The shadow of dooooooom

Today I was ambushed by one of the lovely ladies at the gym and made to agree to being weighed and measured on Monday evening. This will be an extremely depressing experience as I am the fattest I've been for two years. I believe that for the rest of this year I may have to re-grow some willpower.

Today, I have...

- Woken up with a quite frankly gorgeous man whose office is so close to my house that I could set the alarm for 8.15 which included ten minutes of waking up time (smug smug smug)

- Marvelled at the very special shapes my hair is able to form after just one night's sleep

- Read one and a half books - ok so they were only part of my great Harry Potter re-read mission but it still counts

- Cried twice (yes, it was over Harry Potter...and yes, it was the same bits that made me cry the first time...but in my defence, he had won the Quidditch cup! This is big stuff here people!)

- Played a bit of Mozart while watching people on the street outside

- Smothered some interestingly sparkly cream on my foot in an attempt to de-mingify it - who knew prescription medicine could be so pretty?!

- Eaten two extremely tasty sandwiches

- Craved Green and Black's Maya Gold but resisted buying any (hurrah!)

- Concluded that while Atonement may be beautifully shot and star the delicious James McAvoy, it's just a tiny bit too literary for my un-cultured mind

- Munched on free pic'n'mix (thanks Mark!)

- Pondered the rubbishness of post-midnight TV

- Calculated just how broke I'm going to be next week and drawn up a shopping list that relies heavily on the words "Tesco Value"

- Worried slightly for my personal safety after hearing about more of the vile things that some men in this world are capable of

- Spontaneously grinned while walking down the street while daydreaming about some of the lovely things that other men in this world are capable of!

More exciting activities to follow tomorrow. I expect the highlights to include the gym, Tesco and Harry Potter 4. Sometimes, in the middle of my busy life, days like this are just bliss.

Another week off

I'm taking another of my random weeks of annual leave this week. I try to arrange these every two to three months to give myself some much-deserved lie-ins and to prevent me killing everyone I work with, and as usual this one is going very well. It started with a delicious dinner and a film at MGL's on Saturday night, and that was followed by the afore-mentioned wedding. Sunday was a day of rest (appropriately) before my mum arrived on Monday. We went to Charlecote Park and Stratford and had a jolly touristy time, before moving on to ASK in the evening for three very yummy and highly fattening courses. On Tuesday we drove to Solihull to help me find the school I have to visit in a couple of weeks' time, which was a comedy adventure all round as we tried to work out where to get off the A41 and which end of town we were aiming at. We were successful in the end and celebrated with hot chocolate at M&S and a delicious lunch at the Loch Fyne seafood restaurant in Knowle. I had a whole dish of mussels for my first course and very nice they were too. Mum left in the afternoon and MGL came round for dinner, a film and an epic Uno battle which I sadly lost. I seriously think that an all-night Uno tournament could be an amazing social event!

Today I've been busy doing chores and writing more of my guide to my holiday for parents, friends and general hangers on. It's 11 pages long so far! This evening MGL and I are going to Le Bistrot Pierre for their Dine with Wine evening - I have a two for one voucher so we're going to have three courses and three glasses of wine each for £25 in total. Bargain. Tomorrow is the cinema to see Atonement with Raquel, and then it's the weekend when for once I have nothing planned. I do however have two double dates arranged for the week after and the social whirlwind that is my life shows no sign of slowing down any time soon.

A final exciting point to mention - yesterday MGL asked me if I was free on any weekends near to my birthday, because he wants to take me away somewhere! I didn't actually think men like that were real. I really hope I never wake up from this particular dream - I could definitely get used to this!

Huge respect

To my brother, who yesterday completed the Boston Rowing Marathon in a single scull to raise money for Cancer Research. 50k in a boat all on your own apparently results in a very sore arse and extreme tiredness, but with over £300 raised so far it's all worth it. Well done Simon!

Wedding

Yesterday a bunch of us headed to Kenilworth for the rather fabulous wedding of Hannah and Anthony. The sun blazed down from a clear blue sky, the location was gorgeous (St Nicholas in Abbey Fields) and the service was just full of love and joy. The bride was beautiful, the groom was dashing and looked so proud and the company was excellent. At the reception we ate copious amounts of rather delicious food, drank wine and toasted all and sundry with champagne. Then we danced to possibly the best jazz band in the world ever (cheques can be made payable to me guys), got very hot and sticky attempting to ceilidh, which at one scary point involved my feet leaving the floor for quite a considerable period of time, and had rambling gin-fuelled conversations on the steps outside. I picked up some ideas to add to my ever-expanding wedding plan, remembered how good I feel about myself when I'm dolled up looking pretty, and marvelled once again at the way her wedding day can make a woman emit that indefinable radiance that enables her to light up a room all on her own. As someone wrote in the guest book, if every day of Hannah and Anthony's life is as wonderful as yesterday then they'll be the happiest couple in the world.

Happy little butterflies

I'd just like to say that I am, at this moment in my life, extremely happy and very excited about the rest of the year and beyond. Long may it continue!

Hugely exciting news

My fabulous mum sent me an email this morning that made me shout "Woooooooooo!" and push my chair back across the office while waving my arms in the air (literally). David Tennant, aka World's Most Gorgeous Man, is returning to the RSC next year to play Hamlet, aka My Favourite Shakespeare Character. I can feel a girly night coming on...

Productivity

I'm having one of my immensely productive weekend days, when I make a huge list and just run round manically until everything's completed. Usually I do this on a Saturday but I was out all day so today I've staved off the Sunday blues with my many and varied tasks. So far I've booked all my youth hostels for my trip, re-organised the budget, got up, done the laundry, watched the final day of World Athletics, cleaned, been shopping, written cards and wrapped presents. I'm so excited about the hostel bookings as it means everything is now falling into place: I have all my flights booked and I know where I'm staying for each night of my trip, so now I just have a few more things to buy and all my printing to do (I'm developing a quite impressive "Folder of Doom" containing all the information I could possibly need) and then it's the pre-trip arrangements that will take up the rest of my time - making a comprehensive change of address list, organising leaving parties (plural!), arranging to move out of the flat, sorting out things at work etc. I'm also quite excited about the shopping I did today - having opted out of my pension scheme, done some overtime and had a payrise, I've been able to buy everything that has been on my "I really need this and can't afford it list" for the past few months, including some black work shoes for winter that are actually waterproof (previously I only had my knee boots after the demise of my other shoes) and a new bottle of perfume which may not seem essential to any men reading this, but I'm sure all the girls will understand that it's not nice to go for four months without any perfume to wear on a night out. I've also picked up a rather fabulous fascinator to wear to a wedding in a couple of weeks' time - I'm sure it'll come in useful for Henley next year too!

Anyway, talk of weddings brings me to yesterday when I had a fun day out at Hannah's hen party. I met the girls in Stratford where they were very easy to spot in the uniform of bright orange tops that we'd been asked to wear. Hannah had a tasteful pink "Bride to be" sash and purple balloons which clashed very nicely with the whole ensemble! We hired rowing boats and split into three teams for a treasure hunt where all the clues were based around the river - cue comedy rowing and me running across the park to try to find an RSC leaflet and getting in the way of all the tourists taking photos of Shakespeare's monument while I worked out who the four statues round the edge represented. Our team finished first and got almost all the answers right which I think was an excellent effort.

After all that exertion we headed back to Hannah and Ant's flat to collapse in a heap for a couple of hours, eat chocolate and drink rose, and discuss weddings. Brilliantly girly, and although I only knew a couple of people there everyone was lovely and it was really fun to chat. Gradually we started getting ready for the evening before heading out with the world's worst taxi firm to Flamenco in Meriden for tapas and salsa dancing. I left at 10 to catch the bus home (standing on the A45 in the pitch dark waiting for the 900 was an interesting experience!) but it was great fun for the short time I was there and the tapas was absolutely gorgeous - the best I've ever had in this country. I definitely recommend the restaurant, although it's probably best to go there with someone who's driving! Anyway, I made it back home just before midnight and collapsed into bed after a great evening. I can't wait for the wedding now to see how lovely Hannah looks in her dress and to see everyone I met again.

This week looks set to be pretty quiet, with just one evening out at MGL's - he's making fajitas which should be yummy. Then at the weekend my brother's coming over which will be brilliant, and we're all going for dinner which I must remember to book tomorrow. Sunday afternoon sees a visit to Coventry to a colleague's birthday/housewarming party so it should be good fun all round. For now though, I'm going to watch the world rowing and feel virtuous after all the productivity of the day.