I may be some time...

So its almost a year since I was last here!

Busy relocating to Norwich, so bit of life upheaval. My new colleagues are lovely but missing the old very much. So much has changed! Silent Mirth and Nordic Blonde produced mini-people, Beautiful Boy is a diving instructor in Mexico now, UberBlonde is getting married in September...no more random nights out.

It is difficult being caught between the two stages as my old office is closing. Redundancies suck, particularly in the current climate. Though plenty of people seem to be quite pleased to be moving on. Looking forward to seeing OzMan to say goodbye on Friday- he's taken the very sensible route of spending the next 6 months at home. If only I could...

Here comes the summer

I compromised my principles. I've rented a garage so I can drive to work and park safely and easily. Not very green, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. I was using Bluestar Bus which had what can only be described as appalling service. The hours of frustration they caused me are scary to think about- the length of time I was left at the side of the road, cold, hungry and tired, the money I spent ringing in to work advising I would be late because their limited service (only every 30 minutes!) hadn't bothered to turn up, their uselessness when it came to customer service....ARGH! no more thinking about it!

So I had to spend a bit more, and make a tough decision so I could GET MY LIFE BACK. No more waiting, no more frustration, no more bus nutters, no more awful smells and scary journeys home on the 9pm shift with drunken chavs.

Actually feel quite brave. I'm not a confident driver, and having to learn a new route tends to throw me. I also have to tackle what I've always referred to as The Scary Roundabout (roadnames are not my forte) and so far, so good. I've also never had to squeeze into a UK garage (MUCH smaller than an old South African one!) but am coping admirably.

Bit of a rubbish day, kicking off with awful traffic today and lots of little irritations piling up, but colleague has just been taken to hospital with stomach cramps...she only showed me her 2-month scan on Tuesday. Helps with perspective. Fingers crossed for her

so, so ill

Dearly Beloved passed his cold on to me, so I am currently a slack-jawed, mouth-breathing snot-monster. Survived 2 hours at work before deciding that I wasn't doing anyone any good.Arrived home and passed out on the sofa. 3 hours later I woke and had to seek out a new box of tissues. I swear my sinuses are so blocked that my cheeks are bulging-all red and squishy.

Time for another of the occasional series of lyrics stuck in my brain "feeling sick and tired, of being sick and tired".

On the exciting side of things, my mother is flying over for my birthday which is cool, and Dearly Beloved got his new car today. I'm reserving my enthusiasm for when I less feel like throwing up or having my head drilled

welcome back

How can it possibly be near the end of February 2008?When did that happen?

This Week I Am Mostly: Trying not to read so much chick lit.
I've even taken out some non-fiction books. Get me with the lit-er-a-choor. Well, okay, not exactly literature. Apart from some chick lit (c'mon, it would be like trying to give up chocolate- Never Gonna Happen), I've borrowed Zadie Smith's "On Beauty", which I am thoroughly enjoying, gorgeously observed and beautiful descriptive writing. Browsed Mario Testino's "Any Objections?" this morning, a collection of his more informal photos. Some beautiful shots but more genitalia than I am generally comfortable with-I'm often surprised at just how prudish I am sometimes. There I was thinking I was quite liberal...but I'm definitely getting older. Why are young boys walking around displaying their bottoms above their trousers these days? It wouldnt be quite so bad if they had nicer bottoms, but most of them are best kept covered. As for the boy who does it on dress-down Fridays, it's just unpleasantly disrespectful. I got an Andy McNab, which is the boy-chocolate selection. On visiting home last year, I was introduced to the works of thriller writer Tess Gerritsen, so I've borrowed the Mephisto Club. Looked for a book about what to do with my hair and failed to find one, but borrowed Ruby and Millie's book on make-up instead. I kinda went deliberately unpretty for 2 decades, so there's a certain amount of catching up to do now. Been growing my hair for 18 months and have lots of sparkly hair clips and no real idea of how to put my hair up. I only discovered powder last year, which made an enormous difference (and you'd really think the woman who sold me shedloads of Clinique blotting papers could have mentioned it at some stage..). And vir 'n bietjie kultuur, I got a book on Monet as well.

(chances are, of course, that I'll read the chick lit and skim the rest)


This Week I Am Also: shopping well.

Bought 3 jute bags from Tesco at £1 each and smugly toted one around the Hampshire Farmers Market in Winchester today. Sadly the man who normally boasts a banner " I can't believe it's not parmesan" was sold out of his 'italian-style hard cheese'* today so consoled ourselves with a Beceries banana and chocolate cake, Cape Gold traditional boerewors, Noah's Ark Farm chicken sausages and (New and Damn Tasty) turkey and thyme sausages as well as a cheese and tomato ciabatta (which Dearly Beloved and I will always and ever refer to as Chewbacca). I'm now quite hungry, but I've some ranting to do yet.

On the work front, the geniuses who run our department finally got us our rotas a week before they were due to start...but forgot to password protect the damned spreadsheet so had to get IT to retrieve it when it was, inevitably, accidentally deleted. I've also, after 18 months of waiting, finally been placed on the training course to progress to the next level of underwriting internally at exactly the same time I've booked myself in for the next stage of the external (thus arguably more useful, and infinitely more expensive since I pay for it if I fail!). Not terribly concerned about failing the internal one they've just started me on without much notice since I can reschedule the exam in about 6 weeks and is free, whereas the external one I've scheduled and planned for can only be written again in 6 months at the cost of £70 if I fail. The Yanks have a very useful term 'no-brainer' I feel applies here.

Food now!

*I'm not overly impressed with the whole PDO thing. I'm fairly confident that people would know that something purchased from an approved farmers market would not be imported, and that something labelled "Yorkshire Feta" wouldn't have originated in Greece. And whether you call it Champagne or sparkling wine, I'm still not going to drink it.

screaming quietly

Teetering on the brink at the moment when ALL I WANT TO DO IS SCREAM!!! Trying to get some work done but been forced to move to another floor only to have constant distraction from the sales team who are busy chatting/playing with Facebook/doing a McDonalds run when my team actually have quite a lot to do. I'm in a post-festive miserable phase- missing family, thinking about the year closing and what I didn't achieve, sick of seeing other people I don't really get on with and fed up of enforced festive glee.

I shouldn't feel this way. I got spoiled at Christmas (there is pretty much nothing left on my Amazon wishlist) so I have lots of new things to do, see and try. Dearly Beloved is excited about his flying lesson so his present went down well. Survived 10 hours of my out-laws but still have them round tomorrow night. And I've forgotten about New Year! Another evening with his maiden aunt and Jools Holland. Last year we moved venues to our new home as I couldn't face an evening with the ashes of the dead cat in a little box on the coffee table again....not a great sight each time you reach for the Quality Street.

Maybe this is all down to illness. Been off due to cold and pulled muscle already this month and I'm going slowly mad from my skin flaring up and the cold is coming back a little so under the weather. Some leftover tranquillisers from my injury to my neck in my bag (used as a muscle relaxant)....very, very tempted

in the bleak midwinter

Yes, I've been gone awhile. Lucky you can manage without me, isn't it?

I'm a very poorly bunny at the moment-winter has kicked in and knocked me senseless with the latest strain of cold virus attacking pretty much everyone I know. Had an unpleasant few days sweating through every set of bedding I own-had to decamp to Dearly Beloveds bed earlier while duvet covers and pillowcases were festooned around the house drying away...in lieu of the christmas decorations I have had neither the inclination nor the enthusiasm to sort out yet.

Lots been going through my mind-here's a teaser/trailer package of what I'll be blogging about soon:
-climate change. I'll be vacillating between the attitudes of 'Bored now' and 'OMFG'.
-purging. Getting rid of stuff,thoughts and people you don't need in your life
-the tv series 'Bones'. Why I love the characters and an opinion about the much-blogged-about-already Booth speech about the difference between having sex and making love
-christmas. I'm usually way more excited about it, honestly. Office party and Victorian christmas fair coming up

Facebook? Facedesk more like...

I didn't disappear, I just got Facebooked. After getting over the embarassment of discovering my mum had signed up for Facebook before me (damnit, I used to be an early adopter), I've been catching up with old schoolfriends, indulging in nostalgia and joining groups with amusing titles...even if they don't go much further. There's only so much you can do with a group called "When I was your age, Pluto was a planet". On the plus side, I've ended up with one of my photos being used for a flyer for my favourite clubnight, which is deeply cool. Slightly edited from the original but I still feel rather "speshal".

Not long to go til I spend 3 weeks with my family, at home. Can't wait!