Gosh, I haven't been here for ages... Has anyone missed me?

Sometimes I think back to before the days of the internet. Before I spent hours just refreshing pages to check for updates. Before I spent eyewatering amounts of money on unnecessary things...

Yes - I wasted another day today. I have sorted out one of my wardrobes, true. But I was supposed to iron and put things back in there and have I done that? Not so much. *sigh*

I'm going out for dinner tonight and I am going to have to have my shower and wash my hair soon. Get dollied up and venture out. And my bedroom looks like I have been burgled. There are magazines all over the place, not quite sorted. There are piles of clothes,fresh from wardrobe all ironed and waiting to be bagged up. Unironed clothing in two HUGE piles is waiting to be put away. *panics*

Before the internet, my life didn't get so messed up. I had nothing better to do on rainy days off work than to sort myself out. I need to be strong and just say no...

Went for my first weigh in since before Christmas today and I have put on 7.5 lbs. I am really quite cross with myself because losing that 7.5 lbs the first time was really, really hard.

But hey, I went, I weighed and I exercised. I am at the start of another healthy eating adventure and I will lose it again and more. See my "I am determined" face! I'm going to start the water aerobics classes on Wednesday again, too. I think for me, the exercise is the key. I only really started to slip with the weight loss when I stopped the mid week water aerobics class and skipped the odd weekend aerobics class. Just dieting doesn't do it for me and I really should have got that by now. Sometimes I am incredibly dense...

We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves: we encourage ourselves in mediocrity - I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself!
Charles Lamb

I think this is true. How often do you come across someone with real charisma, or real drive? And if you do, how often do they inspire you to do better than if left to your own devices? I just wish I was one of these golden characters - a leader instead of a follower. I'm just too lazy. Maybe that could be my resolution this year - be more dynamic. Follow through on those little things. Be Excellent instead of Mediocre.

There's a plan!

So, a new year has begun. I hope that this year will be a happier one than 2007 - raises a glass to one and all!

I've been a bit missing in action recently. No excuses, just me being a bit lazy. Tomorrow looks like being busy too, and then it is the big day, so I thought I would say my piece now.

I have to say, I feel 2007 has been a really pants year. Truly, it has. I have been to three funerals, have heard of a further three people suffering with terminal illnesses, and my workplace has been the office 'o' Doom with collapsed lungs, whiplash from car accidents, bronchitis, cancelled operations, knee operations, and sundry other ailments. There have been family arguments. I know that others in the interwebs have been experiencing the same, too. Frankly, I am counting down the days to New Years Eve!!

So, I am sending Heartfelt wishes to everyone reading this that that they have a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful 2008. I may even toast you all with a nice glass of Baileys over ice tomorrow night. Cheers!!

So Tony Blair has become a Catholic. Woo hoo Can anyone explain to me just why this has been in every single news bulletin that has been on radio or tv today? Have there been no atrocities in the world? Have no important sporting fixtures taken place? What has one man's religious affiliation got to do with any of us?

I feel a Bah Humbug moment coming on...

Christmas is only two days away. *panics and flails arms wildly* I have only had 363 days notice of this - how come it has come round so quickly?? I have no presents wrapped, none. I still have to deliver the neighbour's cards. I still have to make my mum's! *sigh* We do have the turkey and half the veggies. And I have the obligatory tin of sweeties, so all is nearly well. The plan is to hit Sainsbury's on Monday for those last minute goodies. Because of course, the shops won't be open again for oh, all of 24 hours - maybe 48!!! And my freezer isn't really full to the brim, along with the fridge...

IN FLANDERS FIELDS.

In Flanders field the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

~~By Major John McCrae, May 1915.~~

This poem was written during World War I. How sad that nearly one hundred years later, it is still relevant today. Replace Flanders fields for Afghanistan or Iraq, and men, boys, are still dying.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, We will remember them.

I saw the first two private houses with Christmas lights up today...How depressing - there are only about six or seven weeks before Christmas now.

Mind you, I have been feeling a bit more festive than normal this year - I might even dig the tree out to decorate our office! At home, I have traditionally done Christmas decs on the first weekend in December. I do it this early because I have been known to take them down the day after Boxing day...! Once Christmas is over, I just want them gone. The only exception is if I am having guests for New Years Eve. In which case,the decs all come down on New Years Day (afternoon!!) My decs include my icicle lights on the porch, the garland up the stairs and the garland over the mantelpiece. I don't have a tree any more because I have a tiny living room and moving the furniture around to get the tree in was a nightmare. The garland is fine... !

It has been manic this week... Every day I go into work and sort out what I have to do during the day. Then I do none of it, because other priorities take over. I feel like I am on that runaway train quite often (is it weird that I keep hearing that song in my head? And who sang that, anyway??) It has turned wet and v. windy this afternoon. Sitting here now, I can hear the wind whooshing all the leaves about on the tree in next door's garden. I am willing to bet that half of them will be in my pond by the morning!

It is more than annoying, because my new leaf sucker and shredder toy arrived yesterday. And I bet it won't work properly with wet leaves... *sulks*

We are going to Discover Dogs on Sunday. I feel like cuddling a puppy. And this way, I can get to cuddle loads! It is quite expensive to go, though (£20 each). I did smile, ironically, at the website though. There is a cheaper set of prices listed for weekdays. The show is only open on Saturday and Sunday. Is it me?

You know, I think my basal body clock time zone is definitely GMT. When the clocks go forward in the spring, I have an elaborate routine of setting everything forward at lunchtime on the Saturday. This way, I have lost the hour during the day and I go to bed at the normal time and get up at the normal time. If I don't do this my bodyclock goes on strike. It refuses to wake up in morning because, hello! too dark/early. It is sluggish and tired and won't obey my head. And this condition lasts for weeks until the body clock is dragged kicking and screaming into the new timezone. Then of course, I do enjoy the long summer nights.

In the autumn though, I never put the clocks back until I am up. Why gain the hour when you are not aware of it??? And as someone who never, ever, allows sufficient time to get everything done, there is real joy in being able to pluck an extra hour out of thin air at least one day a year.

I have heard all the arguments about the children coming home from school in the dark and everyone gaining an extra hour of leisure time and I say Pah! Pah!

Most schools kick the kids out at three. Three thirty at the very latest. In the winter when the clocks have gone back it gets light by eight and dark by four. That gives them 30 minutes to get home, and they go to school in the light. If we didn't put the clocks back it would stay lighter in the afternoon, but it wouldn't get light in the morning until nineish. So they are all going to school in the dark. In the rush hour when everyone is driving to work and there are jams everywhere. At least in the afternoons it is general traffic not rush hour!

As for the leisure time argument... ok, you get an extra hour daylight. For most people at work that means diddly squat because they don't finish until five anyway. If people aren't working, and have time for leisure, they do get an extra hour daylight, but at this time of the year it could be piddling down with rain and be freezing cold. So any leisure activity is more likely to take place indoors and doesn't need the daylight.

It's a no brainer for me. My body just doesn't wake up when it is dark. And even despite the joys of flexitime I really don't think work would like it if I rolled up at 10.00 am every day...

Forty one years ago today, 144 people, 116 of them children, were killed when a tip of coal waste slid onto the village of Aberfan in South Wales. The people of Aberfan were treated appallingly not only in the immediate aftermath but for years afterwards. For instance, I didn't realise, until I saw a documentary about it tonight, that the Government of the time took £150,000 from the disaster fund set up for the villagers to help pay to remove the tips from around the village. And that the Coal Board offered each family who lost (in some cases, more than one) a child £500 and thought that was "a generous offer".

I don't remember much about the tragedy myself. I was very young and my memory has never been great. But I do remember the newspaper headlines and my mum being really upset. I can't begin to comprehend what a society that lost half its children went through or how it coped.

So, lighting a metaphorical candle in their memory.... rest in peace, children of Aberfan.

I left for work early (for me) this morning. I planned to do many things and needed to be there before 9am. So I left home at 8.15am and things were going swimmingly, until I hit the Aldborough Road traffic lights. Then things took a turn for the worse. Gridlock. Every way I went, I hit jams. I sat in one spot for at least 20 minutes, at one point. And I finally got into work at 10.00 am. Cursing.

Then I found out this was why. And now I feel ashamed, because all that happened to me was that I was late for work. Minorly inconvenienced. This poor boy's familiy and friends have to come to terms with what happened - the realisation that he will never come home again. Did I mention I hate this year?

I taped this tonight to watch tomorrow, so I didn't see it. But I checked the result. And hey, what do you know? Apparently, the voting process is exactly the same as it is for the song contest!

*shakes head*

The X Factor programmes started again tonight, showing the audition stage. This part of the show makes me extremely uncomfortable. Mainly because I have a sense of visiting an asylum to mock the afflicted inmates. Are these people deaf? Why is it that the people with the most confidence have the least to be confident about? *shakes head* I can't bear the embarrassment of the first shows, so I actually don't really get into the programme until they have sorted out the final 12. Or even the final 6 - 8. And then whoever I like will invariably come 2nd or 3rd...

I feel like this about Big Brother, too. In series 1 and 2 they mainly threw a bunch of ordinary people together and it was just like peeping over the fence, or through a window and looking at the interaction. A bit stalkerish and actually, not behaviour that should really be encouraged, but comparatively harmless. Then came series 3 and Jade Goodey. And it has got progressively worse ever since. Now, it seems to me that the producers actively seek out the mentally fragile, the people most likely to blow. And the wait for them to do that is almost excrutiating to me... I don't watch BB any more.

You know, when I was younger I was a voracious reader. In the summer holidays, I could easily read two books a day... When I started work, my reading time got restricted to when I was on the train commuting, and then when I changed jobs and started driving into work, I read even less. For years I didn't read much at all - then I discovered fanfic and started reading again, but this time online and onscreen. I probably read almost as much as when I was commuting now, but none of it is an actual book.

I got two books for Christmas last year - I haven't finished either of them. But today, I bought an actual book. It is called "How to talk to a widower" by Jonathan Tropper. It was highly recommended by Richard and Judy on their book club programme and I actually felt stirrings of interest... Anyhow, I saw it for sale in Tescos tonight (not my usual store - I went there for some face cleanser pads my local store has stopped stocking) at £4. And really, how can you resist a book with a good recommendation for £4???

I'll let you all know how it goes...

On Monday, I rang the people who did my front driveway and asked them to get me a drum of the sealant they used so I could refresh the finish. I spoke to the guys wife, who told me he was in Ireland, and not expected back until Friday. But there wouldn't be a problem, they would order it and it would come with their regular Wednesday delivery. On Wednesday night, she rang me while I was in Tescos and said that they had a spare drum in the store and someone would drop it in for me over the weekend. So when I hadn't heard anything from them by lunchtime today, I rang again. And she flat out denied everything. She said her husband only got back yesterday from Ireland and they would order it and it would come in the Wednesday delivery...

So either she's going mad or I am! *shakes head*

It has been a bit of a nightmare in work this week. You know one of those weeks when every problem generates more? Yeah. Still, it is the weekend now!!! I am supposed to be having some glaze delivered sometime tomorrow or Sunday so I can freshen up my front driveway, but I have no idea when. I hate that...

I have to make a funny 40th birthday card for tomorrow. And my brain is empty of inspiration. Do you think it would be to OTT to have a cd with the words of "the oldest swinger in town" printed on it as the topper???

I am now happily simultaneously posting to all my blogs. There will be no escape from my ramblings!!!

Ok, so one didn't work. Trying again.