yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive

The subject line is not as random as it appears, trust me.

So, today was devoted to the company of the resident lunatics, minus two of their number for various reasons. Hannah because she's in Cyprus, and Becca... well, I don't know. I don't feel like that particular minefield at the moment, so let's move on.

I can just about walk now. So I allowed myself some extra time and hobbled down to the station to catch the train. While I was on it, I met cucharita and her boyfriend, vampire!Adam. Whom I had never met, but I can see where he gets the name. I actually did like him. Which is, I suppose, all to the good. He appeared dubious when Enid informed him the people he was shortly going to meet are referred to with the phrase "resident lunatics."

Clare was the only one there when we reached Central, and following some further discussion about the World Domination Project being run by the sentient lifeforms in her carpet (not to be confused with Terry Pratchett's Carpet People), Colleen and then Emily appeared. We didn't have a plan, so we wandered into the city centre and gravitated towards Quiggins. I was walking slowly, more like limping, and heaved an audible sigh at the sight of the steps. I'm okay going up steps. At the top of the steps where the antique shop is, there is currently a suit of armour. Colleen, for some as yet unexplained reason, desperately wants it. Clare suggested we each buy her a piece of armour for her birthday and Christmas - "you'll have the whole set by 2008!"

But once we'd been to the Bead Shop and Woodstock, we had to go back down the steps. Enid appointed herself to cripple duty - ie, walking in front of me so in the likely event of my losing my balance, I'd have something to fall on. Thankfully this never occured, although I did come close a few times. Colleen did offer to give me a piggyback, which I declined and settled into my usual hobbling gait as we went across the city.

There was coffee, and hot chocolate, and at two o'clock Enid and Adam had to leave, but somehow I wasn't surprised when we ended up on Chavasse, sitting on a bench watching the people, the yellow submarine and the smoke drifting up from some vents in the docks (Em wanted to go and see the fire, and I indignantly pointed out that the day after I accused her of being a pyromaniac she went to Ikea and bought fourteen candles) and talked. About sci-fi - Enterprise, Stargate - and the periodic table, and the annoyingness of younger sisters (Colleen claims the bench we were sitting on had been graffitied by none other than her younger sister) and my musings on the word "vernacular."

I liked it. It was cold and wet and windy - Em was talking longingly of summer, when we sat on the grass under the swastika tree - but it had some promise. In the summer, we'll go back and spend whole days there. Not working, not shopping, not doing anything except drifting through life on the grass.

But when it started raining, we went back in search of somewhere warm and dry. In pursuit of this aim, I ate an obscene amount of cookies. Raspberry and white chocolate is a fabulous combination. While I was eating them, it gradually became clear that one thing both Emily and Clare wanted to do was give blood. I wasn't quite sure what had brought this on, but bearing in mind Em and I discovered the blood donation centre the other day, off we went.

The place is on the road that leads up to Chavasse, of all places. The four of us filed into the centre ten minutes before it closed, and sat down on the stripy blue and purple chairs. Em and Clare immediately started reading the first-time donor handbooks. Colleen and I didn't. I wasn't keen. Neither was Clare, after all. It remained for Emily to take up the gauntlet and go striding off on behalf of us all.

So much for young altruism. It turned out all four of us were ineligible for blood donation for four separate reasons. Clare is needle-phobic. Emily, who actually got as far as getting her blood tested, is anaemic. Colleen is underage and has had a piercing in the last year. And me - I'm both underweight and have been exposed to hepatitis in the past.

Which meant we'd had an amusing but not especially productive half-hour, and were forced to take our leave. Clare and Emily headed up to James Street, and Colleen and I got to Moorfields without getting lost. I missed my train by one minute, which was aggravating, but I made it home eventually just in time to see my parents go out.

I've had the evening to myself. It's been very nice.

And as one final sidenote - my journal's anniversary is today. You've all had to cope with my ramblings for two whole years.