It's Christmas on Tuesday!

I'm sure I'll be busying about the place this week and I'm not entirely sure how much time I'll have to update. Then after Friday I'll be in France for a week's training and a week's settling in, so who knows when I'll have the time to sit down and write a blog post.

Last night Drew came home to Leamington! I'd love to say he'd come to visit me, but I think it's more likely that it's because it's his Dad's birthday today and he knew that Becca would be in Leam'. He wanted to meet for a drink yesterday afternoon, and I was looking forward to it, but then his train was delayed by an hour (which meant we missed Wilde's happy hour - £3 for champagne, yes please!) and Mum was in town asking if I wanted a lift home... I was easily persuaded because it was damn cold and I didn't fancy walking back. So I didn't meet him, and I think he was slightly mad.

However, tonight, Becca is home! Yeeeeeeeah! She's having to fit me in somewhere between her family time. She, too, isn't visiting purely to see me; she's back to celebrate her sister's engagement. I'm not complaining... it'll be nice just to see her really. So hopefully I might be a wee bit hungover tomorrow. You never know!

On Monday I shall be sorting out money and buying gallons of Norwegian Formula (thank you Ami). I've just spent fortune at Superdrug.com because they were surprisingly cheap for a lot of what I needed, but there are still the odd few things that they didn't have. I've also now got three people's Boots cards which I will be raping for points!
After properly looking into everything money-wise (thank you so much for those comments, they really were very helpful) I've decided to (not really take your advice, sorry, and) open a joint account with mon pere. It means he'll have access to my spendings, but that will result in me spending less and I think it's probably a good thing. Travellers cheques seemed to just result in me losing money through commission and there were warnings against there on every advice website I looked on. A pre-paid credit card looked to be a good idea, but I really can't trust myself. I remember too well last Christmas Eve when I burst into tears after receiving a letter from the bank telling me I was in financial hell. I still owe my Dad nearly £900 from that...

It's Christmas on Tuesday!! Ok... it's not... but it is in my household!
I'm going to be family-less on Christmas Day and my birthday (Boxing Day), and I don't have the packing space to take a lot of presents with me, so Mumma decided we'd have a mini Christmas a month early! We went to one of those cheap cheap shops (The Depot, or Bargain Village, or something stupid like that) and bought as much tack as we could. We have musical hats, party horns, the cheapest crackers we could find, a plastic table cloth, and I'm about to dig out the old faithful family christmas casette tape. Everything we bought is a different clashing colour - there'll be no coordination or taste whatsoever! Dad's even bought a turkey.

On Wednesday it's my last day in work, so I'm making a batch of Nigella's Intense Chocolate Cookies because I made them a few weeks ago and they're, well, intense. Oh, Nigella! I'm going to ruin whatever luxurious/alluring/intense air they might have by decorating them with goodbye sentiments along the lines of "It was nice knowing you", "Have a nice life" and "Auf wiedersehen, pet".

Thursday is going to involve a lot of packing... Hopefully by then my vacuum bags will have been delivered, along with my Superdrug booty, and I'll be able to squeeze everything into one bag. One bloody bag! It's a joke! But it's got to be do-able.

And Friday... Well Friday is when all the fun begins - with a 24hr coach journey.