sniffles

Today my desk looks rather like a pharmacy counter! I have boxes of paracetamol and throat sweets sitting next to my box of tissues and my steaming cup of hot blackcurrant and honey. Yes I have a cold, though thankful it is just a bad cold and not the flu.
It did put a dampener on my weekend though. Saturday I went to bed late and by Sunday morning I had a temperature so skiped church and only went out to choir before crawling back into my bed.
Saturday however was much more fun. Didn't do anything exciting during the day- oh no I tell a lie; I went out to Monoprix and found that a bag I had been admiring had been reduced a second time in the sales (20 something - 14 something - 7 something) so I snapped it up :)
Saturday evening Jen and I were invited to the party of one of her students- well actually she had been invited and then told that she could bring a friend, so she asked me (I felt so special). I had met some of the guys before from going to the pub and stuff, but as more and more people turned up (there were about 23 by the end) the proportion of people that Jen and I knew dwindled.
Thankfully Savi, whose party it was, was one of the few I had already met, so I didn't feel too bad about crashing. He is a lovely guy- genuinely very friendly and thoughtful- hence his offer of Jen inviting a friend to make her feel a bit more at ease. He had hilariously platted his hair and dipped the end in sparkly gell or hair sprayed it or something. So after about 5 mins his black shirt was looking like a reject from westlife's wardrobe).
Despite no knowing everyone we had a great time, chatting away (well too be fair Jen did most of the chatting and I listened- but I'm used to that now). Surprisingly Savi had put on a full sit down meal for everyone. They had four... well they were like grills with 8 little trays rather than one big one, which you used to melt cheese. Then eat the cheese with bread, cold meats, potatoes and stuff. T'was yum. And amusing when some of the boys decided to start throwing potatoes around.
By 11:45 though Jen and I were exhausted. We were going to stay over (we had sleeping bags and everything) but we were both beat and everyone else looked set to keep going for another... 5 hours or something. So we bundled ourselves up against the cold said our goodbyes and tried desperately to get up the drive. The rain that had started falling just after we arrived had turned into a sheet of ice. So we were all slipping and sliding all the way to the tram stop. There we bid good night to the lovely boys who had walked us to the tram stop, and headed for bed.

Night crawler

Tis a little strange but blogger.com has kind of gone down. I can still post new messages (obviously) and you can still read my blog, but I can't edit old posts- I can't even see that I have old posts if I go to that part of the site. I wouldn't mind but I set the font size wrong on Wednesday so it looks all odd!!
I am currently taking a break from checking a report that a colleague has written. It is really hard, because he has really good English. This might sound a rather strange thing to say but here is why. There are a couple of sentences which when I first read them don't make sense, but on second time through or something I understand what was meant. So then I go to find what was wrong with the sentence and suggest a change. However I find no mistakes!!! What he has said is technically perfect English, it's just not what I would say. Now I don't know if it is just because I wouldn't say it, or if it one of times when no one would say it. I have spent ages looking at one sentence and can't decided if it is worth me suggesting an alternative or not. There is always a good chance that I just don't know English well enough to properly understand what he is saying- lol. Happens way too often.

Yesterday was fun. I became a night crawler walker. [NB for any one who is not aware: night crawler is a character from X men. I have seen the trailer for X3 and it looks AMAZING. I can't wait, but it doesn't come out in England till may. So no idea when I'm going to get to see it. So I have Xmen on the brain at the mo] After dinner Elaine and I decided we needed to walk of our dinner so wrapped up against the cold and headed for the castle. The castle is never shut so you can walk the ramparts in the dead of night if you so wish. It wasn't quite the dead of night for us, but it was dark enough that you had to watch yourself walking alone the warn, uneven floors. It was a nice walk and we had a little history lesson while we at it. The castle in Caen was built by (or rather for) William the Conqueror in the 11th century (William the conquer= battle of Hastings= 1066). And much of the old city- what ever was left after the WWII bombings is from the 15th 16th and 17th century. Before all the assistants came I used to spend my Saturdays being a tourist and learning about the city and it's history so I was able to tell Elaine some stuff she didn't know and show her where I had got most of my information- the little info boards that the council have put up all over the place. On from the castle we wandered and found my secret garden church. When I first found it I really did feel like Mary Lennox finding a hidden treasure. It is the shell of an old church with ivy growing all over it and an old mosaic floor leading up the center. It is beautiful. Not so pretty in the dark- much more imposing but still just as striking.
Fantastically fun evening- and more healthy than my normal evening occupation of blobbing!

Yay and ouch

Well I have a big yay. Yesterday for the first time in... well ever I got to watch TV in my room. I managed to find a TV tuner card, that runs on WIN2000 (most seem to require XP), didn't cost the earth and which I think should (cross fingures) work in the UK when I go back home!!! So after plugging it all in, installing all the software and conecting it all up to the external arial point I found I had french dubbed friends playing :)
Friends in french is very funny. I know many of the episodes already, so know what is going on, but even with ones I haven't seen I know the characters well enough to guess what they are saying if I don't understand the french.
Then it was time for the news. Aparently french rural doctors are either paying or receiving 20% more than their city counterparts. I have to say I got a bit stuck when trying to work out if this 20% they kept talking about was a good thing for these doctors or a bad thing.
But still it's very exciting.

This morning wasn't so much fun on waking up though. Aparently I slept funny coz my back is very sore :( it just aches all over which is no fun at all. On the pluss though I get to speak english today coz we have a load of Dutch visitors at work today.

Crazy people

Ok so it is cold!
yesterday= cold
Today= cold
Tomorrow= even colder!!!!
So at what time of year do they decided to test the air con? Yup we are currently sitting in a room with both radiators turned on full, and the air conditioning on full blast. Oh and BTW in case you were wondering our air con only does cold. So my fingures are slowely turning blue!!!

Tis crazy

Blue monday

Today is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year according to scientists. What with the cold weather, Christmas all gone and everything. Waking up this morning I could kinda see it. I just didn't want to get out of bed- "What's the point" "Oh please just another half hour".... no wait hang on that's every monday hee hee.

I had a pretty good weekend actually. Friday was choir and youthgroup as usual. Saturday... well saturday I re-gained the corners in my room. My room had got to the point where is was annoying me with the mess. It wasn't all over the floor with no carpet showing (actually there is never any carpet showing as the floor is linal like a kitchen floor), however the piles of clothes in the corners and the fact that I couldn't use any of my desk due to the mass of papers and rubbish on it ment something had to be done.
So I did two loads of laudry and a load of hand washing. This acheived many things, substantialy clearning my corners, emptying my laundry basket (yes some of my clothes had in fact made it that far), gave me clothes to wear next week and provided a puzzel- where on earth was I going to put it all? Three loads of washing and a radiator which is only wide enough to hand a single towel on- a folded towel!! With string slung all over the place I made enough temporary clothes lines to just about manage.
Then it was time to pop to Monoprix to get some milk, pick up the latest cinema timetables to see if anything was on then go on a friend hunt to see if anyone wanted to come with. I eventually managed to find Jen who suggested staying in cooking together and watching a DVD rather than going out, so it was back off to Monoprix with Jen to get some things for dinner, cook it, eat it (was yum- pasta, sauce and lardons), grab Jane from the computer room and then raid my DVD colection. I have become the local blockbuster for the assistants and our friends as I have ..... well far too many DVDs. So the three of us sat down to watch the prince and me.
Afterwards was the obligator "Oh wouldn't it be nice to have a prince of our own" Both the others then went off on a little dream about Prince William. Now personally I'd take Harry over William, but reveiling this got exclaimations of shock from the others "Really, Harry over William???" Oh well not gonna happen for any of us (well probably not- you never know!!! lol)

Sunday was church and a test for Jen and I- blaging french songs when you have no words. We started off with a hymn book but as we got up for the last two songs it turned out that the lady next to Jen had stollen our book! We were fine with the first song as we knew the english word, so sang those instead. However the last song was a case of laaing along.
Choir was another hard working session. We are singing 'Come now is the time to worship' in french and, I'm not sure quite how it came about but I am playing the piano for it. That song suprisingly (despite my playing that is) is going well. The problem was with the other song. It is taken from a CD by a belgium gospel choir and the guy singing the main part plays around with the rhythm and tune a lot. As a result Hérve who is singing the solo for us has simply learnt all the little rhythmic plays, but hasn't quite nailed them. Philippe worked out the chords and bashed them out for us to give us a base rhythm and then we had to wrok out at which points Hérve was straying. I had sore fingers by the end from clicking out the beat and a sore head from concentrating- It is a tricky song to master. If we pull it off it will be really good.
The sunday evening I had a chat with my mum and then a lovely chat with Hanna Pierce who I haven't spoken to properly in far too long. Then bed.

colapse

Well I have just finished my presentation- my what a momouth task that was.
We started late because of the delay required in setting up the computer and stuff.
When I anounced that I was going to do it in english they all groaned (in a playfull joking way) and anounced that, no I should do it in french. I said "No way I can't" "Oh just try" "but I practiced it all in english!!!" looking back I couldn't have done it in french. Maybe next time.
Then when I stopped they had soooo many questions. To be fair it is not an easy subject to understand and I was explaining it all in a second language for them and they were trying to ask questions in english- this can be harder than it might sound. you know what you mean and you might even know the words for a direct translation but it the meaning isn't the same your question means nothing.
Thankfully they didn't ask horrible questions and the few questions I got stuck on they managed to explain to each other. Two of the people there already had quite good knowledge of the subject so could fill in a few of the blanks. They were lovely though in no saying "Oh you should have put this in, and oh but you never explained that before" They simply gave pointers as to what I might want to include, and how I could improve it.
Though the 10 minute presentation that I was asked to give turned into a good hour and a half. I was quite pleased and hardly got flustered at all. I think I managed to control the speed of my english as well. I know that when I get a bit excited or carried away my english speeds up, sometimes to the point that they don't follow me anymore. But no-one asked me to slow down and they seemed to follow so I think I did OK.
ready for home now.

The good the bad and the ugly

Friday saturday and sunday, one weekend, three very different days!!!

Friday- not too bad

Earlier in the week I had been asked if I would do a presentation of the work I have been doing for the last... few weeks/ months. I really don't want to do it and was putting off organising it for as long as possible to make sure I was as ready as possible. Friday however was really as late as I could leave it so with the help of three other colleagues I organised and sent invitations to my first meeting. I was so nervous. I made Nathalie and Alian both read it all through before I sent it. I probably looked a bit sill getting so flustered just sending the requests, but it was nice to be able to joke about it with the others. So now there is no going back. I have booked the room, sent the invites and everything. It is all happening on Tuesday 17th Jan, at 15:30 (that's 14:30 English time)- major eeek.
Friday evening we all waved goodbye to Maria. By now she will be safely back in Germany :( very sad.

Saturday- Just not my day!!!

Well the day started of early... every early... quarter to four in the morning to be exact, with the fire alarm going off. I was surprised how quiet it was actually, sounding not that much different to an alarm clock. So I struggled into my dressing gown slipped on some shoes and opened my door. OK I was wrong, it was loud. I suddenly appreciated just how much noise fire doors actually keep out. However the noise in the corridor was nothing compared to the sound in the stair well. The circular stairwells in the foyer are quite echoy- have you ever heard an echoing fire alarm? I opened the door and promptly shut it again, and considered whether it was strictly necessary to go in. Of course it was so I stuffed my fingers in my ears and ran down.
Now you would expect that with a large housing block you would have the alarm linked to the fire brigade, we would be evacuated outside, the firemen would check everything was OK and we could go back. But no for our early wake up we weren't even awarded the excitement of having the firemen come (and not a word about men in uniforms!!). Nope we all just huddled in the lobby until the night man came and said that he couldn't find a fire so it was OK to go back. I'm very much hoping he had some advanced system that told him where the alarm had been triggered and he had gone and checked it all out and stuff. If not I don't rate our chances in a real fire.
However off we all went back to bed.
ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz........ WEEEEWAAAAWEEEEWAAAAAWEEEWAAAAA. Yup at about 10am the blasted thing went off again. So off we went again, many of us still in PJs and dressing gowns. This time we were joined by Jane, who as it turned out had slept right through the first alarm. On the all clear we headed back to beds and breakfast while Jane went and had a rant to the guys in charge about being left to burn in her bed- like I said, I don't rate our chances in the event of a real fire!
Now however once back in my bed, I was too awake to fall back to sleep and too tired to get up and do anything much. So I lazed around reading and watching DVDs etc for a good part of the day. I finally managed to get up and do some laundry, dump laundry and go off to Monoprix to pick up a few groceries. However it appears that my 'lucky streak' had not quite worn off as while bending to pick up a basket my rucksack very carefully knocked a bottle of the display behind me, a nice 10 euro bottle of Champaign, a nice 10 euro bottle of champagne that smashed with an impressive crash and fizz as the bubbles all escaped and the champagne sloshed up the back of my jeans! Oh poo!!!
Well I stood around for a bit to see what I should do, but no one was paying me much attention, so stinking like a posh drunk I went off and did my shopping. However my honest nature (and my fear that prehaps in france they will clap you in irons for beaking champaign bottles) caught up with me by the time I reached the checkout and before leaving I went and asked if they wanted me to pay for it. Thankfully they didn't so I scarpered quick! What a day!!! Was very ready for bed when the time came.

Sunday- reasuringly normal.

The rest of my weekend was thankfully much more normal. Sunday present no unusual events- church, lunch, choir, phone convo with mum, run through my presentation (clocked 40 mins- 4 times longer than I was asked for!!!!! Oh well better keep working) and finally bed with a book.

Getting back into the swing of things

Well as you might have picked up from yesterday's post, life has very quickly got back to its jam packed busy self.
Wednesday I wasn't feeling too bright so didn't do anything. Thursday night I was out with Jen and some of her students. Friday was choir and youth group. Saturday I slept till 10, but have decided that I am going to try this year to get up once I wake up so I don't loose a whole day slobbing in bed. I thought telling myself I wasn't going to sleep in on Saturdays was a little over ambitious. So I got up did some laundry, went to the post office (queuing for forever in the process) and watched 'la vie est belle'. It's an Italian film but I have only ever heard the French title. But this DVD could play Italian audio or French and would add French subtitles, so I just maxed out on the frenchness and actually found that watching with the subtitles was at times hugely more easy to understand. Tis a very good film- highly recommend it. Then in the afternoon Elaine, Christina and I went Ice skating with Jen and her students. Jen's students are from the technical college (so firstly are all guys, though they bring other friends as well so there are girls there), and they range in age from about 19 to 23. So hanging out with them seems so normal, because they are so like my boys back home in many ways. In fact a couple of them are doing the same course as me. Ice skating was fantastic fun and we are all planning to go again :)
Then the evening rounded off (and morning began) with a trip to the bar.

Sunday was a bit of a sad day, partly because I completely failed to understand the sermon (well when I got lost at the beginning I just switched off) but mainly because it was Maria's last Sunday with us. Maria is German and has been studying Maths at the university here as part of an exchange scheme called the Razmus scheme. She has been in the choir for months and is one of my good friends. So as a good bye the youth had a picnic after church. We all brought bits and bobs to eat. I discovered that the church cooker is rubbish- the water for the pasta I was cooking never even managed to boil, so the pasta tasted a bit washed out! But it was great, laughing and joking around. And I got to try 'galette des rois' for the first time.
This is a cake that they French eat to celebrate the coming of the kings in the Christmas story. It is a marzipan based pasty affair and is supper yum. As a special twist each of the pie/cakes comes with a paper crown and has a little porcelain figure hidden inside it. If you are the person who finds the figure in you slice you are the king for the day and get to wear the crown. We had two galettes so we ended up with a king and queen- Remi and Armelle.

The little porcelain figures turned out to be Harry potter themed (much to the disgust of one of the group, who sees Harry Potter as the epitome of all evil!!!). We got Hermionie and the golden egg (think Goblet of fire, second task)

Then when we were all fed and water till we could eat no more it was a short choir practice then home.

And breathe

I hate to let anyone down, or not keep my word. So this morning when one of my coleagues came in and asked if I had finished the document I said I thought I'd have done by the end of friday- I got a little bit stressed. I have been asked to look at the workings of a particular module and produce some documentation on it. On thursday I though my only problem was finding the words to take the information out of my head and put it onto paper. Friday evening saw another story- I had not understood something big time and so spent ages trying to work it out. So when Stefan asked if I could send him what I had done, I really had almost nothing. I don't think I have worked so hard since I arrived!! I had my momentary "Oh my word, I have nothing to send, what am I going to do, I think I might cry" as he walked out the room, then I slogged my guts out all morning and finished with a second draft to send him which I was actually quite pleased with.
So now I'm rather enjoying a little break from working for a few minutes.

I do have lots of new (well information about my activities) from last week and the weekend, but I can't really spend hours writting them up at work, so I'll write them up at home and post them up tomorrow.
until then TTFN

Mamouth christmas post

Friday 23rd December 2005

Well after a lovely sleep in my own bed I woke bright and early late Friday morning by my mum with a cup of good old English tea (milk as standard). We had a lovely lazy morning and then in the afternoon we had a trip to the cinema to see Narnia. I was soooo excited and as with all films which have adapted books I know well I was a little nervous in case it didn't live up to expectations. I have to say it didn't live up to expectations... it exceeded them in dramatic style. It is one of the few book adaptations where I didn't have a problem with any of the changes they made. In all films they have to change bits of the story and stuff to make it work. But so often they change things unnecessarily and that annoys me a bit. Narnia however worked all the better as a film as a result of the changes. I loved it. From the cinema the parents dropped us kids (quite a loose term now seeing as how two of us are over 18) off at the Foster's. There was Hazel, Suzi, Steven Jones and us three, and we all went and got fish and chips- yummy.



Then one of Hazel's friends from Ilford came down with a few guys from his youth group. We had lots of fun playing Mafia and then forty-forty in the park behind their house.

Saturday 24th December 2005

Christmas eve was a reasonable start for Jonathan and I as we were off to Russell square. We went to visit Nick. Nick was the friend I mentioned a while ago who had been diagnosed with a brain tumour. Well he has had the tumour removed and is doing remarkably well. He was released later that day to go home for Christmas. It all happened so quickly- him getting diagnosed, treated and released. God has been so good to him in the success of all of it. It was fantastic getting to see him (and the staples in his head!).
The evening was the traditional carol singing with some friends in the little drive next to ours.

Sunday 25th December 2005

Well this was of course Christmas day, so an early start to open stockings then breakfast all together, open a few presents then off to church. Our family generally does the worship on Christmas day and it was lovely to get to sing again. I had to get used to singing to a microphone and with fold back and stuff again- I haven't had anything like that for months. I got to see all my lovely friendsies- I love them all soooo much.



Then the obligatory ritual of over eating and then sleeping it off in the afternoon :)

Monday 26th December 2005

Boxing day for our family is always a walk on Wimbledon common,
lunch of chips, cold turkey and pickles and stuff like that, then open the last of the presents (we are so restrained) and play a game of star wars monopoly


and then flop in front of the telly.

Tuesday 27th December 2005

Tuesday I met up with my friend Lerys who I went to both high school and college with. We went for lunch in spoons and then wandered round some of the sales and just chatted. Lerys is one of those people with whom it never seems like any time has passed since we last saw each other. We always start chatting as if we were picking up a conversation we had just been having. All important information tents to be said in the chat and it's just lots of fun.
In the evening my second family came round for dinner. Hannah and Sarah Pierce have been my best friends for most of my life, Esther and Becca have been like my big sisters and Penny and Ced are a second set of parents. The whole lots of them as immensely special to me and I love seeing them. We ate lots of yummyness and then played silly games.

Wednesday 28th December 2005

Wednesday I had a very short visit to my little sister Pippa (I seem to adopt family all over the place don't I). Unfortunately it had to be quite short because we were expecting visitors but I couldn't not see her. Then it was coffee and a light lunch with the Gilberts. They day rounded off with a visit to my bunny. When I left for university my little bunny Truffle was regrettably left a bit neglected, so earlier this year he made a move to live with a family from church. They have four children and have the time to play with him and give him attention. It was nice to see him looking happier and not so lonely and they only live two roads away so whenever I'm back I can always pop in and see him.

Thursday 29th December 2005

Thursday saw the start of the Clarke family mammoth tour of the country. We drove for hours (when I saw we I mean mum and dad- I just slept!) until we were in the valleys of south Wales. It was of course time for the Pearce family gathering (that's my mum's side btw). So we had: grandpa, his wife Lucy, Lucy's brother graham, grahams wife Cath, mum's brother Steven and Steven's wife Chris, Steven's son (my cousin) Andrew, Lucy’s son Steven, Lucy’s daughter Rachel, Rachel's husband Gary and two kids Joseph and Jacob, Gwen and Tefor (friends of grampa's) and then us! My word my family has got a bit complicated!
So we all sat and chatted, ate, watched the snow falling outside, played in the snow and watched the boys have snow ball fights.

We even had a visit from father Christmas!!!

Finally we made our way back down to Cardiff to stay the night with my mums aunt and uncle- Marjorie and Bruce. We also got to see two of their three boys, Michael and Christopher, oh and Michael's two lovely little dogs- Tess and Milly.

Friday 30th December 2005

Friday morning as we were eating breakfast at Marjorie and Bruce’s we were watching the news
"Drivers are being warned to postpone their journey if possible as weather is predicted to worsen"
"Sections of the A1079 are impassable as last night's snow drifts across the road"
"Around 200 cars are having to be dug out, after being stranded by snow in east Yorkshire"
"Fatal accident- man killed in icy conditions in east Yorkshire"

I'll give you three guesses where our next stop was going to be.... East Yorkshire! In fact Pocklington which is on the A1079 (might be the wrong number but it was the same road talked about on the news) only about 5 miles from where all of there problems seemed to be!
However with the rain washing all hint of snow away in Wales we decided to risk it. We were mildly confused when a few hours later we did manage to make it to Yorkshire, yes there was some snow on the ground but the roads were fine- not a single problem! Oh well we were not going to complain, we were there save and sound.
So our second night on the road was spent with my mum's other brother Alyn and his family.

Deb is a fantastic cook so we of course we fed up to our eyeballs- especially Jonathan who failed to realise that the first dish served was only the starter!

Saturday 31st December 2005

On leaving Alyn and Deb's it was off back down south a bit to have lunch with some friends. The Corries used to come to our church in London, but moved up near Leeds years ago. It was a bit strange I haven't seen them for ages and when we arrived I did more than just a little double take. Their youngest daughter Lizzie looks almost exactly like her sister Sarah did when I last saw them- it was bizarre. Another lovely treat while we were eating was that we got to see a red kite flying over their garden. Red kites are really rare and so pretty.
Next it was over to the other side of Leeds to Ottly and dad's side of the family.
Here I got to meet my little cousin for the first time. Well actually she is the daughter of my cousin, so I think she is my second cousin. Great uncle Tim was soon there having a cuddle.

Then the eating began, a full Christmas dinner with crackers and everything. Unusually the crackers also came with party hooters, the kind that unravel hoot and then roll up again as you blow. Everyone had a good 5 minutes of blowing away making such a noise. Amazingly Eva (the baby) slept through the entire thing, even though she was in her carry chair right next to the table! When she finally woke up she got to join in wearing daddy's hat

After dinner came the trail of staying awake. Not only had we just pogged out on dinner, but it was new years eve- so we had to all stay awake. So we played Charades. This got some fantastic results. Keith loves doing 'sounds like' and we ended up with:
"Mothering tights"
"The far wind cheetah road"
the second one in case you can't work it out was the da Vinci code!
Then we played Mafia a couple of times (I love this game, if you don't know how to play let me know and I will explain all- it is such a fun game). Tammy made a good suggestion which actually was really fun- everyone created a role for themselves before we started. This made it easier when it came to defending ourselves because we had a partial story already, it also gave us some more interesting reasons for accusing villagers as we could, for example, say that it was the butcher as he is skilled at cutting up meat... it worked well.
Then a couple of rounds of karaoke on the play station before switching on big Ben, singing old langsyne (declaring once again that we really should learn the words one day) and watching the fireworks both on the TV and out the window.
Finally bed.

Sunday 1st January 2006

A nice lazy get up and breakfast which only finished at about 12. Then we wrestled ourselves into coats hats and boots drive up to Ilky moor and had a good old walk.

Once we got back it was time to pack up the car, say our good byes and head back home.

On the way back we saw one of the most stunning sunsets I've ever seen. The clouds were doing all sorts of interesting things and the colours lighting them up were so strong
(picture taken through the window of a moving car, so doesn’t really show what it was like)
It was one of those things that made me wish I was the poetic sort. I just felt that something that impressive really deserved to have beautiful words said about it. However I am not particularly poetic so I will not subject you to any attempts.

Monday 2nd January 2006

Monday- my final day in good old England was not as eventful as some. Mum and I went to Tesco so I could pick up some blackcurrant squash (there is nothing like it is you are feeling ill. I don't think I could have survived having the flu if I hadn't brought some back from my trip to Guildford). Then joys of joy my friend Terri came round for coffee. I love seeing Terri and was so glad that I managed to fit it in before I left.
My lovely mum had washed pretty much all my clothes for me, so I sat down to watch a film called Napoleon Dynamite while doing the ironing. My brothers were raving about this film when they came over to visit. They thought it was just the funniest thing ever. I have to say I didn't really get it. It had some amusing bits but... well not really the kind of film I would normally watch. Catch me if you can which we all sat down to watch that evening was much more to my taste- in fact I have that one on DVD!

Tuesday 3rd January 2006

Goodbye dear England, off to waterloo, then Paris and finally I found myself back in my room in the foyer. It was an easy journey and really uneventful.
And there was my holiday gone!
Back to work now