The one with the good, the bad and the ugly...

2009 prepared us well for this week. Yup, back to the bad luck of yore... though not after some extraordinarily good luck.

OK, so for the good luck first - last week my laptop died (yes, the laptop that had to be brought back to life last year). It really died - it melted some nearby keys and fused the room. I was resigned to buying a new laptop, budgeting and searching for them online. Then, along comes the Head of Library Services to the front desk where I work. She asks for me and tells me that I've won a laptop for entering a super geeky competition - you had to fill in a questionnaire about library services at the University of Westminster. It's a cute little Acer Ferrari Netbook and I'm really pleased with it - it works faster than a snail on strike, it doesn't have several broken keys that I've learnt to bash and it doesn't threaten to set fire to our room... all in all it's a very good freebie.

That was Wednesday of last week. On the same day the Dean of our School said that Fabio Capello (The manager of England's football team) was going to come to our office on Friday. We were all talking football at the time and figured it was some strange little joke on the Dean's part. However, as the week unfolded it seemed he was either creating a ludicrously elaborate hoax or he was telling the truth. Friday comes and a few of us have decided that it's worth bringing in England shirts for him to sign. Sure enough, 3pm rolls around and Capello walks into the office. He was doing an interview for The Independent alongside an artist exhibiting at the University, the Dean's good friends with the artist and he volunteered his room for the interviews. My boss was brave enough to run after Capello to get her shirt signed, encouraged by work mates I followed sheepishly behind and got my shirt signed. I also wished him luck in South Africa, so the World Cup for England is all sorted now;-)

All in all a great week, but then...

Last weekend my ear started swelling up and I started feeling ill - really ill. I've had a sebaceous cyst in my ear for years. Sometime during the last month it'd become infected. I went to the doctor on Monday morning, got prescribed antibiotics and then went into work. I was told to stick with the antibiotics for at least 48 hours, so I did. I spent two days feeling absolutely awful whilst they did nothing, by the time I went back to the doctors on Thursday the cyst had formed into an abscess. I was sent to Accident & Emergency to get it drained and removed, however the surgeon decided that given the size this was not a good idea - I needed to take two types of antibiotics, an anti-inflammatory and a painkiller, to cope with the pain and the infection before they could operate. I go home and a few hours later it bursts - however awful this sounds it was far worse in real life, Raine nearly threw up on my head! I then had to go and see an Emergency Dr, who said I had to go back to A&E... now I continue on the tablets, have to get it dressed every day and have it removed when the infection goes. I am starting to feel better, which rocks because it was not nice and I would not like to die from an infected ear;-) If you are especially gruesome you can follow some of The Ear's development on Facebook...

OK, and for the final piece of bad luck (I'm going to skip my mother's potential Stroke and the car dying for fear of you getting too depressed;-))... we're meant to be in Fuerteventura right now (think for a moment, would I be blogging if we were on holiday?)...we thought Ear Gate might put a stop to the holiday, but no, it wasn't an exploding ear - it was an exploding volcano. The UK is a no fly zone because of volcanic ash and that means no holiday for us (Raine has suggested that we've had good luck at the start of 2010 because the god that's been torturing us has been busy planning volcanic eruptions to blight us - narcissistic, perhaps, but possible...?;-))... We were so looking forward to this holiday - our second time abroad in our five years together. Granted it was meant to be a surfing holiday and I could not longer surf (The Ear doesn't like sea water and threatens to try to kill me again if I go near the sea), but my first All Inclusive sun and sand still sounded sweet. Now we are trying to think of a Plan B. We can't get the money back straight away so we are a little cash strapped but we are determined - we are resourceful after 2009! Even if it's not a match to the original holiday we have started our ironic holiday album, so wait for its publication - it's going to be good, in some form or another...