Free Day Friday?

So depending on who you listen to, either I'm working for free tomorrow or I get paid less every day this year compared to last year or next year. I'm not sure that either of these statements fills me with joy, but I guess the second one is the lesser of two evils. Either way, I'll be at work tomorrow.

Actually I got a promotion and a pay rise recently, so my daily pay has increased compared to last year, and will increase again next year because my salary doesn't have to stretch over the extra day... I'm now Office Manager and Resources/Training/Events Co-ordinator, and I'm also responsible for keeping our new receptionist/admin busy. Some of this I was doing anyway, but some of it is new stuff. I'm enjoying the new parts of the job already - plus in about a week I get to hand over bookkeeping to someone else, which will make my job even better!

My Fab Weekend

I wanted to write this and post it yesterday but I almost fell asleep in front of the TV at the grand old hour of 21:00 so I thought bed was a better option for me...

My weekend with Jen was great. The journey up to York not so much, but I finally got there after 5.5 hours. We went shopping on Saturday morning, then at around 4pm we headed over to Huddersfield, where my cousin Oliver was having a housewarming party. He's been in his house almost a year now, but it's finally finished being decorated (thanks in part to my Mum & Dad, who've made at least two trips down there to decorate various rooms), and it was Oliver's birthday on Sunday so he had a joint housewarming/birthday party. It was great to see him and my other cousin Alicia after 3.5 years - a fairly awful track record considering that until last summer they only lived 40 miles away.

I left at about 15:00 on Sunday and got home just before 20:00 - a better journey back, but it did take me an hour to do 2 miles on the M1, while three lanes of traffic all moved over into one lane to overtake a boat and a mobile home being transported on massive lorries that were straddling two lanes of the motorway. Travelling for more than 10 hours for a weekend away is tiring, but well worth it! Thanks Jen!

Stitch, Cramp and Wind

These were the three things that made my 7-mile run more difficult yesterday morning. Not my wind, you understand... it was windy.

I got a stitch about 2 miles into my run. I've developed a stitch every time I've run 4 miles or more, and each time I resolve to look up how to get rid of them when I get home, then I forget until the next time I go running and get another stitch... I tried running it off, but it was so painful that I stopped at around 3 miles for about a minute until it eased off a bit. It didn't go away the entire run, but at least it wasn't quite so painful after that.

Then at about 5.5 miles I got cramp in my left toes. I usually walk around for a while to get rid of cramp, and running around clearly wasn't helping, so I had to stop again for a minute.

Plus, it was really windy! I'm sure the wind direction changed halfway round as well, so that I was always running into it...

Anticipating that my legs would feel awful today (and they did), I booked a massage for this lunchtime. Oooh it was fantastic!

I'm definitely not an elephant

I'm leaving work at lunchtime today to drive up to Small Jen's for the weekend. I wanted to go swimming at the gym this morning, so last night I had to pack my suitcase for the weekend, pack my gym bag and also get together all the stuff I said I would take up to Jen's.

I put my swimming costume on this morning then got dressed over the top of it and headed out. Between leaving the house and getting to the office, I realised I had: -

Left my make-up bag at home
Forgotten to pick up the DVDs I said I would bring
Not brought a towel for the gym
Put my bra and knickers for today in my suitcase instead of my gym bag

By the time I realised my underwear mistake I was only wearing a towel (the one I had had to hire from the gym for £1) so I couldn't exactly go out to the car and get them. I had to get dressed without said bra and knickers, then when I got to the car I took them out of my suitcase and put them in my handbag, then I went commando into the office and headed straight for the toilets to put them on...

As if that weren't embarrassing enough, I had to buy petrol this morning so I stopped at Tesco on the way into work. I bought a packet of sweets at the same time, for the 5-hour journey this afternoon. I was just getting into my car when the tannoy sprang to life: 'The lady at pump number 6, you've forgotten your sweets!' I immediately made to get out of the car and go back to the kiosk so as not to draw any more attention to myself than had already been, but not before the woman on the tannoy had time to say 'The blonde lady in the blue car, you've left your sweets on the counter! Oh, it's OK Alan, she's coming now.' By this point everyone on the forecourt - which, of course, was packed - was looking at me and laughing, although to be fair I think they were laughing more at the style of the tannoy announcement than at me personally...

My Life is Finished

:-)

I thought it was worth commemorating the fact that I have finally finished reading My Life after almost 4 months...

It was probably the longest book I've ever read (960 pages) and in parts it was quite tough going (mainly because I was only reading a couple of pages a night so for the topics he went into in a lot of detail, I felt like I'd been reading about them for ages), but generally I enjoyed it. I learned a lot about things I didn't really know much about before, plus I got to read about Clinton's account of the media frenzy surrounding that incident. It really clouded his presidency and was practically all I remember about it, given that at the time I was in my late teens/early twenties and didn't get that much exposure to politics. The book was obviously only one side of the story, but it seems that Clinton did a lot for the economy and made real progress in foreign policy, and these things (and plenty of others) didn't get the same press attention as other things he did ;-).

All in all, a worthwhile read, but I've got something shorter and less hardcore for my next one.

Another Room Done

I took pictures of the office weeks ago after we painted the walls and the furniture was fitted and forgot to post them. Again, the room's so small that it's difficult to get a decent shot, but here it is.

Running Blind - and Deaf

I was halfway to the gym this morning when I realised I'd left my iPod at home. Never mind, I thought, only 2 miles to do today, I can manage without.

I got to the gym, turned on my Garmin and left it in a plant pot outside the building to locate the satellites while I went inside to leave my gear in a locker and go to the loo. I got back outside again, picked up the Garmin and it immediately turned itself off - battery was dead. So not only did I not have anything to listen to, I didn't know how fast I was going, or how far.

I've run between the office and Chilworth roundabout enough times now to know roughly where the 1 mile point is, and therefore where to turn around and go back again, but I really had no idea how fast I was going, other than it felt like I was doing more or less my normal speed. It's strange how quickly you get used to technology - I've only had the Garmin a few weeks and I'm already hooked on knowing what pace I'm doing at all times...

And while we're on the subject of running, the schedule for last Sunday said 6 miles. I mapped out this route, but when Sara and I came to run it, it turned out to be just over 6.2 miles, which is 10km. My first 10km! At least now I know I can run it without stopping. My shoulders were aching by the end - I'm aware that I run with them slightly hunched and am trying to stop, but I must have been doing it without realising. Then as the day went on, more and more things started aching - the upper left part of my back, the inside of my left knee, the inside of my right ankle... by the time it got round to going to bed I could hardly make it up the stairs ;).

Maybe I am greenfingered after all

I love peace lilies. I buy them when they're in flower, then the flowers die off, as perennial plants do, but the following year I'm left waiting for them to re-flower again, and they never do.

Until now. I noticed about a week ago that there was a bud on the peace lily that sits on my kitchen window sill, and this is what it looked like today. Yay! Plus the two poinsettias that I bought at the beginning of December are still alive - I'm usually lucky if they last as long as New Year's Day. Granted, they've lost almost all their green leaves, but the red leaves that are left look great!

Stupid Pancakes

In honour of Pancake Day, I made American pancakes tonight, instead of the traditional thin pancakes, because Rob and Ben both requested them. Each time I finished one, I stacked it on a pile in the oven and the stack got quite high so I put the final 3 on the baking tray on the shelf above. I then took the plate out of the oven and put it on the counter, pulled out the baking tray and transferred the last three to the top of the pile, then picked up the plate. That's right, with my bare hands.

I realised very VERY soon that this was a bad idea - I dropped the plate back down again and my only thought was that the plate was going to fall off the counter and onto the floor, and all my hard work would be for nothing. Luckily the plate didn't fall on the floor and the pancakes were fine, but by then my mind was well and truly on the fact that the pads of all my fingers were hurting like hell. I spent the next 15 minutes with my hands under the cold water tap, cursing myself for being so darn stupid in the kitchen. I manage to burn, cut or otherwise maim myself like this (although not usually on this scale) at least once a fortnight.

The reason I was picking the plate up was to move it to a better spot so I could photograph my culinary achievement. By the time I took my hands out from under the cold water, Ben and Rob had eaten the achievement, so you'll have to take my word for it - they tasted really good!

UPDATE WEDNESDAY: Right hand fared better than left. Just got red marks on the pads of right fingers, but blisters on the pads of the left ones. As Ben remarked, now would be a good time to commit a crime...

In the time it's taken to refit our en-suite...

... the company I work for has changed name, and bought out another company;

... the lovely Nikki (who was very patient with me this week when she told me for the second time how to edit our website after I was stupid enough to think I didn't need to take notes the first time round - thanks Nikki) has gone from 10 weeks' to 20 weeks' pregnant;

... 5 Democrats and 5 Republicans have withdrawn from the US presidential race;

... Sarah has surely set the record for the number of blog posts during this period - 245;

... Britney Spears has been forced into hospital on mental health grounds - twice;

... Rob has bought two bikes;

... and my favourite, showing just how slack the bathroom company has been at completing a 7-day job: French President Nicolas Sarkozy has met, dated and married Carla Bruni.

Although, I am still reading the same book that I was reading 10 weeks ago. But in my defence, it is a 1,000-page book and I've nearly finished it...