Badminton: Must Try Harder

Rob, Jen and I went to play badminton on Monday afternoon. I was dreadful, particularly considering I used to play every week for a period of about 6 months while I was in Manchester. Jen and I played in a team against Rob, and he still beat us 4 times. Jen and I played two games against each other and won one each, then Rob and I played and I got trounced, and Jen and Rob played and Jen got trounced, although that was only to be expected. I wish I were better at it because I really enjoy badminton... I'll have to find someone to play with down here.

We left my parents' this morning, but not quite as early as we had planned because we had to turn round and go back for my handbag, which I'd left behind. At least it was only 7 miles into the 300-mile journey... Then I directed us the wrong way off the motorway so we had a 10-mile detour, then the sat nav took us a longer way home because traffic on the A34 was awful. Rob's getting a new car tomorrow so he had put just enough diesel in it to get us home, but because we'd had to do 45 extra miles we had to stop and put a little bit more in the tank to get us home.

Not So Active This Christmas

I just read my post from this time last year and was amazed at how much exercise we did over Christmas! This year, not so much. We went to the gym once in Manchester and once in the Lakes on Christmas Eve, then we played squash on Boxing Day, so that's three lots of exercise in the last week, compared to six lots in the same period last year. A decidedly more sedate pace this year, and it was great.

The casino night on Tuesday was really good - we lost all our 'money' on the blackjack table, but we definitely looked the business in our black tie get-up (no pictures I'm afraid - I remembered to take the camera but didn't remember to use it). There was a set of treasure hunt questions left in our room, so we went round Ambleside on Christmas Eve, doing the treasure hunt as we went. It was a great way to see a bit more of Ambleside - it isn't exactly a huge town, but we don't often get to wander round the back streets. After dinner we went to Midnight Mass at St Mary's Church in Ambleside.

The plan on Christmas Day was to go for breakfast, go on the Christmas Morning walk, have lunch, then open our presents in the afternoon. But we were both really tired and not all that bothered for going on the walk this year, so we stayed in and opened our presents in the morning instead. I did really well, particularly considering I told Rob I didn't need anything this year. Among other things, we both got new pyjamas for Christmas, and we put them on after lunch and spent the rest of the day watching DVDs from bed. Very relaxing :).

Yesterday evening the hotel put on a quiz after dinner, which we sucked at. We were lulled into a false sense of security with the picture round, which they gave out at the beginning and which was collected in at the end after the other 5 rounds have been answered. We knew all 10 of the pictures, but unfortunately the other rounds weren't anywhere near as easy and our strong finish wasn't enough to make up for our appalling showing in the other rounds :(. Good fun though.

We drove to my parents' house this morning and had Christmas again - turkey for lunch, then presents this afternoon. Again, I did really well: all I asked for was an iron (exciting, I know) but I got that and lots more. Mum got a cornet - see Jen's blog for a picture of Mum's first attempt to play it. Keep practising, Mum!

That's More Like It

Southampton to Manchester in 3 hours 45 minutes (not counting a 1-hour stop in Birmingham on the way) - that's much better than the 6 hours it took us to do the same 240-mile journey last Christmas.

We got here around lunchtime on Sunday and in the early afternoon we went to see Grandad, who's been in hospital for the past couple of weeks. They're hoping that he'll be discharged in time for Christmas. Rob bought him The Lord of the Rings trilogy on CD, which he loved, and which will help pass the time while he's in hospital.

After we left the hospital we went back to Rob's parents' and his sister and her kids came round in the early evening. I asked Rob's niece, Leah, if she would like to be my bridesmaid, and after careful consideration she said she would.

Yesterday we spent all day in Manchester, shopping - it was busy but not crazy. Rob decided that seeing as he didn't have his suit (again, very embarrassed and sorry) and seeing as he was intending to buy a tuxedo in the next couple of months anyway, he would buy one now then he could wear it tonight at the hotel's casino night in the Lakes. He bought the tuxedo from Selfridges and whilst the jacket fitted perfectly, the corresponding trousers were a bit big - they needed an inch off the leg and 2 inches off the waist. The guy in Selfridges pointed us in the direction of the tailor/alterations shop they use which is just down the road and they did all the alterations in 90 minutes, which we were amazed at, particularly as the place was packed with people wanting last-minute alterations to Christmas outfits. We could only imagine the kind of sweat shop they were running out the back to get all the clothes altered on time...

This morning Rob's Dad had to take their cat to be put down, which was really sad. She was a stray when Sharen took her in and the vet reckoned she was about 6 at the time, which would make her 14 now. She had a series of seizures in the space of about 20 minutes this morning, which was very sad to watch as there was nothing we could do to help her, so they took her to the vet and he put her to sleep.

We're going for lunch with the guys from Cake in a little while, then we're heading straight off to Ambleside after that.

Merry Christmas!

Early-Onset Dementia Strikes Again

I pride myself on my long-term memory: names, dates, facts and figures, birthdays, anniversaries and so on; plus I'm definitely more of a help than a hinderance on a pub quiz team, even if I do say so myself. But ask me where I left my keys and I've got no idea. I am SO forgetful when it comes to short-term stuff like remembering to make an appointment at the hairdressers, or to take my lunch into work, or even what it was I went upstairs for.

Case in point: The hotel we are going to for Christmas is having a relatively formal dinner on Tuesday evening and I have bought a beautiful LBD to wear (photo to follow, probably - providing I remember to take my camera), so Rob decided he would take his new suit. Except I took it to the dry cleaners inside Sainsbury's about a month ago and forgot to pick it up. It wasn't until he mentioned he wanted to take his suit that I got that awful sinking feeling, realising that the drop-off receipt was still in my wallet.

I'm so annoyed with myself. Rob has been very forgiving and told me it doesn't matter and he will just wear something else, but I still feel so stupid - I was only at Sainsbury's this evening, I could have picked it up; but by the time I remembered, it had closed, and we're leaving early tomorrow morning.

I think I'm going to have to carry a notebook around with me all the time, to write things down as I think of them, then cross them off the list when they're done.

Going up to Manchester tomorrow morning - I don't think the weather or the traffic will be anything like as bad as it was this time last year - to stay with Rob's parents for two nights, then four nights in the Lake District, then three nights at my parents' place, returning home in time for New Year.

One of my orders from Amazon didn't turn up in time, despite the fact that the delivery estimate was last Thursday. Sorry Jen, you'll have to wait till the next time I see you for that present!

Sadly the Best Show on TV Right Now

I just watched Peter Kay's Britain's got the Pop Factor... and possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice and it was brilliant - it summed up reality TV shows perfectly for me (although why they're called 'reality' is beyond me - what's real or everyday about prancing around on a stage and letting people who don't know you pass judgment?). The inane interviews; the sob stories; the ridiculously long pauses before the results are read out; the cheesy lines uttered by judges who take themselves far too seriously; the fact that each act performs for 3 minutes but the show is padded out with 20 minutes of build-up; the stupid amounts of money people pay the phone companies to vote for their favourites, yet they won't pick up the phone and pledge the same amount of money when it comes to things that actually matter like Children in Need or Comic Relief; the hysteria that surrounds the winner for all of three weeks, then they lose their 'fame' as quickly as they found it...

If you haven't seen it before, check out Geraldine's winning performance, which had me in stitches: -



I linked through on YouTube from this video to a clip of the X-Factor final from last Saturday night, and both shows looked as ridiculous as each other - the only difference being that the Peter Kay show knew it...

Change of Heart

Since I moved out of my parents' house, I've never really put up Christmas decorations, because I've never spent Christmas at home. This year, however, I had a real urge to put up a tree, so I went out today and bought one. It had to go in the conservatory because there's no room in the lounge, so before I went to buy it I made sure that the electric heater on the wall in the conservatory actually works - if it hadn't, there wouldn't have been much point putting up a tree at all because it's freezing in there in the winter. We can still see it from the lounge, so that's nice, and I'm really pleased with the way it's turned out. And yes, those boxes on the right really are all our DVDs and CDs, still unpacked from when we moved in 18 months ago... As soon as we get something to put them in, we'll unpack them.

I was going to buy the tree yesterday after work but my legs still weren't functioning very well, so I waited till this morning and hoped I'd get a bit better overnight, which I did. Today I feel slightly more achy than I usually do the day after a hard gym session - but my gym session was 3 days ago now! At least today I don't have to scooch down the stairs on my backside or spend a couple of minutes working out the best way to get up off the sofa...

The Bath Didn't Help

I mean, it was nice - very nice, in fact; nicer than I expected and I'm going to have another one tonight because it's warmer than sitting downstairs - but it didn't help with the post-gym aches, which got worse overnight to the point that I'm walking like John Wayne today because my quad muscles don't work. When I wanted to roll over in bed last night I actually had to hold the edge of the bed and pull myself over, because I couldn't push with my legs. Plus I had to use the lift at work to go up one floor because I'm not currently able to use the stairs. Standing up and sitting down are proving a bit of a problem too.

My shoulders, lower back, sides, abs and arms are also aching, which means I can't laugh, cough, sneeze, lift anything heavy, bend down etc.

Sigh.

Nothing Works

Killer PT session this morning. We did squats until I couldn't walk, then crunches until I couldn't breathe, then boxing and press-ups until I couldn't lift my arms.

You know when you do some hard exercise - gym, gardening, whatever - and think 'I'm going to feel this in my muscles tomorrow...'? Well, no Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness for me today - more like Instant Onset. My muscles were already hurting before I even left the gym. I got in the shower at home and could barely hold my arms above my head long enough to wash my hair, and putting on my mascara afterwards was hilarious - I couldn't get my arm to stop shaking. I had to remind myself to get up from my desk every 30 minutes or so, so I wouldn't seize up entirely, and I did loads of stretches throughout the day in the hope that it would help.

I'm going for a bath. Yep, it's that serious.

Half-Way Already

I noticed today that my wedding countdown ticker says there are 200 days to go until our wedding. I then worked out (via the wonder that is www.timeanddate.com) that it's exactly 200 days since we got engaged, which means that half the time between getting engaged and getting married has already passed. That was quick...

It's Great to be Retired

I've experienced what it is to be retired this week - my parents certainly seem to enjoy it.

Tuesday morning we went to the village hall to play indoor bowls - actually I was only going to watch, but I was persuaded to play as there weren't many there. I was rubbish at it, but apparently nobody played particularly well so my sporting inadequacies weren't too conspicuous.

On Wednesday Mum and I went into Stockton then met Sarah for coffee at Starbucks - her fiance Jon joined us too. It was great to meet him - Sarah's been engaged to him for over a year. Then on Wednesday afternoon we went to Dalton Park outlet mall. I stayed in Wednesday evening and spoke to Rob and Jen on the phone and skyped with Jill for quite a while.

Thursday was bowls day again - more people there this time, but I was still invited to play. I think if it's possible, I played worse than I had on Tuesday. Then after lunch we were going to go shopping but we got so involved in the daily sudoku and crossword puzzle from the paper that by the time we looked up it was 15:30 and half the afternoon had gone by. We ate early and went to see the play that Dad was doing the sound and lights for - Funny Money, a farce. It was good, but Mum and I both agreed that we prefer other genres of play - farces just make us annoyed that the actors seem incapable of making a decision that doesn't land them in trouble...

On Friday we went to Teesside Park to do some shopping, then in the afternoon we set about dismantling these collages of photos Mum had put together of Jen for her 30th birthday in August. While we were putting the photos back into their albums we spent some time looking through the albums generally - so much time that we only got round to putting about a third of the photos back in their places. We'll have to do the rest at Christmas. Jen arrived in time for dinner on Friday and we stayed in the rest of the evening.

On Saturday morning Jen and I went to Claire and Andrew's wedding in Stockton, then on Saturday afternoon I visited Louise, a friend from school, and in the evening I went with Mum to Middlesbrough Town Hall to watch her sing in Cleveland Philharmonic Choir's presentation of the Dream of Gerontius by Edward Elgar, while Dad went to the last night of his play and Jen went to the evening do of Claire and Andrew's wedding.

After church this morning and lunch, I left Mum & Dad's at around 14:30 this afternoon and got home at 19:30 - the only long journey of the week, as I'd travelled up north in 3 stages of no longer than 2.5 hours each. I had a great week - busy but very relaxing at the same time. And I can definitely see why Mum & Dad love being retirees so much!

Busy Weekend

What a lot of people I've seen this weekend!

On Thursday, while still feeling snotty and horrible, I went round to see Jill who'd just got off a plane from Seattle. I didn't stay long because I didn't want her to get my lurgey as a 'Welcome to the UK' present, but I did want to say Hi before I left town for a week.

On Friday I left work around 11:15 and drove 2.5 hours up to Kingswinford, outside Birmingham, and spent a couple of hours with my friend Sally. From there I drove 2 hours up to Manchester, checked into the hotel and went to bed early, trying to get better before my weekend of visiting people. I spent most of the night on the phone to Rob and Expedia - despite the fact that I had a confirmation e-mail from Expedia, the hotel I'd booked for Rob in Vancouver had no record of his reservation, so I was awake between 02:40 and 04:15 sorting that out, then I was still awake at 05:10 and didn't really sleep properly after that so I got up at 07:30.

Saturday morning I met Catherine for a couple of hours, then in the afternoon Helen, Clare and I all went round to Nikki's house, where I met Nikki's daughter Evie for the first time and caught up with Helen's son Sam and Clare's son Harry. Saturday evening Clare and I went out for a meal, which was lovely.

Sunday I went to the outlet mall at Salford Quays to buy wedding stationery then went round to see Barry, my friend from Stockton (where I grew up), his wife Becky and their kids Olivia (2.5) and Alex (4.5 months). I went to church with them at 12:30 then later in the afternoon I went round to see Rob's parents for a few hours. Sunday evening I met up with Lynda, Marie, Nancy and Jean, who I originally worked with 8 years ago at a solicitor's firm in Manchester, although I've worked with Lynda and Marie more recently than that as well.

This morning I went to Glossop to visit Rob's Grandma - Grandad's in hospital at the moment so unfortunately I didn't get to see him too - then I left there and drove a couple of hours up to my Mum & Dad's near Stockton, which is where I am now. I've been out for a meal this evening with my friend Sarah, which was great, and I've arranged to meet her for a coffee on Wednesday so I can meet her fiance Jon.

I'm feeling a lot better - my nose has dried up a lot, although it's still not right, and the dreaded cough has come back. Still, I think I managed to see a total of 24 people between Friday and today and not pass my germs on to any of them. That's got to be some sort of record.

Plans for the rest of the week? Bowls tomorrow morning, some shopping, my Dad's the sound and lighting engineer for the local amateur dramatics society, which is doing a play this week so we'll go to that on Thursday, going to a wedding Saturday morning, and a concert that my Mum's singing in on Saturday night...

This was supposed to be a relaxing week - I'm busier this week than I ever am at home!

Relapse

I'm annoyed. The cold that I had a couple of weeks ago has come back. I spent all of last week and the beginning of this week still trying to shake off the cough that came with the original cold, and I realised yesterday that it was almost better. Then yesterday afternoon my nose starting getting bunged up again and today I've just been in a cycle of sneezing and blowing my nose all day.

Although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised - I do have next week off work. As I've mentioned before, I do have an alarmingly high ratio of being poorly when I have time booked off work anyway. Apparently it's an actual medical condition: you panic so much about getting prepared for being off work that you run on an adrenaline high for a few days beforehand, then when you're off work and the adrenaline drops, you get sick. I haven't been especially panicky about being off work this time, though, and I've been very prepared - I started packing on Tuesday night and finished it last night because I was supposed to be going to the pub quiz tonight but this stupid cold has put a stop to that, and I'm leaving straight from work to go up to Manchester tomorrow. So maybe I'm sick because I need the week off and my body's winding down. Either way, it sucks.

I'm really hoping I'll feel a lot better by Saturday afternoon because I'm seeing Helen, Clare and Nikki and their kids (one each) who are aged 2, 6 months and 6 weeks and I really don't want to pass my germs on.

Home Alone

Rob's gone to San Francisco today. He's there till Friday, then he's flying to Vancouver for a week, then Florida the week after that for SpringOne.

So I'm home alone for nearly 3 weeks. Although I'm hoping that I'll hardly notice - I went out this afternoon with Adrian, Sara and the kids, then went to church this evening; I'm going out Wednesday night and Thursday night, then I've got next week off work. I'm driving up to Manchester on Friday night and spending the weekend there, then going on to Mum & Dad's next week, coming back the following Sunday. Then there are only 4 days until Rob gets back. And then only 3 weeks till Christmas!

Some People

The phone rang today at the office. Which isn't a big deal; it rings a few times in an average day, but today wasn't an average day. It was Remembrance Day, and this particular caller decided to ring at 11:01, right in the middle of the two minutes' silence.

I told him off.

Healthy Eating & Exercise vs The Influenza Diet

Healthy Eating & Exercise

Pros
Allows you to lose weight slowly and healthily, avoiding the risk of piling on the pounds again once you've reached your goal weight.

Cons
It requires months, even years, of dedication and commitment - it's not going to happen overnight.

The Influenza Diet

Pros
The feeling of not wanting to eat because you know you're only going to throw it straight back up contributes to the dramatic weight loss this diet promises - 1lb a day or more. Note that this diet is a variation on the Salmonella Diet Rob tried a few years ago with even more dramatic results - 15lbs in 10 days.

Cons
You have to be prepared to feel awful for days - and you know you'll only gain anything you lose when you feel well enough to start eating again.

The Verdict

Whilst I'm currently experiencing the latter, albeit involuntarily, give me the former any day.

Poorly Sick

I'm ill. To prove the point, I had a bath today, something I only do when I'm sick and even then not very often - I haven't had a bath at all since we moved here almost 18 months ago, for example. Still, it gave me a chance to try out the jacuzzi jets in the bath - very nice, although I got bored after about 10 minutes.

Yesterday afternoon I started feeling really achy - my neck and lower back, then my arms and legs. I was also freezing, despite the fact that the office was warm. I went to bed at 21:00 and during the course of the night I woke up about half a dozen times absolutely drenched in sweat, yet when I pushed back the covers I was freezing. I got up at 03:30 and went downstairs to watch some of the election coverage - at that point Obama had 207 votes to McCain's 135 and they were expecting California to come in any minute.

I got up at 07:30 and went downstairs to watch the breakfast news. My arms, legs, neck and back were still aching, plus my throat was quite scratchy and I'd developed a cough overnight, and my entire head was just one big round pain. I was supposed to have my PT session this morning, so Rob went instead - his session is tomorrow, so he said we should just swap, although I'm not going to be better by tomorrow so I've called Ben to cancel for this week. By the time Rob got back from the gym just after 09:00 I had already gone back to bed. I slept right through until 14:50, then I checked my e-mails, had a bath, took some painkillers and went downstairs for a while, but I was back in bed again by 17:20. The painkillers have taken the edge off the aches and pains, but my nose is now quite blocked and my throat is definitely getting worse.

So no fireworks for me this Bonfire Night - although I can hear lots of them going off outside. More sleep is in order, I think. Night night.

I am not in the office...

Actually, I am still at work - I'm waiting for it to be time to go and see Bond, but I've just come across this great story on the BBC website: -

When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed.

Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated".

So that was what went up under the English version which barred lorries from a road near a supermarket.

Interim Results Are In

I had my weight/body fat measurements taken again at the gym this morning. I've lost 2lbs of real weight, but that's not the full story: I've put on muscle and have lost 5lbs of fat. I'm pleased with that, as it hasn't really taken much effort - apart from 5 days a week killing myself at the gym ;). What I mean is, I have been basically eating what I like since I started my PT sessions with Ben, so if I can get those results while eating rubbish, I should be able to do even better now that I'm concentrating on eating properly as well as exercising.

A celebratory Victoria Sponge is in order tonight, I think ;).

Getting Prepared

Today I made, wrote and addressed 20 Christmas cards, and ordered presents for Rob, Jen and my parents online. This last week I took delivery of a load of Christmas presents I'd ordered from Amazon recently. Organised or what?

Actually, I'm trying to spread out the cost of Christmas a bit better this year, as I usually fork out a lot of money in December then spend January, February and March trying to clear my overdraft.

Bedtime now - 23:15 is late for me, but as it's daylight savings tonight it's really only 22:15...

Are you 18?

That was the question the checkout lady asked me when I bought a craft knife from Hobbycraft yesterday afternoon. I took great delight in telling her I was less than a month away from being 32...

Bridesmaids: Check

Jen and Alicia, my adult bridesmaids, came over this weekend and we went to the bridal shop on Saturday morning to try dresses on (and I also put my wedding dress on; still love it, so no panics there). As I mentioned in a previous post, I already bought a dress for each of them, and Saturday was just about making sure that there weren't any other ones out there that we liked better. There was one dress at the bridal shop that was a clear favourite, but we decided that it wasn't any nicer than the ones we already had (plus it was twice the price) so we stuck to the original ones.

This means that we now have a colour scheme for the wedding, so Rob can choose what he wants the men to wear based on the colour we've got for the bridesmaids - which was actually his preferred colour, so that's worked out quite well. I still need to buy dresses for my two younger bridesmaids, but there's no point in getting them until nearer the time as they'll have grown out of them by the time the wedding comes around if I get them now.

Still need to find a band, then that's the big things out of the way and I can stop thinking about the wedding till after Christmas...

Busted

Last night I took my laptop to bed - something I never do, but I had been out at a pub quiz all evening (which we won, despite someone in our team insisting that the Clifton Suspension Bridge spanned the River Severn) and when I got back home I wanted to go straight to bed but also check my e-mails.

This morning I woke up, noticed my laptop lying beside me on the bed, turned it on and signed in to Facebook before doing anything else - before even turning the light on. Then I checked out my RSS feed and there was a new entry from xkcd.com (Rob suggested I subscribe to it; some of the more techie ones go over my head but mostly they're good for a laugh), which went as follows: -

Caught red-handed.

Dancing and Marilyn Monroe

For most of the other entries I've written about theatre productions, I've tried to use a line from one of the songs in the title of my blog entry to sum up my thoughts on the show. But I can't think of anything suitable for this one, so you'll have to make do with two of the common themes in the songs...

Last night was the girls' trip to see Blood Brothers at the Mayflower in Southampton. What started out as just me and Clare turned into a group of 15 of us going - most of the girls from the office, plus wives/girlfriends/daughters of most of the men from the office - and I think everyone enjoyed it. Most of us went for a meal beforehand at the Italian restaurant near to the theatre, then we met up with the others just before the show started.

Marti Webb played the female lead, Mrs Johnstone, and generally was very good, although not as good as Linda Nolan, who played her when I saw the show 5 years ago in Manchester. The two male leads, Mickey and Eddie, and their friend Linda, were all excellent, really convincing first as 7-year-olds, then as teenagers and later as adults.

When I saw the show in Manchester, I lost interest a little bit in the middle of the first half, but not this time; this was probably due to the fact that I've listened to the soundtrack a gazillion times and I know all the words - this time I had to force myself not to sing out loud so the people around me wouldn't complain.

The show is clearly a favourite among English/Drama teachers as it definitely lends itself to a 'what can we learn as a society from this play' discussion. There were lots of school parties there, which made being able to get a good view less of a problem as there were little people everywhere, but it did detract from the atmosphere a bit - there were giggles every time someone dropped a bottle of Coke on the floor, for example, and the entire balcony let out a collective gasp when Mickey told his mother that Linda was pregnant.

The last scene was fantastic. What's amazing about this show is that the first scene is the ending, so you know how the play ends, then the rest of the show is a flashback of how they all got to that point. But even though I knew how the show would end, and even though the kids all around me were doing their best to ruin the atmosphere, I still welled up when they sang Tell Me It's Not True.

Go and see this show. Worth every penny, even the second time around. And it will be worth it when I see it for the third time too, although I hope I won't have to wait another five years to see it again.

Here Come the Girls

Two of my favourite girls have had a tough weekend, but both have seen great results at the end of it.

Sarah ran the Chicago marathon today in ridiculously difficult conditions, akin to those at the 2007 London Marathon - where 5,000 people needed medical treatment. In Sarah's own words, 'Hardest race of my life bar none. I struggled from mile 3 and nearly dropped out at mile 11. I can't believe I even made it to the end! Don't remember last mile. Apparently two men helped me cross the line and I collapsed, fitting. Don't remember anything until dunked into ice bath in medical tent. 2 liters of saline drip later and I was finally compus mentus enough to stop watch. 4.12. What did I actually do please?'

Well, she did an absolutely fantastic 3:37:58, in appalling conditions. Well done Sarah! That's two of the World Marathon Majors (Chicago and Berlin) ticked off the list; just three (New York, Boston & London) to go now!

Nikki, on the other hand, was fighting a different kind of battle. After a 36-hour labour, Evie was born on Saturday morning. In Nikki's own words, 'Blimey that hurt!'

Congratulations Nikki & Will!

Got My Wheels Back

I've been (almost) without a car for a month. My road tax ran out at the end of August, and the DVLA sends you a letter notifying you that your tax is about to run out, then you take that letter, along with your V5 (registration of ownership) form, MOT certificate and insurance certificate, to the Post Office and buy a new tax disc to display in your front windscreen. I didn't receive the letter this year, because the DVLA still thought that my car was registered to Rob at our old address (last year we had mail forwarding for 6 months after we moved, so that time the letter was re-directed to our new house). It wasn't until a couple of days before the end of August that I realised that not only would I not receive the reminder letter, I couldn't actually find the V5 in any case, although I did have my MOT certificate and insurance certificate. So I applied for a new V5 using the application form that people use when they've acquired a car but the previous owner didn't pass on the V5.

The DVLA's website said it would take up to 4 weeks to process my application for a new V5, and 'if your car tax runs out during that period, do not drive it'. Given that my tax had already run out by the time I sent my application form off, the bit about not driving definitely applied to me. The first week was fine as I was in Austria, but since then I've had to rely on Rob to take me everywhere.

I finally got my V5 through the post last Thursday, so I planned to go to the Post Office on Saturday with all my documents. But of course, when it came round to Saturday, I couldn't remember where I'd put my MOT and insurance certificates...

I spent much of the weekend looking for them, but when it got to Monday and I still hadn't found them, I had to call my insurance company to ask them to send a new policy certificate, and I had to go back to the garage where I had my MOT done and pay £10 (and wait half an hour) for a copy certificate.

So despite the fact that I have saved money by not having to fill the tank up for ages, I am nevertheless pleased to say that I got my car tax this morning and I am now legally allowed on the road again. I wonder where I might go with my new-found freedom? Probably to Sainsbury's. Woo hoo.

Progress

I'm on the fifth week of the fitness plan compiled by my PT, Ben. Four weeks ago, I cycled 4.52km in 20 minutes on level 12. Yesterday I cycled 7.67km.

Plus I got on the scales this morning for the first time in ages and I have gone down 4lbs in weight and also decreased my body fat by a couple of percentage points.

I've still got a long way to go (about 16lbs but more importantly, about 10 percentage points in fat) but I've got plenty of time - there's still over 6 months to go till my first dress fitting - and I want to take things slowly and steadily to minimise the risk of piling weight back on again after the wedding, but I'm pleased with my progress so far.

Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika

Rebecca and I went to see the African Children's Choir on Saturday evening. I first saw the choir about 15 years ago - a different group of children, obviously. The organisation is now 24 years old and the group we saw on Saturday was the 32nd choir. They currently have five tours going on - four in the US/Canada and one in the UK - and the money raised from the tours goes to help up to 7,000 children in Africa get an education.

The kids in the choir we saw on Saturday were all from South Africa, which was a nice surprise as Rebecca lived in South Africa from the age of 9 to her early twenties, so it brought back lots of good memories for her and made her feel quite nostalgic. Having seen the choir before, I knew that there was a strong possibility that they would reduce me to tears, so at least I went in prepared for that this time round. I didn't turn completely into a blubbering mess, though - I managed to hold it together most of the time. One of the chaperones introduced the choir by saying that almost all of the children had lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS, and a couple of minutes later they came running onto the stage, singing, dancing, smiling, shouting, laughing... It really made me wonder what I have to complain about.

The chaperones who accompany the kids are all volunteers, and one of Jen's friends from university is a chaperone this year. She's one of the kids' teachers during the day and she makes sure none of them wanders off at night at the concerts - which is something that apparently they are prone to do, because they're all usually buzzing after a performance ;). Her husband is the sound and lighting engineer for the concerts, and once this tour finishes in December they will both go back to South Africa with the kids and teach in one of the schools that the choir's parent organisation, Music for Life, has set up.

It was fantastic to see results from the work that the choirs and Music for Life have put in over the last 25 years - the choir's conductor is a previous choir member, as is Godfrey, one of the chaperones who, as well as joining in with an incredible rendition of O Happy Day, also told us that his involvement with the choir meant that he was able to get good schooling and he's gone on to get a degree in Computer Science.

Check out their itinerary for concerts near you - you won't regret it. Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika - God Bless Africa.

I Give In

Well, I made it to October without giving in, but after sitting here in the middle of the day with a blanket round my legs, I have just succumbed to the cold and put the heating on because, in my Dad's words, it's perishing cold. It's strange to think that I was wearing flip flops last Sunday night, but during the course of the last 6 days it has definitely turned very autumnal indeed. At least one night last week I decided to go to bed early because it was warmer there than sitting downstairs.

In other news, I had two bridesmaids' dresses delivered this morning. After Jen and I tried a load on in London the other week and decided that one in particular was really nice, my Mum got details of a 15% discount offer from the shop that it came from. When she went onto the website, she noticed that the dresses were reduced already by 20%, which was great but it made me a bit nervous because I took that to mean that they were probably end of line and once they sold out, they wouldn't be getting any more in.

I've arranged for Jen and my other adult bridesmaid, my cousin Alicia, to come over in 2 weeks' time to try dresses on at the bridal shop where I got my dress, but I was worried that if we didn't find anything we liked, there was a chance that the ones Jen and I had already seen would be out of stock. So I bought two of these dresses the other day and if we see anything nicer in a fortnight's time I'll just send these ones back. They were delivered this morning and I'm really pleased with them, so even if we don't find anything better in a couple of weeks, we know we've got some lovely dresses already. And at a third off the retail price!

Tomorrow, Tomorrow...

I've realised that there's a pattern emerging with the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton. If they get to the week before a performance and there are still quite a few tickets left, they put out a 2-for-1 offer on the top price seats. It was this offer that persuaded Clare and me to go and see Hello Dolly in June, and last week I noticed that the same offer was being made for Annie this week. So we went last night. Clare hasn't seen the film, and I don't think I've seen it all the way through, but we figured it was worth £15 to find out what the play was like.

It occurred to me as we arrived that given the subject matter, there was a high probability that there would be lots of children in the audience, and I was right. Which was great on the one hand because it meant we had no problem seeing everything, unlike last time when the tallest people in Southampton sat in front of us, but it also brought with it its own problems, like the constant sound of sweets being opened and the more frequent than usual trips to the toilet during the performance. It didn't help that the floor isn't carpeted, so the sound of every Mum's high heels tapping on the floor resonated throughout the auditorium.

We didn't buy a programme, so we don't actually know the name of the girl playing Annie, but suffice to say that we got to the interval and Clare said 'I don't know what it is about her, but that girl's quite annoying!' Which kind of summed her up, although I remember from the film that she was a little bit annoying there too. So we gave her the benefit of the doubt, and we actually started warming to her in the second half. She was clearly a young British girl working very hard at a New York accent, so in places it seemed quite strained, but she did very well - no doubt better than most people could do at 12.

Miss Hannigan was played by Ruth Madoc of Hi-de-Hi fame, and I thought she would be pretty good, but she was only OK. That could be something to do with the fact that the part wasn't as big as the one in the film, but even so I thought she could have made a lot more of the part than she did.

But truly the star of the show was Sandy, the stray dog that Annie takes in. Again, this part in the play was reduced compared to the film, but for obvious reasons - what is it they say? Never work with children or animals? Well, this show had both ;). The dog was fantastic, sitting perfectly still when people were singing into his ear, and obeying every command - except the last one, when the cast came on stage to take their bows and he decided he was going to sit with his back to the audience, and no amount of coercion from Annie would persuade him to turn round.

As ever, I thought that the orchestra was amazing, but too loud for the voices, meaning the words of the songs were often lost, but the dog made up for all that. All in all, not bad. Not worth a full-price ticket, but a good night's entertainment for £15.

Brown

Apart from my jeans, which I wear every day (not the same pair, obviously), all the clothes I wear fall into the brown/cream colour palette. I've been wearing these colours almost exclusively for a couple of years now, and when I'm out shopping I rarely even look at something if it's not in that part of the colour spectrum.

Until today. I'm going out this evening and I realised that I don't have any smart-ish trousers that I can wear with heels - a few pairs started out as dress trousers, but I managed to shrink most of them in the wash so they're now short length instead of medium length. So I went to Marks & Spencer this afternoon on the quest for a new outfit. I made three trips to the fitting rooms, trying on trousers and tops of all different colours and styles; I even took stuff into the fitting room that, on first glance, I wouldn't be seen dead in, because I know I'm not great at visualising how clothes will look on me as opposed to on the hanger. So after well over an hour and having tried on almost 30 pieces of clothing, this is what I came away with: -

Brown trousers
Cream blouse
Light brown sweater
Brown shoes

and, wait for it: -

Dark pink top

But now that I've got it home, I've changed my mind about the top so I'm going to take it back.

If you thought last week was boring

This week it's been more of the same (no headaches thankfully), except I didn't get to go out for dinner.

Ben, my personal trainer, has got me writing down everything I eat and drink so he can make suggestions on how to improve my nutrition. It has actually made me start to eat better - the stark reality of seeing 'half packet chocolate chip cookies' in black and white and knowing that someone else will judge me on it has made me more careful about what I eat. Or at least, what I admit to eating :).

It has also made me realise that for a vegetarian, I eat very little in the way of fruit and vegetables, particularly fruit. Must try harder there. I made up a batch of vegetable soup tonight that I can take into the office, so that's a start, and I'll try and remember to have a piece of fruit as a snack at least once a day. The trouble is, I can take or leave apples, and I don't like pears or bananas, so I find it hard to get excited about picking up a piece of fruit and eating it like everyone else does. Maybe a smoothie would do the trick.

Talking of blenders (almost), when I was making my vegetable soup this evening I spooned it into the blender and when I turned it on, the lid came off and splatted cabbage, onions and peppers all over my extractor fan and splashback. But the cleaner's coming tomorrow ;).

Go Tell Aunt Nancy

I taught my first piano lesson in about 13 years on Saturday morning. When I was a kid, I took recorder and piano lessons all the way through secondary school, and my recorder teacher, who was excellent, started to get more requests for lessons than she had time to give, so she asked if I wanted to teach some of the newbies. I did it for about 4 years altogether, from the age of about 14 to 18, and by the time I came to doing my A-levels I had quite a few pupils, learning recorder and piano - kids who were on the waiting list for my teacher, plus kids from the village, etc. I only gave lessons between 4pm and 5.30pm (after school and before meal time), but I did it most days after school and my earnings ended up paying for two trips to the USA, so I didn't do too badly out of it.

Then I went to university and all my pupils went to different teachers. Between then and last November, I didn't have a piano to be able to teach (it's still required for non-piano lessons), but I was asked recently to take on a relative newbie because her teacher is struggling so much with morning sickness that she had had to postpone all her morning teaching until she's past the sicky stage of her pregnancy.

So I have a temporary pupil. We're only at the very beginnings of learning to play the piano - thumb on middle C, fingers on the next four notes - and it's her first musical instrument so not only do I have to teach the piano, I also have to teach the basics of music, so there's lots of talk of treble and bass clefs, beats in the bar, minims and crotchets etc. But so far so good.

And the going rate for a half-hour lesson has almost doubled since I last did any teaching :).

Nothing to see here

Saturday: Unpack, gym, four loads of washing, tidy up the house, trip to supermarket, bed at 21:00;
Sunday: Gym, 3-foot tall pile of ironing, more tidying up, church in the evening then Chinese takeaway (diet starts tomorrow), bed at 22:00;
Monday: Work, gym, stir fry for dinner, catch up on two episodes of Ugly Betty, talk to Mum and Jen on the phone, bed at 21:30;
Tuesday: Gym, work, soup for dinner, catch up on two episodes of Desperate Housewives, bed at 21:30;
Wednesday: PT Session (circuits - half-dead afterwards), work, frittata for dinner, blinding headache so 2 painkillers and bed at 20:15;
Thursday: No gym today (arms don't function after yesterday), work, out for dinner with Ben and his parents, bed at 22:00;
Today: Off sick with another appalling headache, need to go to supermarket later today, then risotto for dinner and early to bed.

So apart from the dinner last night, not the most exciting of weeks. Things are looking up, though - I've got 3 more loads of washing and ironing to do and the freezer to defrost this weekend.

It really is an emergency, honest

I was surfing my way through the BBC website earlier and came across an article that said a police force in Scotland was again reminding people only to use the emergency 999 phone number to make emergency calls. Apparently this latest reminder stemmed from the fact that a woman who had bought a pet rabbit via an advert in the newspaper called 999 to say that the rabbit's ears weren't floppy.

The article goes on to say that another woman called 999 to complain that a car had driven through a puddle and soaked her, and when the call centre staff told her she shouldn't use 999 for that type of call, she hurled abuse at them.

I did some more research and found some other examples of inappropriate 999 calls:

• "Do you know a good stain remover?"
• "There's a rat in my kitchen"
• "I can't turn my tap off"
• "I think my neighbour is a spy"
• "My wife's gone out and there's no food in the house"
• "What year did the Internet start?"

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at my fellow human beings.

Welcome to the Sixties

The last call on the whistle-stop tour of the West End was Hairspray on Saturday night at the Shaftesbury Theatre. We deliberately picked Spamalot as the one we would see at the matinee performance because we knew that understudies tend to play the matinees, and out of the three shows, that was the one we would be least disappointed to see the understudy in one of the main parts. As it turned out, the only understudy we saw all weekend was Charlotte Riby in the role of Tracy Turnblad on Saturday night, in place of Leanne Jones, who won the Best Actress Olivier Award for this part earlier this year, but we needn't have worried - Charlotte was fantastic. And besides, the most important thing was seeing Michael Ball in the role of Edna, and he didn't disappoint. I guess you could say that Michael Ball is the British equivalent of someone like Donny Osmond - he has large fan club, mainly composed of middle-aged women, but I think seeing him in 3-inch heels and wearing a fat suit would probably take the edge off the attraction, even for die-hard fans :).

Although on the surface it's a 'bubblegum' musical full of feel-good music, it does deal very honestly with the issue of segregation in 1960s America. The show also challenged me on a level I never expected: the first song is 'Good Morning Baltimore', where Tracy sings about the fact that she wakes up every morning excited about the day ahead and eager to find out what might be in store for her. It made me wonder why I don't get up and say 'Good Morning Southampton', at least if not literally then metaphorically. There's loads in my life to be thankful for, and yet I invariably start the day cursing that I have to go to the gym, or complaining about the weather, or wishing I could stay in bed an hour longer. I should start looking at things more positively: half of the world's population has to make do with living on less than a dollar a day, but I'm part of the half that doesn't, and I don't stop and think often enough about how many good things I have in my life. Of course, I don't expect an opportunity as life-changing as helping to eradicate segregation will come along every day, but perhaps I could keep an eye out for the smaller opportunities and take advantage of them more often...

Back to the show. As I mentioned, the songs are all so uplifting that it's hard not to like it, even if you're not a fan of musicals. We thoroughly enjoyed the show and I would definitely pay to see it again.

I'm a vegetarian - not that keen on Spam

After a morning of looking round Camden Market and bridesmaid dress hunting on Oxford Street, Saturday afternoon saw us at the Palace Theatre for the matinee of Spamalot, which describes itself as 'lovingly ripped off from the motion picture; sets musical theatre back a thousand years'. The title comes from a line in one of the songs, where the knights sing 'we eat ham, and jam, and Spam a lot.'

It's the story of King Arthur (played by Sanjeev Bhaskar, who was excellent) and his Knights of the Round Table as they set out to find the Holy Grail - which turns out to be in a very interesting place, but I won't say where in case you go and see it. There are lots of laugh-out-loud moments in the show, like when King Arthur rides onto the stage with his servant Patsy, who's making clip-clip noises with two coconut halves because they don't have an actual horse, which gives rise to a discussion about where a Briton in the year 932 AD would get a coconut from (perhaps two swallows carried it from warmer climbs while migrating back to Britain for the summer), and there are some very blatant yet very funny digs at established Broadway/West End musicals, including 'The Song That Goes Like This', which includes all the elements of a Broadway song between the romantic leads - a sickly-sweet tune, lots of key changes and high notes, furtive looks and a kiss at the end.

I enjoyed this show, am glad I saw it and would recommend it if you're looking for the lighter side of West End musicals, but I wouldn't see it again. A musical has to move me in some way - either to tears, as in the case of shows like Blood Brothers, Les Miserables or Miss Saigon, or to a greater appreciation of someone or something, as Evita, Jersey Boys and Buddy do, or else it should uplift me, like The Lion King, Joseph and Hairspray (more on that one later) do. Spamalot did none of those things. It succeeded in its primary goal, which was to make me laugh, and it didn't pretend to do anything more than that, but for me, I'd need something else to make me see it again. But if you are looking for a less hardcore introduction to the West End, this is definitely right up your street.

Go, Go, Go, Joseph

Last weekend was Jen's birthday present from me - we met up in London for the weekend and saw three shows: Joseph on Friday night, Spamalot on Saturday afternoon and Hairspray on Saturday night.

I arrived in London about half an hour before Jen did, so I had just enough time to get to the hotel and check in before walking up to Leicester Square tube station to meet her. We had a quick meal at Bella Italia and walked over to the Adelphi theatre. When we were at school we had both been involved in a production of Joseph, and even 20 years later (yes, something else I just realised was 20 years ago already) I found that I could remember most of the words - including all the colours of the dreamcoat ;). This actually turned out to be quite a good thing for me, because in my opinion the orchestra was a bit too loud for the singers and the words were lost in places. This was particularly obvious in the second half when Pharaoh sang a song that wasn't in the original show, so I didn't know the words, and I barely caught any of them. I thought that was a real shame, particularly for the people in the audience who hadn't played Naphtali, one of the twelve brothers, in a school production (there weren't enough boys...) and didn't already know the words, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves anyway.

Joseph was played by Lee Mead, who got the part through 'Any Dream Will Do', one of those awful 'reality TV' talent shows that seem to have permeated every echelon of society. I absolutely despise those shows - anything that involves people being eliminated or call-in phone numbers for people to vote does not go down well with me - and I felt that I was paying a premium for the tickets because the 'People's Joseph' was in it, so I would love to be able to say that he was only OK in the role, but in all honesty he was very good indeed (and of course, if I had wanted to protest my disgust at TV talent shows, I could always have boycotted Joseph and booked tickets for something else entirely, but the truth was I was looking forward to hearing all the songs again). But my favourite people in the show were the 30 or so school kids who sat at each side of the stage and sang all the chorus parts. The set was great - it looked a bit like a giant picture frame tilted slightly backwards. I would definitely recommend the show - although if you're not bothered for seeing Lee Mead, wait until he's finished his run and they have a less famous actor in the role; the ticket prices will probably go down...

The Joy of Air Travel

I'll blog this week about the fab weekend I've just had in London with Jen but I wanted to get this off my chest in the meantime...

I flew with Rob and Adrian from Southampton to Linz in Austria yesterday, via Frankfurt. Because our flights weren't with code-sharing airlines (SOU-FRA was with Flybe, and FRA-LNZ was with Lufthansa), we had to pick up our bags in Frankfurt as if we were ending our journey, then check them onto our Linz flight as if it were a new journey. We were happy to do this as there was a decent layover time between flights, and the only alternative was to go to Heathrow and fly to Frankfurt then on to Linz from there, which took exactly the same length of time as the Southampton option once you'd factored in 1.5 hours to get to Heathrow.

The flight from Southampton to Frankfurt was fairly uneventful - unless you count me being very thoroughly frisked at security; I swear the woman thought I was carrying explosives in my underwires. We arrived into Terminal 2 at Frankfurt and picked up our bags from the carousel. We knew we had to get to Terminal 1 for our next flight, so we followed the signs for the Air Train that runs between the terminals. When we got to the train stop at Terminal 1, we were immediately asked for our flight documentation, which we produced. Then straight after that we had to go through security, which I thought was a bit weird, because I still had my suitcase with me, but I didn't consider it altogether strange - when Jen and I had come back from Turkey in May, the airport at Bodrum scanned all luggage, including suitcases destined for the hold, at the front door of the airport, so I figured they were just doing the same thing here.

Until a woman behind the scanner looked at me and asked if this was my suitcase, to which I replied Yes. She opened it up, went straight for my toiletry bag, pulled out a 250ml bottle of conditioner and a very expensive aerosol can of heat-protecting spray for when I'm using my hair straighteners, and gave me the look. You know, the look that says 'the rules about liquids have been in place for over two years, what planet have you been on?'

'Yes,' I said.

She looked at me again. 'You can't take this onto the plane'.

'I don't intend to, I haven't even got to check-in yet,' I replied. 'I'm going to put my bag in the hold'.

'But this is the last line of security before you get on the plane,' she said, 'you should have checked in while you were in Terminal 2.'

I was getting quite annoyed now, and told her I had never in my life had to check in at a different terminal from the one I was leaving from, but nevertheless she told me that that was what I had to do if I wanted to get my over-sized bottles and illegal hand-luggage items past her and into the terminal. I asked her where the signs were that told me to check in before transferring terminals and she said, and I quote:

'There aren't any signs because this is is just a temporary measure. Normally you check in at Terminal 1.'

My patience was truly being tested at this point, to the extent that Rob (who, incidentally, had managed to make his way past the scanner while carrying a 250ml bottle of shampoo of his own) came back over to where I was standing and tried to get me to calm down. My protestations at my predicament and suggestions that temporary measures be accompanied by temporary signage seemed to fall on deaf ears, so in the end I admitted defeat and told the woman to throw away my toiletries, hoping that Eva would have some conditioner I could use. I was just about to ask the woman why it was that she would confiscate those two things, yet leave me with a razor and a pair of nail scissors in my luggage, but I figured that drawing her attention to those items could only end badly for me, so I decided to cut my losses and keep quiet.

Once in Terminal 1, every Lufthansa check-in desk we got to was completely deserted. Rob ended up asking two separate people wearing Lufthansa uniforms where we should check in. They both said that we could check in at our gate, so we went off upstairs to gate B7 and asked the man on the desk if we could check in here. He looked at us quizzically and said 'Yes, I suppose so... You haven't checked in downstairs already?'

Sigh.

Old

Is it just me, or is time passing more quickly these days? I just realised it's 20 years this week since I started secondary school. A couple of months ago I found it difficult enough to believe that it's 10 years since I got back from my year abroad in Italy, but 20 years since I started secondary school has hit me pretty hard. However, unlike my colleague Gary, I'm not old enough to remember what I was doing when Kennedy was shot...

Victoria

I went back to the bridal shops yesterday with Mum and Jen and tried on the 3 shortlisted dresses, Cilla, Beatrice and Annette. Then I tried on a different one, Victoria, that I hadn't even tried on on Saturday, and bought that one instead ;).

I fully expected to buy one of the Saturday dresses, but when I put them on again yesterday I didn't like them as much as I had at the weekend. I had a fairly fitful night's sleep last night, because I kept dreaming that I went back to look at the dress I'd bought and, as with the others, realised I didn't like it as much any more but there was nothing I could do about it because I'd bought it now. It was only a dream, though - I had a look at the photos of it this morning (they let us take photos once we'd decided we were going to buy it) and am really pleased with my choice.

27 Dresses

No, this isn't a film review. That's roughly how many I tried on yesterday.

It was the beginning of the search for my wedding dress, and I was hoping to have chosen 'the one' by the end of the day. But as it turned out, I ended up finding 'the ones' - the more I tried on, the less keen I was on the idea of discounting them because I couldn't remember how they compared to some of the dresses I'd tried on earlier in the day. I went to three shops, and there was a clear favourite in each of the first two, but I came away with a list of 3 definites and 2 more possibles from the third shop, making a total of 7.

I was surprised to find out that bridal shops don't let you take photographs of the dresses - ostensibly to protect the designers' copyright on the patterns and to prevent cheap knock-offs, but as one shop assistant said, they have printed brochures and there are photos of all the dresses online, so whether it's the bride-to-be in the photo or just a model, if you are that set on stealing a design, you can do it easily enough. The first two shops were kind enough to let Jen sneak a photo of me in the favourite dress, but by the time we got to the last shop, to be honest I was getting a bit fed up by then, and my feet were killing me from standing up all day (there was nowhere to sit in the changing rooms), so each time we put a dress on the shortlist, Jen flicked through the catalogue and took a photo of the model in the dress, so at least we had a reminder of what it looked like.

Yesterday evening we looked at the photos we'd taken and the websites of the three shops and managed to whittle the shortlist down from 7 to 3; 2 in one shop and 1 in another. Mum and Dad came down today so I'm hoping to get appointments to try those three on again tomorrow, get Mum's opinions, then make a decision on the one I want.

Oh What a Night

Clare called me on Sunday to say that her sister, who works at the theatre in London where Jersey Boys is currently playing, had got two free tickets for top-price seats at yesterday's performance of the show, which has just been nominated for three Olivier awards. So the two of us went up to London after work yesterday - as you do - to see it. This is one of the things I love about living in Southampton: it only takes 2 hours to get from my front door to the door of any West End theatre.

I hadn't heard of the show before a couple of months ago - the production would certainly benefit from better marketing, as everyone should know about this show, and should then go and see it. It's the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and each of the four main members of the band - first Tommy then Bob in the first half, then Nick and finally Frankie in the second half - takes a turn in telling the band's story.

The staging was quite sparse - just a balcony above the stage along the back with a set of stairs at either end, a couple of big screens that were lowered into position and portable staging like tables, chairs etc - but they made really good use of it. There was too much swearing for my liking, but it certainly wouldn't put me off seeing the show again.

I had a quick look at the song list before I went and realised that beyond the couple of songs I knew were performed by the Four Seasons - December 1963 (Oh What a Night), Big Girls Don't Cry, Working My Way Back to You - there were also loads more songs that I didn't know were originally Four Seasons songs, like Bye Bye Baby, Who Loves You and Can't Take My Eyes Off You, which is probably more famous (at least in the UK) as an Andy Williams song. I was also introduced to a song I hadn't heard before, although it was very successful at the time it was released in the mid-seventies: My Eyes Adored You, which I haven't stopped singing since last night.

I would definitely recommend this show - it deserves to win the awards it's been nominated for. We were all on our feet and singing along by the end of the show!

Post-Olympic Blues

Like many people, I've spent much of the past fortnight watching the Olympics, and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Team GB got 47 medals in the end, including 19 golds, which was way more than anyone expected - the team coaches set the medal expectation at 35, roughly 12 of each colour.

I found myself watching sports I'd never watched before - like diving, taekwondo and modern pentathlon. The diving in particular was riveting - I couldn't tear myself away from the men's synchronised diving that I was watching at the gym one morning, and was consequently late getting a shower and then late to work, but it was worth it. I'm quite sad that the Olympics are over - only four years till the next one!

Here are my memorable moments from the Games: -

Happy moments

Rebecca Adlington winning two golds in the pool - the first British woman to win a swimming gold since 1960 and the first British swimmer (male or female) to win 2 golds since 1908;

Chris Hoy winning 3 golds in 3 different track cycling events - and the British cycling team winning more medals than any other sport by far: 8 golds, 4 silvers and 1 bronze;

Ben Ainslie getting his third consecutive Olympic gold medal in the sailing - and the sailing team taking 4 golds, a silver and a bronze altogether;

Matthew Mitcham producing an almost-perfect dive to win gold in the 10m platform.

Not-so-happy moments

Phillips Idowu being pipped to the gold medal in the triple jump;

The same thing happening to the women's quadruple sculls - making it three silvers in three Olympics for Katherine Grainger; I was gutted for her. Still, 2 medals of each colour in the rowing is GB's best result in 100 years;

Kelly Sotherton (who I feel a kind of affinity to, as we were born on the same day) failing to capitalise on a mediocre heptathlon field and only managing a fifth place.

Beyond-belief moments - for all the right reasons

Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt - no other comment needed;

Christine Ohuruogu coming from nowhere to take Britain's only track gold in the 400m;

Yelena Isinbayeva breaking her own world record (for the 24th time) on the way to taking gold in the pole vault.

Beyond-belief moments - for all the wrong reasons

The US and GB men and US women all failing to make the final of the 4x100m relay because they couldn't get the baton round - then the GB and Jamaican women dropping the baton in the final;

Angel Matos being banned from all future World Taekwondo Federation competitions after kicking a referee in the face for disqualifying him from his bronze medal match.

London, with its ridiculous logo (although there are 4 years for it to persuade me to like it) is now officially the Olympic City, and Rob and I are already planning which events we want to go and see...

A Visitor

Got home yesterday evening to find a visitor on the doorstep. Rob gave him some bread and he tucked in, then went on his way.

Jab, Hook, Uppercut

Ben had me doing boxing for the first time ever yesterday morning at the gym. I boxed until I couldn't lift my arms any more, then we moved on to ab crunches, then when my stomach muscles were screaming, I did step-ups onto a step about 18" high while holding weights in my hands. When my legs stopped working, we went back to boxing, and the whole thing started again. Man, it was hard work. I went home for a shower before work and I could barely put on my mascara, my arms were shaking so badly. I was so tired that for the rest of the morning I could quite easily have put my head on the desk and gone to sleep. I haven't been that tired for years. But it was much more enjoyable than spending an hour on the cross-trainer.

It's Official

Our wedding date is 20 June 2009. I'm not going to say which hotel we've chosen for the reception, because this is a public blog and you never know who might turn up and gatecrash. I might be totally overestimating my own importance here, but I don't suppose the people who phoned Radio 1 a few months ago requesting a 'shout out' (incidentally one of my most hated phrases in the world) while they were on their way to an 18th birthday party had any idea that 2,000 people would turn up and cause thousands of pounds' worth of damage, so I'm erring on the side of caution. Anyway, if you'd like to know where the reception's going to be, leave a comment or e-mail me and I'll tell you.

So that's the date and the venue decided. Just the cars, flowers, dresses, suits, band... and everything else to choose now.

Got myself a nice countdown ticker on the side there...

Jen's Birthday Weekend: Part II

Happy 30th, Little Jen! To commemorate the occasion, Mum put together a couple of galleries of photographs of the past 30 years - there was only supposed to be one gallery, but there were too many good pictures...



A couple of my favourites are the top right on the first picture - we were both given nurses' uniforms for Christmas 1980 - and the fourth one along on the bottom row of the second picture - yes, that's me wearing brown dungarees with an owl sewn on the front. That picture is actually my first memory, and probably my only one until around the time I started school.

Dad cooked a barbecue for about 18 people yesterday, and it was delicious. Or so they tell me - being vegetarian, I didn't get to find out. The rain mostly held off all day until about 21:00, and by that time it was starting to get dark so people made their way into the house anyway. Everyone had left by around midnight, then we cleared up for an hour or so, checked out the initial stages of the women's Olympic marathon, then realised there was no way we were going to stay up another 2 hours to see the end so went to bed...

Today Charlie, Matthew and Abi came round - they were here yesterday for the barbecue and were staying just round the corner - to help us eat up the vast amounts of leftovers from yesterday evening. Here's Abi doing her bit to finish off some of the drink. She put her own t-shirt on this morning and Charlie couldn't persuade her to take it off and put it back on the right way round.

We spent all of this afternoon just relaxing in front of the Olympics, which was great as the rest of the weekend had been quite hectic. Mum & Dad left around 18:30 and soon after that Jen took me back to Leeds Bradford airport for my flight back to Southampton. The flight left early and only took 40 of the 65 minutes it was due to take, so I was home by 21:15. Much better than 5 hours of driving!

The birthday doesn't end there, though - for her present I'm taking Jen to see Joseph, Spamalot and Hairspray in London in a few weeks' time.

Jen's Birthday Weekend: Part I

I flew from Southampton to Leeds last night - the idea of driving a total of 11-12 hours for a weekend, having just come back from the Lake District a couple of weeks ago, was not exactly filling me with joy, so I took the shorter, if slightly more expensive, option - and Jen picked me up from the airport. This morning we went to Rainbows Ceramic Cafe in York and had a great time painting pottery. I chose a shallow bowl and Jen picked a jug, but it took me so long to decide what kind of pattern to paint that Jen had time to do a plate as well as her jug, and still be waiting for me to finish ;). Next time I'll give my design a little more thought beforehand. We'd never done anything like that before and I'm not very artistic at all (see the DS pictures for proof) but we really enjoyed ourselves.


After a spot of lunch at Cafe Concerto (where the walls are papered with sheet music) we met Mum & Dad and did a bit of shopping then went back to Jen's to get changed and go out to the theatre. Actually we didn't go to a theatre: we saw a production of The Railway Children by York Theatre Royal, but the 'stage' was a piece of track at the National Railway Museum and the seats were either side of the track facing each other on Platforms 1 and 2.

Everything about the production was fantastic - the cast, crew, staging, props - it even included an appearance by a steam train. It was amazing how versatile the 'stage' could be. The only downside was that the seats we had were regular chairs, the kind you might get in a marquee at a wedding, and they were pushed so close together that the backs were overlapping, which made it quite a cosy experience - particularly as the lady sitting next to me was massive...

Operation Wedding Dress Gets Underway

I went for my first personal trainer session this morning with Ben, who did my 3 free PT sessions last year. This time I have to pay for them - or, more correctly, Rob has to pay for them. He offered to buy them for me as a push to help me lose the weight I want before the wedding.

Ben put me through my paces this morning, knowing it would be tough, but just to see how I did - and the answer was not very well. I feel like I need a bit of accountability so I'm going to post my times here - I warn you, they're not good. I did a warm-up of 12 minutes on the cross-trainer, then 4k at quite a high cadence on the bike (8:58), then 1k on the treadmill (7:21, quite disappointed as I had to walk for a while but my foot still isn't totally happy with the motion of running) and 1k on the rowing machine (just under 6:00), then as many crunches with legs crossed off the ground as I could manage in one go (60, quite pleased with that), then 3/4 press-ups (10, very poor, but never done them before), squats (30) and clean & press (19 - thought I had reached 20 but mis-counted!).

Ben recently trained a girl called Jo, who wanted to get in shape for her wedding, and not only did she drop 2 dress sizes, she also got a lot fitter, which is what I want to do, so he's going to do a programme for me that's similar to hers. She only did three sessions a week - one circuits, one boxing and one cardio - but she got her nutrition right and was able to reach her goal without exercise taking over her life. Sign me up!

BTW If you were expecting a post about looking for a wedding dress, sorry about that. But Jen and I will be starting the search in a couple of weeks so I'll post about how it goes.

How to get the edge - Bribery

For the past few weeks I've been looking through endless websites and brochures for potential venues for our wedding reception. We originally decided to get married in the Lake District but for various reasons (not least of which was that it's 300 miles away and would be difficult to organise) we changed our minds and will be getting married in Winchester.

The church only needs 3 weeks' notice of the wedding date. However, the same cannot be said of the hotels in the area... I've looked at loads of websites, requested 10 or so brochures and visited half a dozen venues and now have a shortlist of three. But the one that's currently slightly in front is the one that left this on the bed of one of the rooms I was shown: -


This one will probably turn out to be more expensive, though, so we'll have to do a quick calculation of roughly how much we think each one will cost, then this weekend, once Rob has been to see the two he hasn't seen yet, we can decide which one to choose. We have provisional dates booked at all three, so depending on the one we go for, the wedding date will be 13 June, 20 June or 25 July 2009. Watch this space...

Second Expedition

Actually, I don't think yesterday's walk qualifies as an expedition if it's only 8 miles and you don't need a sherpa to carry your bags, but it felt like a long way to me...

This time we drove just up the road from our hotel and walked round Great Langdale and Little Langdale, taking in Blea Tarn and Little Langdale Tarn on the way. We realised that we'd forgotten to bring the camera but decided not to go back and get it - which was a mistake as there were some beautiful shots to be had of the Langdale Pikes and Blea Tarn. It was raining, though, so no pictures we could have taken would have been as good as these ones: there's a great shot of the Langdale Pikes here and a 360 degree panoramic view of Blea Tarn here.

We took the walk more slowly than Rob would have liked, but we still finished in the time the guide book said it would take (4 hours, plus a stop for a lunch of Grasmere gingerbread). Most of the way round it was drizzling a little bit, but around miles 6 and 7 it really poured down, to the extent that our waterproof shorts were not living up to their name and were buckling under the pressure to stay dry. Fortunately the rain stopped and the sun came out for the last mile so we were able to dry off a bit before getting back to the car. Again, my foot started aching towards the end and I was glad to finish, but we still enjoyed ourselves. We went back to our hotel in time for a muscle-easing wrap (him) and a facial (me), then packed up ready to leave early this morning to go back home.

The journey back wasn't too bad at all, bearing in mind it had taken us 5 hours to get to Manchester last week and the Lakes are another hour or so further north. It took us just over 5 hours to get home including a half-hour stop, and we arrived back at exactly 15:00 - so plenty of time for me to do three loads of washing before bedtime ;). Because I took a week's holiday in May to go to Turkey, Rob has more holiday left to take this year than I do, so he's taking this next week off as well while I go back to work.

I resign from packing duty

I'm useless at it. When we go away, I am responsible for packing the suitcases, ostensibly because I fold things better than Rob does. But at least when he packs, he gets the things he wants.

Bearing in mind we were going to the walking capital of the British Isles, where even in summer it rains as often as it's dry, here are just some of the things I forgot to bring: -

Rob's walking shoes (although we knew this because we couldn't find them at home, so he reluctantly said he would buy another pair)
Rob's walking trousers
Waterproof coats for both of us
Walking socks for both of us
Walking (breathable) t-shirts for both of us
An umbrella
A rucksack

Plus things like shampoo, shower gel and sun cream.

Fortunately, as we were in the walking capital of the British Isles, there was no shortage of shops selling outdoorsy-type stuff so we could fill in the gaps. But they were expensive gaps!

Monday the weather was beautiful, really hot. We went across to Keswick to meet Jen and spent the afternoon eating apple pie/carrot cake, shopping and playing crazy golf - Rob assumed the title of Crazy Golf Master that I had won a couple of years ago when playing that course with Juergen and Eva.

On Tuesday we went to Keswick again - that was when we realised that we had no waterproof coats, and it was chucking down - and today we went on a 6-mile walk around Grasmere Lake, starting and ending in Grasmere Village, where we felt obliged to buy the fantastic gingerbread on offer. My foot held up pretty well on the walk, but it started to get a bit tired by the end. Here I am not long after we started, and still feeling OK. When we got back to the hotel Rob went for an Indian head massage and I had a pedicure - just the thing for my tired feet. Of course, I ruined the nail varnish by putting a pair of shoes on before it had dried properly, so I had to go back and spend a tenner on a pot of polish to re-do my big toes...

Manchester One Year On

... looks just the same as when we left. Hardly surprising; I didn't expect it to have changed beyond recognition or anything, but it felt nice to be back again, driving on familiar roads - it really did feel like we'd never been away. We drove up from Southampton on Friday and went round to take Rob's family out for a meal, then drove into the city centre to our hotel.

On Saturday I met Catherine from old work and she gave me some pointers about preparing for a wedding - she's marrying Ben next April and was surprised that I hadn't given any thought to a dress, or even bought a bridal magazine, yet. It was great to catch up on all her news - and to get a much-needed kick up the backside where the wedding is concerned. More of that in a later post.

I left Catherine and went for lunch with Nikki, Helen and Clare from another old work. I showed off my ring, Helen showed off her little boy Sam who's now 2, Nikki showed off her growing bump (due at the end of September) and Clare introduced us to Harry, who's now 11 weeks old and gorgeous. We didn't stop talking for at least half an hour after we got there - the waiter kept coming over to take our order and we kept telling him we hadn't opened our menus yet. In the end he just told us to shout him when we were ready to order ;).


I went back to the hotel to find Rob surrounded by a bunch of shopping bags - he'd taken advantage of the fact that Manchester is far superior to Southampton for shopping and bought some clothes to fit his ever-slimming frame. There was just time to get changed before going out to meet Rob's old work colleagues at the cinema. We saw The Dark Knight, which was brilliant, if a bit long - nearly 3 hours including trailers - then we went to Wagamama for a meal and to Kro in Piccadilly for a drink. The weather was great so we sat outside - not something you do very often in the UK. Here's (from left) Aleksa, Marc, Drew, Ani, Patrick, Jan, Rob and Yalitsa.


Today we went to see Grandma and Grandad, where Grandma had put on one of her famous buffets, then drove up to the Lake District for a week's holiday.