You love me *sob*, you really love me *gush*

Those nice people over at Best Blog on WordPress have written a really lovely review about my little site.

I suggest you all pop across there and read some reviews and maybe find new blogs for your blogroll.

They really do have marvellous taste.

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So what have we all been up to?

Work is ridiculously busy at the moment, we have a number of major product launches coming up in the next couple of months so getting everything ready to hit the shelves is taking a lot of my time, hence the lack of blogging.

Little’un and I had an unexpected day off together on Tuesday.  She had thrown up at nursery on Monday so was excluded for 24 hours, but was absolutely fine the following day so we spent a lovely day at Stickney Farm Park.  Little’un was feeling brave so she helped to feed the lambs and I got to have a bounce on a trampoline with her which was the most fun I’ve had in ages.  Thankfully my pelvic floor is now up to trampolining 2½ years after Little’un’s birth 😀

The Yorkshireman is a very happy Yorkshireman indeed after receiving a shiny new laptop with lots of bells and whistles.  He is squinting at it though as he hasn’t got round to getting himself some middle-aged varifocals yet.

Our kitchen renovation is nearly complete.  Only the tiling to be finished now and it’s all done.  The Yorkshireman has done it virtually single-handedly.  He will be available after its completion for a reasonable rate.  Assuming I don’t find anything else for him to do 😉

Can’t wait for work to calm down, I am going to take a week off and do nothing.

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Weigh In

Good grief, has it really been so long since I last posted?  Time is running away from me at the moment.

I was too embarrassed to come on here and tell you all that I gained 2½ lbs last week, but I have lost them again now (those pesky pounds, they are always coming and going) so I am happy again.

I measured myself last night and have lost 1½ inches from my bust, an inch from my waist and 1½ inches from the widest point around my hips.  I was delighted with that as I am struggling to see any difference in how I look despite having lost a stone in weight.  The Yorkshireman (bless him) assures me that my clothes look less tight – a lot of my clothes are starting to feel a bit looser now which makes me shudder to think how tight they must have looked before the weight started coming off.

Progress is slow and a little erratic but the general direction is in the right way.

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First day of spring.

Yeah, right.

All the daffs in my garden are broken due to the wind and covered in snow.

It’s freezing cold today and damp.

Bah.

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The weather – a very British complaint.

What is it with the weather at the moment?

Last week it was lovely – blue skies with a few lovely white fluffy clouds scattered about for aesthetic effect, light winds, actual warmth in the sunshine etc etc.  The daffs came out and all the stuff in the garden that we assumed must be dead started to make a comeback.  The goddam grass grew a good inch, if not more, last week.

This week?  It’s cold.  Very windy.  Tomorrow it will snow, only a few flakes but that should be enough to totally stuff up the roads.  We Brits are traditional types and don’t let a little thing like common sense get in the way of our “snowbound in less than an inch” madness.

I only hope that all the buds in the garden will survive the cold snap.

Now, where did I put me long johns?

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Things not to do with a two year old #5

Expect them to understand that just because Grandma & Grandad have come to visit doesn’t automatically mean she will be taken to the seaside.  When it is 4°C and incredibly windy outdoor activities will be restricted to playing on the swing in a sheltered corner of the garden only.  The beach shall remain untouched by our feet.  Donkeys will remain unstroked and unridden.  Icecream will most assuredly not be eaten.

My inlaws took Little’un to the seaside for the day last summer.  The trip obviously made a huge impact as she still talks about it now and every time she sees them she asks to go again.

Roll on the summer.

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Weigh In

Hurrah hurrah hurrah I have lost my first stone (that’s a competely arbitrary and non-celebratory 14lbs for anyone in America).

It has taken 9 weeks which is rather a long time to take to lose a first stone when you have as much to lose as I do, but nevertheless I am very pleased to have hit that milestone.

And in other news… The Yorkshireman has taken a rather large step toward middle age – a visit to the optician at the weekend resulted in a prescription for his first ever varifocals to replace his single vision long distance specs.  He has had to peer at small print for a while and has finally had to give in to the inevitable 😀

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It was just one of those days…

Tuesday was the shitty day to end all shitty days.

It started with an early start – out of the house by 5.30am – to get to the other side of London for a meeting with a customer.  I don’t do early starts.  I am not a morning person.

All was going swimmingly until I caught up with a massive tailback on the A1.  Which went on.  And on.  And on.  For 2 hours.  I travelled no more than about 15 miles in that 2 hours.  There had been two accidents so traffic that is generally pretty bad anyway was beyond nightmarish.  By the time I got to my meeting it had finished and I just had to turn round and come back again.  *thunk*

In the meantime all hell had broken loose at work and I was getting umpteen phonecalls whilst I was stewing on the road.  This did nothing for my temper and I was melting down, right there in my car.  I broke my brand new bluetooth headset as I had seemingly bought a particularly crap one that wouldn’t fit to my ear properly and snapped when I tried to adjust it.  I was then stuck with the headset that came with the phone which has those horrid in-the-ear little round things that I have always found exceedingly uncomfortable.

I was hoping to go straight home after the non-meeting but I had to go back to the office despite my ridiculously early start.  Stuff got sorted, all was well, but I was knackered.

I had a hire car for the day which I had to fill with petrol before it was collected by the hire company.  It was bigger than the car I normally drive but not that big, smaller than The Yorkshireman’s car which I have driven no end of times without problems.  I really don’t know what happened, I can only assume that I was zoned out through stress and tiredness and that I really shouldn’t have been driving…

There were no pumps available at the petrol station for the side of the car where the petrol cap was.  I wanted to get home NOW so I pulled into the other side of the pumps so I could stretch the hose over the top of my car and fill it from the other side.  Only I misjudged it.  CRUNCH went my wheel arch.  THWACK went the nozzles as they clattered to the floor.  THUD went the front of the pump as it joined the nozzles.

Oh.  My.  God.  I broke Tesco’s Petrol Station.  They had to close it and everything while they tried to get the pump back together.  The Petrol Station Manager was a lovely lady who told me I looked pale and shaken (really??? You do surprise me) and promptly took me off to the café for a (free) coffee until she judged me fit enough to drive home unaided.  I had to fill out some forms and they are going to claim for the pump off my company insurance.

Well I finally got home at around 7ish.  I missed my weigh in (so nothing to report on that front this week) and I only saw Little’un for about half an hour in total that day.  I drank wine.  It seemed the only sensible thing to do at the time.

I never, ever, ever want a day like that again.

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Pay Rises

The following rant has been inspired by an article in a weekend newspaper about poor pay rises in the public sector this year.

Many public sector workers are getting a pay rise this year of less than 2% and are threatening strike action.

I sympathise with them. Many do a wonderful job in often trying circumstances.  Nurses, firemen, teachers and a myriad of other public sector workers do a wonderful and worthwhile job and I think they should be rewarded accordingly. Firemen in particular put their lives on the line every time they are called out and in my opinion deserve to earn a lot more than they do.

However…

It really gets my back up when public sector workers complain about how they can’t afford to live on the pittance they are paid by the government. A fireman is paid rather more than I am, and a nurse gets more than The Yorkshirman does. We have to make sacrifices in order to afford the bills and it is incredibly galling to hear people who earn more than we do say that they can’t afford to live.

People who work in supermarkets are paid little more than the minimum wage and yet provide a public service, often working through the night so that nurses, fireman and others can still do their shopping when they finish their shift at silly o’clock. Do they not deserve to earn a decent wage?

The Yorkshirman checks that food sold in supermarkets is fit to eat. Does he not deserve a decent salary for that? Last year, the company he works for was squeezed so hard by the supermarkets it supplies that they couldn’t afford to give anyone a cost of living increase. No pay rise at all. Nowt. Nada. Zip. All the while gas bills, electric bills, water rates and council tax were going through the roof and he was being paid no extra with which to cover the increases.

I would like to send a personal message to the people featured in the article I read.

To the fireman who was disgusted that his wife had to work to make ends meet:

You are in the same position as millions of others. You will get far more sympathy from me by saying that you do a dangerous and important job and deserve to be paid accordingly than you will get if you start to bleat on about how terrible it is that your wife has to work.

To the job centre worker who was “only” taking home £1,400 a month:

There are plenty of private sector workers who do worthwhile jobs for a lot less than £1,400 a month. They too work long hours and often aren’t paid for their overtime. They get less holiday than you (the statutory minimum of 20 days a year is becoming increasingly common) and because of  crap stakeholder pension schemes they will also be worse off than you when they retire.

To the nurse who was working 50-60 hours a week:

In the area where I live there are thousands of shop/factory/land workers who also work these sort of hours but they won’t be able to buy one of the houses that are being built near our local hospital. They are being sold cheaply to nurses. The shop workers can’t afford to buy a house at all.

To all of you:

A poor pay rise is a kick in the teeth for anyone regardless of the industry they’re in. We all have bills to pay whether we are nurses, shop workers or office wallahs. Everyone has a part to play in the smooth running of our everyday lives, whether we work on the front line in A&E on a Saturday night or in the background doing an office job making sure that the filing is done correctly.

The argument should not be that public sector workers are hard done to.  It should be that we all deserve a decent standard of living regardless of the jobs we do.  It’s not just about salary; things such as working hours, number of holidays, flexibility and pension contributions make a difference to peoples’ lives and these are the areas in which the private sector tends to fall short of the public sector.

Please think twice before complaining about what you have.  There are plenty of people out there who are far worse off than you are.

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Weigh In

Another 2½lbs off this week 😀

I’m delighted as I wasn’t expecting as much as that.  I weighed myself on my bathroom scales before going to weigh-in to get an idea of what was coming and they showed a loss of a pound.  That disappointed me as I had been eating properly all week and not a jot of alcohol had passed my lips so I thought a paltry pound was a little unfair.  Naturally I trust the scales at class more than I trust my own cheapo ones…

We had a new routine at aerobics which I found easier than the old one.  Not sure if that’s because it was easier or if I’m just a little fitter than I was a couple of months ago.

Only a pound to go and the first stone will have gone.

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