Hide and Seek!

I hid in the loo today to avoid someone at work (because they irritate me so much). I think I need psychiatric help! My plan worked though and they had vacated my office space by the time I came out.

A poem on my thoughts about meetings:-

Matters Arising are never surprising
cos no action’s been taken since the last consultation
so they appear ever week
until I think I will freak
with the boredom of hearing them
and nobody clearing em!

Then onto the agenda
that will probably send ya
past the point of caring
as you are constantly staring
at the clock that says eleven
and you’ve only on item seven!

Then there’s AOB at the end
when, if you’re my friend
you won’t utter a word
cos’ you’ve probably heard
that I think meetings stink
and should be more succinct!

I don’t think you have anything to worry about in the poem writing stakes Anne but I enjoyed writing it!

Peter is going to band practice tonight so I will have the internet connection to myself – it will be nice when we don’t have to fight over it.

Good Things today:-
Mum says her internet connection is now definitely working fine HOORAY
It’s pay day (god it seems a long month)
An afternoon to myself in the office (except for the Consultant and I ignored him)
Grand Designs is back on tonight and Dragons Den (quality TV at my fingertips)

Bad Things
Despite sending mum a step by step ‘screen print’ guide on how to access her email – she still can’t crack it arghhhhhhhhh !
Missed Richard and Judy’s Bookclub – it was on tonight not last night (duh!)
Getting a letter from the doctors ‘inviting’ me have a smear test – those 3 years have gone to quick! This is one invitation I could do without

A little Monkey

Due to yesterday's bike tyre explosion I took Peter to the station this mornng which meant I was at work by about 7.15am. Great I thought, plenty of time to get a coffee, do a bit of internet surfing before the boss gets in - really ease myself into the day before my official work start time of 7.45. Wrong! Saw the boss coming across the car park at 7.23 precisely!. The boss has his house on campus, which I can see from my office window, and I'm convinced he see's my office light go on and legs it over just to make sure I have enough work. Grhhhhh..............

Anyway, pretty full stretch workwise this morning and then tackled the dreaded filing. Is there anyone in the whole world that actually likes this task I wonder? I just find my mind wandering on to anything but the task in hand when I'm doing it. It's not helped by the knowledge that approximately 80% of what I file will never be looked at again until it is time to edit the file and recyle the paper!

I've just found out that Al Gore's 'An Inconvient Truth' is being shown at The Screen in Winchester tonight http://www.screencinemas.co.uk/php-bin/frameme.php?page=/films/inconvenienttruth.fhtml?wci. This film is on my 'must see' list and I'm disappointed that I've only just found out it is on. It appears it is only on for one night too :-(. I know I can get it on DVD from Amazon for about £6.00 but I think it would be a more powerful viewing to see it on the big screen.

Looks like Peter won't have band practice next Wednesday night so that means we can go to the cinema and use the 'Orange Wednesday' one person gets in for free offer. AIT (mentioned above) is not mainstream enough to be on at our local cinema but we both want to go and see 'Hannibal' and 'Music and Lyrics' so I guess it will be one of those two we see.

Looking forward to getting home this afternoon as it's 'Richard and Judy's bookclub' today and Peter is bringing me home a .................. which are free with Tea Bags at the moment.

Yes, I am a sad muppet !!!!

Play Play Away

Back to work this morning. I had to attend a staff development event in the morning. As it happened it wasn't as bad as I had expected (some of these things can be toe curlingly embarrassing). It was all about Equality and Diversity and, rather than just preaching to us, the College had hired a theatre company to come and in and stage a short play where one actor played a very biggoted boss who was undermining his female co-worker by expecting her to always make the tea for example and calling a short sighted warehouseman 'Mr Magoo' – you get the picture! After the play we had to split into three groups and we were assigned two actors per group and had to give them difference scenarios to act out and tell them if they were being 'un PC'. Some of their antics were quite hilarious. At the very end a representative from each group was supposed to stand up and say what we had learnt from the experience. Our group was obviously the shy group as everyone sort of slid down their chairs when this was mentioned and in the end one of the facilitators had to do it (we excused our reticence by saying we had learnt to be assertive by saying 'no' to doing it – tee hee ).

Had a blinding headache by the end of the day (must be getting back into work again). Anyway, still dragged myself along to Weight Watchers and I'd lost another 1 lb so thats 1 stone and 3lbs so far. Slowly slowy catchy monkey as they say........ bit too slow for my liking really but at least, so far, every week I have been heading in the right direction.

Phoned mum this evening - my uncle is still alive but definitely brain stem dead. It's horrible to think his heart and lungs could keep him going for weeks without their being any chance of him recovering. Very very cruel on my aunt. I guess the hospital are unable, legally, to intervene and have to let nature take its course..........

On the positive front - mum managed to log onto the the internet today loads of times bar one failed attempt which 'I hope' means that the telephone line theory was correct and it should all be fine now.

Feeling pretty pooped now so going to have a very early night accompanied by wall to wall soap opera. Peter is busy dealing with other things downstairs such as a 'chewing gum' bum incident and an exploding tyre (all will become clear in his blog if you care to read it).

Family

Dad rang this morning whilst I was in the shower and Peter took the call. My uncle Reg (on my mother's side of the family) is very ill in hospital. Uncle Reg has been ill for just a few weeks with gallstones and after lots of cancelled operations finally unterwent surgery last Friday. When I saw mum and dad on Saturday they said he had had the operative and was just in hospital for a few days recovering. But last night he suffered a stroke and now they are talking about turning off his life support. A real shock and just goes to prove that you never know what is around the corner.

Whilst typing this, just heard from dad again to say that the hospital have taken Uncle Reg off the ventilator but they don't expect him to survive for long and if he does he will be in a total vegative state. I think that's even harder for my aunt than if things happened quickly.
Haven't really done much today other than read the papers (which Peter ventured out to get), watched a film (War of the Worlds) which was not nearly as good as I thought it would be and read quite a large chunk of 'Twilight' by Peter James. Anne, if you are reading this, I am still enjoying TDM - I just have several books on the go at once.

Well, that's about it for today - going to set the video to tape the one off drama 'Recovery' tonight as I doubt I will be awake by 10.30.

Good things today - Peter being funny and kind (balancing a radio on his forehead was a hi-light!)

Bad things today - Sad family news

Feeling Fuzzy

Yes, back to see my parents again today for the next instalment of 'internet agony'. We have nearly reached the end of the line, so to speak, as it can now only be a telephone line problem that is causing the problem. So it's over to their phone provider to try and sort it out over the next few days - if that doesn't work then I guess they will have to think about going Broadband.

Had lunch at mum and dads - mum had forgotten I was on a diet so served up steak and kidney pie. As I sat down to eat she said "sorry Sue, I forgot, you can always leave some". Hmm now that is almost impossible a) cos it looked so good b) it would be a waste of good home cooking and c) I was starving!. So didn't have any gravy and skipped any offer of pudding. Going to check the scales tomorrow morning to see how I'm doing for the big weigh in on Monday night - had to get new batteries for the scales as they were mysteriously registering about half a stone and no-one was even standing on them!!! (Not good when you are watching every 1lb).

In the afternoon we sped up to Basingstoke Odeon to see Hot Fuzz. Odeon have only just taken over and I have to say they are an improvement on Vue. They sell DVD's in the foyer, the staff are pleasant (the ticket taker said we could sit in the premier seats at no extra charge!) and the seats were really comfortable. The first time in ages I haven't suffered from a numb bum. Anyway the film was a riot (literally!). There were so many stars in it you just kept wondering who was going to pop up next. The writing was very clever with little things that you thought were insignificant at the beginning of the story coming into the story at the end. Very funny indeed but also surprisingly violent and gory in places.

Oh, preceding the film was a trailer about how the cinema is encouraging different sectors of the community to use it. First there was an image of mums and babies sitting in the cinema for 'baby club', then there was a session for older kids, one for film buffs and finally one called 'Senior Screen' for the oldies where, wait for it, tea and biscuits would be served! It showed a line of blue rinse grannies pouring cups of tea whilst sitting in the cinema seats. We immediately thought of my parents who haven't been to the cinema since about 1976 - hilarious.

Got home just in time to see Harry Hill on the box and then watched a DVD of a programme called 'Wanted Down Under' which is about people who are interested in emigrating to Aus. It featured a friend of Peter's who he knows from football. She has since said the programme was incorrectly edited in several places and gave the impression that they had decided not to go, which is not the case at all. They have in fact put their plans on hold but are still very much wishing to go (that's reality TV for you!)

Good things today
Saw a great film - great escapism
Laughed a lot
Hopefully progress has been made on the internet front

Bad things today
Probably went over my weight watchers points allowance 'again' today

A Girly Day

At last! A day of my leave that I have enjoyed :-). Picked up my pal Julie in Andover at around 9.00am and went over to our mutual friend Wendy's house. The plan for the day was watch a DVD and chat, then go out for lunch and then back to Wendy's again for another film. When we got there the Gas Man had just arrived (Wendy's heating had gone haywire and wouldn't switch off - the heat was on it's highest setting so it was bl**dy hot in there!) but, according to Julie, not as hot as the Gas Man (we already knew his name, as we walked in the gate, as he had a large sign saying 'Alfie' in the windscreeen of his van). Whilst watching our film - a creepy one called 'Hide and Seek' - Alfie kept coming into the front room and crawling around on his knee's to look at the radiator (much to Julie's delight who kept whispering that he had a nice bum). Poor bloke I'm sure he heard our giggles! It also struck me that he probably thought 'lazy cows, sitting around all day watching films' - he probably thought that's what we did every day.

For lunch we went to the 'all you can eat' Chinese in Andover. Not exactly Weight Watchers so i made sure I picked mostly non fried stuff (although the crispy beef shreds with chilly were just too tempting to resist). Then it was a quick look around a few shops (when I bumped into my cousin Heather and her family) and picked up a bargain book in a charity shop 'Interpretation of a Murder' for only 99p - I think it's in the best seller list at the moment and it's been recommended on 'Richard and Judy' so I was well pleased to find a copy and it looks brand new!

Back to Wendy's then - her husband was back from work (he only works half days on Friday's lucky sod!) and the Gas Man who had escaped from our clutches after after almost 3 hours in the morning was back again as one of the radiators wasn't heating up. Anyway, we watched 'Dark Water' - another creepy movie which I remembered already seeing but it was a while back so that was ok. Wendy's eldest daughter came home mid afternoon; delighted that she had passed her 'theory' driving test. Laura is almost 18 and she has a big party coming up at the end of March - she paraded 3 possible dresses that she is going to wear in front of us - we all agreed that a green number was the best but Laura thought the black was. When Julie said the black one "made her look like she was going to a funeral" she was not too impressed and left the room - oh dear :-(.

Came home around 6 and collected Peter from the train on route - as he had cycled in the morning we crambed the bike into the back of the car. Every time we do this I think that people must be wondering if we are steeling it. Peter cooked me scrambled egg on toast for tea (without butter) to try and compensate for the Chinese nosh.

Played a couple of games of chess, against the computer, on mum and dad's laptop - it's great fun. Zonked out by 9.00pm - started to watch 'Frost' but couldn't keep awake ..............

Good things today:-
Seeing my best pals (must do this more often)
Finding a bargain book
Being cooked for
Laughing a lot

Bad things today:-
Guilt over eating the Chinese meal

Stressful Day

Oh dear, it really is not my week at all. Went over to mum and dad's this morning and met up with David, my brother, and his family. It was raining hard so we couldn't go out so I thought, oh well, I might as well try and get my parents internet access problem sorted out. Made loads of atempts and then phoned the ISP's helpline from my mobile to see if they could sort anything. I was given an alternative dial up number to try and must have been on the phone call (which wasn't free) for about 20 minutes and then an incoming text message cut off my phone call. So phoned up again, got another techie this time and had to run through things again and this time my phone battery gave up. All in all I guess I was trying to sort things for about 2 hours and I had a pounding headache and my mum, lovely as she is, literally standing over my shoulder asking why it wouldn't work!!!! I don't know how I didn't 'lose it' but managed to stay calm. I have now tried everything that I can think of and the ISP have done their best but can't find any problem.

I didn't really get a chance for an in depth chat with my brother as the two children, although lovely, are full of energy and demand a lot of attention. I admire David and Becky for their patience - they seem to have it in spades. I would go insane if I just had to look after someone's chidren even for a day - you just don't get a second to yourself at all.

I have now made it home and have brought mum and dad's laptop home to try it on our line and, guess what, I dialled in first time and I'm typing this. Unbelievable! It just has to be their phone line as there is nothing else it can be.

All the way home my headache was banging and my neck muscles felt totally knotted up but within minutes of getting home my headache has almost gone and I can feel my body relaxing. I think I was more stressed out today than I'd thought...........

Looking forward to Peter getting home as I need a big hug and re-assurance that I haven't turned into Victor Meldrew as the last few days have been so pants. I promise my blog tomorrow will be more cheery as I am meeting some good friends (and what could go wrong with that!)

Good things today:
Seeing my brother & family - however briefly
Dad cleaning the outside of our car (lovely dad)

Bad things today:
Feeling unwell
Computer stress

Feeling Sad

What a rubbish day! Yesterday at work I was so looking forward to having 3 days off and to the fact that I was going to spend one day (today) seeing my brother and his family and another day with some girl friends. Carol, my work colleague, said I seemed 'on a high' yesterday which is an unusual comment indeed as work hasn't been that great lately.

Had been due to see my brother and his family and my mum and dad today but due to certain incompatibilities between my brother's idea of making arrangements and mine I decided not to meet them (I am a planner by nature and like to know what I am doing - he makes arrangements last minute which I find it difficult to cope with) . I had written much more about this in this blog but decided to edit it as you never know if it will come back and bite you on the bottom if the wrong person reads it in the future.

Anyway today wasn't the fun happy day I had envisaged and I just felt pretty miserable. I find that I get upset about things easily these days ............. Peter was lovely though and sent lots of sympathetic texts to me, from work, today which meant a lot.

Today's good things:
Starting to read 'A Dangerous Man'
Finding a very apt 30th birthday card for a friend
Support from Peter (knowing he is always on my side)
Seeing some frogspawn in our pond

Today's bad things:
Being upset
Making 'wishful thinking' plans in my head to run away and get married and not tell anyone (thinking about it I should tell Peter though!)

Technology Arhhhhhhhhh

Today is a very frustrating day at work - there is something wrong with our network and our email, internet and all other applications are up and down like a yo yo meaning that nothing much is getting done. Since this is my last working day this week - this is a bit frustrating.

Last night went to Fat Club for the weekly weigh in. The normal lady who runs it wasn't there as she is sufering from an allegy so the other ladies there who normally just take the money were flapping around like headless chickens. It was quite amusing standing in line behind about 15 other women waiting to get weighed - it felt like being at some sort of animal sale where they weigh the heffers (tee hee). Many people have misconceptions about Weight Watchers and think that you have to go to the front of the room and stand on a scales and then someone with a loud hailer shouts "only one of you on the scales at once fatty!!". Of course it is not like that at all - the scales have no reading on them - the reading is transmitted to a little machine that sits on the table next to the scales and only the person weighing you and the weight watcher can see the outcome. I lost one pound last night so that makes 1 stone and 2lbs so far overall.

Peter emailed me this morning to say that he had managed to get us tickets to see Ricky Gervais in April at the Bournemouth International Centre. As Peter does work on the BIC website we knew exactly what time the tickets would go on sale and he was there poised at 10.00am to enter our details.

I'm going to pinch an idea off my future sister in law, Anne, and put a list at the end of each day's blog a list of good things and bad things that happened during the day.

Good Things:
Ricky Gervais Tickets :-)

Bad Things:
Computers!

Ebay

A while back I purchased two items from Ebay on behalf of my mum. They never arrived and the horrid seller refused to reply to any of my emails. So I reported him to Ebay and found out that I qualified to receive compensation from them. Great I thought - it would mean that I only lost £8.00 out of the £40 I had spent as they don't cover postage costs (which came to £8) . A week ago £17.00 mysteriously appeared in my account from Ebay - on querying this Ebay said this is correct as they have subtracted a £15.00 admin charge from the £32.00 leaving me £17.00. £15 admin charge for what!!! They are as bad as the banks. So, as Peter says, if I had bought something for £15.00 or less I have just lost the money. Not impressed at all!

Today started very well as I came into work expecting to be pounced on by the boss with a shed load of work but it turned out he was going off to a meeting much earlier than expected. So, I have had time to get through a bit of a backlog that had built up. I am looking forward to this week as I'm only working today and tomorrow and then I'm off for the rest of the week :-)

Tonight it is fat club (Weight Watchers) and according to our scales I should have lost about 1.5lbs - on Mondays I tend to eat pretty much nothing all day just to give myself that extra edge on the Weight Watchers scales of doom. So far today I've only had two plain yoghurts and I actually don't feel hungry which is good.

Tonight we are having an early pancake day - no proper tea just pancakes. As I won't have eaten much I should be able to fit them into my calorie allowance.

Will continue this blog later with how things have gone for the rest of the day.

A Packed Saturday

We did rather a lot today.

• We left the house at about 8.00am as Peter had a parcel to collect at the Post Office - it's a 'floor tom' drum which Peter has purchased off Ebay.
• Then it was off to Ludgershall to archive a Geocache we had set up - someone had trashed it so we decided to take it off the Geocache system as we no longer live close enough to it to keep checking on it.
• Made a quick stop at the garage to pick up the papers - Peter is collecting the 'Chinese week' stuff in The Times. I was born in the year of the Dragon you know (hmmmm)
• Then it was over to our Favourite Charity Shop at Enham - we had to wait 10 minutes for it to open so sat on a bench opposite and froze to our bones - however we did see a pony and trap go by so that was interesting. I bought a fold up chair and Peter bought a load of books. It is a hazzard of this shop that the old lady on the till is very slow to serve you and this visit was no exception - she spend 10 minutes asking Peter how much she should price some computer books up for - I sneaked out whilst this was going on much to Peter's chargin!
• Then it was off to a book sale at Penton - there is a village hall there and once a month the book seller literally fills the place with secondhand books - it is very popular and it is always a challenge to get parking but the books are really cheap - paperbacks are about 60 p and hard backs only a few pounds. Peter purchased loads of books on aircrafts for our stall at Popham Airfield and I bought a couple of Barbara Erskine books for my friend Wendy. It gets very packed in the hall and you have to use your elbows a lot to fight your way through the crowd - some people buy box loads which I suspect they sell on (like we do)
• Then it was over to my parents to try and hook their new laptop up to the internet - we tried but couldn't get a connection which was annoying but we did install Word and Excel for them and also showed them how to watch a DVD on it and play music. We are going to go back next week to attempt the internet thing again. We stopped for lunch and Peter was delighted it was Chicken
• Then went over to our friends Wendy and Mick's for a cuppa and a chat - they are having some trying times with their eldest teenage daughter - makes me thankful that I never went down the kids route! Wendy has lent me Brokeback Mountain - Peter looked vaguely interested in watching it until Mick told him about the graphic gay scenes (then he sort of went off the idea!). I think I will be watching it on my own. Wendy's family is quite interesting - one of her brothers has just left his wife (I actually don't blame him as she is very lazy). Anyway, he has just got engaged to his new love, Lorraine, and Lorraine's kids have put an ad in the local paper congratulating them. Nigel hasn't even filed for divorce yet - I have to give him credit for the speed at which he is moving on with his life - amazing!
• Finally got home about 6 O'clock and chilled out by watching Harry Hill's TV Burp - funny as usual

Good Things about today

• Saw family and friends
• Books, books, books :-)
• A new film to watch

Bad Things today

• The housework still to do (on Sunday)

Back to Blogging ..........

I've been told by Peter and my future sister in law, Anne, to get back to the blogging. I have been enjoying reading Anne's ramblings so I guess it's only fair that now I know I have a readership of at least TWO I should not disappoint them. I've just read Peter's blog and read his A to Z of things he hates so I thought I would do the A to Z of things I love:-

A - Amazon (the online retailer - not the river!)

Well, I should have shares in this company. They sell the two favourite things I spend money on; books and music and their delivery and customer services is second to none - I have ordered stuff on a Thursday afternoon and it's been with me on Friday morning - simply amazing. Their prices are hard to beat too - if anyone pays full price in Smiths they are truly mad when Amazon probably have it for half price.

B - Bookshops

I adore bookshops and would love to own one someday. We have booked a holiday to a 'book town' Hay on Wye in Wales this year which has over 41 bookshops - I shall be in heaven.

C - Canada & Costa Coffee

Canada is our number 1 of places we want to visit and we are saving hard. I have just discovered Costa Coffee in our home town and we had what look like a vat of coffee in there a few weeks ago and watched the world go by - bliss! I have told Peter we are going in there once a month from now on as a treat.

D - Dating Online

Peter and I met online. I am glad not to be out in the realationship wilderness anymore. I feel content and settled.

E - Ebay

Ebay stopped me from starving when I was really really hard up prior to my flat sale going through. I was chucking loads of money at credit card bills etc to try and get all the bills down in order to secure our mortgage and it was only by selling stuff on Ebay that I had any money at all.

F - Friends

My bestest friend is Wendy. At one time I almost lived in her house and now we no longer live as near to each other it is lovely to meet up every few weeks for a girly chat. I sometimes feel closer to Wendy and her family than I do to my own.

G - Geocaching & Gardens

We haven't done any Geocaching for ages but it would be nice to pick this up again in the summer. Having spent 12 years living in a flat to have a garden after all of these years is still something I am very appreciative of.

H - Home

They say home is where the heart is and it's true. I love our house and I enjoy getting home each day and shutting the door on the outside world.

I - Ice Cream & The Internet

Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey - say no more! The internet has revolutionalised everything - my job is so much easier being able to find out details in a few clicks.

J - Journeys

I do enjoy driving or going by train especially if it's when you have are packed up ready to go on holiday. The anticipation of going somewhere new is great.

K - Kit Kats

Only 107 calories for a 2 finger bar!

L - Laptops & Laughter

Laptops are another thing on my 'love to have list' it would be so great to be able to get online from the garden or anyway in the house. Finding humour in things (even if they are supposed to be serious) is great. Peter and I often crack up at a serious item on the news!

M - Mail

It's great to get mail - in the age of the email to get a hand-written letter or card is indeed a joy.

N - Newspapers

I love the papers, especially at weekends, when their are loads of mags with them and you often get a free film CD.

O - Oasis (The Store)

Beautiful clothes, especially the gowns. I may get married in one of their styles one day.

P - Per-Una

Per-Una are a Marks and Spencers clothes brand which I adore.

Q - Quiet

Quiet places to sit and have a picnic and to read and think.

R - Richard and Judy

Sorry for this one! R&J are on the box shortly after I get home after work - when I am ready for a cup of tea and an hour of 'fluff TV'. They do a good slot on book reviews on Tuesday and any author who they promote becomes a sales phenomenon overnight - Anne send your books in now!

S - Shopping on Line

What a time saver! We buy all our groceries on line and a man with a van delivers. We:-
a) Don't have to queue
b) Save money as you don't get tempted with other stuff on the shelves
c) Save on petrol and parking
d) Don't have to leave the house!

T - Travelodges & Truly Madly Deeply

There is no way that Peter and I could have afforded to visit so many wonderful places in the UK without this hotel chain. We have stayed with them for as cheap as £10 per night - amazing!
As to TMD - it always makes me cry and it stars Alan Rickman (nuff said!)

U - Underwired Bras!

All the support you need

V - Violins

Any classical music with voilins in gets to me - there's something mournful about them - sniff sniff

W - Weight Watchers & Winter

WW system really works and I aim to reach my goal weight by October this year. A lot of people hate winter but I love the cosiness of coming home and curling up in front of the fire.

X - Xmas

My absolute favourite time of the year - I love everything about it.

Y - Yapping

A good yap with friends is always a tonic.

Z - ZZZZZZZZZZZ

If someone had told me in my twenties how much sleep means to me now I would have laughed at them. Come 9.00pm I am zonked (which is actually rather annoying). I do console myself with the fact that I get up at 5.45am though which may have something to do with it.