Found an app that bolts alarm-clock functionality onto iTunes. 8 am was a rude shock, mainly because I chose The Bloodhound Gang’s I hope you die for the alarm sound.

Packing the van is finished. Knackered ‘yeehah’.

Now Ian and I are going to watch his birthday present: Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy

Yesterday, with a lot of help from David Collins, I packed most of my stuff into cardboard boxes, suitcases and the occasional bin-liner.

My brother arrived here about 10:30 in the evening and we chatted, ate curry and sorted how we would transfer stuff to the van.

Today, as usual, I woke far later than planned and phoned the van rental place to say that we would be pick up the van an hour later than originally booked. Their reply was ‘That’s a relief – it hasn’t arrived here from Edinburgh yet.’ I asked whether the driver could then just drop the van here, rather than taking it further north to Dundee and us having to go there to collect it. The van rental place said they’d arrange that and call me back 5 minutes later to confirm. 45 minutes later I called them to ask why they’d not called me and was told that the driver’s cellphone hadn’t worked so the van was just now leaving Dundee. 30 minutes later, they called again to ask where in St Andrews I was. I asked if the driver was circling St Andrews, looking for my flat and was told that the van hadn’t yet left. It eventually arrived around mid-day.

I won’t ask for any money back but if they try to charge extra for home delivery, well, no!

So far about half my stuff is in the van and there’s been very little drama. The worst was getting hit in the face by a piece of my desk as Ian and I disassembled it. I’ll try to get a photo of the inside of the packed van to show you all how materialist I really am.

Tomorrow we drive south via Catterick to pick up some of his stuff from his army base to take to Worcester. We then have until 5pm on Wednesday to unload the van and drop it off at the rental centre in Worcester.

Also my redundancy payment cheque has arrived. In no more than 5 working days I’ll have paid off the loan for the boiler, cleared my overdraft and said goodbye to credit card debt. Yeehah!

Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch should paint your portrait. You are a very emotional person. You are always up for a good talk with one of your friends. You don’t like to keep things bottled up. Often, you are friendly and outgoing, but that can change very easily to being introverted and cold.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

This afternoon went far better than I had feared it might. Thank you.

Just received a letter from my employers insisting that I get legal advice on my redundancy conditions. Seems like a good idea to me!

The most recent:

I’m on a bus whose seats are along the sides, so that the passengers face the central aisle. Cliff Richard gets on and starts singing Summer Holiday. The seats rotate into pairs so that we’re facing forwards to get the full ghastliness. I end up stuffing my ears with cyclamen (which look distressingly like banana skin that’s several days old.

A few days before that:

I’m in wood in a Terry-Pratchett-like world. On this world, there are talking elephants, some of whom can fly (just like Dumbo). The aviators look just like their non-flying siblings.

Driving along in a removals lorry (that can also fly) are two brothers elephants, one of whom is unable to fly. So his brother, chief of a family/group/herd of elephants who all can fly, is giving him the experience of flying for a treat. In the lorry, stretching from the storage area above the driver/passenger cab to the partially-closed tailgate, is some foliage.

The wood is partially on fire and the tips of the foliage sticking out of the tailgate catch fire. Unaware of this, but aware that the wood is on fire, the elephants fly their van away to escape. They notice that the foliage is burning, even though they’re above the arboral conflagration. So the non-flying brother elephant (who is chief of a family/group/herd of non-flyers) squirts his flying brother in the face with a trunk-load of water, apparently to put out the water.

Unfortunately the dream ended there as I farted myself awake.