Summer is here, and I am jumping for joy because.... I can now fit back into clothes I used to wear at University. (I left 3 years ago). Yes, I am 8 stone 13.5 pounds. Half a pound below the weight I've been trying to get to for the past 3 years. Ever since I finished university, and I realised most of my wastebands were a bit tight, I've been thinking "must shift those few pounds". All the way through uni I was 9 stone exactly (apart from when my vile boyfriend dumped me in the first year and I went down to 8.8 through sheer misery). When I graduated I was 9.3. Then after that christmas I was 9.8. Hovered that way most of the year. By christmas I was 9.10. Stayed like that most of the year. By christmas this year I was 9.12. I know that is still slim and healthy, but it did mean most of my clothes were now bagged up to go to the charity shop.

So I gave myself a huge kick up the backside, and started properly watching what I ate. And hey presto, 6 weeks later, I've lost nearly a stone. I can't believe it. 3 years of saying "must do something about it" and 6 weeks was all it took. Why didn't I just do it 3 years ago?

So sorry charidee shops. You're not getting my clothes anymore - I've got a bit more wear in them yet.

Well damn and blast. Now I've got 4000 words of a 3000 word project. Words eh - you wait ages for one, then 4000 come along at once. I have to cut at least 500 out pronto.

By 9pm yesterday, when I finished writing it, I was going stir-crazy. But was too lazy to go out for a walk, so I stuck my head out of the living room window for 5 minutes, then settled in to watch Fight Club. It's brilliant!

Britains Best Sitcom

Well Only Fools and Horses is funny. And popular. And long running. So I suppose it was bound to end up as the nation's favourite. But I love Yes, Minister so much! And Blackadder. At least that got to 2nd place.

But what I really want to know is how the hell can The Vicar of Dibley get the number 3? When asked to justify this, all Carol Vorderman could come up with is "she loves chocolate! And sex!". Still, at least "My Family" wasn't there. Loathsome, horrible programme!

You lucky devils. I'm sure all 10 of my regular readers care about my spring cleaning escapades so much you're chuffed to get 2 reports about it. Blogger must be being slow. I wrote the first post yesterday, and dopily signed out before publishing the post, so thought d'oh and signed back in and wrote another one. They I thought it would be clever to check "manage posts" and saw they were both in there, even though none were showing on the site yet. So I deleted the first one. And now they are both there, and wet sand reckons I should keep the first one. Sorry, it's gone! Unless it mysteriously stays there forever despite my deleting it. I suppose I could copy and paste it back in as a new post. But then I might end up with three reports of my spring cleaning, and no-one wants that!

Now I have 1300 words of my 3000 word project completed. Hurrah!

Spring Cleaning

Getting home last night full of wine, vodka and noodles proved to be the last straw for my already very untidy flat. I seemed to scatter belongings all over the place, and even managed to leave my handbag in the bath! So this morning I woke up and decided enough was enough and R and I have cleaned it from top to bottom. A proper clean. The kind that involves taking the bread slicer apart and emptying out the crumbs. And the best thing is I've been so busy cleaning that I can't start my big college project yet. And now I'm so busy blogging, I can't start it either.

Last night I also realised that one major reason I work where I work is the fact that my workplace incorporates a very cheap bar, and one quite generous (if a little over-paid) general manager. I got trollied for about £3. The daft (possbily ironic? I'm never sure how to use that word correctly) thing is this very alcohol that got me drunk and made me decide I don't mind my job, is the same alcohol that got me drunk and made me tell my manager all about how boring I find my job, and that I've been going for job interviews recently. But he took this well (he was sloshed himself so I doubt he cared in that state) and said he'd find some more interesting work for me. Let's see if he remembers this on Monday.

Anyway. R has just got home from Lewisham Market with mangoes, clementines and bananas galore. He's telling me sternly that I should have started my project now. Well I suppose I was only delaying the inevitable.......

Oooooh. My fist drunk blog!
Hehe. Off fot noodles now.

Spam, eggs, ham and spam

I just had an email from "Rochelle". Subject line - "Only open if you want a personal predicition about yourself".

Alright then Rochelle, I won't!

I feel quite a bit better now. Thankfully, all the stress I felt on Monday was coming from inside me, rather than big external problems. I'm very well equipped to deal with problems inside me. So I went home, and sat around feeling awful for myself. Then I issued the lovely R with the unenviable task of cheering me up. And he did a thoroughly good job.

My ankle is still swollen, but I went to the doctor this morning and she told me to take anti-inflammatorys, rest it and press ice against it in the evenings. So now I can officially sit around like Cleopatra, and ask R to bring me grapes every 5 minutes. It should be better in a week or so. Which is good because today it took over 1 hour 15 mins to get to work by bus. To walk takes half an hour.

I have a 2 day assessment centre in April for another job, so I’m not on the scrap heap yet. And as for the organisation that rejected me – they clearly could not recognise the best thing that ever happened to them, even when it walked up to them, shook their hand and said “hello I’m woozie sorley”.

Suckers!

Today I feel about as miserable and wretched as I ever have in my life. Feelings come from:
- having a twisted ankle that won't get better
- going for a job interview on friday and not getting the job, and finding this out from an interviewer too lilly-livered to just tell me honestly why I wasn't selected. I hate that "we gave the job to someone with more relevant experience" fob-off.
- being constantly let down at work, and being on the receiving end of people's anger when stuff goes wrong that I have no control over
- Have just spent a spiffing weekend with my family who did nothing but talk about babies and pregnancy. One sister has a 9 week old baby, the other is 4 months pregnant. I requested politely that we talk about something else as I found it all rather boring, and was looked at like I have 2 heads.

Now I'm going home to sit around and contemplate how fucking shit I feel.

This is addictive. It must be because I love the feeling I get when I know something only 10% of the rest of the population knows!

Friday Five

1. What was the last song you heard?

Something by the Vines - just played on Xfm.

2. What were the last two movies you saw?

At the cinema - Lost in Translation and Love Actually. I'm quite ashamed of those two. I'd rather admit to the previous 2 films I saw before that - Spellbound and Spirited Away. At home - The Princess Bride and Lolita (old version)

3. What were the last three things you purchased?

Yesterday evening in Sainsburys - Milk, Reduced Quorn Ham, and Mushrooms.

4. What four things do you need to do this weekend?

1 - Prepare a presentation I have to make next week. 2 - Take back a printer cartridge to WH Smith which the printer won't recognise. 3 - Take back an energy saving lightbulb which is meant to last for hundreds of years and actually lasted 4 months. Trouble is, I bought it in Poundstretcher. I think they may laugh at me. 4 - Go to Sainsburys and complain that they overcharged for for some frozen desserts I bought last week (forgot the receipt when I went yesterday). The shelf sign said 80p off but they charged me full price.

5. Who are the last five people you talked to?

A man who phoned me at work this morning and had the wrong number, My boss this morning when I got to work, R when I left the house this morning. The woman at my checkout in the supermarket last night, A client on the phone at work yesterday just before I left.

Take the friday five yourself

According to the Grauniad, you are where you shop.

I think that is kind of stating the bleeding obvious - supermarkets that on average charge more for their products and have few or no "value" products, will attract less poor people. And you don't see a Lidl in the middle of Highgate, or a Waitrose in Tottenham do you?

I'd also like to point out that the reason I shop at Sainsburys is because I live across the road from one. I'm not happy about this. I wish I lived across the road from an Tesco, or better still, Asda. I could get the bus to Tesco in Lewisham. And once I did get the Bus to Asda in Charlton. But the extra time it took me, and the fact that I had a 10 minute walk to and from the bus stop both ways put me off doing it again. My days of getting gorilla arms from lugging back bags of shopping thankfully ended the day I moved into a flat 30 seconds from a big supermarket.

Now Aldi, on the other hand, is a different matter altogether. It's like Lidl in that it's dirt cheap. But it actually has lots of nice food, and plenty of veggie stuff too. As a rare treat I will go to Aldi on the Old Kent Road even though it means I have to take 2 buses each way! I heard a rumour there is one in Catford. Can anyone confirm this?? Catford would be easier to get to.

Where do you all shop? Is it in line with what the article suggests?

Oh no. I just heard about the bombs in Madrid. Guardian article here.

I feel all naked. Again. This time because I left my mobile phone at home this morning. I've got a memory like an elephant. I never forget thing! But today I did. And now R has it. He's going to tell me if anyone calls or leaves a message. (It's not a work phone but I do get a lot of work related calls on it.) Help! What if he texts all my friends saying "woozie smells of poo!"?

Spring is here!

This morning for the first time in ages, the sun felt warm on my back as I walked through Greenwich park. And I heard a woodpecker! And when I got to work, I thought “ooh, it’s warm in here” and had to open a window. Another first for this year. And it snowed yesterday! My dad is a mormon and used to say “hot drinks are not for the belly.” More significantly he used to say “in the last days the season’s shall be confounded". Eeeek. Maybe he’s right!!

Also in the park this morning I saw a dickhead overtake 5 cars in a row. As it’s downhill all the way through the park, most cars go quite fast. But this man wanted to go faster. He had to get up to about 60mph to pass them all. But he picked the wrong time to have a “my journey is more important than everyone else’s” moment. Because one of the cars he overtook was a plain clothes police car. Wooooooohoooooooo! So they stopped him and I assume ticketed him. Ha!

Something else I saw recently helped fuel my general loathing for motor vehicles and sometimes the motorists inside them. ITV London news reported that in Westminster Council, traffic wardens are going to be paid commission for ticketing cars, and there will be an award for the person who issues the most. (Kind of like employee of the month). Shock! Horror! They’re going to be encouraged to do their job.

So they went “undercover” and parked a car on double yellows and went and hid until a traffic warden appeared. They ran over to him and handed him a huge faux-silver trophy and congratulated him on taking only 3 minutes to ticket the car. They made no mention of the fact that buses may not have been able to get past their inconveniently located gas-guzzler, holding up the journeys of hundreds of people. That it may have obscured the view of pedestrians trying to cross the road. That buses may not have been able to pull into a bus stop, meaning people have to walk half way in to the road, potentially through big puddles, just to get on.

And the poor traffic warden is just trying to earn a living! If they have a problem with the idea of rewarding wardens with commission and awards, they should take it up with the head of parking at the council, not some random person half way through their day’s work.

One last thing – tonight I was supposed to go see the filming of Harry Hill’s TV burp. But R’s illness has turned into a hacking wheezy cough and every time he laughs he nearly coughs his lungs up. Going to see someone who has us in stitches all the time is probably not the best idea. So no Harry Hill for us. BOO HOO.

Splash DVD

This shower of bastards have ceased trading. And they owe R £20 for a DVD ordered but not sent. They deducted the cost (£10) from his account not once but twice, even though they're not supposed to take any until the DVD has been dispatched.

Grr.

Yesterday was just terrible. As terrible as terrible can get. The sort of day that by the time I went to bed in the evening, I'd have given anything to turn the clock back to 9.00 and live it again.

I go to college every tuesday to gain a "professional qualification" and my workplace very kindly pays for me to do this and gives me the day off to attend. But yesterday there was no college as the tutors were having a big training day. It is still technically a college day as we had work set and were supposed to get on with our projects on this day. So I had a day off work - woohoo! I decided to treat this as a day off and planned to treat saturday or sunday as a college day. As R has been so poorly all weekend he decided to take a days holiday and we thought we'd do something nice together to make up for the fact that we did nothing nice all weekend. Only trouble was by yesterday he was still poorly - and was fit only for staying in bed all day.

And suddenly I felt overwhelmed with guilt for not bringing any college work home with me. I'd had a weekend of vegging so did not feel in need of another day like that, but didn't feel able to do anything else with unexpected day alone as I felt so guilty. I tortured myself with thoughts like "you'll never pass the course and it will be your own fault for not doing college work when you were supposed to" and "when you get back to work on Wenesday you'll get the sack for being crap and behind with your work and it will be all your own fault for not going into work on that Tuesday".

I thought I was going to go mad if I stayed at home so I went out to Crystal Palace Park and had a long walk. I felt crap all day. I read a few chapters of "Memoirs of a Geisha" (which is good so far) and had lunch in an amazing veggie restaurant whose name I have forgotten already. It should have been a lovely day but I felt like I had a grey clound over me for every minute of it.

About 4 o clock I felt good enough to return home. But the minute I saw R I felt consumed with anger again. So who did I take out these bad feelings on? Poor Poor R. He had a terrible cold, wheezed when he breathed, felt sick every time he coughed, and exhausted from so much as getting up to get a glass of water. And I accused him of ruining my day by uneccessarily prolonging his illness. He stood up for himself and pointed out what a selfish bitch I was being. I realised how awful I had been. And felt worse than ever. I felt bad for just about every bad thing I've ever done.

I said I was sorry. Explained how I was feeling about college and how much I hated myself for being so slack and lazy with my college work. R said to me "you're like the kid at school who cried when he got A minus". Meaning - I am not lazy, I'm actually ahead with my assignments and have got over 70% in each of them. I just have an inexplicable lack of belief in myself.

So there you have it - one ruined day. But the evening was better. After we'd cleared the air, R and I felt really close. I had to go out in the evening and R came with me, which was a nice gesture. He didn't have to, but having him there made me feel much better.

Well I suppose we have thousands more days to spend together. At least 104 weekend-days every year. I am going to try and make each and every one of them better than yesterday.

Gaah! My fingernails are blue. It's March. When will this cold weather end?

This weekend, my poor bf was ill - the same as I had last week. So he spent the weekend mooching round playing diablo on the PC, and I spent the weekend mooching round getting cross with him for playing so much diablo. And I cooked. I cooked big hearty meals all weekend. I love weekends for that very reason - it's ok to spend 2 hours on dinner even though it will be eaten in 15 minutes, because there's just so much time! I even cooked a roast dinner on Sunday. Using Quoast, naturellement!

And we made Finnish Rye and Caraway bread. It involved cocoa powder and treacle among other things. I'm pleased to say it tasted just like the bread I ate when went to Helsinki a few years ago. And is delicious with cream cheese and chives!

By Sunday evening we were both going stir-crazy so went out to get a video. It was "The Princess Bride" and it absolutely rocked!

Oooh - isn't SATC getting good? Well, it's always been good. But it seems to be building up to a fantastic ending. Only 2 episodes to go...

It is the law of the sod. I just sent an all staff email about an envelope addressed to me that has gone missing in the internal mail, asking if anyone had it by accident. I'd given it two weeks before giving it up for lost and sending the email. And then I went downstairs and guess what had turned up in my pigeon hole? Yes. The envelope.

Considering I work for an organisation with 5 sites spread over 40 miles, and with over 1000 staff, it probably wasn't the best idea for the sender to merely put "To - Woozie Sorley" on the front. Some information about which building and site I work at would have helped the postal staff out I'm sure!

One of the automatic responses I got to my email was quite amusing. It said "I'm on maternity leave from 8th December until whenever".

Like -whatever.

So now I have got my grubby little mits on the envelope which contains stuff to input into Access. That will keep me busy and occupied which is good as it's only 4 hours til the weekend. Although I've been a bit of a sickly part-timer this week, the weekend really feels like it's been a long time coming.

Friday Five

What was...

1. ...your first grade teacher's name?

Miss Percy

2. ...your favorite Saturday morning cartoon?

Muppet Babies. Except I was a slovenly child and was never awake at 7.50am to watch it on a Saturday so used to get my Mum to tape it for me to watch later.

3. ...the name of your very first best friend?

Possibly Donna. I was also friends with a girl called Zoe too. And a boy called Ian. I never really went in for “Best Friends” – too much pain if you “broke friends”!

4. ...your favorite breakfast cereal?

When? As a child? Maybe lucky charms. But they were an extremely rare treat. As were coco pops. I also liked Start and something else – the name escapes me but they were little tiny shredded wheats covered in icing sugar. Mmmm. My god – breakfast cereal (apart from Muesli and All-Bran) is a potentially seriously unhealthy thing to give your child for breakfast, n’est-ce pas? I think I’ll make my children have fruit and yoghurt. In actual fact, I ate marmite toast for breakfast more than I ever ate cereal. And still do!

5. ...your favorite thing to do after school?

Errrm – I can’t really remember. Play with my next door neighbour. Watch Muppet Babies videos. Go to Safeway with my Mum. None of these were my favourites. Just things I would do. My least favourite thing was to have to be picked up by my Granny and go to her house til my mum finished work. That scared the shit out of me. All that stew she used to make me eat. Now she’s dead and I’d give anything to be able to go to her house and eat stew...

Take the Friday Five yourself

I feel all naked...

Because I've had to give my manager my pc login and password. Don't like it when that happens. Yesterday I went to work and felt like a big pile of shite all day - sore throat, achy limbs, nauseous, no appetite. Not good. So even though I feel a bit better today, I am definitely not going in. I'd rather stay at home today and go back tomorrow feeling much better, than struggle in today, feel crap all day, and then the same again on friday.

And then one of my staff (no, not "staff" as in the queen has staff. Staff as in people I manage) phoned me to say she's got food poisoning and cannot work this evening. So I've spent the morning so far (unsuccessfully) trying to find a replacement for her. Failing that, I've had to ask my manager to go to my office, log in to my pooter, find the right distribution lists and email the people affected by tonight's cancellation. Then I had to ask him to search for their phone numbers in Access and ask someone else to phone them all and explain.

So all in all it hasn't been a very effective sick day so far, having spent an hour of it sorting out work stuff.

Boo hoo. Oh well - at least now I can go back to bed.

Just a quickie.

I want one of these.

Today I still feel a bit poorly but am in work today. Reason being I have to travel half way across town tonight to go to post-abortion counselling. It wouldn't be much of a day off if all the time I knew I'd have to get dressed and venture out at about 5 o clock. So I have come in and if I still feel bad tomorrow will call in sick and then lie around decadently watching bid-up and price drop tv, knowing I don't have to leave the house for a full 24 hours. Mmmm.

Talking of counselling, last week I was given the task of going home and writing a letter to my mum about the abortion - all the things I wish I could have told her. Basically, I had to put down on paper all the conversations I have with her in my head thousands of times a day. I thought "easy" - and assumed it would take about 15 minutes.

My god it was hard! It made me really, really upset. I cried for ages. And I realised the upset was coming from the fact that the abortion made me realise how bad my relationship is with her, and how unsupported by her I feel. And I actually found that a relief. It gives me something definite to work on and it helps me understand why I still get upset about it, even though I don't regret it.

This week might be harder as I have to do the same for my sister. Eek - I'm even angrier with her than I am with my Mum. What an angry young woman I am....

Criminal

At least that is what the Daily Express says on its front page, about plans to replace the current police helmet (huh huh, huh huh huh, she said Helmet!) with one.....

HALF THE SIZE.

Apparantly this new design is "better suited to school girls".

Hmmm. This clearly is the most important thing going on in our country today.