Tuesday

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Starting to feel a bit guilty for not blogging for a while so I thougt I'd combine it with trying out adding a photo and hopefully it's worked... This is the brilliant crazy golf course in Bath's park where somehow me and the boy managed to score exactly the same each - despite some really appalling golf!

So what's new? Well, we now have central heating - hurrah! The first tiny leak has been stopped and the bathroom is warm. The best bit was that the men only took one and a half days to do it all - so the house was looking pretty normal again by about 5 on Saturday, instead of having to live with mess all week!

Because we were done so early - went to get some of the smaller furniture from the storage unit and just about managed to avoid becoming embroiled in an all out feud between two blokes about who had used the lift last and not shut the doors properly...it nearly came to blows...

By the way, I like using that elevator - it has those double concertina-ry type metal doors. Reminds me of a similar elevator that used to live in a department store in Yarmouth complete with man to operate it for you...and it makes me feel a bit like Sydney in Alias...oh the geekiness of it all.

Monkeying around

Went to Go Ape yesterday with work - the Thetford forest centre. It was absolutely great - day started out miserably, but soon the drizzle stopped and the sun came out...and everyone was far to hot in their waterproofs!! But would definitely recommend this if you fancy walking through the trees, and you're basically responsible for yourself and your equipment - although watch the stirrups. Very physical, very exhausting and very achy today, but it was worth it - especially the zip wires - wahey!

Oh no...

My Primark bargain shoes are on their way out... one of the soles is peeling off! I shouldn't be surprised - only cost £10 and I've worn them loads over the summer. I feel a bit of spending coming on!

Afternoon!

Being a bit naughty and blogging from work to make sure I actually get something down this week! Am completely and randomly busy all evenings this week (except Friday) and am trying to catch up on some "home" things at work...

Usually this wouldn't be a problem except it's the handover for the advance tickets for the G&S show this weekend and I need to make sure everything is completely up to date and that I've emailed all my ticket requests. The theatre start handling bookings from next week, so if I'm not up to date there's a big danger of double booking!!!!!

Have everything sorted for now, just one or two or twenty people to phone tonight between dance lesson and orchestra! I fully accept this is all my fault for wanting to be involved in things (and liking to watch Arrested Development which arrived on DVD rental this week...) and normally it would not be too bad, but there was a committee meeting last night which stole my usually free Wednesday.

Ho hum, still with the ticket bookings going next week, that should give me lots of extra time - hurrah!

Away at my aunt's on Saturday, and then catch up Sunday!

Holidays!

They are a wonderful thing. Firstly apologies for not blogginh for a horrendously long amount of time - my new starter motor is all up and running smoothly...althouhg annoyingly I did also then have to replace my windscreen again. Second time since April!!! Fortunately I was in a new insurance year so only had to pay the excess again - well if I will hurtle down those roads with loose chippings...

But better than all that have just been on holiday to Bath which was wonderful. We camped for the first time and the tent was a star - went up easily, came down easily (but not too easily...) and kept us dry and warm. Brilliant. when I was thinking about the holiday before we went, I was getting a bit too stuck on the sort of camping I did at school and with the Guides - minimal toilet and shower facilities, cold nights and hard ground... but this was luxury! We had an airbed, duvet and proper pillows! The campsites were brilliant and the showers hot (and even at Newton Mill the toilets had underfloor heating which was a big selling point...)

Bath itself was absolutely great and the Abbey was beautiful. We even went on a comedy tour of the city one evening - called Bizarre Bath. Certainly no historical facts or figures but a really funny evening and very well put together stunts. If you go, go (you'll recognise it by the purple leaflet and the bloke in the top photo was the one who did our tour).

After a few days sunning ourselves in Bath we moved on to a site at Cannock Chase near Stafford ('fraid you'll have to find your way from the main site). This was really good too, although the weather started to let us down - eventually resulting in a strike in a torrential downpour - tent is now in back garden attempting to dry in a damp Ipswich... That was what we really didn't want, but having done it once, may not be so bad next time (although clearly we're going to arrange the weather next holiday for no rain!).

After this, our journey took us to Nottingham for an event not to be mentioned (the first 30th birthday in our group!!!) and now back home, having sorted all post and emails and show tickets, I'm ready for dinner and the second installment of our marathon video recording session while we were away (I'm not missing CSI for anyone!)

Sadly back to work tomorrow, but the photos will help!

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.

Sparks

I really need to vent...

We have a trigger happy electric board at work - you know the sort, someone sneezes at the other end of the building and the electricity trips. This is something which has been going on for some time now and basically all which usually happens is that you get cut off in the middle of a phone call (because the phones are linked to the computers) or a lenghty letter you haven't yet saved - some able person goes and switches the switch and then reboots the computer box.

All very well, except today, one of the switches didn't go back to its normal position and apparently sparks flew when someone tried to touch it!! No electricity coming in through the plugs on our floor. So phone call to the electrician (on my mobile because the phones are connected to the computers...) - rang him back after 10 minutes to give him the chance to phone the office - he telling me when I ring the office to arrange a callout to ask for X specifically and he will sort this out for me.

Appears that everyone I could possibly have to speak to to confirm the call out charge is away from the office today or has gone home early so end up speaking to a rather baffled finance manager, who okayed it.

The phoning the electrician's office and asking to speak to X - he's not in his office. Leaving urgent message to ring me. 15 minutes later trying again - he's in a meeting, they will leave a message for him to call me as soon as he's out. 15 minutes later trying again - now should be in office but isn't. When do you close? In about half an hour. 15 minutes later trying again - apparently X and all the other engineers I might possibly speak to about a call out have gone home early!!!!!!! Is it me or is that just rude?

So.. ringing again first thing tomorrow, meanwhile wasted an hour today when couldn't use phones or PCs at all, and presumably someone isn't going to be able to get to us immediately tomorrow either - oh the fun! And the customer service... grrrrrrr

Highlights

I've been a very bad girl and haven't posted a blog for ages! So I thought I'd just give you the highlights of last week ;

Monday : massive thunderstorn during a training session!! Brilliant

Tuesday : spending the entire day with my knickers inside out...

Wednesday : seeing someone working at our Norwich office in his shorts (surely contrary to dress code!)

Thursday : a very hot day - office, no air conditioning - then in the car for an hour - no air conditioning - course at hotel in the afternoon, no air conditioning, very small room with no windows open, and only hot drinks available on arrival - driving home and getting stuck in traffic for a broken down lorry, no air conditioning! was I sweaty!!!

Friday : a 60th birthday "party" at work for someone - their desk had been "creatively" decorated by other colleagues and by that I mean - tons of the holes from a hole punch placed in fan + fan switched on by the lucky individual as soon as they got into the room = confetti spray! In absolutely everything!

Saturday : fruit picking at Goslings Farm - lovely strawberries and gooseberries. It all seemed far too easy and remote from the back breaking stopping I thought we'd have to do - all the strawberries growing in troughs. And of course like any good shoppers, we had to sample a few to make sure they were ripe.... And dancing in the evening!

Sunday : Batman Begins! Ace. And ... annoyingly I now appear to have become addicted to a game on Leigh's DS

and here we are back on Monday again! Had a really busy day and it's not looking any better for the rest of the week - tons of work to do, but already lots else going on outside the office. Oh well, exciting seminar presentation on Wednesday - I'm doing a bit of it. First time as well ...

Hurrah!

It's the weekend, the sun is shining, I passed my exam and have done all my housework!! Brilliant. I'm just waiting for he who must be obeyed to have a shower and then we're going into town and hopefully for a bit of a picnic in the park - lovely.

It is very hot out there today though and there's no breeze or anything - oh well, I suppose we'll just have to go to the ice cream shop to get something delicious to cool us down...what a shame!

Mind trick

Leigh's just shown me a really good "mind reading" trick and he won't tell me how it's done until I update my blog! Perhaps that was the trick...

Pretty good day all in all - had something to do that I had, to be honest, been putting off, and when I came to do it, it didn't actually need doing after all because other events had taken over. Nice.

Gym today - thank goodness one of my work colleagues goes as well otherwise I don't think I'd ever get my bum out of the door (all meanings intended!).

Sunday again

And where has the week gone?? Work again tomorrow...

I've had a pretty good weekend - got lots of housework done on Saturday, watched a great Doctor Who and even cooked dinner! That's a big shock for me - the housework deal is that because Leigh gets home from work earlier than me in the week and he's more confident and better at cooking, he does the meals. But I felt like I should do something nice for him this weekend and we had a joyous pork and lime stirfry which had just a touch too much lime in in!!!! I will put a note in with the recipe. I also decided margeritas might be a good drink to have with it - I've never made them before and boy they were strong! Oh well, drunk on two cocktails, can't be bad!

And now I'm sitting here having finally caught up on some minutes I've needed to type for the last two weeks with a lovely cakey smell wafting up from downstairs. I think I shall go and investigate...

Whether the weather...

Okay, so it's nice and sunny here, and has been all day - so why am I still so cold at work?? My room seems to get no sun at all - at least my gym clothes, which had been in the car with the sun shining merrily on them through glass, were nice and warm at lunchtime. Shame I'm so crap at the gym...

I have been trying triceps excercises to get rid of my "bingo wings"/" flobbadobbas (?Kath and Kim)" but I'm far too impatient and want to see results NOW! I will have to be a bit more patient.

Had a great weekend if anyone's interested - spent the day being pampered at Thoresby Hall and then went out for lovely cocktails complete with fairy wings and wand - I really enjoy getting dressed up to go out and think "why don't we do this more often?" Then I get out in the middle of a busy city centre at 9 o'clock Saturday night and sadly I know why I don't do that more often... had a great time this weekend though - and created my first blog hyperlink!

Greetings!!

Well, this is it - no going back now. I've finally been blackmailed/guilted/nagged into starting my own blog by my husband! He's had one going for a while now and refused to do any new postings until I set my own up!! Very unfair.

Anyway hopefully this'll be the start of something very exciting and not just random drivel about how clumsy I am...

I just want to say one final thing -
I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI I love CSI

There, got that out of my system.