Can I please complain about the weather? It was 32 DEGREES YESTERDAY. UGH. It was sticky on my way to work at 8am! There is something wrong! I was cold a few days ago!

And not only was it hot but I was in meetings straight from 10 to 5pm in a major staffing crisis and things are going to be pretty awful at work for the next while. Also this means I didn’t eat all day and I was in a right state when I got home.

I was meant to have this week off (half term) but I think I am going to end up going in at least once or twice for meetings.

There’s another house viewing in an hour and a half. Won’t someone please buy it?!

I get very paranoid when the nausea goes away that this is all going wrong.

And we’ve tempted fate this week – Mark told his parents although I thought it was too early, and I bought maternity bras. I also couldn’t resist a 6 month old size hooded Roots sweatshirt on ebay – well, who the hell else in the UK was going to buy it. Even though I am not normally superstitious.

I did get really paranoid yesterday, and then had a bad dream about it all last night. But feeling sort of worse today physically – which is no fun and yet is positive.

I have to say that the thing that grosses me out most is the idea of meat and cheese together. And I was always such a quarter pounder fan. Meat…ugh can barely eat it, cheese too – combine them, it’s a no no. However about a pound of fresh cherries goes down well! Is it evil that I haven’t entirely given up coffee? I have drastically reduced my caffeine intake though, which is meant to be the bad part of it.

Who knows, it’s all new.

I completely forgot to put something important on here – anyone want to buy an overpriced old clunker of a house so we can get it off our hands?!

The big FOR SALE sign is just outside the door.

See the details here on the estate agent’s site.

Mark has a friend David down the street that he has known for years; he’s a retired excellent tailor and clothesmaker. He also has a very talented daughter called Katie who is a garden designer and works for some very rich clients. This year, she worked very hard and got herself into the Chelsea Flower Show, which is a very big deal here in the UK – even non-gardening types like myself end up watching coverage on tv. Although I have to say this country does love their little patch of green. Anyway, Katie has done amazingly well – I found out from David this morning she got a silver medal, and I saw her garden featured on BBC2 this evening on their hourlong coverage. Apparently she had a visit this week from Diarmuid Gavin and Laurence Lllewellyn Bowen (probably so spelt their names wrong there) who if you watch any BBC home or garden design stuff you will know. You can check her garden out here on the BBC site or there’s a good pic on the Royal Horticultural Society page. I’ve lent David our digital camcorder and he’s spending some time there on Thursday so hopefully we’ll get to see more of it too.

Wedding dress bought and paid for and hanging on a hook behind me – won’t put a picture on here as it seems like you should all wait to see it! And for the legions not coming (and there are legions) you are just going to have to wait too! Cake also done. Check. Check. Now about 50 other things left to do only. Sigh.

Happy birthday to my dad today. I sent him socks and Cadbury Flakes and apparently Royal Mail stole one, re-wrapped the parcel, and stuck an apology on it!

extreme closeup (lucky there isn’t smell-o-vision on computers yet)

It’s a hard life sleeping on the couch 

Haven’t taken any doggy photos for a while so here are some. She is BIG but she doesn’t know it, still jumps on us like she weighs 2 kilos not 27 

7 weeks – this one has primarily been spent feeling like complete crap and barely being able to get off of the couch.

There are so many things that I just can’t bring myself to eat or I try to eat and then I have to stop.

Had two days off work – one justified, the other just cause it seemed like a good idea.

Managed to pull off dinner for Mark and Emma and even ate some of it though!

At home instead of work feeling blah. Was going to work from home but I just can’t bring myself to do anything. Brain feels mushy… sleepy too…

The dog is enjoying her day, as she is normally cooped up for most of a weekday, chasing butterflies, bees and destroying the garden. I am NOT happy with her as my vegetable patch was flourishing at the beginning of the month and now it is a dry pile of soil. I don’t actually know if she is the culprit as there is a fence around it that theoretically was blocking her out but part of it is down. I suppose it could also be birds/slugs/foxes (do they eat plants?)/hedgehogs or something but I am annoyed as I was looking forward to the harvest. The indoor herbs are doing well though.

A few house viewings have been done but no offers on the house… Beginning to wonder if we will be stuck here in this house if we can’t sell it. Only been two weeks on the market but who knows how it will pan out.

Need to find a new wedding dress as the one I bought in the sales on Boxing Day is really not going to fit now. I could try another one from Monsoon for full price (not that much really, but not a wide selection – they mostly do regular clothes), but we are also going to a proper bridal shop this Sunday to see if there is time to help me out. I don’t want something big and frou frou, and we don’t have a huge budget for it anyway, so I am not sure how the bridal shop is going to go. Also I think they usually have many months’ delivery time. I have a contingency plan anyway – there is a store on ebay that has like 2 days delivery time on dresses in many sizes that aren’t expensive and aren’t atrocious looking. Just in case at least I have that option.

Em and Mark are in town tomorrow from Wales for a conference, so I am planning out what the vegan dinner is going to be. I’m thinking about some kind of chickpea pasta thing and an eggless chocolate cake. They are going to stay here too – it’s nice now we have a proper spare room (actually two spare rooms) that is possible to use as a bedroom and isn’t just a junk pile! Looking forward to seeing them again.

Must go put feet up and watch trashy daytime television…
(:-( the freeview box isn’t working properly so I can’t watch general hospital on abc1….wahhhh!)

Went to Carluccio’s in St Christopher Place for dinner with Hilary last night; it’s a tradition that I when I have dinner with community partners from work in mental health that we always go to a branch! Well, it’s not bad food. They have a great bottle of wine there: VERDICCHIO CLASSICO, UMANI RONCHI, MARCHE that I just copied the name of from their website as I always forget it. It just goes down easy. And I always have the MILANESE DI POLLO, no idea why. Last night’s highlight was an especially good dessert – panna cotta flavoured with coffee and served with sticky caramel sauce. Yumma yum. Anyway, we had loads to catch up on, and there is lots of work to do soon on our big scarily high-funded and high targets project that starts next month. I think we are getting a website for that so I’ll be able to link to it soon.

It was nice to get out of course since we always go home now for the sake of the dog so we don’t deprive her of attention. As she is a MASSIVE attention seeker who can not bear to be without human beings.

I’ve had an interesting week being an inspector for our mock Adult Learning Inspectorate inspection at work. Me and the Head of HR holed up in his office for 3 days auditing paperwork on various departments including jewellery, fitness and dance. But I have learned a lot about things that I should be doing as a manager that they just don’t tell you when you get a job here…

I’m just getting wind of bad stuff happening with Paul Martin’s government? I don’t have a lot of time to read the newspapers online anymore so I am completely behind on Canadian news.

Better get back to work – I have a bonus day at my desk since I thought I would still be ‘inspecting’ today but we finished early so I can catch up on all the stuff I should have been doing this week.