we're off!

packed and ready to go. only a small bit more cleaning and some cat food purchasing to go, then we catch the bus to Heathrow at half four. Hong Kong for 2 days, then arriving in Auckland on New Year's eve. So in theory we will be celebrating new year before everyone here, although i haev a funny feeling we may be asleep for one or both new year deadlines!

here's to a happy new year to all and a great 2008! see you in feb x

tinsel, pressies, pay reviews, muppet christmas carol, jigsaws, packing, reindeer, travel insurance, christmas tree, handover notes, exchange rates, rucksack purchases, signing 300 work christmas cards, buying sleeping bags, drinking alcohol,


its been fun but hectic!

This is my idea of a christmas tree properly decorated....

just to clarify

I've been recently nagging Paul to get some life insurance, purely on the grounds that we are now grown ups and have to worry about such things as insurance, composting and daydo rails.

However with this in mind I would like to make it very clear that if my lovely Kayaking boyfriend disappears at any time in the near future, and I happen to move to a tax-benefical country, please don't go getting suspsicous. honest guv

party on sat night went well with some interesting outfits. I chose to recycle one of many bridesmaid dresses i have in my cupboards. This one was 15 years old , worn without the yellow headdress but in all other ways I still looked gorgeous! cheers sal and jon....

whilst we're on the subject of assistance...

more advice on travels in New Zealand please......

sagga christmas party on saturday and the theme is recycle. i have NO idea what to wear for the fancy dress..... any ideas?

how frustrating

so I have a company car for the past 2 and a half years and my dad uses my car as his little run-around. I have the car back for 7 days and it breaks down.

grrrrrr

back home

Well we're back from our adventures. Vietnam is a lovely place with some seriously impressive scenery, lovely people and interesting cuisine!

The tour we went on was spot on, we covered a lot of ground but didn't feel herded around. it would have been nice to spend a little more time in some of the places but then again when you only have 2 weeks you have to make some concessions! there were six of us on the tour and everyone was nice and friendly. the tour leader was excellent and we had a good mix of free time and group time.

some of the highlights -

Ho Chi Minh City - trying to cross the road in the place is like Russian roulette, you have to simply walk slowly and hope that the motorbikes just weave round you. scary stuff. On the request of one of the group we went to a restaurant where they served "weird shit" ( as well as normal food), at which some of the group tried the various odd "I'm a celebrity" style food, including silk worm which were brought to the table still wriggling and then fried in front of us - nice! I drew the line at food that is still alive when it comes to the table but I did taste a little bit of rat ("tastes like chicken") and scorpion (tastes like plastic). Paul was unimpressed as once I gave it a go the testosterone rules meant he couldn't dip out ha ha!

We visited the Chi Chi tunnels plus the war museums and got a good idea of the the sheer ingenuity and resilience of the people during the Amercian War. we had to smile at the style of some of the museums, where they seem to collect a load of random objects, some with seriously tenuous links, and place them in no seemingly logical order with very little explanation! All very interesting but you really have to fill in the information gaps yourself!

Hoi An and Hue - we flew up to here from Ho Chi Minh and spent a couple of days. the weather took a turn for the worse and there were some serious floods which made for excellent photographs but did impact on our plans a little - but didn't cause too many problems. we were lucky that we had one lovely day in Hoi An which we enjoyed on the beach. Hoi An is a mecca for tailoring so I got some boots and a suit made.

Night train from Hue to Hanoi - that was an experience! The floods meant that we were delayed early on in the journey, but we had no idea how long the delay may be and our tour leader warned that she had known delays of up to 24 hours! so we conformed to tourist stereotype and got drunk in the bar carriage! In actual fact we were only 5 hours delayed and arrived mid morning on the next day, shattered (i.e. hungover) but ok!

Halong Bay was an amazing experience, journeying on a Junk Boat into the bay, looking at the beautiful and haunting scenery and watching the sunset. then spending the night on the boat eating wonderful food prepared in such a tiny little galley. a real highlight.

Hanoi was hectic and equally as scary as Saigon on the road crossing elements. We visited the sights, paid our respects to Uncle Ho, checked out the various eateries and tried to photograph people carrying their entire family on one moped or cycling with hundreds of ceramic pots precariously balanced around them.

We then left the tour and headed our on our own to the mountains in the north, to a place half an hour outside Sapa - the Topas Ecolodge. we were expecting very cold weather as all the guides and people you meet warn you its chilly but we were SO lucky and the weather and views were fantastic. The lodge was simple and calm, and the the views were spectacular. Sitting out looking at the mountains in varying shades of blue was for me the best part of the whole trip. we went on a couple of treks and met some of the local people, then headed back on the night train again to hanoi before heading home (don't ask me about the flight back, lets just say I'm now well acquainted with the sick bags on Cathay Pacific!)


So, in all a great trip, not as relaxed as the one last year, but definitely filled with sights, sounds, tastes and great memories. Vietnam is a great country, and the people are truly welcoming.



so, back to work - new one that is, which seems to be fine, I'm responsible for local employees in the Middle East, Europe, Russia and Africa, which means various people dotted around but in the main factories in Italy, Holland , Aberdeen and Gloucestershire. Will be a challenge but hopefully one I can handle this time!

The next travel challenge is trying to get our heads around what there is to see and do in New Zealand. It's almost a case of information and option overload! So I'm hoping that people who have already been will email/leave messages with their top 3 places they recommend...... ;-) We leave on the 27th Dec for 4 weeks, probably not enough looking at all there is to do, but we'll fit in as much as we can, along with some chilled out time maybe!

I've lost a stone in weight
I'm leaving this darn awful job on Friday
I have a new one to go to when i get back from my hols - and it's a promotion too.
I'm off to Vietnam on Saturday
I've negotiated a month off in January to go to New Zealand

funny how you can go from depression to delight in a few short weeks

thanks for putting up with me, one and all :-)

26 days to go

can I start packing yet? Can I? Can I please?

uh oh I think I may have peaked too early.

friday, friday, la la la la la

10lbs off....

hell of a lot more to go but we're getting somewhere....!

so very tired......

It's only monday and I am SOOOO tired. I seem to have rabbit in headlight syndrome at the moment, with so much to do that I seem to be physically incapable of doing anything at all.

Probably doesn't help when the cats bring in a mouse into the bedroom in the middle of the nights. It's still there somewhere, we gave up looking for it and headed back to bed in the hope that they would sort it out - but I have returned home to no dead mouse......

anyone got any suggestions?

start the countdown....

to the holiday!!!! we're booked and ready to go (well, perhaps not ready to go, things like visa, 5 weeks to wait and packing first but hey, let's not quibble over hyperboles).

WE're off on the 27th to Ho Chi Minh City, via Hong Kong airport, then onto Hoi An, Hue and Hanoi, with the odd stop off at palces like the Chi Chi Tunnels, and Halong Bay. All thanks to Intrepid Tours.
We then visit an EcoLodge in the Sapa region for a couple of nights before heading back home.

Can't bloomin wait.

to buy or not to buy

i've got hormonal overload. i'm desparate for chocolate and i NEEEEED to spend money. is it wrong to want to spend £40 on a new bra/knicker set when I have so many already....?

so after months/weeks/days/hours of deliberation we are nearly at the point of actually booking the long awaited holiday and I can nearly start to look forward to it. it's going to be more action-packed than origianally planned, and will be with an Aussie topur company so the only fear is the possibilty of being stuck with Kath and Kim as fellow travellers but it will take us to the key places we're keen to see in Vietnam with a few days at the end for some time to play with too. Roll on October 27th.....

Canoe boy-has a new toy.... a shredder. He's shredding.... for England.

His last words (before I laid down a unilateral post 8pm shredding ban) was " This is great - I'm going to apply for a job at Enron!".

Sometimes I laugh with him, sometimes at him. But I always laugh.

work is more pants that I have ever known it, but am hanging in there by my (very well-bitten) fingernails.

The good part of life is I am reading a fascinating book about the Vietnam War which is SO readable yet to informative too. Plus went to see the Bourne Ultimatum this evening and thoroughly enjoyed it, apart from feeling a little car sick in the car chase sequence. this sobbly camera thing can go a little too far.

Last weekend was a quiet affair, with shop avoidance tactics sucessful on the Saturday but failing abysmally on the Sunday, when I succumbed to the lure of a LBD - which I have now told Paul requires him to take me out to a posh restaurant to justify the expense. women's logic eh!

Listening to my newly purchased Cool As Folk album on the way to work today I noticed how apt the lyrics were in Eddi Reader's Hummingbird, desribing their flying technique... "all that work and worry just to stay still". Kind of sounds like my life!

aaargh dilemma...

9pm brings about the next episode of Heros AND the second installment of Silent Witness with the unfathomably gorgeousloy suave and sexy Harry. Which to watch first?????

Thank God for HDTV - what on earth did we do before the days of videos???

facebook

having now finally given in to the current social phenomenon that is facebook, I am along with millions of others wasting my spare hours sending zombies, drawing on graffitti walls and desparately trying to increase my friend count.... very sad but highly addictive.

must go do something worthwhile this weekend (although to be fair we did some seriously worthwhile things last weekend, having spent the day on the Wye paddling about 8 miles down towards Symonds Yat - perfect weather and great company. check out the photos on the flickr page....)

whew...

friday evening at last, its been an interesting week! one in which I have achieved very little in terms of what i am usually paid to do, but I have nonetheless been very busy!

I've become obsessed with collecting water, and we currently have plenty of bottled water to use over the weekend. I'm seriously looking forward to a long lie in tomorrow, reading my book in bed tomorrow morning, possibly doing a little shopping, looking into travel plans for Vietnam and drinking beer at the Cotswold beer festival tomorrow night.

although weather reports indicate that we will need to take our umbrellas and Macintosh's tomorrow evening.....

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

portaloos a plenty. have to go back to work tomorrow :-(

starting to whiff......

another day another challenge. Work has had to close due to no power or water, so most of the day was spent liaising with employees, inductioneees, interviewees etc etc explaining. It's likely that we'll be shut all week at this rate.

Spent the day sat on the sofa working and half watching daytime TV and all the news bulletins on the floods (god bless wireless). The water went off about 6pm this evening and it seems likely that it will be off for 7 days YIKES thats quite a long time.... I'm going to smell. Paul and I need to work out the nearest shower option....

Many of my colleagues live in Gloucester which puts these inconveniences in perspective.

with a litte help from my friends (and family)...

well it's been an interesting few days here in Gloucestershire. luckily we've been spared any damage to the house, although many people have not been so lucky and people less than a few streets away from us have suffered.

I was actually in a meeting outside of Nottingham on Friday oblivious to the chaos nd unable to access my phone, so when was somewhat suprised to have a voicemail from Paul left at 2pm telling me he'd had to abandon his car and walk home and that I may not want to try and get home that evening because it was unlikely to make it back. So, at his suggestion I called Sally and arranged to head for her house in Redditch as it seemed more reasonable and at least I would have a decent evening (and a glass of wine) with her rather than get stuck on the M5.

then, listening to the radio, it became clear that things were worse than they originally seemed, so I laid a plan of options - based on friends and family en-route that I could bail out at (Trevor and Nicola.... Rob and Fi... Karen and Craig....). Then I heard that it would take me probably near 3 hours to get along the M42 to to even the M40 junction so decided to abandon the option of going south, looked at the map and considered what friends I had in that part of the country! So... call into mad and rob and therefore spent a lovely evening with them catching up over an indian takeaway. God bless Sagga for providing a list of possible friends in need...

Sat morning I woke up early and at 5.45am decided to try and head off to hopefully miss any traffic. Got as far as Bromsgrove then all went pearshaped as the M5 was closed and I was forced to head north on the M42. So, as fate was clearly telling me something I went to sally's for a cuppa. Sally was due to take Laura and Adam down south that morning, to meet with mum halfway so mum could bring them to chetlenham for the week. so to save them from both getting stuck too, I offered to take the kids. We stocked up on "emergency" stuff, wellies, twix bars, macs (and Gameboy/Nintendo DS - obviously) and set off in optomism...! By this time the M5 was completely clsoed so we tried Evesham (no chance), then tried a few back roads, but all roads led to the Avon river, which wasn't having any of it, basically we were cut off from south fo the Avon. All the smaller routes across the Avon were completely impassable, with some swept away. We saw one car completely submerged and stopped in Bidford just to take a look at the gobsmaking views in front of us.

so we gave up, went back home to Redditch, watched a DVD, had some lunch then at 1.30pm tried again and headed for the M5 prepared to sit and wait it out on the motorway. Finally got home at 4pm, a mere 23 hours later than planned, but hey at least my waiting time was done in the warmth and dry.

Cheltenham has recovered suprisingly quickly, it now seems to be the areas with direct rivers on them that are still suffereing, Gloucester is now bearing itself for the banks to burst. As I write this we're being told that our water supply is about to run out and probably will remain off until Wedesday, so now the focus has shifted to people filling up their baths unecessarily and panic buying. Me, I'm just going to take the opportunity to smell....

wednesday. over half way. phew.

"I blame the sunday times"

.... these were the words of Mr Ellis at the Cornbury Music Festival as we entered the arena surrounded by middle aged, middle class 'festival go-ers'. These people had clearly all read articles about how going to "festivals" is now the done thing so are all giving it a go.... Cornbury style.

We had happily stood in the queue to get our wristbands listening to the couple in front discuss the failings of the ticketing/wristband process, and then watched the gentleman behind us alert a security official of the trip hazard that he had just spotted.

this was no Glastonbury! No sloping around in the mud , it was camp-chairs and marks M&S olives, Crosswords and Soduko between acts....

but hey - we had loads of fun anyway - even if we felt a little lowly without a deck-chair!

the weather blessed us, the music was excellent - especially the Feeling and Seth Lakeman and basically we forgot that we were grown ups for a few days.

Just what the doctor ordered .

whew - manic depression averted, just a bad day methinks.....

this evening i will be mostly attempting again the peach/raspberry cake that attempted a few weeks ago and failed miserably at, by both lacerating my finger and burning it on the outside and leaving it uncooked in the middle. Obviously I attempted to blame Paul for my errors (who else?) which didn't go down too well, so lets hope this attempt is more positive otherwise I may be dumped.....

I seem to spiralling into an oblivion of frustration and depression and I really don't know why. Life is good, nothing really to complain about, but I just can't seem to cheer up. It's so frustrating how work can start to take over your life and cloud all the good elements. at the end of the day your job isn't what you are, it's just an element of your life and in my case often a "role" that I play. but the more it sucks you in, and the more time you spend doing it, the more danger there is of it starting to define what you are and how you feel about everything within your life. It seems very hard to achieve a good balance of wanting to be good at your job, and giving your all to it, yet maintaining the energy and enthusiasm for the real stuff outside of the 9-5. (ah, if only it were 9-5!).

just reread that - it's not as bad as it sounds honest! It's sad how so many of my friends also seem to be in this work overload situation. Maybe we're all just at that stage in life/career where it seems to take off, or maybe we're just a bunch of sucessful corporate genuises or maybe it's the way that the world seems to be going, but either way I fear many of us are heading for burn out....

still - the good news is that we didn't get drowed out in the Malvern challenge and I managed to make it round the 5K racecourse yesterday raising over £300 for cancer research. Didn't get a time-check as I was too busy trying to breath at the end to remember to watch the clock but I guestimate around 30 mins which aint too bad.

so in my ongoing quest to maintain running (and give me something other than work to focus on) I have now set myself a goal of a 10K in September. anyone fancy joining me?????????

damn its sunday :-(

praise be, it's friday. bring on the sofa

I see Bernard Manning has died, very sad and all, however I never really "got" him. Guess I'm not only of a different generation, but also overly sensitive on the politically correct front, based on my job. Theres actually a classic case in Race Discrimination law which stems from a "gig" he did which was offended the staff at the place he was performing. I'm sure it was all very funny in it's day, but like smoking at your desk and secretaries sitting on the bosses knees, it's all a bit dated now (although someone obvioulsy forgot to tell Mr Prescott that).

Anway, onto less work-related matters, I'm currently typing in great pain due to a cooking injury. I knew this baking lark was a dangerous game to get into, but I took my chances armed with the shiny new kitchen knife in the valient fight against the sturdily-stoned peach. I lost. Darn it. Paul came to the rescue with a (frankly far-too-small) plaster and a smidgen of sympathy and return to his computer geekery-pokery post-haste.

That said, once bandaged up I returned to the culinary battle field and fought to the end... resulting in kitchen carnage but baking victory. well, I hope so anyway, theres certainly a lovely smell emanating from the oven as I wincingly type. Of course, my bandages prevent me from washing up, so if he's wants a piece of the (cake) action, he'll have to do his chores first.... ha ha.

forgot to say, still running (thanks for asking Melanie, and good luck with your plans!). I did a short run today and have the Race for lilfe coming up in 2 weeks (yikes). It's 5k which I know I can do but I really did struggle this morning. It's funny, I'm much better in the evening that in the morning (but then again I guess I am at most things - like getting out of bed...).

but the point of this is - if you haven't sponsored me yet, shame on you! Come on, I'm getting off my lardy arse, get your mothballed wallet out and SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!

see the sidebar link........

throat was rough for a couple of days but didn't result in the full-blown voice loss, which was a relief based on how busy I am at work and how little time I have for being ill at present. Don't even have time for a holiday, although to be fair thats also in part due to the fact that we are busy nearly every weekend until August and then don't want to have to pay full whack for a holiday and be surrounded by kids. Plenty of time for that if and when I ever get around to having my own!

So not much to tell about this week apart from work work work. We went to see Cara Dillon last night was who as good as ever, such a pure voice, and ably supported by a rather attractive looking fellow who had a multitude of musical talents, such as playing the recorder beautifully, the irish pipes , penny whistle, etc ,etc. It was all very impresive if slightly annoying that there was so much talent in the room. At the end Cara joined in by playing a fiddle and by that point I almost wanted to kill her for not only having such a beautiful voice, being absolutely gorgeous, a size 10 after having twins seven months ago, and having a lovely husband, but also being able to play the instrument so amazingly as well. But hey, I'm sure she has her off days and occasionally gets spinach stuck between her teeth. Plus it sounds as though having twin's three months early hasn't exactly been an easy ride so I'll forgive her.

Today is saturday adn I have mostly slept. I got up early, and then crashed and burned about 3pm for an hour and then again at 5pm. not something I normally do but clearly my body needed it. It's a quiet weekend this weekend so will probably spend tomorrow on my new obsession, slug hunting. I can't help it, I'm convinced theres a conspiracy to eat all my lovely new plants that I planted this week, and they just keep on coming. I am SO turning into my mother.

Other than that, its a glass of red wine, a sofa and Doctor Who.

morning, my throat hurts. uh oh. this is never a good sign for me a it may mean a few more days blogging if, as I suspect, it ends up with me being ill at home and unable to speak. hey ho we shall see.....

paul and i had a quite night in on friday after our plans changed at the last minute and our curry partners had to cancel. We redecorated the bedroom last weekend so were wanting to find some pictures of our hols to blow up and put on the walls. Paul gets his pictures developed as slides (he likes to make things complicated) so we put up the big screen and got our his projector and had a good look though the one of Thailand and of Angkor in Cambodia. Fantastic stuff, now I want to go back asap!

I'm a fan of those new small photo frames which you can stick a memory card in and they show lots of your photos on a loop - don't have one but I like them. We came to the conclusion that we could achieve a similar experience by leaving the screen and projector up, but tie the slide remote button onto Jess, so that whenever she flinches (which is regular as you know) we'd get a new photo.... I feel a whole new market opportunity may have just opened up.

compostastic

ok, so we may be a little late to this particular party, but we seem to have hit a certain stage in our lives where we feel the need to follow in the footsteps of our esteemed Mr Bryors and Ms Kendal towards the good life. as such, it was with great delight that we took delivery yesterday of our very own composter.

It's rather large in comparison with the rest of our garden, and looks a little like a certain enemy of the good DR. In fact we have consdiered sticking a sink plunger on the front and setting up an mp3 recording of "exterminate" to play whenever a cat goes near it, but we thought the neighbours might not be in sync with our own particular brand of humour.

But anyway, back to the point of all this.... bring on the potato peelings - never has waste been so exciting. Any tips from you old hands out there will be appreciated!

birthdays

absolutely pants day at work which started with redundancy consultations peppered with payroll disasters. what a great way to spend you birthday. I ended up in tears of frustration - oh so professional.

but then the birthday officially started when I got home and got some FAB presents and, more importantly, a big hug! went to a lovely restaurant, ate nice food and got drunk. what more can a girl ask for eh......

dumpty dum dum dum dum.... i'm not allowed to say the words cos paul has threatened to take back a present everytime it was mentioned but all I can say is......3 HOURS TO GO....!!!!!

I just ran the Tewkesbury 5 mile fun (?!) run - in under an hour. not bloody bad! now i'm off to lie on the sofa for the rest of the day.

i've had quite a few thoughts over the past week or so which went along the lines of "That would be an interesting thing to blog about, could possibly lead to an (unusually) insiteful and eloquent posting". Unfortunately by the time I get a bit of energy and near a laptop I'm completely unable to recollect any of said topics.

sorry 'bout that.

blimeyi'm knackered

it's thursday evening, I;ve been sat half watching Miss Match on TV and half entering sickness data on a database. Gosh my life is so exciting. I;ve also drunk quite a lot of red wine. all these things make for quite amusing moments - trust me.

work life inbalance

evening. it's thursday night and boy i'm looking foreward to the weekend. By pure chance April has been prety quiet for us with most weekends at home with few plans. But that has been a really good thing, as Paul has been settling into his new job and I have been trying to cover a colleagues role as well as mine (plus a third role for a couple of days) which has led to some long hours. Which has basically meant we've both collapsed at the weekends!

We did go out for a lovely meal here one evening which was absolutely gorgeous, both on the food front and on the atmosphere/service/ambience. Paul had sweet potato and coconut milk soup for starter which was out of this world so I had a go at making something similar the other day and was suitably impressed with my efforts.... Yum


hmm what else has been going on?

ah well we went salsa dancing last weekend for emma's birthday which was a right old laugh, and then this monday I dressed in a tabard and stripey cloth on my head for Singalongajoseph. sarah brought the contents of the school dressing up box which we made full use of. I'm sadly now paranoid that I have caught nits but I'm hoping it is just paranoia... I had a bit of trouble talking the next day due to my sore throat, "Jacob! Jacob and sons..." good old Donny Osmond.

oph and final thing for now. a reccomendation to go and see this film soon before it finishes at the cinema. As the Good Dr correctly described it " a proper grown up sci-fi". It was really good, with an inspired idea and a really should be seen on the big screen. Not bad for a non-geek eh, he's agreed it's a rom-com next!

the apprentice

sadly I'm addicted to it already. It's a bit like car crash TV.

we walked up snowdon on saturday. today I am having trouble walking up the stairs!

I’ve got rhythm

One of the many things that attracted me to Paul when I first met him was his addiction to and taste in music. My love of music is a big deal for me and it was so nice to meet someone who also frittered their hard earned cash away on an unhealthy dose of mainstream and obscure CD’s. I remember checking out his CD collection early on and deciding that he was the man for me when I saw he had CD’s from the likes of Eddie Reader, Snow Patrol, Kate Rusby and, critically Boo Hewerdine and The Bible (trust me on this one… that clinched the deal). Anyway… the point of this ramble is that not long after meeting Paul I succumbed to the iPod and have never looked back since. All my music in one place, on constant shuffle (when not laughing to Mark Kermode’s film reviews) is the best that technology can provide. Living in the 21st century really can have its benefits at times.

As time has gone on, and Christmas and birthdays pass, we have pretty much exhausted the options of iPod related gifts to each other; Chargers, iTrips, connectors to the stereo etc etc, and most recently a rather stylish (and excellent quality) travel speaker system option. I commented on the fact that we had run out of options for these presents as we unpacked said travel speaker in Paris last weekend. Little did I know that the next evening I would be proved wrong…

As we were making our way back from the Moulin Rouge we chose to “admire” the paraphernalia on sale in the local retail establishments – such a delightful area of Paris, so many of the shops had red lights on...…. To our surprise there, on display, was a highly innovative iPod related gift that had been completely off our radar (and, to be fair, remains bloody far off if - but that doesn't stop me from wanting to share the news with the blogworld!) - ….. WARNING – those of a nervous disposition or Aunt/Uncle status should possibly refrain from viewing, or at least ever mentioning this post on family occasions!

a weekend of serous spring cleaning has left me aching in places I didn't konw there were muscles. I'm looking forward to a long soak in the bath adn a glass of red wine.


and then the ironing :-(

jobs

Paul starts a new one on monday. I'm trying to do two at the same time cos someones off sick.
Oh joy.

as part of the new contract Paul was considering options for a new comapny name as he's never been that keen on his old one very much (had to create it in a hurry last time). He was carefully considering options. He was looking for something related to the love of his life... I suggested Ginger Solutions but he pointed out that he meant kayaking not me. :-(

He finally found something he was happy with and ran upstairs to tell me "what about Creek Systems?". My response was " as in 'Up S**t....'!?!". I haven't laughed quite that hard in ages. In fact this was 3 days ago and I'm pissing myself again jsut writing this!

he wasn't too impressed with me. oops.

Luckily when sarah came round for tea the next night I asked him to tell her and she had the same response.

Vindication.

just signed up to the national organ donation register. I have carried a card around for years but never got around to signing online. The form came with my EHIC card (which replaces the E111) which I got around to filling in the day before we went to Paris and which arrived the day after we came back. Me and my organsational skills.... the heart is willing and all that!

Cracking Weekend Gromit

had a great weekend. We celebrated the end of Gold Cup weekend and early St Patricks with the usual posh drunks in Cheltenham. Ended up with Guinness hats on our head, an Irish flag and a few badges better off. God bless the Irish! Had to rise early on the saturday to see a man about a remortgage which didn't really help the recovery. Last night was spent catching up with Mark and Zoe, along with a second evening in the company of mr and mrs wood. Brilliant evening of alcohol, lasagne, board games and old fashioned Pac Man, plus gossip, laughter and matchmakers. These friends are mad but highly entertaining!

Recovery involved lots of tea, visits to mums, painting the bathroom floor and varnishing wood. all good stuff.

4 days to paris..... woohooooooo

Life on Mars

it really is quality TV isn't it.

it's the weekend, the sun is shining, the world is happy and I have a cold. :-(
I'm feeling sorry for myself, sat in my dressing gown on the sofa with only my laptop for company (oh, and Paul I guess, oh and the cats....). my head is pounding, my nose is running and, as per usual on these occasions, my throat hurts and my voice is deeper.... must be about time for my annual voice loss...

the good news is Millie has a cold as well and is amusing Paul and I on regular occasions by her sneezing. hope it's not bird flu... to be fair she hasn't been near a bird in years, that would involve levels of physical exertion way beyond her capabilities.

other exciting news apart from my self-pity is I'm learning Teeline shorthand, in an attempt to keep my brain active and learnt something which will be of use in my daily working life. having to take notes in interviews/disciplinary hearings etc can be quite hard going when you're not skilled at that sort of thing, and I have always said that shorthand should actually be a staple course within HR qualifications, so now I've decided to do something about it and learn it myself. I chose the "not quite as quick as Pitman but easier to learn" option with Teeline which is often used by journalists. It's a challenge but I'm making progress and it's so nice to actually feel like I'm learning a new skill.... not something I've done for ages.

I've just finished reading this book which I recommend to anyone who thinks they're having a bad day. I heard Nando being interviewed by Simon Mayo ages ago and resolved to read the real story of the Andes plane crash rather than just be aware of the bare facts and the media hype. I must now go back and watch the film Alive again, as it's a long time since I saw it.

I'm now onto much more frivolous literary options with Starter for Ten sometimes you just need a bit of light relief. Haven't seen the film but the book already has be doubled up in painful embarassment.

Paris

we're off for a long weekend in a cuple of weeks. anyone got any good tips?

i've got the sunday night blues. no reason to be down, perhaps just the result of a good weekend and no great desire to go to work tomorrow.

Mum and dad have made it back to the Uk all limbs intact. the bungee jumping was a cruel lie but they have photographic evidence of the tandem paragliding - fair play.

and yes - I've signed up for race for life again so you may as well give in now to save the e-mails/harassment/blackmail and sponsor me!

click on the link in the side bar - and tell all your friends to as well!

went to see Keane last night. fantastic - what a voice that bloke has.

London part 2...

so, to continue with the London chronicles....

we went to the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, mainly to see the Miffy exhibition obvioulsy, but aside from that it was really good. they had toys from all eras so Paul and I got all nostalgic looking at Spirographs and Weeble Treehouses. I walked away with a cut out miffy mask (can I have one for my child please? which child is that? Ohhhh that random one over there that looks nothing like me and is holding hands with another sensible mum-looking adult.... honest").

After that we nipped over to the Tate Modern to check out the slides before heading back to the suburban dream of cheltenham.

london was fab. touristy stuff works for me. we went on the London Eye and "oohed and aahed" at the fantastic panorama. You forget just how many interesting things there are in London. it would be easy to fill 2 weeks just wandering. oh to have 2 weeks to wander.
we stayed in the fantastic Apex hotel near the tower of london which I would highly reccomend to anyone, very comfortable, close to a tube, lovely room and good price. do I sound like an advert?
we also visited the excellent cabinet rooms which were very sobering but fascinating all the same. with the churchill exhibition also having the same effect. that is a serious impressive piece of exhibitioning (is that a word?) with all sorts of jiggerypokerytechhiestuff aiming to make it more interesting - which I guess it did although it was, at times, just a little bit mind-blowing with overstimulation. All very high-tech but there were times when I just wanted to read a bit of information and look at some photos in a logical, or, dare-i-say-it, chronological order! - must be old. Still, it was fascinating reading about how Churchill prepared, rehearsed and delivered his speeches. Can't ever imagine a Blair musuem can you? Hmmmm, the world might be in better shape if we had leaders like we had in the "good old days"... or is that just nostalgia perverting historical fact?

ANYWAY I digress. we also visited the Wildlife Photography Exhibition at the Natural History Museum - again an excellent exhibition where many of the photographs took our breath away. especially this one - (taken by a teenager - grrr) and my other favourites are here, here and here.


more on london later. as an aside... do we really need to know about camilla's impending operation??? surely the poor lady needs some privacy?

in the footsteps of dick whittington, we're off to London to find our fame and fortune. actually that's not strictly true. we're off to play tourists, go on the London Eye and visit this (although Paul thinks we're going there to visit this - naive fool)



lets just hope there's no snow to scupper our plans.

I received a text message the other morning at 4am. It was from my mum. her and dad are off spening my inheritance again, this time in new Zealand. She was telling me that they'd been tandem paragliding.




TANDEM PARAGLIDING???? Dear god what on earth has the world come to?

went to see Billie Piper, Kris Marshall and some other geezer in play (Treats) in malvern last night. it was a v. good play, I think Kris M deserved to get top billing as he was fantastic, but I guess Ms Piper pulls in the crowds a bit more these days. To be fair, the other guy was also excellent as the hapless middleman. It had some tough messages but also some cracking lines, my favourite being "he's got a permanent look on his face like someone who has jsut stepped into a lift-shaft" - or something like that. made me laugh anyway.

other big news is Karen and Craig could be busy for a while. check out their new blog

yes i've had an evening wasting time on the internet

thanks to paul, I've just split my sides at these fantastic reviews on amazon. You may well already know about it but I had to spread the word just in case. trust me it's worth the mouse click....

oh boy oh boy oh boy

i've just found the BEST flickr group ever here my work here is done.

oh boy. top night.

we drank verious forms of cocktails, helpfully created by the master team (commonly known as Rada. John G and John E). We socialised and gossiped. We crammed 32 people into our house. we danced to "let's hear it for the boy" and we finally crashed and burned about 3am.

we then had to face the carnage this morning..... (but it was sooooo worth it). Cocktails rule!

evidence in photo format sometime this week.....

there's a lot of alcholol in this house. it could get messy

this weekend I have been mostly binge-drinking.

working in an office in a small warehosue style building in the middle of boscombe down, one of the flattest parts of the country, was not the most pleasant experience today. At times I felt like I was Dorothy about to be whisked off away from Kansas to Oz.

There's no place like home....

decisions

we're off to London in February to do the tourist bit. I promised Paul as part of his birthday present last May to take him on the London Eye and (cunningly) I have also noted that there's a Miffy exhibition on at the V&A Museum which finishes in March so I needed to get my skates on. He's accepted the futility of putting up a fight on this one and is taking the "if you can't beat them...may as well get a weekend away out of it" approach, bless him!

Anyway, we have spent the evening pondering on places to stay, weighing up the ridiculous costs of hotels centrally with the benefits of locality, compared to the cheaper ones that sit way outside the centre. It soon became apparent, however, that despite our attempts to make solid judgements based on fair and appropriate criteria (we both like to look at the reviews of places on Tripadvisor and Venere), when it came down to it, we were both influenced by the same thing - bedlinen. Yes hoteliers of the world take note... you can have the nicest website, the best prices and fantastic locality, but if you've got a picture on your website of a double bed with a dark tartan/pink flowery/or depressingly striped bedcover, you ain't getting our custom.

And to think I spend hours training managers on how to recruit employees based on objective criteria and not "gut feeling". I'm so ashamed.

sheesh, you think you know someone....!

it's all very exciting. apparently some long lost relative of mine that I have never heard of before has been tragically killed in a car accident somewhere in Africa. not entirely sure where exactly as there seems to be some discrepancy over the exact location. Anyway, the nice helpful solicitor has finally managed to contact me through the use of the amazing technology of the World Wide Web (where would we be without it eh). This solicitor (actually there's a few of them but we'll not get bogged down in details) has helpfully advised me of the fact that this long lost relative has an estate of somewhere within the region of $14 - $23 million, of which I am the beneficiary. As I said, it's all very exciting. So I'm off to fax all my personal details to this guy (or - to make sure I might send it to all 7 of them) so that I get the cash. If you don't hear from me again I'm on a beach in Bali.


or maybe not... :)

mmm curry. must rememeber to remid Mad to chew next time though.

programme for the year is set, with lots of fun plans for cycling, karting, theatreing and oh a bit of service work too.

The Chicken was on the move last night..... there may be some updated photso at some point....

Champagne SuperNova

I'm usually struggling to motivate myself to do anything on a monday evening me. Having missed the first ten minutes of Waking the Dead on sunday, it meant that I was at a total loss for the rest of the programme and therefore had no great desire to watch the second half last night. luckily I had a better option.... a night out!

My weekend seems to have moved a bit out of kilter, with friday and saturday spent on my sofa doing nothing, and then last night and tonight full of social activity and excitement. Curry tonight, and a meal out for sax's birthday last night.

Last night was exceptionally funny and entertaining, not least by the fact that it was a champagne special evening at the fatastic Storyteller restaurant in Cheltenham. Now for a girl like me, who is allergic to champagne, that wouldn't normally be my choice of evening out. However it did mean I could watch the others get slowly more and more drunk on the tasters of champagne (for a bargin price as well) whilst ALSO getting to eat fantastic, non-champagne-related-food. Sax was very impressed with my present of a dayglo/flashing armband to wear whilst jogging at night, so much so that she wore it as a dog-collar - she was also suitably embarassed when we sang her happy birthday in the restaurant and they bought out a cake. all in all, a definately more enjoyable way to spend a monday evening.

We've both been working on our laptops sat on the sofas this evening. i've just asked paul to make me a cup of tea by e-mail.

this doesn't bode well....

i've been playing with my new camera.... it's ace.

Blimey!

I ordered my camera at about 4pm yesterday afternoon. Didn't choose any special delivery options. It arrived at 7.20am this morning. That's almost the level of instant gratification you get when doing normal shopping! well done Jessops and Initial City Link.

january sales

I'm not a fan of January sales. The idea of queueing up in the rain for hours, elbowing scary women in leggings with baggy knees and battling with grannies to buy the crap that no-one wants in December doesn't really appeal. However, during the new year trip to wales I managed to drown my (already-knackered-but-working-passably-enough-not-to-justify-buying-a-a-new-one) digital camera. Should have used a dry bag inside my nice new rucksack. although, to be fair I don't own one as it's an achievement getting me to use a rucksack in the best of weather let alone hailstorms. But the canoe boy had one. Just didn't think. Oops. But in retrospect it was an achievement really as it allowed me to spend my Christmas money on a shiny new Canon digital camera. And the beauty of it was that it WAS in the sale, BUT I got it online, so I didn't even have to fight any old grannies or over-zealous NEXT shoppers to get it but it was a good price. Now, though, I'm waiting impatiently for the postman to deliver. In general I have to admit I prefer the immediate gratification of normal shopping. Passing over the cash/credit card and walking away with the product in my hand. It's a female hormone thing. But where January sales are concerned I think this is the way forward.

day 2 of back at work

it's slightly better than day 1 I guess.

Highlights of the festive season

Well I had a good break, hope everyone else did! Some of the highlights:

pre-Christmas get-together with friends to celebrate Sarah’s birthday. Chinese food is such a blessed relief in the middle of turkey dinners and Christmas puddings. I forced Sax and Emma to sit and watch "a Muppet Christmas carol" with me on the Saturday. whilst eating mince pies. This has to be my favourite Christmas film of all time. Sod ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, this is the one to get me in the mood!

Christmas Eve was spent in Paul's local back in Water Orton.... not too scary an experience! then on Christmas morning I amazed Paul and his brother by heading out for a quick run. I wanted to have a good nose around the village really as it's got some lovely houses. Also a good excuse to then eat loads of food and chocolate! Later on we went over to Sally and Jon's where I subjected him not only to my family but also Jon’s family - nothing like throwing him in at the deep end! Boxing day was back to Mum's for the 25 person sit down meal and general chaos that is the Haigh Christmas. Best presents were:

Itrip (unfortunately I got three but they were all appreciated!),
Gary Barlow autobiography!!!!,
Large soft toy of miffy
plus many more things that I can't recall due to the amount of alcohol that has since been consumed!


After Christmas the excitement didn't let up, with gatherings of Sagga old and young'uns. We went round to the Bishop's in Painswick, where we caught up with them and the Blands, Including the kids - Heather, Jim, Wendy and Steve plus me and Rach. Now it's been a while since that happened. We were able to have a private tour of the Painswick church bell tower which gave a fantastic view of the surrounding area. At one point in time, with Jim and his dad discussing the intricate workings of the church bell system i had a flashback to NorthWest Sagga events of bygone years and realised how little things change!

Wednesday evening was spent in a favoured pub called the Green Dragon which does banoffee pie to die for! Thursday was back up to Paul's bro and sis in law to see them, then Friday we headed up to North Wales .

What can I say about new year? Well, as I imagine most people will have experienced, it was a bit soggy! But good fun and relaxed all the same. We went up to Deinolien in Snowdonia, to a lovely place which easily fitted the various Sagga families. This was the first time I had visited it and I can see why they have used it a few times. Private bathrooms in bunkhouses are an impressive feature!

We attempted 2 walks, the first one was somewhat thwarted by the torrential hailstorms which began just as we had kitted ourselves out and started to walk across the car park. Still, despite the pain of the hailstones, we battled on regardless and did the shortest option round the lake and back, before parting with the keener lot to return to base for some warmth and a good book (Gary Barlow kept me company a lot this new year!). The Sunday was even worse as it was simply wet and windy without the novelty of hailstones! Again we did a short walk then abandoned the keener people to return to the pub where we met up with Clr, Ed and Phillip. The keener crew (Jonathon W and Dave Heale) took slightly longer than anticipated and forced us to remain within the establishment for more time than we had planned. Obviously we were dying to get out there and do something worthwhile (or actually maybe go and find them if they were lost) but the lure of the warmth and beer was too great! Luckily they eventually appeared and we were not forced to spend out new years eve wandering the hills in search of them!

New years eve itself went surprisingly quickly, with a lovely meal, some excellent new games and a hearty helping of wine and chocolate fondue. We returned back to base nicely refreshed, if a little less exercised than planned. Hey ho, bring on 2007….