Okay, so I set this thing up and I had good intentions. I really did. I planned to blog regularly, I just erm, didn't. I don't really have any reasons. Okay, so what's gone on in the amazingly exciting world of Ali since we last spoke? Well, I got older. I mean, obviously, we all do that, but I had a birthday, so I'm 24 now, eek, that's scary, actually, it didn't bother me that much, usually me getting older does, 'cos each age seems so adult, but 24 doesn't seem that much different from 23. So hey.

Maybe I should share some of the amazing gifts I got, I was going to borrow Helen's digital camera and take some pics of my presents to show you. However, I haven't got round to asking her yet. Hmm, she suggested that now we both have blogs we might not need to actually talk, so I could just ask her here and maybe the camera will appear in my room or something tomorrow? Or she might reply in her blog, so Helen, can I borrow your digital camera please? Okay, I think that's pretty stupid of me, let's move on shall we? Oh yes, what did I get right well in no particular order:

• Lord of the Rings Collectors edition DVD, me being ungrateful thinks that the bookends are a waste of money (no offence James, I know you have them and think they're great) and am selling them back to my parents to give to my brother, since I only wanted the DVDs and he wanted the collector's edition but someone has given him just the extended DVD.
  
• A wind up monkey
  
• A finger of fudge (is just enough to give the kids a treat) actually, there were 3, I guess that's 'cos I'm an Ali, not a kid.
  
• Pez!!!!! A tiger pez dispenser, it's great. Maybe only other Pretender fans will understand the excitement over Pez.
  
• An Action Man car thing. It has missiles that fire!
  
• £20
  
• A snooker table! Okay, not a real one, one of those little tiny ones. Fun though
  
• A tub of Cadbury's Miniature Heroes
  
• Red Dwarf series one on DVD.
  
• Some Liquorice Allsorts.
  
• Oceanic Cd by Raspberry Jam.
  
• A lie detector watch!! How cool
  
• Some Carbon Monoxide detectors. Thanks Mark
  
• A lock. Also from Mark :-)
  
• A blanket
  

So all in all, some cool presents. Nice. I had a good day too, even though I had to go to work in the morning. I like work, so that was okay. My Dad came up for the afternoon, he was in Cambridge, so it wasn't to far to pop to Leicester. He brought my presents with him. Then in the evening I went to Grange Farm with some friends. I had steak, followed by chocolate brownie and ice cream. Very nice.

I've been out for food quite a bit lately, which is unusual. On Thursday our work meal at The Foxhunter was very good, though I came home feeling a bit ill. I ate so many parsnips I made my stomach hurt, you could have as much fresh veg as you like you see. Bad move, that means me piling on roast potatoes and parsnips, they're so nice. Hmm.

On Sunday I had another Christmas meal, I didn't each as much then, I was more sensible. We had a lot of fun playing Absolute Balderdash a fantastic game which you should all play if you haven't already. I love the laws. We tend to end up just getting ridiculously stupid. It got to the point where it was a lot easier to determine the correct answer, because so many of the others seemed to relate to Norman Wisdom. Madness. I often wish that I could remember the real answers, 'cos then I could astound people with them. However, I usually just end up with things like. Somewhere in America it's illegal for a horse to be in public without pants on a Sunday, I think that was on a Sunday, it might not have been. There are so many great laws and films too, but I tend to forget which was the real plot. Sad.

Ooh, last night I watched Extreme Ironing it was absolutely fantastic. They did steal our idea though, Okay, so they had it several years ago, but I didn't know that and earlier this year Will and I planned loads of stupid extrem things like extreme cooking, extreme housework and extreme walking up and down the stairs. It didn't involve quite the extremes of theirs such as climbing cliffs to iron though, just a lot of enthusiasm.

Anyway, I should go to be, because tomorrow I have to go to work in the morning, I don't usually. However, we just had computers put in at the library so I have to go in so that they can show me how to use a computer, just in case I don't know. Hmm, that could be boring. Or not, 'cos I can just play around with it and see what it does, in which case fun!!. I'm doing The European Computer Driving Licence through work. It's funny really, 'cos everyone is so panicked over it and it's pretty easy. Admittedly I've only done the internet module so far. That was dull. I had to sit in a room and be trained in the use of Hotmail for a couple of hours and then do a 45 minute test on the internet and hotmail. The test took approximately 5 minutes and I passed. The training seemed to involve sitting around and sending everyone else lots of emails then waiting until I got some back and replying to them and showing the other people how to actually do everything. It was very boring. I've probably said that already, sorry. I'm boring you all, this is stupidly, pointlessly long and I'm also keeping myself up for no good reason. So good night.