Anyway...this has been a month of two halves: one good, one bad. I'll get the bad stuff out of the way first.
About halfway through this month, me and my brother Chris got a letter from the local housing association saying that we owed over £1000 in rent arrears. I'm not gonna go into the details as to why that came to be, but we both knew that figure was wrong. So after a lot of phone calls and lots of confusion (not to mention much stress), we finally got sat down, today, with our housing officer and a woman from the Citizens Advice Bureau (who's been helping us for the last few months, and doing a great job at it), and finally were able to get the rent arrears down to the level that they should be. It'll still take time to pay it all off, but at least it will get paid off now.
It's honestly a weight off my mind and a weight off Chris' mind. We've been in our own place since last May, and the last thing we want to be is in dire financial straits because of errors and miscommunication.
And now for the good stuff.
Both me and Chris turned 26 on the 7th, and we celebrated by doing what we've done since our 20th birthday - take to the bowling alley against each other. We spent the day at the Metrocentre in Gateshead along with Chris' girlfriend Jodie, had a look around the shops, had a meal, and of course the aforementioned bowling match. This should tell you how it went:
I schooled them both, pretty much...but I'm just glad we got to play it. We don't get to go bowling very often, but it's always a blast when we do.
As for birthday presents, I got a card and some money from my mam, a new pair of trainers and a clothes airer (we needed one) from my grandma, a personalised mug from Jodie, the films Cars 2 and The Incredibles from Chris (I bought him the Foo Fighters album "Skin & Bones), and a couple of gifts from across the pond: oil pastels and watercolours from Nicole, and a plush of Fella, the deviantART mascot, from Shane. As well as those, I also had many giftarts from my friends on deviantART. I also bought myself a new jacket, and the album "Crisis" by Alexisonfire (good solid Canadian post-hardcore).
Like Christmas, I don't ask for any presents, but I end up getting them anyway. I do appreciate them though, so thanks to everyone.
I hope February will be a lot less bi-polar than this past month was...too much worrying, not enough living.
A feature that I'll have on these blogs will be a bit of artwork I've made...so I'll leave you with this bit of fanart of a beautifully illustrated book I picked up a couple of years back.
And on the subject of my artwork, I hope to cover that in a future blog...so watch this space.
"The Winged Tiger & the Dragons of Hawaii" © Jon J. Murakami & Phil Yeh
