My Birthday...

I am now well on my way to being old, its tragic really - I am closer to quarter of a century old than to 20 years! Eek! ;-) On the day in question we had a highly classy family birthday meal consisting of Sausage, Mash & Gravy followed by a slice (or two) of chocolate cake! Yummy!


Then John & I went to see THE film of the moment - The Devil Wears Prada with the wonderfully evil Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly, the most influential voice in fashion and Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs, her not-so-keen-on-fashion Assistant. John really wasn't keen before hand but even he admitted it was funny! I on the other hand felt it was like catching a glimpse of what heaven may look like - all those clothes & bags & the SHOES!!! OMG! I really am a stick thin fashionista trapped inside a fat, badly dressed body! Anyways, a good night out and I am looking forward to the DVD!

I got some nice pressies to - mostly money (all much appreciated) along with a lovely wrap top & necklace from Clare, shoes (already posted about!) from Grandma, a black necklace to go with the posh frock I had borrowed for the work do (more about that in a bit) from Mum and quite a few books; 3 biographies - Gordon Ramsey's Humble Pie & Kim Woodburn's Unbeaten from Mum & Dad & Ronnie Corbett's And Its Goodnight From Him... along with the novel The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger from John. So thank you to everyone.

SHMC Harvest Rally 14th/15th October

It’s October, it’s cold, it’s almost bound to rain and we’ve agreed to spend the night stood beside a road somewhere in the South Hams…why did we do that, again?

Dartmouth Golf & Country Club and already we’re lost – where’s Marshals sign on? In the conservatory. Umm…where’s the conservatory?! After a bit of wandering around we’ve located the conservatory, signed on and been given the details of our controls. Our first posting is at TC18 out at West Alvington, opening 23.37 & closing 01.02. Then on to PC41…hang on a minute – what are we driving, the Delorian?! Opening 01.00…so minus two minutes to do about 9 miles! I think we’ll have to see how the night pans out, good job Chris has said it’s no worry if we don’t make this one. Our final one is TC60 at the top of Dean Prior – ideal for getting onto the A38 and down to Lee Mill for breakfast; the real reason we are here after all! With routes from control to control sorted we have time for a drink & a chat before we head out but at £5 for two soft drinks it’ll just be the one!

TC18 marks the end of what was obviously a pretty tight section – no one’s waiting at the control board, just flying in and screaming off. Dad has had one or two close calls with his feet! I definitely have the cosy option though; sat in the car filling in the control card but Dad’s not getting wet, I was wrong about the weather and the rains holding off. Maybe an old friend of rallying with inside information at the MET office has put in a good word for us with the man in charge? We’ve met our first local too; ‘Brian’ and he is not happy! Did we really ought to be out this late?! Shortly after he leaves the Course Closing pulls in at the same time as the final car (from the wrong direction – how did he manage that?!) That’s all 37 competitors through and we’re off.

It’s looking like we might make it to PC41 in time but with only about half a mile to go we’ve got to pull over to let Phil Harris pass us. O well, we’ll go and have a look at it anyway since its looks like an interesting corner. My photographic skills get called into question here – I’ve got plenty of photos of lights coming towards us, lights going away from us and even one or two of absolutely nothing but blackness but only 3 with actual cars in them!

On to TC60 and Dad’s back out in the road. “I can hear some lights coming!” Hmm…maybe not but you know what I mean! It’s all a bit less rushed here – nearly everyone arrives with time to spare and is counting down at the control board. Watching the time tick by makes you realise just how long a minute actually lasts (would you believe 60 seconds?!) 04.15 comes around before we know it – on to Lee Mill for a quick sleep then breakfast.

Who’s got the Breakfast Vouchers? Any ideas? Nope so we’ll just have to wait for Chris to arrive. More people are arriving and everyone’s chatting, the competitiveness from out on the road is put aside and the atmosphere is really good which is more than can be said for the coffee – bleugh! We’ve been sat here watching other people eat for over an hour only to be told that so long as we tell the guy taking the orders that we are marshals we can order with out vouchers…grr! After a much appreciated cooked breakfast and more vile coffee we wait until provisional results are announced but tiredness is taking over and thoughts of bed are filling my mind. This is the first all night rally I have been to and I have really enjoyed it, well done to everyone who competed, commiserations to those who didn’t finish and nice one to all the marshals – in my unbiased opinion we did a pretty good job. Who knows, I may even volunteer again next year but right now I just want SLEEP!

Calling all wannabe Marathon Powerwalkers!!

This is a powerwalking marathon that takes place in London in aid of breast cancer research. Apart from being a walking marathon it has three main differences to your regular marathon -

1. The participants are mainly women
2. It takes place OVER NIGHT through the streets of London
3. Every participant wears decorated BRAS to raise awareness of breast cancer

We're looking to put a team together at work so watch this space for more information or better still log on to the website - www.walkthewalk.org - & enter yourself!!

The Last Seven Days

I've had a pretty mundane week really. I went into town on Saturday to see my account manager at the bank and then to collect my new glasses from the opticians. I spent the rest of the day wandering around the shops with Courts. A particularly average Saturday I'm sure you'll agree but I'm still finding it extra nice to have the time to do what I want when I want. I'm sure the novalty will wear off but right now its still great!

Had a boring week at work, boring, boring, boring! So nothing really to report there.

On Weds night we (me & John in case you hadn't guessed!) went to the cinema for a change!! Actually it was a break from the mould in as much as we went to Imperial first for food and then we had to go to the skanky Odeon since our dear Picture House wasn't showing Children of Men. Not a great film in my opinion, not a bad film either but still, not great!

Oh and today has been a particularly uneventful Friday 13th (although with 30minutes still to go it could all go wrong yet I suppose so "Touch wood! Touch wood!")

Well that would be the last 7 days...crappy right?! The weekend is shaping up to be pretty good - getting the final work on my car done tomorrow morning, marshalling a rally with Dad over night tomorrow night & meeting up with an old friend on Sunday night so BRING ON THE WEEKEND!!!

Driving Lessons (the movie not a comment on the standard of my driving!)

On Wednesday 4th John & I went on our weekly night out to the cinema, Picture House again, this time to see the Julie Walters film 'Driving Lessons'. Now firstly - I LOVE Julie Walters! She is a brilliant actress and, well, I just love her! I am just waiting for her to become Jame Dulie (so she can join Jame Dudi Dench!) I thought it was a good, light hearted film with some deeper undertones - a good evening out. John has written his review on our 'Doing Stuff' blog so have a wander over there for a look...

Bit of an update....Work training!

I know, I know! I've been totally slack on the updating front but here I am to make it all right again!

I have FINALLY had my training week at work, between the 2nd & the 6th. What an anti climax that was I can tell you. We (me and 5 others who had all started on the same day - Shayne, Ian, Emma, Alex & Matt) all got crammed into a tiny room with Tara the Trainer. It was honestly like being back at school. First off she got us to draw 'shields' to show who were were with our name, hobbies, previous jobs & aspirations on it. We also played a LOT of games like The Name Game - you have a sticker with a name on it on your forehead & you ask Yes/No questions to guess who you are - The Letter Game - you have a list of ten headings like Boys Name, Girls Name, Town/City, Colour and then you get given a letter and you have 2 minutes to come up with something for each heading starting with that letter BUT it has to be unique within the group to enable you to score a point - Who's in the Bag? - you are split into teams & you have a bag with cards in it, on each card is a famous persons name & you have to describe them to your team for them to guess. We did cover some work related stuff - we spent nearly two days being shown how to use the Intranet (surely its basically the same as the Internet?!) We spent another two days covering HR policies (including us having to write down what we thought Equal Opportunities is!) We were briefly shown one of the company systems but we were shown the billing side of things - not one of us works in Billing so totally unhelpful.
Can you tell by the way i have gone into great detail about the games & not so on the work stuff that the only interesting part of the week was the games?! All in all a total waste of a week but there we go!