Candle update: my candle parcel sat in the depot for ten days and then they emailed me to say that I was being refunded. At no point did anyone say anything about trying to deliver it. Also, they don't re-send undelivered parcels and the sale is over so I can't re-order without paying a bunch more money. I did burn the candle my dad gave me, but it was horribly sooty (black snot!! it was like being in London before the congestion charge, only worse!). On the other hand, it also burned super fast (maybe eight hours total time for a candle that looked like it ought to do more like thirty), so it was over fast. Now I'm back to the IKEA tea lights.

Sunday night I went to see Florence + the Machine, and that was fabulous. I wasn't, like, super hyped up by it, but it was deeply engrossing somehow; the gig went by really fast, and her music is just so good. She didn't do either of the songs I was really hoping for ("You Can Have It All" and "Kraken") but everything she did do was great. The stage show was great. And the mixing wasn't terrible - like, pop gigs always seem to be mixed so that you can feel the bass in every individual bone in your body but also can't hear the lyrics, and that was absolutely a problem for the opening act (Paris Paloma) who seemed cool and might be good except I couldn't actually hear her. But Florence was mostly audible. Of course, with a voice like that she has an advantage...

I had Monday off to recover after the late night (concert finish: about 22:45; reached car park around 23:00; left car park around 23:45... always so great) but was back at work today. On Friday I finally finished a horrible task I'd been putting off, so now I'm trying to catch up with the eight million other things I'd been ignoring; I managed to empty my inbox, but only by moving everything into a new set of folders so that I only have to confront one set of them at a time. Also deleted a lot of duplicates (emails from earlier in a chain, etc), things relating to the Horrible Task, and so on, so the many folders only have about 80 emails left instead of the 150 I started the morning with. Then I realised that there's a whole new Horrible Task with a tight timeline, so that's going to be fun for tomorrow.

But I did achieve some small household tasks, cleared out a few personal emails, and only ignored reality to lie in bed with a book a little bit this evening. Maybe I'll even manage the washing up before I go to sleep, it could happen.

I had a birthday! It was low key (Mum is still not up for even small adventures) but involved a lot of eating. I had lunch with Dad, and then dinner with S before choir although I was still so full I managed half a starter and a bit of her dessert. Then choir, and we had some cookies in the break. Tomorrow I have post-swimming coffee and cake before work and then office snacks (three flavours of interesting cheese crackers! I thought that was more fun than cake).

Nearly everyone gave me vouchers as per my request and I have so many Steam vouchers now. That will be fun for when my wishlist items go on good sales! Also my dad gave me a scented candle but that was more of a "please get rid of this thing I don't want" than a present as such :D It appears to be a branded corporate gift from his old work, but it smells OK and my candle order has been "on its way" from the parcel facility less than twenty miles away for ten days now, so I'll take it.

Choir was also interesting because it was the first rehearsal of the second conductor candidate we're auditioning. So far I like him - probably better than the first one, although he was OK - but we'll see how it goes. I had demanded that S make sure I was sung happy birthday (before we realised it was the new guy's first night!) but she managed to make it happen anyway. Deeply mortifying in the moment, but also I really wanted it to happen! It was the 22nd anniversary of S and I joining the chorus (no prizes for guessing why I can remember exactly what date it was...) and we've been friends ever since.

I was on campus yesterday for an in-person meeting, so worked from home today, and am now entirely discombobulated and have no idea what day it even is. Although the nice thing is that when I check, it turns out to be Friday, which is the best possible option!

Our bin collection day has moved from Wednesday to Thursday so I had to put the bag out on Wednesday night when I got back from choir (I mean, obviously I should have put it out before choir, but I forgot because I'm not used to it yet!). For once I'd actually had to put a bag in my outside bin - having been away at Mum's put me all out of sync, and I had to admit last weekend that I couldn't keep piling things up and needed to start a new bag. So I went out to fetch it to add to the gigantic rubbish pile outside the other block, only to find that it had vanished??!?

I have to assume that one of my neighbours put it out for me, which is obviously very kind of them but also extremely weird, because are they just checking my bin every week or something?? I haven't put anything in there for several months, not since we switched to piling the bags up for collection.

Still, this is much nicer than the disgusting bin neighbours.

This week has been terribly unproductive, although I have listened to an entire audiobook and one and a half radio dramas. Hopefully next week will be better, but I still haven't worked out what to do for my birthday - Mum isn't feeling up to even a short expedition, but I could still go over and/or have lunch with Dad... I'm having dinner with my choir buddy S (also to mark our 22nd anniversary of joining the chorus and making friends!) and then choir, with the second new conductor candidate, so that'll be interesting.

Also have various other social things suggested or partly arranged to follow up on; I need to pull myself together and get them sorted, ideally spaced out so I don't end up with everything happening all at once as usual. I did have lunch with two friends yesterday, so that was good! Socialising with nice people: fun actually, who knew.