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This weekend it was the turn of Helen, Dave and Sam, who travelled down from Merseyside to see us, which was very good of them. They arrived late Friday night with the hope that Sam, who's now nearly 15 months old and had slept all the way down in the car, would go straight back to sleep as soon as Dave had set up his cot. Of course, that didn't happen, so we spent a good half hour or so watching him run round the house chasing a balloon. I had done some preparation for having a toddler in the house, but I didn't realise that absolutely everything that isn't nailed down needs to be at least 3 feet off the ground! Sam was really good all weekend (even though Helen said he's usually better than he was) and only had a couple of 'moments', which to be honest weren't even moments because he was so cute when he had them, it was hard not to smile. We went to the restaurant at the gym where they have a ball pool, fed the ducks in the pond next to our house, and generally had a fairly relaxing weekend. Plus Rob and I got some insight into just how much work it is having a toddler around!

PT Session #3 - it seems to be working

My last personal trainer session was this evening. Apparently I'm 2kg heavier than 2 months ago but my body fat percentage has gone down, which Ben says means I've gained 2kg of muscle. So I guess all the exercise is actually paying off! And how did I celebrate this? KFC and a big slice of key lime pie...

Ben's given me some different programmes to try on the cross trainer and the bike, because I was getting a bit bored of the same old programmes every time. I have to keep on at my weight and mat sessions and hopefully the trend will continue.

It has a name...

... Labyrinthitis. Rob's been feeling unwell for almost 2 weeks now - headaches, dizziness, blurred vision and nausea. I thought it sounded like migraine but painkillers didn't help. He went to Heathrow Airport on Saturday to fly to Ottawa for a conference, and spoke to a pharmacist in Boots who said it sounded like it might be something to do with his ears and advised him not to fly. So he got the train back from Heathrow on Saturday afternoon and saw the doctor yesterday, who confirmed it's labyrinthitis, which affects the inner ear, symptoms of which are dizziness, blurred vision, nausea etc. Apparently there is no medicine you can take to cure the actual condition - it usually runs its course in 2-4 weeks - but the doctor prescribed something to alleviate the nausea and dizziness, and at least we know what it is we're dealing with now. It's a very good job he decided not to fly to Canada - we all know that planes can play havoc with your ears. He's taking it easy this week and hopefully he'll be better by the time we go on holiday - 12 days, yay! I'm so ready for the break...

Lions and Tigers and Bears...

Actually, no lions. And no bears, now I come to think of it. Just tigers - but two beautiful ones, and also giraffes, cheetahs, snow leopards, camels, hippos, buffalo, zebras, monkeys, penguins... We had a great time at Marwell Zoo - the Colyers have an annual pass, so Rebecca and Elliott knew just where to go to see their favourite animals, then the quickest way to the playground ;). Jen and I really enjoyed ourselves. She just left an hour ago to go back home - it was very good of her to travel 10 hours there and back just for two days. Thanks Jen!

Silly Signs

I've just seen an article on the BBC website where people have sent in photos of ridiculous signs they've seen. It cheered me up after a terrible week at work. My top three are this one:


and this one:


and my favourite has to be this one:


Classic.

Everyone's out to get me

This week hasn't been the best of weeks at work. I've had a load of training courses to organise over the past couple of weeks and every one of them has gone wrong in some way or another - I've been given the wrong material to print, the printers have delivered it late, I've forgotten to book train tickets and/or hotel accommodation until the last minute, the hotel has lost my reservation... Plus other non-course-related and usually straightforward stuff went wrong, like getting an offer letter and employment contract out to a new employee, creating marketing material, organising a conference call with a colleague who hadn't told me he was on holiday... All these things eventually worked themselves out but not before I got myself into a stress about it all.

End of rant.

The good news is that I will soon (very soon, I hope) be giving up some of the more 'junior' aspects of my job and concentrating on things like getting a proper handle on, and managing, our procedures for putting on training courses and more 'office manager'-type stuff. We'll be hiring someone to answer the phone, welcome visitors and be Greg's assistant, plus we'll be asking our accountants to do our payroll instead of having me do it, so I can do other stuff. Yay!

More good news is that there's only just over a day to go until the weekend and Small Jen is coming to visit again. We're going to the zoo on Saturday with Sara and the kids. I haven't been to a zoo for years - at least 20 if not more. Looking forward to it.

A bit of culture on a Sunday afternoon

Jennifer started working for Interface21 last week out of the Florida office and is in Southampton this week to work with Rob. We had a trip out to Stonehenge this afternoon - neither of us had ever been there, and as it's only 45 minutes from where I live now, I thought it was time I went to have a look. It was impressive, but I have to say it wasn't as big as I expected it to be - and it was quite cold and windy up there. Still, it was worth a visit, and it was great to spend some time with Jennifer and get to know her a bit better. I've met her a couple of times before at The Spring Experience but haven't really spent much time with her. She's the first woman to be employed by Interface21 in a non-admin role - finally!

I also wanted to show you the following picture that I took in our back garden when I got back from Stonehenge. There are quite a few squirrels on my running route, which passes by Wildern Nature Park right near our house, but I haven't seen many in the garden before. Although I did see one a couple of weeks ago, sitting on the edge of the pond and eating the plant that's in there - no wonder the plant isn't flourishing :).

EDIT 19 SEPTEMBER: Rob pointed out last night that Jennifer wasn't in fact, the first female non-admin role - we have Sigi in Germany who is a Sales Manager, then I remembered that we also have Amyli and Nikki in the US, Legal Counsel and Graphic Designer respectively. So I was going to change it to say that Jennifer's the first female tech role, until Rob reminded me that although she's not with us any more, Portia in the UK was actually the first female tech person. So... Jennifer is currently the only female techie in the company. Phew, I got there in the end ;).

Finally, a conservatory we can sit in

Our conservatory furniture was delivered this week. Here's a couple of pictures (ignore the boxes of DVDs waiting to be unpacked!). They were taken first thing yesterday morning so the sun is quite bright, but I couldn't close the blinds because it would make the room too dark and there are no mains lights in there. I bought a standard lamp after work yesterday (which gave Rob the perfect opportunity to recommence his musings on why it's called a 'standard' lamp and not a 'standing' lamp), and it looked really cosy in there last night with the light on. Not that I did much sitting in there last night, because I was watching TV in the lounge, but I will definitely be spending a lot of time in there in the mornings when the sun is on the back garden.

After a month or so of being busy every weekend and not being able to do any more unpacking, I finally got round to sorting out the spare room a bit more last weekend. I unpacked the boxes of coats and out-of-season clothes and put them in the spare room cupboard. Then I filled a chest of drawers with stuff from another box, and I still have three boxes left to unpack and nowhere to put the contents...

We've decided that the next step in the moving process hinges on getting Wayne, our friendly neighbourhood man with a van, to come round and clear the garage of all the boxes we've accumulated over the past month. He already came round once, about 3 weeks after we moved in, and took away a van load of rubbish, and we now have at least a van and a half's worth of boxes sitting in the garage taking up space. We concluded that we aren't going to use the garage to keep a car in (Rob's won't fit for one thing, and there's plenty of room on the driveway for our two cars and two more), so we should get some units put up in there to store the stuff that's still in boxes. So we now need Wayne to come round and take the boxes away so we can see how much space we have for shelving units etc.

Yesterday was 2 months to the day since we moved in and we're still not sorted...! But we're making progress - we bought a bathroom last weekend which we're hoping will be fitted while we're on holiday or very soon afterwards.

Slowly but surely...

Just a quick one before I leave for work to say that I did not feel like exercising this morning, but seeing as I took yesterday off I didn't want to give it a miss two days in a row. I went for a run and am very pleased to say that I knocked a full minute off my 3.5km time. I still don't run fast - professional women run at least twice as far as I do in the same time - but little by little I'm getting faster and finding it easier. I'm going to increase to 4km next week.

Four things you may or may not know about me...

Sarah just e-mailed me this. I'm not very good with forwards, particularly the ones that say 'send this on to 20 people in the next half hour or you'll have bad luck for a zillion years', but as it goes this one wasn't one of those anyway. Instead of replying to her and forwarding it on to everyone I know, I'll post my answers here. Which I think is a great idea because it gives me something to write about - there hasn't been a vast amount of excitement in the past week.

Although we did go to a football match on Saturday with Adrian and Sara and the kids - Eastleigh FC played Sutton United. Eastleigh are high up in their league (albeit a very low down league) and Sutton are second from bottom, so we had high hopes, but of course they were dashed - Sutton won 2-1. The quality of football was fairly terrible (not that I could have done any better, although thinking about it I could have done better than the Eastleigh goalkeeper who dropped the ball in front of his goal and allowed the Sutton player to dribble round him and into the back of the net) and Rebecca and Elliott were as interested in seeing the mascot as the football, but we still had a great time, and it made for a nice change. I haven't been to a football match since I was living in Italy - the atmosphere at a Fiorentina match is somewhat different to Eastleigh though :).

Sarah, I've modified a couple of the questions and have added some of my own, hope that's OK.

Four jobs I have had in my life:
Pianist at a hotel, Music teacher, Fee earner in solicitor's office, Director of my own company

Four films I could watch over and over:
Mission: Impossible, Entrapment, Ocean's Eleven, Evita

Four films I have bought but haven't got round to watching yet:
The Black Dahlia, Bobby, Vera Drake, Eternal Sunshine

Four places I have lived:
Kirklevington (where I grew up - 1976-1995), Hull (university - 1995-1999), Florence (year abroad during uni - 1997-1998), Manchester (1999-2007)

Four TV Shows that I watch when they're on TV:
Coronation Street (sorry), Desperate Housewives, Friends (re-runs on E4 every day), Child of our Time

Four TV shows that I watch when they come out on DVD Boxset:
24, Lost, Alias (till it finished), The West Wing (ditto)

Four places I have holidayed:
St Lucia, Egypt, The Maldives, Zakynthos

Four places I would like to visit:
Only four?? Australia (Sydney Harbour and Uluru particularly), Angkor Wat, Hong Kong, Macchu Picchu

Four people who e-mail/text/call me regularly:
Sarah (via our blogs), Jen, Mum, erm...

Four of my favourite foods:
Pasta, chicken, strawberries, salt (I am an auto-condimenter - I salt my food before I taste it; can't eat without it)

Four things I like doing:
Being in my new house, shopping (although not much of that at the moment other than house-related stuff as I'm broke), travelling, sleeping

Four places I would rather be right now:
I'm still at work right now, so: at home, sitting by a pool in the sun, having a meal (anywhere - I'm starving), in bed

Four things I am looking forward to this year:
Going on holiday - 4 weeks on Sunday!, going to Miami for The Spring Experience (not so much for the conference but to see Keri, Eva, Jill and Annabelle again and to meet Corgan), going to the Lake District for Christmas, my birthday (although I'm not ecstatic about being another year older)

So there you go. How about you?