Last weekend we went up to the North to visit Mum and Matt. It was Matt’s birthday on the 7th so we decided to take a day out to Blackpool on Saturday 8th. It was lots of fun and the illuminations were really pretty. We went on the ferris wheel on the central pier, and Matt and I went on the Waltzers! More pics here.
Dad’s funeral went really well yesterday. Tomorrow I’m back to work. Wonder how things went whilst I was away! Obviously didn’t make any preparations for a long break!
My Dad isn’t feeling too well at the moment.
Hope you are feeling better soon Dad. Many of my friends send their best wishes too.
x
Last weekend was Dad’s 60th Birthday. I flew up to Manchester on Thursday afternoon to help Mum with her mission to make a grand piano birthday cake!! The party was on Saturday and Dad’s actual birthday was on Sunday. It was a lovely time.
This weekend James and I had a lovely time in Brighton staying with Dave (James’s brother) and his girlfriend, Carys. It was the first time we saw their flat and it was very nice. They have really made it their own.
Despite the weather being possibly the worst i have seen all year, we did a few things like shopping and going down to the pier. Carys even gave James a new haircut.
Sadly, immediately after getting the pics off my camera I knocked it off the desk and it’s now broken. This makes me extremely sad :(
Just got back from a lovely weekend in the North. Helped with sorting out stuff ready for moving but still got lots to do.
Have brought home lots of old photos from uni and school that I think I will scan…so watch out…embarrassing photos may be making their way online!
Congrats must also be extended to Oliver and Emma who now have a beautiful baby girl.
Well done you guys! Yey \o/
This last weekend James and I visited my parents up North. It was the first time we’ve had chance to get together since before Christmas. We exchanged presents. Mum and Dad bought us the greatest thing we needed - a new kettle. The Breville JK43. So far it is fandabulous and has made some very nice cups of tea and coffee! It’s really nice to get useful presents!
Sadly, the other reason for going North never materialised. We were intending to go and see Kylie on her Showgirl Homecoming Tour. Unfortunately Kylie was taken ill and had to cancel two shows, one of which was the one we were scheduled to see. It was rescheduled to Sunday this week but James and I had only booked Monday and Tuesday off work. We have to be back at work on Monday morning. I have sent the tickets back for a refund. Bit of a shame because I was really looking forward to it, but it is better than Kylie doesn’t over-do things as she is probably more vulnerable since having the breast cancer.
I now have the rest of this week off work so I’m gradually sorting out the flat a bit. Have half sorted the bathroom. Need to get back to it!
James and I have just returned from a lovely Christmas spent with his family in Aylesbury. We set off on Saturday morning with some sandwiches and took our time to bimble down the M5 and M4. We luckily escaped what sounded like a rather bad traffic jam later in the day caused by a tragic M5 accident, as reported by The Express and Echo. Later that evening, I beat everyone playing Monopoly. Go me! In the end I had hotels on three quarters of the board. I think that must be the best Monopoly performance I’ve managed in my entire life.
On the Sunday, Christmas Eve, James helped fix the family computer which was on the blink. In the evening, John and Celia went out to The Red Lion for the traditional Christmas Eve party whilst James and I stayed home and watched Fanny Cradock’s “Cradock cooks for Christmas” and kept Biggles company. Nice and relaxing.
On Christmas Day, we joined everyone for a Christmas drink and then went home for presents and dinner in the evening. Pictures can be found here. James gave me an amazing foot spa! I have already tried it out and it’s the greatest thing ever! Everyone seemed pleased with their presents which is a relief.
The following day was of course John’s birthday (James’s Dad). Several people embarked upon a short amble through apparently muddy fields to a pub called The Rose and Crown for lunch. Pictures of the birthday can be found here. James and I elected to go via car so that we could go straight from there to Carys’s house. There we met Dave’s cute little kitten Button. We then returned to the house for birthday tea and presents.
We returned to Exeter yesterday. There was great traffic clogging on the M4 and M5. Luckily we were informed of this by the mightly knowledgable signs that light the skyline and we elected to take the A303, breezing home in no time at all.
A very nice time was had. To finish off, here is a lovely picture of Biggles enjoying Christmas with us. Picture taken by the amazing James.
This weekend was filled with Christmas frivolities!
Firstly on Friday afternoon/evening we had the Work Christmas Party. This was at The Buckerell Lodge for a second year running. The photos can be found here. I had a really good time and it was a bit of a shame that I had to leave so early. I think it was for the best though as I was just starting to feel a bit tipsy at that time.
Then James and I went off to Aunty Lizzie’s and Uncle Peter’s house for the Seward/Whiting Family Christmas. I really enjoyed it and we had lots of fun catching up and playing games. The photos of that can be found here.
As a result of these very enjoyable activities, I am certain that I will have put on weight when I visit Weight Watchers tonight. I am therefore trying to go to the gym every day this week as a one-off, especially considering there will be more eating and drinking the coming weekend!
Over the last few weeks I believe that I have been far slacker with my weight loss regime. Winter is drawing in and makes one feel less inclined to go out and do exercise. Also a string of weekend events have ocurred that easily tempted me into straying from the correct mindset! Of course, under Weight Watchers it is quite simple to traverse such events without pigging out but a little effort is required at least.
This has resulted, not in the gaining of weight, but in the maintaining of my current weight. This is somewhat pleasing in one sense because to me this indicates that my body is acting differently to how it used to. Previously I believe it was stuck in ’store fat’ mode but the efforts of the last year, with exercise and healthier eating have obviously oiled the internal mechanisms to allow the more normal swapping between modes. Of course if one wishes to remove existing weight, you have to consume slightly less than one who is maintaining and this is why I have remained the same for a few weeks. I have failed in tracking my foodstuffs as meticulously as I previously did - not weighing pasta and rice and saying “yes please” to a drink or biscuit when I know that would cause me to go 1 or 2 over my points limit that day.
I would really like to get back into the swing of things and lose a few pounds before Christmas. Christmas is the feared time by anyone worried about their weight. It is so easy to over-indulge. In light of that, one has to almost expect a possible increase of a pound or two over the Xmas period. Following my recent weeks of struggle, I believe it would make me quite unhappy to come back after the Christmas holidays and find that I have put on several pounds. If one resigns oneself to putting on a couple of pounds over Xmas, it therefore makes sense to resolve oneself to therefore lose a few pounds before Xmas in order to compensate. I am trying to take that approach.
A few weeks ago I wrote a list of goals and put it on my notice board. This has done no use whatsoever. I seem to be completely at ease with breaking promises I have made to myself. This approach doesn’t work. I need an incentive in order to do something. Obviously - a non-food reward. I’m not going to reward myself for losing weight with a nice big Indian takeaway however lovely that might be. This meant that I had to get my thinking cap on…what do I care about enough to really make me go for it?
The weekend of the 16th December is the annual Seward Family Christmas Extravaganza. I want to look nice at that and really I need to have my hair trimmed and get my eyebrows done etc. I thought “perfect! I must earn these through weight loss!”. Therefore I have set up the following goals in order of importance. If I lose weight (staying the same does not count!) then I will have earned that item. If I don’t lose weight that week, that item cascades over to the next week. So, assuming I manage the weight loss each week, the timetable will be as follows (and I’m going for the cheap options on each thing so don’t panic at the prices!). I have been working towards the goal this whole week…it’s just taken me a while to post about it.
14/11/06 - Eyebrow shape by waxing
21/11/06 - Level 1 hair trim
28/11/06 - Hair colour (had this last time and I quite liked it. Might go a bit bolder this time)
05/11/06 - Mini manicure (pretty basic, mainly just shape and nail varnish)
12/11/06 - Upgrade mini manicure to french manicure for an extra couple of quid.
I will probably get my earnings done on 14/12/06 because the extravaganza is on the 16th. Can’t go on the 15th because it’s the work Xmas party and I don’t want to miss that. Also I’ve already paid for it!
Over the last couple of weeks I have learnt that a very dear friend from my life before Exeter is gravely ill. We spent a significant amount of our childhood together, living extremely closely, being born only 1 month apart and attending the same playschool, school and church. His family are great friends of my family and we spent every new year together as we were growing up.
It troubles me greatly to hear how seriously ill he is right now confounded even more by his imminent wedding in just a few weeks time. He has several major operations on an extremely rare chordoma spinal cancer ahead of him within the next week or two. He is only 25 – 30 years younger than the average age that this cancer normally surfaces. This makes me realise how fortunate I am to be healthy.
Get well soon, Sam.
Oops no update in a while. It’s just been quite busy yet uneventful and I don’t want to bore people with rubbish updates!
Briefly, the things that have happened since I last wrote are:
Chicken Yakitori – 3 skewers of chicken in bbq sauce. £3.20.
We ordered some of that and it was delicious.
Next weekend is the Queen Convention and I am really looking forward to that. Sadly I can’t get the whole of Friday off work because I have a meeting that morning. I have booked the rest of the day off as flexi-leave which will enable me to leave as soon as the meeting has finished, rather than a half-day leave that would require me to stay until lunch-time if the meeting was shorter.
UPDATE: tyepyedong Noodle Bar have updated their menu. tyepyedong Menu
Yesterday’s day at work was pretty depressing. Didn’t really like the way something was done but you just pick yourself up and carry on don’t you.
Yesterday was also Valentine’s Day and a round-about 6 year anniversary for James and I <3
James took me to see Starlight Express at the Princess Theatre in Torquay. Took us a bit to find the place and we had to run to not miss the start but we got there in the end. It was brilliant. They did a really good job of it despite having such a small stage. This was the 3rd time I’d seen it and each time it has been a different revision of the show. Of course I prefer the original version (which was much longer) but it’s all still good.
At the weekend James and I bought two new fish – Teeny and Blackie. Both are algae-eaters. Teeny has been put in the little tank and Blackie in the larger tank. Blackie disappeared for a while but he’s started coming out and swimming about a little bit now. I have realised that he isn’t as black in colour as I thought and actually has quite a few speckles. I’m now thinking of changing his name to Spotty instead. We shall see.
This weekend we are off to the North with Mum and Dad’s new PC. We have installed everything we can think of and it seems to be working really well. Google Earth runs brilliantly so Dad will be pleased. I have booked a flexi day off work on Friday because I have a lot of flexi time on my clock and it seems as good a time as any to use some of it up. The weekends where we travel go so quickly anyway. Hopefully I will be able to force myself down the gym at some point. Maybe if I wake up early and get James to drop me off at the gym on his way to work it will make the day longer. My gym regime is going pretty well and I’m still enjoying it. My legs feel quite strong now although I’m not fit yet – running for the theatre last night proved that!
Well it just flew by didn’t it? One minute I’m rejoicing that it’s time for the holiday and the next it feels like we are back at work again. Ain’t that just the way it goes?
At work on the afternoon of Thursday 22nd Dec we had a ROC (team) meeting – pretty relaxed with mince pies, so a nice way to round off the ‘term’. I walked home and made sure everything was ready to set off to my parents’ house.
We arrived fairly late but we had drinks and chatted for quite a while. Then we had a lovely lie in the next day. I went to Safeway in Harwood (actually now Morrisons) with Mum in the morning and we bought a few final Christmas items. She took me in her new car – the SLK. It was fantastic – such a lovely colour. James tried all day to fix mum and dad’s broken computer but to no avail so on Saturday (Christmas Eve) we drove down to PC World to get them to fix it. I went in the car with dad and James went in the SLK with mum to experience its coolness.
PC World were basically pretty rubbish and we ended up leaving it with them after hours on the phone in the shop to the PC World help desk people. I joked that maybe one day James could drive the SLK and mum surprisingly said “well you could drive it home now” !! Fantastic! James drove the SLK home and seemed to really enjoy it. Sadly there was quite a lot of traffic so he wasn’t able to get up to decent speeds and see it’s acceleration.
That evening, I went to the Christmas Carol Service at Hawkshaw St. Mary’s with mum and dad and Matt. Dad was singing in the group at the front so I took a video on my digi cam so he could listen to it back. Saw a few old faces there and have since decided I could probably handle never seeing some of them ever again! Most people were lovely though.
Christmas Day was lovely. We had some great presents and a wonderful lunch cooked by mum. Afterwards we watched the Queen and Toy Story 2. In the evening we had a bit of Christmas Cake and then James and I charged off down to Princes Risborough in the car where we met James’ parents and brother. We had drinks and exchanged presents. Coincidentally, James and Dave had bought each other the exact same present! This caused great amusement. They are more similar than they realise!
The next day, Boxing Day, was John Seward’s 60th Birthday. Carys joined us in the morning. We gave John lots of presents and drank champagne before piling into the mini bus with Fine Arts to go to The Angel for lunch. We had a lovely meal and I took 150 photos. Afterwards we went back to Joy and Martin’s house and had cake, buffet and lots more drinks. James and I walked home with Dave and Carys to get to bed for as much sleep as possible.
At 3.30am the alarm went off and by 4am we were on the road towards Gatwick. I slept a little in the car as well. The plane flew on time and we arrived at Malaga Airport in time to get our amazing van-mobile (pics of which are on the gallery). The apartment that the Sewards have is a perfect size and setup with an amazing view of the sea.
We had a very relaxing few days there filled mostly with leisurely trips to beaches and restaurants and a lot of reading. It’s such a nice change to have time to do some reading so it was really enjoyable. The weather was lovely and warm in the sun but often a jumper was required as the wind could be a bit nippy. It was hot enough to give me a little bit of pinkness on my cheeks.
Sadly the flight home was not as on-time as the outbound flight. This was the only thing that went wrong but thankfully it wasn’t a major delay and was only a couple of hours. This gave me lots of time to browse the duty free shop and get a present for Reagan who had been looking after the fish whilst we were away.
We got back to the Sewards’ house at about 3am and went to bed immediately as we were all really tired. The next morning we headed off to Bristol to spend New Year with some of our #exeter friends. We played games and drank a lot and on New Years Day ate much food in the form of toasties and Full English Breakfast butties.
Finally we headed home and flopped. We needed a holiday after that! We got a bit of washing and stuff done on Bank Holiday Monday but basically it felt like it was straight back to work!
Hope you had a good Christmas and New Year. Happy 2006!
Today is my last day of work before the holidays and it should be a fairly easy going day. I’ve done some of the work I intended to do today already and have a few things left to do this morning.
Then this afternoon we are having a team ROC meeting which is normally very stress free these days. We will probably have coffee and mince pies and people will mostly discuss the work that the Dream Team do (waste stuff). I normally say a couple of words about what i do but not much because no one is really that interested.
Then as soon as it is 4pm I am going to race home and get the last few things i need into my suitcase ready to go. Must remember to take the rubbish out to the bins, switch the dishwasher off standby (it is washing now whilst i am at work), shut down my PC, turn down the heating thermostat slightly and give the fish some food. Also must remember to go and get the fish a feeding block on the way home and drop the keys off to Reagan so that he can feed them whilst we are away.
Crazy stuff happened yesterday after work! Quite an exciting evening. Firstly, I left work and walked over to Polsloe Road to the Doctors. On Tuesday morning we had dropped off my repeat prescription request so I was going to go and pick it up. Got there after 20 mins walk and they told me that they had sent it directly to Boots as normal despite me crossing that part out on the request. They said i should have specifically said i wanted to collect. They are probably right. Anyway it doesn’t make much difference as we have to go to Boots to pick up the pills anyway. I called James and told him what had happened and he said he’d stop off at Boots to pick them up.
Walked another 20 mins into town - a nice waste of time in all. I realised that really i should get something nice to wear for John’s 60th Birthday party so I popped into Monsoon. I’ve seen quite a few nice skirts and tops in there recently but resisted because they are pretty pricey. In the end I got a skirt, top and wooly cardigan to wear for his party. Whilst i was there i also got some jeans because my current pairs are threatening to all wear out at the same time. All in all came to just under £200 but I haven’t bought any clothes in ages and this should last a while. I made sure i bought clothes that were nice enough to wear out to stuff but also not too dressy for work, so double usage!
Popped into M&S and witnessed a mother having a right go at her 3 children in the hoisery department. Some people are weird. Intended to go to the fish shop but totally forgot so will have to go today. Went home and caught the last 10 mins of Neighbours and watched the news a bit.
It was about 6:40pm and i was watching the beginning of Spotlight whilst chatting on IRC a bit. James was still out because he was picking up parcels and going to Boots to get my prescription (which incidentally they didn’t have because it had been sent to the High Street Boots first and wouldn’t arrive at the normal Boots until sometime today *sigh*). Suddenly there was a massively loud crashing noise that really startled me and it sounded like it was coming from just outside my window. I stood up and looked out and a bus had crashed into the blue Cannon Hygiene van that is always parked in the loading bay outside the Devon County Council community centre building accross the road and careered into the the building. It had pushed the van out into the road and smashed in the back of it. The front of the bus was all mangled and the windscreen was totally shattered. Bricks had crumbled away from the wall and the building windows were smashed. Later i saw that the wall was dangerously buckling inwards.
I stood shocked for a second and then grabbed for the phone that was on my desk. I could see people moving inside the bus but i was pretty sure no one would have managed to call 999 yet so I thought i better had do. I was so shocked seeing what had happened that i was pretty rubbish when calling. The guy said “do you want police, fire or ambulance” and i said “I don’t know! There’s been a bus crash!”. The man calmly said “Ok, you’ll probably want the police first off.” and put me through to the police. I told the police what had happened and that there were people on the bus and stuff and they said they’d send round a unit straight away.
I looked out the window again and a few people were off the bus and running away because they thought it might blow up or something. I grabbed my keys and home phone and mobile and went out to see if i could help people. I was shaking and could hardly get the key in the door to lock behind me. The police arrived within about a minute and started stopping traffic further down the road and sorting out passengers. It soon became evident that everyone who’d been on the bus was pretty much ok. The driver was looking pretty startled as most of the front of the bus where he would have been sitting was destroyed. Here is a pic that i took from the window. It doesn’t show the damage quite so well because it was dark but you can see where it’s gone so high that it’s taken bits off wall out. When they moved the bus you could see that the wall was pretty much fubared.
The police called for the fire brigade because the bus and van were obviously going to need moving but the fire brigade would have to make sure there wasn’t any chance of it blowing up and stuff. I decided to go back upstairs because no one was hurt and stuff and they just needed to clear it all away. I searched my pockets for my keys and couldn’t find them! I was well worried. Luckily the front door of Augusta Court had done it’s typical thing of not swinging shut properly so i was able to get inside. A woman was just entering the building as well and i blathered something about losing my keys. She gave me a funny look as though i was mad. When i got upstairs i saw that i’d left the keys in the door! I’d locked it and then just left the keys in the lock! I was obviously quite distracted!
Inside, I put the webcam on to it and a few people on IRC watched it with me. Some rubble clearing men arrived and a tow truck to take away the van. Later they managed to pull the bus away by tying some string round it and pulling it off somewhere.
After a good cup of tea i calmed down a bit but i didn’t manage as much packing for holiday as i hoped to because i felt a bit freaked even though no one was hurt. It was a strange accident really. Market Street is one way. It has loading bays on the right hand side with a full lane to pass by them so no need to swerve. The bus should have just sailed past to the left of the van. The road narrows to the left hand side a bit further up because of a pedestrian crossing with signals. They only recently put a load of anti-skid road surfacing there also. The bus however didn’t impact the van on the left hand side as if it just clipped it due to an inexperienced driver. It’s as if the driver fell asleep at the wheel or passed out or something because he impacted the van on it’s right hand side, wedging the bus into the building and pushing the van out to the left (as you can see on the photo). Unfortunately i didn’t see it happen but there were plenty of witnesses on the bus itself who could probably say whether the driver just seemed to lose it or something. Maybe it will be in the news if it turns out there were strange shinanigans other than just ‘accident’. He could have swerved to avoid a pedestrian of course or something similar.
Well it was all very exciting. Not sure i’ve ever had to ring 999 before!
Yes Christmas is close and I think I have now got all the presents we need to give people and a few for James. The only thing remaining to purchase is a Christmas card with ‘to my husband’ on it <3
This Friday it is the work Christmas party. Everyone leaves work at around 12 midday and heads over to the Buckerell Lodge hotel down the road for a Christmas meal. There’s apparently music and dancing later on in the evening and possible trips into town for drinking however I’m not sure of the format as last year I had to leave after the meal to travel to James’s parents’ house. This time we aren’t going anywhere next weekend but hopefully I can slip away anyway as I do not want to accidentally get tipsy around work colleagues as that could be disastrous knowing me! I’d only make a fool of myself by talking my usual rubbish!
This year we are planning to leave for my parents’ house on Thursday 22nd after work. We will then stay there until the evening of Christmas Day when we will then drive down to James’s parents’ house. Boxing Day is John Seward’s 60th birthday so we will be celebrating that with him. Then at 4am on the 27th we head off to Gatwick to catch a plane to southern Spain! Yey! There we shall reside until New Year’s Eve at which point we will race back to Bristol to party the new year in at Becky’s flat with a number of other friends also. Hopefully we will then have enough room in the car, having dropped off presents and Mum’s suitcase along the way, to give Dave G a lift back to Exeter.
At the moment Christel isn’t so well and is in hospital having what is hopefully a minor operation. James and I therefore send her best get well soon wishes. We shall hopefully be visiting her this evening in hospital if all goes to plan.
This weekend my parents are coming to visit mainly because I am due for my first proper wedding dress fitting on Saturday and I thought it best to have Mum present. Hopefully it won’t be too harrowing.
I’m supposed to have my underwear all sorted ready for the fitting but I totally haven’t done that. I suppose I should go shopping sometime this week after work to try and find the right under dress garments. The woman in the shop is nice but brusque so I don’t want to enrage her with my incorrect underpants.
Also at the weekend Becky is visiting Dave so I thought this an excellent opportunity to take her to the bridesmaid shop for a quick and hopefully last fitting to check that the alterations they have made for her dress aren’t totally off the wall. I doubt that Rose will need to have another shop fitting as they were only altering the skirt length for hers but for Becky’s they were doing some other alterations too so it’s best to check they are right. I will then be taking the dresses back to the flat ready for the wedding. Wheee!
Stephanie’s dress is currently in production after her fitting last Saturday. They pinned her into the cotton one and are going to use that as a template to make it in the silk. Sooo exciting. It looked a bit odd with it being entirely pinned together but you could still tell that the final version will be tremendous.
Wow, well into the weekend already and this is the first opportunity to write about the weekend.
Last weekend was great. I started by taking the day off work on Friday (pre-booked of course) and spent the whole day doing a proper clean of the place. The kitchen was in dire need of sanitising! Mum arrived in the afternoon.
Then on Saturday, Rose (& Jed) arrived, followed by Katrina and Stephanie. We met Becky on our way to the bridesmaid dress shop (Feathers of Isca). The girls had their measurements taken and Becky and Rose managed to try on some dresses that were there in their size. There were several different shapes of skirt that they could try to go with the chosen top. They just so happened to choose the same one even though it would have been fine if they had wanted different ones. The looked absolutely amazing. I’m really looking forward to the wedding now having seen how great they look. Everyone will think they look so beautiful! I felt the first real feeling of butterflys when i saw them in the dresses - the nerves are starting already! Argh!
In the evening, Katrina and Stephanie had to go home, and Becky went with Dave to a party, so the rest of us had chinese take-away and watched tv. Everyone was pretty tired though, especially Jed and Rose as they set off at about 5am to arrive, so we didn’t stay up too late.
On Sunday we just chilled out and then Mum and I went to church in the evening.
On the Monday morning, mum just managed to take a delivery for me before having to go for the train - it was the sweety fillings for the wedding favour crackers! Yippee! How exciting…I wish we didn’t have to wait so long now!
Mum and I confirmed the desired invitation designs etc and she is going to confirm with dad the correct wording to go on them. Then they shall be ordered and sent out ASAP! Woot!
