Bingo! It's Foxy & Car Wash Trauma (Again!)

Work has been busy the last couple of days but it's been ok. Yesterday I minuted the only meeting I actually like minuting for the 'Environmental Sustainability Development Group';it's really interesting and amongst things, like energy saving measures, they talked about bats, saving the local Tree Sparrow population and doing a survey of the colony of House Martins that visit the College in vast numbers in the summer. I finished the minutes off at home which actually took me quite a few hours but, because I like the subject, I didn't mind and I livened them up with some images I'd got from the net.

This morning I went to the Tesco garage first thing. My purpose was to get the paper and a few bits of pieces and put the car through the car wash and check the tyres. I have blogged about getting stuck in the car wash before and yep it happened again today. I couldn't believe it - it's fine until it gets to the 'drying phase' and then the metal arm just goes up and down in front of the car and not over it. I gave it a few minutes this time and then thought "I'll just reverse the car slightly" and bingo it worked! I can't believe that from the last time of me using it, weeks and weeks ago, that no-one has reported it and they are still letting people use it. Anyway, once 'out' I checked the tyres and they were only a few pounds under pressure so they took seconds to top up.

Back home whilst reading the paper we saw our urban fox again - this time he stayed around for ages eating the bird food off our little lowdown feeding table. We watched him for what must have been five minutes before he suddenly realised he was being watched and ran into the bushes. I'm finding it really interesting that he's out and about in broad daylight (this was about 9.00am) when surely he should be sleeping during the day. He looks a healthy weight so it's not like he's starving and having to scavenge during the day. Anyway, whatever the reason, it's a treat for us.

Today I have lots of chores to get through but should have some time to relax and read too.

Must remember to change the clocks back tonight.

Imaginary Fog and Real Frost

This morning I peeped through the bedroom curtains whilst it was still dark and exclaimed to Peter "oh my god, it's a pea souper out there - the fog is really thick". Half an hour later I looked out again and ran my hand down the inside of the window - yep no fog just condensation - what an idiot! However, there was a frost and I had to defrost the car for the first time this autumn.

It's been a good day today - work was fine and a book I'd ordered from Amazon turned up 'The Man in the Picture' by Susan Hill - it's always nice to receive a non-work related parcel at work.

After work I met two friends for a chat and a coffee and one of them gave me some bulbs to plant in the garden (hopefully they will turn out like the above picture).

This evening I shall be chilling out with 'The Family' on Channel 4 as I'm addicted and there are only 2 episodes to go - No! Wednesday nights just won't be the same.............

Early Meetings and Quick Fixes

I have grown to dislike Tuesdays - the reason being that I minute a meeting that starts at 8.25am. This means that as soon as I get into work I have to gather my papers and laptop and trudge off to whatever room we have been allocated (no time for my normal first coffee of the day). This morning we were the other side of the campus so I walked over and waited for everyone to arrive - only about 8 people turned up and my boss started the meeting - 15 minutes in a further 15 people turned up who had gone to the wrong room (despite my advisory emails). Even people who did know the right room turned up late! This sort of thing happens all the time - short of phoning everyone individually and escorting them to the venue I don't know what else to do to get everyone in the right room at the right time.

Anyway, at least as the meeting is so early I get the darn thing over with and I managed to get the minutes typed up before lunch.

I forgot to blog on Sunday that when my parents visited they mentioned that one of my Aunts had been on the Lighterlife diet programme (which is basically shakes, soup and cereal bars). Anyway she has lost 5 stone in just 14 weeks (that's 5lbs per week). Isn't that staggering! I must admit I am sorely tempted to try it myself. The way I look at it, it is 14 weeks out of my life and I could lose all the weight I want to in one short space of time (albeit I'd probably be a miserable cow throughout!). It is expensive at £66 per week which sounds horrendous - however, as you won't be buying 'normal' food it's not really that bad. If I did do it I would start it in January - 14 weeks of hell to set the new year off - ha, ha.

This evening I am picking up Peter up from the railway station when he gets back from an evening footie so I know I will struggle to stay awake. I have a few things on tape to keep me entertained anyway.

Sunday/Monday

Sunday

Sunday was lovely, if tiring as having visitors always is. We heard my parent’s car pull up at around 11.00am and then there was quite a long delay before they rang the door bell. It later transpired they had spent some time looking over our fence into the garden to see what condition it was in (hmmm, thank goodness we did a lot of gardening on Saturday then and passed muster).

I cooked us roast chicken for lunch accompanied by carrots fresh from the garden, followed by a delicious ‘GU’ pudding. There are a rare treat as they are so expensive but at least you are left with a lovely glass dish afterwards!

We played some card games in the afternoon which was fun and watched the wildlife in the garden and chatted. My parents are in good humour but are now starting to suffer ‘old age’ symptoms and dad admitted they now wake up in the morning and real off all the aches and pains they’ve had in the night – that’s something to look forward to then – NOT!

After mum and dad had gone we watched Sunday night telly which has got rubbish again so we watched the first episode of Stephen Fry’s trip around America and then I hid myself away to read some more of my book.

Monday

This morning was dark and windy and I just wanted to curl up in a chair with my book and look out at the weather instead of going to work.

Today I discovered an interesting website call www.dailylit.com. The premise of the site is that you chose a book from the thousands on offer and they email you a bite sized piece to read every day. I have always wanted to read Anna Karenina so I chose that and read my first couple of pages today. It only took we 3-4 minutes to read and I reckon it will brighten up a dull lunch break at work (when I manage to get one!).

As I left work it was throwing it down with rain and I got soaked just walking to the car. Poor Peter had it worse though having to cycle from the station on his bike - he was like a drowned rat when he got home.

Tonight I’m planning to ‘chill out’ as all the housework was done post my parent’s visit - it’s nice to be ahead of the game for once.

Foxy Where Do You Wander?

At about 8.30am whilst we were having a cup of tea whilst gazing out into the garden, I said "there's that cat again" only to look properly and realise it was a fox trotting across our lawn. He skipped into the shrubbery, scaled out 6ft wall, walked along it for a bit and then dropped down the other side into the grounds of the factory next to us. How lovely; we have seen him a few times before but always at night. I wonder where he lives and how far his teritory extends.........

I nipped out to get the paper first thing which wasn't without event. Unusually I decided to buy the paper at our local garage. We don't usually venture in there as it appears to be entirely staffed by one teenager and it's not unusual to find a queue snaking the length of the shop. Anyway, bought said paper and paid - then heard a crash and saw that the man who had been wheeling in the milk in a large crate had hit a bit of kerb and there were cartons of milk everywhere and a river of milk outside the door. As I walked past I was tempted to ask if I could have some of the damaged stock as as there was no way they could sell but thought he might thump me so scurried on by.

We have been having a big house cleaning/hedge trimming day. Peter has almost finished the hedge which has been really tough going as some of it is very thick. I've done the housework and gone through our complete stock of 'for sale' books and put them in alphabetical order and made sure our sale list is up to date (it wasn't) so that's a job off the list I have been meaning to do for a long time.

Peter started dipping into my family tree this afternoon as he belongs to Ancestry.Co.UK and it seems the last few generations have been carpenters and gardeners - good practical people then. It would be nice if one of them was a bit 'murky'though.

This evening we are looking forward to slobbing out with Harry Hill who's show comes back on tonight - he's so good at taking scenes from the week's TV shows and taking the mick out of them. I also hope to get some more reading in as I'm so enjoying 'Scandal of the Season'which is based around the life of Alexander Pope. I'm interested to read 'The Rape of the Lock' as I've never read any of his work.

Is this my most boring snoring blog?

It's not been a very interesting week. Monday through to Wednesday I was ill with a bad cold so didn't go into work. I did lots of sleeping, lots of watching day-time telly (it really does numb the brain), lots of reading and lots of gazing out in the garden watching the various garden visitors - particularly our friendly neighbourhood squirrels.

Thursday it was back to work.

This weekend we have my ma and pa coming to Sunday lunch and I am cooking a roast (chicken by special request of Peter). Times have certainly changed haven't they? In the 'olden days' one used to have a roast every Sunday but nowadays I reckon most people, like us, usually have a sandwich.

Sorry folk, possibly my most boring blog ever - a week when nothing happened.

Sleepy Sunday

Today my cold is worse so Peter has gone to Popham Airfield on his own. It's a shame as it's the last event of the season and it has turned out to be a beautiful day - I wish I was there.

Peter picked up the papers and a magazine for me before he set off which was nice and
I've spent the day reading (I finished Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin which I really enjoyed)and sleeping and watching TV.

Tonight we are eating curry because my taste buds are numb at the moment so I need to blast them with something! We shall undoutedly be wathing "Peter Kay’s Britain’s Got the Pop Factor and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice" tonight. I adore Peter Kay so I'm hoping it's going to be as funny as I'm anticipating.

In Bruge

Well, thank god it's Saturday. It's been a longggggggg week.

Woke up about quarter to seven this morning and came downstairs to make a cup of tea. Outside there is a thick fog, so I'm sat in the conservatory gazing out at a mysterious looking garden shrouded in mist and the birds coming in and out of it as they search for food. I know I have said this before but I just love autumn, it's such a beautiful time of year.

Work has been frantic this week, but yesterday everyone else in my part of the office disappeared into various meetings and I was left in peace to get on without interruption - how I love those times. I put a CD on my PC, plugged in my head phones and listened to some great some music whilst I typed. This works perfectly until the phone rings and you forget you are wearing headphones and clonk the phone on the side of you head! Anyway, by mid-day I'd pretty much cracked the work pile and was moving on to non-urgent stuff - so I'm back in control again.

Last night Peter and I decided to watch a Sky Box Office film and chose 'In Bruge'- Basically the story is - Ken (Brendan Gleeson,)a hit man with history, and new-to-the-profession Ray (Colin Farrell) are sent to Bruges by their boss after Ray's bullets claim an innocent victim. It has lots of black humour and stunning shots of Bruge all the way through it - Ralph Fiennes is brilliant as the evil boss. It made us both want to visit Bruge - my friend Carol goes every year and always raves about how beautiful it is.

Of course the news is full of the 'credit crunch' at the moment and looming recession. I said to Peter last night "well at least both of us are in pretty secure jobs" and Peter went "eh - well.............." It appears that the Council, where Peter works are, in about a years time, are going to privatise certain areas of the Council such as IT and bring in external companies to run these areas. The Unions are heavily evolved but it's still worrying. I immediately started worrying about our credit card debts and thinking of ways to help pay them off - basically if one of us lost our job we'd be up a creek without a paddle within a month so I think it's time to get sensible and start some serious financial planning.......

This morning the cold that seems to have been lurking in me waiting to come out seems to be doing so. Despite having a sore throat and the sneezes for a few days I had thought that my immune system was kicking it into touch but this morning my voice is croaky, my ears feel like they are permanently blocked (like you get on an aircraft) and my nose has started to run. I really don't want to be ill, it's just too inconvenient and I definitely don't want to take sick time off from work - let's hope it passes.

Have a reasonably quiet day planned today - just seeing a friend this afternoon, cold permitting.

Monday (Can't Think of Clever Title)

I woke up this morning and found a sickly partner next to me so whispered “are you going to work?” and received a croaky reply “I don’t think so”. Oh dear, winter colds have started early in our house.

Departed for work after leaving Peter with water, his phone and a hot Lemsip (I can be quite a good nurse you know).

On the way to work I called into Sainsers to buy Peter a gardening magazine – I know when I’m ill I really welcome it if someone brings me something to read (even if we do have a house full of books). Whilst shopping I spotted the most divine dressing gown – it’s three quarter length, dark pink and pale pink stripes (think Bagpus!) and it is soooo soft. I just couldn't’t resist it.

Work was fine today as the catching up I had to do from being off the tail end of last week with my TOIL (time off in lieu) was easily achieved as all the bosses were at a conference.

A friend at work has lent me two books to read “The Scandal of the Season” by Sophie Gee and “Dark Fire” by C J Sansom. Clare and I have an uncannily similar taste. I once gave her a list of 10 books I recommended she read and she had already read 7 of them; recently I told her I was reading The Ghost by Robert Harris and she said ‘snap’. So I have full faith that I will enjoy her two books and now I have to take in a couple for her that she hasn’t already read!

During the morning I had an email from my friend Carol saying she’d drop an old mobile phone of hers round to our house this afternoon (it’s a replacement for Peter’s). I warned Carol that Peter was sick and that she should just pop the phone through the letter box; later in the day I received a call from Carol saying she’d tried in vain to get the phone through the letter box but it wouldn’t fit (she felt she should give up in case Peter thought there was a break-in in progress) and she resulted in flinging the phone over our fence in a plastic bag; well it solved the problem.

Now at home and Peter hasn’t really improved much so he is still in bed – there is evidence that he has emerged during the day to forage for food though so that’s good.

This evening I’m going to chill out with the soaps and do some internet surfing as there are a few things I want to look up.

Tomorrow's weather is supposed to be wild and wet so batton down the hatches folks!

Good Things Today
Work not being too bad
Being given some lovely books
Purchasing my gorgeous new dressing gown
Friend Carol making me laugh with her exploits

Bad Things Today
Peter being poorly

And the Rain Came Down..........

Saturday

The morning was quite bright and sunny so we were able to get out in the garden and do a few bits, me doing some more leaf sweeping up, weeding and trimming of the herb patch which has gone wild and Peter removing seed heads for next year, planting some seedlings and trimming our huge fir tree. Whilst weeding I found lots of evidence of our friendly neighbourhood squirrels 'nut burying' - they seem to be burying conkers at the moment though. Mr Sainsbury's delivered out fortnightly shop at 11.00am and we managed to put everything away in record time - we have it down to a fine art now; Peter is best at squeezing everything in the freezer and drinks fridge and I do the fresh stuff and dry goods. Unfortunately by early afternoon the rain had set in so we had to abandon our gardening and head indoors - Peter had just made a start on our huge hedge so it was disappointing not to get it done.

The afternoon I spent reading and then it was junk TV all the way with Family Fortunes and The X Factor. In deference to Peter's taste I have taped Strictly to watch on my own at a later time.

Sunday

Woke up at 6.00am this morning to find it pitch dark and hearing the rain hammering down on the roof and the wind whipping through our trees. I didn't feel I was going to drop off again so I've got up, made myself a cup of tea, and now I'm sat in the conservatory listening to Radio 4 (it's a long time since I've listened to 'On Your Farm') and typing this under the glow of an angle poise lamp. I love listening to the rain outside - if it's going to rain I like 'proper rain' (not drizzle); rain you can listen to and be glad you are inside in the warm. Talking of 'warm' I finally caved and have put our heating on - when I noticed the thermometer drop to 9 degrees I decided it was time (much to Peter's relief I'm sure) - I'm sure he'd stick it on himself if he could remember how to use our digital heating controls.

Today we haven't much planned than:-

1) I 'might' cook us a cooked breakfast as we have some bacon to use up
2) We 'might' take a trip to Hobbycraft as I want a 'project' for the winter
3) I will definitely be finishing my book 'The Ghost' as I'm finding it gripping

Weird Plays and Sunny Days

This week has been very up and down – work on Monday and Tuesday was absolutely dreadful as I was manning the office on my own and minuting my colleagues meeting etc (3.5 hours in a meeting is enough to drive me mad I’m afraid).

By Wednesday though I had something to look forward to as Peter and I went to see a production at The Point in Eastleigh on Wednesday night. It was the first time we had visited The Point since moving here which is quite shameful really but, then again, they don’t seem to get much on that draws our attention.

Anyway, the ‘production’ was easily the weirdest live performance I have ever seen. We walked into the theatre and rather than the usual seating of sloping seats looking at a stage – the audience sat either side of thick mat of red lino. The performance then started immediately in front of us (we were in the front row) and consisted of a bloke banging a drum and doing a countdown of people who had died saving others (as commemorated on plaques in Postman’s park in London). We were sat so close to the actors that, at times, we were almost trodden on or bashed by the actor with the drum.

I had expected a sort of in depth story about each character and their heroic dead but most were along the lines of “James died pushing a friend out the way of a train” – “this is James being hit by the train” – queue actor acting surprised and falling over. It was most bizarre and in places quite funny in a sick sort of way. The audience was made up of about 10 members of the public and 48 drama students who were taking notes throughout. We both left feeling we were not really sure if we could say we’d actually ‘enjoyed’ it – it was more of “well, that was difference – what an experience”.

On Thursday I mowed the grass as it's finally dried out due to the lovely sun we have been having(I keep thinking maybe it will be the last time before winter but I doubt it will be) and trimmed a section of hedge with very blunt shears. My parents helped with the hedge the last time it needed cutting as dad has a wonderful electric hedge trimmer but, as a result, I don’t want it to get totally overgrown again as my parents will no doubt think, when they next visit, “hmmm, bit pointless us helping them with their hedge – look at it now” . It’s amazing how much guilt parents can exert even when one is grown up!!!

Well, it’s now Friday – hooray! Late afternoon I cleared one of our veg plots of pea and bean plants and done a fair bit of weeding. I collected quite a few fir cones from underneath our fir tree. The cones have started to open up now and look quite attractive in the house displayed in a bowl. Just before Peter got home I dipped into my latest reading material 'Ghost' by Robert Harris. When I bought it I stupidly thought it would be supernatural but it's actually about a ghost writer - duh!

This evening we have caught up with the latest episode of Tess - how much angst can one girl have in her life?

This weekend it is supposed to be sunny for most of tomorrow with rain sweeping in during the afternoon and then pretty much the whole of Sunday - so any outdoorsy stuff will have to be tomorrow - ho hum.