there were trees in the way which didn't help. Eventually I got a good look at it and I was so happy.

My first reaction was I caught a star. It was a red one. I called mum but she didn't respond. she was asleep I think.. I didn't want to shout too loudly because it was 12:30am and I might disturb the neighbours. So I had to go down and get her and by the time she came up I'd lost the red star and couldn't seem to focus on it again. But we found some other stars in that region that we couldn't see with the naked eye. One of them was quite bright, not as bright as the red one though, and was blue. I was super happy.

I didn't know this until earlier this year when the BBC had a thing on about space for a while, where people could go online and analyse pictures from the surface of Mars, you had to highlight any odd patches of shadow that could indicate things like the presence of water, with so many people surveying it the scientists seemed quite pleased with the data. (I thought of trying it but didn't like the responsibility so I didn't). Anyway. At one point they told us that some stars have a red tint and others have a blue tint. This was about the time I started noticing what I thought was Orion while walking the dog, turns out I was right. Orion's a great example of this because the bright one near the top, on his shoulder, it's called Betelgeuse and it's red and one near the bottom, on his foot, is called Rigel and it's blue. After I heard about red and blue stars the next time I looked up I thought I noticed the red and blue stars on Orion. They also said that Orion's one of the easiest to spot because of the belt, that's what made me pretty sure it was Orion I was seeing.

Now that I know, it seems kind of obvious that some stars are red and some are blue but I just never noticed it before, I thought it was just varying levels of brightness.

I was so happy that I not only got to see some stars but both a red and a blue one. I've always been fascinated by stars but I always had trouble figuring out the constellations. They don't come with convenient lines to connect them.

So. I think that's everything. Oh. I tried to make Easter eggs with some cheap egg moulds I got a while ago. Disaster. The moulds warped when I tried to clean them (then again sterilising with boiling water wasn't the best idea, but it's for making food so I wanted absolute cleanliness) and I couldn't get them out of the moulds once I was dome, one melted while I was trying to pry it out. Maybe it's my fault for using cheap chocolate. I tried to keep it tempered though.

Anyway. I think that's all so.

Bluebiird out.

Oh, and the clocks went forward today.