On Monday I had my first ever driving lesson.

Surprisingly, this did not end as badly as I thought it would! I did not stall the car, hit anything, or run anything (recycling bins, people, cats) over! Admittedly I went extremely slowly on a street with almost no oncoming traffic, but still, no incidents are a GOOD thing, right? Today was my second one and I stalled the car several times, lmao! FAIL.

Although, I stil haven’t hit anything, or run anything over! Today I learned how to back. This was somewhat unintentional, because the instructor meant for me to go into a dead-end street and just practise turning around and going back out again, but, as I was driving up, along comes a resident of this street, who then decides to park on the side of the road, with her vehicle far enough out from the kerb that the instructor didn’t like my chances of making it all the way around without hitting this other car, so instead he asked me to drive into a driveway, then go into reverse and back up to give myself enough space. Lol. Yay for other traffic! :/

I don’t have Lesson #3 until next Tuesday, but hopefully I’ll be able to get enough practise in between now and then to figure out how NOT to stall!

In other news, I rang the director of Oliver tonight to find out when rehearsals start. She told me that they don’t start until the 3rd of February, but that because the woman playing Miss Monks has for some reason dropped out of the cast, she’s recast the woman who was Eliza Sellers (the bookseller) as Miss Monks, and then recast ME as Eliza Sellers!

I have no idea who has been recast as Mrs. Sowerberry – presumably somebody from the ensemble who didn’t have a character part before now.

I’m in two minds about this. Half of my brain is kind of bummed that I don’t get to be an evil old woman anymore, but the other half is happy, since everybody seems to have been "bumped up" a notch, so this part might be somewhat larger (and yes, also more age-appropriate!)

Either way, I’m not too worried. It’s really not that big an issue, since it’s not as if I’ve been downgraded to the ensemble, or had already started learning my lines and stuff (in fact I still haven’t even seen as script!), so we shall see what eventuates on the 3rd of Feb! :)

Yep. So that’s the latest update in The Exciting Life of Holly!

A couple of months ago I signed up for a Google Analytics account. Among other intriguing things, Google Analytics tracks the search terms people have plugged into Google in order to be directed to this blog. Quite a few of them are fairly logical, such as…

- 101 in 1001
- project 365
- normania
- holly
- various song titles and artists who have featured on past Music Mondays

On the other hand, some of the searches have just been so bizarre that my brain has gone "Why on earth do you want to know about THAT, and what on earth made you think you’d find it HERE!?"…

- "oh no meaning oh no" <- I’m think this is a line from a movie or play, but I can’t remember which one…?
- "a picher of tatty here" <- A what of what where?
- "birthdy card for the elderly" <- Nope, sorry, not here, you could try scrapbook.com though. :)- "freakish accidents" <- Yes, actually! There were those two incidents with the filing cabinet and broken door last year!? - "gingerbread house fail" <- I think this one is my favourite! Sorry, no gingerbread house fail here, mine was a WIN, but if you did manage to find any pictures, please send me the links, as I’m sure they would be rather entertaining! LMFAO.
- "ho ho ho hollie" <- I can ALMOST understand how you found my blog this way, but not quite, since that’s not how my name is spelled!
- "if people don’t sent you christmas cards, should you send cards to them anyway?" <- I don’t know, I probably would, if I wanted to anyway!
- "name of obama’s ‘s dog" <- Uhh…Mr. Dog? o.O

To be perfectly honest, I’m quite surprised that none of the search terms were pornographic or otherwise offensive! Does anybody know if Google Analytics has some kind of filter to prevent those type of searches even showing up? Surely they must do, because I know of some other people, (whose blogs have absolutely NONE of that kind of content) who find those searches popping up. *shrug*

Do you keep track of the search terms for your blog? What’s the funniest, strangest one you have seen?

Brooke and Jenny and I went for a picnic today. Regardless of the thunder and lightening that occurred yesterday, it was extremely hot and sunny outside! Even though I drowned myself in sunscreen, I still managed to get slightly sunburnt on one shoulder. Humbug. :/

Also at our picnic were several ducks, one of which was extremely tame and would waddle right up to you, snatch the piece of bread (or chip or cupcake) from your hand, and then waddle off again as fast as it could go! It was hilarious!

tried to take a photo of this, but even after several attempts I didn’t get any good ones, although I think Brooke did, so if she sends me one I’ll edit it in. :P

Something I do have an amusing photo of however, is Brooke, wading in the Avon river trying to rinse off the cutlery so it wasn’t sticky when she put it back into her bag! This doesn’t sound nearly as amusing as it was, but if you factor in the extremely long dress she happened to be wearing, and the very steep river bank she was climbing down, there was A LOT of potential for an EPIC FAIL. Even though, much to my disappointment, this did not occur. :P