So apparently I'm going to sheffield in Rambling sane thoughts of the terminally me

Some days I just want to shake my head in despair.

My cousin is coming up over the weekend. This, as some of you who have read back through my other entries will know, is a plan that has been set in stone for a short time now. He's coming up on friday and leaving on sunday/ monday. With him comes his lovely wife, Jo, and his step-son Fox, who is a very cool person as well. I'm looking forward to a weekend of fun and frivolity.

So I call cousin Ricky up on the eve of yesterday to check details. What time he's getting here specifically and I receive this response

"Well now. We thought you and yours were picking us up!"

I was not aware of this. Turns out Danny had made this offer to Richard some time ago when this planning started. He had mentioned that we should offer to pick them up to which I responded, quite rightly, that they live in FUCKING SHEFFIELD! 130 miles away! Danny apparently offered the lift to Richard anyways and forgot to tell me.

As it happens I did actually book friday off this week so that I could meet our guests from the train station so I will be able to enact this promise but it's the sheer idiocy of it to me.

Ok, it's gonna work out slightly cheaper. Two adults and a child return tickets to newcastle is a significant purchase. They've offered to reimburse me for part of the petrol. They're paying for their tickets on the journey back from Newcastle. It's all fine and dandy. It's just that instead of paying for 2 journeys we're paying for 3. It'd be easier if Danny and I had just stumped up some of the cash to get them up to Newcastle. Cheaper too most likely.

I suppose I could view this as a road trip but I've already done one expensive road trip this month to see the folks over my birthday. I think people think the car is run on moonbeams and farts. It costs 60 quid to refill the tank and it's gonna need refilling on this jaunt believe me.

I'm aware I sound like a penny-pinching dick. I just don't like having these things sprung on me. Next month is going to be insanely expensive for Danny and me as we're moving house at the end of september (yup, found a place). This is going to cost, near as damn it, £1300. Now, ok, we'll get some of that back in the form of deposit return on our current place but it's still a significant investment and I was hoping to take as much as possible out of this month to lessen the impact. Guess that's gone for a burton.

I'm having trouble viewing this in a positive light. Believe me I'm trying, part of my new "sunny outlook" schtick, but I can't see it. Perhaps I can find an interesting castle to stop off at on the route back? Yeah, that might justify it. To Google!

<unscheduled research="" break="">

Hmmmm, if we swing by York on the way back we could go to the museum there which is recreated around an ancient York street.

<unscheduled research="" break="">

Bolton castle housed Mary, Queen of Scots for a while apparently.

<unscheduled research="" break="">

Or I could blow off the castle idea and force them to all go to light water valley. Richard hates theme parks. A fitting punishment.

Now, some of you may be wondering why I'd be going to all this effort for my cousin. Simply put: Because he's my cousin, moron. All joking aside, cousin Richard and I were very close growing up. We went out for midnight walks together, invented "Viking Night", starting drinking at the same time, got our first crushes together and talked for hours about how they were the only girls for us. Got our first periods together. No, wait, not that one. Yeah, we were close though.

Eventually Ricky did what most of my friends have. He started experimenting with drugs. I honestly this is the main reason I never did it. I saw what happened with my friends. So many of them claiming that it was enhancing their lives whilst I stood on the outside and watched it go down the toilet, completely unable to convince them it was destroying them.

The snapping point for me came when Danny and I went down to visit him in Notthingham. He'd moved into this flat with a friend of his and it was like walking into a war zone in a ghetto that'd be hit by a hurricane and then occupied by a couple of drug addicts. His bedroom was an empty room with his clothes in one corner and a mattress on the floor.

Richard and I drifted apart. I couldn't stand to watch him implode like that. Thank god for Jo. She met him through his friends; got him off the drugs; cigarettes; got him to get himself back into college.

Anyhow, we've been slowly reconnecting since he got himself together and it's great to have my friend back so I think a trip down to Sheffield to pick him and his family up is not the biggest sacrifice to make.

Vent over, silver lining found, peace out y'all. Ramblerambleramble.