Camera arrived!
Mood:  chillin'

Oh my god.  I don't blog for a couple of days and now I have about a million things to say.  I had better break them into bite sized chunks or I will scare off my tiny band of readers :-)

So, this bit's about cameras.  Feel free to skip if not interested!

The new Canon SLR arrived on Thursday.  So now I am using Dave's old Canon SLR and he is having that one.  So Friday afternoon we skived off work (anyone noticing a theme in this blog?) and wandered around Southampton Common for a few hours taking photos.  I've got myself a Flickr page to put my photos on.  Obviously the camera is still on idiot setting.  I told Dave I needed a "Photography for Dummies" book and he gave me one called "the little book of photography" which apparently would be easy to understand.  HA!!  I read the first two pages and was lost.  It's like something in my brain just hears the word "lens" and starts going "La la la, I can't heaaaaar yoooooooou".

Anyway, I'm enjoying the camera which is the main thing and seem to be managing to get a couple of cool shots even with everything on automatic, so hey, that's ok with me :-)

Anyway here's one.  I had to get so close to take this the bee nearly flew up my nose.

 

Right, gotta go have some dinner now.  More later!

Anti-mothers, grannies and a rant
Mood:  smelly
Now Playing: Oasis - Don't believe the truth

Today is apparently the hottest July day in Britain since records began.  It's 36 degrees.  Fortunately for me, I've spent most of the day in the car.  Oh, how I love my Honda air conditioning :-)

The road trip was to Hertfordshire, first of all to see my friend Emma.  It was supposed to be a get-together for the gang of four - me and my 3 uni friends - but the other two couldn't come cos of car problems.  I missed seeing them, but it was kind of nice having time just with Em, I felt like we really got to catch up properly.  With the four of us, and four kiddies to watch, we don't always manage to cover everything!

I managed to demonstrate again my complete lack of maternal instincts - Emma asked me to bring dessert and thinking, oh, it's just the two of us, I picked out 2 chocolate éclairs, completely forgetting that kiddies need to eat too!  How bad is that.  I am the ultimate anti-mother.  On the plus side it was good for the diet, as I only got to eat half my éclair and Callum got the other half :-)

After Em I went to see my granny who handily is only down the road.  She is in an elderly care unit having had a fall in the garden 6 weeks ago and broken her knee.  The hottest day of the year and she has a plaster cast from her foot to her hip.  Poor granny.  Still she was pretty chirpy, all things considered.  I'm really proud of her.  Her husband died a couple of years ago and no-one thought she would manage on her own; she's wasn't very mobile even before this.  But she has arranged helpers, and meals on wheels, and is determined to stay in her home.  She's equally determined to go back there once the plaster is off.  No giving up and deciding that's it, she's old.  I think it's great.  Not sure how my dad feels about her spending all his inheritance on carers! but hey I say go for it. 

I've been very lucky with grannies - my other granny who died last year was a feisty old bird too.  We bought Rupert the punch bag with some of the money she left me - it seemed appropriate.  She also left me a set of brass knuckle dusters which look absolutely lethal.  When she was in her eighties she used to carry them with her when she went shopping until someone pointed out to her that was probably illegal :-)

Oh and here's my rant of the day: the care unit where my granny is staying is really, really hot.  I mean I was sweating like I was doing a workout while I was sitting talking to her.  It can't be good for the patients.  There were a few fans but not enough to really help.  The grandson of the old lady in the next bed brought in a fan for her, only to be told that wasn't allowed because all electrical equipment had to be vetted by an NHS engineer.  Only, there wasn't an engineer there so it couldn't be vetted.  So no extra fans allowed, basically.  Blooming bureaucracy.  That just sums up everything wrong with this country. 

No exercise today, but my lunch tomorrow has been cancelled so I will hopefully manage a good eating day and I have TKD in the evening.

Yo, Blair
Mood:  mischievious

What is it with "Dubbya" and world conferences?  If it wasn't funny enough last September when he got caught asking Condi for a toilet break, now he and our Tony have been caught having a private chat by a mike that was left on.  Apparently Tony is concerned about "this trade thingy" while George thinks we need "to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit".  How funny :-D

If I manage to lose any weight this week it will be a minor miracle.  Yesterday I went out for dinner with a friend - managed to make sensible food choices for once.  But the rest of the week looks like this:

Tonight: out for dinner with in-laws.   Wednesday: lunch at my friend Emma's - usually involves quiche or something equally evil.  Thursday: out for lunch with my ex-boss.  Friday: out for drinks and dinner. 

Eeeeeek!!  Just as well I am doing lots of exercise.  Body combat yesterday, weights today.  Tried some more pull up attempts.  They are not going well!  Of course, right at the end of my weights workout when my arms are already aching might not be the best time to practice them.  I'm trying the assisted ones but I just can't pull myself all the way up.  I'm not giving up on the quest!  But I think it might take a while :-)

War wounds
Mood:  accident prone

Today in TKD we did some sparring.  First I paired up with Dave and we did light contact kicking.  Really good fun, we were a bit better this time at making contact without actually kicking the shit out of each other.  Then Glen (it's always poor old Glen) put on body armour and we all took a turn at "sparring" with him for 90 seconds.  He was just moving around a lot to get out of the way and blocking, while we had to try and kick him.  Wow, that was so much fun!!!  And surprisingly exhausting.  I felt like a bit of a spaz (and managed to fall over too at one point) but hey, it was the first time I've ever done that so I was quite pleased with myself.  I did at least manage to get a few good kicks in.

As usual I managed to come away with enormous bruises, another one in almost exactly the same spot as last time, where I caught Glen's elbow with the bottom of my shin.  Ouch.  In a weird way though, I kind of like coming home with all these war wounds.  It makes me feel like a proper fighter!  I mean, I never thought I would be able to do a class like that, take a painful knock, fall over, and then get up and carry on.  I used to be a total wimp and I love the fact that I'm not any more.  It’s not that I was totally wrapped up in cotton wool, as a kid, but...well yeah, actually I guess I really was.  I broke both my arms (not at the same time!) when I was young so I think after that I was always really cautious about getting injured.  Add to that the fact that in my teens and onwards I was quite a serious pianist and my parents were forever trying to make sure I didn't injure my arms or hands.  For example, when I wanted to go ice skating they gave me horror stories about getting fingers chopped off with skate blades :-)  I never rode a bike anywhere, and I never did any kind of sports.  All in all I just wasn't very adventurous.  So now, to feel like I can take a knock, get a painful bruise, but not let it bother me and keep training, is something of a revelation.  Way hay, I am no longer a wuss!

Right, I'm off now to lie on the sofa with an ice pack on my leg :-)

Ants and Bulls
Mood:  chatty
Now Playing: Keane - Hopes and fears

Had an old friend round this afternoon.  Well actually he's the younger brother of my best friend from school days.  When we were kids he used to annoy the hell out of us by pestering us when we were trying to have deeply important conversations - you know, about crucial stuff like what we should wear, or hair crises.  Weird to think that we're all grown up now :-)

Anyway, he's starting this cool website called 1000 things to do before you die, so came to have a chat about accounts and tax and stuff.  It was really nice to see him and catch up.  The guy is a total nutter.  Last year he broke his neck diving (he's fully recovered now).  It doesn't seem to have put him off doing insane stuff as last week he did the Pamplona bull run.  All makes good material for the website I guess! 

It did make me think, cos he was asking if there was anything we had done that we thought should go on there.  The most exciting thing we've done recently is a trip to the Isle of Wight, which doesn't really compare!  The thing is, we're really stupid over our dogs and every time we contemplate going abroad on holiday we just don't want to leave them.  We had a chat about it and decided that travelling could wait until the dogs were no longer with us (sob!).  In the meantime, I'm pretty happy with our life; we're very lucky.

This morning my combat class was cancelled so I did my upper and lower body weights workout.  Didn't manage any progress on the pull ups as the gym was quite busy and I get self-conscious doing them in front of other people, seeing as how I can only manage a few and they're totally wussy.  I meant to do push ups on the stairs when we got home, but forgot.  Must do better with the quests!

On the weights front, though, I'm quite pleased with how I'm progressing.  I love the fact that with weight training you can really see yourself improving and getting stronger as you manage to up your weights.  It's much more quantifiable than with cardio workouts.  I'm definitely starting to see more muscle definition on my arms.  If I could just lose a some of the extra fat I think they'd be looking quite cool.  Speaking of which.....

.....food wise I feel like I've gone off the rails a bit this week, with so much eating out.  I'm going to try and eat really well this coming week.  I'm out with a  friend for dinner on Monday, so that probably won't be a perfect day, but I'll try to make sensible choices and avoid the cake :-)

In other news, our house was invaded this evening by ants.  FLYING ones, no less!!   Eeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuwwwwwww.  We went into the lounge and there they were in one corner, all over the floor, windowsill and curtains.  It's at times like this that I appreciate my lovely husband.  He let me shut him in the room with a hoover and large amounts of ant powder, and when I dared to look again there was not an ant to be seen.  What a star :-)

Also in other news (gosh I'm chatty tonight) we have ordered a camera for me!  Well, actually we have ordered the fancy next model up camera for Dave, this one, and I will use his current one.  Should be cool.  I'm looking forward to taking more photos of stuff to put up here.  For today I shall leave you with this one Dave took on our morning walk of Neo having a good soak.  I think that dog was a hippo in a former life.

 

 

Lazy Dayz
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: Muse - Black holes & Revelations

I love eBay.  I just bought the cutest Welsh dragon t-shirt on there.  As you can tell, I'm having another productive day in the office :-)

Dave just found this cool video of some guys making like a domino run out of various stuff in their house - CDs, videos, even bits of toast.  I'm pretty good at time-wasting when I'm supposed to be working, but I've got nothing on these guys.  They clearly have *way* too much time on their hands.

Today I went to Alresford with my mum.  It was very mellow.  We drove out there in my mx5 with the top down.  I *love* my convertible.  When we first got it I really didn't think I'd enjoy driving with the top down, it would be too noisy and scary.  Now I love it!  Giant sunglasses are of course compulsory for all top-down driving.

 

 

Then we met one of mum's friends, went for coffee, wandered around the shops, went for lunch, wandered some more, went for tea and cakes.  I actually really enjoyed myself.  When you start to get on well with your mum's girlfriends and have giggly girlie lunches with them, does that officially mean you are old?

I'm not even logging my food for today.  I'm pretty sure that coffee walnut cake doesn't fit in any sensible nutrition plan.  It was bloody nice though :-)

Happy smiley
Mood:  rushed
Now Playing: Some weird shit on myspace

Oooooh Tripod's blog upgrade has now given us smileys!

Of course it's also replaced all the handy little icons that I knew and loved with a bunch of teeny weeney little dots that I can barely see.  I have to touch the PC monitor with my nose just to work out which blob means "add a link".

Ah well maybe this means they've finally finished pissing about with the blogging and the site will stop being soooooo sloooooow.

Gaaaaaaaah now it's telling me I have to download something before I can spell check.  Sod that, I'm off to bed.  You'll just have to put up with any typos I miss.

Bad pie
Mood:  energetic
Wow I am such a big girlie lightweight these days. Back in my student days (oh so many years ago!) I could go out every night and never get tired. Now I have one late night and it wipes me out. Had my girlie night out on Tuesday, it was really great and as I predicted my food pie ended up with 19% alcohol. We won't even go into the % of fat :-) Got to bed about 1 am and the thing is, yesterday I wasn't even hungover as such, just soooooooo tired, I had no energy whatsoever. Also had a mad desire to eat nothing but carbs all day including a pack of popcorn and a doughnut. Oooops.

Fortunately a good night's sleep seems to have cured me and today I am raring to go! I have booked myself in for body combat tonight before TKD, so that should burn off most of those wine and popcorn calories and get me back on track for the week!

Dave came second in a photo competition on Flikr. You can see his photo here. Bless him, he's all chuffed :-) We still haven't got round to getting a camera sorted out for me as yet. Thought we had decided on an SLR, one model up from Dave's. Then he started drooling over the one up from that, at twice the price, and we ground to a halt. Must sort one out soon.

Poorly Pigeon
Mood:  hug me
Now Playing: Muse - Black holes and revalations
Boooooo. Ever since we installed Rupert it has rained solidly so we have had no opportunity to get out and beat him up. Bloomin' British weather :-)

We took the dogs for a bike ride this morning. Well, obviously, we rode the bikes and they ran along beside us. It's a great way of exercising them cos we can cover twice the normal distance in the same time, and it completely knackers them out for the rest of the day.

When we got back there was a pigeon sitting in our driveway looking a bit sad, and lots of feathers in the road. We think it must have been hit by a car. It seemed to have hurt a wing. We left it for a bit then went out to the gym at lunchtime and saw it was still there. Cue much flapping (on our part, poor pigeon being unable to flap at all!). Why is it that normally pigeons are horrible noisy vermin, but the minute there's an injured one on your property you start getting warm fuzzy feelings towards it and worry about whether it's going to be alright? Anyway, we chucked some bread out for it to munch on and came upstairs to look at the RSPCA website. When we went back to check on it before phoning them it had gone. No big piles of feathers either, so I'm hopeful it recovered and managed to fly, rather than getting munched by a cat :-)

Today's gym workout was weights, and more pull up attempts. I managed 4 assisted pull ups. Now don't get too excited, the bar was quite low and I had nearly all of my legs on the bench, so I was probably lifting less than half of my body weight. Still, it's a starting point, right? Once I can do some more of those I'll try moving the bench further away to lift more of my weight.

Tomorrow night I'm going out with a girlfriend for an Italian meal and much wine. I fear the food pie for tomorrow will have a large slice of alcohol and fat in it :-) I have been extra good today to try and offset the damage: with what I have planned for dinner my total is 1,222 cals; 47% carbs, 29% protein, 24% fat. Under 8 weeks to go to insane bikini photo d-day, so I'd better try and keep that sort of eating up :-) My arms are starting to look quite shapely, and I'm definitely getting stronger from the weights work. Just need to keep up the sensible eating and cardio at the same time, to shift that excess flab!

Rupert the punch bag
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: Jools Holland
The punch bag is up and running! We have affectionately named it Rupert after our dearly beloved, sadly departed chairman. I will think of his smiley gammon face every time I beat it up :-)

I'm completely knackered. Today I got up, walked the dogs, dashed to the gym to squeeze in 40 minutes of upper body weights followed by Combat. Then home, had some lunch, and this afternoon spent about 3 hours getting the punch bag sorted. First we had to make a cover for it out of the largest tarpaulin you've ever seen. You know what a pain it is trying to wrap up a bottle of wine? Well imagine replacing the wine bottle with a 6-foot punch bag and trying to wrap it with a huge tarp in such a way that the water will keep off it. It involved staples, duct tape, and much scratching of heads. However in the end we had concocted this rather fetching blue thing which I think you will agree, to the uneducated eye, looks like a particularly tasteful piece of garden art :-)

Once that was done it was case of filling the base with 5 whole bags of builders sand. By the time that was done we were almost too exhausted to actually have a go on it, but of course we had to have a bit of a play.

So all in all I'm pretty happy with Rupert, I think he will becomes a well loved member of the family :-)

As I write this Jools Holland is playing on the common. It's very loud. The weird thing is last night UB40 played and we didn't hear them at all. There's fireworks after the concert and our office is just in the right place to see them out of the window, last night we got a great view. I'm trying to write this with a tripod on my desk and as soon as the concert finishes I'm going to get bundled off by Dave so he can take pictures them. I'm suffering for his art.