30th October 2010

When I ordered my shopping from Tesco this week I added a pumpkin to the order on a whim and today was the day of cutting. I scooped and made pumpkin soup whilst Mr W did the carving - for a first attempt I reckon it think it looks pretty scary!

29th October 2010

This is the sight my lovely husband has been looking at for most of today....

He even sacrificed his running plans in his attempts to secure us Take That concert tickets for next summer, but the persistence has paid off and we've just managed to get some! :)

28th October 2010

This is the advert I've been waiting for weeks since Robbie announced he was rejoining Take That or maybe even months since we saw the foursome at Wembley last summer.  I'm way too old to be this excited but I don't care. Tickets go on sale tomorrow and I've managed to persuade Mr W to take the morning off work to try and buy us some. I love my hubby!!

27th October 2010

Last week Mr W bought me a smart metal poppy pin as my paper ones usually get all scrunched-up or lost by the time Remembrance Sunday comes around. Unfortunately my coat lapel is too thick for the back to fit on the pin properly and so after only a couple of days I have managed to lose the posh one. I have replaced it with paper one - I wonder how long this one will last.

26th October 2010

Never a good omen for the day's weather - you know the saying "Red sky at night shepherds delight, red sky in the morning sailors a warning" - and true enough it was wet and windy by this afternoon, but the sky from our bedroom window this morning was beautiful.

25th October 2010

Lunchtime walks are supposed to be good for you, unfortunately that rather goes to rats though when whilst out you end up buying chocolate to stash in your desk for when hunger strikes in the afternoon!

24th October 2010

Don't get me wrong, I like living in Orpington but this new shop that I spotted in town today just about sums up the classiness of the town centre. The high street these days seems to be full of discount shops, charity shops and rather bizarrely restaurants - I guess maybe if you save your money by shopping in the former you can afford to eat in the latter...

23rd October 2010

We went to a house-warming party this afternoon and this rather freaky piece of art was on prominent display at the top of the stairs. I felt rather bad about that opinion when I heard it was created by our friend's brother, but then on speaking to him he confessed it was part of his GCSE work and even he was now wondering what on earth he was thinking about at the time!

22nd October 2010

I bought this card for a friend's fortieth today and to be honest it sounds like turning forty won't be so bad - I like the idea of floral aprons. Plus by the time I'm forty I might have progressed enough with my knitting to make a tank top or two!

21st October 2010

I was meeting a friend in Victoria after work this evening and as I walked to the tube station I thought the Tower of London looked rather nice in the dusk and the glow of the street lamps. Shame about the scaffolding round one of the turrets!

20th October 2010

Mr W gave me this mug a couple of weeks ago to take to work. Not quite sure what he's trying to say about me, but it's certainly been a talking point amongst my colleagues, who either think the sentiment is apt for their department or have seen similarly themed items in the shops!

19th October 2010

Each autumn at Brownies we prepare charity Christmas gift boxes for underpriviliged children around the world. This year our boxes are going to local charity Smile International.
Here is my box for an 8 year old boy which includes, amongst other things, pants and socks, toothbrush and toothpaste, soap and flannel, colouring pens and pencils, notebooks, sweets, a mini football and some lego.

18th October 2010

Rather shamefully this evening was the first time that I've been running since before we went to America back in August and so it was also the first time to try out my new running shoes and the Nike + sensor that I bought whilst we were away. It was fairly easy to set upmy iPhone and fitting the sensor in my shoes but the jury is still out on how accurate it is, as unfortunately my GPS was playing up this evening too and couldn't find a signal for a while.  Still I shall give it another go and then if necessary I can apparently calibrate it to suit me.

17th October 2010

I can't really believe it's over two weeks since I made my green tomato chutney and we're still trying to get the burn marks off the bottom of the pan. There's been a lot of scrubbing involved but I think we're getting close - not sure Mr W will ever let me make chutney again though!

16th October 2010

I was finally brave enough to cook some of the beetroot that I grew in my vegetable box over the summer last night and we ate it for lunch today in a salad with some goats cheese.

15th October 2010

One good thing about changing your work location is that there are new things to discover in the local area. Today whilst getting some air at lunchtime I found this memorial outside All Hallows Church by the Tower of London commemorating the siege of Malta during World War II.

14th October 2010

Having un-picked my first attempt I am very pleased to have finally finished a knitted square for Brownies. I'm now going to try another one with some thicker wool!

13th October 2010

This evening I went to the Annual National Seafarers Service at St Pauls Cathedral with my Mum's cousin's husband, my parents and Princess Anne. Actually she didn't sit with us but she was there all the same for this annual celebration of seafarers past and present.

12th October 2010

Imagine my surprise when Mr W came home tonight and said he was going to make a key lime pie for work. I went off to Brownies and was very impressed to come back and find the pie complete and the tidying-up in progress. In fact it looks very good and I'm rather sad that I won't get a piece as he's taking it to work!

11th October 2010

I hadn't realised how attached to my phone I was until I forgot to take it to work with me today and I felt totally bereft at the discovery that I'd left it behind!

10th October 2010

We gave a friend a lift home this morning after yesterday's wedding and stopped for a cup of tea whilst we were there. This is her cat, Kiko, who apparently is slightly crazy but she just seemed cute to us!

9th October 2010

Presenting the new Mr and Mrs Smith...

Had a lovely day today celebrating Dan and Rosie's wedding - many congratulations to them both!

8th October 2010

After battling across town in the rush hour on the tube and train, I finally made it to Watford Junction and breathed a sigh of relief that I don't have to make this journey every day!

7th October 2010

I do like shiny new shoes and these ones I bought to wear to a wedding this weekend are especially exciting. Not quite sure why, maybe it's the ribbon ties, but they make me feel all 'Dorothy' and I just want to click my heels together when I put them on!

6th October 2010

This piece of junk is my work laptop. My department wanted to get me a new laptop when I came back from IACS last month, but IT insisted on a reconditioned model claiming it would be as good as a new one. Well if that's the case then they need a new supplier as three weeks in my laptop spluttered through a meeting this morning before fatally crashing whilst I was trying to write up the minutes after lunch! Not impressed. The only saving grace was that I did a back-up last night - how's that for a sixth sense, unless of course it was the process of backing it up that caused the problem!

5th October 2010

We had a very busy evening at Brownies tonight - first off we had a trainee sniffer dog called Rick come to visit. As part of his training he needs to experience lots of different situations and so he did a couple of exercises where he had to find some drugs that had been planted on a couple of the girls. His reward each time was to play with a tennis ball and then when he'd finished working he got some cuddles from the Brownies! Afterwards the girls got busy making Christmas cards for this year's Blue Peter appeal, which involves making cards for Tesco to sell in aid of Whizz-Kidz. Here are some of their efforts...

4th October 2010

I know it's wrong, especially as it's for a good cause, but for some reason this sign that I spotted at our local gym this evening really made me chuckle!

3rd October 2010

There are few nicer ways to end a weekend than with a traditional Sunday roast washed down with a glass of wine.

2nd October 2010

My tomatoes this year have not been a roaring success and the majority have steadfastly refused to turn red. So today I hatched a cunning plan to use up my green tomatoes - I would make some green tomato chutney. I found a recipe on the internet and it started off easy enough but then it took forever to reduce the liquid so that it took on a chutney consistency. It's finished now and jarred up - fingers-crossed it will improve with time as the first taste was rather vinegary!

1st October 2010

I had a white wine spritzer whilst we were at Honey-Lee's dancing social this evening and strangely Stephen says the bar man wasn't sure what type of wine he was using. The name seems large enough to me!

30th September 2010

I have officially been back at LR for one month now, although I have only worked for half of that time as we were on holiday for the first half of September. I'm slow getting used to be back in a big office again. Of course it's all helped by the fact that very little has changed in four years - there's still a free canteen for lunch, the computers are still tempermental, it's still difficult to get things done and they've still got this interesting water feature in the front courtyard.

29th September 2010

Autumn has definitely arrived and tonight as it was pouring with rain on my way to the station I was very glad that I didn't have to join the throng of umbrellas on London Bridge and could go to Cannon Street to get my train instead.

28th September 2010

There was no time to tidy up from Sunday's party yesterday as we were busy geocaching and taking mum to see Mamma Mia for her birthday. Now however everyone has gone home and we have an empty house so there's no excuse for not doing something about all this birthday confetti in our dining room, although I fear that whatever we do we will probably be finding it for many months to come!

27th September 2010

Who knew my parents and godmother would take me so literally when I asked if they could clear away the breakfast things and said that everything could go in the dishwasher... :)