Hard Rock Calling

Last weekend was the much awaited trip to London for Hard Rock Calling. I've been looking forward to this, and just crossing my fingers that the weather would hold out for us.

Friday morning dawned .... and the hills were absolutely blanketed in cloud outside my window, heavy and ominous with rain. Where the friggin' hell did the promised heat wave go?? A quick check with friends already down South revealed that the weather was looking a bit better down that way, so I quickly packed a mixed bag of clothes and jumped in the car. 2 hours later I drove past Oxford and out of the rain, another hour and I was driving into sunny, sunny Clapham and expiring from heat exhaustion. RESULT!!! And god bless air-con! lol

After a bit of faffing at the boys' flat, during which time Tony managed to lose and then find again not one, but two, Oyster cards (tube passes), we set off across the common to the tube and ventured into central London under the sunniest of skies. Needless to say the tube was about a 1000 degrees and we then managed to turn ourselves around coming out of the Green Park tube and trying to work out which direction Hyde Park was in! However, we were finally able to employ the tried and tested method of "sea of humanity navigation", used by concert goers the world over - find the crowd and follow it!

It's such a trauma having to spend an afternoon in a gloriously sunny park with some cold beverages, gourmet burgers, about 10,000 of your closest friends / complete strangers, and some absolutely stonking music.

The Kooks rocked, The Killers - well they totally killed it, and a good time was generally had by all.

The only possible downer - when will Tony learn that "no" does in fact mean "no", not "I'm just playing with you and really, I'll turn round and tell you I want you any second now". It's one thing friend's being tactile because you're comfortable around each other. It's something else entirely when onlookers assume you're a couple from the possessive body language one person takes. And it really cramps my style, dammit!!

Sheesh. He's a good friend of mine, but really, his behaviour does push the limits of acceptable sometimes. Needless to say, I opted to stay in the spare room back at the boys' flat and avoid all possible misinterpretations of my behaviour.

It was good to see Pete and Chris again though (the flat's other residents and friends of mine) - I must have hit lucky, as it's very rare they're all around at the same time!

Is it bad?

Is it bad, that the more I work with this guy at work, and realise that the chit-chat about how ambitious he is, etc is true, the more I seem to find him pretty sexy?

Totally inappropriate. And pointless. Arse.

On the upside, I've actually been given some work to do at the moment that might just pique my interest and help me find a bit of motivation again. It's been a while coming, but just maybe there's light at the end of the tunnel. Either that or I'm about to be dumped in it way over my head.

Pity party for 1

I've wanted to write a post on this for a while, but at the same time I feel weak for writing it. That feeling like this, being a bit self-pitying about it, isn't something I really want to put out there.



I sometimes wonder what it is that's wrong with me. There must be something, because guys ... just don't like me. I mean they like me fine, as a friend - I have plenty of male friends. But when it comes down to things of a romantic nature, I am never that girl. It's just never me. They just don't seem to find me attractive.



It's a tough topic, because it's one that's so hard to be objective about. It's hard to objectively work out what it is that other's have that I don't have. At least there's cold comfort in knowing that I'm not the only one.



My friends seem to fall in to one of 3 categories:

• always in a stable relationship. On the very rare occasions that they break up with their other half, they seem to just spontaneously attract a new partner, and immediately settle down into a new, and stable, relationship. Generally, these are the ones who are now starting to get married.


• in and out of relationships, but can't seem to hold one down. An odd category, these ones. They used to be in a stable relationship. They're generally the most successful and beautiful of my friends, and they don't seem to be able to hang on to a guy. They have a stream of relationships with sucessful, good-looking guys, but then they're always single again.


• the perpetually single. That'll be my category then. Historically, not a long term relationship in sight. And dates are few and far between. Whilst the others just seem to naturally meet guys who want to go on a date with them, the only dates we get are the ones we make an effort to get through a dating website or similar. We meet people, but they're just not interested in us - always our friends, but never us.

We're not particularly ugly, or terrible people. We have good jobs, and fun lives, and yet there is a spectactular lack of men on the horizon for us.

Are we doomed to be single forever?

Ouch, ouch, ouch

I'm just tottering along through life at the moment.

I do literally mean tottering by the way - I'm reeeeally stiff after Body Pump last night, and combined with the lingering stiffness from my back, I'm walking with about as much agility as the average 80 year old. With arthritis.

This week's looking like being a fairly quiet one for me, for which I'm profoundly grateful, as I'm sodding knackered at the moment! My quiet weekend plans of not doing anything at all were somewhat foiled by receiving invitations from 3 different folks (why, they must like me - oooh, I have friends!), but it wasn't brutally busy.

We spent Saturday at the Three Counties Show in Malvern, which was a bit of a change of pace. Happily, we were supplied with some free tickets (saving ourselves the princely sum of £16 each), and the weather just about held, so it was a pretty good day out. The show is a large agricultural / country show held over a long weekend, with all sorts of stuff going on. There's oodles of stalls from all sorts of business - clothing, furniture, anything you can imagine for animals, and god knows what besides, stacks and stacks of food stores (including our friends' milkshake van - hence the free tickets!). There's livestock competitions, demonstrations of everything possible including formation parachute jumping from the paratroopers, and crazy stunts on quad bikes (he jumped 2 Morgan cars, 2 lorries, and 2 more Morgan cars all in one go - that's a lot!). There's animals all over the shop, including errant foxhounds that have gone AWOL from the hunt, 6 week old baby ferrets (can't tell you how cute they are!), lots of horses, and huuuuuuuge eagles in a display of birds of prey (literally came up to my knee or higher - that's a lot of very mean looking bird!). There were blacksmithing demos and horse-shoe-ing races (we stopped for a minute to drool over the manly men doing there thing, all sweaty and muscly), and a big fairground. All in all, it was a really good laugh.

I managed to lose my sunglasses on the waltzers in the fairground, because I didn't think we'd be going so fast that they'd literally fly off my head. We did, and they did. I spent most of the rest of the ride whipping my head round, trying to see where they'd gone. I'm sure there was a wimpering sound as I saw them slide into the gap in the undulating boardwalk and slowly disappear, surely crushed, but lo and behold, they'd fallen into a void and were flukily still in one piece at the end when I went to inspect their fate!

We saw Richard Hammond (Top Gear presenter) out for the day with his family. I always think it's weird seeing famous people in real life, as if I somehow expect them to be bigger or "realer" in the non-tv world. Strange. Anyway, we didn't make a nuisance of ourselves, as everyone was being polite and leaving them to there day out (which I approve of).

We eventually staggered home after a long day on our feet, and much nice nosh from the trade stands, which left me just enough time to have a shower and get changed before my friend Jo came over. We went to a local Italian restaurant in town for dinner and had a good, giggly catch-up. It was all really nice, apart from the fact that apparently the dress I wore was quite see through in the light, so god knows what sort of display I inadvertantly put on! Eeeeeeeeek!

Sunday was a lazing in the park, listening to the local band playing kind of afternoon. Very chilled although a little sun wouldn't have gone amiss.

I felt pretty guilty, as I'd bought a Fathers Day card for my Dad, and a little present for him, but then completely forgot to either call him or drop round to see him, until 10.30pm, by which time it was obviously too late. So I went round with gratuitous apologies yesterday to give those to him. Why am I such a terrible daughter??? It's not like it would have taken long out of day to do either, and there's only me, and yet I didn't even manage a phone call. I suck.

Open mouth AFTER thinking

We had a work night out last night - a kind of team bonding thing because we're integrating with an equivalent finance department from the other company housed on our site. All well and good, but since a lot of us newer folk don't know our opposite numbers in the other dept, a night out bowling was organised as an informal setting for a meet and greet.

It was kind of nice actually - very relaxed, and the guys we'll be working with seem pretty cool. But on the same game they mixed the teams up randomly, and I found myself in a team with a new guy who's come in at a fairly senior level. I've heard stuff about him round the office (in terms of work, not him personally) that wasn't entirely favourable - that he's very ambitious and will happily trample people to get to the top, but I've not had anything to do with him myself to date. I've barely made eye-contact with the guy before. He seemed quite friendly, and since we were the youngest people in our team we chatted (I'd say he's probably a couple of years older than me, but not much more than that - everyone else in our team was pretty senior).

Chatting turned to friendly competitiveness over the game at stake. That in turn led to banter. And I'm almost sure that the banter started taking on an edge of flirtation. I'm also pretty sure that that would be an incredibly bad idea. I really must get a reign on my mouth. The bantering was pretty intense, and at best I've just insulted the hell out of someone considerably senior to me (although he seemed to take it well and gave as good as he got), and at worst I flirted with someone considerably senior to me who I'm going to have to work with soon enough.

Not a smooth move.

Limping along

I'm still here - just somewhat in pain, after I popped my back out again on Sunday afternoon. The legacy of an old horse-riding injury, made worse during a snowboarding fall in January, I'm completely bummed that this has happened as I'd been thinking that between doing so much exercise and all the physio treatment and losing weight, it wouldn't happen again. Or at least it wouldn't happen with no cause, which is what did happen this time.

It seems to have improved quicker than it would usually, but I'm still really stiff, especially after any time spent just sitting still. Once I get up and move around, it quickly loosens up, but the first minute or 2 are horrible as I can barely stand straight. I'm gutted really, as the weather's gone nice again and I can't get out and run, or even walk. I'm going to head to spinning tomorrow night though and take it real easy and hope that that might help me a little bit.

Other than that, I had a gloriously lazy, sunny weekend at home this week. I didn't arrange anything social, I went to bed early because I was knackered, I finally got a chance to catch up on all the stupid domestic stuff that gets left on one side normally, and I found a couple of things whose disappearance has really been stressing me out (my cheque book being one of them!). All the tidying and pottering was pretty cathartic, and I just felt a lot more centred by the end of the weekend.

Not being able to move around much at the moment means I'm also finally taking some chill out time to just sit back and watch some of my stock-piled, recorded tv too. Finally got round to starting Dirty Sexy Money (so funny) and 90210 (so trashy!), and then just been getting early nights, so at least I'm feeling rested at the moment.

Got a bit of a crunch time, financially speaking, coming up over the next couple of months. It's time I paid for the laptop I bought on interest-free credit 6 months ago, and what a surprise that I never got around to putting aside as much money for it as I said I would. Still, I can just about manage it, but I'm back to zero savings. What with holidays coming up that need to be paid for (Croatia), I'm going to have to be careful to try and replenish my savings a bit - one step forward, two steps back. Again.

Looks like I'll be spending a few more nice cheap weekends at home chilling then!

Downtime

There's not a lot to report really at the moment. My ankle's still buggered and pretty swollen to boot, which is really annoying me as I'm feeling restless and irritable about not being able to get out and exercise, or even just enjoying some fresh air. Plus it makes everything else harder than it should be. I've still got no idea what I did to it, and I can't remember the last one in recent history that took this long to stop aching so I'm giving until after the weekend until I start seriously considering seeking some medical attention for it.

I've still got to fix my bike, although i have at least got as far as getting the wheel up into the flat ready to be stripped down now .... kind of half a job!

And I sliced open the first finger on my left hand cutting muffins for the toaster this morning - damnit!!!

At the moment, I've got a whole weekend of absolutely nothing planned. Which is pretty unusual for me, but given that last weekend was pretty expensive for me in terms of money, food and my ankle, I think that maybe this is a good thing. The challenge now, is to try and keep my weekend that way and to actually sit back and enjoy the time off for once!

Sue and Jo's Norway Adventure

Just got back from a fabulous long weekend in Oslo with Jo. It's been an absolute blast and we've had a great time, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone looking to do a city break with a bit of a difference.

Things went fairly smoothly on the way out, which was a relief as I had worried that the whole thing would be one mad rush. We actually arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare and had a leisurely trip through check in and security, before settling down with a couple of large glasses of rose wine and the guidebooks to do some belated trip planning.

We arrive at Oslo Torp airport on time, but since it's in the middle of nowhere (over 100km from Oslo itself) we had a long coach trip ahead of us to get us to the end of our journey. Luckily, there's a dedicated coach servce called Torpexpressen that meets every Ryanair flight into Torp and carts into (and back from) the city centre for a reasonable 300kr (£30) return ticket.

We arrived at the central bus-station at just after 10pm, and then unerringly proved why women should not be allowed to read the map, by setting off in completely the wrong direction from the terminal! Genius, I tell you! After looking very confused at the first crossroads we got to, we finally figured out where we'd gone wrong and set off on a now slight circuitous route to take us to our hostel. Our first impressions of Oslo were therefore all a bit confused as we headed down deserted streets in a less-than-salubrious neighbourhood, then passed lots of street-side bars and witnessed some rather lively arguments on our way to our bed for the nights to come.

We found the Anker hostel without too much more trouble, and then hit the next flaw in the plan. They'd somehow lost our booking in the system, and didn't have any double / twin rooms available. Our hearts pretty much hit our boots at this point, but the lovely lady at reception (who spoke the most flawless English I've ever heard, as indeed most Norwegians seem to - very handy when you don't speak a word of the local language other than being able to say Thank You!), found us an empty 5 bed dorm, and promised that we could have it to ourselves for the duration of our stay and for the price already agreed. This actually worked out really well, because the room was huge and came complete with its own little mini-kitchen and fridge and a dining table and chairs. I'd definitely recommend the Anker Hostel to any other travellers - the staff were helpful, the location was central and everything was clean. We've both said that we would use it again. And at just under £150 each for 5 nights, you can't argue with the price!

Jo and I were up fairly early on Friday morning, courtesy of two things. 1) Oslo in early June, doesn't ever really get dark, and it's very confusing when "dawn" arrives at about 2am. 2) They're currently building a new hotel just behind the Anker complex, and apparently 7am is a perfectly acceptable hour to start heavy building work in Norway!

Jo shot off to her wedding that she was attending on Friday, so after spending an hour or so orientating ourselves in the city centre, and working out how the tram system worked, I was on my own. Eeeeeek - I've never been on my own abroad before! I actually spent a very pleasent afternoon exploring the National Gallery, which is both free, and home to a very impressive collection of art. I thought it was going to be pretty small when I walked in, but 32 rooms later, I revised that opinion as my feet were killing me!!! I saw - deep breath! - Manet & Monet, Degas & Rembrandt, Picasso and Van Gogh and a whole exhibition on Edvard Munch including one his 4 versions of the The Scream. There were also a whole heap of other famous painters I can't even think of at the moment, as well as some truly breath-taking Scandinavian landscape painters.

After the National Gallery, I braved one of the supermarkets on the way home to pick up some essentials for the trip. Unbelievably, one basket with some basic breakfast and lunch stuff (just milk, bread, cereal, ham, cheese) for both of us and dinner for one person came to a whopping 410kr - which is about £40!!! Ouch. I then spent a quiet night in at the hostel watching films on the portable DVD player we had. Atonement - possibly the most depressing film in the world. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but good lord it's traumatic watching it!

Saturday saw me catching the T-bane to the wooded hills outside Oslo to meet Jo and get back to nature. It's amazing how quickly Oslo becomes first expensive, lush, green suburbs, and then rural countryside - with half an hour of boarding the train in the city centre I was deposited atop a hillside, surrounded my fir trees and singing birds. Jo was already there to meet me with a route map, so we set off down the hill on our epic walk.

And got about 10 mins before we passed the beatiful and expensive Frognerseterin resaturant / hotel and decided to stop for decadent early morning cake! The biggest, freshly baked muffins you've ever seen and a view to die for from their balcony, under blue, blue sky.

Following the impromptu refuelling session we set off down the hill in high spirits .... and made about 50 metres before we had to refer to the map to work out where the heck we were meant to be going! After tramping across what looked like part of a building site, and climbing over a pile of rubble, we found something that looked remarkably like a trail and started off on the Grand Yomp Into The Wilderness again. Somehow we lost the trail in the next 10 mins - I think we dived off down an impromptu mountainbike trail by accident - and the next thing we knew we'd arrived at a massive mud road bisecting our path. The only problem being that the road was about 8 foot down a loose face of rocks, which we had to slide down in undignified fashion on our arses. A good start to the day!

We did a bit better after this. We were originally going to head first for the Olympic ski jump at Holmenkollen, which is the guidebook told us was a renowned view point across the greater Oslo area. However we found out the day before that the ski jump had been dismantled at the beginning of the year as they're rebuilding the surrounding resort at the moment. So we followed the walk in that general direction, but then continued straight on down to Midstuen which is the next T-bane station down the hill.

We actually reached that a lot quicker than we'd anticipated, so we decided that further exploration was in order, and after a quick glance at a handy trail-side map, we headed off up and round to nearby Songsvann lake. I would like to point out at this point, that our original map didn't cover any of this area, so from this point on we were winging it! It was a stunning day out, and I soon migrated from fleece and full length jeans to vest top and shorts, and still the path unfolded endlessly in front of us. The signposts we passes stopped pointing to the place we wanted to go, and we started to get a big confused. We sussed out that the sign-posts we were following must be the ski-run signs from the winter season, as I can think of no other reason why one finger post would have 3 separate signs for the same place, all pointing different directions with different distances on them. Oh yes, and they were all either red, green or blue. We eventually picked up signs for Songsvann again, and opted to take the red route which also happened to be the shortest.

It also happened to head straight into the boggiest excuse for a path I've ever come across!!! Committed as we were, we indulged in a spot of bog-hopping in an attempt to navigate round it (it seriously took us about 15 mins to get round a section of path about 20 metres long!), and of course, I completely missed my footing on jump from rock to log - got my foot on the log fine, and then put the other foot down straight in the muddy quagmire on the other side of the log, which turned out to be roughly ankle-deep before I could start getting my foot out again.

Jo was in absolute fits of laughter, and I wasn't quite sure whether to laugh or cry. In the end, I had a temporary sense of humour failure for about 10 mins (cue comedy "dejected" photos of me), before being able to see the funny side. The rest of the path was marginally less adventurous, but still featured further stream / river / bog crossings of a precarious nature. Luckily, I was also wearing walking sandals, rather than heavy boots, so was able to stick my foot in a stream a bit later and wash off the worst of the mud.

Our lovely walk ended at Songsvann lake about mid-afternoon, where we had a belated picnic in the sun and watched the ludicrously fit Norwegian folks running effortless laps of the lake (highly depressing!). There was also live entertainment in the form of the sudden appearance of a whooping man sprinting down the dock just down the shore from us, tearing off his clothes as he went, and bombing into the lake butt naked. Pretty brave if you ask me as the lake water was damn near glacial - I know because we went paddling in it!

Saturday night we ate out in the up-and-coming warehouse district of Gronelokke (I really need to check some of these spellings so bear with me!) - we found a nice bar / restaurant from the guide book that didn't look like it would be toooooo pocket-wrenchingly expensive, however in Norway that still means that a bottle of house white is over £30 - ouch!!! It was a nice meal however, and we'd actually taken the time to "girly-up" after the earlier walking, so it was a pretty good evening all round. Also, thanks to my new light-weight tendencies where the consumption of alcohol is concerned, half a bottle of wine, and a couple of cheeky vodkas back at the hostel was enough to have me crying helplessly with laughter over something not particularly funny - I think it might have been Jo's discussion of "cabbage allowance" on our upcoming holiday to Croatia when she got mixed up between cabin and baggage .... oh dear.

Sunday dawned as another nice day out, and we tootled off to the harbour to pick up one of the circular ferries and explore the small islands out in Oslo Fjord. The ferries are great as they're free to use with the Oslo pass, so it's a great way to get around. The islands are really pretty and easy to explore in the space of an hour (or two) between scheduled ferry drops. They're chock full or pretty rocky / grassy beaches, cute little holiday huts painted in bright colours, monastry ruins, marinas full of yachts, occasional cafes and stunning isolated houses.

Back on the mainland, we had a little wander around the Akke Brygge shopping area (warning - apparently Norwegian shops do NOT open on a Sunday) before catching the tram out to the suburbs to go and visit the Vigesland scuplture park. It's only about a 10 min tram ride from the centre, and well worth the trip. The park's landscaping has been specifically designed to display the works of art it is home to and it is a beautiful setting to while away a couple of hours. We stopped at a random museum somewhere in the park grounds (I didn't actually notice what it was a museum for!) and had a well-earned coke and cake. Imagine my horror when the total bill for two glasses of diet coke and two little individual ginger cakes came to about £16 - EEEEEEEEEK!!!

Back in the park we took silly photos of us imitating the sculptures and were wowed by the centrepiece on the hill - a giant phallic pillar that stands atop a series of steps - as you get closer you can see that it's formed of bodies writhing together, all butt-naked, but it's not until you get right up close that you appreciate the detail and attention that has gone into it. All around the approaching steps are rings of statues of groups of people, representing different stages of life - all still naked! It's a like a whole lot of naked-ness, but well worth a look :o)

Wandering out down another statue-lined avenue in the park, what I really appreciated was how much the Norwegians actually make use of these gorgeous open spaces and really seem to enjoy them.

Monday, we went out on a boat cruise around the harbour and fjord (again courtesy of the Oslo Pass) on a tall ship. One of the highlights of the cruise was meant to be a shrimp buffet, but honestly Jo and I took one look and decided against it. Lunch isn't meant to have beady little black eyes that look at you from your plate!! Yuck. All the other passengers went at it hammer and tongs though, consuming plate after plate of the little critters. Some of the passengers also decided to feed the birds, as this is obviously a good idea when you have a whole harbour-ful of seagulls in your vicinity, and we were soon trailing a squawking, whooping, dive-bombing trail of the buggers behind, above, around, and on the ship. You may well have picked up from my tone, that I wasn't overly amused by this development, and you'd be right. For one thing, they're huge and pretty aggressive, and having one land about foot away from your face, on the balustrade, is not funny. For another thing, lots of flying gulls = lots of flying shit, and I was very tempted to retreat into my waterproof, hood and all, for the duration of the tour.

We hopped off the boat on the Bygdoy peninsula, home to a very wealthy neighbourhood and also the Viking Ship Museum and also a kind of living history museum. We spent a couple of hours in these (the charm of museums is starting to wear off a little bit by this point, as both Jo and I have fairly low tolerance for all things cultural - cretins that we are!), before mooching back down to the quay to get a final ferry home. As it turned out, we got a bit lost amongst the streets of gigantic houses and ended up on a completely different quay to the one we landed at, but luckily the ferry stopped at both - phew! And that ended another long day on our feet as we staggered back to the hostel!

By this point my ankle, which had been complaining for some of the previous day as well, was really starting to become pretty painful. I'm not entirely sure what I did to it, whether I've sprained the ankle somehow, or if I've managed to bruise the underside of my foot and the shockwave was making my ankle hurt, but either way putting my heel down and putting any weight on it was pretty painful. Luckily, Jo is my saviour. She still had some excess energy to burn so she decided to go out on a run, and then swung by McDonalds on the way back to bring us back some dinner - what an angel!

Since we were flying back on Tuesday there wasn't really a huge amount of time left to do stuff. We packed and headed out from the hostel by 10am, and we were going to head to the Natural History Museum and the Botanical Gardens. We found the gardens without a problem, but then literally couldn'y find the museum. We then hit upon the alternative of going round the Zoological Museum instead which was in the gardens as well. Foiled!! It didn't open til 11 and we knew we needed to be heading back to the hostel by 12. So we thought that since it was a nice day, we'd just sit out on the grass and enjoy the sun and scenery. That lasted about 10 mins until some security chappy rocked up to tell us that we couldn't sit on the grass. Arrrrghh!! In a state of sulky mutiny we wandered down the hill and set up camp on some benches - not nearly as comfy but at least nobody came to move us on.

Our journey back home went smoothly, but only just by the skin of our teeth. We'd been told that we needed to be at the bus-station 4 hours before our flight to catch the airport coach. We sauntered 4 and a half hours before the flight to see that our coach was up on the board and due to leave in 10 mins. WTF???? We hoofed it through the station, slung our bags on the coach and threw ourselves on the coach with about 5 mins to spare. If we'd missed that coach all hell would have broken loose as that's the only way to the airport, short of taking a 100km taxi ride!

At the airport, our plane was then brought forward, meaning that we had to again hoof it off to the departure lounge halfway through out early tea. Not overly amused. But at least we got back to England a tiny bit early.

And now we're home again, and feeling deflated that the mini-adventure is over already. The monetary damage has been assessed (not entirely bankrupt), my ankle's still not right (we got back Tuesday and it's not Thursday), my pack is still ... well ... packed (really need to do something about that!), and I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend, starting tomorrow lunchtime. Mmmmmmmm .... sleeeeeeep ......

TO BE CONTINUED ..... CHECK BACK LATER FOR MORE WORK ON THIS POSTING - THERE WILL BE PHOTOS AND A SPELLING CHECK AT SOME POINT! ;o)

Well, I'm packed and ready to go, with all the usual trappings of chaos and disorganisation accounted for.

Rather than go spinning, I decided to head for a run as soon as I got in last night, grab a quick tea and then get shot of the packing all in one go. The following problems arose with this plan:

• I couldn't decide what the hell I wanted to eat when I got back from my run, so a period of indecision (procrastination) followed.
• I was really into the book I reading over dinner, so it was hard to drag myself away to go jump in the shower and get on with packing (procrastination).
• Hannah, a friend of mine and my next-door neighbour Jon's girlfriend, popped round to see if I was going to go along to the girls night our friend Bec was hosting. I somehow got talked into it and thus went out at about quarter to nine and didn't get back unitl ten to midnight (yet more procrastination).

To be fair, I'd started the packing before I went out, but I left it at the stage of there being a large pile of clothes on the bed and an empty backpack. Luckily this did mean that in order for me to be able to go to bed when I got home, I actually had to finish packing, so any further procrastination was cancelled. Finally got to bed about half past midnight, and was up again at 6am this morning to get last minute stuff together and get into the office early.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, I realised at 6 this morning that I'd forgotten to pay my physio on Tuesday night when I was meant to be dropping a cheque round to her, so I'm going to have make a guilty phone-call later to explain why I'm a complete idiot. And I actually do feel really bad about that.

I'm still trying to work out what I've forgotten to pack, but at the moment I haven't thought of anything. Whatever it is, hopefully it's not too major! So I'm in work until quarter to 12, and then heading straight off.

Bon voyage, mon amigos, and I'll speak to you on my return!

Packing procrastination strikes again!

What a surprise. I went home last night with every intention of getting on with the packing and tidying my room somewhat in the process. What actually happened was that I went to the shops to take something back, ended up buying a load of other stuff (although stuff I needed), and didn't get home until 8pm.

So I thought I'd have a light tea and then do some packing. What actually happened was that my next door neighbours rang the door-bell and said "come to the pub!!". So I went to the pub.

The only packing contribution I actually managed last night was to put a load of washing through, which means I've now got loads of clean but wet clothes. And I leave tomorrow morning. Great.

In other news, my flatmate has had gastric flu for the last week, along with her boyfriend. Up until now they did the sensible thing and quarantined themselves away in his flat so they couldn't give it to anyone else. Now she's back home, and she's not actually got rid of it yet, so I'm totally paranoid that I'm going to catch it just in time for Norway ..... *gulp*. I really hope not otherwise I will be massively unimpressed!!!! I think I've probably dropped enough hints about this though that they get the message and retreat back to his flat to sit it out .... which I feel a little bit guilty about, but at the same time justified.

So, going to be having a mass packing session this evening, as need to leave early tomorrow. I'm supposed to go spinning tonight and I really want to go, but I'll have to see how the packing's going before I commit to that. I guess it's only an hour out of my evening. Also been invited to a girl's night over at Bec's tonight, but somehow doubt I'm going to make it along to that. Too much to do as always, and not enough time.

Packing panic

I'm feeling rather panicked over the impending Norway trip at the moment, as I'm leaving Thursday lunchtime (by which I mean I'm going straight from work, so really I'm leaving at 6.30 in the morning as need to be at work super early) and I haven't a clue what I'm taking or where any of it is. Eeeeeeeek!!!

I think I might have mentioned before that I loathe packing, and will always leave it until the last possible moment. I feel rather like I'm about to do it all over again! It also feels weird going on a trip where we haven't planned anything out, don't know what we're going to see, or really even how we're getting to our accommodation, or where it is. This whole trip is going to be an exercise in completely winging it, even though it's been booked for ages.

Ah well - I guess it will all get sorted because it usually does! Right now, I'm just praying that I don't get ill - my flatmate reappeared last night after an absence of a week whilst she's been hiding at her boyfriend's house, and they've both had gastric flu. She said last night that she still wasn't feeling entirely right, and I'm now I'm totally paranoid that I'll somehow pick it up to right in time for the trip. *Gulp*

I have been responsible though - most social engagements have been cancelled this week to give me enough time to sort for the holiday, so that'll save me some money and calories! lol

Money worries

I have rising feelings of panic at the moment - I've just been doing one of my weekly catch ups on the expenditure and bank balances, and it's not a pretty picture. I'd be ok for this month if it weren't for the fact that I'm going away to Norway for 5 days on Thursday, which is certainly not going to be the cheapest of trips, and I'm already slightly over my budget for the month, even before I've paid for that. That in turn means that any surplus at the end of the month to make extra repayments to my credit cards is shot.

In addition to that, my credit card took a hit yesterday as I did a run to Snow and Rock to get kit - partly for the Norway trip (a new waterproof) and partly for my running and biking (new water bottle, bike shorts, helmet and spare inner tubes / puncture patches). None of that is absolutely, strictly, 100% essential in the most puritan of terms, although it will all be well used, and is stuff I've been umming and ahhhing over getting for a while now, but I'm still suffering the inevitable feelings of guily and "did I really need that?" now.

I just feel a bit like I'm slowing slipping deeper when I'm meant to be trying to crawl out of this. Aside from yesterday's kit shop, my general spending has been getting a bit better, but I'm realising now the cost of my constant socialising, and weekend's away - even when I'm not drinking particularly. My petrol bill's getting fairly hammered, there's been a fair few meals out to pay for recently and it's the odds and ends of cash that seem to add up to one huge amount and just disappear when you're not looking.

Looking ahead in my diary, it doesn't seem to get any better. I'm grateful that I have so many friends who invite me to so much stuff, but I worry now that it's more than I can afford. I might need to think seriously about some social curtailment to save myself whilst I'm still just about afloat. I barely have a weekend at home at the moment between now and the end of July.

It's been a while!

OK - about time I stopped neglecting this blog and updated it on what's been going on. I've got bogged down in my diet blog and stopped thinking outside of that, and whilst improving myself by eating healthily is all well and good, it's not the be all and end all of my existence. Or it shouldn't be anyway.

Soooooo .... big breath, and this might be quite a long post!

Friday afternoon, I ventured out mountain-biking at the Forest of Dean, and decided to tackle the single-track on my own. It was a gorgeous afternoon, and I managed to navigate myself there straight from the office without any problems - victory!!! For some reason I always feel a little bit anxious before I set out doing things like this. I don't know why, because I'm same with windsurfing and now with the running club. As soon as I get going I'm fine, but before that I get butterflies, as if I'm worried I might do something wrong.

Anyhoo, the centre was lovely and quiet when I got there, which was great as I didn't want to be mowed down by gnarly biker dudes out on the trail. Put my bike together with minimal fussing and then hoofed it off into the woods. The other cars that were there did indeed contain the requisite gnarly biker dudes but they were still faffing with their bikes when I set out. I was wondering what exactly it is they do with their bikes, but since I'm know technical genius I've never bothered to find out. I think I now know. They're most likely checking to make sure everything's working, as this is what caught me out on the ride.

The circuit was glorious - bloody hard work (I'm definitely not yet as fit as I think I am), but stunning weather, good trail conditions and not a soul in sight. No problems other than the chain skipping occasionally and my lungs wanting to give out on me (and my legs), so I decided that I had just enough time to fit in another slightly more leisurely lap of the trail.

The fates were indeed tempted by this, and about a third of the way round the lap, I realised that the skipping chain had worsened and I now had definite problems with my bikes chain around the rear cassette. (This isn't going to be a highly technical explanation, so probably best to stop reading now if my girly descriptions might offend you lol). Basically speaking, I finally figured out that the back wheel had lost the ability to spin freely, so when ever the bike got faster than my little legs could pedal, the chain was being dragged through and coming completely slack. Not good if you're on a trail which has quite a damn lot of downhill!!

On I limped, and suddenly the gorgeous solitude of the forest and the lack of helpful bike experts became deeply irritating!!! Eventually I got to a section that it was impossible for me to get through (switchback berms looping up and down steeply in quick succession) and abandoned the singletrack for one of the nearby logging trails which run vaguely parallel. Five minutes later and a very relieved Sue and a rather crippled bike hobbled back to the car. So, my first attempt at some solo singletrack was a bit of disaster, and I think I really need to take some bike maintenance course lessons, and actually carry some tools with me in future!

Once back at the car, with the broken bike packed in the car (the chain guard which I hadn't bothered to strip off when I got the bike as snapped loose and wedged itself between the rear cassette and the wheel - hence the lack of free-wheeling) I grabbed a hot shower at the centre, and headed off to Stroud all nicely freshened up.

Down in Stroud I met the girls from my old work, Helen, Sara and Jen for dinner and a big gossipy catch up. It was truly lovely to see them again, and I realised how much I miss working with them all. I didn't appreciate how good my old job was until I left it, and in some ways I sincerely wish I hadn't left. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side, as I certainly had my fair share of stresses whilst I worked there, and to be fair, the commute to and from was killing me, but I genuinely miss working with them, and right now it seems like a bed of roses compared to my current job which I'm rapidly learning to hate.

We met at Jen's house before heading out for dinner, and I must say I'm incredibly jealous of her place. How does a young couple in their late 20's, one of them an assistant account and the other a bar-tender / manager earn enough to afford a gorgeous 4 bedroom, split level detached house newly built in the Cotswolds???? *Sigh*.

Saturday dawned bright and beautiful for the wedding of my schoolfriend Kate to her other half Martin. Yet another couple who have done fantastically well for themselves and seem to live a golden, charmed life. For once in my life I was out the door on time and where I needed to be ready to get changed and get my lift to church. Courtesy of Friday's biking adventures I had (and still have) a massive bruise on the back of my right leg caused by the spiked metal pedal on my bike smashing into the back of it, so that looked particularly elegant with my dress!

The wedding went smoothly and was pretty emotional, although the small kids tearing round did lighten the atmosphere a bit. The vicar was hilarious - a proper Northern guy who took the piss out of being Northern (the groom and his family are from up North too), and somehow managed to work a pint of Guinness into his address. I've never seen a vicar produce a pint of Guinness in church before, and then proceed to toast the bride and groom with it - but he was genuinely funny and interesting. He did later confide to me that the Guinness was warm and tasted disgusting though :o)

The reception afterwards was also excellent, although slightly traumatic in parts for me as I was bought face to face with someone I've known for years but who I am no longer friends with. To cut a long story short, this person decided about 2 years ago that she no longer liked me for various undisclosed (to me) reasons, and then proceeded to burn bridges most effectively by behaving in a completely unforgivable way around the time of my mother's death. I've wanted nothing to do with her since, although I mourn the fact that she drove a friendship of 15-odd years effectively into the ground. However the after effects of that "split" have caused quite a rift in our group of friends, as it became very awkward to have us in the same place together.

For the first time in 2 years we managed to be nice to each other at the wedding and while the friendship is by no means back on, I think that this will at least see the suspension of hostilities. Lissa and Jo were rather cheeky, making me laugh, as they made us hug for the camera so that they had proof that we'd spoken. As Lissa said "we can have one Christmas again - we're not the children of divorced parents anymore!". Whilst I was laughing at this, I could also see how relieved they were, as we're a tight-knit group and I can imagine it's been pretty difficult for them to know what to do or who to side with.

I had a lot to drink at the reception. And I do mean a lot. Which was a bit of a shame really, as I started to feel quite ill towards the end of the evening. I guess with everything else going on, reconciliations, meeting friend's new boyfriend, celebrating the wedding of course and catching up with friends I don't see very often. The result was me getting very drunk, and subsequently really quite ill although thankfully not til after we were home.

Sunday really just involved a lot of mooching around and then sitting in the sunny pub garden feeling sorry for ourselves and trying to shake the hangovers.

Lovely bank holiday Monday I bundled off in the car to nearby Ragley Hall for a picnic and general fun day. Although the weather looked a bit gloomy and threatening, it actually turned out beautiful in the end, so it was a great day just to sit around, chat, read a bit, play in the dual-layer maze, have a game of softball and another one of frisbee and just generally be silly!

This is us being all excited about going into the maze and getting lost:

The rest of the week has generally been fairly quiet with just the usual sessions at the gym or out running. We went out running on the Malvern hills last night and it was glorious in the evening sunshine. I've spent this afternoon having lunch with my lovely Dad and enjoying a catch up, and then a spot of shopping for a few bits I needed, and tomorrow morning I head off to London.

I'm being a bit stupid really, as one of the people holding the house party had a real thing for me a while ago. Whilst I wasn't interested in return, it was really flattering that he continually showed that he liked me as I was feeling pretty down in the confidence stakes at the time. Last week I found out that he's been seeing a new girl for a couple of months now, and this should be a good thing as it puts an end to a potentially uncomfortable situation of him chasing me, but oddly I just feel a bit disappointed that he's clearly over me. Stupid really, and entirely selfish - I should really get a grip!!!

Feeling saintly

I was good - I got into work extra early yesterday, so I could finish earlier, and I hurried into town after work, and took back the dress and shoes from the other week's shopping extravaganza. So I feel a bit better now - that's my credit card bill reduced by £120.

I was also extra good on the exercise front last night as I did a spinning class and went running.

Good god - I'm going to grow wings and start wearing a halo soon I'm being so good! :O)

Why I'm so rubbish at budgeting.

I'm feeling rather disappointed in myself today. I'd been doing so well on a budgeting front this month, and successfully more or less hauled myself back from imminent poverty as the end of the month loomed, to the prospect of actually finishing the month with a bit of a surplus to go towards the credit cards.

Alas, it all went wrong yesterday. I had a really bad reaction to my contact lenses on Sunday night, and since I had an ulcer on my cornea last year, I thought I'd better go to the opticians to get it checked out. Turns out I've got a tear almost exactly where I had the ulcer (but a new one, completely unrelated to last year's episode - weird but coincidental apparently), so I spent most of yesterday in and out of the opticians for various appointments whilst they sorted it. Which left me with quite a bit of spare time on my hands to wander round the shops.

I am truly the shopping equivalent of the dieter who's faced with the smorgasbord buffet, and no where else to eat. Completely unprepared, and therefore lacking in willpower, I went shopping. I bought items shampoo, razor blades and medicated eye-drops from Boots. That's fine - they're essentials and they'll be used. A necklace from Fat Face - just about justifiable as I bought it before, wore it to death and promptly lost it, so at least I know it'll be worn regularly. Shoes. Oh dear - me and shoes. First up, flat black pumps for the office - cost £30. Fine - I need them, I'll wear them and they could have been a lot more expensive as I wanted leather ones. And then a pair of wedge sandals. For £55. Why?? Because I liked them. Are they practical? Not entirely. Did I use the 10 Second Rule? Yes. Did I listen to myself. Errrr - I think that's a resoundingly big no. And do I feel horribly guilty now? YES.

Buying things you want is meant to bring pleasure, not guilt. I don't seem to have got the hang of this yet. So there goes my surplus for the month, and the only reason I haven't hit my overdraft limit is that I thoughtfully transferred £100 from savings last week as I wasn't sure how much the weekend was going to cost. I'm a foolish, foolish girl.

It's back to the drawing board. I get paid tomorrow, and I've already jotted down the big things I know I've got to deal with this month. The £100 has to go back to my savings. I've got a wedding present to pay for, and I know I've got the balance of the hostel for Oslo to pay for, as well as spending money for the trip and probably airport parking. Ideally, I'd also like to somehow absorb the cost of the shoe splurge into this month's budget - I know this is a bit futile, as it's already spent, but at least it makes me feel like I have a bit of control - if it's in this month's budget, that's £55 I can't spend again, and hopefully will be part of whatever surplus is left at the end of the month.

This month is going to be expensive, but I must get on top of my spending - feeling this out of control the whole time is horrible.

Balls and biking

I've had an awesome weekend. After procrastinating the packing down to the last minute, I packed in about 30 mins flat for the weekend, including taking the time to have a total dress crisis. Purple dress or red one, red dress or purple one???? Arrggh!!!! So clearly, I ended up packing the white one instead. This is B and I looking rather pleased with ourselves after *ahem* several glasses of wine.





And a rather random shot of our dinner table at the ball.





Jon (my next door neighbour), B and I looking like we've had a few glasses of wine.

Jon indulging in some Bridget-baiting, whilst she gets a quick lift from Tim (her boyfriend). The object in Jon's hand is B's shoes - he was going after her legendarily ticklish feet.

Classy - the apres-ball drinking continues straight from the wine bottle on the walk to the hosts' house.

A new day, a few hangovers, and a spot of mountain-biking at Llandegla - this is my instrument of torture / weapon of choice:

Me looking exceptionall smug to have reached the top of the climb / beginning of the descent. Can you tell that I'm just the tiniest bit /excited that we're going down, down, down into the woods, somewhere where I'm pointing??

Me, having fun swooping along on the downhill section:

A totally random shot, somewhere near where we finished. I think we'd stopped to compare mud collections - B's was better as my bike is sporting it's winter mud-guards. Will take them off soon as the weather improves.

Tim went off to do the Black run, whilst B and I were lazy on the Blue. He practically inhaled that cake when he caught up with us at the finish. Next time, I'm definitely doing the Red run - the Blue was fun, but not challenging enough.

All in all, a brilliantly fun weekend. Followed by a long trip home in the car. Bridget spent most of the trip home perusing a guide to singletrack venues in the UK and offering up suggestions for future trips, whilst Tim drove, and I dozed in the back. Looking forward to whatever's next. I'm trying to work out if I've got time to have a bash at the red run at the Forest of Dean on my afternoon off on Friday before I head into the Cotswolds to meet some friends for dinner - a slightly daunting prospect in one way as I'd be doing it on my own, but on the other hand I could go at my own speed, and a Friday afternoon should be quiet as most folks would still be in work. Otherwise I think I'll take my bike with me on Sat and explore the possibilities of the Wyre Forest on Sunday after this weekend's wedding.

Thank God it's Friday!

Quick update on life a la Sue.

1. I've woken up this morning with a random bleeding scratch right down the side of my nose. No idea how I've done, but perfect timing for the ball tonight where a) I'd like to look my best, and b) lots of photos will be taken.
2. The budgeting is working so far, and I might actually finish the month without running over. Hallelujah. However, there's still 4 days left in which I could potentially fuck it up.
3. I'm leaving for Wales in an hour and I still haven't even started packing. Whoops.
4. I haven't got round to organising my date for Sunday, because I'm phenomenally disorganised - might do it by text once I'm in the car for Wales (I'm not driving - don't worry).
5. I've been watching too many extreme sports vids recently, and I have serious lifestyle envy. Come to that I have serious skills envy - those boys and girls pull off some seriously sick moves. Note to self - must try harder.

Right - need to go and pack. Have fun.

The 10 Second Rule

As I've mentioned before, I'm not the best at handling my personal finances. Simply put, my outgoings regularly exceed my income, which leaves me with some interesting cashflow issues at the end of the month. I live paycheck to paycheck, I have next to nothing in my savings account, and at the current count I probably have about £8.5k of debt, not including my car loan. I don't own my own house, and since I have no deposit have no hope of doing so in the next couple of years unless I either win or inherit money. It's a sorry tale for a girl who's a qualified accountant.

I hate being in this situation, having no safety net, and what I really crave is financial security. By that I mean, covering my bills in the month, having enough in the bank growing for the future, having a nest egg of savings for more immediate use, and having enough left over that I can go on the holidays I want and buy the pretty things when I fall in love with them.

I've been trying to scrabble out of this money pit for years, but somehow I just end up back where I started, or even deeper in the mire. I've still got my student overdraft but it ran out of it's interest free period a couple of years ago. I have 4 different credit cards. Well, technically I have 5, but one's empty and has been given to my friend for safe-keeping. 2 of the remaining 4 are just carrying balance transfers - 1 interest free at some long distant point, but never fully paid off, and 1 big one that's currently interest free for another 12 months or so. And 2 credit cards for day to day use with balances of a couple of hundred each.

On top of that I have a bank loan to pay for my car (my old one got destroyed in the floods a couple of years ago) which will still be going for another 18 months.

I have probably paid off those credit cards about 3 times over, with various windfalls of money, but each time they're emptied, they just climb right back to where they were. The only good news in this whole sorry tale is that my dad paid off the remainder of my student loan a couple of years ago, so at least that's one less burden.

I feel sick though when I look at the mess I've got myself in and the amount that I owe. Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly able to cover the repayments I make, but I'm like a hamster stuck in its exercise wheel - whilst I'm running away on the treadmill of life, I'm not actually going forwards. Every time I make a plan to pay off the debt I get overwhelmed by how long it will take, even if I scrimp and save every last penny I have.

What makes me feel a bit sicker is that over the years my Dad has given me lump sums of money to help me out and I've just burned through them and they've gone. What a goddamn waste. And I look at what I spend it on - I am the ultimate consumer machine. I buy stuff I do not need, for a multitude of reasons but none of them the right ones. I've been losing weight recently, and as I weed out the clothes from my wardrobe that are now too big, I'm horrified at how many either still have the tags on them and have never been worn, or have only been worn once or twice. And my wardrobe is still full to bursting even though the pile on the floor is a couple of feet high.

In another example of wanton wastefulness, I bought a new laptop at Christmas. Why? Because my old computer was broken? Because it couldn't do something I needed it to? Not really. I persuaded myself that that was the case, but truthfully it's fine - a bit old, and a bit slow by current standards, but nothing worse than that. Yet another amazing waste of my money. And I bought in on 6 month interest free credit, which means I've got to pay for it sometime at the end of this month. Nearly £600 worth.

So here I am, wading through the bog of frivolous spending I created for myself, and no idea how to stop. I earn more than I've ever earned in my life and I'm still in a mess.

******

I stumbled across a website earlier in the week called The Simple Dollar. It's written by a guy, just an ordinary guy, who had a complete financial meltdown, and then dug himself out of it. He's not a financial expert (well not a qualified one as far as I know), but he's astute, intelligent and he looks at things a different way.

Reading his bio, I was frightened how close it sounded to my own - parents hard up during childhood, always just about scraping through, but being overly generous when the money did unexpectedly arise. An allowance that I didn't have to earn, although I was supposed to. And in my case, parents inherit some money just as I'm hitting adulthood - I get a new car handed to me on a platter, extra funding at uni, and every time I hit trouble and pluck up the courage to ask for help, a hand-out, usually a generous one, wings its away into my account.

On top of that, I've picked some massively unhealthy spending habits up since my teenage years. As a scholarship student at my rather expensive private secondary school, I've spent my teens being surrounded by friends who come from very wealthy families. So I quickly learned to camouflage the fact that my family don't have anything like that level of wealth.

I had a gap year where I worked, but spent everything I earned - revelling in the fact that for the first time ever I had a private income. My friends all went travelling, but I didn't because I was seemingly incapable of saving any money. I excused myself by saying that they all had savings given to them by their parents so they could afford to go, and it wasn't my fault I didn't have the money. Oh poor little me. The bank also gave me my first credit card, because I was working, and it's the start of the bad things to come.

Then I went to a uni notorious for the wealthy background of the average student. There was a running joke that it was 5 VW Golfs per student house, because all the students have nice cars. Yet again, I was surrounded by kids from more privileged backgrounds than me, and the pressure is on to keep up and conform - to never let on that you're different. By the time I left uni I'd run up over £3k on my credit card. I didn't even know how bad it was until the card got rejected one day in a shop because it was maxed, and I can still remember the heart-stopping feeling of panic when it happened. I'd also maxed my overdraft.

After uni I moved straight to London, and my snobby ways saw me taking flats I couldn't afford the rent on because I wanted nice surroundings. In the spend, spend, spend culture of London endless shopping trips and hedonistic nights out crushed my graduate salary and I got another credit card. Occasionally they'd get paid off by a bonus, but usually they just built up. My dad gave me two big lump sums in this time to help me set up in London, and then an ISA he'd set up in my name from the inheritance a couple of years previously. They were soon whittled to nothing.

After a couple of years, the charms of London faded and I came home. Although I took a big salary cut, I moved back into my Dad's and in theory my debts should have been paid back over the next year or so because my costs were so much lower. It worked for a bit, but I soon started spending all my salary every month, and then a bit more. Fast forward a couple of years and here I am - same old Sue. A little bit older and a little bit wearier, but still just as broke. I've moved jobs a couple of times since then, more than doubling my post-London salary, and I moved into a rented flat, but I'm still a disaster financially.

So back to The Simple Dollar. The author talks about how he looked at his spending and realised that none of it tied to his goals in life. As soon as he realised that and defined his goals, and then based his budget around them, his spending fell into line. So I followed his advice and defined the things that matter to me, and associated goals.

• Fun / Adventure - I want to travel and take the opportunities to do amazing things as they arise
• Family / Friends - I just want to nurture my relationships and enjoy the time I have with them
• Security - I explained that above - to be debt free, have savings, have enough money for the day to day, and own my house.
• Success - I want to be running my own business profitably and wake up in the morning excited about it.
• Health / happiness - I want to be fit and healthy, a decent weight that I feel comfortable about, happy with what I've achieved in life and not too stressed.

Nowhere in those goals does the spending of endless money on clothes, electronic gadgets, DVDs, books, stuff and other pointless things feature.

My spending doesn't make me particularly happy, unless it's on things like holidays and spending time having fun with friends, which I can't regret. The material stuff really doesn't matter so much though, and now I realise it never really has. Buying a ticket to go to the ball this weekend with my friends makes me happy, as will mountain-biking with them afterwards on Saturday - buying the new dress that's currently hanging on my wardrobe to wear hasn't, it's just made me feel guilty (it's going back by the way).

So here's the deal with the 10 Second Rule, now I've acknowledged these revelations. Whenever you buy something, stop and think for 10 seconds about whether you need this thing and how it fits into your goals. I can't count the number of times I ummmmed and ahhhed on the way to tills, not sure whether to splash and buy something. If I'd known to think about it terms of my goals, I wonder how many things I would never have bought. How much debt I'd have saved myself.

So over the next couple of months, I'm going to keep cash-tracking the way I have been, and I'm going to start using the 10 Second Rule. Let's see how much money I can save to put towards my debts next month, huh?

The perils of living in the countryside

For a start, you never know when the dustbin lorry that you're following along the lane is going to randomly knock down a tree that will then fall right across the road in front of you, completely blocking the lane.

Yep - that's what happened to me on my way to work this morning! The lorry clipped the branches (nothing unusal on lanes with overhanging trees), and I thought "oooh, I'm going to drive through a shower of blossom - how pretty!". Obviously the blossom was weighing the branches down a lot lower than usual though, because as the lorry moved forward the whole tree started to move and the trunk cracked clean through.

Luckily, A) I stopped in time that I didn't end up under the tree, and B) the binmen saw what had happened in their rear-view mirror and very kindly came back and moved the tree out the way to clear the road.

Just another normal journey to work, huh?

Windsurfing rocked last night, by the way. It was very windy with strong gusts, and we were wobbly, not having been out on the boards for 6 months, but it was great fun tearing up and down the lake on the edge of control and falling in a lot. I came in after an hour as I was shattered. Had just enough time to drive home, grab some tea and head up to the pub to meet friends, and then slept like an absolute baby last night.

Bridget's boyfriend Tim also very kindly picked up my bike on the way back from the pub, as he's going to take to Wales with his and B's for the weekend, so we can hit the trails at Llandegla on Sat after the ball - ace!!

Excitement

Two exciting things to report today.


Firstly, I'm going windsurfing tonight (I hope) for the first time this year, and I can't freaking wait! My kit is packed in the car, and I'm just dependent on the weather holding out now, it's still looking sunny with some wind out there, so I shall have a peek on Metcheck momentarily and check it out properly. Fingers crossed for good conditions!

I always get a bit nervous before any windsurfing session and I don't know why - I think it's usually because my sessions are a bit irregular so there's often been a gap since the last one, and then I get wetsuit nerves all over again, and then general I'm-going-to-make-an-arse-of-myself-and-I'll-have-forgotten-how-to-do-it nerves. It'll still be fun though, and I sometimes think that actually I really like the feeling of butterflies in my tummy because that's the feeling that lets me know I'm living my life.

The second exciting thing is that I've agreed in theory that I'm going to meet Lee for a drink on Sunday. God, it's ages since I've been on a date! And it actually ties into my diary quite well as it will mean that I have to go past Cribbs Causeway to get to Bristol so I can also take back last weekend's unrequired purchases too. But a date!!! I'll have to have the big stress over what to wear nearer the time - don't have any time for it now.


I'm also just about hanging in there on my budgeting this week - get paid next Weds and I think I have juuuust enough funds to see me through. Phew.