RETROGOOSEUK

R&R

2010-09-23T11:19:00.000+01:00

I thought the best way to get back into this is to blog if not every day, then every couple of days, until it feels second nature again!

Today has been pretty lazy so far, I should explain. I gave up my job and the number one priority was and is to rest. Basically since we lost mum, we haven't stopped. Even rare time off has been filled with guests and activities, which has been great but we both basically got quite ill where we've been so exhausted. So, I left my job last week, and this week and next are rest weeks. I can do a bit of housework, run some errands, but not too much. And when I get bored and frustrated, I remember that the goal is to be strong and healthy again, not exhausted and ill!

This morning, I've been updating my diary with all our upcoming travel arrangements. We have a lot! And partly that's because we're trying to protect ourselves...

After you lose someone, you face a year of firsts; their birthday, Christmas, mother/father's day, your birthday etc., etc. so for mum's birthday which would have been November 5, we're off to Bath for three days. I chose Bath deliberately. I went a lot with mum and it's a city we both loved. And for Christmas, I didn't want to be with other family and I didn't want to be at home, so we're off to Wales for 8 days. Just to do something different. And then there's visits back to London and we're off to Venice early next year as well. I figured I needed to update the diary seeing as it's getting pretty busy again. We also need to fit in remodelling our bathroom sometime in Oct or Nov.

Even though I am taking time off - probably 2 or 3 months - I won't be completely idle. I plan to learn BSL and Italian, finish the book, do all the jobs that need doing around the house and possibly even get some sheep in partnership with a friend. So I'll be keeping fairly busy! Oh, and hopefully blogging too!

This weekend, we're off to the Cornwall Food & Drink Festival in Truro and hopefully, we're both finally well enough to take the kayaks out!

Back to blogging...

2010-09-22T08:51:00.006+01:00

Well, I'm back...

It has been over a year since I last posted. And in that time it's fair to say a lot has happened. The most devastating is that I lost my beloved mum to cancer on June 1st, 2010. I'm not sure I'll talk much about that on here. We are still struggling to come to terms with her loss. We miss her everyday and I suspect people think we've doing OK, which on some levels, we are. But the agony of her loss - so unexpected, so unfair has ripped a huge hole in our lives which my wife and I are inexpertly trying to pull back together. She was a truly remarkable woman, that personified dignity, grace and bravery. And to be honest, there's nothing I wouldn't give to hold her hand again.

We are still in Cornwall. So settled it's hard to remember living anywhere else really. We are getting a new bathroom and woodburner soon and re-decorating. We are very lucky to get lots of visitors! And friends have been quick to show their love and support since losing mum, which has meant the world to us. We celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary with 26 friends in a local pub and over the course of just under two weeks, had 18 people visiting and staying - it was mad but fun!

The dogs are happy and healthy. Currently curled up at my side and on my feet.

My wife works locally now. She was working in London for 11 months after we moved down. She now works for a south west organisation that does cover the entire south west (flipping large region that!). But it is better than commuting into London.

I have just given up my job! Not many people I guess would do that without another job to go to, but it was the right decision for me. I plan to write, rest, work around the house, and when the time is right, get another job.

I'm just under half way through a children's book, one of the reasons giving up work. I just didn't have the energy to work and write. I plan to finish that by the end of October... no pressure then ;)

So, that's if for now. Until the next time....

Featherdown Farms

2009-05-03T12:58:00.006+01:00

We’ve just had a Featherdown Farm experience! We stayed at Knaveswell Farm in Corfe Castle, Dorset (an area I am very familiar with after having spent a lot of time there in my younger days).

I saw Featherdown Farms in Country Living – it’s basically, very posh camping. It started in Holland, spread to France and there are now over a dozen farms in the UK. The farms that want to become a Featherdown holiday have to fulfill strict criteria (including being a working farm), and all the tents are identical: 3 bedrooms (although the 3rd ‘bedroom’ is like a cubby hole that fits either one adult or two children), toilet, running water, wood burning stove, proper beds and an Honesty Shop where you can buy bread, eggs, milk, meat, candles, etc., etc. All of which has to be as local as possible. So as I said, we chose Knaveswell because I really wanted to take my wife there and show her what a beautiful part of the world it is. I’m also a massive Famous Five fan and Corfe and the Purbecks are known as Blyton country with the castle allegedly providing inspiration for Kirrin Castle.

The farm is a dairy farm and you’re welcome to go and watch the cows being milked which further adds to the experience, and on one of the days we were there, you could hand feed young calves. There were also pigs and chickens and you could help yourselves to eggs.

Our stay was Monday to Friday and by chance, we had lovely weather. A little rain but lots of hot sunshine as well! The tent was fantastic, but we were particularly taken with the wood stove as we plan to buy one before next winter. The beds were really comfy and having a toilet in the tent is fantastic! (There are showers available but these are shared, just like a traditional campsite). To get to our tent we had to walk through a small woodland of bluebells. We were surrounded by trees and hills and the birdsong, including owls at night, was amazing. After milking, the cows would amble up to the top field next to our tent and would low to each other until they all settled down for the night. At night we would light the oil lamps and candles and read or play gin rummy (I wasn’t very good!). And because there were no artificial distractions like TV we ended up going to bed early, sleeping really, really well and then getting up early, too.

By day two we already felt like we’d been there for a week which was glorious because we relaxed so quickly; the dogs, too. They loved being out and about with us all day and curled up by the fire all night.

We visited Studland beach, the Monkey Sanctuary, the Tank museum, the Swanage Steam Railway, Lulworth Cove and Kimmeridge. We found the best place to have breakfast in the whole of the Purbecks and ate cream teas and lots of icecream. The farmer lit the bread oven on the Wednesday and we bought pizzas which literally cooked in 2-3 minutes because of the heat of the oven. And they were so delicious that I ate mine too fast and got hiccups!

It really was a lovely holiday and because you pay in advance for the whole thing, you didn’t get a nasty bill at the end of the holiday! (Although you do have to settle up your Honesty Shop bill). We would thoroughly recommend choosing a Featherdown holiday. And as much as we would love to return to Knaveswell, we will probably choose another farm next time and go to a part of the country we’ve never been to before.

We’re still really relaxed and have even got a bit of a tan! I’m not back till work until Thursday and my partner is off all week. It was lovely to come home again, and the weather is fantastic here, too. Today we’re off to the beach and having lunch out.

The next two weekends we have friends and family staying!

Good guests, good times

2009-04-19T09:22:00.001+01:00

It’s lovely having guests. And good guests bring out the best in you. I think our hospitality is very good. We cook good meals, offer good wine, and hopefully good company, too! We have three very dear friends staying this weekend and so we cleaned the house top to bottom, and put fresh flowers in both of their rooms and my wife, in particularly, has excelled herself with her cooking! Homemade chilli and flour tortillas on Friday, pancakes with fresh fruit salad for breakfast (we went out for dinner), and this morning I am doing one of my special breakfasts. I like to do a full English but with homemade bread, grilled organic bacon, homemade potato scones, and of course our own eggs (preferably home grown tomatoes, too, but it’s a little early and we still only have seedlings!). Later on we’ll be having freshly baked scones with clotted cream and fresh berries. We’ll be sending them home about five pounds heavier! But it really is fun. Getting out the good towels, making up the beds, laying the table and lighting the candles... I think guests help you appreciate your own home sometimes. And I like the ritual of airing the rooms and putting in flowers, it’s a bit 1950s maybe but our friends seem to like it...

Yesterday we went to Polperro and Looe, and walked the dogs at our usual place, Golitha Falls. Today we’re off to the Hurlers, an ancient stone circle up on the moor. And then sadly, the guys will be heading home. I hope they’ve had as good a weekend as we have!

Where to start...?

2009-03-22T08:14:00.003Z

Well, I’m back. There’s too many exciting things happening not to blog! I may not be back to my daily digest, but I will try and do a couple of entries a week and see how it develops...

So it’s March and it feels like summer. The weather is gorgeous; not just bright and sunny but warm, too. A taste of what we have in store this summer? I certainly hope so because we have lots of exploring and walking we want to do, and doing it in glorious weather is always so much more fun. The nice thing about the unexpectedly nice weather is we get to do stuff when Cornwall is still quiet and not crawling with tourists (some places are literally transformed in the summer with the amount of people that arrive). So we can wake up and if it’s a beautiful day rather than have to drive miles to get somewhere, we’re pretty much already there!

The cottage is coming along really well. (The new Elfin Cottage sign arrived and has been put up inside, so as not to confuse the postman!) Yesterday the Plymouth lovelies gave up a day to help us paint the dining room and bathroom and it looks great. (I was actually excited to come downstairs this morning to see it!) We choose Willow Tree for the dining room (a light, creamy green) and corn silk for the bathroom (a soft, but still bright, yellow). The girls and my partner were great; working hard and taking lots of care. I was floating support! I can’t stand for too long, which does make me a bit useless for painting! Although I did manage to clean some walls, do the understairs wood and finish off cutting in on part of the wall so I did feel I was some help. I was also chief cook and bottle washer and did hotdogs for lunch (with chocolate pudding for afters) and roast chicken and salad for dinner with my partner making some homemade rolls as well. And I got people drinks when they needed top-ups. And in between all this I even managed to watch the rugby!

We will paint the rest of the house, but probably stick with the pale cream we have now because it really shows off just how sunny the house is. But for now, we wanted to just do a couple of rooms to really make the place our own. Anji put together our new chimenea which we lit (not very successfully!) last night so we could eat our dinner on the patio. It turned out to be a little ambitious as although the days are warm, the nights are still very cold.

Next weekend, we need to install some fencing as Pluto keeps jumping into our neighbour’s garden! So it’s off to Mole Valley Farmers Saturday morning to get the panels to make the garden a little more secure. Which means I can leave them in the garden unattended so that Bess can sunbathe which she absolutely loves to do!

Our next big job is the attic as that’s where we’ve put all the as yet unpacked boxes. We’re going to plan a day up there soon, with a bottle of wine and a radio and will unpack EVERYTHING! We need to; we’ve already had lots of visitors, but in a couple of weeks, we’re having three visitors at once and will need both spare rooms.

Otherwise, the chickens are doing well, the dogs are happy, as are we. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever been happier or healthier.

Big breakfasts, narky dogs and unpacking boxes!

2009-01-26T17:20:00.004Z

I went to my first Coastwatch training session last Wednesday; charts and plotting! Of course I didn’t understand a bloody word but it was still cool and I definitely learnt a thing or two. I have much more to learn, but that will come ‘on the job’. This was just an introduction. I also have a Tides course, Weather course and Radio course coming up…

Getting to Polruan was a little, shall we say, exciting? Torrential rain, freezing fog and a lot of unmarked, track-type roads that were as black as the inside of a witch’s hat… I was hunched over the wheel and actually praying out loud to whichever deity might take pity on me, to deliver me in one piece…

The people were lovely. I think it’s fair to say that I’m not a typical NCI volunteer! Only about 10% of watchkeepers are female, for example, and I was the youngest by a few years, but I was made to feel welcome and not out of place at all, which was really nice.

Our carpet has now been fitted! I’m now not tripping over a large roll of carpet in our front room and dining room (I’m tripping over dog toys or my wife’s shoes instead but that’s another story). We also managed a lot of sorting this weekend and felt quite pleased with ourselves – the bathroom looks great now and we’ve cleared the dining room table of all sorts of crap! But it wasn’t all hard work. We met our friends for breakfast again on Saturday, which was a lot of fun – and nice also to meet our friend’s niece and brother who are also very lovely so it must be in the genes. And on Sunday we took the dogs to Seaton beach and ran them (and us) ragged, before stopping off in Looe and buying a gorgeous hurricane lamp for the bathroom and a picture of St. Michael’s Mount (where my partner’s great, great grandmother lived), from a small gallery on the harbour. It really is a stunning picture and is going up in the dining room.

We did, however, have a bit of trouble with the dogs this weekend. As was to be expected perhaps, once they both settled down in the new house, hierarchies and boundaries would have to re-established. Consequently Bess gave Pluto a pretty hard time and we had to find a balance between not interfering in what is a necessary and natural process when two or more dogs live together and not letting Pluto be bullied. Of course, we also had to rule out that Bess wasn’t ill either. When dogs act out of character, two reasons might be either because they are frightened, or because they are ill. So this morning, without an appointment, we turned up at the vet practice that we were planning to register the dogs with anyway, and asked whether they could check Bess over. They were amazing and we got to see a vet within 10 minutes of walking in! We knew the vet was highly qualified and very experienced when she told us she thought Bess was absolutely lovely! She established that she wasn’t unwell and that the weekend’s hostilities were almost certainly all about the thorny issue of who wears the dog pants in our family...

Of course after all that fuss and nonsense things are practically back to normal anyway!

I hopefully have another Coastwatch training session this week and my brother in law is down for the weekend. It will be great to see him and he will be our first overnight visitor.

I wonder if he knows that when we said he’ll have to make up the spare bed, we weren’t talking about sheets and pillowcases, he will actually have to put the bed together!?

A weekend at home

2009-01-19T13:24:00.003Z

We had a lovely weekend. It was exciting to come back from work on Friday and know that my partner was home. I’d gone to M&S and bought one of those ‘eat in for a tenner’ deals they do and I have to say it was delightful. Butternut squash and goats cheese lasagne, roasted veg, fruit dessert and a bottle of plonk. Of course, whilst it appears to be fantastic deal (the wine alone was £4.99 before the discount was applied), you never just go into M&S for one thing. And they know that, they know they are dealing with the weak, the over-enthusiastic and the greedy. Sadly I was all three and ended up spending not £10 as planned, but nearly £30. This is not just marketing; this is M&S marketing…

We ended up at Route 38 (an American style dinner on the A38) with some friends on Saturday morning, where we had a good old catch up (even though we’d seen them the week before!) and large and rather lovely breakfasts. Then we went our separate ways; us to see a clock maker. My partner inherited her grandfather’s long-case clock (circa 1830) but it had stopped working. The clock means a great deal to all of us and so we wanted it fixed by the best and in a tiny village in Cornwall we think we found exactly that.

He’s slightly eccentric, an impression not helped by the magnifying lens that protrudes from one of the lenses of his glasses, but also by his love of clocks – all clocks. Absolutely all of them – his ability to talk hind legs off of unsuspecting donkeys and his general world-weariness. He is a craftsman in a society that no longer values its crafts people. It saddens him that there are “so-called” clock repairers and restorers out there who do a lousy job and charge people the earth for the privilege. So he toils away, building on his reputation of excellence and often having to clean up other people’s messes. Anyway, we were completely enchanted and trust him to be able to sort out our grandfather clock – mind you, it’s costing us £300 to have it done!

I sorted books in the afternoon despite really suffering from this cold and ended up having a fairly early night. Sunday we did a big shop because I was getting fed up going out for lunch and paying a lot of money for manky sandwiches when I can make some lovely sarnies myself, and then we sorted the bedroom and most of our clothes. I was in bed by 8pm reading and keeping everything crossed that the cold would be gone by morning. It wasn’t… oh well…

Men are worse drivers than women

2009-01-19T10:36:00.004Z

Yes you can disagree but I don’t really care...

I tend to do 80 in the fast lane; I try not to do over that. There is a reason our motorways are the safest in Europe. Yes, Europe. The whole of Europe. And that’s because our speed limit is 70. You may disagree and think it’s too slow and that somehow your man or womanhood is called into question by this outrage but again, I don’t really care. That’s the speed limit and even then, if the conditions are right, I'm going over that.

So today, I was zipping along at 80. I was doing 80 because visibility was good, as was (surprisingly!) the weather and traffic. As I came up quite a steep hill passed Plymouth. Maddy (my car) start to slow to 70 before she changed gear (she's an automatic), and I made the decision to swap to the inside lane because I could see that there was traffic behind me that hadn’t slowed – or hadn’t really appeared to. Before that happened however – some fuckwad decide to overtake on the inside and then the most extraordinary thing happened. He slowed right down, flashed his hazards and was gesticulating toward the middle lane. Now I thought he’d overtaken and suddenly lost power. Confirmed, I thought, when he virtually stopped in the fast lane. I indicated and then went to go round him. As soon as I was in the middle lane (and that had now snarled up as we all changed lanes to get out of his way), he suddenly sped up. Ah! He was trying to make the point that 70 was too slow and so had almost stopped his vehicle in the fast lane of one the busiest roads in Devon to demonstrate my own fallibility as a driver…

A woman would simply not have done that. A woman may have shouted, driven too close to make a point, she may even have gesticulated and shaken her fists. But she would not have pulled one of stupidest and potentially one of the most dangerous things I’ve ever seen on a motorway. The irony is, he then pulled in front of me and was going too slow and down the road I had to overtake him. As I did so we looked at each other and I indicated that he was a self-abuser and drove on without further incident.

There’s a reason car insurance for women is so much cheaper. Of course, as he probably couldn’t read or string a sentence together, that fact would have been lost on him.

On a brighter note, I’ve made some lovely sandwiches for work today!

Carpet woes

2009-01-16T10:42:00.000Z

I had a lie in this morning – 7 instead of 6am! And the universe let me know that they approved by letting me have the LAST free parking space (we have a number of spaces that are free, if they are taken we need to use a normal bay and pay for a ticket; we get the money back but it’s just a pain).

I picked my partner up from the train last night and it was good to have her home (the dogs agree!).

I’m looking forward to the weekend very much – we haven’t anything special planned (well, we’re going for a big breakfast at Route 38! And I have my first visit to the Watchtower where I’ll be volunteering) but really it will just be nice to mooch around, getting the house a bit more sorted, relaxing and enjoying each other’s company…

Here’s a question, why do trades people moan about their customers? Do they not realise that actually it just gives us the impression that as soon as they leave, they’ll be moaning about us! We were supposed to have a carpet fitted today, but apparently we need underlay and they didn’t have that on the van. The bloke moaned from the moment he arrived to the moment he left. His favourite description of his customers according to my partner was ‘waste of time’! Nice. And we now have to wait another week to get the bloody carpet fitted! After a while we’ll forget it’s not normal to have a ruddy great roll of carpet stretched across your living and dining room and start to treat it like a design feature…

Top ten!

2009-01-15T10:15:00.003Z

Well it’s been so long I should do a summary really…

1. We moved down last week. Pickfords were pretty good. The guys were great, although a few things are broken, the office side of the operation didn’t come across as well, but it’s done and we’re in…
2. There are boxes EVERYWHERE. It’s a bit of a nightmare but when I get too stressed I just remember that we’re going to be here for years and that if we only did one box a week, we would eventually get it all done. We had friends over last Saturday who were great. Not only were they good fun to spend the day with, but they also worked their socks off putting up shelves and pictures and unpacking boxes and even helping to plumb our new washing machine in.
3. We’ve had lots of exciting deliveries; a gorgeous (and rather large) new bed and mattress, washing machine, fridge/freezer and a great new TV. I was especially pleased with the TV when the Sky engineer (possibly the nicest and most helpful Sky engineer in the history of all such things) said it was the best TV on the market and one he wanted himself!
4. The cottage is wonderful. In the morning (when I’m not up at 6am for work!) as the sun rises it fills the bedroom with a golden light which is very beautiful. We have an owl in residence and there are deer in the field behind our house.
5. The dogs are happy and relaxed and love the garden as do the chickens. (In fact the chickens are on the move again… our next door neighbour had chooks but got rid, but he still has a large enclosure and much larger house than the one we’re currently using and he’s said we are very welcome to use it.) We haven't sorted out the best place for dog walking yet as around us is very hilly and I need flat, or flatter, terrain to walk on. The chances are though we'll start walking on the moors before work each morning which are only about 4 miles away from us.
6. Our neighbours are great(see above!) We left them all Christmas cards when we visited before Christmas and they seemed to really appreciate knowing when we were officially moving in, our names, and a contact number…
7. I haven’t started volunteering with Coastwatch yet, but am in contact with the Watch Commander who is fantastic and a very good advert for NCI – friendly and helpful.
8. I have however, started my new job. I really like it! I have a nice office, nice colleagues and am close to all the shops (OK, that’s actually a very bad thing as I went into Fat Face three days in a row…) Already my boss has said I should work part of the week in Liskeard which will be great. There’s lots I like here: I like that they have a dedicated environmental officer and that they take such things seriously, I like that they provide bottles of squash in the kitchen, I like that they are very relaxed and treat people like adults, I like that they provided me with a parking space and I like that people seem to care about what they do… I also like that they gave me an embossed diary, notebook and fancy pen and pencil to welcome me!
9. My partner is working part of the week back in London, which is a bummer. It won’t be forever though and it means she gets to keep a job she’s worked hard for and loves, and yet also gets to own a gorgeous house in Cornwall!
10. And finally, I might be getting a tax rebate! HR emailed me yesterday and said apparently I’m owed one. I shall wait and see and will assume nothing but if it’s true then it will go straight on the house as there are a few bits and pieces we want to do. But I’m sure there will be some left over for a nice meal with the missus.

Nothing is ever perfect and maybe one of life’s lessons is that if you keep seeking perfection you will never appreciate what you have or ever be truly happy, but this is a great time for us. I’m not a religious sort but I guess I do have a spiritual side because I honestly believe that someone is looking out for us – how else do you explain such good fortune? At least I recognise this and it inspires me to try and be a better person... wish me luck with that!

As you can see I still haven’t reconciled whether or not to stop blogging. At times I think definitely yes, and other times, like these, I want a record of everything that’s happening. Who knows what will happen.

But in the meantime, I think it’s only fair to wish you good fortune also!

Pickfords, the sequel...

2009-01-05T16:19:00.000Z

In the interest of fairness I should point out that the Pickfords sale rep has just popped round as they like to do follow-ups (was everything ok, did you get all the paperwork through in time – that sort of thing). We told her of the problems we had had, and she apologised and promised to make sure they were fed back to HQ. It also transpired that we were supposed to receive a load of paperwork after I had send in the acceptance form, which has never arrived, including even a receipt for the cheque I sent...

But the guys were great and will be back tomorrow (am!) to pack up the rest of our stuff. At least we’ve made a start, I feel better already!

Pickfords

2009-01-05T13:16:00.004Z

Hmmm... Pickfords are not impressing so far! We’re still waiting for them to turn up! We had to send the agreement form back and forth because they kept making silly mistakes like calculating VAT at 17.5% not 15% and then wanting to charge us a premium for not damaging the property! I never did get a satisfactory answer about why I would want to take out this insurance? I’m paying for professional movers to not make mistakes, and yes, accidents do happen but my “move coordinator” could not explain why if a mover accidently broke or damaged something, Pickfords wouldn’t have their own insurance (if it was Pickfords’ fault) to cover this. In the end I told them I did not want the insurance...

So once we’d thrashed that out, you sign an acceptance form, send off a hefty cheque and wait till your move date. On the form it has a bit that says, when would you like the removers to turn up? And so I put 10am.

10am came and went this morning and eventually I called at 10.30 to be told they would be there between 12 and 1.30pm. Erm, say what? Apparently there is only am and pm on offer (despite it not saying that on the form and despite it having a space for you to specify what time you want them to turn up). Morning appointments start at 9am, and because I hadn’t specified 9am, they had given me an afternoon appointment. Eh? You would have thought someone would have emailed/called and made sure this was clear, but no. So when I called this morning, the woman I spoke to, my move coordinator by coincidence, promised she would call back after she found out what was going on. Only she never bothered. I had to call her back, and with her sounding even more bored than she had on the first phone call, she told me about the am/pm system. She agreed that we should have been told about this and reluctantly (very, very reluctantly) apologised, whilst letting it be known it wasn’t her fault. When it actual fact it was.

They have now turned up and the two men are pleasant and very calm. I keep looking round and thinking, there’s too much stuff, they’ll change their mind and say we can’t do it! But, so far, they appear to getting on with things without any hysteria. In fact if there is to be any hysteria, it’s going to be all me!

I shall blog again about the whole experience post-move. The guys seem great, but the administration is a little ropey!

Bye, bye...

2009-01-04T10:00:00.001Z

As always when I have a lot to do, I blog! (Therefore I am?) Anyway, today is the last day before Pickfords descend and I am a little panicky. The dogs boarding mum is taking them up until the moment we actually leave for Cornwall on Tuesday evening so that Pluto in particularly, doesn’t get stressed. My partner pointed out that today would be the last day they spent in the house and I suddenly felt incredibly sad. It was pure projection, the dogs don’t give a hoot where they are as long as they are with us, but I guess it was the first time I really allowed myself to think of leaving in emotional terms rather than must do this, must do that...

I am sad, of course. I’ve loved this flat and I love London. Although owning my own home and moving to Cornwall are dreams, it doesn’t mean that this place and this time means any less. I moved back to London because it was always my home. I was born here and as a young gay writer, it was one of the best places to be in the world! But now, I’m a gay writer with a wife, two dogs, three chickens and a desire to reap what I sow – literally, I want to grow my own vegetables, to a lesser extent my own fruit, and eventually raise my own animals. And before that even, I want to raise my own children.

I like early nights and I’m rather too fond of my slippers. I don’t travel on night buses anymore, I drive a Hyundai. I do do wild and crazy things but on the understanding that I can do them sitting down. I still read Enid Blyton it’s just that now, they happen to be first editions. I have savings (not very much after buying a house!) but I do have savings, whereas at times in my life, I didn’t even have rent money...

I’m happy and I’m going to a place that will make me happier still, but it requires no small amount of daring do and it’s good to acknowledge that. Nobody can be brave all the time. But similarly it is equally important to acknowledge just how awesome London is. London probably saved my life. And this flat has been lovely too, it’s mine and my partner’s first home together. It’s Pluto and Bess’ first proper home ever, and it’s been a place of lots of visitors and lots of laughing and has been witness to some extraordinary moments in my life. But now it’s time to move on...

*Sigh* bye, bye Garden Flat!

Four days...

2009-01-02T10:41:00.002Z

Four days till we move... we’re cramming in the visits, NYE was most of the gang (and another friend popped over before we left), yesterday was mother and father in-law and two friends who live down the road from us, tomorrow, brother-in-law and my mum...

Today we’ve got the day to ourselves. I’m taking down all the pictures down and doing a bit of a paint touch up, I need to clear down the home PC onto a portable hard drive as well because we’re recycling the tower (although taking the screen and keyboard) and getting another laptop. And we need to pack up all the Christmas decorations. We also need to tackle the garden which is in a shocking state...

But really, there’s not that much to do. I have a little flutter of stress now and again, but for someone who loathes moving, I’m doing rather well!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T14:31:00.001Z

What a fantastic new year! We went up to the Cotswolds to see in NYE with some friends. We were supposed to stay over but because we couldn’t get a dog sitter we either had to not go, or drive back the same night – well, the next morning. We decided on the latter because we love our friends very much and always have a legendary good time and last night was no exception...

There were 11 of us, and my partner and I got there around 5.30pm after a great journey with almost no traffic. Music, homemade chilli, vodka jelly (not for me the designated driver!) and lots of giggling followed by a trip to a local dodgy pub where at one stage we were the only customers! A few more people did show up, but it was pretty much us, one cheesy DJ, a ‘light’ buffet (hula hoops and ham sandwiches anyone?), and some impressive attempts at pole dancing without a pole and thus ensued a totally fantastic new year! There was a free raffle and I won the main prize an enormous teddy bear (bigger than our dogs!) and a bottle of rose, which was particularly nice as I hadn’t been able to drink. Then back to the cottage for some Canadian ice wine – my first taste of what is apparently a rare and expensive wine – to toast the new year and because I could only have half a glass, our lovely host gave us a bottle to take away with us, which we’ll have tonight.

We were sad to go, not least because it will be the last time we see a couple of people for about six months (one in particularly, who is working in the States till July). We spent the whole evening just laughing our heads off, my friends getting drunker and sillier and me staying sober and still getting sillier. The pub was great, as soon as they realised I was driving, the landlord went upstairs to his flat and made me a coffee – and didn’t charge – which was really lovely. That and two red bulls meant I had all the stimulation I needed!

We headed home just after two and got in the door just after 4. I’ve only just got up and my partner is still in bed with a hangover.

Another legendary Shrivenham massive social... Happy New Year everyone!

Worth negotiating...

2008-12-30T21:07:00.004Z

Today I called Sky and firstly got a nasty surprise, and then a pleasant one! I was calling to tell them that I was moving and all being well, with a fair wind in our favour, I wanted to transfer my package to the new address – no upgrades, no bells and whistles just what I have here, but there. I went from a call centre in India to a lovely Scottish lady based, well, who knows where. She told me that to transfer it would cost me £60 and if I was interested I could get Sky+ for £199 (which we don't currently have but would quite like). This seemed a little rich and actually, after having been a customer for over 3 years, I thought it was a bit cheeky to be charged just so I can carry on paying Sky each month! I am being a little simplistic because an engineer does have to visit and a dish does have to be installed and that all costs money, but I just suddenly decided to cancel the contract. I wasn’t being stroppy but when you move it’s just one expense after another and I felt enough was enough and so very politely said that I would just like to cancel the contract. She equally politely asked me if I would mind waiting on the line for a bit to see what she could “do for me”. It dawned on me she would probably try and negotiate on the price to get me to stay. Which was fine but I was quite certain I would leave anyway...

She came back with two options and let’s just say, I’m getting Sky+ and the installation for less than the installation price! I wasn't trying to be a tough negotiator, and it didn't even occur to me that they might be a little flexible on price rather than lose a customer, but I was tired, and I think I just got a bit overwhelmed with the all the costs associated with moving.

So if you do have a contract – phone, TV whatever, it’s worth asking them what they can do for you. I was polite and had been a good customer for quite a while now and so they offered me a deal which I thought was a good one.

Of course I then called BT (spoke to another lovely Scottish woman!) and they stung me for almost £130 to get a phone line put in at the cottage! Oh well... you win some, you lose some!

I managed to do all my moving house emails/telephone calls/letters yesterday and feel quite smug. Now there’s a job that takes longer than you can ever imagine. I thought my list was fairly comprehensive; credit card, bank, mobile etc., etc., but just when I thought I’d finished, I discovered a whole new list of people you have to notify; magazine subscriptions, charities, pet insurance...

Now to bed. I’m getting better but am still lousy with cold and now with added racking cough! We’re off to the Cotswolds tomorrow to spend NYE with some friends. Can’t wait!

Achoo!

2008-12-28T13:41:00.002Z

I feel quite rotten today. Being a positive sausage, I think that’s because I’m about to get better – because you always feel worse before you get better! I’ve decided to take my beloved out to lunch in Dulwich and we have a friend popping over this evening. I may be planning a bit too much, but I’m getting bored of being in my PJs watching bad TV...

My partner has been a domestic goddess this morning and has made sweet potato bread and rocky road squares! Both of which I’m dying to try...

I finished one of my Christmas books, Barbara Stoney’s biography of Enid Blyton, already. I couldn’t put it down and will blog about it in more depth later. Needless to say, an excellent book that makes me want to read much more about Blyton.

And talking of writing, I’ve been giving very serious thought to giving up blogging entirely. I suspect it’s distracting me from more serious writing endeavours like finishing my third book. Who knows what the New Year will bring...

Holiday round-up

2008-12-27T11:07:00.001Z

What a lovely Christmas, it’s been full of thievery, food, presents, love and laughter. Oh and a nasty cold!

The thievery, you won’t be surprised to discover was as the result of Pluto and Bess deciding to help themselves. First to an almost full box of maltesers (human chocolate is very harmful to dogs as some friends of ours discovered recently, but there’s not a lot of chocolate on maltesers and shared about between two large dogs with robust constitutions they were remarkably unaffected!), and the lamb bone from our roast! Bess is a master food thief and managed to pull down the roasting dish and share one large bone between the two of them...

This year we decided to have a Christmas on our own, at home. (Particularly poignant in light of it now being our last Christmas in our London flat.) It was the best decision ever. It’s been so relaxed. We got up when we wanted to, ate when we wanted to, opened our presents when we wanted to and went back to bed when we wanted to! It was bliss. Normally we host Christmas and plan to next year as well, and as fun as it is, it’s quite hard work! And as I’ve been suffering from quite a bad cold and my partner getting over one, it’s meant we’ve really been able to rest and indulge ourselves.

We got some amazing presents and my partner made a big fuss of my birthday. She made me breakfast in bed on Christmas day and on Boxing Day too. And then on Christmas day she bought all the presents in so we could open them in bed. It took her quite a while to bring them all through. We ended up with 4 piles; her xmas presents, my xmas presents, joint xmas presents and my birthday presents! I was in 7th heaven! People really indulged the big kid in me as well which meant I got lots of fun presents.

We decided to have lamb instead of turkey this year and started dinner quite late, but as it was only us, we could do what we liked! Dinner was delish and we had ordered an Italian pannacotta (from Harrogate in Yorkshire surprisingly!) to have as a desert rather than Christmas pud or cake which both of us find a bit heavy and rich. With strong coffee the orange and chocolate pannacotta was lovely!

We didn’t rate the telly very much over Christmas (although loved the new Wallace and Gromit!) so largely listened to new CDs and started to read our new books...

Boxing Day was equally relaxed and the leftovers tasted superb. And to be honest, we’re not doing too much this weekend either! In our defence, with the move coming up, we have a massive amount to do and need to shift these colds to do it all properly. We did have the energy to spend all our wedding vouchers on a gorgeous new bed and very, very expensive new mattress from John Lewis! I also bought a new 32” TV, a mixing bowl and a wallpaper border! I LOVE online shopping!

We did all our family visiting before Christmas, dropping off presents and catching up on news, although we now we have to make sure we see people again before we move as well.

My partner’s grandmother gave me some money for my birthday and Christmas and I spent most of it in a day on heirloom vegetable seeds for the new garden. I chose some flower seeds as well, but mainly it was all my favourite veg! I can’t wait to start planning what to plant and when.

Right now I’m still in my PJs and apart from needing to walk the dogs, I will be having a browse at some of the sales (need a fridge and a washing machine!) and then it’s more good food and more laughter. This has been the best Christmas and birthday ever!

Reflection

2008-12-18T16:05:00.002Z

Life is indeed strange. I had a job interview about 3 weeks ago and it was the best interview of my life. I came out literally buzzing. I didn’t get the job. Yesterday’s interview went well, but I felt strangely flat and during the interview I waffled. I answered the questions well enough, looked smart and clearly had the experience and skills for the job, but just felt so tired afterwards... anyway, I got the job! You really can’t tell. I start mid-January and I’m over the moon. I was starting to get very anxious about money, especially in light of all the furniture we need to buy!

We pick up the keys tomorrow. I can’t wait! I’m just about to pack my bags – again! I’ve been to Cornwall three times in less than two weeks. I’ll be glad to cut back on the travelling but I don’t feel I can complain really, or if I do, you have every right to call be a selfish git!

New wife, new house, new job – this year really has been quite extraordinary. I’ve made new friends who have become incredibly important to us, we adopted another dog – and three chickens!, I saw Dolly Parton - a musical hero - live in concert, my mum got a great new flat and I finally feel I can stop worrying about her (well, worry less!). I’ve experienced happiness like I’ve never felt before, and we’ve twice had to deal with bereavement...

I know you’re only really supposed to mull over the year past, and the year coming around the 31st, but actually I don’t think there’s ever a wrong time to reflect and feel grateful. So I’m doing that today. The 18th December – happy new year!

Christmas and another road trip

2008-12-15T09:39:00.002Z

Yesterday was very Christmassy. We finally put our tree up on Saturday night and it looks wonderful. On Sunday, we put the presents around the base of the tree... I suggested my beloved might want to put my Christmas and birthday presents under the tree but she has resisted so far...

Then in the evening we went to the Horniman Christmas fare and carol concert. The concert was in the bandstand and it was freezing! But it was good fun, it was the Crystal Palace band and the English Baroque choir and there was a huge turnout despite the weather. We had cups of tea and Christmas cupcakes and sung along to the bits of song or carol we knew!

Today I have to pack a bag – again! I’m driving down to Plymouth tomorrow afternoon to stay with friends because I have a job interview on Wednesday. Then I drive straight home after the mid-morning interview. Thursday I rest, catch up on chores and pack another bag and Friday morning drive to Cornwall to pick up the keys to the cottage! I’m going to be pretty tired by the weekend, but I’ll be in my new home so I don’t really care!

Ha ha part 2

2008-12-12T16:54:00.001Z

Best house name ever: a cottage in Fowey called "Baggywrinkle"! Fantastic!

Funny ha ha...

2008-12-11T18:42:00.002Z

Too tired to blog but two things I saw on my very long journey home today that made me laugh, a pimped up Volva in Bugle (Cornwall) on which the owner had written in large black letters down the side "The Gods Created Heavy Metal". And in Dulwich, a big sign outside a riding stables, "Free Poo Today!"

Made me laugh anyway...

Abbey is shit!

2008-12-09T14:09:00.005Z

I hate Abbey. They have the worst customer service bar none. Loyal readers will recall previous problems with Abbey that resulted in them sending me a letter and giving me £160 as an apology. Well you would think that was the end of the sorry story but no, they seek new and innovative ways to piss customers off and they always manage to succeed!

There was a dodgy transaction on my card (no not porn, how dare you!) and Abbey called and said, do you recognise this, which I didn’t. So at least we know the fraud dept earn their pay cheque. They immediately cancelled my card and are sending me a new one. But what, said I, if I need money in the meantime? Go into a branch with your card or cheque book and one other form of ID and you can withdraw money said they.

So I did that today and they said, no you can’t!

The Sydenham branch of Abbey is the worst. There’s a woman in there that practically sucks her teeth at me every time I walk in because I had the audacity to be annoyed and say the service was appalling*. I queued up today, gave a bright and breezy hello, handed over my card and driving licence and asked to withdraw some money. The cashier told me I would need my cheque book, not my card because the card is cancelled. My response was, yes I know it’s cancelled, I just told you that! I pointed out that Abbey had told me that this would be ok, that I had valid ID – I also had other ID if they wanted to see that too – and previously when my card had been hit by fraud I had gone into a branch with the card and my driving licence and had had no problems withdrawing money...

But no, this time the rules had changed and no one could help. I would have to go all the way back home to get my cheque book.

The thing with Abbey is that I genuinely believe they don’t care. They are one of the biggest banks in the world and with banks and building societies going under left, right and centre, they know people will stay with them in the belief that customers, if faced with a choice, would opt for financial security rather than a decent service...

I can’t even change the account yet because of the mortgage being processed.

You know when you thought old people were a bit nuts for keeping their savings under the bed? Well actually they’re proving to be smarter than all of us put together!

*We tried to make an appointment, they told us they didn't make appointments, you just had to walk in. We walked in and they told us on two different occasions they couldn't see us they were (a) too busy (b) didn't have enough staff to serve us! We got so fed up with this that we called Abbey two months ago frustrated that we couldn't get an appointment at the local branch, and expplained we wanted to open up a joint account. They were delighted and said they would call us right back with appointment details. We're still waiting...

Sofa trauma

2008-12-09T10:01:00.001Z

Today is all about the little jobs, post office, bank, car wash, that sort of thing. I’m driving down to Cornwall at about 9.30 tomorrow morning so I have to make sure everything gets done today. I also need to hide a stereo! My partner and I love listening to music but we don’t really have a very decent stereo. Not only that, we don’t have one at all in the lounge which means the TV by default, tends to dominate. So I splashed out on a lovely horizontal loading Phillips, which I have to somehow smuggle down to the cottage (not tomorrow but when we go down for Christmas) and set up without my partner seeing, so that we can listen to music when we go down! It sounds a little complicated I know, but I thought it would be a nice surprise. I’ll have to make sure we pack the Christmas CD! We only have the one... you can have too much of a good thing!!

The dogs are back on the sofa after what was, for them, a traumatic 48 hours. I decided to wash the sofa cushion covers and throw and so I wouldn’t let them get on the couch. In the vernacular of Vicky Pollard they kept giving me evils, as well as the occasional desperate whine, because I could sit on it but they couldn’t. As I patiently explained, when they can afford to buy their own sofa, they can do what they like, but until then, we call the shots. When eventually they could get back on, Bess (who suffered the most and I use the word in the loosest sense) fell into a very deep sleep and stayed asleep until I woke her up for bed!

My partner is away on business (she left Monday morning) and doesn’t get back until Wednesday, long after I’ve left for Cornwall and I don’t get back till Thursday. It sounds a bit soft, but it’s the longest we’ve been apart for years and we’re not enjoying it much. I think it’s healthy to miss someone though and it reminds you of how much you like being together which is nice. I’m making a stew on Thursday night when we’re all back home together. Only one problem, I’ve never made a stew before!

Dogs

2008-12-08T17:55:00.005Z

Two interesting things happened in the park today. The park was quite busy with other dog walkers but we were all a fair distance from each other, I did notice however one woman looked at Bess a bit warily, and when we saw each other again, she stopped to talk. She straight out asked me whether Bess was aggressive. I was a bit taken aback and some people might think that was rude, but she’d asked me a straightforward question so I gave her a straightforward answer. No.

She seemed to sense that she’d been a little blunt (she wasn’t English and so may not have meant to sound so direct). At this point Bess decided to lean on her legs, wag her tail and demand to be stroked. The woman explained there was a group of young men that had been hanging out with “similar type dogs” and they’d been engaged in the sort of play that generally increases the levels of aggression in a dog and strengthens their jaws. I’d also seen them and had avoided them (I seem to recall that on one occasion I’d actually left the park and we continued our walk elsewhere). Whilst I don’t think they are training their animals to fight, they are clearly training them to make up for their own inadequacies such as small brains, small genitalia, parents that were related before marriage and heightened levels of aggression to make up for a complete lack of compassion and empathy for anyone or anything other than their own pointless lives.

We chatted for quite a while about Bess and Pluto and how, despite the awful start in life they both had had, they were fantastic pets. Not perfect – not by a country mile, but beautiful, loving and gentle. She seemed grateful that I had taken the time to talk and I was pleased that I put her right on her misguided belief that certain breeds (in this case Staffy’s) were inherently bad dogs. I’m not sure she was totally convinced but then it’s not my job to educate other dog owners that all dogs were created equal...

We then bumped into another walker and he started chatting to me as well! Unlike the woman (who’s dog, although not purebred, was purchased from a breeder), he also had a rescue – a beautiful white German Shepherd who seemed fairly bomb proof despite Bess getting over excited and barking right in his face! When the Shepherd was a puppy the owners threw him out of a moving car on the motorway. He broke a leg and dislocated a hip and it was a month before he was seen living by the side of the road and rescued.

We eventually carried on our walk but I was feeling very reflective. Humans consistently fuck up – sometimes through ignorance, other times through cruelty and sadism – and animals (and of course other humans) bear the brunt of this. If our dogs can forgive and forget we’re grateful but actually, if we’re really honest, we expect them to anyway because we don’t like dealing with the problems caused by others. And besides, shouldn’t these animals be grateful that they are no longer being brutalised? We’re the good guys; we’re the ones adopting the dogs no one else wants? That, apparently, makes us special.

But if dogs don’t manage to get over what was done to them, if there are problems, we blame them. In extreme case, we blame the entire breed. But what we don’t realise is that actually we’re fucking up all over again because our chronic lack of self awareness means that we continue to perpetuate the problems that allow dogs to be mistreated and used as accessories. We’ll take the side of the humans, even when those humans do bad things, because dogs are lesser creatures, they’re not human and we are most definitely the pack leader – in name if not in deed.

There should be quite simply better dog laws in this country. If a dog is suspected of being toughened up for fighting (even if not professional fighting), it should be taken and the owner banned from keeping pets for life. There should be huge fines, which if cannot be paid, immediately revert to a community sentence. No extra paperwork, no long delays: can you pay this fine? No. Then you have a 100 hour community sentence effective immediately.

There should be more dog wardens and a freephone number displayed where people walk their dogs which will get you through to a local dog warden who can immediately respond to incidents and problem behaviour. We should also be looking at the conditions in society that cause people to think they need aggressive, volatile dogs. Because believe me, if someone is deliberately cruel to their dog, or uses it for fighting, that won’t be the only thing they’re doing wrong. Scratch the surface and I guarantee you’ll find other crimes including, often, domestic violence...

People often say to my partner and me how lucky Pluto and Bess are that we adopted them and care for them so well. I have to say, we’re also the lucky ones that they have such beautiful natures and don’t seem to hold us responsible for the terrible things that have been done to them. I’m honestly not sure I could be so forgiving.

If you go down to the woods today...

2008-12-07T10:40:00.001Z

We decided not to go to the cinema last night and instead stayed in and watched Strictly Come Dancing and Merlin. We’re absolutely hooked on Merlin and it’s the best thing I’ve seen on TV in ages! We will go and see the film but last night just wasn’t the best time in the end.

I’ve been making a list – or trying to – of homemade Christmas presents. I know I will be making chocolate, biscuits and maple and walnut scones, possibly bread and possibly jam but who to give it to, and how much? Last year, the theme was the best of English, the best of French! So we did french chocolate, tea and preserve, with organic Satsuma’s, fresh homemade bread, mince pies and apricot pies. (We didn’t make our own jam last year, this year we will.) We only did it for about 4 people and it was very well received. People seemed to really value the time we’d put in to making up the baskets – and how tasty everything was!

I’m back down to Cornwall on Wednesday as I need to visit the cottage. Yay! When we saw the house the stairs to the attic room hadn’t been finished and the sale was on the condition of them being done. So the owners are letting me pop round on Wednesday evening to view the newly installed staircase – plus we have a list of questions we’d like to ask them. It will be the first time we meet the vendors so I’m looking forward to it.

Today we’re off to the woods with the dogs. We need to wrap up warm (which means Bess will be in her rather fetching sheepskin coat!) and take a flask of hot chocolate. All of this means I need to get a move on – there’s housework to do before we leave, and I haven’t even had a shower yet. So toodle pip for now...

The secret life of surveyors reports...

2008-12-06T13:18:00.003Z

Because I’m a little stressed...oh alright, very stressed with buying the house my partner went out this morning on a mysterious mission. She came back with a goodie bag for me! An enormous and very beautiful bunch of flowers, a comic (ahem, clearly that was a mistake because I don’t read comics...), a de-stress face pack and a card telling me I how much she loved me. It did the trick! It was very sweet, thoughtful and loving and I appreciated it a great deal.

I feel a bit pathetic for being stressed because generally I’m a stoic little sausage that just gets on with the job at hand, but the problem with buying a house is that you fall in love. You can’t help it. Intellectually you deal with the practicalities of buying a house – not least that it might fall through, and that it is, at the end of the day, only bricks and mortar. But your heart is having none of it. In our heads we have already moved in and if for some reason that couldn’t happen, we would be simply devastated. So that’s where the stress comes from; wanting something so badly and wanting it all by yesterday!

We’re reading the surveyor’s report today. Not to be recommended for light bedtime reading. But our surveyor (JP Baldwin) is excellent and as far as possible, the report is accessible and easy to read. I would imagine there are some surveyors that couldn’t give a monkeys that you yourself weren’t a structural engineer and therefore didn’t understand a bloody word of the report. But this firm seems to actually care about its clients. Shocking concept I know.

We’re also making a list of furniture/things we need: bed, mattress, washing machine, fridge freezer, dishwasher (!), chest of drawers, sofa bed and some fencing. I’m not sure whether you were interested enough to actually want to know what’s on our list, but there you go...

Bess – having been prevented from raiding the chicken food – is much better this morning and hopefully we’ve seen the back of the excessive wind problems. No pun intended. We all had a lovely walk this morning and now we’re all squashed onto the sofa: Pluto and Bess asleep and my partner and I working on paperwork.

Tonight we plan to go and see the Secret Life of Bees. I bought the book in San Francisco a couple of years ago and absolutely loved it, as did my partner when she read it after me, so we’re determined to see it at the cinema and are keeping everything crossed it’s just as good!

Dog farts

2008-12-05T10:51:00.001Z

My partner made an important discovery this morning. The cause of Bess’ upset stomach and loud and smelly wind problems. She’s been eating chicken food at night! When we go to bed, she goes to work...

My partner discovered the hole in the bag she tore and it also explains why she’s often not that hungry or keen on her breakfast. Ironically I've been making her scrambled eggs to calm her stomach!

We will be putting the food in a Bess proof container forthwith!

Oatey goodness!

2008-12-04T17:52:00.001Z

I just made some oat, apricot and pecan bars! I’m really pleased. They’ve not cooled down yet but licking the spoon was a lot of fun! Really easy to make and unlike the cereal and health bars you get in the supermarket, these aren’t full of crap and sugar. There’s not that much sugar in these – the sweetness comes from the honey. I’ll make some more when we move down to Cornwall and distribute some to our favourite Plymouth neighbours ;0)

Moving

2008-12-03T10:59:00.004Z

My day started a little earlier than I intended! We got the Pickfords quote the other day and it seemed very high and not quite as competitive as I had hoped. So I decided to get some other quotes which is generally a good idea anyway. So this week I have three other companies coming in to do quotes – one on Monday, one today and one tomorrow. Today’s appointment was booked for 12 noon, so imagine my surprise when he showed up at 9.30! Anyway, I can’t be sure that in the chaos that is my life at the moment, I didn’t write down the wrong time. And he was the perfect gentleman. I was still in my pyjamas and he offered to wait in his car until I was more suitably attired!

I have to say, at the moment, the customer is definitely king. I would like to think that was due to improved standards in customer care and service over the years and good training, but I think that whilst that’s true, there’s also a little bit of a scrabble for your business at the moment. We are very much in the minority buying a house (as well as getting in professional movers – when things are tight, it’s one of the first costs to get cut. People try and save money by moving themselves.) Either way, I am very impressed with the good service from 3 out of 4 of the movers and after tomorrow’s visit, maybe 4 out of 4.

I finally finished my job application last night. I took so long to do it. I would literally open up the application and then go on the internet, or walk the dogs, or watch some TV. But eventually there was nowhere to hide, not if I wanted to meet the deadline and so I finally got a move on. I think I’m a little fatigued when it comes to applications. I’m not approaching them with the same zest and zeal that I was six weeks ago! Let’s hope I get this job and I can have a break ;0)

We heard yesterday that we might even complete before the 12th and this morning the final part of the mortgage was approved. From what I can gather (and feel free to comment if I’m wrong) there are 3 parts to the mortgage process where things can go wrong and potentially you can fail to get a mortgage.

1. Mortgage in principle: this is obviously not binding and you can do it before or after finding a place. You go to a bank or broker and they take your details and agree in principle to give you a mortgage.
2. This is formalised after your offer has been accepted. This is the point where they want the ins and outs of your life since forever and where a lot of mortgages can fail if they uncover bad or undisclosed credit history. This stage is a big deal and once this has been done, it’s unlikely – not impossible, but unlikely you will have any further problems.
3. The mortgage is approved by the underwriters. Between stages 2 and 3 you might be asked for some more details – maybe bank statements etc. But once you’ve got past stage 3, you’ve got a mortgage baby! Then the mortgage confirmation goes to your solicitor who can close the deal.

We have passed stage 3! So from the solicitor and mortgage people thinking that completing on the 12th was very tight and maybe not possible, they are now saying it might happen even earlier! Good stuff, eh?

We were chatting in bed last night that despite how stress-free this process has been (in relation to how stressful it could have been), we’re still stressed! Don’t underestimate how draining buying a house can be.

Finally if you want a recommendation for a broker (and I would always choose a broker over going straight to a bank or building society) then London & Country are brilliant. A broker will search for the best deals on your behalf and they shouldn’t charge you for this service – they charge the mortgage provider. We’ve been very impressed with the efficiency and customer service at L & C.

Anyway, enough of all that, I may not have a job application to do today, but I do have a million other things to do!

Christmassy

2008-12-02T13:01:00.000Z

Yesterday was very Christmassy. I opened the first window on my advent calendar. I wrapped most of the presents (the rest I’m wrapping today) and I posted our cards, including to such exotic locales as Australia, New Zealand, the United States, France, Germany and Slough...

And it’s only 23 days to my birthday. I will be 35 on Christmas day! So it’s perhaps not surprising that I love December so much!

We heard back from the surveyor last night – a few small issues but otherwise the cottage is in very good order. Not surprising really, it was built in 1847 and it strikes me that the older the building the better quality, and more solid it is. Our mortgage company called to say they are also fairly confident about completing on time as well. So whoever is keeping their fingers crossed for us, thank you, its working! We’ve also now agreed what furniture we want to buy including the impressive dining room table and chairs – hand made locally in Cornwall I believe.

So now I have to crack on with my job application which, I was supposed to do last weekend. Now unless I do it today, I miss the deadline....no more excuses!

Ding dong the bells are going to chime!

2008-12-01T20:46:00.000Z

Two of our dearest friends are getting married and I’m very excited. I’m an old romantic and I think marriage is brilliant! They got engaged tonight and over the coming days, weeks and months, I presume they will set a date. We actually set a date quite quickly; we thought a year was perfect, not so long that you’re forever waiting, but not so quick that we couldn’t save the money we needed.

Ironic isn’t it, there are people in the world that will tell you that gay marriage or civil partnerships are fundamentally wrong, and I think I could counter that with a pretty intelligent, compelling and persuasive argument that not only is gay marriage not wrong, but that those that claim it is, are flawed human beings implicit in the fragmentation and disengagement of society and the abuse of young people. But I won’t bang on about all that now, I will simple pose the question, when are adult relationships based on love and happiness, trust and respect ever wrong?

A bit of this, a bit of that...

2008-11-29T12:30:00.003Z

I had a lie-in this morning as well as managing to do some housework and baking! (Not at the same time, sadly that's a talent I don't posses.)

Tonight it’s out with the boys and then tomorrow, I’m doing a roast and a job application. Hopefully I won’t get confused between the two...

We also need to go through some legal gubbins from the solicitor. Apparently you really do have to itemise and agree on EVERY fixture and fitting.

I started the Christmas cards last night, but abandoned them after we decided to watch a film in bed instead – St Trinian’s with Rupert Everett. It was gloriously silly and what with that, and the fish and chips we had, it was the perfect way to end what was, for my partner especially, a long and difficult week.

There’s also rugby and a nice long walk with the dogs to look forward to!

Yahoo

2008-11-28T16:31:00.001Z

You gotta love Yahoo. The main story is “French need big condoms”. Basically Frenchmen are claiming they need the biggest condoms in Europe according to a new study. Underneath the story Yahoo have included two links, the first is ‘Book yourself a holiday to France’ and underneath that ‘Search the Web for tips on lying’.

Brilliant!

I'll take a side order of nap with my burger please...

2008-11-28T08:42:00.006Z

Nooooo sleep... I had to take painkillers yesterday and weirdly they seem to speed up my brain but at the same time make me woozy. So I think I’m tired and I act tired and then I go to bed and lay awake all night!

That said, I’m loathe to whinge too much, my partner got in late last night from work and was up at 6am to get in early this morning. She also worked all weekend (right up until the point we left for Cambridge) and so this Saturday will be her first day off in over two weeks. Puts a sleepless night in perspective...

This weekend is the culmination of Movember. Ten of my finest and bravest male friends decided to fight prostate cancer by... sprouting unusual facial hair for the whole of Movember. If you watch international rugby, you’ll see that my friends were not to the only ones to get involved. Several rugby players were also sporting the sort of facial furniture that you can only hope is for a good cause. This weekend we get to party and judge the best – and worst – efforts. Should be a very fun evening and all for charidee too!

I got a great new pair of Merrell trainers yesterday for nought pence. Well, that's not strictly true, in fact that's not true at all. I had paid for them but over a year ago! We bought a tent July 07 and after three uses it broke, so despite it being over a year old, we took it back to the Millets, Lewisham where the customer service was as ever, great (we didn't exactly get what we wanted but they were friendly and efficient).

Because it was longer than a year since we bought it, they only offered us a free repair, or 60% of the value. We were a bit disappointed but knew we didn't want a repair because clearly there was a design flaw with the tent and we didn't want to be in the middle of nowhere, have it happen again, and be without a tent! So we accepted the 60% and decided it was probably fair in lieu of not having a receipt (but we did have the bank statement) and the age of the tent. (Although I did point out that it really wasn't acceptable to buy a product that you could only use three times, and then have it let you down on holiday!) Anyway, I decided to snap up some Merrell's that were on sale and my feet are very happy.

Right I have a job application to do. Enjoy your Friday and may it be the start of a great weekend.

Birthdays and surveys!

2008-11-27T13:52:00.002Z

The woman from Pickfords came round yesterday and I was impressed. She was friendly and had an air of calmness about her, which when you consider what a stress-head I am about moving, was very welcome. She seemed completely unfazed by our legions of houseplants, a large chicken run and a 200 year old grandfather clock. We haven’t received a quote yet, and I will get at least one more, but Pickfords have made a good impression so far.

The survey on the cottage took place yesterday and so we’re waiting to receive the report, which should be sent sometime next week. Ironically, our letting agent (for the flat we live in now) called me a couple of days ago to ask whether a surveyor could come round this morning. Our owners might be re-mortgaging or selling, but either way it seems to be a sign that this is a good time to move on.

I’m planning my partner’s birthday. Its February next year and it will be her 30th. I’m potentially planning 3 events: dinner with friends in Cornwall, ‘birthday/we’re leaving London!’ drinks in London and a weekend in Berlin. Although all this planning – as enjoyable as it is – might need to be put on hold because I have another job application to do by tomorrow and some errands to run. Boring but necessary!

Cambridge

2008-11-24T17:57:00.002Z

We had a great time in Cambridge. It was lovely to see our friends and their 2 year old son who is already a very charming young man. They’ve just bought a house, and with us in the process of buying, you can imagine what we talked about over a lovely dinner and a couple of bottles of wine!

Today my partner had a work meeting in Cambridge and our hosts also had to work so I was free to go into the city centre and explore. My partner went to Cambridge so I went along to Kings (her college) and stared in tourist like awe at the chapel and stunning architecture of the buildings. It makes my university look very ugly indeed! (Although to be fair, it was a pretty ugly campus even if you didn’t compare it to the splendour of Cambridge!)

I like Cambridge very much, nice bars and cafes, good shops, lovely second hand bookstores and of course, gorgeous buildings. It was a shame my partner couldn’t show me round today, but it’s an excuse to go back of course.

Now I’m back and shivering, the heating has been off for two days and the house is like an ice box. I’m waiting for the dogs to come home (they stayed with their boarding mum last night) and then I need to start thinking about making dinner. From the chapel of King's College – the finest and grandest example of late medieval Gothic architecture in England and the evocative Bridge of Sighs to... Sydenham, South East London! It’s amazing how far you can travel in a day!

Building a team

2008-11-23T10:05:00.003Z

Apart from the Scotland result, there was little to cheer about for the home nations in rugby yesterday. I do think however, that England’s defeat was a little inevitable. This is not a Disney movie, you don’t bring in a coach and overnight you win the big game. You need to build up a team properly, and coaches and sports psychologist will tell you the best way to build a winning team, is to see how they cope with losing. What makes a team of elite sports men and women suddenly not start communicating with each other and performing below their best? What’s missing? What needs to be added, and just as importantly, what needs to be taken away...

We’re three years away from the World Cup and between now and then – as in Sir Clive Woodward’s era – it won’t all go according to plan and there will be some more defeats, but slowly a team will be built and begin to consistently achieve at the highest levels. Only this time, let’s hope for the sake of the team and the fans, England Rugby don’t see that as the end goal but rather as part of an ongoing process (albeit a rather spectacular part) and that there is a constant feed of exciting new players into the squad, and coaches and managers are supported and encouraged to be innovative, creative and constantly adapt to best-practice.

Oh and in the meantime can someone tell Cipriani that he’s a very good player, but people keep charging down his kicks and would he mind being just a teensy bit more careful? Thank you.

I’ve fox-proofed the chicken run and I slept much better last night. I don’t think you can ever truly fox-proof something, well, unless you keep the chickens in a concrete bunker but I’ve made things a lot more secure: weighting down the roof, fixing the run to the house more securely etc. I also cleaned them out and put loads of new fresh straw in yesterday. Just as well because it snowed last night. It’s a bit piddly but we’re driving up to Cambridge later and the snow is always more heavy there. Yay!

Right now I should be in the shower or packing my bag but I’m on the sofa, blogging and sandwiched between the pups. My partner is working in the kitchen. She worked from home all day yesterday and got up at 6.30am this morning all so she can meet a forthcoming deadline...

Makes me quite glad to be unemployed! (Just kidding!)

England rugby

2008-11-22T19:20:00.001Z

Boys, what are you doing to me?

Weekends, pah!

2008-11-22T15:18:00.002Z

I don’t like weekends at the moment, only because everything grinds to a halt and if you’re (a) buying a house (b) an impatient person, you find yourself drumming your fingers and for the first since I don’t know when, desperately waiting for Monday morning!

That said it's Rugby Saturday and we're off to Cambridge tomorrow to stay with friends. So it would be churlish to complain too much!

Champagne and toilet seats

2008-11-20T13:36:00.001Z

The toilet seat is fixed!

My partner burst through the door last night and announced that our mortgage had been approved! So we opened up a bottle of champagne, made a lovely meal and did chores. Well, I did some laundry and she applied her considerable intellect into fixing the rogue toilet seat. And occasionally we squealed, hugged each other and had more champagne!

About five minutes before she got home, she got the call – and the decision – we had been waiting for all day!

Today I sorted out the survey and am just about to call the solicitor (he sends emails and letters longer than some novels I’ve read). And on Wednesday I have Pickfords coming round to do something called a home survey. That’s where they assess exactly what you want packed/moved and then provide an accurate quote. If we complete before Christmas we’re thinking of going down for a couple of days to camp at the cottage. It would certainly be a birthday to remember (I’m 35 on Christmas day!) We might not have heating or electricity but it should still be fun!

I’ve always wanted to own my own place but like a lot of people faced with spiralling house prices, I thought we would only be able to get what the American’s call a ‘fixer-upper’. To think we might soon be the very proud owners of a gorgeous cottage is very surreal...

Anyway, things to do and all that. Keep sending good thoughts and crossing your fingers. House buying is not known for its similarity to walking in the park...

And another thing...

2008-11-19T11:41:00.001Z

The toilet seat is still broken.

These chickens are sent to try us...

2008-11-19T11:29:00.002Z

We had a break-in this morning. A fox went for the chickens and we almost lost one. And it was my fault. I forgot to shut the lid of the run. I heard a strange noise and shot out of bed just before 6 this morning. I was half asleep but I knew something was very wrong. I could hear the dogs growling, whining and pacing as well. I raced to the kitchen and let Pluto and Bess out and sure enough, there was a fox in the garden and the dogs went for him – Bess even tried to get over the fence after it. A chicken shot past me and I grabbed a torch and went out into the garden. My heart was racing and I was dreading finding a bloody carcass or a trail of feathers, but luckily the other two were still in the hen house looking traumatised and then I remembered that the third chicken had run past. I went alongside the house shining my torch and eventually I heard very soft, very frightened noises and there was Tabitha hiding under some tarpaulin. I picked her up very gently and put her back in the run and this time closed the lid. I wanted to cuddle her but thought it was better she was back with the other girls who I’m sure are far more effective at comforting one of their own than I ever will be...

That wasn’t the end of the story. The bastard fox tried again about half an hour later and again we all rushed out; the dogs to chase the fox, my partner and I to protect the girls. They were fine and so we all traipsed in and back to bed – muddy footprints (dog and human) all over the flat – and this time we got to stay there until the alarm went off to get up.

The chooks are very quiet this morning and may have been put off egg laying for a couple of days because of the shock. Pluto is a bit anxious, reacting to any little sound or movement. Bess however, is asleep. She tends to live in the now and the now is telling her there is absolutely no reason to be awake.

It looks like the couple who are selling the cottage want to sell some furniture including a gorgeous dining room table and chairs which we are very interested in. I’ve asked them to email me everything they want to leave (they are moving somewhere smaller) and how much. We’re very pleased about the table. It’s huge and rather grand. In the midst of information for estate agents, solicitors and our mortgage people I have taken refuge in the little things, and in my head I am planning where to put all our pictures. It’s like a safety valve – when you’re transferring huge amounts of money from one account to the next, having your financial history gone through with a fine tooth comb, trying to remember where you lived six years ago and faxing off this that and the other, it all becomes too much and so I have decided to allow a small part of me to mentally retreat and concentrate on the fluff; candles and pictures! We’re all working to an impossibly tight deadline at the moment because the couple want to move before Christmas. The good thing is so far everyone is responding magnificently and working very hard to get everything done. The bad thing is I don’t know what day it is and am constantly fretting that I’ve forgotten to do something...

Chickens and mortgages – I am a sucker for punishment!

Glamour

2008-11-18T13:08:00.001Z

I don’t know if you’ve ever bought a house, but there comes a point where you begin to feel like an observer. Once your solicitor gets involved, he or she talks to the agent and the mortgage people and they reply to your solicitor and then just occasionally someone asks you a question, which you desperately hope you can answer with confidence and accuracy. And then I guess at some point someone tells you you own a house... or at least you hope they do. Home buying is fraught with problems and hurdles and so until you’ve actually completed anything can go wrong.

Right now I have slightly more mundane issues to deal with, I have to wake the dogs up to go for a walk (when actually all I want to do is curl up and nap with them), I have to do the washing up (I had to make my coffee with a fork this morning) and we have a broken toilet seat.

My life is pure glamour...

Offer accepted!

2008-11-17T17:42:00.001Z

It’s been a hell of a day. I had to go back to hospital this morning because about 4 weeks ago I had a sore neck and throat and having this lump in my neck (see previous entries), I’ve been advised to let the hospital know about any changes. I set off for my appointment feeling a little gloomy but thankfully, it’s good news – there have been no changes, and my last biopsy has confirmed the lump was benign (I have to have a biopsy every six months so the fun isn’t over yet.)

The doc thinks I had a throat infection and actually my symptoms were nothing to do with Larry the lump...

Then I got home and received a phone call from the estate agents representing the property we’ve put in an offer for. The couple who are selling have not only found a house they want, but they’ve put in an offer and it’s been accepted so they were prepared to drop the price of their house to ensure they could move quickly. We had to increase our offer but it was a fair compromise. I quickly called my partner and we decided we would accept the new price and I called them straight back. The agent is putting a ‘sale agreed’ letter in the post to us today and we have to phone back with all our mortgage info tomorrow. We are on the first step of buying our first ever house, how cool is that! (I was shaking like a leaf for about twenty minutes afterwards!)

Then I saw a really interesting job and thought, I’ll go for that! That was until my eye reached the bottom of the page and saw that the closing date was today. I called personnel and spoke to a really nice woman who said I could have until 5.30pm to submit my application and I did it with about 10 minutes to spare...

So you’ll perhaps understand when I say I am absolutely buggered!

A day best forgotten...

2008-11-15T19:14:00.001Z

Oh dear. My beloved England lose to Australia. Scotland fight hard but it’s not enough against the Boks, and Ireland lose in a truly turgid game against the All Blacks...

Let’s hope there’s some better news next weekend!

Bond

2008-11-15T10:22:00.005Z

I did end up getting out of bed after all. My partner took me out on a date to cheer me up – dinner and a movie. And she didn’t even wince when I choose James Bond! To be fair, she did enjoy the last one and it turned out that she enjoyed Quantum as well. It’s fab. Lots of explosions, fights, chases etc., etc. Interesting how Bond has always reflected society’s fears – Russians, nuclear power, rogue states, terrorism, media and now environmentalism and oil. Daniel Craig makes a fabulous Bond not just because frankly the man is gorgeous, and I say that as someone who takes another bus entirely, but because as polished and as adept as he is, he is the first to ever really show how flawed and damaged the character is. Which makes for the most interesting and engaging Bond ever. In my humble opinion that is... I’m sure uber Bond fans may agree/disagree with a passion and ferocity that makes me want to suggest they get a job, but regardless, I’m already looking forward to the next film!

My only criticism is you never see a Hyundai in a Bond film. Broccoli family take note...

Today we’re off to the Country Living Christmas fair, it was my mum’s birthday present as she loves stuff like that. And I must admit I share a huge weakness for craft and Christmas fairs. I shall try not to spend too much money, but don’t count on it...

Final word, COME ON ENGLAND!!

Good but not good enough?

2008-11-14T12:05:00.002Z

We’ve just put an offer in and I didn’t get this job... my stress levels are teetering... I’m trying to take the day in small chunks, but the chunks are flying at me all at once...

The couple who own the house want to wait to see if they have any more viewings before accepting our offer which is fair enough but I’ve never been good at waiting. In fact I’m terrible at waiting and want to shout at someone. Perhaps this is because I didn’t get the job – who knows. I was actually told that I was a great candidate (they loved my personality!) and did really well, but they employed someone with a particularly type of marketing skills – and it’s true it’s an area that I am less strong in. But, and this is a bit weird, they asked me to please keep applying to them as I would be a real asset to the organisation with the skills and knowledge I have and they had already told colleagues about me and how good I was! They basically said please come and work for us, but just not in this role. I’m not sure what to make of that...

It’s true that I do want this other job that I’ve gone for far more than I wanted this one but rejection is beginning to piss me off. When you see how many stupid people have jobs you do have to wonder what kind of idiot you are to not be able to get one.

It was Pluto’s 4th birthday yesterday and I sang happy birthday to him when we got home, which he seemed to like. He also loved the toys we got him; a squeaky duck and a rubber ring and there are bits of both toys all over the flat this morning.

I may not get out of bed today. Lazy yes, but it just feels safer, for me, and a world that I want to shout at. Maybe the next interview I get I will be really crap at, that way when they turn me down, they won’t say, you were a fantastic candidate, but...

Devon

2008-11-13T09:19:00.001Z

We’re in the middle of Devon near a place where you would be forgiven for thinking that a huge battle between the Scottish and English might have taken place in 1746. You’d be wrong of course, that was Culloden, this is Cullompton. Easy mistake to make!

We saw a gorgeous sunrise this morning and have just had a lovely breakfast at Newcourt Barton B&B. Nice rooms and Wi-Fi too. It was a little further away from Exeter than we realised but otherwise it’s perfect.

Yesterday we saw the house I mentioned in a previous entry and we’ve decided to put an offer in! It was as lovely as the pictures suggested. 3 beds, dining room, living room, sun room, great location... we would have liked a bigger garden and a slightly bigger bathroom but these are minor issues and there are far more boxes ticked than unticked...

Buying a house seems very daunting and already we’ve made several phone calls soliciting advice, but I think the idea is you just have to throw yourself into it and hope for the best, which brings me neatly onto my job interview in a couple of hours. I’m less nervous than I was at my last interview so I’ll just throw myself in and try and do my best!

Good morning world...

2008-11-11T07:09:00.001Z

I couldn’t sleep so I decided to get up and start my day, even though it was only 4.30. I was thinking about houses and job interviews, and a million other things and just couldn’t relax enough to doze off. Still, it’s not all bad. I’ve polished my boots, and my interview shoes, I’ve done some laundry, printed out my presentation (including copies for the panel) and other stuff I need whilst we’re away, I’ve fed the dogs and done the washing up. And as my partner had to be up at 5.30 (she’s away to Leicester on business), I got to have a coffee with her and say a nice goodbye. Although I have discovered she is quite grumpy when she has to get up before 6am...

I’ve also discovered that with the noble exception of MASH, there is bugger all on telly that early in the morning, although I was almost tempted by the intriguingly titled “Beauty Queens Gone Wrong”.

No doubt I’ll be in desperate need of a nap by 3pm but I’m going to try and resist so that I sleep really well tonight. I do, after all, have over 6 hours of driving to do on Wednesday - first to Cornwall and then to Devon.

Bess and Pluto are a little alarmed at the flurry of early morning activity and so have decided to face their day by not facing it at all, choosing instead to go back to sleep, this time on the sofa.

Right now the best thing I can do is shower and have breakfast and then I may actually venture out into the world (even though it’s so windy it’s been setting off car alarms!)

Cottage

2008-11-10T16:43:00.000Z

We’re off to see a gorgeous cottage in Cornwall on Wednesday. It appears to be everything we want: 3 beds, 2 reception rooms, huge garden, conservatory, shed in the garden, newly decorated and nice location. After the viewing we’ll drive up to Exeter and book into the B&B and then next day is my job interview... it could be a very interesting couple of days!

En-ger-land...

2008-11-09T13:01:00.004Z

You can tell I'm out of the blogging habit, I didn't even mention the England result! Some slow ball, a few lapses in concentration, but a great omen for a new chapter in England rugby. Cips and Sackey (Wasps players!) were great but the Nick Kenndy and Lee Mears tries were also very lovely!

I thought Johnson was a fantastic player and I have every hope he will be an equally good manager. The chariot rumbles on with renewed power and pace!

Shame about Scotland - they showed some real guts and attacked well but couldn't convert that into points.

Preperation, preperation, preperation...

2008-11-09T11:33:00.005Z

I’ve not really felt like blogging much recently. It’s been a difficult time and I’ve been concentrating on jobs applications. The good news is I have three really strong applications in at the moment. The even better news is that I already have an interview! Down in Exeter next Thursday – I shall be working on my presentation today. I couldn’t do it yesterday, the rugby was on! I’m hopeful that I shall get at least one other interview as well. My partner is coming down to Exeter with me on Wednesday night and we’ve booked into a gorgeous and very luxurious farm B&B.

My partner and I (and the dogs!) escaped to the New Forest on Friday. She is convalescing, so it was good to get away. I made a picnic (yes it was cold and wet but we ate in the car and it was very cosy!), took the dogs on a long walk and then went for a drink in a lovely pub with a roaring fire, which was very welcome. We ended the day in Mudeford where we got to use the car kettle that my mum bought us. We sat on the quay, had a cuppa and watched the moon on the water. It was very magical.

My Christmas campaign has reached new heights of efficiency. I have quite literally bought every single present. Every single one! We’ll need to start writing cards soon as well. I have a strange tradition of sending all my cards on December 1st. My partner takes all this in her stride but my excitement and yuletide planning skills are a foreign country to her. She would, if left alone, do all her shopping Christmas week, send out a few cards and generally go with the flow. But being a gracious and generous soul (as well as beautiful and kind) she lets me take up the reins and get far too excited and far too organised. It’s not that she doesn’t like Christmas, she does, very much. But sometimes you just have to let other people like it more!

We even have some decorations up! Actually, that’s not true, I picked some holly in the New Forest on Friday and it’s on the mantelpiece looking rather splendid and festive. Not sure it will last till Christmas but I’m calling it a winter decoration anyway...

There’s been lots going on – some of which I choose not to blog about – but I remain as ever stubbornly optimistic and hopeful. It helps that I am madly in love with my wife. I am not one of those ridiculous people that believe you have to be in a couple to achieve happiness and fulfilment, nonsense. Those things must come from within if you’re ever going to share your life with anyone anyway. But if you do choose to commit to someone, the unfairness and hardness that occasionally even the luckiest people have to face, does feel a little more manageable with someone you love by your side.

Today I plan to make some blueberry muffins, walk the dogs and do a killer presentation for my job interview. There’s also laundry to sort, dinner to make and rugby highlights to watch, better get on with it...

Good dog!

2008-10-29T15:46:00.002Z

We’ve had a breakthrough with Bess’ training. We seem to be more in control of the ‘running up to dogs and barking’ thing. In fact we’ve managed to prevent it on three occasions! I bought a pet corrector, which is an aerosol containing compressed air. When you press it, it sounds like an angry hiss and a hiss is a noise which a lot of predators make. It interrupts the bad behaviour along with a command (such as leave or no) and eventually, you can just use the command without the corrector. We’ve also been using it on Pluto who barks when the boys go upstairs, or if people are too noisy when they go passed the house! We’ve been interrupting his behaviour and he’s a lot mellower as a result because he doesn’t feel he has to ‘guard’ us all the time!

If we can get Bess to stop opening the kitchen door at night so she can go and sleep on the sofa, we will have very well behaved dogs indeed.

There’s still work to do but we’re heading in the right direction!

To do and already doing list

2008-10-29T10:31:00.002Z

• Just eaten a lovely bagel
• Writing two job applications
• Hoping for a white Christmas
• Waiting for a delivery
• Looking after my wife
• Need to walk the dogs
• Appreciating the sunshine
• Planning a day out (and tonight’s dinner)

Generally hoping for the best...

Glamour

2008-10-26T08:29:00.004Z

It may surprise you to know that my life isn’t all glamour. Which explains why at 7.17 this morning in the half-light, dressed only in shorts, a t-shirt and a pair of workmen’s boots I was cleaning out the chickens with bar-b-q tongs and getting soaked to the skin in a soft English drizzle...

Those of us with animals – actually, those of us with animals and who take out pastoral duties very seriously – have long ago realised that you do a job when it needs doing, regardless of how convenient it might be to you. So when I slipped out to feed the girls and collect the eggs, I realised that they needed cleaning out again. And fret not, if you ever come to a ‘q at mine, I will not be using the chicken cleaning tongs! But they are great for getting the muck out.

What I lack for in glamour, I make up for as an animal lover in satisfaction! Well, that’s what I tell myself anyway.

Yesterday was bugger all to do with glamour as well. It was all about housework and wedding photos. Honestly if there is a job that takes longer than you can ever think possible, it’s wedding photos. It took all of last Saturday to select and upload the photos, I got them printed during the week and yesterday I sorted them and started to put them in albums. On Friday night I framed three of our favourites and hung them in the hallway (including a large panoramic shot of everyone on the beach – it looks incredible). I filled two albums and now need to order several more (we also have some photos that other people took and our holiday photos). By the end of the day I was almost blind... on the plus side though we have fantastic photos of a fantastic occasion that will last forever! The other nice thing is we have one ‘main’ wedding album which contains 72 of the nicest pics at 7”x5”. When people ask to see wedding photos, they don’t often want to see several hundred! (I love looking at photos, but I think it pays to be a little self-aware and realise that your photos will never be as important or as interesting to other people as they are to you!)

We were supposed to be in Yorkshire this weekend to see our best woman and goddaughter. But my partner is still unwell and we had to cancel the trip. My partner was hoping to go back to work tomorrow but it’s not going to happen. The slightest activity exhausts her. My only advice is if anyone else feels they are coming down with flu, get yourself to bed immediately. She never gets ill and is very fit but it has completely wiped her out. I’ve never seen her so unwell.

I’ve got Match of the Day on in the background, I don’t know why, I don’t really like football but it occurred to me that someday someone’s going to get hurt with some of the silly goal celebrations they do, jumping and grabbing and laying all over each other. You don’t see that in rugby – although to be fair if 20 stone men start jumping on each other someone will get hurt – but if I was a football manager I would ban the more extravagant celebrations. Some of these players are worth millions (although I personally wouldn’t give you tuppence for most of them) and getting injured during a match, or even during training is part and parcel of the game, but to get injured because your team mate has just flung you to the ground and jumped all over you is taking the piss. I’ve just seen one celebration in which I was convinced the scorer would need a neck brace at the end of it...

Right now I have to decide on another cup of coffee of to go back to bed for more sleep. I think if I’m worrying about the antics of players I don’t care about in a game I’m not interested in, I might need more sleep. Good night.

Speed aware

2008-10-24T10:51:00.003+01:00

The get and go I ordered hasn’t turned up. First I was woken up by the chickens (yes, I forgot to shut the lid of the run again) so after feeding the animal family, I headed back to bed and drifted back to sleep, only to be woken up by a delivery, and no, it wasn’t my get up and go either...

I gave up then and made a cup of coffee. My partner is still quite rough so hopefully will be asleep for a little while yet. Now the dogs are dozing on the sofa and so it’s just me that’s up.

Last night I was at a speed awareness course. About two months before the wedding (BW as it’s now referred to in the Christian calendar...) I received a speeding ticket. I was shocked and a little embarrassed. I was doing 37 in a 30 zone. Which doesn’t sound a big deal but clearly it is. I got offered – instead of 3 points and a £60 fine – to do a speed awareness course costing £95. I took the course because obviously I didn’t want the points, but I was actually quite curious. In the immortal words of Top Gun, I don’t feel the need for speed. Speeding drivers irritate me. They are dangerous and inconsiderate. So if this was already my opinion, what could I learn?

The course was very good. It lasted 2.5 hours and was quite draining. We weren’t lectured, preached at or told off, we weren’t shown photos of lots of mangled bodies either. Instead we were shown a picture of an accident scene when a car had hit an 8 year old boy. The boy’s body had been removed, there wasn’t even any blood but it was eerie and hideous and four years on the driver still has nightmares every night and considers his life ruined – just as, I suppose, the parent’s and sister of the dead boy also consider their lives ruined. He was going 38 in a 30 zone. He wasn’t under the influence and was considered a ‘safe’ driver. Had he been going at 30, he would have still have hit the boy, but there would have been an 80% chance that the boy would have survived. Going just 2 miles over the speed limit decreases those chances by 30%. So going 32 miles an hour, it becomes a 50/50 chance of survival, a flip of a coin...

It was very sobering. I think car drivers generally have a certain level of arrogance – all of us, especially if we are ‘safe’ drivers who don’t usually get speeding tickets, don’t get into accidents and don’t get pulled over by the police. This was a timely reminder to get back to basics. People don’t die when you slow down, but they can die if you speed up. There was loads of interesting information in the course: did you know that when you see the word SLOW written on the road, it’s because there have been at least 3 KSI’s (Kills or Serious Injuries) in that spot?

Anyway, you make your own decisions in life. I am a good and safe driver and don’t generally speed but I got a speeding fine,so clearly I do speed even if it's not that often! So I know what my decision is and it’s to be more responsible. I’m honestly not sure I could handle the alternatives.

A lovely autumn day

2008-10-23T11:39:00.000+01:00

I didn’t get the job, which sucks. I knew it was unlikely (after a week of hearing nothing) but they called me this morning. A definite rejection as opposed to a probable rejection always stings slightly more...

Apparently I interviewed “really well” but they employed someone with more direct marketing skills.

I feel a bit ‘meh’ at the moment. This weakened state might explain why I’d quite like to see High School Musical 3. The adverts keep coming on TV and it looks all shiny and fun and now I want to see the damn film. Even though it will be probably be pants. Why do I want to work in marketing? Clearly they prey on the weak...

I took the dogs to the park this morning at the same time as everyone else took their dogs. Bess had to stay on the training lead quite a bit and was a bit barky. But it was a nice walk regardless and we bumped into a friend and ended up chatting for ages. We were waxing lyrical about autumn and it turns out it’s his favourite seasons as well. Being outside on such a beautiful day made me feel better, then it was back to make breakfast for my sickly wife and now, back to the grind..!

Training

2008-10-22T15:17:00.004+01:00

I did something very bad yesterday. I didn’t walk the dogs. It’s ok as long as you only do it once in a blue moon. They do have a garden to stretch their legs in and relieve themselves and seeing as if interviewed they would say their favouritist thing ever is being on the sofa, and they spent all day on there, they actually had a very fine day indeed. With my partner being sick and me up to my eyes in job hunting/applications time just slipped away.

Plagued by guilt however, I got up this morning and with less than half a cup of coffee in me and still so bleary eyed I put both contact lenses in the same eye (how does that happen?) we headed off for a longer than usual walk to make up for the previous day. We walked for ages and for most of the time it was just us and nature, but then two other dog walkers appeared with a gorgeous little Staffy girl, who unfortunately Bess chased. Bess is going through a period of anxiety where she runs up to other dogs barking. She doesn’t attack or growl but it’s still unacceptable behaviour. So much so, I’ve bought a 10m training line which when we’re walking somewhere extra busy or where I don’t have clear sight of what is coming up ahead, I can have her on lead but with a bit more freedom than if she was on her normal lead. The other dog owners weren’t happy and I can’t really blame them. I did apologise but even those people that know Bess and know how gentle and loving and silly she is, would have to admit that if she was running toward them at full tilt there would be a moment – albeit flickering – where they might have wished they hadn’t had such a large breakfast.

It’s all about perception and because we have allowed people to brutalise certain breeds, Staffy’s being one of those breeds, society thinks that when they see a dog like Bess (Staffy/Mastiff x) trouble isn’t far behind. Ironic then that after a life time of being beaten and treated so appallingly, the worst she can come up with is running up to dogs barking and then running back to me looking guilty...

Still, she shouldn’t be doing it whichever way you look at it so we’ve got to do some training.

I’m working on a proposal for a consultancy gig – writing an equality booklet; something I’ve done before, and if I can finish that today then I’ll be right on schedule. I’m trying to do things as soon as they come in. It’s partly in the vain hope that lots of well paid jobs come up in Cornwall. I don’t want to have applications stacked up which may mean I miss deadlines or rush them.

So on that note...

Yule mojo...

2008-10-21T12:54:00.003+01:00

My partner is not very well and had to take the day off today. I’m making tea, doing laundry and stopping the dogs going in to the bedroom and trying to climb under the duvet. That has to be the true definition of hope: the dogs have never been allowed on the bed and yet each morning they bounce into the bedroom and for a brief, hopeful, giddy moment they think that today will be the day that they will be allowed on the bed for a nap and a cuddle...

If I can get organised I also need to do a job application and submit a proposal for a consultancy project. Whatever I do, I need to do it quietly so my partner can get some rest.

Our wedding photos should arrive today. It took me all of Saturday to upload the photos we wanted to print. I’m also expecting some more Christmas presents to arrive – what can I say, I’m fiendishly organised regarding the yuletide. I love Christmas and I love buying presents! We’ve bought 5 so far and I’ve even planned a Christmas menu. What with that and our Christmas break we are potentially the most organised people. Ever!

Spare room chaos

2008-10-20T15:44:00.001+01:00

I’ve sorted out the spare room. Sort of. I bought two ginormous plastic storage boxes and the bed which previously looked like a small nuclear warhead had gone off scattering laundry, clothes in the ‘don’t know whether to keep or give to charity’ pile, stationary, a large plastic windmill, a badly hidden Christmas present, tea towels, a wooden bowl and some camera equipment all over the place, now has the aforementioned items in the aforementioned storage boxes and for the first time in three months, the bed looks like a bed. It’s still chaos, but a neater more orderly form of chaos.

I haven’t heard from the job I interviewed for so I’ve reconciled myself to receiving a letter in the post in the next couple of days saying thanks, but no thanks... It’s a huge blow but there’s nothing I can do. Back to looking for suitable jobs and filling out dreary, soul sucking forms in which the eager job seeker gets to prostitute their skills, experience and enthusiasm to complete strangers. Not that I’m fed up with the whole process you understand.

Bess is snoring so loudly on the sofa that it’s hard to concentrate on typing and I’ve given up on trying to hear what’s happening on Murder, She Wrote. Good job I’ve seen every episode several times over. Maybe that’s my cue to get up and do the washing up anyway...

Who knows!

2008-10-16T17:07:00.005+01:00

I had my interview yesterday, and honestly, I don’t know how it went. For some reason I was incredibly nervous which didn’t help. Some answers I was bang on, other answers...

It was the hardest interview I’ve ever done. I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t get it – I am missing a qualification they want, but they still seem really interested in my skills and experience. So who knows!?

After the interview in Bristol I headed to the Cotswolds to stay the night with a friend. It was lovely to see him. We had dinner in the pub and caught up on all the news. I also picked up my Toledo Mud Hens (baseball) t-shirt that his partner got for me in the States. (I’m wearing it now, very cool!)

Our friend is moving over to Baltimore for six months next year (his partner - who got me the tee - is currently out there working until next July) so I spoke to the missus last night and we might try and plan a trip in the new year, which will be fantastic if it happens.

Today before heading back home I decided to go to Bath for the morning. It’s one of my favourite cities and I have a soft spot for the Bath rugby team as well (who incidentally I saw training at their training ground and I was so excited I almost swerved off the road!) I went for a lovely veggie breakfast and then had an amble round the shops and admired the autumn foliage; which was stunning. I didn’t spend much (very unlike me) but I did buy a present for my partner and a little something for her grandmother as well. Then I headed back to the car via the river. It was such a beautiful morning and I really enjoyed the couple of hours I spent there. Then it was back in the wagon and home. I got back to two very excited dogs and a big box from the Open University. It was my course materials! (I’m doing a course in Environmental Science so I can apply for environmental jobs – like the job I interviewed for yesterday).

The interview keeps going round in my head and I forgot to ask when I might hear one way or the other. I wonder if I can email and ask? Anyway, I can’t keep over-analysing everything or I’ll go mad, so for now I’m going read through my course book and then later, make dinner for my gorgeous wife...

Interview preperation and a grandfather clock...

2008-10-14T15:45:00.005+01:00

It’s been a stressful day and I’ve spent a fortune in Staples. Oh, and the Sky remote isn’t working either!

It’s the last day before my interview and I did my interview prep with a friend yesterday evening (I was terrible but it was really useful and helped loads). I finished off my presentation this morning and am now just doing some research. When I do a presentation, I always do extra copies to leave with the interview panel so they can go over the presentation afterwards. So I popped along to Staples this morning to get some nice presentation folders and some more paper because to run out of paper would have been a small disaster! I looked at ink cartridges but we had bought ink very recently and so I moved on...

That was until I got back home, realised I did indeed need to change the ink cartridge and couldn’t find where we put the new ones. Two phone calls to my partner with no response and I realise (a) she’s in a meeting and (b) I was wasting time and just had to get back in the car and go to Staples. Again. This time I also bought a few other bits.

I got back in time to meet the delivery men who had brought the grandfather clock, that we have inherited from my partner’s grandfather (funnily enough), up from Hove. Luckily they put it back together quickly and efficiently and then it was off out again this time with the dogs who were demanding to know what the hell had happened to their morning walk. The walk was nice – someone had a bonfire and it smelt lovely – and I began to calm down. The dogs ran around like lunatics and now we’re all back home on the sofa with two thirds of us asleep, one third of us snoring, and a remote control that refuses to do what it’s told. I also have a pile of research (thicker than most novels) I need to get through, preferably before my partner gets home because I need to also do a huge – and I do mean huge – pile of washing up. Put it this way, I had to make my coffee with a chopstick this morning and that’s not an easy thing to do...

I also need to eat at some point, pack a bag and maybe even try to fit in some rest and relaxation. Although there seems to be fat chance of that so far!

Presentation

2008-10-13T15:34:00.003+01:00

I've just finished the presentation for my job interview... well, the first draft anyway. I'm knackered. Tonight I'm doing some interview prep with a friend who is a senior manager experienced in recruiting and interviewing. Let's hope it's all worth it!

Food

2008-10-12T19:01:00.002+01:00

Thursday night a friend popped over for some soup and a catch up... toward the end of the evening, I made a throw away comment about our laptop being out of order and he got excited because unbeknownst to us; he’s a bit of a computer geek! He took away the laptop and worked on it for a couple of days and guess what I’m typing on now? Yep, he worked some kind of magic and discovered that we had a virus. Although our security was good, it still wasn’t good enough to protect us from a Trojan virus. Anyway, thanks to him everything is cleaned up and functioning really well!

Friday we had more friends over for dinner (spicy bean pie – courtesy of Abel and Cole organic grocers – roasted sweet and baby potato, roasted baby turnips and parsnips, steamed broccoli and onion gravy; followed by a strawberry and rhubarb cheesecake. And oodles of wine! Then we played the board game my mum bought me last Christmas – the CSI board game. It was very good! I was leading until one of our friends got a good throw and the opportunity to say who the moiderer was! I had known who it was from almost the beginning of the game. (It was a particular word that gave it away!) But you need to land on the relevant square before you can get a shot at guessing the perpetrator so even if you know early on you can’t say who you think it is until toward the end of the game...

Yesterday we went down to Brighton to see the in-laws and my partner’s grandmother. It was a lovely day even though we were clearing out her grandfather’s room (who passed away just before the wedding.)

Today we’ve had a perfect day – and we treated ourselves to a lovely breakfast at the Blue Mountain cafe this morning. Tonight, organic steak stir fry! Have you noticed I keep talking about food on my blog? Anyone would think I was pregnant... although in my case that would be a miracle birth! ;0)

Wake up fool

2008-10-09T11:09:00.001+01:00

I forgot to shut the chickens in last night (they put themselves to bed and then you shut the lid of the run for security). So this morning, upon discovering they were not incarcerated, they decided to come up to the kitchen door and let us know – very vocally – that they were still waiting to be fed and that if we had a shred of decency we would rectify this without any further delays. I sprung out of bed like a demented marsupial and scattered chicken feed outside the kitchen door and silence was instant and golden....

I slept well (even with the chicken wake-up call) and made up for my less than two hours sleep the previous night. I had some VERY weird dreams (they were so weird I had to put the ‘very’ in capital letters). But I feel a 100% better today – the downside is that there’s now no excuse not to do the chores. Especially as we have guests for dinner tonight and tomorrow night and then we’re down to Brighton on Saturday. Oh and did I mention I had a presentation and interview prep to fit in, and two other applications? I feel tired again…

Iglu & Hartly

2008-10-08T13:51:00.002+01:00

Just got the Iglu & Hartly album & then boom, and it's absolutely bloody fantastic!

Porta-potty

2008-10-08T13:45:00.004+01:00

I’m knackered. Last night I barely got any sleep. I found out that I got the job interview that I really wanted which of course I’m over the moon about. But last night I lay awake fretting about having to move down to Cornwall without my partner and the dogs and having to take temporary digs so I can find us a house to buy…

Of course I should be taking one step at a time i.e., going to the interview and trying to get the job in the first instance. But if I can run before I can walk it’s the usually the route I prefer to take.

We’ve discussed this of course. In fact I’ve blogged about it recently, but it’s a really big deal to live apart from your family. I love being with my wife and I love having the dogs around and there is a very strong possibility that for a month or two we won’t be living together and frankly, that sucks.

The interview is in Bristol so no trip to Cornwall this time (although that’s where the job is based). Anyway, I shall go looking fabulous, with a great presentation and oodles of skills and let’s hope that’s enough!

Today has – with the exception of an in-car kettle – largely been about name changing. I’ve got two bank accounts and needed to tell them my new married name. Just driving licence and passport now and that’s the main stuff done. I spent so long in bank and post office queues I considered taking up squatters rights just to demonstrate my displeasure at only two counters being open and four staff standing around chatting and ignoring customers. Customer service is a paper exercise which means nothing to any bank I’ve ever had the misfortune to deal with.

My mum wprries that because of the amount of travelling we do that one day, on some motorway, everything will grind to a halt, the snow will start to fall and we will be trapped for 8 hours. Consequently she has just bought us an in-car travel kettle for just such an occasion! True, if I were trapped for 8 hours on the M4 a cup of tea might be nice, but the worry is you sit there having endless cups of tea you then have to pee on the hard shoulder in front of several hundred equally trapped, equally bored and equally annoyed drivers… maybe we’ll get a porta-potty to be on the safe side…

Search string

2008-10-06T11:20:00.002+01:00

Someone got to my blog, by putting "where, purchase, egg, carton, foam, mattress, topper, ireland" into Google. Two questions: 1. What where you looking for by putting those words into Google? 2. How did you end up at my blog?

Anyway, however you got here, welcome!

Monday morning malaise

2008-10-06T11:08:00.005+01:00

This morning Pluto, Bess and I had trouble getting going. (They still haven’t got going. They’re both asleep on the sofa.) We had a lovely weekend, entertained all three parents, made and ate some good food, watched a great movie (Be Kind Rewind) and took the dogs on a couple of nice walks… and then Monday came around.

It was sad seeing my partner go off to work this morning, I realise there may be other issues (such as her leaving reminds me that I don’t have a job!) but we always have such great weekends and it would be nice if they lasted a bit longer…

I finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and am halfway through Mike’s Election Guide 08, Michael Moore’s guide to the American elections. Very funny, acerbic, enlightening and painfully accurate – I say painful because some of the worst people that hold office, don’t just wake up and find themselves as politicians, we put them there... Shame on us!

After this (it’s not a particularly long book and I’m a fast reader) I can’t wait to start on David Simon’s massive book, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Simon’s was the first reporter ever to gain unlimited access to a homicide unit (in Baltimore). He is also the creator of the smash-hit series, The Wire.

But as tempting as it is to spend the day reading, I need to job hunt. I’ve gone for a couple of jobs, but I need to start stepping up the job search. The money won’t last for ever and as Pluto and Bess will testify, chew toys and dog treats need to be paid for!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

2008-10-04T10:20:00.005+01:00

My partner works hard and sometimes long hours, so on a Saturday I like to leave her sleeping so she can really stretch out in the bed, and I take care of the animals and normally blog, watch TV, do a bit of housework or just have a shower and a coffee. Today is no exception. Although I am writing a to-do list because there’s a lot to do before my mum arrives for tea. Not least a bit of housework! (What is it about parents visiting that inspires such domestic endeavours!?) Of course, there’s a large part of me that thinks it would be sensible to go back to bed and drift back to sleep…

I’ve decided I want to photograph vegetables. Not as a career choice – I don’t want to be known forever more as the veg snapper – just as a slightly different and unusual assignment. I think vegetables look interesting (look only; I don’t eat a lot of vegetables. I leave that to my partner and the dogs).

I’m reading Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and cannot recommend it highly enough. You might recognise the name in association with the best seller, The Poisonwood Bible. My partner read that and another of her books (name escapes me) and became an instant fan. I saw this new book at the Eden Project gift shop and picked up a copy. Her and her family decided to live for a whole year only eating seasonally and if at all possible only what they could grow or rear. At the same time they (her daughter and husband also write in the book) decided to investigate the state of food and food practices – predominantly in the USA.

(Incidentally she is a big fan of farmers and understands many are working under difficult conditions and are having to farm, not in tune with nature, but in tune with massive corporations where the quality of the bottom line is far more important than the quality of the soil.)

This book works because she’s not preachy; but she is a very good writer and also warm and funny so you find yourself digesting (no pun intended) some seriously shocking information on intensive farming, food miles or pesticides without images of your slightly psychotic school science teacher throwing complex and boring facts at you like spears, or some crusty hippy entreating you to just, like, be kinder to the earth. (Not that I have anything against crusty hippies. Many great things have been achieved by hippies crusty or otherwise.) In other words, she doesn’t tell you that you must change what you eat and how, she writes about what she chose to do and if you want to do the same or similar, congratulations, but really, it’s nothing to do with her…

It really is a remarkable book and already I have plans to purchase a second copy as a Christmas present. As loyal readers know (both of you) we plan to become small-scale farmers in the near future and hold dear the principles of organic farming and having the utmost care and respect for the environment and our animals: be they pet or livestock.

Anyway, back to the point. I’ve started looking at vegetables in a whole new light (she’s slightly evangelical about veg, which is no bad thing I guess, I’m certainly only ever going to buy heritage seeds from now on) and so I thought with my new camera lenses I might try some shots. We certainly get some strange stuff sent to us in our organic veg box each week, and in our own very small-scale - some would say tiny - growing operation, we've grown some very odd looking marrows.

It could work or it could turn into the most boring series of photos since I got the camera last year and in my excitement took lots of pictures of our legs…

Winter's coming...

2008-10-03T15:44:00.002+01:00

It’s a clear but cold day. The dogs and I have just been to the park to blow away the sofa cobwebs. I’ve been wearing a jumper this last week or so but the weather’s been relatively mild, today however, I needed a coat and scarf on our walk, winter is coming…

(Although depending on which reports you read/watch it’s going to a warm, wet winter or it’s going to be a freezing cold winter!)

As much as I like meeting friends and other dogs on our walks, I like it when it’s just us because I can switch off and daydream. The park is looking beautiful; the ground is covered in acorn husks and there are big piles of fallen leaves in various shades of red, brown and gold, that even at 34 I can’t help but kick through. The only other beings we saw were squirrels (being harassed by Pluto and Bess) stocking up their winter larder, and the crows ‘cawing’ and hopping about drunkenly. Apart from that it was just us: the dogs chasing each other – or the squirrels – and me relaxed and lost in thought.

Now we’re back in the warm which is nice but I suspect that one of the dogs has been at the chicken feed because someone has vile wind and it’s not me. My peaceful reverie is over to be replaced with the worry that one of them now has a tummy ache…

I’m off out this evening to help celebrate a friend’s birthday. He specifically said no presents but we’re giving him a jar of homemade marmalade! The marmalade turned out to be gorgeous and we’ve already received several requests for jars.

Tomorrow my mum is coming over for tea and to look at the ‘official’ wedding photos in case there are any she would like a copy of. I’m making hazelnut brownies, which could go either way. I either make great cakes or lousy cakes – I’ve yet to discover a middle ground. We also need to pick up a storage chest we’ve bought for the garden. Our small shed is literally bursting at the seams, so we’ve bought something to store all the chicken stuff in, and we should still have some room over left for pots. No doubt we’ll take the opportunity to do a garden tidy up before winter sets in. We should be doing some planting at this time of year, but with us desperate to move by the end of the year/very beginning of next, we don’t really want to commit to working hard to plant lots of seeds that we can’t nurture and subsequently harvest. We’re in vegetable limbo!

A new gadget arrived today. It’s a stand-by plug set and remote control. You plug in all the stuff you don’t want on stand-by (but which might be awkward to get to) into a special plug and then when you want to switch everything off, you just use the remote control – from up to 30 feet away! No more scrabbling around on hands and knees… unless you want to and that’s entirely your own business…

Right, I need try and work out how my new MP3 player works. As with everything that arrives in this house with a set of instructions, I may end up giving it to my wife with a plaintive look and a request for her to please help before I end up throwing it out of the nearest window…

Crime fighting!

2008-10-02T10:00:00.004+01:00

It’s often the small and sometimes obscure clues that once revealed, lead the detective or forensic specialist into solving a baffling crime…

And in our case, it was my partner’s bedside lamp being on. I heard suspicious noises in the bedroom and having just changed the bed linen and knowing that my beloved Pluto loves fresh bedding, I jumped up to confront the little rascal, just as he sauntered past me looking innocent. I went into the bedroom and wondered how my partner’s bedside lamp had turned itself on? Our lamps don’t have switches; you touch the base to turn them on. My startling conclusion was that someone had been in the room and had ‘accidently’ turned the lamp on. But had a crime been committed?

So in homage to some of the world’s finest literary detectives, I lit a pipe and decided to investigate further…

There were distinct doggy style foot impressions on the duvet. I surmised then that the little git had indeed been on the bed, but why turn on the lamp? Since when did he need a well lit room to commit mischief? So I checked her bedside table and sure enough found evidence of a heinous crime… her ear plugs were missing!

Pluto had pushed open the door, jumped on the bed, searched her bedside table, found and ate her earplugs, accidently turned on the lamp with his nose, and then quietly left the scene of the crime. But he hadn’t factored in my extraordinary detective skills.

Of course the bigger mystery is why the hell Pluto likes to eat earplugs in the first place? Apparently it’s very common in dogs. But it's just plain weird if you ask me…

Fanny Craddock

2008-10-01T11:21:00.002+01:00

The fish pie was a success! I didn’t like the parsley sauce (but then I don’t like parsley, so you would have thought I could have worked this out before I bought that type of sauce!)

Recipe:
Line caught haddock, 2 generous fillets (try and buy the best fish you can afford and make sure it’s sustainable!)
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Carrot
Sweetcorn
Parsley sauce (or an alternative such as a cheese sauce)
Potatoes

Boil potatoes for mashing
Cut up haddock and half of the broccoli, half the cauli and all of the carrots
Mix the veg (inc. the sweetcorn) and fish into a bowl
Make up the sauce and then mix the sauce with the veg and fish and put in an ovenproof dish
By now, the pots should have boiled and mash them up with butter, a dash of milk and seasoning; layer the potatoes over the mixture (you can also grate some cheese on the top)
Put in oven at 200 for 45 minutes
Do the rest of the broccoli and cauli for a side dish and voila!

It’s fairly healthy, very tasty and will provide two further meals. You can do it for under a fiver as I said previously, but even if you choose organic ingredients like I did, you can still do it for about a tenner – which for 4 meals isn’t bad!

Anyway, enough of the Fanny Craddock, I have a huge to-do list which apparently isn’t go to sort itself out...

(Tonight I’m doing veggie burgers, sweetcorn and homemade sweet potato chips!)

Housewifely

2008-09-30T14:15:00.001+01:00

If I can drag myself away from Diagnosis Murder re-runs I plan to make fish pie for supper and do the laundry and hoovering... it just seems a very housewifely thing to do!

Hope

2008-09-30T10:26:00.001+01:00

Hope is a strange and precious thing. I’ve realised over the last couple of days how much I’ve been hoping. From small not-really-that-important-in-the-big-scheme-of-things things to life changing things. My partner’s best friend is pregnant, and is currently in hospital and risks losing her baby through complications. If I could physically cross every part of me I would. We think the worst is over but she will be hospital for several more weeks. We keep hoping and sending good thoughts but in cases like this, it just doesn’t seem enough – or is it?

I’ve just submitted a job application for a job I really want and I find myself thinking about it at odd times – what would I do for this part of the project, how would I solve that problem – and all the time I’m hoping that I at least get an interview…

… because if I do get this job, it means we can step up our house-hunting in Cornwall. I’ll have to move away from my family, which I’m dreading, but at the moment, we’re finding long-distance house-hunting very difficult. At least if I took some temporary digs in Cornwall I could go to viewings every week.

Last night my partner made marmalade and be both spent a good hour hoping it would set!

And I’ve even entered a competition that I hope I win… Basically it’s all about the hope…

I believe in karma – do something nice, something nice happens to you – but I wonder (and I’m not well versed on my Eastern philosophies) if karma isn’t just about the action but about the process. Do something nice and you not only have something nice happen to you, but you have the strength to hope and not give up when everthing seems overwhelming.

It’s all a bit much for my tired brain to handle, so instead I’m going to up my being nice and doing good because I want our friend to be better (and she will be) and I would really like an interview for this job. The rest is up to the universe and I fully appreciate that the universe may well decide that well-set marmalade just isn’t a priority right now…

Photography website

2008-09-28T12:01:00.001+01:00

I need a site dedicated to my photography and where people can buy pictures online, but I have a minscule budget... any ideas?

An autumn afternoon in the woods...

2008-09-27T19:39:00.002+01:00

We spent a lovely afternoon in the woods out in Downe (Kent). The dogs ran themselves ragged and then slept soundly all the way back home. Unfortunately I’m almost too knackered to make dinner now…

Last night we watched the wedding DVD and although it’s a really bad copy, for some reason, we watched it with big grins from the beginning to the end. You forget so much of the actual ceremony! The nicest thing was how happy and healthy we looked. It may seem strange to notice how healthy we looked, but we literally glowed. We had caught a bit of sun and rest, relaxation and happiness did the rest. Tonight we plan to go through the official photos so we can get some printed out for a special photo album we have – as well as get a couple framed.

We still haven’t finished all of our thank you cards yet. I hope people don’t think they’ve been forgotten. We will get round to all of them soon!

I’ve just been on the National Theatre website because I am desperate to get tickets to see Warhorse but they are sold out until the end of January 2009! It’s a very popular play (clearly!) but I’m determined to go see it. It’s the second run (the first one sold out too) but they do do daily tickets where you queue up at 9.30am and hope to get tickets for that night’s performance. In case you’re not familiar with the story/play, it’s about the horses that fought in WW1 and the book made me cry!

Anyway, I need to make dinner…

Mail order madness

2008-09-26T15:13:00.000+01:00

Forgot to say, have ordered some very cool stuff recently – my moo cards (which are very cute business cards with your photography on the back.) I have loads of cards but none in my new married name. A signed copy of Terry Pratchett’s new book, The Folklore of Discworld, some great Animal sunglasses – although I can’t work out whether they make me look cool, or like an idiot… it’s a fine line - and finally, two new camera lenses. I should get some great shots at the winter solstice (watching the sun coming up in the ruins of a castle).

So it’s all good, but I am avoiding checking my bank account for fear of a nasty shock!

Round up

2008-09-26T12:17:00.003+01:00

Well, I haven’t yet shifted this gastro virus which has left me a little useless. I did manage to get away for my smallholding course, which was absolutely fantastic.

I thoroughly recommend Bicton Rural Academy (part of Plymouth University) – it’s a beautiful campus and the course was extremely well run. I got to handle sheep, cattle and pigs, drive a tractor and a quad bike and learn some really, really useful stuff about growing fruit and veg. I’m planning to do other courses in the new year.

The B&B farm (Quentance Farm) I was staying in was nice but I wouldn’t stay again – they got my booking so wrong that I was in a different room each of the three nights I stayed! It was just too much hassle in the end. Although to be fair they did reduce my bill and it was convenient for the college, but the breakfast was fairly standard as were the rooms (and there was only one that was en-suite).

I stayed with some friends in Plymouth on the Monday night which was very cool. Except we got some take-out and even though I only ate half, it made me feel really sick all over again. (I’ve since seen a doctor and they’re running some tests, but finally after two and a half weeks I am starting to feel better.)

The idea was to house-hunt during the day on Monday but it didn’t really work out. I did view a house but it was completely unsuitable and left me feeling a bit down about the whole long distance house hunting malarkey…

On the Tuesday I decided I wanted to go back to Cornwall and just have a nice hassle-free morning. So I went for breakfast at Route 38 an American style diner and then headed to Looe (about 8 miles away). I ended up having a fantastic time – did some shopping (got chatting to a woman in a surf shop that gave me some great advice about moving down to Cornwall and being patient about finding our new house!), picked up a pasty for later and then sat on the harbour enjoying the blue sky and hot sun before finally heading home.

Wednesday I took the car in for a service and left £325 poorer. The service was £251 and I had the two front tyres replaced. I actually really like the garage, Premier Autocentres near Sidcup in Kent, a Hyundai dealership – although they deal with all cars. (We need to get the car serviced at an authorised dealership otherwise the warranty is invalid.) Premier is genuinely friendly and helpful and they do a great job. Considering how many dodgy garages there are out there, it gives you peace of mind to find a good one.

And today was notable for getting into a stand-up fight with some fuckwad in a Tesco carpark. He parked in a motorcycle only space then hit my car door with his, really hard, and then he smirked at me! So I leapt out of the car and asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. He thought it was cool to call me a faker (is that an insult and if yes, what does it actually mean? Seriously I have no idea.) Then he told me to fuck off and tried to act the big gangsta (pretty hard to do in a Ford KA especially as he was also too scared to get out of said car). I called him a fucking idiot and got back into my car because my temper was well and truly lost and I didn't want the situation to escalate any more than it already had. My fairly new, fairly expensive car is my pride and joy. I also really can’t stand selfish people that don’t give a shit about other people’s property because they happen to drive around in a shitty rust bucket, so this was never going to end well!

I was only in the bloody carpark because it turned out my phone wasn’t working and when I finally figured this out and fixed the problem, I got 8 texts one after the other; one telling me a friend was ill another telling me a friend’s grandmother had died and as they had been sent to me the previous day I wanted to respond straight away.

Anyway, to end on a more positive note, my partner and I are going away for a few days before Christmas (to watch the winter solstice in Dorset) and I’ve just booked the hotel. Then we’re coming back to spend Christmas on our own – something we’ve always wanted to do but never have. We normally host Christmas at ours and go all out. This time, it’s going to be just her and me and the dogs! There will still be a fancy dinner and decorations but it will be peaceful and low-key. Bliss!

(Photos: SUNSET OVER EXMOUTH, LOOE HARBOUR)

Job applications

2008-09-15T08:48:00.002+01:00

Finished one application yesterday and have another that needs to be in before 5pm today! Both great jobs and I hope I feel as satisfied with this second application as I did with the one I finished yesterday...

Wish me luck!

Hotel reviews

2008-09-13T12:33:00.004+01:00

A website can only tell you so much, and when I’m trying a new service or staying in a hotel that I haven’t stayed in before, I always try to look for reviews (trip advisor is good for this) so because we stayed in three very different hotels – none of which we had stayed in before – I promised myself I would ‘review’ them on my blog and I hope that someone finds that useful…

First hotel: the Poltair in Falmouth. The Poltair is impressive for a number of reasons, not least quality and value. They are dog friendly and for that reason we choose a family room for extra space. As it turned out, the dogs went on their own holiday and it was just me and my beloved. The room was very large, clean and with a stunning view over the sea (we also had a shared balcony). The room contained a double bed, a single bed and a sofa. It also had a fridge which was fantastically useful as we had champagne, beer and mineral water to chill and one day (after several days of eating just a bit too much) we bought some salad from M&S and had a picnic in our room! There was a TV, kettle and hair dryer as well. The bathroom was small but very clean and more than adequate. The only criticism was that the bed was quite soft and a little on the small side. The problem with beds is that you’ll never please everyone – some like soft, some like firm – but if it wasn’t for all the exercise and sea air making us conk out each evening, we might have found it a bit difficult to sleep.

The gardens are literally award-winning having won lots of prizes in the Britain in Bloom competitions over the years. They have free internet access and can even print stuff for you at a small cost. The foyer contains the obligatory but very useful tourist information and maps and when we checked in and checked out we were offered help with our luggage.

The breakfast was really good with a good choice: scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, kippers, full English, pancakes etc. I looked forward to breakfast each morning and had a full English every day just because the fried bread was the best I'd ever tasted (I justified it with the amount of walking we did!)

The Poltair claim that nothing is too much trouble and you can't help but believe that. Towels for swimming, herbal tea bags in your room… not a problem. The owner Malcolm was warm and welcoming and always happy to help.

The hotel is quiet and peaceful and yet only about a twelve-minute walk from the centre of Falmouth (and that’s my twelve-minutes so about six to eight-minutes for the rest of you!) There are gentle slopes down into town but very accessible and not particularly taxing (for those of you that don't know, I have limited mobility because of arthritis in both knees and crumbling kneecaps!). Incidentally the Poltair have a comprehensive access statement which can be viewed on their website.

Finally on our last day at the Poltair, we found a card in our room – it was a congratulations card from all the staff wishing us all the best for our wedding and the future. That says it all really! 4/5 www.poltair.co.uk

Second hotel: the Porthminster, St Ives. The Porthminster is a grand old luxury five star hotel and seems to balance this sense of age and grandeur with modern convenience and service.

The staff were fantastic. So much so that within two days of checking out we had sent a card to the General Manager to ask him to thank the staff for all they had done. Again, there is a real sense of wanting to make your stay special and so extra requests are not seen as an inconvenience but rather, dealt with in a friendly and efficient way.

We were in the bridal suite which was gorgeous with a massive bathroom (two-person Jacuzzi), sitting room, large bedroom with a ginormous bed, and two balconies. My mum’s room was more typical and quite small, but still a lovely view, very nice bathroom, flat screen TV and lovely furnishings - she was very happy and comfortable.

There are two pools, indoor and out (we used the outdoor pool which was heated and much more fun!), a games room, two bars, a gym, private sub-tropical gardens and direct access to the beach. The breakfast was notable for good presentation and lovely fresh fruit available every morning and again, the service was excellent. Really we couldn’t fault anything. (When we checked out the porter not only cleared our room for us – and remember, we didn’t just have the luggage we checked in with but a lot of wedding presents – he also packed the car.)

That said however, it is important to remember that our experience was special and different because we were getting married. A ‘regular’ holiday maker might take a slightly more critical approach but we were wearing marriage-tinted glasses and thought everything was perfect! 4.5/5 www.porthminster-hotel.co.uk

Third hotel: the Hen House, Lizard Peninsula. The Hen House (so-called because they do actually have hens!) is a luxury B&B with only two rooms. It is an oasis of peace and is tucked away in a small hamlet called Tregarne. I can’t remember what the name of the room we stayed in was but it was the biggest and was superbly decorated with a gorgeous bathroom. The bed was one of the most comfortable I’ve ever slept in and everything was spotlessly clean.

There is a resident dog, Morgan, a huge and very handsome beast that happily allowed us to give him a cuddle each morning because we were missing Pluto and Bess so much.

The Hen House excels in being green and indeed, has won awards in sustainable tourism so if that is something that matters to you (it should matter to all of us but I shouldn’t preach…) then rest assured you’re in the best place.

The breakfast was amazing and was definitely the best of all the places we stayed. In fact I’m not embarrassed to admit that I have missed it a little… The way it was served was also lovely. The breakfast room looks out on to the garden teeming with birds and everything was so nicely presented. The owners Gary and Sandy are really friendly and conversation with them felt easy and natural – it also helps that they have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the local area: walks, restaurants, attractions, best routes to get from A-B, weather! They will happily lend you maps as well which is very useful.

Although we didn’t take the dogs, there is a fenced in meadow for dogs to exercise and run about like lunatics, a drying room for wet towels and even a place where you can wash your pooches on those occasions where your dog decides to keep its youthful good looks with an all over mud mask…

It is a very special place that we would really, really recommend, and ideally suited for a romantic getaway. (They also have a self-catering barn but I couldn’t be that close and not have one of their breakfasts!). Not only do we want to go back, we're also considering giving a weekend break to someone as a gift. 4.5/5 www.thehenhouse-cornwall.co.uk

(So much for blogging after the weekend!)

A mixed week...

2008-09-13T10:49:00.005+01:00

It's been a tough week; we had my partner's much-loved grandfather's funeral to attend on Monday. It was a very sad, but also, at times, a very joyful day. And then I came down with a virulent gastro virus which completely wiped me out.

I'm feeling better today though and it's also our two-week weding anniversary which is nice!

Anyway, I promise to get back to blogging regularly post-weekend. Why post-weekend? Two job applications with a Monday deadline!

(Found this photo on Facebook taken at the 40th birthday party we went to just before Cornwall. It made me laugh!)

I'm back!

2008-09-07T12:08:00.003+01:00

I'm back but still too knackered to blog in any great detail.

In a nutshell...

Day 1 - Arrive at Poltair Hotel in Falmouth go for award winning fish and chips
Day 2 - Cornwall Pride, drinks in Truro in the evening
Day 3 - Shopping in Falmouth (I spent an absolute fortune!)
Day 4 - Blue Hills tin mine, cream tea in St Agnes
Day 5 - Lands End, St. Michael's Mount, meet with the registrar (lovely woman!) and then dinner with a friend down for the wedding
Day 6 - Isles of Scilly (Tresco) by helicopter with two other friend's also down for the wedding, lovely dinner with them in the evening
Day 7 - sea kayaking, massage, dinner with our best man and his partner and then a visit to Cornwall's only gay bar!
Day 8 - another massage, arrive at the Porthminster (wedding suite with two balcony's and a gorgeous view!), pick up my mum, dinner and drinks with wedding guests in the evening
Day 9 - final breakfast as a spinster!, swim, WEDDING!!
Day 10 - Eden Project, go for a swim, drinks in the hotel bar
Day 11 - tea and cake for elevenses, drop mum off to station, Porthleven for pasties, drive to new hotel the Hen House
Day 12 - Roskilly's, Lizard Point, Coverack, Cyder Barn (for local booze), back to Roskilly for evening milking and b-b-q
Day 13 - Seal sanctuary in Qweek, Coverack, Mullion, Poldhu Cove
Day 14 - Falmouth, river trip to Tolverne (Smugglers Cottage), dinner in Mannacan
Day 15 - View a house, pick up dogs, find time for another pastie, head home very reluctantly...

Now I'm trying to find space in the house for all the new things we bought including some artwork, doing laundry and answering emails!

They arrived!

2008-08-21T17:36:00.002+01:00

The shirts arrived! Unfortunately we got stung with customs tax (£36!) and we needed to travel to Charlton to get them but hey, they came from Hawaii so SE7 doesn't seem that far...

This will be my last blog for a while. We leave at 6am tomorrow morning and to be honest computers, blogs, email etc., isn't really high on my holiday agenda! So it could be that the next time I blog, I'll be a married woman. Which I think is very, very cool!

Packing

2008-08-21T09:44:00.003+01:00

I think my hard work and organisation is paying off... although I may end up being wrong about that…

All the laundry is done, and more importantly dry. The various bits of paperwork are all sorted and / or printed and now in my briefcase. The little jobs (camera charged, sat nav charged, relevant maps fished out from the map drawer [yes we have a map drawer], instructions for chickens written, shoes polished, travel bottles labelled etc., etc.) are finished. And now I just need to put my tops – already folded – into my suitcase and effectively I’m done. But obviously this isn’t just a holiday, it’s our wedding and so I’m sat here, one eye on the Olympics, one eye on my to-do list, quietly fretting.

For several weeks now I’ve been concentrating on the paperwork. For example, I’ve booked helicopter flights to the Scilly Isles and I’ve checked I’ve got the tickets maybe half a dozen times now; passports and birth certificates – check, accommodation details – check, doggy vaccination cards – check, readings – check and so on and so forth…

Based on my organisational abilities just these last two weeks I could very possibly run the country with a high degree of success…

Our Hawaiian shirts haven’t arrived yet – yikes! But to be honest, if that’s the only fly in the ointment I can't really complain.

Right more coffee and then maybe one more check… you can’t be too careful leading up to one of the most important days of your life!

Team GB

2008-08-19T13:24:00.000+01:00

The greatest Team GB ever?

Please stand by...

2008-08-19T09:47:00.005+01:00

Sorry not to have been blogging - in my defence, I do have a lot on! We're off on Friday and we're getting wed the following Saturday. Right now I'm up to my elbows in packing, laundry, sorting, paperwork etc. I'm also waiting for umpteen deliveries which we're hoping will arrive before Friday! But it's all good fun. I'm still glued to the Olympics and am delighted and proud we're already 28 medals to the good. (Go Team GB!) My partner is amazed at my capacity for watching the Olympics but it is only every four years and watching sports people at their very best is, in my opinion, a form of artistry...

Something which is nothing to do with weddings or holidays is that an interesting situation is developing with Pluto and Bess. We knew that once Bess was settled and less anxious, she would probably challenge for dominance. Older females will often dominate much younger and less mature male dogs. So in between sleeping and playing together and generally being inseparable, they are also having occasional physical face-offs. It's less subtle now and so we expect the transition soon. They jostle, bump, snarl and bark and now Bess has taken to standing over Pluto as well. We don't interfere - which is the worst thing you can do but what most people would do because they don't understand dogs. We only step in if it happens very near us because it could spill over to trying to dominate us, but otherwise, we let them sort out their own hierarchy. I personally have never had the chance to witness this - especially in my own dogs and it's fascinating. You hear the snarls and think the worst (you can't help it) but they never bite or attack. I'm glad it doesn't happen whilst we're out though; people would think we had fighting dogs!

A healthy well balanced pack needs to sort out its own hierarchy. If it doesn't you have anxious and quite possibly aggressive dogs trying to sort out who they are and what they do - and never quite finding out the answer to either. I'll keep you posted!

Dinner, dogs and ironing

2008-08-13T10:25:00.003+01:00

We’ve had friends over for dinner two days in a row and it’s been very nice. Monday’s dinner was planned and I was rather pleased with my fresh pasta, roasted vegetables, hot breads followed by passion fruit cheesecake, but last night was spontaneous and no less lovely for it. Steak burgers and salad (with home grown/produced tomatoes, potatos, lettuce, chives and eggs!) hit the spot. Quieter night tonight though!

My partner has a hellish week as she’s away for the day on Thursday and needs to get a business plan and research in on Friday – something that she has been working on for a while now and which has meant a lot of stress and long hours.

Tomorrow I’m off to see the final of Underdog – a BBC programme where celebs adopt rescue dogs and train them to perform various tasks including agility. The last series (which was also the first) was hosted, bizarrely, by Julian Clary, and we became absolutely hooked! (Julia Sawalha and Cookie got our vote!) So friends have got tickets and we’re off to see the final before we’ve even got to see the first episode…

Over the weekend we ordered our Hawaiian shirts – from actual Hawaii! – for the evening do of the wedding. I’m looking forward to them arriving and this morning we had to pinch ourselves when we realised how close our holiday is. This Sunday we’re doing a lot of sorting and ironing. I think it will be the first time I’ve ever been excited to do ironing!

Sporting pride

2008-08-11T10:52:00.005+01:00

I love the Olympics. I love sport. Sadly, it’s often the only time we can feel really proud in this country. I absolutely burst with pride when we do well. And I can’t tell you how I felt that our first two gold medals were won in spectacular style AND won by women. You may think it doesn’t matter whether it was men or women that won – and on some level you may be right, but when you consider how women struggle to gain recognition, support, media coverage and finance in even elite sports, it really does matter that two women have set the bar for team GB.

But it’s not just about the wealthier countries and the bigger sports teams, two Iraqi rowers have just been interviewed on the BBC. Team Iraq have only 4 athletes, and if I get to see them compete I think I would cheer just as hard for them as I would my own much loved country. To have them win would be an amazing achievement and a fantastic message about a country that isn’t just about war and hardship and occupation…

Yesterday we picked up my partner’s brother and took him to Brick Lane for his birthday. He had wanted to buy some vintage clothes and so we had all put in some money for him to go on a bit of a shopping spree. He managed to get loads! A jumper, a top, a shirt, shoes, trousers and shorts and he still has money left over. We had a fantastic day, lots of fun, but I was absolutely gutted to get back to the car to find a ticket. We were on a single yellow which we all thought was fine to park on on a Sunday. Apparently not. The semi-literate fuckwit mongrel who wrote the ticket, couldn’t even work out that my car was blue. And under colour had put ‘unknown’. I guess if there was an Olympics for parking attendants, he or she wouldn't make the cut...

Last night over tea and biscuits we did the seating plan for the wedding. Surprisingly difficult but very satisfying when done. After which, we watched Crimson Tide (fantastic film) and went to bed too late.

Looking ahead...

2008-08-09T17:55:00.002+01:00

Blimey, I think it’s all caught up with me. I woke up with a horrible, horrible headache. It was making me feel sick and the light was hurting my eyes. I took some tablets, feel back to sleep, woke up, took some more tablets, fell back to sleep and this time woke up after 2.30pm and finally felt well enough to get out of bed although I’m still a little fragile. I guess the stress and emotion of the last few weeks finally decide to wallop me one…

I’m thinking of re-training! I’m particularly interested in Environmental Studies and think I’ve found a course through the Open University. It’s an introductory course – perfect for me as I never excelled in science and maths at school (I’m quite badly dyslexic), and so I need to be sure I can handle the course before committing to a longer, more involved and much more expensive course. Although I’m daunted, I’m also excited. I do like a challenge and I want to make sure I make the most of any time off I have. I also don’t take kindly to not doing something well: just because I’m dyslexic, doesn’t mean I can’t conquer my unfamiliarity – and no small amount of terror! – of science and maths!

Tomorrow is my brother-in-law’s birthday and we’re taking him for brunch and to do a bit of shopping. I’m looking forward to it and my resting today should be full of beans tomorrow!

I was unexpectedly sad to leave the office yesterday. The girls gave me an envelope containing 3 goodbye cards and a £50 voucher for John Lewis; this as well as a gorgeous bunch of roses and lilies and being taken out to lunch twice. It made me realise that the amazing people I spoke about in a previous entry, also thought I wasn't half bad either. And that made it sad to leave.

Right, back to the sofa… I LOVE the Olympics!

Toys take on climate change!

2008-08-08T14:34:00.000+01:00

The best story of the week? Or even the month perhaps?

Stereotype?

2008-08-08T12:27:00.001+01:00

Here’s an interesting thought, if we have any honesty and self-awareness we will admit to stereotyping people. We don’t like it, but we do it. But how do we feel when people do it to us?

Today I was walking Pluto and Bess. We virtually had the park to ourselves and the dogs were full of beans; racing around, jumping on each other, barking and generally having an absolute ball. I saw a couple of people the other side of the park and I put myself in their shoes – two strong, ‘tough’ looking dogs (Rotty/Lab x and Staffy/Mastiff x), roaring around, barking and growling. I suddenly looked exactly like one of those people I despise – using strong dogs to make myself look bigger! I had become a stereotype!

Luckily we are known at our local park and there are a lot of knowledgeable dog owners that know that barking and growling in play is like kids shouting when they play – harmless. It is after all how dogs communicate. But if you didn’t know that, if you assumed all barking was bad and all growling was a precursor to an attack you might well have been wary of us. People also know how I feel about the scum that brutalise their animals to make themselves seem hard, or that train their dogs to fight, but still – how strange, that if you knew nothing about me and our beloved P & B you might think I was a hard nut with two scary looking beasts! Ironic then that they and I much prefer a hug to a fight any day of the week.

Maybe I should buy them pink jackets?

Roll camera...

2008-08-08T11:15:00.004+01:00

If I were to sum up my three years at this organisation it would be a cross between a film noir and a Carry On film, and maybe even with the level of inefficiencies, a dash of Benny Hill as well…

There are some truly marvellous people that work for this company and there are some truly awful people that work here. I think people that are crap at their job are a bit like benefit cheats (strange analogy but bear with me) they know how to play the system: they know the bare minimum they need to do to get by. But the irony is that everyone (even managers and to be fair, some of these idiots are managers!) knows how rubbish they are but nobody does anything. That’s one of the greatest failings of any company; especially when you consider how important our work is dealing with some of society's most vulnerable people.

The good people though are pretty outstanding and they inspire real hope for the future. And the once the temp contract of our interim chief executive is over, you can only hope that he is replaced with someone who actually gives a damn about the staff.

But there has been a lot of laughs, some great projects and learning experiences, and even a few friends! But at least I can now say, and that’s a wrap...

New tricks

2008-08-07T10:24:00.003+01:00

Pluto is a very loving dog, but it’s easy not to see how gentle, well-behaved and well-socialised he actually is because he can be so excitable. He greets visitors like he hasn’t seen them in a hundred years and he does have a tendency to jump (which we’re working on). But since we adopted Bess we’ve seen another side to him. He’s taught Bess to play with toys (she’s never had them before and when her fosterer tried to give her some, Bess just ignored them), he’s taught her to feel safe at night when they go to bed in the kitchen, he’s teaching her to interact with other dogs, when she’s particularly itchy (she has an aytopic rash) he gently licks her paws and if she runs off too far away from us, he barks at her and brings her back.

I’ve seen him interact with very young puppies before now and have always been amazed at how wise he is – teaching them when to be submissive, when to be dominant and what is and isn’t acceptable in play (which is exactly how dogs learn; not just through training but through appropriate socialisation with other dogs) but now he’s teaching an older dog new tricks and it’s wonderful to watch. Of course, unless you spend time with him, it’s easy to dismiss him as a crazy but very lovable dog, but when you see Bess and him playing together you realise he’s all that and much more in fact I think he’s pretty fantastic!

What I WON'T miss when I leave work

2008-08-06T10:18:00.000+01:00

1. My irritating colleague
2. My commute
3. The lifts at work which wheeze and rattle more than I do when I’m having an asthma attack
4. My irritating colleague
5. An organisation than generally rates creativity right up there with the dark arts…
6. Sandwiches for lunch
7. Spending too much money in my lunch break
8. My irritating colleague
9. My view of the A4
10. Everything else.

So near...

2008-08-05T11:39:00.003+01:00

Last night I drove all the way to Upminster (middle of nowhere) from Hammersmith without a sat nav (which I forgot) and was, frankly, feeling very pleased with myself. With my navigational capacities I mused, I could be a scout leader. Not that I particularly want to be, but it’s nice to have options. Unfortunately though, when we eventually got to the airfield to go on the airship, the flight was cancelled because of strong winds!

Oh well, you can’t control nature. She’s a minxy beast.

I’ve spent a happy hour this morning checking out the websites of American minor league baseball teams. I’m not sure why, but I got a sudden fancy and went with it…

I’ve decided I like the Portland Beavers and the Toledo Mud Hens in case you're interested. I used to really like baseball, specifically the Giants and the Yankees, and was lucky enough to get to see two Giants games when we were over in SF. My partner couldn’t see the attraction but I was in heaven.

This is, of course, a classic example of displacement theory. A bit like when you’re supposed to be studying for your GCSE’s and you decide instead to alphabetise your socks, eat noodles and look up top tips for successful ant farming. I have work to do and very little time to do it in (especially as I am leaving early today as well!) and so I decided to do something else entirely. And now I’m blogging.

I also started the cross word but have so far only managed three clues which is fairly shocking. I’ve just drunk a smoothie in the hope that it may encourage my brain to perform better. Unfortunately it just gave me heartburn. But if my brain doesn't kick in soon I may well end up looking up vintage tractor sites, American college football teams, discount shoe shops or something else entirely...

Happy Monday!

2008-08-04T10:37:00.002+01:00

This is my last Monday in work! In fact, this is my last week! I’m excited and impatient for it to be over. Although that said, I did lie awake for hours last night fretting about finding another job. I am, thankfully, quite employable and I have a great CV but still I have been out of work before and it sucks your soul…

Yesterday we went to Toys Wood in Kent, a lovely National Trust wood. They have three walks, the longest being 3 miles. I took my stick and was determined do the 3 mile walk. Unfortunately, the walks were not graded (some walks are graded for accessibility. People with mobility problems may not always struggle with the length of the walk, but they may struggle if it’s hilly or uneven). Sure enough, it almost killed me! Very steep drops, very steep climbs and uneven and rough ground… I was absolutely shattered at the end of it, and feeling sorry for myself because I was in quite a bit of pain. Even the dogs were exhausted (although very happy!) I guess I should have tried to find out how difficult the walk was but assumed – wrongly – that as there were no warnings about the level of difficulty, it would be alright. I won’t make that mistake again!

(I did take some pride it not having given up! It's what made me a good athlete - sheer bloody mindedness!)

When we got home, I took painkillers and didn’t really move from the sofa. Pluto, Bess and I watched Britain’s Strongest Man the 2007 finals and my partner pottered around the garden….

I didn’t go for my airship ride on Friday as strong winds meant it was cancelled. I’m – hopefully – going tonight.

I need to write a to-do list for this last week and I need to stay focused, lots to do and now, almost no time to do it!

Card fraud

2008-07-31T16:18:00.002+01:00

Me. Again. But this is important.

I was possibly the most complacent person when it came to credit/debit card fraud probably because I always thought it affected people that earnt more than me! However, one of my cards has been hit again. First it was my Capital One credit card and kudos to them for reacting so blimmin’ swiftly, and now it’s my current account debit card.

I noticed a really strange transaction for £16.82 and I could not for the life of me place what it was. The problem is that I do most of my shopping online. (Actual shops are not designed for grumpy people with poorly knees.) And so I often get strange entries on my account, but despite this I can usually account for them, but something about this entry made me call my bank because I really, really didn’t know what it was. Anyway, it had already been flagged up by the bank’s anti-fraud team and it turns out it was indeed a bogus transaction. (Bogus is such a great word.)

They are investigating and I’m being sent a new card and will eventually get the £16.82 back, but had I not listened to my instincts, it would have led to several more small transactions and then usually one big whopper of a transaction when they realise the dodgy activity hasn't been spotted. So this entry is just to tell you to check your online or paper statements and seriously don’t be such a goose that you see something odd, but then don’t do anything about it. Because the next thing, you’ll be a shop trying to use your card and 17 overweight security men will jump on you… actually I’m not sure that’s true, but you get the idea. Check and double check again because these toe rags really are out to get you...

Stella does London!

2008-07-31T12:45:00.000+01:00

This is what I'll be on tomorrow!