Oh dear...

Well that's it - my starter motor is kaput, it is no more, it is an ex-starter motor (it wasn't anything to do with that hose at all - false alarm!). Poor RAC chappie came to work to try and sort the car out - was unable to get a replacement part locally and ten had to try and help me push start the car - took 4 or 5 goes!!! Lucky my car's only small.

So lovely kind hubby came and got me from work and I'm borrowing the pool car tomorrow for my travels - hopefully the garage will have had a part in by then and I can get home by normal means!!

Clunk!

Aaaaaah! Something bad has happened inside my car! As I turned the key to start the ignition it went "clunk" and then there was no noise at all - not even the engine turning over!! I looked under the bonnet and some hosey type thing (my knowledge of the workings of a car is unsurpassed) seems to have come off at one end and it's really brittle so I didn't dare moving it too much...

Waiting at work for the RAC...

Just one more thing...

This made me laugh over the weekend - a couple of weeks ago Leigh's nan had a quite traumatic evening and night looking after her neighbour whichh basically meant she was up all night and only got home about half 7 in the morning. She couldn't sleep and was restless, so drove to Peterborough (20 miles away), bought a digital camera, DvD player and new telephone and drove home. This all took an hour. She spent 50p in the car park. She couldn't operate any of her purchases.

What a weekend! It's been pretty much non-stop since Friday, but today's been much calmer. It was hubby's birthday yesterday so we had his mum and nan over to stay Friday night. Took the day off work so I could finish off the bits and pieces of cleaning in the house (yes, which did need doing!) and went to buy up Tesco's supply of lovely soft white rolls - yummy!

We then went off to buy a tent! This is unprecedented for us - decided to buy a tent last weekend and this weekend we did! Before we usually dither a bit and then can't decide on anything, but due to Leigh's complete focus on all things camp (!) over the last week, we went, we saw, we purchased! (here is where we went - BasecampUk) And, being the very organised individuals we are, even went to the park yesterday to have a trial run putting it up! Now, bendy poles may be quite useful for having lovely domey tents, but they're a right bugger to put up and the whole edifice came crashing down a couple of times.

However...after much perseverance it was up and looking fine - hopefully it will be much simpler next time and we'll have a mallet with which to bang the pegs in!!! Trying to push them into the hard arid ground of Ipswich without a mallet is something not to be attempted!!

Money!

Hurrah! Got a pay rise today - but I'm still earning slightly less than Leigh (by the skin of my teeth it has to be said...) which means I get to stop work and stay at home to raise the children!!! But given that we're not even trying yet, might be a bit early to gloat...

BBQ

What a fantastic day yesterday was. Met Chris and Emma in Cambridge for some lunch (they are trying out a new caravan for the first time) and had the chance to see fudge (very expensice fudge!) being made, the wonderful buildings in Cambridge and have a laugh at the poor soles trying to put themselves along the river. All very well when there are no other punts on the water... but negotiating other punts seems to be the hardest part! Very torn between thinking how much fun it looked and how easy it would be to fall in!

We then went to see the caravan and talked ourselves into finally buying a tent to go camping in and ended up at a BBQ at the house of the boyfriend of one of my friends from school. That was a great evening - good chance to catch up on gossip and Leigh found a kindred spirit in the cookery book department - although i think he's got a bit of catching up to do before he reaches her 300 books!!! And best of all - managed to have a sunny day without getting sunburnt - hurrah!

Journey's End

My journey to work is about an hour each way and it's through lovely north Suffolk and south Norfolk. Now, I am not very good at driving the same journey every day and occasionally get a bit bored with the standard route...consequently over my 4 years (nearly) doing this journey I've begun to experiement with alternative routes depending what kind of mood I'm in and what sort of traffic is about. Some of these routes are good and a bit quicker, others definitely not.

So, take today for example - got to Bury and it was absolutely baking. There have been roadworks going on just up from the first Bury turnoff for over a year now and one lane on my side of the A14 was blocked off - meaning there were queues of traffic basically going nowhere not very quickly. I get to the A134 turnoff which has Sudbury signposted - 17 miles. I think to myself, 'I've been to Sudbury before to see a client - it didn't seem to take long to get to Ipswich from there' forgetting of course that I actually need to get to Sudbury first...

I start off, then take a detour through Lavenham - again with the thought 'we went there the other weekend and it didn't seem too far' - oh how the journey length differs depending on if you're a passenger or driver! Went through Lavenham, and Hadleigh and lots of other little villages - took me about twice as long to get home as it would have done had I stayed on the A14!! That'll teach me! But saying that, the journey through the countryside was lovely - one plac in particualr about 3 miles out of Hadleigh, you make a right turn at the top of a hill and can see the countryside laid out in front of you - really very pretty.

For getting home though - never again...

A little story..

My friend at work told me this little tale today...

Her friend went to visit her son and daughter-in-law. They have a little boy who's autistic and they all decided to go to the zoo together for the day. During the trip to the zoo, they lost the little boy for a while - but he was found safe and well...and soaking wet for no apparent reason. Because of his autisim he was unable to tell them what had happened, but didn't seem distressed or unhappy.

So they get home okay and then mum and dad open the little boy's rucksack (which has been bouncing around in the boot of the car), and what do they find - a baby penguin! Penguin and little boy are fine - but - how???!!!

Bizarre

Isn't it bizarre how some things happen. Yesterday evening we'd been watching Family Guy on DvD and when it finished turned on the Channel 4 news to wait for Scrubs. Now we wouldn't usually watch the news then, but almost the first thing we saw was the Queen visting survivors in hospital, the first chap looking and sounding very like our dance teacher! A bit of internet searching later and yes it had been! We don't usually get a local paper so wouldn't have seen it there, so it's just random chance (?) that we happened to switch on the news at the very moment he was on, otherwise we migt have turned up at dancing this week with no idea.

He's fine fortunately - just some minor injuries, but it sounds as though he was actually in one of the trains which exploded - you just can't imagine it.

Been fruit picking again today and got covered in midges - itchy little blighters! Leigh appears to have got the gardening bug back now and he's at B&Q at the moment stocking up on bits and pieces - we bought some plants earlier and I think a gardening morning is in store tomorrow. And we went to an excellent (if slightly expensive) food shop this morning - yummy steak for dinner!!!

Bombs

Well, I don't think there's much I can really say about today exceot how sad it all is - particuarly after the jubilation yesterday of getting the Olympics in 2012. I was at a conference in Brmingham when I heard - a lot of the delegates had come by train up from the home counties and London and lifts homw had to be found. It was amazing the way people pull together at a time like this and I think nearly everyone was able to be got home.

I had come by car fortunately - the train journey would have taken me across London, but fortunately because it would have taken twice as long by train as by car I drove. and, not being quite sure where I was going, watched my exit sail past the first time I got there - then spent 20 minutes getting turned round. So my nice early 8.40 arrival became a panicked 9.23 arrival for the 9.25 start!!

Also had a nice moment in one of the workshops - the presenter told us there was a "c" word which was very important in this particular area - tried to get us to guess it. He wrote "c" on the flipchart, then the last letter "t." I don't know whether I'm amused or ashamed that there was a significant amount of sniggering coming from the room of lawyers... (by the way, the word was "conduct!")

We have some friends in London and fortunately they were fine, albeit stranded. It's so strange when something like this happens so close to home - really makes you stop and think that its not just something which happens in countries far away - this really can touch anyone.

Weddings

I love weddings - just been to Richard and Rachel's and it was fab! After a week of electrical and computer mayhem (ecetricity tripping and some problem with the servers which meant only one person on our floor could access any of the software!) it was great to be able to relax with our friends.

It was also great because we'd been asked to sing. Our group of friends is mostly comprised of other lovely Nottingham Uni Gilbert and Sullivan people and it was brilliant to sing again together as a group - you forget how much fun it is! All in all a great weekend.