More flat photos.

This is the spare bedroom. Take a moment to appreciate the bed and wardrobe - IO put them together. This was an accomplishment for me! And yes, they are stable and you can use them without fear of them falling apart! :)


SO this one's pretty blurry, but I find it funny all the same. I hate doing the dishes. Living with a flatmate, I didn't think it was fair not to keep on top of them though. So, the first thing I did when my flatmate left - stop doing the dishes ... it's getting a bit out of control and it's only been a week!

Weekend "up north"

I put up north in quotes as people in London consider everything outside the M25* to be up north. I found this amusing when I lived in the Midlands, as I was obviously not in the north. Now that I live in London I find myself referring to the midlands as the north. Odd.

I had a pretty busy weekend visiting friends in the Midlands. I drove up to Derby on Friday night and saw some people I used to work with, then went across to Ilkeston to visit with my adoptive parents (Jon and Patty). I ended up staying the night there. Saturday I drove across to Lincoln and spent Saturday and Sunday with Jon and Dawn. I got stuck in a bit of traffic going to Lincoln and over-estimated how long it would take to get through the traffic, so when I arrived early Jon was still out. As it was a gorgeous sunny day I took the opportunity to sunbath on the hood of my car. Jon found this very amusing when he pulled up. 'Only an American' I believe is what he said. :) I hadn't been to their house before and I'd never really spent more than a few hours with them. I had a good time with them. Jon kept me busy fixing his laptop (the fact that I could fix it and get it working again made me feel really smart!) We had a pretty chilled weekend. Sunday Jon cooked a great meal after church - I think those were the best mashed potatoes I've ever had (sorry mom - they were really good though.)

This is Jon and I a while back. I forgot to take any photos at Jon and Dawns. Opps.

Sunday night I drove back to Nottingham (church) and met up with Andrew**. After church we went and had a meal at a pub by the canal. It was absolutely gorgeous outside by the canal. There was a swan that Andrew enjoyed feeding his chips to. We talked so long that we got kicked out when the pub closed so Andrew came back to Jo's (where I was going to stay the night) with me for a cuppa.

You can see how much he likes his picture taken

So I caught him while he was busy talking about trains on the phone. You should never let your guard down :)

Monday I had a nice lie in and met up with Jim and Jo for lunch at a pub in Derby and I ended up meeting up with Andrew again before I headed home.

This is Jo and Jim. I took this photos a few weeks ago when I was up.

The road I normally take to get home was blocked off because of road works. I tried to find a new route back and ended up at a red light with the Savoy in front of me. The Savoy being a famous hotel in London. I thought it was pretty cool as I'd seen this shot in movies many times.

(It's pretty blurry, but you can just

make out 'Savoy' in green letters.)

Although I'm exhausted, it was a really good weekend catching up with friends I miss now that I live in London!


*M25 is the ring road around London
**Those of you who were at my wedding would have probably met him. Bar the minister, he was the only one from England not related to Ben.

Doesn't anyone love me?

How am I to know if you want me to posts these blogs if you don't show me the love*? I already know what I did with my day, I don't spend my time writing about my day for my own reading. Now then if I'm to know that people read these posts and want me to keep posting, you have to tell me. If not, no biggy - I'll just go and find someone else to share my exciting day to day details with, so there!

*ie comment - no you don't need a google account.

Forwards

We all get them. We all get annoyed at them. We all think at least one or 2 of the 100s we get are actually worth getting. We all have at least once forwarded a forward* on.
So I was reading a forward someone had kindly sent to me entitled "A true boyfriend." The title caught my eye, so I read. It basically went through things a guy should do to be a 'modern knight in shining armour'. I.e. Call her at 12:00am on her birthday to tell her you love her• Stay up all night with her when she's sick.• When she's mad hug her tight and don't let go then kiss her• When she says she's ok don't believe it talk with her ... and the list went on. But the one that caught my eye and made me want to share with you:
When she runs up at you crying, the first thing you say is; "Who's ass am I kicking babe?"

*forwarded a forward - now there's a mouth full!

Third time lucky

I made bread!!!! My third try: it actually looks like bread this time, the first 2 were quite flat. Third time's a charm so they say :) And yes, it tastes super good too!

My spectaular fall

Who else could fall up the stairs? Man I'm talented!!!

See the swelling? I have 2 knee caps!

Week 4

I have a few posts to do today, but I'll start with this one .. today marks 4 weeks since I started my smoke-free campaign towards a smoke-free Karen. I miss them less now; I'm getting used to not smoking, although there are certain times I do still miss them (like when I go to a pub and have a drink ... a cigarette goes nice with a drink. The fact that smoking is now band in public helps with this though*) I am still wearing a nicotine patch which helps immensely with the cravings. I've gone a few days without the patch and I find the cravings are much worse on those days. So there you have it - day 28.

*For more information - http://www.smokefreeengland.co.uk/

My flat

Continuing with the photos, here's my flat.

You walk into the flat into a hallway that to the right has stairs downstairs to the bedrooms, loo, and outside area. If you go straight ahead there is a door that lead to the open lounge and kitchen.

This is angle is from the kitchen

This is the shot from the hallway door
When you come in from the hall this is the view to your left.

(The kitchen obviously)

Downstairs is quite a large landing where I currently have a desk and 2 sets of dresser drawrs. It does look too great, but the flat is a lot smaller than I was used to. I had / have too much stuff.

As you come downstairs,
the loo is to the right

Straight ahead you have 2 doors, to the 2 bedrooms, identical in size and in share (other than the odd patrooding box where the electrics / plumming is). Mine is the one on the right. The pictures are of the spare bedroom. Please take note of the lovely, and stable furniture - I put the bed and the wardrobe back together after the move. I felt ever so proud of myself.

Both rooms then have French doors on the patio-ish thing.

This is a picture of my one and only house plant. I've had her 3-ish years. When I moved to London, I gave her to Jo, my friend. When I visited her a few months ago I noticed that the plant was vertually dead. It could have easily gone in the bin. But I somehow brought it back to life (don't ask me how - I don't have a green thumb! I used to water the plant only when all the leaves had drooped - its a very hearty plant!) But I'm very proud of bring it back. I'm also chuffed to have her back.

Pictures Pictures Pictures

The only digital camera I have is on my mobile phone, which is old and rubbish. This means the quality and quantity of pictures I take isn't that great, but hey - it's better than nothing. I lost my cable to hook my phone to the pc so I could transfer my pictures online until recently, so I have quite a few months worth of pictures. Most of them relate to older posts, so in time I will link them up with the right posts as well, but as I expect no-one to read through all the posts, enjoy the pics:

Starting with the most recent, this is from mid-July. I often go to Adam's gigs. I met Adam last year at a gig in Derby. He moved to London, to pursue his music career, the month before I did. So I go to support him .. and cause I like his music :) I took a few pic this night - Adam like them and wanted a copy, so I used blue-tooth to send them to him .. but instead of copying the pictures to his phone, I moved them from mine to his. There were several cool picture, but this is the only one I have **sigh**

Wimbledon pictures - June 30th. Most of the day was spent in this room Kelli (the mate I went with) and I found. It was dry and warm. We spent quite a bit of time sleeping in here. This is the one time we got on the court. Not a great photo, but that's Maria Sharapova (in her match against Ai Sugiyama which she won 6-3, 6-3)


This is from the Princess Diana concert. I have no idea who this is on stage. I went with 2 colleagues (and mates) from work and Andrew, a friend from Derby (well that area at least)

And now a bombardment of pictures of Bob. The first few are when she paid a visit on 23 June (don't worry, I'm not counting the days since I last saw her ... the photos are date stamped). You'll notice I put her tag on her in the second picture. When she graced us with her presence a few weeks later this tag was missing - very irritating. As if someone took it off.) The last picture shows her sitting on her cat tree - with the window open behind her. I didn't want her to associate being in my flat as being trapped. So I begrudgingly let her go. She stayed about 5 minutes after I opened the window.

The next set of pictures are from when I brought her from the neighbours. We kept her shut in the falt and didn't let her outside.

This was during my stent timetabling. I found her sitting on my work - I guess she wanted me to give her some attention instead of working.

I mentioned I felt bad for imprisioning her in the flat. This is a picture taken to show her behind bars (it's obviously taken on my stairs) While she was trapped in the flat she had a lot of excess enegry so I was trying to get some of it out this day. So the next few pictures are of us playing.

Another all-nighter

Look at the time stamp of this post. Yes it's 5:45 AM. What pray-tell you ask, was I doing this Friday night that kept me up til 5:45 in the morning. Yes, I'm afraid it's true - I was reading Harry Potter. I feel a bit empty inside now; I've finished it. There will never be any more new tales of Harry, Ron and Hermione's adventures. **Sigh**
Loved the book. Well, that's a bit obvious as I pulled 2 all nighters* to read it after work (interrupted from reading it only for work and a night out). This evening I audibly gasped a few times. I let out a couple cries of 'oh no!' and Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!' My heart rate speed up as I read through some of the story as I feared for the outcome. And yes, I even shed a couple tears at one point - real actual tears! The transformation I must say is complete - I am truly Jean's daughter through and through.
For those of you who have read the book and are curious of where the tears were shed, I shall post a comment. I don't want to ruin anything for those of you who haven't finished reading the book.

*Why couldn't I have been this interesting in the reading assignments at school - those books always put me to sleep - especially when I needed to do an all nighter so I could pass a test the next day!

A question answered

So how is our smoke-free campaign going?

Today is day 25 of my smoke free quest.

I forgot the best bit

well maybe not the best bit, but a very notable bit. I take a train to get into the city (it takes about 20 minutes) and took this time to put on my make-up. Those of you who know me won't be surprised by this. When I finished putting on my face, I noticed a guy staring at me. This isn't uncommon but usually when you meet someones eyes on the train they look away (or you do) but this guy kept staring. I thought nothing of it - as I was putting on make-up and it isn't the most common thing to see on the train. I then picked up a newspaper someone left and perused through it. I found the sudoku in the back and dug out a pen from my bag and preceded to occupy my time doing sudoku whilst bopping my head to my ipod. I could see the guy (through my peripheral vision) and he was still looking at me. I must have been having a good hair day. A couple more times I looked up and he was still staring. Unfortunately he wasn't a guy I would rate*. train arrived in London and I headed for the tube. Just as I got to the entrance of the tube station someone tapped me on the shoulder. I thought I must have dropped something. Nope. It was said guy! He asked if he could have my number. I was so impressed by his nerve (it takes some balls to walk up to a stranger and ask for their number) that I gave him mine. And I even gave him my proper number!
While I was out with Hayley, I got 2 missed calls from a number I didn't have in my phone - presumably said guy (I can't remember his name.) Way to boost my ego :)

*I didn't think he was very attractive.

Night in the city

Last night I went into the city to help my friend Hayley (pictured above) celebrate her 27th birthday with a few of her mates and her boyfriend. The conversation was very much what I would deem as 'girly talk. Jono (Hayley's boyfriend) must have felt like he was watching an episode of Sex and the City; I know a few episodes crossed my thoughts through the night. I did enjoy myself but for some reason* headed off at a reasonable time.

Turns out it was a good thing I did as I caught the last tube. Since when did tubes stop at 10:15 at night?! The tube was absolutely jammed full - like something out of a cartoon! When the doors opened people literally fell out of the train as they were jammed against the door. This was understandable as it was the last tube of the night. What I didn't understand is why it was the same way when I went into town. The tubes are indisputably busy during rush hour, but I went into town at 7. Why they were still so busy at 7 I don't know. But there you have it. I got up close and personal with a few too many Londoners last night.
And yes, when I got home I did read some more of Harry Potter - but only one chapter as I was quite tired from the previous night's reading :)

* Reason being: I don't have much money left for the month and didn't want to blow it all on one night out. I thought I might appreciate easting for the rest of the month instead :)

Harry Potter Obsession

I had a very productive evening last night. Although I moved into my flat last November, I still have boxes piled in corners. As my flatmate is moving out next week (have I mentioned my flatmate is moving out? Hmm. Well now I have) I have decided that I should try and clear some of these boxes and clutter away as my next flatmate might not be as tolerant of the boxes. I reckon Hannah (current flatmate) came to love the boxes as I did :) I spent several hours clearing out the hallway and cupboard under the stairs and managed to get through several boxes - all the boxes that were there actually. There's some residual clutter that I need to sort, but by 9:30 last night I'd had enough of clearing - I did start around 5.
For the last couple of months I have been "re-reading" the Harry Potter series. I have actually been listening to them on my ipod player. Thanks to my father I have them as mp3's. I have read the books a few times through - each time a new one came out. But by listening to them I can do other things while "reading" at the same time - ie unpack boxes, ride on the subway (I get motion sick to easily to actually read a book on the tube), and even do work (at work) - this makes it easier / faster to get through the books again. When the seventh book in the series came out, I was dying to read it - but I was only half-way through re-reading the 5th book. Okay, now I'm just giving you too many details and drawing my story out.** Anyway, yesterday I finished the 6th book. I could finally read the 7th book. So excited was I (I realise how sad this is - but hey, it's Harry Potter!) that I started reading the 7th book straight away. This was around 10 last night. I tried to put the book down several times to go to bed ... but I was addicted. "I'll just finish this chapter" must have gone through my head a dozen times. Half way through the book and unable to concentrate any longer, I put the book down and went to bed - just after 4 this morning!

**Thanks for the reminder James - stay out of my head! :-)

This is what you get with too much time on your hands

3 weeks

Can you believe it? 3 weeks since I started my 'smoke-free' campaign. You'd think I wouldn't want one after all this time. You'd be wrong - as you can see I'm not handling it all that well.

Number 5

My car got hit again while it was parked outside my flat last night. Joy of joys. This is the fifth time it's been hit. Now to add to my damaged bumper and the red paint, I have a scrapping of white paint. **sigh**

Elsewhere in my life's news: Day 18 today.

Day 16

I won't say it doesn't play on my mind .. but I seem to be getting used to not smoking. I seem to be terribly tired all the time though. Grr. I went through this when I was giving up Coca Cola as well. Ho hum.

Weekend 'up north'

I went back home for the weekend. I took Friday off and drove up. Success story: I managed a smoke free journey. There were many many moments where I REALLY wanted a cigarette, but I resisted (or I couldn't be bothered to make a 10 minute stop and get some - either way I made it.) After a long journey (far too much traffic) I made it to my old place of work. They have moved offices, so I got the new tour - impressive! Friday night I went for a couple of drinks with a few people I used to work with and then a couple of us went for a chinese after.
I'm still registered with a doctor in Castle Donnington (where I used to live) - I like my doctor too much to re-register. I picked up a prescription on Friday on the way to Derby. Saturday morning I realised they didn't give me the right prescription, so Saturday morning I toddled back to Castle Donnington.* Then it was off to Long Eaton to get my hair chopped and my legs waxed. After a few hours of pampering I went to Derby to visit Jo and Jim (more friends - I know it's shocking that I have them - get over it :) and their kids Molly(3 1/2) and Ethan(3ish?). Molly has an obsession with me. Everywhere I went - she went. I put my feet up on a chair - she put her feet up on the chair. I was sleepy and wanted to lay on the couch - she was sleepy too, so got her blanket and laid down with me. It was very cute...until I need the loo. Hmm. Saturday night I met up for a very quick cup of tea with the Whealtys - someone had forgotten that he was leading the lesson on Sunday - so had to prepare for Sunday morning.
Sunday was church and then a pot luck** afterwards. Yum yum. Free food, you just can't beat it :) It's always good to get to see everyone at church when I'm back in Nottingham, but it's always so short lived, so it was good to have extra time to spend with everyone at the pot luck. With a full stomach, and suffering the Sunday afternoon nap syndrome, I had a lovely drive to London to look forward to. The traffic in London was worse than Friday when I drove north. It was very irritating, but I made it home finally. Driving down I was a bit bummed as the weather was so brilliant I wanted to be outside enjoying it. Getting out of the car when I got home ... well I decided that being in an air conditioned car for during the heat wasn't a bad option either :)
And now it's back to Monday morning and work. **sigh**


*This was after a wonderful breakfast of pancakes and Bacon - Thanks Patty!
**Everyone brings a savoury dish and sweet dish, you put it on a big table and everyone tucks in.

A big test on day 11

A drive back to Derby. Deep breathe. I always smoked a lot when I was in the car. Just making to work and back has been somewhat of a struggle, now I'm facing a long drive north. Day 11 of smoke-freedom hangs in uncertainty.

Day 10 and counting

It's the evening of my 10h smoke free day. Today has been considerably easier than the last couple of days. Still had cravings for cigarette, but they weren't as bad and didn't last as long - are you people praying for me? Well it worked, so keep it up.

In other news....
(to update you on more of my life than my quitting smoking and the work I did the last few months,) I went into London to meet Haley, a friend of mine from Derby that moved to London shortly after me. As always, I had a good time out with her, chin-wagging. I like meeting up with Haley; I always feel better afterwards.
My flat-mate also gave me her notice that she'll be moving out in a month. This is sad because she's a pretty easy-going flat-mate and I'll have to find another one - one that I don't know. This could be a good thing because she doesn't quite pay half the bills. This was agreed when she moved in, but with my recent financial eye-opening, it could be a good thing to get more money toward bills and such. This could be a really bad thing as I'm known for my laziness and I really can't afford to not get someone else in. Guess I best get off my tookus (my bum).
Someone paid me a really big complement yesterday. Well I thought it was a big compliment. Someone I've lost touch with got back in touch yesterday. This said person happens to be of the male variety and I met him after Ben and I separated. We were only ever friends, but there was an obvious chemistry between us - it was just never taken further. He has since moved on with his life as have I. He basically told me that I was the one that got away, and that not pursuing that was his biggest regret. Ah. What a compliment. Ah well - more fish in the sea (hopefully).
Anything else....can't think of anything.