its been a long week... the first week back after holidays always is. the good bit was finishing early today, but in reality, given the painfully early morning it wasn't that much of a bonus. However it did mean that mr slacker (who gets off at lunchtime) and I walked to Morrisons about half four to buy some tea and got diverted into the Greatfield Pub. Thats the danger of shopping in a supermarket that has a pub located in the car park. Temptation with a capital T. 2 hours later we rolled out somewhat more in the weekend spirit, and had a much more enjoyable shopping experience for it. Normally my blood boils with the stress of shopping in the mis-managed, freaks for employees and basic hell-hole that is Morrisons, but a couple of glasses of wine and the whole experience is much less stressful - a bit like anasthesia for root canal work, its got to be done but much less painful when experience in a haze of consciousness....

So, having chomped out way through a packet of rolos before even entering the fruit and vedge section, we managed to enthusiastically spend far too much money on things we didn't need, and forgot that we had walked so by the time we reached the tills we had a serious imbalance of 'Purchases' to 'Carrying Potential' ratio. Luckily, with the help of an enthusiastic scout master and his troop who were packing for charity, we proportioned the weight equally (at least thats what paul thinks) and valiently struggled home.

the boy is now attempting to recreate the khymer curry that we so enjoyed last week in cambodia and I am about to collapse on the sofa.

I love fridays ;-)

oh boy the week you return to work after a top holiday really does drag doesn't it! It's only wednesday and I really need it to be saturday tomorrow. doesn't help that I've had a bad headache for the past 2 days and spent the whole of yesterday evening crashed out in bed. Work is picking up with some more interesting (yet probably quite stressful and busy) things planned.

still, i'm trying to make the psychological move from sunbathing in 31 degrees to thinking about christmas, not an easy move I have to say. we're looking at a visit to the christmas markets in Munich which may help, lashings of gluvine always puts me in a festive mood. I can't quite bear the thought of buying presents or christmas cards yet but I should probably get a move on. The other challenge is wading through the mountains of episodes of Spooks, Torchwoord, Robinhood and QI which we recorded when we were off.... more lying on the sofa this evening then...

Read 2 fantastic books when I was on holiday, highly recomemnded if you've not already found them yourself- The Observations and The Shadow of the Wind

also started to listen to the audiobook of Bill Bryson's latest book which is excellent entertainment and really enjoyable to listen to him narrate it.

Home safe and sound after a long journey. We had a fab time and there’s just too much to say really so I’ll give it all a miss and just give a one-liner summary to each section so people shall simply have to wait till I see them and subject them to the 300 photo slide show! It doesn’t really do justice to what was such a brilliant holiday but hopefully you’ll get the gist!

Bangkok was amazing, hectic, dirty, noisy, full of amazing sights, sounds and smells. Loved the temples and surprisingly loved Jim Thompson’s house (I hadn’t been that bothered about going) for the beautiful design and the sheer serenity in the middle of such a mad city.

Koh Lanta was out of this world, we went VVVV posh, took a bit of getting used to but we got there in the end. The hotel and room was gorgeous, the pool lived up to expectations, views amazing and the sea… wow. We canoed around islands, Paul did some diving and I snorkelled (as well as throwing up with seasickness but hey ho), we chilled out and drank for England watching the sunset.

Cambodia was exciting and beautiful. Angkor Wat blew our minds, such a massive place, and you get to clamber all over the temples so you really get a chance to see everything – not sure how long that will last. Some of the steps were seriously steep – there’s no way you’d be able to do that at home. The food was fab, the best of the whole holiday. You can’t ignore the problems that are out there but the place has loads going for it and I would recommend anyone to go.

So, home now, cats are happy to see us and we have mountains of washing. Reality hits hard sometimes.

One day in history

the national trust are setting up a national record of life on 17th October. "We want as many people as possible to record a ‘blog’ diary of this one day which will eventually be stored by the British Library as a permanent historical record of our national life.

This is a one off, one day diary done on a mass scale – that will itself make history and can be a resource for historians in the future."

let's get involved....

1 week 1 day to go

oh boy oh boy can't wait. Paul's off to scotland this weekend to play with canoes. he's had a stern talking to about behaving himself and not getting into any scrapes that might bugger up the holiday plans. he'll ignore me but it's worth a try.

went to the tewksbury fair last night. emma forced me into going on a scary ride (with my track record of carsickness, fairground rides and me are not a good pairing...). I had planned on simply watching and laughing, whilst eating (fat free) candyfloss but she wasn't having any of it and persuaded me to go on one that "is fine... really".

she lied

it went round in a circle, then upside down and round in a circle. It wasn't too bad but unfortunately my sensible head kept flashing back to numerous episodes of Casualty and London's Burning which involved mass fairground carnage and big explosions. I hate being a grown up and worrying about risk assessments and fairground quality control systems. Oh to be 14 years old and have this as the highlight of the year's social calendar. next year we're going to take their lead and wear tracksuits with stilettos and gel our hair down (with a concrete fringe sticking out at a right angle) so it doesn't move an inch on the waltzers.

in return for terrorising me on the upsidedown wheelything, emma won me a toy "george" from rainbow which I proudly presented paul with when I got home. I'm sure he was more chuffed than he let on, he was lucky, if she hadn't have won that we would have got him a barbie balloon...

a nice lazy weekend this weekend. the book I'm currently reading refers to a big explosion in a canadian town called Halifax in 1917. Really interesting and led me to look up a bit more detail on the internet. Whilst doing so I also read about this What wierd things occur in this world eh...