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Tuesday, 29 December 2009

A brief farewell....

As with my other two blogs I decided to post my new year greetings tonight. I just want to wish everyone a happy new year and all the best for 2010.

I'm taking a break for a couple of weeks as something has come up at home (nothing bad, just a sudden home-improvement thing which came out of the blue, we were expecting it but just not this early!) and it will require a lot of upheaval over the next week or so, therefore I'll be very busy and won't have time to blog until Monday 11th January, when I should be back in blog-land if things all go to plan.

In the meantime.....HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

We got chills, they're multiplying

ITV News tonight: "The wintry weather is back".

Ummm......excuse me, for some of us it hasn't been away! Freezing/below freezing temperatures and snow which refuses to melt is now the norm for us. This has resulted in the realisation that none of our winter fashion boots are actually up to the job of coping with this weather, so that's led to an acute shortage of wellies as people rush to the shops to snap up some very colourful patterned boots which would otherwise remain on shoe shop shelves from one festival season to another.

Let's go back, way back, into the mists of time. When such things as gritter lorries existed, and you had things like grit salt bins. Back in the day they used to clear the pavements so that we pedestrians could actually walk on them; now every day is like an audition for "Dancing on Ice" - although most of us are more Todd Carty than Torvill and Dean :))))

Monday, 28 December 2009

Sales success.

My first outing to the 2009 post-Christmas sales today, and it was very successful too - new skirt, knitwear, handbag, jewellery, bath stuff and the long-awaited skinny jeans. Now you know that I'd previously bought a pair in the summer sales but they were too small for me when I bought them. This time I wasn't making that mistake and made sure I bought a pair which were a good fit to begin with.

Thank goodness for shops that do petite ranges: it's not always easy finding jeans when you're only a 29" leg. And another thing....why do jeans manufacturers assume that if you're a size 16 then you must be about 5ft 10" tall????

Anyway I got my new jeans, so rant over. Good old Dorothy Perkins.

I'll have to wait till next week to head off to the big city for part 2 of my sales adventures: in the meantime it's back to work tomorrow, aah the joys of living in a town with no decent shops :(

And it's very, very, very, very cold tonight, there is no sign of the week-old snow melting and the pavements are so icy now that only Torvill and Dean would be able to negotiate them!!

Sunday, 27 December 2009

That happy post-Christmas feeling.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and that it was everything you wished for.

I had a very enjoyable time, no change to the usual Christmas routine but that's the way we like it! Got lots of lovely presents and also lots of money to buy some more goodies in the sales!!

We are still surrounded by snow: it's been so cold that last week's snow hasn't melted, and there are little daily top-ups of new snow too. The temperature tonight is forecast to drop to -5 degrees which is pretty cold for this country but that's nothing compared to other parts of the world which are much worse, and they just get on with it.

I haven't been out for a few days but will finally venture out tomorrow - wrapped up in my fabulous new cosy scarf which I got for Christmas - to check out the sales, which as usual will probably be rubbish and I'll moan relentlessly that there's nothing in the clothes shops but size 8s and 10s which they haven't been able to shift for months - however they may yet surprise me :)))

Wednesday, 23 December 2009

Sweden in the snow

http://www.webbkameror.se/ is an absolutely brilliant website, packed with webcam views of towns and cities all over Sweden. Here's some pictures which I found tonight, of Malmö, Skövde and Norrköping respectively:

It's not only the goose who's getting fat :)))

The downside to ditching Christmas party nights, apart from denying myself the opportunity to get all glammed up, is the lack of motivation to slim down to fit into a flashy party frock. Oh well.

Over the last few weeks there's been no motivation at all, combined with those two colds which floored me, which means that my waist has completely vanished and I'll need to send out a search party. Now it's Christmas holiday week which has completely opened the floodgates: spare tyres all over the place, spots (which I'm not usually prone to) and the realisation that I'll need to buy a pair of skinny jeans which actually fit, rather than those ones I bought a few months ago which were too tight when I bought them - you get the idea, "I'll slim into them" but you never do. Bad idea.

But do you know something? The diet can wait. It's Christmas!!

Tuesday, 22 December 2009

Walking in a winter wonderland

Well not exactly, I didn't go out today and decided just to stay in, do some tidying up and watch the snow falling outside.

Yes we have had snow for six consecutive days now and the prospect of a white Christmas is a very real possibility. It's also very cold at the moment. Brrr!

The snow may be nice to look at, but it can also cause havoc and disruption, which is spreading across the continent at the moment : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8425805.stm

Saturday, 19 December 2009

...IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!!

  • Only 5 shopping days left. Do shopping malls really need to open till midnight? Why are people so disorganised? It's not as if Christmas has just appeared by surprise. We know it's happening, like, every year.

  • As previously mentioned in 2008, my hometown has recycled the world's most insignificant Christmas lights for another underwhelming season. You know that your town's Christmas lights are seriously rubbish when neighbouring villages have better lights than your apology for a "town".

  • Yet again I passed on the whole party night/Secret Santa/Christmas lunch thing and didn't feel like I missed out on anything. (Certainly didn't miss out on copious amounts of Quality Street scoffed with a couple of my colleagues whilst we covered in the office yesterday when everyone else was away for Christmas lunch.....!)

  • This week I got some very lovely Christmas presents from my boss and friends at work and truly appreciate their warmth and friendship (and extremely good taste) - it's great to be part of such a lovely group of people and it's a pleasure to spend every working day with them. Here's my lovely big Yankee Candle set which already has pride of place in my living room:


  • Mum and I had our annual trip to the panto today which was fab and funny and maximum entertainment. Oh yes it was!!!! That's one Christmas tradition which we always enjoy.

  • Tomorrow = wrapping presents and then putting them all under the tree. So I probably won't really be around blogland till later tomorrow....

  • One more thing - I'm now on holiday! Finished work yesterday and won't be back at my desk till Tuesday 29th!!!!!! Hoping to have a reasonably chilled out week.

Tuesday, 8 December 2009

And so, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the Christmas shopping for 2009.

Yes they think it's all over....it is now.

Today I took some time out of work to go and do the last 'loose ends' of my Christmas shopping for this year. As usual, I've gone into control freak mode but it's been all very relaxing so far and the one thing I refuse to do is panic, unlike some people I could mention!!

In other news, I'm still feeling slightly under the weather, although finally getting better.

Being a Libran, 'indecisive' is of course my middle name, but once I bring myself to a decision it is set in stone and no going back. Last night I made a decision: I'm going to get a new mobile phone at the start of next year. One of those nice touch-screen ones, which do everything from taking good quality pictures and playing mp3s to possibly making the tea (well you never know.....).

As a tortoise would probably beat me in a texting competition, I wonder if a touch-screen phone would make me text any faster???? (Ummm.....probably not)

Sunday, 6 December 2009

That 'why I haven't posted here' post

Basically I've not been feeling very well over the past two weeks. A few weeks ago I caught a really nasty cold which took me three weeks to recover from, then I caught the very same cold again almost two weeks ago. Because I've got sinus trouble, all my colds then develop into horrible sinus infections which go on for another week, where you feel sick all the time as if your body is full of green poisonous goo. Sorry to be so graphic, but that's the best description I can think of.

Happily I finally feel today as if I'm on the mend, but now my mum's got a very nasty throat infection and she's lost her voice. She's been looking after me over the past week, but now it's role reversal time again and I'm going into carer mode again.

I won't be posting much this week apart from the 2009-50 chart on EuropeCrazy and the live concert updates on Planet Salem, so maybe I might fit a couple of posts in here along the way. Counting down the days till I finish up at work for pre-Christmas leave: only 9½ working days to go. Yippppeeeee!