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I’ve been home from my holiday for over a week, but as I’ve been so busy catching up on things it’s only now that I have some free time to update my blog.

This is actually the 4th time that I’ve been on holiday to the Lake District, although this time my 2 nieces Anya and Emily came as well. (Last year they stayed with us for a few days, but not for the full holiday, as they had other things planned).  There was no mobile phone reception available in the holiday cottage where we were staying, so I kept a paper diary instead of using Twitter.  At first I was a bit disappointed about that, but at least it meant there were less distractions.

At the beginning of the holiday (Saturday 7th August), we arrived at the cottage in Grasmere just after 3pm.  Much of the evening was spent unpacking, although we did go for a short walk by the local rock stream.  I had a nice big bedroom at the cottage – in fact I think it’s the biggest bedroom I’ve ever stayed in! The following morning, we went for a walk up to Easedale Tarn.  We do this walk every year, but on the first full day of the holiday I’m not usually very fit and it takes me a couple of days to get used to all the climbing, especially as we live in an area with no hills at all! Therefore I was dreading going to Easedale Tarn on the first day, as there are some steep climbs involved.  At one point during the walk I thought that I was going to be sick and I felt dizzy and light-headed, so I had to stop and drink some water.  Luckily I felt better once we’d reached the top of the mountain (where the tarn/lake is).  I never had any more of those dizzy feelings during the holiday.  Later that afternoon, we went to the Cumbria Carvery (which is favourite restaurant in Grasmere) for a meal.  I had a Yorkshire pudding filled with Cumberland sausage, chips and gravy.  That is a typical local meal in the Lake District.

On the first Monday it rained heavily, so we didn’t go on any proper walks.  Instead we visited a village called Hawkshead and we went to the Beatrix Potter Gallery.  There wasn’t that much to see, so we walked round it fairly quickly.  We also looked round some of the local shops and had some sandwiches and a piece of cake in one of the cafes.  On Tuesday we walked round Rydal lake – this was a walk that I’d done 5 years ago, but I still enjoyed it.  Luckily I didn’t get too worn out this time!  The first part of the walk is all uphill and quite tiring, but after that it is OK and the scenery is very good, and you get a nice aerial view of the lake.  On the higher path, there is a big cave – I’d actually forgotten just how big the cave is, since the last time I’d been there!  It started raining really heavily and all our clothes were soaked right through.  At the end of the walk we went to the Rydal cafe and had a quick walk around the Rydal gardens.  On Wednesday we went for a walk at Thirlmere, which is a reservoir near Coniston.  There was also a woodland walk where we saw a waterfall and a really big old tree (European Silver Fir), which was about 200 years old.  Later that afternoon, we went to an internet cafe in Grasmere, but there was only one (really slow) computer, so I didn’t have a chance to do much with it.  I just checked my email and that was about it

Thursday was Mum’s birthday so we all gave her birthday cards in the morning.  We spent most of the day in Ambleside, which is a town near Grasmere.  We walked to a waterfall and we had lunch in a pub.  When I’m on holiday, I always miss my weekly takeaways, but this pub served chicken makhani curry with rice and naan bread, so I had that and I enjoyed it.  After dinner, Emily and I played on one of the quiz machines.  We walked around the town and we went to a chocolate shop where I bought some chocolate truffles and some jelly beans.  On Friday we went for a really long walk up to Codale Tarn (which is the second tarn after Easedale Tarn).  We’d been there 5 years ago, but this time we took a different route.  It took much longer than I thought it would – in fact we were walking for over 6 hours, making it the longest walk of the holiday.  We saw many streams and waterfalls along the way, and it was a very pretty walk, even though it was steep and slippery in parts.

On Saturday we went to Coniston for the day.  We hired out a motor boat for an hour on the lake and we had a meal at Harry’s restaurant afterwards.  There was a meteor shower that evening, and as there was a clear sky, we were able to see the shooting stars.  It looked very pretty and I took several photos of the stars.  When we are at home, we can’t see the stars so well in the city due to the light pollution.  On Sunday we did another steep walk – this time to the Lionhead and Lamb in Easedale.  We did this walk 5 or 6 years ago and the path at the start is very steep and not very well laid out.  However it was all worth it in the end, as we had lovely views all over Easedale and Grasmere.  From the top, we could see Easedale Tarn and Grasmere lake, along with Windemere and Coniston lakes.  On Monday, we got up early to go to Aira Force, which is one of my favourite walks in the Lake District.  We walked amongst the waterfalls and woods for 2 and a half hours and had a picnic at the top of the waterfalls.

On Tuesday we went back to the cafe in Rydal but this time I had a white hot chocolate with cream, marshmallows and a flake.  It was one of the nicest hot chocolates I’ve ever had in my life!  We parked at the cafe and walked into Ambleside.  I bought everyone a meal at the pub, where I had the same chicken makhani meal as before.  On Wednesday we went to Derwentwater and had cream scones and milkshakes at The Grange cafe.  Afterwards we walked around the village.  On Thursday we visited John Ruskin’s house at Brantwood, which was very interesting.  We walked round the gardens as well.  On Friday – our last full day – it rained very heavily so we didn’t do much.  We had been planning to walk up to Easedale Tarn again but it was too wet.  We had a meal at the Cumbria Carvery, bought some gingerbread at the Sarah Nelson gingerbread shop and then we walked to the top of Sour Milk Gill (the waterfall leading up to Easedale Tarn).

Several exciting things have been happening since we arrived back from our holiday.  On Tuesday last week, Anya received her GCSE exam results.  She did very well and she got 8 Grade A’s and a Distinction for ICT.  We went out for a meal at The Oaklands in the evening to celebrate.  It was a really nice carvery.  On Friday evening Mum and I saw Toy Story 3 at the cinema – unfortunately it wasn’t being shown in 3D, but we still really enjoyed it.  Afterwards we had a meal at Malaysian Delights.  On Saturday night I went clubbing with my friend Kay.  Today Terry and I went to Norfolk Lavender.  Disappointingly, the lavender fields weren’t open (as they’d already been ploughed) but we still walked around the gardens and farmyard, and we also had a snack in the cafe and I bought some lavender oils.  I also had a piece of lavender cake and a little tub of lavender ice cream, which was nice as lavender ice cream is very rare.

For the last month or so, we’ve been having a heatwave!  It hasn’t been quite so warm for the last 7 days, but before that it was very hot, with temperatures frequently reaching 30 degrees C.  Late last month, we went for a walk at Hoveton Hall Gardens, which was a nice way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon.  One evening a couple of weeks ago, I bought Mum and Terry a meal at Malaysian Delights.

Last Sunday (probably the hottest day of the year so far) we went to the beach at Sheringham.  We sat on the beach for a while, but the tide soon came in, so we couldn’t sit there for too long.  It was amazing how quickly the tide came in!  We had a lovely walk around the town too.

The good thing is that it won’t be long until we go on holiday to the Lake District.  We will be staying at a holiday cottage in Grasmere.  We have stayed in Grasmere before (in 2004 and 2005) but this time we are staying in a larger cottage as my nieces Anya and Emily will be coming as well.  Near Sour Milk Ghyll there are 2 cottages side-by-side, and this year we will be staying in the larger of the two.

This week (on Wednesday evening) I went round my friend Naomi’s house.  We had an Indian takeaway and we watched the film Van Wilder.  The film was very funny and I enjoyed the evening.  Naomi’s sister Sarah was also there, as she is currently on holiday from university.  It was good to see them both again.

A few really bad things happened this week.  Firstly, our cat Holly has fleas, so we’ve had to spray the house to try and get rid of them.  Also, my step-dad Terry has really bad back pain.  It first started a few weeks ago when he was leaning over to cut the hedge.  He had back pain for a few days, but it wasn’t too bad and it soon went away.  However, on Thursday morning the pain came back with a vengeance. On Friday he could hardly move – he couldn’t walk very far and he couldn’t drive either.  As he can’t drive, he hasn’t been able to visit a chiropractor.  On Friday evening we looked through the Yellow Pages and Terry phoned a chiropractor and he was told to use a hot water bottle and an ice-pack on his back (alternating between them every few minutes).  The chiropractor said that eventually Terry should feel well enough to be able to drive their practice.

Late last week we heard the news that our local woodland could be cut down by property developers.  There is a link to an article about this in the local newspaper here.  If you scroll to the bottom of the article, you will see that I’ve added a comment of my own.  Everyone in my family is very upset and angry about the proposals, particularly my grandmother as she often walks her dog there.  Last Saturday we went for a walk through the woods – this could be our last chance to do so before the houses are built.  Fortunately, the proposals haven’t actually been given the go-ahead yet, and we are hopeful that the local planning authority will reject the plans.  Here is a link to some photos I took of the woods last week.

Work is still going well – I am currently working on new websites for several weekly London newspapers.

The last month or so has gone well.  I am still enjoying my job – I have created 7 sites so far, but none of them have gone live yet.  Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before that happens.  Last week I had a catch-up meeting with my manager and he said that he’s very pleased with my progress so far, and that he’s received positive feedback from my colleagues.  We also discussed what I would be doing once I’d finished building all these new websites (which should be sometime in July) – he said that I would be involved in making further improvements to the site and adding extra functionality, such as geo-tagging and improving the event search pages.

Towards the end of April, I had a meal at Mambo Jambo’s with the IVC social club, which I enjoyed.  I also got myself a new hair cut (which I prefer to my old one) and some new clothes for the spring and summer.  We revisted Burlingham Woods for another walk, but almost all the daffodils had died out and the bluebells weren’t yet out.  There were a few primroses though.  We plan to go back again sometime to see the bluebells.

Last weekend was a bank holiday weekend, and on the Saturday night I went clubbing with my friend Kay and her work colleague Rachel.  I met Kay out of work and we walked round Rachel’s house to get ready.  We then had a meal at Artorio’s restaurant on Riverside, which was really nice.  I had meatballs and spaghetti.  Then we went on to Lloyd’s and Chicago Rock Cafe.

On Thursday it was Terry’s birthday, so on Friday evening after work we all went out for meal at Malaysian Delights.  I had so much rice and noodles that I felt too full up to have a dessert, which is unlike me!  It was a nice evening though.

Yesterday morning I went to watch my niece Emily play football for her Norwich City girls’ team.  They were playing against Gorleston Rangers, and the match was held at the recreation ground just down the road.  It was freezing cold (ridiculously cold considering it’s May!) so I had to wrap up warm with my winter clothes!  It was also very grey and drizzly.  During the main part of the match, no one scored so it had to go to extra time.  In the end, Emily’s team lost but everyone thought that they played very well.  I had to warm up in front of the fire when I arrived back home!

All in all, I’m still very happy and 2010 is turning out to be a much better year than the dastardly 2009!

I enjoyed my Easter holidays last week (I had Good Friday and Easter Monday off work) and I went on a couple of daffodil walks.

For Good Friday, we spent most of the day taking Easter eggs to our relatives. On Easter Saturday, we went for a walk at Burlingham Woods, which is somewhere I’d never been or even heard of before.  It was a very enjoyable woodland walk and it was nice to be out in the fresh air.  I took several photos whilst I was there.

For Easter Sunday, I had a quiet day at home.  Mum bought me a Mars Easter egg and Terry bought me a Lindt Lindor one (which is my favourite chocolate).  On Easter Monday, we went for a walk along the riverside in Norwich.  There’s always lots of daffodils there every spring, in a wide variety of colours.  When I was younger (up until the age of 10), I often used to go and visit the daffodils there as my Dad lived in a flat just across the road from the river.  I always used to enjoy running amongst the daffodils and I even used to pick some and take them home.  Click here to see the photos.

Last night I had my belated birthday/Easter party with all my best friends – Naomi, Sarah, Kay and Gemma.  We had a meal at Frankie & Benny’s – the awkward thing was that they would only accept a booking for 5.30pm (they had another party booked for that table at 7.30pm), whereas Kay doesn’t finish work until 6pm.  So we had to book the table for 5.30pm and we had our drinks and starters while we were waiting for Kay to arrive.  Kay arrived at about 6.20pm.  Luckily it all worked out fine and we finished in good time – we even had enough time for dessert.  Then at 8pm we went to the cinema to see the new Nanny McPhee film.  It was very funny and we all really enjoyed it.  We also exchanged Easter eggs, which led to me getting 2 more chocolate eggs – a Crunchie egg and a Dairy Milk Buttons egg.   It was good to meet up with all my friends again – due to a couple of them studying away from home, it is only once or twice a year that I get to see them all together.

Work is still going well.  A couple of weeks ago, I went on a week-long Prestige training course which was held at the office.  I learnt about the Prestige system and how it interacts with the Polopoly content management system that I use in my day-to-day job.  I also learnt how to use Adobe InCopy and InDesign.  Although those programs are mainly aimed at print designers, it is still useful to know and InDesign does share several features with Photoshop.

I’ve also completed my first full website, for a weekly newspaper based in Hertfordshire.  It has been tested but it is not live yet – hopefully it will go live some time in the next few days or weeks.  In the meantime, I’m working on a website for a Devon weekly newspaper – I’m currently about 80% of the way through it.

I’ve also been studying some web development books in my spare time in the evenings and at weekends, in order to learn more about JavaScript and PHP.  I’m particularly interested in learning more about jQuery – one of my colleagues uses it a lot and he says it’s very good.  Overall, I’m very happy with the way things are going in my new job.

I’ve been feeling very cheerful recently, because of my new job and also because the weather has become warmer and sunnier over the last few days.   Following our long cold winter, all the snowdrops and crocuses are out, and it won’t be long until the daffodils are out too.   Last year, I felt that I couldn’t enjoy spring properly because so many bad things happened in March 2009.

Last week I had my Polopoly CMS training course at work, which went really well.  I also had my official corporate induction session where I learnt more about the history of the company and the staff benefits etc.  After my training, I was then allowed to start setting up websites on the live server (previously I was only allowed to work on the test server).  I’ve also been editing stylesheets for several of the new websites, which has been fun and it has given me the chance to improve my CSS skills.

A couple of weeks ago I bought some books about XHTML, JavaScript, Photoshop and using WordPress as a CMS.   I’ve been reading through these in the evenings and at weekends.  I feel like I’m learning something new every day, which is good as I love learning.  Tomorrow I start a training course on another system called Prestige, which is used for publishing news articles to websites.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I’ve applied to do a Photoshop evening course at my local college.  I sent off my application form just over 2 weeks ago, but I haven’t heard anything yet.  I just hope that the course will still be running, as it said that it’s subject to demand.  Anyway, it doesn’t start until the end of April, so there’s still hope!

Last Thursday I attended a quiz and chips night with the IVC social club.  It was good fun – there were 10 separate rounds and I had chicken and chips for my meal.  One of the people on my table kept cracking funny jokes which made me laugh.  It’s one of the best quiz nights I’ve ever been to.  My team didn’t win anything (there were prizes for the top 3 teams, and there must have been at least 30 tables as the quiz night was held in a big school hall), but I think we finished somewhere in the middle.

Talking of the IVC, over the last few weeks I’ve been building a new website for the club.  I’ve pretty much finished it now and it’s currently on a test server, so I’m just waiting for the chairman to give me the go-ahead to transfer it to the live server.  The new site will use WordPress as a content management system, so it will be much easier to edit and maintain than the existing site, which is all hard-coded in HTML.  I’ve enjoyed doing that and it will also be a good thing to add to my portfolio.

For Mother’s Day (well, the Saturday evening before Mother’s Day) I bought Mum and Terry a meal at Malaysian Delights.  We hadn’t been there for several months, so it was good to go back again.  On Mother’s Day itself, my grandmother came round for tea (we had roast beef) and my sisters visited us to give Mum her cards and presents.

This weekend has been very quiet and I haven’t really done that much, but I’m hoping to go on some walks round some local gardens next weekend.

I’ve been through a rollercoaster of emotions over the past couple of weeks. The main events that have taken place were my 26th birthday and my leaving date for my old job.

My 26th birthday took place on Monday and I had the day off work. I went for a walk in Wymondham, where we visited the Creme Cafe for a milkshake and cake. I then bought a book of facts (well, questions and answers) from one of the local book shops. In the evening, we went out for a family meal at Mambo Jambos, which is one of my favourite restaurants in Norwich. The food was served very quickly and the meal was good – the only bad point was that the chicken was a bit chewier than normal.

My main birthday present this year was a Nintendo Wii, which came with a Mario Kart game and Wii Sports. I played the Mario Kart game round my sister Suzanne’s house during the Christmas holidays and I enjoyed it, so that’s why I wanted to get my own Nintendo Wii. Other presents included a new silver necklace from my Mum, a Lady Gaga CD from Suzanne and a book about the weather from my sister Sarah.

It was my last day of my old job yesterday. It felt really weird walking out of the office for the last time, knowing that I’d probably never walk through that doorway again. After nearly 5 years, leaving your employer behind is a big thing. I had mixed feelings about leaving, especially as I had been there for such a long time, and when I first started working there I thought that I would stay there for most of my career. I never realised that the industry/economy would change so much and that so many people would have to leave. I worked in several different departments while I was there, picking up lots of varied experience and meeting many nice co-workers along the way. I always felt well-respected by my peers and I received good feedback from my managers and internal customers. Overall, I think it was a good place to work, it was just a shame about the instability and the fact that there were so many re-structures. I felt sad to be leaving my colleagues behind, although nowadays it is much easier to stay in contact with people using sites such as Facebook and Linked In.

Having said that, I’m really looking forward to my new job, especially as it’s been my dream for many years to become a web developer. It will be a great new opportunity to me, and I’m pleased that I’ll be able to undertake more training.

On my penultimate day, my manager presented me with a leaving card signed by the whole department, and they had also organised a collection for me. My leaving present was a £30 Chapelfield gift card. I didn’t have one of those large presentations where all your colleagues gather around your desk and you have to make a leaving speech. My manager thought I’d find that too intimidating, so he took me to one side for 5 minutes and gave me the card and present privately. I was surprised, but in some ways I was relieved as I was worried that I might feel upset doing a big presentation. I remember my Mum saying that she had a big presentation when she retired from her typing job a couple of years ago, and she felt a bit tearful.
I spent my £30 gift card on a Super Mario game for my Nintendo Wii. It brought back memories of when I used to play Super Mario games 20 years ago – a lot of the characters and music are still the same.

On Friday 5th February, I went out for a big family meal at Zaks restaurant, to celebrate being offered my new job. I know that seems like quite late considering I was offered the job in early January, but that was the only date when the whole family was available and not working.

You may remember that last year I had my blog turned into a book by a company called Blurb. I decided to re-do it so that I could include all my blog entries from January 2005 up until December 2009, so that it would cover a full 5 years’ worth of blog entries. This time, I had 3 copies of the book printed, so that I could give copies to my sisters. I handed out the copies at our Zaks meal. Sarah has already read her copy from cover to cover – she said that she couldn’t put it down and she also said that I should be very proud of it.

On Sunday, I went on a snowdrop walk in the woods around Morton Hall. I had never been on that particular snowdrop walk before, and I really enjoyed it. I took a lot of photos which I have uploaded to my Flickr page. As it’s been very cold this winter, some of the snowdrops weren’t yet fully open, but it still looked pretty. I love the flowers of spring, especially daffodils, snowdrops, crocuses and bluebells.

It’s taken me a while to get round to updating my blog, and I’ve already mentioned this on my Twitter and Facebook updates, but I’ve found a new job! And I’ve fulfilled my dream of becoming a full-time web developer!

It was Monday night 3 weeks ago that I received a call from the interviewer, to say that I’d got the job. I was delighted, especially as it was a challenging recruitment process – in total there were 3 rounds of interviews and I also completed a programming test. The first interview was fairly generic, whereas the second interview focused on my ideas for the company’s website. The third interview was shorter – the interviewers asked me to talk them through my online portfolio, to explain how I built each of the websites I’d developed. At the end of the third interview, they set me the programming test. I was asked to do the test in my own time – it consisted of 7 pages of programming code in the Velocity content management system, and my task was to identify the error which was causing an image to appear in the wrong position on the website. I determined that the problem was due to an error in a loop. I emailed the answer to the interviewers and it was just a couple of days later that I received the phone call offering me the job.

I was so happy that I called all family and friends to tell them about my new job. They were all pleased for me. That night, I slept better than I had done for ages – I felt so happy that I had fulfilled one of my dreams, that I would no longer have to worry about searching for jobs, and that I would be working for a company which is (hopefully) more stable, so I won’t have to go through restructures every couple of years. Hopefully I will be more settled and happier in this new job.

I then faced a nerve-wracking wait for my offer letter and my contract to arrive through the post. Once I received my offer letter, I handed in my leaving letter to my existing employer. I say “leaving letter” because I’m not actually resigning, I’m just taking my redundancy a couple of months earlier than my agreed redundancy date. My manager was happy for me, although he was sad that I would be leaving. I sent out an email to all the people with whom I’ve worked over the last 4 and a half years, to let them know I’d be leaving the company. My manager and my co-workers wished me well in my new career. I received lots of nice emails, even from people I hadn’t worked with for over 3 years. It’s good to know they still remember me and that they still care. I plan to arrange a leaving party for my co-workers on the Friday after I leave the company.

As I was required to give 4 weeks’ notice, I won’t be leaving my current job until Wednesday 17th February, and then I will start my new job on the following Monday.

In the new job, I will be working for a local newspaper publisher, developing and maintaining their websites. My late grandfather (on my mother’s side of the family) used to work for that company, working on the printing presses, so it is good that I am following in his footsteps. I’ve always been interested in newspapers, and I never imagined I’d end up working for a newspaper publisher.

I will be having a celebration meal at Zaks with my family on Friday evening, and I’m really looking forward to that. I’ve also had more copies of my blog book printed (covering January 2005 to December 2009) and I will give these to my sisters on Friday evening, as they asked for copies of their own. These arrived today and I’m pleased with how they turned out.

It’s time to sit down and write my annual review of the year gone by. I always enjoy doing this, as it allows me to get things out of my system before the new year begins. 2009 has been a bit of a nightmare, to be honest. If 2005 was my favourite year of the decade, 2009 was probably the worst. This year has been beset by job insecurity (affecting not just me, but other members of my family as well) and the associated stress. It wasn’t all bad though, as there were still several happy moments during what was otherwise a rather disappointing year.

The year started on a low note as we (ie almost everyone in my family!) were still recovering from the coughs and flu that we had caught during the holiday season. I went back to work after the holidays feeling rather drained of energy. Additionally, at the very beginning of the year, Terry was facing job uncertainty as he had recently wound up his Earsham Fencing business. In the first week of January he was offered a job, but it was withdrawn a few days later. Thankfully he found a new job fairly quickly (with the company he worked for before he started the business), but in the preceding days we were worried about how soon he would be able to find work. All throughout January, I was really busy at work as a backlog had built up over the Christmas holidays. I also had to update a lot of reports so that they would continue to work during 2009, which took up a lot of time.

The highlights of January were that I received a good appraisal at work for my performance in 2008 and I met my friends Naomi and Sarah for an evening at the cinema and we had a meal. (I don’t get to see Sarah that often as she is studying at university away from home).

February was another tense month, as my sister Suzanne and all her co-workers were called into a meeting where they were told that there would be job cuts in the Outfit shop where they work. At first we were worried that the shop was going to be closed down completely. However, as it turned out, a couple of people were made redundant but Suzanne was one of the luckier ones, as she just had her hours cut by 6 hours a week. It was still upsetting for her though as she was saving up for her wedding at the time, so losing 6 hours’ pay had quite an impact. So, Suzanne decided to start looking for a new job. She approached an employment agency and funilly enough she was set up with an interview at the same company for whom I work! It was an interview for a Sales Advisor (call centre) job, but unfortunately she wasn’t offered the role. So she decided to carry on working at Outfit, and I think that later on in the year she was given all her hours back, so she was back up to working full-time.

That wasn’t the end of February’s troubles, though. My job also came under threat. Our head of department called a meeting to make a restructure announcement. Out of the department of 163 people, we were told that 25 people would have to leave, and that we would all have to go through a selection process to decide which people would have to leave. At that point, it didn’t sound too bad. However, the following day I found out that my team would be one of the worst-affected areas – our numbers were to be cut from 21 to just 10! (In the end, it turned out to be even worse than this, as I will explain later on in this blog entry).

Additionally, in February I had organised a meal out for my team, but I had to cancel it at the last minute because half of the people didn’t turn up for work that day (they called in sick) and a couple of others told me they could no longer make it. That made me feel paranoid because I had organised the meal about a month in advance, and I had gone to great lengths to make sure the date would be suitable for everyone and I also asked everyone where they wanted me to book the meal. Looking back though, there was a lot of illness around at that time, and also a lot of people were feeling downbeat because of the restructure announcement, so maybe they didn’t feel like going out.

One of the highlights of February was my 25th birthday, so I had a meal with my family at one of my favourite restaurants, Mambo Jambos. I really like it there, even though we don’t get to go very often. My main present was a new digital camera. This was the best part of an otherwise tense, nerve-wracking month. I also attended an SQL programming course, which I enjoyed and I received a nice certificate to add to my portfolio. Towards the end of the month, I went on a snowdrop walk and took some photos with my new camera, which was a good way of clearing my mind.

As for March, well, that was even worse! One night in March I had a nightmare that I was trapped in a horror movie. This is very apt, I think, and it set the scene for what was to follow. March the 12th was by far the worst day of the year – it was the day when the results of our departmental restructure were announced. We were all called into a room one by one to be told our fate. Even though I was nervous, I was fairly optimistic that I would be offered a job in the new structure. I was horrified when I was told by my senior manager that there would be no job for me in the new structure. Instead of getting rid of 25 people in the department, it turned out that nearly half the entire department would have to leave. My senior manager and my line manager were both upset that I would have to leave as they liked my work. Alas, the decision was not in their hands. They made it clear that it was nothing personal against me; there just weren’t enough jobs to go round. I applied for a new internal job in the HR department as a Reporting Analyst, but it would only be a temporary job for one year.

The other negative things which happened in March were: nearly everyone in the family (including me) contracted a cold, there were a few family arguments (none of which involved me, thankfully, but it wasn’t nice to see) and my Mum was told that she had high blood pressure. I was relieved when March was over as it felt like the month was jinxed!

April was a better month. I was invited to an interview for the HR Reporting Analyst job, and a couple of days later I was offered the job! I was told that I could start on the 1st of May, which gave me enough time to tie up any lose ends in my old job (ie the one that no longer exists!) I was pleased about that, even though it’s only temporary. I had a celebration meal at Prezzo’s Italian restaurant with Mum and Terry on the Saturday just after I’d been offered the job. It was the first time I’d ever been there, and the food was very nice.
Thursday 30th April was my last day in my old job. It was an emotional day. I brought in lots of cakes for my colleagues, and I also organised leaving drinks at a nearby bar and a meal at Malaysian Delights.

I had a nice Easter break in April too. I invited all my friends to a belated birthday party. (I couldn’t hold this party on my actual birthday as a couple of my friends were only available at Easter). We had a meal at Old Orleans restaurant and then we went to the cinema to see The Boat That Rocked.
Also in April, I hosted my first IVC social event of my own – I arranged a meal at Malaysian Delights and 9 people attended. I was really pleased as it all went well. In fact, the only bad thing about April was that I fell ill at the end of the month, although I soon felt better again.

The 1st of May was my first day in my new job, and I picked it up quickly, although it did take me a few weeks to adjust and to feel completely settled. I went on several nice walks at the weekend during May – that’s what I like best about spring and early summer. On the 28th of May it was my sister Suzanne’s wedding. Unfortunately, I caught a bad cough just a few days before the wedding took place, but luckily I didn’t have a coughing fit during the actual ceremony. That was the 3rd time I had fallen ill in the space of about 2 months – I think it must have been due to the stress of finding a new job and settling in to it.

Towards the end of May I co-hosted a nightclub night with another member of the IVC club. We went to Optic nightclub and I really enjoyed it.

Nothing particularly noteworthy happened in June. Even though I was enjoying my new job in May, I have to admit that by the time we reached June I did start to miss my old job and my old department. There were even some moments where I wished I could go back to my old job. It was almost as if I was feeling homesick for my old job, although I knew there was no turning back. At the weekends I visited some nice rose gardens with Mum and Terry.

Overall, July was a good month. I felt a lot more settled and happier in my new job, especially since we had a few team social events, so I felt that I knew the other members of the team better. I was given the opportunity to develop an intranet site for my team and I also became involved with developing self-serve reports on Oracle Discoverer. I had my mid-year appraisal with my new manager and I received good feedback, which made me feel more optimistic. We had a team evening out at the local bowling alley, and we also went out for lunch together one Friday, which I really enjoyed.

In August I bought myself a new mobile phone – a Nokia XpressMusic 5800. This is the first time I’ve had a touch-screen phone and I really like it. I had an away-day at work which I enjoyed – in fact it was probably the best away-day that I’ve ever had, as we took part in lots of quizzes and team-building events. For the last 2 weeks in August, I went on holiday to Coniston in the Lake District, which I really enjoyed. We weren’t far from the Coniston Lake, so we often walked through the nearby woods to visit the lake. One thing which made this holiday different to my previous holidays was that other members of the family came to stay with us as well, so it wasn’t just me, Mum and Terry. It was just us 3 for the first few days of the holiday but on the first Wednesday, Suzanne and her husband Paul and my nieces Anya and Emily came to stay. Suzanne, Paul and Anya had to go home on Sunday due to other commitments, but Emily stayed with us until the end.

On returning to work in September following my Lake District holiday, I had a nice surprise. There was an email saying that I had won £80 in the lottery bonus ball sweepstake. I took Mum and Terry for a meal at Mambo Jambos with the money. In September I began my new part-time voluntary web development job, maintaining the IVC social club website. I also decided to start building a new online portfolio showcasing some of the websites that I have developed.

In October, my Dad, stepmum and sisters Jasmine and Layla came over from Thailand to visit the rest of the family. I booked a few days off work as holiday so I could go out with them. At the end of October, I had some bad news. I had a one-to-one meeting with my manager and he told me that it’s unlikely my secondment contract will be extended beyond April next year. This means that unless I find a new job, I will be redundant as of the 30th of April 2010. It’s not just me; this affects all the other members of the team who are on secondment contracts. The job was only supposed to last for a year anyway, so I wasn’t surprised, although I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of having to look for a new job.

So, I spent most of November and December trying to look for a new job. It has been very difficult due to the recession as there aren’t many vacancies available. I attended several interviews throughout November and December at various local companies, yet got turned down for most of them as there always seemed to be someone with more experience than me. There aren’t enough jobs to go around as lots of people have been made redundant in recent months. I did get positive feedback from most of the interviewers though; it is just unfortunate that there is so much competition right now. However, there were a couple of interviewers/recruitment consultants that I was unhappy with as I felt that they had given me false hope – for example, trying to make out that I would find it really easy to find a job and then talking to me as if I’ve already got the job in the bag. It was so disappointing to go to an interview, think you’ve performed well, only to get a call a day later saying you’ve been pipped to the post. Furthermore, I found the whole process rather stressful as I was going for several interviews a week and due to working full time I felt that I didn’t have much time to prepare. One week in December I had 5 interviews in the space of 7 days!
There is still hope for one of the jobs though, as I was called back for a second interview for one of the Web Developer jobs. I felt that the second interview went much better than the first, and I think I made a good impression. I will find out next week whether I’ll be offered the job.

Thankfully, the Christmas holidays have given me a chance to chill out and forget all my worries. This has been one of the best Christmas holidays for several years and I’ve really enjoyed myself. I think this is mainly down to the fact that I was more determined to enjoy myself after all that’s happened this year. Of course, in the new year I’ll have to start looking for jobs again (if I don’t get offered one in the meantime), but I plan to take things a bit easier so I don’t get stressed out. Rather than sending my CV to loads and loads of places, I’ll just focus on a few jobs/organisations that really interest me.

Summary
2009 was a tough year for me and for my family, with lots of uncertainty and I felt rather unsettled. I just hope that 2010 will be a happier year for everyone.

Plans and resolutions for 2010
I would like to do some more studying in 2010. I’m not sure what to study yet though – it all depends on what my new job will be. For example, there wouldn’t be much point in starting to study for a test analyst certification if I turn out to be offered a web development position instead. I will wait until I am offered a new job and then I will make a decision. If, on the other hand, I cannot find a new job before my redundancy date of the 30th of April, then I will use my free time study whatever interests me and whatever I think is most likely to lead me to a new career.

As for resolutions, I will try not to let myself become stressed out by things which are beyond my control. For example, if I am at work and something goes wrong (eg a database becomes corrupted) then I can sometimes feel myself starting to tense up, especially if I am working towards a tight deadline and I don’t want anything to delay me. However, I now realise there is no point in letting things like that stress me out as it’s outside my control. If a database becomes corrupted and I have to spend time to rebuild it, then that’s what I have to do, so I may as well get on with it without letting it get on my nerves.

Next year, I don’t want to get involved in any silly online debates or flame-wars! In 2009 (especially towards the start of the year), there were a few occasions where people said something provocative on various internet forums which wound me up, and then I felt compelled to respond (even if it’s just to stand up for someone else who is being picked on), which only resulted in me becoming drawn into the debate. In future I’ll just ignore anything like this. It seems that some people visit online forums for the sole purpose of winding up others. Time is too precious to be spent on the internet arguing with stupid people, when I could instead be spending it with the people I care about.

This leads me on to my next ambition, which is to spend more time with my family and friends. I don’t think I write to one of my friends often enough (she has limited internet access, which is why we use handwritten letters). I don’t really like writing letters so I always put it off, especially when I’m very busy. However, it would only take an hour per month for me to write a letter, so I would like to try and set aside time to do that.

And that just leaves me to say – “Happy new year everyone! Oh, and a happy new decade too!”

I thought it would be good to create a record of my main achievements and memories of the decade. Overall, I thought it was a good decade, even though there have been a few difficult patches. As I started my WordPress blog in January 2005, I have decided to focus more heavily on the events which took place in the first half of the decade, as most of those aren’t recorded anywhere else.

I can still remember New Year’s Eve 1999 very clearly – at midnight there was a laser light show in Norwich city centre, in front of the castle. There were also several events taking place during the day, such as a display of lanterns on the river. This was all before blogs had even been heard of, but I had a traditional paper diary in 1999, which I have kept. On New Year’s Day itself, we invited the whole family round our house for a big buffet.

2000 was the year in which I turned 16, and it was also my final year at high school. (My high school only took pupils aged between 11 and 16, so if you wanted to continue with your education after that, you either had to move to a school which had a sixth-form, or attend a local further education college instead). As it was my final year of high school, I had to study hard for my GCSE exams and I also had a lot of coursework to complete, which counted towards my final grades. I sat my exams in May and June, and there were no more lessons after that. On my last day of school, I said goodbye to my classmates and all my teachers. I brought in a book where people could write farewell messages for me, which I have kept for all these years. A lot of the messages in there were very inspirational, wishing me well for my future. Towards the end of term, we had a special disco and meal just for the senior students. I really enjoyed studying at my high school and I did miss it at first. Towards the end of August 2000, our GCSE exam results were announced, and all the senior students had to visit the school one morning to collect their results. I was delighted with my results, as I had achieved the grades my teachers had predicted for me.

In September 2000, I began studying for my A Levels at Norwich City College. A couple of my best friends also began studying there, but they were doing completely different subjects to me so I only saw them at lunchtimes and during breaks. For my first year, I decided to study Computing, French, Geology and Media Studies. I chose the first 2 subjects because I did well in those at high school, and the latter 2 because I thought they sounded interesting. At this point, I had no intention of continuing on to university, so that’s why I chose such a weird combination of A Level subjects. I settled in well at the college, and I noticed that there is a lot more freedom and responsibility compared to when you are at high school.

My other main memory of the year 2000 was going on holiday with my Mum, sister Sarah and my grandmother to London and Paris. We spent a couple of nights in London and 5 nights in Paris. I really enjoyed that holiday and we visited several major historical sites.

Towards the end of the year 2000, I stayed with my Dad and my grandmother (on my Dad’s side of the family) in a local hotel for a couple of nights to see in the new year. On New Year’s Eve, we had a nice silver-service meal and there was a disco. I never usually go out on New Year’s Eve, so this was a good experience for me.

In January 2001, I went on a college trip to the Peak District with my Geology class. We stayed in a youth hostel in the small town of Bakewell for the weekend. It was the coldest time of the year and it was snowing, so I’m not sure why the lecturer chose that date, but I enjoyed the trip. I had never visited that part of the country before, so it was all a new experience for me, and I thought the scenery was very pretty.

In the summer of 2001, I took my end of year exams at college and I achieved the grades I expected, so for the second year I continued with the same subjects (except for Geology, which was only a one-year course).

In June 2001 after my end of year exams had finished, I went on holiday to Thailand with my Dad. He had been there a few times before, but this was the first year that I went with him. We visited several places, including Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket. This was another new experience for me. For the first time, I met my Dad’s girlfriend. In September 2001, she came to live in the UK and they got married. I stayed with them each weekend. (Ever since my Mum and Dad got divorced in the late 80s, I stayed with my Dad each weekend).

It was also in late 2001 that my Mum met her new boyfriend – Terry, to whom she is now married. They met at work and he asked her out on a date. Not long afterwards, he moved in. It was weird for me to get used to this at first, as I had been so used to it being just me and Mum in our house. My elder sisters had moved out in 1996/1997 and since then I had been living on my own with Mum. However, I soon built up a rapport with Terry and began to feel more relaxed around him.

I can’t remember too much else about 2001, but those were the main events of the year (I didn’t keep a diary that year, so I’m just writing this from memory).

2002 saw my 18th birthday, so I had a party with my best friends at a local bowling alley and then we went out for a nice meal. My sisters also took me out to a nightclub for the first time in my life – it was quite an experience!

At the beginning of 2002, I began my first part-time paid job. I worked as a data entry clerk at a travel insurance broker’s office. The work was quite repetitive, but it gave me valuable work experience. This was a temporary job which continued until April 2002.

2002 was also the final year of my A Levels, so I had to think about what to do when I left college. At the time, I was thinking that I would probably leave education when I was 18 and attempt to find a job. Then my form tutor at college began talking to the class about the university admissions process, and at the end of the session I said I wasn’t really sure what to do. He encouraged me to apply to study a degree course as he thought I had the potential to do well. I discussed this with my parents and I also started looking into what subject to study. I was originally thinking of studying French as my “major” subject, but from reading the local university prospectus I discovered that I would have to spend a year living in France (or any other French-speaking country) as part of the course. This put me off as I didn’t want to spend such a long time away from home, especially in an unfamiliar place. So in the end I settled on Computing Science instead. I knew that I would still be able to take languages as my “minor” subjects. I also felt that studying Computing Science would give me more job opportunities.

In May/June 2002 I took my final exams for my A Level courses at college. I faced a long wait until August for the results to be announced. It was quite a nerve-wracking wait, as I knew I would have to achieve at least 2 grade Bs and a C in order to qualify for entry to the Computing Science degree course at the UEA.
When the results day arrived, Terry drove me to the college to find out my grades. Mum came along too. Rather than giving individual results slips to each of the students (as had been the case in previous years), all the results were displayed on a wall chart. Each student was listed by their enrolment number rather than their name, presumably to protect people’s anonymity, although this did make it more difficult to see which results were mine. Eventually I found my results on the chart, and although I was happy with my grades for Computing and French, my grade for Media Studies was lower than I expected. This really worried me, as I thought I would no longer be accepted onto my degree course. I felt disappointed and Terry drove us to Yarmouth to help take my mind off it. On the way there, I calculated the number of points that are assigned to each grade, and I then realised that my grades probably would be enough to get me onto my chosen course after all. So I felt happier after that. A few days later, I received written confirmation that I had qualified for entry to university, and I was delighted!

So, I began my Computing Science degree course in September 2002. It was a 3 year course and I enjoyed it. It was a very broad course, covering all aspects of computing from programming to database administration. I also learnt a lot about the theory of computing, including mathematical algorithms and data structures. In my free time I contributed to the student newspaper Concrete, mainly by way of writing CD reviews, although I also wrote a couple of articles for the website.

2003 was a sad year as my grandmother (on my Dad’s side of the family) passed away. She had been ill for quite a while, but it was still a shock when she died. This was the first time during my adult life that someone really close to me died. (My 2 grandfathers had died many years earlier, but at that time I was too young to fully understand what was happening). In September 2003, my Dad gave up his job as a pet-food delivery driver and bought a convenience store. At the weekend I often used to help out in the shop. Apart from this, 2003 was a fairly uneventful year, although I do remember it being a hot summer as I went to the beach several times.

In 2004, I became more interested in web development and I set up my own blog for the first time. Later in the year, when I felt more comfortable with running my own site, I bought my own domain.

One of the best things about 2004 was that we would often go out with my Mum and Terry to local places of interest. During the summer we visited some nice places, such as gardens, halls, rivers etc. I also became interested in photography, as Terry would let me take most of the photos whenever we went out. In February 2004, my Dad and stepmum had a baby called Jasmine. Another good thing which happened in 2004 was our family holiday in the Lake District for a week in August. We saw some spectacular scenery.

2005 was by far my favourite year of the decade as it was packed with happy events and it was also the year in which I grew in confidence and learnt more about myself and what I wanted to do in the future. The major highlights of 2005 were: my 21st birthday in February, Mum and Terry’s wedding in April, going for a weekend break in Sheringham in May after my exams had finished, finding a full-time job in June, my graduation ceremony in July, going to the Lake District in August, and then in November gaining a permanent contract for my job and officially becoming what they call an Adviser.

2006 was a difficult and tumultous year for me – one of the main stressors being a very long and drawn out restructure at work, which meant that I didn’t receive a promotion even though my managers thought I was ready to move up to the next level. Another difficult aspect of 2006 was that my Dad, Stepmum and baby sister Jasmine moved to Thailand in April. Even though they had been planning to do this for a long time, I was upset at the time as I had never been away from either of my parents for an extended period of time. Another thing which upset me was losing contact with my friend Kay (although fortunately she got back in touch with me in 2008). Even though overall I didn’t think 2006 was as good as 2005, there were still several good things which happened, such as going on holidays to Ibiza and Derbyshire. I also continued to grow in confidence in 2006, as I delivered 2 major presentations/training sessions to my co-workers.

2007 was a mixed bag really, although there were more positive events than negative ones. One of the most positive aspects of 2007 was that I moved forward in my career and I finally achieved my goal of becoming a Lead Adviser, which is something I couldn’t do in 2006 due to a prolonged re-structure and promotion-freeze. At the start of the year I undertook a 3-month Test Analyst secondment at work, which I really enjoyed. I also began studying for professional qualifications. In January my Dad and stepmum had a second baby called Layla. In March I visited them in Thailand with my Aunt and Uncle. In August I went on holiday to the Yorkshire Dales, visited several new places and took up hobbies such as cookery. The negative aspect of the year was losing contact with some of my former co-workers when I moved to a different department – it took a while for me to feel settled in my new department and sometimes I felt a bit bored as there wasn’t always enough work to do.

2008 was a pretty good year for me, although it ended on a low note and I don’t think it was quite as good as 2005. The best things about 2008 were that I felt more settled in my career and I was able to go out with my friends more often. My friend Kay (with whom I’d lost contact in 2006) got back in touch with me again, and I was very pleased about that. On the encouragement of one of my managers at work, I joined a local activities club, which enabled me to meet new people and explore different interests. I am still a member now and I regularly attend different events. I also went on holiday with Mum and Terry to Pickering in North Yorkshire, which I really enjoyed. The main negative aspect of 2008 was the fact that the whole family fell ill in December meaning we couldn’t enjoy our Christmas holidays properly.

That covers 2000 up until 2008, and I will shortly create a separate review for 2009.

This has been one of my favourite Christmas weeks for several years! There are several reasons for this: last year the whole family was ill so I couldn’t enjoy myself properly and this made me more determined to enjoy Christmas this year. It was also good to be able to chill out after all that’s been going on over the last few weeks.

On Christmas Day I stayed at home with Mum and Terry and we had our turkey meal at home. In the morning, my sisters came round to bring their presents.

My main present this year was a new MP3 player. I actually already knew this before Christmas Day, as I went to the shop to help choose which one I wanted. I had outgrown my old 1gb MP3 player, so I wanted one which would hold more songs. My new one is 32gb and can hold 16,000 songs as well as videos! It is a Creative Zen, just like my previous one. I’ve already transferred a lot of my old songs and CDs to my new MP3 player.

My other presents included several CDs and DVDs, a couple of books, new earrings, a new winter coat, a new umbrella, a coffee mug and some chocolate. One of my new DVDs was the film Ice Age 3, so we watched that in the afternoon after dinner. I never had a chance to see it at the cinema, but I thought it was a good film even though I slightly preferred the first 2 films.

Boxing Day was fun, too. We spent most of the day at my sister Suzanne’s house, where we had roast beef for dinner. For dessert, I had chocolate cheesecake that Suzanne’s husband Paul had made. After dinner, we played on the Nintendo Wii. My niece Emily had a Mario Kart game and a Wii Fit. I’d never played the Mario Kart game before and it was really funny because I kept crashing into things (especially towards the beginning, before I got used to it) and I came last in a lot of the races! The Wii Fit was funny too – I’ve played some of the games before round my friend Naomi’s house. The step aerobics game was the funniest, as I found it difficult to keep up with all the moves, especially towards the end when it got faster. Everyone in the room was laughing, and the time went really fast because I was enjoying myself so much! I’m now hoping to get a Wii for my birthday!

I am off work until the 4th of January, so tomorrow morning I will visit Wymondham with Terry and my niece Anya. We will go for a walk round the town, take some photos and visit the local cafe for a milkshake.