December 09

December as usual was generally filled with Christmas things starting with the Reflect Fundraisers of a Craft Fair and a Carol concert. I volunteered to help at the craft fair, which I thought would be helping in the kitchen but turned out to be standing in the middle of Stonegate with a very large sign and occasionally shouting 'craft fair, coffee and cakes'. I think I knew this before but it turns out I'm not very good at shouting, so I didn't do that bit so often but more gently persuaded people to go in for the cakes! One lady did come back out and say it had been a very good recommendation so I must have been doing a half decent sales pitch.

The same evening was the Carol Concert so after a quick change it was out to the URC to help set up. The concert was really good, Hannah had found some willing music student volunteers to make up the choir who were all fantastic. Definitely feeling more Christmassy now, although by this point I think my Christmas tree has been up for a week already.

A week before Christmas was the work Christmas Party. There isn't much to report from that, good meal at the Queen's Hotel in Leeds followed by a disco. It took me a long time to get my head around having all this from 1pm but then by 5pm I was back on the train to York :)

The last pre-Christmas event was the old peoples Christmas meal at church, I was there at 9.30am peeling sprouts, wrapping pigs in blankets, mixing stuffing ready for lunch at 1pm. I think we were 5 or 10 mins late but generally it all seemed to go quite smoothly and there were no complaints with the food.

November 09

November seems like it was pretty quiet. The usual work and travelling, Saturday nights critiquing Strictly Come Dancing with Gillian and Naomi, a catch up dinner with Susie and Emily from my old work - although I don't think I was so well at this one and ended up being sick at the restaurant and going home early. Went to see High Society, done by an amateur group in York. I also had someone come do a valuation on my house and I went to view another house, having had the idea put in my head that I might think about moving I decided to look into it a bit. I decided not to do anything more about it then but haven't completely dismissed the idea. That seems to sum up November.

October Musicals

At the end of October Sal and I had another musicals weekend in London so I decided that needed a whole post of it's own.

We both travelled to London on the Friday after work, my train got in a bit later than Sal so after the initial confusion of where we were meeting (why does there need to be 2 H&M's so close to each other but in opposite directions from the exit of the tube?), we found each other and dropped my bags off at the hotel. We decided not to bother with dinner until after the show so headed straight off to the Price Edward Theatre to see Jersey Boys. Sal had seen it before but really wanted me to see it as well and I really enjoyed it. There were moments when the woman next to me became quite distracting by insisting on singing along, which wouldn't have been so bad if she'd had been in tune, but still it didn't spoil it.

Saturday we had a shopping trip for my Christmas present and was successful in getting me a lovely new handbag which I was allowed to start using straight away. Then the afternoon was a showing on Billy Elliott, another good show. The language in it is really blue which the family in front obviously hadn't realised having brought what looked to be a 13 year old daughter and much younger son with them. But amazing dancing in this one.

Saturday night I think was my favourite for the weekend, La Cage Aux Folles with John Barrowman in a role that seemed absolutely perfect for him. If he hadn't been in it, it probably might not have made it onto our list for this weekend but I'm glad it did, good singing dancing and very funny. And even a little mouse running down the stairs before it started!

Now what to see next time...

October 09

October started with Dad's 65th Birthday. I met Mum, Dad, Sandra, Joan and Albert in Richmond after work on the Friday, having been in Huddersfield that day and we had a lovely dinner before going to the theatre. It was a West Country Theatre production called Home on the Range and the three actresses in it were very good and as seems to be common with their productions, very good use of very few props.

Saturday was the Amazing Praise concert, this year foolishly, I didn't start practicing until a week before and had a crisis of confidence and almost pulled out of it. Mum and I spent some time on the morning clearly marking the notes that I was going to play and which I was going to ignore. I think it worked quite well and I managed to get through it without too much embarrassment, thankfully there were two other cellists there so I managed to hide behind them. Next year must learn to say no, or have something already booked in for that weekend....

I finally had a week off work in October, having been the only one not to take much time off work over summer this was the first opportunity to take more than a day off at once. After I'd booked it in I needed to decide what to do with it so I of course, looked at who I could go visit and decided that Madrid in October would be nice so I set off to stay with Vicky for 3 nights. After arriving on the Saturday we went out for Ice Cream and cinema. Sunday was mainly sightseeing, trip on the funicular railway. There was a birthday party that Vicky wanted to go to for twins of a girl who had been helped by the pregnancy crisis service in Madrid that she volunteers as so we spent a couple of hours there. My main conversation was with a 5 month old girl as no one else spoke English but we were fine until someone else came for a cuddle with her and then I was left to play toys on my own. Monday Vicky was working for some of the time so I wandered round the gardens, read my book in the sun and then Tuesday morning we went to the cathedral and the royal palace.

I spent the rest of the week at Mum and Dad's, getting to catch up with quite a few people - dinner with Vicky and Ben and lunch with Carlie and Noah before joining them for Helen and Paul's Wedding. I think officially that makes me a wedding crasher but no one seemed to mind!

September 09

So in trying to get my blog back up to date I've decided just to have a look at my diary and see what I did each month and try and remember the highlights. Probably won't be all that interesting but we'll give it a go for now.

So September, I went for a weekend to Sal's. Always a good weekend, this time we went up to London for a day on the Saturday to see Les Mis, my fourth time, Sal's sixth I think. Of the six of us that were there I think we'd seen it 22 times between us by the time it was finished. Great show as ever.

The following weekend we had a girls evening out to Harewood House to see Grease as a drive in movie. We did the same 2 years before at York Racecourse (much more convenient for getting to but Harewood wasn't too far). After a slight rearranging of cars when we first got there and ignoring the stewards waving us in so that we could get all three cars together and not park behind the tallest 4x4 there, we settled in for some food first. It was a good evening for the film and as always involved a lot of singing along - still surprised at how much of it I can quote only watching it every few years!

The rest of the month seems to have been filled with the usual work, travelling around Yorkshire, fitting in a visit to the Lavers when on a Huddersfield work day, and the start of Strictly Come Dancing seems to have marked the start of many Saturday evenings with Naomi and Gillian passing commentary on the dances - in my no so expert opinion.

Now onto October....

Queuing

Isn't it funny how we queue when there's no need to. After a weekend at Mum & Dad's I planned my drive home via Tesco for food and fuel. When I arrived in the car park all the shoppers were standing outside the shop as the fire alarm was ringing. Unlike many other people I sensibly stayed in the car and waited until people started moving in - it was raining at the time as well. But others decided to get out of their cars and wait in the rain and seemed strangely drawn to what would appear to be the back of the queue so that they weren't cutting in the front when people were eventually allowed back in. I was waiting about 15 mins in my lovely warm car with music to pass the time. Once they were allowed back in though it was chaos as everyone started their shopping at the same time and moved around at roughly the same pace, while others searched for which aisle they had abandoned their trolleys in when the alarm had started! It reminded me that online shopping and delivery looks a very attractive alternative.

No Wellies!

After a very muddy weekend last year at North 08, we were back for another year at North 09. I once again took advantage of Mum and Dad living close by to the event and drove the 10 mins from the house to Coul Beck Farm for Saturday and Sunday rather than pitching a tent for the weekend.

I started off the bank holiday weekend with a lovely evening on Friday with Mark, Carlie and Noah, who I haven't seen enough of over the past year so it was great to spend the whole evening with them. Then it was off to the farm for two days. The weather was fine so there was no need for the wellies that had been so essential last year. This year I was just a visitor and not a helper so after doing children's work for the last three years I was looking forward to break and just being in the adult meetings. The morning meetings David Stroud leader of Christ Church London spoke and in the evening Jeremy Simpkins from Jubilee Church, Teesside, both following the theme of the weekend of Transformation of our lives, our churches and our cities and towns. These were also supported by the afternoon seminars of which I went to hear Arnold Bell speaking on being transformed through the Word on Sunday afternoon.

It's been a great weekend, listening to some really good speakers who are so passionate about seeing the churches grow in the UK and across the world, and it's been a great chance to spend time with some friends from church and get to know people better.

Birthday things

I've had another lovely birthday weekend. Similar to last year, Sally arrived on Thursday evening and we had a lot planned. Friday morning was the most relaxing couple of hours at Harrogate Turkish Baths. I think we undid any good detoxing that had been done by going to Betty's for lunch and over-indulging in an Afternoon Tea, if only I'd not eaten the last little cake...

Saturday lunchtime followed the same indulgence with a visit to Cafe Concerto before Sarah arrived (early amazingly!) from Stockton. It was another afternoon at the pottery painting studio, Sal again taking twice as long as I do, making sure her design is perfectly placed and painted. You can tell in the finished items that I should have spent a bit more time in making sure that I'd put enough paint on my mug! I was pleased though when Ruth came round after I'd collected the glazed finished products and asked where I'd bought my new mug from! Only spoilt by showing her the gold blob in the bottom where the star went wrong so I just painted the whole circle on the bottom leaving it looking like something has died in the bottom of the mug.

Saturday night I had some of the girls around, after my usual panic about having people in my house it was a lovely evening of food, drink and chatting. The whole weekend was then finished off with a visit from Mum & Dad on Sunday for my birthday, another lovely lunch out at The White Swan at Deighton (will start diet again soon...) and a lazy afternoon watching the athletics, a great birthday again!

New Car Things

So it turns out I do have an alarm on my new car, as I discovered this morning - along with the rest of my neighbours. I blame Ruth for talking to me as she walked past so that I hadn't opened the door within the required 15 seconds before it locked again. Which I didn't realise until I then went to open the door and tested the alarm! I guess it's good that I know that it is there, and that I know how to stop it ringing as well. Although it did take a little while this morning while I got over the initial shock so my apologies to the neighbours, but it was after 8am so if I have to up then you should be too.

A little early

I've sent my first Christmas card of the year today. When Sal and Rob decided to have World Vision Wish List for their wedding list, I decided that as I've said for years that I would sponsor a child, then it was about time I did it. So I've sponsored a little girl called Tiange Modu from Sierra Leone. She's 4 years old and she likes toys. That was all I knew about her at first, then a few weeks ago I got a letter written by one of the World Vision volunteers and with a print of her hand and some information about the development where she lives which has mango, orange and coconut trees and most of the people are farmers.

Today I was sent through a Christmas card to send her, because some of the developments that they work in are so remote then it can take a long time to get cards to them for Christmas that they need them back by September to start sending them out. I can't say I would have picked it myself - a cartoon camel doesn't usually feature on the cards that I choose for Christmas. But I've written it and sent it off already, now I just need to be as organised with sending the rest of them before Christmas.

New Car

Thanks to two lovely parents I picked up my new car today. Mum & Dad are taking my old one away with them which leaves me with what is basically the same car, except that it's only 9 months old and has only a few thousand miles on it as an ex-demonstrator. It's also got some little extras that the other one didn't have, parking sensors, climate control, cruise control, aux plug, chilled glove box... I love it!

Exercise or Tennis?

I finally made it back onto the cross trainer yesterday morning. It wasn't too hard getting the motivation to just get up and get on it but it was so much harder to stay on than I remembered it being. I only managed half the time that I used to do but I guess after almost 9 weeks of not using it at all it was bound to be difficult. Felt quite motivated after that to try and get on it as many days as possible, which seemed a good plan until the Murray match started this evening under the new Wimbledon Centre Court roof so now it looks like they'll be playing through to the end of the match. At one set each and three all in the third at the moment I think it will be going on for a while and it would be a shame not to watch...

*Update* After I posted this then Mum called pushing back any exercise by half an hour. Then I decided it didn't have to be a choice! The wonders of BBC iPlayer meant that I could watch live tennis online and go on the cross trainer at the same time! Either the tennis was a great distraction or I just needed to ease myself into it with yesterday's attempt and I was back up to my usual time again today. Still exhausted but now that the exercise is out of the way I can sit back and relax while Murray and Wawrinka go into the final set.

The Likes of Us

Went to see another York Light Opera Company production last night. This time The Likes of Us, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's first musical together. I can't say that it was a great story, there was one couple in it that did a few songs but there didn't seem to be any reason for them being there. The main story is of Dr Barnardo and the setting up of his first children's home in London in 1870 and the musical is told by a narrator who introduces a lot of the songs. The narrator in the production, Ian Small, was very good and really helped to keep things together. You could see a likeness with the use of the narrator to that of Joseph, but by then they'd obviously had more experience writing musicals together and used the idea much more effectively in Joseph.

Still another good performance, particularly from James Parkes, playing Barnardo, he had a great singing voice. The only slight annoyance of the evening was that for an audience that was largely made up of little old ladies, I managed to get a seat behind the only man that was over 6 feet tall!

Wedding Day!

Finally!! Quite an early start this morning, the alarm was set for 7am but Sal was awake before then, I don't think I seemed quite as excited as her when there was still 15 minutes before the alarm and I decided to go back to sleep while she started getting things ready! We were at the hairdressers for 8.30am and they switched the appointments round a bit so that we all ended up being ready at once - not until after a little bridesmaid and a photographer had already been waiting at the house about 20 mins for us though.

The cars - 2 Model A's - arrived about 12pm and as they don't go more than 50mph and don't go on the motorway then we knew we'd need to set off by about 12.30pm. I've no idea what time we did set off because by this point I had completely lost track of time and was more concerned about getting Sal laced up into her dress. Our car arrived at the church and we waited for Sal and Dad to arrive after they had a quick stop at the petrol station in theirs! When they arrived Sal had a quick dash through to the toilet which meant running past the glass door at the front side of the church near where Rob was sitting - thankfully James spotted the streak of white running past and made sure that Rob faced the other way until she'd gone past again!

The service was lovely, I was slightly concerned that I might cry all the way through it but I managed to limit that to almost crying during the first hymn and when Sal started crying during her vows. I had a reading which I'm told went well but it's just a bit of a blur to me now. David, the vicar, had told me at the rehearsal to look at the person in the fourth row but I didn't dare lift my eyes off the piece of paper for fear of losing my place. I also realised as I was reading that I was rocking back and forth on my shoes but when I stopped doing that my legs started shaking, if that's all that comes out on the video I'll be happy - at least I didn't fall down the stairs getting back to my seat which was my other fear about doing a reading!

After a few photos at the church it was back in the cars to the hotel, which was further than the house so in the old cars it took quite a while and everyone was waiting for us when we got there. A few more photos there and a quick drink (or two) and it was into the receiving line for dinner. I didn't realise that I was going to be in the line but it was lovely to get a chance to say hello to everyone and put some faces to the names that I have been hearing for so long.

The food was lovely and during the main course and dessert I'd gone for a little walk to say hello to a few tables (by this point the shoes were well and truly disregarded under the table and my feet were feeling very happy for it). Leah and Rebecca (the little bridesmaids) joined me at this point as they were starting to get a little bored of sitting at the table so we went visiting a few tables for a little while to keep them occupied. I left them at one point to talk to Sarah & Jon and as the desserts arrived and there was a spare place at their table I ate one from there and carried on chatting. About 20 mins later Sal came up and said they had all been looking for me and thought I must be ill as they hadn't seen me for so long! So I moved back to my seat on the top table after that :)

The timing by this point had been thrown completely out of the window and the speeches started at about 6.45 the three of them taking about an hour altogether - including James's quiz of getting to know the stag which I still think the correct answer for Rob's chat up line should have been Hi I'm Harry Potter's double.

The casino had set up outside of the room so as we all moved out for them to get the room ready for the evening and for the band to set up we filled the time with Blackjack and Roulette. I stuck with the Roulette and after winning a little then lost all of my chips. After the cutting of the cake and the dancing it was suddenly all over. It was a great day - I really enjoyed it and I'm pretty sure that Sal and Rob did too - they both looked great and now have a fantastic holiday to look forward to.

Quiet Day

Bit of a quiet day today, Sal had left the day pretty clear for any last minute jobs but there hasn't been too many that were added to the list. Dad and I went to the hotel this morning to drop off the last few things, and we've had three trips to Sainsburys so far today, there will be one more visit to Sainsburys later as there are still a few things to get! Rob's family is arriving about 2pm, Alicia about 3pm and then we're going to get nails done at 3.30pm, to the church for the rehearsal at 6pm and back to the house with our side of the family for food this evening.

Busy Day

Managed to get through my list of jobs for today, with help from Jill. We managed to get from Hedge End to Southampton, to Winchester, to Eastleigh and back home - without getting too lost! Very glad we'd taken Sal's sat nav out of her car before we went and programmed everything in which meant the only difficulty we had getting anywhere was finding the entrance to the Swan Centre in Eastleigh, we drove round the whole thing and eventually found it.

Sal came back from the hairdressers with new hair and beautiful makeup following her trial for Saturday and it was a quick lunch before going to the Rose Bowl to pick up a few things from the shop for presents and then back home to wait for Mum & Dad to arrive. After being very calm and relaxed so far, today was a little blip for Sal but after a big cry when Mum & Dad arrived I think she'll be ok for Saturday now.

Fun Day!

Today was officially Jen & Sal's day of fun. Sal's started off less fun with a trip to the gym while I sat in the sun in the back garden making more order of service. - almost finished now. I was also listening to the Hairspray soundtrack which I turned the volume down on after I realised there were quite a few people walking past the back wall and it was on very loud, while I didn't definitely hear any comments I did think there were possibly one or two people suggesting that they weren't appreciating the music as much as I was!

Fun day moved onto Spa treatments at the Hotel, Sal had the facial while I had the back massage (and I'm aching a little bit from it now), after we'd relaxed for a while we moved onto find somewhere for lunch. We ended up at Frankie & Benny's with good intentions that we were both going to have salads but then the menu came and we changed our minds very quickly - Sal took a little bit longer than me but then went for the pizza....and the cherry crumble, while I had the chicken sandwich....and the waffle with ice cream..... it was lovely!

Lunch was then followed by shopping and then an evening of order of service making. Not the most fun end to the day but we did get them finished at least. I have my task list for tomorrow, while Sal has her hair appointment I'm making myself useful collecting the hoop from the bridal shop, the pottery that they painted on the hen day, a few more shopping things to do and waiting for Mum & Dad to arrive later in the afternoon. My main task is to keep Sal calm...hopefully I'm doing ok on that one so far!

Dress Collected - Tick

I think I've finished everything I need to do on my list of wedding things before I go to Sal's. Laraine has shortened my dress for me so now I don't need to hitch it all up just to be able to walk in it and I've been to collect it this evening. Now I just need to add all these things that have been collected to the list of things to remember to take with me, I don't think Sal would be too impressed if I arrived without my dress!

I've got a lovely long week off work to look forward to now so that we can get all the final tasks done before the wedding. I don't think there's too much to do - but it sounds like I hadn't completely handed over my order of service duty and we'll be finishing those off when I get there. Only 9 days to go now :)

New Hair

After the hair trial last weekend didn't go quite as planned I've decided to leave my hair down for the wedding but get it cut shorter. I described to Kirsty, the hairdresser what I wanted - as instructed by Sal before I got there. At one point Kirsty did check with me that I was ok as I think there was a rather pained, scared, unsure etc look on my face, to which I replied 'It's very short isn't it?' I suppose it was a bit late then for her to stop so she just smiled and carried on chopping!

Thankfully she did a great job and I'm really pleased with it, 3 weeks for it to get a bit of length back and then it should look good for the wedding.

Wedding Preparations

As it's a bank holiday weekend I added a days holiday in on Friday and travelled down to Sal's on Thursday night. It turned into a weekend of wedding preparations mainly so we have collected the wedding dress (it's lovely!), made all the place cards and all the outsides of the order of service are ready. We've also met with Simon who's arranging the band to discuss music and been to the hairdressers for a trial to see what we're having on the day. Sal's hair looked lovely, I tried to have it a bit curly but ended up looking more like Annie with really tight curls so have decided against that one!

As the weather was so good this weekend then we've also had a trip to Hillier Gardens on Sunday morning, it was the start of the annual Art in the Park - I'm not sure if that's the official name for it I might have made it up - so we spent a couple of hours wandering round and finding the expensive pieces that we'd never buy and then went for scones in the coffee shop.


We didn't manage to tie in my weekends here with a Hen Night in Southampton so the girls will be taking Sal out in 2 weeks time and then in 4 weeks and I'll be back for the last minute preparations.

Eurovision

Tonight was the annual Eurovision evening at Gillian's. I'm always amazed at how much Eurovision history Gillian can remember, if you asked her which country won in 2003 she'd be able to sing the song and probably recall most of the outfits that were worn that year as well.

I had pointed out to her earlier in the week that the semi-finals were on TV so by the final on Saturday she could give a description of each of the country's singers, outfits, dance routines and songs. As always there were badges, scoring, whistles and a box of chocolates to win in the sweep stake. As there were 5 of us then we had 5 countries each, so as each one performed we cheered for our countries.

As there was a change in voting rules this year then it made it so much more exciting to watch the scoring and when the UK gets points it's even better! A respectable 5th place for the UK and I'm pleased to say that for the second year running I won the chocolates - Go Norway!

New York, New York...Part 4

Monday turned out to be another early morning, which was probably good because we needed to pack before another breakfast at Cranberry Cafe. The weather forecast once again wasn't great so we set off for the Rockefeller Centre and an indoor tour of NBC studios. There wasn't much to the tour, a history of NBC, a visit to the Nightly News studio next door to MSNBC and a make up room. We'd already toured the gift shop as we had an hour to kill before the tour started so we set off for Carnegie Hall for the second tour of the day, collecting Sal's now incredibly sparkly ring from Tiffany's on the way.

We collected tickets at Carnegie Hall but had time to go for lunch before it was due to start. We had a lovely lady called Sheila Weinstein show us round, the tour was changed slightly as they would normally spend time looking round the auditorium but the Minnesota Orchestra were practicing for their performance that evening so we were able to sit and listen to them practise for a while. After the tour it was back out into the rain and back again to the Cranberry Cafe to satisfy my craving for hot chocolate. We stayed for two cups as the rain was worse and it didn't seem worthwhile doing the last thing on the list which was to go to Central Park so we'll wait for a better time of year and go back for that one in the sun.

It was soon time to collect our bags from the hotel and head to the bus station to get the bus back to the airport. The whole check in experience this time being much smoother and faster than 3 days earlier leaving time for a little shopping at the airport. I don't remember the flight back much, I was asleep before we even took off. I woke up after an hour as the food was coming round so had something to eat and watched He's Just Not That Into You and then fell asleep again, woke up for a croissant for breakfast and then again in time for landing.

So now it's back to work and planning for when I can go again!

New York, New York...Part 3

It pretty much rained all of Sunday. After our usual start to the day with breakfast in the Cranberry Cafe we took the subway to the end of the line at South Ferry and took the ferry from Battery Park over to Ellis Island. We'd decided not to bother with getting off at Liberty Island, having taken all the pictures of the Statue the day before and as it was pouring down we just stayed on the ferry to its second stop at Ellis Island Immigration Museum. As we didn't have any ancestors to look for in the records we just looked round the exhibits instead, downstairs are the statistic based exhibits with all the facts and figures. Upstairs in the Great Hall there isn't much to see but the hall itself is an amazing looking room. Off one end deceptively hidden by what we thought was a mirror and ignored it the first time, was a trail of rooms following the experience of the immigrants when they came to Ellis Island - medical tests, legal questions, mental tests etc.

After leaving the ferry back in Battery Park we walked in the rain up to the World Trade Centre and to ground zero. From seeing the view of the skyline you can see where the twin towers are missing from the picture and it's amazing seeing the space on the ground that two huge towers stood there, there doesn't seem to be enough room somehow. We walked through alongside ground zero to the Winter Garden at the World Financial Centre, and after a bit of shopping stopped for a bit of chinese for a late lunch. My learning point for the day was always go for what you want off the menu, I thought it was a shame to all order the same main course so I went for angel hair pasta and veg which was a bit bland and then had to steal some Lemon sweet and sour pork from both Mum and Sal's plates.

We got the subway back uptown for a bit of shopping in Bloomingdales, take Sal's ring into Tiffany's for a clean, and a quick look at St Patrick's Cathedral and Grand Central Station and then back to the hotel for a rest. By 9pm Sal and I were very settled in the room and ready for staying in for the night but Mum persuaded us to get up as planned and we walked over to Rockefeller Centre to go to the Top of the Rock. We'd decided to see the city from here at night so that we could see the Empire State lit up, this was only half successful as the fog covered the top of the Empire State so we could only see as far as the band of lights. The view of the city was great though and we were pleased that Mum had insisted that we get out of bed!

New York, New York...Part 2

Saturday was another early start. I blame Sally for saying that she always wakes up at 5am the first morning in America, and so we did. Kept awake early by the marching band that made it's way down Broadway at 7am and set up camp in Times Square just outside the hotel so we eventually got up and made our way over towards Planet Hollywood to collect our New York Passes. This was made slightly more difficult by the 40,000 people gathering to take part in the Revlon 5k Run/Walk for Women that was setting off from Times Square at 9am. We found a very cheap little cafe for breakfast with pancakes and french toast that we went back to all weekend and by the time we got back to Broadway all the runners had set off but the roads were still closed to traffic so we took advantage of being able to walk down the middle of the road and take lots of pictures.

We then made our way to the Empire State Building, the weather forecast suggested that it wouldn't be quite as wet on Saturday as it would be all the other days that we were there, so we planned a trip to the top to see the sights. The rain didn't quite hold off so we did have to shelter inside for a little bit but we still saw the view from all sides while listening to Tony's Audio Tour. The weather started to brighten as we got back to ground floor so we went over to Pier 83 for the Circle Line Tours, rather than waiting over an hour to get the 2 hour cruise we decided if we were going to wait an hour we might as well be seeing more of the views so we had a shorter wait and got on the 3 hours cruise for a round trip of Manhattan Island. The sun finally came out for a while so the pictures look great for that afternoon and we got to see all the main sights so it was worth spending the extra hour on the boat.

We got back to Times Square and went straight for dinner and then to our second show - The Little Mermaid. Completely different to 9to5 but still another great performance. I never thought there would ever be a good use of 'wheelie' shoes but it turns out it gives a good swimming effect for all the mermaids! It was just a shame that Mum and I were both so tired by then that we were really struggling to stay awake throughout. It was absolutely no reflection on the performance at all, but we had to spend the second half nudging each other throughout to keep awake. Next time we come I think we'll need to factor in a bit more sleeping time for the second day....

New York, New York...Part 1

Friday started a little earlier than usual as Mum & I set off to Manchester Airport to meet Sal for our flight. We both panicked a bit about making sure that we got there on time, having to travel round Manchester during morning rush hour traffic. Turns out there was no need to be so over cautious and after 1.5 hours we were parked and ready to get on the bus to the terminal. In fact we were in the queue to check our bags in while Sal was still at Nikki's house where she'd stayed over night. Sal arrived and we'd moved about 4 places in the queue as the Continental crew checked all the passports of people in the line, asked all the security questions and then still took ages to actually check bags in and give us boarding passes. Having checked in online on Thursday night most of the process seemed quite pointless as we'd had to put all the passport details, accommodation etc in online already so why they needed to ask for it again I have no idea.

Anyway after that the flight was fairly smooth, a bit of turbulence but nothing too worrying. I watched Benjamin Button, about 1 minute before Sal so if I'd missed anything on screen I could just look across to hers and catch up on it! I didn't want to watch another film so I went for a couple of episodes of House instead and fell asleep for a while.

We knew that the weather wasn't going to be so good for the weekend and the drive to the hotel started off a little grey but by the time we pulled up at the hotel it was pouring down so it was a quick jump out of the car, pull the bags from the boot and run instead - and we still got soaked. After finding our way all the way up to the 50th Floor we found our room and the fantastic views from being so high. It had been a fairly long day already so we lay down and closed our eyes for a bit before braving the rain again for some dinner and out to the Marquis Theatre to see 9 to 5. It was a great show, being very new (just a month of preview performances and the opening night) we didn't know what to expect but it was really good. The songs, cast and set were all fantastic. Sadly one of the most exciting things (I thought) was that I forgot in America that the programmes -Playbill - and they are free!

More West Wing....

I recently spent about 5.5 weeks watching all 7 series of The West Wing, morning, noon and night.  It was an obsession, I'd watch as soon as I got in from work, all evening, on the cross trainer, in bed - fall asleep watching it, rewind what I'd missed by being asleep and watch it while drying my hair in the morning, eating breakfast.... You get the idea.

Anyway this morning I linked through from another blog to Sam Allberry's blog because I was intrigued about a reference to a West Wing episode and Shibboleth that was mentioned and I found this post about West Wing episodes.  You need to read through the comments as well, I found it really amusing - and for the references that I couldn't quite remember I think it's time to start from Series 1 Episode 1 again....

Aches and Pains

I thought having a cross trainer was supposed to be doing me some good.  I can't say I've been keeping up with it as regularly as the good intentions that I started out with but considering the aches in my legs after my walk today it can't be doing me much good at all!

I walked into York from home with Ruth, we wandered round the shops a while, stopped for a drink and then walked home.  I've calculated it to be about 6.5 miles.  Considering that the regular walk to and from work that I was doing before Christmas was 5 miles then I don't think this should have been too difficult.

I was wrong, I spent last night stretching my legs out because they ached, in particular my right knee and all day at work today remembering how to walk properly after I'd been sat down for a while.  Exercise is not good for me!

No further questions

I got a letter a few weeks ago asking whether I would take part in a MORI poll about my recent experience with the criminal system. I quickly realised that it wasn't suggesting that I had committed a crime but it was referring to me being a victim of crime. It then took me a bit longer to realise what it was actually talking about because I didn't remember being a victim of crime. A little bit longer and I remembered, although I wasn't the one that reported the crime, I did end up having the longest witness statement and pretty much all of the evidence relating to a case at work that I had to investigate for disciplinary action into a fraud.

I had no idea whether the phone number I had given at the time was my old work phone or my own personal number so I thought I'd just wait and see whether anyone one rang. And they did, this evening. There I was with nothing much to do but watch TV and the phone rang and rather than saying I was too busy, I thought it would be quite interesting to see what they wanted to know so I was quite looking forward to spending the 15 mins required taking part in the poll.

First question - was I involved in the case because I am a police officer, expert witness, member of a legal body or the victim? Victim

Second question - is the status of the case still ongoing, closed with outcome or closed with no outcome? Closed with outcome.

Third question - am I over 18? Yes

Fourth question - what was the nature of the crime that was reported? Fraud / Theft

At that point the guy says because it was a fraud then that's it, no more questions! I was so disappointed, I wanted to give my comments about what happened and how rubbish I thought they had been. How even though I had a huge statement, and the police were very helpful at the start, I was never told of the date that the case was in court, or of the outcome. Instead I found out along with everyone else when it was on the front page of the local paper.

I guess I won't be a statistic this time.

Holiday!

I've had a lovely long weekend at Sal's. After a very long drive straight after work on Wednesday night, it was lovely to wake up on Thursday knowing that I had 4 full days before I had to be back in work. We had a lot of wedding discussions, trying to figure out what shoes I will wear, and going through the long list of questions that I had pulled together from being with Mum the weekend before. After hearing and reading so much about Jill it was also good to meet her at last!

Friday evening we drove over to Shepton Mallet to see Alicia in her theatre school performance of Old School Musical which was a selection of songs from the musicals - a perfect evening for Sal and I. The show was really great and Alicia did really well, she looked like she was really enjoying herself the whole way through.

Saturday we went to Winchester with Jill to The Pottery Cafe. Although after the last time Sal and I did this we said that we would have to plan our patterns before we went again, we didn't. But we didn't take as long as last time deciding what it was that we were all going to do. Again I did finish much faster - my attention to detail obviously not as good as Sal's, or maybe I just pick simpler designs to do.... Pictures to follow when we pick up the final glazed pots.

It was another lovely weekend to get to spend some time with Sal, next time let's go to New York!

Tribunal

One experience I hope to never have to go through is giving evidence in an employment tribunal. Given the fact that I'm a HR Adviser I think this wish will be a little unrealistic. One of my colleagues, Emma had to go through the experience in December and we spent three days watching the conclusion of the case this week.

I always knew that it was similar to a court room situation but I was nervous just watching and listening to the barrister's firing questions, being very arrogant and condescending (theirs not ours) and starting sentences with 'I put it to you...' And I've decided I never want that sentence to end 'I put it to you Miss Greenwood'.

So I'm going to have to work even harder to make sure that all of my cases are dealt with so well that they never get that far, or work really hard on making sure that any that do turn into a claim are settled well before it gets to a hearing. For anyone that's wondering the outcome of this case will be decided on 14th April - and it's not looking good for us.

Funny Story

The funniest story that I heard this week came from Ruth, it was one of those 'this happened to a friend of a friend' things but it wasn't that far removed so that makes me believe that it is true.

A friend (of a friend) was looking after someones house and dog while they were on holiday.  During this time the dog, which was very old, died.  Now I thought that was enough for the story but there was much more than that....

It was fairly late so she decided that she would take the dog to the vet in the morning to have him cremated so that she had something to give to the owners when they came back from holiday. (Not being a big pet lover myself I find this a little strange but anyway).  So she put the dog in a hold all, in the back of the car overnight.  After driving to the vet's the next day she got out of the car and went to get the bag (with dog) out of the boot.  By this time rigor mortis had set in and the bag was very heavy so as she was struggling to move the heavy holdall from the back of the car a guy came up and asked if he could help.  He commented that it was heavy and asked what was in the bag.  As she didn't want to admit that she had a dead dog in the bag, she decided that it would be better to lie and say that it was a laptop instead.   

Big mistake, the guy ran off with the bag stealing what he thought was a laptop!  I'd love to know what happened after that when he stopped to look in the bag...

42nd Street

I went to the theatre tonight to see 42nd Street, I didn't really know what the story was apart from being a musical about making a musical and that there was lots of tap dancing in it. It was a really good performance by the York Light Opera Company who I've seen quite a few times before, which for an amateur company put on a fantastic performance. I'm amazed that they found enough people within their company (or just within York) who could tap dance so well, or that they managed to teach them all in the time that they've been rehearsing for this.

The only slight disappointment for me were a few minor problems with the sound. I'm not sure whether the microphones were the responsibility of the sound desk or the individuals but on a few occasions they weren't doing their job properly and switching them off when they'd gone off stage. Although luckily there wasn't too much to spoil the performance, just one particular comment about some boxes in the wrong place, but all in all another good night.

Now I'm looking forward to being on the actual 42nd Street in New York in May!

No more gym!

I've decided to give up on the gym. For the amount that it's costing me compared to how much I'm going I've decided it's really not worth it. Now I know the argument there is to start going more often but that is just not going to happen so I've come up with a new plan.

I've bought a cross trainer. The machine in the gym that I like the least and avoid every time I go is now sitting in my spare room. I was going to go for a treadmill but for the amount that I wanted to spend the home machines looked like they could collapse as soon as you stood on them. I started looking at the cross trainers which looked much more stable and will just have to learn to like it. So now I just need to make sure I use it, so far so good. It went up on Friday night and I used it Saturday and Sunday morning so far, the plan is to use it for 20-30 mins most days so we'll see how it goes! As long as I use it more than I used to go to the gym then it was a good buy, but then that shouldn't be too difficult to beat!

Clear Out!

After spending the first half of today not moving from the sofa I decided this afternoon I needed to get up and do something.  So I went to my wardrobe and pulled everything out on to the bed and began sifting through what I wanted to go back in.  I decided to be quite ruthless and the clothes that I have avoided throwing away previously had reached their last chance, this time they were going.  I went through my wardrobe, the spare room wardrobe, the shelves and 4 drawers and then moved onto the shoes.  At the end of all that I had this pile of clothes and shoes -

which included: 20 tops, 10 v-neck jumpers, 6 big jumpers, 4 cardigans, 7 shirts, 3 skirts, 4 trousers, 2 jeans, 1 pair of boots, 2 pairs of trainers, 2 pairs of slippers and 8 pairs of shoes.  Now I'm just hoping that there is a charity shop collection coming soon, and that I've left enough in the wardrobe to find something to wear for  work on Monday!

First Week

I managed to make it to the end of my first week in my new job at Yorkshire Housing, but I'm so tired.  I thought first weeks were always fairly quiet just getting used to things, find out who people are and get into doing a little bit of work.  That lasted about 1 day, then it's just been busy ever since.  I did think I was sitting in a disciplinary in Sheffield on Tuesday which then changed to a grievance meeting in Huddersfield which then got cancelled so at least I've had a few more days before I need to start providing any real advice!  The travelling has started already though with a day out in Bradford on Wednesday to meet the other 2 HR Advisers, and I'm out in Sheffield for two days next week which should help with getting to know a few more people.  The useful thing is that we all have name badges so at least I'm not having to remember who is everyone is just yet, I just have to have a sneaky look down at their badge if I've forgotten who they are already!

Sports Injury

I forgot to tell you about my sports injury that happened over the holidays, but as my last two posts are linked by the title this one will have to be out of sync as I can't break them up!

So while Sal & Rob were visiting being the sporty people that they are now, there was a suggestion that we play Badminton one day.  Not being known as the sporty one of the family I had no sports gear with me at all so on Sunday during a quick trip to the shops I bought some new trainers (which I needed to do anyway) and some sweat pants.  Most of the places that we could think of where we could play either seemed to be closed between Christmas and New Year or incapable of answering the phone so eventually we went for the Dolphin Centre in Darlington and booked 2 hours on the Monday afternoon.

I haven't played badminton since I think I was about 14 and other than a short after school club I've not played all that much.  I think I did ok though, we played a couple of games of Sal and I against Rob, which of course he won.  We couldn't quite coordinate who was covering the front of the court and who was the back, but we cracked it later into the second game against Rob but it was just too late by then.  Sal and I were quite evenly matched so the games that we played against each other were both quite close scores and we won one game each.  Both our individual games against Rob had predictable scorelines of 15 to nothing more than about 3.

About 20 mins into playing I realised that my right wrist was hurting me.  I have a tendency to smash my shots rather than playing front or back hand and I found that I had been holding the racket too high on the handle so that each time I hit the shuttle the end of the racket would push straight into my wrist.  I didn't realise early enough though and after about an hour I was already showing a slight bruise and it was swollen.  The bump disappeared after that day but the bruise is still there 5 days later and it a very dark shade of purple now.  

The other minor injury was a bruise to the left hand when I swung at the shuttle a little too eagerly, missed it and hit my thumb instead.  That had a nice little purple bruise for a while but has gone now.  In spite of the injuries I did really enjoy playing, I think I'll have to find someone in York that I can play against, either that or move to Winchester / Southampton so that I can go with Sal.  That would be my preferred option but unfortunately a bit more expensive!

...and a very cold new year!

My boiler had been a little temperamental before Christmas.  There didn't seem to be any common link as to when it would work and when it wouldn't so I had a plumber out to have a look at it a couple of weeks ago but by the time he got to the house it was working again.  Arriving back for an hour on Boxing Day put my mind at rest that it was sorted as it was warm in the house when I got back which meant that it had been working fine for a run of 4 days.  The excitement was short lived though and after another 5 days away from the house it had stopped again.  I got back on New Years Eve and after over 3 hours of sitting in a freezing house I escaped to Gillian's to get ready for the party in the evening and stayed over after.

New Year's Day I returned to the house full of expectation that I could somehow get it working again by staring at it, hitting it, praying over it, thumping it etc. but it turns out I'm not that skilled, so I called the plumber.  Thankfully he was willing to come out on a Bank Holiday, and declared that it had given up on me and the best thing to do was replace it.  An expense that I really hadn't planned for this early in the year, I was hoping it would get past the first day at least.  Thanks to the lovely parents though my bank account won't look completely bare but my savings account has taken a bit of a hit, but then I suppose that's what savings are there for.  So it was another night away from the house and thankfully Ruth was kind enough to lend me a bed for the evening.

The plumber came back this morning and has spent the whole day fitting the new boiler.  It's now 5pm on 2nd January and my head is slowing starting to raise itself from the very large neck of the very thick sweater, I think another 10 mins and I might even take off one of the five layers of clothes that I'm wearing.  So it's a new year and I've already ticked off one of my to do items for this year in sorting the boiler out, now I just need to figure out what else should go on the list for this year.