wagwaan?

Tuesday

It's a good job I enjoy my work - because my Christmas holiday is over tomorrow. Back to the treadmill at 2pm.  I'm quite looking forward to catching up with my colleagues, and I'm nicely rested now, so it's all good. I was so exhausted just before Christmas I was really desperate for a break. Now to plan the next one.  I have a week off around my birthday next month and I'm thinking about where to go. I've had invitations to Paris and Switzerland.... Oh the possibilities!

Today I got up and blitzed my bedroom. Although I'd unpacked on the day I got home, the suitcase had been left out and I hadn't hoovered, so I did all that. Then it was over to the hospital to catch up with Dr O, and then on to coffee with my new friend L. Well, his name is actually W, which is the same as my ex, so I told him that could be a bit of a problem.  His family all seem to have nicknames so I said I'd use that instead, so L it is.  He doesn't seem to mind. Well, that's what he says anyway.

We have started the New Year on a pretty healthy footing. I seriously need to get a handle on consistent healthy eating. I do manage to do pretty well overall - until I get the munchies and give in to my cravings. The tool that really helps me stay on track is the Myfitnesspal app. I use it to enter my weight, what I eat, the exercise I do etc. There is a huge database of foods already entered, so it's easy to quickly add what I eat, and if I'm out and about and decide on a snack I can even use the barcode reader.

When I started using it last year I entered my starting weight and how many lbs I wanted to lose a week (I chose a  healthy 1-2lbs), and it calculated how many calories I needed per day. I know what a healthy diet is, but I sometimes crave something 'naughty'. With most food in shops and restaurants having a calorie value on the wrapper, or indeed on the shelf, I find that counting calories works for me because I don't want to waste the ones I can eat. I assume it's the same with Weight Watchers points - you don't want to waste valuable points on something that might taste good but won't keep you satisfied for long.  Today, for example, on my way home I stopped for a coffee and was tempted by a lemon dessert pot in Pret a Manger. Until I saw the calorie content on the shelf in front of me I could fool myself that it was healthy....ish. Then I saw the 3 figure value and came back to earth with a bump. And chose a pack of rice cakes instead. Patted myself on the back there, and when I finished inputting my values for today was rewarded with being on target. Long may it last.

The good thing is that if you finish inputting and you are under your calorie target, the app gives you a good talking to and tells you that it's not healthy in the long run and that your body could go into starvation mode, and what the minimum healthy amount of calories is.  I lost about a stone in the Autumn and although I went off the rails a bit with some of the shock news I got in November, I am happy to say it hasn't all gone back on, and even then what went back on over Christmas is now off.  

So there you have it. My New Year plans are on track for health (check), finances (check) and socialising (check). Not a bad start, 8 days in!

Epiphany

No I haven't had an ephiphany - today is the Feast of Epiphany. So I have made a galette des rois and it smells delicious and all is right with the world. Claire brought me a pack of puff pastry back from the shops, but it wasn't till she handed it to me that I realised I hadn't told her how much was needed. While she went off ostensibly to tidy her room, I pulled on my coat and went back out into the cold. It's a 15 minute walk to Sainsbury's - downhill on the way there, uphill on the way back. That's a nice little walk for someone who has decided to get out and W.A.L.K. every day regardless of the weather. It's a good job, too, because I've had a look at the calories contained just in the "lighter" puff pastry and daren't think about the calories in the frangipane! Oh well, it's once a year, right?

I didn't take a picture of the big Galette but there were some off-cuts of pastry left after making it, as well as a bit of filling, so I made some odd shaped parcels to use it all up.

Of course, I had to taste one, for quality control purposes you understand. Mmmm!  Do you see that little red pot there? It says "Joyeuses Fêtes" on it and is a French yoghurt pot that I got when we met up with Alex and his parents before Christmas. So sweet!

We've I've also taken down the decorations and they've been packed in their boxes and taken down to the garage which I am so happy to have because I can leave stuff down there until it's needed. One day I will have a car and then I'll have to find another solution for the flotsam and jetsam, but until then, it's a godsend. 

 

We have three boxes like this. I think that's quite restrained for two people who luuurve Christmas, don't you? So that's it, all packed up and put away for another year. 

The hoovering has been done, so has the washing. Now all I need to do is decide which box-set I'm going to break into first: 

       or 

Decisions, decisions...

Looking back

Just thought I'd do a quick mosaic of some pictures from December, as a little reminder of some of the things I got up to and the people I spent my time with. 

Quite effective, I think.

Yesterday I spent some time in London at one of my old haunts, Hay's Galleria. I had arranged to hang out with a guy I met recently. As he lives miles away to the East, and I live miles away North West, we found a semi-central spot which turned out to be near my old office. We had a good old chinwag at Starbucks and a very pleasant afternoon it was too.

You don't get the full measure of the lights in a photo.... so I took a video too. I might post that later. All 8 seconds of it. Hey, 8 seconds is all you need!

Fingers crossed for a couple more newborn shoots very soon. Send positive vibes for me to get the gigs, ok? 

Home again

Well what a lovely time we had. I thought I'd blog while I was away but I just never got around to it. The journey over there went smoothly despite worries about flooding in the south of England, and we got picked up by the local taxi driver at the ferry port. He stopped at a Boulangerie so we could buy hot fresh croissants and bread to take to my mum's. Mmm.

The week went in a blur. My mum's house is quite small so my sisters had rented a gîte in the town, and that's where we had Christmas Eve dinner and where we spent Christmas day. 

One of the highlights was the visit of my sister and family on Boxing Day. My eldest nephew was visiting from Switzerland and he came over to the introduce his fiancée to my mum. I was delighted to be able to take a picture of them walking hand in hand on the seafront - he is usually in a wheelchair, so it's very special that he's up and about now.

I spent a lot of time just chilling with my mum. Her speech isn't always so good nowadays, but it's fantastic to spend time with her. She still doesn't let you do anything around the house, so you have to empty the dishwasher or what have you while she's busy doing something else. I really need to get to see her more than I did this year. 

The journey back was not too bad, although it was a choppy crossing. Luckily, we have learnt our lesson over the years and only get that ferry if we can get a cabin. It's much easier when you can get rocked to sleep... We got home around 10am and the cat was sooooo happy to see us. He hasn't really left my side since yesterday, bless him. 

 

So it's nearly the end of the year. A lot has happened in 2012. Here's to a fabulous 2013! 

Catching up

This new iMac is such a time suck!!  And I love it :)   I have been trying out Garage Band and iMovie and uploading photos in a couple of clicks and "zooom" there you go.  It's wonderful. But it does mean I'm spending more time on the computer than I have for ages and um the packing and housework? They aren't really on track....

I've also been trying out the Bamboo Wacom tablet. I've been practicing my handwriting (because it's weird writing on the tablet and looking not at your hand but the screen), and made a couple of little png pictures I thought I'd put in my Project Life. 

     

Feel free to download them if you like. They're really just practice pictures so nothing special, but fun to do.

This week I've had a work Secret Santa & lunch, and a choir Secret Santa & dinner. Lots of fun but tiring! I decided to take today off because I've got a ton of stuff to do and I was yawning my head off by yesterday afternoon. We go away tomorrow and I'm glad we've sorted out a house-sitter to look after the cat... but I still have to pack and work out if I've bought all the presents I need, and tidy up and see if I need to do any more laundry etc.  So I'd better scoot.  Hope you are all feeling festive :)

The downside

Ok, so I've paid for the excitement of the past week by being rather unwell. It hasn't happened for a while, but every so often I get cocky and think I've got the tiredness licked, only for it to come back and hit me big time. I had to cancel last night's outing with my girlfriends to go to a long-awaited carol concert because I was desperate for my bed by about early evening. On top of that I had a bad tum. I slept for hours and still felt like I'd been hit by a truck this morning so I stayed in bed. Didn't get up till gone lunchtime. I hate when that happens. I feel like I've taken a step backwards, even though I know I'm a million times better than a year ago.

Claire declared it was time to watch White Christmas this afternoon, so we snuggled under blankets with the tree lights on and had a lovely time. I took this from my armchair...

 

Before I close, here's a picture I took yesterday, before I got sick. I had received the score for Carol of the Bells and needed to work out my Alto part. I have no instruments here but suddenly remembered the iMac comes with Garage Band. Oh wow! All I had to do was open it, select "piano" and try out the notes. And voilà. I even recorded it so I could have it to listen back. Brilliant invention!  In the end I didn't get to sing it today but I'm sure it will remain part of the repertoire.

 

Fantastic! And now for bed....

Oh frabjous day!

Such excitement at wagwaan towers today: my new iMac finally arrived at the office yesterday. To say I am excited is an understatement. I got a cab home and left it there, in its box, while I went to the office Christmas party. It was great but I was actually really tired so I shared the first taxi out of there with other people who had long journeys home. I actually thought I'd go to bed and set up the computer this morning, but Claire 'convinced' me that it really wouldn't take long.... and the rest is history. Oh what a joy it is. The detail and design. The understated, sleek packaging. And the 'plug and play'ness of it. I was set up in no time. I'll stop waffling on about it now, but you get the picture!

So here are a couple of pictures of yesterday's events....

And last but not least:

 

 

What a small world

I'm so glad we kind of forced ourselves to go out yesterday. I had been crafting on Saturday, so I'd been out most of the day, and I didn't sleep very well that night, but we had planned on going to a Christmas Market and instead of the crowds at Winter Wonderland we thought we'd try out the South Bank, which one of my crafting friends told me about. It was quite bitterly cold, and the crowds were just as bad as at Hyde Park, but the atmosphere was great. My friend had told me there was a Chocolate Festival every year so we thought we'd check it out. Just as I had been handed a "Christmas Pudding chocolate" to sample, I heard Claire say "oh  hello!" and turned to see.... my goddaughter/niece and her boyfriend. The weirdest part is that Katy actually lives in Manchester, so it was really unexpected to see her there. We hugged and laughed and chatted and had the most amazing hot chocolate from one of the stalls, before going our separate ways. It really IS a small world!

The South Bank stretches for quite a long way, but we found out that the market was near the London Eye, which is just a few minutes from Waterloo Station. That means it's quite easy to get to from where we are, which is a bonus.

 

It was lovely to get in the festive spirit and although we did look for some presents, most of the stalls were selling food. The ones that had gifts for sale seemed to be horrendously overpriced so we came home practically empty-handed. I say "practically" because I did give in and buy a small Gingerbread House kit, which I'm really looking forward to putting together.

 So that was our weekend. Hope you enjoyed yours!

Cold!

Not that I'm complaining, because I love winter, but it really is freezing out there. Nice and seasonal, dontcha think?  I thought I'd upload a couple of pictures so you can see it really is beginning to look rather a lot like Christmas round these parts.

A view of our living room, from the hall

Much as I've always preferred having a real tree, we gave in to a fake tree years ago, mainly because the cats used to attack it and I hated having needles all over the house.  We do like to put Christmas music on as we are decorating the tree, although this year we watched The Santa Clause as we were doing it. A real classic in our house. 

I like this one of our front door. I left the milk bottle there on purpose to make it quintessentially British :)

Talking of all things festive, I definitely plan on going to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park soon - maybe at the weekend. I don't really want to go with all the crowds, but I'm not sure when I'll get another chance before Christmas. I hope if I go when it starts to get dark but not too late, then it won't be so bad.

So, what else is new around here? I'm enjoying work, although I'm glad I'm still only part-time because I still get rather exhausted when I do too much. I've got quite an active social life these days, which has to be a good thing. I volunteer and I go to crafting mornings with a bunch of ladies. I'm also meeting new guys and going out for dinner and stuff. I don't know if any of them will be the man of my dreams, but in the meantime I'm enjoying myself. I'm not a  young innocent and I know how to take care of myself - I don't know why my friends worry about me, but I'll take it as a compliment. They obviously care!

So that's enough for tonight. Time to go and snuggle up under the duvet. And maybe listen to the latest episode of The Archers... 

Yes, time flies when you are having fun! On Sunday I had a newborn photoshoot in the morning and then an early dinner with my new beau. Well "beau" is maybe pushing it a bit, but I had a date anyway.  We decided to eat at TGI Friday as there is no problem parking there, whereas the town centre is a pain because everything is pedestrianised with multi-storey carparks dotted around. Anyway, we had a lovely time and then we drove back to mine and sat in his car with the heating on and nice music and chatted for an hour.  Claire is accusing me of acting like a teenager, and with that end to the evening it certainly felt like I had gone back in time!

Talking of acting like a teenager, I took part in a webchat with  my favourite singer, Lemar, at the weekend... and he mentioned me a couple of times (including a message saying "mad love" to me because I mentioned I've been following him for 10 years). If you don't believe me, check out below, at just over 33 mins in. LOL!   I am just mesmerised by his green eyes.

   

So, today was a quiet day but tonight I had a Trustee meeting and then our Trustees' Christmas Dinner so I'm rather full right now. And so the season begins!