A look back over 2010

And so 2010 is drawing to a close. It has been a year of change for me - some changes expected and anticipated (buying a new house and redecorating it) and others a bit more unexpected (needing to buy a new car, having to move in a new direction career-wise after unexpectedly being made redundant just before Christmas). It has also been the first year without my dad and so there have been some tough moments when I have missed him so much. With all the change from this past year, I suspect the beginning of 2011 may be challenging!

Clearing out the junk

Having our own house means that it is now time for Michael and me to clear out the stuff we still have stored elsewhere. We've been spending a morning filling a van with all the stuff I had stored in my sister's loft. I'm quite shocked that there is enough there to require a van to remove it. A quick glance at the contents leaves me wondering just why I wanted to keep some of it in the first place. Old A level textbooks, notes from schooldays right through to university, empty boxes for old computer equipment - so much junk!

Billy Elliot

One of our Christmas presents this year was tickets to see Billy Elliot. I have to admit it wasn’t quite as good as I was expecting given the quality of the film. There were some memorable songs but it lacked depth (maybe I was expecting too much from a musical?) and Mrs Wilkinson’s accent was a bizarre combination of Australian and Geordie and something that wasn’t really either. The dancing was superb though – my favourite moment was when Billy and his older self danced together which was amazingly good. Overall I’d give it eight out of ten – definitely worth seeing.

Backstage annual reunion

Michael and I were both involved in the backstage society when we were at university together and over the last few years, it has become a bit of a tradition to have an annual post-Christmas catch-up at a local Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet. Whilst we see some of our friends from the backstage society regularly, there are a few that we only ever seem to catch up with at this time, so we really look forward to going along and catching up with everyone there. Not to mention all the yummy food which we end up eating far too much of!

Past baggage

Back home again after visiting family for Christmas. Lovely as it is to spend lots of time with the family, it is also nice to be back in our own home again. Now that we’ve got a house, both our families have decided that it is high time we remove all our belongings from various lofts. Which means that we’ve not just travelling back with Christmas presents, we’re taking a lot more stuff home. I think most of it is going to end up going to the charity shop but in the meantime, its back to being surrounded by boxes!

Vegging out in front of the TV

After all the excitement and busyness of Christmas Day itself, Boxing Day tends to provide a chance to completely relax and veg out in front of the TV. There’s no pressure on Boxing Day, no expectation that everything is going to be perfect. Just a chance to switch off for the day and wind down. There’s an unwritten rule in my family that the TV stays switched off for the whole of Christmas Day as it about focusing on people not on what’s on the TV. To be honest, I’ve never really wanted to watch TV on Christmas Day though.

A family Christmas

I love spending Christmas with my family. Even though there is a bit of an empty space now that Dad is no longer here to spend Christmas with us (although we did take a trip to the churchyard to spend a few moments thinking of him there). Dad always loved Christmas so much – family was very important to him and he loved watching the children opening their presents and getting excited about everything. Being able to see Christmas through a child’s eyes again is just one of the many reasons why I love being with my family at this time.

Pre-Christmas catch-ups

I have quite a large family and I always try to make the effort to see as much of my family as possible in the run-up to Christmas. Fortunately all my siblings live within about 40 minutes drive of my mum’s house which means that it is usually possible to go and visit them all on the same day. What makes life much easier though is when half of them decide to descend on my mum’s house on Christmas Eve – which means less time spent travelling about to see people and more time actually being able to see them – perfect!

Where to spend Christmas

The decision about whose family to spend Christmas with has always been fairly straightforward. As I was on-call two Christmases out of three, I couldn’t travel too far away (particularly as I always had babies due) so those Christmases were always spent with Michael’s family who live near to us. If I was on holiday, we spent Christmas with my family – which is what we’re doing this year. Of course, now that I’m about to become self-employed, I can choose whether I’m on-call at Christmas and where to spend it. Maybe next year we’ll just stay in our own house.

Preparing for the festive season

The festive season has felt very busy this year. I’ve been running around trying to get the house in order so that we could finally start inviting friends over, making Christmas cards (seemed like a good idea before I realised I needed to make 160 of them – although am glad I did it now that they’re done!), making Christmas presents. Most of these are things I do every year, but on top of it I’ve also been trying to sort out work for the new year which has made things a little more stressful than they would have been otherwise.

Christmas catch-ups

One of the best things about the run-up to Christmas is that everyone is a little more focused on trying to spend time with friends and family and whilst everyone is a little bit busier on the social front, it seems slightly easier to try and arrange time for meeting up with friends than the rest of the year when the hustle and bustle of day-to-day life seems to be more of a distraction. We have had a fabulous evening catching up with friends whom we hadn’t seen for a while (despite good intentions – life just got in the way!)

Mutual support

The last few days have been so busy with work-related things – getting together with the other midwives who want to carry on working in a similar way to how we’ve all been working for the last few years and contacting clients who are still interested in being cared for by us. I’m so glad that several of my colleagues are still going to be working with me – we can support each other whilst we’re finding our feet (one of my colleagues has been independent for a while so is very good at advising us on what we need to do).

Housewarming

Another flurry of snow over the weekend meant that quite a few friends were unable to make it to our open house/housewarming party but a few people did manage to venture out and spend time with us. It was good to be able to catch up with friends that we hadn’t seen for a while and get to know our next-door neighbours a little better. It’s been so long since we’ve been able to have an evening of inviting friends over and catching up, and so nice to finally be back in a position where we can do that again.

Incentive to unpack

The unpacking process has been rather leisurely and as a result most of the rooms in the house have had piles of boxes in the corner since the day we moved in. Planning an open house/housewarming party definitely provides a much needed incentive to either unpack the boxes or limit the number of areas where unpacked boxes are being stored. The house looks so much better as a result – most of the rooms are now free of boxes and we can shut the door on the areas where the boxes are still waiting and forget about them for a while!

Stop the world...

The events of the last couple of days have resulted in me rushing around like a headless chicken trying to do a million and one things, preparing myself for being self-employed, finding out what I need to do. And then it suddenly dawns on me that Christmas is just a week away and I start rushing around trying to get things ready for Christmas. Too many things in my head, too many tasks on my to-do list, too many balls trying to be juggled all at once. Need to slow down and find some time to relax for a bit...

Redundancy = opportunity

24 hours after being told my job has come to an end, I’ve taken the first steps towards becoming self-employed and working as an independent midwife. It’s scary and exciting all at the same time but there are a few of us that are going to go down this route and several women that we have looked after so far seem interested in having us continue to look after them so it’s a good starting point. I’m planning on registering with the staff bank at my local hospital as well so I’ve got something else as a back-up if needed.

Being a statistic

And so change has pounced and this time it takes the form of redundancy. As of the end of this month, I will be unemployed. I’ll also be unpaid – at least for a while. After having a fabulous job for five years, the lovely company I work for has gone into liquidation and I have become another entry in the unemployment statistics, as have my colleagues. I’m not sure what exactly I’m going to do now – this is one of those times when I have to trust God and pray that something will turn up – hopefully sooner rather than later.

Just when things all felt settled...

It seems that this year’s theme is ‘change’. New house, new car, moving offices, changes at work – things certainly haven’t been predictable this year. Still, I thought by this stage in the year that I was possibly done with change for this year at least and was quite looking forward to having a period of adjusting and settling in. Life, as is so often the case, seems to have other ideas. Change appears to be in the air yet again. What form it will take is as yet unclear but life may be a little topsy-turvy again for a bit.

Starting the Christmas preparations

Christmas preparations have started at last! I’ve been busy making lots of Christmas cards already (thanks to a couple of craft afternoons at church) but have at last made a start on the Christmas shopping (although remembered why I prefer to do my shopping online rather than on the high street – it was exhausting and slightly stressful!) Half of the Christmas presents have now been bought (some have now even been wrapped which makes me feel like I’m being vaguely organised) Plus the Christmas tree is up and decorated so I’m feeling a bit more ready for the festive season.

First Christingle

Another new experience – my first ever Christingle service. I remember doing a Nativity play at church when I was in infant school but I think it was just part of a normal carol service rather than a Christingle service. Michael went to several as a child but our church hasn’t had one for some years and whilst I’ve seen photos of my nieces at their Christingle services, the whole significance of the lighted candle stuck in an orange was completely lost on me. It was a lovely service – so nice to see the little ones at church being really involved.

Sixth wedding of the year

It’s been another busy year for weddings –we’ve now been to six in total this year. Today’s wedding was the final one for 2010 (unless we get a very last minute invite to another one between now and New Year!) – Michael’s university friends Emma and James finally got married – they’ve been together even longer than we have! It was a lovely day – both Emma and James were clearly very happy to be finally tying the knot and Michael and I thoroughly enjoyed the ceilidh in the evening – it was a new dance experience for us and we had great fun.

The rule of work to be done versus time available

Having finally settled down from the office move and worked through the overflowing pile of stuff in my in-tray I thought I could spend the day leisurely working through all the little things that aren’t quite so urgent but need to be done at some point. It doesn’t seem to matter how small the pile of work in my in-tray is though, somehow it seems to magically multiply to take longer than the time I’d planned to spend at the office. Even when I plan to work late. Looks like the little things will have to wait a bit longer...

Salsa party

This year’s work Christmas party was at a salsa bar which seemed like a great idea – Mexican food (turkey and bacon fajitas made a nice change from the usual roast turkey) and a dance class thrown in. I’d done a little bit of salsa before so Michael and I opted for the improvers class which was a little bit too difficult but we just about managed. Overall, it was a fairly nice evening although I could have done without a couple of sweaty, over-sexed and quite frankly unattractive men trying to force their attentions on me on the dance floor.

One year on...

It was a year ago today that my lovely dad sadly passed away. A year has gone by, but I still miss him every day and wish that I could see him again, give him a big hug and tell him how much I love him. What would I give to be able to spend another Christmas with him, listening to his stories about his childhood and days in the Navy? I was so blessed to have had such a wonderful person to be my dad for 30 years – love and miss you this much twice around, Dad.

Start of the party season

The Christmas party season has now officially started – we were out for our church Christmas meal this evening (Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet which is my favourite – I can eat a lot of Chinese if I’m given the opportunity!) and have a couple more Christmas meals coming up over the next week or so. I love the round of parties and meals that happen at this time of year – it’s nice to have a fairly full social calendar (although not too full – also nice to have time out to prepare for the festive season) and spend time with lots of different people.

Getting a new car

It’s now been confirmed that my car will be written off as the damage is too extensive to be worth attempting to repair. Michael has been busy researching cars to help decide what car I should be getting next (not that there’s a great deal of choice when you’re after a small, five-door automatic, not too old and not too expensive) and fortunately we have already managed to find a suitable replacement – a little Renault Clio which we’ll hopefully be getting on Saturday. In the meantime, I’ve been driving a Toyota Prius hire car which feels enormous after my Corsa!

Junior Church Christmas play

I’ve been rehearsing a play with my Junior Church group over the past few weeks which will be shown at the carol service. Unfortunately, none of my group are sure if they can be at the carol service so we’ve videoed today’s performance and will show the video instead. It’s probably just as well as they were ad-libbing a lot (including one rather rude word which slipped out and will have to be edited out so as not to offend certain members of our congregation!) It’s been a fun experience directing the play – now just need to edit the video.

A little bit overwhelmed by it all...

With Christmas approaching (and Christmas shopping still not started) I’m beginning to feel a little overwhelmed by everything. The house is still full of boxes – Michael has to keep reminding me that it has improved since doing a charity shop/tip run – and I’m having moments of wondering whether we will be surrounded by them forever. Which of course, we won’t, but the frustration of not quite knowing where some things are is getting to me at times. As well as all of this, I need to start looking for a new car as mine is about to be written off.

Emerging from the chaos

Having moved house as well as office recently means that I’ve spent quite a lot of time and energy just trying to emerge from the chaos of it all. Fortunately things are beginning to settle down at both locations. The boxes are slowly being unpacked (still quite a lot left though!) and it’s now reached the stage where there is space to move around and I can generally find most things that I need and so start being a bit more productive again. I think it may be some time before things have completely returned to some kind of normality!

Snow pretty...

The snowfall here has not been particularly heavy – most people I know living elsewhere in the country have had quite a lot of snow whereas here there is just a thin layer covering the ground. It still makes me feel less inclined to go out – Saturday’s accident has made me quite nervous about the prospect of having to drive anywhere – sitting inside, snug and warm and looking at how pretty the snow is outside seems to be the best way to enjoy it at the moment! Fortunately I had a day off today so didn’t need to go anywhere anyway.

Countdown to Christmas

So here we are in December already and Christmas is rapidly approaching. Moving house and decorating and writing and everything else that has been happening in my life has meant that I’m feeling quite disorganised this year and haven’t even started the Christmas shopping yet. Still, there are a few shopping days left so I’m not going to panic yet. The approach to Christmas brings back a lot of sad memories for me as it has been almost a year since I lost my wonderful dad and even the snow can’t overcome that to get me in a festive mood.

Back to earth

After a month spent writing an average of 1700 words per day, you would think going back to 100 words a day would be easy. So why is it that after the exhilaration of completing NaNoWriMo yesterday, today finds me sat at my computer staring at the screen with a completely blank mind? For a month, I’ve been living in a little fantasy world of my own creation – today is the first day completely back in the real world and it seems a little colourless somehow. Or maybe that is just because everything is covered with a layer of snow...

NaNoWriMo - completing the challenge

The house might be a mess and we might still be surrounded by boxes but one challenge for November has definitely been met – 50,443 words have been written and the first draft of my novel is complete. The last time I managed to finish writing a novel was 14 years ago – there have been many unfinished attempts along the way but it has taken a challenge like NaNoWriMo to finally make me focus and keep writing even when it got tricky. Of course, there’s a lot of editing to be done, but it feels good to have finally completed something!

The day after...

I’m definitely feeling bruised and sore today but thankfully it is not as bad as I thought it might be. Michael seems to have come off a little better – he’s felt fine today, but I’m uncomfortably aware of nearly every movement and having to take things rather slowly at the moment. I’m not complaining though – this could all have been a lot worse – the main thing is that we are both fine apart from a bit of stiffness and bruising. Back to driving Michael’s tank to work – on the plus side, at least I still have access to a car.

Icy road -1, car - 0

The day seemed to be going well – had a productive day at the beading workshop and Michael and I had just left home on our way to the Showstoppers reunion ball. I was sat in the car, laptop on knee trying to write, Michael was driving and the next thing I know – bam! I felt Michael brake sharply, the car skidded and we collided with another car coming towards us. Fortunately, no-one was injured although am quite bruised and sore now and suspect it will be worse tomorrow. Unfortunately, I suspect that my car will have to be written off.

Back on target

After really struggling over the last week or so to keep on track with my writing, it’s been good to finally find some inspiration, get focused again and get back on target. The word count is now at 43,345 so just 6655 words left to go until I hit the 50,000 word target and I’m determined to do it! I’ve really rediscovered why I enjoy writing so much – getting lost in a world of my own imagination, seeing it all take shape and now the satisfaction of seeing the plot lines coming together with the ending now almost in sight.

Christmas crafts

We’ve started having regular craft sessions at church again. From next year, we’re planning to run craft afternoons twice a month on Thursday afternoons (this is where being able to be flexible with my diary really works for me!) plus there is also a craft group which meets every other Thursday evening. The sessions that have been running recently have been focusing on Christmas-themed crafts – gift boxes and cards – and we’ve also got another beading day planned for Saturday. I’ve managed to get a few of my Christmas cards done now – still got quite a few more to go though!

Return to rehearsals

I have to say that I haven’t really missed doing am-dram at all (have been too busy with other things to miss it!) It’s been good to have a break from it and whilst I haven’t missed doing rehearsals and learning lines, practising dance routines etc., I have missed the social side of it. I went back to rehearsal this evening to play the piano (the usual pianist was unavailable) – not sure there was much benefit from me being there as the music was incredibly difficult to sight-read but it was good to see people and catch up a little.

Hitting the wall

I’ve heard that when people run marathons, there comes a point when they hit what is known as the ‘wall’ – the point at which it suddenly becomes very difficult and the only thing really that is keeping them going is sheer determination. If NaNoWriMo is the writing equivalent of a marathon then I’ve now hit the wall. Writer’s block has hit, the plot seems flimsy, every word is a struggle and the only thing keeping me going is sheer stubbornness and the desire to complete the challenge no matter what. My word count has dropped – need to find inspiration fast!

Catching up with the family

Had a lovely day at home catching up with my family (gave my mum a lovely surprise as I hadn’t told her I was coming home). I managed to catch up with so many family members which was great – my mum, one of my brothers, my twin sister, three nephews, three nieces, one brother-in-law, one ‘nephew-in-law’ and one of my great nephew. It was so good to catch up with them – with all the decorating, I’ve felt a bit out of touch with family and friends and have missed them all – just need to catch up with some friends now!

End of an era

The decorating in the flat is finally finished and we have officially moved out. I felt a bit sad looking around the flat for the last time – it was my home for over five years (the longest I have lived anywhere as an adult) and the first place where Michael and I have lived in together. There are so many good memories – getting ready for my wedding there, Michael carrying me over the threshold on our return from honeymoon, lots of great evenings spent with friends. Now we just need to build up some lovely memories for our new house.

Going under

The busyness of the last couple of days have left me feeling very tired and a little run-down – despite a good night’s sleep, I’m still feeling like I’m running on half-empty batteries and feeling a little bit under the weather too which doesn’t really help. The novel has definitely been suffering as well – I’ve suddenly gone from being on target to being quite considerably under the target word count and thinking I might need to shut myself away at some point and do nothing but write for a bit to catch up! Hopefully I can still manage to get there!

Epic journeys

I love my job - spending time with women and their families in the antenatal and postnatal periods and the excitement of being called to welcome a new baby into the world. Sometimes they like to take their time in arriving – many hours pass, this labour feels endless, life has become confined to a small room and you’re existing on chocolate and Red Bull, trying to keep providing support and encouragement. But then the magic moment finally arrives, the baby takes its first cry and the exhaustion drops away momentarily, replaced by the wonder that a new birth always brings.

Chilly atmosphere

Until the pipe is fixed, there is no central heating in the flat and so it is rather cold, making the thought of continuing the decorating there even more unappealing (although once there, the only way to keep warm is to get to work and keep at it!). The heating has also stopped working in my car so at the moment I am going from freezing cold unheated car to equally cold unheated flat. Hopefully both problems will be fixed fairly soon – I’m having to wear so many layers that I’m in danger of being confused with the Michelin Man.

Past the halfway point

Just past the halfway point for NaNoWriMo and the word count stands at 28,746 so still keeping on target although there have been a few days when the writing process has ground to a standstill. I’m learning that the only way to keep going is just to sit down and write, even if I’m not sure what the next words are going to be. I’ve reached the end of what I’ve planned to write although I do still have an idea of what the ending is likely to be – now I just have to work out how to get there.

Just a minor problem...

Went over to the flat last night to continue decorating and found a note from downstairs neighbour informing us that yellow water had been dripping through the light fitting in his ceiling during the night. Discovered that during yesterday’s replacement of a broken floorboard, a previously-repaired pipe got a hole in it and most of the water in our central heating system has now made its way south. Bother. Said neighbour also took the opportunity to point out another leak coming from our balcony. Double bother. Pipe temporarily fixed, ceiling thankfully still intact – now just need to inform our landlord.

Office move

Working in the office recently has been challenging – half the equipment having been moved down to our birth centre and we were trying to manage without desks and cupboards and things (working on a computer perched on a cardboard box does not make for a very comfortable work environment). Today was the big move day – all the computers being moved down along with most of the boxes – spent the afternoon setting up all the computers again which should have been straightforward but took about three times longer than anticipated and still have some minor problems which need to be resolved.

New minister

Since our minister left in June, we have had to manage without a minister at our church. We have other local ministers and lay preachers come in to lead services (sometimes the worship planning team will lead a service as well) and an on-call rota of ministers should we need to call on one. It’s been challenging, but also good in some ways to work together as a church in the meantime. Yesterday, we met a prospective new minister (who was very nice) and it was great to get the news today that he will be joining us next September.

Church quiz night

When I agreed to help with a quiz night at church in mid-November, I thought I would have plenty of time available to sort out questions, get posters out and generally help organise. What I hadn’t anticipated was still being knee-deep in decorating, being surrounded by boxes, not having broadband set up at home and trying to write a 50,000 word novel all at the same time. But, as most of my friends know, I seem to like my life to be ridiculously busy and so end up juggling all these things anyway. Somehow it seems to work out okay!

And the decorating goes on...

The pressure is on to get the flat finished – hopefully we will be handing the keys over in the next week or so. We were hoping to have it finished at the weekend, but having to empty out more stuff than anticipated from the loft has set progress back a little bit. On the plus side, most of the walls and ceilings are now painted – just the awkward bits in the kitchen, bathroom and hallway left to do and all the skirting boards (joy of joys – feel like I have painted miles of skirting board over the last three months!)

Clearing out the junk

Clearing out the loft at the flat is proving to be a much bigger task than anticipated. We thought it was just our junk up there and a couple of boxes belonging to our landlord but there’s a whole load of stuff that has clearly been there for at least a couple of decades – old letters, photos, suitcases (unfortunately none of them were stuffed with banknotes – would have been nice if they were!) and the kind of clothes that taste clearly forgot (definitely from the 1980s/early 1990s). The amount of stuff going on the next tip run has suddenly increased.

Regaining a sense of optimism

Change doesn’t always have to be bad. For the last few weeks, I’ve been feeling in limbo, wondering where things were going to go and walking around feeling like I had a little black cloud hanging over my head most of the time. I now know where things are heading at work and it’s not such a huge change as I feared it was going to be. Suddenly a huge weight has been lifted off my mind – whilst everything may still be a little up and down for a while yet, things are looking more promising than they have done.

Wading through treacle

The lovely chilled out and relaxed feeling didn’t even last 24 hours thanks to an email that has left me feeling a little bit unsettled. The last year has been full of a lot of change – new house, moving offices at work, changing ways of working etc. and it looks like there is still more looming on the horizon. I feel like I am constantly in limbo, unsure about where things are heading and not feeling entirely settled either at home or at work. Some days I feel like I am just wading through treacle and not really getting anywhere.

Chillaxing

For our first wedding anniversary, Michael bought me a voucher for a spa day and we finally managed to take time out and use it today. We had a lovely day, completely chilling out, having a cocoon wrap and an Indian head massage, relaxing in the jacuzzi and then curling up in the quiet room for an afternoon nap. It was so good to take a day out from work and decorating and all the hecticness of daily life at the moment and be able to spend a day having time to ourselves to relax, unwind and recharge our batteries.

And yet another day of decorating...

Another busy day spent repainting the flat – have definitely got to the stage now when I am well and truly sick of decorating and am looking forward to finishing and putting down the paintbrushes for a while. We are about halfway through the decorating (which is good considering we’re at the halfway point time-wise as well!) – hopefully just a few more days to go and we can then hand the keys over and focus on settling into our new home and start unpacking some boxes as it feels a bit like we are living in cardboard city at the moment!

Just a relaxing evening...

After weeks of spending our evenings and weekends decorating, we decided it was high time we caught up with some friends. Unfortunately, it seemed most of our friends had already made plans for the weekend (being somewhat more organised that we were!) On the plus side, Michael and I went out for the evening anyway and had a lovely meal in a local pub. Just what we both needed to relax and unwind after all the decorating. Hopefully we will get to catch up with friends properly at some point soon, but it was good to take time out anyway.

A bit of a damp squib

I’m not a big fan of fireworks, I have to admit. The last two evenings of painting the flat have been accompanied by the sound of fireworks almost constantly which is beginning to drive me mad – hopefully tomorrow night will be the last of them for a while! There were some very loud bangs that seemed to be coming from a little too close to the flat for my liking – even Michael was a little alarmed and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the next door neighbour’s dog who I suspect was enjoying it even less than we were.

NaNoWriMo - day 4

Day 4 of NaNoWriMo and now up to 8,970 words which is the most I’ve written in a long, long time. I’m slightly ahead of target (need to average 1,667 words per day to finish on time) which is good although I suspect the first week is easiest thanks to inspiration and enthusiasm being at their peak. What amazes me is that I’m currently writing 2,000+ words per day without struggling too much yet the moment I sit down to write my 100 words, my brain shuts off. If this continues, I might have to resort to using 100-word extracts.

Back to the decorating...

Getting the house in order is taking a bit of a back seat at the moment and we are focusing on getting the flat repainted before we hand the keys back which means that we now spend our evenings getting covered in magnolia paint (hopefully some of it manages to get on the walls!). Fortunately this seems like it will be a quicker process than trying to get the house decorated – after two days, we have already painted the lounge and main bedroom – hopefully we will get it done soon and then we can settle in to our new home.

Social let-down

I love social events at work – catching up with previous clients and getting to cuddle lots of babies whilst having tea and cakes. So I was looking forward to today’s social. I was the first one to arrive so I sat down with a hot chocolate and waited for everyone else to appear. And waited... I know I got the date right – I made sure I let my clients know, but I guess none of them were able to make it and my colleagues were busy. On the plus side at least I managed to get some more writing done.

NaNoWriMo - let the challenge begin!

It’s the start of November and also the start of National Novel-Writing Month (otherwise known as NaNoWriMo) – an annual challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I found out about NaNoWriMo halfway through November last year from my friend Geri who has taken part for the last couple of years and agreed to take part this year, not anticipating that I would have just moved house at this point in the year! That said, I can be a bit crazy sometimes and so despite my very hectic life at the moment, have decided to rise to the challenge anyway.

In the house

We have finally moved in to the new house! I hadn’t been here for a couple of days (too busy packing) – what a transformation when I arrived yesterday! Suddenly it looked like a home again instead of a bit of building site – it’s amazing how much difference having the carpets down and some items of furniture in has made. My wonderful brother Adrian, nephews Jamie, Jason and Craig (plus girlfriend Charlie) and friend James all came over to help load and unload the van and lug furniture and boxes about – not quite sure how we would have managed without them.

Last day in the flat

I have spent my last night in my little flat. It looks so different with nearly everything packed and ready to go, and the walls all bare. I’m looking forward to finally being in our new house but do feel a little sad to be leaving the flat. I’ve been here for five years which is longer than anywhere other than the house I grew up in and it was the first place that I felt was “my” home. I’ve been here longer than I thought I would be though – I only expected to be here a couple of years.

Set for The Big Move

The carpets have now arrived, our bed has finally been delivered (on the fifth attempt!) and most of the cables have been laid so we are all set for The Big Move. There will still be a few things to do once we are in (probably will wait until after we have painted the flat and handed the keys back) and a couple of rooms are probably going to be used mostly to store boxes until we start putting up bookcases and getting new furniture in. It is all quite exciting – tomorrow we will be living in our new home!

Feeling cut off

Got woken this morning [Thursday] by the man from Virgin Media coming to take away the TV box and broadband modem from the flat which I was not happy about as he was supposed to be coming tomorrow. So we have no internet or TV at the flat anymore and all of a sudden I feel very cut off from the world. It makes me realise how much I rely on the internet. I do have internet access on my phone but it’s a bit limited (I haven’t yet succumbed to the lure of the smartphone) and not good for blogging!

Too much stuff, so little time

Last time I moved, I shocked Michael with how much stuff I had managed to fit into a small bedroom. I seem to be very good at fitting a lot of stuff into a fairly small space, and despite having had a bit of clear-out and taken a few bags to the charity shop, there is still a lot of stuff in the flat needing to be packed. I thought I had done a lot, but now realise quite how much I still have left to do. I’m hoping there are enough boxes to be able to pack it all!

Passion - review

Passion started off well with a beautiful opening with lovers Clara & Giorgio singing about how happy they were together (a clear indication of a doomed relationship). The music was evocative, emotive and restless at times and was easily the best thing about this show which otherwise had a fairly weak and unconvincing storyline (Giorgio eventually choosing the ugly, obsessive and clearly mentally unhinged Fosca over the beautiful but unfortunately married Clara) and seemed to confuse ‘real love’ with obsession. Scene changes were impressively slick and acting generally good, but overall a night of Passion that left me feeling unsatisfied.

The magic of massage

It’s amazing what a difference a good massage can make - making time for a full body massage this afternoon has left me feeling like a new woman – less achy and with more energy than I’ve had for days. I went from feeling tired and grumpy to feeling energised and optimistic and wondering why I hadn’t planned time out from decorating to do this sooner! The effects have worn off slightly now thanks to the crawl home in rush hour traffic and lugging heavy boxes around whilst trying to pack this evening but I’m still feeling much better than before.

The decorating bubble

One of the downsides to all this decorating is not having very much time to catch up with friends and I’m looking forward to finally having a bit more of a social life again once it is all done. I feel a bit like I’ve been in this little bubble of ‘house stuff’ for the last couple of months and lost touch with life outside it a little bit It’ll be good to have a bit more time again to be able to catch up with friends properly and not have to rely on their Facebook updates for the news!

Putting a foot in it

With the cabling work going on, there are a few floorboards up in the bedrooms at the moment. Progress on the house was impeded slightly by Michael’s dad putting his foot through one of the gaps and right through the ceiling in the dining room. Fortunately I was not at home at this point and by the time I arrived home, the pieces of the ceiling had been retrieved and it all glued back together although it doesn’t look too good there right now! Michael has assured me that once it is filled and painted, it will look okay again.

General dogsbody

My father-in-law has been very helpful with getting our new house ready for moving in – getting walls ready for painting, helping lay flooring, put various cables in and general fixing things. Unfortunately, he tends to see my role in the process as being tea-maker and general tidy-up-er (although I’ve developed selective deafness where this is concerned!) He also occasionally doesn’t seem to realise that there are limits to my abilities in this regard – this morning, he asked me to take a box of rubble to the tip. I couldn’t even push the box across the floor, let alone lift it!

Under pressure

With moving date set, various items of furniture to be delivered next week plus carpets to be fitted, the pressure is now really on to get everything in the house to the point where we can live in it, even if there will almost certainly be a few things that will still need to be done. Sitting surrounded by the chaos of it all, it is not always easy to stay optimistic and there are moments when I find myself wondering if we really will get to a point where we are not constantly surrounded by boxes and dust sheets!

More on moving

Moving seems to be the general theme for my life at the moment. Not only am I finally moving house, but we are also moving our office at work. So it feels like I am constantly packing and surrounded by boxes and general upheaval. For someone who gets stressed very quickly at being surrounded by mess, staying calm under such circumstances is not the easiest thing! The next few weeks look like they will continue to be hectic – just waiting for everything to be done and dusted so I can finally have some time to relax and wind down again!

Feeling the pressure

On the plus side, we’ve now finally settled on a date for The Big Move. So the pressure is really on now to get all the decorating finished (painting is pretty much all done, just got to finish the cabling and get the floorboards back down so the carpets can be laid) plus finish all of the packing back at the flat. Once we move, we have a flat to decorate before giving the keys back. We’ve started painting the doors – which means the flat is currently freezing because none of the rooms currently have the doors actually on them.

Birthday wishes to heaven

I’m missing my dad a little bit more today on what would have been his 77th birthday. On days like these, I find myself wishing that heaven had a phone line so I could just pick up the phone and hear his voice and sing happy birthday down the phone to him like I always used to do. But as heaven doesn’t have a phone line, I went down to the churchyard to put flowers on the spot where his ashes are buried and to sing happy birthday to him there. It was good to be with the family today.

Riding the stress-coaster

Life is feeling a bit on the stressful side at the moment – lots of change and uncertainty on the work front at the moment combined with trying to get the house ready so we can finally move means that I’ve been up and down like a yo-yo recently. Having a mercurial temperament at times like these is not helpful – I swing wildly from being optimistic and being very positive one minute to deciding that everything is turning into a complete disaster the next. It’s all very exhausting – can I just hibernate now and wake up when life settles down again?

Into the breech

Just as I was drifting off to sleep, my phone rang. A few minutes later, I was off out to be with a lady in labour. She was progressing well – I went to have a nap whilst my colleague took over and was woken up about 30 minutes later with the words “Can you come back in – I think baby’s breech” which are guaranteed to wake me quicker than a gallon of Red Bull. Baby was indeed breech which meant for a slightly more dramatic experience than expected – a trip to hospital and baby girl born shortly afterwards by caesarean.

A bit on the blue side...

I wasn’t keen on the plain white downstairs bathroom. It needed a bit of colour and I thought a nice pale blue would be great. So I spent this evening painting. And when I finished, I look around... and hated it. It looked so much darker than the colour on the tin, and the room is just too small for that much colour. Sigh. It looks like I’ll be spending tomorrow afternoon painting it white again. Unless by some miracle, it dries to a much lighter colour and actually looks like I thought it would by the morning. Fingers crossed!

How not to have a romantic meal...

Our anniversary meal at a local pub last night was not the best. Five minutes after our starter arrived, the fire alarm went off. The staff hastened to reassure us that there was no fire, but no-one seemed to know how to stop the alarm so we spent 15 minutes sitting there with our hands over our ears until it finally stopped. Then my chicken, bacon and avocado salad turned up minus the avocado and the waiter tried to convince me that he’d seen the chef put avocado in even though I couldn’t see or taste any in the salad.

10 years of being together

It was nice to have a break from the decorating this evening and go out for a meal with my lovely hubby to celebrate having been together 10 years today. We met in 1998 at ballroom dancing and finally got together on Friday 13th October 2000 – it was definitely a lucky date for me! The past 10 years have definitely had their ups and downs, but the good times have definitely outweighed the bad and I feel so blessed to have someone so loving, caring and supportive by my side. He makes me smile and gives the best hugs ever!

The winds of change

In the five years I have been in my job, I have seen a lot of changes. People coming and going – sometimes there is a bit of a mass exodus, then things settle down again and tick along at a steady pace for a while and things get comfortable and things look like they’ll stay the same for a while, something happens and things start shifting once again. The next few months look set to be quite changeable on the work front – I know from experience that it will all settle down again but it’s definitely challenging in the meantime!

Not exactly Dream service

2010 seems to be the year for poor customer service and things taking much longer than expected. Earlier this year it was the washing machine; now Dreams are being rubbish at delivering our new bed. We’ve arranged the delivery four times, only for it not to turn up each time and when we chase, we get told that the delivery has been cancelled due to the bed not being in stock (after being told it’s in stock each time we try to arrange delivery). We now have to wait until 24 October – very frustrating considering we ordered it in August!

Progress

The last few days have been quite productive on the moving house/home improvements front. A few more boxes are packed, carpets have been ordered, several doors have been painted along with the woodwork in the downstairs bathroom, half of the garage and most of the study. The laminate flooring for the upstairs bathroom has arrived (just waiting for the floor to dry out after neglecting to pay attention to a dripping pipe) and many metres of cable have been laid ready for various computing/music/networking/TV functions – Michael has explained what it’s all for but I’m not sure I’m any the wiser.

Little Miss Impatient

Some people think that I must be quite a patient person, probably because I waited eight years for Michael to propose. The thing is, I’m not actually very patient. I waited eight years because I wanted to be with Michael and had no control over when or if we would get married, but I didn’t wait quietly! Hints were dropped very frequently throughout that time. I have never been very good at waiting for something I want to happen without grumbling frequently about it not happening quickly enough! Trying to get the house finished is a classic example of this.

Decorating drags on...

Another Friday evening spent in paint-splattered dungarees continuing with the decorating. I feel like I have painted half a million doors (although there are only 12 in total plus 5 from the flat to do later as well) and seem to spend half my life with a paintbrush in my hand. The thought of having a ceremonial burning of all things decorating-related after all this is done is highly tempting but probably isn’t the safest thing to do, or the most environmentally-friendly for that matter. Must keep reminding myself that progress continues to be made and it won’t last forever!

A new challenge

As it was National Poetry Day today, I’ve set myself a new challenge and started a new blog. This time, the challenge is to blog about my life using rhyme. It’s more for fun than anything else – I’m not all that great at poetry. It probably won’t be updated on a daily basis – I’m not sure I have the time to try and come up with rhymes about what I’m doing every day, but I’ll try and keep it updated regularly . I’m still aiming to keep up with the 100 words per day which is a bit more achievable!

Headless chicken day

Michael’s working on another event which happens later this month and had to go to Madrid for a site visit today. We left in plenty of time to get to the airport – 2 miles from home, we hit traffic and crawled at a snail’s pace. What is normally 15 minute journey took over an hour – we arrived at the airport 10 minutes before the gate shut, having pretty much lost all hope of Michael managing to catch his flight but by some miracle, he managed to make it! A frantic start which set the pace for a ‘headless chicken’ day.

The joys of a mercurial temperament

I tend to be someone who experiences most emotions on a fairly intense level. If I’m feeling happy – I’m usually very happy and life, at that moment, is just wonderful. I’m rarely indifferent about people - they’re either the most fabulous people ever or I just can’t stand them (which makes relationships with the in-laws tricky at times!) Similarly I don’t tend to be mildly irritated by things – I get boiling mad about them. Sometimes the swings are abrupt; usually they’re very short-lived. It can be very exhausting sometimes! Thank goodness Michael is generally much more placid, easy-going and understanding.

Bugs and beasties

My twin sister is scared of spiders. She won’t move off the sofa if she sees one on the floor and will sit frozen until someone else disposes of said spider. My brother wouldn’t sleep in his bedroom once because there was a spider on the ceiling. I’m not too keen on spiders, but they don’t affect me to the same extent. Now moths are a different matter. I once called Michael to ask him if he would come over to my house and remove a moth from my room as I couldn’t go in there until it had gone!

Hibernation

One of the things that I constantly talk about with my clients at work is the fact that women will (if ‘allowed’) revert back to mammalian instincts during labour – needing dark, quiet and a safe environment to labour effectively. The nights drawing in have made me aware of the fact that I’m a mammal too – I’ve suddenly had a drop in energy levels and find myself almost feeling like I want to go into hibernation. Unfortunately, with the amount of work that still needs to be done on the house, hibernation is not really a valid option at the moment.

Phil & Becky's wedding

The fifth wedding of the year was Phil and Becky’s wedding held at a pretty 11th century church in Warwickshire with the reception at Ragley Hall. It was one of the poshest weddings I’ve been to, but not so posh that I felt out of place! Phil is one of my old university friends – myself, Clare, Tany and Phil were known as “Phil and his three wives” for a while as we were almost inseparable during the summer of 2000. He’s now settled down to just the one wife and I hope that he and Becky will be very happy.

Despairing over decorating

It’s the start of October, it feels like there is an endless amount of work still needing to be done on the new house and we were intending to move in by the end of the month as well as having repainted the flat before we hand the keys back. Today is one of those days where I begin to wonder if we will ever get there or if my life for the foreseeable future will just continue to be one endless round of work, decorating and sleep. Must keep reminding myself of how much has been achieved so far...

Knock, Knock Ginger

I haven’t really got anything against children playing ‘Knock, Knock Ginger’ – it’s reasonably harmless and I remember playing it myself a few times as a child. What is annoying is when it happens repeatedly. My doorbell rings, I run downstairs to answer it to find the little girl who lives in the flat opposite standing on her doorstep, looking at me coolly, before announcing “I didn’t do it.” The first time she said it, I believed her – now it’s just met with a resigned sigh as I shut the door again. It’s one thing I won’t miss when I move!

Team Floppy Throttle

My niece’s husband Chris and his friend Gareth are competing in the 2011 Scumrun rally in April next year in order to raise money for Dreams Come True, a charity which helps bring joy to terminally ill and seriously ill children by helping make their dreams come true. The Scumrun rally is a 3000 mile cross-Europe rally taking place over just 4 days and they will be racing in a 1994 Ford Escort convertible. They’ve now set up their Just Giving page so any sponsorship will be very welcome, and you can also pay for advertising space on the car.

House + piano = happy me

One of the nice things about finally having our house is being able to have my piano, which has been at my mum’s for the last couple of years. I’m not so sure whether or not the neighbours will be equally happy about being subjected to my practising on a daily basis though! Michael has an electric piano which I’ve used for the last few years, but it just isn’t quite the same as a proper upright piano. Since it arrived at the weekend, I’ve been getting less decorating done – just as well there’s not so much to do now!

Les Misérables review - part 3

The other notable performances came from Ashley Artus and Lynne Wilmot playing the larger-than-life characters of M and Mme Thénardier with their perfect comic timing, particularly during Master of the House. Overall, an excellent evening – I laughed, I cried, but mostly I sat and watched, completely lost to everything but the story unfolding on the stage below – except for the occasional moments where the magic was broken thanks to a fellow theatre-goer just a few seats away who seemed to be under the illusion he was at Sing-a-long-a-Les-Mis. Minor irritations aside, I enjoyed it very much – 9.5 out of 10.

Les Misérables review - part 2

On the whole, the cast were outstanding. Gareth Gates was surprisingly good as Marius, managing to make me completely forget the boy-band image from Pop Idol days for the whole time he was on stage. John Owen-Jones as Valjean and Earl Carpenter as Javert both gave powerful performances. The only disappointing performance came from Rosalind James in the role of Éponine – her toe-curlingly exaggerated dying groans during A Little Fall Of Rain led me to wonder if she had trained at the School of Coarse Acting. Instead of being moving, her character’s demise filled me with a sense of relief.

Les Misérables review - part 1

We went to see one of the 25th anniversary performances of Les Misérables at the Barbican on Saturday night. As expected, it was really good – a bit more raw than the original production – the songs seemed more emotional and although they were all sung well, the focus was definitely on acting the song through rather than singing it and there were some small changes to the score. Victor Hugo’s paintings were used very effectively as backdrops and projections – particularly the Parisian street scenes used during One Day More and the scenes in the sewers after the fall of the barricade.

Getting there...

My two weeks of holiday are drawing to a close – just a couple of days left before I’m back at work. I’ve spent nearly all of the last fortnight at the house, painting and sanding. It’s now got to the stage where there aren’t quite enough things that I can do to last a full day which is just as well as I’ll be back to just having evenings available to work on the house. It feels like things are getting there – we’re still some way away from being able to move in properly but the end is in sight!

Favourite French food

My trip into town this afternoon to do some shopping was very well-timed – I hadn’t realised that the French market was going to be there. I love French food – fortunately most of the things I love can be bought in the supermarket but there are a few things that I struggle to get in the UK. One of them is Maxiccino – which is a frothy coffee with pieces of Daim, Toblerone or Milka and the other is rillettes, which fortunately were being sold at the market. Baguette and rillettes, mmm – not good for the waistline, but too delicious to resist!

Tack attack

Given that I’m petite and Michael is tall, it seems logical that sanding and painting the skirting boards would end up being my job. It wasn’t so bad in the hallway where we have a nice wooden floor and it is a fairly easy job, but upstairs involves taking the carpet up and then shredding my fingers on carpet tacks (they look like they’ve been attacked by several small vampires) whilst trying to sand the skirting board down. Thank goodness for my father-in-law turning up with a small electric sander – much easier and results in less damage to my fingers.

Tap your troubles away

Back to tap this evening after the summer break – classes started two weeks ago but hadn’t managed to get to a class yet. It was tempting to skip it again tonight and continue with the decorating but I was worried about getting too far behind and besides, decorating is killing my social life at the moment. It took a while to remember the steps again and my fitness levels have clearly slumped over the summer as my legs were really aching by the end of the class. It was good to get out and do something other than decorating though!

Opportunities to grow

We’re currently between ministers at church will be without a minister until at least September 2011 which means that we have a lot of visiting ministers and preachers taking services and a monthly rota of ministers who are available to call on if needed. Whilst it means that things feel a little fragmented, it does also provide the opportunity for us to pull together as a church family, work together and grow. One of the areas I’m having to get more involved in is leading worship – as are all of us who attended the “Leading Worship” course two years ago.

Drawbacks of duplication

I’m not disputing that CRB checks and attending safeguarding courses are very important and whilst having specific guidance for each organisation is useful, it can be frustrating having to duplicate all of these things, particularly when people work with children in lots of different situations (schools, Brigades , church etc.) It also means that people who have already attended such courses become more reluctant to volunteer when it means they have to attend another, effectively duplicating much of what they have already done. Surely, there must be a better way of doing things, whilst still ensuring children are kept safe?

Safeguarding course

Have recently been attending a Safeguarding Children course which has become a requirement for everyone who helps out with Junior Church. We started off looking at different types of abuse, and possible indicators of abuse and explored reasons why children may not report abuse, why adults may not listen or act, why professionals may not act and why the church may not act before focusing on what to do if a possibly abusive situation is brought to your attention. I’ve had similar training within midwifery, but it was useful to have guidance on what to do within a church context.

Memories of Dad

I’ve been thinking a lot about my dad over the last few days – revisiting some of the places where he grew up and seeing family members from his side of the family brought back a lot of memories and whilst most of them were lovely memories, they left me missing him just that little bit more. It’s been over 9 months since he passed away and there isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think of him and miss him and wish I could just pick up the phone and say hello and have a chat with him.

A farewell to Auntie Joyce

Kerrie and I took a trip to Kent today to pay our final respects to Auntie Joyce at her funeral and also take a trip down memory lane, visiting the places where our grandparents lived and other places that we visited as small children. It was very sad to be saying goodbye to Auntie Joyce – I couldn’t look at Uncle Rusty at all during the funeral; he was clearly so devastated (they’d been married 62 years) and our cousins Jackie’s and Bill’s tributes to their mum were beautiful – saying what a wonderful, upbeat person she’d always been. RIP Auntie Joyce.

An evening with my mum

It’s been a while since my last trip back home – over two months which is probably the longest I’ve ever gone between trips back home – and even though my reason for being home is a sad one (going to my great-aunt’s funeral tomorrow), it’s still good to be back with my family again. I’ve spent this evening at bingo with my mum – unfortunately the caller seemed to be calling out all the wrong numbers so we didn’t win anything but we had a good evening anyway, and I also got to see my Auntie Pauline and cousin Jane there too.

In limbo

I feel like my life is in an “in limbo” phase at the moment. Dividing my time between two homes- the one I’m technically still living in and the one that I’m about to be living in. The decorating has reached the in-between phase – each day brings further progress but nothing is really complete as yet. I’m in a state of waiting – waiting for the decorating to progress to the point of being able to move some more stuff in, waiting for the moment when the new house finally becomes “home”. It’s not a very comfortable state to be in.

Holiday at the Costa Nueva Casa

Two weeks of annual leave are ahead of me and rest and relaxation are not very high on the agenda for my “staycation”. Two weeks free to focus on the decorating and keep it progressing so that we can hopefully move in properly soon. It’s getting there slowly – we have started “de-Kermiting” the hall and the bright green skirting boards and door frames are now gradually changing to white; painting the lounge is almost finished and we have now started painting the main bedroom. The bathroom is still a disaster zone but hopefully is becoming less so by the day.

Meeting Sebastian

One of the weddings we attended last September was that of our friends Joel and Vik whom we last saw in November when they were living in Brussels. They moved to Devon earlier this year and as we were fairly close to the Devon border, we thought we’d take a trip out to see them and to meet baby Sebastian, their honeymoon baby. Sebastian is now nearly four months old and smiling and laughing so we were kept very well entertained pulling faces at him and trying to get him to smile for us as well as for the camera!

Alex & Sarah's wedding - part 2

The theme for their wedding was “tea and cake” so the flowers were all arranged in tea-pots or on cake stands with roses in cup-cake cases and instead of favours, there were mini tea caddies filled with tea specially created for their wedding. There were lots of cupcakes, some of which were made to look like cups of tea, instead of a big wedding cake (although they did have a small cake to cut), the tables were all named after different types of tea and each menu had a teaspoon themed with various places of significance to Alex & Sarah.

Alex & Sarah's wedding - part 1

It’s another full-on year of weddings – the fourth one of the year so far was our friend Alex’s wedding. Despite him and Sarah having been together for 11 years, we only managed to meet her for the first time at our own wedding last year (there had been a running joke about Alex’s imaginary girlfriend for some time before this!). The wedding was held at a stately home in Wiltshire; one of Sarah’s favourite places to visit and Alex arranged to have one of the bridges covered with roses when he proposed to her there just over a year ago.

Legoland

Despite having lived reasonably close to Legoland for some time and driven past it on many occasions, I still had never managed to go there until a friend suggested a day out there. The rides are mostly quite tame (I’m a big wuss when it comes to rides and still managed to go on everything!) – it’s definitely aimed much more at children than adults – but the best thing about it was seeing all these amazing Lego models – elephants, giraffes, polar bears – fabulous. Mini-land was my favourite bit – lots of models of landmark buildings. The attention to detail was quite something.

In need of a break

My life is beginning to feel like a never-ending cycle of work followed by decorating following by too little sleep followed by work. Which is probably why I’ve got a cold – I’m not exactly doing a great job of looking after myself at the moment – just so desperate to get the house finished as quickly as possible. However, with another friend’s wedding to go to this weekend plus a trip to Legoland, it looks like the decorating will have to wait for a few days. It’ll be good to have a bit of a break from it and just relax.

A scary moment

I had a scary moment earlier. It was a moment I knew I’d have to face eventually – one that all my siblings faced at a younger age than I am currently – but I hoped it would happen later rather than sooner. That moment of looking in the mirror and suddenly spotting that first grey or white hair. There it was, clearly visible right at the front. I pulled at it – and the white stuff came off on my hand, revealing the “white” hair to be nothing more than just a coating of gloss paint. Phew. Moment postponed for another day.

Complaining about colds

It started off with a scratchy throat. I knew it was coming, but kept hoping it was just dehydration or some reaction to paint fumes from all the decorating. This morning, I felt fine and breathed a sigh of relief. Until the cold suddenly hit mid-afternoon – sneezing, coughing, nose running – the works. It’s not that I feel that bad (just suddenly very lethargic) – it’s just that it’s so annoying. Productivity has gone down – having to stop and reach for a tissue every few minutes just doesn’t help me when I’m trying to get the painting done as quickly as possible.

...and exit, stage left

The cast list for Kiss Me Kate is out. I’ve been debating during the summer whether or not I would do this show or if it was finally time for me to have a break from musical theatre for a while. However, it seems that the decision has been made for me – my name is not on the cast list at all – not even for the chorus. Maybe it was because I’ve been asked to be the pianist for the show (not by the director though) – which I have declined. Looks like it’s time for me to exit stage left.

Phil & Kath's wedding

Had a lovely time at Phil & Kath’s wedding yesterday (two friends of ours from university days). Most of the day was spent outdoors (fortunately the rain mostly held off) in beautiful gardens near an old mill building – afternoon tea and speeches were held outdoors and then we had a hog roast in the evening. Kath was definitely one of the smiliest and happiest brides I have ever seen. She and Phil did some mo’jive for their first dance, accompanied by a jive band. There were quite a few mo’jivers at the wedding so the dance floor was kept full.

Impatience

Patience is not really one of my virtues. Some people who have known Michael and I from before we became a couple might disagree with that statement – after all, we were together nearly eight years before he proposed and it was clear that marriage was high on my wish list for most of that time. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that being quietly patient is definitely not something I’m good at. When I’m waiting for something, I do tend to eventually resign myself to having to wait for it, but I’ll grumble about it whilst I’m waiting!

Slow progress

Decorating has now reached the stage where the house looks like a disaster zone and despite the fact that I seem to constantly have a paintbrush in my hand, it doesn’t look like very much is changing very quickly. There still seems to be an awful lot left to do and all I want to do is get it finished so we can move in properly. I have to keep reminding myself that this will all be worth it; that the end result will look better than what was there before. The trouble is, I’m just a little impatient sometimes.

RIP Auntie Joyce

A sad start to September – had an email this morning from my dad’s cousin Dave telling me that my Auntie Joyce has passed away. She was the last of my great-aunts and great-uncles on my dad’s side of the family and almost the last remaining link I have with my dad’s family (the only link I have now is Dave whom I’ve never met – we got in contact through family tree research). I last saw her a few years ago when I took my dad on his last trip to Kent to revisit old memories and catch up with family.

Reflections on summer

It’s been a good summer. True, the weather wasn’t too great throughout most of August (although it doesn’t seem to matter what the weather is like in the summer, we still find something to grumble about! If it rains, we moan that we aren’t having much of a summer and if we had glorious sunshine throughout, we’d moan that it was too hot!) but we had some lovely weather at the beginning of the summer and I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll get a bit of an Indian summer. September looks set to be a busy month though.

Painting in progress

We’re aiming to have our new house decorated and ready to move in to by the end of September so all our free time at the moment is spent at the house getting more decorating done. Having done very little decorating before, I’m having to learn quite quickly – thank goodness Michael and his parents have both done quite a lot before otherwise work would progress at a snail’s pace. Our height difference turns out to be quite useful with painting – Michael can do the top half of the walls easily and I can do the bottom half and skirting boards.

The 16th Annual Eccentrics Dinner

This year’s Eccentrics Dinner was held halfway up a hill, just outside the entrance to an old graphite mine – a bit of a climb with our camping gear. It was a small affair this year – just five of us had been able to make it (the biggest one was the 10th dinner where there were 39 people present) but we still attracted surprised stares from the few walkers who passed by. It was a beautiful clear night – as usual I was struck by quite how many stars can be seen when there are no city lights to pollute the sky.

Black tie dining - Ecccentrics style!

Every year, Michael’s friend Fred organises a dinner around the August bank holiday – the annual Eccentrics Dinner. It started off about 15 years ago as a birthday celebration and grew from there. It’s a formal, black-tie, five-course meal and is always held in an unusual location, usually somewhere in the Lake District. We arrive, set up tents, change into formal wear and sit down for a meal. Previous locations for the meal have included the Butter Bowl, a natural crater-shaped dip in the landscape; a field (it rained heavily that year!), up a mountain and in a disused railway tunnel.

Painting and parking

Michael arrived back this evening in time to help out with some more decorating (the wallpaper in the bathroom has now been removed and the lounge ceiling has been painted so we are making progress). I took a break from decorating to go and pick him up from the airport. When I went to pay for my car parking, I noticed that the machine wasn’t accepting banknotes and so went to use another machine. Unfortunately in the time it took to put my ticket into the next machine, my parking time shifted into the next bracket which was quite annoying.

Empty batteries

I’m feeling exhausted today. After a busy evening redecorating yesterday, I didn’t get to bed until 1.30am and then was up at 5am to take Michael to the airport as he’s gone to Berlin for a couple of days. Consequently, I’ve been running on almost empty batteries all day, relying on Red Bull in an attempt to be vaguely functioning and coherent (not sure it worked terribly well). Add to that my feeling a little fragile on an emotional level and it’s not really a recipe for a fabulous day. Tomorrow will be better I’m sure, just need some sleep!

Minor disasters in decorating

Other than helping Michael to paint a bedroom in his student house, I’ve never actually done any decorating before so the prospect of redecorating a whole house is a little daunting to say the least. Still, being ready to rise to the challenge I borrowed a wallpaper steamer from the in-laws and got stripping in the bathroom (wallpaper stripping, in case further clarification is needed). All seemed to be going well until I started peeling what looked like a cardboard layer off the walls which I discovered meant I had gone too far and was stripping away the plasterboard. Oops.

And so to bed... eventually

Driving home from the new house late at night after spending an evening moving boxes and unpacking stuff in the kitchen – my bed was calling me. And then my pager went off and the prospect of imminent sleep suddenly disappeared. Off I went to attend a labour, feeling very glad I had Red Bull supplies in the car (along with the rest of my birth kit, I hasten to add!) and a few hours later welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the world. Finally, I made my way home, a very tired but happy midwife, looking forward to much-needed sleep.

Garden discoveries

I’m not much of a gardener (I managed to kill off the rosemary that was growing on the balcony last year which gives you some idea of how bad I am) but it has been quite exciting discovering what plants I have in my new garden, particularly those that are “useful” plants. We have raspberries, strawberries and currants growing in the back garden, plus there is a gooseberry bush (perhaps one day I’ll find a baby underneath it, lol!) Michael’s mum is a keen gardener so hopefully she will be able to teach me how to keep my plants alive!

Birthday surprise

It is Michael’s birthday tomorrow and I’d been wondering what to get him. One of the things he is looking forward to when we move is being able to have his bicycle back (there’s nowhere to store it in the flat) and going on cycle rides together. Eureka! I thought – and ordered a tandem. His parents brought it to our house this afternoon, all put together and ready to go – he got quite a surprise when he opened the van to see it there! We’ve had a practice ride – it took a little getting used to, but it was fun!

An extra special visit

My family is not what you would call particularly well-travelled. Most of my siblings live within a couple of miles of my mum and tend not to travel much outside the county they live in. So for my mum to catch a train and get on the tube on her own to come and visit me was quite an honour really as it is such an unusual occurrence. She was quite excited about my new house and was coming up especially to have a look around it. It was great to be able to spend some time together as well.

Hello?

There I am, surrounded by boxes, when the phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Hello," says a husky male voice, "I was just phoning to tell you that I love you."

This isn't an unusual occurrence - Michael normally phones every day when he's away and tells me he loves me. Except the voice on the other end of the phone is not my husband's, it's a complete stranger's voice. This either means that (a) he's called the wrong number, or (b) I'm on the receiving end of a Lionel Richie moment which would be quite disturbing. Fortunately, the caller went for option (a).

Reasons to be cheerful

Reasons to be happy today:

1) Michael is coming home tomorrow

2) I’ve managed to pack about 10 more boxes today

3) By some miracle, despite being surrounded by boxes, the flat actually looks tidier than it has done for a couple of weeks!

4) I found time to go and see Clare and the twins and spent an hour chatting to Clare with Seren snuggled up against me

5) Whilst packing I found some scrap fabric and managed to get a little more of the rag rug done whilst having a lovely chat on the phone with my mum

Taking time out from packing

With packing now well and truly underway, it was good to take a break from sorting out through piles of stuff, escape from the chaos that is currently our flat and spend an evening relaxing at a church open house evening. I have spent far too much time at home by myself whilst Michael has been away this week – great for getting things done, but gets a bit lonely after a while, so the company was very much appreciated. Plus it was great to be able to share the exciting news of finally getting the keys of our new home!

Our new home

Completion all went through with no problems; I picked up the keys this afternoon and headed over to look over our new home and do some measuring. Seeing it empty made quite a bit of difference – I’ve suddenly realised that redecorating is not a bad idea – the green doorframes and skirting boards didn’t make too much impression on me when the house was full of furniture but now that it’s empty, I think they’ll have to go! The one room that doesn’t need anything doing to it is the kitchen which looks perfect, just a bit on the small side.

Garage trips

My local garage is generally fantastic, the mechanics are all lovely and don’t treat me like I’m stupid because I’m female (always good) plus their prices are reasonable and I never feel like I’m potentially being ripped off. But lovely though they are, seeing them three times in the space of four days is far too often for my liking. My little car needed a couple of parts replacing on Friday which then caused a minor problem elsewhere which has now been fixed (at no extra cost, hooray!) Hopefully I won’t make another trip to the garage for a while.

Packing now in progress

I’ve started packing in anticipation of our move (we’re keeping our flat until the end of September so we can decorate if needed and can move everything in a more leisurely fashion). On the plus side, it means I’m finally starting to clear out all the junk that has been accumulating over the last five years but despite having spent most of today packing/sorting out, it still looks like I’ve barely done anything. I’m beginning to realise quite how much stuff we’ve managed to cram into a small flat and the thought of moving it all is a bit daunting!

From rags to rugses

I’ve started making another rag rug for the house. I started off with lots of rags – Michael’s trousers which were in the mending basket for a second time and therefore were automatically relegated to the rag pile plus two skirts. I started cutting a third skirt into strips and remembered too late that it was in the mending basket because I was intending to mend it, not turn it into rag strips – oops! Halfway through, I ran out of rag strips but managed to resist the temptation (just!) to start cutting up other clothes just so I can finish it!

Young love

Michael is now in Germany for the next week working on an event so I am all on my lonesome and feeling a little bit blue. Phone calls home always cheer me up though and the conversation with my 9-year old nephew left me chuckling. He was telling me about his girlfriends and one in particular caused him to sigh and say quite seriously: “I don’t know if she still loves me so I’m just going to leave her and get on with my life.” Ah, young love! The sympathetic tone was a little harder to maintain at that point!

Exchanging contracts

Back in April we finally found what seemed to be the perfect house for us and put in an offer. It has taken a while (these things always do!) but we have finally now exchanged contracts and should be completing on Tuesday. It’s a lovely little three-bedroom house with a study and a garage in a village about 5 miles away from where we’re living now. The location seems great – it’s about 5 minutes walk from the village shops and pubs, opposite the village hall and infant school and about 100m from the junior school (thinking ahead a little here!)

Fast food farce

The golden arches were calling to me on the way home so I decided to indulge my sudden craving for junk food and pick up a burger in the Drive-Thru. I placed my order, reached the collection window and - it wasn’t quite ready so I parked in one of the grill order spaces and waited. 10 minutes passed: “it’s on the way”. After 20 minutes, I asked to see the manager: “oh it must have been given to someone else.” I asked for a refund and left. Possibly the worst service at a Mcdonalds ever which is saying something.

A night at the quiz

The Tuesday night pub quiz has been noticeably absent from the social calendar over recent months – it has become a rarity to have enough of us there to form a reasonably-sized team (often just me and Michael) but tonight, nearly everyone from the quiz crowd turned out and we had two competing teams. I was with the “young people” (all of whom are at least 10 years younger than I am!) and although the two teams were pretty evenly matched, we did beat the other team by 1 point (coming joint fourth overall). It was great to see everyone again.

Considerations on creative writing

My creative writing course has now come to an end and I was very pleased to get 77 in my final assignment with some useful feedback on my short story. The level 2 creative writing course starts in October so now I need to decide whether to register for this or not. At the moment, I’m not sure that I will have the time to commit to a more intense course but if I decide against doing it, there are several creative writing groups which met locally that I can join to help keep me going on the writing front.

Feeding the five thousand (or maybe a little less)

Once a year, it’s much turn on the Sunday lunches rota to provide the meal for those living on their own. It’s usually for about 35 people and every year I get to the week before and wonder why on earth I agreed to do this given my tiny kitchen and lack of time. And then I remember that ready-made desserts from the supermarket go down almost as well as home-made ones and breathe a sigh of relief. It went fairly well apart from forgetting milk for cups of tea at the end – fortunately the shops are very close by!

Embracing technology

I have to confess that I’m not really into technical gadgets. I still don’t own an iPod or MP3 player and I only upgraded my mobile phone after 6 years because it was starting to get temperamental. So when Michael arrived home with an iPad a few weeks ago, I have to confess I wasn’t really very interested. Until today, when he made the mistake of introducing me to iBooks. Within minutes, the entire works of Jane Austen had been added to the library and I was engrossed. I might give him the iPad back when I’ve finished them all...

A scrapbook full of memories

I love to keep old letters and cards, theatre tickets, photos – anything that has a nice memory attached. I’ve got better at just keeping a few extra special cards rather than all of them (the others tend to get cut up and put in the craft box for when I’m making cards) – my keepsake box was getting a little overfull. I’ve been busy scrapbooking some of them this evening – it is lovely to look over them all again and re-read what my friends and family have written – it leaves me feeling very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends.

Sleep and celebrations

It’s been a lovely evening celebrating our friends Bryan and Nicki’s engagement with a few drinks in central London. It was good to be able to catch up with some of our friends from the quiz team as well – Tuesday nights at the quiz have become an increasingly rare occurrence over recent months as everyone seems to have been very busy. Michael was working late but managed to get to the pub later in the evening where he fell asleep within minutes of sitting down on the sofa (not too surprising given he sat up all night last night working).

Juggling the demands of work and sleep

Michael’s working hours might be frequently long and unpredictable but then there are times when my own are just the same. Yesterday ended up being a very long working day but finished with a lovely home waterbirth just before midnight and a beautiful baby girl being welcomed into the world. My arrival home from work in the early hours of the morning for once coincided with Michael coming home from work – unfortunately for him, he still had to leave at 9am this morning whereas I was able to stay off the pager until late morning and catch up on sleep.

Manic months

June and August tend to be months when I see very little of my husband as he is busy preparing for games conferences, working long hours or is away working on the conferences themselves. Needless to say, I miss him quite a lot when he is away and have tended to struggle a bit during the busy periods – there are moments when it feels like life is always this way and I never see enough of him. I’m trying to remind myself that the manic moments pass and to enjoy the time that I do manage to spend with him.

Meeting the twins

We met Michael’s new baby cousins Seren & Sian for the first time yesterday - Michael and I both left Clare’s house feeling a little more broody as a result! There is something very special about twins (well, I would say that being one myself!) and they are just such beautiful babies. Seren spent most of the time sleeping but Sian was wide awake and very interested in everything that was going on! It was so lovely to be able to have lots of cuddles with them (and not to have to take it turns to hold the new baby!!)

Engagements

Since getting married myself, I find that I have become much more excited and interested in other people’s wedding plans and it is always lovely to hear when friends announce that they are getting married. It’s been a weekend for celebrating engagements. One of my friends announced his engagement yesterday and last night we went to our friends Mark and Ria’s engagement party. It makes me remember just how excited and happy I was when Michael and I got engaged and it is such a joy to be able to share in the happiness of my friends getting engaged now.