Then I started tweeting about upcoming events. I laid in bed one night, before dropping off to sleep, realizing that that might be annoying some of my followers who aren’t local to me. True, that’s not very many, really, but it also struck me that the opposite might be true – if I tweet about events, people might only want that information, and not my oh-so-clever observations as well. So, I’ve created a separate twitter account (@GlossopEvents) from which to tweet about upcoming events. For now, I’m just tweeting about things happening in the next 24 hours or so, mostly, and retweeting others’ event tweets as I see them. Not sure if another format will work better. I imagine my followers (my event twitter has followers, woohoo!) will tell me if they think of a better format.

I really need a better icon for that account, but I can’t think of anything. Do tell me if anything occurs to you. (The current icon is the front of the Market Hall.)

So what else have I been up to? Sunday afternoon found me at The Oakwood (pub) covering the time broker slot for Glossop’s time bank. We have two time brokers, and two more (including me) who are “time brokers light” – we can do most of the time broker’s jobs, but not necessarily all of it (only the time brokers can check IDs for DBS checks, for example). One time broker was at work, and one was out of town – I made the mistake of calling it on vacation before I found out he was going camping. Poor thing. That’s not vacation at all!

They don’t say out of town here. They say away. As in, “I’m sorry, I can’t, I’m away then.” I really dislike away when used this way. I’m not entirely sure why – it’s just a word, like any other word, and in other contexts I don’t mind this word. Perhaps one day I’ll figure out why I dislike it so much; til then I’ll just keep translating it and using different phrases back to them. I also hate holiday when they mean vacation. I always want to tell them (and sometimes do, depending on the conversation at the time) that holiday means Christmas, Easter, etc. But then, the British are nothing if not overloaders of words (people who give words far more than one meaning) – some time I should actually count up all the definitions I’ve found them to have for the word brilliant.

Anyhoo, so I went to that. No one turned up to see me, for which I was actually grateful. I have this ongoing mystery sinus malaise (since March), and finally saw a specialist for it a fortnight or so ago; since then, I’ve been permutating different medicines to try to get a better handle on what helps and what doesn’t. It’s made me feel more and more lousy, and I actually felt quite, quite ill that afternoon. Chris came and sat with me the last hour, actually, which was good of him.

After my shift ended, we decided to go see how our favorite restaurant, Thai To Go, looks after its refurbishment – it’s lovely! I had my very first glass of proper iced tea in this country that wasn’t made by myself or Chris – and it was yummy, to boot! They’re selling it as lemon iced tea. I’m vastly amused I’ve had to go to a Thai restaurant to get something I associate with Southern American.

When we left the restaurant, the skies were very moody. This picture doesn’t really do it justice, but it looks cool in its own right, so I’ll share it with you.

There was crafting Sunday night – jointly with Chris and I – which was good. More on that in another post.

Monday morning, a friend of mine came over and we crafted together. She’s very busy, and we’d struggled to find time to see each other, til I came up with this idea of combining seeing each other with crafting, since she’s into lots of different crafts, and I always have something that needs mending or altering or something in my pile. I actually remembered how to do the stitch May taught me back in May at that class, a sort of hand blind stitch thing, to alter the front of a top I have. I’m almost done with that bit; next up I’ll be adding beads to that top. Fall’s definitely arrived – or perhaps winter – and with it motivation for me to finally get my warmer clothes sorted out. It was lovely to see my friend; I always enjoy our chats.

Monday evening I discovered my online order for grocery delivery from Sainsbury’s had been cancelled. (I do an online order once a month, to help reduce the amount of shopping I have to lug.) I’d not ordered from them before, but I’d gotten a coupon so I’d given it a try. I actually had coupons from three of them for the same week, so I pulled up all three and did my shopping at each one to see which would be cheaper. As I expected, they came out all very nearly the same, so I opted for the one with the biggest coupon. Anyway, turns out Sainsbury’s has some ill-thought-out policy about quantity you can order: if you order over 6 of any given item, you have to go through some “bulk order” process (I’m not sure what this entails) and order it a week in advance because, as the lady on the phone told me, “We’re not a warehouse.” Gosh, that cat food only comes individually – and she eats more than 100g (3oz) every 5 days! Righty ho, Sainsbury’s can carry right on not getting our money – not that I think they’ll notice.

Tuesday afternoon was Lunch Bunch – a certain group of 3 friends plus myself trade off hosting lunch every month or two. That was lovely, as always. The lady hosting this time had her daughter and five-month-old granddaughter there with us this time; thankfully the granddaughter was very happy and quiet most of the time. After a couple of hours she got quite fussy, so her mother took her home. It was nice to meet them, though. I do so enjoy Lunch Bunch. I hope to start another sometime, actually, because I think it’s a brilliant idea.

Today was a WI activity – Charlesworth WI went on a safari lunch. We had starters at one house, then a main course at another house, then dessert at another house. Well, actually, we broke into three smaller groups, so each group had its own house for starters and main course, and then we all converged to one house for dessert. I’ve decided that, while I see the practicality of it (preparing the whole meal yourself is a whole lot more work, to start with), I’m not keen on this idea of grazing all afternoon. I may give it another go to be sure – I really wasn’t in a social mood today, as happens sometimes for no particular reason, which I’m sure tainted my perception of things.

Tomorrow night there are three different things I’d like to go to – Simmondley WI’s meeting, my book club’s meeting, and the launch of Glossop Record Club – but my book club always wins when it conflicts with anything. This month we’re reading J.K. Rowling’s Casual Vacancy, which I must finish tomorrow. So far it’s been a decent read, though I’m not sure how much discussion we’ll get out of it!

The record club guy told me he hadn’t realized there was so much on on Thursday nights – I’m hoping my calendar becomes a useful tool for people trying to schedule things around town: I’m hoping I get enough on there (I don’t aim to include everything: that way lies madness) that they can fairly reliably use it to choose lesser-populated days – or where what is planned that day targets a different audience, at least. Fingers crossed!

Then I’ll have to get ready for Sunday – I’m looking forward to the Charlesworth & Chisworth Village Get Together! 🙂