Roller coasters, rodents and rendezvous

I'm being a good girl today and finally tackling the mountain of ironing in my living room, together with some studying later on. Due to circumstances completely outwith my control I had to cancel my Dundee tour today at the last minute so I have unexpected time on my hands. Actually it's a good job too, because I am covered in bruises. No, I haven't been in a brawl although with the mood I was in yesterday it was a very viable option.

I had some visitors from home so yesterday I took them to M & D's, which is a large theme park about an hour away from me. The rain held off for most of the day until I decided to try the most lethal looking roller coaster there. I am a dare devil and will go on any ride that promises to turn me upside down or inside out. As soon as the carriages started to move forward the heavens opened but there was little I could do about it a that stage.

There is a sign as you go onto the ride which warns you that it is a very boisterous experience and not to try it if you're pregnant/ of a nervous disposition/ in the middle of a psychotic episode, etc. etc. Well if I wasn't psychotic going onto it, I certainly was coming off. It literally chucks you about and not in a pleasant way, everyone's heads were bouncing off the sides of the restraints and tempers were fraying. Worse still, it ground to a halt rather violently about 5 metres back from the sheltered area where it's supposed to stop. We sat there for about 3 minutes in the pouring rain until someone at the back shouted "TODAY WOULD BE LOVELY !!"

A very sheepish looking attendant came out to explain that the ride had malfunctioned and we would all have to wait for the mechanic to come and sort it. It could only happen to me. So we sat there for a further ten minutes and I amused myself by watching my mascara trickling down my neck. I was in an absolutely foul mood after that, but not to be disheartened, we all traipsed into the indoor rainforest and it was wonderful, with beautiful butterflies and monkeys too. There's also a dark section where we saw some bats, they are truly fascinating creatures.There was a handling animals session too, and I got to hold a corn snake, a gecko and a tarantula, yay me !! I'm not afraid of spiders per se, but a tarantula is in a whole different league. On the other hand, if I see a mouse or a rat I'm up on the nearest available light fitting.

Back to normality now and on Sunday evening I have a date with a new client and I'm off to the theatre so I'm looking forward to it immensely. It's all a bit cloak and dagger as he invented a cover story for himself and has managed to dig himself into the most enormous hole, so I have to pretend to be an obnoxious woman he works with and cannot abide. You couldn't make it up.

After that I'm off to Inverness next week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and will finally catch up with Mr A who is back from the Middle East. We have a dinner date and I am going to stay away from champagne and foliage this time. Well, foliage anyway. The following week I'm off to Spain with Mr F for a week and I can't wait. It's going to be fab, not least because I won't be scared of the geckos now. Well not really. Why do they have to run up walls for goodness sake ?

On that note I'm off to wrestle the remote from my 8 year old, if I have to watch one more repeat episode of Hannah Montana I WILL start self harming.

LL xx