Birthday Vandalism

So I knew for a while now that my friend Chrissie (and probably Chung too) had something suspcious planned for my birthday which involved my needing to be out of my room for a few hours. The way things were working out, I thought it would end up being tomorrow.

But last night, around midnight, Chrissie IMed me, quite upset: we had forgotten to get an autographed Colin Dexter book for our friend Chung. She kept insisting that I go today, "as early as possible," to find out if we could get one. I reassured her that we could call, that Colin Dexter lives in Oxford and signs books all the time, and that we could ask them to hold one for us. But she kept insisting that they might run out, so I called last night and left a message to have Blackwell's call me back.

This morning, she kept asking every half hour if they had called back yet. It was getting rather annoying. Finally, they told me they would be getting some, but they weren't sure when. I decided to go down to ChCh and wait for a bit, to see if I could grab one. "Enjoy the literary festival," she said, which left me a little suspicious because she knew I was just going down there to check on the book. I was even slightly annoyed.

I finally worked it out with the Blackwell's people that they would set one aside for me when they arrived. I called Chrissie to confirm this, and she seemed distracted. "So, are you doing anything else now, or are you coming back?" I figured that since I was in town, I would eat lunch, and then quite at random I decided to go try on some dresses at Debenhams.

I just came back about a half hour ago, to discover this act of vandalism that had taken place in my room:

The Hello Kitty decorations are part of the surprise. The window flowers are my own.

So I was very excited. And I'm very lucky to have such lovely friends. :)

Three days to go!