Saturday, April 29, 2006

Crash!

My friend sent me this link today. It's nightmarish!

Friday, April 28, 2006

Thumbs up!

Hurrah!!!!!!!! We've got the results of our dancing exam and it sin't the pit of despair I thought it was going to be. Now I really (and I mean really) cocked up the quickstep routine, or at least I thought I had but I got 88 out of 100, and Leigh got 89 (thus maintaing his penchant for beating me by one mark in the ballroom dancing...) and we both scored 95 out of 100 for the rhumba!!!

This made me unbelievably happy driving home after I found out! And what is more, our overall scores were higher than when we took our first test last year - something must be going right.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Catch up

Work is nightmarish at the moment - no sorry, it's not the work itself which is nightmarish, but my diary. Having just come back from holiday, I will have spent the grand total of two and a half days at the Watton office, 2 half days on courses, half a day at Bury and a day at Thetford on Friday. Next week is bank holiday Monday (yay!), then Tuesday at Bury, Wednesday in Watton, Thurs and Fri off for revision. The week after is 3 days off for revision, 2 in the office. The week after that I have a team meeting on Wednesday which usually last all morning, followed by travelling to Salisbury sometime in the afternoon ready for an all-day course on Thursday (at which I'm doing a bit of a presentation about PI truts - scary!) and then I'm off on the Friday to go to the Good Food Show summer thingy (can't wait!).

So, not a full week in the office for ages - the work is just piling up there and when am I going to do it???.... Still at least the first day back wasn't anything like the bad dream I had about it so that was a bit of a relief!

Have been on 2 separate courses the last couple of days. Yesterday's was in London and about periodic payments - or so I thought. There was about 20 minutes spent on explaining the effects of some legislation which came in last year and the choices for types of settlement claimants have in PI cases as a result (which is what I had gone for), and then the remainder of the hour and a half spent explaining and promoting a new whizz-bang financial product which has recently come on to the market offering something better than already exists. Interesting but not quite what I was expecting... and meant that I kept drifting off and thinking about Gilbert & Sullivan for some reason.

Today went to Colchester for a tax thingy. Again not bad, but the bit I wanted to know about was relegated to a rushed 20-30 minutes at the end when the speaker found he'd over run on the other topic by about an hour! The first topic was really technical and not something I have to deal with usually, so I was concentrating hard and just about managing to stay with it when the tea lady came in to change the cups/glasses, put plates out etc and generally make a bit of noice. Well that was it after that - i got so distracted by the tea lady I completely lost the thread of what was being saidand didn't really catch up again! Still, the break was only 20 minutes later and that helped.

Oh well, the rest was good. And, you know my usual horror stories about having to travel to new places? The AA site told me it would take me 1 1/2 hours from Watton so I gave myself a good 2 hours to get there anticipating problems...got there in 1 1/2 hours! So early. Made myself a coffee to pass the time but was over-enthusiastic with the milk and had to drink it really quickly before it went too cold. Poo.

The course was at the University of Essex which has a really bizarre system for numbering rooms - the building I was in started at floor 4, because it is higher physically than another building further down the hill which starts at floor 1. Yes. Really.

And I'm sure I must be a bit wierd - I had my arms crossed at one point and my fingers brushed against my elbow. This led to me thinking "oh that's smooth" and every time I had my arms crossed after that I kept feeling my elbow to see if it was still as smooth...

Still, home now and the journey back seemed to take hardly any time at all which was great. Just about to check email and do the Da Vinci puzzle for today - then off for some ironing, bit of cross stitch and I have an abundance of exotic fruit to sell in my village! Hurrah!

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Puzzles

Having a quiet few minutes googling people's names rather than start some revision when I came across this. This totally appeals to me - I've solved all the puzzles so far (with some help from the hubby).... and yes I am unbeliveably sad!

Friday, April 21, 2006

End of the week

And nearly the end of our holiday - it's gone so quickly!

We started off with Easter weekend at Sandringham at the Camping and Caravanning site there which is great - and huge! I had been becoming increasingly dubious about the quality of the weather for the weekend - certainly I could definitely hear people sniggering as I left rooms at work after mentioning I was camping that weekend. But fortunately the weather held out (mostly) and typically, the sunniest days were the ones we arrived and spent most of the time putting the tent up and the day we left - spending most of our time gaily chasing the drying groundsheet round our little piece of land while the wind laughed at us.

It was actually a great weekend despite the oil cap farago and forgetting the tent pegs - I love well stocked camp shops - also thoughtfully selling lovely mint magnums and tons of Norfolk tat! Hunstanton was busy and Great Yarmouthy, Sandringham itself was beautiful and the deserted beach at Titchwell Marsh was breathtaking - that is why I love the sea. Quite cold at night though - we got it sorted by the second evening - nice and toasty in our bed...

karrimats
sleeping bags
airbed
picnic rug
sheet
us
duvet
blanket
fleeces

Yes...we did need that much!

Had a day at home, then of to Derby to see Leigh's parents and their newly decoated downstairs (not quite finished yet..), and then on to see our friend Emma in Jesus Christ Superstar - great. Home again yesterday after visiting Melbourne and drinking about a gallon of tea (that's after the gallon I had with breakfast!). so...having now tidied the house a bit and caught up with my computer jobs, I think it's time for some revision - unless of course I can find something else to tidy...

Had an awful going back to work dream last night - I had absolutely tons to do and no time to do it - people kept interrupting and wanting to chat - i had to drive home and then to Yarmouth for some reason and spent the dream gradually feeling increasingly panicked...I don't think that's good.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Tan

Usually I'm not a big "tan" person - if I get a bit browner because I'm out in the sun, fine, but not usually one for fake tan etc. Just let everyone look at my lovely pasty arms and legs.

But...I bought some of that "layers build up into a natural looking tan" moisturiser a while ago (I think I had a voucher...) and have just stared using it. I've no idea if my arms and legs look any browner (to go with the white back and body where I haven't moisturised!!) but on the way to work this morning I noticed that the skin between my fingers was looking quite orange! Spent most of the rest of the journey trying to decide if my hands looked yellowy orange as well, or if it was just the light...Must remember to clean hands properly after use!

Sandringham

Well... let's hope that Sandringham isn't just about to receive the wet poo weather from Ipswich and that the long range forecast is correct for Sandringham... Weather station thingy at home says rain in the next 24 hours as well. But Ipswich is miles away from Sandringham ... Ipswich is miles away from Sandringham ... Ipswich is miles away from Sandringham.

Really hate putting tents up in the rain - have awful memories of going on Guide camp as a leader, using the big green canvas tents which get so heavy when they're wet, the Guides are too weak to hold them up!! That was a fun couple of hours pitching the site..

Otherwise really looking forward to the weekend and seeing lovely friends. Best thing is no work for a week! Hurrah! (BTW Budget 2006 - Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr)

Sunday, April 09, 2006

On my birthday...

Saw this in Alex's blog (entry Fri April 7th) and thought it sounded like a good idea: Go to Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/). Type in your birth date (but not year). List three events that happened on your birthday. List two important birthdays and one interesting death. Post this in your journal.

Birthday - 27th January

Events
1593 - Vatican opens 7year trial against Giordano Bruno. Perhaps not interesting in itself but I have played a game for the PC called In Memoriam in which this was key (!! I'm getting as geeky as my husband!)

1926 - John Logie Baird demonstrates the first TV broadcast

1996 - Germany observes its 1st Holocaust Remembrance Day

Births
1756 - Wolgang Amadeus Mozart (which I already knew)

1832 - Lewis Caroll

1956 - Alan Cumming

Deaths
1910 - Thomas Crapper

Hurrah! Oh and why am I up so early on a Sunday? Dance exam in an hour!

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Saw on the way home...

...learner driver in a car with the number plate N3 RVY...I hope not!

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Tiny cups!

Went to a course in london today - taxation of trusts and estates - yum! (not). Managed to get a seat on the way there and back so that was a bonus! Course was okay - but they served the tea and coffee in the TINIEST cups I've ever seen (I suspect espresso cups)! Could drink the tea in one go - I like a nice big mug myself (...just read that back - not good).

These sort of courses are usually at hotels, which serve a massive 3-course lunch which makes me fall asleep in the afternoon, so thought I'd have a bit of a wander around. The hotel was really near the BT tower which I tried to photograph with my phone to show off to Leigh, but sadly the sun was in front of me and behind the tower so all the pictures show is a big black stick pointing into the sky. Had a lovely baguette at a coffee shop whose soup of the day was "brocolly" and then bought a couple of plums at the station on the way home - they were as big as apples! Now that can't be bad.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

A word to the wise...

don't use Mochalatte instead of milk on cereal - it may be made mostly from milk but it's not the same (and also, if you're having cereal at work for lunch, don't forget to check there's actually more than a dribble left in the milk bottle...)

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Teal Green

You Are Teal Green

You are a one of a kind, original person. There's no one even close to being like you.
Expressive and creative, you have a knack for making the impossible possible.
While you are a bit offbeat, you don't scare people away with your quirks.
Your warm personality nicely counteracts and strange habits you may have.

What???

I have a photo in my room at work of me and Leigh at my friend's wedding a couple of years ago - just heads and shoulders. The frame is like a black plastic sphere with a hole cut out of the front for the photo, horns and a tail (!). My boss came into the room yesterday and squinted across my desk at the picture and said "so who's the horny one then?" ...as if that wasn't bad enough he then picked it up for a closer look and said (in all honesty) "so is that Leigh and his mum then?"

!!!
!!!
!!!

He then tried to fob me off with some story that he didn't recognise me because I didn't have my glasses on / looked really smart ...

Leaving that quickly behind - went to a sectional rehearsal for orchestra last night at the leader's house - been there a few times before, but always in the dark. So I though it would be easier to find in the light - oh no! At least two passes before I spotted it! I'm sure that more houses have appeared around it - always seemed to be quite isolated in the dark...