The random ones are the best ones July 31, 2008

After rugby training last night I got home and no sooner was I in the door than I got a call from a mate asking if I wanted to come over and drink wine.  Another of our buddys was down from Noooooocastle so a group of us went over to nurse the vino and have a ruby. 

 

What could have been a mundane evening at home tidying up before the cleaner comes today turned into a great girly night in accompanied by top music video cheese, a good curry, lorra lorra wine and some good gossiping.  We all decided that ’slow burn’ lovers are the keepers and that lightning strike lust doesn’t last.  We also determined that Beyonce’s sister looks slightly like a horse, and that Kate Garraway has probably had botox, as well as a fashion bypass lately.

 

The culmination before bedtime was boogying round the lounge to some non-descript choon whilst our lovely host lady was passed out on the sofa.  Tops.   The only bad element was being awoken by our visiting bud’s baby boy at 0710.  He squawked like a bird until we were all awake and drinking tea, the evil child!

 

Anyhoo, it’s back to reality today and packing for the holibops.  We’re off camping tomorrow so the spare room is in complete disarray with bits of tent littered around the bed.  I made myself feel organised though by spending an hour doing a computerised list of stuff to take.  And then I spent 30 mins packing up a ’spice box’ tupperware with fresh ginger, chillies and garlic, salt and pepper, garam masala, lemon grass, thai 7 spice and curry leaves.  Now, if that lot can’t make some random foodage taste good I don’t know what will!!

Is a year ahead too soon for pre-wedding nerves? July 25, 2008

I'm hoping I won't look this stressed on the fateful day

Fook. Just typed the date into a document and realised it’s the 25th July. The reason I’m freaked?

Well, a year today, I’ll be pooping myself and downing some alcohol ahead of getting hitched to the LOML (Love of My Life – aaaah). I’ll most likely be having a little pep talk with myself, convincing myself that I won’t trip over my veil, go ass over tit, or cry so much my mascara streaks down me cheeks. I’ll be looking to my BMs to gee me up and there will probably be some cringeworthy high-five / group hug moments just before we enter the church. I’ll be hoping and praying the weather is hot (our reception marquee is due to be sited on a gorgeous field…also a flood plain) but not so hot that I get heat rash and faint. Gah! Makes my palms sweat, just writing this.

LOML on the other hand, this time next year, will most likely have finished a nice game of golf, had a leisurely shower then stopped off at the pub for a quick game of snooker and a Guiness before the big event.

This is the church where I shall be wed

Weird to think this time next year we’ll nearly be Mr and Mrs. I’m tres excited about gaining a hubbie, but I’m quite sad to let my surname go – it’s good and unusual. My new name is going to make me sound like I’m a Victorian workhouse mistress from a Dickens book!!

Knee news is good news July 24, 2008

Yesterday was Knee-D-Day, with the consultant’s final (for now) verdict on the gammy knee.  It’s not been too bad lately and I have been a demon with my physio so feeling strong (although still wibbly when on heels – maybe that’s just me).

In anticipation of the worst, I’d psyched myself up for an operation as I figured some wobbling wasn’t right, right?  Apparently not!  Consultant man did a few tests, including one test where the upper and lower leg are moved in opposition.  The gammy knee was pretty bad on this but then the Prof moved to my (apparently) non gammy knee and found that although minor, this knee also slid around a bit on the test.  Conclusion? I have freaky knees.

The other thing that the consultation revealed is that my physio is a grass. I’d confided to him that I’d twatted my knee whilst moshing to ‘Baggy Trousers’ wearing high heels on rugby tour.  Physio man, lovely though he is, had actually written this (pretty much word for word) into his report so my Consultant read it out, put the letter down, sighed, raised his eyebrows…but then admitted Baggy Trousers was indeed a top tune. Whatta guy!

The upshot anyway, of all the prodding and testing, is that Consultant man wants me to keep on with physio and get back into rugby training. Good to have no op, but mixed feelings about this.

One part of me = Slightly scared by the thought of bundling, as I’ve not done any rugger since November 2007.  Gulp.

The other part of me = Ecstatic that I can go and KICK SOME ASS again.  Can’t wait to pile in.

So, I guess time will tell and come August, when we start contact training, the knee will be properly tested.  The Prof says I have to contact him again in September to let him know how I get on.  Here’s seriously hoping that the knee stands up to it – otherwise, it’s deffo operation time and that just freaks me OUT!

Sleep deprivation – it must stop! July 24, 2008

OK, I really need to learn how to switch my brain off at night time. I mean, seriously. The past few nights I’ve been dog tired at like 9pm, but then I get a second wind and stay up late and by the time I snuggle in for the night, my brain is whirring.

For some reason I have an overactive mind during the night-time hours. When I should be snoozing, I’m thinking about work, or planning what to cook at the weekend, or wondering if the kohl rabi I’ve just planted will come out ok. The Boy has absolutely no troubles on this front – quite the opposite in fact, he seems to slip into power mode nap whenever he’s not moving.

The night before last, I was awake until 1am thinking about inane rubbish. Last night I headed to bed optimistic of getting some good zeds, but once again the brain was off and I was planning our crop rotation for next year. I am such a freak! Anyhoo, last night once I did drop off, external forces thwarted my snooze – with a 3.30am arrival of the Police to our street.

This has happened before but on this occasion, the police dogs were sniffing round the house opposite ours instead of yapping at a wannabe car thief in our front garden. Two coppers were pegging it round looking for something or someone. It was all rather exciting and we checked our back garden in case the offenders were holed up there. No such drama however and 15 mins later the street was back to its normal quietness. That is, until a fire engine came up the street then spent about 20mins reversing with the accompanying “beep…beep” soundtrack. Nice, thanks.

Last night I was thankfully able to slip back into sleep relatively quickly, probably because I was so knacked from my earlier mind wanderings. But it’s gotta stop! Not least because I’m getting serious bags under the eyes and despite using a good night cream and eye serum (now I’m old) they aren’t getting better – and I’m thinking Bridal, ladies, I have (almost exactly) one year to get utterly gorgeousness sorted!! (on another Bridezilla note, I went to the garden centre last night and ended up bying a hydrangea plant solely because it was called “The Bride”. It better not die!)

I’ve come across magazine articles which recommend hot milk or chamomile tea before bed, a warm bath, lavender oil on pillows etc. This piece on sleep tips says “Don’t make bedtime the time to solve your problems. Make a to do list for the next day then try to clear your mind.”

But come on, do these really work? Seems like a whole lot of faffing to me. Wine is more my style – so tonight I’m doing alcohol therapy – a few glasses before I go up the wooden hill to help me on my way. Can’t decide tho if empty calories are a lesser evil than black bags under the eyes.

53/100 July 21, 2008

Stumbled across this blog today and it’s a great read. Being in PR, I particularly liked this post from the other side of the fence. Welcome to my world!

Anyhoo, although I’ve already done ‘my week in media‘ Meme, I’m an avid reader and liked the idea of doing a book list related one. So here goes!

Here’s what you do:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.

2) Italicize those you intend to read.

3) [Bracket] the books you LOVE.

4) Reprint this list on your own blog.

1 [Pride and Prejudice] – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 [Little Women] – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 [Rebecca] – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 [Anna Karenina] – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 [Emma] – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie-the-Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 MISSING
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 [Sense and Sensibility] – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold (on my book club’s list!)
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – A. S. Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 [The Faraway Tree Collection] – Enid Blyton
91 [Heart of Darkness] – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

My score: 53/100

I’m quite disappointed with that, being an English Lit grad and all – although perhaps it reveals that I subconsciously lean towards female-focused literature; from Emma to Bridget.  New reading resolution – be more cerebral and stop reading chick lit!

OK, passing this on now to Robyn, Casey, Jude.

Pilates pain, three days on! July 18, 2008

Tuesday night I went to my regular pilates class. Nothing exciting there, I hear you say. No, it was business as usual and as good as normal – my instructor’s ace and I love it.

this is SO not me

Anyway, at Tuesday’s session we did lots of side stretch stuff, including something called “the mermaid” (a bit like this). “Nice!!” I thought, “lovely, I’ll tone into a curvaceous aquaeous beauty. good one”. The pose involved sort of tucking one knee under another, over on one side, then stretching right over with your arm, whilst keeping the pelvis even. It was well ‘ard. I don’t think I looked for one instance like Ariel.

I pressed on regardless and enjoyed the pose. It felt good.

But then, Wednesday I went running at lunch and felt sore down my sides, like my ribs were bruised.

Yesterday’s run was much the same.

Today, I have not been running but whilst typing this my ribs are literally aching. This is wierd. Is it related to Pilates? I’ve played rugby and a good few knocks on the torso usually cause this kind of ache. It’s like my muscles all down my sides and into my back are having a bad day.  My ribs generally seem to be featuring in all my pilates blogs.  I’m trying to get them less sticky-outy anyway – perhaps this pain is just my ribcage re-aligning into a more slender silhouette?

“Sorry, can’t play Sunday – I’m ovulating” July 15, 2008

My rugby mate has just sent me a link to this article, which warns that ACL injuries (see my woes here) can be linked to womens’ menstrual cycles. She’s damaged her back and her physio advised her, quite literally I understand, to avoid playing rugger whilst ovulating. Is this for real? It isn’t 1st April is it?

The article says: “The study finds that women are nearly three times more likely to injure their ACL during ovulation” – so that means that my knee got twatted when I was being fertile. Really? No – REALLY? Is it that we are more vulnerable around this time? Or are we more moody and thus likely to pile into sports to release tension, hence risking injury? The answer is unknown – researchers say it’s “still a mystery”. Women = mystery. No change there then.

I’m struggling to take this seriously, although my mate may be more cautious (she has had 3 back operations, after all – can’t be too careful when your menstrual cycle’s involved). But really. Can you imagine our coaches’ faces when we announce, “sorry, can’t play Sunday – I’m ovulating.” That has to be the best/craziest/most bizarre excuse yet for missing a game, surely?

The ’stress less’ test is passed July 15, 2008

Following yesterday’s post about things I will be when 30, I can confirm that the first day of the thirty year old new me has gone as planned.

Today I’ve continued to accessorise with new earrings bought by the Boy, and last night I did a lovely pork steak with sage from the garden, new potatoes freshly dug and lovely home made coleslaw, which included the kohl rabi given to me by lil’ sis (who described it, accurately I find, as a ‘cross between a turnip and an apple’).

The ‘worry less’ theme was also tested sorely as first off I pranged into a car in front of me in the queue to a roundabout, just as I was leaving work (no major damage), and then when I got home I kept being a dunce with my online banking system passwords, until I was locked out (takes them 3-5 days to set me back up again).

When I was 29, I would have fretted about both of these incidents, but I find my new mantra of stressing less is easier than I thought it would be…

On turning thirty… July 14, 2008

I’ve just turned 30 and had an awesome party on Sat with loads of mates and family coming along to shimmy me into my next decade.

I feel this is a significant juncture, and it got me wondering about how a 30 year old me should approach life. Here’s what I’ve decided:

- Accessorise more. I have lots of lovely jewellery (even more after my bday thanks to gifts from my lush mates). A 30 something should be wearing nice bracelets and earrings every day of the week, not just on a night out.

- Worry less. I am a worry-wart and often think out loud in an attempt to share my concerns, which actually just results in a very annoyed Boy. Most of what I worry about is over stuff I can’t control – the weather, other people’s plans etc. My 30’s should be less stressy!

- Bake/Cook more lush stuff, just for fun. I love to bake cakes and do nice proper food, but only really do it for special events or cricket teas. I am going to aim to do less ‘functional’ cooking – you know, tv dinners whipped up quickly cos I’m knackered – and do more lush cooking that I am going to love to eat. A friend got me the Jamie Oliver at home cook book for my bday, and I’m going to start with that.

I think those three things will do me for now. Tonight, I will be baking in a stress-free manner, with a fabulous necklace on!!

Act in haste, repent at leisure. July 7, 2008

I’ve just made a mistake.  Some woman left me a comment on this blog entry, and basically slagged me off – and I deleted it.   I really wished I hadn’t.

The blog entry is where I consider whether my Mother should be on the hen do.  It’s something to consider as many of my mates are lager drinking rugby girls, and the usual willy-related hen jokes might wear thin on my Catholic, naieve Mother.  So, I am being a good person in considering her.
Well, the message I got in this comment was not seeing me in a good light at all!  I paraphrase, but basically the message sender was saying “how rude to consider cutting your Mom out of your hen do, after she’s been working her butt off to pay for said wedding”.  Rude. And ignorant – you don’t know me, lady!!

Now, if my Mum was paying for my entire wedding, she would of course be on the hen do without question.  In addition, she would get first say on the guest list and the style of the whole caboodle.  She’d also be re-mortgaging, and probably having a nervous breakdown. No, scrap that. Definitely having a nervous breakdown.  As it happens, we’re paying for most of the bash ourselves, lady, so shut ya face!

Anyhoo, the reason I’m annoyed I deleted the offending comment is because I acted too hastily, in a moment of crazy, deluded goodwill.  The commenter sent another message after her first one saying delete it, cos she didn’t want to offend the bride.  Too late, girlfriend!!  Having mulled it over, I now wish I’d hung onto the message.  And possibly even published it.  My mate was brave enough to do this on her blog and it sparked a whole rush of comments and new readers – you see, hate mail can be good!!