200 calories? That’s a slice of cake!

That’s burnt off, not eaten by the way 😀

Yesterday evening saw my first proper visit to the gym.  It wasn’t nearly as awful as I was expecting; I’m being given a gentle introduction because I’m fairly overweight and it’s been so long since I did any proper exercise.  I did much better than the instructor thought I would, two spells on the treadmill at a brisk walk on an incline (burning off the 200 calories in the title) and some resistance work.  I took it all in my stride and even though I felt warm and a little out of breath when I’d finished I could easily have managed more.  It would appear that running round after a 20 month old is keeping me fitter than I thought.

Rather surprisingly I’m not stiff at all this morning.  Need to work a bit harder when I go back tomorrow methinks.

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Big Brother

Part of the reason for setting up this new site was that my employers use a web filter that blocks most sites labelled as “Newsgroups and Forums” – including my Livejournal blog.  I’m not sure what’s going on with our IT department at the moment but the “Newsgroups and Forums” filter seems to be somewhat intermittent.  This morning I can get into everyone’s Livejournal, Pewari’s Prattle and various others.  I couldn’t on Friday, but could for most of the rest of last week.  Either someone up high has started blogging or they’re trying to set me up for an appointment with the job centre…

… I’ll get me coat.

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Cats and Carpets

One of the disadvantages of cat ownership is that your carpets can take a bit of a hammering when the poor wee moggy is accidentally shut in a room when you go out for the day.  Charlie has a habit of hiding under beds and frequently ends up on the wrong side of a closed bedroom door, so our bedroom carpet is a mess where he’s scratched to get out.

Truth be told, I’m not overly attached to our current bedroom carpet, it’s a nasty dull pink colour that doesn’t go with anything we own.  The previous owners of Tangerine Towers weren’t exactly meticulous when it came to vacuuming the carpets right up to the skirting board and even my trusty Dyson couldn’t get rid of the dust and muck round the edges of the room when we moved in.  After six years of putting up with the all round yuckiness and scruffiness of the carpet the budget finally caved in at the weekend and we are now the proud owners of a brand new piece of felt backed short pile carpet in a nice neutral beige/mushroom/biscuitty colour, approx. 3m x 4m, complete with underlay, that’ll complement our new paint scheme nicely.  It should be fitted sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Cat ownership disadvantages aren’t always so bad after all .

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A grown ups only weekend

The Yorkshireman’s Mum and Dad came to see us for the weekend on Friday night.  This caused an unnatural flurry of domestic activity on Thursday night, but it was well worth it, not least because it meant that the weekend was pretty much housework free.  It’s always nice to see them, and we are generally spoiled with meals out, toddler entertainment and babysitters.  This meant we could go carpet shopping without the whole in-and-out-of-car-seat / bored-toddler / up-and-down-with-buggy / don’t-forget-the-changing-bag performance, which made things so much easier.  (Quick aside – non-parents often don’t realise what an event going out with a baby or toddler is.  There’s no such thing as just popping out for a pint of milk.)

I also got the chance to remind The Yorkshireman exactly how bad my 10 Pin Bowling skills are on Saturday night.  This is one of many things I really enjoy but am particularly crap at.  People have coached me for years in games like Bowling and Darts but to no avail, I am just far too cack handed for that sort of thing.  My skills definitely lie with games like Trivial Pursuit where you only need enough dexterity to get your piece of cheese into your wheel.  I actually won the first game we played with my all-time record score of 82, but once The Yorkshireman got his eye in I was well and truly demolished by about three times my score.  On to the pub then, I wasn’t drinking but it was still a real treat to go out on our own together and do something non-house or family oriented.  We even managed to find things to talk about!

We were also taken out for Sunday Lunch, which was mainly spent picking up crayons from the floor, bringing me back to life as a mummy with a bump.  Had a nice steak though and Little’un enjoyed her sausage and mash

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8.30am on a Sunday is far too early…

… to be told your BMI, body fat % and weight, but I went for my initial assessment at the gym anyway and just covered my ears.  I now have two sessions a week for the next 10 weeks in which to try and get the scary numbers down, courtesy of the Boston Exercise Prescription Programme.

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Loch Ness Monster Live

A live webcam feed from Loch Ness, after all, you never know what you might see, do you???

Live Loch Ness Monster Cam

The picture refreshes very few seconds.  Strangely addictive viewing.  Especially for a Friday afternoon when my brain’s already started it’s weekend.

Edit @10pm – don’t look at night, it’s dark, you can’t see anything *blush*

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What was No.1 on the day you were born?

Find out here.

Me – Tiger Feet by Mud (always knew my penchant for Glam Rock came from somewhere!)

The Yorkshireman – Young Girl by Union Gap feat. Gary Puckett (????)

Little’un – Britney Spears – Everytime

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Good thing, bad thing

I went for a job interview today, as a result of all the CV’s I sent out a few weeks ago.  I wasn’t really nervous at all, borne out by the fact that I kept forgetting that I even had an interview because of Little’un being poorly and everything else I’ve been thinking about recently.  I didn’t know what job the interview was for, they just asked me to come in for a chat, so i donned my £25 Matalan suit, brushed my teeth, put on a bit of slap and went along for a laugh.  It went very well indeed, and not very well at all.

Well because they gave me some great feedback, which is really unusual at a first interview.  Apparently I’m well presented (in my cheap suit!), articulate and have good customer relations, computer and microbiology skills.  Clearly my “winging it” interview technique worked in this particular case.

Not very well at all because they were interviewing for a Quality Manager for a new site within the company, a job which I don’t have the right experience for at all.  They told me there and then that I wasn’t really suitable for the job.

They liked me though, and have said that they’ll look at their Technical structure and see whether I would fit in anywhere else.

Not a complete waste of time then.

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Lycratastic

I had to collect Little’un from Nursery this morning, she’s been snotty for a week or so and her temperature was up last week, her ear has started oozing goo again so she was sent home sick.  She doesn’t seem poorly though, just a little run down – no temperature and her appetite seems fine.  She should be OK to go back tomorrow.

So I got the chance to watch the Olympics again this afternoon.  Those men in lycra keep calling me back… fortunately posterity has been saved from archive footage of my childbearing hips in one of those skinsuits.  Team GB don’t need me.  They won a silver medal in the ladies’ chucking-yourself-head-first-down-an-ice-run-on-a-tea-tray without me.

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New and Improved Blogging

Welcome all to the new improved blog…

My old blog is here, there’s also a link in the sidebar, so if for some reason you feel the urge to re-read my ancient ramblings then it’s all still there.

Here’s a photo for you, Little’un blowing you all a kiss after a chocolate cake explosion:

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